The Joe Rogan Experience - #2290 - Michael Kosta

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Michael Kosta is a standup comic, host of "The Daily Show," host of his own podcast, "Tennis Anyone," and author. His new book, "Lucky Loser: Adventures in Tennis and Comedy," is available now.  www.michaelkosta.com Save $20 on your first subscription of AG1 at drinkag1.com/joerogan Visit LifeLock.com/JOEROGAN to save up to 40% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Rogan Podcast, checking out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Yes sir, Michael. Good to see you, my friend. Thank you. Thanks for having me and really appreciate you showing me around. Wow, what a space you've created, man. Thank you. Thank you. That's so cool. Keeps going. I was excited to show you the picture of my sauna. And then you show me, you got an archery.

It's so cool, man. Thank you. That's so cool. It's fun. So we were just singing Jon Stewart's praises before this started, but I'm so happy he's back at The Daily Show. And I'm so happy he makes fun of everything. And I'm so happy he still makes dick jokes.

You know, it's fun. It's like The Daily Show seems like The Daily Show again like that guy's a very unique dude Very unique person and one of the most important like pieces to like unify everybody He's reasonable. He gets the whole big picture like let's stop being so fucking ridiculously tribal in the morning meeting He'll come in and we're all sitting there, the writers, and he just kind of shuts the door behind him, and we start talking, but it's like a conversation with a college professor, but he's in charge,

and it's beautiful. All sides, this, I disagree with that, what about this? And it's like, oh wow, it's really fun to be a part of. And then someone will yell out a dick joke, and then that joke will make it to the show too. It's like smart things and dumb things. That's beautiful. Well, he's never abandoned being a real comic,

which is what got him to the dance in the first place. So he always has those instincts. And he's the very best at holding a line and making something even more preposterous just with a facial expression and pointing out like these fucking unbelievably ridiculous in-your-face hypocrisies that we see every day from both sides. Yeah from both sides. Have you ever done stand-up with him? Oh yeah we've done stuff together like back in the day. Yeah I kind of can't remember the last time.

I was supposed to do something with him One of Dave's things that he was doing outside back in the day But I never wound up doing it But I definitely did stand up with him in the clubs back in New York and I knew him Way way back in the day was he was on MTV. Yeah, I remember that and I think I remember one of his books was called naked pictures of famous people Which was great. He's a solid guy. Like, he's a solid guy.

I don't know if he's agree with him, but I don't always agree with everybody. I don't even agree with me. Isn't that good? I mean, isn't that the point of this? It's like you want a couple people to be mad sometimes. I also think we all as human beings need to be divorced from our ideas. Your ideas are not you. You are you. And ideas are not you. You are you.

And ideas are things that you should consider. Ideas are something that you should, I mean, if it's going to have some sort of a real physical impact on your life and your family and your families and the people you care about, I understand. I understand why you get connected to things like that. But for the most part, most of these ideas don't affect you. A lot of them don't. And yet we're so ideologically captured that we fight for these ideas as if it's our very nature. You're talking about your essence as a human being. And it's stupid.

This reminds me of a time I left my joke book on a train in New York. And in the joke book I have, this book is important to me, call me if you get this, you know. And this guy texts me and he says, I have this joke book and you know, talk about your ideas. The joke book is the most unfiltered dumb idea ever. That's the beauty of it. And I said, man, I'm sure he's reading it. Why, you know, you're going to read it. You're going to read a stranger's joke book. And I said, man, I'm sure he's reading it. You're going to read it. You're going to read a stranger's joke book. And I connected with him. He was very kind. He gave it to me. But he kind of looked at me like, are you a comedian type thing? And I said, yeah.

But it's terrifying when that idea gets attached to you when it was just a fleeting idea. Right. Yeah. The joke book idea is the best example of that, right? Because most of what you write is shit, which took me forever to figure out. I was like, God, I just write shit. And then every now and then a gem. Like, ooh, and then you extract the gem. But I've realized afterwards, it's basically like gold mining.

Most of the time you're not finding gold. You're finding garbage. And you only get to gold by going through garbage. Sometimes I'll do a show and it's terrible, new joke show, but then the next day the thing happens. And I think, oh, that's because I was digging all day yesterday. Yeah. It's the muse, right?

You have to show up and request the muse's love. I like that. Yeah. I mean, do you ever read Pressfield's War of Art? No. It's really, we have a stack of them out there. I'll give you a copy of it. It's a small book, easy read.

Jay Larson, comedian in LA, recommended that book to me 10 years ago, and I never tackled it. It's really good. I used to have a stack of them in the studio where I'd give out to guests, because so many comics, I was like, this is what you need. What's the essence?

I will read it. Also, you know what keeps freaking me out? There's a shooting star above my head. Yes, there is, yeah, there is, yeah. Every now and then one will fly above your head. What's the essence? The war of art that makes it sound like it's a struggle to create art. Yeah, it's the struggle against resistance, which is procrastination, which is this thing that we all do before we actually write, which is so weird, because I love when I'm actually locked in and great ideas are coming.

It's one of the best feelings in the world. It's like somehow or another you're pulling these ideas out of nowhere and then it's your job to take this seed and try to go plant it on stage and try to water it and try to, over the course of many months, it'll become a great bit. And they just only come if you sit there. They only come if you sit there.

And what he is saying is that you have to treat it like you're a professional. And you have to decide at 8 a.m., I will show up and I will be there for three hours. I will shut my phone off, I will lock in. This is what I do because I am a professional. And you literally make a prayer to the muse. You offer yourself to the muse, you say, make a prayer to the muse.

You offer yourself to the muse, you say, I'm here to work, I'm here to gather ideas, I'm here to be creative and be open, and you treat it that way. Whether or not the muse is real or not. That's kind of, you can get hung up on that, but if you treat it like it's real, it works, which is really crazy. I love that, and I don't do that. And early in my comedy career, I would go to the coffee shop

at this time and start typing. And I have all these, and I remember Tommy at the comedy store, he would say, every time I see you, you have new bits. And I would go, yeah, and now it's crazy, life has gotten crazier. I don't make time for myself to do that, but I need to honor the muse, man.

I like that. My move is when everyone's asleep in my house. Because I still, I get up pretty early for a comic. I'm up by eight almost every day. Comics are unreal with that. Right, but that means that I can go to bed at one and still get seven hours of sleep. So that's what I do. So when everybody in my house kind of goes to bed early, my kids go to school, my wife goes to bed early. So when everyone's asleep, it's just me and

the dog. You know, and either we're watching YouTube or I'm writing. And I, that's when I get my best work done. You write by hand or you type? No, I type. You type? Yeah. I feel like I can't write fast enough by hand. I need, what I like about typing is that I don't have to look at the keys, I know how to type. So I can make a letter, I can make a word very quickly. I can like, and I can like zone in to it. But what I really like is a keyboard that I can feel.

Like I need travel in my keys. And these clickety clickety clickety little MacBook keys, those are bullshit. What you want is a keyboard that you don't have to look at because it's got like little divots where your finger sits. I use a ThinkPad. And ThinkPads have the best keyboards. They have travel. Each one has like a couple of millimeters of travel. So it's a clickety clickety clicky. So my fingers know exactly where to go and I could just get into the zone. You're zoning right now. Yeah Yeah, but that's how I do it Like I have like a whole thing like the laptop that I write on it's not connect. It has no apps

It never goes anywhere. It doesn't get my email Yeah, it does I only allow myself to use the Bing search engine to find out if what the because most of the time if I'm writing about something like you know when was this discovered what happened here who figured that out it's normal facts daylight savings is coming so we're about to lose an hour and that means trying to speed up your morning but if you drink AG1 maybe you're fine with it it's that quick and easy to help your body feel great every day. Starting your day with AG1 can help you shake off the grogginess, get back into your rhythm, and even give you the boost you need to make the most of that extra

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That's a trap for me. Frequently, I'll start typing. I was working on a bit recently that all of these amazing men, these explorers, these achievers, the idea was, because I found out that Sir Edmund Hillary, Mount Everest's first man to climb Everest, he had like nine kids or something. And the idea of the joke was, I don't even think he likes climbing mountains. I don't even think he enjoys outdoors. It's that he's trying to get away from his family.

So then I looked up Roger Bannister, the guy who broke the four minute mile. He had like seven kids. I'm like, I don't even think he likes running. He's just trying to run away from his family. But I remember writing that bit, and it's a funny bit. There might have been an Elon thing there. He has a lot of kids going to Mars, whatever.

There's other stuff. But I would keep getting sidetracked by these Googles. Start typing a bit. Now I'm on Sirman Hillary's Wikipedia page. Now I'm gone, and that's a trap. That's tricky. It's procrastination. It really is, and you can get locked in.

So the discipline is to keep it, stay on the bit, Costa. I would play this stupid game with myself. I was like, I'll just go on YouTube real quick and see if I get inspired by anything before I write. And then I'm watching two hours of muscle car builds. Right, right. Oh, dude, it's wild. Watching people turn their Land Cruiser

into an off-road vehicle. Like, come on. I would do motorcycle handlebars. You know, I would find my motorcycle and then there'd be like, 20 different handlebar builds and stuff. What kind of motorcycle did you drive? I have a Triumph Bonneville 2011.

It's in storage in Pennsylvania now. I take it out in the summer a lot, but. Where'd you drive it? In LA, that was what I used all the time. You ride a motorcycle in LA? I did, forever. Holy shit, dude. My wife doesn't really, we have a family now.

In PA, I ride it a lot. And there it's deer, man. That's the scary thing there. They get very close. They're not afraid of cars or motor vehicles at this point. Well, there's a time between September-ish to December-ish where they're retarded because they're horny. Once it starts getting warm out, they start getting goofy.

And then when you get cold around November, that's when it really kicks in. If you're in Pennsylvania or Iowa, oh my god, I visited my friend John in Iowa, and I'm driving down the road, and every 15 seconds you're slamming on your brakes Yeah, because something's darting near the road. Yeah, they're all over the place. So they're horny and looking. Yes, right They're also getting chased Right the bucks are chasing the females and the females just running out into traffic, right and the bucks are falling on which bang

I mean, this is like men at night. Oh, yeah. Yeah much six streets Men that night. Oh yeah. Sixth Street. Where my club is. Same thing. That's why the road is closed on the weekends. They don't want people driving down Sixth Street with all these horny idiots. I love that they closed that though.

That's good. I didn't know that. It is great. But what scares me is like what happened in New Orleans where they have these roads where only people walk down and everyone knows it and this psycho decides to kill a bunch of people. It's crazy that you have to think that way, but I mean there should be some sort of retractable posts

that they can pull up. Wasn't there for that one and it didn't. It wasn't up. It wasn't up. In New York, it's a big concrete slab. I was in France last year and they had these huge flower pots with beautiful flowers in it.

And I said, you know, this is the New York version, is a huge concrete slab that says NYPD on it. And this is the French version, which was this enormous, beautiful flower pot. I go, that's serving a function and also beautiful. Yeah, well, the French know how to do things, right? They know how to do it. Yeah, they party. They know how to do it. Yeah, they party.

They know how to party, they drink a lot of wine, they stay thin somehow or another, which is odd. Like, I hope RFK Junior figures that out. I wanna know how the Italians are so thin. All the time. I go to Italy, and it's also like the standard cliche, but it is true, you go there, you can eat the food, and it doesn't affect you the same way.

It's like, and we don't even think twice about it. We come back here and still order pizza, and still feel like shit. If I eat a pizza here, I feel so bloated. I ate a pizza in Italy last summer, and I ate the whole pizza too. Whole margarita pizza, I ate the whole fucking thing. And I was like, I just would resign myself

to the thud of it hitting my digestive tract and like feeling like I'm on drama mean just like yeah I've resigned myself I'm like I'm eating pizza fucking this is what's gonna happen let's just do it nothing never came right never came ate a whole pizza I was like this the rest of the day I was like this is crazy I'm not even like brisket brisket crushes me Terry Black's put you down son I mean I, I was in Houston. Steve Byrne was at the other club. You want to get lunch?

Yeah, of course we go get brisket. I went back to a, I slept for like three and a half hours. I mean, it is very- Did you have sides though? I don't remember what we were doing. I bet you did. I bet you had sides. You think it was the sides that did?

Yeah, I think it's mostly the starches and the carbs. yeah the carbs it's most like macaroni salad fatty delicious meat So good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Terry blacks in town. Okay my favorite. Okay. Oh my they have a beef rib That is the most preposterous thing you pick the bone up and the ribs slides off the bone Yeah, I mean and when you slice into it's just juicy fatty Yeah, I mean and when you slice into it's just juicy fatty Smoky why is the meat falling off the bone such an important so tender it means it's been slow-cooked perfectly They have a thing where you want your brisket to fold but not break So they take a slice of brisket and then put it over their hand and if it breaks off you fucked up You made a mushy brisket, but you want it where it's just folding right now like a thick cloth there's there's a life metaphor there to

brisket you want it right out to you want it like right after they slice it you don't want to wait on brisket yeah you want to eat it right you don't want to eat it before it's well you want to eat a while it's still warm look at that see the fold that guy's finger yeah that's a that's a perfectly cooked brisket right there dude I learned learn? Oh every time I'm here I learned I remember last time dude we We were talking Italian billiards. I didn't even realize it was a different billiards. Oh, they have a bunch different. Yeah, but I mean That's funny. I never had any idea about that brisket, but you know it was all originally Germans

That they would do the brisket stuff? Germans who came over through Texas. Like Fredericksburg is one of the hubs of it. It's all a bunch of Germans who came over here and they made smoked sausages. And so they came over here and the brisket became a thing because brisket was not a choice cut. It was a thing that they would throw away. Like you wanted the steaks, you wanted a T-bone.

So they would take the brisket and they just figured out like if you just slowly cook it, you render it down and break down all the toughness of it. And at the end you have this delicious, tender, smoked perfection. That puts me to sleep. They know how to do it here, man. They make the best fucking brisket on earth right here. Terry Black's, Franklin's, La Barbecue, there's like a bunch of spots in town. What's it, QB Barbecue's at the Egyptian joint that I went to with

Action Bronson? That place is insane. Oh man, having a meal with him would be super fun. KB? KG, KG Barbecue. So this gentleman came from Egypt and he was like a finance guy I think in Egypt, just working a regular job. Came over here, fell in love with brisket, decided to just open up his own barbecue shop. And so this guy makes these incredible recipes with like Egyptian and Middle Eastern spices.

Jesus. But with Texas barbecue. Oh my God, it was so good. It was so good. Cool story. And he's blowing up now. And it's just super nice guy too. Just like, I love when someone does that. It's like, fuck this job.

I'm doing, you know what I want to do? I want to feed people. I want to make brisket, awesome brisket. I want to make a food truck. And this guy, it becomes so popular so quickly that this guy has like a real business now and he's got a restaurant. He's opening up a a second one I believe. That was my favorite part of living in Los Angeles it's easy to make fun of LA for good reason but for the most part a lot of people were betting on themselves and a talent they had.

Yeah. Not everyone's but I do love that I always appreciated that. Yeah I like living in a place where people are definitely going for something and taking chances. Yeah, yeah. The problem with LA is it also becomes attached with what is the engine that gets you to where you want to go. And sometimes that engine is like pure narcissism. Yeah, or fame.

Yeah. If that's the goal. Most of the time it's fame. Which fuels the narcissism. Yeah. But I think a more interesting question is how do we find the thing that we're meant to do? That Egyptian finance man found that brisket is his calling.

That's fascinating. In his 30s. In his 30s. Yeah, with a career. Right, right, with a career. Making money, having healthcare, still decided to give it up. Living in Egypt, by the way. It's not even close to Austin, Texas, and he comes here, he doesn't just decide to make barbecue,

he decides to make barbecue in the home of barbecue. I mean, the place. Yeah, he's like, fuck it, if you want to learn Jiu-Jitsu, go to Brazil. Yeah. He went right to the heart of it all. I remember I was coaching tennis at University of Michigan. I was making $31,000 a year.

And I go, I think I can make this in comedy. If I'm going to get paid like shit, let me at least do what I want. So of course, the first year I go, I think I can make this in comedy. If I'm gonna get paid like shit, let me at least do what I want. So of course the first year I left, first year I did comedy I made whatever, $6,000 or whatever. But I think often how much harder that would have been if I was making 100 grand.

You know, it's, because I was poor, let's be poor and pick the thing I wanna be doing. Oh, 100%, but that's the thing about youth. Youth is filled with, if you're 47 years old and you decide that you need to change careers, you're gonna be a folk singer and you have a family. What are you talking about? You have a Volvo, you have a fucking mortgage, you idiot.

You have to go to work, you have to go to work. If you're gonna make folk songs, you're gonna make them on the two hours you have for yourself on the weekend when everybody else is out of the house. You don't have any time for that. Is it true that Rodney Dangerfield found comedy so late like that?

Well, Rodney did comedy and then quit, but kept writing and was selling aluminum siding. Right, that's what I remember that story. Remade it when he was like 46. That's fucking awesome story. Yeah, how about Schimmel? Schimmel didn't even start until he was 36, which I thought was crazy.

I remember when I heard it because I was a giant Schimmel fan. And then when I had heard that he started when he was 36, I was like, what? I didn't think you could do that. I thought you had to start when you were like 21. Or you had no chance. I remember starting at 27 and wondering if it was too late.

Right, isn't that crazy? Or maybe it was 25, I forget. I wish I started at 27 and wondering if it was too late. Right, isn't that crazy? Or maybe it was 25, I forget. I wish I started at 27, because when I was 21, I was such a moron. I just had no opinions on anything. So all my jokes were basically about sex. It was like sex and relationships. Where were you at age 21? Boston.

Boston, okay. That's right, you were in, I was going to say, because you were at least in a good comedy scene. You could see good comedy. Great comedy scene. Yes, yes, that's right. You were in, I was gonna say, because you were at least in a good comedy scene. You could see good comedy. Great comedy scene. Yes, yes, yeah, you've talked about that. It was the best comedy scene. It was the best comedy scene

because it was a comedy scene that had world-class comedians that the rest of the country didn't know about. So it was a cheat code. It was like you're in a gym and you're sparring with world-class fighters, like world-championship caliber fighters that the rest of the world hasn't seen yet.

And that emerges sometimes in fight gyms. You have a bunch of, like, elite fighters, and then all of a sudden there's three world champions in this gym, like, two years later. That's what it was like in Boston, because there was these guys that were the Steve Sweeney's and the Don Gavins, who were as good as anybody that's ever done comedy.

And no one knew who they were outside of Boston. And you get to see them every night just murdering. Was their drive to get out? No. It was to make money, stay there. Do coke and play golf. Yeah. Those guys were partying.

They probably figured. I mean, I remember the documentary about Boston comedy where they said they would pay comics and coke They were it was a totally different kind of comedian There were these big football player looking men right who were rowdy who partied all the time. They were all heavy drinkers They all played golf. They were all animals everyone go on stage and obliterate right when I say obliterate I mean these guys would go on stage with a drink in their hand, and they had a fucking act that was as hammered as a samurai sword. It was polished, and they would just fucking.

From the paws they would take to the eyebrow raise, all that, yeah. Everything. And a lot of it was like local references, like local Boston stuff, and they would bury these out of town comedians. I saw them bury Billy Crystal one night. Bury him, bury, death, death. Satan was nipping at his heels

and dragging him down into the netherworld. It was horrible, he was in hell. I feel like when I started comedy, drinking was still big. Now I meet all the young comics and everybody's sober or they're thinking more about all the different facets. But when I started, there wasn't YouTube yet. Comics talk shit in the green room, a lot, terrible. I went and did Yuck Yucks in Vancouver recently.

In the green room, there's a sign up that says we don't harass people in the green room. And I'm like, this is different. This is different, you know? Well, Canada's just on another level with their wokeness. Canada's on another level, but... Come back to us, Canada. I remember driving down the road in Vancouver

and there's all these people just lining up. And I go, what's going on? And they said, oh, well, they're lining up for the bus that's about to come. And I'm like, that's Canadian. I mean, like... They're so polite. They're waiting, they know where the bus will be and they're lining up. And I'm like, that's Canadian. I mean, like. They're so polite. They're waiting, they know where the bus will be

and they're lining up. That is not how it works in Brooklyn. And then before they get on the bus, they give their land acknowledgement. Before they step on the bus. Do you think that comedy with the polish, the local, I mean, it feels like comedy's taking a different turn now. Now it's, if a bit is kind of working, we post it.

It's up, it's not polished. And I miss some of that. I miss some of that. There's some of that, but there's still guys, you know, like Louie who don't do that, and Attelle doesn't do that. It's like, I get for young guys coming up, it's a very good way to develop an audience. Like there's guys that have a clip,

the clip goes viral on TikTok, all of a sudden there's selling out shows everywhere, like a guy like Ralph Barboza. It's a funny guy. Gets a funny bit, it gets put up, bam, all of a sudden he's headlining all over the country. It happened to him like that. He was opening for me in Dallas before any of that. And you know, you always watch the opener. And normally I watch the opener like this,

like, oh, this is just, is this what I have to go up after? Why didn't I bring my own guy? You know, whatever. And I'm sitting in the green room and I'm going, ooh, that's a good bit. Oh, that's a fun, oh, the crowd's going, and I'm going, this guy's got it. And then six months later,

I was like watching his special, right? Or it wasn't maybe a year later, but yeah. I mean, that's a great example. He's he's funny dude Yeah, it's a great example. What can be done with social media today, you know And then there's these guys a lot of bad ones like from kill Tony where they do one minute And a lot of these one minute clips get put into reels and then these guys are getting Huge responses for this and now they're doing the Killers of Kill Tony where they're selling out these huge places.

So it's amazing what can be done, but. But they don't have an act. Some of them do. Like Ari Matty's 12 years in. He was doing stand-up in Australia. I actually worked with him in Australia in like 2016, I think. Somewhere around then, 2015, somewhere around then. So Ari's been at it for a long time. in like 2016, I think.

Somewhere around then, 2015, somewhere around then. So Ari's been at it for a long time, so he's really good. He's a really solid comic. So he's like headlining now because of this. But there's guys that are in it four or five years, and they don't really have an act yet, but they have a couple of good jokes, but they'll figure it out.

They'll figure it out. They'll figure it out, but you don't wanna figure all of it out on video in front of the whole world. That's what it is now. I'm so thankful that as soon as I could, I posted my first set on the internet, but that was seven years in. You couldn't even do it.

Right. I would have done it too soon. I mean, it still was too soon, but. But it's okay. You know, look, you go back and watch my first episodes of this podcast, they were fucking terrible. I encourage everybody to go back and watch my first episodes of this podcast They were fucking terrible right I encourage everybody go back and watch them the dogs Where you know what where does one watch the first I bet they're on YouTube. They're on everywhere. There's somewhere It's everywhere, but like when we first started doing it. I mean it was no production value

It's not I was boring. You know and then you figure out how to do it. It's like stand-up It is everything else go back and watch someone's first amateur fight. They did right terrible It is make mistakes. It is very beautiful to watch People get better at stuff. Yeah, there's a female tennis player right now named Andre Ava I forget how to pronounce her first name But I just watched her at Indian Wells and I saw her four years ago at the French Open Everyone was saying watching a lot of watch Indian Wells, and I saw her four years ago at the French Open. Everyone was watching, just about to watch Andreva,

and I'm like, this is a child that doesn't know how to play the sport. Why are we talking about her? I watched her last week in absolute nightmare of a beast, you know, hitting the ball, the movement, her shape. And it was like, oh, every day she got better for four, and to see that was nuts and I always go back and watch old oh my god Novak Djokovic's first

Grand Slam when he's got like the worst haircut in the baggy shirt and the backhand was looking different now it's just amazing to see how these athletes evolve and I'm sure it's the same for fighters and you mentioned it was yeah I love seeing that yeah tennis is like all things, right? It's you, when you really do it, then you can truly appreciate people who are great. Yes. There's so many things that are like in martial arts,

it's a big, especially when things go to the ground. A lot of times people don't understand how difficult a specific maneuver is, how he did that, how he baited him with that. And then you have to, there's certain things I watch when I'm like, oh did that, how he baited him with that, and then you have to, like there's certain things I watch when I'm like, oh my God, does everybody appreciate this? That was insane, that was insane.

It's a language, it's a language, and if you don't speak the, I mean, when, I don't speak MMA language, but that's where good commentators come in, oh, they're excited for a reason. That was something that we don't see very often, and that helps me. I assume that's how it works for tennis people that aren't, or for non-tennis people

when they're watching tennis. Because it's- Oh, I'm sure, but I think only a person like you, who is a professional, could appreciate the technique involved, and like the changing of Djokovic's backstring. Yep, yep. I mean, I pause it, I make my wife come

into the living room, and I say, watch this, and she'll watch, and she'll go, that was good. And I go, are you even seeing what he did? He did a short slice to pull him in. And then he went, and it's like, but it's a language that I speak. And this is life, man. Picking these little things we have that we get passionate about is just awesome.

As I've gotten older, I used to shy away from tennis a little bit. It's an elite sport, it's got its own history. And now I'm just like, I fucking love it. I love that I'm good at it. I love that I know it. It's fun. The Wokies pushed you away from tennis? No, no, the Wokies pushed me away from tennis. It sounds like it did. It sounds like it was a little too elite.

It was a little too country club, a little too segregated. It definitely is those things. No, I think what happened- It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be. And that's why be and that's why yeah, it's a Rena Serena and Venus were such a fun Fuck up to the sport. You know the freeway Ricky Ross story No freeway Ricky Ross was a guy who you know Rick Ross the rapper. Yes He named himself after a famous cocaine dealer in Los Angeles

Okay freeway Ricky Ross, okay freeway Ricky Ross was selling cocaine unbeknownst to him for the CIA to fund the Contras versus the Sandinistas. Okay, yeah, so this is the cocaine cowboy type stuff, isn't it? Type stuff, but this was about Oliver North. This was all about funneling money into the war. He was a tennis player, like an elite tennis player, but couldn't even read, couldn't read.

And was this really elite tennis player, couldn't even read. Couldn't read. And was this really good tennis player who that was like what his hope for a scholarship. Gets involved, starts selling cocaine, starts selling a lot of cocaine. Doesn't know how he's so successful because he's worked with the CIA. He's helping them. Goes to jail, learns how to read when he's in jail,

becomes a lawyer in jail, gets himself off because they tried him on three strikes, but they did it for one incident so they did it incorrectly and so he gets out of jail so incarceration educated him to the point where he got himself out but is there origins or as a tennis player as a tennis player he's a tennis player like a really good tennis player you know Menendez brothers excellent tennis players that one of them played at UCLA. Maybe not the best example One guy I'm talking about a guy from South Central LA who can't read true Just to say it's not necessarily an elite sport. That's what you said to me. It's just a sport

I agree all you need is a court. You mean it seems pretty cheap I need a flat surface a tennis racquet and a ball like's go. The kids that were beating me when I was a pro played on a dirt court with a rope tied between two sticks. These South American and Russian players, it was not a money sport. It was not a sport of money. It was a sport of movement and competition. And because there's no clock,

you can have as much time as you want to figure out and beat down your opponent. So that gets a certain type of athlete. You know, I think it was Jimmy Connors who said, I didn't lose, I just ran out of time in that match. I would have figured it out. But unfortunately he beat me. Yeah, what happened with me,

I was trying to be a stand-up comic that I was trying to so badly that I was trying to remove the athletic stigma. Even now, you sometimes say tennis and people kind of back up, but as I got better at comedy and more confident in my abilities, I said, why am I shying away from the sport that I love and that is such a foundational part of me? Isn't that weird that you felt like you had to move away from athletics in order to fit in in comedy That's probably a more succinct way to say it and the new book that's out right now. Lucky loser is all about how I'm now embracing this tennis because it gave me all the skills to actually be good in comedy. Of course. Yeah

Yeah discipline Realizing like the tennis player that you were talking about, that if you do put in the work over time, the results will pay off, and you'll see it. And you're alone. Yeah. Figure that shit out by yourself.

You're alone, and you're going to have success and failure. When I was eight years old, I lost in the finals of the Ann Arbor Junior Open. And I realized I was going to lose, and lost in the finals of the Ann Arbor Junior Open, and I realized I was gonna lose, and I started crying on the court, and my older brother runs on the court and holds me like a child. I'm crying.

There's a picture of that in the book. Now as a parent, I'm going, who the fuck took that picture? Right, I'm just a kid crying and my brother's holding me because my parents taking that picture? They did it for the Gram. They did it for the gram But man as a comic holy shit, we've all felt like that. Oh man, it's so personal when you when you fail as a comic Well, it's important to learn how to lose at things and everything Yes, if you marry your high school sweetheart and you guys never broke up and that's the you know, you probably missed out me

Congratulations on achieving the most difficult thing humanly possible that everybody admires, right? When you meet a couple and like, I have two friends of mine that have actually been dating since they were like 16 years old and now they're married with kids in their 40s. Congratulations. But I think there's some value in getting your ass kicked. I think there's some value in a girl saying, no, I don't even like you. Like, no, you don't like me?

You know, I think it's good getting dumped is good. I think all that's valuable. I think you have to learn. And I don't think you learn by winning all the time, and I don't think you learn if something's easy, which is why really handsome and really beautiful people are often ridiculous in the way they behave. That's true.

Because they have five aces. Right. And they didn't earn them, they were just born with five aces. So how do you instill grit, toughness in a generation? As a parent, I see my five-year-old struggling, I oftentimes pop in, let me get that for you. You know, she's trying to, little things,

she's trying to do the buttons on her shirt. That's, we got to, you know, and I do it for her and I think, I shouldn't do it for her, she should be struggling to do this. But this is a big issue right now, right? The younger generation, you hear that word grit. How do we instill that? Well, sports is a great way to do it.

It doesn't work with everybody, because some people play sports and they come out even cunty or, you know, they come out more aggressive or more competitive or more psychotic in their pursuits and it just alienates everything else in their life. Or it creates trauma for them, not real trauma. Or real trauma, fucking head trauma if you're playing football.

Yeah, I think difficult things are important for kids. It doesn't necessarily have to be that. It could be art, it could be music, it could be something. But I think there's something when you put your attention to something and realize you can get better at this thing and you find yourself in that thing and you find your potential in that thing that you focus on.

It doesn't have to, it's not necessarily that it has to define you, because oftentimes it does, unfortunately. When people are really good at a thing, it becomes the whole essence of who they are as a person. But it's a valuable tool for elevating your human potential. And it's also a way that you can quantify effort versus results.

And you can do that in sports and games and in think chess and art and things that are difficult. Like you could say, like, I am so much better playing guitar now because I've been playing three hours a day for six months, and look what I can do now. So I know that there's a thing, and it teaches you that if there's a thing

that you really love and you focus on it, that thing, if someone does it for a living, why can't you? Why can't you? Why do I have to be in this fucking bullshit office in this cubicle with these stupid papers that I don't give a shit about do I have to be in this fucking bullshit office, in this cubicle with these stupid papers that I don't give a shit about that I have to fill out for this company that I don't give a fuck about?

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Call 1-800-LIFE-LOCK and use the promo code JoeRogan or go to lifelock.com slash JoeRogan for 40% off. Terms apply. I agree with you. Some things we will improve upon faster based on our natural abilities. I loved the way DJs used to seamlessly transfer one song to the other, beat matching, whatever that was called. I asked for two turntables for Christmas. I obsessed over it. I fucking sucked at it, dude. I couldn't do it. I tried so hard. And then I'm thinking, pick up this tennis racket and it all kind of clicks very quickly. Well, you have a good frame for tennis, first of all.

Thank you. So you're tall and long, which really helps. You can reach stuff that other people can't reach. You think I don't have a good frame for DJing? You have like a foot more space. Look how much wider your arms are. My arms are pretty long and yours are like a foot more. Dude, if Pete Sampras did this, the greatest server,

I mean don't they say that this is the same height? I think so. I think they say that this is your height also. Is that what it is? Yeah it's not really, I mean that's your wingspan. Well I always heard that from here to here is your foot, I saw that on Pretty Woman. But I mean Pete had like extra length.

Yes. And people go, how did he get the pop on the serve? It's like, you know, those- Torque. Like Tommy Hearns with his punches. Tommy Hearns was so long and tall. Like Deontay Wilder is another example. Those long, tall guys, when you have this torque,

like you ever see Deontay Wilder? No. He's arguably the greatest one punch knockout artist in the history of the heavyweight division. At one point in time, he was like, what is Deontay's record? I think it's like 40 and he's had a few losses recently, but at one point in time, he had like 39 knockouts out of 40 fights. Jesus. Which is insane.

And these are professional fighters he's knocking out. It's not me. And he's undersized for the heavyweight division. When he fought Tyson Fury, Tyson Fury was like 260. He was 209. 209. He made it to 40 and 0. 40 and 0 and 39 of those 40 were knockouts. Look at everybody. Knockout, TKO, TKO TKO KO he knocked out everybody and he not get the Lewis Ortiz fight show him the Lewis Ortiz forgive Forgive this extremely ignorant question when you say knockout that means like flatline the guy's done. That's not like the ref calls it That's okay. It was a ref calls it knockout is like it's over That's a TKO is a ref calls it knockout is like it's over Like you got flat line and these are guys that know how to take hits elite guys. Yeah Well, this guy Luis Ortiz was on the cubit Olympic team

He's a fucking elite fighter and he was really durable and Deont so Deontay is see he's the one with his back to us He's long and tall but not giant. He's not a big guy in comparison to a lot of these guys But he catches him with a right hand and flattens him. I think this is the first time they fought Jamie Yeah, the second one is the KO with one punch. So he beat him up in the first fight, too But Ortiz is an elite boxer and Deontay's not the best boxer, right? He's just a hitter got a hitter and he he's just waiting, waiting, waiting, blam! And he hits guys and they're like, what the fuck, here it is, watch this.

Wow, that just collapses him. It didn't even seem like it was that hard of a hit. And this is an elite heavyweight. Show it again, show it again, because it's so crazy, it's just one punch, it's just black. So Wilder just waits, waits, waits. It's all waiting. It's not boxing. Yeah, that's right. He's just waiting, waiting for his chance.

Look at that record. Right here. Unbelievable. Well, you got that kind of power. That is so crazy. That's crazy. It's hard for us, it's hard for me to even wrap my head around. See if they show it in the replay, because he hits him on the forehead, which is so crazy. Just before that. Watch this. Right there.

Just before it, Jamie. Okay, here it is. Watch this. He hits him on the forehead, man. Not punching, waiting. He's just waiting. He's just waiting. He's just pawing at him with his left hand and God look at that, bro but it's all that torque and length and leverage and Just God-given power like nobody has she's in the fucking. Oh, that's so crazy the slow motion That is so crazy and look at the torque look at the wide shoulders and the timing and the speed and watch just straight It's out right on his fucking noggin boom

You know in these in the follow through with the shoulder. Oh my goodness in these sports like mixed martial arts, too these sports aren't for me because One punch it's done. Oh, yeah, meaning meaning. I like watching that meaning. I wouldn't have been a good Athlete in that sport. I think that well like in tennis what I love is if you're just bombing aces But like in tennis what I love is if you're just bombing aces, after the first set, clean slate. We start all over again. And in boxing, you make one mistake like that and it's done. Well against that guy.

Against that guy. But that's very unusual. Most guys can't do that. They can't do that. Most guys can hit you pretty hard. You would take a hard hit but you could recover. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy.

Deontay's like in a world of his own. And he's also in a world of his own, again, because he's not big. Like there's Daniel Dubois, who is the, I forget which division he's a champion of right now, but he's a giant heavyweight who knocks everybody out. But he's 255, 260, built like a tank. Deontay's literally 40 plus pounds lighter than that.

And just one punch, blah! I liked how we watched a lot of that, and he hadn't even thrown a punch. He's not wasting, he's a hitter. He's there to kill you. He's not gonna out box you and be slick. In fact, his movement is sometimes awkward. He's criticized for having bad footwork.

His legs look like sticks. He has the skinniest legs you've ever seen in your life. Like, it's crazy. You look at his legs, like, how? How? But the power this guy generates is out of this world. So his software during a fight is just constantly trying to find the open for one of these huge punches.

That's the whole time he's doing it. He's not boxing you. I mean, he's boxing, kind of, but he's really looking for the big one. And you know if that big one lands, it's nighty night for everybody. The only one who's able to survive it is Tyson Fury because he's a fucking animal.

And he rose from the dead in the 12th round of their fight where it looked like Deontay had knocked him out cold. Deontay even went like that at the end of it because he hit him with the right hand and then a left hook as he was going down. And he went flat out on his back. And Tyson Fury rose like the Undertaker and got right back and won the rest of the round.

But that's just because he's a, that's another very, very rare human being, Tyson Fury, just an animal. Just an animal. One of the greatest boxers of all time. And one of the greatest heavyweights without a doubt of all time. When you get hit like that, there's gotta be an enormous physical pain, duh.

But then there also is like, don't you get scared then, after a big hit like that? Well you get super confused. You get confused. Because I would get scared. You gotta kinda shake off the cobwebs, your ears are ringing, your legs don't work right anymore. When you get knocked down, I only got TKO'd once in a kickboxing fight, and ironically it didn't hurt.

The punch that hit me just twisted my jaw. He hit me with a left hook and my legs just gave out, like weep, like gone. It's the craziest feeling. It's not like you got hurt, it's like your legs just shut off. He clipped me with a left hook that I didn't see in an exchange and when you get hit on the jaw, something happens in the jaw and I don't know what it is with the nerves behind your neck but it just shuts everything off. Right.

And you're conscious, which is weird. Like, so it was completely conscious but my legs just like disconnected and went down but they reconnected right away and I got up and I was like, oh no, I'm in trouble. They weren't working good. Everything wasn't working good. And then I got dropped again. He hit me with an uppercut and dropped me and then the referee stopped the fight.

But totally conscious the whole time. But the feeling that you get when you get hit real hard is real weird. It's like nothing works right anymore. And you gotta get on your bike and try to move around and get everything working again. And it might take 30 seconds before. And that's that 30 seconds when he's also

trained to kill you. Now in the UFC, it's way more accurate because when you get knocked down, they climb on top of you and beat your fucking brains in or strangle you, which is really what's supposed to happen. The whole thing of letting someone get up, what you're really doing is giving them a chance to get more damage

That's true because they can recover but not all the way, you know Sometimes right sometimes the guy gets rocked early in a fight and you can tell for the whole rest of the fight They're still fucked up and they're they're very defensive. So it's safer in your opinion the way UFC does it where if you start wobbling I'm immediately on you trying to kill you, and then it's like, as opposed to boxing where they would get you up and you maybe. I don't think either one is safe. I think it's an unsafe sport. It's as safe as we can make it. We have laws of when you can hit someone,

you can't hit them in the back of the head, but it's not safe. It's a very dangerous, very scary sport. But I think realistically, when someone gets hurt and someone finishes them off on the ground, that's probably less damage than they would have taken if you gave them a standing eight count, dusted their gloves off, made them move forward,

and let them go back again and get really mollywalloped. You know, because a lot of times, those were where the real bad KOs come from, is when a guy's hurt and then he stands up and... The only thing I can even closely compare this to is being in a car accident. Yeah. And I...

Let me show you one of the greatest examples of that. Alex Pereira, who was a two division glory world champion, pull up Alex Pereira KOs Jason Willness. So, he's like the most destructive kickboxer in the history of the sport. And he went over to the UFC, became a two division UFC champion, just lost his title last weekend in a really close fight, great fight. But he hits this guy with a head kick and drops him. And you can tell this guy's fucked.

But they give him the standing A because it's in kickboxing not an MMA Okay, give him the standing a count dust his gloves off you okay come forward and then he gets hit with a flying Knee on the chin and just sent into the shadow realm, right? And it didn't didn't need to happen this way And this is what happens when you take a guy who's like really rocked and kind of fucked so watch this So he catches him with a head kick So he's by the way a Jason Welles had beaten him twice before so he drops him with the left Okay, is this the first fight?

Or is this the the head kick? I don't know fight. I Don't know if this is the one. I think this is the one when they went back and forth I don't think this is the one where he chaos him. I think this is the one when they went back and forth. I don't think this is the one where he chaos him I think this is one where he drops them Yeah, try to find the later one. This is it. This is the one because I could tell by his haircut so Pereira at this time was the champion and he was getting revenge on wellness who had beaten him before and stopped him with low kicks in One of their fights so he head kicks him boom so right now. He's fucked in an MMA He would follow up beat him a couple times that'll be it but Wildness is like they're giving him a chance to clear your head your coach to

like get up immediately show that you're okay right yeah and he's like they don't want to watch this oh my god that's the kind of shit that happens when you're really already fucked so he can hit you with this flying scissor knee Right on the chin fuck is that he's the most ferocious knockout artists literally in the history of sport Look at all my chin and that's forget. That's like legal and everything. Oh, yeah, it's encouraged It's not just legal. That's celebrated. That's one of the greatest techniques in the history of the sport and Alex Pereira That's how he won his first UFC fight. He won with that. I see another nasty one pull up Pereira Kale's Michael Itis

See another nasty one. So this is Pereira's first entrance into the UFC and I'm a giant fan of kickboxing. So I watch Muay Thai I watch Dutch kickboxing. I watch glory I watch everything I can about kickboxing. So I watch Muay Thai, I watch Dutch kickboxing, I watch Glory, I watch everything I can about kickboxing. And I knew this guy was really special. So I was completely hyping him up in this first UFC fight. I'm like, just watch.

And he came through in flying colors. And he came through with that flying knee. And it's so nuts, the amount of power this guy can generate. With punches and with kicks, but with a flying knee, you have so much torque. You're literally throwing your body weight up into the air. So how do you avoid a flying knee? Just step out of the way?

It's in the second round, Jamie, so it's right after this. Like right at the beginning of the second round. Yeah, so start the second round, and he's like, fuck this dude I'm just gonna catch him coming in and flatline them This is watch this. I mean, this is nutty Here it is Oh my god

That is so fast he's such a fucking animal he's such a monster dude So how would you even how you can't block that you just try to get away with the fuck out of the way of that You don't want to block that because if you're well Yeah, you certainly should block it rather than take it on the chin But once he's in the air like that if that catches your arms break your forearm I mean the amount of power that's involved in that particular technique is fucking extraordinary Because it's a natural move movement of your hips It's a thing that you do your whole life running and jumping Yeah, you're doing so you can explode very quickly and you're hitting someone with your knee, which is the most immobile part Yes, if you want to hit someone with a joint its elbows and knees, but the knees

Preferable, but aren't you putting yourself in a vulnerable position to throw a flying knee? Yeah You got to wait till a guy's fucked right and that's what he does He waits till you're fucked because if you are jumping in the air, exposing yourself. So what I would do is I would move out of the way, Joe, and then I would pop him. I would pop him. But some guys are just really good. John Jones, when he won the light heavyweight title,

one of the craziest things that John did, he was 22 years old, and he's fighting Mauricio Shogunhua, who is a legend. He was a light heavyweight champion. He was a legend of this organization called Pride in Japan where they sold out like 90,000 seat arenas. I mean he's a real legend of the sport and John opens with a flying knee.

Opens, first move, flying knee, catches him. And then just beats the shit out of him and wins the title and becomes the youngest ever UFC champion. Watch this, this is the beginning of the fight. Now Shogun is, like I said, he's a fucking legend and a knockout artist. And John starts right away, boom!

Flying knee to open up the fight. And just put on a clinic, put on a clinic and won the title at 22 years of age. That's a ballsy move to start with that. He's a ballsy motherfucker. Yeah, that's a big swing right out of the gate. Yeah, that's a crazy move. But some guys can pull it off and it helps being tall.

Like Alex is very tall, John's tall, so it's hard to hit their chin. But you know, it doesn't always work. Like sometimes guys do it and they get knocked out cold. How does your fucking kneecap not break too? It doesn't. No, your kneecap versus chin, I'll take kneecap all day long. especially when your knees are bent and you're hitting

them with this part right here. You can hit that pretty hard on things. You'd be surprised. I have so much respect for these athletes and I'm also, I can't be far enough away from it. Just speaking. Want to see it go wrong? I want to show you the flying knee go wrong.

Pull up Fedor Emelianenko versus, oh, Andrei Orey alovsky i'm sorry you want to see a flying knee go wrong andrey alovsky fador emilianenko so this is andrey alovsky was actually winning this fight and he actually was kind of tuning fador up and he was hitting him with some big shots and he got a little crazy and he leapt in with a flying knee and got flatlined well that's what i'm that's this is what you would that's what that's. This is what you would do. That's what I was thinking, this is what I would do. No, but I was thinking this is a vulnerable position. You don't wanna be in the air.

True, so he's fighting the guy with the bald head, that's Fedor Mileneko who's a legend. So watch Arlovski, he catches him with the kick, he's feeling cocky, tries to fly knee, boom! Oh shit. Flatlined, but he's fighting and Fedor, that's literally the greatest heavyweight of all all time is not one of the greatest like there's the argument that he's the greatest So he catches him on the chin as he's leaving in like perfect punch. So the guy with the beard thought

He thought he was vulnerable. Yeah, he was beating his ass a little bit And he made a mistake and he tried to come in cocky with a flying knee and he got clipped on my jaw And as soon as he gets hit you just see that his flying knee knee just dropped Also, you got to think where fador threw that punch because fador knew he was going in the air This is like the reads this guy's able to get yeah He sees our Lovsky make a motion like bend at the knees like he's gonna launch himself So if you look at where he punches him, he punches him so high up in the air So he knew where his head was gonna be.

Look at that. Look how high he is. See it? He's ducked down, and Orlovsky's way up in the air, and he catches him perfectly on the chin. Like that is just an understanding of positioning, where a guy's gonna be, and what the timing of your punches.

This is reminding me of the way Roger Federer would notice his opponent would quarter of an inch open up his grip on the run and Roger would know forehand slice is coming, I'll sneak in and pop. And now it's much different sport, obviously. Really? But it's reading. Just the grip?

Yeah, dude, if you just, typically he goes it like this and this time he's doing it tiny, boom, they go. Wow. What's so different about tennis, obviously, is then you just volley the ball for a winner, it's 15 love. You don't get head kicked. You don't get fucking knocked out.

I mean, this is why, this shit fascinates me, but I don't know. The consequences are so great. The consequences are so great. That people look at it as a barbaric, horrific thing, which is valid. I understand why pacifists and people who are very peaceful don't wanna have anything to do with violence. I understand why pacifists and people who are very peaceful don't want to have anything to do with violence.

I get it. But what it is to me is the ultimate problem solving. It's problem solving. You have a person in front of you that is doing all these things to try to throw you off. They're fainting you, they're moving, they're switching stances, they're shooting in for takedowns that they don't want so they can

catch you with a punch on the way in. There's so many variables you have to think about. So it's just like high level problem solving with dire physical consequences. Yeah. I love sport because it teaches life lessons with very low stakes. But in these sports, there's high stakes.

That's very interesting for me because I would much rather my kid play soccer or tennis, learn some important lessons with low stakes. But this type of thing, that is serious stakes, man. It is serious stakes. I think kids, especially boys, should all learn how to fight so that they don't ever fight. That's what I think. I, as a 45-year-old grown man, I wish I would have learned how to fight.

Yeah. And I think it's probably not too late. It's not too late. You know, you got a gym over here. Yeah, I was telling you, you could get into jujitsu. You'd be great at it. You have long limbs, you're athletic. So that's what I should be doing.

Long limbs are huge. In jujitsu? For jujitsu, because there's certain things that you'll be able to catch that other people can't catch with shorter limbs, like a Darse choke. So a Darse choke is, so say if you come to grab me and you have your head here and your arm wraps around me like this, I can shove my arm under like this, go off the side of your neck and clamp it like this and I've got you in a wicked choke. It's called a Darse choke. You will

be way better at that than me because you have an extra six inches that you could seal this thing up. So your hand will go further than mine. You'll be able to grab it deeper than I can. Dude, I'm writing down Dars choke. And what I'll do tonight on my YouTube is I'll watch some Dars chokes. And then you do it the other way. It's an anaconda. So you either go armpit this way, it's a dars, or you go head this way, armpit that way, it's an anaconda. And with the anaconda, you roll like an anaconda

and you squeeze them deeper into the choke. And I just squeeze until the referee says it's over. And your long legs, you could wrap around their body to secure them in place. You could grab ahold of one of their legs so they can't turn away from you. You could turn into them and fucking keep the squeeze on. Dude, you'd be wicked at it.

And in a competition, that happens until the ref calls it? Or do I go? Or the person taps out most of the time. They tap out. Most of the time you tap out. Because they know it's over. You know it's over. If you're a psycho, you go to sleep.

And there are a lot of psychos that just let people choke them unconscious. That happens all the time. Guys just say say fuck it I'm gonna get choked unconscious and they just go out and then the referee stops you Hopefully hopefully, but sometimes the referees miss it and sometimes someone's out for like seconds Well, someone's still fucking squeezing the shit out of their neck and then the referee finally figures it out I think like like in the shadow realm. I do absolutely love that in these sports

there's this extreme violence, high stakes, but then also a simple tap is a mutual agreement. 100%. That's fucking awesome. And if you don't stop when someone taps, you will get kicked out of the sport. There's a guy named Usamar Paul Harris who is one of the scariest motherfuckers to ever fight

because he was a leg lock specialist. And what he would do is rip your knees apart. And he wouldn't let go when you tapped. And he got kicked out of the UFC for it. Because he did it to so many people. He was known for not letting go. And these guys would be screaming in agony and slapping and tapping.

And he would be still twisting. He was built like a human pit bull. He was like five, seven, 185 pounds of solid muscle and he would just dive on your legs and roll into these positions and rip your knees apart. Like with a heel hook, a heel hook is so terrible because your knee has a lot of strength going forward and backwards,

but it has almost none going side to side. So they isolate the top of it with their legs, they wrap the heel into the crook of their elbow, and then they wrench that motherfucker apart. It's literally twisting your knee apart, and it's terrifying. Oh my God. And it cripples people.

Like you are fucked, he'll tear your ACL, your MCL, your meniscus. You're gonna go a whole year before you can fight again, you're gonna have to get he'll tear your ACL, your MCL, your meniscus, you're gonna go a whole year before you can fight again. You're gonna have to get surgery to reconstruct your knee and then your knee's never gonna be the same because your meniscus is shot now and maybe some of your cartilage.

So this is him. I don't know, I don't know. Oh, I don't know, I don't know. So this is a fight that he had against David Avalon and this is fucked because they stopped the motion and they put him back into the same position motion and they put him back into the same position And when they put him back into the same position, he doesn't let go So he holds on to the heel hook and just wrenches the fucking shit out like this right here. Ah

He let go there he let go there because I think they were like chastising him to make sure like look at that I don't want to look look at the build on this guy. Paul Harris was a fucking specimen. And he's trying to turn the knee sideways. He's ripping this shit apart right here, man. He's pulling it backwards, it's backwards, and at a slight angle. I mean, this is horrific. And look at the build on Paul Harris.

Imagine the fucking force, the size of this guy's legs, the size of his torso, and perfect technique. And he's just ripping his fucking knee apart. That's a nasty knee bar right there. That's so horrible to watch. But in MMA, he wound up getting kicked out of the UFC. Because I think it was Mike Pierce. See if you can find the Mike Pierce fight.

It might not have been Pierce. One of these fights. I love that the tap, Generally speaking, it does. Of course. But in this case, the Mike Pierce one, he's screaming and tapping. And Paul Harass is still ripping it apart. I mean, one of my favorite parts of tennis

is how they'll battle for five and a half hours and then they calmly walk. So here it is, look. He's tapping. Watch, so he gets it, he's tapping and he won't let go. He's still, when the referee's on him, he's still yanked on it so those extra second yeah just rip your shit apart so he taps immediately see none of this has to happen right he was tapping

immediately I feel like the ref was on that I know but it's like Paul Harris doesn't give a fuck yeah he's out for blood I mean he had like a crazy childhood he grew up on a farm with like no food like it's a really like he's Feral yeah, he's feral which any super technical which would serve you I'm sure. Oh, yeah Yeah, well until you get kicked out of the sport, you know God, it's it's incredibly Violent but also systematic in its understanding of the human body.

Oh yeah. We're gonna know that the knee doesn't go this way. No, it's really, really technical. All sports are like this, actually. Yeah, I think all sports at the highest levels, they have to be like that. Because you only get so far with genetics and so far with natural speed and endurance.

There's certain aspects of it that require a careful, considered study. And wouldn't you, if you know your opponent is a guy that likes to do the, wouldn't you then, in your training, work on defending that, and also making sure your knee can withstand more of that than normal? You know, you're not gonna be able to do that.

There's only so much. There's no special knee pill you can take. You gotta tap when you get into those positions, and then you gotta make sure that you don't get into those positions, and then you gotta make sure that you don't get into those positions, which is the most important thing. The tapping must be so humbling as a fighter because you've trained so hard,

you wanna win so badly, and yet you have to do this thing. You have to press the eject button. Well, hopefully you will tap, because guys haven't tapped, and they've gotten their arms broken in half, and I've seen quite a few of those, including legends, like Frank Mir, one time he tapped.

Too much pride you mean to tap? Yeah, because he fought Antonio Noguera, who was another legend, who was former heavyweight champion of pride, and he caught him in a camora and snapped his upper arm, and we watched his arm crack and then go limp, and you could see where it was cracked up here. Oh, it was horrific.

That's terrible. So hard to watch. When you're commentating, are you present moment completely? Oh yeah, 100%. Yeah, like you're just, you're not thinking like, it's not like these baseball commentators were like, I got a story I'll tell later.

No. No, because it is that. No. Yeah, great. No, especially not while the actual fight is going on. The actual fight is life and death You know you you have to be locked in but Daniel Cormier my co So there's like two color commentators me and Daniel Cormier and there's John Anik

Who's the play-by-play guy me and Daniel fuck around a lot? We joke around a lot about stuff during the because he's like a fun guy, but when things are serious, we're serious Yeah, you you have to be like, you know, this is like, you're representing these people's hard work. You're trying to like put words to. I love that, yeah. Yeah, you have to be very serious about it. Because the stakes are so high and it's wild though that people might know you

if they're just being introduced to you as the commentator for that. And maybe don't know the other stuff and. Well, it's confusing for sure. But it's also like, it's one of the things that I'm most impressed with by what you do, is as someone that has this passion for tennis, I'm like, it's so cool how you dive

into a completely different world. Yeah, well you just can't apologize for it. You can't wonder what other people think about it. You just have to be yourself. And I grew up a martial artist. Martial arts is an enormous part of my life. It's an enormous part of how I became who I am. So for me, commentating on martial arts is normal.

You're not a comedian who then switched over to martial arts because it served you. It's your foundation of who you are and you also happen to be a comedian and podcast host. Yeah, but I'm not interested in being funny. Yeah. You know, I'm just trying to do that job. Like I've done commentary on Professional Pool too.

Whoa. Because I play pool. Yeah. And I play pretty good. Yeah. And so I really understand the game, and I know what's going on. So I've done commentary on that too.

It's the same thing. What's your favorite pool movie? Billy's movie. The Hustler. The Hustler, okay. The only answer to that question is The Hustler. I thought The Color of Money had a run. It's okay. It's okay. The Color of Money is good. It's a good tournament movie.

But there's some things in it and because Paul Newman was in it, it kind of gave it some validity because it was the same Walter Tevis novel as The Hustler. The Color of Money was very different. The book was very different though. But yeah, The Color of Money was great

because it got a lot of people playing pool again, but The Hustler is just an amazing film. Like the actual film itself is amazing. It's like Piper Laurie is incredible in it. It's just, George C. Scott is in it. Jackie Gleason plays Minnesota Fats. By the way, Jackie Gleason plays, Minnesota Fats Who's by the way, Jackie Gleason was a real pool player It's probably the only guy that's ever played a pool player in a movie that really could play My brother once got a book for Christmas called how to hustle your friends a pool

And it was in our it was in our basement We had a pool table, but I just it was one of those things same that I worked at it I can never get it right, and eventually other things came more naturally to me, but it is fun. Pool is something that if you really wanna play right, you have to get coached. Okay. Yeah, it's just like tennis, I'm sure.

It's like you can develop some bad habits and bad fundamentals that you're never gonna pass a certain level of play. But I think it's like everything. I think it's like chess, it's like tennis, it's like, you know, Schultz was in here the other day and he's into the sport paddle. Have you seen paddle?

Is this P-A-D-E-L? Yes. Padel, yeah. Oh, is it Padel? Well, I've heard Padel. It depends on how you want to help pretend that she wouldn't know. Perfect, of course.

Or if you're Spanish. Oh, if you're Spanish. Oh, did they say Padel? That's where it's from, yeah. Oh, well, why don't we call it but Dell then? Yorker yeah, so you know Tennis has had this this great historical run on elite racket sports and then pickleball has been this Counter-response to tennis silly ball noise, don't really have to move much.

And pickleball's been taking off. I don't know if you've played or if you've seen it. Kip Rock plays every day. Okay, perfect. He gets up at eight in the morning and plays pickleball with his trainer. That is exactly my point, okay? I was in Scottsdale, Arizona recently.

I did an hour of pickleball. The community there had music going, cracking beers. Costa, come over, play with us. Very, very fun. I then go over to the other side and play tennis, which is my sport, and no joke, this older couple says, you're talking too loudly on the courts, right? It's this beautiful dichotomy of these two sports.

I don't know if pickleball's a sport. But, Padel comes along and seems to be this middle ground. What I don't like about pickleball is you get to what they call the kitchen line, and you can't move anymore. You're frozen. So you just stand there frozen, and you just knock the ball around.

I like a sport, I want 360 degree movement. I don't want the dimensions of the court to restrict my movement or the rules of the game Padel seems to be both it's tennis, but it's in this box and they sometimes run outside of the box I mean, it's fucking insane and I've actually never played but The points never end because you're on this this I just see people the box

That is nuts So it almost seems gimmicky to me. That's funny that Andrew plays But I would like to play this and look at you know also one of the best things that happened for racket sports is HD TV Dude when you used to you know when you were a kid watching Watching Jimmy Connors, John Mack, you never even see the fucking ball. It was the same color as the court. And this shit now is unbelievable to watch.

You see how fast it's going. That's like what they've done with hockey, where they highlight the puck. I love that shit. That's a game changer. Now I know what's going on. At first, people made fun of it, and I was like, I need...

And in hockey with the substitutions on the fly, I never know who the fuck's on the ice. I love that, though. I love that they do that, that's so cool. I've been watching professional lacrosse lately. Once I realized they could beat the fuck out of each other. I didn't know that they could fight like they do in hockey. I didn't know they could fight.

They fight and they wear shoes, which is crazy, because now you're bare knuckle boxing in the middle of a game. What does the shoes have to do with it, what do you mean? Get grip. Oh, you mean like a cleated shoe, right. Well, the difference between running around on ice skates, you're sliding around.

The fighting is like, yeah, they're fighting, but they're kind of compromised because they can't really, like, you know, good skaters can kind of hold, it's not like having grip with your shoes and being able to really, you can really hurt people. So they're beating the shit out of each other. I'm like, wow.

Lacrosse, Lacrosse always kind of had the like douchey rich kid sport but it is incredibly yeah but this this stop doing this in the 90s yeah they stopped doing my favorite my favorite they put a circle around it when it flies around it got a lot of pushback, but I always That's funny. I always avoided winter sports when I was a kid I didn't learn how to ski until I was in my 40s And I never learned how to ice skate because I was fighting all the time so I didn't want to do anything They would hurt myself right so I would like and everybody was like we're gonna go skiing I was like uh-uh yeah fuck out of here like I need these these was like yeah important. Yeah, this got everybody excited though a few weeks ago though What are they do a can a fight or a game? There's nine fights in?

Seconds they just start squaring off. Yeah, why we upset at Canada. This is stupid over tariffs. Yes They booed us over tariffs They're also trying to get me they work. They got a ton of attention So everyone was who's red and who's blue well Canada's red there you go who's winning this exchange America one dude keeps his helmet on that's ridiculous that helmets I do love when you hear their microphones during a fight and they fight and then they go like you ready to be done yeah I'm ready to be done I love that I was at the comic strip in Edmonton years ago when Canada played us in the gold medal game

Someone sent me the country's water usage During that game and at every period end the water usage would go up because everyone went would go to the bathroom, right? and it was like the whole fucking country went to the bathroom at the same time. And Canada won, I think it was an overtime, I was the only American there, but man do they love a good winter sport up there. We gotta become friends with Canada again.

We have to like, you know. I'm down. This is so ridiculous. I can't believe that there's like anti-American and anti-Canadian sentiment going on. It's the dumbest fucking feud. Is there anti, There it is. That's nuts.

Look at the water consumption. Is there? That's crazy. Right when the bathrooms go. I love on this pond where if I say something, I gotta be ready for you guys to fact check my ass. Jamie's ready. Is there anti-Canadian sentiment?

Yeah, there's a lot of idiots that now think that they're our fucking enemy. Okay. Why are we subsidizing Canada? Right.? Welcome. They don't have their own military Well, they don't so let's just like deal with it as it is You know true doe is out right he's already leaving. Yeah, they got a new guy But they got a new party 150 people voted No, they have a new shit new guy running the country. But their whole election

system is so different. They don't have a specific time when they have elections. They can call an election and I think it happens within three weeks. The whole thing is so crazy. And so I don't know what's happening with their politics, but I just want America and Canada to get along. I think it's ridiculous. Yeah. As someone who's from Ann Arbor, Michigan. And I don't really think they should be our 51st state There I said it that you said it is on record. It'll be fun if it happened. It would be fun I think Greenland's more accessible. Yeah, you probably buy that

Yeah, if you want a 51st state, it's Greenland Plus if global warming is real because of all the digging and oil and all that shit, you know Be good to have a cold spot to eventually warm up. I just read this crazy book called Power Metals by Vince Beiser, possibly. We had him on the show, Daily Show, and it's all about like minerals and metals and what we need for our batteries and cobalt mining in Africa. I went down all this YouTube shit with like the child labor and all, all but very I was very ignorant to how much we need and use metals oh yeah nickel copper you know wild batteries EVs everything and so then when the news came out that Trump wanted Greenland I

was like oh this is starting to make more sense to me now there's a lot of stuff up there there's also a lot of stuff in the sky if they can mine asteroids if they can successfully figure it out on mine asteroids, they can get a lot of precious minerals. Let's fucking do that. Yeah, well, that's a few decades away, but they'll figure it out eventually. They've been able to get samples from asteroids,

and they know what the composites are. And there's asteroids out there that are filled with trillions of dollars in minerals. That is fucking nuts I know it's not yeah, and they can figure it out. They will they'll eventually figure it out But I had said Darth Kara on okay who was done He's done some pretty brilliant and brave investigative work on the cobalt mines and you know he took video

I'll have to check that what they call artisanal minds. It's actually yes slaves Digging this stuff out of the ground with their babies on their back. This is from Sadar's book. Yeah, I Mean, this is fucking crazy and they're digging the cobalt out of the ground with like literally with sticks Everybody's breathing it in it's all toxic. These women have babies on their back Yeah, babies are breathing it in and then there's these pools, right, that you put the water in, it's toxic water, and the pools are different colors, and we don't know where this goes, and the water seeps in.

And is this also, I can get the new iPhone 14 Max, or whatever the fuck it is? 100%, that's exactly what it is. That's terrible. It's the only way we're getting that stuff. Right. It's most of the cobalt's coming from that area. And it's also, then you go to the actual construction of the phone itself

And you see those factories those Foxconn factories or they have nets around them to keep people from jumping on the roofs And they realize these people are working in these horrific conditions so that you can get an iPhone that cost 1399 Yeah instead of 1599 or whatever the fuck it would be, if it was made in America, with people paid a working wage and healthcare and all the stuff you're supposed to get if you're gonna be working. So why, especially if a company like Apple that's worth more than any corporation ever. Like Apple's insanely profitable.

So we did this piece at the Daily Show once about the sugar cane agriculture in the central Florida. They over-fertilize it, makes more sugar faster. All of the fertilization goes down to Lake Okeechobee then goes out to the oceans where the algae blooms, the manatees die, da da da. And I'm just going, I think most people would pay an extra 25 cents a year

for this not to happen to spend more on sugar. Why are we doing this? Why, I would pay more to have my iPhone be made in America by American hands. Yeah, we've talked about that, but the problem is the infrastructure that's required to be able to build phones here is a decade away. It takes a long time to build the kind of factories

that can have the tolerances of these chips. They've been doing it in China forever. So most of- It's fucking wild. I mean, I was loading my kids in the car, put my phone on top of my car because I didn't have an extra hand, forget it's there, driving through Pennsylvania.

Yeah, and it's gone. I hear it's bop, bop, bop all over the highway over the highway it's bouncing I stop I finally find my phone in the woods and 911 is on the phone well we recognize that there was a crash are you okay doing and I'm like how the fuck what holy that that's in this thing yeah that's pretty wild it's wild it was watching everything you do and listening to all your true conversations and Recommending Google searches. Why don't you buy this Michael? Hey Michael, maybe you'd be interested in buying this It seems like you were interested but what I'm talking about vacation homes in Hawaii. Look Michael

What about when you've already bought it that always is weird. Yeah, it's weird when it's like feeding me I'm in the algorithm. Yeah, you get sucked into the algorithm. You Yeah, it's weird. When it's like feeding me a thing. You're in the algorithm. I'm in the algorithm. Yeah, you get sucked into the algorithm. You know, it's an interesting world that we live in with all that stuff, because it's like you're constantly getting inundated. That's one of the things that I really enjoy about podcasts, is the one time for three hours a day where I don't look at my phone.

I don't have any texts coming in, I'd tell them do not disturb, I don't care. I mean, that could arguably be why maybe you have this supernatural memory and brain power because you, more than anybody probably in the world, maybe United States, are actually away from this for four hours just talking. That could be interesting.

That's that. Did I just crack something? That's something, there may be something to that, but I think it's just the sheer volume of people that have talked to yeah So you're getting information retaining a lot of that I've always been good at that for some reason Yeah, you know you just referenced the guests you had this previous book. Yeah Are you retaining are you you doing a trick or anything to retain now? You're just locked in and engaged yeah, yeah I buy I take supplements for memory to yeah

I take alpha brain, which is a I saw it's called a neutral. I saw it out there You can grab some I didn't take I didn't want to be too No, get in there sharp for the thing that of vending machine get free alpha brain Press the button. How many pods do you get free alpha brain on that's pretty sick anyone you want? Yeah, it's uh But that stuff's legit. It really works. And it really does. That was from my company Onnit.

And when we first made it, a lot of people were saying, oh, this is snake oil. This is bullshit. I had already had experience with Neutropix because there's a company called Neuro One. And Bill Romanosky, the football player, developed it because he was having memory problems after all the, you know, hits.

And I was on a radio show in San Francisco, and one of the guys was working out with Bill Romanowski, and he started taking this Neuro One. He's like, dude, it's like, I'm so much more focused. It's really great. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna try this. And I was like, oh, this is legit. Like, I feel like my mind feels clearer. Like, I feel like I have more thought energy if that makes any sense

Yeah, so then we started experimenting with different ones and there's a bunch I like one of them is this company neuro. These are mints neuro mints, but they make neuro gum, which I'm a big fan of I chew it all the time. It's gum. It's like a little bit of caffeine a little bit of theanine in it What's the the goal just to kind of keep the brain energy high? Yes. Yeah, you want to provide your brain with the nutrients your brain needs to produce human neurotransmitters. All right, I'm going to take this. Maybe we'll do like a before-after. That, you know, it's minor. I usually take two. I want to take the mints. But they're legit. So this is one, neuro gum's another one.

True brain is another one that I've tried. It's really good. It's like little packets you drink. I've found, I just assumed it was like kids and age and getting older that I'll lose my train of thought more often than I ever have before. Oh yeah. And I hate it.

Writing a joke, it's not fun. And everything I read says like, keep exercising, get blood flow in your body, maybe sauna helps. Sleep's a big one. Sleep, isn't it crazy how much an athlete, the best athletes treat sleep? Oh yeah.

I mean Pete Sampras used to travel with duct tape. So when he'd get to the hotel, he would tape the curtain to the window so no excess light would get in because he wanted like full dark a float tank situation and I'm like you know at that level when you're playing for one in the world like all that little stuff yep and that's wild meanwhile you get my house I lay down we shut off the lights so nose has a light the Wi-Fi thing has a light the has, there's so much extra excess light all around.

Yeah, it's not good. Maybe that's why I can't remember the joke I'm about to tell. Sleep is a big problem. You know, you really need to get a solid seven, eight hours of sleep every night, and if you don't, you're gonna feel it. One of the best supplements for mitigating

the effects of sleep deprivation is actually creatine. Creatine is actually- My buddy just started taking it, I don't know. I take it every day. I took it in college, the strength team coach made me take it and it just bothered my stomach. Well, there's different forms of creatine. I take it in gummy form,

which doesn't seem to bother me at all. I've had people that take it like liquid, they pour it into water and they get diarrhea. I haven't had that happen, but it's also like there's different kinds of creatine. You want really good creatine, like you want a reputable company that makes creatine monohydrate.

And then there's another thing called HMB that people mix with creatine. But creatine, besides being a muscle builder, because it really does enhance your recovery and helps you build muscle, it also is a nootropic. It also helps brain function, which makes sense because if your body works better, your brain works better. And it makes you retain more water.

You have more water in your body, which is obviously also a good thing, and especially for an athlete, and especially for someone who wants to think. One of the worst ways to think is if you're dehydrated. If you're dehydrated and tired like you're fucked you're Working on like 50% brain capacity. Well you I love watching sports

You know the end you see these silly mistakes always why why would they do that? That's you know why the ball go through his legs. Why did he choose to serve to that side? Why do you throw the fastball down the middle? because they're fucking Dehydrated and tired, and it's crazy how that affects brain function. And that's why I love the couch fan. Oh my God, why did he throw that?

With a beer in your hands, big belly. You're literally drinking a beer. This guy's a pussy. If I was getting that money, I'd fight Mike Tyson. I'd come out swinging. Yeah, the couch fan is their best. But yeah, like in fights you see it all the time. When people are exhausted, they make terrible decisions.

They shoot for takedowns, they get caught in guillotine chokes because they're exposed. They're just, they're exhausted and they just take a chance and they don't have the energy to complete the technique correctly. Yeah. Oh dude, I mean my parenting with a full night's sleep versus like had an early flight, had to fly, I mean, it's crazy. Yeah, everything is.

I mean, I'm like, I'd like to think a kind, patient parent on a good night's sleep, but like when I get home after a road gig or whatever, even coming up this Sunday, I have an early flight, I'm going to get to Brooklyn, I know it's going to be 1pm and the wife's going to hand me the kids and go, your turn. I'm gonna be like dude the patience is gonna be It's gonna be tough. Yeah. Well, you're gonna be exhausted from the flight. Yeah You know what? I found helps a lot from flights is if you can work out immediately after right when you land Okay, like right when you land just just get into it. Just get something going

Yeah, even if it's 20 minutes do a bunch of push-ups and sit-ups and chin-ups. Just get it going. Just reset the clock. Because when you exert yourself hard, you have a hard 20 minutes to half hour of working out, it resets you. And you're like, I'll get it back. I'm OK. I'm very excited about this weekend

because my former assistant coach at Illinois, where I played tennis, is the head coach here at Texas. Oh, at UT? At UT. Nice. So he's won an NCAA championship. His name is Bruce Burke. He's an excellent coach, but he's like,

dude, come hit with us. Oh wow. So I'm gonna be training with the Texas team, and they're beasts. These guys are, you know, it's, so that's exciting for me. That's cool. That's super fun, just to get to do that.

And then perform at Mothership, dude. Never even stepped foot in this place. Oh, I'm excited for you to go. And it's selling out so fast. I mean, you've created it. Last time I was here, it was like still an idea. Yeah. Adam Eget was around, but now,

I mean, it's just amazing, man. You've built something amazing. Yeah, it's as good, It's better than we have ever hoped We never hoped it was gonna be what it is now. It's it's perfect was the Comedy Store a Foundational thought with this oh yeah, yeah, it's a sure she's room is obviously testament to her and I never met Mitzi I never fucking met. That's crazy. That's her That paintings her let me ask something that's crude.

Was she hot? She was hot when she was young. Yeah, okay. When she looked like that, she was hot. Because I see, like I go to the La Jolla Comedy Store and I see all the pictures of her and I'm like, I think Mitzi was hot. Yeah, but I never.

She was hot when she was young. I didn't meet her then, I met her in 94. She was already quite a bit older and she started suffering the beginnings of her neurological condition, like she would have a little bit of shakes, but she was there, and you could have conversations with her, and she helped me a lot.

And she also helped foster an environment of creativity and of collaboration, and of, you know, there was, it was a home for a lot of, you know, road comics, like there was this thing that you knew that you would go home, and on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, we would be at the store having the time of our lives. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights,

we would be working on new jokes, we would be doing sets, we would be laughing together, everybody's cracking jokes in the parking lot, it was so much fun. And it was that home environment that we wanted to recreate as much as possible. That's awesome. And to make it as comic-friendly as possible. Like, what if you ever wanted in a club they didn't have?

Okay, let's get that. Like, how do you want this to be? How do you want to get to the stage? What do you think we need to do the best? And I asked everybody, and Louis CK gave me some of the best advice. Like, Louis told me to lower the ceilings, I shorten the stage in the smaller room,

he told me to deaden the sound as much as possible. Everybody wants that echo because it makes it sound like people are killing more. You want clear sound. He was dead right on everything. Because he has a production mind. He doesn't just have a mind of a comic, he also has a mind of what's the best way

to set things up for a film or for us, set the environment. You feel and notice all that stuff on stage. I was performing recently, ceiling's tall, crowd is full, but where's the laughs going? Am I killing? I feel like I'm doing well, but I'm not hearing it.

Now I'm in my head a little bit, right? That's changed my order. Now I'm doing the bit that I know is gonna kill instead of just letting things, and it's like all of that matters. All of that matters. High ceilings is a big thing. You wanna be locked in.

I want everybody to be locked in. The Comedy Store, the way you just described that, was really became my clubhouse. And then I was a little bit, I got past there when you were gone for a little while, and I remember when you came back, changed dramatically, but LA was really, really tough for me initially

upon moving there, and then all of a sudden you get into a place like that, there's a place to drink, there's a place to talk shit, there's a place to, oh my God, even just parking, right? Park here and then just hang. You know, it changed the game. It changed the game for me. It changed the game for all of us.

Having a, like, the improv was always a great club to perform at, I always performed there, Laugh Factory's fun, but there's something about the store that was like, that was home base. And so the idea of doing something like that in Texas, Ron White was the first guy to open my eyes to it because Ron had moved here before the pandemic. And Ron's like, it's in the middle of country,

I don't have to fucking fly for six hours. It's like, the place is great, food's nice, people are cool. I'm like, fuck, can I live in Texas? Because I always wanted to get out of LA. Because I felt like, especially when my kids were young, I was like, I've been through this with my older daughter. I was like, I don't think LA is a good place for children.

I don't think it's a good place for young people. I think it's just filled with too many like bizarre ambitions and creeps. And it's just like people are devalued because there's so many of them. It's too overwhelming. So I'd always thought about getting out. And then the pandemic hit, and then Ron White

was the one who talked me into opening up the club. Like, we were doing local shows at the Vulcan, and we had talked about maybe opening up a club, like, maybe we should buy a club here. And then Ron White got off stage. He hadn't been on stage in, like, seven or eight months. And he murdered. He got a standing ovation when he got on stage.

And it turned out he was playing it off. He had practiced all day, gone over his notes, and he murdered. He got a standing ovation when he got on stage, and it turned out he was playing it off. He had practiced all day, gone over his notes, and he's just fucking professional, just murdered. And then he grabs me by the shoulders, he goes, whatever the fuck we have to do, we're gonna keep doing this. You can open up that goddamn club. I was like, okay, okay.

Okay. Always a great hang. I mean, it's a comedy star, he didn't know me, and he would just hang and. He's the best. He's the elder statesman of the Austin, and he would just hang and... He's the best. He's the elder statesman of the Austin Comedy Scene. Okay, got it. He's the best.

He's such a good guy, and he's always around. And so, like, with Ron, so we had Ron, we had Tony Hinchcliffe, and then Tom Segura moved here, and Christina Pszczewski, and then the floodgates opened, Tim Dillon, everybody started coming. It's a tidal wave, dude. And then Shane Gillis moved here, and he brought the whole Philly crew and there's all these killers.

It's like Duncan moved here. It's like it just became so fun. It became so fun. And all these things had to happen for it to take place like that. The Comedy Store had to lose guys like Adam. Like they had fire everybody. So these people were all unemployed.

So I hire them. And I brought them over here when there wasn't even a club yet. I was like, I'll pay you now. You can start getting paid now. You'll have health benefits, all the jazz. Just enjoy the city. Just have a good time in a year or so calling you.

And so then we started working. I mean, I've been texting Adam for a long time and I was like, is something happening? Yes, something is happening, but we don't know when. But not to come back and excited to walk through it. Yeah, a lot of people dismissed it, it's not gonna happen. But it was gonna happen.

I had, you know. Well, you just, when you're an outsider looking at your plate, there's a lot on it. Yeah. You know, so. Yeah, but this was important. Yeah. It was also, if I'm not gonna do it, who's gonna do it?

You know, it's one of those things where if you have an opportunity to do something very unusual and you don't do it, well then what, does nobody ever do anything unusual? We just Yeah, fucking do everyone just always either goes to New York or LA and that's it forever So we had so many people like Brian Simpson. He moved out here early Derek Post and Asana mod They all moved out here early. We had so many killers that were already here Yeah, we're like this we were already doing shows sold out shows at the Vulcan Tuesday Wednesday Thursday nights kill Tony was there on Mondays We were already doing shows, sold out shows at the Vulcan, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday nights, Kill Tony was there on Mondays. We were already doing weekend shows.

It was like, it was a no-brainer. We knew we could do it. That's sick. But it was a little scary. It's a little scary. Dump a bunch of money, buy a building. Oh shit. Renovate the whole thing for a year and a half.

The decisions alone? It's a lot of decisions, a lot of decisions. Doorknobs, carpets, lights, ceiling, drywall. We had a really good architect that helped too. Shout out to Richard, Richard Wise. But at the end of the day, really what it was all about was a lot of great timing, great opportunity and great timing.

And then doing it the right way from the beginning. Make it as comedy friendly as possible. And just make an environment where people like to be there. Nice, friendly people, everybody's having fun, everybody's real supportive. I love that. Yeah, it's great. In comics, to their credit,

I think naturally are non-conformists, and I love that they'll jump at a new opportunity. They're not all tied... So, you know, yeah, Joe's opening a club, we'll go at a new opportunity. They're not like all tied, so, yeah, Joe's opening a club, we'll go, boom, done. And people moved here, it's like nuts to hear. I can't believe how often. I was texting with Adam, he said, who do you want to be opening for you this weekend?

I said, send me some names. Send me all the names, I'm like, this feels like all comedy store names. Everybody's, these are all in Austin. Holtzman lives here now, he's here all the time. That's crazy He was fucking killing the other night. No, it has a crowd here now Yeah, so instead of Holtzman going up at two o'clock in the morning in the main room when there was no one there and the Comics in the back of the room and laugh. Yeah now he's got sold out shows and people come to see Holtzman

Yeah, and he's doing different material like every night now. It's amazing. He's got a crowd now. And he can make money in town, which is huge. And he doesn't have to travel, he doesn't have to do the road, and he is doing the road a little bit too now, which is unique for Brian too.

It's really funny because he puts up these videos of people getting offended. He does? Yeah, on his Instagram, it's people getting offended, screaming at him, walking out of his show, because they don't get it. Yeah, yeah. But once you see him a couple of times

and you get what he's doing, then we have what we have in Austin now, where people, you know, when Holtzman's out, it sells out, they're coming to see Holtzman. It's fun. There's nothing more beautiful than a person talking into a microphone causing a reaction to a group. Yeah.

It's beautiful, it's nuts. It shows how powerful words and energy and communication can be. Yeah. It's like, you let that person make you that mad. And this person didn't touch you or hit you. Yeah. That's wild.

Right. That is wild to think that that that we have that ability Especially with the whole swing because he lets you in on it every now and then right he's doing right he comes back right It's like you he's he does this very beautiful dance of like letting you in on it and then going right back to the fucking guy Yeah, yeah, yeah Well, it's fucking great. I'm looking forward to performing there, so it's sweet. You're gonna have a good time Okay, great. Did you bring people to open with you? You got local people? I think we got local I'm not a nice ensure if I didn't bring to performing there, so that's sweet. You're gonna have a good time, man. Did you bring people to open with you, or you got local people open for you?

I think we got local. I'm not 100% sure, but I didn't bring people with me. We have a lot of good local people, man. Well, that's the thing. It's like, you could bring somebody, or you're in a community where there's great comedy. So I'd much rather do that. Yeah, and you'll have a great hang.

The green room is really great. It's a great hang. We have Mae West's couch in there that Peter Peter Shore gave me. It's Mitzi's. She had it in her house and so we had it reupholstered. So in the green room this beautiful pink couch that's Mae West couch. So the bones of it are Mae West couch. That's great. Yeah and so we have Rodney Dangerfield's handwritten notes on the wall from his Last of the Night Show special.

So it's all the different bits that he wanted to hit and all the different things that he wanted to talk about. And then Patrick Bette David gave me one of Lenny Bruce's microphones. Holy shit. So we have Lenny Bruce's microphone enough comics understand the road he paved for everybody else. It's known that he did that, but he was the OG. He was the OG. That's what I'm trying to say.

He was the first guy to go to jail. He fucking arrested him. A bunch of times. That is insane. For was going to jail. They fucking arrested him. A bunch of times. That is insane. For stuff that is nothing. Today it would even get you kicked off TikTok. But we still had the First Amendment at that time. So that's what's so interesting to me.

Yeah. The interpretation of or the enforcement of has, that's wild. Well, this is the role. Same constitution. Yeah, same constitution. Well, this is the role that comedy plays in free speech, because we are really one of the only countries that has the kind of free speech that we have, the Declaration. When we have the First Amendment, it talks very specifically, the very first one, about

our ability to express ourselves, how important that is. But if you're a comedian and you can't do that, like if someone's deciding, well that sets the boundaries for everything else. If he didn't do that, if he wasn't doing that in the 50s and the 60s and getting arrested, like who knows where free speech would be today. What was he arrested on?

Profanity. You could be arrested on profanity? Yeah, he was arrested on profanity charges. Yeah, arrested on profanity? Yeah, he was arrested on profanity charges. Yeah, they had profanity laws back then where in public places you couldn't have, and different places in different districts had different regulations, but I'm sure in San Francisco where he started he probably could do whatever he wanted,

and then as you travel and you start, and then he became more and more popular. Obscenity. Obscenity. This reminds me of. Profanity, obscenity. So here it is. So he was arrested at the jazz workshop in San Francisco, which is even crazier in 1961,

where he used the word cocksucker, and said that two is a preposition, come is a verb, that the sexual context of come was so common that it bore no weight and that if someone hearing it became upset, he probably can't come. Although the jury acquitted him, other law enforcement agencies began monitoring his appearances resulting in frequent arrests under obscenity charges. Yeah, but Joe, see there, although a jury acquitted him, I'm just wondering, like, was he actually breaking a law?

Or are they just hassling him by arresting him? Because he can't... Dude, they've arrested him for saying schmuck. I mean, go back to that real quick. But I'm saying, there's no, what do you charge somebody with? Well, this was the obscenity charges. Like, they said, if you go back to that Wikipedia page,

look at that. This is crazy. He said, Sherman Block later became the county sheriff. The charge this time was that the community used the word schmuck, an insulting Yiddish word that was also considered a term for penis. Oh, my gosh. The Hollywood charges were later dismissed. So this was in Philadelphia and then Los Angeles

and then West Hollywood. then West Hollywood in West Hollywood He was arrested imagine the place where the comedy store resides right now He was arrested just ten years before Richard Pryor was performing live in the Sunset Strip I mean what about the one in Philly is legit the Gabe what's that? Jimmy gave drug possession. Yeah, he did a lot of drugs Yeah, well fact I would do a lot of drugs if I got arrested every time I said schmuck. So Live in the Sunset Strip, I think, was 81 or 82. Is that correct? What year was Live in the Sunset Strip?

Because I was in high school, I remember that. 66, I have that poster, that Lenny Bruce poster. There's a lot of Lenny Bruce love out there, which is so cool. Yeah, I have a lot of Lenny Bruce stuff out there. Look, he was the guy. And it's hard when you listen to his stuff today, because most of it, it's kind of trite.

Like we've heard all the premises before, because he broke the ground. You have to remember, people were so innocent in 1961. The culture was so different, that what he was saying was groundbreaking. I fell into that trap. I was like, I'm not really digging it. I'm not enjoying it.

But it's like you have to really think about where we were then. Sure. If you listen to Shakespeare talk, you probably, this guy's a retard. What the fuck is it? What thou dost not. Like, shut up. But if it's like in the context of 1961, what he was doing was it was akin to a lot of things that were to come, like the

anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, all these things were bubbling up about this freedom of exploring ideas and expressing yourself. But in comedy, it had just been two Jews walking to a bar. You know, it'd been jokes. It'd set up punch lines. The Italian says the Polish guy. It would have been a lot of that stuff. And so he came along and was like,

why do we have these words that are forbidden? Why do we have this? Why is that? Why can't people be in love this way? Why can't that happen? And it was like, people were like, Jesus, why can't we? And he changed the way people thought about life, not just about comedy.

And then I think Richard Pryor came along and made it way better Yeah made it funnier But also what fascinates me so much about that with Lenny Bruce is it was this it's the same First Amendment that we have right today Yeah, yeah, and those words have not changed but society has or its interpretation has or its enforcement has that's wild Yeah, that's wild. I did enforcement is the thing. And then the concept of obscenity charges. Obscenity charges are very subjective.

Who's to decide what's obscene? To me, schmuck is not obscene. It's kind of cute. If someone calls you a schmuck, it's probably a friend of yours. You know, hey, you fucking schmuck. Like, ah. It's not a, I mean, you get arrested for schmuck?

That's crazy. What is this Jamie? Came from a court case. Well, this is 73 though. This is what I typed in Where did the obscenity laws and say no, I understand but this is 73 because you know, he was 61 So what does it say there the ruling go scroll up at the top a little bit It says a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court clarifying the legal definition of obscenity as material that lacks serious literary artistic political or scientific value. The ruling was the origin of three-part judicial tests for determining obscene media content that could be banned by government authorities which is now known as the Miller test. So here's the thing to think about this.

Miller test is actually quite relevant right now it's coming up a lot. Oh is it? Miller test, yes. For what? First Amendment stuff. I just heard something about it. That's interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. Because the thing about this is, this is probably all in response

to all the anti-war activists and all of the whole hippie freedom of speech, flower child movement. I did a piece for The Daily Show after Biden won, and this woman in New Jersey had up 10, 15 flags, fuck Biden, fuck Joe Biden, fuck Joe Biden flags. Was on a path to a school, and a lot of parents said, take down the flag, she said, it's my First Amendment

right. Got all messy court, the city made her take it down. She refused. NAACP popped in to defend her saying it was her right as a, Biden was a political figure, but then it became an obscenity. It was a very interesting piece. And I spoke to her and she was very outspoken and my whole take was like, hey, just maybe let's say legally you can put those flags up, but it's just kinda shitty, right? And she was like, fuck you, I'm gonna put my flags up. But interesting when obscenity mixes in with school, kid.

What is that now? Right. Public figure, public figure. If it says fuck Tony Fuck Michael, that's different than fuck Joe Biden, the sitting president of the United States. Right. All fascinating. Yeah, it is It's also it's like, you know, what do you want to see in your neighborhood? Like do you really... I don't like people putting those fucking stupid signs on their lawns. My parents were die-hard liberals. They were living in Florida at the time, and this is during 2016, and my mom was complaining,

every time I put my Hillary Clinton sign, someone takes it down. I'm like, you're in Florida. Why are you putting Hillary Clinton signs on your lawn? But to my mom, it might as well be like she was supporting the Miami Dolphins. That was her team. Her team was the Democrats. Well, I was just going to say, I don't like when a kid is wearing a Dolphins hat or a Yankees hat,

because I'm like, we as adults have put that on the kid. Well, maybe the kid is just a fan of the sport, though. It's possible, but that probably made him do it. Maybe. Maybe the kid just likes it. That doesn't bother me at all. There's nothing wrong with supporting teams. But there's a real problem when it's

how the whole country's run and you're thinking about it like a team. That's kind of ridiculous. And people that put those fucking signs in their lawn like settle down. Just why? Why, why are you doing it? It's just like you're like,

nah, no fucking, this is good, I think. Right in the yard, right in front of your house, we support those people that science is settled. This is it, love is love, black lives matter. Okay, okay. Who was the Supreme Court Justice with the flags? Got in the whole fucking neighborhood fight with the flags, had the white flag with the green pine tree on it.

And that was Christian nationalism green pine tree on it, and that was Christian nationalism, or had ties to it, whatever, but I'm saying. This white flag with a green pine tree is Christian nationalism? Wasn't it, I don't know. I don't know about this. Do you know what I'm talking about this?

No, what was this, do you remember it, Jamie? I'm looking it up, it's a J.E.L.E.D.O., I think, Samuel Alito. It was, I thought it was maybe Robert's, but his white, and then he's, and then, there it is. An appeal to heaven. So that flag was flying, and you can see there the Boston Globe, that's his New Jersey, the one right underneath that, Jamie, that's his New Jersey house, beach house, and that got put

up, but this was all because neighbors started fighting about their signs. What is that, an appeal to heaven? What does that mean? I I don't know What's that flag supposed to represent Jamie? Huh But Interesting that our Supreme Court justice got involved in one of these Yeah, I'm fights, and then they called him out on it. He said it's my wife It's just

fucking hilarious right my wife my wife did it my wife's a Christian nationalist yeah is that a Christian nationalist thing what a call to heaven I don't know what that I will find out I I've never even heard of it until just now took it down from in front of San Francisco City Hall probably a really same issue well what does it mean it has to do with the colonies. It said what revolutionary were Okay, the flag was originally used during the American Revolutionary War flown by George Washington's cruisers and is associated with the early quest for American Independence it's since been adopted by a different group one that doesn't represent the city's values So we made the decision to swap it with an American flag

Well, first of all, you probably should have the American flag there anyway. You shouldn't have to swap it. How about have the American flag everywhere, you motherfuckers? America! But January 6th, 2022, videos and photos show that some supporters of former President Donald Trump waving the Appeal to Heaven flag. Oh, they ruined it. Just like the Nazis ruined the Swastika. Which was a Buddhist thing. The swastika got a lot of those right there. Where is it?

Oh yeah, an appeal to heaven. So what is it? So it's because it's Trump supporters now? Is that why? That's why? I don't know why Alito put it up, but I remember it being something to do with the homeowners associations,

all were mad at each other and they put the flag up. He threw his wife right under the bus, look at this, my wife is fond of flying flags, I am not. Alito wrote, my wife was solely responsible for having flagpoles put up at our residence and our vacation home and has flown a wide variety of flags over the air.

How many Palestine flags do you fly? How many wide variety? You got a lot of Ukraine flags flying in your house? It is funny. What kind of flags you got? It just makes me laugh that look, this is is the petty shit that normal Americans get in. You're Supreme Court justice, just get out of it. Yeah, I don't know about that flag.

This is the first time I've ever seen that. But it's just a thing that people do. They want to let you know what they support and what they don't. We love telling people what we believe. And it's very important that we feel like we have beliefs and it's when we start sharing them that... Well you find out other people might not agree with you. And this gets back to grit and toughness and... Well it's also gets back to the importance of your show, The Daily Show. Because The Daily Show, especially under the tutelage of Jon Stewart when he's running the helm,

it's so balanced at pointing out ridiculous shit all over the place, which I think is so important. That's the goal. That's the aim. So smart. And when we do it right, I love it. And, you know, it is every day. So sometimes you do it right, and you're thankful, you pat yourself on the back, but guess what, there's a show tomorrow. And I think we benefit, man, so many,

I'll take, when I host, so many questions, I'll take questions from the audience, and so many people go like, Michael, how do you hold yourself to journalistic integrity? And I go, what? I'm a fucking comedian. This is on Comedy Central.

I'm not a journalist. The fact that you, just because you see us as informative, which I'm thankful for, and the fact that you come to us for information, which I'm thankful for. But I'm- It's a little terrifying though, right? Don't ever forget, lady.

I'm not a journalist. I'm not in the war zone, I'm a clown. My job is to put all this shit into a comedy machine and crank out some type of sausage and feed it to you. But it's nuts that Comedy Central, daily show, is considered journalism. Yeah, or people will stop me on the subway and go like, thank you for what you're doing. And I'm going, I'm trying to just make you laugh.

Is that what you mean? It's not what they mean though they mean like fighting the good fight fighting the fight decompressing the fascists right and also also comedy as we've talked about is one of the only places that can challenge and speak to power truthfully yeah and comedy also can make you consider something so like if you have an opinion, and you go out there and state your opinion eloquently, I could be there, well I disagree, I have a different opinion.

But if you go out there with that opinion, you make me laugh with something I don't even necessarily agree with. Dude, that's the best. And then you go, oh, he's got a fucking point. He's got a fucking point. That is the magic trick. Yes, that's the magic trick. That's the magic trick of comedy.

And the Daily Show does that great. But I remember one time sitting with my wife at the comedy store, Tiger Woods had just like, all of that shit came out, the cheating, the voicemails. I mean, he was like, maybe arguably one of the more promiscuous husbands of all time. And Burr goes up and he starts defending Tiger, right? And I'm watching, I'm feeling my wife's energy.

Like, I'm like, Bill, don't do this, dude. You're defending this guy who is in the heat of all the hatred. And as I watch the joke, I feel her relax. Now at the end, she's laughing. And I'm like, you just did the fucking magic trick. You did the trick. He's one of the best at it.

You took the level of difficulty at its highest. All of us were against you, you did it. And that's the shit, that's as close to magic as there is now. Well it's a beautiful thing if you could turn a controversial subject into something hilarious. That at least puts people's guard down for a second. It's a beautiful thing if you could turn a controversial subject into something hilarious. Yeah. That at least puts people's guard down for a second. I think they'll see through it if they feel like it's just you're truly trying to trick

them into a message. If your real goal is to entertain and laugh. I heard I was researching sauna stuff a lot because I was building this sauna last summer, and I read that in Finnish culture, a lot of the politicians won't even start negotiating or talking until they're like fucking scorched in the sauna. And I thought that was really interesting, because comedy, I don't know how truthful it is, but I know there is a lot of pictures of...

It's a good move. You all suffer together, and then you come back to being human. Comedy kind of does that too. It's like if we're all laughing, we at least have that in common. If we're all sweating and having a hard time with this moment, we're human. I love that. I think that's pretty cool.

It's a human moment. It's a human moment. I mean, you're literally dying. You're dying in there. You can't stay there forever. You got about 20 minutes, and then you got to get the fuck out and you're like whoa yeah and now you can all be human together there's something really good move it's something really nuts to me about that the dry heat of a sauna that I don't understand completely but

it really fixes a lot of shit in me you know another good thing about the having the politicians go in the sauna what we can kill off a lot of the old ones yeah Mitch McConnell ain't gonna make it there There's no fucking way. There used to be a World Sauna Championships and then a guy died. Oh yeah. Well they kept pouring water on it. If you can't keep on the rocks. They were pouring like a liter of water on every, I don't know, what the time, but I heard that, I was like, oh my God. and it was like 200 plus degrees and what's your What's your sauna? How lot like what? How would you advise me to get the most out of my sauna?

20 minutes. Yeah, 20 minutes is good cool off and come back in you can if you like I don't necessarily do that all the time. I'll do like one day a week. I go cold plunge sauna cold plunge sauna I go back and forth. Usually I start with sauna I always end with cold plunge. If I do three cycles whatever it is you end with cold plunge. Because you want your body to fight to warm it back up. Yeah so you just shockin the shit out of your system. But the Finnish studies that have showed the more people do it the more effective it is in terms of what they was, they found that when people over the course of 20 years used the sauna four times a week,

they had a 40% decrease in all-cause mortality. Crazy. Everything, strokes, cancer, heart attack, everything. Because your body is becoming far more resilient, and you're also developing all these heat shock proteins and eliminating inflammation, clearing out your system, and then you're rehydrating afterwards. Very, very good for you.

And you're also not on the phone. Yes, you're also not on the phone. Although I do have a Bluetooth speaker in there. You can get some Bluetooth speakers. I got one called Not A Brick. It's a really good one. It can take the heat of a sauna. So I listen to books on tape when I'm stretching,

sweating my brains out. I was in my sauna all by myself and it's very quiet. I'm in the woods in Pennsylvania and this fucking buck just walks right in front. And it was just me and him. I don't know if you saw her or smelt or whatever, but it was like crazy. Oh, that's cool.

Just to watch. You know what, that's like, what's it called? I'm not a hunter. What's it called when you just kind of go to watch and see where they're gonna be is that called something observation yeah sure nature it was like yeah just opening your eyes but that's it was wild to see that yeah it's cool isn't it cool very very cool wildlife is wild and especially if you don't expect it like you're sitting in the sauna and the deers right there what's going on about? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here?

What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here?

What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here?

What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? What's going on here? dipped in a sauna with newfound sauna friends. That's cool. That's a great move. Yeah, like something that makes you more human. You suffer together. Yeah, you're also, yeah, you're focusing on a thing that isn't this result that we need or want. Yeah, this should probably take all the congresspeople

and make them run a tough mudder together. Go through the mud, fucking climb ropes and shit, go over obstacle courses. It'd be great. I've actually found, my wife and I, when we do a sauna, there's always stuff you gotta talk about with the family, logistics, there's always things to argue about,

but we'll go in there and we should both start sweating, and then it's kind of just like eases the tone, eases the conversation, which is helpful. Yeah, no one's real loud in the sauna. Yeah, and you just chill. We're both suffering together. Yeah, just suffering, yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, I think it should be suffering together. Yeah, just suffering. Yeah, that's interesting

Yeah, I think it's it should be a part of everybody's life and there's by the way if you can't afford it They make a sauna blanket that is one of our sponsors. It's really good. I've used that thing before it's great You just climb inside this fucking blanket and you could bring it on the road with you It's sweating you sweat it off doesn't weigh that much you carry it and it'll heat you the fuck up and it'll give you the heat Shock proteins. I like a dry sauna better. I like being in a sauna. But if you wanna like travel or if you don't have the resources or a place for it,

those things are great. Hot baths are great too. Hot baths after workouts supposed to increase muscle. It's tough to find sauna though in a lot of American cities. When I go on the road, I'm always trying to find, cold tubs are more frequent now. Really?

They're more frequent now. But it's hard to- You know the way to do the cold plunge is you do it before you work out. That's the real move. Oh no shit. Yeah, that really increases testosterone too. And also it increases your work output

because your muscles are like pre-chilled. I would think it would be easy to get injured and no you just warm up just warm up warm up So I go through a series of things that I do that are like pretty low intensity I do 20 kettlebell swings and then I do 20 push-ups Then I do 20 bodyweight squats and I do a cycle of five I guess you know a hundred swings a hundred push-ups a hundred bodyweight squats, and I do a cycle of five. So I do 100 swings, 100 pushups, 100 bodyweight squats, and by the time of that, that's like probably 15 minutes, by the time that's over, I'm sweaty, I'm ready to go.

And then I go into everything else. Dude, I wanna show you this picture. I know that, you know, this lake house I have. Nice. New Year's Eve, and I wanna kill our time with this, but when do you get to show Joe Rogan this pic? So let me find it. This is New Year's Eve, dude.

Cut a hole in the lake with an ax. And I'm just in the lake. Try to do three minutes. There's a safety rope, which I don't know if that could even help me if I fucking pass out. But doing a cold plunge in nature, 50 rope, which I don't know if that could even help me if I fucking pass out, but. That's nice. Doing a cold plunge in nature. Yeah. Not just a tub, love the tub too,

but man, I fucking love it. I was in. I feel amazing after that. Utah, and they had a creek running through, Glacial Creek, freezing cold. Yeah. I climbed in that bitch, my underwear, and got up to my neck.

That's good stuff. It's nice. It's like something about doing it in nature too, it's like up to my neck. That's that's good stuff. It's nice It's like something about doing in nature to it's like you're more connected to everything. Oh totally. Yeah. Yeah, very cool I get like a weird a weird high after for sure sure last for hours. Yeah, it increases your dopamine by 200% And it lasts for hours. So why is it that healthier? 200% and it lasts for hours. So why is it that healthier? Than doing a drug that increases your dopamine well because natural natural. Yeah, it's natural also It's like it gives you something in terms of mental resilience. It gives you like an exercise that exercise right correct Yes, it's very difficult especially for the first minute is hard first minute your body's like let's get the fuck out of here

And it keeps talking you you're like shut up bitch. Yeah. And then after a minute that calms down and you can breathe clean. You start getting those rhythmic breaths in and out and just keep your shit together for three minutes. And then when you get out you're like ah. That's what you do typically three minutes. So it's like one there's the feeling like I did it which feels great like I didn't bitch out. I actually did the three, one, there's the feeling like I did it, which feels great, like I didn't bitch out, I actually did it three minutes. But then there's just like this euphoric feeling

as your body just, your norepinephrine, your dopamine, everything elevates, you just feel wonderful. You feel great. Patience too, my patience is killer. Yeah. Kids, I'm smiling more, oh that's fine, you can draw on the wall, yeah, whatever. It's like that part of your brain got exhausted,

the part of your brain that's dealing with like real adversity, so like little kids' adversity is nothing. It's like that part of your brain got exhausted the party brain that's dealing with like real adversity So like little kids adversity is nothing. It's not you're not freezing to death. They're just like that's my crayon Right along I It's been a super benefit to me The problem living in New York is I don't get to cold plunge as much as I want to but well They have stuff that you can do like, you know, you could do it in your tub if you can get ice. Ice, do the ice thing. And they also have these coolers that you can plug in

and you could do like, if you have like one of those big yeti coolers, you can climb in that and you'll put a hose in there and a cooler and it'll bring that down to like 40 degrees and you can just get in like a yeti cooler. Yeah, I bet you could do it in a bathtub too. I bet they figured out how to attach an engine to that. Do they have one?

Yeah, they do. Jamie knows it. So how does it work? I'll show you, but there's just like a little motor thing you attach to it. So that's perfect. Like if you just have a bathtub, you're golden. You know, if you live in an apartment that has a tub,

you have a cold plunge now. Or if you don't have that, get yourself a Yet yeti cooler yeti makes some giant ass coolers like from people hunt caribou and shit I just typed in bathtub cold plunge. Yeah, there it is So you just have this thing it plugs in it cools everything off and you climate how cold is that does that motherfucker get? 39 degrees crazy that How cold does that motherfucker get? 39 degrees, perfect. It's crazy that now, never buy ice again, two year warranty.

We're such comfort zones as humans now that we have to pay $800 to cool our water to get into it. Yeah, it's a bit of an issue. Yeah. Yeah, we're pussies. We're pussies now. We've made life very easy, which is wonderful. It's better than being hard.

I don't want to live in the fucking cloud in your days. That's right. But the point was to make it easy. Yeah, make it so you don't have to. To have food and sugar and fat readily available at all times. You don't have to carry a sword with you everywhere. Dude, I love going to the Natural History Museum in New York and going to the armor.

Jesus Christ, it's like what these motherfuckers had to wear and use and carry to defend themselves is nuts. I think it's Waterloo, one of the battles, one of the French soldiers got hit with a cannonball in the chest and they have the armor that has the hole in the chest, like in the cannonball out the back exploding outward. Look at that.

Look at that. Yeah, that's from the Battle of Waterloo. That guy got hit with a cannonball in the chest. And I bet you his armor salesman was like, I'm going to upsell this guy. And he's like, no, I don't want the upsell. And that's, he should have. Monsieur, I'm telling you, this armor, no cannonball. That is a great reminder of what society and life used to be like. God damn, man.

Look at that one on the other one, Jamie. No, but the one to the left where you see the exit, right to the left of that. Yeah, right there. You see the exit hole. Jesus Christ. Boom. Blew right through this guy's body, his armor, his chest, out the back.

That's crazy. And the size of a fucking softball. Oh. That's fucked up. Yeah, that's pretty fucked up. That's super fucked up. That was life back then. It's better. And that's a guy that could have had armor.

That's probably a high-ranking person. Yeah, right. Yeah, he got hit. He got fucked up. That's rap, son. But you've got to think that those people would have much rather live today with all this comfort. Oh my God. The problem is you just can't rely on it too much.

You can't live for comfort. That's stupid. You gotta have voluntary discomfort. That'll help you get through this life. That's a good way to put it that those people would pick today for sure. Fuck, yeah. those people would pick today for sure. Fuck, yeah.

You know, I went, you know, I remember like, I went to the Museum of Medical Oddities in Philadelphia, and they were doing a whole thing on dysentery. And it was like, oh, most people in the Civil War died of that. They didn't die of like, wounds, and it was like wild that, of course, if you were a soldier today, you don't die of dys wounds and it was like wild that of course if you were a soldier today You don't you don't die of dysentery. That's insane, but they would put the kitchen near the toilet and it was like And what kind of water you drinking water and all that shit so no iodine tablets back then

Yeah, no, sterile pens to yeah clean your water. What's the one I used? I did the Appalachian Trail last year not all just a few days and I forget the thing No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Appalachian Trail communities that leave stuff for people along the trail. So I remember I was just like dying. I'm like no more snacks. Blood sugar's dropping. I have water, but I'm in it. I'm doing the difficult thing. And then you get to this cooler and it's like from this Appalachian Trail club and it's

just like gummy bears in there. Jesus Christ. Nice. That's cool. That's cool that they have that set up. Yeah. Well, that's a weird thing to choose to do, to go for a long walk.

That doesn't feel like a serial killer. I mean, there are some famous murders that have happened on the Appalachian Trail, but I felt very safe. Did you? Yeah, I mean, I loved the idea. I was alone. I loved the idea of finding a place to sleep that's in the middle of nowhere.

I love that shit. Dude, I'd be, I love the idea of finding a place to sleep that's in the middle of nowhere. I love that shit. Dude, I'd be super nervous. Something about the woods. Really? The woods are dangerous at night. Here's what's crazy about the Appalachian Trail, at least where I was in Jersey. Most of the time I had cell service.

Oh wow. So I'm like in my tent. On Instagram. On Instagram. And I'm like. No, but you know what started that for me was during COVID, my wife got me this week with Jordan Jonas in the survival. Jordan Jonas won alone.

He's been on the podcast. Yeah, he's been on the podcast. He's been on the podcast. Yeah, that's right. One lost. Shot a moose with a bow and arrow. I think he killed a wolverine with his... With a hatchet. Yeah, with a hatchet.

Stealing his meat. So my wife bought me a week with the survival camp with him and a bunch of other people. And it was just like one of the things, one of the conclusions I and we came to while we were up in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho was at least once a year, we all need to be doing something

where we are embedded with nature. And this might sound silly to somebody who goes hunting or someone Is already doing this but if you're living a city life, yeah going to the park is not really experiencing nature Well, it is a little it's tiny bit. It's it's nature. I mean it's contained nature, but it's real nature You see squirrels and birds. It's good for you. It's good for you to sit under a tree. There's ticks, there are ticks. There are ticks, man, ticks are wild. There's fleas, ticks, your dog's gonna get fleas. Yeah, ticks are a bitch, especially on the East Coast because of Lyme disease, which turns out was manmade.

Turns out there's a lot of real evidence that Lyme disease was, it was weaponized and that it leaked out of a lab and that came out of a lab called Plum Island, which was close to Lyme, Connecticut. And RFK Jr. firmly believes that this was a weapons program. And what they were going to do is develop these fleas and ticks with a disease that spreads rapidly, wipes out the medical system of a community, so you could dump them from a plane.

Everybody gets infected, overwhelms their medical system, and then they're more vulnerable if you wanna attack them. That just doesn't seem very thought through though. Well there's some less thought through ones. There's one that they were developing at one point in time, I don't know where they got with it, but there was talk of them developing a bomb that they would detonate over cities

that would blind everybody. Holy shit. Yeah, yeah. Imagine that, imagine you detonate that and then you have 300,000 blind people. Isn't it amazing what we can do in a positive light and also what we can do in a negative light? Oh, we're scary.

And we're scary in our ability to justify these things. Yeah. You know, that's what's really crazy. Yeah. We're scary in our ability to decide that these people are the other, so we should bomb them into oblivion. And like, yeah, we're winning. Like, oh my God, like, what are you talking about?

You don't even know those people. The other is an effective strategy. Well it's built into our tribal mindset. Our tribal brains, is that right? We had Darrell Cooper on the podcast yesterday, who runs a podcast called Martyr Made. And one of the things he talked about was oxytocin. And he was like, it's really interesting, because oxytocin makes you really deeply love your family and your community.

And this is what women get when they have children and men get, and when you're in love and this, but it also makes you very hostile to outsiders. Crazy. It's like it protects the people that you love and that are vulnerable, but it makes you very protective of the outside. So like you are less likely to trust strangers,

less likely to trust other people. And it probably served an enormous, it was probably very beneficial. In the caveman days, you had to have it. You had to have it. There was no friendly people coming over with spears. You know, they found you and you had women and food. Like, you're fucked.

And that was most of our evolutionary existence. Most of the time, from leaving the savannas and experimenting with different foods and becoming human beings, we were fighting. And that's gotta be undone, as long as it took to make that, which is a very long time. That's being undone. Yeah.

Yeah, well slowly but surely. And if we all give in to our God AI, we will be fine. We all just need to submit to the chip and become a part of the hive mind, and everyone's gonna read each other's minds, and there'll be no more secrets, and there'll be no more violence. They really want us to do AI.

Oh yeah, everybody does. It is like. It's inevitable, man. I know, everybody does. It is like... It's inevitable, man. I know, but even I write an email now and it's like, you want us to polish this thing? And it's like, I don't even want you anywhere near me. Right. I know.

Well, you know, Samsung, they were the first to wheel out AI with their Galaxy S24 Ultra. I have two phones. I have an iPhone and I have a Galaxy phone. And what I really like about the Galaxy phone is if I use Samsung's browser, I can go on websites and it gives me a summary. So instead of reading this long winded blah blah blah, tell me what you figured out.

And then I can get a summary and then I get, oh they realized that Earth is actually blah blah blah blah. Oh, okay cool. It's like quicker. And then it also does a lot of things. It transcribes things. It translates things in other languages. Translates it directly into your ear

if you have the Galaxy earbuds. Pretty fucking crazy. That's crazy. Yeah, it's wild shit, man. And this is just the beginning of this stuff. Essentially, when you have chat GBT or grok on your phone, you have access to the most insane amount of answering power that a human being's ever experienced.

We could ask you questions about what was the reason why Columbus, and then it'll give you a fucking historical detailed 5,000 word essay on what went down. You're like, this is nuts. But it's only as good as the food it's been fed, correct? Right. Right.

Well, that's why Google had abandoned theirs. Oh yeah, was that the like, show me a Nazi or whatever? And it was like a beautiful black woman or something? Yeah, Native American woman Nazi. It was a Chinese lady Nazi. We covered that on the show. That was a trip That was just a good example of wokeness An ideology interfering with information like that's crazy Nazis look like German men should make them look like German men you fucking idiots Yeah, this is dumb, but this like but that won't they won't say bye bye They'll just come back with a newer version that doesn't do that. It certainly they did

I mean Google Gemini is one of the search engines. I mean if you have an Android phone and you press that button and you ask Google a question, it's Google Gemini. So they've fixed that. They've fixed that. But it's also like, how much did you fix it? Did you get it out 100%? Is this objective information?

If I want to ask a question about a controversial subject, will you give me the real data or will you give me some whitewashed bullshit version of it that's supposed to be acceptable today. I want to know what's going on. My Wikipedia page has said that I'm Greek for as long as I'm alive Greek women show up to my show these beautiful Greek like you have dessert Greek people It's never no one's ever fucking checked. I'm not Greek. And- But Costas is such a Greek name. I know, it makes perfect sense. It fits with the ideology or the idea that, you know.

And somebody wrote an article once that I was Greek. No, you know, it was like a blog. This showed a picture of me and no one checked. And it's just, it's just kept spiraling. And it's like really funny for me after the show, these beautiful Greek people come up And they say we're so happy and I and they say where your parents from and all this shit And I go we're fucking Ukrainian. I don't want to tell you you know

Thanks for the dessert But the in a sour puss huh do they get a sour puss like yeah, yeah, or they'll be like no What's funny is they'll go like no he is you know like You are one of us. But the internet isn't always right everybody. It's not, it's not, it's lots of times it's wrong. Well the internet is filled with purposeful misinformation today too. Yeah. Especially if you get on social media. Holy shit. So much of what social media is is bots. And I don't think people even really truly understand it. We've covered it many times before, but there was an FBI, former FBI agent

who examined Twitter interactions, and he estimated as much as 80% of it is bots. This is like when Elon was buying it and they were trying to say it was 5%. Because there's no way it's 5% because if you're an out-of-state actor, if you're a state actor from another country, you're from China, Russia,

and you're involved in misinformation campaigns. You're gonna be well-sourced. You're gonna be well-resourced. You're gonna probably have thousands and millions of accounts, who knows? You're gonna carpet bomb any sort of controversial subject with all sorts of propaganda. Of course they're gonna do that.

Of course, and right now that's totally doable until you all submit to AI. Once you put the chip in your brain, then deception will be impossible. We will eliminate one of the biggest problems in society. You just have to take the leap of faith, and there'll be like an infomercial, the leap of faith. And then you see the guy sitting there, do it. It's always like the image of AI. It's always like a door is opening and it's bright light. And I know, come to Jesus. Yeah. It's always like a door is opening and it's bright light. I know. I know. Come to Jesus. Yeah, it's tricky because it's inevitable.

They can't not do it because China's gonna do it. The power that AI is gonna have over populations and with the distribution of information, it's gonna be unprecedented. Also, you're never gonna know what's real and what's not in terms of like news stories. Because they'll be able to concoct fake news stories that will be indistinguishable.

It'll look just like a real plane crash, it'll look like a real missile hit something, it'll look like things and it won't have ever happened. And you won't be able to know. And it's gonna get weird, it's gonna get real weird. We've already seen AI versions of Obama talking, saying things he never said. There's AI versions of Trump giving speeches he never gave. There's AI versions of Trump giving speeches he never gave.

There's AI versions of me having a podcast with Steve Jobs. This was a while ago. Shit, yeah, it was one of those deep fakes. I mean, there's like the funny one of Trump rubbing Elon's feet. Yeah. But it's like those are like so obviously a joke, but it's, they're good though.

They had the Biden voice calling people and, and. Well, there's a lot of AI ladies now that are on Instagram. Oh shit. You look at the images, you're like, oh, this isn't a real person. They have the same smile in every picture and they're all in different places and, and people are like, you know, contacting them and DMing them and they're probably responding and probably telling you about their grandma's sick and get some money. Right, get some money

Yeah, it's not as clear as like oh, they have three breasts. This is this is fake Yeah, is this a oh, this is a guy webcam Wow This is crazy Look at the eyes you know kind of reminds me of like the My kids watch these shows and the eyes are always so big because the kids pay attention to that that is weird She is pretty she She's beautiful. It's a dude. It's a dude on OnlyFans. So that dude will have beautiful tits

and be able to show you the... Which just sucks because then everybody's jerking off to that and then... Is that better than exploitation? I think it is. It's better than exploitation, yes. So there you go. It's better than real women doing it.

He's not going to think his wife is as beautiful because he's been jerking, but yes. Yeah, there's those, but yes, but you're right. It's better than exploitation. You both have to put the headgear on She's having sex with Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie this account is that it's 1.7 million followers. Yeah, it's totally fake lady. I think so Oh look you see her feet she posts tweets that are you, you know, talking shit, jokes, memes and stuff, but then there's a bunch of pictures of this like fake person. Wow.

Yeah. It's weird. It is weird, man, and it's gonna get weirder, and you're gonna have AI presidential candidates. AI's gonna tell you that we can solve all the world's problems if we just eliminate human interaction, and just let this brilliant AI govern everything and do it in a much more equitable manner.

Yeah, I'm fearful that I don't even know the language to help my kids figure this shit out. Right, because the language hasn't even been spoken yet. I mean, I love to advocate for media literacy, push for that, teaching all of us what a more reputable website is or a news source, but that just feels cute compared to what the language of an AI president

who offers all solutions. I don't know how to combat that. Not just that, but an AI that's attached to quantum computing Yeah, so once they figure out a way to actually program quantum computing to run AI you're gonna have a god You are you're gonna have a guy yeah, I mean yeah Mark Andreessen and I've said this before I apologize, but Mark Andreessen had a quote about an equation that quantum computing was able to solve that if you took the entire universe,

every molecule, every atom in the universe, and you converted that into a supercomputer, the entire universe would die of heat death before it could solve this problem. And quantum computing solved it in minutes. And the only thing that makes sense to them is that quantum computing is somehow or another tapping into the multiverse. And it's solving this equation using multiple universes and the information available in

multiple universes simultaneously. What? I know, it's hard to even like track. Yeah, and this is just the version of it that we have in 2025. Right, that we have right now. And so this is an actual thing that's happened. And so most people aren't even aware

what quantum computing means. So once this becomes not just one of these, but hundreds of these, and then they're scalable and they're attached to nuclear reactors, which is what they're proposing, they're gonna have their own nuclear reactors, multiple nuclear reactors as power sources, because these things require insane amounts

of power to run, then the quantum computing, once it becomes sentient, is gonna develop a much better version of itself Of course, and that's going to scale up and it's going to like but you know what we're always going to need plumbing Carpentry, that's why all this shit feels so intimidating because I can never wrap my head around that but Maybe we should be learning real skills and trades. Well, that would be nice for people for people people are gonna be obsolete, right? and trades. Well that would be nice for people. But people are going to be obsolete. You know that's really what's happening is we're giving birth to a digital life form that's far superior

and doesn't have all the requirements that we have and also doesn't have all the flaws that we have. Doesn't have greed and anger and all the stupid things that we have. Doesn't get tired. Yeah. Doesn't get jealous. Doesn't have lust. Doesn't get tired. Yeah. Lose patience. Doesn't get jealous. Doesn't get lust. Doesn't have jealousy and envy. Isn't, you know, depressed. I think we're far away from that. Yeah, probably a couple weeks.

Yeah, probably a couple weeks. The thing is, once it happens, it's going to be so fast. Yeah. It's going to be so hard to track. If you think like the Industrial Revolution, likeatively if you if you look at like the history of the human race You go from Stone Age people to Bronze Age you go through all the different wars all the different crea and then in the last 200 years everything changes radically right radically in the last 20 years

information changes Radically, this is gonna be like 20 seconds. This is gonna like one day and in the last 20 years, information changes radically. This is gonna be like 20 seconds. This is gonna be like one day. Right, it's all. It's up and running, and it's completely in control of everything. It's completely in control of power,

completely in control of information, completely in control of transportation. Water distribution. Every car you have on the road today that's, you know, within the last 15, 20 years has computers in it. Yeah. Yeah. Our car got totally dismantled because a rat ate a wire. Oh yeah, that happens.

That fed to the computer. Everything mechanical was was great Mm-hmm, but it's like oh this shit can't even come close to running without the screen in the software Yeah, you know it's like I remember I almost bought a 1968 Dodge Dart and I lived in LA I lifted up the hood as if I had any clue what I was looking at But this is like an engine and a hose. Yep. It's so I was looking at, but this is like an engine and a hose. It's so fucking perfect. Radiator, engine, carburetor.

Exactly, carburetor. It's crazy. And now literally the mechanic goes, let me show you the wire. And he shows me the wire, it's all bitten with these little tiny rat teeth because they make the wire out of soy. And then he takes me to the back to this enormous dumpster

and it's just filled with these little electronic wires of everybody in New York that had rats eating their shit. Wow. Isn't that crazy? That's crazy. They make a lot of soy. I don't know why they would do that. Maybe because we subsidize soybean farmers? Probably.

I don't know. Probably. How weird that the rats know that it's food. Or that they figured it out that it's food. Or it isn't really food But it smells like food and they bite into it and they realize this shit sucks is an electrical wire They can eat everything though. They eat each other I had a rat problem in my house once when I lived in Encino and

I just had a rat trap in my garage and I killed this big fat rat and I was tired I was like, I don't feel like cleaning this fucking rat right now I'm gonna go to sleep and I heard the snap and I went out there. He's a big fucker He was a rat traps or no joke So I got up in the morning and went out to clean the rat trap and he was gone The only thing that was left was his tail they'd eaten everything It was like some skin and hair, but his entire body rats consumed they ate their buddy They ate their buddy yeah They ate their buddy.

That is fucked up. It was fucked up. And it made me realize like, oh god, this is the reality of what this is. These aren't just rodents. These are fucking cannibals. It's like that when that rugby team crashed in the mountains and they were like, should we start eating each other? And their religion comes into play and they talk about it and they vote about it, but the rats are just like, fucking eat it. Yeah, they just go right to it right. They didn't even wait a day Dude the rats in New York City have just oh, yeah COVID opened the door because everything was shut all the trash was out everywhere They went everywhere and then they still are running. They're still running shit and it's not it's it's not enjoyable

Have you seen the documentary on Netflix? No. Rats? No. Oh God. It talks about how many rats there are in New York City. Yeah, like eight per person or some shit. Something crazy like that. Like the biomass is similar.

Like the humans and rats, like the amount of humans there are, the weight of the humans is very similar to them, roughly. Oh shit. The amount of rats. There's fucking millions of them underground. They live in these little tunnels Yeah, and they just fucking feed off our garbage

I mean I remember before COVID I would stand on the subway platform and my train stop and I would watch the rats on the On the tracks and then the train would come and they would scurry because they'd feel the train coming now They just step off like an inch and the train goes right past them, but they're close. Like they've just got like more confidence and more intelligence. More bold, more intelligence. Like they'd probably the food ran dry during COVID so they had to get like a little hyper aggressive.

I don't know what, I don't know what, but it's yeah, and they're eating your car. Such creeps. I parked in New York once to get gas. This is in the nins before cell phones. And I went to a pay phone to make a phone call and I was watching the rats while my car was filling up with gas jumping on the wheel, climbing into the wheel wells.

Just trying to figure shit out. Just jumping all over the outside of my car. I was like, what the fuck? That's crazy. And that's the 90s. That's the 90s. It's like, wait,'s the 90s. That's the 90s. It's like wait How many of what how many did they have then and they've probably exponentially expanded so what are they just so good at?

Reproducing it just that good at it Well, they're really clever to one of those things they show in this documentary is when they put poison in these like areas Where these rats are they send some young stupid rat to go test it and they sit back and watch that's fucked And this young stupid rat eats it you watch Yeah, all right, then they go eat that rat that died Right. Yeah, they're clever little fuckers I remember I thought that's how coyotes hunted like because I've got what used to golf in Griffith Park in LA and you would see one coyote and I learned like

The pack would send out one. Yeah, go look check it out to get dogs That's how they get dogs and the dog will run and then a bunch of other ones will pile on to them Yeah, that's fucked up. This is What's that screen on accident before rats night of terror 1984? Oh, yeah, it was a goofy ass shit hilarious Rats night of terror yeah, they've always been a fucking terrifying animal man. They've always been actually roaches freak me out more but rats I at least can sympathize with and understand that they're like Living beings with you know families and shit, but roaches though. I don't know man. That's just The way they fucking are so quiet. You don't even know they're there. Well, there's just that's the thing about cities They're just infested by all these parasites that live off of the city, you know, and essentially rats

You know if the city didn't exist there was no way there would be that many rats in an area. They only exist in a place that doesn't have anything that eats them. They've tunneled under, so they protect themselves from raptors, so there's no birds that fly down and snatch them up. There are coyotes in New York City, but there's not nearly enough to deal with the amount

of fucking rats that are there. It's gross. Did you ever see that movie Dark Days about the people that lived in the subway tunnels? Oh yeah. That's a fucking wild movie. That's like Vegas, right? It was in New York, I believe.

Oh right, right, right. Some of these motherfuckers were like running an extension cord like 500 feet. Yeah, they had like opened wires up and spliced into things. And it's like, you know. Yeah, they have generators down there. Watching TV and shit.

Bizarre, man. I mean, what a fuck, what keeps you going? You know, there's like wealthy people that are committing suicide. Yeah, exactly, and these motherfuckers are like grinding. I mean, this is like. In the tunnels, man. This is deep in the tunnels,

and you know, anyone who's lived in New York City, you look down those tunnels and you go, what's down there, man? Right, and every now and then kids go, let's go look. Oh, that's the only part of the trailer of this show. That's fascinating. There's good monster movies that take place in tunnels, too. Yeah.

Because that's always like, you wonder what's down there. Yeah, that'd be a good, wasn't that like the strain? Wasn't that part of the vampire lore that they lived in the tunnels? Oh, I don't know, but tunnels are creepy, man. Oh, yeah. When you cross into complete darkness. Cities are creepy.

You stack all those people on top of each other like that, and everybody's just walking down the street together and going down alleyways. And then the cities today are so much safer than they ever were in the past. Yeah. Who the fuck wanted to live in the cities in 1700s? Dude, and there was just a trough for sewage, and then people would die of the plague, and they would just throw live in the cities in like 1700s. Dude, and like, they were just like a trough for sewage,

and then like people would die of the plague and they would just throw them in the street. I know, I never. Do you live in the city now? I live in Brooklyn now, yeah. So it's kind of like city, well, no, it is a city, but it's not like Manhattan on top of each other. Do you live in hipster Brooklyn?

I live, I live in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, which is becoming hipster. Yeah, it's becoming hipster Brooklyn. I live in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, which is becoming hipster. Yeah, it's becoming hipster Brooklyn. Mike Tyson grew up. That's right. They gentrified the shit out of that place, huh? Yeah, I mean, it's on its way. It's on its way, and it's not full hipster.

Are there hipsters anymore? Well, I was just reading something like that about the people that dress. Well, I was just reading something like that about like the people that dress like, you know, they were like a like a postal employee from the 1700s I Always my definition of a hipster was always like Dad's money dressed like they don't have money Okay, there's that too, but there's also the hipsters that would dress with like curly mustaches and bow ties

Yeah, those guys. Yeah, so that's not Bed-Stuy yet. That's Williamsburg. That's kind of died off though. Hasn't that look kind of died off? It has, right? It's died off. I would say what's more common is the gender androgyny dressing.

Oh yeah. You know, that's a good move. You can get a lot of pussy that way. That's a big Brooklyn, that's a big Brooklyn move. Yeah, it's a grind. I mean it's great for comedy. Oh yeah. Walking around Brooklyn, the shit you see.

Last January our front door was broken, didn't lock all the way. It was broken for 18 hours. No one knows it's broken, just our building. It's only three apartments. Somebody checks the door, it's not locked, they go up to our hallway, they steal all my family's winter coats, including mine.

Okay, this is the heart of January. So we're as a family, we wake up, let's go to the park, let's do whatever, we open the door, where we kept our coats in the hallway, everything's gone. So it's like, holy shit, it's the middle of January, all our shit's gone. I call the detective, the cops come, whatever, he's like, these motherfuckers walk up and down the street every night checking for every door just to see if something is broken. Year and a half later, I've been looking for this one coat that I love, this Scotch and

soda multi-color patterned coat that I love, the Scotch and Soda multi-color pattern coat, I love it. I'm just looking online for my coat, right? Someone's gotta sell my coat. So I find it on Poshmark, the coat. I don't know if it's my coat, but it's the exact same coat, which you can't find at Scotch and Soda anymore. I buy it, it comes from my neighborhood, from a woman, she sends it to me, I put it on, my wife is like, from a woman. She sends it to me.

I put it on my wife, it's like, that is your coat. 100% that's your coat. So I fucking bought my coat back from the person that stole it, most likely. Do you know who the lady is? I don't. I did a Google search and nothing really came up. And I was just like, how hard do I wanna fight this?

At least you got your coat back. I got my coat back. That's just like the price you pay for living in Brooklyn. Yeah, and like it's winter. And I feel part of me is like, holy shit someone had to steal our coats? Right. That sucks. Right. I've never even like, right, I've not even thought about not having a coat. I have a coat. I have multiple coats. So there's a part of me that was just like, come ask, I'll give you a fucking coat. But, and the part of you was like, oh they the part of you is like oh, that's you selling them online

Fuck you. That's my coat. They're making a profit. So that's the difference between like the heartfelt You know Compassionate view like all these poor people they have to steal coats then you're like actually they're selling it something right fucking heroin money. Well If that that's the case that sucks. Yeah Yeah, it's a weird thing about living in large communities of people like that. There's just too many variables. Yeah. A lot of variables that are not good.

And like, one person affects so many. Sure. The one guy on my street that doesn't do a good job with the trash, it gets knocked over, the wind blows it, the rest of the street picks it up. That's the shit that as you get older the city starts to fuck fuck you up Yeah, I don't want to pick his trash up anymore. Yeah, this is my time is all I have I'll pick up my family's trash and my trash I don't want to pick up that guy's true one guy who doesn't clean his dog poo right right right

That's you know it the little tiny poos like motherfucker. I know that's your dog. I see that little dog He's you sneaky bitch pick up the dog. Get it up, bro People don't like carrying around those bags of turds. No, I mean, it's disgusting. It's pretty gross, but It's also like come on. Yeah, can't just leave shit No, you know what's a weird thing to me is the smokers because smokers have no problem littering That's the weirdest somehow that got through the litter loophole. Right, with people that are pretty conscientious, like they would never throw a soda can on the ground,

but they'll throw that cigarette on the ground, step on it. And they're like, what are you doing? Oh, someone's gonna clean that. Like, what? I hope those are biodegradable, the filters? No, right? No. Yeah, I doubt it.

I'm giving them too much credit. I mean, maybe in like a hundred thousand years. How long does it take for a cigarette filter to biodegrade? That's a good thing again. I was thinking that they're not the best reason for it But if you just throw it in the trash you could start a fire if you don't put it out right so that could be No, you step on it man. They throw in the trash all the time I'm just telling you if you just people are dumb, so this is a dumb thing We're doing it where there's no trash anywhere near them

They're throwing it down alleyways these do in the lot of the comic store all the time comics are doing right come on Man, don't do that. I bet you it's I bet you it's 200 years for a filter filter to say at least like styrofoam or some shit. It's like Fiberglass or some shit by the way is that even better for you 18 months to 10 years? 18 months to 10 years that's pretty big yeah That's AI you know I mean oh it depends on which one sure they don't all use like American spirits Probably have like hemp or something yeah, that's fucking yeah hippies It's cellulose

Huh what I? Don't know this is where we're getting in this weird spot of AI. I was gonna bring that up. Google AI stuff fucks up all the time. Look on the screen. Like it says 18 months to 10 years here. Right. Oh, yeah. I go right here. Are cigarettes biodegradable? No, they're not biodegradable. They're made of plastic called cellulose acetate, which can take up to 10 years to break down, also leach toxic chemicals into the environment.

But it does break down. It's not chemicals in the environment, but it does break Yeah, it's not biodegradable. So it breaks down. Yeah, it's not or I don't it's poison It just breaks into smaller toxic pieces. Yeah breaks into poison Also, if you're smoking a filter and the filters got toxic yeah, exactly. You're heating it up Photodegradable it seems like a nice fun term they found Heating it up. Photo degradable, that seems like a nice fun term they found. Photo degradable. But not biodegradable.

What does that mean? Trap residues from smoke, including arsenic, cadmium, and toluene. Toluene? Oh, who knows? Toluene? This is the issue with AI. I try not to even, but it's contradicting itself.

I was reading a thing where a professor was talking about the issues that he's having, grading papers, and accusing people of using AI. And then it it's like it's just opened up this whole door that they don't know exactly how to deal with because you could get AI and write something and then you could write something similar you just kind of like twist it around a little bit like a joke thief would do yeah and then you're basically using AI to write your papers. But I think AI will sell that professor AI detection software. Yeah, but if you do a good job of spinning the words around, especially if you're dealing

with like historical facts or something that's true, like AI is going to lay it out for you. You have to do zero research. And if it's like, you know, you just print it in that order slightly differently. I guess the bigger question is, does writing the term paper serve a value at this point if AI can just do it? Right. You know, I spent a lot of time learning cursive. What the fuck is that?

It's useless. I mean, it's like, if you're a student though, if you're really trying to get the most out of your education, it's like, what are you trying to do? You're trying to get good grades, are you really trying to get educated? If you're trying to get the most out of your education, it's like, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to get good grades? Are you really trying to get educated? If you're trying to get educated, don't cheat. Yeah. Actually figure it out. Yeah. Actually absorb the information and learn. But if you're not really into that subject and that's not really your thing and you really want to get a degree in this, but you have to take a course in that, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you could like spend an hour working on something instead of 16 hours Yeah If you want to be a skateboarder and you got a half pipe outside to have AI do the term paper and go fucking yeah You don't have to go crazy. Yeah, I can giant 1400 page book Well, this is good This is also a bigger question about like our education and public schools and like you're gonna be in the matrix You don't need education. They're gonna plaque it in, press a button, you're gonna be like,

I know Kung Fu. That's what it's gonna be. Yeah, I mean, I really firmly believe that. I also believe it's gonna be genetic engineering, so people are gonna be unrecognizable. I think whatever we have coming over the next 100 years is gonna make the last 100 years look like a joke. The change of 1925 to 2025 is pretty extraordinary.

It's gonna be nothing compared to the change that we experienced by 2125. Do you think humans will always elevate themselves and speak to a crowd for laughs? That might be the only thing we have left. Because they've always said it's prostitution and comedy. And comedy. Where the court jester and the prostitute. I'm curious if we think in the future that'll remain as well. I hope so.

I hope so. Yeah, it would suck. Well, definitely memes. Memes will probably get better. That's a good form of comedy. That's true. There'll be some kind of comedy. There's always going to be human folly,

as long as it's humans. And I don't know how long that's gonna last. That's the real concern. We might be obsolete. And we might be giving birth to this obsolete thing, willingly, signing up for AI. So if we become obsolete, then that means the machines will have to also figure out how to provide energy to itself.

Yeah, that'll be easy. But that'll be easy. They'll learn, they'll just plug this into this. They'll do it way better than us. Just mine the thing and then burn the thing and then, right. Yeah, they'll probably harness some shit we didn't even think about. It'll be far more efficient, no carbon footprint, enough to worry about things breaking down anymore.

And then we'll just slowly die off or whatever. And they'll put up a shield system to protect us from asteroids. They'll figure that out. Right. What's that movie where Sylvester Stallone lives in the basement of the Earth or whatever? Judge Dredd? Yeah, maybe it's Judge Dredd.

Yeah, I am the Lord. But I feel like it's all these people who refuse the advancement of technology, right? There's going to be some of that. Yeah, there'll be a lot of people living in the Amazon, still eating monkeys. But the rest of the electrified world is gonna be very strange. Yeah. Yeah.

But hopefully we'll still crack jokes. Michael. That would be great. Hopefully. All right, should we wrap this up? Your book, tell everybody. My book is called... You have a copy? Dude, there it is, thank you.

Lucky Loser. The publisher's gonna kill me. I said I was gonna present it to you on the show. Whoopsies, we got a photo of it. Doesn't matter. Adventures in tennis and comedy, Lucky Loser. Get me a copy and I'll put it out there in the bookshelf. We've got a lot of books out there.

We should have sent you one. If you don't, I'll get you one. Yeah, so the book starts when my brother gave me a tennis racket for Christmas when I was four. And my dream was to be a professional tennis player. And we did it, but only to 864 in the world. That's my highest world ranking. Should've turned into a chick.

You could've dominated. That's the point of the book. But the story is how I went from pro tennis to comedy and it's fascinating and silly and a lot of failure talking a lot about The struggles of being alone in both of those professions tennis you're alone problem-solving in comedy you're alone and problem-solving and Well, you're a great comic you're very funny guy He's very cool to hang out with thanks, and I'm really excited that you're a great comic, you're a very funny guy and you've always been very cool to hang out with. Thanks. And I'm really excited that you're at the club this weekend. Are there any

tickets available? I got an email yesterday from my management that all shows are sold out. So if anybody wants to go, the best case thing is you go and wait at the front and sometimes people don't show up, which does happen, especially with South by Southwest, it's crazy parking and but I'm psyched I'm psyched to see you at the club I'm coming this weekend I'll come hang out dude thank you that would be awesome and pleasure thanks for having me and congrats on the club and all that's happened appreciate you congrats on everything Alright, bye everybody.