The Joe Rogan Experience - #1343 - Penn Jillette

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

Penn Jillette is a magician, actor, musician, inventor, television personality, and best-selling author best known for his work with fellow magician Teller as half of the team Penn & Teller. Check out his podcast called "Penn's Sunday School" available on Spotify.

Here we go. Oh! And we're live. Hello, Ken. Was that quick and that easy? It's that easy, yeah. We didn't say very much interesting before starting. No, we were...

You were just starting and then you just said, shut the fuck up. I said, hold that thought, please. This concept of things getting better. We were talking about war, war being... Because there's a World War II helmet that... Shane Against the Machine is the gentleman's name. He's made me another uh sculpture and he started making sculptures out of uh these world war ii helmets with a lamp underneath it and

an actual real world war ii bayonet as well and you were saying war is a terrible idea yeah and it's going away you think really yeah real really fast and you you mentioned pinker yeah and that's you know everything i will say is redundant to Pinker. I mean, that Better Angels of Our Nature is one of, I think, the most subversive books of our time. You know, people are, there's such a, it's a fetish to suffer. It's a fetish to say how bad things are. People are getting really off on it. And when you start saying, you know,

after you say one death by violence is too many and we got to clean up the environment and da, da, da, da, say all that stuff and it's all true, but you can also take a breath and say things are getting better. Yeah. I think we need to recognize that. And the problem is there is, there is violence. There is horrible things. There are horrible things in the world. They still exist. And now they're magnified because of the fact that we have this ability to look at it on your phone anytime you want to look at it on your computer you know it's the same thing it's the same thing i think calories and information are identical you know for millions billion years um the biggest problem every living thing had was too few calories. And then for, what, maybe 75 years, a very small percentage of the animals in the world had this problem of too many calories. And there's nothing that prepares anybody for that. We now have more information in one issue of the New York Times than a 17th century peasant

would have had in their entire life. So we have this glut of information that we're dealing with about as well as we dealt with calories. I talk about this quite often, but the way I describe it is diet and that most people have a poor diet and that most people's diet is not nutritious. And if you have a poor diet that that most people's diet is not nutritious right and if you have a poor diet that's not nutritious your body becomes unhealthy well if you have a poor mental diet yeah and i've discussed how many people do we talk about this with like three

or four people we've been talking about this like taking in information you should almost think of it as a mental diet because if you take in bad information all the time negative information and i will speak for myself but i don't think I'm in any way alone. I often forget where I read stuff. Oh, yeah. So I have to be really careful to not read too much garbage. Yeah. Or it just pops up in my head as, oh, that's real.

Right. You know. So I try to go with news sources that I think are pretty reliable, even if I disagree with them. Like, I try to read the Times, because I know there's a level to how much they're going to lie. We know where the parameters are that they're lying there. We know where they do the spin. And if you just pop around the web at random, you can't tell what kind of information you're getting. But I also want to add to this,

you know, it's exactly the way I feel about drugs. You know, as much as I want to say this is not right for me, information has to be out there and all information, absolutely no gatekeepers. You know, I completely agree. And I think that we're coming very close to a time where technology allows us to understand what's true and what's not true. We're not there yet. us to understand what's true and what's not true. We're not there yet. Yeah.

But I think we're really close to being able to have some sort of an ability to read minds, to decipher information like really clearly. But the problem with reading minds, if we could do it, to ascertain truth, is truth is very different from what someone believes. You know, if you had a perfect lie detector, it would not help you with criminality at all. Because, you know, people that think they're innocent may very well think they're innocent, even if they are not.

Oh, for sure. Yeah, that's a really good point. And, you know, another really good point is memory is very fallible. Oh, yeah. See, I, you know, I got a lot of shit for this. And I talked about it a little bit on my podcast. But, you know, I was in the room with Trump a lot. know i did two tours i did two tours of duty tell me about that

what is that like because i was supposed to do that show and i passed on it yeah i was like i don't want to live in new york for three months or whatever it was yeah it just seemed like uh it's wise either way it was a it was a uhetime television show, so it sold tickets. And that is our job. And that's what we do. And I went on with one idea in my head. You know, Annie Duke, you know, the poker player? She had been on the year before, and I

said, why am I going on? I mean, I know I'm going to sell tickets, and that's just a done deal. But why am I going on? What's my real goal? And she said, go on and show that atheists can be kind. That'll be your only goal for the whole show. Because they're going to jump on you for being an atheist. They'll jump all over you for that.

And just show that you're the one that gets mad the least. Show the one that you're the nicest guy on there and you're the hardcore atheist. And I went, okay, that's a good goal. But then you sit in the room, and I don't know how well you know the president of the United States. I don't want to know him at all. Yeah. But you spend about two or three hours every other day sitting in a room across the table like this, with a table you can't put your hands on. Why can't you put your hands on it?

Because it might mar it. Oh, that's hilarious. It might put a handprint on it. They literally tell you don't put your hands on the table like this. With a table, you can't put your hands on. Why can't you put your hands on it? Because it might mar it. Oh, that's hilarious. It might put a handprint on it. They literally tell you don't put your hands on the table. Don't put your hands on the table. And you have to sit up straight. And the camera, if you're like the team captain, which by the way, they hate it if you call them team captain.

They like to have some sort of business jargon. And you're in a set. And that's the thing that everybody else on the show would say we're going into the boardroom now and i'd say no we're going onto the boardroom set so it wasn't a real boardroom no of course not none of it was a sound stage uh it was you know it was in the trump towers but they've taken over a floor and mbc guts it and puts up this shit and then you get your camera that's your hero camera, that's over your shoulder that's shooting Trump.

So you can't lean into the camera. And they want a little piece of you so you can't lean out of the camera. So then you've got about two hours where you sit up straight and you can't move side to side and you can't put your hands at the table and you listen to someone speak for two hours

that they're going to try to edit out to get three minutes where he sounds okay. Okay? What does he have to say for two hours? He would talk. I mean, things obviously have changed. But he would talk about, I was reading this blog on the internet that said, I didn't sell my property for enough. And I bought it for $3, and I bought it for $3 million and I sold it for $4 million. Isn't that a profit? Isn't that a profit? What do you think?

Isn't that a profit? Yeah, that would be a million dollars profit. Well, they said I sold it for too less, too little. Okay. Who was this? It was somebody on the internet okay so you know he'd be arguing in front of us with perhaps a 18 year old guy on the internet who thought that donald trump should have made more from a real estate deal and this is something he really concentrates on he seems to um still to this day yeah obsessed with what anybody says about him anytime that's so odd and i thought and i want to say this very clearly um i thought he was wonderful at his job you know if you had someone who was actually a business person um on that show it would be the worst show in the world because bill gates would make proper decisions right and there'd be no surprises. You want someone capricious and crazy with no filter.

That's what you want. And that's what we got. So he makes arbitrary decisions that you try. You know, the human brain tries desperately to make those make sense. And that ends up being some kind of entertainment. And so I actually, actually Donald Trump Jr. said to me, you know, of all the people we've had on the show, you seem like the only person who's ever liked my father. He said, you actually seem to like him.

And I said, you know, I have a fascination and a respect and a affection for people who are able to get out of their filters. And I said, some people do that with pure genius, like Bob Dillman. Some people do it with bravery, like Lenny Bruce. Some people do it with drugs, you know, Neil Young perhaps, Jimi Hendrix perhaps. And most people do it with a mixture of stuff. But I said, Thelonious Monk said, the genius is the one who is most like himself. And I said, with some sort of mental problems coupled with greed and a lack of compassion,

your father has somehow found a way to throw off the filters and i will listen to tiny tim talk on tape for hours because i like that little bit of asperger's and all that other stuff i'm not assuming i'm not qualified to right yeah but i'm saying that's possible yeah i can hear him talk forever i can listen to lenny bruce you know, Hal Wilner has those hundreds of hours of him just ranting under his tape. I think I don't like people on drugs that much, but boy, I do. And I listen to Lenny Bruce talk forever. And Donald Trump had the dark side of that. You know, it was almost like when I was hitchhiking around the country and, you know, homeless and shit, and you'd end up at a biker place and, you know, some clubhouse and some guys just holding court and ranting. I've always been

interested in the people who are out on the margins, you know? And what Donald Jr. took as affection, I guess was a bit of affection, but it's also that if you have thrown off some filters, I'll listen to you talk. And so that was that. It was very, very strange. And then I really did spend a lot of time kind of sticking up for Donald Trump saying, yeah, there's interesting stuff there. And yeah, he's crazy and he's venal and um he's empty uh you know really weird stuff that you've never seen before you have never seen someone who has never laughed sincerely and never made a joke never laughed sincerely no he will he will laugh in a bully way you look kind of fat joe really yeah he'll do. But he won't laugh at himself. Oh, no.

And also, but never even a joke. But he says funny things on Twitter. Did you see the thing he did on Twitter the other day where he put a picture of Trump Tower in Greenland and he said, I promise not to do this? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I laughed. That was funny. Just a giant Trump Tower in the middle of Greenland. I never saw it.

I mean, I saw that tweet. But you never saw him in person i also never saw him show any enjoyment or understanding of music and those two things are two things that i connect with people very much on i do too but one of my best friends doug stanhope does not like music oh yeah yeah i know he's like i fucking hate music and teller's father really teller's father didn't like music i mean i don't know and aggressively didn't like music yeah i don't know what that is but i i do know that i don't i don't believe that we see things the same way like i don't think we taste things the same way which is why some people enjoy certain kinds of foods and some people hate those exact same foods things the same way, which is why some people enjoy certain kinds of foods and some people hate those exact same foods.

Some people, music sounds different to people in terms of like what their emotional and psychological makeup is and what it does to them. Some people don't want to have none of it. And that's stand up. When I lost all that weight, I lost over 100 pounds. Congratulations. And I read a lot. And also, more importantly, four years and kept it off.

I read a lot, and also, more importantly, four years and kept it off. But when I was reading about taste, I read this book, and it's awful that I can't bring up the name, but a woman wrote this wonderful book about preferences in food. And she was trying to set up a dichotomy. Let's talk to those people who think there's a natural taste and desire in food, and those that think it's all environment and memory and so on. And you just can't find scientists on the other side. All of our food preferences are habit, and there's nothing else. Habit?

It's just habit. Is that proven? How can they prove that? It seems to be. Lots of studies with young children. Lots of studies with people who they control their diet. But how does it make sense when you have two kids that have radically different tastes and they grew up in the same household and they have essentially very, very similar food experiences? Yeah. Well, I don't know how they tease out that.

I have one daughter who loves spicy food. And she's young. She's nine yeah and i love spicy food and i mean this fucking kid can eat jalapenos she eats habanero sauce she'll like i'll say this one might be a little too hot for you she's like let me try it and she'll like dip her finger and she's like put it on she'll eat chicken with habanero sauce man she's a little savage my other one doesn't want to have nothing to do with it she she thinks everything's too hot like a little bit of pepper she's like oh it's too hot but you know i i found when my uh when i when i changed my diet so radically that my comfort foods changed and my habits changed and what i liked you know a lot of that is because of gut bacteria oh i know

that oh yeah microbiome. Really fascinating stuff. And feeding back to your brain, you know. That was the thing that was so strange. Including your emotions. Yes, very much so. But when I became plant-based, vegan, for health reasons, and I wrote in my book, I wrote a lot of stuff about I am an unethical vegan. I'm not doing this for any sort of lack of animal cruelty, nothing, strictly health.

That's why I'm doing the plants. End of story. And this has happened to a lot of friends of mine who changed that. After whatever it takes, and people are guessing like three months, four months of no animal products. Those little critters eating shit in your guts die that like the meat stuff, and they're not giving that feedback loop. And I just found a real emotional change where all of a sudden I went, I don't want to be part of that, of the suffering.

It was really strange how that changed. And it really felt to me, I so want to, you know, hardcore atheist, as you know, and I don't believe in a mind-body separation at all. at all and yet i seem to believe that when i was 350 pounds that um none of that affected my emotion and then i lost all this weight and found there were so many changes in me that seemed to be intellectual and emotional and actually i had a lot of evidence were physical well there's a lot of people me up on the mind body separation it should fuck you up because a lot of people make these assumptions that you know you are not your body and a lot of very intelligent people the issue working out and they don't want to exercise and they find it like it's a vanity thing it seems egotistical they they don't they don't like it and so they

put it in this category of kind of knucklehead dumb things to do but your body and your mind are all in the same house it's all the same thing yeah if your house is filled with shit it doesn't help and it was so amazing how i i mean i completely believed that yeah and yet i wasn't living that. I was like thinking that I was living this, you know, 2,000-year-old idea of little homunculus who's kind of living inside me, who's this pure pen, and then the body is just the vehicle that's driving around it. And that's just not true. Well, if I could help you with that, I think knowing you as long as I've known you, you're

an intense thinker, and your mind is something you, I mean, you as long as I've known you, you're an intense thinker and your mind is something you, I mean, you cherish your thoughts and you embrace them and you're a very intelligent guy. And I think you just probably rejected the idea that there was anything outside of the mind that had any influence on you. Yeah, we also talked about this. I was also, you know, I was the biggest guy to ever go through my school. So my small high school in Western Massachusetts, you know, so I was 6'7", and they wanted me at the center of the basketball team. They wanted all this stuff.

And those kinds of people and that kind of culture, you know, I wanted to listen to music, I wanted to read, and I set up this, you guys who are physical, I don't like you. I'm on a different team. And my dislike of competitions and teams became a team thing. That's the thing you always get stuck in. The dislike of teams becomes your team. And I'm trying so hard now to think I have two choices, one or 7 billion. And there's

no teams between that. I can either be myself or I can be one of all humanity. Or I won't even say 7 billion. Let's say 108 billion, the number of people who have lived in history. Those are the people I can be. It's why I'm trying to not, and this is impossible to do, by the way. I'm talking about how I'm, I'm explaining to you how I'm driving myself crazy. I'm not giving you real information. I'm trying to not think ever of us and them, but I'm trying to say those of us who voted for Trump, those of us who believe this. So it's always us because man, i am so fucking sick of teams and i even look back and go you know

i love the velvet underground i hated the fucking eagles and that was a fucking team and that was manipulated and forced upon you know i mean i wanted to be the kind of guy that went from you know zappa to the Velvet Underground to Bob Dylan. That was all okay. And the Eagles and the Doobie Brothers, they were not what I listened to. I'm just trying to let that go. Yeah, you wanted to be one of the cool kids. Yeah, exactly.

And whenever you want that, you've got to say, well, you're one of the cool kids. That's the 108 billion who've lived on this planet. Yeah, that's a great way to look at things. I wish people taught that in school, the dangers of being involved in teams. Because we get involved in teams in terms of like, you know, you're playing basketball or whatever. But teams in terms of like what I believe versus what you believe. And I think we're experiencing that politically right now with the most polarizing time in my lifetime that I've ever experienced. And worldwide.

Yes. Worldwide. I mean, it is not an American thing. Right. And it's just insane. And I also know, that's why I said, you know, I try to go with the Velvet Underground and the Eagles because that's where I can really see where I'm wrong. Yeah. You know, that I'm wrong.

How do you deny victim of love? That's a great goddamn song, man. Okay. Once Joe Walsh got in the mix, the Eagles changed. That's what people have to recognize. I was in the middle of the China Sea with Joe Walsh through a series of odd coincidences. Wow. Well, just last year, we got this gig.

Paul Allen, who's one of the Microsoft guys. Sure, sure. Well well he's a great guy right and he heard great things about he books us to be on a cruise uh to do a show for his friends he's got like 200 friends and he's bought this fucking cruise ship he's rented this fucking cruise ship thrown off all the chefs and everything bring on his own people and they're going to go from um from kobe to shanghai and he wants the entertainment to be jay leno penn and teller and ringo star whoa okay that's what it's going to be on the china sea on a cruise boat for like 200 people and he books it and as i said to my friend piff the magic dragon i said do you know how much it costs to shut down Penn & Teller in Vegas and

fly us all to fucking Japan to be on a cruise ship to do a fucking Penn & Teller show and then come back? Do you have any idea how much that costs? And Piff said, no. And I said, me neither, but it must be a lot. You got to talk to my managers or something because that must have been a shit ton of money. So he books this whole thing and then Paul Allen dies, right? Dies. So, you know, Glenn, who you met out there, the long-suffering Glenn, our manager, he calls up after a few days and says, really sorry for your loss and we'll trade in the tickets

and get you the money back and we can probably rebook weeks, so it's not going to cost you anything. I'm so sorry. No, no, no. We're still doing it. And Glenn goes, the person that booked us is dead. We're still doing this gig? And they go, yeah, yeah. We went, okay.

And I said to Glenn, you know, now that we can work for dead people, our career is going to take off, you know, because that opens up the market, right? Right. So, it turns out that his friends, you know, Paul Allen's friends were people like Joe Walsh and Billy Gibbons and all these food scientists and all these great people. So, there I am in the middle of the China Sea with Joe Walsh on stage just at three in the morning playing piano for like 15 people and singing Desperado and those kinds of things and talking to Joe Walsh and stuff and going, now, why exactly was I on a different team from Joe Walsh? Why exactly was I on the Lou Reed team instead of the Joe Walsh team? Maybe it was the big Lebowski influence.

Maybe it was that. But it's just trying to be more and more inclusive is just a really difficult thing to do. It is. Whether it's the jocks and the music guys or all that stuff. Just everybody be everybody. You become a prisoner of those thoughts and those those things you espouse like when you start saying fuck the eagles like you're stuck you're stuck with fuck the eagles and then when you start to realize that you know when the

clash was hitting in the u.s there were people sitting around a boardroom going how do we get 20 year old assholes to buy this shit right you, it was all being done and laid out, and that's fine. That's their job, and that's great, and God bless them, but I've got to be aware that they're doing that. Yeah. I know. When you think about someone selling Sex Pistols merchandise, you're just like, oh. Well, there's Sex Pistols slot machines.

Sorry. There's Sex Pistols slot machines. When I was first in the hard rock, you know, and there's a big sign. The only notes that really count are the ones that come in wads, and that's over the door of a casino that you're walking in. And then there's a Sid Vicious slot machine, and you go, okay, okay, so this is, you know, satire's dead. We can no longer do satire.

That's over. Well, it's hard to do satire today. It's done. Well, I never liked it. I never do satire that's over well it's hard to do satire it's done oh i never liked it i never liked really hard because there's so many people that are serious that are more ridiculous than satire there's a guy who i don't know his real name but his twitter name is tatiana mcgrath and he plays like the most woke person in all of twitter and i retweet his stuff or her stuff the pseudonym all all the time.

And people get furious. They're like, oh, my God, is this fucking person serious? Like, this is bullshit. And I'm like, it's a parody. And they're like, oh, okay. And they go, okay, I get it. I'm like, it's that close. It's that close to being a real person.

But not close. We've already crossed over. Oh, yeah. Absolutely, there's no way to tell. No, there's no way to tell with woke people, with the woke young. There's no way to tell with anything. With far righties. Oh, yeah. Absolutely, there's no way to tell. No, there's no way to tell with woke people, with the woke young. There's no way to tell with anything. With far righties, well, yeah. Anything, anything.

There's no way to tell with any of us. Things are so polarizing. But I never, ever, ever liked satire. I never, ever liked parody. Even when I was reading- The Onion? National Lampoon. The Onion.

Yeah, okay. Shut up. I'm wrong. How about that? Is that a turnaround fast enough for you? The Onion. Yeah. Okay. Shut up. I'm wrong. The Onion. How about that? Is that a turnaround fast enough for you? The Onion is too good. When The Onion did the headline when Steve Jobs died, which said, a nation mourns the loss of the last person to do what the fuck he was doing.

I went, okay, that's perfect. But you know, I saw that poster you have up. You have up here in your, which one? The Lenny Bruce without tears. Oh, yeah, yeah. And you know, the idea of walking, I mean, I looked, I was whatever I was, 10 or 11 when Lenny Bruce died. But, you know, I didn't ever hear him until after he was dead. And you're younger than me, so even more so for you. But I did not go to college, but I would hitchhike up

to the college that was nearby when I was in high school, which was UMass and all that Amherst college. Because I'm from a little dead factory town north of there. And I remember seeing Lenny Bruce Without Tears. They showed that as a film on the college campus. Wow. I think I'm remembering this right. Like we know our memories are wrong, but I saw the film very early, and it was completely life-changing for me. The idea that stand-up comedy was going to go from what to me was the Smothers Brothers to somebody actually talking from their heart in a way that

made people laugh, but who cared? And of course, then Andy Kaufman turns that entirely inside out. But the idea that that form was created here in the U.S. when you went from being a parky-karkish, Albert Brooks' father doing the Greek dialect and even throw in Amos and Andy and all of those people that did joke, joke, jokes and character stuff. And then all of a sudden, a guy coming out as himself and talking about his real life was just mind-blowing to me. And so the idea that instead of doing parody, being able to get

your laughs stating what you believe. And maybe that means people are laughing at you, and maybe that's okay. It's definitely okay, but I don't think there's anything wrong with any way to do it. I think there's nothing wrong with Abedin Costello. You know what I mean? I was having a talk with Gilbert, you know, Gilbert Gottfried. And we were talking, and he said, you know, in Laurel and Hardy, Stan Laurel was the brains. And in Three Stooges, Moe was the brains. And in the Marx Brothers, Groucho was the brains.

And Abbott and Costello had no brains. You know, that total, you want to talk about the Stooges being anarchy. The Abbott and Costello are just completely off the map. Yeah. Just really. For the time, though, it was groundbreaking. It's hard for us to wrap our head around, as was Cheech and Chong. Cheech and Chong, for the time, was groundbreaking.

I know it has to do with drugs and view. Well, for me, I was on a different team at that time. But I've gone back, and that stuff is good. a different team at that time. But I've gone back and that stuff is good. And of course, but I'm also a liar because I was crazy for fire sign theater and memorizing everything. And Phil Proctor is still a good friend of mine. And that was very much drug based.

I think that comedy is like music in that there's a whole bunch of different ways to do it. And if you were a big fan of Bruce Springsteen and you went to see Bruce Springsteen but Run DMC showed up instead, you'd be furious. You'd be like, what the fuck is this? But obviously people love Run DMC. It's a different way to do a thing.

It's a different way to express yourself. And a way to learn. Yeah. A way to learn when you get when you get pushed out of there but it's it's just uh uh that that whole idea that you've got to um this i mean my life is so heavily affected by drugs even though i had this whole you know i i'm not going to do any drugs why why did you have that decision you know i don't know i don. That's always, and I've talked about this on my podcast forever. How old are you now?

What's that? How old are you now? I'm 64 years old. And you have no experience with drugs other than medication. Medication. Surgery. Sure. I mean, yes.

And I've had deep enough injuries that I have experience with. You just keep getting surgery because you love drugs. Exactly. Perfect. injuries that I have experienced. You just keep getting surgery because you love drugs. Exactly. Well, you know, Trey Parker said that my big flaw was never having been high. We can fix that. Sorry, I don't. So he did fix that. I went in for dental surgery, serious dental surgery, and they fucked up. And the dentist told the nurse what he had given me in terms of painkillers

and she took that as what she was supposed to give me so instantly doubled the dose and i was so fucking high and out of my mind people can die that way yeah and i told my wife through my haze of not knowing who i was called trey parker trey came to vegas and said i want to sit with ben high so he flew in immediately while you were fucked up yeah oh my god how long did it take him to get to you he was he was planning on being there like he came like a day early oh so he got he got there like i was still high and trey said i didn't remember anything and trey said the next day i was right you should be high well there's different kinds of high just like there's different kinds of music and you know i was very i was very i was very close to lou reed and i was a very good friend of mine, and Lou said, speaking on behalf of the people of Earth, which I often do, we don't want to see you.

Hi, motherfucker. Don't do it. So Lou says no. Trey says yes. What does Joe say? Well, Joe, this is interesting because I wanted to talk to you about this because we had a conversation a long time ago about this. And you said, and I'll remember this very clearly. I may paraphrase this, but you said, I think we've learned all there is to know, and I don't need to do it.

Yes, I said that, and I was wrong. Yeah. Yeah, just wrong. I think you should experience psychedelics. Because I think psychedelics are a totally different thing. They don't take you out. Well, we know Sam Harris. Sure.

And Sam Harris is the one who got me meditating. Oh, awesome. Which took him uh years of arguing with me and now it's been three or four years that i have not missed a day not missed a day you uh you have a problem here's one of your problems you're very intelligent you're also very large and you're very articulate and people like to hear you talk so you just can talk and you can take over you could overrun things and you can make an argument that people just go all right okay and they step

back and that's good if you're trying to win an argument but sometimes it's bad to take in ideas and i remember when i had that conversation exactly right thank you when i had that conversation with you i remember saying i'm going to revisit this someday and one day i want to get penn fucked up on mushrooms. That's what I remember thinking. Like, it might be a good thing for, well, the best thing for you would be something that doesn't take very long. Just so you can, like, DMT is the best one because it takes like 15 minutes and it's over. And then your body brings it back to baseline almost immediately.

So you literally travel to another dimension and then you're back. And you don't have to worry about any overdosing because it's an endogenous chemical. Your body knows exactly what to do with it. It's one of the quickest chemicals that your body can break down and bring back to baseline. which is an odd kind of baseline there. I always left the door open for psychedelics. What I disliked the most was wine with dinner. I disliked the most social kind of lubrication. Wine with dinner is amazing. I'm doing this in past tense.

That's where I always was, and I always left open the possibility of some of the more intense stuff. Wine with dinner is a delicious drug. It's one of the rare delicious drugs. I like whiskey, but let's be honest. It tastes like shit. It's weird. You're drinking this stuff. It's like, ah, whoo.

It's got kind of a good flavor but it's like it's harsh you can't drink it like it can't fuck with kool-aid kool-aid tastes way better than whiskey right kool-aid's cheap he doesn't mix it up it tastes delicious it's way better tasting but you know wine has a delicious taste that you can enjoy here's's my problem, one of my many problems. We'll detail more than one. Okay. But I have no skill at moderation. I'm 64 years old, and I've never been able to do anything with moderation.

So I think if you told me, we're going to do acid for the rest of our lives every single day, you could make that argument. The idea for me that's hard, like I said, when I said I was meditated, I haven't missed a day. Maybe you should microdose. Yeah, maybe. We could give you a little right now, just a little spray.

You do microdosing sprays. I think I'll do it now. I want to think about it a little bit before. Although it would be pretty boss. Tell me when. I'll open the box. You got the box right there. I got a box right here.

So how often do you... Oh, I was going to answer that question. I have a zillion answers to why I've never done drugs, and none of them are, of course, true, because we don't have access to that stuff that we really do. But my parents and my whole family in back generations, teetotalers. So there was never alcohol in the house ever. I never saw my parents take a drink. When it was on TV, it was a totally different thing. It just didn't happen. I didn't, they never preached about it. They never said don't drink. They never said don't do drugs.

It just never was in the house. And that statistically has a huge effect on people. And then the first people I fell madly in love with, you know, Lenny Bruce, Jimi Hendrix, had been, in my mind, killed by drugs. And I kind of said, oh, people that have this kind of personality, when they get into drugs, they sometimes have trouble. And I think that maybe being 19 years old and trying to get into show business, that maybe being the sober one allowed the dumber guy to do a little better. Has everybody else kind of got out of my way? Has they ever fucked up some of the time? I could get other stuff done.

And then that starts reinforcing. That may no longer be valid. Well, there are drugs. I mean, I've never done coke. And one of the reasons why i never did coke and i've talked about this many times my friend growing up his cousin used to sell it and i watched his life fall apart they were just doing coke all the time and lost a lot of weight and looked like a vampire it was very strange just hung out in their uh attic apartment it's very really weird and i remember thinking fuck coke it was like like a guy i know got bit by a monster you know and was infected with something yeah the people the people that i've met on coke not pleasant

not good it's not i don't and i think that's also you know one of the accusations against trump that he's on some sort of speed you know which is why he's so inexhaustible you know and also why he has this uh inability to be affected by criticism in terms of like he doesn't there's no self-reflection no shame right no shame no self-reflection and that's something that is a symptom of people that are on speed you know and this is the Adderall generation that we're living in god damn there's so many fucking people that are on Adderall yeah I mean it's so it's so goddamn common you know know, I was having this conversation the other day, and someone was telling me about this guy they know who's really brilliant,

but he won't stop. He's got ADHD, and, you know, he just can't stop, and he won't stop talking, and this and that. I'm waiting. I'm just waiting while this person's talking to me. I go, he's on Adderall. And they go, yeah, he is. It's a medication.

I go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's fucking speed. That guy's on speed, okay? And you can call it a medication. I go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's fucking speed. That guy's on speed, okay? And you can call it a medication because you can buy it at the pharmacy. But that fucking guy's on speed all day long every day. And there is a giant number of people in this country that are medicated and that are on speed all the time. That's that great Andy Warhol quote, which was in the 60s, we thought we were getting to know people, but we were getting to know drugs. You know, there is definitely a personality type that we think is an individual that actually does seem to have a tie in with.

It's fucking Adderall mindset. There's a speed mindset, and it's a go, go, go, get everything done, more, bigger, faster, accumulate shit. I'm the fucking man. I'm the fucking man. Like that's a go, go, go, get everything done, more, bigger, faster, accumulate shit. I'm the fucking man. I'm the fucking man. That's a speed mindset. It's a dangerous mindset. It's a real weird one. And it's not one that laughs at itself.

It's not one that self-deprecates. It's all me, me, me, me, me. I'm the shit. And that's what you get out of Trump. I mean, there's a guy who's a journalist who wrote a story about how he knows the very Duane Reade Pharmacy in Manhattan where Trump was getting diet pills way back in the day where he was supposed to take it for like six weeks. He took it for years.

And this guy is saying, like, this is what you're dealing with. Like, many people have called him the Adderall president. Like, this is – it absolutely could be that he's on something that's that all that we're talking about this whole time is just speed yeah yeah i mean and it gives him the energy to look remember when he was running for president i'm like how the fuck is this guy not tired i get tired if i tour and do stand-up when i do stand-up it's an hour 20 minutes of my own routine that i wrote myself i'm hanging out with friends i do two shows a night and i'm like whoa this motherfucker's touring flying around in jets all over the country

just inexhausted just no fucking script just goes on stage in front of everybody just ranting and raving about china and the economy and build the wall and well all right we're gonna go to ohio and then off to the jet eating kentucky fried chicken and fucking flies into ohio and he does it again i mean who the fuck at 70 has that kind of energy people on speed i don't know if it's true i might be wrong i might be wrong but it seems like it it seems like all the pieces are in place and there was a psychologist who did an analysis of all the various psychological um traits that people who are on amphetamines have. And they compared it to Trump. And like all of them, megalomania, all of the various psychological characteristics,

inability to accept criticism, this thinking that everyone's against them, this delusions of grandeur, all these different things. Well, there was a guy that was on Apprentice who talked about him doing these kind of drugs. It was a news story. But it was like an intern that we weren't going to just kind of fade it away after that. But it's a nutty thing. Tom Arnold claims Donald Trump snorted Adderall on the Apprentice set. Okay, well, I know Tom he's crazy

I love you Tom but I don't know maybe he did but Tom Arnold would say that he snorted Trump snorted coke just to piss Trump off he would say that just because I'm fucking with him I'm getting under his skin maybe he did snort Adderall I don't know I don't know

it doesn't seem like that. It's the kind of thing he would snort. It seemed like he would pretend that it was medicinal. Yeah. He took a pill. I mean, it's kind of medicinal. Here's the thing.

It will allow you to get more things done. You know, we had a guy in here who wrote a book on Hunter Thompson. And, uh, one of the things he was talking about was that he needs Adderall to write. And I was going into it with him because one of the things he was talking about was that he needs Adderall to write. And I was going into it with him because one of the things, a dirty little secret about journalism, is a tremendous amount of journalists are on Adderall.

A tremendous amount. Like an enormous amount. Like one of my friends who's a pretty legit- Do we know how much Adderall is going into the USA? That's a good question. How many Adderall prescriptions were made in 2018? Let's just find that out. But my friend, who's a legit journalist for legit publications, said, you would be stunned. And he goes out adderall under and uh what's the other one um prozac no the other one they do for i guess it for for um attention deficit disorder is another one other than adderall is it all just adderall maybe prozac adderall i know prozac prozac was

they put my neighbor's kid on prozac was fucking horrific seems low uh 16 million adults or prescriptions were filled 16 million adults had prescriptions filled yeah that's low thousand abuse it which seems low also so 16 million yeah what is that like three percent yeah yeah that seems low less than four four percent something like that yeah i don't know. It seems very low. That was last year? 2012 was the last most recent number I can find. I did say 2017, but... That's a million years ago, bro. It's not showing up.

Maybe that was true for 2012. I think it probably was true for 2012. I think we live in a whole new world now. I don't think it's anywhere near 4% or 5%, whatever the fuck the real number is. I bet it's about 10. I bet it's 10% of people in this country are on Adderall, if I had to guess. I bet it's around 30 million.

I bet it's around there. I'm not, yeah, I wouldn't be shocked. I know a bunch of people that are on it, a bunch. And some people tell me they have to take it. That's what my favorite one is. I have to take it. I don't take it. What happens?

You die? You disappear? What happens if you don't take it? It's fucking speed, man. And a lot of the people that take it, don't take what happens you die you disappear what happens if you don't take it it's fucking speed man you know like and a lot of the people that take it they're not healthy otherwise like they're not exercising they're not drinking a lot of water they're not meditating they're not eating healthy foods like what do you why do you need that like what what happens if you get rid all that other stuff like uh cut out the shitty food cut out all the sugar start drinking water no booze let's get you exercising three times a week.

Let me see if you really need that Adderall shit. How many vitamins do you take? Do you take vitamins? Do you eat healthy? Are you drinking fruit juice and vegetable juice? What kind of nutrients are you taking into your system, man? And you're wondering why you don't have any fucking energy? So you're just pouring jet fuel into your tank and lighting the whole fucking thing on fire.

But on the other hand, it's like things get done when you take speed you know what we were talking about hitler the other day that um why wouldn't you be why wouldn't we be we were talking about who was who were talking about was it uh with fahim i don't remember um but we were talking about how hitler um there was a time where hitler had come back from something, and he was supposed to meet Mussolini, and he was physically exhausted. So his doctor injected him with a combination of steroids and liquid cocaine. And he was just fucking filled with energy. He's like, give me another one.

And the guy's like, no, I can't give you another one. He's like, fucking give me another one. And he gave him another one, and then he went to Mussolini and ranted at Mussolini, just fucking talked at him for five five hours and mussolini just never got a word in edgewise and apparently mussolini's plan was to talk to hitler go hey man italy wants to get the fuck out of this we're not really interested in that and hitler's like and just fucking going crazy for five hours sweating like a pig because he was on fucking coke he was on coke and steroids they just pumped him up with it maybe it's best to stay away from some drugs yes okay yes but i mean

it's it's amazing how much productivity gets done because of caffeine right now what is caffeine caffeine is a very mild stimulant in terms of you know and compared to adderall or things along those lines but it is a fucking drug. And it's a drug. There's a goddamn drugstore on every corner. Everyone's buying it. It's in every gas station. Everyone's fueling up.

You got to fuel up early morning. Caffeine. You know, I don't. I drink decaffeinated coffee, which means I drink 5% of what, right? You know, I can drink eight cups of coffee and it makes a quarter cup. Do you just like the taste? I don't like the taste, but I like the social stuff. I like having a hot, bitter thing in front of me.

Why don't you just have tea? I'd have tea too. Yeah. I nervously drink. It's a habit. Like, you know, like some people smoke. I like to have seltzer. I like to have decaf coffee or decaf tea or something like people smoke i like to have seltzer i like to have a

decaf coffee or decaf tea or something yeah i like seltzer too it makes me feel like i'm doing something rather than drinking water you know like i like sparkling water it's water with entertainment i like sparkling water with a little lime oh i got a drink here a nice little drink or you know what you take decaffeinated espresso and and then you pour carbonated water on top of that. And then you've got bitter, bubbly, you're drinking a potion. You want that. You want a potion. A potion makes you feel like an adult.

Yeah, it makes you feel like a grown-up. This isn't Kool-Aid. This is an adult beverage. Exactly. And when you're a non-drinker of alcohol, you have to work very hard to look like you're drinking like an adult. Yeah, so you've never fucked with alcohol at all? No wine? No nothing?

No. Nothing? I mean, okay, I know I'm talking to someone who pays attention. So you can say that there is alcohol in vanilla. There's alcohol in things like that. So you can't say none. But none that I ever... I never went to, searched out.

It feels good sometimes. And never even accidentally. No one ever even, you know, fuck with me on that. Really? Well, that's good. That's surprising. Yeah. That is surprising given the circles you travel in.

I would imagine eventually someone would be like, enough is enough. Get this guy fucked up. This would be funny. Yeah, this would be really funny. Yeah. It seems like someone would have, that would have fit in someone's sense of humor. Some great word. Who knows? this may be the day? No If you if you really want to say the word

We'll open up the box of doom you box it. How often do you do? Psychedelic drug. Yes, I can do it. Not that often a couple times a year Oh, yeah, like I mean we did mushrooms on a podcast a couple months ago, but that was a small dose But uh, the tank is my friend. You know, I tried that. Let's talk about the sensory tank. I have one right here. I have one your size.

You can get in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to one of these places where you pay them X amount of money and you go in. Because my buddy, Tim Jennison, we did a movie called Tim's Vermeer where he painted a Vermeer in his garage. And Tim was really into that. I'll do anything Tim does. I just love Tim. And so I went and, you know, whatever you pay, a few bucks and you go in and float in the tank. And I was so ready. This happens so much in my life. I get so ready for a

major change in my life. The first time I wanted to become a vegan, I went out with a friend. This was like in 1990. And it was a guy I was making fun of vegan, I went out with a friend. This was like in 1990. And there was a guy I was making fun of brutally, ripping him the fuck apart for his stupid eating, you know. And I said, listen, I want to go out with you to a restaurant, just eat vegetables. And I'm not going to interrupt you. I'm not going to make fun of you. You talk to me for three hours about all your Peter Singer stuff, all your ethical vegetarian stuff, and you convert me. That's all I want you to do.

That was the reason I went out. That was the reason I went out with him. And I finished up the whole evening and I went, you know, I really respected your point of view until I understood it. And motherfucker talked me out of doing what I wanted to do. And motherfucker talked me out of doing what I wanted to do. And so I got ready, man, with the isolation tank. I said, this will be good.

He's telling me about this. I'm just going to go there. Sensory deprivation. I'll just let my mind wander. And I went in there, and it was just salty, and I was bumping against walls. Yeah. You need to get used to it. It's like the meditation. Try meditating once.

You're like, I couldn't concentrate. Yeah, meditating once is useless. Yes, yeah. How often do you do the tank? All the time. I used to have one in my house. Well, you're not in it now. No, not all times, but often, I should say.

I used to have one in my house, and now I just have it here. But it's a very valuable tool and you meditate as well yeah i meditate i like to meditate for shows i've been doing a lot more lately um uh but the tank is a great place to meditate as well because it's meditation squared it's meditation without any external stimulation so i can climb in there and do you follow do you follow breathing rules and stuff you would do on normal what kind of meditation do you follow do you follow breathing rules and stuff you would do on normal what kind of meditation do you do when you meditate what i've been doing what i've been doing lately is all i do is concentrate on my breath other things get in there but i just say breathe

in breathe out breathe in breathe out breathe in breathe out and i just concentrate on long slow rhythmic breaths and i get myself into this weird state and you know this will come in oh you got a fucking low front tire you got to you got to get that filled oh this is you need this the your inspection sticker and uh and the bullshit comes in but i just breathe in breathe out force it out force it out and after five or ten minutes of this i can get to a nice state where I can just keep doing it, keep doing it. But in the tank, it's very accentuated because in the tank, I don't have to think about my butt in the seat, my hands on the table. I don't have to think about anything else. I'm just lying there.

What you're experiencing when you're talking about bumping into the walls, that's just a technique thing. When you lie in it, right, you get into the tank. First of all, you need a big tank. You're a giant guy um there's a lot of those little pods those are those are barely big enough for me you know it's for a guy like you you need a large one and you lie down on the tank and then you put your hand on one wall and your hand on the other wall and you let the water still because there's going to be a lot of little ripples when you're floating because you're so buoyant there's a thousand pounds of eps of little ripples when you're floating because you're so buoyant. There's 1,000 pounds of Epsom salts in there, and you're floating. And it's easy to just kind of bounce back and forth.

So you put your hands there until they're steady, and then once the ripples kind of stop, then you slowly bring your hands down. And then when you slowly bring your hands down, you do it really slow so you're not making any ripples, and then lay there. And then you could be in the exact same position for hours and that's that's how it's a technique you just you have to center yourself how long do you do is there two hours is what i like i'll do it i'll do an hour if i'm in a rush and i have um a uh rushing through it is yeah i mean it's not a rush it's just an hour but if i can't spend any more time than an

hour but i have a tape recorder that's voice activated and it's Velcro. And so I can stick it up inside the thing. So if I have an idea, which I do sometimes, sometimes I have this temptation, fuck, I got to get out of here. I got to write this down. I can just say it and the tape recorder will pick it up. Had there been brilliant stuff you said? No, nothing. I've never used it once, but it's there. You haven't gotten out of the tank and had satisfaction. You know that Keith

Richards thing, right? But he went to sleep. Really? He had this sound activated recorder that he got by the side of the bed and his guitar and he went to sleep one night, woke up the next morning, there on the tape recorder, oh, there was some voice activation

in the night he played it it was satisfaction my friend you haven't gotten that yet no i haven't had that yet my friend works at a school in connecticut where his kids go where keith richard's kids go and keith richards will ride on a bike to school with a fucking bandana on and like my friend's like holy shit that's keith richards like he's just kind of hanging around with normal people and he said it freaks you out when you see him you're like what that's fucking keith richards he just hangs out just like you know he's a giant superstar but he drifts into the real world and it just freaks people out yeah it's it's it's it's i mean i only met keith richards in groups Richards in groups of people that wasn't really like bicycling into your – but still, it's so amazing. Surreal.

So surreal. He's an epic human. Yeah, yes. The voice recorder thing is new. That's why I haven't had any – it's a new idea that I have because there's times that I did have to get out. But the solution to this team thing and the separation of America and getting more polarized, that's going to be solved by Joe and the tank at some point. We can count on that? No.

Now that you've got the recorder? I think we're going to solve it ourselves. I think we're going to solve it ourselves through just time. I think as we're getting back to Pinker, we were talking about Pinker earlier, that he gets so much shit for saying that things are better now than ever. It doesn't dismiss horrific acts that take place or terrible things that are going on. And it doesn't say that the battle is over.

Right. No, no, no. I mean, this is one of the things that I would push in my little microcosm, push for so hard in Penn and Teller. Teller and I would have real trouble just crossing a finish line. I would just say to him, you know, Teller, we've done five seasons of bullshit. And it went well. Let's go out, the two of us, have coffee and donuts, and let's just say, wow, we did that. And then push ahead for the next thing.

And I would just, I just think that Pinker is like that with me. Pinker's like saying, you know, human beings, we're doing okay. We're doing okay. We've done some really good things. Now let's get back to work. We're most certainly doing better

than ever before. And I think that's an accumulative thing. It's like, as time goes on. If we don't blow everything to kingdom come, and if we don't destroy the environment, if those two things,

the two enormous ifs two things, the two enormous ifs, we're in very good shape. They are. The thing that blew my mind about Pinker in that book Better Angels, blew my mind, is that there's this line that's been obsessing me with a cracker in teen angst. I don't know what the world may need, but I sure as hell know it starts with me. And that's a wisdom I've laughed at all this shit that I've laughed at.

That turns out to be true for me. Now it just makes me smile and fills me with joy. You know, early part of the 20th century, all these authors and artists and all these guys were saying Hemingway and stuff. We're going to stop war by writing about war and writing about how bad it was. And we're going to give empathy for other people and we'll understand this.

And we're going to really, with our art, make an effort to make humanity better. What a jack-off bullshit thing to do. effort to make humanity better. What a jack-off bullshit thing to do. I mean, can you imagine something more that's just twiddling your dick than saying that, oh, I'm going to do art, I'm going to write, and it's going to change the world. And then Pinker's book says, why is all this stuff getting better so fast? We think it may be art and it may be empathy. And it turns out that all this stuff people were saying about, you know, we can change how people see warfare and how people see one another. And that's what scares me so much about how some people speak of, and I think it's because I don't understand it. Usually when I'm against something, it means I don't understand it.

But when they talk about cultural appropriation, cultural appropriation seems to me to be the greatest thing you can possibly do. To see the world through the eyes of someone who grew up differently than you. To even try to do that. To even try to do that, for even for us to pretend right now to be a white nationalist, even trying to do that seems like it's a really good thing for us. To pretend just to get into their head? a African-American transgender man. If we try to do that, we're writing a piece of art, and we try to see ourselves from that point of view. Not ourselves. See the world from that point of view.

That seems like nothing but healthy. It seems like that takes you out of your identification. Well, I think there's a lot of what we're calling cultural appropriation that is really people trying to tell other people what to do. Because people enjoy telling people they can't do that anymore and getting angry at those people. They enjoy it. They enjoy pushing buttons. People, you give them a rock and a window, they want to throw that rock through the window.

This is a natural part of being a person. And if you see a girl with hoop earrings, like, bitch, take those earrings off. Those are for Latinos or those are for this or those are for that. And the argument is so often not even based historically, like the earring thing. Like, fuck, man. What are you, from Sumer? Like, that's the oldest known hoop earring. Are you from Babylon?

It's also what – I don't know if this is – this is not Pinker. This is Noah Harari who talks about when you're talking about cultural stuff, how far back you're going. Right. I mean, there are no tomatoes in Italy. Right. Sure. Yeah. Tomatoes are not indigenous to Italy.

Pasta came from China. Yeah. And potatoes aren't from Ireland. They don't start there. So you have to keep going back. There was a great – Paul Simon gets so much shit for Graceland, you know, and David Byrne gets so much shit for stuff. And there's this wonderful thing in David Byrne's book, How Music Works, which is a fabulous book. But he doesn't ever address this picking things from other cultures, ever.

picking things from other cultures ever, but he talks very strongly about the African kinds of music and the influences they have from other places, you know, because there is not, there is not a culture other than the whole world, especially not now. You might be able to have made the argument 200 years ago. The thing is though,

that people enjoy cultures. So if that is the case and everything does assimilate and becomes one big gray mass, we're worried that we're going to lose Indian food, right? We're worried that we're going to lose- I have no worry of that at all. No? I have no worry because I think that me loving Sun Ra, even though I'm not African American, and me loving Lenny Bruce, even though I'm not urban and identify as Jewish, I think that loving these kind of cultures should not be based on an accident of birth. The loving thing is one thing.

I think the real fear of cultural appropriations is that people will take on those things as their own. Like, there's a gentleman, i'm trying to remember his name uh he's a famous mexican chef but he's not mexican but he cooks mexican food he cooks it in chicago walt bayless is that his name um something bayless rick bayless rick bayless he this guy has an undeniable passion for mexican cuisine i mean he fucking loves it he has a couple different restaurants where he cooks mexican food and he was getting protested and people were furious at him um because they had just decided at one point if this guy's had like you know a 30 fucking year career of being in love with mexican cuisine and being like a real historian of mexican cuisine

where it comes from the the regions, the ingredients, like where's the best ingredients, where's the best places to cook these things, how they do it, why they did it this way. And, I mean, speaks with incredible passion about this. They were deciding that he's a white guy and he shouldn't be able to do this, shouldn't be able to sell this,

shouldn't be able to, like, you fucking assholes. Like, this is the guy. He's helping everyone recognize the beauty of this much maligned food when you when people think about mexican cuisine he is one of the rare people in western culture that talks about it like it's five-star cuisine so many people talk about oh i love street tacos and fucking i'm a big fan of quesadillas no this guy is talking about the very best mex Mexican cuisine in the world

and trying to interpret that and sell it to people and trying to turn people on to how good this food is. And yet he was taking so much shit. When a person that wasn't born in the accident of birth to be there

falls in love with another culture, I don't see why that isn't more beautiful. Yes. Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. why that isn't more beautiful. Yes. Yeah. That's what I'm looking for. Well, that's Steven Seagal. Yeah. He moved to Japan and became a master. Before he became kind of silly, he was one of the very first guys to ever teach Aikido

in a dojo in Japan that wasn't Japanese. I think he actually was the first. I think he was the first American to ever run a dojo in Japan. actually was the first i think it was the first american to ever run a dojo in japan so now okay getting me on psychedelics is very easy compared to getting me to really dig steven seagal you don't have to dig it i mean i'm not sure i do although i do appreciate his first movie above the law i appreciate uh what he but he likes his prepositions he's a silly fella silly fella for sure but many of us are sure but what he he did do is he learned aikido at a very very high level like undeniably and he was teaching

it in japan he spoke perfect japanese and he was a very rare guy you know now you know became a hollywood guy and movies and who knows what the fuck else. And he became enormous, you know, physically. He got fat and, you know, he's kind of silly now. But at one point in time, that guy was as legit as it gets. Isn't that always true? It's weird. Yeah, it's always true. You know what I want to – I'm going to completely change the subject, if I may.

Sure. You know, I want to talk about when you came on my radio show with Phil Plait about the moon landing. Oh, we talked about the moon landing, yeah. Yeah, but what I think is fascinating about this, about clubs and stuff, you know, is I, you know, and I know I've read here and there that you've gone back on a lot of that and your conspiracy stuff and so on. Yeah. But that's not. But I can explain that too. I don't know what I'm talking about.

You know, this is the thing. I have zero astrophysics education. Zero. I don't know anything about whether or not it's possible to put people on the moon. I do know fuckery. And I do know teams. And I do understand when people are bullshitting people. And I think there's a lot of that with a lot of the NASA stuff.

A lot of the older stuff in particular there was a lot of manipulation of images and putting things online that may not have actually really happened because it was press releases and there's an image of michael collins from like gemini 15 that's a a very clear um image of him uh doing simulation, like in a studio with straps and harnesses. And then someone from NASA or someone put that exact same image, blacked out the background, and used it as a photo of a spacewalk. And it's not real, you know, but they sold it as real. There was some overzealous shit like that, that if you're conspiratorially minded, you might say, ah.

Once you start lying, it's the Area 51 and stuff. We know they lied, like motherfuckers. And that's the problem. But I just wanted to compliment you. And I just also think this is really interesting. So Joe Rogan believes this crazy shit we didn't go to the moon. I know Joe Rogan. We're on a radio show together.

He's a good guy. We did Fear Factor. He believes this shit. Let's have him talk to someone who's real. So I call Phil Plait, who I don't know that well, right? But he's the bad astronomer, and he knows this shit. And I say, I really want you to come on my radio show and just talk to Joe Rogan about Moon Landing. And Phil says, no problem.

We'll just go on there. We'll set them straight. And I go, I just want to warn you, have your ducks in a row because Joe's really good. And he goes, well, Joe's a comic, right? Yeah. And that's your problem because Joe's better at talking than you. Joe knows when the commercials are coming. Joe knows how to make a joke and Joe knows also how to set you up and take you down.

Oh, no, no, no. It'll be no problem. I said, you understand that he's smart. He's a comic, right? Yeah. Not an astrophysicist, but you understand that he's smart and he's also, you are going into his form. We're going to be on radio. This guy has done a lot of radio. This guy's talked to a lot of people. So just have all your facts in line. And then we're sitting there because, you know, you were on the phone.

And Godot, who's on my podcast with me too, sitting across from me, and we're listening. And you come in, and you come in humble and charming and sexy and with perfect timing on everything. And Phil Placetuck's going, I go, oh, man, Joe is wrong, and Joe is going to fucking win and i said i set this up so that um so that uh it will be a it'd be fair my whole thing of doing this the way i billboarded it was i'm just gonna have two guys talk from two points of view i'm not supposed to commit i don't know if you remember but the whole show ends and i go oh by the way we did land on the moon. And just tried to do this final authority thing.

And Phil said afterwards, well, he had a lot. I said, yes! And it's just that idea that you can't, you know, his idea was there's the science team that's right, and then there's this goofy comic. And trying to get Phil Plait to understand that a goofy comic was not a goofy comic. And I believe that the only thing that the SATs truly test is how good you will be as a comedian. That kind of verbal, it was a wonderful thing to listen to. It was wonderful to listen to someone who I believe absolutely was 100% wrong, who was just so skilled and so moral and so thoughtful and so humble.

You had everything going for you that I respect, except you didn't happen to be right. Well, we don't know what happened. We assume that what we see is what happened. We assume that what the scientists tell us was what happened. We assume that what NASA told us is what happened. We assume that what the scientists tell us was what happened. We assume that what NASA told us was what happened. When you say, I know this happened, you're not always correct. Exactly.

Oftentimes correct. I know Kennedy got assassinated in Dallas. I've seen the video. I know he got assassinated in Dallas. I don't know if Lee Harvey Oswald did it. I don't know. I assume he was involved. It seems like he was.

Yeah. Was there other people involved too? I assume there were. And one of the reasons why I assume there were is the magic bullet, the fucking, the guy who got hit with the ricochet under the overpass. But I do want you to know that I made the shot with the man like Kirk O'Connor. Oh yeah, it could be made. Oh, that's horseshit.

Listen, I've talked about that in length. And also the head goes towards that yeah well there's a lot of things there's a lot of things um there's there's a lot of things we could you know go over the kennedy assassination there's a lot of things i'm not on one wait a minute are we gonna are we gonna solve the polarization in america or are we gonna solve the kennedy assassination or are we gonna solve the them. Or you want to do all of them? Yeah. Okay. I just want to know what our goals were. The moon landing is a conspiracy theorist's dream because it's got everything in place.

It's got this incredible technological achievement. It's got these three guys that look incredibly nervous at the post-landing press conference, and they look all sketched out. It's got these guys that don't do interviews afterwards. It's got no one ever lands on the moon again after 1973 or whatever it was. It's got all these technological achievements, but we never get outside of Earth's atmosphere again. We're always inside of Earth's orbit. There's so many beautiful things that conspiracy theorists can grasp a hold of and go see it's bullshit but it doesn't mean it but it doesn't mean it didn't happen there's the van allen

radiation belts there's that we never even sent a chicken into deep space and had to come back alive there's all these things but it doesn't mean it didn't happen and my problem was and this is you know and people said oh you know you've sold out you're a shill now. And like, no, no, no. I'm just being honest now. Whereas before I wasn't being honest with myself and I wasn't being honest about the subject. I do not know whether or not people went to the moon. I was pretending that I knew that people didn't go to the moon. And I was arguing it that way. I was on a team.

I was on team. It's bullshit. We didn't go to the moon. was on a team i was on team it's bullshit we didn't go to the moon and you you really can't do that accurately it can't be done you can say this is what's interesting this is what i find curious this is what's weird in fact there's not a single technological achievement from 1969 that's not cheaper easier and faster to reproduce today except going to the moon. Like, it's one of the rare things in life. Still doesn't mean it didn't happen. Like, Occam's razor is a slippery thing

because there's weird shit that happens. Yeah. And you've got to take that into account. Like, there's no absolutes. There's not one thing that you can say, well, there is a rule, and this rule must be followed, and here's that rule. It doesn't work that way.

The world is made of weird stuff. And I'm also, the the idea there's there's a thing that's changed there was an article in the times about this and you might have even been mentioned in it um there's a uh a playful space of conspiracy theories that it's taken me a long time to understand. My daughter is 14 and she talks about, you know, her father did a show called Bullshit and she talks about how she loves conspiracy theories. And this is from Paul McCartney's Dead to We Didn't Land on the Moon to all those things. But she sees it, which is so hard for me to understand.

She sees it as not impacting reality, but as a playful intellectual exercise. I don't know what's going on, but there's this wonderful article use a cliche, I can't think of a better one, going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy stuff, playing around with the logic that almost feels like a mathematical thing or a pure philosophical thing or angels dancing on the head of a pin thing. the head of a pin thing and uh there's a quality that you have learned um that my daughter has learned indirectly i think from you um through other people doing this of there is a playful space where we discuss how we uh how we share our reality that is happening in the conspiracy theory art form. And the conspiracy theory art form is now seeming to me to be more like rap or rock and roll. It's just a form where you play around with this kind of thing.

And I am so literal-minded. I'm so verbal-minded. You know, Bob Dylan's easy for me. The Stones are hard. You know, Zappa's easy. 20th century classical's easy. But just funk is hard for me. And it's the same kind of thing here. It's really easy for me to say we are doing the old-fashioned scientific inquiry, and this is the way falsifiable.

But there is something happening in our thinking that's really interesting that I had to have my daughter explain to me and the New York Times after I already knew you and watched you do it. Well, you've always been a champion of science and reason, right? And conspiracy theories, for the most part, fly in the face of science and reason. And you don't want to be a buffoon. No one wants to be a fool. But there's a poetic thing happening. But it's tricky. And people don't want to be a fool.

Well, I'm a professional fool. I don't mind being a fool. And being self-deprecating and being a moron is part of being a comic. It's fun. The conspiracy theory world went south for me when I did a television show about it. I did that Joe Rogan questions everything show and I spent six, seven months doing this show and at the end of it, I was like, okay, I get it. This is a bunch of unfuckable white guys.

That's what it really is. That's what I decided. I had a bit about it. bunch of unfuckable white guys that's what it really is that's what i decided i said you know i had a bit about it i said you want to the one thing you don't find when you're looking for big foot black people you're more likely to find big foot than you are black guys looking for big foot it is a bunch of unfuckable white dudes out camping and listen to what did you hear that what is that you know it's like it's nonsense like you're you're wrapped up in this idea that there's a mystery and there's a something there's a thing a quality about human beings where we want to uncover secrets we want to

be the person that finds out the truth because then your miserable shitty fucking life now doesn't matter the fucking aliens are real man they're here and aha the One of the best feelings we can get, probably better than coming, is that feeling of aha. I understand. I've gotten a revelation. And we see this all the time. Detective shows, you know, Sherlock Holmes, you know, nothing to do with police work. Yeah. But there is a feeling that wouldn't it be nice if in this hour i were able to figure something out

because if you want to understand string theory you're not going to do it an hour you're not going to do it ever i don't think those guys understand it even if they teach precisely let's take it easier let's take a candle flame you're never going to understand that right uh studying that forever and there's there's an area where conspiracy theories are exercising the muscles of logic, exercising the muscles of skepticism, playing around with the haiku of if, then, if, then, playing around with what we feel about the government and other people and stuff like that. And you're playing around with all of that in kind of a semi-safe zone. And even watching you just do it here, where you bang out that stuff and say, this is the stuff I question, what's coming out of that poetically, and let's not even talk about whether we went to the moon or not, what's coming out of your style of inquiry on that kind of thing, your style of skepticism, is just fascinating and beautiful.

And I see the conspiracy thing as not so much a breaking down, which I used to see it as, a breaking down of science and reason, but I see it as rather a creation of a new form of poetry. That's weird. I don't know if I agree with you. My daughter just says, you know, I really like conspiracy theories. And I say to her, you know, Paul McCartney is still alive. Right, but you know she's 14 and you're Penn Jillette, so she's rebelling. You understand that, right? You're a parent.

You know what it's like. You may have just told me something really important. Yeah. I was too dirt dumb to realize. That's the whole thing. Here's the thing. It's like Neil Gaiman's daughter coming in um all gothed out and neil saying to her i invented this you can't do this this is not the way you can rebel you can't rebel against me like

this you can't do it with black hair and eye shadow you can't do it but yeah yeah well kids you know they they find their own way and they want to express themselves. You know, they want to exert power over their world. But did you see that article that you were mentioning? No, I did not. I try not to read anything that I mention. Me too. I briefly do oftentimes and I'm like, ah.

I try to never read anything with my name in it because it's not written for us. Right, exactly. And I'll tell you the exact moment that happened to me that was so great. It was in the 80s. We were on Broadway. And the Coen brothers were just starting to do movies. And I was really interested in them.

And I had like an hour free, which when I was doing Stern and Letterman and Saturday Night Live and on Broadway, I never had an hour free. And I was a magazine, like Vanity Fair or something, who cares what the fuck it was, and it said what the Coen brothers are really like, what it's like to work with the Coen brothers. And I said, I never read magazines. I'm going to buy this. I'll learn a little bit about the Coen brothers. I went up to our office. It's like the Brill Building. Lorne Michaels, sit in my office, open it up, what the Coen brothers like, turn to that page. I said, if you want to know what the Coen brothers are like, it's like hanging out with Penn and Teller.

And I went. What? What? What? How is that even real? I closed the magazine, put it aside, and they were going on comparing it. And I went, I have no information on this. None. There's no way I can access it.

And in that moment, I went, oh, wait a minute. When it says Penn Jillette in an article or in a book, there's no way i can understand that maybe others can right you know so when it says in the article um you know when joe rogan does conspiracy stuff you can't understand that it's like mike nesmith said to me the major problem with talking to jimmy hendrix was he never heard jimmy hendrix he never saw jimmy h. He never saw Jimmy Hendricks on stage. He couldn't. And so you are the one person that using Joe Rogan as an example, well, you know, kind of a bro-letariat, kind of a he does this bro culture, this is Joe.

You can't understand that. You have no idea what that means because you're an individual. Well, it's also people are trying to encapsulate you by those brief moments. They might have seen a video or heard you talk about this. But it means something to other people. Sure. It means something. And it also you can easily categorize someone and put them in this box

and now I've defined that. Oh, I know what that is. I've seen one of those before. It's like hanging out with Penn Jillette. Yeah. It's also part of your job. Part of your job, one of the things you've created is you've created something in the culture that means the new york times can say joe rogan and their people reading that know what that means but there's no way joe rogan can know what that no you can pretend right or you

could be like trump and get mad about it you know where the rubber hits the road with conspiracy theories right now jeffrey epstein oh yeah that's where the rubber hits the road with conspiracy theories right now jeffrey epstein oh yeah that's where the rubber hits the road that's where people that are not conspiratorial minded we're like wait what the fuck is going on what all the cameras were bad oh the guy was on suicide watch he tried to commit suicide and then they're like well don't do that again and then he did it like if you talk to people that have been locked up, they take away everything, man. You've been on suicide watch, they fucking take away everything.

And you find this guy's got a broken neck and he hung himself. Like, how? How did he hang himself? Can we see the video footage? Oh, sorry, the cameras are broken. I think hanging yourself is wicked hard. It's not easy. Oh, yeah.

It's not easy. It's not easy when you're in a jail and they take away all your shit. Have you been in jail? No. No, never been in jail. I was only in jail overnight. I mean, if you're on suicide watch, man, they make it hard for you to kill yourself. They watch you.

Is that what suicide watch means? Yes. Okay, good. Thank you. They watch you so you can't kill yourself again. That's the idea. But they watch you every 30 minutes or something? What the fuck was the psychologist thinking that took this guy off suicide watch

literally a couple of weeks after he tried to commit suicide if someone tried to commit suicide you know not speaking as it was a guy who's had friends commit suicide they're fucking thinking about it for years man some of them they go back and forth day to day some of them some of them just do yes some of them just do that but when someone does actively try it they're not going to just be fine while they're in fucking prison awaiting trial for having sex with kids it seems like jeffrey epstein's life was going to get really worse from what it was a few months before could be or other people's lives are going to get really worse because Jeffrey Epstein's now in jail and they're digging deep into his past.

And, well, I only flew with him 26 times. 26 times? It ain't a lot of times to fly with a guy. I don't understand what the big deal is. We flew in a jet. We rode a bus together. He was on the back of my bike. Do you know people that know Jeffrey Epstein?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I do. Me too. And a lot of them, it really was that. Yeah. Talk to him a little bit. There's many people that feel like he was an agent and that he was trying to compromise people.

And that's one of the things about this whole Lolita Island thing is that they would compromise people. thing is that they would compromise people they would compromise people by having a bunch of young girls who are very sexy who are hired to go and flirt and maybe even have sex with people and that these people were young uh these girls were like 17 underage perhaps underage some places perhaps not underage other places but in incredibly embarrassing and you know for for the people an agent compromise for whom? Who knows? I mean, there's a lot of thoughts, but that's one of the things about when he got arrested. Was it the prosecutor or whoever it was that cut him the deal? Literally was quoted as saying, I was told he's above my pay grade and that he was intelligence.

That's the quote. Really? The intelligence thing? Try to find that quote. Yeah, try to find that quote. Yes, the guy said, this was when he gave him a lenient sentence many years ago. Was it 2012 or something? No one seems to know how he made his money.

Well, the fucking $70 million penthouse that he had in Manhattan was given to him. Right. Given to him. Yeah. Who the fuck gives someone a $70 million house? Well, I was kind of hoping you would to me. I don't have one. Okay. If I have a bunch of them i would give you one i gotta run you gotta go now i'm just joking i was here to get a 70 million dollar house oh you were told wrong yeah yeah i mean i think the guy it's i think they're look i've talked to people many times that work for intelligence

agencies and there's a lot of weird shit that they do and one of the things that they do to compromise people is they get them involved in weird stuff that could be very bad for them if it comes out and then they have influence over this person and if you got a guy with a voracious sexual appetite i mean there's a few of those fellas out there and you know hey man you're very proud of that aren't you i'm out of office now i'm just fucking hanging out having a good time with jeffrey and we're just flying around i mean come on man it's it's it's highly likely one of the guys that i know that knew him was also a freak like a sexual freak and i'm like okay i

think i think i see a pattern here this it's very likely that that's what was going on. This guy was compromising people and probably absolutely a sex addict himself. And I believe all the women that say all the horrible things that he did to them and hired them for things and had underage girls do sexual things with him. It's probably true. It's probably true. He's probably a fucked up, twisted dude. But many people that are involved, in good things get compromised like there's many people that work for the cia that were legitimate cia operatives who wound up selling drugs this there's a lot of this happens people go sideways

people get involved in shady activity that are cops there's cops that wind up doing illegal things they they signed on to be a cop to be a person who's going to serve and protect and be involved in the community and slowly but surely they get compromised and they get involved in illegal activity and the next thing you know, they're corrupt. It happens. It happens to people. Yeah, it does. It certainly happens. And then sometimes people fucking suicide themselves. No big deal. And the people that I know that knew him, it was – they weren't even aware of the seedy stuff going on so and of course that's

going to be true too well he was that would be a hundred percent he was also a champion of science yeah i mean big champion yeah and he but that's the thing about people they can be really good sure some ways and horrible in other ways this idea that people are binary or one or a zero is nonsense yeah there's really good people that do terrible things there's really terrible people that also do good things you know like look fucking trump just passed something and no one wants to give him credit for this stuff what's the kidney stuff he did he did wonderful stuff for kidney transplant stuff i'm sure he pushed through well i was going to say that he absolved all the student loans for

disabled veterans. Fantastic. I love it. You don't hear a word about it. A word of praise. Look, we should absolve student loans for fucking everyone. We're crippling kids. We're crippling the 17, 18-year-old kids who sign up for these fucking loans and they get

compromised to the point where we have people to this day right now that are getting their Social Security money. Their Social Security money is getting docked because they owe student loans they're at the end of the fucking road but what do you do what do you do uh and this is a real question this is not rhetorical what do you do about the feeling of fairness the people that work their way through college waiting tables that's a good question working really hard and then they uh do we just say their feelings which i think is valid which is yeah yeah you got fucked on this but let's help someone else out what about the compassion here's because you know um uh there are people that

worked really hard to not have student loans yes and there are people that took them um there has to be somebody who took them frivolously 100 i think quite a few and i think it's also we also should pay attention to the human mind and the development of the human mind the frontal cortex i mean the frontal lobe does not develop properly until you're 25 years old right right so somewhere somewhere in that plus or minus four years it's definitely not 17 it's definitely not 18 so you're taking on these fucking loans you you you can't be trusted with money or your future or thinking about what the fuck you're doing in terms of like taking on a debt of hundreds of thousands don't we have to and this also ties in um uh with with with sexual

stuff as well don't we have to decide when someone's adult and then give them that respect? Yes. Don't we have to say, you're 18 years old, we can't control what decisions you make? Yes. And when is that year going to be? Because I think 25 is too old. I think 25 is too old as well. But I think what we're saying is, I mean, look, there's a lot of 18-year-old people

that make very good moral decisions. Yes. And we should praise that here's the problem with the student loan thing in terms of the that's the only loans that you never get exonerated from you can get bankruptcy right and you can get exonerated you can you could escape the loans of credit cards the debt of mortgages you could escape a bad business collapsing and owing millions and whatever you could escape that through bankruptcy you cannot do that with student loans it's a corrupt system you take a child who's trying to learn a trade or trying to learn a profession and you acquire insane debt that's going to track you and cripple you for the rest

of your life. And no matter what happens to you, you owe that money. But also you're taking your colleges out of the free market too, by giving those, by giving those loans easily. Yes. And by having government help. Yes. You're also, you're also taking away the free market yes because you know we found out that when you put the free market in like lasik surgery when insurance doesn't cover it it gets wicked cheap you know and if colleges had to be paid as people went without easy loans to get and if colleges did not get government money they might be wicked cheaper i think they would be cheaper really really expensive i think crazy yes crazy expensive i think the real solution is in treating education like a thing that's going to make our society better and and think of it as

the same way we think about the fire department the same way you think about police don't you think that i mean when you read the paper there's always one whole thing about colleges getting too expensive and people can't go yeah and then you turn 20 pages later in the paper and there's an article about how online learning is going to happen is happening and all this stuff is going to happen do you think that that idea of college is going to hold up for another 10 years? I think there's an experience that people have where they go away. I did, but I went to college in my town. I went to UMass Boston.

And I really only went because I didn't want to be a loser. It was really all it was. I was doing martial arts and fighting and traveling all over the world, or all over the country rather, and thinking about doing stand-up at the time as well and then transitioning to doing stand-up while i was also still taking classes i was learning nothing it was a complete waste of time i was only doing it so i could say yeah taking classes at umass boston barely paying attention barely showing up and um it was just a thing that i didn't want to tell people that I wasn't going to college. Like that was the

number one reason why I did it. But I, but that was, I had a unique life from the time I was, you know, graduating from high school to the time I started doing standup, I was obsessed with martial arts and competing. And that's all I wanted to do was make the Olympic team for Taekwondo. That's what, that was my goal. And that's what I was trying to do. So I wasn't a normal person. I wasn't like, I wasn't going to go to Ohio and fucking travel over there and take a full course load and not be able to pursue what I wanted. What I wanted to do was – And also you've got a window, I think. Athletically, yes.

Athletically that's fairly small. There was no scholarships for Taekwondo. It didn't exist. And the only other option was the army. scholarships for taekwondo it doesn't it didn't exist and the only other option was the army there was a dude i think his name is clay barbara's just really talented guy was a fighter who was on the u.s team at one point in time i think and he was uh competing through the army like they they had subsidized his training somehow or another and i was thinking maybe i should join the army like that was the other the only other thing that I was thinking about doing. But for people,

I think there's a thing about getting away from your parents, getting away from them, getting away from their influence, being wild and crazy and be with a bunch of other kids and trying to find yourself. And I think that comes from traveling to a place and going to college. And I think there's, there's some benefit in that. I have friends that have had great benefit in that sort of transformative experience of being on a campus, a physical campus in a place that's outside of their hometown, where it gives them this new experience where they get to try to reinvent themselves. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. People do that.

Being able to be someone else. Yeah. But I wonder if all of that, why are we giving that a four-year period? Why isn't that our whole lives? It could be and should be. And isn't that the way that's going to change? Because people aren't having jobs for their whole life anymore. And by the way, the liberal arts education was never supposed to teach people a trade. It was always

supposed to make it so that young men could talk at parties. That was the idea. We could have the same cultural thing. We can talk about Shakespeare. We can talk about shakespeare we can talk about this we can talk about that but none of this was meant to give people jobs well it's so rigid right you get out of high school high school is this torturous affair where you're being a square peg they're trying to shove into a round hole then you get out and then they fly off to wherever the fuck you're going to go to school and you go there and you're forced with this overbearing workload of school and and then social things you're trying to figure out what's okay and what's not okay now where's the safe space and well am i what am i am i allowed to say this and am i allowed to say that and what

are the new rules now for this new generation or are we really going to change the world and then all of a sudden you're out in the world and you realize that fucking money that you spent or that loan that you got is not getting you a job and you're fucked and you can't get a job and you're also massively in debt and severely depressed and trying to figure out your future. And then you go on Adderall. And then you're like, I get it. We're setting people up. We're setting people up for a horrible failure.

I am with Bernie Sanders in that I think education should be free. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think you Bernie Sanders in that I think education should be free. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think you should earn it. I think you should have to earn it. How about if education is really cheap, like everything else is getting cheaper? I mean, TVs are really cheap. I think we could pay for it with taxes. Why is education more expensive?

I think we could pay for it with taxes. Or the individuals could pay for it. Maybe the individuals could, if it made sense. I mean, if you want to learn something now, we know this very well. If you want to learn anything now, you can get it for free on the web. You definitely can. You definitely can. Many things other than physical things.

There's a lot of physical things that you need to be taught by a coach. I think there's a lot of things you can learn online. And even the physical things, you can get a big chunk of it from online. I mean, let's, let's talk about all that matters. Okay. Let's talk about juggling. You know, I grew up as a juggler when you were doing the taekwondo, I was juggling all the time. That's all I did. And that was my whole life was juggling. And what happened was with the internet juggling got tremendously better because people could watch videos of things they knew were possible and get better. If juggling could get better, physics certainly can. It seems like you can take a course at any college online and if you sincerely want to learn, you know, I don't know if we need to have this.

What is the term called when the Amish take their one year of rumple still skin i don't think we need a nationally tax subsidized rum spring for every person in the country i don't think what it is right yeah you go to college well you just described yeah. Yeah. You do the da-da-da-da-da. It seems like live your fucking life. There isn't this four-year magic period or this two-year magic period. And go out and learn the stuff you want to learn. I mean, you know, we both have children, and they'll be talking about going to college. And, of course, my – not of course, but my wife will push very hard for college. And my thinking is anything they want to learn, they can just learn it.

By the way, this was also true with just the libraries in local towns. It's just more true now. It's even easier now. I can't imagine growing up where my son can type in Lenny Bruce and it all just pops up. I mean, that was amazing. You have to go to a record store. Order it. Order it.

Yeah, yeah, order it. Because they didn't. Gribben's Music Store in Greenfield, Massachusetts did not have the Carnegie Hall concert right there in the stacks. I had to order. Frank Zappa, on back of one of his records, mentions Lenny Bruce, and he's on Sgt. Pepper. I guess I should learn about him. Lenny, write that down. That's how I learned about Terrence McKenna.

I learned about Terrence McKenna from listening to a Bill Hicks record. Yeah, yeah. I was like, who's this McKenna, and what's a heroic dose? And Frank Zappa, one of his records, I forget which it is, I think it's Freak Out, but it might be absolutely free, says on the back, do not listen to this song until you've read Franz Kafka in the penal colony. I got the record, opened it up. It said that. I listened to one side, got to that song, got on my bike, rode down to the Greenfield Public Library. Kafka, I got this written down,ka in the penal colony sat there read it

went back listen to the record my entire education starts with mike nesmith of the monkeys who said listen to zappa listen to hendrix from zappa to lenny bruce from lenny bruce to the whole world and i believe that uh that is available to everybody all the time. I mean, I don't know as I would say taxpayers should pay for college. I think I would say, do we need college? Isn't that fading away? I think there's a real benefit to being in a classroom with a brilliant professor. Yeah, yeah. I think there is. But we're also seeing with TED Talks, which I know are jive, but there is a longing there.

You say you know they're jive? I mean, there can be a lot of jive TED Talks. There's some jive TED Talks. Yeah. Yeah. But what I'm saying is I went to one of the first TED conferences and got to hear all these credible people speaking. It was mind-blowing. And I wasn't college age.

I was, you know, I was whatever. I was 45 or something, 40. And it was an amazing experience. Jonas Salk, you know, I sat and listened to Jonas Salk talk. I've been in a room with brilliant people speaking, and it's really, really great. But I think we can deliver that cheaper and that's the side of bernie sanders i want to talk about it's not can we give endless

amounts of money these fucking people on college campuses can we pay them all the money in the world to take our children and give them something to do in between smoke and dope could we rather just say can't we make this experience cheap enough so that anybody can go and experience it? Why isn't it possible for you, for a few bucks, to go and be in a room with a brilliant person? I think that would be a thing that would be beneficial to almost anybody at any point in time, instead of the rigid structure of like, you know, you have to get all this work done by x amount of time that's the other thing that happens to kids too they're they're taught about having no sleep and about beating your body up and about cramming and about getting all this work done in a short period of

time they're really we're really preparing them for a horrible job and all this shit that doesn't work you know all that weird that weird kind of hazing shit that we do for medical professionals you're going to work for 48 hours but the fuck it never works it's terrible for the patient it's bad for everybody yeah you know so my and you just made the argument about the frontal cortex and you're not really ready till you're 25 and one of the huge advantages I had in my life was a shitty, shitty education, horrible education. You know, I went to a bad, bad, bad public school that had an influx of hippies from UMass that came in and experimented on us. So we had no education whatsoever. I graduated from high school on a plea bargain.

I had very good SATs, so I had scholarships to wherever I wanted to go, but I chose not to because I misunderstood Bob Dillon. I didn't know he was lying, so I went and hopped trains and hitchhiked around and lived homeless for a couple of years. And I never read Moby Dick until I was 45. Thank you. If I'd read Moby Dick when I was supposed to at college age i wouldn't have gotten it but i was able to get it at the right age and now it's my favorite book because i was ready for it you know uh there's so many things that are on the curriculum that are very very important maybe not that day i think there's also an issue with people not thinking of education in terms of that it's a lifetime pursuit. It's not something that you graduate from college and then you're done.

We really should be educating ourselves throughout life. Sure. And not just accidentally or incidentally by experiences. We should do it because there's things that we pursue that are interesting. Yes. And now is one of the greatest times ever to do that because of audio books. You can do it while you're in the car. You can do it while you're on the train.

You can get educated. And you can also – they're doing this weird connecting thing where – I've not experimented with this, but I'd love to – where people take courses online and then find people who are also taking courses online in their communities and then meet it like a fucking Starbucks to discuss what happened before in the class, which is mind-blowing that that can happen. So you can take, you know, one of my huge – I mean, one of the things I wanted to do is I wanted to learn to play jazz. I wanted to learn to play upright bass. I took that up at 45, and I learned to play upright bebop bass passively. A huge accomplishment. And now I really want to learn a language. So I was looking at it a little bit because I figured maybe there's a government watch list I'm not on.

So I should learn Arabic. That was my thing. Because don't you think that ticks all the boxes? That's going to give me everything if I just learn Arabic. That was my thing. Because don't you think that ticks all the boxes? That's going to give me everything if I just learn Arabic? So I started looking into how I can learn Arabic. And it's amazing the kind of network that's developing all over the world to be able to learn anything. So my argument with you on the Bernie thing of paying for everybody's college is I think we can get college so fucking cheap you can go to college your whole life. Well, I don't think that's a bad idea, you know, if it's possible to get college that

cheap, but I don't want professors to be poor. I mean, I think one of the real problems we have with public education is that people don't want to be a teacher because teachers don't get paid much sure but there's a there's a way there's a i would say that's government intervention that's doing that i would say if you government intervention is keeping the salary low i think so really i really think so because i think that we're not having enough of the competition and stuff there. I mean, you know, you would pay good money to be in a room with Steven Pinker, you know? Yeah, sure. And I think that locally, this was always a problem that I never figured out.

You know, when I was in Greenfield, Massachusetts, a town of 20,000, I would say to all the other, by other high school students, I would say, you know, if we didn't give our money to the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and Dylan and all these other bands, we could pull our money together and have a really good local band. We could have a great band right here in town, you know? And I think that if you thought of education that way can't we get in our little area really great teachers who can teach this stuff it might be pretty boss well it would be amazing if we could spread education right through any any method whatever we could do we could encourage people to be more educated but i think that one of the best ways to do it really is just look there's a lot of podcasts that are educating people.

There's a lot of information that you can get that's entertaining. But what we're getting is there's more information available now than ever before. I think it's very different than what college is traditionally. College is a thing where you go and it's a rite of passage. And we don't have those in this world. And I think we could do with them. I think we could do with these r think we could do with these rights of particularly for young men i don't know maybe it's a case for young women obviously i never was one but when you're a young man there's this transitionary

period where you're a boy and then all of a sudden am i a man yet like when am i a man certainly a lot of a lot of cultures and religions have done that. Well, getting out and getting that certificate and getting your diploma, holy shit, I graduated from fucking university. I'm a man now. I'm a grown up. I have a degree. I'm a woman now. I have a degree. I'm an adult.

And you're obviously, you know, I'm seeing this, you know, it's okay to speak with an accent. It's not okay to hear with one. I'm seeing this, you know, it's okay to speak with an accent. It's not okay to hear with one. I'm hearing that from someone who spent an awful lot of time explaining to myself and others why I didn't go to college. You know, you wanted to show you weren't a loser. I didn't have that. I didn't say, I went to Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey, greatest show on earth, clown college. You know what I mean?

If you want to make sure you don't get respect, that's where you go. Well, I'd say I talk about it just because I want people to really know where my head was at. I don't want to like glorify where I was when I was in college. I went without any rite of passage at all. Right. You know, and the closest I had to a rite of passage was earning my living, which was huge. You were also, you were on a different pursuit. Like your pursuit was the carny pursuit.

You enjoyed that. I mean, there was like a, you had a lust for it. Yeah. You know, and it obviously worked out well. It did okay. Listen, do you really have to bail it too? Because it is two o'clock. Around now, yeah.

Okay. All right. What are you doing? You just hanging out? No i'm gonna go uh do you watch this show uh perpetual grace limited no i never heard of it okay what is it um uh did you watch the show patriot nope okay um best shows i have seen are they fiction on television yes okay yes not the patriot not mel gibson but a show called what's it on uh patriot is on uh amazon prime remember there used to be like 20 shows yeah and you knew all of them now there's millions it's impossible uh so i am going to uh meet and

talk to the guy who created all all of things. Oh, okay. Cool. There it is. Perpetual Grace. Yeah, Perpetual Grace. There it is right there. Oh, okay. I know that dude. What's that dude's name? That's Ben Kingsley.

That's right. And then that's Jimmy Simpson. And that guy to the left is Jimmy Simpson? Yeah. That's who that guy is. That guy's great. I never knew who that guy is. Yeah.

He's just always awesome. Yeah. What was he in recently? He was in something really good. Westworld, I think. That's right. Westworld, I think. That's right, Westworld. And Steve Conrad is the guy

who writes, directs, produces, creates these shows. And he happens to be in town, and I'm going to talk to him for my podcast, which is Penn Sunday School. And I'm going to go to another studio and talk to him, and I'd already set up the time, so

that can't be uh changed but i love that amazon's doing all these different shows they're getting into the stand-up comedy world now too yeah crazy yeah huge huge amounts beautiful there's so many places there's so much stuff but there's so many places to put that stuff yeah yeah beautiful and uh wow what a great time we've got to do this more often we got to do this more often this is the first time we've done it how is that possible this podcast is almost 10 years often. This is the first time we've done it. How is that possible? This podcast is almost 10 years old. Yeah.

This is the first time you've been on it. Crazy. And also because people yell at me on Twitter. Go talk to Joe Rogan, you asshole. This is how fast time's going. When I did your radio show, I didn't have a podcast. That was more than 10 years ago. Yeah.

Isn't that fucking crazy? Crazy. Flying. Let's promise to do this once a year. Can we do that? At least. Let's do it. Okay, baby.

Thank you, sir. Thanks a lot, baby. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Bye, everybody.