The Joe Rogan Experience - #138 - Anthony Bourdain

Episode Date: September 11, 2011

Joe sits down with Anthony Bourdain.

If I can throw an experience The music's totally unnecessary but But necessary at the same time Anthony Bourdain is with us ladies and gentlemen Thank you very much for coming by man. This is cool as fuck Me too man if somebody told me that my favorite, if you came up to me like 10 years ago and said in 10 years your favorite show is going to be about a dude who eats in different places, I would have told you to go fuck yourself.

I would have said that's the most retarded show I've ever heard in my life. If you told me 10 years ago that I'd be on television, I would have said the same thing. Yeah, that's one of the cool things about you, man. I wouldn't say you're reluctant, but you're almost like an accidental celebrity. Like you just got your book, Kitchen

Confidential, just fucking took off, and then all of a sudden, you're this famous guy. Yeah, it was like an overnight thing, for sure. One minute I'm standing next to the deep fryer, and the next I'm selling books, and on TV. I mean, literally, I think I was 44 years old.

Wow, that's fucking wild. I was not looking at anything. I had no higher ambition than to keep cooking where I was cooking, really, and maybe hopefully have the... I wanted some kind of minor... I wanted to earn my advance back on the book. That was my highest hope.

And it all kind of turned out real good. That's fucking nuts. What a crazy story. It's very interesting because it's very rare that someone gets to live a full and intense anonymous life and then all of a sudden be thrust into public consciousness. But actually it's interesting. It happened late at night. I guess I've been in the restaurant business for a long time. time. I think the level of bullshit that I can sort of live with in my life on a day-to-day basis is pretty minimal now. So I came out to television and everything else always with the attitude that, hey, I could be back next to the deep fryer tomorrow. So I'm just not

taking it that seriously. It's amazing, though. I mean, reality television, in your case, actually worked. It's amazing though. I mean, it's reality television in your case actually worked. It's like there's people that become famous and you go, what the fuck is going on? I don't even know what Kim Kardashian's voice sounds like. I literally don't know what it sounds like. I don't think I've ever heard her talk once, but I've seen her everywhere. I know she is.

But it's become like she's become a show. She's become a thing, an item, a program, the Kim Kardashian program. But in your case, it actually worked. Like, they actually found some crazy chef dude. In a lot of ways, though, I think there's some similarities, unfortunately. I mean, both shows, mine and the Kardashians, are really, you know, my show's about me and having fun and taking advantage of the situation.

And in that way, I probably have something in common with the Kardashians. You say that, but you're sort of almost a self-deprecating thing. You're discounting all the different things and the way you're pointing out all these different things in these places you visit. That's what makes the show unique. It's not just

that you are in these exotic places eating these crazy fish in Brazil. Somehow or another, they let a show on the air where they didn't fuck with it and they let the one voice come through. I've been really, really lucky. We've been a freakish anomaly,

first on Food Network for two years and for going on eight years now on No Reservations on Travel. It's been an amazing run because at every point both networks uh for whatever period of time i was i've been with been with them they've let me do whatever i want um they've let us make the show the way we want to make it uh do really fucked up things all the time i mean it's just there there are some episodes are like completely self-indulgent and fun to make, and clearly we're having more fun making them than audiences might have watching them.

What shows? Like, which show would you think? Oh, we did a whole show. I mean, one of the shows I'm proudest of is the Rome episode. We were just sitting around, all the shooters, the camera people. That was a great episode.

Yeah, here's how it all started, though. Camera people, assistant producers, me hanging around in some terrible hotel lounge, probably in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, someplace like that. We're getting really fucked up on cocktails. And, you know, just talking shit the way people do. And I think one of the camera guys said, man, we are so fucking good. We are so good at what we do that I'll bet we could make food porn in black and white.

And we all looked at each other and, you know, yeah, dude, well, let's just do it. Well, they let us make that show. And we got away with it. And I think we did it really well. It's a really pretty show. But if you, generally speaking, I don't know of many other people on television lucky enough to be able to go to their network and say, we're going to do an entire hour of food-related television in black and white. And it'll be an homage to Italian directors that none of our audience or few of our audience have seen. Oh, and there'll be subtitles. Who gets away with that?

So we're having fun. And I think if anything makes the show special, it's that it's really first and foremost about me and the crew enjoying what we're doing, both creatively and just having a good time. And that's really all we're looking to do. It comes through. That's why it's so fun to watch. It's so obvious that you guys are having a good time. Well, I mean, we fail a lot.

I mean, there are shows where I'm really miserable and all this terrible, humiliating stuff happens to me. I don't set out to do that for, you know, viewer entertainment. That's genuinely me having a bad or, you know, sexually humiliating time. Like the one time when you were in Brazil and you had a horrible back pain? Was that when

you flew into the jungle? Yeah, yeah. Audiences love seeing me, you know, injured, basically. That's comedy gold. So some of the shows that have been most fucked up and have just been failures and every you know where everything went wrong from from beginning to end i had a miserable time it was just one you know a long week of bribery extortion and bullshit sometimes you know after you go back to new york and you edit that put it all together that that ends up being a really funny show we We did a Romania show that made me like

I'm public enemy number one in Romania. It was a national scandal but it's a very funny show. Why was it a national scandal? It just presented Romania in a comical light that they did not appreciate because we had a really terrible

time there. We try to shoot stuff naturally, you know, we don't like things to be set up for us, and so one of the first rules of the show is, wherever we go, we don't want to see native dancers and indigenous garb, you know, some dog and pony show. We want to sort of run

and gun. We were foiled in every possible way in Romania. I mean, the government and the tourist people just sort of stepped in, and we were supposed to shoot with a humble butcher and his family. Somebody arrived at the humble butcher's house beforehand and said, your house is not pretty enough for American television.

We're moving you to a more attractive-looking farm. And by the way, your kids are going to dress up in indigenous garb and dance and pretend they're happy. So it was this whole eerie, creepy, theatrical... Oh, wow. You know, from whole eerie, creepy, theatrical from beginning to end. That's got to be the biggest trip, is that you're going to places that are fucking dangerous,

man. You went to Kurdistan. You go to the jungles of Brazil. You go deep, man. That's got to be a weird fucking way to live. I'm just like having this late inin-life childhood of getting to go to all the places

that I dreamed about and read about. You know, I grew up reading books about pirates and explorers. So, of course, given the opportunity, that's pretty much what I'm doing on the show. Wow, what a crazy change of life at 44 years of age. How much did you travel before then?

Almost nothing. I mean, I'd been to France a couple of summers as a kid. I'd been to the Caribbean. That was about it. I mean, if I was sure of anything at age 44 standing in the kitchen, it was that I'd never see, you know, Saigon or Hong Kong, much less. You know, I probably had no expectation I'd ever see Rome so I'm just again I'm just

kind of living that out and as long as me and the crew as long as we're having as much fun as we are at least finding ways to make like more and more fucked up television as long as we can do that. Is the crew is there any similarities with the crew as being like an

actual kitchen, like the gang of a kitchen? More like a band. I often talk about a band that's toured together for a really long time, and sometimes we rotate out personnel, but there's a core group, and maybe the bass player will go away for a while, but he'll be back, and whoever fills in for him is somebody else that we've worked with for years around the world. So we all like each other, and everybody's really, really good at what they

do, and, you know, that's fun. But, you know, traveling with camera guys who are really good at their job, that's a really, that's a satisfying thing. It gets very intimate. Yeah. Traveling on the road together. What's the number of people you travel with? Oh, we're two camera people, a producer who also carries a camera,

and an assistant. So that's it, like four and five people? Five, and we pick up local drivers and stuff on the ground wherever we go. Wow. Now how do you coordinate with a place like Brazil? Do you have to get a translator, obviously? There's this entire profession of people, a very strange mix of other professions who come together.

Basically, they're called fixers. You want to make a movie in Moscow, you need a fixer, somebody who knows what permits you need, how to arrange them, hires drivers, knows who to bribe, that sort of thing. There's one of those everywhere. Everywhere on earth, there's somebody who is available to fix for you. And if not, we reach out to bloggers, particularly food bloggers, because somebody's blogging about food, whatever city you're talking about in the world. Chefs, people who I, you know, the chef's mafia is pretty extensive. If you know you're going to someplace in, I don't know, Southeast Asia, chances are you know a chef in New York who knows somebody out there.

So there's that, you know, you already have friends when you arrive. That's got to be nice. That's got to be nice. But, God, that's got to be a crazy way to live, man. How often are you on planes? I'm traveling about 240 days a year. Whoa. I'm either someplace else or in transit.

Holy shit. So have you had the frightening, scary travel airplane ride yet, like with the lightning storm? I like turbulence. I know this is really fucked up, but I like turbulence. Do you take your belt off and choke yourself while it's happening? At this point in my life, it breaks up the tedium. Really?

When laying there, especially after a couple of glasses of whiskey or something, you hit turbulence and you see everybody else in the cabin freaking out. It's more entertaining than the in-flight movie. And it does break up the soul-sucking monotony of too long in a plane. And it's the best iPhone video, too. You should always have your iPhone video ready to go for things like that when the people freak out on the plane. I've been doing it lately.

I never thought of it before. And then recently, every time something crazy is happening on a plane, instead of just watching it, I've been filming it. Is that anything good? Not really. It's really hard to... Jesus. It was too far away. And then you post this stuff? No, no, no. I just collect it. I don't know what I'm going to, it's really hard to Jesus. So it was too far.

And then you post this stuff. No, no, no. I just collect it. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Really? Make a terrified plane. Yeah. Make a 10 best terrified plane.

I don't think we should put that energy out there, fella. Yeah. I'll replace their faces with cats. There you go. Yeah. Then it looks like cats are mad. Well, if you were not, if you were not a person of interest to law enforcement, I don't know who will be. I always film on the plane because whenever I go on the road with Joe, I kind of do the same thing that kind of what you could do.

You have a camera crew or a gang, but I pretty much do it for Joe. And so when we're on the road somewhere like Houston or something like that, I'm always having cameras. I'm always filming from even when he doesn't know I'm filming, like in the back a car or in the back of a plane or or when we're at a comedy club. But it's weird collecting footage because now I've become addicted to collecting crazy footage. Like I feel like I can't just go out and have a good time. I'm always like, I got to film this. I got to film this. I think I have some kind of condition I need to get rid of. What's the condition of the Internet? You know, the endless resource of entertainment that is the internet. I mean, I have a real problem. I can't even go to sleep

at night. I sit in front of the box just clicking buttons. I just can't stop clicking. It's just like one more documentary, one more article, one more. What a fucking hypernova. It's going to kill everything. Holy shit. You know, one after the other. It's like... What were those sounds? Have you seen those YouTube videos of these weird

sounds in different cities? It's like... That's probably sounds? Have you seen those YouTube videos of these weird sounds in different cities? That's probably horseshit. If it's on the news... It's on major news sites. I'll try to show you later. Okay. The earth is groaning. What is the scariest place you've been to so far?

I don't know. Scary? I don't know. In any country where there's really no infrastructure or no trustworthy infrastructure, I mean... Do you worry ever that, you know, you become like a target? There have been times when we've, on the show, when we shot in Beirut in the war in 2000, we got caught up in the conflict. There was a heightened level of paranoia about that sort of thing then,

but it was ridiculous in the end. What happened there? You got caught up in a... Well, we were there shooting a happy Beirut show, no reservations, and went back to my hotel. Basically, there was a border incident with Israel. Some Hezbollah had kidnapped some Israeli soldiers. And basically, we got caught up in a war. I mean, woke up or went home one evening, look out the window, and there's the airport, you know, bursting into flames and rockets and stuff coming in.

And we realized, you know, we're not getting out anytime soon. time soon. So there was, of course, on the part of the people who security guys who got involved in trying to get us out of the country, yeah, we had to think about all of that sort of possible target sort of stuff. Again,

it's silly and I don't think any of us took it seriously ever. Who would target a host of a dipshit little travel show? I think some people in some parts of the world would be really desperate. So that was the worst situation that you were ever in? That actually was the saddest.

I think the scariest are probably places like Liberia. You find yourself where people are desperately poor and hungry, and there's no law and order at all. You know, a little situation in a market can turn into a really ugly situation. You know, those are probably the most realistic threats we've ever faced. It's just, you know, large groups of hungry people behave like hungry people do. And so there have been some dodgy

moments there, but that's about it. There's a great online documentary show called The Vice Guide to Travel. Have you ever heard of it? Oh, yeah, it's terrific. Yeah. Did you ever see their episode on Liberia? I saw the Liberia episode. It was a little lurid, but it wasn't false. It was a little lurid, but it wasn't false.

It was a true picture of, you know, we told the truth about Liberia for sure. That's a great way to describe it. I mean, they obviously went after the Jews, but, I mean. Well, if you're looking for Jews, you'll find it. I mean, I think they were with General Buck naked. Buck naked, yeah. Yeah. Folks who don't know who he is, he's a guy who goes into a battle naked.

Except for his boots. Except for his boots. And he's killed the enemy's babies, and he drinks their blood because he thinks it makes him immortal. And he's admitted to this. I mean, this guy is like, it's crazy. So, yeah. And now he's a preacher. Yeah, yeah.

I thought he was in government, actually. He's a preacher now. I believe he's a preacher. Yeah. Yeah. And now he's a preacher. Yeah, yeah. I thought he was in government, actually. He's a preacher now. I believe he's a preacher. Yeah. Yeah, I believe he's a preacher in the world. It's a very surreal, it's, in many ways, the history of that country resembles a really badass trip, you know, Manzan-esque. It's, they were American slaves that were brought back to Africa?

Is that what it was? Yeah. Long story short, Liberia was, I'm going to say founded, but the nation was created by freed slaves, part of a back to Africa movement. And they arrive, people essentially who'd been taken from all over Africa, you know, were returned to Liberia, a country that none of them really had roots in. And they became sort of an aristocracy and based their country entirely on the American model, you know, very red, white, and blue.

So it was in many ways this little America in Africa. And then things went really, really bad. Whoa. Africa fucking freaks me out. We're going in a few weeks. We're going to Mozambique next. Are you ever going to go to the Congo? We try every year.

It's like this fantasy for years. Do you really? Yeah, I want to do the whole Joseph Conrad, you know, Heart of Darkness thing. I'm obsessed with going up the Congo River. But every time we take a serious look at doing it, we schedule it every year. But every year we get the same security reports. Like, no way, you know. Yeah, it's a very, very volatile place.

You know, that's where they found that giant chimpanzee. Do you know about that thing? No, no. This is where I want to go. There's a chimp in the Congo. I mean, I would never go. If you had a force field. Yeah, if I had a force field.

There's a chimp in the Congo called a Bondo ape. It's a new chimp that they've discovered that nests on the ground like a gorilla. They walk upright. They're over six feet tall. They're like 400 pounds. I don't want to see this, man. Oh, fuck. Are you kidding me, man?

Just draw it for me. I just remember. The locals call them lion killers. I don't doubt it. Two different types of chimps. There's tree beaters, the regular chimps, and then there's these gray lion killers. They're a real chimp. Can you imagine a six foot tall gray

jaguar eating chimpanzee? They've caught them eating jaguars. This is a real chimp. The photos of this fucking thing, they haven't been able to capture one alive, but they have photos of some guy shot a giant one near an airport up there. I want one. Could I have one working for me? Some giant killer chimp

in a diaper, you know, coming out to nightclubs with him. Like that lady in Connecticut? Well, that's what I'm thinking about. That's why monkeys, especially chimps, there was no love between me and the monkeys, because that story, this giant crazed, like, Valium, he just kicked Valium or something, the monkey, and the monkeys because that story, this giant crazed Valium. He just kicked Valium or something, the monkey, the chimp, and then gnawed somebody's face off, right?

That's a pretty horrifying story. Well, they can just decide to do that at any time, too. I mean, they don't, but they could just decide to just fuck you up any time they want to. And they can. And it's not even bad in their culture. The culture of chimps, you're supposed to be fucking each other up. They do it all day. They don't understand our world.

Our world of not fucking people up all the time. They try to keep it together. I don't want any pet that throws feces at me. I do. Speaking of pets, have you ever come across any crazy animals or any weird threats in any places? When you go to Brazil and you're in the jungle, jaguars are a real threat out there, right? The closest threat from the animal kingdom we've had, we were in Ghana, I think. And the idea was we were going to go all the way out in the middle of nowhere,

this tiny little game park or camp. And the whole idea was we'd have to get up super early and drive like four hours in bouncing Land Rovers in the hope that maybe if we're lucky, we're going to see a herd of elephants and get to shoot some. We wake up really early in the morning, and the camp is infested with elephants. If you could be infested with elephants. They were just everywhere wandering around right outside. So of course we did what any shooter

would do. You run outside and you start shooting the hell out of these fucking elephants. It's a good shot. So we're doing this. We're like, dude, okay, let's get a good shot. You close in on it that way and I'll close in on it that way and we'll basically herd the elephant towards the camera.

Right. At which point the game warden wakes up, shows up, our guide and says, step away from the elephant, walk slowly backwards. We'd done everything wrong. These were young male elephants. They are the fastest moving creatures I think in the wild

once they get going. They hate bright shirts, which of course we were wearing. They're spooked by people holding implements, which of course, that's what we were doing. They particularly don't like being herded by people one

thousandth their weight and are likely to charge at any point. Apparently, we'd come close to doing something fatally stupid. How were you guys so bold? Yeah, haven't you seen that elephant? Stupid is the word. Were you drunk?

Were you guys sober? We've never seen that elephant bashing the guy video that's on the Internet. That's an important point. Were you drunk or were you sober? I mean, we're certainly drunk and stoned a lot on the show, but I think, no, we woke up and we were stone sober first thing in the morning. Wow. I mean, the camera people are really suicidal.

I mean, one of our guys, both of them, actually, when we were shooting in Kurdistan, they're hanging out the hatches of these Russian cargo helicopters. Hatch open. They're all the way out. You're getting these cross drafts and humps from updrafts where suddenly you're at zero grav. They do crazy shit for a good shot. They really don't have a lot of sense.

Nothing freaks me out more than those planes with the holes in the back. Those cargo jets in every Schwarzenegger movie. Yeah. You been in those? Oh, man, we've been in everything. If it flies or moves on water, we've been there. Wow.

And so over 10 years, how many different countries have you visited? I think it's over 100. Wow. A lot. God damn. So your passport has more than one. Mine has Canada. I'm on my third passport in 10 years, I think.

Wow. They can't even put in any more pages, and then you've got to get a new one. It seems like you should have a shorter line for security. I'm really good at security. I got one of this, you know, they how... Cops will talk about how they can identify an ex-con very easily because when they're rousted, they relax. They go limp.

They don't fight back. They're trained to sort of deal with that kind of relationship. Oh, that's interesting. I completely forgot my point here. That's interesting enough. That's a funny point, that someone would be used to someone frisking them. So I go into that same sort of relaxed.

I'm a professional traveler. I just sort of relax, go limp, and try to bliss out as I go through this really enraging process. My friend Tony V is a stand-up comic from Boston. He said this to me once. He was traveling from Boston to New York on a regular basis. Good three-hour drive if you're lucky. And I said, I'm like, how are you doing that? He goes, I just go zen.

When I'm in the car, I just go zen. This is what I'm doing right now. I don't let it upset me. Airports in particular because it's futile. You know, there's no, shit goes wrong. You will end up sleeping on the floor. And, you know, up sleeping on the floor. And no matter how crazy and berserk you get about the situation,

you're still going to end up sleeping on the floor. Is that what In Transit is about? What is this In Transit thing that you're doing? Well, I mean, you learn to adapt, I guess. You're doing like a new show, right? Oh, yeah, it's called Layover. Layover. Oh, I thought it was in transit for some reason. That's my head.

So what does that show? Is that about those experiences? No Reservations has always been about sort of me having a good time or trying to have a good time, and this one's more, we're trying to actually be a little useful, like provide some information and experiences that you could do, whereas No Reservations, that's always been a secondary consideration. We do a lot of shit on No Reservations that you just can't do.

They're out of reach of anybody's expectations, I think, any reasonable ones. So this is more about if you're stuck in a place or you find yourself in a place for like 24 or 48 hours. It's just good shit to do. So are you filming it, piggybacking it on No Reservations? No, we took a break in No Reservations and went out and shot a whole hell of a lot of these

all in a really short period of time. It was actually brutal. So you're doing two series at the same time then? No, we broke from No Reservations banked 10 episodes of Layover. But I mean you're going like one to another

boom to boom. That's insane. That's an insane amount of work. Yeah, but I mean what are we going to do? You've got to take it while it's good. Yeah, take it while it's good. This is not a gig that you can say, you know, I'm just going to take a couple of years off, go to an ashram and find myself. But I'll be back.

Yeah. No. And no. I have the best job in the world. I'd be crazy to not milk it for everything I can. Are you still writing at all? Because I know that your one book, Kitchen Confidential, is like the Bible job in the world. I'd be crazy to not milk it for everything I can. Are you still writing at all? Because I know that your one book, Kitchen Confidential, is like the Bible in most kitchens. Most chefs I know all have that book.

Like every time I go to their house, I see that book. Do you continue to write on the side while you're on planes? Yep. And I'll take some time off to write. But yeah, every couple of years, a book. I just did a comic book that'll be out next year. Oh, no way. A comic book for Vertigo.

Yeah, it's an ultra-violent sort of, I don't know what you'd call it, but a futuro-satirical slaughter fest in sort of a near future where it's all about food. People kill each other over ingredients and ideology. Really? Yeah. The art is going to be amazing.

So did you write it? Are you helping illustrate it? I co-wrote it with a friend of mine, a really great writer named Joel Rose. We're kind of describing it like Yojimbo or Fistful of Dollars, but all about chefs. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Now, who's illustrating it? A guy named Langdon Foss, and he's a terrific, terrific artist. How does one come up with the idea to start their own comic book? Well, we sold this concept and they were interested and they said, well, make it happen. I'm doing it because it's fun. That's awesome. Again, it goes back to

the little boy thing. If you could do a comic book, what little boy wouldn't? Yeah, no shit. I love comics. I love comics still. I had a dream the other day that I went to a comic book store. And then I started getting into collecting comic books. And I brought it home.

And my wife was like, really? You're starting to buy comics? I think I'm going to buy comic books again. Did you ever have to sell your comic collection growing up at one point? Because I did and Joe did. I sold them all for drugs, actually. Late in life. So I was the sensible kid who kept my collection.

So I had a very good comic book collection. But, you know, cocaine is a powerful drug. I've managed to avoid that one. When I was a kid, I had a friend whose cousin was selling it. For like, over a course of one school year he completely changed he lost about 15 20 pounds his face got sunken in and him and his girlfriend would just hide in their attic apartment right do coke and watch tv and i was like okay whatever the fuck that is the blacked out room you know the foil you know over the windows yeah they got creepy it was just very

strange i was like they like, they're infected. It's like they got bit by a vampire or something. Their life is gone. Breaking Bad does that really well on that show. Every time they go to meth head apartments,

the set decoration, they really got that right. That show's fucking great. It'd be so fun decorating those sets. I like Doritos. I bet these people like Doritos.

Just throwing Doritos on me. Staining sheets. Has anybody ever given you shit for shooting animals on the show? I mean, PETA do not love me, I'm sure. I mean, we do get mail from vegetarians. You know, I shot a pig a couple of weeks ago on the show. Great episode.

Thank you. And, you know, of course, people who eat pork were saying there's no need for that. That was completely offensive and ridiculous that you would do that. Someone actually said, I guess you did it for ratings. Well, is there a huge demographic out there? I need to see more pigs shot in the brain. I want to see some more animal cruelty. No, we did it because it's part of a process, a celebratory process, a tradition.

And I was offered the honor of doing the deed. And I thought it would be hypocritical to not. I'm responsible for the death of the pig because we're making a TV show about a party where we kill a pig and eat it. So either somebody else is going to do it or I'm going to do it. I just said, fuck it, I'll do it. Do you get sick a lot with all the different foods you eat? Have you ever found any food allergies that you didn't know you had by eating

anything crazy? That's such an important point. It's a weird thing that people have where they think that somehow or another if you don't kill the animal, that you're not responsible for its death. You're not somehow or another. Just because you don't kill the animal, that you're not responsible for its death. Yeah. You know, that you're not somehow or another, just because you don't get your hands dirty in getting the meat at the supermarket,

you're not responsible. It's the same fucking thing. Yeah, I mean, I don't make a point of going out there. I don't want, you know, we need some more footage of me looking manly, you know, shooting, you know, bringing down a deer. It wasn't like that at all. We try to, you know, avoid that.

But on the other hand, we've had a lot of animals slaughtered for our meal around the world because that's what they do in a lot of cultures. When you're a guest, it's kill the lamb. Yeah. So eventually, every once in a while, I will actually have to kill an animal myself. I'm not a hunter. I would never hunt for sport, for instance. But, you know, I do eat meat and I do eat

this stuff. And, you know, if I'm going to be cool with other people shooting an animal, I mean, I may as well do it myself. I just, one of the first episodes that I ever saw of your show, you'd shot a deer in England. I was terrified. That was, I was absolutely terrified. Really? My worst fear was, I'm going to hit this thing

in the stomach or something. Oh, yeah. Long, painful, horrible. I would have totally freaked out. So, yeah, I felt very relieved. Was that the first time you ever shot anything? It was the first time I shot anything that big. It was one of the first episodes

that I saw, and it's one of the things that got me hooked on the show, because I was like, well, this is real. You just shot this fucking thing, and this guy rubbed a blood cross on your forehead. Well, that was Marco Pierre White, who was one of my heroes. Back when I was cooking, we'd all stand around in the kitchen looking at Marco Pierre White's books, saying, that is the rock star. That's the guy we all want to be like. And so suddenly, it's 10 years later, and Marco's taking me out hunting, and I didn't want to fuck it up.

He's letting me use his rifle. He's my hero. I was saying, there he is, Anthony. Nail him, that beautiful one there. He had the head actually mounted for me and had the animal certified. That's a silver medal, Anthony. He was very proud of me. Did you get any rifle lessons or anything before that?

Did you know how to aim? Boy Scout camp. Really? I shoot a lot on the show. There's a lot of... Not just... It's fun. I mean, when you travel a lot,

who doesn't like standing there popping off endless rounds of ammunition at a target or something like that? So we do a lot of target shooting. Local firearms is something of a continuing or recurring theme on the show, too. Alcohol, firearms. I mean, there's a bar in Cambodia that's really famous

that you could basically go to and just get fucked up. They give you liquor for free. You pay for ammunition by the round. I mean, that that's come on in what society would that not be fun getting really fucked up and shooting targets while drunk with like 50 caliber machine guns jesus christ parts of the world man god damn is bone marrow uh still your favorite have you found it? I like it a lot I thought I read somewhere

Bone marrow and bread is your favorite meal Yeah, I would like that I would like to try it sometime Smear it a little toast I've had bone marrow, I like it It's good stuff Remember we had that shit in Portland? It's very fatty though, right?

It's mostly fat It's delicious It, though, right? Yes. It's mostly fat. Something. I don't know, man. It's very... I don't know. It's delicious. Melts in your mouth. Yeah, we don't travel nearly as much as you do. Do you travel a lot?

I do. But it's mostly just cities. I mean, occasionally I go out of the country. You know, I do shows in England, and we do UFCs in England. We always try to find FOGO. Every city. That's why we went to FOGO to chow. What is it like having a wife who's a

crazy UFC nut? I've seen some UFC nuts, dude. But your wife is over the deep end, man. She trains, she does jiu-jitsu, and she does Muay Thai too, doesn't she? She does Muay Thai in the mornings and grappling

and jiu-jitsu at night jiu-jitsu at night. It's Edzo Gracie in New York. Edzo Gracie, yeah. At his studio. And it makes her happy. And she's really, really into it. And, you know, I sort of live in fear, actually. My greatest fear is that, you know, she's just waiting.

You know, some over-enthusiastic fan, some drunk chick with hair extensions is going to step in between the two of us while we're having a drink. And my wife's going to choke her out or some shit. You're really worried about that? She's going to hurt somebody one of these days. Do you think she wants to secretly? She's spoiling for it.

Listen, we're very proud of the Bourdain household that my wife, a couple of months ago, choked out her trainer. He blacked out before he could tap out. Really? Wow. So she's just fucking nuts for this stuff. Yeah. Wow. That is so.

It's all about the grappling, which, you know, it makes it tough, though, because we'll go out to dinner at a really nice French restaurant, and she'll wear a low-cut gown, and of course she's got blue and yellow fingerprints all over her body, and giant bruises that she's all very proud of. Everyone in the restaurant's looking at me like, you son of a bitch. It's really awkward.

Yeah, you try dating a kickboxer Black eyes and shit Walking around with bloody noses But she loves Watching the sport But I think way more She likes taking part in it Wow, how long has she been doing this? About four years now

So she just got hooked four years ago And just dove right in When she does things she tends to do in a serious way. She's a very enthusiastic woman. It was fun. It was fun watching. I really love watching people who really enjoy the sport and really appreciate and understand it. You get to see that.

Your wife is one of those fucking people that throws her arms up. Oh, totally. She's a serious UFC fan. wife is one of those fucking people that throws her arms up. Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's a serious UFC fan. Yes, I mean, I'm getting into it entirely because she's into it, and it's a lot of fun. I was a boxing fan for sure, but this was all new to me. So basically I have to ask her, hey, is this guy any good? Oh, yeah.

Once you figure out who's good and who's interesting and you watch a few good fights and you understand the rivalries, man, then it's inescapable. It's just too exciting. I love the Anderson Silva fight recently. Yeah. Against Yuji Okami. When he put his hands down, that whole Ali thing was,

I thought the fight was over then. He just totally got in the other guy's head. It was such a contemptuous thing to do. Well, he gets his timing. What happens with Anderson is he's calculating you. He's figuring out. He's stepping inside the danger zone and outside and trying to figure out what your instincts are, what your reflexes are. And then he realizes that after 15, 20 seconds, you're going to slow down.

And, you know, like 45 seconds of the first round, guys start to slow down. Two minutes, three minutes in, they really start to slow down. And that's when Anderson starts to pile it on. He's like calculating your abilities. And then he can just get right in front of you and put his hands down and there's nothing you can do about it. Right. And it's got to be the most horrifying feeling in the world to be locked in a cage

with a magician. A dude who can hit you and you can't hit him and he's very confident. He's locking in on you and you know he's got you timed and figured out. He just starts popping off on you. That was a really impressive fight. He's an amazing athlete. He goes down in my book

as one of the all-time great athletes. Muhammad Ali's and Sugar Ray Leonard's and all the Roberto Duran's, all the greats of the past. I think Anderson Silva goes right in with him. You know, obviously different sport, but the same thing. That super athlete, that guy that can do things that other people just can't do. I'm always, you know, Ali was a personal hero, you know, for me. I just, as a fighter, as a personality, as a leader, I just really looked up to him.

I still look up to him. It's very unfortunate what happened to him. You want to talk about a guy who was this incredible speaker, who was so fast and so fluent, so sharp in the way he could talk and the way he could break things down and the way he, I mean his ethics, he stood up for this fucking Vietnam War and he said, you know what man

no Vietnamese ever did nothing to me. I'm not going over there. You know, I put him up there with like Jefferson and Lincoln and you know, I just see him as really a great one of the greatest and most heroic American icons

I mean certainly especially around the world respected and looked up to have you seen the film When We Were Kings yeah I cry like a baby at the end of that film every time it's an amazing film and that's the film where Hunter S. Thompson was hired to go.

Right. And he was so upset because he was an Ali fan. He knew Ali was going to get killed that he just took drugs and floated around the pool with a Nixon mask on and missed the whole fight. Just got drunk. Dr. Thompson, another personal hero. But I think a sadder story. Yeah. I mean,

people say Ali's happy now. Really? So, I don't think that Thompson clearly was a happy man for a long time. Thompson was in a lot of pain, too. He had hip replacements, and that's brutally painful for some people. He had a lot of physical ailments. And on top of that, his body was just so beaten down

from the daily boozing I mean he just would pound it daily obviously I think anybody who reads my stuff you know I was you know I'm shamelessly a student of or an enthusiast of Hunter Thompson's early work

I really you know when that stuff came out on Rolling Stone I remember you know running to the store to get Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas serialized. Life-changing. Yeah. But that's a guy who sort of peaked early. And I think he had a very hard time for the rest of his career after, I think, probably Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail. I think he was a guy who was clearly struggling with writing for the rest of his life.

Well, I think you just can't do that to your health and not struggle creatively. You can't do that. You can't just poison yourself. You can't do coke and write. That's for sure. You can't do coke and write? No. Maybe two sentences.

And then what will happen? You'll either keep writing and it'll be utter and complete shit, or you'll find some way to not write at all. Embarrassingly, I didn't know much about Hunter S. Thompson until I was in Seattle once. I was staying in a hotel room, and I had a layover, and nothing to do, just flipping through the pay-per-view movies. Gonzo, Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson, I think it's called.

I watched the documentary, and I went, holy shit. You know, when they show how he fucking, when Ed Muskie was running for president, he started writing fake stories about the guy being on Ibogaine and bringing in exotic Brazilian doctors. And he made up names for new drugs that, you know, a dude was on something called Wallet. Some new form of speed. He actually found his way into the straight media. They had to defend themselves. He gave some homeless guy his press

credentials, I think, his White House credentials. Really? That was some epic stuff. He did some awesome shit. If you read some of the stuff, some of the lines in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

It was a very romantic, sentimental side. He wrote some beautiful sentences about how his hopes were smashed forever by, you know, what he saw happening politically in this country. Nixon just, you know, really fucked with Conor Thompson's head. What was great about his rantings and drug-induced, you know, his vision of the world was that he had been through a utopia period in San Francisco in the late 60s. So he had this idea of this LSD culture where he knew this was possible. He knew it could be beautiful. And then when the hopes were dashed and all the water was thrown on the fire, Then he became this, you know, wild fucking renegade. There's that line about it's right here.

This is where the wave broke and then it all rolled back. I think he's talking about the desert near Vegas. Yeah. Which is one of the very, you know, this was a failed romantic, a failed hippie, you know, who's who's who's seen everything go ugly real quick. Yeah. And I love the way he described so many people that were in the psychedelic movement. He was calling them mental cripples.

He was describing it that these, you know, basically these people are just locked into this crew of losers and they're dragging them around with them. And he stepped to the side and was watching the whole thing crash against the rocks. Such a fascinating writer that guy was. And it was so fascinating that he had this idealistic period when he was younger and it had the hopes dashed.

So it was almost like, you know... Yeah, I think it's where the anger came from, which was also what was so funny about Thompson. Yeah. He describes a bad-ass trip once, I think in Philadelphia and Las Vegas, where he describes a really bad-ass trip as being one where you look down your leg

and see your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. I thought, that is a beautiful image. Yeah, he's one of those dudes I really wish I had a chance to meet. Once you find out about him later in life, you're like, wow. He was a great letter writer, too. His letters

are available. I think the book's called The Proud Highway, and his correspondence with the people is really hilarious. Really, really funny. He's a brilliant dude. Watch that, for folks listening, watch that documentary, though, Gonzo. Whatever it is. Life and works of something. I don't know if it's the life of times, watch that documentary, though, Gonzo. Yeah. Whatever it is. Life and works of something.

I don't know if it's the Life and Times or whatever it is, but just Gonzo. Look for it. It's fucking incredible. So no one has really ever given you a hard time about killing animals. No. What about from all the shit you say about vegans? Vegans I find to be very defensive. I've joked about vegans a few times on the podcast and i've gotten a bunch of hate mail hate tweets yeah um there's a hardcore of vegans who are in

who are they're not going to like me anyway you know whether i shoot animals that's the fact that i'm eating meat at all and and talking about it as if it's something that that we should all do i'm already their their blood enemy. So, no, I don't really get any problem from them. Vegetarians, I have a surprising number of vegetarian fans, which is something I really don't understand. I'm grateful for it. But apparently there are vegetarians with a sense of humor.

Total vegans tend to not have a sense of humor. But, no, they haven't really had any problems. It's the usual angry stuff, but not a lot of it. I always wish that somehow or another science had figured out a way to record the screams of lettuce. They've found that lettuce, they can't move, but they scream like squashing kittens. It's just at a microbial level. We can't really pick it up. This poor lettuce is suffering every time you eat it.

And then see what these self-righteous fucks think. That would suck walking into the Whole Foods and you're wearing the scarlet letter if you were just in the Whole Foods at the wrong time and there's just vegans everywhere eyeing you down when you're walking down there. I don't think it's that bad. It's not that bad. What if it was like that?

I have friends that are vegans. I have a few silly friends. I got Jamie Kilstein He's a vegan He's a great guy I love that dude He's silly though Yeah We should help him if we can

He used to eat meat And you know Now he's like super lefty He's like He's got this radio show Citizen Radio You know And they're real

Real super lefty You just gotta cook bacon around them Constantly Yeah Until they crack Somewhere in the distance Right What is that? I don't smell anything and they're real super lefty. You just got to cook bacon around them. Just somewhere in the distance. What is that? I don't smell anything. Do you smell anything? Be around wild pigs.

If you're so happy about pigs, you wouldn't be if you saw feral pigs. The pigs that you see have no relationship to the pigs that we would have if they were... We talked about this in the last podcast that they transform. Wild pigs, if you set, we talked about this in the last podcast, that they transform wild pigs. If you set a domestic

pig loose, within three weeks their body starts to change. Their tusks grow long, their snout grows long, their hair gets shaggy. And they become more delicious. Really, do they? Wild pig is good. Is wild pig better than domestic pig? Kind of, it depends what you're looking for. It's a game year. I've had

boar before, That's fucking delicious. That's amazing. Yeah. Some of the game meats are like the most delicious meats, like elk. Elk is fantastic. You ever have elk? No. Never?

Never. Oh, elk is delicious. Yeah. Elk liver is delicious. Elk liver? Yeah. What is that? It's like a calf's liver, but with its own sort of

elky flavor. Well, whoever figured out how to do foie gras, that guy's a bad motherfucker. Yeah, well, it's going to be illegal out here, I think. In 2012... What?

The law is kicking in. It will be, I believe, illegal to sell in the state of California. Oh, my God. There's a restaurant called Brandywine in Woodland Hills, and it's like one of their specialties, and it's fucking fantastic.

It's so good. And I know it sucks to be a duck, but it sucks to be a duck no matter what, whether they have a giant liver or not. Yeah, on that issue, people really tend to get cranky, especially out here. I mean, some of the animal activists, you know, I mean, absolutely terrorized chef friends of mine up in San Francisco.

Really? There was a group up there who terrorized a chef friend. First, you know, threatening phone calls. They broke into his business and trashed the whole business, plugged up the toilets, you know, threw acid on the walls. But the nicest thing they did, I thought, was they slipped into his backyard while he was away and videotaped his wife and infant child together from the rear window, from the backyard, and they sent him the tape.

Holy shit. Basically saying to stop serving or selling or in any way dealing with foie gras. After this, I just feel compelled, even if out of spite, to eat foie gras for the rest of my life. I want it now. I will eat it today. There are some cunts out there that are just waiting for an argument.

They're waiting to pick a side to be on, whatever team it is, and fucking fight that to the death. Yeah, I think they smartly saw foie gras as an easy win. You know, it's not like this is any more outrageous or painful or bad a procedure in any way than any other animal we eat. I mean, the way chickens are raised in this country is truly shocking. Domestic hogs from some of the major houses, these are really sort of grotesque mass market, very unhealthy way to create food, Let's put it that way.

So there are bigger and more deserving targets than foie gras, but I think the animal rights guys saw it as something that they could win. Because it looks so brutal? It looks bad. And we should say what it looks like. You know, it is basically when they feed the geese, who generally, if it's any sort of a quality operation, the geese or the ducks come over to the feeder,

but basically you tilt the thing's head back, you put a long funnel down its throat, and put a couple of handfuls of ground corn in, which they readily eat. It just looks like they're having food jammed into them, and if you play footage of some place in Eastern Europe that is mass-producing this stuff very cruelly, there's some really terrifying footage

that makes for a very lurid picture of the process. Add to that that it's got a French name and only a bunch of wealthy, high-end restaurants serve it. It was an easy victory for them. Isn't it awesome? Their ultimate goal, but basically bolstered by their victory with foie gras here,

they will then be able to raise money towards the next victory, which ultimately leads to their aim, which is to give chickens the vote. Man. Isn't foie gras, can't you get it organically where you don't force feed them? Isn't there an option?

They will if just left on their own devices during a certain season eat themselves into a bloated liver fattening situation for sure. But that's the only way to get good foie gras is to do that sort of force feeding because

otherwise the liver is just not as tasty. You're not grabbing this. Anyone I know in this country who sells foie gras in their restaurant buys from one or two or three outfits, all of which, I can tell you, are not people brutally grabbing animals and jamming this tube down their throat, and some cartoon cat in one of those old Warner Brothers cartoons, jamming mouthful after mouthful as the belly expands. It's like two handfuls a day. It takes like two seconds, and it's not that bad.

And the animals otherwise live really cool, comfortable, luxurious lives. In the world of poultry, they're the aristocrats. So it's really just a couple quick blasts a day and that's it? Yeah. Then like every other animal, we kill them and harvest their stuff. And in this case, their stuff is a delicious, delicious, smooth, creamy, very tasty liver. I can't wait to try it. You've never had it?

No. You've got to go to this. I might go today. I might eat twice as much as I would normally. Yeah. Go to this brand to try it. You've never had it. No. You've got to go to this... I might go today. I might eat twice as much that I would normally. Yeah, go to this brandywine place. But I guess those are the people you'd have to, you know,

those are the people who get angriest, I think. There's some people that love animals more than they love people. Those people are creepy. Those fucking team animal people, those people that want

to rescue animals from... There's certain people their agenda is ultimately to have no animals under people, like in yards, no animals contained. None. You don't own animals. Animals have their own rights. It's such a first world form of lunacy, isn't it? Well, they believe it's evolution. They believe that we need to move past our monkey past

and we need to move past our monkey past and we move to we need to move past our carnivorous ways and embrace the ways of the plant it's healthier and it's natural and nobody gets to get hurt we don't have to have horrific domestic but that's who likes to see animals hurt i mean we can all agree on that it's true but you know if you don't shoot them they don't live forever right i mean getting silly. There's a cycle of life. It's real simple. That shit's good for you. Steaks are, when you work out, if you work out, nothing feels better than a steak.

You slice into that thing and you start chewing it and the blood in your mouth, like, oh. It lets you know this is what you needed. This is what you're looking for. I feel that urge often, but it's really, maybe every couple of months I'll get that sudden, you know, I'd really like a salad. Maybe every two months.

Or actually, if you're in, like, the Czech Republic, anywhere in Eastern Europe, basically, for more than two weeks, you're really starting to think,

or Argentina or Uruguay, you don't see a green vegetable for, like, weeks. Wow. You don't see anything. It's just, like, pork, pork, more pork, starch, and beer.

You start blocking up. Yeah. Yeah. Brock Lesnar, our UFC, former UFC champion, he had to get 12 inches of his colon removed because all he ate was meat. Really? Yeah. He was one of those crazy dudes who wouldn't eat salads.

He's a fucking caveman. He's this giant gorilla. He's literally like a real Viking. His fucking head is this big. He's just a giant wrestler dude. He's a savage. And he just ate meat. That's all he wanted to eat. He didn't want broccoli. Fuck you with your broccoli. He's just eating steaks and just dropping people on their heads. Well, apparently when you do that, if you have just too much protein, it can cause something in your stomach called diverticulitis. And that's what happened with him. And ultimately, he had to get surgery. Yeah, but you didn't get that from cucumbers. Cucumbers too. The seeds. Anything that has semi-digestible particles. I give seeds in cucumbers, for instance. The seeds in cucumbers can give you diverticulitis?

Yeah, because they sort of tuck off into the side there and start to irritate. It's a fascinating turn of conversation. We're going to move our way on to ulcers and then fistula, which is one of my favorite words. The only reason we're bringing it up is that all he did was eat meat. And I always wonder, like, that can't be good. How do these people? Man. So, like, that can't be good. You know, how do these people? Man. So, look, Jesus.

He was pissed off before, and now he's lost 11 inches of colon. 12. 12. Now he's really pissed off. Yeah. No shit. You have to eat. I mean, like, how do these cultures do it?

How do they get away with just eating meat? No broccoli or no breakfast? Seriously, I think certain cultures clearly, over over time develop their systems around the food. I mean, you see this in the north of Canada with the Inuit people up there. They eat seal and seal fat. They need it. And their bodies have changed because of this diet to adapt to this incredible cold. I mean, it's the notion that people could ever be vegetarian in a place like that where there's not a growing thing for 1,000 miles.

It's like 20 below zero. You know, these people live because they shoot seals and eat their blubber, and you could see it in their bodies. They're able to withstand temperatures that would kill us in hours. Jesus Christ. They also have some weird thing where their fingers don't get numb. They have incredible circulation in their fingers. They can take extreme cold

that we wouldn't be able to take. It's like one of the things that they point to adaptation. It's one of the key points of adaptation that's been observed. It's pretty amazing. Especially when you're feeling it. I mean, you know, when you feel cold like that for the first time, you... What's the coldest you've ever been?

That was definitely cold. What is the number? I don't even know. I know that if, you know, stepping outside for a minute, you know, to have a cigarette, you know, you have to completely suit up. It's just cold so penetrating that you've really got just a couple of minutes before you start getting hypothermic. I know a dude who knows a dude who lives in Alaska. The guy's a cue maker.

He makes pool cues. Lives way the fuck up north. He took a bucket of hot water and threw it off his back porch, and it was frozen before it hit the ground. Wrap your head around that shit. Doesn't seem possible. It is possible, apparently. Apparently it's like 40, 50 below zero.

That's what happens. I remember up there in the, we were all in our latest sort of Everest ready, down parkas. They laughed their asses off at us. When we got off the plane, we said, are we dressed well enough to go out in the canoes? And they just laughed their asses off. Had to slip a big caribou smock over yourself on top of the down jackets to operate.

Fuck. All our cameras locked up, like froze up and locked up within seconds of each other. After, I don't know, it must have been maybe we shot for an hour, an hour and a half. You know, machinery can't handle it. Was that the most humbling feeling of nature that you've ever had while shooting a show? Seeing a whole family, you know, basically shoot a seal, drag it onto their kitchen floor in a tarpaulin, and then everybody in the family, you know, mom, dad, grandma, you know, basically shoot a seal, drag it onto their kitchen floor and a tarp will end and then everybody in the family you know, mom, dad, grandma, you know

junior, they all whip out knives and start tearing this thing apart. They start eating little pieces of it too. They eat the whole thing. Feeding it to each other. And it looks like Night of the Living Dead but it is in fact one of the most sort of genuinely heartwarming times I've had on the show. I mean they're

survival. I mean, they're survival. They're incredibly happy when they're doing this. And juxtaposing those pictures in your mind of what are clearly a close and happy family having a good time with all of this blood

that's kind of getting used to. But I think when you travel a lot, you get used to the notion that people are different or live in very different circumstances. And people adapt to those circumstances, and that's just the way it is for them. Totally. And I think it's, you know, because we're interested principally in food on the show, because we're interested principally in food on the show,

I think people everywhere have been particularly nice to us and let us see a particularly, I don't know, a side of their personalities, a side of their cultures that I think a lot of other hard journalists don't get to see. People's defenses are down. They're less likely to put up a front or be someone other than who they really are, you know, over the table. You know, right away, you break bread with somebody. You drink the local drink, whatever it is.

You eat whatever's offered. You try to be a good guest. I think you're going to connect with people over food in a way that you couldn't if you're just some guy with a, you know, a microphone and a camera. People, cameras and things, you know, change the situation. But the fact that I travel largely on my stomach, I think, gives me an advantage. Wow, what a fucking crazy way to live, dude. That's fascinating. Was it Brazil, the last USC?

I didn't go to that one. I was filming Fear Factor, so I stayed home. I couldn't afford to take the four days off. It's good food down there. In Brazil? Rio? I've been to Sao Paulo. I went to a real chujasqueria in Sao Paulo. Pretty badass. Like Fogo do Chão, but they had a lot more organs. In Brazil they had a lot more organs. In Brazil, they eat a lot of chicken hearts and things along those lines, chicken livers. The big meal is feijoada. The whole country does it.

Feijoada? It's basically a big stew of hooves and snouts and black beans. And it's really delicious. And it came originally from slave food. and it came originally from slave food. It was the scraps from the table of the wealthy Portuguese that their slaves would collect and try to make into something edible or even delicious. And over time, they created this dish that, you know, it was the food of the very poor at one point.

Now it's like the national dish. Everybody in Brazil at one point or another, Saturday, you invite the family over and you sit around eating this huge, huge amounts of feijoada and getting really, really, really fucked up on cachaça. Well, Ed, the episode that you had in Brazil was really wild when you were at that

fish market and there's these fucking alien fish that they're all eating. That is kooky out there. I mean, you know, that's freshwater fish. You're in water the depth of a rice paddy, you know? I mean, three feet of water and you're I mean, you know, that's freshwater fish. You're in water the depth of a rice paddy, you know. I mean, three feet of water, and you're driving around. You look in a basically rice paddy deep water to the left, and you see a 500-pound freshwater fish, you know, breaking the surface.

It's wild. I mean, there are all of these fish and creatures and fruits and vegetables down there that never make it out of that area. So it's really, ingredient-wise, it's really another planet. Yeah, I would imagine so. I really, like I said, I didn't get to eat much interesting food. I was there for the World Jiu-Jitsu Championships in 2003, so I was only there for a couple of days.

But we did go to the supermarket and get these fucking alien-looking fruits. Like, I had never even seen them before. Never heard of them. I had no go to the supermarket and get these fucking alien looking fruits. I had never even seen them before. Never heard of them. I had no idea what the fuck it was. I just picked up a bunch of different ones with weird seeds in them and strange flavors. It's a great country. Great food. Great culture. It's a wild

country, man. People are really nice. They're the country that figured out fighting. They figured it out. There was a lot of confusion as to how to fight correctly the Brazilians were really one of the first to really figure it out they put the first big piece to the puzzle Jiu Jitsu put the first big piece

where everybody was like, whoa, okay you gotta know this, because if you don't know this they're gonna grab you and they're gonna break your shit it's really simple, so the Brazilian guys just revamped the whole system and then wrestlers came along and kickboxers. And then people realized you have to have really a full arsenal of techniques. But if you don't have a full arsenal of techniques, if you just had one,

jiu-jitsu is probably one of the best ones to have. And the Brazilians were the ones who figured that out. Back in the day, nobody knew everything because there never was anything like the ultimate fighting championship. So there's never an opportunity to see what was better to know. It was just speculative. Is it better to be a boxer? Is it better to be a wrestler? Who the fuck knows? Nobody really knew.

But the Brazilians came along and they figured out that if you only know one thing, you should know how to choke people. Because fights usually scramble. You're in a bar. You fall. You're on the ground. You should know how to strangle a guy once you go to the ground. That's a wild culture to figure that out, man. I love it.

Rio is awesome. I like El Salvador, Bahia in the north. That's sort of the African heartland of Brazil. It's where the food is sort of spiciest and richest and most interesting. There's no culture like it on Earth. Aside from the fighting, it is, I don't know how anyone could actually. I don't understand how anyone works or wants to work. You know, when you get used to just hearing that music,

you know, being in a country that beautiful, food that good, everybody in that country looks like, you know, attractive or not. Everybody in Brazil seems to look like they either just got laid and they're coming from getting laid or they're on their way to getting laid. Oh, that's awesome. You know, going to the beach in Brazil is amazing because you see people of every size, you know, every hue. Brazil is amazing because you see people of every size, every hue. Just the beach culture is so awesome. I don't think there's any country where people seem to like music and dance as ferociously. It's really tough to not dance in Brazil because everybody seems to.

Wow. So is that your favorite country? Is it up there? No, but it is one of my favorite countries. What's the favorite? There's something really, really awesome about Brazil. What's your favorite? Oh, man, favorite. I don't know.

Spain. Spain's really awesome. Spain was where you were at that restaurant. Was it El Bulli? Is that how you say it? Yeah, but just about anywhere in Spain is going to be a special place with great food and it's going to be beautiful um vietnam i love you know i think that vietnam resembles all of the the places i dreamed about you know when i was a little boy you know really the exotic the exotic east, you know, there is that, that the decaying French aspect, uh, the indigenous

Vietnamese, that, that whole part of the world looks to me particularly beautiful. And, uh, they, they like food in a way that, that I've, I find very sympathetic. They're passionate about it. Um, so Vietnam is that, that's going to be a sentimental favorite as well. Wow. So Vietnam, numero uno, huh? Wow. But you could do worse than, you know, to keel over after a really good meal, to die with a big hunk of pork in your mouth in Spain would not be a bad way to go out.

Anybody that doesn't appreciate the idea of cooking as an art form should watch that show on El Bulli. Am I saying it correctly? El Bulli, yeah. El Bulli? That guy, wow, what a fucking wizard that guy is. He's a really intensely creative chef that had this small restaurant in Spain. That's amazing.

Yeah, I mean, it was basically considered the best restaurant in the world for a long time and certainly he was a guy way out in front of everybody else. Yeah, that was some good food porn we did and I think that was a show I'm really... Every once in a while we get an opportunity to do a show that might actually

mean something in a few years and we shot... I think we shot some history with that show. It was a restaurant closed the same night, I think, that we aired the show or closed to it. And, you know, that's a true artist. And it was a limited period of time, and that era is over, and we managed to get it on tape.

So that's something I'm really proud of. I was confused as to what he was doing afterwards. He was talking about bringing a bunch of people together. It's a think tank, essentially. It's a creative space where people from all over the world can talk to each other or meet or come up with new ideas. Trippy. Very trippy, because I have to be honest,

until I watched your show, I never thought of food as an art form. I always thought of food as, you know. Well, no, I think your instincts are right. I think there are maybe two or three people in the world who I would say, maybe two or three chefs in the world who you could honestly say they're artists as opposed to really talented craftsmen. I mean, artists, you know, somebody who's creating something completely different would honestly say they're artists as opposed to really talented craftsmen. I mean, artists, you know, somebody who's creating something completely different than anybody else.

Does it have to absolutely be completely different? Because it's almost just doing it really well and with attention to detail and, like, that is art. It does come through when you have a— I think there's a difference between the people who designed the great cathedrals of Europe and the people who built them. The people who built them are probably some of the greatest craftsmen in the history of the world. But they were just that. They were working within an established hierarchy. They were about doing the same thing again and again and again, exactly the same. I just don't think there are that many people who...

For me, the benchmark is Ferran Adria at El Buoy. This was a guy who was like Charlie Parker or Jimi Hendrix. Nobody had ever made sounds out of a guitar before like Jimi Hendrix. No one had ever made sounds out of a horn like Charlie Parker. They were

unique to history. There aren't a lot of people who will ever be that good or that different. Ferran Adria is like those Parker. They were unique to history. There aren't a lot of people who will ever be that good or that different. Ferran Adria is like those guys. That's the high watermark for you. So there's only a few guys like that that just really are paving a path and doing their own thing. Yeah, but what do we do now? He closed his restaurant.

It was traumatizing, I think, for a lot of people who looked at him. So he's the Michael Jordan of chefs. He's the peak of the hill, right? Yeah. He's the Bruce Lee of chefs. Bruce Lee and Michael Jordan together. Wow. Yeah.

With a little bit of Dalai Lama. Who else is left? How many guys are left? True artists? I don't know. And I wouldn't even like to think about it. I know there's somebody out there. There's just small handfuls.

I don't know, and I wouldn't even like to think about it. I know there's somebody out there. There's just small handfuls. It's probably someone whose food I've eaten, and I'm too stupid to have recognized that it was historic and great. Well, even the craftsmen, even if you're just recreating classic dishes, I don't give a fuck. When someone's really good at it, it comes through as an art. I see what you're saying.

They might not be the innovators. They might not be at the head of the field. There are a lot of really great innovative chefs out there as an art. I see what you're saying. They might not be the innovators. They might not be at the head of the field. I mean, you know, there are a lot of really great innovative chefs out there. But art, you know, I said a high standard, you know. High standard for the word art. Fucking Picasso here, right? Yeah, well, I'm a fucking comedian. We call comedy art.

You know, some people would call this the art of podcasting. It gets ridiculous after a while. I will go to my grave without having created any art. I'm pretty damn sure. Really? Oh, wow. You think that? That's funny because I think your book is art, man.

You don't think that's art? If you start talking about yourself like that, then you start talking about yourself in the third person. And after that, there's really nothing left to do but get arrested like having beaten a transsexual hooker to death. It's beautiful that you think like that. That's why you're you, man. It's a beautiful way to think. That is the road to madness and incarceration.

Talking about yourself as an artist, stepping back, and as an artist, I feel, as an artist, ever since I've been writing books, as an artist, it's a tricky road. I don't see what I do, anything that I do is essentially that much

different than standing on a line and one chef or cook among many making food you're presumably building something or making something as best you can you're showing up at work on time doing the best job you can

hopefully you're having fun doing it so there aren't that different telling stories on television or talking about yourself on television I don't see this being any different or certainly no better than actually working for a living right, I see what you're saying

you are one of those guys that you could just be anyone could know you as that guy that you work with, with a great personality, who's funny, likes to talk shit about things, kind of an interesting guy. You know, he could be a TV star. If somebody just put a camera on him, this guy needs his own reality show. You know, I mean, how many people do you know like that? I've known thousands of them.

My friend Johnny B, I used to, my best friend was a professional pool hustler. He was halfway homeless. He was sleeping on my couch, on other people's couches, and he was a genius. He could throw math problems at them. He would recreate them. A guy like that would make a great reality show. I think if television has taught us anything, it's that complete mediocrity is enough to have your own reality show.

It's all about your willingness to play ball. You look at those kids on Jersey Shore. Does this situation drive a Bentley to work and then he's got to sleep on a cot with a bunch of other boneheads who he hates? You know what I mean?

Is that really how the show works? They all hang out together, right? Yeah, they all live in a house, right? During shooting season. The rest, I mean... No, the rest. He's not taking a moped home at this point. The way I look at him is like, good for him.

What else would he be doing? I see this as a Greek tragedy, actually. Really. Really. Really? The whole dynamic is show. They're trying hard. By now, they know the terrible rules of television. It's not about looking good.

They got that early on. But now, they know how to play ball. They got a good thing. They got a good gig. And they're milking it for as long as they can. But look at the Real Housewives chain. Does anyone go on the Real Housewives thinking that they're going to look good?

That's not what the show's about. It's about making people sitting on couches with a bag of chips saying, man, those people are even way more fucked up than me. What have they done to their faces? I mean, who buys that? Look at those lips.

What human has lips like that? And that's the chick who her husband just committed suicide, and then his business partner committed suicide, too. Now play. You think so? That's what everyone's saying. It's all about showing up for work every day, knowing that your job is to, you know,

everyone who watches will feel better about themselves, and be snickering at me and my cartoonish behavior. It is fascinating that the trend of reality television took off, that this idea of just following housewives or following guys driving on slippery roads. You know, Ice Road Truckers is a show about driving on a slippery road. How silly is that? You know, there's auction shows and all these. I don't know if it's the worst thing that ever happened in history or the best. It's weird.

I don't think it's worse or the best, but it's definitely weird. I mean, I do watch some of those shows, like Jersey Shore. I can watch only about ten minutes of it before just my eyeballs start to explode. It's just too much. It's just too horrifying and yet fascinating. much. It's just too horrifying and yet fascinating. So I'm good for ten minutes of this is the greatest show that

ever existed after which I just can't. It's too painful. Meanwhile, that's pretty watered down as far as the low level behavior of this country. Have you seen the Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia? No. The Johnny Knoxville documentary? You've got to see it. It's awesome.

So few of these shows have really any relationship to reality at all. They've created this alternate reality where real people are behaving like the soap opera freaks that they're expected to behave like. And so your complicity in this whole terrible process of public self-humiliation, that's kind of fascinating. Well, not only that, they also have to do these fake tasks. Like things happen. Oh, no, we've got to get down to DMV. I'm going to lose my license. Sure you are.

What the fuck are you talking about? Like they orchestrate fake drama and fake things. Well, I'm waiting for the day that I get the phone call from my agent saying, we really think celebrity rehab is a good career move for you right now. You know, that says something. But at what point does this seem strategically like a good career move, you know, celebrity

rehab? Yeah, you gotta be pretty fucked up. Especially if you're Eric Roberts and you're just, it's just weed. That guy was the weirdest one. Because he got on celebrity rehab because he said he was having a problem with weed. And then everybody else is shaking like a leaf, throwing up in sinks. He's having coffee, reading the paper. It looks like there's nothing wrong with him.

You don't need to be here, man. Yeah, but he knows the drill, though. He's got to have at least one freak out during the season. Right. Is that what it is? Well, I don't know. Those are generally the rules of, you know. You get a bonus.

He's just thinking cha-ching, cha-ching, Wells Fargo. That's one of the most disturbing shows, Celebrity Rehab. Very, very, very disturbing. Hard to watch. Wouldn't you be depressed, though, like if your agent called you up and said, listen, Joe, we've got a great offer, Celebrity Rehab. You're like, wow, what does it say about me? I would like go in the bathroom and stare in the mirror for a really long time

and say, oh, fuck, you know. What have I done? Is it, fuck. What have I done? What have I done? Yeah. That's why it's good to have friends back home where you're like freaking out too much. Oh, my God, I'm drinking too much. What'd you do? We got wasted last night.

Blacked out Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Oh, good. All right, never mind. I'm fine. Tony, you know, our market research has shown us that audiences really want more footage of you vomiting. Yeah. Well, speaking of vomiting,

you had that one episode where you took ayahuasca. Was that legit? Yeah. I've taken a lot of LSD earlier in my life. By the time I took ayahuasca for the first time. For me, it was kind of like ecstasy in the sense that

I'm sitting around waiting to get off. It didn't work? It did, but it was a big deal.stasy in the sense that I'm sitting around waiting to get off. It didn't work? It did, but it was a big deal. LSD, now that's a drug. Right. That was my experience. I think you got some low-level shit, and sometimes they do that. I've always heard that from the Iowa Scaros, that they water down the stuff they give to the gringos. They don't want anybody going crazy, running through the woods, woods seeing dragons flying fucking serpents and UFOs

and shit but everybody that I know that's taking it that's taking legit doses has had crazy psychedelic vision I mean I went into the experience you know it's this cottage not a cottage it's a shack up on stilts as I recall out in the middle of the jungle and Amazon we're like four hours

six hours by boat from any place like resembling the place of the hospital. No lights. So I went into the experience with the expectation that it would be like the book, where I'd be crawling around naked in the jungle, shitting and puking for six hours before I discover my spirit animal. So this is what I thought I was going into. my spirit animal so this is what i thought i was going into um but honestly i mean you know i got off seriously uh but but it wasn't like uh acid right so they gave you a weak dose yeah i mean i gather you know i didn't shit myself so it was win-win though how deep were you in an acid like many hits or were you a one or two or did did you like, because I used to hang out with guys who would be like, I took 11 hits.

And I'm like, what? No, I was not one of these guys who'd sit around like, you know, taking too much. I mean, you know when it's enough. Right. Do you make your mushrooms into a risotto first? Or do you do anything fancy? Back in the day, we did marinate the mushrooms in honey, I think. We marinated them in honey overnight or longer and then would mix it in a big pot of hot tea

and the whole kitchen would be drinking this tea all night long. Oh, marinate it in honey. I make it tea. That's my new thing. I'm not suggesting you do that. No, no, no. We did it. You know, that's what they used to use to preserve mushrooms back in the day.

Yeah, they used to preserve them in honey. They would dry them up and preserve them in honey, and they believed that that's one of the ways that people started getting into alcohol because honey can ferment and become mead, and that eventually, this is one of Terrence McKenna's theories, that people went from being intoxicant-oriented

like with psychedelic mushrooms to alcohol-oriented, and that somehow or another fucked society up. And and at one time we got along way better he has this uh i got a great history uh actually and i was reading about coffee lately you know when they first the first coffee houses in england um were quickly declared illegal by the by the the government they they saw these as hotbeds of sedition and they closed them down. Why? Because up until that point in history, most

Europeans and most people in England would wake up in the morning and drink mead. That's all they drank all day long. It was basically crude beer, homemade beer. So up until this point in history when people started drinking coffee in these coffee houses, everybody in Europe could be counted on to be fucked up all day long.

So coffee houses were the first place in Europe where people would sit around in a state of sobriety. And as people tend to do, when you're sober, you notice shit. And they're like, hey, have you noticed our government's really fucking us? So the government was right, of course, because this was the first time that people were actually drinking a beverage and hanging out with their wits about them, and that was seen as a really dangerous thing. Food for thought.

That's fascinating. Well, that's exactly what's going on with marijuana in this country. They're trying to keep that away from people. A good percentage of it is they're worried about people waking up. They're worried about people... If I was president and wanted to be re-elected, if I was a really bad president,

I'd want people to smoke marijuana. Basically, who smokes weed? Generally, we're talking... Everybody. Yeah, everybody. In California... Everybody. Yeah, everybody. In California, everybody. Yeah, but people who smoke... Yeah, back home.

Is there a correlation between weed smoking and voting? The frequency of voting, that's what I'm wondering. The only way... To people, is there a huge iflate factor? Oh, for sure. Some comedian was talking about this. I don't know who did it. It was the whole bit about why it will never be voted in as legal.

Because all the most fervent supporters will forget to show up. Yeah. I don't know who said it, but it was really funny. Yeah, that is true. A good percentage. Well, you know, my take on the amount of potheads that are useless is just like my take on the amount of regular people that are useless. There's a good percentage well you know this my my take on the the the amount of potheads that are useless is just like my take on the amount of regular people that are useless there's a certain percentage whether it's 20 or 30 if you're pessimistic up to 50 percent of people that

are just fucking useless and it doesn't matter if you give them marijuana it doesn't matter if you get them drunk they're just they're just low watt brains yeah because i think to change the law you need 100% turnout. That's going to be tough. But I've had some people that I know that have gotten to pot late in life, and it's completely changed the way they look at things, for the better. It helps them. Like, look at Kevin Smith.

Didn't start smoking weed until three years ago. Look at you. Look at me. I can think of a lot of public figures out there who probably have benefited from early use of psychedelics. Unquestionably. Steve Jobs always talks about that. One of the most powerful experiences in his life was tripping on acid.

I think some would respond well. I think John McCain would be a different and more interesting person if he'd done acid at some point in his life. Oh, for sure. For sure. He wouldn't be so scared. Others I'd be worried about. He would have a different outlook. Others I'd be worried about.

I would be very worried about giving Michelle Bachman acid. That's some squeaky frome shit right there. I would be worried about giving her husband acid. Oh, man. Acid and Viagra and then run. But I would like to do acid with Bill Clinton. Do you know who Michelle Bachman's husband is? Do you know what we're talking about?

Listen, I'd be shocked, by the be shocked if Bill Clinton hadn't done acid. Oh, no. He must have done acid. Yeah, that was all that nonsense that he didn't inhale. It's back in the day. After his, I did not have sex with that woman, all that I did not inhale really lost a lot of weight.

Yeah, I'll never forgive him for that, actually. I don't care. Everything that he was accused of I feel like i'm pretty okay with treating me like an idiot though yeah i really found unforgivable you know it's i i really found that despicable i could never really never forgive i did not have sex you know technically it's just so what. What I understand as sexual relations is what I understand the term to be. For me, it's unforgivable. Yeah. I also wish that he had stepped up and said, it's none of your fucking business. I wish he had said, this is a ridiculous private matter, and you're trying to make it a big circus.

It's really amazing. It seems like the smarter you are and the higher you are in the public eye, the more powerful you are, the more likely you are to behave like the stupidest person to ever be on law and order. 20-year-old girl's dress. Did you not say in your previous deposition that you did not have sex? And yet, readily available to your arresting officers. They believe that some alternate reality exists. Once the Inquirer has got their hooks into you, it's time to let it hang out. I think certain people become delusional when they hit a certain level of notoriety,

like the President of the United States. I mean, that level must be so intoxicating and when you're already kind of crazy which most people who are who run to become president in the first place you gotta be at least a little bit fucking crazy then all of a sudden you're there and the whole world is paying attention to every moon you just i feel like you could just stick your dick in someone's mouth it's like what's the big deal i deal? Stick it in there. I was thinking my first order and my first thing in office on the president is

by decree, I would make sure there was an In-N-Out burger in New York City. We would need many chains, many outlets of In-N-Out burgers. You're that much of a fan of In-N-Out burger? Yeah. I would use the power of the government to make sure that happens. You love them that much?

I'm bitter that we don't have them in New York. Really? Yeah. Do you have Five Guys burgers? Yeah, I think we do. Five Guys burger is pretty fucking good. I'm a sentimental guy about this stuff. Really? It's exotic to me. I mean, I know there's better burgers out there, but

it's something I like about it. You just get hooked on certain tastes? Yeah, and I kind of like that their business model just goes against the grain. Yeah, it's a good business model. It's kind of interesting. We always try to shoot there, and they never let us shoot. In there? We've had difficulties.

Really? Yeah, but we got a shot. What about the Chick-fil-A guy? You ever try to shoot at his place? He's the guy that doesn't open on Sunday because that's the Lord's Day. All Chick-fil-A's are closed on Sunday because that's the Lord's

Day. Am I kind of voting by eating their chicken? I don't think so. In the end, does it really matter? Yeah, right. Does it really matter? I don't know. If it's a really evil corporation, you know, you know that they're like, you know, all of their products are made by, you know, imprisoned children somewhere. Right. Yes.

Probably. That matters. Yeah. But the Chick-fil-A guy who believes in the baby Jesus, you know, he doesn't want to work on Sunday. Who gives a shit? Oh, yeah. I think the In-N-Out Burger guys, there was a religious component to the company at some point. An underlying philosophy.

But the point is they've apparently created this really pretty cool business model for fast food. And it's an issue that I think about a lot because I don't know which economist. Somebody said, somebody smarter than me, you know, in another 15 years, we're going to be a country. Everybody in the country will all be selling cheeseburgers to each other. That will be what Americans do. We don't make anything anymore, really. Manufacturing has dropped to nothing. We're into making Transformers 7

and selling each other burgers. Before the economy even collapsed, Putin was quoted as saying, I don't understand the American economy. It seems that all they do is sell houses to each other burgers. Before the economy even collapsed, Putin was quoted as saying, I don't understand the American economy. It seems that all they do is sell houses to each other. He was right about that. He was fucking right. He was right about that.

I mean, truthfully, what is our best export? Is war. Honestly, no, it's culture. Culture? It is. War is pretty close second. I think music. Culture? It is. War is pretty close second. I think music. Yeah, for sure.

Music, TV, and movies. It is our most powerful weapon and our most powerful, I think it's what we do best, for better or worse. I agree 100%, especially television and films. I mean, as opposed to other countries. Every now and then another country will make a good movie. But, God damn, there's a giant chunk of them that come from this fucking wacky place. Yeah. Do you ever go someplace where you go, ooh, being from America might be kind of touchy here?

There have been places where I thought that was going to happen, where, in fact, we were treated really, really, really, really well. Like where? Where'd you worry? Um, well, everywhere in our world. The hospitality has been unbelievable. Saudi Arabia, I was apprehensive. You know, they take, a lot of Saudis take a, have a very different view of the world than I do, for sure. Um, but no, I think everywhere I've been, again, it's kind of about the people have been incredibly hospitable in places that I didn't expect up front they would have any particular love for Americans.

Vietnamese were incredible from the first time I went there. We had a lot of bad history there. I even asked at one point, I turned to somebody I was with, I said, aren't you guys pissed? You know, aren't you cranky about anything? And they're like, you know, don't flatter yourself, dude. You know, life's hard out here. You know, don't consider yourself special. Since you, we fought the Chinese, the Cambodians, the Chinese

again. Before you, there was the French, the Japanese, the Chinese. We've been at war for 600 years. You know, you were only around for X. So they take a really professional kind of long view. Basically, if we stop fighting

this week, next week you're welcome at my house. We'll hang out. We'll talk shop. We'll get fucked up. Tell some jokes. Generally speaking. That's a place where people have been really hospitable and I didn't expect it. A lot of places.

We shot at favelas in Rio and basically very poor, very crime-ridden areas of Rio and Buenos Aires. A place you have to sort of hook up with a local crime guy. Whoever the mayor of the block is. That's the fixer? No, no, no.

Our fixer will contact us. If you want to shoot in this area, you're going to need somebody, a local godfather or the head of the crew or whoever controls that area in the real world. We have to contact them and say, listen, we're going to make a point of coming at you, showing you respect, offering you a few dollars, because it's never about the money.

You know, and we'll get to wander around and shoot your whole area of your city without fear of being shot or stabbed or robbed. And we do that again and again. And again, we just show the respect of acknowledging, for better or worse, you are the boss of this neighborhood. We're going to show you respect in front of your neighbors, and you will keep us from getting shot while we're shooting in your neighborhood. Again, it's just about, you know, we're not paying people. People are proud of their food. Chances are they're proud of their neighborhood.

They're proud of their friends. Chances are they're proud of their neighborhood, they're proud of their friends. If somebody expresses interest in telling their story or showing the world what they do, particularly if there's food involved and local beverage, chances are you're going to have a good time. You're going to be treated well in this world. One of the most kind of heartwarming, really cool, homey moments was when you were in Naples and that guy took you into his house for Sunday dinner and it was sort of a last minute thing. Oh, it was totally last minute. Our fixer had hooked us up with a family, you know, a friend of a friend, and that fell through

at the last minute. And, you know, literally, I mean, the car of my driver says, oh, you just come over to my mother's house. My mother will cook for you. Sure, she'll be on TV. I'll tell her tomorrow. It was perfect. It was. The minute we walk in, I knew this woman is like made for television. She was just so completely real and awesome and tough. She's like chain smoking while she's cooking, stirring the sauce. She had this weird talk.

She's bullying me. She was talking about her sauce. She was bullying me. She was talking about her socks. She was so amazing. Oh, man. Yeah, you couldn't put that in an Adam Sandler movie. People would think you were too over the top. It's really great when you get lucky. When you're shooting and something really amazing happens.

And the food looked fucking jamming. The way that meat was boiling in that sauce. Oh, it was bubbling. You knew it was on for hours. and the food looked fucking jamming the way that meat was boiling in that sauce oh it was bubbling, you knew it was on for hours you knew it was just going to melt in your mouth that show was one of those where it just totally did not suck making that show

and everybody on the crew gains like 5 pounds I gain 5 pounds watching your fucking show I eat at night when everybody's asleep that's when I watch your show. I cook something, and then I'll sit in front of your show and eat way more than I should. What I do generally is if I know I'm shooting in Rome or anywhere in Italy or Eastern Europe, you know, in dumpling land, you know, I'll make sure that the next show is in, you know, someplace really impoverished.

Sprout land. Right. Or with a really, like, maybe Vietnam's a place with a pretty light cuisine. Okay, so you balance it out. Yeah. We learned our lesson. I think we did Brittany and Provence in a row. So the whole crew were all together for like 18 days in France on a food show.

So, you know, we're ordering just like lots of stuff. Everyone on the crew gained like 8, 10 pounds. How is it that people in France with their incredibly rich diets are thin? They're way thinner than Americans. They move. Is that what it is? They move around a lot.

Yeah, they're always pedaling around and shit, walking around, doing all this crazy cookie European shit. Pedaling around in sheds. You know, they walk. They're active. They're not a sedentary society. But I always see them in cafes.

But look how they eat. Same with the Italians. They don't eat breakfast, really. Maybe they'll have a tiny nibble of a muffin or a croissant, a couple of shooters of coffee. They get really jacked on coffee. Maybe they'll take a nip of something. Maybe around

1 o'clock in the afternoon, they knock off for a couple hours and eat a huge motherfucking meal and a lot of wine. Then they go back to work and they work until 7 or 8 or 9 sometimes. Then they have maybe a light supper. Generally speaking, we're talking average. Then a very

light supper. They're not sitting down and doing it all again. It's all about either lunch or dinner. So they're really eating only one big meal a day. A friend of mine went to the... And they're not eating deep fried fucking macaroni. Deep fried macaroni and cheese.

It's so good though. Cheeseburgers between donuts. They don't do that. A buddy of mine went to the Lamborghini factory. My friend Bud, who owns that show, Rides. They filmed the construction of a Lamborghini. And he came back. The first thing he said is,

those fucking people know how to live. He goes, let me tell you something. First of all, they go to work about 10, 10.30. No one's there at like 7 a.m. They get in. They work for a little bit. Then they eat a spectacular lunch where they have chefs come in and make them the most incredible pasta. And then they sleep for a couple hours. Then they come back in and they work for a couple more hours.

That's awesome. And then they're done. No one's working like 12 hours a day at the Lamborghini factory. They're just artists making these incredible. Why can't we? Is it possible to sustain 300 million people and have that sort of a work ethic? Because, God damn, this would be a way better place, you know, for a regular job. I mean, if you're working on your own shit, you should be able to do whatever you want.

It's something I ask all the time. You know, my wife's Italian, as you know, and I spend a lot of time there. And I look around at, you know, guys in their 20s and 30s and I'm constantly asking myself how do you live this way? Who's giving you money? Nobody seems to really, people do work hard in Italy but you just tend to not see it.

And you're having this big motherfucking lunch every day and maybe a little gelato at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. You're getting your weeks of vacation a year. In France and in the afternoon. You get in your weeks of vacation a year. You know, in France and in Italy, too, you know, you get sick in the middle of the night. You pick up a phone and call a doctor. And, like, 15 minutes later, some young intern arrives on a motor scooter and shoots you up with whatever drugs you need to feel better.

At your house? And it's, like, free or close to free. They don't even take tips. It's fucking nuts. Wow. They come to your house? They will come to your house. Can you imagine this? And they come quick.

That's what happens when you have a small culture. When you have a culture of too many millions of people, you have the diffusion of responsibility thing, the numbers are too big, and there's no way you can rock that. I don't know. I don't know how they do I still, I don't know how they do it, but they do, their

priorities are very, very different, but I'll tell you, quality of life does not suck. Does not suck, and how many people live there? Total? I don't know. I don't know. It's not that many, right? I don't know. You're asking me population of France or Italy? Is it like

a couple million each? What is it? I have no idea. It's not like a major American city, right? I think there are countries in Europe with fewer people than New York City. For sure, for sure. I mean, New York City is the most amazing city on the planet,

but I just think that any time you jam that many people in one spot, you're asking for some unnatural reactions. I don't know. I'm fascinated by how well New York works. It's incredibly efficient, by and large. Just watching taxis. One of the things I love doing in New York is driving. Everyone else hates to drive in New York.

I love driving in New York. I love how traffic. These cars should be smacking up against each other, particularly the way the taxis drive when they're bombing up an avenue, looking to hit the lights, changing lanes without even touching their directionals. There's something really mystically cooperative about the way it all works. There's an ebb and flow to New York City traffic that when you get up into that wave, it's... Like birds in the dusk

sky. It's nice, yeah. And those big waves when birds fly in those big waves and they don't hit each other. Coming from downtown where you hit every light, that's... I've been hit by cabs, though. I used to drive in New York. Cabs hit me twice and they bolted both times. Those fucks. I've been hit by cabs.

I've been in a cab and been T-boned twice in like three days. God damn. Twice in three days. Having never been involved in anything like that twice in three days a few years back. Wow. Was it both on the same side or two double sides and it evened you out? I just got out and jumped into another cab.

It was one of those things. No one was hurt. So it was a light T-bone. Nobody was driving away. Actually, one guy did drive away, but on rims. It was a stolen car. Clearly, it appeared to be a stolen car

because the guy got out of there awful quick on rims. New York City is just such a fascinating experiment to stack people on top of each other all in this one place and have pretty much anything you need right there. Do you own a restaurant? No, no, no.

I was a chef at a restaurant for many years. I'm still involved with them. I don't know. When was the last time you were in the weeds? 11 years. 11 years. It's been 11 years. In the weeds?

Did you just give him shop talk? Yes. It's been 11 years since I've been on the line regularly, since I've had to show up and actually work a station every day. That was a fun show when you did go back to your New York City restaurant. How do you say it? Lay Al's? Lay Al's, yeah.

Lay Al's. You worked the line? You come to terms very quickly with your own mortality and your limitations. You know, I tried to work my old double shift. I did work my old double shift. And I made it. But, you know, I think it was 54, 53 when I went back and did that show. And I'd been away for almost 10 years.

that show and uh i've been away for almost 10 years um it is like riding a bicycle and that you you could still do it but your brain when you're a chef i think your brain starts to turn to mush in your late 30s you become less smart less fast less able to to to do you know 12 13 things at the same time. Your brain starts to fry. That is a big part of being a chef, is not just about the artistry of preparing the food, but of juggling all these different things and timing them. That's 80% of it.

Even the great artists, the great chefs, they're great chefs because they're able to choose people, make personal and professional relationships with those people such that they can execute their vision, their artistic vision, again and again and again, exactly the same every single day, rain or shine. And working in high tension, close quarters, everybody moving fast. So you're talking about a leader. A chef is a cook who leads. And a great chef is one who is both someone who's really creative and has a, for lack of a better word, artistic style or vision or something to say, but the ability to inspire loyalty and good performance in others is key. Absolutely.

You know, you can be the best cook in the world if you can't inspire others to execute that. You ain't worth shit. I never got this from any other show before I watched your show. Before I watched your show, I got, oh, that guy cooks good food. I really did. I mean, I just, I'm compartmentalized. I don't have enough room in my brain for everything.

You know, I can't focus on everything. So I'd see certain things, and I'd learn as little as I need to know. Oh, I like this kind of food. Oh, that tastes good. Oh, that guy's a good cook. Awesome. Eat his food. I never thought about it in terms of the complexity

or the effort that goes into it. I really never thought about it that much until your show. That's why it was so fascinating to me. It's hard. It's hard on glamorous work. So by the time the chef becomes the chef that you know, by the time you know their name, chances are they're not working the line anymore,

but that they spent most of their adult lives standing there doing something that is very similar in many ways to work in a production line in an auto factory. You're putting the nuts and the balls in the same places presumably every time and just as well. And then one guy pops out like a Wolfgang Puck or the Emerald dude at his own fucking sitcom. Well, guys like Emerald didn't pop out, actually. I mean, that's a guy who worked his ass off for a really long time in restaurants,

became well-known, was offered a show, wasn't particularly good at it. He had one show after another fail, and the network stuck with him, and more importantly, he stuck with it, and he became a very improbable superstar. If you look at those early shows, he does so many things wrong as far as what you expect of a classic TV friendly guy. He's got the thick accent. He's kind of a little awkward up there. That was really charming.

Audiences liked that. But he worked his ass off getting there. He wasn't like me, an overnight success guy. He was drilling away for years. But what I meant by it is that all of a sudden he's forcing the public consciousness that he's

launched like emeralds. There's a few guys. There's like the Wolfgang Pucks. If you're not paying attention, these are the guys that you hear about if you're not paying attention. Well, because they're both guys who've been around a long time and done really important things both off TV and on TV.

But it's interesting that they love him for his personality. So they're like, your personality is so good, we're going to ask you to fake it now. We're going to ask you to be in a sitcom. For a long time, a lot of chefs got into the business because they were awkward. They felt awkward. They were shit at words or generally didn't feel comfortable in a straight business environment uh just so they're kind of running away from something they sense something about themselves that that that said all all of the things that tell you subconsciously bad communicator you know

shouldn't be out there talking to regular people on a regular basis trying to do normal business those are things that drove people to cook. And yet suddenly they find themselves, you know, with media coaches and people trying to train them to be themselves on camera. And it's a huge industry and a strange, strange one. Yeah, I read a quote once where you said that the guys that got into becoming chefs were the second smartest sons. Well, traditionally in European culture, you know, if the family could only afford to send one kid to college, they'd pick the smartest son and they'd invest what little money they had in that enterprise.

The other one would join the family business or go to hotel school to learn. You'd learn to be an apprentice to some craft, you know, some trade. And for a lot of people, that was hotel school. So a lot of the great chefs, they came out of that kind of situation. Certainly when I started cooking, it was the misfits who ended up in the restaurant business. Life hadn't exactly turned out the way they'd expected, or maybe there's a quick, a temporary. There's always a job for you if you're presentable, reasonably intelligent. There's always a job for you if you're presentable reasonably intelligent

there's always a job for you on the floor of a restaurant as a waiter you take joy in that though you take joy in being one of the misfits oh I mean it's why I got in the business it was running away with the circus it was fellow misfits and refugees who really just

couldn't hack it anywhere else ended up in this enterprise. See, that was the first time I'd ever seen or heard it described like that. I was listening to you talk about it. I'd never thought of working in a kitchen to be like that. Yeah, well, it was a lot of fun. I mean, it was a lot of fun. I think how many people have worked in restaurants at one point or another in their life?

It is an education. There's so many things to love about it that are special about it. You see people again and again. I used to see these guys. They come out of the mountains of Afghanistan or the tribal areas of Pakistan. Really conservative background. Never been any city until they came to New York. They're working in a restaurant as busboys. Four weeks later, it's that motherfucker, cocksucker, son of a bitch, rat bastard. They basically immediately adopted the worst of New

York culture as a speech. But they're also... you get so smart about human behavior when you're a busboy or a waiter. You see so much of it. It's like being a bartender. You learn way more about human nature than you really want to learn. You didn't sign up to be a psychiatrist or an enabler or a doctor. But in the end, that's kind of what you become if you're a bartender with regulars. So I think people in the restaurant business

get this really unique view of the world, perspective on the rest of the world. Yeah, it is a unique position to be a bartender, to be the sober person serving everyone drinks while they're all just falling apart and talking to you. It gets to some people. I could use one. It gets to some people. I could use one.

It gets to some people. I knew a bartender who I'd be drinking with him. I'd do my shift drink with him after I worked a lunch service. And this guy was telling me, you know, after 10, 12 years in the business, I don't know if I could do this much longer, man. I just don't know if I could do it. And I said, why? He says, watch this.

He takes three glasses and i guess he presses them in the sponge rins them with with uh with kosher salt and puts them under the bar so old lady comes in sits down i like a salty dog you know he he pours his salty dog she drinks it uh she orders another he has a second glass for uh She drinks it, then she gets up She says, okay, that's enough for me Gets up, makes it halfway to the door Looks at the ground Second thoughts goes back to the bar

Orders a third Point is, he had the three glasses ready He knew, this woman is an alcoholic I am helping her on her way To her ultimate destruction And I just, I can't hack it. I have too many customers like this. Well, ultimately, if you're in the bar every night, bars are great once a week.

Bars are great once a month. Once a month, if you stay healthy and you're feeling good, your immune system's up, you've been eating vitamins and eating well, you just get fucked up. Let's do it. come on, everything's good but you're doing that every night oh, do you know what'll cure you if a nightclub's real fast is working in a nightclub and I worked in a nightclub and I was

I will never, you know, never again you know, any place where it's like in the background, I'm already out the other door yeah, yeah I did some security work at a concert center in Massachusetts, Great Woods. I got to see people at Neil Young concerts, just people fucked up in the crowd.

I would never want to be a part of anything like that. I knew that at 19. I'm like, I've got to get the fuck out of here. This place I worked at, they were sued like two, three times a week, which I guess you are when you're in the nightclub business because there's always some boneheads who come in, pick a fight, bounces, throw them out. Already, there's a lawsuit.

It doesn't mean it's a credible one, but people are going to be suing you. Your competition are going to be suing you. The fire department is going to be harassing you. It's just brutal. It's amazing that people can sell alcohol at all. It's amazing that people can afford to have bars, but can afford to sell alcohol at all. Because you would think that people getting drunk

would cause so many fucking problems that they could be sued for. It was an education. I think it was two years at this very busy New York nightclub. And just the stuff that people would leave in the bathrooms or try to flush down the toilet. The night cleanup guy would always come by the kitchen with his discoveries of the night before. You know, it was a fucking artificial limb. A fucking artificial limb.

Oh, my God. And the women's rooms were actually always worse. Way worse. People were just doing... It's just this incredible horrifying museum in there. It tells a story of human behavior that you just don't want to know. It's fucking alcohol, man. Wind them up and set them loose.

I had a buddy who did his residency in Miami, and he said on Friday and Saturday nights, people would come in with light bulbs up their asses. Just impossible things. Just mostly shoved up their asses, bullet holes. People just popping off. It really truly is amazing that you can sell alcohol and you can't sell weed.

What a beautiful thing they've done. It makes no sense at all. Plus, we grow such good weed in this country, it would be a huge and major export. I mean, who grows better weed than us? Nobody. There's no better botanist than these Southern California assholes. These guys, assholes, I say it with all love. What they've done now is incredible.

Look at this shit. This is a marijuana electric cigarette. Perfect for plane bathrooms. You could smoke this on a plane. Wow. It's one of those electronic cigarettes, and it's got weed in it. They're fucking scientists. Wow.

They're taking it to the next level. Science is great. But it's amazing. But unfortunately, they're still getting arrested for it. There's still people that are getting... Apparently, Obama said that he was only going to go after people who violate both federal and state law. Right. But I don't know if that's been...

It's probably pretty easy to violate state law, too. I think we should, if we're going to do it, if we're going to allow people to smoke weed, we should be making money off it as a nation. Yeah, right now. We should be selling serious weight to Europe. Do you ever go to Mexico?

Yeah, I love Mexico. Do you ever go to border towns? I've been. What do you like? We just did a show there It's crazy What we would consider apocalyptic violence I think more people have been killed in Mexico During the drug wars Than both Gulf wars

And Afghanistan There's some spectacular number of people Slaughtered down there In huge numbers. I have not a clue what to do. It doesn't help that we're selling them guns, but there is no doubt that they would get them from somewhere. I've never seen it. The many times I've been in Mexico, you know, I... What's your favorite place in Mexico? Oh, I love Puebla.

I love Mexico City. So you've never seen any drug violence at all? I have not seen up close drug violence. I have been in really drug... I've been in, like, super druggy neighborhoods in favelas in Brazil and elsewhere, but because... But not in Mexico. I was with the local dealer.

Right, right, right. I guess that's what I'm saying. But does that work in Mexico? Could you do something? Could you safely go to a cartel neighborhood with a cartel guy? Man, the level of violence is so spectacular there, I wouldn't want to be complicit. You know what I mean?

Yeah. If you're currently, you know, chopping people's heads off by the dozens, you know, it's another, you know, it's one thing. Have you ever been around someone like that in another country inadvertently? I've met people. I have met people and done scenes of my show

with people who have done very, very bad things in their lives. No question about it. They were not currently at the time of the show other than, you know, there were some low-level guys for sure who clearly were drug dealers. They said as much. They said, can you please shoot just this side of the street because this side is my drug

operation. Well, you make concessions, compromises, you know, morally and otherwise when you take advantage of a situation like that. The only way you're going to shoot the neighborhood is to have a local drug dealer hold your hand. That's what you do.

Or you choose not to, depending. And in Mexico, the level of violence is so spectacular, and they see presumably the major dealers out there are killing large numbers of people on a regular and ongoing basis. I would feel bad. That's not an arrangement I'd enter into. And would you have to go into some sort of a similar arrangement if you were ever to go to the Congo? Would you have to make an arrangement with the rebels? Good question.

Who's the rebel? What does that even mean? There are a lot of different... What am I even saying? The rebels? Well, there are various militias, for sure. Yeah, you've got to ask yourself that all the time. But in the same way, when people are trying to be really nice to you in countries where you're not free to speak your mind, Cuba would be an example.

You know, China, up near the Tibetan border. No, when you're talking to people on camera who've let you into their homes and they've fed you and they've been maybe a little more frank with you on a personal level than they are probably supposed to as government functionaries. supposed to as government functionaries, when they're good to you and everything they said was going to happen, happened the way it was supposed to and they weren't too clumsy and they didn't try to ham fist you. Basically, if we get to go back to New York, they have to stay there. So if I go back and start criticizing as severely as I might, it's something I always have to weigh. All the people who were good to me in these countries,

they're going to be in a very bad place if I go back to New York and make this show all about China-Tibet. I may have my opinions on it, but for the sake of the people I leave behind, I'm not shooting my mouth off. I can say what I want about China anytime I want. And I suffer no consequences. Anyone who was ever nice to us

will be suspect if I were to start really going off on a tangent on the issue on the show that these people helped me make. Same in Cuba. You do make certain compromises because people are as straight with you as they can be. They do the best by you. They're people who are nice and with senses of humor is trying to do the best they can, whether you agree with their system or despise it. and with senses of humor is trying to do the best they can, whether you agree with their system or despise it,

at the end of the day, you've got to ask yourself, do I really want to put, you know, it might make more entertaining or truthful television, but they're going to be in a fucking cell for the crime of being nice to me or being honest with me. That's something we've got to ask ourselves all the time. Well, I know you couldn't put that in the show, like the show on Cuba, but is there anything you could talk about?

Well, I could have gone on and on and on about the history of the regime and what they've done. Right, right. Many of them incredibly unpleasant, to say the least. I didn't make the show about that. I tried very hard to keep the focus on does it look pretty? Is it worth looking at? Is the food good? Are the people nice?

They were. Really tried to avoid any politics at all. It was amazing. It's always political when you sit down and eat, because the fact that they're not eating much beyond rice and beans, that is already a political statement. That says a lot more about a culture than they may want you to see.

It's dangerous information, but there it is. So were they allowed to complain about that at all? Were they cautious about doing that? Did they make sure that they didn't say anything? No, they let us shoot pretty much anything. Anything we asked to shoot, they let us shoot. I think they clearly trusted us. They saw us show other parts of the world in a relatively non-judgmental way and they foolishly or not shrewdly or foolishly there will be differences of opinion i'm sure

for whatever reason they trusted us to come and they pretty much let us wander around shooting what kind of they were they tried of course they course. There was definitely concern over who we'd be talking to and what they might say. But everybody has to be careful about what they say. Everybody changes their behavior when they talk to you to a certain extent. You don't bring up certain subjects because they're going to worry. Does the government have any say? Do they pull you aside? Do they say, how are you going to show Cuba?

We had arranged all of this through the government. I mean, nothing happened. You don't go wandering around Cuba with a television crew without the government becoming involved, whether you know it or not. But did you get involved in any of the questions that they asked about the – because you obviously have a major creative influence on the show. No, they don't. Because you obviously have a major creative influence on the show. No, we're not making any show ever where the nation or the local police or any other person has final cut or approval over what we're showing.

No, you obviously have approval over what we're allowed to shoot. But how we edit that back in New York and what we say, you know, you're on your own. It's done. You've signed a release. That ain't ever, ever, ever going to happen. Did they express any concern about any of that? It seems like Cuba's pretty touchy. They were very, I think they're being very shrewd about tourism.

They understand what it is that people want to see in Cuba, which is the old Cuba of Godfather II. That's what we want to see. And it's still there. And they've been really smart about not fucking that up. So these aren't stupid, unsophisticated people, your commie functionaries, okay? They understand they have a problem. I think everybody understands that the regime is,

you know, things are going to change. I think people, everybody's kind of holding their breath in the country waiting to see what happens next, and I think what happens next is completely and blindingly obvious to change. I think people, everybody's kind of holding their breath in the country waiting to see what happens next. And I think what happens next is completely and blindingly obvious to everyone. Castro dies. They open everything up. Pretty damn quick. And then everything gets way better for the Cuban people.

Sort of. Sort of. Yes, I assume. You're going to lose certain things, though. You're going to lose those guys arguing. You know, it's easy for me to say I really don't want to see a brand new Holiday Inn on the waterfront of the Malecon in Havana because it's one of the most beautiful stretches

of anywhere, anywhere. But that's easy for me to say. I'm not Cuban. I didn't lose my home. You know, I have to say, I had no moral problems going to Cuba, let's put it that way.

But I've since met a lot of Miami Cubans who take a very different view of going to Cuba. And it has been pointed out to me, one guy came up to me, and we were shooting at his restaurant, and it was just a complete coincidence after our Cuba show had aired. This guy was pissed. It had clearly been a big issue at his house.

He was really struggling to contain his anger and be courteous, which he was incredibly courteous. And he said, I just need you to look at this picture. And he takes me back and shows a picture of his dad who ran a, basically, he sold fish. So I'd always thought that, you know, the people who lost their homes and ran off to Miami were all the rich, the bastards, basically. What this man was telling me was that my father was an ordinary businessman who worked hard selling fish, catching fish and selling fish.

And they took his business and ended his livelihood. That's something, you know, it was a very hard show to balance, let's put it that way. I'd imagine. It's got to be so strange to just hop from one culture to the next, one unique insight into this totally different environment, and then another one just as extremely different. We're really hoping to shoot in Libya in January.

We hope to shoot in September. Talk to me about this at the UFC. We want it so bad. I mean, ideally we would have been there when they got Gaddafi. But I have friends there who have been in and out, people we've worked with in some of the dicier places. We've worked with some very interesting security guys, and some of them have been working in Libya lately.

And we were getting sort of dispatches of what life's like there. And these guys were, these are hardened professionals who've been around. They've been in a lot of wars. They've seen a lot of conflicts. In many ways, you would probably call them mercenaries in an earlier day. But they were really sentimental about Libya. They were like, dude, it's awesome what's happening here. You should come.

It's like all these young people from all over the world, of Libyan background, they're all coming here and welding machine guns on their pickup trucks. And there's this really magical thing. I'm actually thinking of pitching it. Whoa. Apparently, it's nice to see the bad guys actually lose, right? It is, if it's that clear.

Yeah. I think that's exactly what I'm getting at. Not a lot of people would look at Gaddafi and say, well, I would be unhappy to see his head being kicked across a public square. I wouldn't be unhappy seeing that. Yeah, Gaddafi's about as big a piece of shit in the world of rulers as you can get. He's a nice villain. He wears a good black hat.

It's a feel-good for everybody, and they're doing it basically. I mean, there's NATO support, but they're basically doing it themselves. Remember that guy, General Wesley Clark? Remember that guy who ran for president a while back? Yes, sure. Yep. He predicted all of this in 2007 on one of those CNN or one of those fucking shows. Where he got on and he talked about the United States' agenda as far as acquiring natural resources all over the world. And Libya was right in the pile.

Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. All these different countries were, and he described it all in 2007. And slowly but surely, all these things are getting implemented. I think what we're seeing in Egypt and Libya and Syria and Tunisia, I think actually what we're seeing is something we didn't predict. We didn't make it happen. It's happening. It's in many ways frightening to us.

I mean, I think the fact that all these governments are toppling is not necessarily good for our American business interests. I happen to think it's a really good thing. I'm happy to see it. I don't really care what kind of psychos take over Egypt. Just the fact that even if bad guys end up running Egypt again, the fact that it was possible that they could topple those particular bad bastards who'd been around forever. It was unthinkable a year ago to your average Egyptian that things would ever change, ever, in their lifetime or their children's lifetime. And it was unthinkable that these dynasties would ever fall.

So it's really kind of awesome. Just the fact that it sends a message that it could happen, I think it's a good one. I don't think it falls into the plan. I'm waiting for that big payday from Iraq. Are we supposed to be pumping their oil straight into American coffers right now? That ain't going to happen.

I think it depends on who you're paying attention to or who you want to believe when it comes to that world. But there's a lot of people that believe that we've hit some sort of a peak oil stage. And what they're trying to do is just control all the areas which will be absolutely necessary when oil gets to the point where we're going to have to start rationing things. We're doing a really bad job then because the Chinese are basically snapping it all up. I mean, everywhere you go in Africa now, it's like, oh, look at the nice new bridge we have. The Chinese bought and paid for it.

Everywhere you go, it's amazing. Every major infrastructure development that you see in places like Liberia, other African countries you've been to, it's like, oh, those really thoughtful Chinese were here. And they bought all of our oil. They'll need 50% of the world's like, oh, those really thoughtful Chinese were here. Thoughtful Chinese. And they bought all of our oil.

They'll need 50% of the world's oil, I think, in like another, maybe it's 10 years? Soon. Holy shit. China alone will need... When I first went to China, it was like, everybody's on bicycles, and there's cars. Second time I went, it's like 50-50. Now it's just cars, cars, cars, as far as...

And how much time has this been? 10 years. Wow. So it's just accelerating in China. It is. What do they say on The Simpsons? Welcome future masters. Future overlords, we welcome you. So is it just the way they handle business is different in China now? Because they were much more strict as far as commerce and things, right?

They had much more rules. Well, they've had communism on their necks. But, I mean, in a lot of ways, it's like, wait a minute, you want to make China like a competitive free market? It's like, are you out of your minds? They'll kill us. Then they're really dangerous because there's a lot of them. They work really hard.

They've been put, they're willing to work to get things that's already an advantage over we're entitled we feel entitled times have been good for us I grew up in a generation where we were taught automatically our lives would be better than our parents

I took that as a religious dictum, that was straight from God. You know, okay, I was disappointed somewhat, but basically I'm lazier than most of the people. I was raised to be lazier, and I am lazier than the great majority of people you see in China and India, for instance, who, you know, see, you know, it's no accident. You see these people taking double majors. Their parents were rice farmers.

And the kids are now in university, ferociously competitive. That's what it's about, the desire for a different life. We got that life already. Dangerous competitors. Well, they were already our landlords. You know what? In the world of the future, the more we intermarry with the Chinese, the more attractive our kids are going to be, as far as I'm concerned.

And we're definitely going to be eating better. So how bad can it be? Well, it could be one of those factor workers at Hong Kong. our kids are going to be as far as I'm concerned. And we're definitely going to be eating better. Right. So how bad can it be? Well, it could be one of those factory workers at ComCom that hits that suicide net in a drunken leap off the top of the building. They have those nets all around the building to keep people from killing themselves. It could get rough.

Have you been to China? No, never been. You go to China, certain major chain hotels. You go to Hilton in New York. To my mind, it's not the greatest hotel ever, okay? You go to a Hilton in Shanghai, it is fucking luxe, okay? Any chain hotel in Shanghai or Beijing, a Western chain hotel, the level of excellence and technical superiority required or expected there is so higher than in New York. They just, at that level, the sort of people who would stay at one of these hotels in Shanghai are a lot richer and more demanding than their equivalent in New York.

So the level of luxury and development that you see in places like China where, you know, Jesus, this is a dysfunctional government, you would think. It's fucking, they'reists, for fuck's sake. How come they've got this great rail system? How come their hotels are nicer than ours? How come internet coverage is better? How come I can get five bars on my cell phone anywhere in China, like the deepest, darkest valley in the ass end of nowhere?

You start to get this terrible, I'm an American. I'm a New Yorker. We're the greatest country in the world. I believe this absolutely and positively. But at the end of the day, it's like I just start thinking to myself, if you know that the New York subway system... To say that you know that the New York City subway system

is certainly not the best in the world, it's idiotic to pretend that it is. We held the crown somewhere 20, idiotic to pretend that it is. We held the crown somewhere 20, 30, whatever years ago it was. Whatever it was where we were the shining light of civilization. It was in 1970, whatever year it was. But we still have the great weapons.

We are the most powerful nation on Earth and I think largely based on really the danger of our culture. People, when introduced to rock and roll, will eventually topple their governments, I think largely based on really the danger of our culture. You know, people, when introduced to rock and roll, will eventually topple their governments, I think. It hasn't worked here, but abroad. Wait till Rick Perry gets an office. No, I think our great cultural export has been rock and roll, rap music.

Clearly, it makes people want to, you know, whatever it is they see, they kind of want in one form or another, they kind of want some form of that. In your experience in all these other countries when you see all these different regimes getting toppled, you don't think there's any American influence in these things happening?

I don't think we're that good. Really? You don't think the CIA is that good? I'm a CIA nerd. I'm one of those, like, I'm not a gamer, but I'm a guy who about 25 years ago started reading up on the Kennedy assassination, got completely obsessed with that, and then it just, I'm one of these guys, I read footnotes, and a footnote leads me

to another book, to another book. You know, I disappeared down the rat hole for 10 years reading everything. So I'm really... Did you read Best Evidence? Yeah. My feeling is we're just... If history has taught us anything and if you read all of the documents from all of the controversial periods of CIA

operations, we just don't seem to be very good at these things. And everybody rats and writes a book about it immediately after it happened. So if it went well, you can be sure you'd be reading about it or it would have been leaked to a magazine by now. So I just, I don't think...

That's so sad. I don't think we're that good. And I certainly don't think we have much of an appetite for controlling the universe. I think we're doing it... We seem to be working very hard to hold the universe. I think we're doing it. We seem to be working very hard to hold the dam. So you think the speculation

about the CIA being involved, like they're probably just very, very peripherally involved and there's just shit happening no matter what. I'm sure there are major CIA operations going on right now without a doubt, but I think this notion that there's an office somewhere where the whole fate of the world is sort of decided, what countries are going to invade over the next 10 years, we're just not that good.

And we're definitely not that secure. There's always, you know, three people know about something. There's the greatest argument about the Kennedy, you know, the 9-11 conspiracy theory idiots, the Kennedy assassination, the Looney Tunes. If basically in this country more than three people know about a thing, one of them is going to be on the stand crying about it, the other guy is going to be writing a book about it, and maybe two guys will keep their mouths shut.

I think today, I don't think during the time of the Kennedy assassination it would have been that difficult to hide things. I think things were much less transparent back then than they were today. That's what's great about history. Eventually, if you're willing to wait around, to my view, if you're willing to wait around,

every boring, grim detail will eventually come out. And if you, as in the Kennedy assassination, I don't know who said it, they described the mafia theory as the halfway house for failed conspiracy theorists. It's like, after you've decided the CIA didn't do it. The mafia did it.

It's like, yeah, okay, well, it was the mafia. And of course, there's all this great evidence to support that theory, but ultimately, I'm of the Oswald got a lucky shot theory. Really? Wow. I read best evidence, and that's one of the reasons why I first started believing there was some sort of a conspiracy. That was one of the first things that I saw that made me really reconsider. But later in life, the thing that really got me was the Northwoods document. If you've never heard of that, it's something that they drafted in the 1960s or 1960, 61 or 62,

where Kennedy actually vetoed it, and all the Joint Chiefs of Staff signed it, and they were going to have fake American terror attacks. They were going to get a plane. They were going to have a drone plane explode it and say a bunch of people died, and they were going to attack Guantanamo Bay, and they were going to arm Cuban friendlies to attack Guantanamo Bay because we wanted to go to World War II.

This was this Cuban Missile Crisis era. There were so many complete... This is what, to me, what's interesting about Kennedy's assassination conspiracy. There was so much wacky shit going on

around that time. So much of it embarrassing, criminal, scary, funny, really silly going wacky shit going on around that time so much of it embarrassing um criminal scary funny really silly going on at that time that in fact the least interesting thing about the entire you know big picture of the kennedy assassination is the actual assassination itself because what everybody else was up to at the time and covering up was just like right out of a movie. The CIA is meeting with Johnny Rosselli and all these mafia guys to whack out Castro. There was just so much other embarrassing shit going on that in many ways those stories and where they lead are a lot more entertaining and complex and fun than a story of a guy shooting a president.

So if you believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, what do you think about when you see the Oliver Stone movie? Does that drive you fucking crazy? I would have liked the film a lot better if they'd just stuck with a historical record. And he invented scenes and characters, which I thought was, as a Kennedy assassination buff... The Donald Sutherland character didn't exist, right?

And there were just certain things were just, do mention that the Garrison jury was out for like 30 seconds. Please mention that Jim Garrison is a man of many interesting local, a man with an interesting past, let's put it that way. In what way? Not a, he did not, not a reputation that was debatable, let's put it that way not a not a reputation that was debatable let's put it that way which is never good the case was bad

he put a lot of very interesting stuff together and all of it was fascinating in a lot of ways a lot of it was almost more interesting than I don't believe in the octopus theory I think he had a lot of really was almost more interesting than the, there wasn't, I don't believe in the octopus theory. I think you had a lot of really interesting, very spooky characters who'd been doing a lot of really sinister and interesting shit for a long time.

Whether or not they were actually involved in the Kennedy assassination is almost moot because they were up to some really other wacky stuff. Did the magic bullet theory bother you at all? I think if you talk, and I have talked to people who served in combat for a long time, the story of the buddy who gets around through the front of his helmet, it travels around subcutaneously around the skull and

enters out the back without hurting the guy. Everybody's got... Shit happens. Shit happens. I am willing to believe the magic bullet theory. I wouldn't be willing to believe it except for the fact that they came up with it because a guy got hit with a ricochet under the bridge. And so they had to attribute everything to three shots.

And I was like, God, that seems like fucking shifty logic to me. I don't know what they call it, but when you've eliminated all the other suspects, you're left with the likely truth, I think. And to my satisfaction, I've kind of eliminated the other suspects. Woody Harrelson's dad didn't have any part of it. Wasn't he, like, rumored to be one of the shooters? No. I mean, you know.

Wasn't that part of it? Yes, of course. But Howard Hunt was supposed to be there. It's like, you know, everybody's there. You know, it's like Ronald McDonald is there. Why is that so sexy? Why is it so sexy? I wanted to believe it so badly.

Yes. Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, Kennedy, the whole deal. Yeah. It's way more fun to think that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Patsy. But remember, he was a really interesting guy. I think the book that got it close, got it most right, was a work of fiction, The Libra by Don DeLillo, where it really gets inside Oswald's head. in the Libra by Don DeLillo, where it really gets inside Oswald's head.

I mean, Oswald was a guy who... His favorite show as a teenager was I Led Three Lives, about an undercover FBI agent. He was an intelligence... He was a spy junkie. In today's world, he would have been a gamer. You know? A nutty gamer.

He wanted to be... He was a guy who kind of wanted to be... To do big things. and he tried very hard. He wanted to be a super secret KGB agent. He wanted to be a Marine. He probably volunteered to the FBI a couple of times. He was just a guy who wanted to do something big. So I don't have a problem buying it. So you had no problem with the allegations of them fixing autopsy photos?

I had problems with all of it because I was lost in it for 10 years. But the Kennedy family had very good reason to ask for the brain. I mean, he had Addison's disease. And the implications of Addison's disease towards the Kennedy history were not favorable. Apparently, I don't know, but apparently it has been said that he had multiple bouts of syphilis. This is, you know, you don't want, the family didn't want the president, you know, people, they didn't want this part of the record. Multiple bouts of syphilis, holler at your boy. Those are the days where being a president was worth it.

He took amphetamines in large doses early at his point. Who knows what he's taking? Did he really? He had a doctor, Max Jacobson, I believe was the name. He did have a doctor who would shoot him with vitamin, I think B12 and amphetamine, according to one of the... B12 mixed with speed. That's how that dude was really...

Not uncommon at certain levels. It was a very society thing to do back then. That's a five-hour energy drink. That's what it is. B12 and vitamin B. I think a lot of people didn't even know. He was the original doctor. He was known as Dr. Feelgood, and that's where the name came from, doctor.

I believe it was Dr. Max Jacobson. I don't know. Legendary sort of doctor to the stars back in the Warhol. And Kennedy's disease, what did it have to do? Was it a motor skill thing? What is it? But apparently there are in the symptoms, the possible symptoms, I think there can be emotional content to the disease. So theoretically it could have affected his judgment.

It was unflattering. I believe he was in a lot of, this was a guy in a lot of pain, too. Yeah, supposedly, right? Yeah. But back then you just didn't want to talk about these things and I think a lot of people ran around in circles covering things up for their own reasons

and in fact most of them had really terrible things to cover up that back then thing is really fascinating when you think about it it's not that long ago

I was listen I was alive I remember being sent home from school when Kennedy was killed when Kennedy was killed and but I you know I go for the simple explanation much of the time remember being sent home from school. When Kennedy was killed? When Kennedy was killed.

But I go for the simple explanation much of the time. That's a good move. I keep the crazy open. I open the door for crazy because I've seen some things. I leave it open. But I agree with you. Most of the time, I go with the simple door. With crop circles and UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, most of the time, I go for the simple door. People are circles and UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot,

most of the time I go for the simple door. People are full of shit, and that story sucks. That's how I usually go. But I leave the door for crazy open. You should see the new moon landing photos that you just released the other day. They look very convincing. Yeah. But, you know. Not Pixar-y.

If I was going to be from a company that faked the moon landing, I would definitely fake some pictures about it, too. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Well, Richard Branson will be there within the next five years. He'll have a hotel on the moon. No doubt about it. Well, he's definitely going to get people into space apparently, but it's going to be

for like $200,000 or something. They've already built it. We're driving through, I think, New Mexico or Arizona. I forget where. And we're in this tiny little town and said, you know about the airport? The airport? They're going out there. So they built a launch center? He's built a launch center, I think, down there.

Jesus fucking Christ. They're ready to go. And they're selling tickets. You can buy your ticket already. Would I do it? Totally. Yeah, you'd have to. Totally. Imagine the view. The view would be,

whatever view that you would get doing high doses of mushrooms in the dark by yourself, probably wouldn't be as spectacular as looking at the Earth from 40,000 feet above it. Or more than that, rather. Whatever it is, when you hit space. That would be good. 100 miles. What is it? I'll let them beta test it a little bit.

Whatever the space shuttle is, when you see those photos, when you get the full circle of the Earth, I mean, that just must be. I would totally do that. Life-changing. 200 grand. It's like, wait, that's a little steep. Can the Travel Channel cough that up for a percentage of DVD sales? Are you kidding me? That's half a season for us.

Yeah, you supplement your income, though, doing speakings, too, right? You go and do these speeches. I have newfound respect for your profession, sir. I basically do stand-up for meaning. I'm talking about a lot of issues and a lot of things. But as you know, because we've worked a lot of the same theaters, and I do about 40 of them a year, if you don't get a laugh every 60 seconds, you've got a problem.

I would think you would have a lot more levity, a lot more room for... It's still, you know, you want to laugh every 60 seconds, and if not in 60 seconds, the one that comes in two minutes is going to be really fucking funny because they had to wait for it, and I've really learned a lot of things. I mean, I've done so many gigs now and I didn't understand. I didn't know it. I didn't realize I'm becoming a stand-up comic. That's awesome!

Because I'm starting at you know I so totally understand why so many comics drink and when you kill, when you have a really good night, I come away kind of depressed by it. Really? Right.

The pressure of not knowing whether you're going to do well it's like being in a ski jump. It's all decided. How am I going to do on this jump? You don't know when the thing's going beep, beep, beep before you head down the chute. You just don't know. You go in feeling really bad one night

and you kill and then another night you go in and you're all pumped up. You think you're 100% and it's just like you're out there like but but it's just weird just like the bartender i was talking about before you start to learn you know where to lean you know what what word to come down hard on how long long to wait. And it is this terrible information that you get. You know, I feel guilty about it. Why is it terrible? Because essentially it's manipulative. And when you're interviewed a lot or when you're doing the same routine a lot, you know,

you start to, someone will ask you off camera or off stage a question to, you know, something that you've just, and you're doing bit. You're doing bit. You slide into it and say, well, I was actually talking about this last night on the stage of the Pabst Theater. You're very humble. You're very humble in the way you approach things, and that's one of the reasons why you're such an interesting guy and one of the reasons why your opinion is so respected.

But when you're talking about this, what you're doing is, all you're doing is getting the thought to them as efficiently as possible in a method that you're already successful at. It's still what they need. It's what they want to hear. It's just even though you've already answered it exactly this way before, you tend to think there's something wrong with that because it's not honest. But you know the right way to say it. It is the right tool to use. I basically had an evolving thing. I started out talking and it became certain things worked, certain things didn't.

But over time, it would become an hour of solid material. You're a comic. And you had the A material and you had the B material. B b material like i'd go out and it's like nothing but fucking golfers it was like oh shit you know then i totally changed up i mean i've done casino i've done casinos with like belligerent you know drunks i mean i really how did you get started doing this i went out i went out on i was doing a lot of book tours and the books the bookstore crowds are getting bigger and bigger and so then they start booking me in halls the bookstore you know so basically i'm just looking to sell books i stand up there then and and then i i talk for a while about my book or i read for

my book and then and then you know i signed the book i started doing talks uh while on book tour and then there are people who do this speakers bure You know, you want some macroeconomics guy to talk about that, or you need some dick jokes, whatever. You know, a speakers' bureau will have someone for you, presumably. And they just hooked me up. And first I started doing a few corporate gigs, and then theater promoters just started booking me.

So I just do theaters now. I think that the local, I'm sure we work so many of the same places. I'm sure. And it just suddenly, I found myself, well, you know, I got an hour. And then I do Q&A for another 45 minutes or until it's not fun. A lot of poop jokes. Q&A is where the bits come out. But, you know, I've run up to this.

This is why I was enjoying your Carlos Mencia shit so much. Because, you know, you come up to this point after two years. Well, I've done all the major cities now with this routine. And it's been quoted and repeated in the local press. And chances are, if I said it in the first place live at some point earlier in my career, I may have written it or put it in the show. So you reach this point, it's like, oh, shit, I need another completely new hour. And that's hard. It's very hard.

That is hard. That's where plagiarism comes from in stand-up comedy. A lot of it comes from desperation. Yeah. You know, they just don't. But in that guy's case, it's a little different. He's just fucking crazy. But some of them, they just need a new hour, and they just get a little funky.

You know, it's just as funny if you say somebody else said it. You know, like I'll often say, you know, Raymond Chandler said, and I'll say the thing. And it was a really good fucking line. That's why I used it, you know. The spirit of it, though, is different. The spirit of repeating someone and quoting them is very different than claiming it for yourself. And that's where it gets tricky you know stand-up comedy is a fucking weird art form man it's it's if there's any lies at all and people are angry at you you know if there's any bullshit in it they're faking it like that's not even his fucking name you mean his name is really

not larry the cable guy people will get man. They'll get mad if you're not honest about the whole package. They'll accept a character. I'm exaggerating obviously, but if they find out you don't really think the way you're talking on stage it's just bullshit. I'll tell you though, the casino I did, Harris Lake Tahoe,

and I never had a crowd like this. They were drunk gamblers. They were hecklers. I've never been heckled other than the occasional vegetarian. But these were just drunk-ass hecklers. They were just heckling for the, because they were drunk. They were friendly hecklers.

But I just never contended with that. Man, that's a skill you've got to learn quick. Yeah, well, I started out doing really bad clubs. I did strip clubs where I guested at a rather emcee to a Jack and Jill strip club in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where a guy would strip and a girl would strip. I've done some horrible, horrible places. And when you do a lot of bars and a lot of comedy nights in bars, you're going to get hecklers. Yeah. No, it's all good.

It's fun. It's fun. It's exhausting. It's really exhausting. It's a rush, for sure. When you have the perfect word to say, and the heckler gets shut down and everybody starts laughing, tell me that doesn't feel like the most awesome shit ever. Yeah.

That's nice. I'm going to get back to that. I'm going to get back to that. Thank you very much for doing this, man. This was fun as hell. I really enjoyed it, man. Thank you very much. Thank you.

This has been a dream come true, man. Thank you very much. I'm a huge fan of your show, and I geeked out when I met you in Vegas, so it was cool as fuck having you on the show. Thank you, man. Thank you to The Fleshlight for sponsoring the podcast. If you go to joerogan.net, click on the link for The Fleshlight, enter in the code name ROGAN,

and you get 15% off the number one sex toy for men. And we've got a bunch of new dates. You can find them on twitter.com slash joerogan. We're coming to Washington, D.C., Denver, Houston, Ontario, California, and New Orleans. Thank you, everybody., Ontario, California, and New Orleans. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next week. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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