The Joe Rogan Experience - #1614 - Tiller Russell

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

Tiller Russell is the director of the new feature film "Silk Road," and Netflix's limited documentary series "Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer".

the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day are we rolling oh we are we're up yeah this is a uh kill cliff cbd 25 milligrams of cbd um jalapeno pineapple jalapeno pineapple. Jalapeno pineapple. Strong. Not bad, right? I like it. It's called Flaming Joe. That's my face, bro.

Then it's flaming. Hey, I love your fucking movies. I love the 7-5, and I really enjoyed Silk Road. It was really good. And you did a great job of taking something that is a real story and laying it out in a movie format where you only have a certain amount of time with actors. But even the guy who played the bad cop,

what is his name? Jason Clarke, I love that guy. He's great. He's been in a bunch of things. He was in Chappaquiddick. He was in First Man. He's been in a bunch of stuff. And he's a beast.

It was so interesting when I got there on set with him and it's like sort of day one, you don't know what you're getting into. And I, and I was just standing there next to him and I was like, dude, this guy is like a thoroughbred racehorse and he is at the Kentucky Derby. I can't wait to see what this cat does. He's so good as a bad guy. Yeah. And he's, he's game for it.

Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's intense. I've seen that guy in so many movies. He's just one of those guys, like you see him and you're like, oh, that guy. Well, you know, it's so funny when you're like, you know, I sat down. So I had written the script for Silk Road several years ago. And, you know, I have done all these documentaries.

That's my background, right, which is kind of where you dive into the, you know, you do the deep dive on these, you know, crazy crime stories. That's my whole racket, you whole racket from Michael Dowd forward. And then you go into the world, suddenly going from the doc thing into the movie thing. And it's like, well, who are the people that are going to inhabit this? So I sat down and I met with all these amazing actors. And you sort of are looking at, okay, what if it's this version of the movie? What if it's this kid? what if it's this version of the movie what if it's this kid what if it's this you know what if it's this guy and then suddenly jason clark who i'd been a fan of forever he was like dude i'm i mean i'm hip to that you know i want to do is he

playing a real guy it's a composite basically what happened is there were a couple of corrupt law enforcement officers there was a de guy, there was a treasury guy. And so what I had done is kind of combine them into that character, because I've spent a lot of time in the documentaries, hanging out with guys like that. And, and also people who have relationships, long term relationships with informants. So i was able to kind of take the work that i had done in the docs and put it into the movie so that it's drawn from real life it's drawn from people i know but it's you know kind of a hybrid between the two yeah it's it's a great vehicle for moving the story along you know and and condensing it without having too many different moving parts. Because you've got so much going on.

Well, and with something like that, a story like this, there are the people that... I was one of the people that was fully geeked on this story. I remember the day after Ross Ulbricht was arrested in the San Francisco library, in the sci-fi section of the Glen Park library. I was off shooting some crime doc or another. And I remember vividly opening the newspaper, and it just had kind of like the shadowy headlines of the story. It was like dark web, Bitcoin, Dread Pirate Roberts. But none of the stuff was in the zeitgeist yet. We hadn't even really heard of Bitcoin.

But I remember thinking like, man, there's a story there. Maybe it's a movie, maybe it's a doc, but like there's something. And I was just kind of fascinated from the get-go and then obsessively tracking the story as new pieces of information would come out. And then eventually there was this Rolling Stone reporter, this guy by the name of David Kushner, who's this brilliant writer and reporter, has like a nose for story and is able to get to people. And he had gotten to Ross Ulbrich's girlfriend in Austin and then the family. And so he wrote this profile of Ross that was this very kind of relatable humanist portrait. And suddenly when I read that piece, I was like, oh, okay, now I can like connect with this guy in some fundamental emotional way. But at the time,

none of the stuff about the corrupt cops had broken. None of that stuff was in the public. Nothing had been reported on. And I think that the feds deliberately kept that information under wraps so as not to screw up the prosecution of Ross, right? But I was knowing people in DEA, knowing people in U.S. Attorney from making, U.S. Attorney's Office, from making the 7-5, from making Operation Odessa, whatever, those guys would call me and they were like, man, there's a whole nother amazing half of the story, which is the crooked cop side of the story. Suddenly, when I saw that, I thought, okay, now that's a movie, because I can imagine these two sort of people, you know, I always thought of it, it's almost like they're missiles on a collision course flying right at each other, you know?

And so suddenly, when I had that in my head, I was like, I can make a movie out of that. The stuff with the corrupt cop's wife and daughter, was that fictionalized as well? Yeah. So it's interesting. At a certain point, I remember on set and kind of going up to it, people were like, okay, so what's factual and what's fictional? What's factual and what's fictional? And at a certain point, I was like, I need to pour myself into this because there wasn't, you know, when you're making a doc, you're going out and you're harvesting people and you're harvesting information and you're harvesting photos, videos, news footage.

This was like, there was a limited amount of information. And so then when the information ran out, it was like, okay, what am I going to pour in here? I can research it the way I would do a doc, but really, if I'm going to make this something that's true and authentic to me, I kind of poured myself into it. So that's what I ended up doing, you know? So when you say poured yourself into it, did you create this story with the daughter that needed the money for school and yeah um i mean what it is is it's a combination so there was a limited amount of information this guy one of these cops had family members had um you know a background where he was jacked up in puerto rico and sort of thrown off track so i took the pieces that were in the public record that were in Rolling Stone articles or in the Wired article or whatever. And then I was like,

okay, I'm going to put my own biography into this. I'm going to put, you know, maybe my relationship with my daughter or my relationship with my wife. And so kind of build out from what's there with a personal story to it. Is that a difficult thing to do? Like, do you tiptoe through that? Because here you are. You have this story, right? The story for folks who don't know.

We should probably let them know what the story is if they don't know. The story of Silk Road is a spectacular story because he created this marketplace through the dark web with you know using Tor and encryption where and and Tor is a browser it's an encrypted browser yeah it's basically like it's it's like the Harry Potter invisibility cloak you know you go into Tor and it conceals usage and location and he developed this Silk Road platform where you could buy all kinds of drugs. And then ultimately, you could buy guns as well and a lot of other illegal things. And the way you portrayed him is really fascinating, too.

And I wonder how much of it is accurate because you portrayed him as this sort of really intelligent, idealistic young man who ultimately believed that people should have the freedom to buy, sell, use, choose, whatever they like. And that the people who support Silk Road, that's how they felt. And people that are proponents of a lot of these, particularly psychedelics, which I'm one of them like they like that like like yeah what who who is a grown adult to tell another grown adult what they can can't use would it be great if there was some online marketplace that was free from the tentacles the american government and you could buy whatever you wanted well there was and he created it and it's uh it's in in in the sense that it's it's an important sense that it's an important American story. It's an important Internet story.

It's an important worldwide story. But then you're also adding fiction. Well, it's – yes. And his story, what fascinated me about his story was you have this guy that starts out as a very kind of naive, innocent guy. He's somebody who wants to make his mark in the world, wants to change the world, and goes into it with an open heart and good intentions. And there was a lot of information about him. When I first sat down to write the script, he was locked up in MCC, New York, actually exactly where Michael Dowd from the 7-5 had been locked up years earlier, right? And so I sat down and I wrote him a letter.

And he was in awaiting sentencing, I think, at the time. But I knew his lawyers were never going to give me access to him, right? Rightly so, because it would potentially screw up his defense. But I felt like, you know, I owe it to this guy in some fundamental sense if I'm going to tell his story to try to connect with him. And I'm a doc guy. That's my process, you know? And so I wrote him a letter, and I never heard back.

But then he had left this kind of amazing archive of breadcrumbs in his past. You know, he had written all of these public posts on the Silk Road website as Dread Pirate Roberts where he's putting out his philosophy, his ethos, his convictions. And then at the same time, he had been secretly keeping a journal long before he had launched Silk Road all the way through it up until the bitter end. And so when he got busted, they confiscated his laptop. And when they opened up his laptop, they had all of his private journal entries. So there was the combination of his public postings as Dread Pirate Roberts and the diary entries as Ross Ulbricht. public postings as Dread Pirate Roberts and the diary entries as Ross Ulbricht. And so while I didn't have access to the guy, I had access to his words and who, you know, his, I guess, accidental self-portrait in some way or another. And so when we got into, and you're at to your

question of how much of this is, you know, journalistically accurate. So every piece of voiceover in the movie that's spoken by Nick Robinson, who plays Ross Ulbricht, all of that is either taken from the diary entries or taken from the public postings as Dread Pirate Roberts. And then all of the chat logs, all of the back and forth, the encrypted communications between, you know, Knob and Dread Pirate Roberts, all of that stuff is taken from the documentary record. Because I felt like you have to be true to who this guy is, in some sense, spiritually, you know? Yeah.

Did you communicate with him at all? No. So what happened was, so I couldn't. I couldn't get to him. I wrote him a letter, never heard back. But what ended up happening was his ex-girlfriend, who's here in Austin, Julia V., who's portrayed in the movie by the actress Alexandra Shipp, she became a consultant for it when I was writing the script

and then when making the movie, because I felt like I needed somebody who knew this guy, who loved him, who had an intimate viewpoint on who he was and so she became my kind of source and way in in an emotional sense right how old was she when all it was going down 20s you know in her 20s i mean and that's and that's what year is this that's basically 2011 to 2013 and so you know she's she in college is she just like just just out just out, right? So they're like, young people knocking around Austin. And, and for her, I think it was, you know, what she had told me was, initially, it was like, he and I against the world, you know, inside the bubble. And then little by little, the Silk Road website became his masterpiece. And it was like, everybody goes outside of the bubble, except me and Silk Road Silk Road and so eventually she felt like she was in

almost like a three-way relationship where it's like her him and the website and eventually the website kind of eats him you know yeah well you did a great job of portraying the obsession that he had with all the inner workings of the website and and seeing it ramp up through the website's growth and development. Was it Gawker that made the article about it? And then it just exploded. I remember that article. I remember it very clearly.

Like when you showed the image of that article, I remember going, wow, I remember that article. Yeah, because it like, you know, and I think that that is true of many of these people that are the kind of disruptor innovators you know you have to get your message into the you have to get get into the zeitgeist in some fundamental way so like gawker was the way that like broadcast this to the world hey man silk road's out there like the mailman is your dope dealer and he's not even hip to it i wonder what would have happened if he didn't contact Gawker. I wonder how it would have grown. You know, I mean, obviously it would have eventually grown and become huge,

but I wonder how much longer it would have taken. It's a, I don't know. It's a fascinating question, but I think you always need the megaphone, right? I mean, in a way, like this is your show is, is the megaphone, you know, like in some ways it's the like transmission of a thing to a audience and to a public that's how they connect to it and it's otherwise because you have to be pretty sophisticated um and that was the thing that you know he was struggling with initially is like okay i've got this amazing thing i'm using tor so you don't know who it is

i'm using bitcoin and nobody knew what the hell Bitcoin was at the time either, right? It's because of this story that we all know of Bitcoin. This is what put Bitcoin in the zeitgeist. But basically, he had this, as many of these great ideas are, relatively simple one, which was Tor plus Bitcoin means encrypted transactions can't be traced. Anybody can get anything, anytime, from anywhere, from anyone they want. And so it unleashed it to the world. But then it was like, okay, but nobody knows about this. How are we going to sort of broadcast it? And the Gawker piece is the thing that injects it into the zeitgeist. But it was a thing before that.

So it was reasonably successful before that so it was reasonably successful before that right like people did know about it in terms of like the people that were here internet crowd yeah they knew about it but he didn't think that that was enough well and he had to go like he went and like seated the chat rooms and like said like hey man check this out you know acting as if he was a user and not the mastermind to it to like put bait in the water so the fish would hit it you know yeah it's uh it's such a crazy story and um i has it what is the status of things like that now are is there a more improved version of silk road now where you can do that and you don't get busted there were I'm asking for a friend

exactly exactly um the the crazy thing is there were several iterations of Silk Road that happened so like the feds came in like seized it and then all of a sudden like on on the website it was like seized by the FBI you know putting the word out as the as the feds are kind of pissing on the territory but then I forget what amount of time I've forgotten the details at this point, but six months later or whatever, Silk Road 2.0 comes up. Then the feds shut that down. Then Silk Road 3.0 comes up.

It's kind of like, I think, the genie never goes back in the bottle. Once the technology is out there, it's going to, in some way or another, continue to persist. Now, when the feds had shut it down, was this when Ross was running it? Basically, after Ross was busted, the feds went in and said, stamped the site that said seized by the FBI. And then it reemerged.

And then it reemerged. And the whole thing, you know, his online avatar, you know, Namda Gare or whatever was Dread Pirate Roberts taken from The Princess Bride. The idea being like, once I go away, there's going to be a new Dread Pirate Roberts. Somebody else is going to pick up the baton and run with it. And nobody quite knows, okay, who is it that inherited it? And there are those people who say, hey, this wasn't Ross that ordered these hits. You know, this was like, nobody knows who's behind the keys at the time anything has happened so there are those people who

who completely deny you know his family completely denies the culpability and who knows we'll never know that is a problem when you're dealing with corrupt cops too right like they literally could have faked him doing that we don't know what has he denied that he called hits but we should explain to people that haven't seen the film. Spoiler alert. It goes off the rails for young Ross. And at one point in time, one of his guys he's working with gets busted and rats him out. And then the cops are using that guy's account and communicating with him.

And he orders a hit on that guy and the guy gets to see it and it's like holy shit i can't believe this who knows how much of that is real and how much is not but the problem is you're dealing with corrupt cops and if the corrupt cops wanted to frame him for something that's going to put him away for a long time, just running the website and allowing people a portal where they can do this and sell things is not quite good enough. But if you can get a guy to literally call for murder, not once but twice, then you've really got him locked up. We don't know, though.

Did he deny that he called those well and not only not only did he deny it but um what happened was so so to back up a step basically the the corrupt cop you know in the movie the corrupt cop at a certain point sets out to bust ross and then at a at a certain point he's like kind of getting cock blocked by his superiors and whatever and so he's he says okay i'm gonna rip this kid off instead. If I can't bust him, I'm going to steal the money and I'm going to use it for my own purposes. But what ends up happening is, and all of that information, by the way, the fake murder of his employee and the photographs that were taken of it, all of that stuff is true. That's all in the real story. And as we're shooting the movie, we have access to the actual faked murder photos.

What does it look like? It looks like- Is it available online? Can we see it? movie, we have access to the actual faked murder photos. What does it look like? It looks like... Is it available online? Can we see it? Yeah, it's available online. Oh, we need to see that right now. See if you can find the... Curtis Clark Green murder photos, fake murder photos.

What was his online name? Chronic Pain. Appropriately enough. Did he look like that guy, the fat guy with the crocs? He does. And I love that. That actor is amazing. Amazing! He was in...

Eastwood put him in Richard Jewell. And he was in Spike Lee's last movie. He's just... He's one of those guys... Did he play Richard Jewell? Yeah, he played Richard Jewell. And he's fantastic. Really good. I mean, he seemed like the quintessential internet couch monster.

Working with that guy was so fun, you know? because like, again, we had the, you know, we had information about the real guy. And what happened was when that guy gets busted, when Chronic Pain gets busted, in this article, it said he had a chihuahua and the chihuahua was going batshit, barking crazy as the feds are kicking in the door or whatever. And we're sitting there and I'm thinking like, man, chihuahua going batshit on set, that's going to screw up the dialogue. What do we do? And so I'm talking to Paul and Paul's like, what if we give him a ferret instead? And I'm like, ferret, dude, let's go ferret. And then the other brilliant thing that Paul did was he said, all of this

online chatter where it's, you're typing on the computer and then the other person types back, he's like, what if the dude's a mumbumbler so he's kind of saying this shit out loud the whole time that he's talking and he starts talking to himself so once he had the ferret and made the guy a mumbler he had like the keys to the character yeah he nailed it it was great everything down to the fanny pack it was beautiful the um the so the dialogue between all the dialogue that you show on screen was actually real dialogue. Yeah. So in the movie, you have Ross calling for this guy's murder. Did you struggle with that at all if Ross says he never did that and he – what was his theory?

Well, I think – okay, so there's a couple of important points. One is the feds never charged him with attempted murder. They put it, you know, Ross ended up getting sentenced to two life sentences plus 40 years without the possibility of parole. And this is a crazy fact, which is considerably harsher than what El Chapo was sentenced to, right? Jesus Christ. And so they really, you know, they threw the book at this guy and buried him. Did they offer a plea? He did.

He was offered a deal at a certain point, and he turned it down because – What was the deal? I think it was 10 years. Jesus Christ, kid. I know. And this is a crazy – so this is a crazy story. So starting out with, you know, you had asked me if I had reached out to him. So I reached out to him when he was locked up in MCC, New York, awaiting sentencing.

And then all the way through, he was hoping, you know, waiting, the case was working its way through the appeals process. So, and then finally, he was hoping that Trump was going to pardon him. And there was a big kind of hullabaloo. Okay, is Trump going to pardon this, pardon him on his last day in office? And he didn't. And I was sitting there watching the news,

waiting to see if he would. And I woke up the next day and I was like, man, I'm going to look it up. And so I went on to the Bureau of Prisons website and I typed in Ross's name and it comes up, you know, Tucson Penitentiary. And then it said release date colon life. And it just like it hit me, you know, this kid's 36 years old.

He's 10 years younger than I am. And just staring down the barrel of that. And so I sat down, even though the movie's, you know, coming out or whatever at the time. And I decide, you know what, I owe this guy and some fun, like just human being man to man. So I write him a letter and I said, listen, man, I've made this movie and this is my portrait of you and my portrait of your story and of Silk Road. And it's coming out into the world. But if you ever want to tell your version of the story in any form or fashion, you want to do it as a Rolling Stone interview. You want to do it as a documentary. You want to do it any way you want.

You tell me and I will be there in person to sit down with you because I do feel like there's some kind of, I don't know, I guess like spiritual contract between me and him. Like when you enter into story like this you're you're in somebody else's life in a real way yeah it we it's almost like we do need to hear his version of it right and we don't we just and especially when you're dealing with lawyers in a court case where it's you know they're withholding some testimony if they think it'd be detrimental to his case or, you know, once all said and done. I wonder why Trump didn't pardon him. I don't know. And who knows, you know, the way it was reported that he was closely considering it. But in the kind of last days of the, you know, chaotic into the administration or whatever, it didn't happen. But I was, you know, because no matter what you think of Ross's politics or what he did as a, you know, or Silk Road even, there is this thing where like, I'm a believer in second chances, man.

You know, I've screwed up a million things in my lifetime. And, and I feel like somebody like that hopefully has something to give the world, you know, and isn't thrown away. It's just crazy that they were offering him 10 years and instead they gave him two life sentences plus 40 years with no possibility of parole. Like, why? You know, there's this... It's such a disparity. Well, it's... I think in some way or another, was like this changed the drug war right it

changed the way the drug game happened and it changed the way the drug war was fought suddenly it's like it's almost an existential threat to the drug war when it's not by busts and hand to hand and all the street stuff that we've seen you know since you know nixon unleashes dea DEA in 73 or whatever the year is. Suddenly it's, wait a minute, all happening online, anonymous, DHL, USPS, people are delivering it. Nobody even knows that they're carrying it. So it was like it was an existential threat to the U.S. government, to the DEA, to the drug war. And so he got the book thrown at him. Crazy.

So what was the motivation for offering him 10 years as a plea? You know, I don't know. And I wonder, you know, looking back on it, it's always kind of hindsight is 20-20. But he had been beating the system for a long time, right? He was like one dude with a laptop that unleashed this thing that kind of metastasized and went over the whole world. And he was winning for a while. He was ahead of the feds. He was ahead of the U.S. attorney's office. He had Chuck Schumer there calling for his head, and yet he continued to kind of game the system and beat him by just being nimble and being able to throw his laptop in his backpack and roll on to the next location.

So maybe he thought he'd be able to continue beating the system. I don't know. God, just, I mean, I just, he'd be out. He'd be out. He'd be out now, full 10 years later. Well, and the crazy thing, you know. I tweeted this two hours ago, kind of convenient timing. I put Silk Road on the top sorry on the tour network about ten years ago I've been thinking about what

was going through the mind of my 26 year old self back then in 2011 so much has changed if only I could turn back time Wow so he's got a Twitter account he tweets a lot recently about meditation how does he have a Twitter account I don't he might not be running and he could be sending messages to someone but it seems like he's running well i think you know one of the things when i looked when i looked at the federal penitentiary where he's being held is is you actually can they give everybody um access to uh you know to the computers and to email periodically once you get on the list fuck but it's it's heavy, right? Yeah, it's heavy, but I wish I'd know, I wish I could know whether or not

he actually called for murder. That's the difference. Therein lies the difference, right? Well, let me argue that point with you because at a certain point, you can make the argument, this is entrapment. This is somebody saying,

hey, this guy's ripping you off. All of it was a hustle. Like what the feds this is entrapment. This is somebody saying, hey, this guy's ripping you off. All of it was a hustle. Like what the feds were doing was a hustle. And so it's, again, putting bait in the water. Hey, this guy's ripping you off. Hey, do you want to kill him? And sort of encouraging him and entrapping him to do so. Eventually, he says yes, you know, or arguably he says yes, right?

If it's him, he says yes. If it wasn't him and somebody else is running it, who knows? But like, and this is the way the feds often prosecute cases, right? It's like you're putting bait in the water, encouraging the person to do it. Then he's like, his intention arguably is, yes, I want to do it. But at the same time, like the murder wasn't real. The whole thing was a hustle. Yeah, but if he did call for the

murder and he thought it was real then he called for a second murder i mean he's literally calling for hits if it's real if it's if it's real if he really did the problem is but there's two problems like legitimately if you were the prosecuting attorney and you knew that you had corrupt cops giving bad information and stealing money and you were an ethical person you're supposed to release that information and it should taint the eyes of the jury it should it should taint the eyes of the judge it should taint their case. It should weaken their case. But they're not going to do that. And none of that was disclosed at his trial.

All of that was deliberately concealed so that they could, you know, hammer him in the prosecution. And look, I'm a strong, like, law enforcement guy, right? Like, in the sense of, you know, I have made a bunch of documentaries that are about cops. Some of them are corrupt cops like Michael Dowd. Some of them are, you know, righteous cops like the guy that investigated the Kiki Camarena murder, the murder of the D.A. agent in 1985. And so I've spent my whole kind of professional life knocking around cops and prosecutors. And I'm a believer in the justice system. We need it to work.

Yeah, as am I. Cops are just like everybody else. There's good ones and there's bad ones. And unfortunately with cops, there's a lot of bad ones. And it's terrible for the good ones. When you see a story like this, though, and you know that the police officers that were involved were corrupt and one of them, did one of them go to jail or did two of them? Both of them. Two of them went to jail. like this though and you know that the police officers that were involved were corrupt and

one of them did one of them would go to jail or two both of them two of them went to jail i mean that that should be grounds for a retrial it's you know it's now gone all the way through the system and the only way he gets out is you know clemency or a pardon by somebody otherwise you know that kid's spending the rest of his life, you know, and I called his mother recently, who's in Austin too, actually, about the same time, and I had not spoken with her beforehand, and I reached out again, just in sort of human terms, and I said, you know, how are you doing? And she said, I'm not doing too good, man. My kid's going to die in in prison that was the opening words of the conversation and and i just said uh hey if the tables were she's like why are you calling me and i said because if the

tables were turned i'd want somebody to call my mom too you know imagine jesus christ it's um it just seems that if the cops were corrupt and if they were lying and if they were stealing money, it should have tainted the whole case. It should be grounds for some sort of a retrial. It should be grounds for a dismissal. It should be grounds for a reexamination of the case. case. Well, but it goes back to your original point, too, which is like, okay, if you have the intention to commit murder, if it really was him that did it, you know, have you crossed a fundamental line? Because I think, you know, and to me, that's what makes all of these stories interesting, stories like this interesting, is it's not clear cut. And it's not, you know, good guy, bad guy. You've got, it's the gray area in between. To me as a filmmaker, what is interesting is somebody that isn't wholly good or isn't wholly a gangster. It's somebody that's in between and like the forces of light are warring with the forces of darkness inside them, you know?

You know, you did a great job of portraying him as very tortured by his decision, You know, you did a great job of portraying him as very tortured by his decision, especially the one where he's seeing his girlfriend now hanging out with some other guy and he's drunk and, you know, he makes a call. The whole thing was very believable. But how much of that was based on real accounts of what was going down or how much of that was fiction? I took almost everything. There was a lot more reporting about Ross, right? So there was a lot in the public record. We knew his childhood. He grew up in Austin. He was a Boy Scout. He was an Eagle Scout. And he ends up getting a degree in physics. He goes to UTD. And so there was a lot of information about him and there was information in his own words. So anywhere where I had that information, it was like, let's hew closely to that. And then I had his ex-girlfriend, right, who is there telling me, because a big question I had for her early on is, okay, this libertarian ethos, this notion that everybody has the right to do whatever they want,

that this is America, right? If you want to pop a pill, snort a line, do whatever, you have the God-given right to do so. How much of that was legitimate and how much of it was a mask that he's just wearing for the site, for the public to sell it? And she said, this is exactly who this guy was at his most basic core level was a believer in our individual rights and freedoms. And he'd sit there and argue with people in bars and say, hey, this is our constitutional right. And so once I had that kind of piece of the character and I knew, okay, that's what animates this guy in a basic sense, then it gave me something to kind of hook on to.

And there's people that don't like the politics, that will argue against that. And at the end of the day, my feeling is it's not my job to pass a moral judgment. And even in the same way with Michael Dowd and the 7-5, it's not my job to tell you, hey, this is a good guy. This is a bad guy. It's here's the story. Here's the characters this is a good guy. This is a bad guy. It's here's the story. Here's the characters. Here's the world. Make up your own mind.

Hopefully people are arguing about it one way or another. Yeah, well, I'm sure they will. I mean, you definitely gave a lot of food for thought. It's such a complicated story. It really is. Because, you know, you see the guy entering into it with these intentions that are um you know debatably very they're they're very american it's very like the idea of freedom and the ability to do whatever yeah it really is and then along the line just everything just goes so

sour well and it happens so quickly you know one of the things that's crazy about that that story is from the time he unleashes the site until the time he's busted it's less than two years right this guy's got an entire lifetime's worth of drama that happens to him and you know 18 months time how much money did he make well you know had he hung on to the bitcoin with bitcoin at 50 000 or whatever it is today it would be like an incalculable amount of money. It was tens of millions at the time. God. And what happened with all that Bitcoin? It got confiscated and seized by the federal government. So the federal government owns it now?

Federal government seizes it and confiscates it. Although there was just, I read in the news, and I don't know the details of this, but there was a bunch of, you know, significant amount of, meaning like hundreds of millions of dollars, I think, missing Bitcoin. U.S. seizes $1 billion in Bitcoin linked to Silk Road site. The DOJ is suing for formal forfeiture of funds after tracking down the person holding them. And this is, how long ago is this three months yeah november 6th wow isn't that funny look at that little thing this article is more than three months old that's how crazy this time is today yeah three months old like bro that's a fucking million years ago three months well time got particularly weird on us over the past year

in the pandemic too yeah but that particularly strange, that they have that little thing to let you know this is not new. Waving the flag. Yeah. According to the information, Ross Ulbricht, now GL founder of Silk Road, became aware of Individual X's online identity and threatened Individual X for return of the cryptocurrency to Ulbricht. Individual X did not return the cryptocurrency, but kept it and did not spend it. The complaint said, the complaint officially titled

United States versus approximately 69,370 Bitcoin. Holy shit. Holy shit. That's so much money. Serious chunk of money. junk requires the doj to prove in court that the seized cryptocurrency is subject to forfeiture meaning it is the proceeds of a criminal act wow hmm what would they do with that money where's that go i think it goes into like you know further investigations and i'm not certain nancy pelosi's hair fund go i think it goes into like you know further investigations and i'm not certain nancy pelosi's hair fund exactly exactly there it goes there it goes these motherfuckers where's

that money go well i mean i think some of them it goes into like reinvestigations and the way in the like miami vice days when you like seize the ferrari then it becomes like the undercover like ferrari you know 3.5 billion dollars today so a billion three months ago and 3.5 billion today hey hang on to it for a little bit see what happens fucking christ that's nuts um that is really nuts that's so much money so much money nuts that's so much money so much money wow so they take it all from him he's got a public defender i'm sure right like who's no he's got he's got he's got a uh you know he's got his attorneys that are that are representing him his family mortgage their house or something presumably right it's got to be astronomically expensive it's a sad story man it's did you struggle with whether or not to portray him as being the guy who called for the hits since he said he never did it i struggle with for, every single one of these true stories or based on a true story has a big moral question to it.

You know, when I'm making The Night Stalker for Netflix, the question is like, okay, you got all these like brutal crime scene photos of people that are just, you know, essentially gutted and just the most horrible stuff ever. And so it becomes this question of, okay, how much of that stuff do you show the world? Or how much of it do you conceal because you want it to be, you know, a compelling show that people are able to watch. And so every single one of them has a big moral question where you're constantly kind of struggling with it. single one of them has a big moral question where you're constantly kind of struggling with it. With Silk Road, you know, the hits is a big thing because, okay, there's no guarantee that it was necessarily him behind the keys ordering them. But at the same time, you know, a reasonable mind

would assume, okay, you're the guy that's got the keys to the kingdom. You're broadcasting everything else. Presumably it is you that makes this decision but it's um you know that's that's the thing with these crime stories and these true stories is it constantly requires me to make moral judgments about what to include and what not to include yeah that's what i would particularly with that well i guess with richard ramirez and the night stalker like you've got bodies. They're real photos. You've got, obviously, real murders. My question is with him, if he said he didn't call for those hits,

if you portrayed the DEA agent creating a false account or hacking into his account in some way, what would be the method they could do that? If it wasn't him that did it see he's using an encrypted website he's doing it through an encrypted browser how would it be possible for someone else to we'll say he's got employees that are working with i mean theoretically there are people that are co-conspirators collaborators that have access to different things and maybe it's not him that's actually typing it. I mean, I think most reasonable minds would conclude that was the decision and that was the intent.

But at the same time, you can't prove it. And because that's the whole thing with the sort of anonymous Internet, no accountability. Who knows, man? Yeah. You know? So, yeah, it's a big. So it would have to be an big so it would have to be an employee it would have to be someone on site it would have to be someone who had access to

his laptop did they get um a log from the laptop that showed that those that type that type like the the typed out words like put the hit on that guy, however he said it, that that came from that laptop? Basically what happened was they ended up, he uses, instead of using a local server, he uses like a server farm in Iceland so that as people, you know, the feds are trying to track him, it's going to this weird ass locale that's not tied to him geographically.

So eventually the feds get access to the server farm in Iceland, and they're able to kind of the simplified version of this is they open it up and they're looking at it in real time from the inside. So it's as if they're watching from his laptop, but in another location. How did they do that? Because he had made a coding error very early on because he taught himself all this. Like this guy wasn't a trained coder. He taught himself all of this like in his own time, looking stuff up on YouTube and whatever, the dark web and wherever else. And so he had made an early coding error and had left his email address somewhere, rossulbert at gmail.com.

Oh, no. And that one little breadcrumb very early on led to the ip address that he ends up getting busted for because even though you make those mistakes and you go back and cover it up it's um it's still out there and like forensically as they sort of recover and rebuild it they catch that mistake and that's what ends up bringing him down oh my goodness i finally found that photo yeah took forever but that's it i guess so that's the photo of that's the the fake murder right yeah that guy looks so close to the guy that you guys they had play him so there's the fake murder with there's the chihuahua the soup

coming out of his mouth yeah and then that's him that's that's that's one of the real dea guys there at at the bottom there all hail hail Knob. You see that picture? So that guy with the hat on in the lower left? Yeah, that's one of the two DEA guys. Yeah, he's the actor you got portrayed him so well. Wow. Well, that's the thing with those undercover guys, right? Where's that guy now?

Wow. Well, that's the thing with those undercover guys, right? Where's that guy now? He's he's out and he's actually a huge advocate of Ross, you know wanting to get him Even though Ross wanted him dead even though Ross wanted him dead He's now sort of a big supporter of him and once you know his once him granted clemency or pardon look at this here I am at the door of the hotel room suite hotel room suite where the agents faked my death at the door of the hotel room suite where the agents faked my death. It's crazy the culture like this, right? Which is like people wanting to relive their thing. I remember very early on, one of the earliest jobs I had was I went out on the crab fishing boats, right?

In the Bering Sea doing what turned out to be deadliest catch once upon a time, right? And so I'm out there on these crab fishing boats and I I'm thinking, like, who's going to watch this shit? You know, sort of crabs pulled out of the ocean, who cares? And there was this kid on there that was like a young kid that had washed up in Alaska, you know, gotten tossed from the army, smoking dope or something, and he ends up in Alaska. And he's on this boat, and he starts telling me,

man, I'm having nightmares that I'm going to, like, fall over this boat in the middle of the night. And eventually, he's out there fishing in the middle of the night, throws one of the crab pots over and the rope catches his leg, yanks his ass into the water. Right. And the alarms start going off and I go running out there in the middle of the night to see what the deal is. And my cameraman who's with me at the time is like, dude, we got to help these guys. We got to rescue that kid. So he drops his camera and he goes running out to like help the other and i'm kind of like dude my job is to like is to film this

shit right and so i reach down and i pick up the camera and i start shooting and i'm feeling like conflicted again that moral thing like okay should i be like helping or should i be filming this and so they grab the kid and they miraculously they save him and they pull him onto the deck and he's like shaking with cold because your heart gives out in like six minutes when you're in the water like that. And so I'm holding a camera with one hand and a knife with the other and I'm cutting the guy's clothes off, right? And the kid slaps me and he goes, it's all right, man. Just film it. And I'm thinking like, what world do we live in? It's insane right and that's you know

but like and then that's the moment that ends up you know being like okay now we got a tv show let's turn it into deadliest catch but it's like so crazy that like people are like that that's yeah well people are so aware of what it means to be on television now or what it means to be on the internet or what it means to be a part of a thing that a bunch of people are going to see. Yeah. And that's kind of how we process these stories. It's like why we're still fooling, why are people still watching the story

of Richard Ramirez and the Night Stalker 35 years after that happened? And I think part of the reason why is this is how we understand these stories is by telling them, retelling them, having the discussions about what's the morality of Ross Ulbricht or using crime scene photos or richard ramirez it's kind of this is the way we culturally process this stuff do you ever do a demographic breakdown of who watched like does netflix have a demographic breakdown of who watches those crime shows because

it's mostly women isn't it anecdotally that's what everybody says there was a funny bit on saturday night live the other night that was like you know what do ladies do when they're home alone you know wait wait wait you know then they like throw on the murder shows yeah why is that i don't know it's a weird thing and when we were making night stalker there would like we would get to the the point in the interview where it's finally you know i would i would ask everybody like, okay, so for some reason or another, this guy becomes like the Jim Morrison of serial killers, because like when he's paraded through the courtroom, all of a sudden he's got these like

groupies and fans and they're sending him and I had gotten access to all of the like naked pictures that the girls are sending in, you know, because this author had written a book about him, had all this stuff. And I was like, and you always have to kind of ask that awkward question of like, so why does this guy become this sort of crazy sex symbol object of, you know, obscure object of desire? And it's always like kind of, particularly with the, you know, the women who are being interviewed but everybody and nobody quite has an answer is it the bad boy thing is it the celebrity thing but this is somebody that like you know i think as one of the people said this is somebody that would eat you for dinner not like you know there's no it's craziness to have any attraction to it but yet it exists you know this guy has like groupies and fans and it's very common for murderers to get usually murders of women

To get all these propositions from women. Yeah, very strange super strange And you know, I read something about that. No, you know Whitney Cummings was actually telling me about this She said she she read that it was something that had to do with There was like an evolutionary benefit to getting close to killers like that i think this is theoretical in what regard that the idea of it's very hard to kill someone once you have like human personal contact is that what you're saying no no no no that the the act of killing someone that it's difficult to do and that it requires like someone who is to be capable of taking another person's life. And to be close to that person means somehow or another you're protected by them and that they're willing to kill.

they're willing to kill and that this is like something that existed thousands and thousands of years ago in our dna this desire to be close to killers because you were more likely to survive because there were so many killers like if you went back in time you know a few thousand years ago murder must have been like really common like when when people were sword fighting all the time and dude there's a crazy there's a crazy book on this steven pinker wrote this book called the better angels of our nature and what he does is he tracks over time kind of the nature of violence in humanity yes and he's like okay once upon a time there's cain and abel and cain kills abel like the murder rate is like 50 so actually we've been trending up ever since then. And like, it literally looks at how, you know, over time, the incidence of like violence has

actually, even though it doesn't seem like that, dramatically decreased. It does seem like that. It does seem like that. I think we just focus on the instances of violence because we have mass media. Right. And it's fascinating. Yeah. And if it bleeds it leads so there's but why is that you know like that's something that you know making the night stalker or even making silk road it's like why are we fascinated by the underworld you know the sort of like the worst things that people do to each other like what is it you know and and i'm you're participating in it I'm participating in any time we're watching it making it or

whatever you know we are all in some way complicit in that well there's the lure of the abyss too right like isn't why is that why do people look over the edge of a building and think about jumping you know like there's there's something about we want to get up to the edge in some way or another you. There's something about death and murder and all those things that's absolutely... And also anesthetized in our culture, which is real weird, right? Why is it okay for a movie to depict a hundred people dying, just murdered with bullets and just stabbed and that's fine? Like John Wick, perfect example like how many people does he kill right and he's the hero he's killing everybody right but uh but if you

fuck someone and you actually saw it it'd be like this movie's a piece of shit right this is terrible i can't believe you showed me penetration right right that's strange it's super strange we're we're we're totally fine with violence which is the worst thing that can happen. But if we actually saw real sex in a movie like that, we would be outraged. Yeah. It's whatever those moral lines are. You know, violence is inherently cinematic. Like, if you look back, like, the earliest days of, like, the movies, like, it's one of the most cinematic things there is.

And so I think there was an interview with David Cronenberg or something. They're like, what is it with, like, sex and violence in the movies, like it's one of the most cinematic things there is. And so I think there was an interview with David Cronenberg or something. They're like, what is it with like sex and violence in the movies? He's like, it's bacon and eggs, man. They go together. I wonder if there's going to be a time where CGI pornography in a film is acceptable. Or VR, like you put on the headset. Well, they have that. But what I'm saying is like pornography in a in

an action movie but you know it's not really the people having sex like one of the reasons why we like an action movie like john wick is we know nobody died right so you don't feel bad but if they actually did fuck you like hey this is crazy these are two people actually having sex you hit the trip wire but if they were cgi sex I wonder if we're ever going to reach a point. Because clearly our desire for whatever it is, depravity, whatever you want to call it, whether it's violence or sex or extreme things that we see in films, it's only getting greater. If you look at what was outrageous, like I watched The Shining the other night, and what was outrageous then in terms of even violence is pretty fucking tame. Yeah.

Even though it's a wild, crazy movie with Kubrick, you watch a movie today with violence, it's way more violent. Well, you have to keep cranking up the lever, right? The more you're used to, the higher it has to be, like up to 11 in the red to be able to experience it. But not with sex. But not with sex. Yeah, sex is kind of like it hits a point and that's the line. Well, but it's also like when you think about depictions of sex in a weird way, it's oftentimes, and I guess maybe the same thing is true with like horror movies but it's

like the t's can be sexier than the actual sex or like jaws the shark it's like you think in the sharks coming not actually seeing the shark is what's scary about it you know oftentimes what the mind can do yeah we used to think that about violence too though but now that's not the case now if you you want you want that yeah if you watch like once upon a time in hollywood that is a fucking crazy violent movie like crazy violent we and we're okay with it yeah we're good with that and if that movie existed if you had once upon a time in hollywood in the 1970s they'd probably make it rated x but you know there's those people that make the argument the reason why we do like is because we're not indulging in the violence ourselves you know because we are

trending away from you know the murder rate of you know 50 50 it's like it's our way of vicariously taking the ride without having to indulge it that's the argument for violent video games you know the argument against violent video games is that somehow or another makes people numb to the idea of killing people. Because you're killing people all the time in these virtual forms. But the argument for video games is that you get that out. You get it out of your system. it out of your system. Like, there's a lot of weird psychology when it comes to things that you're seeing in a film or in a game or any sort of media depiction. What's entertainment and what isn't, and why are we doing it and consuming it?

Right. And why are we upset at some things that people like and not upset about other things that people like? we're upset at some versions and those but those also change over time it's like you said you know you have once upon a time in hollywood in the 1970s that movie's rated x yeah you know uh-huh the meter changes it does too like try listening to nwa right you know listen to that now and you're like jesus like what are they saying this is crazy they're talking about killing prostitutes you know that it's a like a positive thing if you listen to that and and imagine that being in a movie and that those guys are the heroes you'd be like what yeah what is this but are is that is that people getting it out of their system i don't know it's a fascinating question i don't know that there's any i don't know there's any answer to it well it's it's

fantasy it's fiction you know and that's always been the argument for gangster rap it's always been the argument for gangster movies you know violent movies which is also kind of a cornerstone to the like to america right like the american outlaw is like that's that's a cornerstone of the culture from billy the Kid through the Godfather and Goodfellas and whatever. Like that's how we, that is an American phenomenon. And so all of this is in keeping with,

you know, it's a cornerstone of the country in some way or another. It is. And when we get back to Silk Road and Ross Ulbricht, when you see his story and you see what he, I mean, even if he did call for those murders, in a lot of people's eyes, like what he was doing was stopping rats, stopping people from fucking up his thing. And that these people were, they were in the way of his idea of what the greater good is. They're in the way of his idea of what the greater good is.

Well, and he has the argument with his girlfriend in the movie where she's like, dude, you're selling crack on the site. You're selling meth on the site. And his point is like, hey, if you were to go buy this on the street, there's not a rating system. There's not reviews. My operation is safer than the old school drug dealers because there actually is some amount of accountability because it's all publicly posted it's amazon it's ebay there's also a great misunderstanding and a great amount of ignorance when it comes to drugs themselves there's a guy named dr carl hart who was recently on my podcast has been on in the past who wrote a book called uh drugs for grown-ups yeah i think i saw it on the way in yeah yeah um and essentially he says crack is coke it's the same goddamn thing it's the same effects he's like i've i've had meth he's like it's just

an amphetamine he's like the the idea we put these things in our mind like these are horrific here's the line right he's like there you know he's like ketamine is pcp it's the same thing and he's a chemist i mean he's a phd he's a guy who really like this is science yeah he's a clinical researcher and became a guy who started using these drugs after he became a clinical researcher was basically a teetotaler until he's in his 30s and then while he was doing clinical research on these drugs, he started realizing how much we've been sort of misinterpreting the effects or misrepresenting the effects, rather, and how people have these ideas on what crack is. And a lot of it is based on racist prosecution policies. Because if you have crack versus coke the difference in prosecution is fucking astronomical right it's really crazy yeah and one's that one's the one's the ghetto

street drug and one's the like wall street drug exactly and he said but the the effect is the same it's the same drug well it's also weird you know we talk about the like cultural shifts you know and i always think about this you know having done several dea stories whether it's the last narc on amazon and i think of like hanging out with these you know dea agents who like become my friends that are in it well now all of a sudden like you're in california like the weed store there's more weed stores in california than there are Starbucks. Like how weird must that be for these like DEA guys, these like old school kind of knock around like warriors that dedicated their entire life to the war on drugs.

And then it's like, and then they're like, maybe give me some edibles. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's a crazy, these cultural shifts are so radical in our time. It's like, you know, I wonder if you look at silk road 20 years from now and it seems like preposterous that he or even now maybe you know that he gets double life sentences plus 40 without the possibility of parole you know and these guys that are the cops they're not bad people either that's what's fucked it's like the culture is bad like the culture of law enforcement in terms of like prosecuting people for marijuana

it's just it's bad it's a bad setup and they get pushed into this box because this is what their job is like if you're working at dairy queen your job is to make the ice cream go in a circle and you hand it to people that's your fucking job right you might hate swirly ice cream but that's your job if you're a cop and they tell you you're supposed to bust people for pot, that's your job. And when things change, these guys have this totally mixed signal. Some cops are like, look, it's stupid to bust people for pot. But other cops, they had it in their head. No, pot is fucking, I bust people when they have pot.

That's what I do. It's the job. Yeah, that's the job. That's how I get a collar. that's what i do like this is the job yeah that's the job the job that's how i get a collar yeah that's that's what i do there was a guy that i used to do jiu jitsu with who was a cop who knew i was a pothead and it was it was hilarious because i had a medical um prescription for pot and uh he used to just joke around about it i i'll still bus people for for pot i go why his Mark, shout out to Mark.

He's still out there. He would be like, he goes, it's fucking what I do, man. I bust people for pot. We were all joking around about it. I'm like, what's wrong with you, man? Why are you busting people for pot? Think about all these people out there that are robbing people and lighting houses on fire and stealing cars. Why the fuck are you busting people for pot?

But in his mind mind that's the job well also like you you know he also risked his life doing that when it started out like that was the gig right is like when you're a you know undercover cop that's carrying a gun and going in doing a by bus to get the weed or whatever literally every time you go to work you're risking your life potentially so these guys and that's's like Jason Clarke's character in Silk Road, right? Like once, they call these guys Jurassic Narcs. Once upon a time, they were door kickers. The job was like, go in there, get it done.

And they used to say, you know, what kind of piece are you carrying? A SIG or what are you carrying? You know, and all of a sudden the world changes and it's like, well, how much RAM is on your laptop? And like, these guys are like Peckinpah characters. They're out of step with the world, man. You know, like the game has changed and all they know is living by what they learned at the barrel of a gun and suddenly the like culture doesn't care anymore it's like no the the drug game is

online now and like knowing how to work informants or rouse somebody it's like that shit's irrelevant he did a great job of showing that conflict in the film too when the two guys are outside smoking a cigarette talking about that you know it's the it's a great version of a dramatic interpretation of real world events that are historically very significant because it means a lot to our world to when something like silk road comes along and I never bought anything off of Silk Road. I don't even think I know anybody who bought anything off Silk Road. But I remember we were all watching it very carefully. It changed the culture. It changed the world.

You know? It was also, you know, people would always ask you, man, how do I get mushrooms? And like, oh, you got to fucking know somebody. And then someone would be like, or you go to Silk Road. Right. And you're like, oh. How's that work? It seems dangerous. what do you do what do you do how do you do that do you know anybody who went on silk road and bought anything i don't think so i was trying to think i don't i don't know maybe but not yeah i don't know yeah maybe i forgot somebody that bought but no one close to me

but it's uh it's a moment i won't forget i don't i remember the god i believe i was aware of it before the gawker article but i remember reading the gawker article going whoa this is crazy yeah and then it that's why and that's why it grew so fast you know from something that like nobody had heard of and it's like just a dude with a laptop till suddenly it's all over the globe and you and people are doing... And to me, this story is a Frankenstein story, right? In the sense of this guy, this is his masterpiece. He's creating what he wants to change the world.

And suddenly the monster has him by the throat at the end of it and is like choking the life out of him. When he's visiting his sister and he reads a story about the kid on acid who jumped off the top of a building, that's all true that's that's all true in fact i had to call the dad and um to use the clip right and it because there's there's all sorts of you know documentary footage scattered in there because i wanted it to be about the real stuff and it was a complicated conversation with the dad where it's like hey man i'm making this, but your son's story is an important piece of this, and I would like your blessing to include it. And so I understand the complex morality, like, okay, if that were me and I had

lost my kid, I wouldn't be sitting here being like, hey, double life sentence plus 40 is too harsh for Ross. I'd be asking for his head. And I'm deeply empathetic to that. At the same time, you know, it's like the question you asked. Okay, well, you know, is that fair? And like, does this kid deserve another shot? I don't know. It's like, I don't have the answer to it. I guess I have the question.

I don't have the answer. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Well, the thing is, like, you can't make someone responsible for someone doing acid and jumping off a roof you know if if you are the type of person that wants to do acid it's your responsibility to it's like you can't say that you're responsible for someone who kills himself because you sold them a razor blade. You know, you didn't sell them a razor blade so they can kill themselves.

You sold them a razor blade so you could shave your face. That's what a razor blade's for. You can use a razor blade to cut your wrists, but are you responsible for someone cutting their wrists with a razor blade? You're not, right? Gillette's not responsible if someone buys a razor and slices their wrist. Well, and this is even one step more than that in the sense of it's not Ross sitting there with like a pile of acid. All he's doing is like the guy that wants to sell the acid,

the guy that wants to buy it. I'm just creating the forum for everybody to do that. Yeah, and it's a very unusual situation when someone takes acid and jumps off a roof. You know, it's super unfortunate. It's terrible. It's a horrible tragedy, but it's not what's intended. Like, what's intended is for you to have a self-exploratory, psychological...

Inner voyage. Yeah. You're supposed to do a deep dive into this psychedelic trip that's created by LSD. That's what you're supposed to do. And for this kid to take it and jump off a roof, it's horrible. But, you know, I don't think he's responsible horrible. But I don't think he's responsible for that. I don't think anybody's responsible for that. But does it still weigh on your conscience?

You know what I mean? I think it probably... It should. It would, you know? Yeah, it should. Of course, it should. If you're a guy who created that platform. But if you're dealing with...

How many people were using Silk Road at the time? I don't know what the total users are but you know a lot I mean if you look at the transactions and the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars a ton of people yeah so let's say a million people let's say millions who knows I mean look there's a lot of drugs that are super beneficial to people pharmaceutical drugs but sometimes people have adverse reactions and they die. I'm sure the people who make these medications feel horrible about it, that these reactions happen to people and they die because of their

otherwise beneficial drugs. What do you do? Do you arrest them? Do you close everything down because someone has a weird biology that interacts strangely with some medication? You don't. What do you do if someone takes acid and jumps off a roof? It's complicated. It's one of those uniquely complicated human issues that deals with personal freedom. And that's why I'm drawn to stories like this. Any of these stories that are morally complicated, maybe it's – there are people that criticize my work for, hey, this is somebody that's taking a real story and turning this into gonzo entertainment.

But to me, it's, okay, this is how we explore these stories, by telling them retelling them talking about them and not you know people are smart they can make up their own mind do you think it's gonzo entertainment though i don't i think that's an unfair i think you you certainly gave dramatic interpretations of things to order to move the storyline along but i didn't find it offensive you know i gonzo to me is you know hunter s thompson's work right he did a lot of while you know like when he's a man yeah i love that guy well like when he was was it ed muskie that he said he was uh on ibogaine right yeah there was a rumor going around that he was on ibogaine and i knew about it because i started that rumor he was just right wild shit about a

witch doctor from brazil coming to meet him on the campaign trail because he was hooked on this. Ibogaine is not even something people are addicted to. This is even more hilarious. But he wandered into the middle of the story in a way that nobody had done that. But when he was doing it, it was suddenly like, okay, it's not just out there. Dude, I am the story. And my crazy and gonzo is what's defining it. And ironically, he was on acid.

Right. And coke. Right. And everything else. At the cop convention. Yeah. I mean, it's, so calling what you did Gonzo journalism or, I don't think that's fair. I think what you did is a great way of getting a story out there.

And, you know, yeah, the wife and the daughter that needed money for the school and everything is a little complicated. And making it one guy instead of two corrupt cops is kind of complicated. But ultimately what it's really about is this young man and his girlfriend and his friend and their creation of this thing that really changed the way people were able to access things that were illegal that people wanted that grown adults wanted to get maybe not even grown adults right that was also part of the problem that you could you know it's hard to regulate a 12 year old with a good understanding of the internet could get a hold of some well could get a hold of a gun right can get a hold anything yeah yeah but that was the like did, when did it become guns?

There was another site that he kind of kicked into it. And to him, this was all part of the, hey, you have the, this is constitutionally protected. Like, this is your right to do so. You want guns, you want dope, you want whatever. Like, this is your right to choose, and it's up to you to be responsible. But for many people, and for his girlfriend, it was like, dude, this is the line. Like, hey, I thought you wanted to change the world for good, and now, you know. But change the world for good.

Did they really think that? I mean, by selling drugs? You know, I mean, you know, there you go. Change the world for good. I mean, it's possible. Make a mark anyway. Yeah, for sure. Make a mark anyway yeah you know sure make a mark yeah and um

and i and i think that he did go into it with and he did make a mark for better or worse well we're talking about him right now yeah for sure he made a mark and i think your film does justice to that i really do i think it it it it definitely encapsulates what a crazy moment it was where this site gained momentum and started. And, like, it showed, like, when he gets all the text messages in, like, he's realizing. It's blowing up. He's like, holy shit. What the fuck? And he's realizing, like, oh, my God, what have I done?

Yeah. Oh. It's weird, though, to read that tweet now, you know, Ross's tweet of like, okay, here I am 36 years ago. It's almost 10 years since I started this site. And, you know, I wonder what's going on. You know, I'd be curious one day, there was this amazing thing in the New York Times where they used to do watching Serpico with Serpico, where they go, you know, find like Frank Ser serpico sit down with him and watch the movie and have the conversation and like how interesting would it be to sit down now with ross and watch silk road with him even if he hated it or even if he argued hey this is not right or whatever what a fascinating conversation that would be i'd love to be able to do that with him fuck come on biden let him out bro let him out, bro. Let him out. He could do it. He could?

Yeah, he probably would. He'd have much more of a chance of Trump doing it than Biden doing it. Speaking of Serpico, Serpico looked me up. Serpico found me after the 7-5 came out. Really? He's still alive? Still alive. Where is he?

Still in hiding. He's in hiding? I mean, he's... What in hiding i mean he's cops want to kill him now uh you know when you take a bullet through the head i think you're probably forever looking over your shoulder which is what he got shot in the head got shot in the head really yeah i didn't know that yeah so at the end of it on like it's so long it's really interesting to read and it was such a crazy call to get so the 75 comes out and he calls me and he's like yo this is serpico and i'm like serpico serpico and he's like yo this is Serpico and I'm like

Serpico Serpico and he's like yeah this is Serpico I just wanted to say which that movie showed nothing's changed man nothing's changed and it was so weird to get the call and it made me want to go back and you know kind of re-explore Serpico's story. You know? So how did he get shot in the head? By another cop? Yeah, basically at the end, he was going around reporting the police corruption that was kind of epidemic in the police department. And, you know, according to him anyway.

And so eventually he goes to respond to a call and he goes through the door and he's the first through the door and you're expecting your backup to be there to like uh um you know get your back and he goes through the door i think the door slams on his arm and all of a sudden he turns around there's no backup bang he gets shot in the head and that's his like exit from from working wow it's a crazy story and yet he's still like completely lucid and um you know very sharp guy and pacino nailed him because i was sitting there talking on the phone it's like he

sounded exactly like pacino in the movie you know it's really interesting what was the effects of the bullet hitting his head um i don't know i mean cognitively he seemed totally capable i think it was as i recall i don't remember all the details, but I think it was like small caliber, didn't cause any sort of significant cognitive damage. He ended up getting his detective shield when he's like lying in the hospital bed. Jamie's got something there.

Severed an auditory nerve, leaving him deaf in one year. He's since suffered chronic pain from bullet fragments lodged in his brain. Is there photos? Just of him. Let me see what he looks like. The real dude. It's an article from recently. He looks like Pacino.

He looks like Pacino, right? Pacino nailed him. He sounds just like him. Wow. What? Does it say the caliber of weapon? Oh, this was just briefly mentioned the thing. Let me get you here.

I'd love to go back. 22, yeah. 22 LR pistol. Yeah. Just below his eye. Yeah, wow. Not being in his jaw. Fuck.

Fired back. He fired back? Yeah. Jesus. That'd be an interesting one to revisit all these years later. You know, it's like I'm imagining the 10-part Netflix series that retells the Serpico story now, but like slower and more detailed. Oh, yeah. That'd be awesome.

Dude, you should do it. Do you think you'd work with it? Yeah. Well, the interesting thing when he called me was he's like, I was never sat. And I love the movie. And Sidney Lumet's a genius. But he said, I didn't like the movie. He'sney lumet's a genius but he said i didn't like the movie he's like there was all sorts of stuff that that like didn't go into it and he's like

i'd love to tell my version of this and that didn't go into it in what way like more details i guess it's more more detail i mean inherently that's just how it is right that is how it i mean having just done this with silk road like okay there's elements that you move around and things that you fictionalize so you only have so much time. Well, that's why I'm imagining the like 10-part series of Serpico where you go into the whole thing and the world and the culture.

It would be fast. And what a great part for somebody. It'd be a fun one to do. And while he's still alive and can contribute to... Would you do it in a dramatic way or would you do it in a documentary style? Well, I think a dramatic version of it now because then you get the fun of like 1970s new york like bygone era

you know the city as it once was you know that's true yeah now that would be the place to do it at netflix isn't it amazing how television used to be a place where people would go in their careers or falling apart and now it's the best way to tell a story it literally is the best like when you look at whether it's netflix or game of thrones or the sopranos some of the best drama that we've ever seen has been uh um not ozark rather um i mean think about these one after the wire one after another oh my god There's so many of them That were They tell these long stories

And you just get completely glued to it Particularly with Netflix Because like you binge watch With Stranger Things Like there's these shows that are just They're so much better than a movie When you see a movie It's like you realize

You have to smush everything in To two hours or three hours or whatever you decided to make it. Well, audiences' viewing habits have changed too. Once upon a time, it was like, give me two hours,

I want to go to the theater and be done. Now, we're all stuck in our house all the time. It's like, give me another episode and I'm going to crack three or four more of those. Well, that's the problem

when you get into, well, that's the beautiful thing about Netflix too is they release them all in a giant chunk. So you can really tear into it. Well, that's the beautiful thing about Netflix, too, is they release them all in a giant chunk. So you can really tear through it. Yeah, you can binge. But it's a fucking tremendous waste of time, too.

You know, something to do. What about, would you ever go back to TV? No, I don't think so. I like this. I'm busy. Yeah, you're certainly busy. I'm busy and I'm happy. You know, I like what i'm doing um uh i

love watching television but i would never go back to like a game show again well let's say never who knows one day i might just decide that it's fun but i don't think so i think this is better this is more like to me it's more interesting because uh i can kind of choose who i talk to i want to talk to the people that i'm really like with you i love your movie and i really love the 752 but i just the subject matter of creating these films and documentaries to me it's fascinating and it's fun to talk to i love talking to all kinds of different people and the beautiful thing about a podcast is there's no real structure i don't have to you can follow it wherever it goes and i don't have to there's there's no rule like you can only talk to these

kind of people or there's no rules you know and initially if you looked at it on paper would have never made any sense like oh you're gonna sometimes be high as fuck talking to comedians, sometimes talk to scientists, sometimes talk to mixed martial arts fighters, sometimes talk to physicists, sometimes talk to doctors and nutritionists. And no, it doesn't make any sense. But was it sort of like what led you on the path that got you here? Was it systematic was it intuition was it like kind of i mean that is a crazy mixture of people that you're having on yeah uh the fact that there's no one telling me what to do that's what led me to it was this just interesting to me like i like i'm have a lot of interests i have varied interests if i had

three different lives to live simultaneously i I could fill them up easy. There's so many things that I would love to do that I just don't have the time to do. So for me to talk to all sorts of different people from different walks of lives, different specialties and different disciplines that they're involved in, I'm just a student of humans. I love the way people think and what they do and why they do it and what was going on while they're involved in something. To me, that's ultimately incredibly fascinating. So I just interviewed who, in the beginning, there was no stakes because nobody gave a fuck. Nobody was listening. So I was like, whoever I could get to talk to me, it was like, great. But you didn't change. I mean, that's, I think that's why it has continued because it's still

like free form and it's rambling. It's wherever it, it, whatever, wherever you want to follow it, that's where it goes. And I think people are hungry for that, man. I think people like legitimate, genuine conversations, right? Or, you know, that someone doesn't have an agenda. They're not pretending to be someone they're not. They're just, they're just real curiosity is very contagious. Real enthusiasm is also very contagious. And that's what I base what I do on, my real enthusiasm and real curiosity. I'm fully there with you because at the end of the day, you know, and it's equally true of, you know, something like Silk Road or making a doc. At the end of the day, like, people are fascinating.

Silk Road or making a doc, at the end of the day, like, people are fascinating. And if you will sit down and sort of pay attention to them and ask them, hey, man, what makes you tick? Why did you do this? Like, it's, that's where these interests, and it's a similar job in many ways, right? Like, me making a documentary is, I guess it's more polished and more produced and whatever. But at the end of the day, it's that fundamental thing of like, hey, who's sitting across from me and what makes them tick? Right. And the story of Michael Dowd, the way you depicted it in the 75 was so interesting because you get to see how this guy is a young, idealistic kid who becomes a cop and then almost immediately, first day on the job, gets introduced to corruption.

Just full scale. It was murder, murder right like they threw somebody off a fucking balcony or something yeah i mean that dude and what's so weird and fascinating about him is he's still you know as i was saying to you earlier he served 10 and a half years in the federal pen and like being a cop in the federal pen and having to walk that yard alone, when I first met him, the story of how I got to him was fascinating. So once upon a time, these producers showed me this clip of him and it was him being interviewed before the Mullen Commission. And, you know, the guy asked him, you know, do you consider yourself a New York City cop or a criminal? He leans over and he confers with his lawyer and he says, both.

And as soon as I saw that clip, I was like, dude, who is this guy? And like, how do I get to him and how do I find his story? And what I was using at the time was I have access to the software that the bounty hunters use. So if I get your name, your date of birth, I can get this kind of crazy matrix of data that's everywhere you've picked up a piece of mail, everywhere, any known associates of yours. So I had gotten that for all these other people that were involved in the story. And I started sending out FedExes all over the country, right? So it was like, dude, I'm making this movie. Everybody else is already in it. If you want to say your piece,

I'll meet you for a beer or lunch or whatever. Anytime, anyplace, I'll be there." And it was complete bullshit. I didn't have anybody else at all. But I sent them all over the – hundreds of FedExes all over the country. So people started calling and they're like, is Mikey hip to this? Is Mikey blessed this? And I could not find out anywhere, right?

Try as I might. And I'm looking through the data and I'm like, where the hell is this guy? Because he had fallen into the crack of right when the digital era had begun. So there was no digital footprint for the guy. And so there were no known addresses. There were some known associates, but everybody's like, no, Dow's not here. And then eventually there was this one name on there and it was a woman doctor. And I picked up the phone, and I called, and I thought, like, what the hell? What's the likelihood she does this? And she answers the phone, and I said, yeah, was Mikey there? And she puts him on.

And Dowd is like, yeah, this is Michael Dowd. What do you want? And I told him the same thing. I said, dude, you pick the time and place. Anywhere in America, I'll be there. And if you think I'm full of shit, if you think I'm not the guy to tell your story, then you walk away. And he said, all right, tomorrow, meet me on Long Island. And I'm in L.A. or whatever at the time.

So I jump on a plane, fly out there, and I go out and get on the L.A. And I'm going out to Hop Hog or wherever it was. I don't even remember at this point. And I go to get off the train station and you know you go to get off at whatever stop he tells me and i get off and he says now get back on the train and he makes me go up to the next location controlling the meat you know as cops do it's like a drug deal you know you're controlling the meat the circumstances or whatever he makes me get a you know go to the next station and i get off and he rolls up and i get in his car

and he's just this like full tilt like maniac right out of a scorsese movie and he's like all right so what's the plan what do you want to do and i'm like dude i want to know what it's like to be a corrupt cop where you're like snorting lines off the dashboard and like ripping and robbing through east new york and he's like all right i'll tell you well i'll get the crew together and so like away we went you know how many years he'd been had he been out of jail when you met him? I don't remember at the time. Not too long, but long enough that he was, you know, and the crazy thing is, he told me this story recently. He said the night they got busted in Suffolk County, they're in the back of the paddy wagon.

And as they're getting hauled away, they're like, so who's going to play me in the movie? That was the question. You know what I mean? Like, they want to know at the time. And it's like all these guys, you know? When he was getting dragged away. what I mean? Like they want to know at the time. And it's like all these guys. When he was getting dragged away. When he was getting dragged away, they're at the, you know.

Oh my God. Yeah. Well, I guess he probably recognized it's a big story. It was a crazy, I mean, when you're on the New York Post and it says the dirtiest cop ever, you know, it's a story.

Yeah, he's a character. His Instagram was, we were talking about his Instagram too. That's hilarious too. Non-stop not non-stop with girls in bikinis hanging out in florida you know he's he's he's rocking that and and but the funny thing about somebody like that and i have found this to be true of like several of these you know gangsters is he's like a kid he's like a big kid you know 10 and a half years in the federal pen or whatever it is and he's still kind of weirdly innocent you know what i mean he's still like enthusiastic and like okay you got a gun you got you got a schematic let's go rob the bank you know

you find his instagram yeah it's private though so oh is it really that's interesting he must have got busted i've got i've got some strange photos on my phone. You can be sure. Ben Stiller in talks to direct Crooked Cop movie, the 7-5 for MGM. How are they going to call it the 7-5 when you have a documentary? Well, it's the remake of it.

The funny thing is we're sort of doing this with all these things at this point. I'm going to do the operation odessa which was i was telling you before you know the story of this russian gangster miami playboy and uh cuban narco these guys who like rip off the cali cartel for 20 million dollars yeah submarine right now explain that story because that crazy. Like, they told them that they were going to sell them a submarine for $20 million. Did they have a submarine? Okay, let me rewind, because the top of this was, like, bonkers.

So, at the time, some narc I know calls me and is like, dude, you want to hear the craziest drug war story ever? There's this, like, Russian gangster. His name is tarzan he used to run his operation out of a titty bar in miami named after his favorite movie porkies and he's locked up in a panamanian prison and he's got a blackberry do you want the number and i'm like bro yes i want the number is this this is you know 10 years ago or something seven or eight years i don't even remember at this point so i I get the number. So he had a BlackBerry in jail?

He's got a BlackBerry in this Panamanian prison. And I'm like, dial the number, right? Some people don't even know what a BlackBerry is. It's a phone. It's a phone. It's one of the first phones that had a keyboard on it. So I call this number, right? And he's like, Russian gangster.

He's like, hello, this is Tarzan. What do you want? And I'm like, dude, tell me about the submarine. Like, what is this story? And he's like, I, this is Tarzan. What do you want? And I'm like, dude, tell me about the submarine. Like, what is this story? You know? And he's like, I cannot talk about this on, you know, I cannot talk about it on the phone. You have to come down to Panama, come inside prison, and I will tell you a story. Wow.

So I fly to Panama, and I've got like 10 grand, just under 10 grand, because if it's 10 grand, it's illegal. But if it's less than 10 grand, you can bring it, right? Because I know I'm going to have to like peel off bribes to get into the prison or whatever. And he's got this Russian attorney at the time. And the Russian attorney is like, okay, meet me outside of this prison, La Jolla prison, outside of hour and a half outside of Panama City. So I go out there, dude, and you remember like Field of Dreams? This is like the inverse of that, dude, like Field of Nightmares. Okay, it inverse of that dude like field of nightmares okay it's

like stone fortress cut out cut you know carved out of the jungle and i roll up on this place and there's this attorney and he's standing out front and and i've like made you know i'm gonna like pay him a thousand bucks and he's gonna like smuggle me into the prison or whatever so i'm like all right man what's the plan and he's like um okay here's the plan you give me five hundred dollars this american attorney this is uh he's a panaman here's the plan you give me five hundred dollars this american attorney this is uh he's a panamanian because he lives in panama right but it you know speaks russian and whatever right and he's like you give me five hundred dollars i'm gonna give a hundred to the guard the guard's gonna open it up and you just go running across the yard and you when you get

to the other side of the lower yard there's gonna be a big steel door and you push it open and tarzan's going to be on the other side shut the fuck up and i'm like bro that's the worst fucking plan i've ever heard in my life and so he's like uh you want to see tarzan right he flew all the way to panama because i was like i knew this was up gonna be a bonkers caper right oh my god God. And so I'm sitting there. And here's the crazy thing about this prison. This prison is like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. There's like dead dudes in wheelbarrows moving them out. Because what happens is the guards go home at 5 p.m.

And it's inmate rule at night. So they just like murder each other in chaos and whatever. And I'm like looking around the lower yard. And the convicts are out playing soccer or whatever but i'm like dude i've come this far like i want to meet this guy tarzan so you saw them rolling bodies out rolling bodies out and just like it's cordwood and like wheelbarrows you know and i'm kind of like i'm not sure how bright of an idea this is but i've come this far so i go to the guard i'm like here's fifty dollars bro I'll give you the other 50 when I get back out, you know.

So this guy opens the gate and pulls it open. And he's like, run like hell. Don't look back. When you hit the steel door, push. So my dumb ass goes like sprinting across the like lower yard, you know, convicts, heads whipping at me. I get to the other side. I push the door open. And there's Tarzan.

He's like, welcome to panama i can't believe you came you got very stupid or you got great big balls you know oh my god and so i meet so i meet him and i'm like dude tell me the story and he's like i can't tell you the story because when you were sending me emails on the blackberry russian intelligence intercepted it and um they called the russian mafia and they said if I talk to you, they're going to kill me. And I'm like, bro, I just smuggled myself into a Panamanian prison. Like, you're going to tell me the fucking story. And so we kind of get into it in this prison.

Stupidly. I mean, this guy could like squash me like a bug, you know, but I'm like pissed off because I've like come this far. How are you planning on getting out? Because it's like, it's just, it's just, they're just crooks. You know what I mean? So it's just like you pay people, the guy's going to get you back out.

But you have money on you. I have some money on me. Some's with the crew. I got the camera crew, whatever they are, right? So I'm going to pay them when I get out. So Tarzan and I get in this like kissing match.

I'm getting anxiety. Pissing match argument at the time. And I'm like, bro, here's the deal. I'm flying back to LA. I'm going to get my 300, you know,

thread count sheets and go to sleep for the night. And your ass is going to die in this Panamanian prison. And you're a damn fool for not telling me the story because I'm going to get your thing out. And he's like, you know, tells me to piss off or whatever. Many years go by. But he's sending me. So you leave. So I leave.

And he won't tell me. So years go by, right? And then I'm out promoting the seven five when the seven five comes out and i get an email that says jailbreak exclamation point exclamation point exclamation point i open the email and i think what is this and he's like i escaped from pandemon i traveled to cuba and i catch boat and now i'm back in russia if you will come to russia and meet me in moscow now i will tell you the story. No. So I called my producers from the 75.

And I'm like, bro, can you get a million bucks in a week? Because I got like five weeks off. Tarzan's ready to tell the story. He's like, let me make a call. Eli Holtzman makes a phone call and he calls me back. He's like, all right, dude, I got the money. Dice are hot. Go.

So I fly to Moscow with the crew and show up and he starts telling the story so what the story is is it's the story of three best friends it's him tarzan it's his best friend juan almeida who's like miami playboy car dealer sells exotic boats whatever and a third guy who's this cuban narco and what these guys have done is they have sold a submarine to the Kali drug cartel for $20 million and all gotten busted. So they end up like in federal pens and whatever else. And I'm like, so what is the like true story? So I'm sitting there and I'm shooting with Tarzan in Moscow. And one of the guys has been a federal fugitive his entire life. Fed's been looking for this guy for like 30 years.

That's the Cuban narco. And he's been flying around the world sending postcards to the U.S. Marshals. Like, ha ha, you're never going to catch me, right? And this guy spends $100,000 a month on getting new identities, real documents. That's like operating costs. So he's getting new passports and whatever so he can stay ahead of him. And what he'll do is as he's traveling around the world, I get on a plane. I sit down next to you. Who are you? You're Joe Rogan. Good to meet you, whatever. And this is pre-internet days. So then he takes his passport.

He goes into the bathroom in the thing, changes the name to Joe Rogan, his passport, make sure that I'm ahead of you when I walk out so that I enter the country. I got on as Tony Yester. When I get out on the other side, I'm Joe Rogan. I'm in the line ahead of you. So I've changed identities on the plane anytime he goes anywhere. And then you get jammed up because they're like, no, Joe Rogan, he just entered a few minutes ago. So this guy, nobody could ever find this guy right so i keep asking everybody like can i find like tony yester will this guy talk to us and they're like bro never in a million years is this guy

going to talk to you so i'm sitting there in moscow and i get a text on whatsapp and it says you've talked to the waiters if you want to know what really happened to the submarine, come talk to the chef. Meet me in Africa tomorrow for a cup of coffee and I'll tell you the rest of the story. No shit. So I get on the phone. I'm in like Moscow, Four Seasons or whatever. I call the producers and I'm like, change of plans.

I'm going to Africa. And they're like, are you out of your mind, bro? And I'm like, listen, have 20 grand in cash when I get there because who knows, like we're going to have to like creep around, pay people off. You know, I don't know what the deal is. Fly to Africa. When I get into Africa, I walk into the lobby of this hotel. And I walk in and it's like thick-necked MMA fighter looking dudes, right? Like not business.

Oh, wearing Armani suits and stuff, but these are not like business travelers. You know, this is like a crew. And I'm like, this looks a little gnarly. Walk up into my room, and I walk into the hotel room. And as soon as I walk in, the phone rings. I pick it up, and a voice says, downstairs, five minutes, Porsche Cayenne. And I'm like, holy shit, this is the dude. So I take my location on the iPhone and I share it with, you know, producers, cameraman or whatever. Like, dude, if I disappear, like go to where the last

place you saw the dot. So I walked downstairs and I go out, up rolls Porsche Cayenne. Here's this international fugitive. Door swings open. I get in the car. This guy goes ripping ass out of there at like 100 miles an hour. And as he's ripping along on the like Autobahn or whatever it is, yanks the e-brake, slams the car over to the side of the road, slaps me on the chest. And he's like, brother, you better be who you say you are and this better be what you say it is or we got a problem and I'm like it is I am is cool so I end up spending like a week with this dude and eventually by then you'd already done the seven five I'd done the seven five so why doesn't he just Google a picture

of your face because it's like these guys it's not like Google it's like okay are you still hustling me for the dea is this like there's a 20 million dollar bounty on this guy or whatever the you know there's somebody had to know what you look like right but but the point is you know it's like sean penn goes to interview el chapo and el chapo gets pinched afterwards yes you know what i mean right so it's making sure it's not one of those kind of operations. Yeah. Right? Okay. So I end up spending a week with this dude. And eventually he takes me to this hidden airplane hangar outside of the city. And he opens it up.

And inside is a MiG fighter jet with $20 million in cash in the cockpit. And he's like, here's the deal. I'm a pilot. That's my bailout plane. And that's my go bag you understand how this works and i'm like i think so so he proceeds and then he takes me into his like g5 or whatever it is and he proceeds to tell me the story of what really happened with the 20 million dollars in the submarine whoa it was crazy. It was insane. So like making these things can be a caper. So the Russian cat who escapes from Panama Tarzan, how did he do that? Well, what happened was

they eventually his lawyers to say, Okay, we need to get him out for a week because we got to prep his defense or whatever. Well, he goes to, he goes to get out and he deals with lawyers. He's like, dude, I'm booking it. I'm making a run for it. So they like cross the border, you know, jump a river into Costa Rica, run through Costa Rica, catch a boat from Costa Rica to Cuba. And when he gets to Cuba, the Cubans repatriate him to Moscow and just hauled ass and ran. And the Panamanians are like, eh. Well, he ain't going back to Panama anytime soon, right?

Yeah. That's okay. Or maybe he is. Yeah. That's okay. Or maybe he is. Yeah. Jesus Christ. So they tell you the story about selling this – was there a real sub? There was a real sub. So these guys end up – so here's the backdrop to this is it's the fall of the Soviet Union.

So suddenly everything that once upon a time was owned by the state, like if you're the general and you like work at the airfield or at the place where the tanks are and suddenly there is no government, like you own those tanks. You own that airfield. So basically suddenly everything was for sale. And these guys were these like rock them, sock them cowboy dudes that were like flying to Russia in the early days and being like, so is it possible? And they buy – first they buy choppers for the Kali cartel, right? They get like, so you can, it's got a hook on it and they can pick up 5,000 kilos. So they're dropping the dope out to the cigarette boats from the jungle labs and they do it successfully.

And so eventually the like drug lords come to them and they're like, choppers are great, bro. Like, can we get a submarine? Because, you know, you pack it full of submarine. You think about it. Even if the submarine costs $20, $30 million, one trip where it's packed with 5,000 kilos or whatever it is, you paid the whole thing off and made a profit. So these three guys get together and they're like, absolutely. We can get you the submarine.

Only like two of them are like really trying to get the submarine done. And they they go and they shot and there's pictures of them in the documentary like you'll see them they're like shopping for a submarine like you're shopping for shoes at ross dress for less right where does one buy a submarine from the like you know hidden the black sea military fleet that's the submarine right imagine so that's tarzan and thing? That's Tarzan on the left? That's Tarzan on the left. He looks like Tarzan. How big is that fucking guy? He's big, dude. Look at the width on him. And he'll crush you like a bug, right? Is that another picture of him?

That's him in his Miami days, rocking the glasses and whatever. Look at the hair. Right? Oh, my God. Go back to that other picture. That's the mugshot. Look how wide that fucking dude is yeah it's no he's no joke giant hands too yeah so it's like 200 pounds of meat he hits you in the forehead

like you're dropping dude so this is this this is one of the so that was there more than one sub well they wouldn't shop submarines like at the like secret naval base right so they go to the secret naval base and there's available subs you could buy? Basically, if you got enough money and you got the right bullshit, he's Russian. He's like walks in. He's like, hey, we're doing this. So he like bullshits these guys and he's intending to do it. Well, his buddy, meanwhile, the like super badass narco that's like hiding around the world is like, these idiots.

You can't sell a submarine like NATO is's gonna blow it up the second it you know sails out from under but like these morons want to give me 20 million dollars i'm gonna take it dude and i have no compunction about it so he takes the 20 million and he vanishes without a trace and nobody'd seen him since then so he'd been on the run for all those years u.s marshals looking for him dea looking for him and presumably the cali cartel because he ripped these guys off for 20 million dollars so that's the dude who calls me and says meet me in africa for a cup him, DEA looking for him, and presumably the Cali Cartel because he ripped these guys off for $20 million. So that's the dude who calls me and says, meet me in Africa for a cup of coffee. Holy shit.

Why does he want, but why would he want to tell you about all this? Because it's like all movie stars want to be gangsters and all gangsters want to be movie stars. Oh God. Oh, that's so weird. Wow. It's like almost like a serial killer. Like they want to get caught. Well, it's like these dudes that live these crazy lives, they know like at a certain point, like what's the point of having lived it if nobody knows the story?

Right. And so like that's the weird thing about the job where you're like, okay, I'm sitting there and you're telling me the like weirdest most precious in your life and yet it's going to be broadcast around the world so now all those guys have gotten like pinched and you know they do the they do the documentary eventually they all get busted for one thing or another is that documentary out now it's on netflix i have not seen it have you seen it i've seen it on like on the uh i want to leave right now and go watch it holy shit it's a trip it's a trip so we're gonna so that this was how I got off on this to begin with is you're like okay which of these you know documentary whatever yeah now we're gonna remake that as a feature film because it's like it's great parts for like actors and stuff yeah oh my god yeah holy shit there's some people out there man not well and like you and i are both like nutcase magnets you

know what i mean like they sort of are like me anyway you get like normal you know fascinating whatever people i get the nutcases like my phone rings and like you never know who it's gonna be how did you get involved in this world so i grew up in dallas and my dad was in the da's office that was depicted in errol morris's movie the thin blue line right so i grew up knocking around with like cops and prosecutors and crooks and whatever and my dad would kind of drag me around to the you know to the courthouse to the jail to whatever and i think his idea was like that i would be scared straight and not you know and instead i just like imprinted like a duck i'm like these are my people bro that's so weird and so i end up um years later i like not qualified to do anything

you know whatever but i end up kind of talking my way into a job at a newspaper. And I'm like, look, I can hang out with cops and I can hang out with crooks. And I'm like, I don't scare easy. So, like, let me write the crime beat, you know. So I start doing that. And then eventually, weirdly enough, I cross paths with Errol Morris again. He wouldn't even remember this. It's like, you know, for him, it's just another night on the tour. And I'm like, walk on part. But I end up getting an

interview with him to do the, you know, to do a profile of him in the newspaper. And he's like, dude, I'm so tired of these interviews. You want to just go get a steak and a bottle of wine? And I'm like, dude, there's nothing in the world more I want to do than sit down with Errol Morris and get a steak and bottle of wine. So we go up and have this like, fantastic evening together. And at the end of it, he reaches over and he puts his hand on my shoulder and he goes, you're either going to spend the rest of your life writing about people like me

or you're going to go try your hand at this. And I literally called the newspaper the next day and I was like, I quit. And so then I just started like, you know, kind of, you know, knocking around. And then, so then it became like, okay, these crime stories, you know kind of you know knocking around and and then so then it became like okay these crime stories you know these you know once i do the seven five operation odessa then like the crooks start finding me or the cops so it's a seven five the first thing that you did you know

i i spent many years knocking around you know doing you know i go on the deadliest catch thing i do whatever kind of learning how of learning how to do this, do stuff on cockfighting, on whatever. But the 7-5 was the first thing that kind of people began to, like, notice and pay attention to, you know. And so then 7-5 becomes Operation Odessa and then kind of one crazy crime story after another. And to me, the weird thing is, like, it's all kind of the same movie. The 7-5 is Operation Odessa, is Silk Road,

is The Last Narc, is Night Stalker. It's all just sort of portraits of cops and crooks and the thin and porous border between the two. Isn't the Night Stalker at least slightly different because you're dealing with this rare aberration in human psychology where someone enjoys killing people. Someone gets a thrill out of other people's fear and pain because that was one of the things you talked about in The Night Stalker that he would get off on seeing the people terrified. It was power.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm being simplistic. It's not like it it's really all the same thing but it's all related in some way or another the thing about the night stalker was i guess what happened with that is i'm writing on a tv show at the time and one of the other writers tim walsh buddy of mine comes in and he's like dude i just sat down with the guy that worked the night stalker case this like murder cop and he's like fascinating and i think there's a documentary here you want to go to dinner with this guy and so my answer is always like yes like i want the blackberry number and i want to go to dinner like if there's a lunatic out there like i want to go what happened from getting that blackberry number god that is so nuts um And so you get involved in this.

I would imagine that it's deeply disturbing the more you dig into a story like the Richard Ramirez story. It's dark. As you get deeper and deeper into this, there's guys like that out there. I was talking to one of my security guys and he was saying at any point in time, there's 12 to 24 active serial killers in the United States. And it makes you go, what?

Wait, how many? I know it's crazy. Just crazy. I was talking to a cop once and he said, if people kill people, like say if you kill a business partner, you're going to get caught.

You know, you guys have a dispute and you kill them. You're going to get caught. You know, you guys have a dispute, you kill them, you're going to get caught. He goes, but if you just walk into a gas station and shoot a guy in the head, nobody knows. Nobody knows. You know, that was Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. Yeah, it was brilliant. Remember that?

Yeah, yeah, very vividly. Which is apparently kind of bullshit. Because Henry Lee Lucas was apparently full of shit. Right. He was just a nut narcissist talking to be talking to like get and the cops would go you know there was this murder in you know 1982 oh i did that was me right yeah so they had pinned like 62 murders on him at one point in time but it's highly unlikely that he actually killed all those people. Liars and sociopaths. I mean, the crazy thing about the Ramirez thing was, and I think why it flipped people out so much, is there was no pattern to it.

It was men. It was women. It was children. Some of them were murdered with a gun. Some of them with a knife. Some of them with a hammer. So it was completely random. And it's in your home when

you're asleep at your most vulnerable and so that's what made it so challenging for those murder cops to solve the case yeah like initially the department didn't even buy it well like one guy doing all this like couldn't happen unprecedented in criminal history right yeah yeah it's um that it's there's also a thing that happens right like what there was that guy in New York son of Sam mm-hmm remember that we're just likely did a great movie it yeah it grips the entire area because everybody now yeah now everybody now is aware that this guy's on the loose another one I remember it do you remember the dc sniper yeah that's a that's an amazing story malvo malvo right anybody ever make a film on

that i think that they did um they did a feature film of it i'm so curious um and i never saw it but i said i remember that story too because it was like older guy young you know training the young shooter just like the weird psychology of that also the way they figured out how to do it where they made like a sniper's den inside the back of a car yeah so he could lay down and shoot out the back trunk and then just get in the front seat and drive away and no one would ever suspect when there was this whole kind of like it sounds weird to say but like lolita like element to it where it's like older dude manipulating younger person traveling around the country

doing it you know traveling around dc anyway doing it it was just a weird crazy story yeah it was very crazy it was also another story where a crime happens and then a series of crimes happen and then people are just terrified well part of that is and you know that's one of the things that i was trying to explore in the night stalker is there's this weird relationship between the media and the cops right and everybody's trying to do their job nobody's doing anything wrong but like from the media's perspective it's hey we have to get the word out if there's a predator that's out hunting people in the city then the city has a right to know and the citizens have a right to know.

But from the cop's perspective, it's like, hey, if you're broadcasting key pieces of information, and in the case of the Night Stalker, the Night Stalker was clocking everything that showed up in the media and was changing his patterns based on that. Right. And so once somebody had called 911, he was cutting phone cords. Once they found out that he was wearing his notorious Avia shoe print, and once that was publicly made public, you know, in San Francisco, suddenly he threw the shoes away. And so the one clue that's tying him to all those things. And so there's this weird unholy connection between him to all those things. And so there's this weird unholy connection between cops, media, killer that everybody's in some way participating in, kind of stepping on each other trying to do the work. Yeah. The Zodiac Killer was never caught, right? Right. Correct. That's a weird one,

right? Really weird one. And I love that movie because with with that movie they didn't make it easy and tidy you know it just it kept going like the story never ended you have the obsessive reporter played by jillian hall and like they followed the weirdness of that story and didn't try to you know just brilliantly made ventures of genius yeah i remember that movie now I was trying to remember how it... When that... What year was the Zodiac Killer? What year did it start? I forget the details of it.

60s and 70s, it says. Late 60s, early 70s. And how many murders were... They think that got... They had it narrowed down to a few people. And one of them... At least one of them's dead, right? It's just crazy that someone can get away with something like that for a long time.

I think it would be much harder now. I mean, the technology between phones and street cams and whatever else, it would be much harder to do it. Or the methodology would have to be different. Yeah. But it still happens man yeah it's such a weird mindset that all of a sudden someone becomes important by killing people well and it's the and and so that was a big thing for me in doing the night stalker was that story had this weird aftermath where suddenly when Ramirez is brought into court

and paraded in front of the cameras, he becomes like the Jim Morrison of serial killers. There's this guy in the sunglasses and the long hair and whatever, and he gets all those groupies and kind of. And so very early on with that, I was like, man, I don't want to be glorifying this guy. This is somebody that's out. Not only is he doing these murders, but he's also like kidnapping and abusing children like and people don't know that piece of the story so like this isn't about the psychology of richard ramirez is this is about you know these two cops and the victims and the weird people that have kind of brushes with the beast and again you

know some people criticize it some people don't because it's like okay tell me more about richard ramirez like no man like you don like, what's interesting to me is the human story. It's what you said, where it's like, I want to sit across from people and know what makes them tick. What's it like to be a murder cop that long, hot, harrowing summer? What's it like to lose a family member? What's it like to be a kid who's kidnapped by richard ramirez and then survive and live your whole life and so so that was you know at the end of the day all you have is you know i fly by such lights as they're giving me you know and so it's that felt like the right way to tell the story so did you do you have a reluctance of diving into the personality of Ramirez or somehow romanticize?

I didn't want to glorify him because it's like it's that celebritization culture where suddenly like if you're famous, you're famous and you've got like fans and groupies. Well, I didn't want to fall into that crap with Ramirez because it exists already anyway. It exists already anyway. And yes, I'm curious, like, what is it that makes somebody like that do what they do? Was he executed? No, he was sent to San Quentin, sent to death row, and then ended up dying this sort of strange, uneventful death. Ends up dying of cancer, I think pancreatic cancer, and kind of ends with a whimper rather than a bang you know it's just a strange sort of end to that story yeah you one thing it's like trying to uh back engineer how a person like that is created like how how does someone like that well here's some tidbits that i had heard

and this stuff is not in you know obviously not in the netflix series some of it we're doing a sort of after the doc podcast thing on some of it we're gonna hopefully remake it as a narrative But like what happened was he's in El Paso. His father is a cop and would drag him to the graveyard at night and like chain him up in the graveyard. And so he was abused and sort of messed with in a fundamental way as a kid and then he's got supposedly this cousin cousin mike who um was a vietnam vet and you know participated in you know butchery me lie style like massacres and whatever in vietnam took photos of it murders and whatever and came home and like showed young richard ramirez these photos and supposedly trained him on how to um you know kill in a particular way combat style training with a knife and whatever else so he gets like you know he's he's abused he's sexually molested he's locked up in the graveyard he's got this psycho cousin and all

of this becomes this crazy cocktail he's a thief they call him him Five Finger Richie. And then eventually he washes up in LA and he's shooting dope and he's out of his mind and begins to get a taste for it. You know, it's the – for him, it was when I see the fear in your eyes, when you flinch, that's what gave him the sexual charge. And so he starts doing this and just ripping and marauding his way through Los Angeles. But I didn't want the series to be like a platform for that, for his justifying or explaining it in some way or another. Did you struggle with that at all? Like trying to? It's like, yes.

And that's why I was, I guess I was trying to articulate before, which is all these things have these major moral questions where it's like, okay, if I'm making a series that's about Richard Ramirez and suddenly this guy's face is on a poster, even if I don't put him in the show until episode four or whatever, am I contributing to that mythos and that celebritization of this guy? And so constantly you're asking yourself, like, I'm fascinated by this story. I want to share this story, but I don't want it to be cheap. I don't want it to be exploitative. I don't want it to be thoughtless. I want it to be complicated and nuanced. And so as we make them, we're watching, re-watching, changing this. I want it to be complicated and nuanced. And so as we make them, we're watching, re-watching, changing this. I don't like, this is maybe, this is too gruesome. This is too glorifying. And with the crime scene photos, that was another question where it's like, it's rough to look at those. I mean, I had hundreds, if not thousands of these crime scene photos of the actual crime scene photographer walking around after these murders, taking pictures of the aftermath of it. And it's

really hard to look at. You don't wipe that stuff out of your consciousness once you see it. And so then the question becomes, okay, do you show people this so that they understand this is what it really looks like. And it's horrifying. So there is no glorifying this. This is what a real murder photo looks like. But you don't want that to be cheap and exploitative where you're getting eyeballs just by being gruesome. So there's a ton of moral questions in all of them. when you know you're going to write an outline or you're going to sit down and create a series on something that's historical but really disturbing and very fucked up?

How do you... Do you sit alone by yourself and write out your thoughts? Do you... How do you decide how you're going to lay something like this out? And do you have a vision and ultimately did it did the vision morph over time or did it did you kind of create what you set out to create great question it's it's like a little spark at the beginning where i don't know you know i'm not sure why i'm fascinated but for for some reason I'm fascinated with Ross Ulbricht or for some reason I'm fascinated with the murder cop in The Night Stalker or for some reason I'm fascinated with Michael Dowd.

And I don't know where the story is going to go, but I know something in me wants to dig in deeper. So some amount of time is just kind of sitting by yourself and kind of getting right with, okay, what do I want to say? Why does this matter? How do I do it? And then I have a wonderful group of people that I work with year in, year out, all the time, have on all these films for many years. And I'm a believer in surround yourself with people that are smarter than you and better than you at what they do and talk it through, pitch it out, say, this is what I'm thinking. What about this? Poke holes in it, make it better. And so then that happens. And then at a certain point, it's kind of like now

everybody go away again. And like, let me think like, okay, what was that little spark that started this? How do I stay true to that? And then always the story ends up taking a turn at some point. Like if you end up in a straight line from where you started, then I think you didn't learn anything. And the whole point I'm doing it is so that I will learn something along the way. So when there's some weird left field thing and I'm like, okay, I don't know why, but I have to go there. I always trust that instinct to go there and take the story wherever it takes me. Was there any dispute amongst the people that are your confidants, the people that you do work with about how to handle this or what to cover? And there's dispute in a couple of ways. Basically, if you ask five people to tell the story of what happened at a dinner, all five people are going to tell you a completely different version of what happened.

And so there's that layer of dispute because it never lines up. There's always discrepancies and there's always conflict. So at a certain point, then you're making decision, okay, which version of this story am I going to tell? Joe tells the top half of what it was like when we met at this podcast. At a certain point, I tell my experience of it. And then there's the symphony of collaborators that are around you. And somebody's like, man, that's cheap and grotesque. I don't know that, you know, you're going too far with those murder photos. Somebody else is like, if you don't show those murder photos, then people can glorify this guy and think that

it's exactly sticking people's nose in the horror of it that show you um that make it repugnant so then it's like you're hearing all these conflicting contrasting points of view and weird story i was knocking around with gary bucey once upon a time a time, who's a stone lunatic, but also- Became a stone lunatic. Became a stone lunatic. Yeah. After the motorcycle accident. And that's a whole fascinating story in its own right.

But basically what Busey said to me is he said, here's the deal, man. On a movie set, everybody is a spoke in the wheel. And the only thing they care about is their spoke. The camera department cares about what it looks like on camera. The actor cares about his performance. The production designer cares about what the production design is. Your job is to shut up and be the quiet center of the wheel and make sure the wheel turns. And I've never forgotten it. It really, it was profound advice. And I return to that again and again.

It's be the quiet center of the wheel. But you also have to be the guy who directs it in the direction that you think it should go if you think it's being led astray by all those other pieces of the wheel. Yeah. And sometimes you push it. and sometimes you have to yell. Sometimes you have to cajole. Sometimes you have to beg. Sometimes you have to lie and hustle.

But at the end of the day, there's always a point where you have to just be quiet, and it will tell you what it wants to be if you'll sit there with it and be quiet. It'll tell you what it wants to be. If you'll sit there with it and be quiet, it'll tell you what it wants to be. It's one of the things about what you do that's very fortunate is there's a never-ending supply of fucked up stories.

There really is. Like, you could just keep going. You know, you could get into Griselda Blanco. You could get into... There's a hundred different versions of every single topic, whether it's serial killer, bad cop, drug dealer, smuggler.

And those stories now increasingly find me. You know, I got a call a couple weeks ago. Snoop called me. And he's like – The Sno the snoop dog right the snoop it's like super weird and surreal call out of nowhere out of nowhere do you does do you know each other don't know him so how did you know it was really snoop his um producing partner calls and it's like listen man like snoop is a fan and i'm like say that again what you know and she's like snoop wants you to get on the phone with him and i'm like i'd love to you know so phone rings one day and it's snoop and

he's like yo man i seen that nice dog and it scared the motherfucking shit out of me and i said whoever made that they need to be in charge of my visuals so what you got for me till and i was like you know what charge your visuals being charged and i was like you know charge your visuals being charged and i thought like amazing call to get and like yes snoop i don't know what the project is but like a hundred percent i am there and i want to tell your story because i could tell artist to artist that he was there ready to like he's like i want to do the very best work of my life right now. And I want to tell my story in a profound, big way on a big canvas. The story of him in his rap career, making it. And I don't know.

We'll see where it goes. But it was instantaneously and categorically like, do I want the Blackberry number? Do I want to be in with Snoop? Like, yes, I do. A hundred percent. You know? His story's nuts. Up to the murder murder trial and you know

everything death row records everything it's an it's an incredible it's an incredible story which also again each of these stories in some way or another is like it's a history of america told through a couple of people's voices and experience so i don't know what exactly that's going to be but i know like yes snoop i Snoop, I'm in, man. There's a story that happened yesterday or the day before of him. He was playing a video game, and apparently he got pissed off and stormed out of the video game, like streaming it online and kept the stream running for seven and a half hours before he realized that the stream was still running. Still running.

Awesome. He just rage quit, you know. People rage quit. Yes, they do. He just rage quit, you know. People rage quit. Video games will fuck with your head. Snoop Dogg left Twitch live streaming for seven hours after he rage quit, Matt. Awesome. Awesome.

And I think the title of his stream was something like, something about chilling. Yeah. Oh, there's a video of it? Fuck! about chillin yeah oh there's a video everybody understands this you play video game it's universal dude it goes south everybody understands this look at him furious Fuck this shit He came in this fucking room

And everything went fucking bad Fuck this shit man He doesn't know that people are watching And he's playing rollercoaster of love I cannot wait to work with this guy dude Like I don't know where it goes But like I am so in man I'm so fascinated to find out

He's a national treasure he's a national treasure and it's gonna be funny because he's he's hilarious you know my friend chris mcguire was uh working with him when he did that show with martha stewart which is a genius show amazing how about remixing that i mean him and martha stewart together and it worked yeah it's so worked yeah the two of them together was hilarious it's such a great idea and they're pals like to this day right yes they're homies yeah it's great he's good friends with my friend Tony Hinchcliffe too Tony worked with him on his roast and uh you know it's like he gets these calls every now and then from Snoop like every now

and then he gets a phone call from Snoop so i'm just like i'm so curious to like and i and that's a great one where it's like man i have no idea where the project will go yeah but like man let's take snoop to broadway you know what i mean that thing with burt now right yeah they're on that show doesn't stay burt friend with them too in that yeah big show or something go big yeah i couldn't answer the phone once but i got a fucking i was in the middle of hanging out with my kid and i got a facetime call from burt and i was like i can't answer the phone once, but I got a fucking, I was in the middle of hanging out with my kid, and I got a FaceTime call from Burt, and I was like, I can't answer this right now. And it turned out he was Burt with Snoop. I'm like, shit!

Yeah, they're on the show. Yeah. What is this called? It's a talent show. Yeah. Oh, it's a talent show. There you go. Well, there you go.

Yeah, he's a national treasure. So stories just kind of find their way to you now, like post-7-5? Pretty much, you know, whether it's Serpico or whether it's Snoop or, you know, I got this call one time, and this unfortunately hasn't, it couldn't happen, but I get this call one time from this guy called Chaz Williams. And he's like, man, I'm the greatest bank robber in american history and like you're the only guy that can tell my story and i'm like let's go to lunch so we go to the like soho house in malibu or whatever and he and i said so what's your story man and he's like let me tell you something jesse james robbed 12 trains robbed 12 banks and three of them were trains and he goes through the history of of famous bank robbers we know.

He's like, man, I robbed 60 banks, 15 of them while I was in prison. I'm like, come again? I'm like, what do you mean while you were in prison? He's like, I'm in prison in Milan, Michigan or whatever at the time, locked up for bank robbery, And they start to have a work release program. And so I'm locked up in the hole and I get hold of the like newsletter that the guards are passing around. And it says, you know, work study release, where if you enroll in college, you're an inmate, you can get a day pass to go attend college. So they start this like,

he and his crew start this like three year long con to be on good behavior so that they can get work release. You know, that is to say you're locked up in prison for five years, but you're coming out to get a study, whatever, you know, English literature. And so you go out during the day, you get bused out of the prison, you go to the college, you come back at night. And it's these like sort of sexy badass back black bank robbers and it's like kind of young do-gooder liberal like white girls that are trying to like get them out on their work release right and so he's like so basically we start doing this and i'm like okay so they drop us off at school and as soon as they drop us off at school we slip out the back we go rob banks during the day we take the the money. We get a stash

house. We get girlfriends. We get jewelry. We get whatever. We're back by five o'clock and pick up. We go back into the penitentiary at night. We spend the night in the joint, and we start robbing banks. And the FBI is looking at this, and they're like, man, this has got to be Chaz Williams. But it can't be Chaz Williams, because Chaz Williams locked up for bank robbery. How can he be doing these? And so they had run all of these bank robberies for a while and they had their master plan where they were going and they'd save the stash, all the cash that they had made in apartments and guns and all the tools of the trade. And they were going to buy a nightclub and it was going to be, I forget the name, some amazing name for the nightclub. I forget the name of it. But it was going to be

when they got released, they'd take all the money from the bank robberies and open their nightclub. And then as always happens, one of the crew ends up getting busted, rats them out. And literally right before they're supposed to get out and, you know, on the final job, they all get taken down. right before they're supposed to get out and you know in the final job they all get taken down and so we started to develop this together i was like man this is an amazing like what a crime story you know and um and so developing it i was like because a lot of this is about trust right you're getting people to tell you these stories that kind of shouldn't be told in some way or another, you know, where you're and so in this case, I was like, listen, I'm going to send you a question. I'm going to write a voice memo, say speak a voice memo, and I'm going to send it to you at night. And just like, I'm going

to ask you questions. I'm curious, like, what's it like to be like black in America? What's it like to, you know, why do you decide to rob your first bank? How old are you? Whatever the questions are, whatever you want to say, nothing's off limits, anything you want to say. And so he would then record all these voice memos of telling me the story of his life and how he got, you know, radicalized from his father goes off and serves in World War II and is a war hero and comes home and then they go into the south and he starts walking into you know places whatever and people are calling him boy and he's like and as soon as i heard somebody calling my dad boy i was like fuck uncle sam man american dream i'm gonna steal mine and in

that moment i decide i'm gonna become a bank robber and get my piece of the american dream so i'm like this is an amazing story right and then right as we go out to do it he ends up going to see his son in florida and drops dead after an airplane trip and so i never got to tell the story but it's this but and i'm sitting on all these like amazing voice memos um 60s maybe just heart attack it was i think he had an aneurysm or something along those lines. But he had had this whole, so he became a bank robber, and then he had this whole second act as like kind of hip-hop impresario because he had the ultimate street cred. There he is, Chaz Williams.

Amazing guy. Wow. How much time did he wind up doing? He did a number of years, but he got out and sort of started the whole, started in the game, like broke 50 and and sort of became a promoter and like you know had a foxy brown and this whole kind of second act because he had the ultimate street cred as the world's greatest bank robber for the hip hop crowd so he had this whole crazy second act and i was so excited to tell that story and then you know boom he dropped dead maybe i do it as a material well i have all his voice

memos so it's like maybe it's maybe we do a podcast or maybe we do i don't know it's but it's an amazing story that i want to tell still you know that wouldn't be a bad podcast if you could do it like you know wandry does those like really detailed podcasts with great editing and that you know that tell stories like uh have you ever heard the one on uh aaron hernandez yes amazing and it's so it's so interesting how you know and like you were so at the forefront of this where the world kind of caught up with the podcast thing but it's amazing those long-form stories where people want to be told an amazing story um by somebody that really knows it and kind of cares about it and will tell it lovingly. It's like this show, right? What you do is you're

curious to meet people. So you sit down with, okay, who do I want to know? And like what makes them tick? And I think why people hook into you is the same reason that why people hook into the Aaron Hernandez thing, because it's like, give me a fascinating character who i don't quite know what's going to come out of his mouth and let him tell me a story show me your curiosity and fascination about something and everybody can vicariously enjoy it yeah i don't think too much about why this thing works because it just works fuck it up right i'd probably start leaning towards that direction or something like that i just keep doing it i'm sure it's changed too over time but um what i do so different than what like the aaron hernandez thing is or another one is great the

drop out that's the one on uh the lady elizabeth holmes from theranos that's a fascinating one amazing story because it's like that's a Amazing story. Because it's like, that's a different company that produced that, I believe. But that's one where you just like, you hear the whole story unfold. You're like, what a perfect combination of factors, you know? Everybody wants a female genius

who's some, you know, self-made billionaire tech giant who figured it all out but meanwhile it's just a fucking con artist just a hustle man and the best part about it's the fake voice right it's my favorite thing when when i listen to her talk now i can't unhear that fake voice and when you find out that it's a fake voice like from the other people like no that's a fake voice like she doesn't talk like that well she's talking like this like a guy like she figured out that that's like part of this character that she created

black turtleneck dresses like steve jobs the genius of the hustle god damn people are weird yeah it's so it's so fascinating the aaron hernandez story is more sad to me than than than weird because i know too much about brain damage. You know, I know too much about it from fighters. I know too much about it from personal experience with people and my own, you know, getting hit in the head.

I think there's something about that. When you find out that when they do the autopsy on Aaron Hernandez, they find out it's like some of the, and he died, I believe at 28. So the worst CTE they've ever seen, like the guy in his 20s yeah you know and you realize trauma blunt force trauma 100 and this is probably what's

responsible for a lot of his behavior and also abuse and also you know a lot of other shit that factors in there but you know the football players um fighters boxers anybody of soldiers people have experienced you know massive impacts and shocks and the the what what that does to the mind is just irreparable or at least if not irreparable like some serious fucking damage that needs real care and understanding and you know cutting edge medical assistance assistance to try to help with. It makes me think of there's that crazy story in the psychology textbooks, you know the story of Phineas Gage? No.

He was like this guy who was a railroad worker and was this very kind of responsible, squared-away guy and was going around and was tamp you know, put tamping dynamite and the railroad ties. And at some point one explodes and it drives a railroad tie through his head, all the way through his brain, frontal cortex or whatever. He survives, they pull it out and no seeming damage to him. But what it had done was it had given him this very basic brain trauma where it changed him the rest of his life. He didn't seem like he was off but suddenly he was like a boozer and an abuser and whatever and it totally changed the trajectory of the rest of his life and it was actually the beginning of how they began to study

brain trauma and what the impacts to different parts of the brain were it's a crazy story of phineas gage is that how it went through oh jesus christ what year was this looks old as fuck yeah that's him show me that picture of him like he's got one eye now no oh it is taking a picture with it that's the thing that went through his head blow that picture up what in the fuck man that went through his whole brain and didn't kill him and like he's still able to like go to work but now he like you know doesn't want to show up doesn't want to do what he's doing it completely changed his personality and because of that they started studying different

parts of the brain controlling different things look how big that thing is that went through his whole head holy shit look at that all the way through the brain holy shit and the skull i mean out the top of the skull is bonkers right it's so big oh look at the hole that's insane that is fucking insane that that didn't kill him yeah or even impair him other than to make him he should have been a fighter man that guy probably would have taken a hell of a punch you know there's like some people are just extra durable yeah that's nuts brain trial look at the photo the x-ray photo like that that one down there of the the image of representing what it must have been like oh so it completely fractured his skull too oh jesus christ fuck wow bonkers

yeah completely oh look at the picture of him before and after jamie right there yeah changed like the love down to the very look in his eye right yeah change well made him fucking crazy you know that's the story of Sam Kinison. Not a rod through the brain, but, and also Roseanne Barr. And Busey. Yeah, exactly, and Busey. Busey changed his face, like changed the shape of his head. Like one eye is higher than the other eye after that accident. Motorcycle accident with no helmet on, hit a curb.

Well, he's been clinically dead. I forget, I knocked around with him for a minute, right? motorcycle accident with no helmet on hit a curb well he's been clinically dead i forget through i knocked around with him for a minute right and i always thought that there was like this there's like an amazing movie in him where it's the life and deaths of gary bucey so like when he first started out his life and it's been a while since i've thought about this but he was the drummer for leon russell and leon russell's like first record discredited as like teddy jack eddie which was actually like gary bucey so bucey has this like these crazy different lives that he lives and then there's you know eventually the motorcycle accident and

he's pronounced clinically dead several times over the course of his life and it changes who he several times multiple times and i always thought like how weird because he's a you know he's a he's a character i wanted to work with him once upon a time and it was like when i was first getting started out and i was working in this production company in malibu and i know and there was a dentist upstairs right it was like the dentist to the like stars or whatever and i was like man i think that was like gary bucey coming in there so i went and told the the the woman that ran the office i was like listen man, I think that was like Gary Busey coming in there. So I went and told the woman that ran the office. I was like, listen, man, next time Busey comes in, you let me know because I'm going to go like buttonhole him when he comes out. I want to pitch him a project or whatever. And she's like, all right, you're on your own. So Busey comes in to get his

teeth fixed. And she calls me. She's like, all right, Busey's here. So I come running out and I'm like, Gary, I'm Tiller Russell. I want whatever the hell I wanted to want you know and uh he looks at me with those like intense like killer eyes you know and he reaches down and he takes a piece of paper and he scratches his address on it and he hands me the address and he's like tomorrow five o'clock you'd be at this address and I'm like all right you know so I drive over and it's in the Pacific Palisades and I get to this house. And the house is like beat to shit. You know, the like door buttons, you know, popped out and there's like bullet holes in the door or whatever. And I'm like, this is going to be a weird one, you know.

So I knock on the door and nothing. I don't hear anything. Knock even harder on the door. Third time, finally, I'm like i'm like screw it man this guy asked me to come over here i want to talk to him i want to see if i can get him to do this movie so i reach up to the door and the door handle clicks open and i push the door open and the door swings open and i look back and there on the balcony is bucey and he's in a robe buck ass naked with his like cock hanging down and he's got knock at moccasins all the way up to his leg up to the top of his knees and he's holding a he's holding a shotgun and he looks at me and he

locks eyes with him and i'm like dude this is like this is it this is how you die like gary bucey picks up the like 12 gauge and blasts your head off and he waves and he's like come in here come in here look at my cock so i'm like all right so i like close the door behind me and i go in and i go out to the balcony and he's like uh and he's pointing out he's like there's a fire you see the smoke you see the smoke there's a fire in the malibu hills what do you think we should do about it i'm like shoot it like we're not firemen i don't think we should do anything let's leave it to the professionals and he's like no we gotta go investigate this this could be a problem get in the car so we

here we run out and he jumps into the his car his mercedes like black mercedes you know just beat to shit like the house and he's driving completely naked you know other than the robe holding the shotgun wearing the moccasins and as we're driving he's driving on the left side of the road like cars coming at us and shit you know and he's like all right pitch me the movie what do you want to do as we're like driving up to the fire and i'm like uh uh you know trying to like pitch him the movie but because of that we end up kind of knocking around together for a minute what year is this 20 years ago or something right i mean if you know 15 years ago and so we end up you know shooting a short film

or something together and um and then eventually he calls me up and he's like i gotta i gotta move out of the house you know can i move in with can i move in with you and the kids and i'm like i don't think that's gonna work man you know like i love you gary but out of the house can i move in with you and your kids and so you know that didn't happen it's been a hot minute since i've seen him he's probably you know probably strangled me if he ever got hold of me again but i But I always thought, like, that's another guy that's, like, he's lived literally lifetimes and deaths over the course of his life. So how has he died clinically? Well, one was the car wreck.

One was, like, I forget. The motorcycle accident. I'm sorry, the motorcycle accident. I don't remember what the other ones were, but multiple times he told me. So there's ones before that? Before the motorcycle accident? I don't know, I don't remember what the other ones were, but multiple times he told me. So there's ones before that? Before the motorcycle accident? I don't remember the details. I just know he told me multiple times.

The problem is after the motorcycle accident, everything's real squirrely. It's hard to understand. I spoke with him on the phone once because Alex Jones was hanging out with him, and Alex Jones called me up. He goes, Joe, Gary Busey wants to talk to you. I go, what?

And he puts Gary Busey on. And I didn, Joe, Gary Busey wants to talk to you. I go, what? And he puts Gary Busey on. And I didn't talk to Gary Busey. Gary Busey talked at me. And this long thing about the universe and about life and death and the spirits and entanglement with the cosmos. And it's like crazy. He's on a trip. A long, run-on sentence.

And at the end of it, I i went all right and he goes well someday we'll talk in person and then he hangs up the phone and that's it i'll tell you what though the weird thing is you know and i and i joke about it but it was the single best uh cocaine overdose i thought 1995 cocaine overdose wow Wow Surgery to remove a cancerous Plum sized tumor In his sinus cavity Oh my god Woo

Oh he was in his second season of Celebrity Rehab Remember that fucking show God damn what an irresponsible show Stanhope had a great bit about it That fucking show was sohope had a great bit about it. That fucking show was so ridiculous. Take a bunch of people that are literally at the low point of their life and then exploit them. Light a fuse.

Pretend you're just helping them. We're just rehab. And put it on TV. Yeah. This is about rehab. This is about getting you healthy again. Fuck that show. That show was so ridiculous i'll tell you what though bucey you know it was the single best advice from anybody i've ever gotten about being a director in terms of being the quiet center of the wheel and i and

i to this day i quoted and it's like man it's like i heard him well the dude has been in some fucking amazing movies i mean before everything went south for him after the motorcycle accident you got to go back to like lethal weapon he was sensational one of the great fight scenes ever in the movies that last fight scene in the rain with mel it's the first time people figure out a triangle yeah nobody ever saw a triangle before that's because you know mel gibson had been training with the gracies interesting i didn't know that yeah like they like i think it was horian gracie was the one who trained him for that film and you know that was no one had never seen anybody throw a triangle on somebody in a movie before such a great fight scene in the rain and the mud

and i want to say that's like 89 or 90 87 wow that Wow! That's crazy. So you're talking about a film that was a solid six years before the UFC. It's amazing. So the UFC is in 93. No one had any idea what Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was. Look at this fucking movie. And they go at it. Look at Yoneo. Yeah.

So Scissor sweeps him to the ground. It turns into this wild, crazy slugfest in the rain. Cops come. Look at that. Fucking crazy. I remember this movie. This is a great movie, too. Great movie.

And they're letting him duke it out. See if you get to the part where he gets him in a triangle. It's the very end of the fight, right? to the part where he gets him in a triangle. It's the very end of the fight, right? Yeah, it's a crazy scene in a movie, man. Like, you've never seen, oh, that's right, I forgot how long this fight goes on. It's a five-minute scene.

They had sticks and coup batons, and he whacks them with that. Mutual combat. Yeah. You know what's great about it? It's ugly and raw the way a fight is, not like the way, there is. There it is. There's a triangle.

The first time you'd ever seen this in a film. Nobody ever scissored someone with their legs. It's a shitty triangle, though, by the way. Terrible technique. Hindsight's 20-20. If I was Horian, I'd be like, my friend, you have to cinch this. Grab the ankle. Pull it tight. He's got him there, though.

That's pretty good. Towards the end. I don't like where's got him there though that's pretty good towards the end i don't like where his foot is but it's okay it's supposed to be about four or five inches higher under the knee but you know good enough got a lot of people curious like is that real can you do that to somebody great fight scene fuck great movie man great movie great movie but he played such a good psycho well and then you go all the way back like big wednesday the surfing movie like john millius did what's about the buddy holly story the buddy holly story is amazing he played buddy holly so good yeah no but gary bucey was a beast

he's a tremendous actor and there's something about someone who's stared at death and also just gone so far with coke that they died yeah like those to the other side i'm saying like those crossover dudes that have just they've they've peered through the curtain yikes shut it and came back over there's something about people that have partied that hard that they just make there's a there's a certain maniacal aspect to their performances that's so believable so committed you know yeah so committed yeah like guys who party like really fucking party well so what was the kinnison story you started to tell the kinnison story get hit by a car when he was a kid and his brother bill says there's two different versions of sam there's

sam when he was young he was like a normal kid and then he gets hit by a car he becomes a fucking maniac like bad head injury and just completely impulsive wild reckless phineas gage yeah well the same thing with rosanne barr rosanne barr a student driving walking across the street rather someone's driving they can't see because the sunlight and the windshield hit her in traffic. 15 years old. She spends the next nine months in a mental health institute. Wow. She gets locked up in an asylum. Yeah.

Can't count anymore. Was a straight A student in math. Now can't count. Her brain's completely frazzled and becomes this wild, crazy, impulsive comic. Much like Kennison. You know? And those two are, in my money, for my money, they're in the top 20 of the greatest stand-ups of all time.

100%. 100%. Especially, like, important figures. Like, Roseanne Barr was the first, or one of the first. You know, you got it. Like, Joan Rivers is, for sure, one of the first, too. But there's something about Roseanne's style of comedy that was so

brash and I don't give a fuck and you know like she was just she was like a wild woman one of the very first in terms of her style the way she did comedy and she was a straight up killer

man if you ever get a chance to see her live did comedy. And she was a straight up killer, man. If you ever get a chance to see her live in her heyday, she was a monster. She would destroy. And that wild impulsiveness, a lot of that, I think, came from her head injury. You know, it's crazy. To me, you guys, the stand-up comics, like, you're the bravest people in the world. because you are standing there in front of a room full of people, absolutely nothing, stone naked with nothing but your sort of your wits. Well, let's stop you right there because that's not true at all. Cops are braver.

Firefighters are braver. Soldiers are most certainly braver. It's a different kind of vulnerability. Fighters are braver. No, it's a different kind of vulnerability. Fighters are braver. No, it's a different kind of vulnerability, though. Because it's one thing with the physical, there is, okay, it's a scrap or it's a gunfight or it's a whatever. When you're walking into a room and you're just having to capture people's imagination, that's an amazing thing. That's voodoo, dude.

That's something coming out of somebody to be able to do that. It's a thing that you get better with over time, though, and it actually gets easier. That's one of the things Joey Diaz says the best. He goes, it's the hardest, easiest thing you'll ever do. Hmm. What does that mean? Because it's really fucking hard, but once you get good at it, it's really easy. Like, Joey Diaz would get high as fuck, walk on stage, and murder a room.

Like, he didn't think twice about what he was going to say. He didn't worry about it. He had bits in his head that he could go to, but he would just be free, and he would go on stage and just destroy. And then he'd get out, hang around for a bit, high-five a couple of people, give them hugs, and get in his car and drive away. I mean...

I don't even understand that, because it's like improvisational jazz or something like how do you have all that in your there's a lot of jazz to it that's why a lot of comics like being obliterated on stage because that's kind of how you create there's well you got to create a bunch of different ways you don't have to like people do it different ways like some people they they write notes down on napkins and they have a rough outline. Some people write out a monologue and they go on stage and they just kind of perform it. Like Carlin did that, kind of performed it pretty much the way he wrote it.

Rehearsed prior to coming in or just roughed out? I don't know. I don't know if he rehearsed it, but he certainly memorized it. He had a monologue. Like Carlin would essentially write out his thoughts on things and you know some of the best writing really in terms of like social commentary to this day people are handing out clips of carlin talking about some of the shit that's going down right now in our culture but he he had his way of doing it and then you know there's some guys that just write

completely on stage they just have ideas and some guys that just write completely on stage. They just have ideas, and they go and flush them out on stage, and then they keep going up. They go up in different clubs, and they flush it out further, and they don't write anything down. They do it sort of like Jay-Z does rap. Jay-Z doesn't write any of his lyrics down. He just memorizes them.

He makes them up, memorizes them, and just keeps doing it until he gets it down, but everything's in his head. And then this guy's like Nas, who you read his rap, and it's like it's clear this guy's writing this stuff. Like it's so well crafted and the words go together so well, the idea that this guy could just improvise this is kind of preposterous.

You know, everybody has a different way of doing it. But how often, like when you're going in um unrehearsed improvisational like that is it a bust do you not connect do you lose your way all the time yeah if you want to improvise you have to i think what most of us do is you uh you improvise as like like a hammock in between two poles so you have a pole like the poles like a hammock in between two poles. So you have a pole. The pole's like a foundation pole. You have a bit that you know works. This is rock solid. So you can come back to it.

So you do this, bang, bang, bang. You get the audience confidence, and then you try some new shit on them. You give it a shot, and maybe it's a dip, and maybe it's solid. You never know. There's been moments where I've created bits, for whatever reason, just work right out of the gate. And then there's been moments where you i've created bits for whatever reason just

work right out of the gate and then there's other ones where you're like god i should abandon this but you don't want to you're like god i know there's some way to do this idea i have this idea that i think is viable i just don't know exactly how to do it and then you'll experiment and you'll twist and you'll turn and sometimes you turn. And sometimes you start it backwards. You work backwards from the punchline. You try to figure out a way to make it work. And are you talking about, in that scenario, live kind of in front of people? Or are you talking about when you're rehearsing prior to going in?

That tightrope. Don't rehearse ever. But what I do do is I listen to recordings of old sets. Not old, like last week or last night or whatever. Or I listen on the way home. And I do do is I listen to recordings of old sets of not old like last week or last night or whatever or I listen on the way home and I do write and when I write I write in total silence I just write just me sitting in front of a laptop just writing and then um I have other ideas that I don't even have written down I just have a thought and it popped into my head you know like i have like i remember when harvey weinstein first got busted i remember right away thinking that it's this is so fucked up especially because i have

daughters and if i ever found out that some fucking guy offered my daughter's sex some disgusting guy like harvey weinstein offered my daughter's sex for a role, I would want to fuck him up. But if Harvina Weinstein came to my son with a solid contract, I'd be like, dude, you're going to be Batman. I went on stage with that idea, you and i just ran with it i went on stage literally the day he got arrested or the day you know the story broke and he was in trouble whatever the fuck happened to him i don't remember how it all went down but that like that day i went on stage with

it thinking about it it's so ballsy though man to, it's just like you're walking a tightrope in front of like a room full of people with a notion and a hunch. That one I knew. Sometimes you write some shit down. It's like, that's going to pop. I'm like, dude, you're going to be Batman. And it was literally the day of. So everybody knew. And I opened with it.

I walked on stage. That was the first thing I said. So how much in stand-up do you have to be kind of tuned up? Is it something where doing it all the time keeps you polished to go out there 100%? Yeah, I'm totally out of shape now. I have to get myself in shape when I do shows. Like I was doing these shows with Dave Chappelle.

We were doing a Stubbs Barbecue as an amphitheater and we were doing these uh we were doing a stubs uh stubs barbecue as an amphitheater and we're doing a residency in town and what we did was covid test the entire crowd then we go up but what i had to do for that is very different than any other show so what i had to do for that is i would sit for hours and go over my material and then i would listen to recordings and so i'd listen to recordings of sets so i have i have on my phone hundreds and hundreds of sets because that's kind of how i review stuff like there's right there's like many that's your rewrite process yeah yeah 100 and also it's one of the best ways to add on to bits because as you're listening to a bit when you don't have to say it and you're not writing it

as you're listening to it being performed in front of an audience new ideas will pop in your head like oh but what about i could say this or maybe i could take it that way or and it's like the amount of there's no substitute for actually performing for doing sets but i think listening to a set is worth about 40 of doing doing a set. Interesting. Not 100%, but 40%. So you've got to listen to a bunch of sets, and then you can kind of get yourself back into where you are, and then writing out the material is good for about 10%.

So there's a whole series of things that I do, and I started doing that before shows, especially when I started doing arenas. I started doing arenas. You're doing like 15 000 people 20 000 people it's weird that's crazy dude that's it's that's unfathomable so that i started uh writing bits out i would literally like write bits out for hours so i'd get in my hotel room and i'd write the bits out look it takes forever but that way they're fucking cemented in my head. And then there's a freedom of that where you could just be completely loose.

Like you don't ever want to be thinking about what you're going to say. You want to be like in the moment. So you've cooked it in the writing process in that scenario. You've done enough writing the bits that you've got it locked in so you can still be loose then.

Yeah. So like my notebook is not really a notebook. It's a notebook, but it's not, I don't write in my notebook in terms of like new ideas the notebook is really the ideas i already have written down over and over and over again like if you read my notebook it's like jack nicholson the shining all work no play makes jack a dull boy all work it's like i'm really writing bits over and over your sharpening after yeah i'm just getting them burned into my head like

that moment but the writing process on a computer is very different that's just hundreds and hundreds of these word docs and you know different i did i do it in um uh scrivener and i do it i do it in a bunch of different forms i just get bored so i i write it in uh there's a thing called Write Room. I like to use that, too. When I use a Mac, I use that. But most of the time, I write on a Windows PC because I find, like, ThinkPads, they have better keyboards. So I don't have to think about where my fingers are going.

It just sort of flows, and it lets me get into a mind state better. But there's a lot of different. But doing these shows now because of COVID, I don't perform every night anymore. And there's a lot of different but doing these shows now because of covid i don't do i don't perform every night anymore and there's no comedy store anymore you know it's like completely closed down so i'm out here in austin there's a few places to perform but it's a little irresponsible to do shows and promote them with no uh audience testing right so i mean this no we're coming now we're coming toward the light. I mean, it's, you know.

Yeah, it's close. We're getting close. So, when everything gets popping again, you know, I have, I know I can get ready again. I know I can do it. And how much does your, do you share that methodology with your colleagues? I mean, how much do you shop talk with these other? All the time. All the time.

Everybody does it different. I think one thing that separates some folks from others is work ethic. Some people don't have a good work ethic. Like, some guys just are not good at writing. They don't like to sit down and write. Because comics, in general, tend to be sort of fuck-ups. Like, not in a bad way. I mean, just, you know, that's why you became a comic.

Because you fucked off at work or you fucked off at school. you're impulsive and kind of wild and crazy make people laugh yeah that's not the type of person who sits down and disciplines himself so it's like you have to kind of be a hybrid you have to be a hybrid of someone who's disciplined just to get to squeeze the most out you don't have to like guys have gotten really far by never writing a goddamn thing down and never listening to a goddamn single set they just perform enough and they get into the flow and there's actually a school of thought and it's a good school of thought that maybe that's the best way to do it just perform all the time and don't write anything down just perform almost every night of the week

that way it's just you're never out of shape it's always burned into your mind but i come from this school of thoughts of like with martial arts martial arts you can like with jujitsu jujitsu is a good example you learn techniques and then you go apply them when you spar but if you drill you get better, meaning you practice scenarios over and over again. Like if we were drilling an arm bar, I would put you in my guard. I would grab the back of your head. I would pinch down your forearm, shift my hips, catch the arm bar, and you would tap. And then I would do it over and over and over and over again. And then you would do it to me over and over and over and over again.

And then I'd do it to you. And it's over and over again and then I do it to you oh it's fucking boring but it makes it instinctual and reflexive it makes all the difference in the world the biggest jump that I ever made in my jiu-jitsu was drilling was learned I learned when I was a blue belt to drill and I went got way better because of that like it made a giant difference like within a course of six months, I jumped up several notches, 100% because of drilling. I became much more successful.

And so you're saying the application of that to comedy then- Yes, is the writing part. It's just sitting down and going over the material and drilling it into your head and then listening to the sets. It's really kind of the same thing. It's like, that's what you don't want to do. What you want to do in jujitsu is you want to go out there and roll what rolling is sparring like you

and i would slap hands and then we would just practice on each other it's fun it's fun to do it's like a real live video game yeah it's just exciting you know you don't have to you're just doing it and you get better by doing it and a lot of guys do just get really good just by doing it. But the guys that get really, really good, those guys review videos. They go over techniques. They drill constantly, and they put themselves in bad situations, all things that most people don't want to do. But that's the discipline and craft, I think, of anything, right? Like you can kind of wing it.

You can improvise it you can do the fun stuff or you can sit there and like the grinders in any discipline whether you're writing a screenplay whether you're rolling jujitsu it's like yeah the the the grinders and taking the time to do that that's what gives you the level of polish and precision it also that's what gets you get further ahead that's what I've always told people about podcasts, too. You know, a lot of comics started out with me. We started doing podcasts at the same time. But I grind.

Like, I do a lot of them. And they're like, why do you do a lot of them? I go, first of all, because there's a lot of cool people to talk to. And second of all, because that's how you get people addicted. Right. You don't get people addicted with one a month. Right. You got to drop them all the time.

You drop four a week. And they're like, four? Fuck that. That's like a job. I'm like, yeah, it's a job. You got to work. I like working. So I have a question for you.

Somewhere somebody had told me that you, or maybe it was on one of your shows, that you've kind of set up your life that many of the distractions are out of the way so that you can just come in and do this or do the comedy or you know so that it's um you have total focus and your time is not spent um chasing bullshit is that true i mean how how how much have you got your operation dialed at this point so that it's you're just doing what you do all the time well i have modes right so like i have a workout mode and workout mode you know i don't i might look at my phone if i'm lifting weights because if i'm lifting weights i i take a lot of time in between sets right but like say if i'm hitting the bag or if i'm doing jujitsu or doing something

some endurance based thing i just do it this that's mode well if i'm doing yoga right that's that's yoga mode i just do that that's it so it's one thing at a time fully focused 100 and when it's done it's done but i but then i can go like if i'm doing stand-up when when i work on stand-up i'm working on writing or from working when you're doing stand-up on stage it's the ultimate right because you can't think of anything else you're not doing you're not multitasking you're just doing stand-up and so the same is true with jiu-jitsu if you're sparring in jiu-jitsu and you're thinking about other things you're gonna get strangled like you have to be completely focused on what you're doing and that's that's how i like to if i'm doing a

podcast my phone goes on silent i push to if i'm doing a podcast my phone goes on silent i push it i see people doing podcasts and they're checking their phone right while they're doing a podcast like what the fuck are you doing yeah you're not locked in like what are you doing don't do that like and i've been guilty of that over the years i've stopped a long time ago looking at my phone during shows but you you lose something you know you lose something if you're not paying attention to what you're doing you lose focus well also we live in a culture where everybody's multitasking all the time and you're very rarely locked in right it's like yeah okay i'm rolling calls while i'm driving or i'm doing whatever and i think that to do anything well it does take like the world

drops away man yeah when i'm sitting there like writing a screenplay or when i'm making a documentary it's like everything disappears and and you are in the tunnel it's the only way to to do it well because all this stuff is hard yeah and i think especially when you're doing a podcast if you're not locked in people can tell it's drifty yeah you you're doing a podcast, if you're not locked in, people can tell. It's drifty. Yeah. Well, they also can tell that you're, like they're listening to the tennis match.

They're listening to the boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. They're listening to the feet. They're listening to the wrestling match. They're listening to the conversation. If it's not, you're not, if I'm not paying attention to you, if I'm just talking, like that becomes evident. If you're just, you're not listening to me, it becomes, but when there's a dance, there's a nice dance, that's when it's enjoyable and it's difficult to achieve.

And you don't always achieve that dance with everybody. Sometimes it's like you dance and then I dance and some people, that's just how you converse with them. And then you have to kind of, it makes it more awkward because you're starting and restarting. That's the real problem with Zoom calls. That's why I stopped doing these Zoom videos. They're just too weird. Yeah, you can't get a rhythm.

Yeah, the person's not there. But sometimes you can with someone that you know really well, and you're doing this, like I did one recently with my friend Ari, and I've known him forever. We're so close. It's easy. I can talk to him.. We're so close. It's easy. I can talk to him. We just know each other.

It's easy to do. But for most of the time, they're like, you talk, I talk. You talk, I talk. It's just, it doesn't feel good. Even when I watch them, unless the person is talking about something really riveting where all i'm trying to do is just relate get questions throw them the questions and listening to their response and throw a nut but it's a very different kind of a conversation what you just made me think of is um i saw an interview i think with errol morris about how he makes those documentaries and he said my job is i'm a

conversationalist it's not just me asking a question, you answering it. It's like I'm locked in in a dialogue. And that's where the interesting thing happens is when it's a tennis match. You're hitting the ball back and forth, which I thought was interesting. Yeah, for sure. Like people will call a podcast an interview.

Like I don't really interview people. I have interviewed people. There've been some people that I interviewed, but most of the time I'm really interview people. I have interviewed people. There've been some people that I interviewed, but most of the time I'm talking to people. Just, I just record it, you know? And I'm not,

I mean, I have obligations in terms of like, there's some information that I think I should probably cover and some things I should probably try to get them to talk about. Like there's subjects that I think if I could get to that point, it'd be cool. Cause like, I think that's a pretty interesting topic but for the most part it's just you let it play out and it's one of those things if you've been doing it long enough you kind of get a sense

while you're doing of whether or not this is interesting or whether or not you're overbearing and it's taught me a lot about communication it's taught me a lot about communication. It's taught me a lot about how to hold a conversation, you know, and when you're being overbearing and when you're talking over people and how often people do that. How did you decide, how did you lock into the format that this has become? And at what point, how much of it is deliberate and how much of it is you intuiting it and improvising and feeling your way? It's of it is intuiting that's a good word intuiting is that how you say it yeah uh most of it is intuition and most of it is uh just learned lessons over time but uh it's also you know i've listened to some podcasts that I did in the past and I didn't like things.

Just like listening to a set and you don't like certain aspects of it. So you learn how to not do it the wrong way. Refine it, retool it. Yeah. There's a skill to it. It's also conversations, they're not just the information that's being relayed. It's the sound. It's the way people talk. It's the sound. It's the way people talk.

It's the pace. It's the... Rhythm. Yeah, there's a thing going on. It's, you know, like, stand-up comedy is not just the writing. It's also the way you deliver it. It's the same thing with music.

When someone sings, right, it's not just the lyrics of the song. Okay, so fascinating how this applies to documentaries is, you know, people ask me like, oh, how does the documentary thing work? And how it works is as a director, really a lot of directing is long before you ever end up on set,

long before you ever end up with a camera, it's there has to be this level of trust where like the person understands, hey, this person really gives a shit about my story and is really gonna go to the end of the earth to tell this right and then on top of it it's not with documentaries documentaries need a performance too it's not just like here's the facts of the story it's you got a horse whisper people into like okay I'm right I mean when I'm sitting there with Tarzan in Moscow he's like I'm not ready to be telling this story right now. We're needing to be drinking a little

bit of vodka. You know, I'm maybe needing blowjob right now, you know what I mean? Or whatever. And so you recognize, okay, now's not the time to roll because I can't force this. It's maneuver this such that by the time you are ready, you're ready to pop and you're ready to tell these stories that you've been holding onto most of of your life that maybe you should or maybe you shouldn't tell but there's a real art to getting that person to the place where they're ready to sort of crack open and reveal what's in what's in the middle yeah yeah i mean you're making a piece of art and you're doing it about facts and with real people and you're constructed that's why is there like what's more satisfying to you doing that doing like the seven

five or doing something like silk road where it's a fiction i always want to i always want to do both because and i've always thought about it that way which is when i'm knocking around as a crime reporter in berkeley or oakland once upon a, what I'm thinking is I'm actually like, yeah, I'm writing stories. I'm getting a job. I'm getting a paycheck. But really, I'm gathering material. I'm listening to the way like cops talk in the precinct and what the rhythm is and what the bullshit and where the hustle is or what it's like when somebody is in jail and what the noises are. So that as I sit down as a writer, I'm drawing on real authentic stuff. So they like completely cross pollinate with one another,

you know, and then so that when I, by the time I sit down to write Silk Road and I know, okay, Jason Clarke's character, I'm going to composite two different people here, but I've spent a lot of time knocking around with narcs and I know how they treat informants. And I know, you know, the dynamic between Daryl Britt Gibson and Jason Clark, when these guys are breaking each other's balls and it's like, you know, a little bit, you know, weird power dynamics. Like I know those guys, I've spent time with them. And also as the actors were like, man, what's it like to be a corrupt cop? I'm like, well, let's get Michael Dowd on the phone. Cause he can tell us. You know what I mean? And literally, I would just fold those guys in and be like, hey, we're making this movie. I want your help. Tell these guys

whatever you can gain. And with smart actors, you put them in that position and they'll steal the little materials. Like at the time that I was making Silk Road, it was this crazy experience because I had three projects that were going simultaneously. I was doing Night Stalker for Netflix. I was doing The Last Narc about the Kiki Camarena murder in 1985. And I was doing Silk Road at the same time. survive this. This is like so complicated. I'm juggling so much, you know, at any given time. And it was what you said, where it was like, okay, I'm locked in right now. Right now I'm looking at this edit and I need, I've got 45 minutes and I know I need to walk out of this room and tell the editor, tweak this, tweak this, this joke's not working. This needs to be more dramatic and change the music cue. And I don't have time to do anything else. So I know the trains have to leave the station. And so what I had was with the last narc, I had this amazing character in Hector Boreas, who was this old school Jurassic

narc, door kicker, gunfighter dude who was down there in Mexico working the Camarena murder for many years. And then I had Jason Clark, who was going to be playing a DEA guy. And I was like, you know what I need to do? These two cats need to get a taco together. And so I was like, Jason, I want you to meet this guy. And I was like, I don't need to be there. I don't want to be in the middle of it. You guys go sit down and go get a taco in Riverside or whatever. And what Jason Clark did was he went, spent the time with Hector, and they like swapped war stories, the last narc and Silk Road as they're prepping. And then when I got on set eventually with Jason Clark, I looked down, and he's got this belt buckle

and it's Hector's belt buckle. And I'm like, that son of a bitch, dude, that's so smart. He stole that from Hector because that's like a street thing. Whereas, you know, I'm the rooster, man. You know, and he had that on his buckle and I thought that's a really smart, that's a smart actor, you know?

What you're talking about, about the way you do things, about the way you lock into things, that's just, that's discipline. You know, that's hard for people. Have you ever read Steven Pressfield's The War of Art? No. It's a really good book about that in particular. And it's, I used to keep a stack of them and I used to hand them out to people when I did

the podcast, the early days of the podcast. I literally had like 10 of them in the room i'll pick it up and we're bought a bunch of them because it's a small book it's easy to read but it's about it's a lot of it details his own personal journey with dealing with what he calls resistance and resistance being this the urge to fuck off and not do the work. The procrastination. Just get distracted. Like Louis C.K., when he writes, his computer doesn't connect to the internet. He has a computer that he writes on that doesn't go online. So the email doesn't come, the text doesn't come.

You can't look at porn. You can't look at what's the new cool car that's out. He just writes. You can't look at what's the new cool car that's out. He just writes. And Steven Pressfield wrote about resistance being this thing that you have that keeps you from doing the work. This thing that distracts people. And he has a name for it. He calls it resistance.

And he also has a name for the muse. What he calls the muse. Not a name for for this this term this discussion of this thing as a real like a real entity that you sit down and you do the work and you sit down like a professional like you have it's a very rigid time that you're going to do this and you have have no distractions. And if you do that, and if you do that enough, the muse will entertain you. The muse will show up. If you are professional, and you really do have the focus and the discipline, and you call upon the muse, and do your due diligence, the muse will reward you. And he talks about it like it's a real thing. And it's really interesting, because if you treat it like it's a real thing, it does work.

Like, I don't think there's really like a ghost out there that's bringing you these ideas. But if you treat it like there's a ghost out there that's bringing you these ideas. Well, there may be. I mean, I remember like in seeing Dylan being interviewed, I think it was by Barbara Walters or something, and she's asking him, how do you write this? He's like, I don't write them songs. They just fall down from the sky. And so there's a thing where it's like you are making yourself available to, and that's

by showing up and doing the work. When you look at any of those Bob Dylan documentaries, man, he's always sitting there behind a typewriter writing songs, however old he is right now, writing some of the most amazing stuff of his career. And that's because he's a worker and a grinder, so that when you're doing that, then it can come down, right? Something can be transmitted, I think. I believe that. I believe that, too. I don't know what it is. What's Pressfield's background? He's a writer, he's a screenwriter author um but what's interesting

is he was kind of a failure for a lot of his life and then around 40 figured it out got his shit together and wrote some amazing shit uh legend of bagger vance wrote a bunch of different books books on um what do you write books on like was it the romans the greeks he wrote a bunch of different shit but i i haven't read any of it but i know it's well well respected and regarded but that's right uh but the war of art is uh i will definitely i will definitely get hip to that because i'm always interested in, and I do think people have to like fail for a long time. You know, the ones who get somewhere, I mean, there, you get those like out of the box geniuses who do something at, you know, 18 years old or 22, whatever.

But most of the people that are getting to work are the people that like just keep showing up. I've got my teeth kicked in 7,000 times, but I just keep showing up because it's like, man, I don't know. Like it's like man i don't know like i wouldn't i don't know what else to do this i love it so like if you got to kick my teeth out every now and then i'm still coming back for more but that's also that you know there's a way to do this better than how you've done it it's like everyone who's done anything in life where you've had some success and some success is the spark right it's like that's the thing with stand-up

comedy have you gotten any laughs like if you've never gotten any laughs maybe you should quit but if you've gotten some laughs like every now you say a joke like and they you know like but if harvina weinstein like and then and then everybody laughs like oh my god i i hit a spark there's something there and you realize it and the audience they they but then you fail then you stumble like well what was it that you nailed how do you get back there and then you figure out how to do it better you review your failures and from them you figure out where you turned wrong and went off the cliff you know how do you stay on the road how do you how do you accelerate how do you stay on the road? How do you accelerate? How do you avoid all the cones?

Like, how do you do it right? Well, and it is a product of, you know, any measure of success. It's that little whisper of, like, man, there's some wind in my sails. So, like, and in a weird way, I feel like I haven't even started working yet. Like, I'm just now starting to figure out, like, hey like hey like i'm starting to know how to do this and i'm starting to really like now i want to do something interesting yeah you know well some people there's a certain point in time where they lose energy and i don't know what it is and i suspect that some of it is physical some of it has to do with age and it has to do with health

well you lose vitality and you lose your ability to be enthusiastic about things. And that's one of the, I mean, I'm committed to health and fitness just because that's something I enjoy and I like it. But also because when you have energy, you can put more energy into things. And as you get older, that energy wanes. And particularly wanes if you abuse your body body if you eat shitty food and you drink too much and you just you don't sleep right you don't exercise you don't have enough horsepower anymore to really squeeze out those magical moments and i think it's not a coincidence that a lot of creative people especially creative people that indulge in alcohol and drugs, they do their best work when they're younger

because their body's more resilient and there's more juice there. Or you hit a point where you get clean at a certain point. Suddenly Brad Pitt stops drinking and then turns in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But Brad Pitt never did any bad work. Yeah, he was always great. I could watch that guy like take a piss and it'd be fascinating.

He's amazing. He's a hard one to pick that on. No, but I just mean like that's somebody that, yes, the work was amazing early. And like, I can't wait to like that forever. That guy's just getting more better and more interesting and more amazing. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

But then you got guys like Bukowski. Drink to the grave. Merrily, all the way, baby. Write some of his best shit. Yeah. Being just a scumbag, trying to fuck everything that moves. Yeah. Getting his teeth kicked in in bar fights

and just going back and writing about it. But something was coming through, like God was coming through or whatever it is. It's like he was able to capture it. You know what it was coming through like god was coming through or whatever it is it's like something he was able to to to capture it you know what it was coming through with i think with bukowski i've been listening to a lot of him lately his authenticity that's who that guy was warts and all flaws poem after poem word after word just super real yeah and. And also really lived a terrible life before he became a successful poet. Not a terrible life, but just an unfulfilling, shitty post office. Post office, man.

Yeah. And was told by his parents, like, you're never going to amount to shit. You don't have any talent. This is a waste of time. Yeah. Well, it's like Orson Welles said, man, better late than early, you know? Yes. Yeah, better late than early, you know? Yes. Yeah, better late than early.

And then there's guys like that, too, that they let you know, like, hey, there's no real roadmap. Like, everybody's got their own path. Like, this guy's path is not the same path as, you know, Thoreau. And they're never replicable. I'm always fascinated because it's like, okay, how did you get here? You know? Yeah. And, like, you learn something, but you're never going to walk that same path.

But you do learn something by how people got to where they got. You also are, you carry them with you. Like, I don't think I'm an individual. I think I'm an accumulation of all the people that I've ever met and all the experiences that I've ever had. And it's one of the things about this podcast that it's been insanely rewarding for me is that I can talk to so many different people. And I can have these and like, how many times do you even get a chance to talk to interesting people for hours at a time without being interrupted? They don't, it doesn't happen. So for me me it's been this radical education and sometimes

sometimes not educational at all sometimes just fun and a lot of them have been just fun but a lot of them have been like really interesting so it's been feeding my brain all this information for like and i have like random shit in my head like i'll have a conversation with someone i'll go well that's actually because of this and then they go how the fuck do you even know that like well i had a conversation with this scientist and I'll go, well, that's actually because of this. And then they'll go, how the fuck do you even know that? Like, well, I had a conversation with this scientist, and he explained it all to me, and I just remembered that part. Well, and the weird thing is, it's also this, and I never thought about it before like this, but you're also providing this record of humanity, right? This is like all of us are struggling with, hey, this is my experience of the world. This is my record.

This is what I know. And you're having this parade of people come through here. And everybody's giving you like, hey, man, this is what I got. This is what I learned. This is what I think is funny or whatever it is. And your work has been this document of what people have to give. Yeah, and there's certain key components that we'll show you. There's certain key things that you kind of have.

What do we all want? We all want to be happy. We all want to be successful. We all want to be fulfilled. We all want love. How do you get those things? Well, to be happy, first of all, you've got to be happy with what you're doing. And that means happy with what you're doing in terms of who you're having relationships with,

who you're having friendships with, what are you doing for a living. These are not easy questions. These are not easy solutions. And depending upon where you find yourself in life when you listen to this, it can be really difficult to work your way out of the hole you're in but there's a way you got to figure out the way the way might take you 10 years or it might take you 10 days everybody's got a different way that's that's big you want to be happy you gotta figure out what you enjoy doing and maybe you enjoy doing a lot of things but you want to be happy you gotta figure out what you enjoy doing and maybe you enjoy doing a lot

of things but you gotta pick one of those and whatever whatever that thing is you gotta pour yourself into that fucking thing you can't leave any stone unturned you can't leave any page unturned you gotta you gotta put it in you gotta put that time in you have to if you don't you'll have regret and that's one of the saddest things. You have to. If you don't, you'll have regret. And that's one of the saddest things. You can have mistakes. You can feel bad about failures. Those are good for you. But you can't have regret for not putting in the work. Because if you have that, then you realize you could have been something. You could have been something. You could have been happy. You could have been successful. You could have been fulfilled. You could have been happy you could have been successful you could have been fulfilled you could have been inspired but instead you slept in it just as you were saying that it just struck

me it's it's almost like the ultimate parenting advice right it's like sort of what you're telling your kid which is find something you love man yeah like whatever it is and go all in on that yeah i mean it's that and find somebody who loves you, who you love. Like, those are the two things. Yeah. As a dad, like, you know what I want? Forget all that success. Forget money.

Like, I want you to be, like, with somebody you love and who loves you. And I want you to do something you love and just leave it on the field, man, the best you got. Yeah. And I guess in a lot of ways with children in particular, they learn by example. They see, they learn by good example and bad example. Like a lot of people that I know that are clean and sober, the reason why they're clean and sober is because their parents were alcoholics or drug addicts. And they don't want to have nothing to do with that shit. They see the failures.

A lot of people whose parents just were excuse makers and always negative, they don't tolerate that shit at all. They're super positive and they're disciplined and they get after it. And the reason why they do that is because they saw that the other side of it. Yeah. They saw the fucking pitfalls of that kind of thinking and behavior. Yeah. You know, and this is these things that you learn from people that are doing what they

want to do. There's like, there's traits that they share in common. And one of the big ones is focus and discipline i don't think you can get anywhere without it and it's hard to do because there's a lot of times like that pressfield talks about in the war of art that resistance is strong there's something about it it's like you don't want to do the things that you know you should do well it's boring and it's repetitive it's you know you're sitting there in the batting cage

and you're hitting off the tee when you're a major leaguer. But like, those are the guys that are the ones that are winning the batting title that are still hitting off the tee, you know? Yeah, it's with everything, man. It's with running. It's with yoga. It's with writing.

You've got to force yourself into into action and one of the best ways i found is to write down a list of what you're going to do today write it down like and make it in advance it's best to make it before you go to bed like tomorrow tuesday morning i am going to get up and i'm going to do this for an hour i'm going to do that for an hour and then i'm going to do and and fucking check that list because it puts you on like merely the act of committing it and putting it down sets your like that sets a plumb line for where you're going you can make so much more progress that way than the people that just try to like wing it you can wing it you can get a lot of places winging it i got pretty far in life winging it i i winged it and half-assed it and sort of slopped it out

and improvised it for like the long time and then at a certain point it was like man this stuff is so hard it's so competitive people would give anything to do this that if you want to make a contribution it's got to be tight yeah i started realizing that when things were important then i was going by a schedule and i'm like why don't i go by a schedule all the time like when things were important, then I was going by a schedule. And I'm like, why don't I go by a schedule all the time? Like when things would be important, like something was big that I was working towards, then I'd be on a schedule. But then I'd realize, like,

why don't I just do that all the time for things? Like that's how you get ahead. And then when you have relaxation time, you enjoy it because you've earned it. Man, when like Saturday rolls around and i can put my feet up and watch fights and just have eat fucking potato chips and yeah and and and just kick back i enjoy the shit out of it because i actually earned it but man if i haven't earned it it feels terrible watching tv when you're fucking off and you're supposed to be doing other things, you feel like a loser. Well, people want to work.

You know, like there is work is a force that gives us meaning. And so, you know, your time has been well spent. If you're busting your ass, then that is time well spent. And I think one of the challenges for me is I have a hard time spinning down and then chilling out because I'm a grinder. You know, I just wake up and grind, grind, grind. But you have to like refresh. You have to chill and you got to watch the fights and eat potato chips and chill out or you can't do good work all the time. My wife has taught me that.

My wife has taught me how to go on vacations. I never used to go on vacations because I used to think of going on vacations is like I travel for work. I'm not going to travel somewhere right fuck that but then i realized like there's real value in going somewhere and just shutting off just drinking margaritas and laying on the beach and don't do a fucking thing unless you want to do a thing like hey you know let's throw a frisbee or let's jump in the ocean or let's get on a boat and or let's go for a hike let's fucking go walk through the woods but just shut off sometimes you gotta you gotta be bored sometimes too you can't always just grind grind grind grind grind no because i think like at a certain point with a lot of this

work it's what you were talking about with improvising when the stand-up comics come in you do a lot of work or what hemingway used to say is he would write until he would get to, knowing what the last sentence of the day was, he wouldn't write it. So then he would wake up in the morning and he would know what the first sentence was. Then you're set and sail again. He has one of the best quotes ever

that my friend Ari has on his laptop. The first draft of everything is shit. It's true, right? It's so good. It's true. It's just letting you know, man, just get it out. Get it out. And it's also, it's a momentum builder, right?

Just to understand that the first draft is shit. Just get that first draft out and then start working on it. So I got a question for you. You know, the podcast for you starts as a hobby sideline. It's not a job. It's something you're doing. That's, uh, an, uh, an afterthought or an also for your TV life or your standup life or whatever. At what point does it become like, Oh, this is, this is the thing. I don't know. It's a gradual, it just sort of gradually happens. But even even now it's like it's just a part of my life there's a lot of shit i'm looking forward to doing like i know this podcast is basically over

we're three hours in i got a lot of shit to do yeah i'm thinking about it right now you know i'm thinking about i didn't work out today i'm thinking about what i'm gonna do when i work out i'm not gonna work out until nine o'clock because that's when the kids go to bed. So I've got ideas on that. So I've got writing I've got to do. I'm not going to do that until after that. So I'm not going to go to bed until like 1. So I have all these things that I have to get in the sauna tonight. I have a lot of shit

to do. But we were locked in for a minute there when the world falls away and none of that stuff matters, right? And that's when you're in it. The only reason why I'm even thinking about it now is because I know that the time is winding down and that just you know this is the schedule we've done the work but we when you think about like upcoming projects that you i mean you've already got this nice body of work all these you know really well-done things that you can say, look, I've got these. These are here.

Like when you look at a project, do you think of your past work and think that it has to measure up to that? Do you just concentrate on what it is and just pour yourself into it? Do you look at your past body of work? Does it have any impact on what you're planning on doing i don't want to repeat anything right i don't like there's a point at which it's i could keep doing the same thing over and over again and in some ways hollywood wants you to do that because it's like okay we know you're proven you're in this lane just keep doing this and make money but i um i don't know what the thing is until it's there when snoop

calls and it's like hey i want to like i want to i want to i want to do the best work of my life i don't know what that means but i know like dude i am there and so i never would have told you that i wanted to do that that wasn't on my list and as soon as i heard it, I'm like, whatever it takes, I'm going to the end of the earth with you, Snoop. So I think it's staying open and letting the world bring you the thing. Staying open, letting the world bring you the thing. And then your world of, you know, making films about bizarre humans, it's a never-ending supply. It's a carnival. Life is a carnival. And the crazies get my number one way or another.

And God bless them because this is what I have to give. This is my record of humanity. So it's the best I can do. Well, you're fulfilled, right? You're doing what you're supposed to be doing. That's all a person could ask for in life, doing what you're supposed to be doing. That's right. Let's wrap it up with that Beautiful, thank you sir

Thank you very much Goodbye ladies and gentlemen, non-binary folks Thank you