The Joe Rogan Experience - #1884 - Anthony Kiedis

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Anthony Kiedis is a founding member and lead vocalist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Look for their new albums "Unlimited Love" and "Return of the Dream Canteen" wherever you buy or stream music. www.redhotchilipeppers.com

the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day good to see you man what's happening what is really happening your show was fucking great thank you i really enjoyed it i'm so happy to hear that what that means to me is even on an off night we're still pretty that was an off night, we're still pretty good. That was an off night? Way off. Really? Bad sound. Sound was bad? For me.

Sounded good. We have high standards. I guess. I mean, it was excellent. Thank you. So what else was wrong? High sound? Well, I like to dance, and I like to get the mojo flowing at maximum photon speed.

Right. And my knee was locked up so I couldn't fully flow which is disconcerting and it actually throws my singing off as well. But. Well we talked afterwards about your knee entry but while you were on stage I didn't notice

anything. You move great. I can move better, but thanks. The good news for me is I'm surrounded by John, Chad, and Flea, which is just like a huge, uplifting energy circle. So they carry me. Yeah. How did you injure your knee? Is it just from all the years of dancing on stage?

Pounding. Pounding on stage for 100 years, yeah. You know May injure your knee? Is it just from all the years of dancing on stage? Pounding. Pounding on stage for a hundred years. Yeah. You know Maynard from Tool? He's got a artificial hip. Mm-hmm. Stomping. From stomping. From stomping on stage. He blew his fucking hip out. I'm not surprised. What I am surprised is that Mick Jagger hasn't blown both of his hips out.

Oh, man. We saw him when he was at COTA, the Circuit of the Americas here in Austin. It was insane. First of all, it was like a psychedelic experience just seeing him. Because you can't believe that's really Mick Jagger up there. Like, that's the fucking Rolling Stones. They were incredible.

And he's still dancing around. He's as old as Biden. He's as old as... Which is an official expression, by the way. Yes. I mean, he's like old as Biden he's as old as which is an official expression yes I mean that's he's like commensurate I think he's basically the same age right what is Biden? Biden's like 78

and I think Mick Jagger is like 78 as well I think he's in the neighborhood right how old is he? you can ask your father he's 79 he's... He's 79. 79.

Jesus. He's so light. Yeah. His bone structure, his anatomy is light. Yeah. And he's written a song or two. Oh, yeah. He's older by four months or so.

He's older than Biden. Yeah. That's insane. As you said, he's older than Biden. But meanwhile, he talks great. No, he's not. No, he's not. I'm sorry.

No? No, I misread that. They're twins. Biden's older by like eight months. November 42 versus... Those eight months are a motherfucker. The eight months is a difference. You and I shall see. Hopefully we'll see. Yeah. If we're lucky. We need those blacks. How old are you now?

I am looking at 60. Looking at it. I'm looking at it. Two weeks away. Wow. Yeah. How's it feel? You look great. I feel, thank you. You look great too. Thank you. Yep.

I don't know how old you are. 55. Wow. You look real good. Thank you. Yeah. We could grapple later. It feels wonderful.

It feels so good. If I can do what I want to do for the next 20, 30 years, I'm just hallelujah. It's just a matter of the joints. The joints holding up. I think they're going to repair. I think they're going to repair. I went hard last night, and I feel better today than I did when I saw you a week ago. Oh, that's great.

Did you get any treatments done on the knee or anything? Osteopathy. Osteopathy. What is that? Osteopathy is Osteopathy. What is that? Osteopathy is a medicine, a hands-on medicine, where you have to study for 12 years before you can touch a patient. And they study anatomy, connectivity, all tissues, all bones. And this girl is French, Lucille.

And she gets in there and she starts feeling the hamstrings connected to the knee bones, connected to the calf things, connected to the archery foot. And she just starts allowing your body to heal. So she makes some space with her hands and her mind. Her mind. Oh, yeah. You have to be focused. There's a concentration to it.

It's not the biggest part, but it's a part. You're looking at me. Okay. Anyway, I had a frozen shoulder. I went to every doctor in the world. Nothing. Oh, really? Three visits with Lucille. You know what's great for shoulders is hanging from

your hands? Yeah. A chin-up bar? Yeah. It's really good for that. Sounds good. If you have frozen shoulders, impingements and things like that. And there's a theory that, Sounds good. If you have frozen shoulders, impingements and things like that. And there's a theory that, you know, as we are primates, our ancestors swung from trees and hung on trees and that the joint expresses itself better when it's like constantly put through a range of motion and hanging from things and people especially people with sedentary lifestyles that never really uh put that kind of like where your your body weight sort of stretches out your joint your joints can kind of collapse and they get impinged and they you know they get kind of fucked up i hear that that makes sense we are primates and it's also mental your brain depends on walking hmm so old-school us we would walk all day every

day right however 20 or 30 miles and it's good for your brain it keeps Alzheimer's away you stop walking the brain kind of freezes up yeah that's true activity is one of the very best ways to fight off all sorts of mental degeneration. Yeah. Yes. And music. Yeah, well, that's why you look so great at 60, because you're always bouncing around and moving. I feel bad for people that aren't active,

because you will deteriorate to a point where you're not going to be able to bring it back. If you can maintain, it's so much better to maintain than it is to try to rebuild. Agreed. People need a push. People need inspiration. They need something that they love and they need maybe somebody to do it with. Right.

They need something fun. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the key. Like some people love running. Some people love skiing. Like whatever you love, like doing something that you really enjoy doing that keeps you active i think is a is a great key to that i need to push you've been i mean when did you start you've basically been doing music your whole life i feel like i started

late relatively speaking relatively yeah so you've been performing since you were how old 83 which would put me at 21 it's pretty young but my friends had been studying and playing and practicing music since they were 10 the guys that i hooked up with musically so 21 is kind of like you already have to have started music, like with a sport. If you start at 21, it's kind of late in the game. That's true. So I just got lucky that I had been studying other things that fed into music. So I had something to say.

I had rhythm. I had love for dance, love for sound, love for my friends. But I have been performing since I was 21. It's a long time to be in the public eye, living that life. It is, and it's both wonderful and horrific at the same time. The public eye, specifically. Yeah.

I don't think I would trade it because it comes with joy and perks and it's a unique experience. But I love my anonymity to pieces. I love going out in the world and just knock it. Can you still do that? Yes, not often. But when I do, I love it. When you can sneak by?

I'm not even sneaking. I mean, you don't have to sneak. I think it's the anti-sneak approach that makes you invisible. You go about your business and maybe you just blend in. Los Angeles, California is the place where I get noticed and mess with the least. Because they're so used to famous people there. Jaded. Yeah.

In a bubble, self-obsessed. Right. They could care less. The minute I walk around New York City, hey, Kiedis, caught you on the TV, whatever. Yeah, completely different sort of scenarios with giant masses of people. The New York mass of people is not connected to show business. No.

So you have less of the self-obsession. And they love seeing people that they relate to. Right. And they'll let you know about it. Right. They'll stop the car. Yes. Yeah.

But the Los Angeles scene, that's that's so true that that's one of the reasons why a lot of people that are famous actually enjoy living in Los Angeles because people are jaded mm-hmm and you can you know it's kind of hang out people don't care they leave you alone I agree I miss you as a fellow resident I understand but yeah LA geographicallyA., geographically, it's gorgeous. It's a harsh toke these days. It's different. You know, I got out in, we started looking in May of 2020.

Like right when they expanded, you know, two weeks to flatten the curve and it got to a month and a half. And I was like, like oh this is not going away mm-hmm and I started seeing that there was other places where they were taking a more sane approach I immediately started looking mm-hmm but I had been thinking about getting out of LA anyway just that I get anxiety about the sheer numbers of people the sheer there's the traffic the traffic, just the untenable volume of human beings was just like there's a certain level of anxiety that comes with that. And when I would go to other places, like if I would go to Montana or go to like Utah, it was like, oh, this feels better.

Like this is relaxing. It's like less humans. I hear that. You did live in the boondocks did you not i lived a little outside like i didn't live in the city city but so it was nice that i got my little break there but it was always i was always aware it was around the corner it was always there i mean i was i was living near there was a lot of like owls and coyotes and you know mountain lions there's a lot of shit out where i live those are my people yeah yeah those are my people you're naming my creatures yes there's a lot of that here yeah yeah the traffic thing is hell i ride a motorcycle to circumvent as much of it every day wow every day unless it's freezing or raining.

That is a wild thing to do in Los Angeles, to ride a motorcycle, because there's so many people on their phone, and there's so many cars. You just have to be defensive. It's normal to me. It's second nature. Have you always ridden a motorcycle? I started off crashing mini bikes through backyard fences in Michigan.

And I put it down for a while. And then sometime in the 80s, Chad Smith showed up on a Suzuki. And I was like, let me try that big bike. And I was hooked. Wow. So you just get around on motorcycles? I do, on a cop bike. Really?

Yeah, it's the bike that the California Highway Patrol use. So it's a big cruiser. It's big. It has a windshield. It's fast. It handles like a magic carpet. Yeah? Yeah, I love it.

Wow. Yes. Do you have a car, too, or do you only? No, I have a couple of cars cars but it's a pain in the ass like to go down the PCH and just wait for an hour to go somewhere that's the thing about LA too

you're allowed to split the lanes and people are starting to recognize like oh there's a bike I have to make space yeah well that's nice yes

some people are dicks though they just like yeah oh yeah so you can't go by. I have moments. It's also an opportunity to see where I'm at as a human being. Like, do I want to kill these people or do I just want to...

Forgive them. Just forgive them and carry on with my life. Yeah. Not worry about it. It's better. It's a little opportunity to just exercise that aspect of your thought. Yeah. Also in a car. Yeah just exercise that aspect of your thought. Yeah.

Also in a car. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Who am I? Well, that's one of the nice things about here. Like, people let you in. It's so different. They let you in the lane.

They wave. It's like it's a different, like, they're more friendly. People feel like, I think in Los Angeles, the problem is there's so many human beings that human beings become a bother. Like, God, there's so many people. Whereas here, it's only like a million people. So it's like people are just a little bit more appreciative of each other. There's not that level of tension.

This is what I hear. I had a conversation with a guy on the way over here who's kind of investigating options. Texas, nice, no taxes. And I said, well, what do you like about it? What's your main attraction? And he said, people are kinder. People are more thoughtful. Yeah, and I don't think that's something that people would necessarily associate with Texas.

But they call it Texas-friendly. That's literally how they describe it. There is no LA friendly. Not really. Unfortunately, there's some friendly people. On the plus side is when you do meet a person

who's friendly, you really appreciate it. It's like a sunny day in Seattle. Yeah. Good point. They mean a lot to you. You could find a really kind, cool person in Los Angeles.

It means a lot. Well noted. Yeah. Yes. So what's the horrific aspect of being famous for so long? Lack of anonymity. So that's the big one for you. Yes.

I really have no complaints. I love my job so much i don't know what i did to deserve it but it is you're really good at it that's what you did to deserve it i do work hard um but i was taught how to work hard by my boys in the band because they all work hard really hard they could tell they're obsessed they're obsessed with practicing and learning and pushing the boundaries and evolving and tapping into that which you cannot see or totally understand horrific maybe i exaggerated with the word horrific um it's a good word though it's a good word it's got the word horror. I know you like some horror.

Yeah. It's not really horrific if I think about it. No. I take that back. It's just inconvenient sometimes maybe. Sometimes I'm shy and bashful and reclusive and I just want to chill. And people want to take pictures or have me talk to their girlfriend on the phone. Small price, small price.

This brings me to my new philosophy in life, which I remind myself every day. Can I give it to you? Yeah, please. So two months ago, we were playing at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Big, beautiful stadium full of people excited to sing and dance. And these two painter sisters from Texas, raised in Manhattan, brought their friend to the show. We're like, great, come and we'll hook you up with tickets and passes. Come say hello.

Beautiful people. And the girl they brought was radiant in every aspect of the word physically beautiful energy kindness just light and all of my friends like who's that girl that girl's amazing just a friend of our painter friends and a week went by and i I opened the paper, and I saw this girl had died unexpectedly. A 33-year-old actor, model, artist. And she woke up and died. And they're not sure why. Maybe sepsis. Who knows?

Young people are dying these days. And I thought to myself, I woke up today and I complained about how long my room service took, how muggy it was outside and the traffic. And I decided this girl was just a giver of a human being and she got plucked. human being and she got plucked so i said to myself don't be a bitch nothing to do with gender or animals just bitchliness selfishness self-obsessed self-centered whiny weakness yeah and and what do i have to complain about right very little very little relatively speaking it's almost like you can't complain. Can't complain.

Yeah. I mean, let's look around the world. Yeah. Syria, Yemen, Ukraine. Right. On and on. Yeah. So every time I go there, which is daily, I wake up and I'm like, where's my thing?

And how come these people aren't doing what I want them to do? The voice comes into my head, don't be a bitch. Right. So that's my new live by philosophy. It's a good philosophy. It's hard for people sometimes to have perspective, you know, because your life is your life. And any little irritation, you know, if you just allow momentum to take you in that general direction, which is a lot of what people do, they sort of operate on momentum. They don't think. They just react. And you you lose perspective it's hard sometimes

to pull it back and that's do you meditate at all I do meditate at all not enough but I do and I love it and it's my go-to yeah and I believe in it Rick Rubin actually shared the art of meditation with me when I was a kid, younger, early 90s. He brought the TM Institute into his living room and offered the whole band an opportunity to learn. And we were so crass and obnoxious that we laughed through the entire lesson.

This East Indian guy's up there with a chalkboard pointing at sound waves and different Transcendental Meditation concepts. And we're just laughing obtrusively. Can't stop. But it wasn't because we didn't feel it or understand it or believe in it. It was just the presentation itself.

But it stuck, and we got our mantras, and we got our practice, and I did it religiously for a while, and then I put it down. But now whenever I feel like the monkey mind, in a car, in a plane, in a train, in the monkey mind in a car in a plane and train in my bathtub in a tiny little kid's chair somewhere on the back porch i'll take 10 minutes 15 minutes and it's profound yeah you yeah i do i do uh i like to do it in different places i do it a lot of times in the sauna i like to do deep breathing exercises places. I do it a lot of times in the sauna. I like to do deep breathing exercises in the sauna, so I'm kind of uncomfortable at the same time.

And also I multitask, kill two birds with one stone that way. But it allows me to resetting, just having time alone with your thoughts. I have friends in show business that are never alone, and they're the most troubled I find because they don't have space to just sit and just sort of put it all into perspective and bring yourself back to baseline and appreciate it. talking about momentum, that's a real problem with people. So you're doing things and things are happening and you keep going. And then the stresses of these things compile and pile on and you never have a chance to step back and go, wow, what a wild ride I'm on. This is incredible. This is amazing.

I should be so thankful and so appreciative. Instead, you're just so caught up. My agent said, what? What am I doing? Why do we have to be there then? And you have to be there then? You have to bring it back to baseline, appreciate where you're at, and say, wow, how lucky. How lucky just to be a human in 2022.

What a great time. You don't die of cholera. What a great time with all the medicine and fucking technology and all the, you know, obviously there's downsides to all that stuff too, but pretty fucking good time to be alive. What a great roll of the dice to be here and to be an American. And this is a place where you can, you're free to pursue your goal. You don't have to wear a headscarf. You know, you're not like in a religious autocrat society where you're told what to do, which in 2022 so you're in this place as imperfect as it is which provides you with an immense amount of freedom we're fucking so

fortunate so fortunate we're fortunate at this very moment yes however steve van zandt is required to wear a headscarf oh yeah yeah yeah that's part of his gig though new jersey yeah that's a law well he's, you know. Well, seeing him on The Sopranos with the fucking wig on, I was like, wow. Ooh. He was amazing. Isn't it amazing when someone's a really great musician but also can act their ass off? He did great. I think it was very custom for his sensibility.

And he's a good musician. I respect him as a musician. No doubt. Not that he cares. But he's an even better musical historian. Is he? His radio show, Underground Garage. Oh, that's right. Oh my God. He breaks it

down. The players, the people, the producers, the eras, the cities, the what led to what led to what he's good i really appreciate musicians that have a deep appreciation for the history of music and and like you know who's great about that henry rollins that motherfucker loves music so much he has this incredible stereo system in his house this amazing collection of records and you know he has a radio show as well i'm not sure if he's still doing it but when i had him on the

podcast to talk to him about his love of music and love of collecting records and everything like just a excitement in his voice and his the passion in his eyes the way he describes these things it's so infectious it's infectious It's also a beautiful subject, a historical subject to spend your life studying. Well, you're in it, right? You are a musician. But to someone observing it from the outside like myself, it's one of the more fascinating aspects of human culture is that people create sounds and you create them with lyrics and you put it together in this way that literally acts as a drug. Like it makes people feel good. That's why-

There's something about that. There's something about it. When the the music like when a song comes on that you haven't heard in a long time you know like midnight rider like the almond brothers like the beginning you're like holy shit that fucking song like whoo you get it's a drug yes it's a drug well literally your brain is releasing its serotonin and And there's something that we've come to expect because it's a normal part of life. We all listen to music. But there's moments where you can just step outside of it and realize how amazing the creation of music is. It's so amazing. of music is. It's so amazing. That's why I became a musician, because of the high that I got from listening to Henry Rollins, Black Flag, drinking black coffee. Made me feel so alive, so full

of everything, so drugged up. I want to make people feel like that. Defunct made me dance like lightning bolts on the dance floor. I want to make people feel like that. That was my number one motivation and the love of my found family, my high school boys, just wanting to hang out with them. But more than anything, I heard the message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. And I just wanted to roll down the street lighter than air. How do I make people feel like that? How can I be a part of something that makes people feel like floating down the street? It really is. It's a drug. It's a super positive creative drug that makes you incredibly connected to the people that make it. You know, I mean, I was watching the, I don't know if you've seen the Elvis movie, the new movie on Elvis.

Did not. Pretty interesting. I have my own movie of Elvis in my head that I didn't want to change. Right. But go ahead. I don't think it'll change it. All right. I mean, it's, you know, it's dramatization.

It's obviously Tom Hanks is the colonel. You're seeing Tom Hanks. That's decent casting. Oh, it's great. Yeah. Oh, he's great in it. He's great in it. It's really good.

It's really good. I mean, it leaves out a lot. It kind of glosses over a lot of shit. But you realize that the reaction that these people are having to his music, it's like, and everybody's like, what the fuck is going on? It's like they're all on drugs. Like all these women are on drugs. They're screaming. They're throwing panties at him.

And back then, there wasn't really someone like him before him. You know, so he comes around and they all freak out because it's a new drug it's this new feeling that you get from this this creation this you know combination of artists and music and sounds with the delivered by this one guy and he's saying you know how and they're all going as well I have been wild that was great it took me so long to realize how good he was. Part of my fuel as a teenager and young 20s was just hate of other people's art. Like, ah, we'll show you.

We'll make something different and better. Which is positive. It has to happen. You have to rebel against that which has come before you at a certain point. Yeah. to happen you have to rebel against that which has come before you at a certain point yeah but as i got older i realized this man is the real deal as was little richard as were the everly brothers as were all the boys that led up to elvis sure flea and i went to graceland in the early 80s we were on tour we were in a van.

We hadn't slept on a bed for months. All we had was the leather jackets on our back and nothing else. But we were in Memphis playing a show, probably in a barn or something. And we're like, didn't Elvis have a house here? Can't we go walk through his house?

So we went to Graceland when it was not commercialized. It was a very small little tour. You could walk right through the house, into his cars, the garage. There were no restrictions. And I went in there and I was so obnoxious and so horrible because all these people were just in awe of every little element of elvis's life i was like this isn't this where he took a shit on the toilet and like od'd on pills and

because i was just a little idiotic punk rocker who had no broader sense of greatness and how people might be relating to this guy yeah it. It's just a stupid little memory I feel embarrassed about, but that's who I was at the time. Well, that's so normal for young artists to hate on art that they think is uncool or commercial or derivative. Like, that was the knock on Elvis.

He was derivative of black culture. But what's he going to do? That's what he likes. You know, he's affected and influenced by those people, and he's creating his own music. Like, what is he supposed to do, not do it? Obviously, people loved it. It was amazing.

But I get the resentment from those artists. I understand that. But there's a thing from young people coming up where you just want to you want to hate on the things that you think are uncool you know we we made a career out of that for a couple of years um but as far as like borrowing and using culture that you love which i you know can be construed as appropriation. I'm all for it.

I want to be appropriated. And I think that's what culture is for. Yes. Enjoying and loving and learning and taking and assimilating. Yeah, it should be that. We went to a, yeah, it should be that. I want to dress like you because you look great. I mean, it should be that with art, with food, with everything.

Yeah, appropriate on. Yeah. I mean, that's literally we are building on the backs of the people that came before us. All of us are in everything we do. In the way we talk, in literature, in everything. We build upon the people that came before. this just this idea of cultural appropriation being a negative thing to me is preposterous like it's it's a respect there's no you don't culturally appropriate things that you don't love it's a love you love those things you know yes if you're cooking mexican food and you happen to be d Dutch like who gives a shit man that's not gonna be good Mexican but yes it might be mmm was that guy Rick Bayless he skipped Bayless his brother what right skip Bayless but Rick Bayless is like one of the premier

Mexican food chefs in the world and he's an American and people shit on him because this guy has like this deep love of Mexican cuisine. It's very infectious. Don't shit on him, please. He makes all these videos, and he talks about them. He's famous. He's got a restaurant in Chicago, this famous Mexican restaurant. This is the guy.

But this guy, he's super into Mexican food. Is that his Instagram? Rick underscore Bayless. So it's really all about the burrito. Can he make a good burrito? I bet he can make anything, man. That fucking guy loves Mexican food. But it's real. It's a

real love. Like, what do you want him to do? Not do it? I want him to do it. Yeah, but imagine people that are mad at him. Like, don't do what you love. Because you weren't born on the same patch of dirt as the people. Come on. It's crazy. No, I love appropriating.

Yeah. I've been doing it my whole life, and I love it. I'll never stop. We went to a Native American reservation Wednesday, last Wednesday, to play a show. Wednesday to play a show. And about nine months ago, we were putting out all this music, and Flea had been to a powwow. And he was like, the dancing blew me away. They're so dedicated. They're so beautiful, so artful. It's like, we got to get to a reservation and play music. I was like, great idea. Let's do it. So it finally came to pass last Wednesday. And somehow we chose the Hoopa tribe in Northern California, in Hoopa Valley, California. And we arrive and it's a school gymnasium and it's a free concert. And all of our equipment is there. And it's just cool people. They're very poor and very very isolated and we just wanted to go rock out for them but the first thing they did was give us all this cool stuff that they made which is

native american gear and they wanted us to wear it they're not worried about appropriation we could sing songs all day long about our take, like my band, on their experience. They love it. If we get it right, if we get it wrong, they just love that we care. And it was the best show of the year for us because nobody paid.

It was kids in a school gymnasium in the middle of nowhere. Surreal. They didn't believe we were coming. They're like, we don't believe it. Why? Why us? Like, we chose you.

Let's just have fun. That's amazing. But they definitely defied the concept of appropriation, like right off the bat. Here's our stuff. Please wear it. Well, I think that's great. Like, they love the fact that you appreciated

their culture we love the culture we love it and you know people are people um i don't care what class you come from what race you come from what gender you come from people are people you're going to be assholes and you're going to be amazing people. Just people are people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and the variables, the differences, that's one of the cooler things. Of course. Yeah.

I mean, I don't want everybody to assimilate and become one thing, but I do love the fact there are so many – there's so much variety of types of cultures. Thank God. Thank God. It's one of the of types of cultures. Thank God. Thank God. It's one of the cooler things about humans. There's so many different ways to live life. It's one of the cooler things about the USA. That was our secret weapon to being a culturally interesting place

that invented things like jazz and the blues and rock and roll. Stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy. Yeah. It's an American art form. Yes, because we have the great confluence of everybody. Everybody together. Everybody.

Yeah. I love all these other countries we visit on tour, but it's one flavor. It's primarily one flavor. And then you get here, and it's the appropriated, assimilated melting pot. Yeah, it really is. It's a wild place to be.

We're very fortunate in that regard. Maybe even Texas barbecue. Texas barbecue comes from Germany. What? Yeah. It's Germans. Okay. The Germans that moved to this part of Texas, they smoked their meats. And they changed it a little bit and adapted it.

And it ultimately became Texas barbecue. But like Texas barbecue, like brisket. Like brisket is a cheap cut of meat. Brisket was for poor people. And so, you know, everybody, the expensive cuts of meats like T-bones and ribeyes, right? Well, brisket, they had to figure out how to cook it and make it edible because it's a tough, you know, brisket is like the below the rib cage, like chest area. It's like a tough, like kind of, you know, like gristly, not that much fat in it. And so they figured out cooking it slowly over low heat and doing it with smoke. And that's how they created Texas brisket, which is now like the preferred meat.

You go to a barbecue, everybody wants the brisket. I got introduced to brisket through the Jewish community. Yes, they love it too. I always thought it was Jewish. I didn't even realize it was a German Texas barbecue. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's different chains of it, right? That's what's interesting.

Like corned beef, pastrami, very Jewish, right? Yes. And that's their way of cooking that food. And if you go to Montreal, they call it smoked meat. And you get smoked meat sandwiches, and it's basically like pastrami and corned beef. They have their version of it up there. It's delicious. Have you considered starting a wild animal barbecue establishment?

It's so funny that you say that because I actually have. I actually talked to my friend Philip Franklin Lee, who's a Michelin star chef. He started this place, Sushi Bar ATX, and now he runs Sushi by Scratch, which is literally the most amazing sushi I've ever had in my life. And he's got a new burger place out here that he just opened. What is it called? Not a Chance Burgers. Is that what it's called? Not a Damn Chance.

Not a Damn Chance Burgers. Fantastic chef. And he and I actually talked about that. Because one of the things about Texas as opposed to most other states is that you can actually sell wild game here. Because wild game that's not indigenous to texas uh they have a lot of uh introduced species like there's an insane amount of animals that they've introduced into private ranches in texas that have come from africa and india and like animals that are like endangered in other countries are prevalent here. Like oryx, like a scimitar oryx.

It's very endangered. I think, where are they from? From India or Africa? They're very endangered wherever they're from. Here, they're common. Sounds like a deer. It's like an antelope. Yeah.

It's like they're wild looking creatures. Pull up a scimitar. It's almost like they're, looks like it's kind of in the goat family or something. They're crazy-looking things. Scimitar oryx. Africa? North. Well, North Africa.

Look at that thing. That is a wild-looking animal, right? Well, in Texas, they're common. A lot of people have them But wherever the fuck What part of North Africa they're from There's more tigers In captivity in Texas

In private collections How many? Than there are in all of the wild of the world What's that number? Thousands Thousands I think it's somewhere between Three and five thousand

There you go I got one on my arm too bro Yes Year of the tiger I have a tiger with Miyamoto Musashi somewhere between three and five thousand there you go I got one on my arm too bro yes year of the tiger I have uh a tiger with uh Miyamoto Musashi from the book of five rings okay do you know what that is I don't he's a samurai from the 1400s who uh defeated 62 men in one-on-one combat and he wrote a book on strategy that I read when I was a teenager, when I was doing martial arts competitions. It's called The Book of Five Rings. And it sort of shaped my philosophy in many ways on life. Because as a samurai, he believed that to be the best

sword fighter, you had to be balanced. You had to do calligraphy and poetry and art, and you couldn't have any holes in your game, your mental game, your spiritual game. I like that. And he had a statement that he had a thing that he wrote that carried me throughout my whole life. It's once you understand the way broadly, you can see it in all things. And the

idea is the way of sword fighting was much like the way of carpentry, was much like the way of art. You see what the way is. It's like, get out of your own way and see the path to greatness, see the path to creation, and that you can find it in all things. So once you see it, once you truly understand it, you're not bullshitting yourself, you're not filled with ego, you're not filled with false bravado and fake confidence, get out of that. Once you see the path, you'll see it in everything. It's like you see a pattern, and that pattern is of creation. And I think you recognize that. It's one of the things that I love about great things.

When I see something great, whether it's great piano playing or someone who's great at chess or someone's great. I love seeing the path and seeing someone who just like finds the thing to express whatever the energy inside of them is. You do have to get out of your own way. Got to get out of your own way. You really do. And people that don to get out of your own way. Got to get out of your own way. You really do. And people that don't get out of their own way, it's so sad. Like I have friends that don't get out of their own way.

I'm like, oh, I wish I could tell you how to do that. Did I see your man in the lobby? The Book of Five Rings chap? Is he pictured? The armor? There's a painting, a Greg Overton samurai painting, but it's not necessarily Musashi. Okay. This is Musashi.

That's him. Okay. That's him with the tiger. Yeah. Did he study animals to figure out there? No. My buddy Aaron De La Vadova Aaron who's the tattoo artist that did that he came up with this design

It's nice to have a tiger. Yeah. Tigers are always cool. But anyway, Texas So circling back You can get wild game here and you can sell it. So there's a lot of restaurants here. There's a great place called the Lonesome Dove here in Austin and Lonesome Dove actually

serves wild game. Texas wild game. They serve like, they have like rattlesnake sausage. And I would eat that. Neal guy, which is an Indian animal. It's really cool looking. Have you ever seen a Neal guy? Show that. I'm actually going hunting for one of these things

with the television show Meat Eater in December. But a Neal guy is this enormous 700-pound crazy antelope-looking thing. Look at that. That's a Neal guy. Looks meaty. Isn't that wild-looking? Buff. Powerful.

You were a vegetarian for a while, right? So on the subject of food, I love food. I love eating food. Who doesn't? I love it. I eat it all day. And I really respect everybody's choice to find their path for eating. I don't impose my concepts of eating on other people.

I want everyone to find what works for them because we're all different. We all have different metabolisms, different genetics. Absolutely. And it has been a fantastic journey of trying everything under the sun. For the longest time, I just ate whatever you had. I was so poor and so hungry. Whatever you're cooking, that's what I ate. That's my diet. And then when it got to the point where I started learning about food, I met a girl and her family was vegetarian. And she was so full of love, Ioni Sky. Love and light and just a good person and her whole vibe in the family house. I was like, I'll try that. So I did the vegetarian

for a few years, got poor again and started eating whatever was available to sustain. And then I tried everything, pescatarian, vegan. And my body just never totally vibed with any of those things perfectly. Then I met this girl, Terry Cochran, who's a scientist and a nutritionist. And she studies your genes, 23andMe, takes days to study your genes, and plans out your food based on your genetics. And for me, it was wild freaking animals. That's what I was resonating with.

She's like, I want you to eat alligator, elk, moose, kangaroo. I was like, really? She's like, yes, all the injuries you're having are going to sort out for you. I was like, I'll try it. And the pandemic hit. I went to Kauai. I hired a chef who could source all of

those things. Half of these pictures you're showing, antelope. And I had no choice but to eat it because that's all that was in my fridge. The dude would cook and leave me food. I felt the best I've ever felt in my life. The strongest, the fastest, the sharpest, mental clarity. So that's my diet now. Well, it's the most nutrient-dense food on earth. If you get Wild Game, it has the most protein, the most vitamins. We're talking about like a piece of elk meat. If you look at it, it's a deep red color.

Very red. And it's just rich with protein and amino acids. It's fantastic for you. I mean, I know a lot of people ethically, they don't like the idea of eating animals. I understand it. I get where you're coming from. Yeah, I understand that too. I love animals. Yeah, I do too. That's how I relate to. The thing about animals is they don't live forever. And the way they die in the wild is horrific. In comparison to the way I get them, the way they die without me is way worse, and they're not going to live forever. If they're lucky, they get to 10, 11, 12.

Crazy if they get to 12. And most of the time, they're getting torn apart by animals or they freeze to death. And the farm world is no bueno. No bueno. No, it's not good for us, not good for them. No, except regenerative agriculture when people are doing it correctly and they're allowing these animals to roam free on grass-fed farms. And, you know, there's ways that people do it. Like there's a guy named Joel Salatinatin who's got this uh place called uh

polyface farms and he is uh an expert and a proponent of regenerative agriculture where the manure from the cows is the is the fertilizer for the plants and the pigs they roam free and they they chew up the ground to get roots and the chickens come along and it's like all these animals, they have this symbiotic relationship with the earth and that it's actually carbon neutral when it's done correctly. Well done. The real question is though, and this is what I've asked a lot of people this and I can't really get a square answer. It's like, is that sustainable for enormous populations? It doesn't seem like it is. I think nature has a way of creating sustainability.

And if you study nature, which that sounds closer to, it might be more sustainable than we think. Population is a beast. Population is a beast. The issue is what's unnatural is a city. When you can jam 20 million people into an area that's not growing anything other than weed. It's kind of weird. It's kind of weird. I mean, you're stuffing all these people into this area

like Los Angeles, for example. Very little water. Everybody's condensed and they're all getting food from somewhere. Well, they're not growing it. So everything has to be shipped in. So you got all this, you know, the carbons coming from all the trucks that are shipping things in. My favorite is the wild boar. I love

it to pieces. And really it comes down to what are these animals eating? Because that's what makes their composition. So you look at a wild boar, like you said, they're eating roots and leaves and grubs and all this good stuff off the forest floor. And that's turning their meat into something beautiful. Yeah. And I honor their life and I respect the fact that I'm taking a life, but they don't live forever. And you're taking the body, you're not taking the spirit. The thing about wild boar here in Texas and in California as well, they have to shoot them because they're an invasive species. They brought them in when the Europeans came, like in whatever year they brought them over to this country.

And now they're everywhere. There's millions of them in Texas. And they literally have to hunt them. They have to because there's no natural predators or certainly not enough. I mean, their only natural predators really are mountain lions. And there's no way mountain lions can keep up with the way they breed. Their gestation period is, I think it's like three months, three weeks, and three days. So they can, in a perfect world, they can have three cycles of gestation every year.

So they could have three litters a year. They're making babies. Yeah, it's crazy how many they make. And they just go. From the time they're six months old, when they're six months old, they can give birth, which is crazy. A little young. And they're just shooting out piglets. And those little piglets are running around destroying crops,

and there's no natural predators. Well, let me know when you start your wild game barbecue joint. All right, buddy. Please. I will. I wish if you lived out here, man, I'd supply you with food. I have a lot of meat. I hook up a lot of my friends with elk meat.

It's surprisingly attainable. I got elk coming down the pike. I have a little tiny Irish chef called Anya. And if I say any animal to her, like, I'd like to try some alligator. She's like on the phone getting the alligator scent. It works. Nice. Yes.

Yeah, alligator hunted in Florida this year. You hunted. Yeah. It's heavy. I, alligator hunting is in Florida this year. You hunted. Yeah. It's heavy. I respect that I can't do it. I'm too much of a punk to be able to do it. You're not a punk. You just don't want to do it.

It's okay. I get it. I wouldn't want to do it either if I didn't. I was either going to become a vegan or I was going to become a hunter. Those were my two paths. You should be able to kill the animal. Yeah. That's what I had done.

I had seen too many of those factory farming videos, and I was like, fuck all that. And then my friend Steve Rinella from the show Meat Eater that I was talking to you about, he took me hunting, and I actually shot that deer right there. That's the first animal I ever shot, that skull on the table. It's a mule deer that we shot. Yeah. Well, it's a deer. It's called a mule deer. Um, and it's, uh, from Montana. We shot that and, uh, I ate it and I was like, okay, that makes sense. This makes sense.

The experience is, it's difficult to attain. You have to work really hard for it. You're hiking in the mountains. You have to play the wind. You have to be smart. There's a lot going on. And then the reward for it is, mule deer like that was like a 250 pound animal. So I'm eating that for a couple months. You've got some freezers. Yeah, exactly.

No, I respect that and I wish I had it in me to come face to face with the creature that I'm eating, that I'm taking. I just haven't found it yet. You don't have to. You don't have to. Especially an alligator. I love those guys. I fucking hate those things.

I love them. I hate those things. Because when I was a little kid, I used to live in Florida. I lived in Gainesville. And there was a lady that lived in my neighborhood and her dog got snatched. She was walking her dog and this fucking alligator comes over and snatches her dog. There's no convenient market for the alligator. He's got to find his dog every day.

We can walk into a shop. They cannot. That's true, but fuck them. I love them. They eat kids, man. They eat everything. They should. They've been here 500 million years, second only to the damn shark.

They make good belts. I can't argue that. I buy alligator leather make good belts. I can't argue that. I buy alligator leather whenever I can. I don't like them. I like them. I love them. Really? And I love them in my tacos too. I find them to be soulless evil creatures that are killing machines. This guy

raised a baby alligator on his couch watching NFL games. Yeah, it's going to bite his dick when he's not looking. It hasn't bitten his dick yet. They cuddle. They kiss. Really? They're like this on the couch.

That's cute. Give them a chance. Okay. That's cute. They're survivors. Oh, they definitely are survivors. They're gorgeous. They've been here forever.

They're gorgeous. I definitely prefer them to crocodiles. Crocodiles can go fuck themselves. Tougher. Tougher. They're meaner. Yeah. They're mean.

As are we, by the way, Joe. Yeah, we're pretty mean. We're very mean. Yeah. Well, we use nuclear weapons. Crocodiles can go fuck themselves. Tougher. Tougher. They're meaner. Yeah. They're mean. There was a- As are we, by the way, Joe. Yeah, we're pretty mean. We're very mean. Yeah. Well, we use nuclear weapons. Crocodiles, just one creature at a time. Because there's no shopping malls for them. That's true.

It's true. What do they got to do? Yeah, they can't go to HEB and- They have to be clever. Cruise the meat aisle. Yep. Yeah, it's true. That's true.

I mean, I respect it. I get it. I understand it. But also it's true. That's true. I mean, I respect it. I get it. I understand it. But also, fuck you. Best alligator farm on Earth. Not a farm. It's kind of a sanctuary. St. Augustine, Florida.

Have you been there? I've been to St. Augustine, yeah. Oldest city in the United States of America. Is it really? The single oldest city. Is that where like Cabeza de Vaca landed or something? The Spanish landed there. Oh, wow. St. Augustine. That makes sense. It's a gorgeous town

and some weird animal dude, rich guy, philanthropist, something, has a sanctuary with something like 700 different breeds of alligators and crocodiles. All very well kept.

Really? It's endless. Wow. From the biggest to the tiniest to the albinos to the blue. Wow. Pretty fascinating. Blue? Blue hue. Oh, wow.

The albino was the wildest looking one. They're pretty freaky. Freaky and also a little extra aggressive. Really? By nature. Wow. The alb also a little extra aggressive. Really? By nature. Wow. The albino ones are. Yes.

I saw an albino elk a couple of years ago. They're very rare, but it's occasionally, it was a cow elk, female elk, and it was albino. It was really wild to see. It was like a ghost. That's like a spirit animal. Yeah, and it was really fascinating because I was hunting the males, so I wasn't interested in shooting her at all. I just wanted to look at her.

I was like, wow, look at that thing. It's white, just a pure white elk. Rare. Oh, so rare, very, very rare. They have them in deer as well. And buffalo. Oh, they get white buffalo? White buffalo, very sacred to the natives of Dakota.

Didn't Ted Nugent have a song about that? Ted Nugent might have a song about get white buffalo? White buffalo, very sacred to the natives of Dakota. Didn't Ted Nugent have a song about that? Ted Nugent might have a song about the white buffalo, great white buffalo. A song about him getting trampled by the buffalo? No, look at that. Look at that thing. Yes. Whoa.

God, that's beautiful. It's knocking to our lyrics on this last record. Wow, what a fucking cool animal. By the way, that is some of the most nutritious meat on earth. Buffalo. Not necessarily the white, but just buffalo in general. Not necessarily the white. Yeah.

I probably wouldn't shoot the white ones. Nope, nope. It's too rare. You're supposed to let it go. You are. Yeah. I think. They're too inspiring.

Well, it's also, it's like, you know, you just want to kill the common. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You want to kill that rare. The, that's what I'm saying. You don't want to kill that rare. The occasional whale shows up with no pigment. Really? I've seen pink dolphins. White whales.

In the Amazon, you have the pink dolphin. Yeah. But in the Pacific, you have the white-ass whale. Actually white. Pure white. Wow. The belugas. Oh, that's right.

Different than this? Belugas. Yeah, they're pretty white. Wow. The belugas. Oh, that's right. Different than this. Belugas. Yeah, they're pretty white. Belugas are white, but there's also like an albino humpback perhaps. Let me check. Cruising the coast of Australia somewhere. Oh, like a very, very rare version of it. Yeah.

There we go. Yeah. Whoa. Wow. Mm-hmm. We went whale sighting in Hawaii. I forget what time of the year it was. I want to say it's like around now.

When is it? One of the whales there. But anyway, you go out on a boat and you just go out into the ocean. They just look for them in the distance and get close to them. And you get to watch them breach. And they just fly through the water and just... It's incredible. You can't even... I mean, you know they're big.

But until you actually see them in real life, it doesn't sort of compute. And strong. Oh, my God. And majestic. Like, intelligent. Bizarre mammals that live in the ocean. That for some reason don't have hands and can't build stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. Which is maybe a blessing for them. And they talk. And sing. Yeah. And love. Yeah. Yeah.

I had a day of surfing with a mother and her calf where I live in Malibu. And it was a great wave day, just epically beautiful, clear, perfectly shaped waves. But then we had a humpback and her kid on the sandbar because they like to rub their bellies on the sandbar. And she was kind of sitting right on the takeoff spot for surfing. Whoa. I was like, I don't really want to disturb mother and child, but I do have to get that wave. So I got as close as I could to the takeoff spot, and they didn't care.

They were like, go for it. You know, we're here, you're here. Spent hours surfing with a whale in my company. Wow. My friend Peter Attia, he's a doctor, he told me that orcas, the sounds that they make and the sounds, their ability to detect sounds, like the frequency that they can project is similar to ultrasound. Like you know how they use ultrasound to detect an injury?

They can see through you. They can see through you. Literally can see through you through the ocean. He goes, it's mind-boggling. Like, we don't even understand, like, what's going on in them. And when you see, like, an orca's brain in comparison to a human brain, like, they've done, and the dolphins as well. Dolphins, their cerebral cortex is like 40% larger than a human being.

So they have massive brains where dolphins can have one, and an orca is basically a dolphin. It's like the cousin of a dolphin. Dolphin family, yeah. They shut one half of their brain down when they go to sleep. Beautiful. So one half is always awake to look out for danger and problems. So that's how they sleep. They don't sleep like us.

They sleep like one half shuts off. Orca is my guy. They're amazing, man. That's what's on my back. Oh, really? Yes. Yeah. Only killed people in captivity.

As long as we're showing the shit oh yeah so that face in the middle is the the haida interpretation of the orca yeah they don't kill people only in captivity which is fair game fuck yeah fair game they're getting tortured and anybody who's seen black fish or anybody who knows what's going on in Marineland, all that shit that's going on in Canada right now, it's horrible, man. It's horrible. It's like it's a form of torture to a sentient animal that might be as smart as us. And one day we're going to look back on the captivity of orcas and dolphins and we're going to be horrified that people were so callous or right now or right now pretty horrified right yeah but i think there's too

many people that still don't understand they still don't know and they'll still go to sea sea world and watch them jump out of the water it's crazy and they're very family yeah they're all about their pod right which is why it's so sick that they take them from their pod and put them in a fucking swimming pool. Yeah, we can do better than that. Yeah. Well, you know, we should observe them only in the wild. That's what we should do. I mean, they shouldn't allow those places.

They shouldn't exist. If you want to have a marine land or a sea world, it should literally be like a place where you can go and they have a giant screen and you watch documentaries of these creatures so you can appreciate them. And maybe you could donate to some sort of a conservation group and they put some of that money to it. But to have them in captivity, fuck that. There's no reason for that. There's zero reason for that. On my bucket list, which I don't really have, but if I did have a bucket list, hanging out in the wild with the orca, preferably surfing, which can be done,

but also I would just swim out to one. I feel it has to be done. That's a fear that I want to face. Oh, my God. Because they could just... If they wanted to, just swallow you. Yeah, swallow. But they won't because they never have.

No, they don't. Isn't that wild? They've actually helped people. There's people that have been drowning, people that have fallen off of boats, and they've helped them. They've actually rescued humans. Like, they're so smart, man. They've just evolved in a way where they've never figured out how to manipulate their environment. They don't have to.

They don't have to. They maneuver through 3D space. They use sound, and they communicate in a way that we can't even decipher. I mean, think of all the code smashers, all these people that have figured out these complex codes and they can decipher them. They have no idea what those workers are saying. They know that they have dialects, so they know they sound different in one part of the world than they do in other parts of the world. But they don't know what the fuck they're saying they have no idea half of its song they just like singing i bet and dancing have you ever heard of john lilly

john lilly's the man who developed the sensory deprivation tank and he's also a pioneer in interspecies communication and one of the things he was doing, he was a legitimate scientist. One of the things he was doing was trying to decipher dolphin communication and trying to get dolphins to speak English.

He was a wild dude. He would take acid and get it in a sensory deprivation tank right next to a tank filled with orcas. And he would try to communicate with them while he was tripping. And one of the things he did was he developed this research center where they had an orca that lived with a woman. And she lived in this house that was filled with water. So the orca could swim around.

house that was filled with water so the orca could swim around so for her to get to her bed she had to like you know the water was like it wasn't an orca excuse me it was a dolphin and the water was like you know chest high so the dolphin would swim around in this high in this house and then to get into the bed she'd have to like climb out of the water and into the bed and the dolphin was a male dolphin and it would get distracted because it was so hypersexual so she would jerk off the dolphin and when they found out about it they killed the research they should they should have upped the they should have the money yeah hire someone to jerk them off they're more there's they're just as freaking sexual as we are maybe even more so but the only way it would participate in these activities was if it

got jerked off hand job hand job so they they found out and they killed the science yeah they're humping everything yeah constantly so without knowing any of that story prior to right now great story in 1983 the sensory deprivation tank had become a little bit of a thing in Hollywood, and you could go and rent a little time. We have one here. You have one here. But this is early days. Yeah. This is John Lilly days.

Yeah. And out of nowhere, I decided to give my best friend at the time, Tree, some LSD. tree, some LSD. I said, let's take this LSD, go up to the apartment complex, and we're going to rent an hour in the tank side by side. And he was like, okay, let's do it. So we took the LSD. We drove his car. We got in the tanks. I thought it was just going to be, ooh, trippy dippy. I thought it was just going to be, ooh, trippy dippy. Forget it. I was 10 billion miles away in outer space. An astral plane experience. Yeah.

Completely conscious, but nobody. Just flying through the quiet vastness of space. It was almost more than we could handle. But those things are real. The elements combined. I don't do LSD anymore, but as a young man, it made sense to me. The combination of the two things is what's really phenomenal. Because what Lily, he invented the sensory deprivation tank because he was trying to figure out a way to separate the mind from any of the physical input of the body.

It works. It does work. Probably without LSD. Oh, it definitely does without LSD. Yeah. It's one of the best ways to achieve a psychedelic state without any drugs. And also you can end it at any time. Just open the door.

The door. And it's over. It's not like you have to come down from it. It just goes away. I had to come down on that day. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I had to get home.

I bet you did. How'd you get home? It from it? It just goes away. I had to come down on that day. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I had to get home. I bet you did. How'd you get home? It was tough. It was tough. The roads were disappearing under the car. You have a tank here in the office? It's in the gym. Okay.

Yeah, it's right next door. I'll show it to you. Okay. It's awesome. It's from Los Angeles. There's a place called the Float Lab. Yeah. It's in Venice.

It's the premier float destination on Earth. My friend crash runs it it's incredible and uh crash is a mad scientist and he's developed a sensory deprivation tank that's like super advanced with like ozone filtration and the water filtration is like he he gets these systems that are from like commercial water filtration for people's drinking water and shit. And he has this whole process of, and then it's a giant tank, too. It's like a meat freezer. Size of this room?

No, no, no. It's like from this back to there. But it's nice and wide where you could reach about. You touch this side and touch that side, so you sort of center yourself in the water. How about just floating on water? Yeah. Pretty good. It's amazing.

And there's 1,000 pounds of Epsom salts in there. So you're very buoyant. Body temp. Body temp. You don't feel it. You don't feel it. It's incredible. Yeah.

Pitch black. Yep. Yeah. And you just blend it in nothingness. And when the mind is detached from the physical sensations of the body, your brain becomes supercharged. And the way I always describe it is like, if we were having this conversation, there was someone next to us with a jackhammer, it'd be super distracting. It'd be like, let's get over there so we can talk. We can't hear.

But everything is input. The sensory input of your butt touching this chair, right? Your hands touching this desk, the earphones on, the microphone in front of your butt touching this chair, right? Your hands touching this desk. The earphones on. The microphone in front of your face. The physical space. You and I exchanging social cues and communicating with sound. All that stuff is input. Well, in the sensory deprivation tank, there's none.

Zero. And then with the water being the same temperature as your skin, it feels like you're flying. That was my experience. It's amazing. On acid, it must be insane. I've never done it on acid. I think it just exacerbated the whole aspect of what you're talking about where there's no body. Yeah.

Your brain is free to go wherever it likes. I loved it. To me, it was pretty monumental. I don't think I would repeat it under those circumstances. But I'm happy I did. Well, if you did, you'd want more time. One hour is like, beam, time's up, Anthony. Time was up.

Time was up. What do you mean time's up? I'm on Jupiter. But now for me, I get an even better feeling in the ocean. The ocean is so full of life and peace and nature and excitement. That's my tank these days. Yeah, you were telling me about your love of surfing the other day. You love it, huh?

I do because it gives me that feeling, that freedom. There's an energy. I'm late to the game, late to the party, late as you can be. Started in my 40s, tried a handful of times before that, made no sense. And then when I finally found it through Takuji Masuda, my teacher, my Japanese teacher, that's what I want to do till the day I die. Wow. Just go sit out there waiting for a wave.

I die. Just go sit out there waiting for a wave. If you think about the storms, 3,000 miles away, raging in the ocean, sending that wave of energy through the water. When it finally releases, when it hits the shallows, it's a rush. It's a drug. It's a high. It's a natural high where you're next to whales and dolphins and pelicans and eels and anemones. And just looking back at the coast with a different point of view, no phone, no technology whatsoever, just water and a board. And that water's charged, too. It's like there's life in that water. That water's not just water. That water's like a giant living superorganism. Superorganism. Sustains life. Ions and minerals.

There's energy to it. Yeah. A lot of my jujitsu friends love surfing because a lot of Brazilians surf. I've seen them out there. Yeah. And, you know, like a lot of them come from Rio and a lot of surfers in Rio. And they come over to America. So they surf in America.

All over the world. You see them in the water. Yeah. They love it. And it's also, it's a great exercise for jujitsu too because it's so balance based. There's so much going on. It's also a flow exercise. Jujitsu's very much about like flowing.

Right. Scrambling. Yeah. There's a lot. You got to scramble with the wave. Yeah. You don't know what it's going to give you. Right. One wave jacks up more than another. Right. Scrambling. Yeah, there's a lot. You gotta scramble with the wave. You don't know what it's gonna give you. Right. One wave jacks up more than another. Have you ever done one of those wave

pools? Those crazy places that they develop? There's one out here in Waco. Yeah. It develops waves and apparently it's a great way to learn. It's a good way to practice. You get to ride a lot of different waves. It's not an organism. Right. But it's a way to get used to surfing itself if if you want to train and and really work on your your technique and get better it rather than have this experience with nature

it's definitely the place to go and also if you live in Texas. Right. So people that are competitive and in the leagues and want to go to the Olympics, it's the greatest invention ever because you can just work on turns, specific turns. I don't care about any of that. I just want to go paddle out into the unknown. I get it. Yeah. But I see the value and they're popping up everywhere. Yeah, they're everywhere, right?

There was one that just got shot down in Palm Springs. Shot down? Yeah, unfortunately. There's concern that it's going to bring a bunch of fucking crazy hippies in their VW buses playing their loud rock and roll. I don't know why they shot it down. I mean, I think they might have shot it down also because of concern that it uses a lot of water.

Yeah. But can't they just get that water from the ocean? You would think. It's not that far from the Sea of Cortez. There's plenty of water out there. They got to just get the salt out of the water. They do. That's the problem.

The problem is not the lack of water. It's salt. Well, there are lots of people working on that. Yeah, they should. That would fix California like that. It's expensive right now. Fuck yeah, it's expensive. Yeah, but why?

Why haven't you guys... Nuclear-powered desalination plants. You're welcome. Fix it. Fix it. California should look like a fucking jungle. It should be beautiful and green, lush.

All that fucking sun, all that sun. If you're constantly spraying water over everything, it would be amazing. We have some lush. We have some lush. I just, Hoopa Valley,

lush. Okay. Northern California. Yeah. I went to Northern California a few years back with my family. Went to the rainforest. The, to see the redwoods.

That's crazy. That's lush. Well, that's the thing about California, right? There's so many different ecosystems that are all combined. You have your desert, you have the rainy as fuck in Northern California. There's so much. Your mountains are right there. The ocean's right there. Mountains see the

whole deal. It's amazing. It is. Yeah, it's an amazing state. I can't pull myself away. I get it. I get it. If I was going to live somewhere, I'd live where you live, though. Malibu's the spot.

I have a spare lot. I do. I was saving it for my son, but. Is it right next door to you? It is. I'll be your neighbor. Yeah. I would live in Malibu.

If I was going to live anywhere in California, I'd think Malibu. Malibu's got a great vibe. There's also a thing about being next to the ocean that's very humbling. I think it's very good for people to be just confronted by inescapable beauty and power of nature. And that's what oceans do. I need that. I need to be humbled daily it's good for everybody the mountains do the same thing they do yeah 100 yeah you know what the the root of that

word is which word humble humble no to be close to the ground to be low to the ground oh really yeah that makes sense yeah feels right yeah yeah humble, people look at that as a negative. That's good. It's so positive. You should be humble, man. You're in space. I go to the big island. I try to go once every few years.

But whenever I do go, we go to the Keck Observatory. I don't know if you've ever been up there. Mauna Kea or whatever it is. I think that's it. Yeah, yeah. The big if you've ever been up there. Mauna Kea or whatever it is. I think that's it. Yeah, yeah. The big mountain. Mauna Loa maybe? Mauna Kea?

Whatever the mountain is that's up there, there's an observatory that you get to. It's like many thousand feet above sea level. And if you can time it right, if you could visit during no moon, when the moon's not out, it's fucking spectacular. You're in space. You literally are on a spaceship with a glass dome over you. That's what it looks like. You have an unhindered view of the cosmos that I've never experienced before. I mean, I've been in the country when it's a beautiful dark night and you get to see all the stars and it looks amazing.

But up there, you're through the clouds. I think you're like 11 is it 13 13 000 feet above i could be wrong i think it's 13 super high up there that's what it looks like but that's literally what it looks like man that's not an exaggeration that's not that's not a fake image it's so incredible that i remember going there once changed the way i feel about our relationship to space. Like forever. And I also got so upset thinking, like, how fucked is it that that's not available to us just because we're so weird with light? We want everything lit up at night. You know, we want the cities lit up and they want everything to be lit up.

And when you get that light pollution, you miss the majesty of the cosmos which is what i think humbled our ancestors i think all of our ancestors were completely connected to the cosmos if you look at like the mayans the mayans they designed all of their structures structures in their cities to represent the cosmos, to represent constellations. And so did the Egyptians. They were connected to the cosmos. Yes, it was inescapable. They also didn't have television, radio, film, computers.

So you had to deal with the elements, which is what made a lot of those people so smart. Because from sunup to sundown, you're working on your connection. Yeah. Da Vinci. Yeah. No distractions. None. Just art.

Just art and invention and philosophy and all day, every day. Yeah. There's something about that view of the cosmos that I really wish more people would get. I'm going to go check it out. I've never been up there. I've ridden my motorcycle all around that island many times,

but I've never ridden up to the top of that mountain. It's wild. You've got to go up there and find out when the next dark night is. What do they call it? Was it a dark? What is it called when it's no moon at all? New moon? New moon.

Obviously, you could look at it on a calendar but if you get up there during that time it's pretty fucking amazing i mean it really it blew me away my oldest daughter uh was i think she was like nine or ten at the time i think she was too young to appreciate it but we were when we were up there the last time, we were just like standing there staring at it. I remember thinking, I'm never going to forget this. I'm never going to forget what this feels like. It just, it's just, I was like, oh, we're in space. I don't think she'll forget it either.

I hope not. I don't think she will. I think at that age you're still impressionable. I think so. Yeah. Shit, I'm impressionable now, and I'm 50. But you might have gone through a patch where you were less impressionable. Hopefully.

Yeah. My teenage son is like, what? Cosmos. Fuck out of here, bitch. I'm on TikTok. I'm going to Subway. What are you talking about? Well, teenage boys in particular, they're feeling their oats and their testosterone flowing through their system.

Rebels. Yeah. Well, you need that. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a push and a pull. Does he have a physical outlet to express his physical energy? Not enough. I wish he had more.

He is a baller. He plays the basketball. Oh, that's good. Basketball's a great way. It is. It is. I beg him to go surfing, but it's my thing in his mind. That's your thing, Dad. Oh, he doesn't want to fuck with your thing.

He doesn't want to fuck with my thing. He doesn't want to fuck with my thing. He's got to be a rebel. But when he does paddle out, his eyes light up. Yeah. And he's a natural. Oh. He's a big, strong boy. So I'll just let him find it.

Get him into jiu-jitsu. He was into jiu-jitsu as a child. Yeah? As a little boy. Yeah. I had good teachers coming over, and he was willing. Not anymore. One thing about California, there's a lot of jiu-jitsu out there. Good teachers.

Oh, my God. Yeah. I could steer you in the right place. Let me know. Could you? Oh, yeah. You know something about that? I know a lot of my good friends out there teach.

I tried it three times in my life. Yeah? It hurt. It freaking hurt. It's designed to hurt. It hurt. Like, I liked it. But I was so competitive that I got home and I realized there was no skin on my feet from the mats.

Yeah. Like, I have no technique. Right. So I'm just trying to muscle it, you know, dig in. I did all right. I fought some guys. It was fun. Hurt.

The key to learning jiu-jitsu is to learn how to play. Like, the Gracies, they always have this phrase, like, Hannah Gracie and Huron Gracie, they say, keep it playful. Right. And it's great advice. If you could really follow that advice, that's how you learn. Because you learn how to not muscle things. You learn how to only use technique and to have fun.

And just don't be crazy competitive. Know that you're going to get tapped out. Know that you're going to tap other people. It's going to be fine. But if you just always try to win every time, you're not going to learn. You're going to be too tense. You're going to be too you're not going to open yourself up. So you're not going to take chances., you're not going to learn. You're going to be too tense. You're going to be too, you're not going to open yourself up. So you're not going to take chances.

So you're not going to learn as much. Yeah. It'll hinder you. You think you're doing good because you're not getting tapped. But really, you're doing bad because you're not learning enough. That was my experience. It's normal. Most men do.

I mean, it's interesting when you see guys do it for the first few times. You see the tension in them. They can't breathe. They're so fucking tense, and they get tired so quick. You've got to play. Yeah, you've got to keep it playful. Relax. Yeah.

I love watching it. I love the art. I love the chess match of all that. Fascinating. Can't get enough of it. What do you do physically other than surf? You're in really good shape. I mean, not to be a jerk, but very little.

Very, very little. Do you just have great genes? No, I am a performer for a living, so that's two hours of good exercise. What about aerobics? I like the bicycle very much. I get on a bike almost every day just to go ride next to the ocean and be humbled. And surf is super limited

because we don't always have waves. And if it's like a show day or a rehearsal day, I can't go surf. Being a dad, you know, wrestling my son a bit, that kind of thing. But I don't have a discipline that I go to, just engaging life physically, always, since I was a kid. But I don't really have a routine.

I don't have a beach workout or a weight thing or any of that. Nothing. I like some push-ups here and there. A lot. I like the isometrics when I can get into that. By the way, if you surf, if you do go to Hawaii for a month and surf every day, you're the strongest you've ever been in your life. Kayaking.

Oh, yeah. Haven't done it for a while, but... Kayaking's hard. It's great on the shoulders. It's so good. You get strong. Fuck yeah. Haven't done it for a while, but. Kayaking's hard. It's great on the shoulders. It's so good. You get strong. Fuck yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, surfing is also like just your core, your balance. And then, you know, like you were saying, getting in tone. Just you're connected to Mother Earth in just an undeniable way. Right? You're a part of the ocean. You're floating around. Instantly. in an undeniable way, right? You're a part of the ocean. You're floating around. Instantly. Instantly. From the minute the board hits the water,

you're in another world. Do you ever have any shark encounters? I wish. Really? Well, I mean, not a... Not a bad one. Not a bad one. I have never seen a shark in all my days of surfing.

Have you ever seen the drone footage when they fly drones over malibu you see how many sharks are out there thank goodness if they're not there we're screwed it's true yeah the more i see the better yeah um you of course you have a little shark phobia it's like a internal thing we're born with it you know are strong animals. But we're not on the menu. We've never been on the menu. They have a very specific understanding of what they want to do with their lives, and it's not us. When it is us, I believe it's a mistake. It's like a puppy going, who's this guy? They bite. I think they think we're seals, right?

They don't. No, when they make a mistake. When they make a mistake. Yeah. Yeah, we could. But that's a big mistake. But if you look at the numbers of sharks that kill people versus sharks that get killed by people, the number of sharks that get killed by people is something crazy. I think it's like 70 million a year.

Yeah. Something really nuts. And they kill about five of us if we're lucky. Yeah, it's like five or six on a bad year. On a bad year. What is it? Let's find it out. Google it.

Oh, you got it already? Oh, 100 million sharks. Holy shit. We're killing ourselves when we kill them. 100 million. Wow. They are the great balance keepers of the sea. Shark's fin soup is what it is. Yeah. Not happening. Wow. They are the great balance keepers of the sea. Shark's fin soup is what it is. Yeah.

Not happening. Wow. The fishing industry. That's crazy. Out of control. Now, how many people get killed by sharks every year? I say, I don't think it's more than like 60 or 70. A year? Killed way less. In the world. Way less. Really? Way less. the world? Way less Really? Is it? Give us some numbers please Let's take a guess, what do you think it is? Less than 10 Killed? Bit? 70 Killed? There's always little, they're puppies

They want to see what you are I just saw this number recently That's why I know 5? 6 to 8 it says 6 to 8 a year That's crazy I remember recently, that's why I know. It's like five. Five? Something like that. Six to eight, it says. Whoa, six to eight a year. That's crazy. It could be the animal that kills the least amount of people. For every 100 million sharks killed per year, about six to eight humans are killed by sharks.

Wow. This is why I support Paul Watson. How many people get bit every year? Here you go, 73 shark bites. 73. Dude, you nailed it. Unprovoked. Pretty close, pretty close, pretty close. Here you go. 73 shark bites. 73. Dude, you nailed it. Unprovoked. Pretty close.

Pretty close. Pretty close. Nailed it. And by the way- 39 provoked bites. Those people are assholes. 39 provoked bites? Who are you fucking provoking a shark, man?

You ever see the- There's an Instagram page called Torons of Yellowstone? No. Instead of morons, tourists, they're morons, Torons of Yellowstone. They deserve what they get. Oh my God, do they deserve it. It's people like running up to Buffalo going Why? And then they get

launched through the air. That's 3,000 pounds of launch muscle. Fuck that. But some people just have zero respect for what nature is. They just for some reason they think they live in a movie where they're immune to the natural laws.

Well, if you're on vacation, you should have immunity. We were on vacation a few years back. We went to Montana, and we went to Yellowstone, and there were bison that were just roaming around. They were only like 40 or 50 yards away, and when I saw them, all these people got their cameras out, and they were closing in, and here it goes. this is elk is this the launch oh this it's gonna chase this guy down this guy get fucked up yeah well you don't ever want to fuck with an elk why would you oh dude yeah oh you got off easy bitch he got that was a love tap

he got that's a big ass elk too. What was I going to say? The bison that lived there, they're in these like packs. And these people were taking photos of them. And I was with my kids. And my kids, they were young at the time. And they're like, we want to see the buffalo. We want to see the buffalo.

And we got close. And I'm like, okay, let me get like in front of you here. Let me like get in front front and I'm just thinking, okay, if shit, I'm just gonna grab the two of them like two fucking footballs

and run behind a car if some shit goes down because at any moment now, you're only 50 yards away, the buffalo could just get pissed off and go, why the fuck

are you taking my picture? And just take a wild run at them, especially if they're breeding, especially if they're in the rut. The one thing those people have going for them is that the bison doesn't really want to waste its time crushing you. Yes. It'll give you a warning.

It might give you a smash. That's true. But they want to go back to doing what they were doing. They're also super used to being around people because people are around there all the time. I'm going to go toward the grizzly bear now. You're going to go towards them? In the conversation. Oh.

Just for a moment. Okay. I've heard a couple of your comments about the grizzly, and I just want to share my little experiences. I went kayaking in Alaska. It was fantastic. Fjordal. This is some years ago.

Flea was part of the party. So this is like a glacier river? It's a river that goes between glaciers. Oh, wow. Yeah, stunning. And three grizzly bear encounters, all of which were lovely and mellow and harmless. Well, you know why, though?

You're near a food source. You're near salmon. Salmon. Yeah. And blueberries. By the way, they eat blueberries all day. All day. Their poop is blue.

Yeah, and they're wild. With bones coming out of it. Salmon bones. One time, I got ahead of the pack. I stopped at a little beach. It had a berm above my head, maybe 10 feet up. When the pack caught up with me, the kayakers in the water,

they're waving and hollering. I'm like, it's beautiful. Isn't this beautiful? We're out here in the wild. There's a grizzly 10 feet above my head looking down at me as I'm just parked on the beach. No problem. No beef. Yeah.

Second time was a mother feeding her cubs mollusks and oysters or whatever she could get. And a hiker said, there's a mama grizzly with her cubs eating around the corner. I was like, I got to go see. I cannot help myself. Really? I must go look at this beautiful animal. That's dangerous. I walked slowly, gently around the corner.

She saw me. She sent her cubs up a tree. She's like, guys, go up. And she continued to eat as she kept one eye on me. No grief. No snarling. Because you didn't surprise her. No snarling.

Just like, I see you. I'm doing my thing. You stay there. I'll stay here. Then I brought my son up, and we went looking for grizzlies. And we found them, and one crossed the river straight towards us and just walked right past us. Oh.

There's a distinction. What you're talking about is a coastal brown bear. Yeah. The ones that are eating a lot of salmon. There's a difference between them and grizzlies. The grizzlies are the inland bears. Okay. The grizzly is a bear that you would encounter, say, in Montana,

and they're much more likely to eat you. Is that right? Yeah. Eat you. Yeah. They are eating animals. They're not eating fish because there's not much fish to eat there. I mean, they might catch a trout every now and then,

but for the most part they're eating moose and deer and mostly calves, too. That's what they prefer to eat. That's a good meal. It's a good meal. I don't think I'm a good meal. You definitely would be, and they definitely would eat you. If you, you know, my woman got killed in Montana recently. She got killed in her tent.

She was, I forget what she was doing there, but she was in her tent and this bear came into her tent and killed her. It does happen. It's more likely to happen with grizzlies than it is with brown bears. Because brown bears are actually far larger too because they have an almost endless supply of fish, especially in like Alaska. The biggest brown bears in the world used to be in California.

California, even though our state flag has a grizzly bear on it, we don't have any grizzly bears in California because they killed them all. Misnomer? No. No, I'm saying the flag is a misnomer. No, they used to have them. We had grizzlies? Oh, yeah. There's a place called

Lavec, California. I know we had the brown bear, but now with the distinction. Yeah. Well, it's the same bear. Same bear. The difference between them is one of them is on the coast, and they're far larger. California had the biggest because California doesn't have a hibernation. It's not winter.

There's no winter there. Like California, like Lavec, California. Where is that? It's like on the way to Bakersfield, up the five. And it's named after the last person in California to get killed by a grizzly bear. I think his name was Stephen Levesque. You had it right the first time. It's with a B, Levesque.

Levesque. It's Peter Levesque. Levesque, yeah. What did I say, Levesque? Yeah. Levesque. That's the guy. So he got killed by a bear in 1837, which is now Fort Tohono.

So that is up near Tohono Ranch. And so this guy was the last person killed by a bear, and then they basically eradicated brown bears from California because they were killing people. Because they were hunting them down because they are predators. And they, you know, if they didn't have fish and they found a person, they're like, I'll eat you. I would have to see it to believe it. See them eat a person? Well, I've read all the accounts of them eating people and it always seems like they have a reason. Well, yeah, they're hungry.

Other than hungry. I'm eating people, and it always seems like they have a reason. Well, yeah, they're hungry. Other than hungry. Well, in California, I think the issue was people were making their way to California, and they were a new food source. They weren't there originally, right? Maybe they were just a nuisance. So people started showing up.

I'm sure they were a nuisance. Yeah. If you're a bear, and you're trying to kill a deer, and then this asshole with a musket comes along and kills your deer, and then he tries to chase you off that deer. You're like, fuck, get the fuck out of here. This is my deer you shot.

Get out of here. How about the black bear? Black bear are more likely to try to kill people than grizzly bears are. When a person gets attacked by a grizzly bear, generally it's a surprise. When a person gets killed by a black bear, it's generally a bear that's trying to kill people. They get predatory bears. They do occasionally hunt people.

But it's rare. For the most part, when a black bear sees you, they just try to run away. They also think of people as a threat. Yeah. We got charged by a black bear in Alaska. And it was as big as a brown bear. They're big, man. Oh, no.

This was a house running fast at us and then it made a right turn it was a bluff bluff charge it was a bluff thank god

it didn't know what to do fuck bears are wild animals I mean they're beautiful too though they're so cool I'm so glad they're real we love them yeah

in Pasadena Monrovia oh yeah they just come down from the hills and like jump in people's pools jump in pools I'm so glad they're real. We love them. Yeah. In Pasadena, Monrovia. Oh, yeah. They just come down from the hills and like- Jump in people's pools. Jump in pools, roam the streets, get a little snack out of the garbage. There's a great video from Pasadena. There's a guy who's on his phone and he goes and turns down this alley while he's on his phone.

And as he's like looking at his phone, he looks up and there's a bear. He's like, fuck! And he runs away. But it's like a security camera footage of this fucking guy. Every day. They're around. Yeah. Well, they come down from those mountains out there.

I'm happy that we have them. Yeah. It makes me feel like we're still alive. Well, they're cool animals, man. They're cool to see. They're all cool to see. So are raccoons, you know? They're cool to see, too.'re all cool to see so are raccoons you know they're cool to see too i always love when i see raccoons they have personality

yeah i posted a video the other day on my instagram of a raccoon killing an iguana in florida and i didn't know that raccoons are like little savages he's like like killing like a little bear yeah like biting down the head of this giant-ass iguana that's like the size of him, killing it. Haven't seen that. Look at that. Savage. Isn't that wild?

That's like you and the alligator the other day. Well, iguanas are another weird invasive species in Florida, and I guess these raccoons are adapting. They just decided to eat them. That's a big challenge right there. Isn't that wild? That thing's as big as him. There's a lot of iguanas in Florida, apparently.

I would imagine that's a tasty meal for him. They apparently taste good. Yeah. Because there's a bunch of videos on YouTube of people hunting iguanas in Florida and then cooking them. You know, they cook them in like a chicken dish. I would try that. I would. I don't know. They're invasive. Yeah. They have then cooking them. You know, they cook them in like a chicken dish. I would try that. I would. I don't know.

They're invasive. Yeah. They have to kill them. It's a good move. So do you cook yourself? No. Not at all? I will cook pancakes for my son.

I will cook eggs for myself. And that's kind of my limit. Yeah. I see the attraction to people who love to be in the kitchen, cutting and dicing and chopping and frying. My son can cook. That's not for me. No.

I just never got into it. You? Yeah, yeah, I cook all the time. Okay, yeah. I do see the beauty. I would be a good sous chef, but I just haven't mastered the real chef thing. There's something cool about it.

There's something exciting about cooking something and then eating a meal that you prepared yourself. It's very exciting. I like to be in the kitchen when that's happening, but I prefer someone with a larger skill set to be at the helm. I get it. Yeah. Yeah, someone who knows what they're doing.

You ever do any fishing? As a kid in Michigan, yes. It was kind of a go-to. Kind of have to. Yeah. If you're a kid in Michigan. Yeah, you got to fish. It's the rite of passage.

But now I have the same feeling about. About fish. I just hate taking them. I love eating fish I get it it's such a wild animal it's so good so dissatisfying

but when I see them pulling getting pulled out of the ocean I'm like ugh right I just ruin this dude's day completely

that's true especially the mahi-mahi which are flaming blue beautiful yellow and then the minute they come out,

they lose all their color. They're just like, ah, game's over. But I would. That's like an animal that I have a slightly easier time ending. I was in Mexico with my wife, and we went fishing. We caught mahi-mahi, and we cooked them literally two hours after we caught them. Cooked them, caught them, got them to shore. Two hours later, we're eating them.

And it was like, holy shit, is this good. Fish in particular, there's something about cooking them right when you catch them that makes them exponentially better. They're so good. It's like I almost feel like you're missing something if you buy like commercially caught. You're missing like what the fish has to offer you. You're not getting all of it. It's almost, I mean, it's still great. Mahi Mahi is great no matter what.

But, man, it's not as good. Like right out of the water, it's the best. I did that with my uncle in the Bahamas in the early 70s. Really? He was that guy. He was a master surgeon. So he spent all day in the hospital with open bodies trying to heal them. So we spent all day in the hospital with open bodies, trying to heal them.

And then we would take a tiny little sailboat to the Bahamas and fish and swim and live. Oh, wow. Yeah. What a cool experience that must have been. It was. He was a badass. He was a big barrel-chested badass and not afraid of sharks. I had seen Jaws show me a shark this big, and I'm just running over the top of the water to escape. And we were on the island of Bimini, which is just a little sliver of an island out in the Atlantic.

Crystal clear water. And one day a hurricane was coming. One day a hurricane was coming. And his job was to take his tiny motorboat and pull a huge sailboat out of the harbor so that it could get to the ocean before the hurricane arrived. Because that sailboat needed to get to Florida. It's raining. The seas are high and he's in a small motorboat and he's going to pull with a rope the boat out of the harbor. And I was like, I'm coming.

He's like, you are not coming. 11 year old Tony. I was like, no, I'm coming on this trip. I'm going to help. So my aunt sanctioned little Tony getting on the boat. And we pull this racing sailboat out of the harbor into the ocean, which is raging with massive waves. And we got a wave coming up over our bow, which sent us vertical. And the sailboat got a wave pushing its nose down, which pulled our stern underwater. Oh, shit. And it was my time to go moment. I was like, God, whoever you are, whatever you are, I feel a little bit young

to be checking out right now. I mean, is this what you had in mind, honestly? And as I'm having my time to leave this earth moment, my uncle grabbed a machete and went underwater and cut that rope. And we popped out like a cork whoa he

floored the engine which sent most of the water out of the boat and everything was fine wow he knew his shit he knew his shit but this is the guy that also taught me how to like pull big fish out of the ocean and in theory not be afraid of sharks. That must have been an amazing experience to be 11 and have that happen. So he had been to war. He had done the whole thing. And as he grew older, he told that story and says, that was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me in all my days. I wouldn't tell this to my nephew, but it was curtains.

We were done. Whoa. Whoa. Chuck. Wow. Yeah. My parents lived on a sailboat for a couple years. After they retired. That's ballsy. Yeah, they didn't have a lot of experience on boats either.

They just decided to learn how to sail, and they lived in the Bahamas. They lived in the Florida Keys. They just decided to live. They even just fucking drifted around in that sailboat, went to different places. You ever think about it? No. Fuck that. That's not me, man.

I enjoy fishing. I enjoy being on the water i love the ocean but if i was going to live somewhere wild i would live in the mountains for sure for sure you ever think about just taking that one-time circumnavigation of the globe in a sailboat nope no nope why fuck that it's just it's. It's just not attractive to me. I respect it. I appreciate it. It's beautiful. But to be contained on a small wooden vessel,

bouncing around at the mercy of the waves and the way the moon affects the tides. And fuck off. It's terrifying. Yeah. Look, a lot of people would say fuck off about the mountains, too. I'm not judging. Just for me, that's the vibe that I love.

I love this. Ready? Nothing. That silence that you get in the mountains when you're sitting on top of a peak and you're overlooking these valleys. of like a peak and you're overlooking these valleys and you don't hear shit except maybe a bird or you know a snap of a branch because an animal's running through that to me is the most centering and the most peaceful and it's just like something that like there's a vibration of being in the wilderness that puts me at ease i just like like, things make sense when I'm up there. That I like.

Yeah, I love that too. Yeah. The ocean can eat shit. The ocean can go fuck off. When it comes to being in the middle of the ocean, I share this sentiment. On the edges, I'll take it all day. Oh, the edges are gorgeous. I'm only kidding. I love it.

Like I said, if I was going to live in California, I would live in Malibu. I'm only kidding. I love it. Like I said, if I was going to live in California, I would live in Malibu. When we were getting our kitchen fixed at one point in time, so we could either stay in our house or we decided to rent a house. We decided, I've never lived on the water. Let's rent a house on the water. So we rented a house in Malibu.

And in the morning, I would eat breakfast. And it was right there on the water. So the water was right there. It's incredible. That's good that's good i was like oh i get it yeah i get it similar to the mountain feeling yeah yeah what's your go-to mountain range well i don't know man i love them all yeah i was just in i was just in the tachipi mountains uh last week in california okay which is gorgeous the wasatchatch in Utah is gorgeous. I love the Rockies in Colorado. I just love that when you're in unspoiled wilderness,

there's just a vibe to it when you realize that these animals are out there just doing what they've done for thousands of years before humans ever even came around. There's something about that that's just very, very, very appealing to me. It's just gorgeous to be around. The view of it, I don't think there's a better natural art in the world than mountains. Good.

Flea and I discovered it at 16. We were city boys. We didn't know from wilderness, really. Michigan, very flat. And there was a popular T-shirt that said, go climb a rock. And then on the back of the shirt it said, Yosemite. I was like, Yosemite? What is this Yosemite thing?

And when we were 16, I said, flee. Let's get on a Greyhound bus and go see what Yosemite is all about. Let's get on a Greyhound bus and go see what Yosemite is all about. So we had like shopping bags of food, canned food, and a little nylon backpack with a blanket. And we took a Greyhound up to Yosemite. Wow. And took a gnarly trail. Like we went up Yosemite Falls and into the backcountry carrying sacks of food because we didn't know any better.

So this is the 70s. Yeah, 78 maybe. But it was a game changer. We connected. We connected with that space and swam in rivers and made campfires and cooked food and saw those cosmos

and maybe saw a UFO or two. And we've been back ever since. It was a moment where we tapped into something. That's awesome. And we wrote a song, an acapella song, which we hadn't been doing up to that point together. When did you guys first start making music together? In 1983, we had this bizarre and beautiful friend from Arkansas,

gay and black and fashionable and very much on the scene of L.A. clubs. And Flea and Hillel and Jack Irons and Alan Yohannes had all been playing in new wave rock bands. But not me. I go, I support, I dance, I have fun. But this character from Arkansas, who was a real misfit, and ahead of his time said, why don't you let Anthony be in the band?

And they looked at him like, because he's not a musician. I don't know. Why would we tell Anthony to be in the band? Let him sing one song. And so they're like, all right, Anthony, go write some words, sing a song. And we did that. And it was so explosive and so chemically correct, the new guys together, that we couldn't stop. We just never stopped.

That was just the beginning of a 40-year run. And so you didn't have any inclination? You didn't have any aspiration? This one guy saying that to you? To them. Like he said, let Anthony sing a song. I was like, what? What's going on over there?

He didn't run it by you first? No. No, but he knew that I loved to write poetry and dance and just emote. Did you have an idea what you wanted to do with your life? No. No, I started off thinking I would be an actor or a novelist, and then I thought maybe crime would work out. What kind of crime?

Whatever was easy. But my father had kind of inserted enough art into my childhood with music and visual arts and just ideas that I was built of this stuff. I was built of words and sound. And if you trace a musician's history back to when they're kids, it's never an accident that they ended up doing that for a living. Like if you look at Chad Smith, our drummer, one of the greatest drummers to ever walk the earth today.

He's a phenom. But he was a little stoner living in the suburbs of Michigan who all he wanted to do was listen to music and be a part of music. But he was also a natural born athlete. He was so coordinated. Pick up a golf club. Boom. Go on the ice, play hockey. Boom.

He was just genetically coordinated. And then he played in 20 different rock bands as a kid, just honing and woodshedding and figuring it out until we met him when he was in his 20s and hired him. If you look at Flea, broken home, but his stepdad was a jazz bass player who would have jam sessions in the house all day every day so there's a little boy just watching these jazz bands and then he got a trumpet and he realized if i play trumpet people are going to notice me so the little kid who wasn't getting much attention

in this adult world of a broken home, suddenly people are paying attention and listening. And he had the discipline and the intellect. John Frusciante, his great-grandfather, immigrant from Italy, master musician. His father, Juilliard pianist. So from the time he's a kid, this music, like, let's see what you got. from the time he's a kid, just music, like, let's see what you got. And then his psychosis and way of dealing with the world was, I'm just going to sit and play for 10 hours a day. So it was never

an accident that these people end up where they end up. It's a lifetime of just everything working out so that that's your life. So you had no aspirations of singing. This guy tells the band, let him sing a song. You sing it. And then was it immediately? Immediate. It was too much fun. And the club owner,

we played one song in the club. And Solomon Burke, this French guy who had started a club in Hollywood, charged the bandstand and said, will you boys come back next week? Maybe play two songs. We're like, we'll see you next week. And we went home and we wrote a song

and we came back next week and it just never stopped. Wow. And you were 21. Yep. 21, homeless, sleeping in graveyards, backyards, park benches, back seats of cars, chaise lounges. But I now had a direction direction and you just dive right in yeah it stuck it was it was it's what i wanted to do from that point forward started carrying around notebooks and just writing and writing and figuring it out and listening more and more carefully to what these guys were playing, where did I fit into this rhythmically, melodically. Learning curve. Did you take any music lessons?

At the time, no. But then as the years went by, I realized I had to train my voice just to sustain. And I also wanted to do different things with my voice. So I found some teachers, old school opera vocal coach guys and girls, which taught me a lot and made it a lot more fun and gave me a bigger playing field.

But really it's just about being present, being emotional and listening to what's happening. So what is the creative process like when you guys make a song? Do they have the music first? Do you have the lyrics first? Is it a combination of the two? Zero rules. Zero rules. Zero rules. And it happens every which way, and it could be anything. As the Red Hot Chili Peppers don't have a,

oh, it's got to sound like this, or it's got to sound like that, it's got to be hard, or it's got to be, it could be anything. It could be funky, it could be bluesy, it could be jazzy,

it could be hip-hop, it could be folk. We'll play anything. Anything that we feel like playing, which is also a blessing because less boxed in. But often John and Flea will stay home and go to their garage or their room or whatever

and just play until they have something, a tidbit, a chord progression, a rhythm, a melody, because that's what they like to do for hours. Just play. And they'll come to band practice and they'll say, what do you think about this? I love that. And I think I know what to do with that. And it starts there. And Chad knows what to do. And we just build together. Or I'll come in and I'll say, I have these words. They're looking for a home.

What do you think? And John is exquisite at listening to what I'm doing. And I kind of feel like I'm surrounded by geniuses and I'm a little bit of the idiot. But he's good at deciphering the idiot's genius. So he listens to me and he's like, I know what to put with that. And then it just grows. And what is your writing process like? Do you write alone? Do you like to sit alone? Do you write with them around you? Like, how do you write? I like to write alone, but I'm not afraid to write in a crowded room if if it's flowing um i think the the number one thing is just to write if you go sit down and listen to music and get a piece of

paper and a pencil or however you write something's gonna happen something always happens sometimes it's better than others but if you make that time to write, something's going to happen. Or if you have an idea, no matter where you are, on a plane, riding a bike, sound asleep, you better get the fuck up and put that idea down because that could be it. If it came to you, it means something.

So, yeah, I like to sit on my back porch with a boom box and play today's rehearsal and just sit there and write and I owe some of that to my father who kind of implanted that in me the writing, the creativity, understanding words but probably the most powerful thing that you could ever write Writing, the creativity, understanding words. But probably the most powerful thing that you could ever write is something that's honest. So playful is fun.

Intellectual is fun. Interesting is fun. But when you crack into that emotional thing where it hurts or just one of those moments of honesty that's perhaps the most valuable that's the kind of music i think that resonates with people the most when people love all kinds of music right but there's something about when you know that an artist is saying something that comes from the deepest part of their being like there's like some reality to what they're singing about at least represents some reality of what they're singing about that you know it's a part of them that it excites people so much because you're sharing something you're sharing like a part of your soul you're

sharing a part of your life experience you're sharing a part of your personality and you're doing so through your writing you're doing so through your singing it resonates we're all connected yeah and when people like i know that feeling i want to experience this guy's version of that feeling i'm connected to that the hardest of the hard the gangsters of la i'll be riding down the sunset boulevard and i'll hear under the bridge coming out of a low rider and it is the toughest scariest most you know loked out looking dudes just melting with under the bridge i'm like okay that was that was a day well spent in writing that song. Do you always close with that song?

Or do you guys mix up? We mix it up. But, yeah, it's a meaningful tune. It has stood the test of time. When you guys closed with it the other night, I was like, yeah, you kind of have to. I owe a lot of that to Rick Rubin, that song. He's amazing, isn't he? He's all right.

What a trip. He's all right. He's such an unusual person. If we're a beginner, he's pretty good. So we were writing Blood Sugar Sex Magic. Yeah. And I was, at the time, we would just spend our days together. He was a lot less busy.

He wasn't a dad. And we would just spend our days together he was a lot less busy he wasn't a dad and we would just hang all day what are you working on show me the songs you're writing because he's producing our record and i showed him all my you know sexy songs heavy funky songs it's like okay that's good we can work on that he's like anything in the book? Just a poem that really isn't a song. I mean, it has a melody, but I don't think it's for us. Well, let me hear it. I was like, eh, it's kind of embarrassing. It's a little sentimental. Love to hear it. It was Rick, because Rick knows, like, there's no rules. You want the thing that's not expected. So I sang him Under the Bridge, and he was like, that's your best song. I was like, eh, it's just a poem. Bring it into the voice.

Show him the song. So without Rick's push for the counterintuitive, sensitive guy song, we might have never had a chance to write that there's some people in the world that are magic yeah i love rick and he is magic he's a magic person yeah he he has like when you're talking to him like he has a sense of ignoring the bullshit and just tuning into the magic it's a very and you could can tell when you talk to him, it's not nonsense. It's like a science almost.

It's like an understanding of what it is. And he just follows that frequency. He chases it down. Yeah, he's tuned into that. Yeah. He's very good at that. He's another person, if you look at his origins

it's no accident that he ended up being the person that he is single child out in the the suburbs of new york city i think long beach long island Long Island and he had an aunt very cerebral boy already just like very smart kid but living a boring culture free life of the island and he had an aunt who lived in Manhattan who loved

her nephew and every weekend or every other weekend whatever he would go spend with her and she was cultured she was like we're going to the opera we're going to the symphony we're going to the museum we're going to go see all this different stuff and rick was amazed by the music and the art and the culture that she was sharing with him that he wasn't getting in his home life and he just started tapping into the magic and dedicating himself in a way that led to him starting his record company when he was in the nys nyu dorms but it wasn't an accident like he got fed the raw materials as a kid and it opened

up his dream and i think probably also being a single kid, you're not influenced by your siblings either. So you have a chance to sort of be who you actually are. Less influence. He would get on a bus and go 200 miles to see James Brown when James Brown was still on tour. By himself! And he would get there five hours early.

They were like, you got to wait in the parking lot because doors don't open for five hours as a kid by himself to go see James Brown. I was like, yeah, you're qualified. Just out of appreciation. Not even thinking there was a career involved in that.

That's what's so crazy about his story. Yeah. There was no career to be that guy. Nope. No, he invented a career. Yeah. There was no future in hip-hop. No. People looked down upon it. They thought it wasn't even music.

Yes. Call us back when you have some music, they would say. Isn't that hilarious? Yeah. He was telling me the whole story of the connection between Aerosmith and Run DMC about people like what the fuck are you doing you're like ruining Aerosmith and then the hip-hop people like what the fuck are you doing you're putting hip-hop together with rock the fuck is that and then meanwhile it's like oh my god you just united two worlds yeah you united two worlds and opened up a whole new realm of possibility for music

and he just did it by following magic yeah yeah so i i met him in maybe 1985 and we were flailing i was lost in a retancy of drug addiction. Just too thin to win. How did that start? Huh? How did that start? I'll tell you, but first I got to show the little Rick tidbit. So I was basically a junkie, but still showing up to work from time to time, which was the basement of the EMI studios on Sunset Boulevard.

They gave us a little basement to rehearse in. They had signed us. But we were going nowhere very slowly. Couldn't get out of our own way. But we were still making a buzz. There was still something exciting about us that caught people's attention. And it caught Rick Rubin's attention.

And he was with the Beastie Boys. And they were exploding with success and greatness, writing incredible music. And so Rick brought the Beastie Boys to our dingy little recording or rehearsal spot. And he sat there and we rehearsed while they watched. They're in these little dirty couches watching us and we went through our songs. And Rick in these little dirty couches watching us. And we went

through our songs. And Rick said, we're going to go now. I was like, OK, do we do we talk again? What's going on? We'll get back to you. Didn't see him for years. Years and years and years went by. Eventually, I got clean and he came back and said, let's make a record. But I said, what happened that day? You came and we played and you disappeared and I never talked to you again. He's like, I thought somebody was going to get murdered in that rehearsal space. I thought somebody was going to die. I had to leave. That's how dark we had become.

That's how dark I had become is he was afraid someone was going to die and it was time to leave. Murdered. That's what he said. He's like, you guys were terrifying. You were scary. It felt like somebody was going to die. We had to go. When you look back on those times, do you understand how he thought that?

Not exactly. But everybody has their own perception. And there was darkness in the room when you're following that lifestyle there's definitely a instead of a magical energy there's a very discernible dark energy yeah but i didn't realize it was that dangerous he was scared How did you get on the road, the drug road? Well, I think the road was already in me from birth. A combination of predisposed to addiction physically and then emotionally, I developed the tendencies that I needed to squash some of the noise.

Spiritually, a little depleted. So I started smoking weed and loved it. It was a very fun and at the time subversive thing to be a part of. Like today, it's pretty damn common. But then it was very outlaw as a as a young teenage boy and years went by and there was no problem and then i started introducing narcotics at a pretty young age and really had nothing to say about anymore i was like the caboose of a train just going wherever the hell that train said to go it was interesting

and it was exciting but it was also painful as hell it was just like in the end this is a life of suffering um fortunately you know my my destiny was meant to survive that. And, you know, it isn't really events or advice or anything that gives you the window to step out of that. But it's a little gift from the cosmos that just makes you look at yourself and say, I'm going to give you a chance. I'm going to give you an opportunity to put in the work to get better if you so choose if not carry on what was the narcotic of choice of choice I would have to say the combination of heroin and cocaine was at that moment at that point in time. Do you remember what you started with? Of those two? Yeah.

I probably did the cocaine shortly before the heroin, but right around the same time, very young age. And did you do it because it was the thing that people around you did? Was it just exciting? Was it rebellious? Like, what was it? Was it a part of rock and roll? It had nothing to do with rock and roll or trying to impress or put on a pretense.

It was happening around me in my world. It was exciting and dangerous. Like, everyone's afraid of that. You know, I think I'll do that thing that just a word scares people. But it was also a way of checking out. In the same way that one person will sit down at a bar and have some beers and just not stop. That allergic reaction to the sensation of finding your medicine. I had that reaction.

sensation of finding your medicine right i had that reaction like i felt whole by putting these things in me until i had to pay the toll you know it's like you steal from peter you got to pay paul the next day and it's a terrible paycheck to write terrible paycheck to write. I can only imagine. Yeah. Yeah, it was finding the thing that I thought was going to make me well, but really it was just killing me. And how long were you on that road for? Well, I think I was 27 the first time that I was able to put in the work and get sober and then i went to my young 30s and kind of forgot where i came from and forgot the the process of maintaining it's like you get physically fit it's not going to be for life you got to yeah show up yeah or anything else you know your craft your craft. You put it down, it fades.

So I had put down the craft of sobriety and it opened an opportunity. And I ended up going back out there for a bunch of years, like five years, which was even worse because now I knew that there was a solution and I was just ignoring it. So there was nothing fun about it. And then the window came back, and I had another chance to commit to sobriety, and I did, and that was 21 years ago.

How did you get sober the first time? So in a way, my best friend died, which did not instigate sobriety. Did he die from drugs? He did. But it definitely destroyed me emotionally. But I continued to use after he died. And then I got to the point where I could not turn off the noise with drugs and alcohol,

literally flooding my body with the substance and still wide awake. So I was not getting the desired effect. I was like, this is terrible. I'm putting all this poison in me and I'm still here. And I called up a friend and rehabs were not a thing at that time. I called up a sober friend and I was like, what are those rehab things? I got to find one. He's like, the only one I know of is very expensive, 10 grand. Which in the 80s for a struggling musician was a lot.

I was like, I have 10 grand. That's exactly how much money I have. And I spent it. I gave my last 10 grand, my only 10 grand ever, to a rehab and I went and I spent it. I gave my last 10 grand, my only 10 grand ever, to a rehab. And I went and I checked in. And there was 30 dope fiends in the room of all walks of life. But all with a common sickness.

And the counselor said, I'm looking at 30 of you. And stats-wise, one of you is going to get sober out of here. Wow. And I was like, get out the way. Cause I'm taking that spot. I was such a little competitive. Yeah. It's an egomaniac. You're just like, right. I am taking that. Right. Please. You know, the rest of you can go back to where you came from only one out of 30 that's what he said to us and there was like a guy from the SWAT team there was professional athlete

there was just every variety of person in there I was like I'll take it but then I realized there's a process to it and there's a being of service aspect to it and there's a becoming humble aspect to it and there's a being of service aspect to it and there's a becoming humble

aspect to it all. And that was the beginning of me taking many years to go from being a complete idiot to only a partial idiot. So how long is this rehab for? That was a month and it stuck for a long time. So you get out fully clean. Did they try to get you to replace that habit with something positive, some sort of a positive habit? I've heard that advice before to get people to try jogging, do yoga, do something you get people to try jogging, do yoga, do something you get addicted to?

It was more of a, there are lots of things you have to change about the way you're doing business with people in the world, but it's not really a replacement with an activity. Prayer and meditation was a part of it, something I had never considered before, getting still and quiet and connecting. Being of service was a part of it. Something I had never considered before, getting still and quiet and connecting. Being of service was a part of it. Taking a look at yourself was a part of it. Admitting your faults was a part of it. Making amends was a part of it. And being present for the next person who needs that help was a part of it. So once you kind of get the, the gist and the gift and the experience of sobriety, when some new bastard shows up who is lost,

you have to show up because really the language of one addict talking to another is kind of where the magic happens as it does when you associate with somebody who only can relate to the, a very specific experience that you've had. You could talk all day long to a normie and they're like, why don't you just put it down? I wish I could. It just doesn't work like that. I've never been addicted to a drug before.

But is it like it's not necessarily physical, right? Because once you get the physical out of your system, the mental pull is still there, right? It is physical because it's like an allergy. So, yeah, you could get rid of the physical addiction. But then the minute you take that substance, whatever your addiction is, you react to it differently than a normal person. So that's the physical. Like a person who's drinking booze, the chemistry is physically different as it hits your bloodstream. So you mean like you're naturally more physically addicted?

Yes. And you don't think that has to do with your childhood or with trauma? That's part of it. It's part of it. So that's what naturally makes you more physically addicted? No. So that is the emotional and or spiritual element, but the study

that they do on people, the way they process alcohol is different. So there's a genetic variable as well. Yes the alcohol is a genetic variable yes there's a genetic variable so was what alcohol was that thing that got you off the wagon again no uh painkillers from a from a from a by the way, had I been fit with my recovery, it wouldn't have been an issue. Did you have a surgery or something like that?

I did. I had a wicked four-tooth surgery. And I went in there without my tools or my connection to where I'd come from. I had just kind of forgotten about it. Like, I'm good. I'll live and die sober. But I stopped doing the work. And so they give you some sort of a painkiller because of your teeth.

I was done. And you were right back. Done. And I've since had all kinds of surgeries. No issue. And did they put you on painkillers with the other surgeries as well yes yeah yeah but you understand it now yeah well i went in there like you know talking to people before i went in and just yeah it's it's exercise yeah um my friend arty lang um He had some really heavy bouts with drug addiction, and he had his nose collapse for a bunch of different reasons.

One, because he snorted pills that were mixed with glass because someone was crushing the pills up with a salt shaker, and it had glass in it. It cut his nose up it got infected and he also got punched out by some guy who was an enforcer for a dealer or a bookie who he owed money to and so his nose is collapsed and he was going to get it fixed but he can't because he's like i can't take the risk of getting back on the painkillers. That's a choice I understand. Like the payment for going back to where you came from is too great. Yeah.

There are people who can do it. Like they go in there with a support. Right, with tools. With tools and with the connection and doing all of the things that you have to do to be well. But I understand his fear. Yeah. Like to not ever want to go back to where he came from is a powerful thing. It was so hard for him to get sober. And last time I talked to him, we did a podcast together and he was so alive.

He was so sober and he was so funny. His fucking stories were so good. And he was like, I He was so sober and he was so funny. His fucking stories were so good. And he was like, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to take that fucking chance. I'd rather have a flat nose. Yeah. I'm like, okay, I get it, man. I'll take the flat nose.

I fucking get it. Yep. Yeah, oddly enough, a lot of the addicts and alcoholics I know are the most interesting. Oh, my God. It kind of comes with the territory. Some of my favorite funny people either used to be addicts or are addicts. Yeah. Lenny Bruce.

Oh, yeah. Lenny Bruce. Richard Pryor. Rich. Sam Kinison. Oh, yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Did you ever meet Richard? I met Richard. You met Richard. Yeah. I actually worked with Richard for five weeks in a row at the comedy store before he died. Damn. Yeah.

Wheelchair? Yeah. They had to carry him to the stage, and they would crank up the microphone. And he was really sick at the time. Yeah. He was on his way out. And I was 27. I was just getting to Hollywood, just recently a paid regular at the comedy store.

I had no business being on stage with Richard Pryor. And he would go on, and then I'd go on after him every night. Who has business being on stage with Richard Pryor? Nobody, right? He was a reason why I even understood what comedy was. When I was 15 years old, my parents took me to see Live on the Sunset Strip in the movie theater. And I'll never forget. Because I had seen a bunch of great movies like Stripes and, you know, fucking all these funny, funny, funny movies.

I had never laughed so hard as I was laughing at this guy who was just talking. And I couldn't imagine that this was, like, how is this happening? So I'm sitting in the audience, and I remember looking around while I was laughing, and people are falling out of their chairs. They're throwing their arms up in the air. They couldn't breathe. And I was like, this is amazing. All this guy's doing is talking.

And that planted the seed in my mind about what stand-up comedy is I never considered doing it at the time I was just like this is incredible and I became like this giant fan of stand-up comedy from that moment and then I started listening to his old albums and I started listening to all sorts of different like Cheech and Chong and Bill Cosby and all these different like stand-up comedy albums good records oh my god and that you know was sort of like the beginning of my obsession with the art of stand-up comedy was that one time seeing him in the movie theater when I was a 15 year kid. So for me to be sharing the stage with him 12 years later was nuts.

Just nuts. Was he still funny? Unfortunately, no. No. No. It was sad. It was sad, and the audience was super bummed out. And so I would have to kind of revive the crowd as best I could

because he was gone. He was medicated, and he was also drinking. So he because he was gone he was medicated and he was also drinking and he was medicated and they'd have to crank the microphone so he would go on and say because the mic was just cranked because his voice was so soft

in a way he kind of earned the right to go out like that I mean five weeks of unfunny richard yeah i'll take it i'm sure he had his moments you know there was some moments where he got some laughs but for the most part you'd go on stage afterwards and people would look they would look at me like this like fuck like what did we just see they were coming to see richard prior their hero in comedy and they got to see a great artist at the end of his line you know yeah my jam with richard was everything but

long beach oh yeah that's my jam oh my god that was when that guy came up to take a picture at the beginning of the show i was like hey motherfucker what are you doing i mean people are coming to their seats as he's on stage. Yeah. Like, he's on stage and people are, he's filming his comedy special as people are walking in and sitting down. Amazing. Priceless. Oh, my God.

And it's a great special, too. It's a fucking classic special. That's a good one. I performed in that very same place. That's all I could think of. It was a man, Richard Pryor. He, he did a special here and there's only a few, he only has a few specials. You know, it's a very small handful. Some of the, some of the great ones are, there's cassettes that are available that you can now get on YouTube of him performing at Red

Fox Comedy Club. Red Fox had a comedy club in Los Angeles. Sold out. Yeah. Called Sold Out. And he, he performed there. I think it was just called Red Fox Comedy Club Red Fox had a comedy club in Los Angeles sold out yeah it's all that and he performed there I think it was just called Red Fox wasn't it maybe no he I think he's had a few yeah and I think Red Fox turned into sold out but I bought the cassettes at a gas station I was that like a truck stops one place and they had cassettes and I was like what is this and they had cassettes. And I was like, what is this? And they were just like raw recordings.

You could hear the clink of ice cubes in the glass and you could hear people in the crowd and he was just riffing and talking shit and it was amazing. I mean, some of his great work is not on video. Some of his great work is really like cassettes. Do you have those cassettes? Oh, yeah.

You have those cassettes. You're taking good care of those cassettes? Oh yeah. You have those cassettes. You're taking good care of those cassettes. I've got a lot of his stuff. Did you digitize those cassettes? Well, I've got digital copies of some of them. You can still buy a lot of them. You can still buy a lot of them online too,

which is great. You know, that's a beautiful thing about today. Like someone could tell you about a great song or a great album, and you could just go on your phone and get it. Yes. Like that. I appreciate that.

I appreciate that. So we have a song. We wrote 50-some-odd songs during the pandemic. Oh, wow. 50? Yeah. It was fun. It was easy.

It was fun. It was easy. It was magic. When the world shuts down and you have your gang together to write, it was a special moment. But one of the songs, which did not make it onto either of our double records, is called The Comedy Store. Oh. And I knew it wasn't the most original title or anything like that,

but I have my connection to comedy, and John Frusciante has a deep love for stand-up comedy. He re-inspired my love for stand-up comedy when I met him in the late 80s. And so The Comedy Store Song is kind of an ode to stand-up and the joy of sneaking in the back door of a club and catching a set and all these different little Hollywood references. But the chorus spoke to Dave Chappelle, who I love and admire. As a human being, we're all full of everything.

as a human being, we're all full of everything. But to me, he is kind of the reigning king of stand-up. And I love a lot of comedians, but he's somebody who I can just listen to. And the lyric did not sit well with everybody involved. So sadly, that song sits dormant, not yet on a record. But I'm hoping that the energy will shift to the point where we can put out that song. What was wrong with the lyric?

In my opinion, it was beautiful. And we're also full of greatness and fallibility and mistakes and accomplishments. And so the lyric was Dave Chappelle for president. And it's in a really beautiful melody and it's a very lighthearted statement. But, um, because, you know, there's kind of that tradition of, uh, campaign banners where it was like WC fields for president. Yeah.

campaign banners where it was like wc fields for president yeah and it just kind of fit into the chorus dave chappelle for president i wasn't like making a serious statement it was just like oh i see what you're saying so it was during the time of all this controversy yeah yeah but the song is so flotatious and groovy and laid back, and you might just feel like you're in the mountains listening to the song. Mm. So someday I'll share it with you, whether it gets released or not. I'll trade you a copy of that song for a copy of one of your Richard Pryor cassettes. Oh, OK.

Beautiful. I'll send you those in the email. They're available. A lot of them are available online. You know, the Red Fox ones. They're fucking great, man, because you get to see them experiment. You know, that's one of the joys of the internet today. Back when I was a kid, I mean, you had to find those at a truck stop.

You know, now you can just find them like that online. It's like there's a beautiful thing about that. I mean, some of it's kind of fucked because the magic of discovering this thing is not there anymore because now it's available instantaneously, but still, it's better that way. It's different.

It's different. It's different. But it can reach more people. That's what I like about it. If that's the goal, then yes, for sure it's more successful. But I don't even mean more successful because he's gone. I mean like right now people listening can go. And one of them was called playing – was it called Craps?

Something like that. I forget what it's called. But that – someone can listen to this and then go on YouTube and then bam they can get it yeah there it is

Craps ooh After Hours ooh I like the cover it's fucking great yeah I'm in I'm sold

how many minutes is that Jamie? 32 32 minutes that's a great poster I'll put that up in my bedroom 36 yeah 36 minutes it's fucking great poster I'll put that up in my bedroom yeah 36 minutes it's fucking great

yeah and this is you know probably it's put online somebody put it online in 2011 they probably put it online

after we talked about it because we talked about it way back then for sure because I talked about how great it was just to be listening to these live recordings from these comedy clubs

it is a great thing 71 1971 there is something about the process of these live recordings from these comedy clubs. It is a great thing. 71, 1971. There is something about the process of seeking out and searching and putting in the due diligence to find that or to show up to the show or go to the record store that made it all a bit more cool. Right.

That now you just tap that button and it's there so yeah you're reaching a larger audience i think you said it right i think it's different it's different yeah it's not better or worse right it's different same with same with rock and roll yeah what do you how what was it like for you guys when all of that um the the streaming thing when it all came to be with napster and there was this big uproar how did you guys um how did you feel about that when all that was going on because that was the giant shift right napster was the great shift when the internet sort of realized like oh we could just get this stuff for free and then you know some people were furious about it like i i interviewed um paul stanley from kiss once and he was like man it's stealing you're fucking stealing my music and i

was like wow that's an interesting way of looking at it because like some people didn't think of it that way at all they they thought of it like well this is a way my fans can get my music easier and if you really want to support me and you like the music, go buy the CD too. But like, I'm happy you got it. I did not have time or energy to even care about it. Like my focus was so just wanting to make good music and put in the effort that whatever happened to it afterwards, I didn't even care.

You guys had already made so much money selling actual physical records by then, right? What year did Napster happen? I want to say it was like 99-ish. Is that it? I think we made our lion's share of cash flow in the 2000s. Really? I think so. Well, people are still 100% still buying

CDs. Yes. When did it die? 10 years ago? 10 years ago. Ish? I didn't care. Napster didn't bother me. It was like, if that's what's happening, that's happening. Really, I just wanted to be a good band member

and a productive bandmate and do our thing and go play live which you can't replicate right you know that's the thing that kind of kept us alive even when record sales disappeared right when we go play live people show up right so i wasn't worried about the money but i think even if that had happened earlier when I was less financially capable, I don't care. We were never in it for the money. The money was a bonus.

You would just be like, well, this is how it is now. This is how it is now. We didn't miss a beat. We never wasted a moment. A lot of people who are more commerce-oriented fought tooth and nail, like,

this can't happen. And yeah, there's probably some injustices going on in there where corporations are taking advantage of those opportunities. I don't have that much time and space to devote to fighting those. I'd rather spend my

time and energy making something good. Good for you, man. That's just... That's a great attitude. Because I didn't disagree with how Lars Ulrich felt about it. I understood what he was saying. But I was like, man, that's a bad look. It's just like you're so wealthy and so successful.

And the people that are downloading your music for free are your fucking fans and a lot of them are poor you know and now they can get it and they can get it right away and for you to call them like thieves and get angry and tell people not to do it like man this is a new disruptive disruptive technology and you're not going to stop it definitely not and i think some people, maybe some older folks who weren't in tune with the new internet, they thought somehow or another you were going to stop it. I was like, man, you don't understand this genie, because that bottle, that cork is off that bottle. And this whole thing, this is the future, man.

It's going to change for everybody with everything, whether it's with movies, with everything you could imagine. It's all going to be available now. And people that fought it were really just losing ground. So our record company, Warner Brothers, were very slow to recognize the power of the internet. And they got hurt. And so we just put out a record a couple days ago and another double record

in the same year, which is kind of a beautiful thing. But the main guy from the record company showed up, very lovely dude, cares about music, super into the band. And I was like,

well, we have to make sure that this doesn't leak. This is two weeks ago. And he's like, well, we've kind of changed our tune on that lately. If it leaks, it leaks. So even these gigantic behemoth companies are now like, okay. So it leaked. It just makes it more popular. Yeah.

More people tell people about it. I don't care. Good for you, man. I just want people to hear it. You know, I believe that from you. Some people would say that. I go, eh, he fucking cares. For you, I really, really believe it.

It's easy for me to say I'm not missing meals. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But, yeah. I really really believe it it's easy for me to say I'm not missing meals yeah but yeah I don't expect to sell records these days that's not an expectation there was a time when I did but now I feel like music is made just to be played we get paid at our live shows

yeah we're doing just fine well it was sold out the other day zilker park it was fucking awesome yeah well that's an institution so i think that sells out no matter what but well you guys are an institution you were one of those guys when i first met you i was like oh shit he's right there it was weird when was that i don't remember i don't know if we met uh our kids went to school together i don't know if we met there for the first time or if we met at the ufc

for the first time i don't remember like i met you in an arena like early in the day for some fights yeah yeah yeah and i was like that guy's a ufc fan that's wild it was weird i was like i thought you're like this soup and you are this like super peaceful kind of hippie guy and for you to be like really into the ufc but then when we talked about it i got it because you really respected the athletes and the difficulty of what they're doing and how tremendous the whole promotion was and the way they would put these fights together and the excitement of it all. They're good.

That's a good promotion. They're the best. I adore combat sports. I adored boxing when I was a kid. Bruce Lee was everything to me in 1974. Everything. I built noon trucks out of a broom put them in my back pocket went to school and uh and the evolution of mixed martial arts is divine and one of the most exciting things

ever happened to me in my lifetime like that to talk about lucky to be born at a certain time and place. Yeah. Yeah. It's exquisite. And the funny thing is fighting outside of a ring or a cage or a mat, it crushes my heart. Like, violence in real life kills me. Like, pain. Put it in, you know, like, dedicate your life to the art and it becomes a chess match yeah all day every day yeah i'm a super fan i agree i'm not really a big fan of

fistfights no fistfights in history i'm like god don't do that don't do that yeah it's just like there's nothing in there for you don't do it. And it's like just bravado and nonsense. But what I call fighting, I call it high-level problem solving with dire physical consequences. And that's really what it is. To me, it's just like this ultimately exciting endeavor. And I love it when someone like you appreciates it. It was very exciting for me to see you there because I was a giant fan of Chili Peppers

and to see that you actually appreciate it. You weren't just a guy there for a scene because there's a lot of people that go there, they're just there for an event, which is great, fine. It's a great event. It's wild to see. But you actually were asking questions, and you were really into it, you know?

Still am. Yeah. It does not fade. No. I watched Alexa point out her victory two nights ago, last night. Yeah. Yeah. Alexa Grosso. She's a beast.

She's a beast, and she gets better with every fight. Yeah. I don't know that she's ready for Shevchenko. I don't know if anybody is. That lady's a goddamn assassin. No, we're not ready for that. Woo! Yeah.

She's wild. But I love Alexa's trajectory. Yeah. No, it's an exciting, exciting time, man. It's amazing what the sport has become from when I first watched it in 93 or 94, I think it was the first event that I saw. I've been working for them now.

I've been working as a commentator for 20 years. And before that, for two years, I was a post-fight interviewer in the late 90s, rather, 97. Amazing. I saw that first ufc event compliments of guy osiri who had a cable box and he called me up on a landline and said there's a no holds barred fighting competition of one art form against another and it happens in 30 minutes get over to my house and we sat on the couch and watched that, and I was like, that's interesting.

1993. Yeah, this is interesting. Shout out to Horian Gracie and Hoist Gracie. Because back then it was like one against another, like karate versus jiu-jitsu. Right, yeah. You know, judo boxing versus a bouncer, whatever. Yeah. Obviously, it's come a long way.

Well, there's not really a sport that's evolved that much since 1993 to 2022 where it's unrecognizable the difference between the sport then and the sport now. It's unrecognizable. It's so much different. There's never been a thing like that where you you get the chance to see a complete evolution of combat sports like martial arts have evolved more since 1993 than they have in the last 10 000 years and that is 100 undeniable fact pretty exciting it's very exciting. It's very exciting. Yeah.

It's very exciting. I get excited when I run into somebody on the street who watched the fights the night before because I'll sit there for 30 minutes and go over it. And yeah. To this day, I'm excited about it. To this day, me and Dana White, sometimes I'll call him at like 1 o'clock in the morning

and he and I will have two-hour conversation about fights. Just two hours. That's fun. About this and that. I mean, we should be so jaded. No. We've both been involved for so long. It's the opposite.

Yeah. It's amazing. Yep. I love it. I love what you do for the sport. Nobody does it better. Thank you. And I love what Dana does for the sport. He's the best. Nobody does it better. Thank you. And I love what Dana does for the sport.

He's the best. Nobody does it better. He's the best. He's the best front man that any sport's ever had, ever. I think so. And he takes so much grief and gets so much hate. And he's done things that I am not down with. I hate politics and sports.

I'd rather keep them separate like church and state. Yeah. But I don't care. He has given the world joy and he's given opportunities and jobs for so many athletes. People ignore the fact that he has given tens of thousands of people a dream and houses and food on the table. It's endless. I look at all these fighters. You know, fighter pay is an issue.

Yeah, I want fighters to get paid. I know thousands that live in houses that would not normally be able to do that because Dana works his ass off. And he loves it and he cares and he's relentless and he put in the years. So, so many props to him for bringing those dreams to life and I feel like I have to balance out some of the hate he gets.

Yeah, well, he's going to get hate no matter what you do. You're a person in a position like he's in, position of prominence. And whether or not the criticism is valid what what is valid is the praise with i when i introduce him when i do the weigh-ins i always say without him none of this would be possible because it's true yep i know what that guy's done i know the work that he's put in i know how hard he's worked and also he's a guy who doesn't bow down to bullshit. He doesn't back off. And he kept that sport alive during the pandemic. When everybody was saying, you're crazy.

You're going to kill people. We're all going to die. He was like, what the fuck are you talking about? We're going to test everybody. And we're going to put on fucking safe shows. We're going to create a COVID bubble. We're going to make sure everybody's safe. And he did it.

And he did it. And then everybody else followed suit. We got the Apex out of it. Yes, we got the Apex Center. Well, the Apex Center was actually already in construction. In construction, but we got fight nights. Fight nights. We got to see some world championship fights at the Apex Center, which were fucking incredible. Stipe Miocic versus Francis Ngannou. Ngannou won the world title

at the Apex Center. Tough night for Stipe. Oh my God. I don't think the hair helped his cause. He came out there with the fluffy hairdo. I was like, no. I don't think that had anything to do with it. I think it was Francis had developed skills to match with his power, and he also developed patience.

Yeah. No, no, no. The hair threw me off. I was like, you're facing Francis. Come in with a buzz cut. Come in like. Well, he beat him the first time. And he was the first guy to beat him.

Cardio wrestling. Cardio wrestling and his chin. And I think, you know, he took some tremendous shots in that fight. And I think that fight, sometimes you win a fight, but you take an amount of punishment that will change who you are. Yeah. It'll show up in the next fight. Yeah.

It'll change who you are for the future. And you don't get through a five-round fight with Francis Ngannou without taking some tremendous shots. They're talking about him fighting Jon Jones now, which would be very interesting. Yeah. If the Stipe fight falls through with Jon. Yeah. Well, that's what I was saying.

Jon Jones and Stipe. They're talking about Jon and Stipe. Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. Great fight. Yeah. Competitive fight.

Yeah. Well, it's going to be interesting because we haven't seen Jon in a long time and now john is huge he is yeah power lifter yeah he's fucking put on a lot of muscle he's done it smart taking his time you know and uh i mean he's got probably one of the highest fight iqs the sports ever seen he does so i'm excited to see that if if he was fighting francis i'd be a little more concerned. But I feel like Stipe's older. And that, to me, seems like a competitive fight. Well, I have a feeling it'll be one or the other.

I don't know when it's going to go down. I don't know when that fight is going to happen. I don't know when Jon's going to make his heavyweight debut. But I'm very interested. I'm very interested. Whether I'm there for that fight or not, I am watching. Of course. Of course. Look at this. Jon Jones still hopeful to make heavyweight debut at UFC 282. 82!

What is 282? Is that December? Yes. December 10th. So I think the headliner in that is Glover DeShera's rematch with Yuri Prohaska. Is that it? That'll be a good one. You gonna be there? You on be there?

You on tour still? I'm off tour and I'm moving to the Hawaiian Islands For November or December Are you really? I need to go be on a mountain As an island I have to unplug for a minute and just get in the ocean Which island? I never met a Hawaiian island I didn't like

But I will be on Kauai. Kauai is supposed to be amazing. It's all right. It's good. It's good. That's where Laird and Gabby live. That's right. Yeah.

Shout out to them. Yeah. They're my neighbors. Oh, nice. They've always been very good to me. They're great people. I love them both. Yeah.

They're amazing people. Yeah, they really are. They're stunners. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so sadly if if i was anywhere in the mainland i would be at a bunch of these fights yeah but i have to i have to go i get it yeah i miss being at the fights so much i got to see one live here in austin for

the first time in 20 years as a spectator. It was fucking amazing. And then I got to see one recently at the Apex Center. Me and Tony Hinchcliffe and my friend Radio Rahim, we did a triple header combat sports. We did the triple crown of combat sports. We went to the Abu Dhabi World Jiu-Jitsu Championships. Then we went to the UFC at the Apex Center. Then we went to see Canelo Alvarez versus Triple G. It was amazing. What a day. What a day.

Who is competing at the Abu Dhabis? Well, it was Gordon Ryan. The champ. Yeah. And he dominated again. He's the best ever. What the hell? He's the best ever. He's fucking so dedicated, so smart, so driven, so dedicated, and he's only 27. He's only 27? Yeah.

He looks older. Well, you know, he's fucking training seven days a week. He's good. Guy's an animal. I love watching him. Yeah, no, he's incredible. I love watching him fight other super animals. And destroy them.

And destroy them. That's crazy. He's taking the best of the best, and he makes it look easy. It's very strange. It's very strange how good he is. But it's also his coach, John Donahue, who is a legitimate wizard. I mean, he's a guy who was a professor of philosophy at Columbia University and then fell in love with jiu-jitsu and became the greatest coach of all time.

That's the calligraphy thing. Yes. That you were talking about. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Yep, yep. It's also this no bullshit, no frills, no excuses, no nonsense, just pure analysis of what it is, of what the sport is. And because of that, they're ahead of everybody by leaps and bounds, by years. Yeah.

I'll check him out on YouTube all day. Well, they have some matches here, too. You know, it's really interesting. There's going to be one in California. I think he's competing in California. Hmm. I think he's competing in California. Hmm.

I want to say it's like they're having a – sometime in the winter. He's got a big – I want to say it's February. There's a big match in California that I might fly in to check out. If I'm back from down under, I will check that out. All right. Well, stay in touch. Next week is pretty exciting. Yeah. For the yeah very exciting yeah um unfortunately i'm not going to be there i'm going to be in london uh i'm doing the o2 arena on that saturday night that uh olivera

fights uh makachev so i can't. I'm going to miss it. I'm going to see maybe if I'm hoping. You're halfway there. When I get off stage, I'll be able to either watch it. I don't know how it lines up time-wise with London time. I'll either be able to watch it before or after I get off stage. I think it's prelim start at 7 a.m. in California. Oh, they're doing it that way.

Yeah. Oh, so they're doing it on Abu Dhabi time. That's interesting. You have a gig in London. Yeah. I have a gig in London. Okay. Yeah.

Where's that? That's at the O2. The O2? Yeah. Hot dog. Yeah, it should be fun. I've played there. Yeah, it's great.

It's fun. I've been there for UFC. I've never done. Yeah, it's great. It's fun. I've been there for UFC. I've never done the stand-up there. So that's Saturday night. So one way or another, I will watch the fight. Hopefully, if it's taking place while I'm on stage, I can like, blah, blah, blah, not listening. And then I can get back to my room.

And I don't even know how the fuck to watch it. I might have to get, like, do it through a VPN, you know, and pretend I'm somewhere else and then get online through ESPN Plus because I tried it when I was in Italy. It's hard. Yeah. I tried watching ESPN Plus in Italy and they're like, it's not available in your country. I'm like, fuck off. Panic. Yeah. What is this shit? So I tour and I have that all the time. What happened? What do you do? I text the UFC and say, please help me. I'm in Austria and I can't get the fights. And they hook you up. Yes. Damn it. How do I not know that?

Yeah. Desperation. Desperation. Oh, I hate that when they're like, yeah, we don't recognize your account here. Yeah. Fucking bullshit. Why can't you get ESPN Plus in Italy? That's stupid.

Regional. Get it together, bitches. Yep. Yep. Yeah, the hard part is also not finding out the results. Right. Yeah, you got to plug your ears. I'll get in the car.

Did you watch the, no! Don't talk! Flea is the great spoiler of all time. Oh, my God. I was like, I paused my computer. I was going to watch that when I got to the next hotel. It's like checking your Christmas presents, though. You can't help yourself. You almost

want to see the results anyway. You do. Like, ah, just fucking tell me the results. You do. You almost go online and then enjoy the fight with the knowledge of what actually happened. I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. I'll still enjoy it. I've watched them multiple times. I watched Leon Edwards versus Kamaru Usman. I've do that. I can do that. I can do that. I'll still enjoy it. I've watched them multiple times. Like I watched Leon Edwards versus Kamaru Usman.

I've watched that like three or four times. I know what happened. I'll still watch it. Yep. And by the way, it's still exciting. That moment. That moment when there's a minute to go and he lands that head kick and you're like, no fucking way.

It's one of those things where even though you know it happened, you still can't believe it when you watch it again. You know who else can't believe it? Kamaru. Yeah. Yeah, I talked to him. We did a podcast just a couple weeks later. Yeah. One of the things that he said, it was kind of a relief.

He did. Yeah, it's like- The crown is heavy. The crown's heavy. Heavy. Yeah. Oh, put a kink in your neck. It's a tough way to make a living. It's a tough way to make a living.

It is. Tough way to make a living. But also to Leon's credit, he never quit, especially after that speech between four and five. Yeah. But also he had the stamina to execute. Yes. A powerful fast kick. Yeah.

24 minutes into a fight. Right. That's hard to do. And land it perfect. You powerful fast kick. Yeah. 24 minutes into a fight. Right. That's hard to do. And landed perfect. You might be tired. Your muscles might be fatigued. It was the perfect head kick. It was the greatest come-from-behind head kick knockout in the history of the sport.

He set it up. While it was happening, I couldn't believe it happened. While it happened, I was like, there's no way that just happened. Because he was losing the fight and Dean Thomas was just saying, he's broken, it seems like he's broken, and then whack.

Pretty good speech by his corner. Oh my God. And right after John Anik was saying, that is not his nature to quit. Like John Anik was just saying, that is not Leon's nature to quit. And then he lands that head kick. Boom.

John's pretty on it. He's the best. John Anik is the best. He's unbelievable. He's the best play-by-play guy in the history of the sport. I think he cares about his job. He's the best. He's the most informed. He's the most in tune. He's the smoothest. He's a fucking master.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Mike Goldberg was excellent at it. There's a lot of people who are excellent at it but John Anik is on another level he does his homework too he very very very much does and he's a great guy too

I love him to death and he was correct it's like prescient he nailed it listen I love you it's always good to see you I appreciate you coming in here thank you I love you it's always good to see you I appreciate you coming in here

thank you I love you too and you know what Albert Einstein said to his daughter at the end of his life my only regret is that I didn't

express my love more deeply while I was still around with you oh that's heavy he said it was the most powerful force

in the universe more powerful than anything else love well it definitely is for people yeah yeah It was the most powerful force in the universe, more powerful than anything else. Love. Well, it definitely is for people. Yeah. Yeah, that's who we are. I don't think black holes give a fuck about your love, but I could be wrong.

No, but our love could help us figure out a way to coexist with the black hole. Yes. Yeah, or survive long enough and not kill each other to the point where someone can figure out how to coexist. I'm not getting in the octagon with a black hole. No. Doesn't seem like a wise choice. No, no.

I love you and thank you for having me. It was great talking to you. It was fun. Until we meet again. Until we meet again. And I'm going to check out the five rings. Sounds good. Yeah.

Bye, everybody. Thank you.