The Joe Rogan Experience - #1155 - Henry Rollins

Episode Date: August 9, 2018

Henry Rollins is a musician, actor, writer, television and radio host. He has a special debuting on Showtime called "Keep Talking, Pal" on August 10.

Here we go. Four, three, two... Henry Rollins, ladies and gentlemen. How are you, fella? I'm better now, being here with you. I'm better now that you're here. We were just talking about a show that you got, you and Ted Nugent, apparently. Did you pitch it? Who pitched the show? It was an idea that my manager, Heidi, and I came up with. Well, mostly Heidi. It was called idea that my manager, Heidi, and I came up with. Well, mostly Heidi.

It was called basically Henry and. You put me and someone I might have some disagreements with or a few agreements with. And we just go somewhere and we weigh in with a camera following us. And we're thinking it'll be like a six-part miniseries, like me plus six interesting people. And one of the names that came up was Ted Nugent because I I'm a fan of his music I think he's one of the best guitar players I've ever seen yet he and I would probably disagree on one or a few topics and so we actually picked pitched it to Ted who said he loved the idea but he said I gotta I got to go. I'm busy with it. He had a

ton of tour dates. I think he's on now. But he said, I want to talk to Henry to thank him for thinking of me. Okay. And so Ted called like on my phone in the office. I guess he got my number from the powers that be. And suddenly it's Ted on my phone. I'm at my desk like, okay, this is surreal. And we talked for a few minutes. And he said, what, you think I'm a bad guy? I'm like, no. Some of the things you say, it kind of takes my breath away.

And then we quickly got on the topic of music. He said, you like all that old Detroit music. I go, yeah, man. I mean, you, Mitch Ryder, the Stooges, MC5. I mean, it's kind of the best. It's some of the best music I've ever heard. I mean, as far as I asked him, I go, what is it? Is something in the water?

What is it with you Michigan guys and guitar tone? Like no one gets tone like you, Ron Ashton, Stooges, Fred Sonic Smith, MC5. I go, you guys, I mean, you're so good. And he said, we got to hang out sometime and we'll just talk about music. I went, I'll do that with you. So I'll be taking notes. And he was just telling me you know like yeah i used to hang out at the mc5 house and go see the stooges and i'm like you're killing me

because this is like you know i that would have been heaven for me to see those bands like back in 1969 or whatever did you when did you know him did you know him back in the day or did you only speak to him recently as a punter i would go see him like in high school in the 1870s you know, Carter administration. I'd go see him at play in my local arena in Washington, D.C. in a place called the Capitol Center in Largo, Maryland. And he was as good as rock

and roll gets. I mean, it was I saw the Double Live Gonzo lineup and like forget it. It was like two and a half hours of just getting beat up by music. It fantastic and to this day it's still a high watermark as far as gigs and in the 90s i met him on politically incorrect bill maher and i said hey man i'm a big fan and he gave me a bow hunting catalog. I'm like, well, thanks. You know, for his whack master.

Right. You know, you get the croquet mallet and the bow. Anyway, I kept it because I'm a fan. And then I met him years later. And I did his radio show, like St. Patrick's Day 1997 to crassly promote my next record. And I said, we met years ago and we got to talking for like a couple of hours. And it was just about music. And I played him some of my new record, which he really liked. And he, between the commercial breaks, he was like

playing riffs for me. We had a little headphone amp and he was sitting across from me on a stool playing. I'm like, this is pretty cool. And so that's the kind of relationship I have with him where I, you know, you read some of the things he says, you're like, okay, that's really hard to take. And, but those records, they're just so good to me. And I saw him play in 2000, opening for Kiss 2001, somewhere in there. he was great great the tone the playing just fantastic And so he's just an interesting bunch of guys a Bunch of guys you know I mean because like he can finish a sentence. He's not he's not he's not stupid

He's hilarious. He has a steel trap memory But then he'll just say you know the Obama is a subhuman mongrel. Like, man, you don't need to talk like that. Because there's people you will inspire to punch some black guy in the parking lot for no reason. Like something bad could happen if you talk like that to the millions of people who love you. Like someone will get that message and they'll go south with it. And when you're in that position, I don't believe in self-censorship, but I think you should be careful of what you say. I think there's some merit in

having some control of yourself. And so I don't completely understand the guy. There's currency and outrageousness. That's what it is. And you cash in by being the guy that says things you can't, I can't believe what he just said. And then you become the guy that goes places and says things that no one can believe that you're saying. You know, I know that there's some people that's how they get their next book deal or whatever. For myself, I would never want to trade in that because my reality coming up through punk rock and all of that is very, very immediate in that I don't say anything about anybody without expecting them to hear it. And with me turning the next corner, like going to my car in your parking lot and having that person waiting for me at the car saying, hey, you said this and having the meal to hold it up on a tablet and say. saying, hey, you said this, and having them be able to hold it up on a tablet and say it.

And so I watch what I say because in my mind, I answer. I will have to answer to all of it. And so I would never say something where someone would go, really? Well, today's the day we're going to see who can kick who's ass. Because, you know, men have this wrong idea that they can't be beat are you kidding yeah anyone can get knocked on their ass you think you're tough there's always you know you're in the business of tough guys there's always a tougher guy around the corner but more than that it's like you don't most of the conflict that you get in when you're talking shit about somebody like someone like you or i can do an interview and talk shit about someone and go public and you

don't think twice about it. But now it extends to social media in which anybody could do it at any time and it just seems so easy to do. But I always try to think if that person was in front of me, how would I treat it? And if I would say, fuck this guy, like when he's in front of me, then I have a real problem with this person. Sure. He's a real bad person. But I would always wait until I was in front of me then this is a I have a real problem with this person It's a real bad, but I would always wait Until I was in front of that person and I have waited I've bided my time with people I don't like and you get into a conversation and all I have said, you know very calmly

I think you're a ridiculous person. I think you're a standing walking talking billboard for cowardice Sometimes people need to hear that too because sometimes people don't hear that they don't hear that from someone i'm not trying to help the guy yeah but you are but believe me but i i waited yeah until i was there the only people i'll rip on are politicians like some member of congress i think is just an inactive waste of food. That'll say anywhere, hoping it'll bring him to me so I can say it to his or her face. But for the most part, the way I was brought up in the world of music and the street

is if you say something, that guy will be lining you up for a broken jaw. So you better mean it, but maybe just wait until you guys are in a room and see what you really want to say. Because sniping from a windowless room from somewhere or being a keyboard activist, that doesn't mean much to me. not that doesn't mean much to me yeah i think you know ted is the spokesperson for the right in in that he's this contrast in so many ways he's this wild and it used to be long hair he doesn't have long hair anymore but long-haired guitar player from michigan i mean he's ted

nugent he should be this he should be a drug user or something right he should be on tour all the time but he's the opposite he was like doesn't any drugs, doesn't drink, and he's super right-wing, and he supports the Second Amendment and guns. And he's in this group of – and he has some very strong beliefs that he really does hold in that group. But then comes the outrageous stuff that he says, and you would get a mischaracterization of him because of some of the things he says. But if you meet him like in person, person to person, he's a great guy. Yeah.

I talk to him all the time. We text each other. That's only been my experience with him. He's a great guy. I've had really cool conversations with him. Yeah. And I'm a hyper fan of the records. I mean, it's gospel to me that those records are in my DNA.

Yeah. They're perfect. I'm with you in that i don't know what fuels those and i just don't get it you know i'm not here to rip on him i just honestly do not i can't reconcile the conversations i've had where he's super friendly and happy that you're a fan of the guy and and then you you watch some things he says uh you know on some stage somewhere you're like wow that's that just bummed out my whole evening. That's like, okay, that's you.

That's the First Amendment. Go do your thing. But like, wow, that's... There's currency in that, though. I really think that getting that charge out of it, saying that outrageous thing, it keeps the ball rolling in some way. Boy, it's not a ball I'd want to roll, though.

I don't want to roll that ball either. It just doesn't seem sustainable. Speaking of sustainable, I hear you have a Showtime special coming out tomorrow night. Wow, that was a great segue. That's pretty good, right? That was a fantastic segue. I should be on radio, dude. I should get a real radio show.

Yeah. Yeah, Joe, non-sequitur Rogan. Rip it on Ted Nugent. I don't know where we're going. I like Ted. Yeah, so do I. Showtime special tomorrow, Friday. What's tomorrow?

The 11th? The 10th. The 10th, sorry. Friday, August 10th, 10 p.m. East Coast, West Coast, Showtime. It's called Keep Talking, Pal. There it is. Ten seconds on that. They said, what are you going to name it?

And I said, Keep Talking, Pal. They go, what does that mean? It's how you talk yourself in and out of trouble. Like you're about to get punched out. Like keep talking, pal. Like if you don't, if you don't get a laugh, you're not getting out of this bar. And that's kind of how, uh, I came into talking shows was being as a young guy, skinny on Ritalin, not a good fighter, not a good fighter at all, you know, just not into it. And, you know, the local bully, I've said something snarky or funny, and all of a sudden he's got me by the scruff of my shirt with a fist in my face. And the only thing you can do is like imitate him so much that everyone else laughs and like,

he has to drop you because he's now like drop, well, drop your collar, not your body, because you're now making him laugh. your collar not your body because you're now making him laugh and so when in doubt keep talking pal and the fact that I have a quote comedy special on Showtime is so unlikely from some guy from the minimum wage working world I don't believe it myself and so they said what are you gonna call it night a lot of these you know people they have a lot of confidence like when to call it like, me and my mighty wang take this. I don't have any of that.

So keep talking, pal, because I know I'm really not supposed to be there. How did you do your first show? What made you do your first talking show? $5. 1983, a little venue on Hudson, right off about 10 paces north of Santa Monica Boulevard. It's like a street that dead ends onto Santa Monica Boulevard.

It was an art space there called the Lhasa Club. And there was a local promoter in town, amazing guy. And he would get, like, 25 people on stage in one night. Everyone gets five minutes. And it would be the singer of that band, the drummer of that band, that artist, that poet, like real artists who speak for a living. And then the guy with the funny tour journal or the guy from the band that we all like and he's going to be an idiot for five minutes. And these shows were really fun because people are off stage all night long, like running off stage. And the bass player in Black Flag, Chuck Takowski, fantastic intellect, He would get invited onto these bills. I would go

with him because we were beach guys. We lived in the sticks and the gigs were in Hollywood. So we'll go into the big smoke. We'll go see the big city. I'd go with him because he had the band van. He'd go into town. I'd tag along. So he'd read out of some notebook, his apocalyptic rantings. And one night the promoter said, you got a big mouth. Next week, you, five minutes or like whatever, seven minutes, five bucks. All I could think of was the five bucks and like what I could go.

We were starving, as any band was. And so the next show, I got on stage at Lhasa, told a story about what had happened at band practice the day before where a white supremacist in a car tried to run over our guitar player because we had brown-skinned people at our band practice. And so he yelled, he accused our guitar player of being a beep lover and tried to run him over on his way

to the liquor store to get some orange juice. So our guitar player comes back a little shaken. I nearly got run over by a neo-Nazi and let's go back to practice. And so for us, that was this Tuesday in the life of Black Flag. For an audience, they're like, huh, your jaws hit the ground. And then I read something I'd written. I go, well, my five minutes are up or whatever it was. And I left the stage and it felt right. I felt like a fish dropped into water for the first time. Like, hey, I'm a fish. Like I didn't have a band, but I had no stage fright. And this me in a microphone, it felt more natural than music ever felt, which was cool to do, but never felt natural. Just felt like it's it, this thing is in me. It's got to come out.

I'm serving a monster where the talking shows like, yeah, this is me. And after the show, people came up and said, what's your next show? I said, well, I'm leaving on tour. They go, no, no, when you're just talking. I said, well, no, that's a one-off. I got this $5 bill. I'm out of here. And so the agent, the promoter guy said, okay, you're very good at that. You're a natural. So how about this? I promote all these different poets and performance artists. I'll get you all, I'll give you 20 bucks. You'll do 20 minutes opening for this guy. Okay. So I, you know, did 20 minutes. And then after a handful of those shows, those poet types were opening for me because the black flag aspect kicks in like, Oh, the dude from black flag people show up. And I guess I was good enough. And so those poets weren't that happy. Like I'm now opening for

this guy. Okay. And that was 83 turning into 84. By 85, I had gone to Europe for some poetry festival, which I kind of blagged on to in Holland. I had done a cross country tour, 12 to 50 people a night sleep on the promoter's couch, Go By Amtrak. And started my little book company, 83-84, self-published to this day. That's awesome. And it went from strength to strength. And now it's a 14-month tour that takes in 20 countries, multiple nights in cities at nice theaters. Do you only use yourself for your publishing company or do you publish anybody else's books? We used to. Many years ago, people I knew who I thought were great writers, I put them out. We

licensed Nick Cave's books from his publishers in Europe. We licensed a few different titles. We did photo books and a couple of novels, short story collections. And it's very hard to have a book company. It's hard to sell a book in the world unless it's like Stephen King or Danielle Steele, like mega, you know, at the cash register at the airport store. If you're selling poetry books, different kinds of literature, you are nothing but uphill. My books did okay. They still, they always do okay. Everyone else's books is like trying to sell dead animal guts. You know what I mean? Like no one's that interested. They'll look, but they don't want to take it home. And so we stopped signing new writers, sold through the

press runs, let the licenses run out. Everyone got to keep their masters. And then we just concentrated on me because I keep a whole staff busy with all the stuff I've got going. And so we publish, but we publish me. And I've done a bunch of books. How many books have you written? About 27. Holy shit. That's so crazy. I got nothing else going on. All but two of them. I wanted to do a photo book a few years ago. And Heidi, who runs all my company, she's the smart one. So I showed her the manuscript. She goes, okay, the book is great, but let's not do it on our company because it's a lot of startup money for a photo book.

It's just a lot of setup cost. Let's get you a literary agent and do it somewhere else. And so it's a smart idea. And so we got a literary agent and we did get a book deal with a very good Chicago, it's a Chicago company, Chicago Review, I'm forgetting. And they put out the photo book. And that was a learning experience, like working with an editor. Like, well, here's the cover. They go, well, we're going to have a meeting about that. I'm like, you're having a meeting. It's my book. It's my book cover. So I'm used to owning my own machine. But when you work with other people's money, everyone has a big opinion.

So that book came out and continues to do very well. And many years ago, I did a kind of a best of, if I have any best of material, I did a best of for Random House many, many years ago that you still see. It's in print. And that's a lot of people's first book of mine because it's in stores. We pulled my company's books out of circulation because of Amazon because they can actually sell it cheaper than we can because they don't mind making five cents on a book because they're selling 80 billion books a second. So we pulled ourselves out of distribution and now it's very much the website and it live shows.

And we have less returns. We don't get a pallet of damaged books coming back that were abused in some bookstore in a shopping mall in the Midwest, like heavily thumbed but never taken home. So you can't buy your books off Amazon unless it's a third-party seller. Right.

So you just sell them on your own. Yep. And you might not sell as many, but you don't get 1100 returns. You got 1100 returns? Well, you know what I mean? Well, when we were selling everyone else's books too, you'd get like a palette of like books that look like a dog chewed them or like remainder stickers. It is what it is. And so I am extraordinarily small of fame. I sell lots of books. They do great as eBooks as well. In fact, that's kind of overtaking. I'm not an eBook guy. I like to take a marker and mark books up. And so I buy paper ones, but apparently the real world likes to read on their tablet. And so all my books are on that platform, thanks to Heidi.

And apparently they sell very well. I don't keep track. I just write them. I don't count them. If you had to suggest to somebody a good book of yours to start with, what would you say to start with? If I was going to read your books, which should I start with? Oh, I would tell you to read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I would just tell you to read a real writer.

Get in the Van, my tour journals from Black Flag. It's just people like that book. It's in a bunch of different languages. It's just a cool, insane read of like living this very feral life. Like, you know, fighting women and music and relative poverty. So that's a fun one to start. I like the travel books I've been writing the last few years. I travel all over the world. And so I write these books from these places, like from a ship in Antarctica, from a tent in the deserts of Timbuktu.

And those travel books I like quite a bit. And A Dull Roar, they always have an A at the beginning. A Dull Roar, I'll have to come up with the rest of the names. Your manic dedication to work is very inspiring. It makes me feel like I need to work more. When you're writing all the time and doing all these things, like you're one of those guys. It's like, it feels like you're always with your foot on the gas. Yeah. I'm kind of furious for work, but I don't, it's, it's not what, it's what I do, but it's also what I don't do in that I don't have a family and I'm not putting it down.

I just don't have that. I'm just not chipped that way. I never thought of having kids. I don't have a wife. I don't have friends. Really? Most of the people I know, I either pay a salary or a commission to. My phone doesn't ring.

My old best friend from since I was 12 ian mckay of the band fugazi he and i talk every sunday if possible uh but past that my phone usually doesn't ring unless it's an interview or heidi going hey you're late get over there is that good it it is what it is does it work for you like it's all it's all i know i've been that way since i was five but the no friends part well i don't i'm not looking for enemies i'm not looking for a fight of course i just don't want to come over on the weekend for dinner no no i don't ever have a good time at dinner with somebody i'm just uncomfortable that i'll say the wrong thing and i just act

i look at the table full of people and go act like them you should be friends with comics because you can't say the wrong thing because no one cares yeah but then you have to then they'll call and say hey come out with us we're going then you have to go you don't have to go you just say

fuck that I'm not going I'd be a deadbeat friend I'd never want to go with anyone to do anything you don't have to but well look at all the phone calls I'm not going. I'm a deadbeat. I'd be a deadbeat friend. That's fine. I'd never want to go with anyone to do anything. You don't have to. But we'll look at all the phone calls I'm saving. It sounds like you're managing expectations versus, you know, like it doesn't sound like you don't like friends. It's just you don't want expectations. I, you know, as.

It's going to get in the way. Well, also, I'm just kind of moody in that. Yeah, we're going to go out and do this thing. And then I don't want to see anyone to do anything until 2028. And I don't want to cancel. And so, uh, here,

this is my big, besides hanging out with you, uh, my big social, uh, thing is many, many years ago, 2003,

I did a song with William Shatner, Bill Shatner, on his album. And we became pals. Henry, come by the house for Monday night football. And he invited me to the house for Monday night football. He lives a few traffic lights from me. And I'm walking up the stairs to the living room where the big TV is. And I heard all this laughter and voices and I froze. And I was right at the threshold of the door. And I said, turn back, turn back, turn back.

I'm turning back. Henry! And he saw me. And I'm like, hey, Bill hey And I walked in and met all his really cool friends and he at least For me bill is one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life, and it's one of the oddest Friendships I have in that I've been going to Bill Shatner's house Every year since 2003. So what's that? 15? 15 years.

Right. And I will be there this year. I'm on his next record. He's doing another record? Oh, yeah. I did the vocal last year. Rocket man. This is, it'll be fun. I'm not going to, you know. It's for him to announce it. But every great once in a while,

his assistant will contact me. Hey, Bill really wants to see you. How about next? Are you free for next Wednesday? Go meet him and the wife in the valley and go eat. I'm like, yeah. And it's great to see him and his amazing wife. And I truly value that friendship. I mean, I look forward to seeing him. I really enjoy hearing what he's up to because he's always doing like five things. And it's become this thing where I really look forward to football season. I don't know much about football.

I have no idea what a halfback does. They run. I think they run. I don't know. I never knew, but I like going there. And it's always the same group of people, people he's known for like 500 years and they're super nice. And I've kind of sort of known them for like 15 years. And it's so odd because I have nothing else like that really in my life. I'm just a weirdo. Just William Shackner. Yeah, it's weird. Sounds awesome. The other thing I would do once a year, and sadly it ended, but for a few years, I would go to Gail Zappa's birthday party on January 1st, because I would play a lot of her husband's music

on my radio show, Frank Zappa. And one time someone in the family wrote me and said, hey, thanks for playing dad on the show. I'm like, are you kidding? I love those records. And then Gail, the mom, the wife wrote and said, hey, thank you. And we know who you are here and we like you. I have a birthday party every January 1st. Why don't you come up to the house this year or next year? And I did. And that was like three or four years in a row I did that until Gail passed away. And, you know, you get there or whatever it is, like two in the afternoon.

Two hours before, I'm genuinely nervous to go be in a room full of extraordinarily nice people with fantastically good food. And everyone was always so nice to me. And like, it's like a who's who you walk in, you're like, wow, it's just all these people you recognize. I'm not here to name drop, but some of the tables I sat at at that thing, I'm like, really? Am I really talking to, like, really? Fantastic. And she was always so nice to me. And like last time I was up there, one of my books is like in the living room.

I'm like, wow. And when she passed away, I wrote one of the family members. I said, I am so sorry. Like, thank you for the hospitality. Your mom was so great to me. And I'm kind of like the rescue dog. I'm used to being outside. So I don't come inside very often. And I went to that birthday party because just the friendliness of that, I wouldn't, as socially nerve wracking as those things are for me i had such respect for that extension of kindness i cannot disrespect it by not going i wouldn't dare the samurai in me says you do not disagree

you must be respectful even if it makes you nauseous with social anxiety because i just don't know what to do um i can't say no because it's such a nice thing to do for someone. Yeah. Like she must not really know how I am. Otherwise, she never would have invited me. So but things like that out of sheer politeness and respect for someone being friendly to me. I'm kind of a pushover just because I'm like, wow, that was so nice. I must salute that i think it's so good that you're open about your social anxiety and then about how you feel like

being around all these people because uh a lot of people on the outside they see someone like you you know black flag all your spoken word things, your books, your fucking, I mean, I always go back to that, the liar song, your fucking neck was like the size of my waist and you're screaming and you're painted red. And like, you're this crazy, intimidating guy in a lot of ways. So to hear you talk about social anxiety and how weird you feel. And I think we all can, we all feel that. I always feel like that. I mean,

it doesn't matter. I think no matter how famous you get, you're, if you're paying attention, you're going to have an imposter syndrome. You're always going to feel like you don't belong there. If you're actually paying attention. Yeah.

And if you don't, you'll probably, you're probably, you're probably delusional in some sort of a way. I wonder about the people who don't. Right. Like I never, I get to do cool stuff and before i go into that on your point it's easy for me to be in front of people that's a very different thing than being with people i can be the party but going to the party's difficult interesting put me in front of like five people 5 000 people stage fright no i can't wait to be out there you're a performer type yeah like you

love that audience so they showed up like are you kidding can't i'm a dog with a wagging tail i want to get out there and and get it going i can't wait i wait the whole day on tour to get out there the whole day is about eight o'clock you you know, stage time. Being amongst people, like going to like a gallery event, I go see a shepherd fairy thing or something. And people are super nice to me and I'm always polite back, but I'm a little nervy. But if they say, can you get up and speak for five minutes? Oh, yeah, I got this. That's so strange. It is strange, but it's also a way to avoid being with people, be in front of them.

It's a way to be in the room with people, just be the center of attention. So maybe that's coming from some kind of neediness or some deprivation as a, you know, what I didn't get as a kid. But you make a great point about that. When you really think, well, this is where I belong, I think you lose all the fun of it. Yeah. And you turn into kind of a jerk. So every 500 years, I go to one of those premieres. I get invited.

And you're standing, you're in a room full of tons of really good food. And none of those people eat. So I just go in there and come out nine pounds heavier, a bunch of shrimp. I just eat. But I was at a big Hollywood premiere, big movie years ago. And it's like that one, that one, that one, that one.

And they're all like, ah, it is their lives. And I'm with a buddy of mine. We blagged in there and we're like, what are we doing here? This is so cool because we know we shouldn't be here. And after shaking Ike Turner's hand, 10 minutes later, I'm back in my own kitchen going, that was so weird. Like what a surreal evening. And because my friend and I were standing next to each other and he said, that looks like Ike Turner.

I go, no, man, that is Ike Turner. He looked like a human barracuda. He's like terrifying said let's go meet him i'm like come on like we bought a ticket we're at the dance let's let's go talk to this guy he's like no no no no i just walked right over there i said you invented rock and roll rocket 88 and he went yes i did he shook my hand wow and i said he first ever distorted the guitar on tape which is kind of true and he went that's right and i fluffed him up. And he was all happy to meet me. And I said, hey, and here's my friend.

And I brought my friend over and we shook his hand and kind of stood with him for a minute and went, okay, so it's probably not going to get any better for us. So let's get out of here. And so we ate a few more handfuls of mini burritos and we bailed. But it was one of those nights where we're like, we weren't supposed to be in there. And if I ever lose that, then just never talk to me again because my head would have disappeared up part of me. Well, that anxiety and that insecurity is a big part of the fuel that keeps everything moving.

Super fuel for me. And keeps you analyzing yourself. Yeah. And anger. Yeah. And keeps you analyzing yourself. Yeah, and anger. Yeah. I'm mad at, I like fighting and I'm not fighting like in a ring. For me, a lot of things are confrontation.

Like tour is what you think I can't do 47 shows in 48 days. No, actually my next tour is 47 and 47. I have a day off and I have two shows a few days later in one day. So you think I can't? Well, then book 20 more. Like book 200 more in the winter and just give me a llama and a knife, and I'll make every gig. Like watch this.

And that's so much of what fuels me. Like I'm going to write a book. Yeah, and like I come up with these huge ideas for books like that's gonna take me five years to write it and it did and i just finished it it's going to the proofreader soon this epic project i just finished it's it's a series of music books it's 407 000 words what yeah it's a bit much but but so am i and it was this idea pages it's a i don't know it's a lot thankfully it's mostly on a hard drive so we don't have to like deforest some park um but it was an idea i had i said okay this is going to take a lot of years to execute this idea and so like watch me

work seven days a week on this thing watch me stay up until the next day working on this thing. And a lot of what fuels me, that's what gets me into auditions. Like, I think, you know, like, hey, audition for this TV show. I'm not an actor. So am I going? Yeah, I'm going. And I sit in that hallway like 20 years older than all these other people. And they got the good gym bodies on, fantastic hair, chiseled bodies, and they all know each other. I'm like this weird old man going for the same part.

The only guy not dipped in cologne. I'm like, oh man. And I go in there and I bomb, of course, I get my parking pass validated and listen to Slayer on the way home. Take the lump out of my throat. How often do you do that?

How often are you auditioning for? Depends if I'm in town and there's interesting things happening. More and more, I don't know what's happening, but I take more meetings and just get more offers. Like, hey, we like you for this, yes or no? Cool, yes. But there's auditions I do for voiceover, for animated or car ads or what have you, and acting. I audition for all kinds of things. And every great once in a while, the audition will get work. But mainly, I just get offers. We like you for this.

It starts in October. I'm in. And that happens fairly often now. But I get in those lines at any major studio you want to imagine, or I go in for the meeting with a casting person. They kind of look you over. But I do those raw auditions, whereas you leave and you see like five headshots on a desk. It is what it is. And you get literally, you're out of there in about 35 seconds.

You walk in. You're Henry. Henry. R-O-L-L-I-L-E. Are you ready? Sure. You have any questions?. R-O-L-L-I-L-E. Are you ready? Sure. You have any questions? No.

Stand on this piece of tape. She'll be reading with you. And you, you know, thank you very much for coming in. And you leave the trailer. And you get back on the 101 and go home. And you never hear from them again. Often. For me?

Most of the time. Out of 100 of those, 98 times. I think that's for everybody. Oh, I'm not putting it down. I'm just saying you asked about auditions. Hell yeah, I go in there. I think that's one of the things that makes actors so fucking weird is not just that they need attention in the first place. They get told no a lot.

They get told no a lot. Rejection sucks. It sucks. And they're already attention in the first place. They get told no a lot. They get told no a lot. Rejection sucks. It sucks, and they're already insecure in the first place, and then they sort of try to model their behavior based on what they think the casting agents and the producers want to hear. And they change, and they develop this style of communicating that's very actor-y.

It's a weird way to make your living. I mean, I've never relied on acting as my source income. In 1984, when I was 23, I had a thing that has been serving me up to sitting here with you now. I was very young and 23 years of age, a young idiot. And I looked all around me and all my peers are super talented. Who are my peers? Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Husker Du, The Meat Puppets, The Dead Kennedys. I'm just surrounded by really talented people who are brilliant, great songwriters. And between tours, many of them are waiting tables, living with mom, living on couches, sleeping at band practice with a kick drum pillow as their pillow, just like roughing it. And I reckon that I'm less talented than all of them. And if they're waiters between tours, the only reason I'm not is Black Flag never stops touring. The ball never hit the ground because we'd starve. And so I better get plans B, C, D, E, F, and G ready because music's not going to sustain me. Ironically, it went very well for me.

And so I was doing the writing. So I said, I'm going to really get better at writing. I'm going to really bear down on this. The talking shows, I'm getting 35 people a night. I'm going to get 50 people a night. And then voiceover people started coming like, hey, can you do a voiceover? I got a voice. What do you want me to put? I better learn to say yes to stuff. And by the mid eighties, hey, you want to be in a movie? Yeah. What do I have to lose except calories from starving? And so it was fear of not eating and knowing I better have a plan. And so I started developing that in the 80s and 90s. And from that came, when I'm done with this, I'm going to go immediately

into this documentary. And then I'm finishing this radio show. And then I'm going off to do this film. And then I'm going on tour. and then I'm going off to do this film and then I'm going on tour and then I'm coming back and finishing this book and it turned into this like juggling all these things. So I never had to be a full-time actor. Like that's how I pay the rent. That would be terrifying right up there with being a professional comedian. Like, I don't know how someone acts for a living without being really good or out of their minds with anxiety. But being a professional comedian, at least you write your own stuff, so you're kind of in control of that. What a rough world you're in.

It doesn't seem that rough. And then you don't have to pay people. You don't have to pay roadies. You don't have a drummer that has to show up. Also, you don't have the bass player who you've got to get along with. There's so many variables with a band that comedians don't have. We always look at you guys and go, wow, I don't know how the fuck you guys do it. Because there's not as much.

You might do the same size venues that we do, but you're splitting the money with all these fucking people. Yep. And then a lot of times today, the record company gets a piece. They get a piece of everything, right? They get a piece of your merchandise. Yeah, you see bands play really big places, and it's amazing how much money they don't make. Yeah. Or each guy in the band gets, you're like, really?

Yeah. Huh. And then you see someone, like a small comedian, playing like a 150-seater for two nights, two sets a night. You know, the La, whatever in the Midwest. And you're like, wow, wow, that's a pretty good weekend. Like, cause he's just taking it home in his suitcase. Yeah. You can get by, you can get by. Yeah. And you can work, you can work everywhere. You know, for a band, I think it's more, the, the venues are more, more limited places you go are more limited.

And I think that's interesting that it was almost like a desperation to not have to work a job as a waiter that kept you just hustling and figuring out other ways. I just knew that the straight world, because I'd been in it. I come from it, minimum wage work and everything. And I knew I couldn't survive in it. Because as a young adult, you know, you get, as a young adult, you start to figure out who you are and I go, okay, I'm not an artist, but I'm an artist type. I'm nuts. You can't put me in a straight job. I can pass for normal just because I can task it. I can totally do it. Like you can put me in a Ralph's, a Kroger's, a Starbucks. I will totally get in there and hit the work and clean it all and serve it up with a smile. But I'll be going crazy inside.

I will be punching the wall. I think everybody in those places is going crazy inside. I don't know. But I can't sustain in that. And I haven't had to for many years. I've been lucky. I've been in the world of lunatics since 1981. Being a crazy person out with other crazy people. And when I look at a straight job,

I'm like, man, I don't think at this point I could hack it. Not because I'm spoiled, just because I've never had to tether my adult mind to that. I work seven days a week, but on Henry stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's me. It's a different thing. It's a different thing. Yeah, you on Henry stuff. It's me. It's not, it's a different thing. It's a different thing.

Yeah. You enjoy that work. And it's, it's way over 60 hours a week. I mean, it's, I do two shifts, usually two, eight to 10 hour shifts, depending on the workload. Well, I can't do four hours of sleep a night, but I, I time my sleep. I hit the stopwatch on the phone before I go to bed, just as clock sleep patterns. I did about six point something hours of sleep last night. That's good. It's good. I feel great today. I barely ate and I got in a good workout.

And all last night I did a lot of pull-ups. I played 15 seven-inch records. And between flipping them over, I got a beam in my living room. It's a beam coming out of the ceiling that supports me. And I just run over there and just do a bunch of pull-ups and then go change the record so you want more music you have to pay and pay and you're doing all this by yourself all alone yeah but by bedtime you are hurting and ready to sleep so i got good sleep last night so you mix the workout in with your

enjoyment of music you just space it in between the songs. Yeah, last night was pulling. Tonight at the turntable, I'll be listening to more records. I'll just do sets of push-ups next to the turntable. That's actually a smart move because that's probably a good interval of rest. Get a good, hard workout in, and then you listen to a four-minute song. Yeah, but I do it all night. I'm not doing 50 sets 50 rep sets i'm doing like 15 to 25 but i'm doing them for quite a while by the time i go to bed it's

advil time i'm like ow i'm too old for this but um i i work on something every day on tour i don't take vacations i'm not trying to brag i can't. I can't handle not doing it. Whatever the thing is. Yeah. Well, you found an interesting way to live life. I don't know anybody like you, but it's working for you. Yeah. It works on all levels.

And I can sustain. I pay my bills. I'm not bored. And I get, for the most part, to call my own shots. And you seem happy. Happy when I'm working. Yeah. Yeah, happy.

Happy with the tasks. Yeah, I value work. I'm an achievement junkie. Like if I'm depressed, I just pick something to do, like finish a radio show, edit this thing, transcribe this chapter from a notebook. And after I'm done, I'm like, okay, that's the antidepressant was actually doing something which is not the worst it's

not booze it's not a pill it's the treadmill yeah or it's the other damn thing I got to get it written well shut up and write it yeah when I'm done it's like an endorphin thing where I'm great for another day there was an article written about happiness and that was one of the things that they said that one of the things that seems to sustain people's happiness or facilitate happiness is accomplishing tasks, like setting goals for yourself, accomplishing those goals and getting this sense of completion that you've actually done the work and you did it and you disciplined yourself and got through it. And that this is one of the major keys to happiness for a lot of people. Works for me. Totally works for me.

Me as well. I've tried everything but drugs because I've been battling with depression since I was a little kid. And I just knew it. I'm like, what is this? It's just awful. And, you know, later I found out it was depression. And I don't want to do drugs. I just don't want it. My brain plus drugs. It's like someone else's idea. It terrifies me. So I had to figure out what do you do? And so that's where the gym you're working out really is a big help writing,

but listening to music that is like a kind of my drug. You know, I just put the records on and like three songs in, you're like, Oh, there's that feeling buoyancy neutral. It's like floating in the tank or when you're scuba diving, you get your air just right. And you're floating. That's how I feel when I have the music on. It's like floating in the tank or when you're scuba diving, you get your air just right.

And you're floating. That's how I feel when I have the music on. I'm like, ah, this is as good as it gets. And that's why I always have, you know, record.

I'm always looking at new records, going to the record store. It's more happiness coming in. Does the exercise work better or the same as work? Like for managing depression? Uh, the workout is maintenance maintenance it doesn't achieve much but I achieved the workout but you feel like the endorphin release does that help you yes yeah it does and I as the Buddhists say I made merit I went in there and did my time on the treadmill. I don't want to be there.

It's like the last 15 minutes, I'd rather be somewhere else. Like, you know, it's cool. You'll be fine. Sit down. Do your work. That's why before the podcast I was suggesting hot yogurt to you. And you seem to be very stiff lately. You've got some injuries and some things that are bothering you. It's all coming back.

Yeah. Dude, I'm telling you, that'll fix a lot of that shit. It'll really change. Yeah, I know you have a great workout diversity. When you and I were talking before, we were at your place, and you said some mornings you feel like training this way, and you'll go to that gym, or you'll train judo or whatever, and then the next day it's going to be kettlebells.

You really like to mix it up. I think it's good for a body to always be guessing what's coming next. Yeah, I think that's important. I also, there's some things that I really have to do. I think I need at least one day of hard cardio a week, and I think I need at least one day of hard lifting weights a week, but I also think I need at least one day of yoga a week at least. Yoga is, to me, it's one of the most important things that I do

because for that 90 minutes, I can't go anywhere. I don't touch my, my phone's not in the room with me. It's just me and a jug of water and the yoga mat and the class and a bunch of old ladies that are kicking my ass. These old ladies are fucking tough, man. This is old lady. She goes to this workout class with me.

I see her there all the time. She's got to be close to 70. She doesn't even bring water. She just toughs it out. She's there for 90 minutes sweating and grunting through the postures. And you're doing an hour and a half class. Those last 20 minutes in 104 degrees, it's so hard to get through. But when you get through, you just feel better.

Almost like while I'm in it, I can't wait to do it again. Like while I'm struggling and I was like, God, I need to do more than this. I need to do this more often. Rather. I can't wait to do this again. I always feel that. And it just lengthens everything. Like all the back things and the leg things, the hamstring things just stretches everything out, lengthens it and all the tension. It just straightens it out and loosens it up and i just feel like for a guy like you or i who does a lot of a lot of like especially like you still a lot of heavy lifting you were saying a lot of deadlifts and squats this is the antidote for all that stuff right it's decompression and and for your body maintenance it's just phenomenal probably

let's lose the lactic acid out of your muscle tissue. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, here's what I've observed. You know, I live in Los Angeles, so there's a lot of yoga people. Yeah. But, you know, I know them because they have a mat. But you can also see how they walk, how they sit. They're so in their body. Yeah. And there is a grace to, you know, I'm not trying to put anyone in the pejorative, but a yoga person.

to, I'm not trying to put anyone in the pejorative, but a yoga person where not only are they limber, they're just really okay. Their body articulation, you're like, okay, I don't have that. I'm a herky-jerky, uncoordinated person, but there's a hum coming from that person's overall body. It's a beautiful machine, the way they articulate themselves and the way they sit. It's a very unusual balance. But you can tell someone who does it.

They have that. And it's not subtle. I recognize it. You would love it, man. You know what you would love it? Because it fucking sucks. And while you're doing it, man, the internal dialogue's crazy. Yeah, you want to bolt. You want a bolt? Well, you want a ball But you also start going over your life and your mind and dealing with all your bullshit and your to-do list and all the things

You're you're doing wrong or slacking There's something about really struggling in these static positions for like a minute where you're trying to like hold your leg up there and your swim Sweat is literally pouring off your arms and your leg up there and your sweat sweat is literally pouring off your arms and your head and there's something about that man that it's just really cleansing it just really empties you i just think it's a thing that you're missing that you would really love if you tried i bet if you did it and you came back we did a podcast year later be like fuck yoga i fucking love it it's changed my life it's changed my life yeah i know a lot of fighters a

lot of people who who are hectic for a living. They're yoga people. And like in the 70s, you say yoga, someone's going to punch you. Like yoga, wham! Well, you know what I found out about it? Do you know who Hicks and Gracie is? Are we talking about the Gracie? The family? Well, the family,

Hoyce Gracie is the most famous because he's probably the most important figure ever in the history of martial arts because he won the first Ultimate Fighting Championship and showed that a small man can actually beat larger men with technique and skill. Well, his brother is Hickson, and his brother is universally regarded as one of the greatest jiu-jitsu guys, if not the greatest of all time. And he was different than everybody else in that he did yoga. Like his thing was, like I'd never heard of a martial artist that got into yoga, but Hickson would do these breathing exercises and he'd do these balance beam exercises

and he was always doing yoga and stretching and that was a giant part of his workout. And he was above and beyond everyone else in his time period like in the 90s everyone was scared of hickson he was the man i mean but it wasn't like there was any debate it's very rare that you get something that is so uh antagonistic and so tightly contested as two men using martial arts techniques trying to strangle each other and one guy stands above all by such a large margin. And that was Hickson. And I really do believe that part of it was his mind. Part of it was his physicality.

But a lot of that physicality was enhanced by his dedication to yoga. Yeah, he's a legit yogi. He does that fire breathing shit where he sucks his stomach in in that weird way and has it move up and down. You ever see someone do that? Yeah. He does that like a real yogi like it's it's a real trip and i think because of his his his like physical like you can see there he's got he's got this video here you can see him do this fire breathing shit like watch what he does with his stomach it's kind of fucking crazy he sucks

his stomach way way way up deep into his rib cage he does this breath of fire thing and then as it gets going he starts pumping his like here you see if you pull it up there jamie the part where he starts to do it look at this wow yeah like what the fuck man isn't that't that insane? Yeah. It's crazy. And that's just one of the things. He has abdominal muscle control. Yeah. Who gets that? Ridiculous.

That's a muscle group you never try and articulate, make it do anything. Well, he practiced yoga for a long, long, long time. And because of that, he had this phenomenal core strength and phenomenal balance. And he just had a giant advantage over everyone else. And I think a lot of that advantage was his ability to move his body was different. But it's also just for a guy like you that's been just lifting weights for so long, it's the perfect antidote for your body. It's like your body will react.

You're like, oh, yeah, stretch this out. Thank you. Thank you. I've been asking for this. Yeah. You know, lengthen this out. Thank you. Thank you. I've been asking for this. Lengthen this. Hold that pose.

Instead of just lifting something, which is what men like to do. Instead of that, you're holding your arms out there like that. You're like, fuck, I don't even have any weight in these things, and I want to drop them. Yeah, every once in a while I've worked out with someone else, and they go, okay, we're going to do this and this, and then you let yourself be trained. Yeah.

And I've done a few workouts like, okay, I'm going to kill you. I'm like, okay, what does that mean? Like by the end of this, you won't be able to take your shirt off to change. And I've done, you know, where you're benching this much, then this much, then this much. You end up doing like 150 reps. And by the time you can't lift the bar and you can't lift your arms you're literally trembling from exhaustion and I've told that to people they go that's yoga you will tremble from exhaustion and you'll be so happy when you leave because of

how good you feel and you can't wait to go back and you won't blow your joints out the way you will with that lifting i already have yeah there's no way around it i've paid yeah you know i did a thing the other day uh on on advice of heidi the manager and uh joey diaz i tried that cryo cryotherapy yes and i am not i'm i'm a naysayer in lowercase i understand why why it would work. And I'm not saying it's quackery, but I just feel like I'm in an Annie Hall scene when I walk into these places, like, cause it's like super, Hey, we're the whatever therapy and I'm moonlight. And this is, and then like you shake the guy's hand and he damn near breaks your arm. These people are in incredible shape. And so I said, okay, you know,

I got in the robe and I went into that room for two minutes and 45 seconds. And the endorphin rush, it's like a UPS truck of endorphins. You come out of there. Like, can I go back in? And since I got out of it, all I had been thinking about is going back in.

In the parking lot, I just wanted to turn around and get another shot. And I asked the guy at the counter, like, what is that? He goes, it's endorphins. It just unleashes them like fight or flight. You just get this rush. I said, I want to go back. He said, come and see us again sometime. But it was incredible.

And it's not long. Like, you're out of there before you know it. Ten said, come see us again sometime. But it was incredible. And it's not long. Like, you're out of there before you know it. Ten minutes, you're in and out. Yeah, but wow. I'm a big fan. And I know that a lot of athletes, and I know that you use it, Joey Diaz, but on their brochure, apparently all these sports teams, like, it's just part of what you do. Well, one thing it has been proven to do, there's a lot of naysayers when it comes to this, even scientists apparently that don't exercise, but people that do exercise and

do try it all pretty much universally regarded as being beneficial. But one of the things that's been shown in clinical studies is that it reduces and produces more anti-inflammatory bodies in the blood. That's what I was told. Yeah. So it does reduce inflammation in your body. But I think just for the mood elevation, it's worth doing. I mean, it does that norepinephrine release that you get when you get out of there.

It's unbelievable. You get that. It wasn't subtle. No, it's amazing. It was like, wow. And the sun feels great on your face when you get outside. You're like, ah. Everything felt great i mean i i don't

do much on as far as stimulants like a coffee and aspirin i guess uh so i'm not even sure what the effect is if anything and so it doesn't take much to make me go well that's different you know what i mean yeah and that i walked out back to the parking lot like damn yeah that was fantastic i do three and then i take 10 minutes off then i do three again so i do two sessions wow yeah i do two back to back so you go in my body warms back up i do three minutes and then my body warms back up to like once your skin temperature gets around 84 degrees i'll let you get back in there and then i go back in there again for another three minutes so wait how many, like you'll go into this place?

Three minutes. And then I wait for 10 minutes and then I go in for another three minutes. So you do two? Two sessions. Two sessions in one visit? Yes. Yeah. And how many times, how often, how many times a month?

Whenever I can. But I've been mixing it up more with sauna. I've been doing a lot of sauna lately. I kind of like that as much, if not more. What, the sauna? Yeah, sauna. Sauna seems to be really good for muscle injuries. There's something about the sauna for any time to like muscle tissue or soreness or weird shit. Sauna just blows that all out. And sauna is also one of those things that

it's what it is, is your body reacting to extremes, right? Whether it's extreme cold or extreme heat, your body produces heat shock proteins and cold shock proteins. And all those things you're doing is reducing inflammation. That's the number one thing. Like you want to feel better, reduce inflammation. And this is one of the best ways to manipulate your body is either through cryotherapy or through sauna. Both of those things are amazing. Yeah.

Someone I know that she says it's all about inflammation. You've got to beat the inflammation. Yeah. Cut out all the sugar, cut out all the carbs, cut out all the bread, cut out all the alcohol. If you can do that, you'll massively reduce inflammation. Yeah, that's her gospel. There's nothing good in there for you. Yeah, man.

And once your body gets used to it, too, that's what's really interesting. You don't even really crave it anymore. I still like ice cream. I still enjoy a dessert or something like that. But it doesn't have the same impact. I used to like I see a sandwich and I go, oh, look at that sandwich. Look at that pastrami sandwich, big thick bread. And that doesn't do it for me anymore.

I don't, it doesn't, I recognize what that is. Like, oh, that's a trick. That's a trick. That's not even really food. Yeah. I don't eat as much as I used to. I just feel so much better when I just skip the middle meal. Like whose idea was it three meals a day anyway?

You don't need that. Right. And I found that I can live very comfortably. I'm not into like torturing myself. It's like I'm going to starve and nail myself to this chair. But if I'm too distracted to work because I'm hungry I need to address that but what I found is if I just kind of don't eat a lot after a couple of days I'm like a jet in the high air where you're burning no fuel because you're just in the thin air where I walk pie food going like

that I've had like two meals in the last two and a half meals like in the last three days and i feel fine actually i feel like really bouncy like i don't need the the post workout seven minute power nap i i'm feeling really good do you do intermittent fasting at all um yes on the the woman i work with you know Heidi, she does that sometimes and I'll just follow her lead. So she'll go, hey, I'm doing this. I'll try that because I just don't know this stuff. And she knows a lot more about it than I do. So I just do what she does.

And so a few years ago, I got into like one meal a day. I was just trying it out. No one told me to. I was in India of all places. And I was out all day taking photos and sweating. And I would eat dinner. And that would be it. And I would sleep through breakfast and go back out with my camera.

So dinner became my meal. And the first three days of that was a little tough. And then it was like I never wanted – I kind of felt bad when I went back to the Western. Boy, I'm eating a lot of food. Your body adapts. Yeah. Oh, we can adapt. You can live on pizza for the rest of your life very happily.

All, you know, whatever. But your body really does adapt to that intermittent, that timed feeding. Well, no, I'm saying it'll adapt to anything. It'll adapt to too much food or it'll adapt to like a fraction of what you used to eat. Right. But just here's what I have found. When I start limiting the food I'm more alert my sleep is more restorative and I bounce out of bed like I'm just flying out of bed I don't have

that afternoon drowsiness I just stay with it and I just feel way more buoyant and present. Type faster, just concentrate more. And when I'm on tour, it's usually I do one point something meals a day. Like I'm about to leave on tour. It's an evening meal post-show. I put myself into an eight hour feeding window and 16 hour fasting window every day. And I've been pretty consistent with that over the last like four or five months. And it has a big impact, man. When I eat dinner, you know, say if I'm done at eight o'clock, I just time it out. 16 hours later is when my first meal comes. I can have a coffee in between now and then, but nothing with like any real significant calories. I'm just having some liquid or something like that. And that's it. And then it just, by doing that, man, I just like, I wake up in the morning, I'm not craving breakfast. I'm not, I'm not even hungry. My body's just totally adapted to it. Yeah. Just gives your body a chance

to digest. I think we're always in the state of feeding and your body just never has really a chance to digest all that food. It's like juggling. You know, the body is like, as it's processing, it's incoming, like, really? Another order? Exactly. It never gets to realize digestion. Like, we're done. It's always, you're like a cow. Yep.

They're always processing nutrition. Yeah. And I wonder if that's a Western model. Yeah. Because in other parts of the world, people live very differently than we do. It is what it is. And a meal is, it's almost just a thing that happens now and then. It's not like it's dinner time and we're going to talk about report cards and it's not a gathering.

It's like the whole family works all over the city and they're going to eat, I think, at some point. all over the city and they're going to eat. I think at some point where everything, even sleep, you go to like parts like Vietnam and people are just like sleeping behind the counter of the store they work at because they've been there for a day and a half because mom can't come in. So they're running the store and then sleep is this thing that you get now and then.

And I think food is like that in a lot of parts of the world, like a meal. The next time I eat, it'll be the next time I eat. When you go to these places and I know you travel pretty much parts of the world. Like a meal, eh, the next time I eat, it'll be the next time I eat. When you go to these places, and I know you travel pretty much all over the world, do you go out of your way to try to sample in as wide a variety as the local cuisine as you can? No.

No. Depends on where I go. And I'm not that guy who just brings it all from home and I never leave home when I'm abroad. that guy who just brings it all from home and I never leave home when I'm abroad. But I can't afford to eat a bad meal and be bedridden for the next day when I should be out hitting the streets, looking at stuff. And so I've had, you know, as you do, you run into the bad meal where you're like hugging a tree, watching the arc of vomit. Like, wow, Linda Blair. And I've done that from here to uh myanmar

and russia wherever i've had some bad meals and so when the food looks dodgy like in the interior of africa when you point at the meat object and go what is that and the guy will say i think it's goat cliff bar just because i just can't and so what I've learned to do, and it's hard on your back because it's a lot of weight. I take, say I'm going to be out in Africa for two weeks. I bring about two meals worth of chow with me. That's a lot of nuts, a lot of cliff bars, a lot of like peanut butter, you know, things that just don't go bad in heat. Where I can just look at the food and go, no, not tonight. It's going to be a handful of almonds and this and water.

Also in parts of the world where water's dodgy, you find a store, you buy the box of water, rip it open to make sure it hasn't been tampered with, buy the whole box, put it in your backpack and lug 40 pounds of water for the next five days. It sucks, but you can't be somewhere and go like, I'm thirsty and I don't know about that water. Have you thought about bringing, you know, they have these portable backpack filters and SteriPens and things that a lot of backpack hikers, they use. They're very small now. They're very small and lightweight. And you can get some, like if you're staying in a place and you think it has dodgy water, you can get a gravity filter where you put water. Like

you could literally get rainwater from outside in a puddle. And I know a lot of people do that. And they take it and they put it in this large gravity filter and it'll drip down. Almost like, it looks like someone's peeing at the bottom of this huge bag, a 60 liter bag of water, but it filters it all and it allows you to drink basically puddle water. Right. No, I've never gotten that high tech. I've been in some pretty dodgy places, but I've always been somewhere in prep, like a

city before I go into the countryside where I go, okay, it's going to be five days before I see anything like this again. So I'm provisioning for eight days That's a good thing, but usually Google Steri pen you should get one of these things because this this thing is so simple It's like it basically looks like a pen and it works with ultra-violent light and you put it in water I say if you have a glass of water you just stir this in the water. It kills everything in the water everything Wow Yeah, it'll still give us this but there it is right there. So if there's buffalo piss in the water. Everything. Wow. Yeah. It'll still, like, if there's, there it is right there. So if there's buffalo piss in that water, it's still going to smell like buffalo piss.

Yeah, but it won't kill you. But it's not going to kill you. And it won't give you Giardia, and it won't give you anything else. Wow, that's smart. Yeah. And it's not big. It's a small little device. You see it there? No, it's handheld.

I get it. Those are drops. Oh, that's smart. Yeah. I think that's a different thing. That's a different thing. Yeah, because there's parts of, like, mainly Africa where you go really in. The water, like, that's a lot of mosquitoes.

Oh, and you see the locals drinking, like, clearing the larvae out of the way. I'm like, don't do that. Like, what do you mean? That's our water. My good friend Justin Wren, he runs a charity called Fight for the Forgotten where they build wells for the pygmies in the Congo. And he's had malaria three times from going over there yeah and he's a he's a beautiful human being like this guy sacrifices so much he's in the congo several months out of every year tough building well dangerous it is very dangerous and you know he's got some crazy stories about it too but i bet you

know these people they like you see little children with horrible distended bellies because they're filled with parasites. And it's heartbreaking. A lot of it is clean water. And so they're developing. They were initially partnered up with Water4. Now he's kind of doing it on his own. And through this, one of my sponsors is called the Cash App.

And through the Cash App, we've already raised thousands of dollars to build several wells in the Congo. And we're constantly raising more money and building more wells. And it changes their life. They have free, actual, clear water that comes out of the ground. You see these people celebrating and dancing when the wells get turned on. This is so powerful. You just think of water as like, oh, hey, here's some water. I got a bottle.

But to them, it's everything. Yeah, I've been working on and off with a water NGO for many years called Drop in the Bucket. And I've been to Uganda and South Sudan with them. They drill at schools. And, you know, as a Westerner, water is just a thing we sing in the shower with. You know, it's just like it's always around. You know, you trip over the bottles. There's so much water. Right. In other parts of the world, as you know, not so much. And when you see the impact of water on a school, there's so many things you don't think about. And so I was at this one school where they had drilled, drop in the bucket had drilled like

before we were there to visit the well and meet the kids in Masaka. It's I think north of Kampala. And what one of the drop in the bucket people say is like, they now have toilets and running water. Do you understand what that means for female literacy? I'm like, what do you mean? A woman, a girl hits a certain age, she goes through a major, major physiological change. If there's not running water in a way for her to clean herself up, there's a lot of potential shame and self-consciousness. You stop going to school because there's not a way to keep yourself together. And you stop.

Your learning stops at young adulthood. But with running water and a way to, you know, as we Westerners do so easily, you keep yourself hygienic and you can go back to class and learn to read. And I was like, I never would have thought of that had I not come on this trip. And it hit me like a truck because you just think water, I'm thirsty. Water means so much more, just dignity.

Like I want to be clean. You and me, we throw our clothes in the laundry every day. Clean clothes. I mean, you see these women walking eight miles each way with the jerry cans of water. Some of that's for drinking. A lot of it's for cleaning clothes because they're sending their kid to a school. They want the kid, you know, human dignity, water and all of that is a big, you know, you can't have dignity without the water because water means I don't stink. Right. And you must take me, you must respect me as a person because I don't smell like I've been living in these clothes for a week. And I learned a lot of that by traveling.

But traveling with that NGO was, you know, like going to class. It was huge. Yeah, man. That's something I never would have considered. Yeah. And human dignity, you know, it's why we have a lot of angry people in the world. Because you and I, as Westerners, we don't suffer. There's a lot of indignities that we don't suffer that a lot of people in the world work hard to not suffer.

Like they have to go like, okay, have to go get the water today. You know, that's a long trip. Got to walk to Long Beach and back to get the water because there's no tap. And I got kids and, you know,

infants. And I, I got to make this work because I can't have my family stinking and I got to do the cooking. And hopefully you don't get eaten

by a crocodile and go to get the water. Or attacked by a monkey. The monkeys, they smell the water and they mug you for the water. Really? Yeah. They just assault, you know, bite and they grab the water, knock it over and just lick it off the ground.

Yeah, people get assaulted in dry season by monkeys. Whoa. Yeah. So these— Little creeps. But just you see what people do. They're not trying to be rock stars. All they want to do is what you and i do just without even

thinking twice and that you know it's made me as an older guy i'm pushing 60 it's made me really reconsider human relationships like our current political climate the way people talk to each other now it's sometimes kind of terrifying And it makes me really reconsider human dignity, respect, patience. Like there's a lot of people I disagree with, but they're coming from something real, like something very real and honest, propelled them to make that sign or to do that thing. And the cause and effect, I think they're maybe wrongheaded. But the cause is real. And the effect is sincerely, the action is sincerely held. The motivation.

And it's that kind of travel. And looking at how people, they don't want much. They just want to get by, by and large. they don't want much. They just want to get by, by and large. And it's made me reconsider kind of how I voulez-vous with everyone out in the world. I think I'm getting better at it because it's so hard. It is hard, but I think if you pay attention to it and you keep concentrating on it as you get older, you do get better at it. And the idea that someone who's almost 60 is still learning, like that is just how we are, you know, and we have this weird idea that people are static and they, you know, you meet a

guy and he's 70 when you meet him when he's 75 is going to be the same guy, if not worse. But no, people, they're capable of growth as long as they're alive. Yeah. And, and motivated. I mean, you'll, you'll grow as much as you want to. And I've I've met 70-year-olds who wear me out. I'm like, I can't keep up with this guy. Like I go on some little cool eco-travel trips. You go like Antarctica and these old, like, come on! You're like, I can't. You go to take a photo or show it to me.

And then you meet people who are 22 and they're so burned out. Yeah. And they're so hard to be around. Like, man, if I had your youth, I'd be bouncing off the planet. What are you doing? And it's just a mindset and all kinds of surrounding factors and forces. But it's really just what you want to do at a certain part of your life. I have very little sympathy for adults in that you're 35.

This is all you, pal. Your addictions, your crap marriage, that's all you. Like I don't have that much. Well, I did so much coke, I don't have a house anymore. That's a lot of coke. And I'm sorry that you're living in a box or in a van down by the river. But come on, man. That's a long hill you slid down.

So get up and don't do it. Don't make the same mistake. But adults, come on, man. You know who you are at this point. And you know what you can be. And at this point, I abhor rudeness. I hate it. And I hate it when I'm rude. I'm like, damn, I have to

punish myself. And so as I get older, I'm working as best as I can to be more clear, to be more polite and more patient, just so I'm more unavoidable. Like on stage, I don't curse. So there's no way you can marginalize me. Even when you're doing your live speaking shows, you're having these discussions and you're talking about crazy things that you've seen. You don't swear.

How many times have I sworn in this room with you right now on that today? I don't think you have. I haven't. I keep track. Why is that? Many years ago, almost 10 years ago, I was going out with a woman who never cursed. And I work with people who don't curse and they get their point across. And this girl I was going out with, she's fantastic. And she never cursed. And my sailor speak. I was like, wow, I don't have any company here. And also Barack Obama and presidents traditionally don't curse.

But he's had such a good way with words. I just admired him on the stump. I'm sure it was all written for him. But nonetheless, I just like how the man carried himself. And I said, I want to be more like that. And I was just in Australia a couple of weeks ago. I was speaking and I was on a very interesting panel about Me Too. I was the only male on the panel.

It was fascinating. And a guy came up with his kids like, hey, I'm a big fan and I want my kids to meet you. And my son's 11 and I want him to come see one of your shows one day. I said, oh, I think he should see me on my next tour here in 2020. He'll be like, what, 13? No problem. And I'm not saying my show is namby-pamby. But I want to be unavoidable where you can't write me off, say I'm wrong.

Fine. Disagree with me. That's fine. Like, oh, he's just a foul mouth. So we don't have to take him seriously. I don't want to give you that handle to jerk me around by. I have plenty of other handles you can jerk me around by. And so I'm just trying to not give people that angle.

And it forces me to evolve my point of view where those words are fun and hyperbolic, but they just don't serve me. They don't get across what I want to get across. That's interesting. But what I'm thinking is that one way to use those words is to have your point as clear as possible and then use them rarely. You know, like one of the things when I was starting doing comedy back in Boston, they would call it the fuck meter. They would say, you don't want to go on stage and say fuck every other word because a lot of people use the word fuck in place of the word um. You know, they're like, fucking guy fucking says to me me fucking i don't want to fucking tell you what to fucking do that is you're just this is just poor communication this is a shitty economy of words so that word you've given it you've used it so many times you've given away all its meaning

it doesn't mean anything anymore so when you do and i'm like fuck you it doesn't mean anything anymore yeah but if you say it like once a year it does right you say fuck you once a year means a lot everyone will believe it yes like oh he's serious but yeah if you just drop it all the time and i you know i believe in the first amendment but um to me it's a when you use that stuff you come in as one thing but everyone you kind of the result is you're something else to a lot of people in in front of some people's eyes yeah i mean you certainly limit your uh digestibility yeah and impact you know i i'd rather be articulate than overbearing and i you know i watched the news and some of these pundits are very, very educated and they're very, very sharp.

They're pundits for a living. They make commentary for a living and they're damn good at it. And you're like, wow, that's a hell of a sentence. I'd like to be able to rock something like that one day. And that's kind of what I admire as uh you know i start shrinking with age well as you when you're you know it's interesting that the difference between writing something and saying something it's like as you do your spoken word uh shows and you have these stories that you want to tell but i would imagine that you probably write out a good most of it.

Do you do that? Some of it. I mean. Or do some of it you just know the story, so you just tell the story the way. When I'm out in the world, I'll be out all day like taking photos or whatever, voulé-vouling with the locals, getting information. Then I come back somewhere and I write it up. Or I'll take, you know, sometimes you're in a place like Haiti.

You don't want to be outside at noon. The sun will just like beat you up. So you find shade, make your notes. So I'm always trying to make notes. And then at night I write it all up. A lot of that turns into a book. Like I use every part of the deer. Like when I go somewhere, I make soup, jewelry, a coat, every part gets used. And so the books come from that, but some stories from those travels, I mull them over in my mind. And the show for me, when I'm on stage, it just can't be mere reportage. There has to be something, there has to be an aroma coming from it. There has to be a lilt. There has to be a wisdom or some kind of melody that comes from the raw information. Like I took all these notes and got the Houses of the

Holy album, which is just, it's component parts, but it was mixed together in a way where it's like this beautiful thing. And so that often takes weeks. So I saw this, what was the story? Well, the guy fell over, but no, it wasn't at six weeks of thinking about it. It wasn't him. He's not the story. It's the guy who was watching and did nothing. That's the story. And all of a sudden, the whole angle changes.

And so I'll mull these things over because I have a lot of time. I live alone. And so by the time a story gets to the stage, it's like a stone that's been rolled and polished. And I will, there's parts of the valley, Ventura Boulevard, where at night there's nothing but dog walkers and joggers. All the shops are closed.

I will park in a parking lot and I'll walk about a mile each way, talking out loud, saying the stories out loud. People are'm gonna go looking for you now yeah henry's practicing his one-man show that's why i don't give the location because you will go wow i remember that one um and i will let my brain hear my voice say them and i'll make edits while i'm walking like okay no that's a dead end and and i and i've been doing this for years and i do it on

the treadmill in my mind you know like i'll just like kind of mumble to myself where people will come over in a gym like are you okay i'm like yeah i'm just you know just say actor and they'll go oh yeah no yeah and and that that's the kind of preparation i do because i don't believe in warm-up shows like who wants to see your warm-up show? Like, oh, thanks for your demo. Like, screw you. I paid money. I want A-game. And so I only understand come in with the A-game. And so I do

all my woodshedding alone. And so by the time I hit stage, that story is very evolved. And then it continues to every night. You know, I keep shaving the parts off and it's a chiseled thing of beauty a few nights in yeah i found that you really can only do so much on the written page or on the screen you have to evolve it in front of a live audience especially with stand-up which you're essentially doing you pretty much you're doing very i mean i listen to a bunch

of your older stuff and it's essentially a form of stand-up, you know? Yep. It's like there's different kinds of music, right? I mean, there's rock and roll, there's blues, there's jazz. There's different kinds of stand-up as well. Sure. And yours is a storytelling stand-up. Yeah. And even with that, it's going to evolve in front of the live audience.

Well, like on my Showtime special tomorrow night at 10. Oh, it's tomorrow night at 10 p.m. on Showtime. You'll hear stories. It's called Keep Talking, pal. It is. And a lot of that is just storytelling. And it is funny. But I always leave room in my resume because I don't want to tie myself to comedy.

Because when I'm telling the story about the part of wherever, like Bangladesh I was in, that wasn't funny. I don't want to be in a comedy club with some guy going, wait a minute, I didn't pay for this. Make me laugh, idiot. And so I don't want to be selling a false bill of goods. And so sometimes it's quite often it's funny, but sometimes it's not. Uh, sometimes it's quite often it's funny, but sometimes it's not. But for me, events plus time, if someone didn't, if there are no casualties, if it was this mere injury, maybe an eye, um, it is pretty funny. A week later after the scabs have fallen off, uh, it's pretty funny.

Well, the thing is also that you don't have a restricted sort of form in which you have to perform in. By doing it spoken word style, you essentially can do whatever you want. Yes, and I need that freedom because I can't be dependent upon to make you laugh all the time. Right, yeah. Like, this is the thing about stand-up is part of it I really like because it forces you to use economy of words and boil your ideas down into this very clear rhythm where you keep hammering them with laughs. But part of it is, I mean, where I get my freedom is from this, like from doing podcasts. So I can express myself in ways and get thoughts across where it doesn't have to have any form.

It can be funny or it can be not. It can be depressing or funny and sad. And it doesn't have to realize itself in 11 seconds. Yes. Right. And it doesn't have to have an impact. Like there's a thing about standup is that you're always getting a reaction. And if you don't get that reaction, it is not successful. You can call it whatever you want. You can say, oh, this is standup, but you know, I'm talking about standup or I'm talking about things that are tragic in my stand-up so it's deeper and more meaningful. It's like, okay, but then it's not really stand-up.

Stand-up is funny. Yeah. And once it stops being funny, then you're doing something else. Right. You're doing spoken word, or you're doing a play, or a one-person show, or whatever it is. Right. And I would never dare go into a comedy club and do what I do. You never do that?

You never go to like to improv or something like that? Two times in my life. One time the venue I was supposed to be in got knocked out because of a storm. And so they said,

we've moved your show to like the laugh dungeon. And I was in some place in the East Coast with like 80,000 headshots on the wall. Ah. That little parquet stage, the PV boxes,

the PA screwed into the wall. And I did my talking show and my audience, they're all sitting at these tables going, why are we here? And on the last big tour in 2016, I don't like nights off. And they said, okay, Thanksgiving. I said, find me a show. They said, we found you a show. off. And they said, okay, Thanksgiving. I said, find me a show. They said, we found you a show. It's a comedy club next to a strip bar and there's no backstage. There's no monitors. It's just two boxes in the wall, family owned, really nice people. And I forget where it was somewhere in Illinois. I was, uh, one show one night, my, my tour bus was rumbling away in the parking lot. The next night, I think it was like three nights of Ralphie May, the great comedian. But it was a straight up comedy club.

And I went in there and I just kind of did what I've been doing for like the last nine months on the road. And a lot of it was very funny. And the audience was fantastic. And so the owner, I came up to the artist like i'd play this place again anytime thank you so much and he said well you know where we are anytime we loved it we like you and you're always welcome here and that i don't know if it was my audience or a comedy audience i said how did the show do so i always sold out in a day i mean you know your your name and um i think but um this is but i said so the audience oh I recognize these people this is my local

comedy crowd they just know you from Sons of Anarchy or whatever so we'll see how you go and it was fine and it turned into like this two hour laugh riot I mean it was just great it was a super fun show and you don't have an opening act or anything you just go right out

no because I torture them enough it's just me. Can I ask you a professional question? Sure. Feel free to edit this out. When you're on stage, and like you're doing a big theater, like where you're the main guy at like a big Saturday night somewhere, how long are you on stage for?

Usually an hour and ten to an hour and twenty minutes. Okay. Seventy to eighty minutes. Yeah. Okay. I'm just fascinated because I live in a bubble. I just do my own thing. I'm on stage for like two hours and 20 minutes. Okay, 70 to 80 minutes. Yeah. Okay. I'm just fascinated because I live in a bubble. I just do my own thing. I'm on stage for like two hours and 40 minutes.

I bring an opening act. And what do they do? Between 20 and 30. And how many openers? One. Sometimes I bring two. That's rare, but it's usually just for fun.

Just because two buddies. Two people at the most. Yeah. And they'll do a total of 40 minutes. And then there's a brief intermission no no intermission so it's like one two three yeah bang bang bang we go and the show could be 80 minutes 90 minutes and so the whole thing you and two openers it's like two point something hours it could be two hours yeah easily yeah but that's the whole night that's the whole

night and are you ever on your own with nobody? Never. Okay, so there's always an opener. Yes. Usually one. Yes. And so that's 20 minutes and 70 to 80. So the whole night is a little less than two hours. Dependent upon the show, whether or not we have two shows in a night. A short show is an hour and a half, which I like a rock them, sock them robots hour and a half, like a movie.

You go to a movie and it's two and a half hours. Even if it's really good, it's like, whew. Oh, no, no. You feel it. A lot of sitting there. The last 20 minutes, you really feel the lack of editing. But an hour and a half is bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Good night.

Yeah. Yeah. And so how many two sets a night do you do? Often. Yeah, I'll do it. A seven and a nine or whatever. Yeah, something like that. I'll do it pretty often, depending on the size the venue you know some places is a giant place i'll do one show or

you know but i've done i've done a lot of especially this last year i did a lot of two shows at night in big theaters and stuff you know it's a lot of turnaround too because you got to clear out all those people and get a new crowd in there. I just, you know, I work alone. Right. And I don't have a peer group, really. If I do, I'm not trying to find them. And I'm just curious about how other people do their thing because I live alone in a tour bus, like with, you know, a road manager and a bus driver and a merch guy. And I have no opener, except in Australia, there's a rule they want one for one. And so there's this opener I've used for years.

An Australian opener? Yeah. One American, one Australian, which I really really like they used to do that with music you know they don't do that with me when i'm there i bring american openers oh well they um with me the last few years like i've gotten to bigger places and my agent has said okay you're gonna have an opener and i've met i've used this guy used him's, he's done like shows with me for like three tours. He's hilarious. Really low keys,

a really nice guy. I'm forgetting. Well, I see the guy every three years, so it's not in the memory, but he's great. And he's, he's super fun.

He's real smart. And the audience loves him. I mean, I think he's kind of known, but he's great. And he just like, I don't know, 20 minutes,

whatever it is. And then I go do my thing, but that's per, it's not in every city in Australia. But he's great. And he's just like, I don't know, 20 minutes, whatever it is. And then I go do my thing. But that's per, it's not in every city in Australia. It's like in a couple of places. Oh, so there's. And it's like some kind of thing. Regional rules. Yeah.

And it's happened a few times with when I would do music. Like, okay, four guys on stage. We're going to have a four-person opener. Like, okay, man. And I kind of like that. Like, give the local band some time or give the local guy a moment in front of his hometown audience or let him tour with me i love that idea but that's the only time and or every once in a while i was at bonnaroo once and it was

tremendously lopsided it was me and tig notaro who's amazing i don't know her very well, but I've seen her on stage. And she was kind of, she didn't exactly open for me, but she did like half an hour and I did like an hour. It was like, and they cleared the tent and then Cheech Marin came on. But Louis Black was before me. It was like three tent loads of people in one night at Bonnaroo. And that's the only time I've ever done a it never once in a while been a festival where you're like the 8 to 9.30 guy and then the 10 o'clock guy comes on stage. But quite often I'm just

on my own on tour and I'm the only thing on stage. It's a different thing for me. I have to have my friends with me. Otherwise I get bored. I go on the road almost everyone I take in the road with me is a national headliner who would normally be headlining somewhere on their own like they're not a cool double yeah yeah it's a cool double bill but it's also i want the best guys that i

can find and i pay them well to go on in front of me i don't i don't want it to be a bad show by any stretch of the imagination so i try to get the best guys, but also by that, then I'm traveling with the best guys. So we're having fun. Like we're, you know, it's, it's a, it's a weird group, like standups. There's not that many of us. There's like maybe a thousand of us in the whole country that are like real professional comedians, maybe 500 headliners in the whole country. So there's, there's just not that many of us. And so when we, we relate to each other in sort of a weird way. Yeah, well, there's not many of you. It's like when presidents get together.

There's like four of them. They're kind of chummy because they might be opposed, but they all kind of know they're the only people who know that stuff. Especially when they're out. Especially when they're out. They did their time. Yeah, they can relax. And they just look like they've been sucked dry by a vampire. Yeah, they can relax.

And they just look like they've been sucked dry by a vampire. I noticed when Obama welcomed the president-elect Trump to the Oval Office for that 90-minute meeting that Trump thought was going to last 15 minutes, Obama looked like Tutankhamun. His skin was so drawn across his face. It's like a snare drum. He must have been so exhausted. I think any presidency is going to be taken over. snare drum. He must have been so exhausted. I think any presidency is going to be taken over. Just any president like George W. Bush was to me a handsome, energetic guy when he got into office. But eight years in 9-11 and in the invasion occupation of Iraq on the way out, his face had fallen. His hair had died. And I'm not a guy who hates him, just disagrees.

But the presidency killed that guy. I mean, I just think the stress, because you don't get the nice phone call, hey, we got the cat out of the tree. It's like, hey, we lost eight guys. That thing you said go, it went south. Well, I'm very curious to see how Trump comes out of this, because he's one of the older guys to get in there. I think he's 70 or 71. Right. And in just in the past year, like there's a picture of Bush from 2000 and 2008.

See what I'm saying? That's crazy. I mean, it just it kicked his ass. And I'm not trying to put him in the pejorative. It's just reality. It's like when you see those really amazing photos of Lincoln during the Civil War, or Lyndon Johnson in those think tank meetings, him in McNamara, his face is sliding off his skull because he's getting those phone calls. Hey, we just lost 600 guys, Mr. President. Really sorry to give you this news because he

insisted on getting the bad phone call. And you see what it does to a human being. And I noticed it with Bush and Obama, because those were trying times for both presidents, very trying administrations. And I wonder what it's going to do to a guy who doesn't take care of himself, who is carrying a lot of weight, probably nowhere near the best diet. And weight, probably nowhere near the best diet. And I hope he doesn't have some kind of heart attack. I mean, I'm not the kind of guy who wants people to die. He easily could. But man, you look at him, you're like, man, you need to listen to the White House doctor,

get on a plan because they can really rock you. They can help you lose 40 pounds by spring of next year. And you can really feel better. You look at them, you're like, man, there's someone in the White House who can help you with that. Like they're paid to get you on the track every morning. They can get them up at 5 in the morning, get them out there. He's not going to do it. He's got to watch Fox News. He's got to agree or disagree with those people on the TV. It's too bad because a president has all those people who are like ready.

They're already in their jogging outfits like a dog who wants to go to the park waiting to train him. And a dietician, they could like rock those calories. I don't think he wants it. I don't think he gives a shit. Well, you have to wait.

Apparently he drinks like 12 Diet Cokes a day. That's one of the things they were saying. That diet window you were talking about, when you do eat, are you you eating you have a family yeah is it the dinner table are you eating at home with with a lot of times that's that's the meal is your family is that meal targeted like nutrition for the kids nutrition for dad i mean do you guys smart? No, the kids actually eat very healthy. Yeah, we've been eating together really healthy since they were babies. That's all.

I mean, they're always eating vegetables and, you know, some healthy meat. They eat a lot of wild game because I hunt. Right. You know, so they eat really healthy. It's an interesting thing with kids, too. If you shield them from interesting foods, like my eight-year-old loves kimchi. She loves like, you know, spicy Korean fermented cabbage, which to a lot of kids would be disgusting. She loves it. She eats like fucking plates of it.

And because of that, she rarely gets sick. You know, she eats a lot of probiotics and healthy foods. They're always eating fruit and vegetables. They've been doing it since they were a little kid. We don't stop them from eating candy, but I do tell them what candy is. And I showed them that sugar documentary. And I've talked to them in length about how sugar didn't used to be something that people ate all the time. And it's a really recent thing. I've showed them photographs of people from like the 1800s and the early 1900s. Like, look what these people

looked like. They were thin. They were different. They had a different diet, but now we just eat too many carbohydrates and it's fine every now and then. Like, don't keep it from yourself, but understand that these are empty calories and they make your body, they actually make you tired. Well, a thing I've noticed, I look at people when I travel, I just find our species is fascinating all over the world. You look at people's teeth in parts of the world where sugar and corn syrup is just not normal. And you see like these 75 year old women like carrying a couch up a hill and their teeth are these bright white tree trunks, just like of like, they're never going to fall out of their heads. And like no dentistry, you know, that no noticeable dentistry and the teeth are gleaming white, maybe darkened from tobacco or tea.

But nothing like in the West where their teeth are just getting assaulted by our own diet. And you see people of great age with like they look they're just ripped. And you look at what they're eating like fish rice vegetables yeah and it's all lean smart food and the sugars are all uh monosaccharides like fruit sugar you know the occasional banana or orange is a treat but you know the sugar is really not in the diet at all yeah maybe rice breaking down. Nor should it be. But not like we are doing it. No.

No one's ever done it the way we're doing it. And no one's ever been as fat. And then we have these things to shield people from. We call it fat shaming. Don't tell someone they're fat. Let them just be morbidly obese and go through life at a massive risk of heart attack or stroke or diabetes. Don't say anything because then you'll hurt their feelings. Meanwhile, you could say something to someone, and it might be uncomfortable in the moment.

Hey, Mike, listen, I don't want to be that guy, but you've got to lose some weight. And then that guy could go and look in the mirror and go, fuck, I really do need to lose some weight. And then they'll lose some weight, and they'll be healthy, and they'll talk to you four or five months later and go, you know, you fucked my head up that day. And because of that, I really started changing the way I eat and I'm so much healthier and I feel better. Because he's your friend.

My friend, Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer, they did this thing last year, well, two years ago, where they had a weight loss competition. And one of the things they kept doing is fat shaming each other, like ruthlessly. And they would use hashtag bird is fat, hashtag Tom is fat. And they had this weight loss competition. And they fucking both lost a shitload of weight. I think they both lost between 50 and 60 pounds. Wow. And they looked fucking incredible.

But then after it was over, Tom was like, dude, let me tell you something. Fat shaming works. It works. It got me off my ass. I realized I was a fat fuck and it made me lose weight. It doesn't feel good. That shaming thing is you like fat shaming doesn't work on people who aren't fat. Okay. It works on people who have a problem, but don't want to address that problem. So you bring up that problem and then they go, oh, you're making me feel bad by thinking about my problem. You're a bad person. No, you have a weak spot. That weak spot shouldn't be there. You shouldn't belabor it and constantly ridicule someone for being fat. But the idea that you're never supposed to bring it up, even with someone you care about, even in jest or friends

busting balls, like, no, no, no, you should bring it up because that bad feeling is a gift. It makes you realize like, oh my God, I've been remiss. I haven't been paying attention to my own physical sovereignty. You know, I have control over what goes in my body. I have control over the amount of calories I take in, the kind of calories. I have control over how much body fat I'm carrying around. And there's ways to fix it. Yeah.

I think you should use discretion. Yes. Maybe not in line at the supermarket. No. To people you'd like. Yeah. But it was funny to hear Tom, he was getting angry. He's like, fucking fat shaming works, man.

All these people that say don't fat shame, fuck, that's how I got skinny. Fat shaming works. Yeah. But, you know, again. Yes, don't be rude to someone out in public for no reason. Don't drive an 11-year-old to suicide. Yeah, definitely don't do that. So, yeah.

Well, the little kids is the worst because, like, their parents will get them hooked on those sugary sodas. And once it's the goddamn sodas, man. I mean, that is one of the primary causes for people being fat in this country. And it just seems so innocuous. It's just in a glass. I'll just drink this. It's got some ice cubes. No big deal. in this country. And it just seems so innocuous. It's just in a glass. I'll just drink this. It's got some ice cubes. No big deal.

It goes down so fast. Yeah. It tastes great. On the weekends, I like ginger beer and the Bundabergs. It's the same power as a Coke. I mean, it's a lot of sugar. Yeah. And I buy a four-pack and I have one bottle a week.

Saturday night, my big drink. Discipline. He's going nuts. Look at him. He's got his drink. Nothing wrong with that. It's just the best-tasting stuff, but, man, it tastes good for a reason. It's so sweet.

And, like, you just want the next one when you're done. But, man, and I could drink them all day, but I just can't do that to my system so I do one a week that's good discipline yeah but it's like you know something to look forward to do you have a diet that you follow other than that yeah I mean I love ice cream so I I don't eat it um you know I try not to because I just my body is slowed down with age. I just can't shed pounds. But I've never really had a weight problem. I've never like, oh, I got to like lose 30 pounds. My metabolism is such where I'm always kind of like a greyhound, like always kind of nervous.

Well, you're always working out as well. But I also have, I'm always kind of like. Doing something. Yeah, and just kind of uptight, kind of nervy. Well, you talked the last time you were about the fact that your parents had you on Ritalin from the time you were a really small boy. Yeah. Do you think that just like wired you in a certain way?

I don't know. But I would need a doctor to tell me. But it's not a subtle drug, especially when you're a little kid. But I try and eat as clean as I can because more energy, less need for sleep and not feeling so bad all the time mentally, like not feeling like I don't want to do anything. With a good diet, I feel better mentally. And like I said before, I've been struggling with trying to feel okay.

I don't even need to feel good. I just want to be neutral. Right. Not just like, ah, okay to be here. That's all I want. Yeah. I'm not asking for much. And good. I found a good diet really, really rocks that where I feel when I do the bad meal, like a depression meal, like tons of carbs for like a day later, I'm just like, oh man, I'm feeling every bite of that. And so I don't want to feel like that. So I'm like, nope, can't do that because it's just not worth it. So what kind of food do you eat? Like what's a typical meal for you? Today I had a salad with some chopped up chicken with a low calorie dressing on it and a cup of coffee.

And tonight I'm going to have a glass of carrot juice with a splash of beet juice and probably a cup of—half a cup of coffee. The other half of the cup I started this morning. That's your dinner? Yeah, I already— So it's basically the salad with the chicken is your whole day. Yeah, I'll eat tomorrow. Wow. I'll be good and hungry tomorrow.

If I'm feeling like I can't sleep, I'm distracted from hunger, I've got some peanuts in my room. And I'll have a handful of peanuts. So you eat very clean. I don't know what that means. You eat very clean by that time. Oh, I thought very clean was like some kind of thing. No, no, no. I try and eat clean because I have found I get great results with it.

Like it is no joke. It totally works. And I, as we do in our line of work I got a lot of stuff coming up a lot of stuff right you know I got a TV show a lot of shows a lot of a couple of speeches I got a teaching a class at UCLA what one day coming up November but teaching they just want me to talk about music and culture. And I just got asked to talk about change at another place. And I have a bunch of shows coming up from here to Kiev, Ukraine.

And there's a lot of marks I got to hit. It's just what I do. And so I'm basically getting ready to walk out of the house until about Christmas and be hitting marks and not screwing up day after day, night after night. And so diet is a lot goes into that prep big time. Well, that, I mean, it makes sense. If you're, if you're demanding that much out of your body, you really don't want your body struggling with shitty nutrition. don't want your body struggling with shitty nutrition. I can't afford it. Like I, I, I, my car can't go off the road. I can't fail. I'm going to be screwing up. Like if I hit that set,

I'm going to be on a TV show soon. I can't not know the lines. I can't be tired. I can't look like I haven't slept. I gotta be a game. Do you take any vitamins or supplements or anything like that? I try and i forget and then they go stale i you know i have the the five lined up uh my friend heidi said okay here here and i got into it and i you know eventually they get put in the cupboard and i and then you look i'm like oh three years ago whoops and so um that's why i do like the carrot and beet juice just so that those kind of vitamins are coming through and i do that like almost every day i do like the carrot and beet juice just so that those kind of vitamins are coming through. And I do that like almost every day. I just like the way it tastes too.

But no, I can't. I've never been able to stick with it. I just forget. Yeah. Have you ever had anything that you like took that gave you great benefits? I never noticed. I never noticed. The only thing I've ever noticed is restorative sleep for just general concentration and well-being.

And the cleaner I eat, the better I feel. Caffeine, I don't know if I get jumped up on it. I can't tell. And so as far as anything I've ever done, working out is an antidepressant. Good diet is an antidepressant and makes me a more efficient wake when I'm awake. Other than that, like I don't, I've never taken codfish oil or whatever and said, wow, my joints feel better.

I've just, maybe I'm just, I'm not aware enough or I'm not expecting it to work. So I have no thing I can hold up and go, this really helped me. Besides physical fitness, getting the work done. Like you want to alleviate anxiety before an audition. Rehearse. Go in prepared.

And then there's nothing to be worried about because you can't wait to show the guy what you got. And so preparation, good diet, and finishing the thing. So you can really clear the deck. Those are the things. Cause for me, my whole life is don't be depressed. I work so hard not to feel bad. A lot of what I do is to not feel really bad.

It's interesting that you've chosen to do this in a non-pharmaceutical way. Like specifically you've like, you've strategies i'm just afraid of it yeah i just don't believe that someone i don't know can come up with the drug that's going to work for my unique little mind and i've seen people on antidepressants i said so how's that working for you like i think i'm losing my mind. I've been doing this for three months and I don't know who I am right now. I'm like, okay, I have that problem anyway, so I don't want any pharmaceuticals to enhance that. I'm just basically afraid. That's a legitimate concern.

Yeah. I think the brain is real fragile and I'm not one of those types who say all medication is bad. I'm not that. I just, anything having to do with the brain, I'd rather just deal with what I got. Right. And use these more kind of on the ground ideas. Like I'll just sweat a lot. I'm going to do a lot of pull-ups. And whenever I do all like a ton of push-ups or like get on the stationary bike or whatever, I do feel better. Yeah.

And when I eat the lean fish salad, you know, the salmon and the spinach, I do feel better. I feel great. Yeah. And that's good enough for me. Yeah. You've got successful strategies. They were working for me. Yeah.

Yeah. Now, when you're, I mean, you do so many different things at this point in your life. Do you have like specific goals that you set out for the year or you where you would like to be a year from now or do you just do things that are really interesting to you and just pursue them with passion and just let the chips fall where they may i do that and i don't have a goal like at at 65 i want to be here i have no idea right where i'll be i'm trying to get ready for 2019. I have no plans yet.

I'm just hoping for a lot of work. I don't have those kind of long range plans. Unfortunately, I'm a short ranged to no ranged person. And a lot of my motivation is vengeance. And I know that revenge and vengeance are synonyms right however the fact that revenge has re in it like you do this i do that right vengeance is just like the difference between aggression and hostility were you aggro no i'm hostile what does that mean wham with the ashtray. That's hostility.

You just hit me. Yes, but I'm not aggressive. I just like watching you bleed. That's so ridiculous. Right. And I'm not saying it makes sense. I know. And so I don't believe in tit for tat. I believe in tit tat.

Watch me just jump up and down and just break it all. But you want to prove yourself. Yes. This is a primary motivation. And so I wake up every day wanting to get back at every teacher, every guy at school, every bad boss, whatever parent irked me. And like every day I out everything you man. And that's why like, hey, it's four in the morning. You want to work?

Yeah. Like I'll work in a snowstorm like, you know, someone I know like they go on vacation. I have a nice vacation. And every day you're getting tan. I'm not quitting. Like it's ridiculous. It's I'm an 11 year old it's infant it's ridiculous so juvenile and it's it's not cool but it i don't fuel in some way i don't spray

paint your house i'm not i'm not flattening your tire i'm just working and when someone goes oh i didn't get up early enough and get how'd you get five of those because i got up at three and i stood outside and i ate this rat tail and i climbed the wall and i got it and i got two of them and um because so you could have none like i'm just i'm so mad and i'm not you know i'm not trying to get somewhere by stepping on you to use you as a ladder rung. You cling to this. This is not something you ever plan on abandoning. It's the corner I come fighting out of.

It's my true north. It's like, oh, yeah? All right. Fuck you. Yeah. And it really works. And it's not like I'm not – I would never cheat someone out of something or steal from them. But whoever gets up earlier is going to get it then i just won't sleep tonight my anger will keep me awake what what are you having for dinner this

i mean and that's all i need like you say i can't like then i'll just sit up all night to which because that's all i need but who are these people like when you say you say I can't does anybody really say you can't at this point in time or do you have to manufacture these people oh I totally manufacture are you kidding

oh yeah absolutely so you have these people in your head Henry you're a loser oh I'm a loser oh what the fuck are you yeah yeah

like yeah yeah and this doesn't mean I'm walking over to hit somebody no no no I'm not looking to get beat up I'm walking over to hit somebody. No, no, no. I'm not looking to get beat up.

I'm just— Motivating yourself. Yeah. And I don't have a bunch of—I don't have an entourage. I'm just—all I got is me. So I get the pom-poms out. Go, go! Push them back.

Push them back. All I got is me. I'm up in my office, you know, like at 4 in the morning just like okay I'm on Australian jetlag I'm gonna make it work I've been up since 1 30 I'm gonna work for 16 hours and I do why cuz I'm mad at it do I need to write another book probably not must I yes I must I must put that into the world and so you create these people that are telling you you can't do it. The world tells me I can't. The world.

And I make money. I never count it. The accountant does. I just, we talk a few times a year. You just make sure it's coming in. I just say, am I doing anything horribly wrong? And she'll say, well, from your receipts, it doesn't look like you eat very much, but you sure seem to like records. Are you eating those?

But past that, I just book book it put me in there like uh here's five shows can i have five more so i don't really count i i want to do well i want to pay my bills and i don't want to lose my house i want to keep eating and filling the car with gasoline and going to the grocery store. But I'm not just trying to, hey, I got a lot of money. I can hang around. I got some money and excuse me, I really got to go. We still drive that boring car. The Mazda 6? Yeah. Still keeps getting me from A to B.

Yeah, super boring, but damn does it keep starting up. Yeah. Got me here. I love Japanese cars. I got it because Heidi said, you're getting this car. The other car I had, they took from me. They? The powers that be.

I was the voice of Infinity Car for about five years. And they give you a new car every year. And that's a good car. Wow. Nice. That's a great car. I had one of those big Q trucks. Those Q whatever they are. They're great. Yep. And it's the car car. Wow. Nice. That's a great car. I had one of those big Q trucks, those Q whatever they are.

They're great. Yep. And it's the car of the future. And when the contract finally came to an end, they said, okay, we'll come and get the car. This is a perfect example, Joe. We'll come and get the car in 30 days. I went, no. Come and get it tomorrow morning.

Screw you. Screw your car. And I said to Heidi, because she's the brains, I said, I need a new car. She goes, you're getting a Mazda 6. It's going to be blue, and I'm picking the interior. Get in my car. Why didn't you just get an Infiniti? You're driving them forever.

They paid you. They didn't want me anymore. Wow. I mean, all good things come to an end. Wow, double fingers. You don't want me anymore? And we went to the we went to the lot and two hours later i parked the mazda 6 next to the infinity that got taken while i was on the set of a tv show

the next morning and i drove my new car to the set and i kind of shit compared to the infinity though isn't it it's a different kind of ride. It makes you very humble because you floor it and the nine gerbils go, come on, we're working. And the sunflower seeds fall out and every other car passes you and you're like, oh, I'm coming. And yeah, you get used to a nice ride. But it's, and that was that, she said, you know what, we'll take a couple of days off. I'll go, no, new car right now. But that's my question.

9 a.m. tomorrow morning. You can afford a really nice car. I mean, you work really hard. Yep. Do you take any compensation or do you have any happiness that you derive from buying something? I have a really good stereo. Ridiculous stereo. Yeah, we talked about it last time you're here you're giant speakers yeah but don't you want a car that has a crazy stereo as well nah I just go to Trader

Joe's and auditions and to the Joe Rogan podcast no I live a really utilitarian life like in LA when I'm off the road you don't even wear a watch no I use the phone I use the watch when I travel just so I can just like see the time see the time but when I'm off the road I I use the phone. I use the watch when I travel just so I can just like see the time, see the time. But when I'm off the road, I just use the phone. It's just laziness. I live very utilitarian here because basically I'm just counting down the days before I leave again because a lot of my work happens out in the world. work happens out in the world location, like a film or TV show or just touring or traveling. Last year, Heidi said something funny. She said, you're driving me crazy at the office, like pacing and huffing and puffing like a wild animal. She said, I'm going to book you a trip and you can't know where you're going to the day you leave. I'm just going to get you out of here for 10 days because you're driving me crazy. I will kill you. So I said, book it. And so I said, all I need is the right electrical plug and the basic temperature range. So I know how to pack. She gave it to me and I picked the

itinerary up, got in the car to go to the airport. This nice lady takes me to the airport. She goes, where are we going today, hon? I said, let's see where the boss is sending me. I said, I'm going to Lima, Peru. And so I was in Lima and Cusco for a week working on my book manuscript and walking the streets up in the Peruvian Andes up in Cusco. And so a lot of my life happens out in the world. So when I'm here, I'm just editing and prepping to get out of here. And so a car, low maintenance. Clothes, low maintenance. Inconspicuous. Yeah.

Not drawing any attention to yourself. I try not to have anything on the shirt. I'd love to have a Listen to Black Sabbath t-shirt on. I'd wear that one every day. I love that shirt. But I'm always trying to slip through crowds and just head down in just blank clothes. You have a very interesting philosophy. And like I said, your work ethic and your philosophy, it's very inspiring because it makes me want to work more.

It really does. When I talk to you and I listen to you talk. I think you get plenty done, sir. I know I do. But that's one of the reasons why I do is because I get inspired by people like yourself. Me too. I get inspired by you and other people. I love getting inspired. I live a fairly solitary life, but I have a lot of heroes. I'm a fan of

bands and people. I dig presidents and other people in other countries. I go to see bands play and they don't know, but I have all their records. I have the bootlegs i'm uber fan of so many people like a fraction my age um because i need that i need to be pumped up by other people and it works you put on someone's record you're like yeah man that's great well he's 19 what does he know plays a guitar better than oliver i mean like well what are you talking about yeah and so it can come in all kinds of ways i meet people amazing people when I travel. So I need that. And the only thing good about me, in my opinion, is what I do. Like, don't be my friend. I'm no good. I'll help you move your house. I'll help you move or paint your house. But I don't want to come to Thanksgiving dinner. I really don't. But if you're in trouble, I'll drive from here to Ohio to get you out of the trouble. I'm so happy to bail you out of a jam.

You just don't want to come over for dinner. I don't want to come over for the holidays. Unless you're William Shatner. Yeah, weird, right? So what's good about me, when people say, I would love to hang out with you. I'm like, no, just, you know, your books are interesting.

Thank you. Let me go write them. That's the only, when I'm on stage or got the books or the radio show I do on KCRW, that's my human greatest hits. The rest of my life, I'm just a nervous wreck trying to get somewhere on time and kick ass. And so I travel for months at a time with road manager Ward, my road manager of many years, a top guy, fantastic guy. There's hours that go by where we don't talk. He's got a life. I have a life.

And we sit on the bus and hours go by and there's no sound. Except the TV, whatever's on. It's fine. But what's good about me is what you see on stage, on the page, when I do my little radio show. The rest of it,

I'm not good friend material, but I will help your ass out of a jam. Like, hey, I'm in Long Beach. Can you come bail me out of jail? It's three in the morning. I'm so ready to do that for you. That's a very unusual quality. I don't know what it is. Why do you find?

I don't know, but that doesn't bug me at all. I'm just happy to kind of be the dog with the bottle of alcohol. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah running up the hill cause I'm so happy to get you out of a jam just hey come and meet the family please don't make me meet your family

how did you meet Joey how did you meet Joey Diaz I think Heidi set that up you'd never met him before i think that was via heidi via you ah yeah i knew who he was and um he's a really lovable guy as soon as i met him i liked him just by seeing him online but when i met him i there's nothing not to like he's so honest he's full full exposure like who who he is you get it in 60 seconds yeah and i think that's why people like him because there's no bs and like you know there's the good the bad of anybody he lets you know who he is in the first five minutes and you can take

or leave it yeah but there's no ambiguity and I really like being around that because you can be yourself because he has shown up being himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's not holding back. That's a really good way of looking at it. You can be yourself because he is being himself. Totally. And he's not going to judge you on that. He's going to be himself but give you also the freedom to be yourself.

Unlimited. Yeah. I mean, we spoke for a while on his podcast, had a great time. And he's one of those guys, if he called me at three in the morning, hey, I'm in trouble. I'm in San Diego. I'm like, hold on. Give me three hours. I mean, I'll help you.

Come and meet the family. Please. It's so specific. Send a Please. It's so specific. Send a card. That's so specific. But I'm just, I don't want to come over. You don't want bullshit small talk. And you've got things to do.

And you're obsessed. But what I'm trying to get across is I'm not mean-spirited. I'm so happy to help. Just a lot awkward. But always ready to help. But I think a little, a lot awkward. Yeah. But always ready to help. But I think that this thing, the thing of that awkwardness is the fuel.

It's like we were talking about, about having imposter syndrome that I don't think it ever goes away. I thought one day it would gonna, it would go away. I'm more comfortable meeting famous people now than I've ever been before, but I still feel full of shit. I think you always will. And everybody that I've ever talked to that's any good, they all say the same thing.

Like they all kind of feel, like no one ever feels like they're anything special. And you always like- If they're any good, they don't. No. And you're always ruthlessly self-critical. And trying to get better. I mean, I've worked with big actors,

big rock stars, and the big rock stars, like one big rock star once, one time said to me, I opened, he said, is there anyone out there? I said,

uh, like 19,000 people. You smell the WD-40. That's how they got the last thousand people in. Are you kidding? He said, I'm always worried

that no one's going to show up. I said, when was that ever been your problem? He said, well, never, but who is this?

Ozzy. Jesus Christ! Yeah, who's just one of my favorite people. He's another guy. Is there anyone out there? He's honest. How many people? Hey, is there anyone out there, man?

And I said, are you kidding? We're like in some Floridian megadun. I was like, there won't be anyone out there, man. No, no, no, no, no,adon and he goes out there and the place goes nuts the show is great of course and I said you worry about people don't show I get really depressed man okay and you know I did the beacon theater once many years ago in New York, beautiful room. I was, I was a few days later, I was at MTV doing something with like Matt Pinfield or somebody. I was living in New York and I'm leaving and the courtesy lady, she said, Hey, George Carlin is in the green room and he wants to meet you.

I went, wait a minute. Dumb question. The George Carlin? Because I've been listening to that guy since I was in eighth grade. Class clown and occupation fool actually came out for me to go to the record store. They were not nice price records. They were what was on. That's how old I am.

Memorized him by eighth grade, of course. And I said, George Carlin wants to meet me. Okay, walk in and there's George Carlin. He's there to promote his next HBO thing. And he's going to do like, like multiple nights at the beacon theater place. I would never sell out. He's going to do a month there,

whatever. And he said, Hey, I'm, I said, Mr. Carl is, I'm George.

I'm like, wow. He said, Oh, you did a book signing the other night at tower records. I said, yeah, he goes,

Oh man, it was so cool. I was in line for like half an hour. And finally I got so cold. I Tower Records. I said, yeah. He goes, oh, man, it was so cool. I was in line for like half an hour. And finally, I got so cold, I went home. I said, you waited in line to meet me? He's like, yeah. I'm like, why don't you just walk in? Like, oh, I can't do that, man.

Wow. And he said, so you just were at the Beacon? I said, yeah, it was amazing. He said, did they get the jokes? I said, uh-oh, because that's not really what I do. I said, I'm sorry. What do you mean? He goes like, can you get to the audience from that stage? I said, it's actually a pretty big place. It's a lot of feet before the first row. I said, yeah. I said, you're George Carlin. I think you're going to do okay. But he was sincerely wondering like,

is it going to be okay in there i'm like are you kidding you were handcuffed with lenny bruce in the back of a cop car and you're asking me if it's gonna be okay was he handcuffed yeah it's in that great book um it's in that great book uh ladies and gentlemen lenny bruce ah i got that book it's a great read that's a read and a half i read it like 22 years ago it was fantastic yeah I think I read it that long ago too I forgot about George Carlin there was a time when as you know

the first amendment was not being used in Lenny Bruce's life towards the end of his life and that was his every stand up thing he did was about the law towards the end and he was doing a show one night George Carlin was there underage and George said something and they were waiting. They pounced on him.

And then they went through the crowd, ID, ID, ID. Oh, come here, youngster. And they handcuffed them together. So I said, and that's how you met Lenny Bruce, right? He said, no, I had met him before. But he said, we were literally one pair of handcuffs together, just like the book. But I thought, that's not how we met. I said, so how did you guys meet he said lenny bruce was very sympathetic to young comics so what we would do

is like he said give me your best five minutes and he would critique us wow i said is he trying to take your material no no no he just he said like okay leave that part out that part sucks do more of that and that first part put it last you would like help and he said he was great with all the young comics. He said, like, give me your stuff. Okay.

Here's how you redo it. Make it better. I said, so you had known him before. He said, yeah. I said, cause you know,

Lenny Bruce to me is a real, again, a hero and inspiration fought back. And, um, I, I walked out of there into like, you know,

the freezing, you know, New York to take the N or the R back down to the East Village. But the fact that here's this guy. The point I'm making is Stone Cold Pro, anywhere where I sell out half the tickets, he does 20 nights there. You'll never get out of that shadow. And even he is saying, hey, I have a question. And even he is saying, hey, I have a question. Yeah.

And here's what I've found with all of your big actors and big, the ones I've worked with. They are obedient to the muse. They work for the art. They are so subservient to the job. It's not about, hey, I'm rich. I'm popular. It's like, damn it. I got to make this script come to life.

Right, right. And they fear it like someone on their first job. And there might have been a middle period, like in the 70s, they had their idiot phase for three years and they kind of went sideways. But man, the big actors I've worked with are just so like, okay, this take is everything. And it's a good lesson. You're like, okay, never lose that. Yeah, because that's what you have when you're young and you're coming up and you're starting to show promise. Yep.

And somewhere along the line, it seems like some people get into this mindset that they deserve it. Yeah. And when they deserve it, it's a terrible thing that happens to comedians. There's something that happens to comedians when they can't relate to people anymore and they stop being relevant. to people anymore and they stopped being relevant. And by George waiting in line to see you outside in the cold shows that he never really got to that place, that bad place. And he was probably the most prolific standup of all time. He never stopped.

He would do a fresh HBO hour every year, every year. He would just sit down and he would write it all. He would write it all out and then he would just kind of fine tune it sort of like you were saying you do and they would fine tune it and performance after performance and then put it on hbo and then start work on the next one and then just crank them out yeah i was told by someone who had him at his venue in northern california he just sits in front of the mirror before the show and does the whole show at hyper speed in a low voice wow i just i did that on a tv show once me and the actors it was one of the actors ideas okay everyone in my trailer and we did the whole show at hyper speed in a low voice standing in a

huddle it was really cool because we were just like in each other's face going on right it's funny and we just kind of did it like this like crazy mumbling fest for like 20 minutes. And we're like, okay, okay, we got it. And we went out there and did it. It was like live in front of a TV audience.

And it was like, I'd never done that before. He was really cool. And apparently that's how George preps. Wow. Fascinating. I don't know anybody else who does that. Most people don't even look at themselves.

They don't stand in front of a mirror they just i don't look at myself but i do one thing that actually works i pace and i i uh i quote lincoln speeches what as a centering exercise really yeah especially his speech from uh like january 19th 1838 give me some it's famous speech. He said, when he was talking about will America ever be taken over by anywhere else? And he said, no, the only way America is going to fall is from within. So he said, should we fear some transatlantic giant to cross the ocean and crush us in a blow? Never. All the country, Asia, Europe, and Africa, with their war chests combined, Asia, Europe, and Africa with their war chests combined,

with the treasures of the world are unaccepted. And Bonaparte as a commander could not, in a trial of a thousand years, so much as take a sip from the Ohio River or lay a tread on the Blue Ridge Mountains. If suicide, if destruction be our lot, we must either live through all time or die by suicide and i just take chunks of that speech because it's so he's like 28 29 years of age he's so eloquent a sentence of lincoln is worth 10 of anyone else's it's all online for free but go to the it's called the speech to the young men's lyceum or the perpetuation of our government institutions and it's like 3200 words and it's it'll be the best thing you read this week and how does it work as a centering exercise i don't know i just get in the lincoln framework where words matter to him he's a lawyer and a

politician so he's a double bastard um i was in the vault of the lincoln museum in springfield a few years ago they let me in and they uh pull out one of his beaver skin top hats and they won't let me touch it. Of course, I didn't try, but the guy with the gloves pulls it out. He said, do you notice an indentation on the right side of the brim? I said, yeah. He goes, what do you think that is? I said, let me guess. There's one on top and two underneath. And I looked and there was, I said, that's him doffing his cap, his hat, over and over again until it wears out the beaver skin. And he said, yeah. How do you think he wore it out?

I said, he's a politician and a lawyer. So he's trying to get everyone's vote and win. So he's like, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning. So I have an office, and I'm running for office. And he said, yeah, that's probably it. That's funny. They used to use beaver skin to line their hats yeah well it was the outside of it and it's those famous hats you saw them in but the lincoln

museum they have one in the vault and literally he wore out the hide wow um but i use lincoln and amendments from the constitution um the 14th is uh this is it's in like four parts or five parts. It's the top parts for we, the people, the rest is legalese. And I'll do that or the Fourth Amendment, the privacy one, that's a great one. It's not completely in the front of my brain pan, but I carry a copy of the Constitution with me whenever I travel and I open it like people open the Bible and I'll just pick an amendment and read it. Really? Yeah. And I have one of those, the Constitution for Idiot books where like lawyers write about, here's when it was brought into law, here's why, here's what it means in layman terms. And it's never not interesting to read. The Constitution's great.

It is fascinating. We think this is an experiment, self-government that these people from 300 years ago put together they kind of are gods to me in that they couldn't see the future maybe they couldn't see the ar-15 but jefferson and company definitely saw how easily corruptible humans are yeah you give them a little bit of power we can get a little crazy and american democracy is really all about the checks you're like you're you're you're a badass but you're not a badass as congress congress is going to check we're seeing that with trump i mean with trump we're essentially seeing the reason why all

these checks and balances are put in place in the first place yeah because guys like him yeah because we a president comes from we the people it can be you or me potentially and i think the framers really saw that like it should be from the people so we got to put this person in checks because he might be a failed businessman bad reality show actor who doesn't understand i have to read 1500 pages of stuff this weekend and have five lawyers advise me no golf or fun for me i'm the president and a lot of presidents do understand before they go in like boy this job's going to be boring and a lot of people are going to be mad and in my lifetime we finally have a president who really is from the people who says uh he looks at like you know here's eight folders of stuff to read like i don't think so give me the cliff notes yeah like i'll play it from the hip

like no i'm gonna watch fox and friends you tell me what i need to know and you know it's not for me to sit and rip on the guy because he's not here to defend himself but never in my life have i ever watched an american president thought to myself I could have done better in that situation. And there's presidents I've had nothing but disagreement with, but they were way better for the job than I ever could be. I look at this guy and go like, man, you just got played. And there's something when I knew I was going to be talking to you, there's a thing I was thinking about. When I knew I was going to be talking to you, there's a thing I was thinking about. Because I heard you speak many years ago about these politicians are gangster.

You said like, okay, what that guy did, that's gangsta. And what this guy just did, straight up gangsta. It was during the Bush administration. You were just, I think it was like Halliburton, all these people, the Cheney world. And you're like, that's a gangster move. That's a gangster move. I'm like, I can't disagree with anything he just said. And on that kind of level, I think what I never hear is that Donald Trump is a guy who gets consistently played, rolled, got rolled by his wife, a woman I have nothing against, but she comes from a really tough part of the world,

Slovenia. That's just a rough patch of real estate. She's smart and she's tough and she got out. Got to America. Well, he's not much on looks, but it's a way in from the storm. So he got played by his wife. He got played by Paul Manafort. He got played by Kim Jong-un. He got played like Jimi Hendrix at Monterey, that particular Stratocaster by Vladimir Putin, and gets played like Rachmaninoff every single day. Anyone he does high stakes business with or negotiations, he gets played. Played. And Manafort just used him to try and, you know, get out of debt. And all these other people, they just roll all over him. And unfortunately, his hubris is such.

He's like, ha ha. Like, no, dude, you just got blown out. And like everyone around you is playing you. Well, he probably doesn't feel that way with Manafort because Manafort's on trial and he's not yet. Right. But Manafort played him. Because Manafort really does play in that world of oligarchs and millions of dollars and laundering money. If he wrote a book, I was telling someone the other day, I said, of all these people, he should write the book because it would be a page turner if he told the truth would get him killed he'd touch the wrong doorknob right and he'd get the poison because like putin can't have him telling what he knows he's a a man he probably will go to prison watch him have some kind of strange accident

like he was liquefied in the shower something about the water um because he knows a lot and there's a lot of people who can pay a lot of money to keep his mouth shut yeah well you know what's fascinating to me is that over the last year or two especially from the the fox crew you're seeing vladimir putin admired yep It's very strange. I never thought we would see that. I was watching something a couple of years ago, about a year ago. And I was like, some guy, well, he's a good Christian man and he believes in family. I'm like, he's the butcher of Chechnya. Let's flash back to the 1960s.

I'm a young boy on the weekend visit with my father. To the right of my father is a wall. There's nothing to the right of my I'm a young boy on the weekend visit with my father. To the right of my father is a wall. There's nothing to the right of my father, just nothing. And if he's still with us, he'd be in his 90s and hard as a rock, just like nothing. He's a bar of hickory. Anyway, he's an economist. He's a numbers guy and a PhD, real smart. I'm coming home to my mom's apartment from the Saturday, Sunday visit with dad. We're in the Washington DC area. I'm a little boy, five years old, somewhere around there, very small, economist and communist. I don't know what either of them are, arguably to a five-year-old, kind of sounds the same. I'm in the big Buick station wagon

to my father's right. We're pulling up to mom's apartment. Henry, dad, are you a communist? I don't think my father's facial expression changed. His right hand came off the wheel and his back hand collided with my head it was just like I hear the word communist a boy gets smacked and it was without hatred or violence it was like national security like whack he didn't even know he did it it was like a sneeze like kapow and it hurts so much my head went numb and it was not even the pain it was like the shock of a your dad whacking you with you had no idea what you did and all i could do was hyperventilate and he opened the door and he let me out he didn't say a word he didn't tell you that there's a difference

between a communist and an economist no sir so sir. So I left the college until I was like 33. What the fuck? You know what I mean? Because it's so destabilizing. Like your dad just walloped you and I get out of the elevator, I go into the apartment and I'm like, but I did that until I was like, you know,

until two years ago. It was totally and she said, honey, what happened? I said, I asked dad if he was a comic she's like okay so the point i'm making is this there's a bunch of people who voted for trump where you say russia they say bunch of sons of bitches trust him as far as you can throw your car are you kidding and when i see staunch conservative Republicans going, well, that Putin guy, I'm like, are you kidding? People like my dad's heads are exploding. He's an old Cold War guy. We would watch Boris and Natasha, whatever that cartoon was.

Yeah, Bullwinkle. Yeah, as a kid. I'm laughing because the guy was, ah! My dad's laughing on a whole other level because it's Cold War funnies. It was written for the parents. The kids get the cartoon. The parents got the jokes. That was for adults with their kids on Saturday. You watch them later on.

You're like, oh, this is Cold War humor. I wouldn't have known. That's my dad's world. You say Russia. He'd probably hate my guts because I've been there six times for shows. And they take the Trans-Siberian Express. And so this warming up to a guy who is a true bad guy. He's scary.

There's bodies buried because of him. He's one of the scariest guys on the planet. And capably violent and will have you taken out. I mean, like Anna Politkovskaya, one of the greatest journalists of our time. She was critical of Putin and she got assassinated in her apartment building. Her books are great. Her books from Chechnya are amazing. And like he was, she was critical of him and she had to go. And when you see our president cozying up to this guy, I just want to go, bro, let's talk. Let's take a walk in the garden for 20

minutes. You can't be friends with this guy. My theory is there's some kind of finances where he's got to stick up for him. I don't think it's a tape of people urinating on anyone. I think it's just money. That would be too cliche. Too interesting. It's a money thing. It's a hotel deal. It's money sitting in Cyprus. It's something. But the fact that we're becoming okay with this guy, that is the part that bugs me the most. And why people in Congress or a guy like Sean Hannity, who probably likes communists as much as my dad, even me, I don't trust people like that at all. Putin is a criminal. Should be in jail for a million, billion years. And the fact like, hey, he's a...

He's a strong leader. He's a human being. We can talk. He's an ex-KGB guy. And there's no such thing as an ex-KGB guy. Right, yeah. They're KGB for life. Yeah, for life. And there's no such thing as an ex-KGB guy. Right. Yeah. They're KGB for life.

Yeah, for life. And he's a supreme operative. And what he does is he rolls people like you, dude. And like, God, you are a guppy. He's a shark. Like, no, two guys hanging out. No, one guy getting played and one guy playing someone. I think he admires the fact that Putin's able to run his country the way he does, too.

Yes. And that's why he likes Duterte and Un. And I've been to— That's what he said about Un. He said he's a strong head. He goes— I've been to all those countries. I've been to the Philippines.

I've been to North Korea. They're tough places to live. And, like, you don't want your country looking like those places. You don't want America to be like Russia. The economy is destroyed and there's a lot of people like in the winter time it's really tough how do you think this plays out do you think he goes to jail no no uh because i don't believe in karma uh karma here's my two words that disprove karma dick cheney he's got a new heart and a new heart he has no pulse which is perfect well he's got a pulse now with And a new heart. He has no pulse, which is perfect.

Well, he's got a pulse now with a new heart. Okay. Because I knew he had the machine and then he just heard a whoosh, which is perfect for him. Yeah. It's in the Bible. He may very well live because he looks like he's watching his weight now. He's like looking lean. He might live to be like 105.

And so he'll never go to jail. And like how many millions does he make a year just from his dividends from whatever like who knows what you do with that kind of money I don't know what you do with it and so I don't think he goes to jail I don't think Jared Kushner goes to jail I think at most they leave

like maybe next year and they go like I drained the swamp I did what I came here to do and the fake news media brought me down and all his people buy one of everything he makes forever steak vodka I think it's possible that Donald Trump Jr. goes to jail it's very possible they're talking about perjury charges against him now because his own dad admitted on Twitter yes yeah no I follow all that stuff as you do I just don't think white collar guys go to prison for stuff I just just don't believe it. You know, I just don't believe it.

I want to be proven wrong, but I don't have all the facts. I'm a news watcher. I know nothing. I don't get any classified briefs. So I only know what I read and what I hear. Do you talk about any of this stuff in your stage act? A little bit, but knowing my audience, they're very sharp and they read. They're readers and they don't need me repeating what they know right and so well good for you for that if I make a

point as my dad used to say you want to score hidden where they ain't the baseball idea and so if I can make a point like if I was on stage tonight talking about Trump I would roll out that idea of Trump as a guy who's been played by so many people around him and no one talks about his wife playing him like there's no love in that marriage i don't think she saw a way out came to new york and went that guy yeah gets naked with the toad a few nights a month handful of a handful of proz some Stoli, and a credit card, and a seven-figure expense account. You can take a shower and make it go away. So I think he kind of knows that, you know, she was not like, wow, what a hot guy.

She's like, hey. And, you know, that happens a lot in this town. You'll see the couple, and you're like, okay. Yeah. Right. Well, Harvey Weinstein, before his wife left him. Harvey Weinstein's wife is beautiful. Well, yeah, but you see that a lot in this town where you see the old weird dude with like the eight-year-old girlfriend.

You're like, oh, yeah, that's a setup. That's an agency. That's an agreement. Someone's getting a salary or an implied. There's some kind of quid pro quo. There's a credit card. Sure. There's an expense account.

Or there's just a big fistful of hundreds. And just let me chew on you for the next four weeks. You know what I mean? Or whatever the agreement is. Right. So if I was going to say anything about Donald Trump on stage, it would be, he sucks. And I never talk about any problem on stage. And I learned this from, of all people, President Clinton, because some of his later speeches post-presidency, I'm not a huge fan

of the guy, but he's a good speaker. And he did some speeches in the UK a few years ago, and I happened to be in England when he was there, and I watched him on TV. The last part of his speech, the last 10 minutes was, here's a problem, and here's three solutions. Here's another problem, here's three solutions. We're like, for $60 million, we could put internet through this thing, or we could open this waterway, or we could reconfigure this workforce to upgrade so everyone can get a paycheck. He just had logical ways forward. So what I took from that is, paycheck. He just had logical ways forward. So what I took from that is to my audience, don't propose a problem. Well, he sucks. Thanks. Good night. Don't give him a Gordian knot unless you can go, actually, it's not a Gordian knot. Here's three ways to get out of this burning wreck.

And so like when, when Trump became elected, it was, I was on tour. I was doing a bunch of nights in LA and I said, okay, you have a new president and some of you are depressed. I said, I know. And so gay people are on the endangered species list as if they've never been. Brown people, black people, women people, people with ovaries, these are all on your screwed list. So instead of being coming to press and oh no, let's we get up, we start doing more benefits. Now all your words matter, your actions matter, how you stick up for your LGBT friends really matters now, how you stick up for women, how you stick up for racial equality, equality in the workplace, like how you check yourself when you rule a view with other people, words matter, actions matter more than ever. And so to me, it's an exciting time to show how great you can be because now it's all on the line. The fat is off the land. We're being tested. I love a test. So let's get it on. It's like in your line of work when the guy goes, here we go.

get it on. It's like in your line of work when the guy goes, here we go. That's how I saw it. Like, okay, let's get the money to the ACLU. Let's get some money to Planned Parenthood. Let's get a conversation going about child suicide, intimidation through Facebook. Let's start making things better because this guy is not our ally. Government's not necessarily going to help. At its best, it's inactive. At its worst, it's divisive and predatory. So let's be the antidote by being cool, by not throwing rocks through windows or like getting a guy with a tiki torch and beating him up. Come on. You're never going to convince that guy that he's wrong. So get to the people you agree with and let's start sticking together more and raising more money and get some more interesting people in office. Let's get some young people in office. And I think that's what's happening. Like you're seeing all these young people, like 20s, 30s. Florida. But look what happened. Look at all those kids hitting the streets. Look at all these kids who threw cell phones and selfies and Instagram and Snapchat. They're already ready for primetime.

You see these high school juniors in front of a CNN camera going, hi, I'm 17 years old. This happened to my school. And next year I'm going to vote. And here's what's going to happen. And here's the march I'm starting. Like, oh, that's a future senator. You just that school shooting just birthed a voting demographic. Are you kidding? All those kids are going to vote. All of them. All those kids who marched. There's going to be no millennial apathy with those kids.

They're all going to vote. I kind of have an idea what side they're going to vote with. And if you think you're going to sell those kids on their grandfather's drunken homophobia, racism, and overall bigotry and xenophobia, you're wrong. He never had a passport. I don't need to travel. I don't want to meet some damn Mexican. Trust me, the kid's going to travel. He's going to go to India.

She's going to go to Colombia and meet other people and get a more global sense of the world, a sense of water, food, energy, where it comes from, what happens with money, what happens with mediocrity, the danger of it. So I think we're in for some tough times, but I think they're going to lead to good times. And so if I get political on stage, all I say is like, here's five ways forward. Because the despair part, you're like, you need me to tell you? You watch the news. So don't get down in the mouth start burning more calories and that and that's not my job but i would never weigh in on stage any other way about that stuff because all i would be is obvious and my audience is pretty sharp and they don't need to be told twice outstanding thank you sir well said i couldn't agree more friday night showtime august 10th

henry motherfucking rollins keep talking keep talking pal keep talking pal thank you sir thank you sir i really appreciate it. Thanks. That was great.