The Joe Rogan Experience - #1370 - Brian Grazer

Episode Date: October 24, 2019

Brian Grazer is a film and television producer and screenwriter. He co-founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986, with Ron Howard. His new book "Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection" is now available: https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Contact-Power-Personal-Connection/dp/1501147722

All right, here we go. What's up, Brian? How are you? Hey, good. Thanks for being here, man. Appreciate it. Yeah, I'm psyched about it. I'm psyched about having you. Yeah, I'm now adjusting to the sound. Oh, in your ears? Yeah, my ears. And is it muffled? How's it all sounding?

Perfect. Sounds perfect. All right, cool. So we were just talking about your books, and I said, let's save it. Let's save it for the podcast, because I wanted it to sound fresh i want you to reset so tell me about you wrote two books i wrote two books and you know as you know i'm a you know movie writer and a movie and television producer to say it mildly i mean made some fucking amazing movies wow thanks thanks joe my pleasure. Yeah, and in all this, I think, you know, my whole life and whatever those stories are, the movies are, and the successes, I kind of think anyone that's really focused can do what I do.

So that was kind of the end product of the first book, which was, it was called A Curious Mind, The Secret to a Bigger Life. And that book is really about – I mean, how much do you want to know about it? Everything. Whatever you want to tell me. Okay. So basically, I couldn't read at all in elementary school. And it caused a lot of shame and then a lot of trauma. Did you have dyslexia?

I had dyslexia, quite acute dyslexia. And I think we're out in Woodland Hills, which was the fancy part of the valley. I grew up in the flats of Sherman Oaks, actually as a little kid going to Riverside Drive Elementary School and then later to Nobel Junior High and then later Chatsworth High School. And in elementary school, I couldn't read at all and they didn't classify it as dyslexia. It was just you're slow, you're dumb, you – why can't you answer this? And then you'd

say I can't read and then that didn't make sense. It just didn't, none of those things computed really that somebody couldn't actually read a word. And I really couldn't read a word. So when you can't read a word, then you find ways to survive, cope, and not have the teacher look you in the eyes and say, okay, Brian, come to the board and answer this question, because it's just going to produce more shame, because you don't know the answer. It's not possible. So I found that as that went on for quite a while,

around the fourth, fifth, sixth grade, I really looked at people. I really looked them in the eyes to learn. And I found that by looking somebody in the eyes, you could engage. I didn't know this then, but you engage their heart. If you're really doing it with sincerity and interest, you can engage people and move them and evangelize things. Get people to play on your team or you play on their team. They pick you and stuff. Good things happen, except the reading part.

But it enabled me to learn a lot just by looking at people and talking to people. And I had this one mentor, this little grandmother. Her name was Sonia. And little Sonia, she was like 4'10", I guess, you know. And she would always say to me, she'd see me once a week, minimally, always once a week. And she'd say, you're going all the way. You're going to make it big. Think big, be big. And she had all these isms. Because half my mom's side of the family was jewish my dad's side of the family is catholic the jewish side the grandmother was my mentor and the person that really was the single person that i could kind of count on in life and she'd constantly tell me how how

things i'd go great you have a gift for gab she'd say and and every time she said you're gonna go all the way i'm thinking there's like absolutely no empirical evidence I'm going all the way anywhere. Except my parents were always arguing, let's put him back. The teacher, Miss Steg, said, let's put him back. So I just wasn't going anywhere, I didn't think. So that gave rise to me, gave rise to the fact that I thought the way I can really learn a lot is have these kind of curiosity conversations. And once I graduated college, I did this on a weekly basis and I still do it to this day, once a week. Sometimes once every two weeks, but never more than once every two weeks.

I never, I'm pretty militant. I'm extremely militant about it. Like how do you do it? Like what do you mean? Well what I do Is I think about It's often And I know you do

Something possibly similar to this But my system would be I bombard myself with Now I can read of course And I was able to start to read Like in high school Can you tell me how they fixed that? They couldn't fix it.

It wasn't fixable. How do you learn how to – dyslexia reverses words on you, right? Reverses the way you view letters and – Yeah. Well, initially, as a kid, it scrambles the letters. Then when it gets better, it reverses the words. then when it gets better, it reverses the words. And to this day, I still start on the right and go to the left. So it takes like really thoughtful discipline to make sure I'm always starting on the left.

Do you mean with sentences or with words? With the sentences. Really? So you'll start at the right end of the – you should read Hebrew or something, isn't that? Isn't it go right to left? Chinese or something. Yeah, different languages do that it go right to left? Chinese or something. Yeah, different languages do that, right? Yeah, I guess they do.

But incidentally, when you have dyslexia, it's very hard to learn other languages. I would imagine. Very, very hard. But I can read and I bombard myself. So how do you switch it around? Like when your brain is making you read right to left yes um i i started to learn just create like just like an exercise a discipline where i could like in as in college i was able to read i could force myself to start on the left and go to the right is there a certain

mechanism that's causing you to do right to left like do they know what the cause of this is not that i know of not that i know probably something neurological and certainly genetic i mean i have no genetic trace but it has to be a letter within your genome i have to get having to guess so you learned how to read you learned how to figure it out and then you said you you have these conversations at least once every two weeks so how do you do this like what do you you organize them they're structured they're structured they they they're they see there's a randomness to them because often you'd have to i have to it's not like getting on your show where everybody wants to be on the show. I say that with a compliment, of course, but I'm begging people because even though –

Sit down with you. I'm begging them to sit down with me and I'm groveling and I'm calling assistants directly. I still – I have three assistants, but I make all of my own phone calls always. You know why? Because I have this discipline of getting I make all of my own phone calls always. You know why? Because I have this discipline of getting to know assistants and going, hey, it's Brian. Is Richard around? And I just, like, I do that. Well, that's so refreshing from a guy who's as successful as you are.

Because so many times when people get that successful, you insulate yourself with a bunch of other people who do all the calls for you and open all the doors for you and you just kind of you stay insulated and more aloof yeah well thank you thanks well i yeah they people do i mean look there are producers that are sort of that are you know let's say we're in the same category same ilk um that just do it differently. I made a lot of deliberate choices through trial and error. I went through the 80s where power guys had desks above the other chairs that are on the other side. The power guys always had black lacquer furniture. They did all these power things. furniture. They did all these power things. And I thought, I want artists to like me,

relate to me. And I always did everything to create a democratic environment because not that I was such a cool guy, but more like you just get so much more out of a creative person by not intimidating them. And I just saw my peers and often someone maybe a decade ahead of me. I'm so close to saying names, but just those sort of tough guys. And I didn't think that was effective. I just didn't think it was effective. And I wasn't making these really hardcore action movies. I was doing movies that were designed to ignite emotion and feeling. In fact, even when I do public speaking, I say, oh, Brian Graves or whatever they might say.

But I always say I'm in the feelings business. I'm not a movie producer. I'm just in the feelings business. Because I feel like that's what we want out of a cinematic experience for for me sure for the movies i'm interested in doing or tv shows is that so um because i i i grew up loving those movies of the 70s and i'm captivated by things that move me emotionally and elevate me emotionally. So you make these phone calls and you arrange these conversations.

So you arrange basically a podcast that no one's listening to. That's kind of like it. That's exactly. I never thought of it in those words. That is really funny. You should probably record them i so i've done it for say 35 years really and you didn't record any of them the first 15 years nothing i didn't write not really notes either and then the second 10 years that was you know

i'd say 15 was nothing i just did it because I felt like that could inhibit somebody or I felt like I was trying to do these sort of down low in a way. Like I didn't want to commodify them, you know, like industrialize my conversations. Right. And I had friends go like, oh, can we be part of it? And I tried it once with a couple other guys during my thing and it fractionalized our my attention yeah and it it what i found the great thing about the conversations the one-on-one with no one else in the room which that's all i do again i've tried it different ways is it it create your what you're trying to do i'm trying to do is like create the best date that Isaac Asimov ever had.

Or, you know, or I mean, I have so many people, you know, just Margaret Thatcher. I'm trying to like, I'm trying to be, have no idea of time and space. And I want them to have no idea of time and space. And because that is like your best date yeah and i always think like what is my best date with a girl at my very for me brian because i uh my best date is i'm not even thinking about time and it's just becomes almost like a biochemical event it's just things are evolving yeah and i felt like i could do this with noble with many noble laureates with

sheldon glasgow who converted the four forces of nation uh uh of of nature to three and i brought his name up because uh well first of all i knew that your show you could you could do whatever you want and and with sheldon glasgow it's like I usually do an hour or two hours, but I hung out with this guy, shut up my whole day down for six hours. Wow. Just because I was so captivated by him. And he talked about multiple subjects. So basically, I'm always got somebody that I'm really wanting to meet, and it takes a year at least. Or sometimes years.

To organize this to get them to say yes or to be in the same city or be willing to say yes and me fly to new york or some other place it sounds like you have figured out the benefit that i've experienced from having podcasts and having these kind of conversations one-on-one conversations but you did it just for your own personal edification yeah yeah it's it's kind of amazing but it's i i have gotten more out of talking to people like this and it's it made me grow more as a person and made me understand more about communication and how to talk to people than anything i've ever done in my whole life because you don't normally have this completely unfiltered. It's one of the reasons why I like headsets as well because it locks you in.

It's like your volume of you talking is the same level in my ears as it is in your ears. We're all on this one. It's not like there's distance between us. We're in each other's ears, and we're talking. There's no phones. There's no nothing. We're sitting each other's ears. And we're talking. There's no phones. There's no nothing. We're sitting across from each other. How would I ever organize this?

I thought about that with so many different people that I've had a chance to talk to. How would I ever get Sean Carroll, the astrophysicist, to sit down and just talk to me for three hours? You had to captivate him. I would never get him to do that. No. I would never get him to, hey, let's put headphones on and you just tell me about stuff. Like, explain to me about... No one would ever do that.

I agree. But because of this thing called a podcast, because I can share it with all the other people that are listening, I've had this chance to have these kind of conversations. And it sounds like you've done the same thing, but without an audience. Exactly. That's really brilliant. conversations and it sounds like you've done the same thing but without an audience exactly that's really brilliant it's a brilliant way that you figured out that this is a great way to to to expand your own understanding of people by being one-on-one with these brilliant folks yes exactly and and um and maybe you do this too but i, I mean, I do meet a lot of people.

I reach out to meet people that are expert at many different things that I don't do, of course. But sometimes I just, I become really motivated just to meet somebody because they're so uniquely committed to something. Yeah. They're so obsessed. Yes. And I've even found that I've learned a lot from Uber drivers and baristas and stuff where – but I do reach out to meet people that have really had a very intense, committed to a really intense journey and often have triumphed in it yeah it's very

contagious yeah it's the kind of energy that those people exude yeah it is it's uh inspirational too isn't it yeah yeah because like even uh who was it josh you might know this guy josh waitnick yeah okay the guy that was the subject of Searching for Bobby Fischer. Yeah, the chess master. The chess master who now is like a martial artist. Jiu-jitsu martial. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was able to succeed in both templates or formats. Yeah.

Did we say his last name right? Waitkins? Is that it? I thought it was Wait. I don't know. Wait, Nick? He's a student under Marcelo Garcia. Exactly.

Yeah, one of the greatest jiu-Jitsu masters of all time. That's right. He's very proud of that. He should be. He's amazing. Yeah, he's excellent. And Josh is, yeah, weight skin. Oh, weight skin.

You have it right. Thank you very much. I want to get it right. But a brilliant, brilliant guy. He is. And he's amazing on, have you ever heard him on Tim Ferriss' podcast? I did. Excellent.

Yeah. Excellent episode. I think he's done more than one episode, in fact. Yeah. So your experience with him, what were you saying? No, I just thought, like, this guy, he's so committed to excellence. Like, it's just, and it made me, like, as you were just saying, made me think about that as a premise, like just complete commitment to excellence. Yeah.

Because I don't really think of it, you know, these sort of creative puzzles that way. A creative puzzle would be like a movie or a TV show or a documentary. I could go on. But you're – okay. Jay-Z asked me because I knew Jay-Z because he was very obsessed with wanting to do the soundtrack to a movie called American Gangster, which I produced. Great movie. Loved that movie. Did you?

Loved it. Oh, great. Thanks. I liked that one a lot too. Great movie. Love that movie. do it. It's been done. He said, well, look, I feel a kinship to Frank Lucas, who was played by Denzel Washington. He ends up being a drug dealer, like the biggest heroin dealer in America at the time, and head of like his own mafia that he creates. And so anyway, the bottom line is, he feels this kinship to him. He wants to do this. He's very dedicated. I say, it's already done as much as superstar you are and how great you are. And he said, look, I will do a second album.

I don't have to be the primary album that's on the screen. I'll do a second album. And I said, but I only have three weeks. He goes, I will do the whole thing in three weeks. And he did it. And I went and saw him. He did the singing. He did the writing And he did it. Whoa. And I went and saw him. He did the singing. He did the writing.

He did, he engineered it. He did every single thing. So the guy that's the king of hip hop, he goes to work. And I was really blown away because he still,

you know, he has that grit in him. And, and it turned out to be like, for real hip-hop lovers, they really like this album. I guess it was. Everybody loves everything he does, though.

When was the last time Jay-Z put out something that was shit? He doesn't really. Yeah. He's kind of brilliant, actually. He's, yeah. He's a brilliant marketer. He says things that are very insightful. So he wanted to do – after that, we got to know each other, and then he said, hey, I'm going to do – I'm going to do a festival, a festival with 24 – 22 different artists and all different types.

And it's going to be in Love Park, and we're calling it Made in America. Would you produce it? And I said, yeah. And I knew that Ron Howard could get a chance at directing it, and I thought it would be really good for Ron to be around Jay-Z. That's a good thing for him. He's got a good aura and the right one for Ron. And I thought, well, so we joined him.

And I said, what is this about? What's the premise? And he said, it's about democratization of music itself. There's no record stores anymore. And the walls are down. You can get – there's a crossover between hip-hop, trance music and all that stuff. So, and I thought that was kind of cool. And then I said, have you ever seen this movie called, because it didn't have a story, this

concert. And I said, have you ever seen Amadeus? He goes, I've never seen Amadeus. And I said, well, it's about genius. And he asked about it and he goes, that's what the premise of this will be. And he immediately thought, had this idea that it should be every artist, every human being has a little bit of genius in them. And he made it very relatable. And that became the thesis of what this documentary became. And he only had that like a week before we were shooting.

Wow. So it was kind of remarkable. That's pretty remarkable. So you've been doing this for 35 years and you haven't recorded any of these conversations you've had with people? Okay. You're staying. In the last 10 years, I've recorded some. And sometimes I do FaceTimes and they allow me to like uh admiral william mcraven

who i really wanted to meet you know that navy the navy seal that uh uh created seal team six and just recently sort of but doesn't speak out publicly but had a point of view about the president and the whole oval office and stuff like that and stuff like that. And he's a really amazing guy. But I said, can I FaceTime you? Because that was the only way. So if somebody can't meet with me, I now say, would you Skype with me or FaceTime? At the time I started, the tool didn't exist. Right.

So you would fly to them? I'd fly to them. Just to have these conversations. Yeah. That's so amazing that you've had this commitment to do this. I have yeah i do i feel it's a really yeah i mean it's important to my life and um i just it's like a a hobby that you're completely committed to doing and it's it's for me i'm a person that gets better i can get all the time. I'm open every minute of every day for self-improvement. Like if you said, Brian, did you think – if you gave me a note about this experience or something and you said, you know, you'd probably be better if you did it this way.

If I could integrate it or assimilate it, I would then do it. Good for you. That's a beautiful attitude. Well, I know how fallible I am we all yeah all of us if you're human if you think yeah yeah it's just that's part of being us yeah yeah so you embrace that oh yeah too yeah yeah yeah yeah you have to constantly seeking self-improvement yeah yeah. Yeah. The big problem is holding yourself prisoner to the mistakes of the past. Don't do that. And just constantly looking to get better at anything you're trying to do.

Yeah. And I think having these kind of conversations like you're talking about will make you a better, more thoughtful person, too. Yes. Because it gives you a level of communication with human beings that it just it's very rare in this world very rare that you get to sit down across from someone and sometimes i have these conversations with people where there's no one around like you know the back bar at the comedy store we sit down with a buddy and we'll just sit there no one's around just he and i will just shoot the shit for an hour and a half two hours no one around

just talking and like those those are rare moments where you're not distracted where you could just talk about things you have ideas and someone brings something up and you consider it and then you add your own thing and they consider that and then you just go back and forth and you get a better understanding of each other yeah I agree with you I it's amazing that you're able to do it and get away with it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, see, we're both sounds like open-minded to, as long as we're kind of disrupting our comfort zone, I think, and being open-minded to that, you're then being open-minded to like the value of human error. Yes, yes. Oh, yeah, the value of human error. That's a great way of putting it.

error yes yes oh yeah the value of human error that's a great way of putting it because it's sometimes some of the it's not exactly human error but human error for sure but you know it's often the the thing you failed at or the ugly thing that happened that sticks in your head and you're makes a difference in your life makes you better fuel for improvement yeah feel for improvement yeah the feeling that you get when you fail at things is very valuable. Because even though it sucks and it feels terrible, it does force you to sort of recommit and reconsider. First of all, reconsider the consequences for failure. The feeling that you get when things don't go well, which is a terrible feeling. And then it also makes you aware of the commitment that's necessary to not fail to do well

at things yes exactly yeah it's enlightening sure yeah because sometimes you think that's as far as as far even if you feel like you have you've accrued all the facts you've been able sometimes you don't know that there's that going back to josh there's this extra level of excellence that exists there. There's still more room to go and you realize, oh, I could fill in those inches. They can be filled in. Yeah. Well, something like what he did, chess and also jujitsu, there's so many levels to it. It's such a multifaceted discipline. There's so many different possible moves with both activities chess and

jiu-jitsu yeah and jiu-jitsu there's the physical element as well which is a big part of it physical fitness and then also mental conditioning and your ability to stay on task even though your body's physically exhausted and then the discipline to make sure that your body is conditioned so that it doesn't get physically exhausted as quickly or as easily. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's a very intellectual discipline that people don't consider. They think of physical things as being like meathead things or grunt things.

Right. But there's actually a lot of mental stress and strength that's involved in discipline that you need to have in order to get your body into a position, you know, where it can perform like Josh's can on the mats. It's very hard mentally to do that because you have to have all these battles where you want to quit, you want to give up early, you want to take a break, you want to rest, you don't want to go today, but you know you should. You know, all those things must be overcome in order to achieve the level of excellence that he's achieved yeah and probably because you've done this yourself so you know what that feels

like when you use that when you said you don't want to get exhausted or get yeah you that probably takes tremendous amount of focus because you get exhausted when you're nervous right because you your heart beats faster you breathe less air blah blah blah that's when you know in like swim in surfing or something that's when you can choke you know sure yeah yeah uh that's when you run out of air because you're so nervous and you're scrambling around and but it's the guys that are relaxed like you're like outside you have laird Hamilton. He's so trained to be able to be under the water for I don't know how long he can do it. Yeah, he's very, very accustomed to that kind of environment. And it doesn't freak him out.

He goes, okay, there's a very good chance I'm going to get caught in the impact zone. I'm going to be taken under. And he doesn't freak out. If he freaked out, it would be a problem. Yeah, I mean, that's his business. His life and death, yeah. His business is riding the biggest waves. Yeah.

Yeah, you got to be able to keep it together when that water wall comes crashing down at your head. Yeah. So I have to imagine it's a different thing, but in jujitsu or fighting that you've done, which I think you still do jujitsu, correct? Yeah. Those things, those factors, they're just different environments.

You don't necessarily get nervous with jujitsu that much unless you're in a competition. But what you do get is exhausted. It's very physically demanding. Yeah, I bet. You get very, very tired. And you really should. The more conditioned you are physically, like the more strength and conditioning routines you you go through the more your body is in shape the more you can perform it's sort of like racing right with a

race car but you can actually add horsepower to the race car through discipline and you can add better tires and you can add a more supple suspension through thought and and activity really yeah through yoga and and different kinds of training. It's like you're involved in this thing that's a physical thing, but it's also a mental thing. In racing? No, no, no. In what?

In jiu-jitsu. In jiu-jitsu, yes. So like your body is the race car, right? Yes, got it. But through strength and conditioning, you could actually add tires. You can actually add a bigger engine. Yeah, I get it. It could do more.

Yeah, that makes so much sense. Yeah, and through repetitive drills, you actually can hone your neuromuscular system to the point where these grooves are cut. So you know exactly how to turn and how to move when you're moving and you're doing jiu-jitsu and everything sort of goes and flows automatically and that that requires extreme amounts of discipline yeah i bet yeah i bet yeah i'm just imagining it as you say it uh because i don't know that much about jiu-jitsu i've gone to some fight you know some fights that a friend of mine ari emmanuel oh yeah okay owns the ufc the ufc guy yeah so he's a friend of mine, Ari Emanuel. Oh, yeah. Okay. Owns the UFC. The UFC guy, yeah. So he's a really good friend, and my daughter's obsessed with martial arts, jiu-jitsu. She trains.

It's not what she does for a living, but she trains, and she loves the community of people. Yes. She got injured, pretty seriously injured, and then she didn't want to be indulgent but i said look just i'll pay for you to start back early and you can just do one-on-ones which because she didn't want to how'd she injure herself she got like choked off from the back i don't know how that and it um her neck yeah created a stroke in her oh yeah multiple strokes in her brain but it didn't um affect any part of her intellectual capacity but it it was really pretty it was very serious she so she got caught in a rear naked choke yeah that's right yes and the choke gave her multiple strokes i've

never even heard of that before i will will email you exactly what happened to her. Please do. But she got through it. And went back to training again. She goes back to training. She is. Whoa. On my phone, I'll show it to you later.

You would think multiple strokes. I'd be like, all right, that's a wrap. We tried that. She just loves it. And she now, you know, people are a little, she does one-on-ones, so they don't do that move, whatever that move would be. Again, I'll get all the information, and just for your own curiosity, I'll send it to you. But she's back in it. She loves it.

She's fully recovered? She's fully recovered. Did it have any effect on her? She had a little nerve damage, which honestly, she had a little nerve damage that is now in her foot. So periodically, her foot would become completely black and blue. Whoa. I know. But she'll get through it because she's really strong mentally. She wasn't always that way.

But we've – my wife and I have sort of helped her with tough love like you can do it, that kind of a stuff. Sure. Because she's a therapist. She's a – her name is Sage, you know, she's a psycho. Her name is Sage Grazer on the Joe Rogan show. I mean, everyone loves their kids, right? Sure. And so that's what she does.

She's an actual therapist with, you know, like patients. Well, I'm glad to hear that she recovered from that. I've never heard of anybody having a stroke from that before. That must be terrifying. Yeah, it was. So back to these conversations that you've had over these 35 years the ones that you've recorded what have you done with them you just you're holding on to them i just keep keep them people get so mad at me yes because i tell everybody they should do a podcast how mad do people get at me right because i think so many people can but you definitely should well i should because i i like doing this so much i just i really i'm probably like you i'm just super interested in people yes

um curious what i'm really curious part of the title of your book yeah so in the kid so that was so curious mind i realized that geez i've done 35 years of these. At that time, I might have been 30. And my kids, my four kids, don't really know what I'm doing. You know, like I'm really spending a lot of time hustling to get Edward Teller to meet me. It took a year and a half, two years. Or Daryl Gates. It was the craziest meeting of all time. Daryl Gates.

The L.A. police chief. Wow. How was that the craziest one of all time? Daryl Gates. The LA police chief. Wow. How was that the craziest one of all time? Okay, I'll give it to you very quick. I'll give it to you. Okay, so I really thought this guy, he was, you know, he's one of the most well-known and most accomplished police chiefs in America. I think there were three of them, and he was one of the three in a century.

I think there were three of them, and he was one of the three in a century. And then Daryl Gates, I knew, was one of the creators, the fundamental curator of SWAT, which is bringing paramilitary tactics to the L.A. Police Department. He started out as a bright-eyed, strong-minded, clean-cut guy working for the police department. And because he was sharp, he was the driver to the police chief, which was Chief Parker. And then Chief Parker, the L.A., there was a riot called the Watts Riot, not the L.A. Riots, but the Watts Riot. And the police went in, and they were not qualified to be in that situation. And they kind of failed at, they felt they failed at it.

And Daryl Gates was like by the chief's side the entire time. And he kind of vowed to himself, I'm not going to let that happen again. And when he had the opportunity, because he became later police chief, not much later, became police chief of Los Angeles Police Department, he instituted SWAT and other paramilitary tactics and a mind discipline that was pretty, you know, it was like creating, you know, like martial law, people would argue. And then we went – that kind of produced an environment that I think many think and I think myself helped an environment that caused the L.A. riots because there was a lot of inequity, I think, human inequity felt. I know I'm getting this kind of political.

And you should tell me what your point of view, please. On the L.A. riots? Yeah. Well, I moved here after that. Okay. So I wasn't here while that was going down. Right. It was pretty intense. Yeah. And the L.A. riots were a direct response to the Rodney King trial.

Yes, exactly. And, yeah, that was a crazy time. I mean, the reaction, first of all, the reaction to the video, the video was horrible, watching Rodney King getting beaten like that. Then you also heard that they had been on a high-speed pursuit with him and that there was more to that video. Like that was the end of their altercation. Apparently, there's much more physical altercation before that video. And apparently there's much more physical altercation before that video. And maybe if someone saw the full thing, they would understand, well, okay, you're dealing with a wild person who's on PCP and these cops are doing everything they can to detain him. But there's a distrust of the police in these communities in the first place because they had seen so much police brutality.

So that reaction, that riot was not just because of that one situation. It was an accumulation of different events. Yes. And different interactions that people had had with abusive police officers. It was a boiling pot. Sure. Yeah. And then the whole Rampart unit, and there was so much corruption. There was a lot of shit going down during that time.

So all that just, poof, all of it exploded. Exploded. all of it exploded exploded and so the thing about this story is I was saying about I I I took I got a meeting

with Daryl Gates it was 10 months on the book 10 months wow and ironically the day of

my meeting with him was the day of the LA riots. So I thought, and it already had happened, 2,000 buildings on fire and everything. And my office gets a phone call from Daryl Gates' office confirming my meeting with him. I'm thinking, oh my God, Parker Center is under siege. You know, it's like the whole city is under siege. He still wanted to keep the meeting, a meeting that was on the books for 10 months.

And I thought, that's really crazy. So I went down. I had a guy drive me, and I went down, and they zigzagged through like a security clearance thing where no other cars could get through. It was really bizarre, like we see this now often. But they initiated this kind of maze that the car would go through. I get to the front door. A couple of police officers escort me in. They put me in a room.

I joke. They didn't give me a cavity search but just about everything but you know took my clothes off did everything really yeah i did why did they think that you just a scrawny little guy movies i don't know that you would go rogue no i know there's like that there's no evidence for sure that. So, and then I got upstairs and he is sitting so calmly. He'd already ordered two tuna fish sandwiches, very utilitarian, the sandwiches. And we had the potato chips and he said, you want an iced tea? I couldn't even swallow.

I couldn't eat my food because I was so shocked by the whole thing that he had so much, he was impervious to everything that was going down. And the city council was on his TV and on the TV out there. And guys, police officers were running and go, chief, you're on TV right now. And they're yelling. And he goes, he says to me and to them, ah, this is nothing. They'll never get me out of here. He had so much hubris. It was amazing. And I thought, and he's so calm about it. And, of course, they did get him out.

I think the next day, actually, because the city council was really – they had very liberal guys on that board, people on that board, rather. And it's a long insane story but i had my meeting at my lunch meeting how long was the meeting normal like an hour you know it was a full hour so you just have lunch and just pick his brain and yeah just have lunch and ask questions you know and try to act not be nervous or upset about the what's going on in the environment and the tvs flashing you know like archival footage that they'd shot days before you know or the day of and buildings on fire and the korean uh korean shop market somebody getting killed and all that stuff they were showing on television and he he was just kind of matter of fact like this is

just what's going down this time's time. It'll just pass. Wow. I know. It was crazy. Well, it sounds like someone designed for the job. So I couldn't record that one. Yeah, obviously. But so anyway, I did think that my kids should know about all this stuff.

And actually, Charlie Rose, of all people, said, you should write a book. And so it got on my mind. I mentioned it to a couple of people. And they said, oh, yeah, you should write a book. And so it got on my mind and I mentioned it to a couple people and they said, oh yeah, you should write a book. And so then I thought, okay, I'll write a book because I'm going to write notes on this anyway, these 35 years for my kids so that when I pass, they'll have this, they'll know this was a very big part of my life, beyond my career, but my life. And so that's what the first book is about. It synthesizes many of the important one-on-one conversations I had over the 30 years. And then it connects the synthesis of those stories to narrative storytelling.

For example, in 1984, I met Sting, you know, the lead singer of The Police. Because I thought, wow, he'd be fascinating to meet because he was like a school teacher in England, and now he's like a rock star. I just thought that's kind of an interesting transition, like the biggest, one of the biggest rock stars. So I meet him, I get him to say yes, wasn't horribly hard. And then a year after I met with him, he calls up in 1985 and he says, I'm having a barbecue at my house. I think some interesting people will be here. And that was right after the Amnesty Tour. And he took a woman named Veronica de Negre in 1985, along with other superstars. She wasn't a superstar. She was held in a Chilean

prison and tortured every single day of her life for 18 months. And she went on the amnesty tour only for a few days as evidence of somebody that can survive. She was hopeful still. Most people don't survive torture either from the torture itself or they, sadly, they commit suicide because they're just so much trauma, so much PTSD. So it's just, so she survives, I meet her, and I say, how do you survive? And she tells me that while she's being, she creates a story that she's living in the entire time. So, there's reality, and then there's an alternate reality. The alternate reality is the story that she creates, that she can live in, that alleviates some of the pain and the unpredictable pain of torture. So now, that's pretty fascinating to me, and I really sat with those insights.

Now, many things happened after that that I was able to use that, like I became, when I was stuck on A Beautiful Mind because it wasn't cinematic, I thought, well, how can I make it cinematic? And I thought, Veronica Denigre, she lived in an alternate reality. Well, that's exactly involuntarily what a schizophrenic has to do. They live in alternate realities. So, in the movie A Beautiful Mind, to make it really compelling, we started in an alternate reality and made it a thriller and realized, oh, my God, there's this epiphany. And you realize that was not even reality, right? It drew you in so deeply into this character that it became like this subjective experience that every audience, every audience member could feel like the pain of that and the insanity of what that must feel like. That was another brilliant movie. Oh, thank you.

I love that movie. When you say make it cinematic, what do you mean by that exactly? Well, Ron and I realized that Ron Howardard who directed it and won an oscar um and he we realized that in order to make it really interesting you have to see you have to understand the mind of a schizophrenic so therefore you have to see somebody's mind how do you see somebody's mind other than just graphically, you know, or, you know, like through graphic design and without that's not very interesting, you know, like the insertion of graphic design or voiceover narration that makes it kind of a documentary.

So, but we thought like, but if you could, if you could have an entire story kind of with the military and paranoia and all that, that's exactly one of the dimensions or realities of a schizophrenic's mind. So you get to film it with other actors and other people, and that's why I mean when I say cinematic. So basically when you're seeing the 25 minutes of living in this alternate reality with Ed Harris and all that stuff, craziness, it blows your mind as an audience. And then you reflect later like, wow, that wasn't even real. And wow, is that guy really going to come back? And you make it seamlessly cinematic with the rest of the narrative of him trying to cope with schizophrenia itself. So it becomes the merging of an alternate reality and actual reality. And the actual reality is when you watch him in that level of pain and just trying to survive,

like cope with meds and the wife. And then we found the way to make it you know kind of work triumphantly because it was love that was the most powerful force it was that one person decided to stay with this other one person the wife alicia stay with john nash that's so interesting that you pulled that from that woman's experience. I did. Surviving torture. I credit her for that. Wow. Always, because she, yeah.

So I found that all of these insights, you know, that we're referring to, the ones that you have when you're, you know, just getting off stage and you realize, wow, I could talk to my buddies or this new guy for a minute. Those random moments that you get to talk to somebody can often produce a story or an insight, an emotional insight that you can transport to something else. I found that all these conversations that I was having were like, kind of like I see these stars behind you. They were like stars or a constellation of dots, you know, and that you just have faith that they somehow inform you and make you better and smarter and that they connect someday. Well, it's so insightful that you look at these conversations that way. Because, I mean, I really have felt that effect on me personally over the years doing this. But the fact that you've like sought it out just as an education, just as something that expands you.

Because we really are a combination or an accumulation of all of our experiences. And the more experiences you can have, even if it doesn't feel tangible in that moment, it broadens your perspective. It broadens who you are. Well, I think for you as well, because you still do stand-up. We were talking about that someone that works in my office saw you the other night, and you remembered who she was. She goes, he won't remember me. And you did.

She used to be on Kill Tony. Kill Tony is a great podcast that my friend Brian Red and tony hinchcliffe do and this podcast involves uh comedians going up and doing uh one minute of material in front of these professional comics and the professional comics either say hey that was great or they shit all over it or everybody makes fun there's a band it's a bunch of chaos and it's all done in front of a live crowd and vanessa was on it for quite a while. Wow. Oh, that's good.

Yeah. She tries hard. I know that. I mean, she works there. It's a hard business. Yeah. But as I was saying, like, when I watch you do stand-up, because I made a point to catch up on it, you're really, really good. And you're telling – I'm watching you tell stories that are comedic stories.

You make them comedic. And I think I can tell, and you tell me if I'm wrong, that sometimes you don't know all the answers to that story. And I see that you're grabbing things that lived in – that you – experiences or insights that lived in the environment that you've have or had because i watched a couple of scenes very closely and i know you didn't have it figured out and you got the bigger laugh from the thing that you pulled from some place i thought there's a little just a really good actor there's a little bit of recreating that When you're doing that in stand up But often times

It's a combination of all those things It's a combination of Actually improvising in the moment And figuring it out in the moment And then figuring it out in the moment And recreating it again And recreating it again the same way you did before But being in the moment

And being able to bring it into someone's attention again yeah and recreating it again the same way you did before but being in the moment and and being able to bring it into someone's attention as if you're recreating it or give them the feeling that it's being recreated so that they can they can experience it they can it can so when that's what stand-up is like there's revelations that you repeat right there's there's a moment you know and then i'm like wait what the fuck is that about but you have to be able to recreate that over and over and over again even though like a beginner's mind right you have to yeah like it's brand new for you right right and so that is how you're thinking for the people and in the sense that like yes say if you go to see a great comic like bill burr right and you're sitting in the audience and bill's on stage you're allowing him to think for you in a way.

Right. Like he's taking you on a journey. So it has to be. He's pointing left and right and now we're going straight. And you're just going along with it. Like this is the ride. I like that. I'm letting him take over the reins of my attention and my mind.

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a craft to that. Yeah. You're the passenger. He's the driver in the Formula One mind. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a craft to that. Yeah, you're the passenger. He's the driver in the Formula One car. Yes, yes. And so any great comic, whether it's Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle or figure it, whoever it is, when they're on stage and they're killing, you are allowing them to think for you.

Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I love it. So they're trying to take you on an organic journey of understanding whatever the fuck they're talking about. Yeah. And explaining it to you in a way that's going to like resonate. Like this is how you would notice it.

You're allowing them to. This is how you, and I'm like, hold up, who the fuck brought the baby? You know, and then that kind of stuff is like in that moment. Yeah. It has to feel like you're really realizing that somebody brought a fucking baby to a gun range or whatever it is, whatever you're joking around about. That's funny. Right. That's interesting.

Yeah. So it is – these conversations are really kind of valuable on so many levels. Yeah. They're not like – like sometimes people will go – people sometimes just want to get to the end, you know, like, how do I make the money? You know, but it's the journey is really valuable, you know? Sure. Yeah. There's a lot of people that get into podcasts specifically because of that.

They think there's money in podcasts. Like, how do you make money in podcasts? Yeah. Yeah. I've had that conversation. I'm like, well, make a good podcast that people like. Yeah. It's kind of simple.

And the best way to do that is to actually enjoy doing podcasts right that's really the best way yeah and then people like oh that sounds like a lot of work it does you also have to do it over a long enough period of time where people you know like one person tells another person tells one thing that i've never done with this podcast i've never advertised it in the sense that i never did anything to make it grow. I just did it. I just kept doing it. I never did anything.

I never took out ads. I never went on shows to promote it. I never did anything to promote it. I just did it. And I did that on purpose because I wanted to never have any thought at all about growing it. I only wanted to think about doing the best that I can. Right. And then it just became what it is.

Not make it a commercial experience. It became that. It became that. Yes. But even while it's become that, I haven't changed. I've changed how I do it because I got better at it and because I became a different person as I've gone through my own personal evolution. But I don't change my thought on it which is just do it just

enjoy it and do it and do the best i can and try whoever i'm talking to try to connect with them you know and some people like you i'm connecting with really easily it's fine it's great i enjoy this conversation it's great it's easy good but then some people it's like a little bit of pulling teeth you know some people it's harder it's you're doing heavy lifting yes but it's still enjoyable yeah all of it it's still like when it's heavy lifting it's like okay how do i solve this yeah i totally know what you're talking about i had this female rapper at my house uh like really a big and i'm good good at like creating conversation it was almost impossible it was like i was so she recorded that one freaking out oh my god i'd like to hear that one yeah yeah uh and then how long did it last

oh finally you hit something no finally i hit two things something finally two things one thing was she liked to talk about this is going to reveal who it is And I ended up liking her so much She liked to talk about stripping And prostitution Oh okay I know what that is And pimps And she's like

She's got a master class on this Oh I'm sure She's a genius okay So that she could do But it took a long time to get there Like really a lot of Very polite to me, but kind of looking around a lot. And then- Uncomfortable with you.

Well, she's just not knowing. We weren't relating to each other. Right, right, right. And then- She's very street. And then when she hit it, yes. Yes. I thought it was really funny in how she diagnosed the street, that thing.

That, wow, she's like a scientist in this area. Oh, yeah. Well, a lot of hustlers are. A lot of people that are hustling. So she was really good. And then she and her husband decided they're really interested in some art that I had on the wall. And that produced more interest and more art. And then they wanted to know, like, why is this worth so much money?

Well, how's pricing work? I said, well, dealers. You go, what do you worth so much money? Well, how's pricing work? I said, well, dealers. You go, what do you mean by dealers? I go, what's a dealer? So I explained what dealers were, like Larry Gagosian kind of sets the market. What does that mean? And then they were fairly interested in that. Wow.

So then it got to be kind of longer, and then I had to go someplace. But it worked out. But it worked out. But it worked out really well. It worked out really well. And so to your point, it was really, really hard to figure out this puzzle. And then I accidented upon a way to crack that puzzle, and that was really gratifying. And it was good enough that I'm talking about it on your show. Yeah.

So it was memorable for sure. So it elevated your people skills. Yeah, you added another facet to your game. I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And you learned about pimps and hoes. I did.

A little bit. And pricing. I learned pricing in that field, you know? In that field. In that field. It is a field. It's just a suppressed field. Yeah. She was really mad about the idea of a pimp. Like, why. It is a field. It's just a suppressed field. Yeah.

She was really mad about the idea of a pimp. Like, why would anyone give a pimp money? I understand that. I don't get it. Yeah. Okay. So. Yeah.

I guess protection, right? Yeah. I guess. She wasn't acknowledging that as protection. But she's pretty sharp. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So there's that. And so the other book I wrote, because this kind of ties in. This is kind of interesting because you asked, actually. So what happened is in my house, there was a new person that started working on our, you know, like our staff at home kind of thing. And, you know, like, you know, working on the house staff kind of thing. I don't have like, I'm not like butlers. I'm not going to.

What do you mean by house staff? Just like we have people that, you know, house keepers, you know, that either cook or they clean or they, but it's a team. I have a team. Okay. There's a team. Yeah. But I don't want to mislead you and make you think like I'm living in, you know, it's not

insane. This is what I'm picturing. I'm picturing a dude with a napkin over his forearm. No, no, no, no, no, no. Mr. Grazer. That's what I don't know. Please don't. Yeah, it's not that.

I'm glad that you pointed that out. And that he gives you your top hat. No, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. Top hat and gets my tux ready every night. You get into the Rolls Royce and they throw rose petals at your feet. Yeah, yeah. Thirst and howl. Hell no.

Yeah, no, it's not that. It's just like an organized place. I get it. You're balling. It's all good. Something. And so apparently she'd worked there. That's funny.

So apparently she worked at our house for like almost three months. And my wife, she says to my wife, I really like Brian a lot. And my wife said, well, have you talked to him much? She said, well, I haven't talked to him very much. But every time he speaks to me, he always looks me directly in my eyes and it makes me feel like a human being. And I thought of the simplicity of that. I thought, wow, just by looking at somebody directly in the eyes with real, not looking behind them or you're just looking at them, it immediately is an equalizer.

It says we're both equal. We're both species on this planet, the same species on this. And it makes me feel like a human being, gives me dignity. And then I thought, that's pretty powerful. I mean, this is only like two years ago. And then I retrofitted back all of those conversations I was alluding to, like 35 years of every week, a curiosity conversation. And I thought, well, the only reason these conversations were good is I must have been really looking at these people in the

eyes and we were really dialed in. Otherwise, they wouldn't share these private things or these insights. They wouldn't share their heart with me if they didn't feel I was present with them. And so that became kind of the thesis of this book. And that's why it's just called Face to Face, The Art of Human Connection. Because then I set all of this, I thought to myself, we're living right now in the loneliest time in our generation. It's like an epidemic of loneliness. Is it? It is, actually.

All statistics point, millennials will admit that one quarter of them will admit that they're incredibly lonely, like where they can't almost cope with their loneliness. Do you think that's digital lives? I think it's digital lives for sure because they're not even used to talking now because everything is a text. And you know with kids, and I have a 16-year-old kid who just turned 16, they text each other when they're in the same room. They're sitting there watching Netflix and they're texting each other like, who are you texting? Johnny. Johnny's right there.

He's right on the couch. Just talk to him. He's right there. Yeah. Yeah. That's weird. It's weird. And it's like dating.

That's why these kids, they just ghost girls or ghost guys, just vaporize because they don't have feelings. When you don't talk to people, Yeah. Because you're really out there. You're feeling – when you're doing – you're feeling people all the time. When you feel people, you have empathy. You feel their feelings, right? Yeah, for sure. And when you feel people's feelings, you try not to hurt their feelings. Right.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, when you're actually in the presence of them Yeah Instead of digitally And when you feel people's feelings And you meet them and demystify Whatever you think you heard about them You tend to like them more for the most part And you tend to love as opposed to have war You know, so it really is important in our lives

From multiple levels Like just looking at people And going out of your way to connect. Yeah. No, I agree. So that's what this book's about, basically. And doing that reaffirms it in yourself. Exactly. It reaffirms it in myself.

Because it's like a tool. You're right. Exactly. You get it. Beyond get it. Beyond get it. But it's like I learn off of it every day because I'm not perfect, but I make sure that when I get into elevators, I practice what I preach. I put my phone away. I don't go in the elevator and just look at my phone.

I look at people. I'm just cool and chill. And then often you make people feel better if you're actually looking at them. For sure. Yeah, for sure. I've, the last week, I put a one-hour limit on my phone use. Oh, wow. Yeah, I put a one-hour limit on whether it's apps per day.

Per day, you mean? Per day, yeah. Yeah, apps, whatever I'm using. And I've thought about using the phone using the like thought about looking at the phone aimlessly yeah and not you know i've got this thing now that i'm doing where i just grab my phone i go no no no and then i put it away i just because people are really really addicted to phones they're really addicted and you don't realize until you look at that screen time yeah that reading that you get at the end of the day, and you're like, five hours?

I'm sure I'm in that. Maybe four. A lot of us are. Yeah. But that digital connection, the connection to you're missing, you're missing this connection to other people. And also, there's a certain amount of anxiety attached to it where people are constantly checking their social media and checking their social media and checking checking

their their emails and their mentions and and going back and forth with this and that looking at this and that and it's like you're not in the real world you're only living on this little tiny device this little rectangular device and it's weird yeah and it contributes to loneliness and disconnection and unhappiness unhappiness. Unhappiness. Yeah. It does. And I don't know what the solution is other than abstinence. Yeah. Other than putting them away.

Well, at some point, I think we're going... I have this feeling that the privileged people, or I don't want to say it that way. I think it could be the most scarce and valued commodity is being present with human beings. Yes. And it's like, you know, the cool kids, they do, you know, they're listening to vinyls, right? Well, I think the people that are good at it are rare. are rare the people that like what you've done you've practiced this idea of sitting down and talking to people on a regular basis looking them in the eye and having meaningful conversations that's a you've making you've made a choice you've made a concerted effort to do that and that's not common and most people don't have good people skills i mean i've learned how to not

interrupt people i've learned how to not talk so much i've learned how mean, I've learned how to not interrupt people. I've learned how to not talk so much. I've learned how to listen. I've learned how to interact. And I've also learned when people are not good at it. You know, some people, you're talking to them, and they're not even listening to you. They're just waiting for their turn to talk.

Yes. I have a couple of guys I know that do that. It's frustrating. It is frustrating. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because you kind of go, what's the whole, what's the point of this?

Yeah. We're not connected. We're not connected. We both like, or I'm sure, I'm sure you've made people that will ask you three questions basically at the same time, like bam,

bam, bam. And you're trying to answer the first question. And then you realize now we're sharp enough to know that they don't really want to know the answer. Yeah. They might be just on Adderall. Just firing questions at you. What this the sky's blue how do i know it's blue for you

i just had lunch with one of my funniest close friends his name is jimmy ivine and he's a music he was a music producer and he and drake created this beats and we've known each other like i guess 30 years we were at this restaurant called, I won't even say it. It's a Greek restaurant, Beverly Hills. And our waiter, Jimmy goes, that dude's on Adderall. Because he was like, I mean, like he just, I said, it's too much Tony Robbins for me. He said, no, it's Adderall. But he was just like, you couldn't finish a sentence.

Or we said, okay, we think we know what we want. We're going to have the Branzino. He rattled off like 10 dishes. We go, we realized we couldn't stop him. We knew what we, we said what we wanted. Right. He didn't want to hear it. He wanted to do the other nine.

Yeah. So. That's a common thing today. Incredibly common. There's a lot of people on speed a lot and the doctors are just really actually on speed that's what adderall is yeah so you think people are really that's the thing i don't i don't know that much about it's legal speed adderall's legal speed prescribed by a doctor if you went to a doctor right now you went to the

right doctor yes and said I just feel listless. I'm having a hard time connecting. I'm having a hard time getting motivated. Oh, I got the thing for you, Brian. Wow. Here you go. And then you'd be like, I am organized. And you know what?

It's about me. It's about me. Because Brian's out here fucking kicking ass. There's a lot of other people that are slacking. They're all losers. This guy's a loser. That guy's a ass. There's a lot of other people that are slacking. They're all losers. This guy's a loser. That guy's a loser. That's really hilarious.

But isn't that the Adderall mindset? That is the Adderall mindset. Adderall mindset, it's basically a low-level meth mindset. It's speed. It's amphetamines. It's super jacked up. Yep, jacked up. Like not listening, just talking.

It's almost like assaultive, isn't it? Well, you can get productive. You can get a lot done with that. But it's just there's a lack of like assaultive, isn't it? Well, you can get productive. You can get a lot done with that. But it's just there's a lack of connection. Yeah, there is. A lack of empathy.

Sorry. It's not really real. No. Yeah, it's a weird sort of vibe. I'm going to look for it and I'm going to prospect for it. Oh, there's a lot out there.

You'll find it. It's mining for gold. I didn't realize there's gold in the hills. That's funny. You go prospecting for people that have Adderall. That are Ad for gold. It's like, I didn't realize there's gold in them hills. That's funny. You go prospecting for people that have Adderall. That are Adderall. You better have a large cargo to put it in.

You know, a large train box. I got to check it out. It's a lot. Because I thought it was funny when he said it. And I thought, he goes, no, no, this is really true. Like what you would say to me right now. He goes, no, no, this guy, he's actually on it. And I go, really?

And he says, yeah. How does a guy become that guy? He literally was on the table. A lot of writers, a lot of journalists, a lot of journalists, a lot of people that have deadlines and they have to push and they run out of energy. A lot of them are on Adderall. Extremely, extremely common. Extremely common with very productive people, very ambitious people, business people, people that do a lot of meetings, people that work 12 hours a day, 13 hours a day. Wow.

It gives you the energy to do that. And then they take Ambien to crash. And there's a double whammy going on. We know that's not good. No, no, no, no, no. No, no. Yeah. There's millions and millions of people that are on that stuff.

Do they ever – if you ever ask somebody on the show, like, oh, you probably wouldn't. Well, I don't know. Does anyone ever tell you they're on it? Yes. Oh, really? I've had people tell me. Yeah. Yeah.

Like at comedy clubs or on the show? No, I've had people tell me on the show that they take Adderall. Um, I've had people in real life tell me they've taken Adderall. I mean, I've had people justified. I've had people talk about it with a little bit of shame that they would like to not be on it but they're on it because it helps them be productive and they got to do what they got to do yeah but but the real revelation was I have a friend who's a journalist he was talking to me about

how many journalists are on it he's not on it I go how many he goes fucking all of them I'm like he you serious he goes dude it would blow your mind it would blow your mind how many of them because it's so effective see we wouldn't i wouldn't really know no i've never messed with it yeah but if you do jamie you've tried it right how was it did not like it i had to call off the next day at work because i thought i could go to sleep but i took a little bit yeah just to do some artwork because I knew I was going to have to. You have an unusual constitution. Like Jamie, edible marijuana does not affect him. Like literally he could take a thousand milligrams and play video games.

Geez. Or more. Or more. A thousand milligrams put most people under the couch for life. They'd be like, no, I'm hiding. Wow. Jamie can handle it. I cannot do that.

I can't do it. You know, there was a minute I was single, and a girl said to me, let's have one of these lollipops. She pulled them out of her refrigerator. Oh, boy. So I took a little lick of a lollipop, whatever. And it was interesting. It wasn't terrible. The next weekend, I see the girl again.

I'm at my house, and she – I hope I'm not going to – let me see if I'm okay here. But she says, I got more lollipops. And I thought, well, that was kind of fun. I take this – I lick on this lollipop. Oh, my God. It so freaked me out. I called my doctor, Dr. Dennisatos uh is that's his name i'm not i'm saying that's okay he's good and he i said i need you to come over right now and sleep and sleep over he goes he slept he did he slept in my bedroom at the foot

of my bed that's That's a good doctor. He was so good. I said, he's right in Westwood and I was in Malibu. And I said, I'm serious. He goes, look, this is what will happen. I can tell you exactly what happens. It goes up and it's going to come down. Everything.

I go, I don't think I can survive it. I am too scared. So he said he'll sleep over and he slept over the whole night. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's the problem

with those lollipops and candies and stuff like that. They're not consistent. You've never done it, have you? What? Oh, I don't know.

All the time, man. Yeah. Constantly. I don't think so. Yes. Honestly. Really? Yeah.

I smoke a lot of pot. I eat a lot of pot. Swear? Oh, yeah. I got a box of it I eat a lot of pot Swear? Oh yeah I got a box of it right here But you seem so physical Surrounded by it Yeah, you're surrounded by it

Oh, so you could actually This is all This is weed That's not weed You want to smoke it And see if you go to Pluto? I don't want to That's Mike Tyson's weed

I don't believe you That fat one right there That's weed Wait a second That's weed right there Yeah Okay You guys tell me the truth.

Let me see that. Well, that looks real. Our big box just got taken away. It's getting filled right now. We could open that for you. Wow, this is... That's real. Jeez.

Eat one of these. That'll put you on the moon. I can't do anything. I'll need my doctor. That's really... Wow. I like the smell of pot and stuff. Yeah, it smells good.

But I know it's not good for me. It's not my thing. Margarita tonight. Maybe tonight, actually. A margarita? Yeah, I like margarita. I do, too. You got all your stuff here.

Be careful with this. All your snacks. No, I'm not going to touch it. Okay, this is a real issue. Can you do it during the day? If you want to die. Some spray. Yeah, of course.

I mean, can you do it during the day and be functional, highly functional? Yes, I can. Yes. Wow. Yeah. I really admire you. Well, it works with more than me. It works with my-

Because you're so high functioning. Yeah, but it just makes me more sensitive. That's what marijuana does to me. But the paranoia, I kind of just embrace it. The paranoia that comes with being really, really high. Wow. I just meditate, calm down, embrace it. And enjoy it.

Ride the wave. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of the freaking out comes from freaking out. Yes. That's what it was with me. You're freaking out and you're like, oh my God, I'm freaking out. Yes, I'm watching myself. I'm going, oh, I'm out of control.

I think I'll freak out and then that's what happens it sounds crazy but it makes me a nicer person wow yeah it makes me nicer i want to be better i want to be a better person because i've it highlights all the flaws that i find in my own personality and my own life well all whatever things i've done that i'm not proud of or that i think are mistakes, it highlights them. And it makes me think more diligently. Soften it a little bit. Yeah, be a better person. Jeez, that's good.

It enhances my sense of community, makes you more sensitive, makes food taste better. I'm getting a contact high right now. Well, this is Sober October for me, so I'm not doing anything. Can you do that? I guess you can. Yeah, yeah. I don't have an addiction, but me and my buddies. It's choice. You dig it. It's fun. And you and your buddies are cool with it. Yeah, yeah I don't have an addiction But me and my buddies It's choice

You dig it It's fun And you and your buddies Are cool with it Yeah, we do Sober October So the entire month of October Every year We do something

Like last year We did a fitness challenge What's that thing? It's like Ramadan Yeah, it's like Ramadan for us The year before that We did hot yoga We had to do 15 hot yoga sessions

Over the month Jeez Yeah, this year We have to do 10 classes of any kind, and we have to read 500 pages of any book. Wow. Yeah, so we do it. Like to test yourselves. Yeah, and it's fun.

In a cool way. And people join along, and this year we're all wearing these whoop straps. What is a whoop strap? A whoop strap is a fitness monitor That works with this application That works on your phone That It monitors heart rate variability So it tells you

First of all it tells you How much you're sleeping Which is very revealing Yeah It tells you what kind of sleep You're getting And it gives you Like very detailed analytics

It shows it How much do you sleep? Can we just stay on that one Because I'm a I have sleep apnea So I know Because I go to an app I have an app

Okay So do you use a CPnea, so I know because I go to an app. I have an app. Okay. So do you use a CPAP machine? I do. Yeah. I do. Two guys in a row use a CPAP. My friend Chris Ryan, who's here right before you, uses a CPAP machine. This is my thing.

Look at this. Yeah, I have sleep apnea as well. Look, I got 87 last night. Uh-huh. I had a bad night's sleep. That's the score. That's the computation. It's like a coefficient.

How many? Okay. I wear glasses, but you can see it right there Yeah It says 87 But like what does that mean Like how many hours Okay 5 hours and 52

I think 37 Was it 552 Yes Wow Usage hours It says 5 hours and 52 It says good Yeah

Okay On the seal Yeah good Make a seal It says you had 6 events per hour How many interruptions Event 6 events per hour How many interruptions Event Six events per hour

That's what it says Wow that's not good Well it's probably right I had a bad I didn't sleep well last night Actually it says 0.6 Is that the same thing As six

No What does that mean Oh so you didn't have Six an hour Yeah six an hour is a lot Well it's weird Because it says 0.6 And then it says five

In the corner What does that mean Five total Over the six hours of sleep Oh looks What are you, you wizard? He measures pot. He's like a pound of pot, not a problem. It says mask on and off

four. So you took your mask off four times? To pee twice and then twice because I was obsessing over something. I had to break the obsession. Oh, I understand. Yeah. Okay.

I wear a mouthpiece. Ooh, those are hot. It presses down on my tongue. Yes. It keeps my tongue from falling back over the hole in my mouth. Oh, so it's not about your teeth. It's about falling back. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is that thing? What's that called? That would happen. It doesn't matter what it's called, but you have it. Dr. Kevorkian. Is that his name? but you have it. Dr. Kevorkian. Is that his name? Kevorkian.

Kevorkian's the murderer guy. Yeah, he's the murderer. Kevorkian. Dr. Kevorkian. Obviously. Whoops. It was a mistake. But yeah, it just keeps your tongue from falling back.

I have a fat tongue. That's my problem. Fat. Fat. It closes the air hole. Jeez. geez yeah so it keeps it from doing that a lot to be said about that yeah i guess yeah so um yeah okay so what the whoop strap does is it monitors all you manage your sleep but it also measures heart rate variability so it tells you whether you're tired or not um so if you've had a hard workout and then you're still a little

beat down the next day it'll show you on the application. Like here's your heart rate. Your heart rate is responding to the fact that you had an extremely stressful, physically stressful day. So good stresses and bad stresses, exercise and lack of sleep, all those things are monitored and it gives you like pretty detailed analytics. So we're all wearing these straps and we're doing these 10 different classes. Like we've done tactical gun classes and yoga classes and boxing classes and the whole idea about the month is sort of um just uh helping yourself like doing doing things that are good for you self-help great got it i see yeah like yeah self-help yeah like this is the month of getting smarter Better

Yeah Getting Learning some new shit You know Meditating Getting You know Getting an education

Reading you know 500 pages Who are the guys Tom Segura Who's a stand up comedian Okay Burt Kreischer Another comedian

And Ari Shaffir And myself And we've done this For the last Well the first year Tom and Burt Had a weight loss challenge And then the second year We said okay We'll all jump in And we'll all this for the last, well, the first year, Tom and Bert had a weight loss challenge. And then the second year, we said, okay, we'll all jump in and we'll all be sober this time because they weren't sober the first time.

They just lost weight. And we'll all be sober and we'll all have to fulfill these number of hot yoga classes. So 15 90-minute hot yoga classes. And then the next year, we had- 15 90-minute? Yes. Ooh, wow. And then the next year we had 90 minute yes oh wow and then the next year we had a crazy fitness challenge that got a little out of hand so we decided not compete with each other anymore because we were literally going five six seven hours a day of working out yeah seven hours a day of cardio it was bananas that's it was nuts yeah yeah it was

getting high on exercise and And so then this year- I'm not in your group. I know why now. This year it was just the fitness classes, different classes, 10 classes, and then 500 pages of any book, just reading something. Pretty great. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah.

It gives me something to do. We look forward to it. And then a lot of fans do it along with us. So a lot of people go sober through the month and join in with us. Fans from the show say, hey, I want to be part of this. Yeah, they just jump in. I mean, you can wear a whoop strap too. You can compare the amount of sleep and the amount of exercise that you get to us.

But more importantly, for people, it's nice for people that maybe don't even know that they have a little bit of an issue with substances. I mean, maybe they're not alcoholics or drug addicts, but maybe they just are indulging a little too much. And so they'll get this break for October because they're committed for the entire month. And then what they see is like, you know what? I feel a lot better. And, you know, I don't have a problem, but I do feel a lot better when I'm not drinking all the time. Because I'm going to comedy clubs. And I'll have

a couple beers hey you want to do a shot all right let's do a shot and then the next thing like oh then i go to the gym and it's like a little bit more of a struggle yeah but this entire month you know what is it today 23rd this yeah there's none of that this entire month is just you feel you're on yeah yeah and you realize like that is an unnecessary tax on your system, alcohol in particular. Pot doesn't make me feel like shit the next day, but it definitely does some wonky things to your memory. Pot does. For sure. Oh, yeah.

For sure. We all have pot memory, all of us. Pot memory. Yeah, pot memory is weird. That's funny. It definitely does something to your memory. I mean, that's pretty much been proven. Okay. All right. So that's what we do all the month. That's interesting Definitely does something to your memory I mean that's pretty much been proven Okay Yeah

So that's what we do all the month That's interesting Yeah So Do these guys Oh And you guys can afford to do that Because you can still work

Yeah Yeah Still do stand up Still do Still do podcasts Still do everything Yeah And then we have

No Remember November Where we get blitzed Okay That is hilarious So you have something to look forward to right Not really I mean we didn't I didn't really I definitely went You don we get blitzed okay that is hilarious so you're gonna look forward to right i really i mean i didn't really i definitely don't mean blitz you just go for it yeah i went went hard a couple of days in november last year but nothing that's super funny and your buddies are funny guys yeah so they keep each other yeah well it's a camaraderie thing too yeah the four

of us it's a lot of bonding and it's very fun. The podcasts we have are very fun. And the one that we did when Sober October was over last year was ridiculous. We were barbecued. It was very fun. But it is a good thing for people just to have that one-month reset of their system, just to give them a perspective like, hey, maybe it'd be better if you didn't drink. Maybe it'd be better if you took some time off.

Maybe it'd be better if you exercised and really thought about things this way. I mean, we're only doing it once a month, but we even propose doing it a couple times a year. And it proves to you, I guess, obviously, it does prove to you you can do it. Yes. And that's an important thing thing it's like having an exit right yeah you know when you're trapped on a boat or you're someplace with b what you have an exit here you know you can do it well the motivation for a lot of it was our friend burt who drinks

too much and he's calmed down quite a bit apparently because of doing that first podcast where we did go sober for the whole month because we were we didn't think he could do it because even during the weight loss challenge tom who won the weight loss challenge tom didn't drink anything but water the entire month and worked out like crazy and lost a ton of weight bert kept drinking the entire month and also worked out like crazy and tried to lose weight and what happened he lost oh he couldn't compete with tom it doesn't work yeah i mean let's just it was a dumb way of doing it you know it wasn't it wasn't as effective right yeah of course do you um now now there's this new i guess nutritional exercise or weight loss i don't want to only call it that of like what is it 69 i, I don't know, is it 10 hours on, 10 hours off?

Oh, intermittent fasting? Intermittent fasting, yes. Basically missing breakfast. See, I can't lose weight. I mean, I'm a happy, I don't need to lose weight, actually, but I can get stronger and have better disciplines in areas. But that particular thing is about losing weight, I think, right? Mostly.

But that particular thing is about losing weight, I think, right? Mostly. It's about losing weight, but it's also about feeling better and raising your ketone levels. Oh, yeah. Which is one thing that does happen when you go long periods of time and you get your body accustomed to this period of time where you're not eating. You know, this timed eating or whatever they call it. What is the term they refer to it as? It's not just intermittent fasting. There's time-restricted eating?

Yeah. Okay. There's some benefit on your digestive system as well. You know, so your body's not eating, you know, 10 hours a day, 15 hours a day, or, you know, even more with some people. Some people are just eating constantly throughout the day instead of this you have a four hour window or a six hour window or an eight hour window whatever you decide it is and during that time you can eat but after that it's over

and then you cannot eat for x amount of hours whether it's 10 or 12 or 14 yeah you get accustomed to it though yeah see my goal because i don't know if I could, I'm sure you could prove me wrong, but I'm not sure I could do any of those really strict disciplines of any type almost. So I've always thought if I do everything with moderation, I might not have to do one of these things that I might find to be Too hard It's not hard It's not?

It does seem hard It seems really hard You get used to it though You honestly get used to it And then once you do get used to it Then it becomes normal So once you get like Three days, four days A week or something once you get like Three days

Four days Or a week Or something I don't know Yeah Once you get a few days in It's no big deal Yeah

You get used to it Is that a way of saying That if I really committed to it It's possible I could do it Of course you could do it Okay All right okay Look you're an accomplished man

You can do anything you want You just have to force yourself to do it You have to force myself Just decide I need a compelling reason to do it Right Sure Well that's one of the Beautiful things Like if a your said right yeah get that doctor that sleeps over your house

get in the right prescription but like the thing that we talked about like sober october one of the things about it is that we all know that this is coming you know october 1st boom it's here yeah so you're committed for the month it It's not like a wishy-washy ideal. Are you nervous about it? No. Is there any anticipatory stress? Yeah, you think about it. No, not really, but you think about it.

We've done it a couple years in a row now, three years in a row. But the thing about it is that it's there. It's a real thing. It starts. And then you can't be wishy-washy. Part of the thing that people have a problem with diets and with exercise routines is that they're wishy-washy they give themselves a way out if you know that you have to work out one hour six days a week yeah every day you have to work out one hour you get one day a week off you have to yes no cheating yeah and you write it down on schedule and you decide

all the month of november i'm going to work out one hour a day six days a week period and then i'm going to write it down i'm going to work out one hour a day, six days a week, period. And then I'm going to write it down. I'm going to mark my calendar with an X every time I accomplish that. Well, if you just do that, you're going to get it done. But if you say, I need to work out more. Well, that's not a very specific goal. You're a little flexible. Yeah.

Yeah, it doesn't work. Yeah. You have to go, there's no, this is absolute. Yes. These boundaries are inflexible. You have to hold yourself accountable. Okay. Yeah.

You have to make sure that you're accountable. All right. When I pick something up like that, I'm going to let you know. What would you want to do? Like if you wanted to do something, if you had a thing and you say, hmm. What would I want to do? Maybe not drinking for a month i've never done that i haven't done that how about no booze november well that's coming up maybe for next year you mean i need to warm up i gotta warm up how much time you need to prepare a year sounds good okay

sober october why don't you do sober october with us next year wow how about that that gives you a whole year in my mind i got it not sure sounds a little wishy-washy well i'm gonna try to i'm gonna try to think about doing it yeah you don't have to do it yeah but but i can i can try to warm up and think it's possible you certainly could do it yeah you probably could do it i mean i took I took a week off, and then it was very – Boring. Was it boring? No, I could have gone – well, yes, a little bit.

It was a little bit. But I thought after the week, I thought I could keep going. But then I thought, I don't know. It's kind of a nice luxury to have a margarita or a glass of wine. It is a nice luxury. So I thought, I don't know. No one's making me – I'll just go back to drinking. Right.

Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, I have no reason. Right. But if I had reasons, and I didn't want to wear that sleep apnea machine, and I put it off for, oh, God, five, six years. Really? Yeah.

And then, by the way, these sleep apnea machines got smaller and smaller and smaller and less intrusive. So now they're very easy. Yeah. But it still was somewhat intrusive. And now I always sleep with it. I never thought I would do that because I thought, you know, I'm laying with my wife. I like to feel like a more romantic guy or something or could be. You sound like Darth Vader.

No. No. That's what it sounds like. Yeah. It's Darth Vader. It does. I don't know how she perceives it. Ask her.

I will. She won't be honest. She wants me on it. She calls it the tube of life. You have the tube of life on? Oh, that's a good way of putting it. She wants me to live. Sure.

Yeah. So thank God. Well, it really does on? Oh, that's a good way of putting it She wants me to live Sure Yeah, so thank God Well, it really does I mean, she's sleeping right next to me I'm glad she wants me to live She probably doesn't want you to snore either Yeah, I don't snore I never snored Really?

Yeah The sleep apnea that I had wasn't a snoring It was more like Like that Oh, choking kind Yeah, the choking kind of thing Where you'd You stop breathing Right, right So it's not snoring Got it. Yeah, the choking kind of thing where you'd stop breathing.

Right, right. So it's not snoring. Got it. Yeah. Yeah, it's scary stuff. A lot of people have it. Well, yeah. It's terrible for your health.

Yes, it's terrible for your health and you lose oxygen to your brain. There's all these different things. So anyway, to leave that alone because I do do it. I don't want to jinx myself out here. I'm very superstitious. Really? Very, very, very. So if I'm doing something right, I don't want to brag about it.

I don't want to do any, because then I'll think, I just. You fucked it up. Yeah, I don't want to fuck with things. Like there's, an equilibrium has been found. Whatever that thing is, I just quiet down on it. So you find something that works. You find a good vibe. Yeah, but I don't stick with it.

I don't brag about it. I don't say a thing because then I think, oh, maybe something bad will happen. Right. So I once was fat, actually. Really? Yeah. Like, you know, roles like the guys that have rolls of fat and the thing and i was with a girl who um you know a very very serious young and everything and we went to her

beach her beach was called little doom you know doom beach little doom and she talks to these she goes i have to go talk to these guys and they were the cool surfer dudes and it was like 25 years ago 30 years ago and she talks to these guys and they start laughing and i go what are they like what are you guys laughing at to her because she's now left these and they're back there and i see a chorus of them kind of laughing they go well i guess they're laughing because they said we never thought you'd be with like a fat guy. And I thought, wow, they look at me and that's what they're seeing and they think it's funny? I got to fix this. And that was like the straight up October forever for me.

That is what's called fat shaming. Fat shaming. Yeah. Oh, I didn't even know that. There's a phrase. Yeah. You never heard of fat shaming? Never heard it

Well that's It's a very controversial thought Because some people think That fat shaming is terrible And that you shouldn't do it to people And other people say that It's true It does work on certain people

But it makes people feel bad And some people think You should protect people From feeling bad Whereas other people think You should tell them that they're fat So they feel bad, so they act on it How do you see it? I say I'm the latter

I'm the latter I think you should tell people that they're fat If they want to know I don't think you should go after people and make them feel like shit If they want to know, you mean like If they want to know, I don't think you should protect them from it Okay, give me the signal of if you want to know. Like, you're with some friend.

Let's say you're with someone you only know a little bit. I wouldn't say anything. Then. Okay, so now you're with... So we're talking about like relatives or... No, you're talking about a husband-wife or boyfriend-girlfriend. That's tough because they can resent you forever. Yeah.

You got to be real careful, especially with the ladies. Yeah, yeah. And if you're a man and you resent your wife forever because she tells you you're fat, you're probably not really a man. That's really funny. You might be a little bitch. Oh, my God. All right.

I can't believe you said that. Really? I mean, I like it because it's – I don't know what you, I like it. You might be a little bitch. You might be a little bitch. Yeah. If your wife says you're fat and like, if my wife tells me I'm fat, I'm like, I'm not fat. Yeah.

What are you talking about? It doesn't work. It only works if you're fat. It's one thing if they're saying something about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. It's one thing if they're saying something about something you can't control. Like, I wish you were black.

I don't like white guys. Okay, I have a question. Then you feel terrible. So it sounds like you have no boundaries on your show. Right. Okay. The guys that have really little dicks. Ooh, that's a rough one.

I got it. I'm hearing you. So do you think the girl and the guy are together? Did the girl ever say Do they ever I'm sure some girls do But here's the thing Some girls We feel pretty rough guys

We can talk about I think some girls Some girls who are beautiful Beautiful girls Are also lesbians Oh yes that's true So some girls Some girls who are beautiful, beautiful girls are also lesbians. Oh, yes. That's true. Yeah, yeah.

So some girls- It's popular to be a lesbian. Some girls who are beautiful girls are bisexual. Yes. So they like girls and guys. Here's the question. Would those girls be more likely to settle for a guy with a little dick? Yes.

Or- A rich guy with a little dick. Is it they like girls to be girls and like guys, no matter what, to have a big dick? All right. I think they're like probably the latter. Probably. Unfortunately. Evolution's a motherfucker.

It really is. I think that there's not a damn thing a person can do about that one. You know, you could suck fat out of your waist and stuff it in your ass. You could get fake boobs. There's a lot of shit you can do if you got a little dick. That's a wrap, son. It's a wrap, son.

There's not much you can do. I mean, there's some operations that can help you out a little. Yeah, but I think that, I can imagine. For the most part. Yes. Yeah, cutting and dick,

those two words don't go together well. Do you think it makes guys crazy when they have it? Oh, for sure. Yeah, I think it might, too. Guar i think it guaranteed you must yeah must make them suicidal because it's whenever we started throwing shit right now that would mean like we had little maybe and if you go crazy i think i think there's certain things that you know there's nothing you can do about it you just have to handle that roll the dice whatever you got yeah i would guess yeah

that's one of them but i mean if if things like crisper and genetic manipulation and things they're working on now yeah that's probably one of the first things they're going to work on that's wow i never thought of it oh yeah you just hatched that right on the show today i think i've thought about it before okay i'm gonna be honest with you. But I don't think there's anything more profitable. Except beauty. Beauty would be incredibly profitable for people who were not born. But they're both following that same department. Well, somewhat.

Yes. Same area. Yeah. Yeah. Like whatever it is, cosmetics. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Not just cosmetics, but even people that are not happy with their frame. You're not operational. No. No, you're not operational. I mean, maybe one day they'll be able to do something. Yeah. They shoot a little virus into your body and then all of a sudden.

Yeah. Yeah. That'd be something. It can happen. Yeah. I mean, it's not insurmountable scientifically. Yeah. There's so many things that they're already doing with genetic manipulation. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be something. It can happen. Yeah. I mean, it's not insurmountable scientifically. Yeah. There's so many things that they're already doing with genetic manipulation.

Yeah. That's not outside the realm. Yeah. It's not outside the realm. It seems possible. Let's start calling our scientists right now. Call them up. Yeah.

And see what they say. Yeah. So anyway, learn about fat shaming. I got that. That's very interesting. I can't believe you didn't know about that. That's like in the zeitgeist right now. Is it?

Yeah. People get mad at people for fat shaming. James Corden got mad at Bill Maher. Bill Maher was mocking fat shaming. He was like, maybe we should be shaming people more. To him directly? No, no. Oh, just...

Bill Maher was talking about on his television show that maybe we should be shaming people more. Oh, I see, I see. And then James Corden said, i have a problem with that and you know he's talking been made a bunch of fat jokes which i found were kind of kind of weird you're making fat jokes while you're being upset that someone's calling you fat that's interesting yeah he thought he could get that one by you but that one didn't get by no but he also does have a comedy talk show, so it makes sense that he was making jokes and he's being comedic. He does have a comedy talk show.

It's not something that you can't fix, and that's one of the things that people have a problem with being sympathetic about, and I think that was Bill Maher's statement, because statement because bill is obviously a very slim man yeah but it's not something you can't fix it's a problem to fix it's hard to fix it's hard probably requires discipline and also your your gut biomes probably all screwed up from eating bad foods and you know you probably are accustomed to certain certain behavior patterns that are unhealthy for you yeah the times you're eating the kind of foods you're eating yeah all that i fixed i fixed mine with um but i mean i wasn't fat in the that really you fix it with shame i fix it with shame she shamed me and i started jumping rope and i started with i do, everything with an achievable goal.

I just did a couple of minutes and I just kept going. And then pretty soon, you know, I did the rope with the, that had a counter on it with those plastic beads. It gives a little weight and a nylon rope, a nylon cord. And you could really get it going. So I could do 200 beats a minute for 30 minutes. And you're holding your body very tight. So it actually, I didn't think of it that way,

but it really strengthened my core. Yeah. Jumping rope is amazing. Yeah. So you obviously do. Yeah, it's great. You do it only to warm up or? Mostly, yeah.

I just do it to kind of get going. Yeah, yeah. But boxers, that's why the boxers use it so much. I mean, it's a staple of boxing workouts. Yes, it is. of get going. But boxers, that's why the boxers use it so much. I mean, it's a staple of boxing workouts. Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, you're always on your toes. Yeah. So it keeps your calves conditioned and helps your body ability to shift movement. I mean, strong calves and strong feet are very, very important for boxing and anything that requires movement. Football players, a lot of football players use jump rope to help their ability to move side to side and help their mobility. Great workout, too. Just great cardiovascular. Yeah.

It's very trendy right now, too. Is it? Yes. Another trendy thing. Yes, another trendy thing. The antidote to fat shaming, right? Well, there's a lot of videos online where people are doing, like, these YouTube workouts of jumping rope.

And then they also have weighted ropes, which makes it more intense. I used to weighted rope, too. Yeah. I used to go everywhere with these ropes. So if I were in an airport, I'd be doing it. I remember being on a tarmac in Greece, in Athens, and I was doing it. I would do it in the rain. Every day, was doing it. I would do it in the rain. I would do every day I did it.

That I did without fail for almost 12 years. Wow. Do you have a trainer? A personal trainer? I do now. I didn't then. But I do now. Because I think well it helps me so much.

Also it helps me get into the gym without fail. Because I don't well, it helps me so much. Also, it helps me get into the gym without fail because I don't want to have him wait. Derek. Oh, by the way, Derek. I shout out to Derek because I said something about I'm doing Joe Rogan and he goes, oh, I listen to him all the time. I go, give me some insight. I really started collecting stuff. He had, in fact, I could even show you.

He wrote notes. i didn't read them because i didn't feel like i had to uh but literally i'm sorry but anyway so derrick okay oh it's so long i mean this is embarrassing and i didn't read it so okay so every morning it's it's good morning bro good morning bro good morning bro that means he's good morning, bro, good morning, bro, good morning, bro. That means he's here. Good morning, bro. And this is it. Hey, bro, you wanted a text about bro. Is Derek a bro? He sounds like a bro. He's a guy from Detroit.

He says bro a lot, yes. He's not a – I don't know how bro-y, but he does go, hey, bro. And actually, I've even said to him a nice way of, don't say, hey, bro, every morning. Because it just doesn't, he goes, hey, bro, like that. And I want to say, you got to chop it up a little bit. Mix it up. Hey, fella. Mix it up.

Is that bad? Is fella bad? It'd be funny. I call people fella all the time. Yeah. I think it'd be funny you saying, hey, fella. I like that. Like a strong guy going, hey, fella. What's up, fella? I'm going to try it. I like fella. Yeah the time. Yeah. I think it'd be funny you saying, hey fella. I like that. Like a strong guy going, hey fella.

What's up, fella? I'm going to try it. I like fella. Yeah, hey fella. I mean, everyone, all your millions of listeners will know that I'm ripping from you. Well, you gave it to me. You said you could say it. That's not mine.

I like it. Hey fella. I say it all the time, but I don't know where I heard it from. But do you say it kind of gently or how do you? Hey fella. I say it like that. Yeah. Like if I saw you, I'd be like, hey fella. I like it. Now I'm thinking from Did you say it kind of gently? Or how do you Hey fella I say it like that Yeah Like if I saw you

I'd be like hey fella I like it Now I'm thinking about it though Now it sounds weird Because I'm being self-conscious Yeah but you'll get Once I'm off the show You know tomorrow

You're going to get back to it Yeah it'll go back to normal I like it I'm going to feel that Yeah It's not an issue Okay So what is Derek

What kind of advice did he give you? On the show? Yeah. It said – I didn't look at it, but he gave me some advice. He said – you know, he told me your background. First of all, I didn't realize the chronology of your background. I didn't know – he knows New Jersey, right? He just knew all the stuff.

Oh, so he did Wikipedia. Well, I think he did more than Wikipedia. No, no, no. I know. Yes, that leads you to Wikipedia. But I popped that on him, so it wasn't like that was today. So he didn't go, let me just tell you about it. He didn't start looking at his smartphone.

He knows your show really well. He's a guy's guy you know and uh he's a bro he's a straight talker guy he's a yeah he's a bro he's a bro no wonder that expression is weird because it used to be like uh first of all black dudes owned it yeah right what up bro it was like. And then it became white guys. Like dorky white guys. I'm going to give it to you. Because you seem interested in everything.

I like the Rogan podcast because it's casual conversation. I feel like I shouldn't be here for this. He always sets the guest at ease and weaves through topics seamlessly. I leave it alone. But he says everything is awesome. Thanks, bro.

You're so You said it just like how you I mean, perfect. What kind of stuff does Derek have for you to do? Oh. Physically. Physically, well, okay, so I get in there and I do an elliptical you know, for me, I do it as high, as hard as you could possibly do it

for 20 minutes. So it gets everything kind of going and I've torn my rotary cuff so it lubes that up a little bit and I have some injuries. Have you ever done anything about it? The rotator cuff? My doctor,

you know him, Neil Eletrage. Okay. He does teams and stuff like that. What did he say? I don't need surgery. Eventually, I might have to have surgery. He says, I'm a surgeon.

That's what I do, but I don't want you to have surgery. You don't need it. You have the same strength you would have, and it just will hurt a little bit. And this is a rotator cuff tear. It's a rotator cuff tear. Have you ever had stem cells? No. Is that a good idea?

Yeah. Oh, tell me how you do it. Definitely. Okay. Oh, wow. I'm getting this from the man right on public. I'll talk to you after it's over, and I'll give you places that you should go and talk to. I had a full-length rotator cuff cuff tear And it's gone from stem cells

Is there anything No nothing negative Not for me I know of no negative repercussions That's fantastic I love knowing that Certainly can help you For sure Matter of fact the place where I go

Well the place I go is in Santa Monica And I've been going there I've been going there for years What's the name well the place i go is in santa monica and i've been going there i've been going there for years what's the name of the place lifespan medicine oh it's not mark forrester no no lifespan okay i don't know you'll i'll explain to you everything i would love that thank you so much okay but there's a lot of different treatments that they they can do now that um for soft tissue tears things like rot rotator cuffs and muscle tears, things along those lines, it's amazing what they can do now. Wow. Okay.

That'd be awesome. So what does he have me do? I do a variety of different types of weights, curls. He mixes it up, so it's sort of cross-training. So I'll do different things. Cool. I'll use those little slides that I love. Oh, yeah.

That's great. You put on your feet, you there's four different things you can do you open them and you do the push-ups you and i like it because it's hard and i take i do it all in the morning i do it at uh let's start at 6 30 wow he shows up at seven this This is what my – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he goes like this for me. From 6.30 to 7, I do my own stuff. Elliptical. Elliptical. Just get going. And a few other things.

I might even do those little slides. He shows up at 7. Hey, bro. He's hey, bro-ing me. And then we work out till 10 to 8. At 5 to 8 – and then for 5 minutes, he puts that bolt on my legs and calves, you know, to make my muscles more relaxed. Are you talking about like a neuromuscular stimulator?

Yes, thank you. Okay. All right. Electrical muscular stimulator. Electrical muscular, yes, stimulator. And so we do that. And then I run next door and I play tennis for an hour, usually one-on-one tennis with a pro named Buster.

Shout out to Buster. Shout out to Buster. So after that, so a half-hour elliptical, and then you do the weights. Yeah. You do this different kinds of physical workouts. Different kinds of physical workouts. And then you play tennis for an hour. for an hour so wow so you're done like what 10 a.m no i'm done exactly at 9 a.m sometimes i go i have to leave a few minutes early but

like five to nine or so you run right from the gym straight over to tennis so no no missing time right next door no missing time right next door yeah right next door skip rittenham's house okay bam bam for him yeah uh and so then i play tennis and then i rush back and i take shower really fast and then i'm on the road and then you do your work now you go to work wow but i'm up early actually at five o'clock really i'm doing work and i'm looking at videos and i'm reading things and 5 a.m., huh? Every morning, that's your thing? Every morning, I just wake up at that time.

Coffee? Coffee, yeah, lots of coffees. But I get excited about the day. That's great. I get really excited about the day. That means you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Oh, good. You enjoy what you're doing.

I really enjoy it. You're excited about it. I'm really excited about it. I really enjoy what I'm doing and I enjoy I enjoy my life. I love hearing that from people that are successful. Oh good because it's it means you found the thing that's fulfilling Yes, and it's continually fulfilling. Yes, which is the real problem with a lot of folks Sometimes things are fulfilling initially, but then they lose their luster Yeah, but for you as many movies as you made As long as you've been in the game

That you're still Getting up at five in the morning Pumped up Yeah Super psyched Excited for the day That's awesome Not feeling like I have to

I just want to That's awesome Thanks Yeah No I mean it's really true I'm really excited And I You know

My life's good My kids are Great You know They've gone through some changes They all kids do And they're really in the right spot. My youngest kid just turned 16. He plays football at Notre Dame.

He's not a big kid, but he wanted to own it. He wanted to own a choice, and he's really disciplined, really, really, and he's just so not a pussy. He's just a tough a pussy. He's like, you know what I mean? He's just a tough guy. That's awesome. And I'm really proud of him and happy. And, you know, I go through the rest of the three as well. Four, total of four.

What other kind of things do you like to do with your day? I mean, you're obviously a guy that's into self-improvement. Yeah. So what other kind of things do you do? Meditate at all? I do meditate. I do TM. I do it once a day, but I know you're supposed to do it twice a day.

Are you supposed to do it twice a day? You're supposed to do it twice a day. Morning and night? Is that how you're supposed to do it? Something like that, yeah. But I can't pull that off. So I don't demand that upon myself. I don't demand upon myself things that I can't quite do.

I know I should, and I'm trying to. Sorry, my friend Tom Poppet does TM, and he won't tell me what his mantra is will you tell me what your mantra is no damn it's crazy i got i had two of them because um actually depek chopra 20 years gave me one like 15 years i have to be honest years. Because I was really in need of meditation to stop these cycles. He gave you a mantra. He came to my office, taught me how to meditate, and gave me a mantra. And then I dropped it. And then recently, about five years ago, Veronica, who's my wife, who's a big shout out to my wife.

Shout out to Veronica. Thank you very much. Third shout out today. That's good. And so she and I took a TM from Bob Roth. Bob Roth is the founder of the David Lynch Meditation Center. And he's a very good guy. No, we're good.

Okay. And so we do that. And sometimes we get Bob Roth on the phone because he lives in New York and we'll just do it in the backyard and we'll have him on speaker and he'll talk through the framework of it and then he's quiet and we're quiet and we meditate. Oh, nice. Do you meditate? Yes.

I just find it amazing how many TM people Won't tell you their Their Whatever their chanting I think we're told not to Yeah but that's why It's weird It's like Why would How does somebody

Have that much power over you Right Yeah Is it abracadabra Is it alakazam What are you saying I The style of meditation I do

I just concentrate On my breath I think only about Breathing in Oh yes Only about breathing in And only about breathing in oh yeah only about breathing in and only about breathing out that's all i think about so when i'm concentrating i'm thinking only about the breath in and only about the breath out and um it goes off the rails i think about

other things and i have to get back on track it always does there's no way around that i think we're told it's okay though right yeah yeah it's yeah. It's okay. I catch it, yeah. I used to think that it wasn't. I used to think, God, I'm weak. Me too. I can't stay on track. But now I realize that's not the point. The point is to, it's just part of being a person. Just let it happen.

But keep on track. Keep on track. Keep on track and you get off track, just get back on track again. Don't freak out about it. Don't get weird. Don't beat yourself up and all that stuff. But I find it very cleansing. Me too. It does me too it does something just something when it opens you up in a very nice way is yours who's uh who is the who's the person that turned you on to it or is it a type of

meditation that has a name to it or no not really just something stuff i read about and um i started doing it in an isolation tank. I started doing it. I have one here. Really? So when I leave, we can look at the isolation? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sensory deprivation tank.

Shout out to the float lab. Shout out. You ever been to one? Ever used one? No. Oh, they're amazing. You should get one. It's a great way to meditate.

They're portable ones, too, aren't they? Sort of I have done one I have done one And I liked it But I bet there's I can't wait to see yours Because I bet there's a better way

I did it so makeshift Yeah I'm sure Yeah The float lab is the most advanced ones And they have a place in Westwood And in Venice They have a place where you can go And rent it for an hour

But the best thing that I found was inside the tank was to just concentrate on breathing, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth and in through the nose and out through the mouth. And that's all I would concentrate on is breathing in and breathing out, breathing in and breathing out. And then I would kind of go into this trance when I was inside the tank. And so then when I didn't have access to the tank i started utilizing that outside of the tank and so i just and when everything's any if something's bothering me if i've got something that because i'm an obsessive person so i get a thought in my head about something i'm working on or something i'm trying to fix and i just start rolling over in my head to the point where I can't get it away. So then the way I can cleanse that and put my brain back on a good cycle

is to just concentrate on breathing. So I use the same method that I would use inside the tank, and I use it outside the tank. But I want to try TM. I'm going to try to do it this month while we're doing these different classes this month. I'm going to try to take a class. Maybe go to doing these different classes this month. I'm going to try to take a class. Maybe go to this guy, Bob Roth. Sure.

Where's he at? Well, he's kind of all over the – in New York. Okay. But he comes out here because he has many people in Los Angeles, and he makes sure to come, I think, once a month or something. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, I'll talk to you. We'll figure it out.

I think he's, for for me i think the best i've met a few of them but he he made without saying take it seriously he describes it in a way that i understood what it was and he has some authority in him that made me take it seriously whereas the other times i didn't take it quite as seriously it is it's kind of important who introduces it to you yeah i think i think so too yeah yeah i mean it's like what you were talking about earlier about people that are really enthusiastic about something and really committed and and disciplined about it that it's very it's it's very contagious it is i think the same thing about meditation or about anything. Yeah. There's a certain energy you get when you're talking to someone

who's really into what they're into. Yeah, really into it. If they're really into TM, you'll get a feeling, and then you'll be able to recreate at least some of that. Yes. When you do it on your own, I'd imagine. Yes, yeah. And, yeah.

Well, you'll like how it's described. It's, I don't know if you've, basically – no, I'll let you do it yourself. Okay. Sorry. Now, what other stuff do you do in terms of self-improvement? You should ask Veronica. No, I'm – I think a little like you as I've researched you that I'm constantly reading things like all of the time. Always nonfiction, however.

No fiction at all? No. I just – no. That's interesting for someone who produces a lot of fiction. Well, what I like is – yes, that's right. found in my life the the uh like the for for me the foundational creative ingredients are in ingredients to a creative equation like making a movie or a tv show or painting or is counterpoint so i have found that i'm dreamy enough myself you know like i you know and I've read, of course, all Joseph Campbell stuff, so I kind of understand formats of myths and the hero with a thousand faces. And I particularly like underdog stories.

There are so many types of underdog stories that it's... So anyway, so I have that basic knowledge. And then when I learn a subject, let's say I learn the subject of architecture or physics or a little bit of chemistry or whatever, it's all like from an archaeological perspective because it's all new to me. So I found, for example, when I produced the movie 8 Mile, which is about hip hop, right? It's about battles in Detroit. At first I thought, I could even go back further. I'll do this quickly though. I thought I should get like the hottest,

you know, video director, the coolest guy, and I won't say those names, but there were the guys that were very visible at being the best at those hot videos. And then it occurred to me, I should get somebody that approaches it,

again, archaeologically, where everything is a discovery. So I hired someone that knew nothing about hip hop, but was passionate about wanting to do the movie. And he was named Curtis Hanson. He's deceased right now, but he won, I think, I believe two Oscars for LA.A. Confidential.

So he was kind of a classic American filmmaker that looked at everything with sort of a discovery lens. And that's why you're able to see if I pick the video guy that thinks he knows everything about hip hop, then all the little nuances that are new to the audience's eyes would have never been shot because he'd think, oh, everybody knows that stuff. That's the good stuff, you know? Yeah. And so sometimes authority on top of authority doesn't work out well. And I found that my career – all I did was write and produce comedies for the first 17 years of my movie career, starting with Night Shift and then Splash and Parenthood and Nutty Professor and Liar Liar and a lot of comedies, a lot of 5 Eddie Murphy thing, Jim Carrey three times.

And what I found was Jewish writers, Christian actors. In the Jewish words, they go, Jew writers, Goyim actor. And Goyim is like when Jewish people say, it's the Christian, yeah, the Catholic guy. It's always, I've made eight movies, I think, with Tom Hanks, but he's like Gary Cooper or he's the Christian guy with the Jewish writers. Always that works. Jew on Jew, no good. Christian on Christian, not funny. Really?

Yeah, it just doesn't play. What's wrong with Jew on Jew? Only one Jew on Jew kind of worked in the last – Which one? Woody Allen. And they weren't meteoric hits. He was just like – he was sort of dominated the ethos of – you know what I mean? He's of comedy in the 70s and 80s.

But it just doesn't work. You can't really – but I could name name i mean judd apatow talented jewish writer director usually he's got these guys that are like not they're just not that they're catholic christian guys you know like our Right. I mean, who's the chicken train wreck? Melissa McCarthy. McCarthy. She's Catholic. Right. He's a Jew.

It's like that's the counterpoint is what works. Isn't train wreck Amy Schumer? Is it Melissa McCarthy too? Oh, you might be right. Oh, it might be both. Yeah. It's both. Oh, thank God.

Thank God we got tiebreaker here. So anyway. Do you prefer to do comedy or do you prefer just a movie that interests you? I prefer movies just interesting. Just whatever it is. But there was a point like at the end of these 17 years of like – there was a point where I definitely made a lot of, you know, did well financially. I'm making these movies and I enjoy it because when you're around comedy, you're happy. You're laughing. I mean, that's the whole vibe of the thing.

But I thought, you just don't, you cannot get enough respect just doing comedy. So I thought, I'm going to have to try to just do dramas because I've come close. I got nominated, but that's as close as I got. There was no way on Splash they were going to pick. And the writers are the funny guys over there. They picked Robert Benton, you know, like the guy that wrote A Place in the Heart, you know, or Places in the Heart. And Bonnie and Clyde.

Like they picked that guy, the classy guys. So I felt like if I want to join the classy guys, I better start doing dramas. And then I did Apollo 13 and Ransom and a bunch of dramas. That's interesting. So that's what motivated you to switch it up? Yeah, that was what motivated me. I just couldn't take the abuse any longer. I just couldn't. The abuse of producing massively successful movies. What abuse? Yeah, I mean, I felt grateful and stuff, but I just felt like I got to.

I understand. You didn't feel like you got the respect you deserved. Yeah, I just feel like they're so, comedies are so hard. You do comedy. Comedy is the hardest thing because when it doesn't work, you hear it. It's embarrassing.

It's bad. Yeah. Dramas, the great dramas, I can tell you all those dramas that we see in the last five years, they go, it's embarrassing it's bad yeah dramas the great dramas i could tell you all those dramas that we see in the last five years they go it's great it's brilliant i mean i don't even know what happened on some of these things they're so slow right or the my so i you and you there's no defining you know no one's class you know you're oh god you hear everybody who's really quiet they're quiet because they're asleep.

What did you think of The Joker? Okay. I have to break The Joker down because I know a lot of people that are moralistically very against it. Yes. You know, my generation is really mad at it. I thought as a movie, that movie was really badass. That movie was, I thought it was really good. Masterpiece.

Masterpiece. Oh my God, those sequences and the going down the stairs and the music choices, that was a masterpiece. It was amazing. I loved it. Now, this other unit that you, if the movie is broken down into two units, the One is the masterpiece we're calling of the movie itself. And then what are the themes that are giving life to this movie or the purpose? What's the purpose? I mean, you could go, well, that could be – there could be some bad stuff in there. But I'm not deep enough to identify it exactly. And having made so many movies, I can't be judgmental of it.

I liked it. And so I just feel like people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. That's what I think. That's a good way of looking at it. How do you see it? I thought it was brilliant, but very disturbing. But it was supposed to be disturbing. And I think they accomplished their goal with flying colors.

I think it was a very, very unusual movie. Very difficult to find any parallels with any other previous movie. Yeah, exactly. I thought it was fucking amazing. Yeah, I thought it was. When I left, I didn't feel good. Yeah. I didn't feel like that. It was like, wow wow i'm going to party

great yeah i was like fuck i walked out of the theater like fuck yeah it just blows you away yeah so good and me and my wife talked about it for a long time how was she on it she loved it oh cool but it's not her kind of movie yeah but it was there was something about it it was so well executed and joaquin phoenix was amazing it was kind of operatic in some sense i mean where the music and everything yeah i mean the build-up to it too there was so much going on and so much madness and so yeah you understood you felt empathy for this guy who was ultimately a monster and a murderer. Yes. But, spoiler alert, but you felt for him.

Yeah. You know? I mean, in that sense, they managed to navigate those incredibly treacherous waters brilliantly. Yeah. I thought it was fucking awesome. Yeah. Good. Me too.

Yeah. I mean, that director's great Yeah No he's great Todd Phillips is amazing I'm sure you know him I don't Oh really

I have friends who know him Yeah Yeah my friend Brian Callen He was in The Hangover And he was in Oh yeah He was in this movie briefly too Yeah

Okay But I don't know Yeah So that's that That's that Yeah Brian I gotta wrap this up Okay

I really enjoyed it man Thank you Thank you very very much You're so welcome I really appreciate it I really enjoy talking to you. Thanks. I feel really grateful to be on your show. I feel really grateful

to be able to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great. Bye, everybody. Wow. How long do we talk for? Wow, wow, wow. Thank you. Thank you.