The Joe Rogan Experience - #2323 - Guy Fieri

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Guy Fieri is a restaurateur, bestselling author, vintner, philanthropist, and award-winning host of multiple television programs, including "Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives, " "Guy's Grocery Games," and "Guy's Ranch Kitchen." www.guyfieri.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day! Knuckle Sandwich is a sandwich shop in Austin. I heard about it today. It's legit. My pilot calls me and says, you know, someone's got your brand out there. I'm like, what's it called?

He goes, Knuckle Sandwich. I'm like, go figure. Well, in all fairness. But I hear it's good stuff. know, someone's got your brand out there. I'm like, what's it called? He goes, knuckle sandwich. I'm like, go figure. Well, but I hear it's good stuff. Yeah, it's real good. It was some Michelin star. What's that? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everything goes in here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever you want to do. So that don't shoot heroin on camera. I think we're going to be able to pass that. So what's happening, man? How are you?

There we go. I really appreciate the invite. My pleasure. This is a long time coming I've been waiting for this. Yeah? Oh yeah I mean especially all the influence you've had and things you've done and I know the funny side of you. I know the UFC side of you, but watching the podcast and seeing all the characters and I was just watching the Bill Murray interview the other day and I just look at it and I go, man, to hear those stories talking about Hunter and just all that and all the nostalgia. I mean, it's, just it's pretty, you got to have your mind blown by now. Yeah, my mind's been blown out. It's kind of overblown at this point. It's huge. Yeah. I mean, I think about what you did with Trump and all that influence that

you made and you call it straight up the line. You want to come on the show? You want to do this? Let's do it. And took the time to do it. I think it was a huge impact. I think that we look at all the people that you've given a chance, you've given them a platform. And I think that's really, it's fair of you. And the way you interview, the way I see it from doing a few interviews, you let people talk, you let them speak their piece, you continue to help them through not getting

stuck on one thing. You navigate them pretty well. And it's really, I mean, it's from a guy that's, you know, in the business, not to this level, but got to the business. It's, it's respectful, man. Thank you. Thank you very much. What is knuckle sandwich basically? You even have a, your chain is a knuckle sandwich chain. It's all, it's all has history. Just kind of like as I toured the museum today. Chef's hat with a skull. Started with that tattoo.

One of the first tattoos I ever had, culinary gangster. So my buddy, Joe Leonard, monkey wrench tattoo, great friend of mine, I did my first tattoo. And he made that. He says, I have this drawing for you. I want to show this to you. And that it's pretty, you know, skull, chef. Let me check it out. So I don't put a tattoo on until he draws it on first. I have to have it on for a while.

Like I have to look at it for a couple days. Like, does this resonate with me? So that's how it started. This way before TV, way before any of this. And when I got on TV, when I got on Food Network, they were going to send me my first paycheck. You wouldn't believe how much I made that first episode. It was just huge money. $1,250 an episode. You know when you get started. And I wasn't planning on TV.

But anyhow, I came back and I had all my buddies around my table. My house was kind of like a soup kitchen. All my buddies come by and someone will bring crabs, someone will bring some steak, whatever. And so I'm sitting there with all my buddies. I said, hey, I got to think of a name for my TV, like my other business because my restaurant business had a business partner and I didn't want the checks to come to the business. So I said, what do you think?

My one buddy Dirty says, my nickname is Guido. He says, how about you make us something to eat and that'll give us like some food for knowledge and then and I said you know and I'm serious I want to come up with a name for the company I gotta get this I gotta get my $1,200 check sent to me and I go hey there how about I give you a knuckle sandwich and he goes that'd be a good name. That's it? That was it and it was it was originally that it was originally a sandwich with a with a ring on it and a sandwich made out of money and that

was Knuckle Sandwich and then it just kind of evolved from there. So all my companies go into the brand of Knuckle Sandwich but I never put a product of wine or tequila or anything I ever did and we started making these cigars and this guy that I'm partners with is such a guru, a guy named Eric Espinosa. We sat there and talked about it and I have another brand called Flavortown. Flavortown is too whimsical and too, you know, it's got to be something. I didn't want to call Guy Fieri. I didn't want to have my name on it.

I don't want to do stuff that like buy this because it's my name. I just want to do something, you know, and we all thought about it. We said, ours are that good and he's such a badass. It's called Knuckle Sandwich. Did you have any idea in the beginning of your career of being a TV guy? Like, how did all that stuff start? Because it's a weird world, you know?

I had a conversation with Jose Andres about this. I watched it. The emergence of the celebrity chef is like, I mean, it used to be like Julia Child, like way, way back in the day. She was, and then. This one? Yeah, yeah.

And then I guess there was a few other people, but they never were like cultural figures. I guess Julia Child was. She was probably the only one. I don't know. She was really it, right? Yeah, and that was PBS.? Yeah, that was PBS. You know, that was PBS.

I wasn't people really blowing it up. I mean, I watched it because I loved that I was in love with food at a young age. I mean, I just was one because I didn't really experience and like exactly what my parents are feeding me. My parents are really good cooks. They weren't in the cooking business. But yeah, this whole food thing, before I got on Food Network, I had never watched the Food Network. And not because I don't believe in it. I mean, food's my

epicenter of what I do. But the last thing I was going to do, working seven days a week, 12, 13, 15 hours a day in the restaurant. Come home and watch more food. Is going to watch somebody make me a pot pie. I'm like, I got enough. Plus, I also didn't really have a true understanding of what was going on knew who emerald was I mean you couldn't Or he's another one remember when he had that sitcom He his his tagline BAM Like they decided to try to put that into a sitcom. We just had that conversation the other day

Yeah, we just had that conversation, but emeralds the og I give such Appreciation and accolades to everybody that did it before me. There were so many people that helped pave the way in one style over another, and some in TV, some literary, some just keeping the energy of the industry alive. Because if you're not from the industry, you don't quite exactly get what it is. But it's a pretty – it's like understanding UFC. You know, the bigger fan you become of something, the more you start looking at it and just going, it's so much more than what you're watching in the ring for the next 20 minutes. It's really

deep and there's so much more and there's so much, it's not just lifestyle, it's attitude, it's energy, it's connectivity, it's family, it's community, it's all that kind of stuff. So did you, like how does one go from being a chef to being a TV chef? Like what was it, did you just get an audition? Like did they contact a bunch of chefs? Like who's got the wackiest hair and who looks like they would be good on TV? Like how do they figure something like that out?

This is about the most wack story in the world. So, alright, so never graduated high school, dropped out of high school when I was 16, went to France, was an exchange student. I'm gonna give you a little bit more of the backstory than you probably want, but I'll kind of give you the, you know, the quick version. So when I got, when I came back from France, I was supposed to go to my senior year in high school and I wasn't really super interested in going back to high school. I just lived in France in a boarding house and went to high school and I didn't even speak French. But my parents were really open minded and I'd save my money and they said, if you can pass a year of French at the junior college at 16 and you can pass

the class and you can figure it out, I guess. So I went and lived in a boarding house and went to high school, came back. My senior year, I just was not interested in going back to high school. So I went to junior college, finished junior college, went to UNLV, got my degree, graduated a little bit early and went and ran restaurants for other people. And then, and I was 26, moved back to the wine country up to Northern California where I'm from, opened my first restaurant. Had a bunch of restaurants with a buddy, things Things are great did exactly what I want to do I want to be you know, have a great wife. I want to be a great dad. I want to have my own restaurant That's all I wanted not that I was short-sighted and stuff like big big community person want to do a lot of you know

Community service and so forth. My parents were that way so That was it man. I had like three restaurants. I own a couple hot rods pop my own house I was living it, you know. And a bunch of friends came up to me, actually a kid across the street came to me and said, you watch Food Network? I said, no. He said, we have a show on there called The Food Network Star. You should go on that show. I hadn't even seen Food Network.

I saw Rachel Ray one time. I was at a bar and saw Rachel Ray on screen and I'm like, that girl's got energy. I mean, listen to her. And she could talk food. She does no shit. So that was whatever. Six, eight months later, my wife's driving home from the city. She says, hey, I was just listening to the radio station. They have that Food Network Star show going on because you'd be great in that. How do you know you've never seen the show? She says, no, they're just talking about it, like, you know, the culinary challenges and all the things. And then if you do it, you win a show.

What do I want to show for? You know, I'm doing what? I've not been on TV. I made my own TV commercials for my restaurant. That was the only thing I ever did that was TV. So none of it was appealing when they contacted you and they asked you? I wouldn't say it wasn't appealing. It just wasn't in my scope.

Right. It wasn't in your plans. It wasn't like my scope. Right. You know, it wasn't really in your plans. It wasn't like something I was seeking. You know, we had talked about it. There had been many people that had come to me before and said, like my buddy that was the marketing manager for Flowmaster, remember Flowmaster's? The mufflers? Oh yeah, okay. Hot Rod mufflers?

Yeah, sure. So he came to me and said, you should do a Hot Rod show. You love Hot Rods, let should do a hot rod show. You love hot rods Let's do a hot rod show I mean, I know enough to be dangerous, you know about hot rods I mean, I know just enough to get into the conversation where I bury myself and So that was that and so many other show they say make a make a three-minute pitch so all my buddies like, you know, gotta make the pitch gotta do the, got to do the thing. And I avoided it any way I could and to the point where it had expired, like the entry time had expired. So my buddy named Mustard,

he's on – we're on a barbecue team together. We did competition barbecue and all kinds of crazy shit. And he says, do you ever send that demo tape into the Food Network? I said, no, I just missed that window. He goes, good, I thought you're going to say that. He says, because they opened it back up, there's another week. He says, let's go make that. I'm like, I don't want to do this. He's like, don't be. You always push every – this is the truth because I push all my friends and like open

your own business, go on that vacation, have kids. I'm always the one that's kind of, you know, go live your best life. And so I kind of walk my talk. Last thing I wanted to do Joe, honestly, is go on TV. And because I never went to culinary school, you know, I just been cooking through my, you know, that was my career and what I did as passion and living in France. You opened up a restaurant without ever going to culinary school. Is that unusual? I think it's to culinary school. No, is that unusual? Hmm. I

Think it's probably 6040. Oh really? Yeah 6040 that go to school or 60 go to school Hmm, that's a lot that don't though. I could really be off on that when I do diners stravons and dives 70 60 percent don't go a lot lot of the mom and pops. And that doesn't mean that they don't learn. I mean, some of the best chefs I know haven't been to culinary school and just are super smart at learning and dig in. A lot of education, a lot of research, a lot of trial and error, a lot of putting yourself out there. You got to be willing to fail. Like I don't really think you'd be a good cook if you're not willing to fail. I mean, if you're just, if you stay in your lane so much, I just think that you get better chances to

– well, let's think about fighting. Think about things you've learned, all the education and martial arts and boxing and all these different perspectives that people take to be in it. It's usually the one that has a pretty good, you know, narrow focus on something they really, really love, but then having that outside perspective. So for me as a chef, having the ability to understand Indian food, you know, there's such a depth there that I'll never hit the bottom. You'll never touch all the opportunities that there are.

But yeah, so back to that, I made the demo tape and I made it so ridiculous that there's no way, there's just no way they were gonna pick me. What'd you do in the demo tape? Do you have it? You guys I think you find it online. I can't believe I just told you. Oh you guys already have it. God damn it you set me up. I didn't set you up. Did you really get it done fast? Jamie just pulled it up. Jamie you pulled it up that fast. Listen Jamie. Welcome to Sonoma County California home of true wine country cuisine. Today I'm going to prepare a dish for you, not in fusion, but in confusion. I'm going to do a gorgonzola tofu sausage terrine that will be served over a mildly poached ostrich egg. Now since we're in the wine country, I'll be serving that on grape nuts and done with

a delicious pickled herring mousse right on top. Oh, I know, delicious. It shivers up my spine. No seriously folks real food for real people that's the idea see it's all getting messed up people are trying to take everything off the shelf and jam it onto a plate and that's not what it has to be. I learned how to cook out of survival my parents are going through this macrobiotic cooking in the late 70s and I had enough bulgur and steamed fish to kill a kid. So the idea in our family was whoever made the dinner got to decide what it was going

to be and being of Italian descent pasta was always one of the keys. I went and studied in France and then came back and got my degree at University of Nevada Las Vegas in restaurant administration. I've been a district manager in Los Angeles and moved up here to Northern California to open up three different concept restaurants. What I'd like to talk to you about and what I think I could do as a Food Network host is teach people about real food, real people. Get it to the basics.

Great product, great equipment, great ideas. See, anybody can read a cookbook. Anybody can come up with a simple idea. But the idea is bringing it to the table. I take people's imaginations and put them on the plate. Let me show you one of my favorite. I was on my way back from Houston where I was down there I can't believe you're making me go through this Sorry And mix it into Japanese cooking see in Japanese sushi does not mean raw fish

And that's what people think it does it means seasoned rice So I take a little bit of seasoned rice a little little bit of smoked pork butt, and we put this together here in a dish with a little of our American favorite, french fries, and mix this together with a little bit of the California favorite, some avocado, and I came up with this idea, and as I was doing this, a buddy came around the corner and he says, Guido, what are you doing? He says, you can't put that into rice, you can't make sushi out of barbecue, what are you doing, you says you can't put that into rice. You can't make sushi out of barbecue What are you doing you jackass? And that's what this dish is called. It's actually called the jackass roll So we mix it up we serve it over the idea about cooking is not just about great food

It's about putting all the pieces. Do you have a sharp knife? Do you understand sanitation? Do you know where to get it from and do you know how to tie all the components together? You see my idea about it is is there so much more to teach as a restaurant tour people ask me all the time How do you do it? I can take the restaurant and bring it to the home and I think that would be something that would be sellable My name is Guy Fieri. My friends call me Guido. You can now consider me your friend Why did you think that would be ridiculous? That seems pretty straightforward it What's my jammy oh you switch is fucking up again?

You got reboot again good reboot no worries, okay, okay? That seems pretty straightforward I don't know why you would think that that would somehow or another like that I was gonna pick I was taking it seriously I wasn't taking it seriously yeah the whole beginning line that's that TV personality that's like yeah I listen I had what I didn't want take that was it here we go guys happy shits done I don't know why you would think that that would be something they would never pick you from well I didn't know back then what I know about TV now. So you thought you had to be like super professional.

Right. I thought if I talk some shit and I got to made it a joke and I told them what are they doing? You know, I thought like, hey, I'll be so, you know, I mean, that is pretty true to who I am anyway. What year was that? 2005? Yeah, 2005. Yeah, 2005. First show didn't air until 2006. But, um, yeah, so I sent it to him.

And I sent it on a DVD. Because my buddy that filmed it worked at the TV station, and he put it, he burned it from the camera and put it on DVD. Back in the old days. So I sent it in. That's it. I did my deal.

I said I would do it, I did it. So it gets in, three days later, late at night, 10 o'clock at night, Lori and I are sitting, my wife and I are sitting on the couch watching TV, home phone rings. She goes, no, she's from Rhode Island, she's from North Providence, so she's a little bit tough on the phone at 10 p.m. You know, like who's calling at 10 p.m.? No, I don't know where he is. No, he's not here. I'll take a message.

No, yes, no. She finally covers the phone and she goes, it's the Food Network. Bullshit. Food Network. It's one of my buddies being a jerk off. So I pick up the phone and I go, hello Food Network. Blah, blah, blah. And they said, is this Guy Ferrari? And I'm like, okay, I know it's not because it was one of my buddies, they would have

said, you know, Fieri. So she goes, yeah, we got your DVD and we'd like to talk to you about it. We want you to be on the show. I said, okay, what does that entail? Well, there's a contract that'll be on your door tomorrow morning. We FedEx it to you. So I get the FedEx and I look at it and I give it to one of my attorney buddies, like, man, they own your ass.

If you sign this, I can own you. So he redlined a bunch and I sent it back to him. They called me back and they said, you can't redline the contract that we're sending you. This is like, you want on the show or you don't want on the show. What is like when you say they own you? Like, what do you mean? Oh, he says, you know how a contract goes when you get into TV. I mean there's like you you know, we've got you for 36 months You can't do any other production that you know, whatever this 36 months

I don't know. I didn't don't quote me on any of it. All I know is okay I had never signed an entertainment contract at that point. Yeah, so a lot of them are pretty predatory Yeah, take advantage of the person that doesn't have any exposure. If you're going to become a star, they want to profit massively off it. So that's where it kind of, my guy said to me, he goes, you have your own restaurant, you're doing your own thing. What are you doing? What are you going to go on TV for?

And so long story short, I went, Laurie and I were pregnant eight and a half months. You were pregnant too? Yeah, well, that's what I call it. I held the baby weight. But we were, you know, we're pregnant. We got the kid coming. Hunter was four. Hunter was... Did you name after Hunter Thompson? Yes, I did. Did you know that or you just saying that? No, I didn't know that. Oh, that's 100%. I was, because I saw the Hunter Thompson in the hallway and I saw the Bill Murray interview. I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I don't read a lot.

But I read that book probably five times. It's a great book. Such a great book. And when I got out of college, I lived in a town I didn't know anybody. I lived in Long Beach. I didn't know anybody. I just worked at this restaurant.

And I'm not a big TV person, so I just read the book. I read it in college, and I read it again. I read it again. And it's funny, when you read something again, I, so I just read the book. And I read it in college and I read it again and I read it again. And it's funny when you read something again, I got that from the Dale Carnegie book. I read Dale Carnegie and you have to read it a hundred times or how many times. I just like, man, this guy owns it. This guy lives it. This guy just, you know, what a character.

And then the more I read about him and the more you kind of learn about him. So I told my wife, so we have Hunter and Ryder. Ryder's a freshman in San Diego State. Hunter just graduated with his MBA at University of Miami. That's awesome. Yeah, so that's where Hunter came from. That's great. Yeah, thank you.

And my nephew Jules, who's in the middle of the two, we raised Jules. My sister died when Jules was really young. And so Jules just is graduating this Sunday with his degree from Loyola in Law. He's in EDM music. He's an agent. Oh, cool. So anyhow, I got on the show. I got there.

Everybody standing there buttoned up in their chef coats. I walk in and I'm in New York, never been to New York. I'm in flip flops and shorts and a a yellow leather jacket and I walk in and everybody's like, you know, all puckered and I'm like, oh, this is not going to go well. This is going to be a shit show. And I just said, you know what? You got to give it a shot. So I just went in.

I was just me, did what I do. I won. So I won the show. And what this show, what you win is a six episode cooking show, which they ran at 7am on Saturdays. I mean, it was the worst time slot in the world. But they gave me the show and I did good. And they gave me another show. And I did the show and I hated it. I did the pilot and I hated it. And I'm like, I can't do this. What was that show?

It's called Gotta Get It. I don't think you're gonna find it. You're not gonna find this. He'll find it. No, Jesus, please. I don't think it was never aired. So what it was, it was a show. He'll find it. It was a show about, it was a show about kitchen gadgets.

And I'm not a kitchen gadget chef. Oh, so it's like you gotta get one of these Cuisinart's. It wasn't even that good. I mean, it was like you got to get one of these Cuisinart's. It wasn't even that good. I mean, it was like avocado slicer. If you can't slice avocado, don't eat it. I mean, you got a problem. But there was a cool one.

There was an oven that talked Bluetooth to your phone. And that was way before Bluetooth stuff was really going on. There was a two-stroke Weed Eater mower with a blender on it. And that was the coolest one. I made margaritas in that and so any but the the one they gave me that sucked the worst So the one that I wasn't and excited was they gave me a ball like a hamster ball the hamster ball I'm sure run around the house But you'd pour cream and vanilla and sugar and all this in a ball and then throw ice cubes in it

And then you would roll the ball around kick it around and they would roll and it would make ice cream. Okay. Yeah. Kind of fun. Yeah. So not for a guy that has a sushi barbecue restaurant and you know. Yeah how long is it taking to make ice cream by kicking a ball around? I don't know, too long. I was thinking that's fun but then I thought no, how much time? Go kick it when you're in flip-flops. So I did the whole thing, and they called me a couple weeks later, and they said, congratulations, the show got picked up for 13 episodes, prime time. I'm like, I gotta be honest with you, I'm not gonna be able to do that show.

Like, what? Like, no, it's not. So it went through a series of people, like executive, executive from production company, the owner of the production company, yelling at me, telling me he wasted all his time and his money. I said, hey, nobody told me that if this got picked up, I had to go do the show. I thought it was a discovery for you, a discovery for me. I don't, I don't know shit from Steak Sauce about what's going on, how this all works, which I quickly turned that.

I was not going to be inside of the TV business and not be really aware of what goes on. So finally, the president of the network called me and she said, you're burning a huge opportunity, Brooke Johnson, you're burning a huge opportunity. I said, Brooke, it's all about, to me about authenticity. I said, I don't need the paycheck and I don't need, I said, I'm happy with my life. I love what I do. I like my cooking show called Guy's Big Bite. Cook food the way I want.

Call it what I want to call it. Make it the way I want to make it. And I said, I just don't. Me and gadgets for cooking is just not a thing. She said, well, you might not ever get a shot like this again. I said, I really appreciate the opportunity and I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I just don't want to do it. And she said, okay. And that was it. And I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I just don't want to do it and She said okay, and

That was it. But fortunately six months later if you caught they called me back and said we're gonna give you one more shot You're gonna be a food critic. I said, nope. Thank you. Hold on. Hold on. Why not? I said I'm not a food critic I'm a cook Last thing I'm gonna do is go in and tell people they're doing it right and wrong That's like someone going and telling somebody they don't like their arts wrong. Bullshit. That's not my style. So they said, well, okay, it's not that. It's not that. You go around. This was the key word. You go around to mom and pop joints, and you just eat the food and talk to the people. My God, I can do. That's my style. I said, what's it called? Diners,

Drivers, Dives and Dines. I said, what? They couldn't get the name right. No one ever gets Diners, Drivers and Dives right. That's why we call it Triple D all the time. I said, I could do that. I could do that. That sounds like dives. I love dives. I don't know a lot about diners because we don't have many of them on the West Coast. And drive-ins, I love. That was always special to me to go to the A&W drive-in when I was a kid. We didn't eat fast food when I was a kid. So when you went there, that was like big, big deal. And that's how I got going.

Wow. Interesting. Yeah, it seems like it's hard to find because once they started making personalities out of chefs, then you have to find authentic personalities who are good on TV that are actually cooks. So it's kind of a little bit of a dilemma because chefs aren't necessarily the kind of people that you want to have in front of the camera for the most part. I deal with a lot of them.

But you know what? I think that everybody, when you get people comfortable, you get people comfortable, you get them talking about themselves, you get them in a zone where they feel good and they relax, it's very similar to what you do here. I mean, I watch it's people have a gift of storytelling or have history, and what can people talk best about themselves or their history or their passion and that's what I did with Triple D is I just went in I remember the first one we ever shot I'm standing there talking to the guy about thinking I'm pouring coffee behind my back people are bitching at the counter because we're in right in the middle of an active service in the diner I'm pouring coffee and pancakes burning and I flipped the guy's

pancake and I'm like so how long have you been making that, you know, yeah hang on a second he needs an order back, you know, and I asked all my questions I was supposed to ask and the producer at the end goes, cut, cut, cut, cut, what the hell was that? I said, slow your roll bro. I said, I asked every question you asked me to ask. I said, I didn't stand there and do it like PM Magazine. You know, I was in the mix with the dude, but I asked all the goddamn questions. And he's like, can you do that again? I said, I can't stand on my head.

This is what we do in the restaurant business. I said, we work and we talk and we joke and we laugh and we bust balls and we do, you know, that's what we do. He throws his clipboard on the ground. We've got a hit. And then we went around the country for the next three weeks and shot more locations and put that together into the pitch.

So I don't understand. Was he pretending to be upset or was he upset until you explained it to him? He was the kind of upset guy. Oh, fun. But it worked out. That's the problem with TV, dealing with upset people. Well, and the thing is, especially people that don't

understand TV. So when I started Triple D, I just treated my fellow chefs, restaurant owners, like we were in the kitchen. Have fun. I tell them all the time, I want you to say whatever you want to say. If you want to drop 50 F-bombs, if you cut yourself, if you drop a thing on the floor, if you shit, God damn it, if it's not right, don't worry. We'll stop.

We'll fix it. We'll go forward. forward but I'm never gonna make you look bad I promise that I'll never make you look bad you look great sometimes we stop I go hold up let's hold up let's hold up what do you drink Jack we get him a shot of Jack please you know sit there and shoot the shit about his favorite team or talk about it see I always start talking about people's family right off the bat. Talk about family, kind of puts people on the same playing field. Not a game, just a reality. Right.

No, I understand. I get it. Well, that sounds like a fun thing to just drive around and go to people's restaurants and see how they do things and see the history behind it and what was their dream? How satisfying is it to have this place and feed all these people? You meet the people that are just, I mean bring tears to your eyes. There's so many stories, so many, we've done like almost 1600 locations and it's just mind-blowing to be in the restaurant business and to watch these people, what they put into it and how many sacrifices they've made and then how many success stories

we hear and it's just – it is probably one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done in my life. It's really – I would have been done by now had it not – I mean, a matter of fact, when we first started the show, I thought, Oh, this would be fun to do for a couple of years. I'll probably run out of places. As this show could live on forever. How many years you've been doing it now? 16. 16 years. That's crazy. That's crazy. But it does some great things for them. I'm sure it's great for their businesses, right? It must be a huge boom.

We're shooting right now. We're shooting downtown right now. In Austin? Yeah, we just shot this morning. Where'd you shoot? Shot a place called the Bolden Creek Cafe. Vegan joint. And I shouldn't even say it like that.

I should just say Bolden Creek Cafe, an awesome restaurant. No, you should say vegan. You should let everybody know. Well, I say, but here's the thing. I think when I say vegan, people like, oh, so you kind of got to give them their shot. No. I wasn't thinking that. I was just thinking, you know, I have some vegan friends. If they only want to eat a vegan restaurant, I would take them there. It's so good. I just go eat there as it is. And that's what I, when I interview people at vegan restaurants or vegetarian restaurants, I'll say, do your non-vegan vegetarian friends come here?

Or I'll ask people, usually 50% of them that I'm talking to aren't vegan. They just go there because the food's great. There was a vegetarian place that I used to love to go to in Woodland Hills that was a Indian joint, like super authentic Indian It was in this little strip mall and I would go in there and every all the menu is in You know Hindi everybody was speaking It was you didn't you kind of look at that the photos that they had of the dishes and just like that one Give me that one. So it's all

Vegetarian all but like super authentic. And you know, that's not even necessarily what I'm interested in, but I would go there all the time. I want to eat great food. I want to eat food that's prepared correctly. So it's kind of like saying, I didn't mean to throw the vegan thing on it because really what it is, it's about great restaurants with really great people that own it or people that have a good story. And then people that want to talk about what the food they talk about what they do. Did you ask them why they

decided to make a vegan restaurant? She's vegan. And she had a coffee shop started with a coffee shop and then was doing a little bit of food on the side and then just continued to grow and make it bigger and bigger. It's so funny, I drive up and they got a big neon that says, caffeine dealer. I'm like, that's my kind of energy. That's my kind of smart ass. You got to have fun with yourself. You got to laugh about this shit.

Just great character. I'm actually probably getting my ass kicked from the network right now going through telling about this ahead of time But no, there's great. You know, I got been Austin a few years shooting triple D But I'll come back to a city and new places have popped up or we start to find out more about them Have you been at Travis Barker's place? No, I've heard that place is phenomenal and that's a fully vegan place in LA It's was it? Crossroads Cafe? Yeah, I've heard from many of my friends like Dana White went there.

He's like, dude, it's phenomenal. You can't believe it's vegan. That's the thing about it is people have this stereotype about vegan food. For a good reason. You and I like, listen, you and I like wild game. You and I like meat and so forth. But if you really look about it, you're well, there's just enough vegan people that are really annoying. That I won't disagree.

There's enough that are wonderful people. Don't get me wrong, but there's a percentage of vegan people that are like hugely annoying. Well, and especially when they start, here's the thing. Proselytizing. Yeah. Don't push yourself into somebody else's lane. Do what you want to do and do what you love. But don't go and preach.

I'm not into preaching. I'm not into trying to change. Have your opinion, have your attitude, have your understanding. Yeah, that's the problem with the whole vegan thing is that the people, they represent themselves as morally superior. And it's not all of them. Some of them do it just because they're kind people and that's what they want to eat. And that's wonderful.

I think that happens in a lot of different sections. Of course. I mean there's people about heavy metal. You don't like heavy metal, you're an idiot. Exactly. There's people like that with yoga. They just start doing yoga. They want everybody to do yoga.

Yeah I get it. Well I'll tell you a funny story. I was running restaurants down in Long Beach and then I was in Redondo Beach. I'm running a little restaurant down there called Louisa's, tiny little pasta joint, pizza and pasta. There was a bunch of them in LA at the time and then I eventually became the district manager for them. I was young, I was very young in my career, but Royce Gracie used to come in.

The Gracie family was right down the street in Redondo Beach. I remember somehow through a manager, through one of the guys, we got a UFC videotape, VHS. Someone had, I don't know what it was. I'd never seen it. I hadn't even heard of it. That was the first time that we ever came aware to, you know, this and then who was it? Tank Abbott was down in Huntington Beach. And we used to go down, I used to live by Huntington. So we used to go down there and the Tank Abbott thing and the T-Door, you know, this whole thing. But you know, I mean, you're so ingrained in it. You're such a massive part of it that, you know, anybody wants to start getting on a high horse about stuff, I'm like, as soon as you know enough about it, and as soon as you have a platform that you really can say something, then speak your piece. But don't shove it down people's throat.

I mean, I'm just not, you can do about anything. Yeah. No, that's a big one when people start doing jujitsu and they only want to tell everybody about jujitsu. The vegan thing though is like, I really do get it from their perspective like as an ethical perspective. It's just one of those things where if there's a thing that you're trying to do, where you're trying to be kind, you're going to get a certain percentage of people that start doing

that that get annoying. Yeah, I just choose not to listen to annoying people. I just tune it out. I don't have fucking time for it. I really don't have time for it. I mean, there's so much else going on in my life and so much else going on in this world. I think why don't we start focusing

all the good shit we can do? We can do so much great shit. If everybody would pivot themselves 10% and just go and look at it and say, okay, take everything you love and then go do that more and be worried less about what somebody's saying about you or what's going on on social media or whatever this other shit may be. Just go do that more. And be worried less about what somebody's saying about you, or what's going on social media, or whatever this other shit may be. Just go do something positive. It's a social media contagion. It's a problem. It's a real problem.

When will it break is the question. When will it stop being the center of shit? When people just start looking at it and go, okay, we're done. We've had enough of it. It's run its course. It's been poisonous enough. I mean, there's positive things to it. Don't get me wrong. I think there's some really good information that you can get from it. But the negative side of it, just because you have a key, you know, I always say to these young chefs that are on my shows, like, somebody wrote about me and I'm like, A, quit reading about yourself. B, look at the source. Now, if I come up to you and I tell you that your food sucks, I tell you that you're doing something that's wrong, you know, we're friends, you can maybe take my opinion with some, you know, some credit. But the

fuck, you know, the jerk-off that's writing about you in his mom's basement eating Cheetos in his underwear, you know, clucking away, telling you how much you suck. So do you really care what that guy thinks? The problem is people see it written down and they think it's almost like like a valid Source and then they have to combat it, but you're gonna combat 35 million people wherever many people million people are tweeting about things and how many extra counts they have Yeah, there's a lot of that and there's a lot of people that aren't even real but it's also it's just that the that aren't even real. But it's also just that the nature of it highlights negativity because the nature of this platform, what gets traction is things that make people upset.

Well, it's what media used, I mean, it still is. You don't hear the front page of the paper talking about all the good that somebody does and all the money they've raised or all the benefit they've given or all the experiences they've offered Yeah, what you hear about is the negative the the death Yeah, it's a problem because it's monetized right it's a problem because that's how people make money And they don't think of it in terms of the impact that it's having on the culture, but if Yeah, I mean that's that's how they're making money they make money by getting people or used to be but getting people to buy newspapers and

tune into the news and because of that what what's gonna get people's eyes glued not positive stories and inspirational stories but rather whatever the chaos is anywhere in the world and exaggerated to make it the most salacious the most ridiculous and how much can we spit regardless if it's true or not I mean that's what's been killing me is all of the truth non-truth where is the like where's the medium like who's the governing body like is anybody gonna hold anybody's at you know feet to the fire on this and could not I wish there could be a punishment like you lied yeah but it's up to us it's up to us to ignore them once you know that they're full of shit and once you know that they're full of shit

and once you know that they lie, take away their power. The way you take away their power is just not pay attention to them. And they do it to themselves. I mean, in general, mainstream media has kind of, over the last eight, nine years, has exposed themselves as being wholly corrupt. Very corrupt and full of lies and propaganda

and ignoring positive aspects of people because they don't fit with your political agenda. It's just, and it has a negative effect downstream of the entire civilization because it's just like everybody's at everybody's throats and they're being fed all this negativity. First through mainstream media and then it's all accentuated by Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and it's ugh. No, it's poisonous and it poisons the culture and fortunately we're moving away from it but there still is. Are we? Well, I think there's a mass group that is still, you know, buying into it and being the sheep and going along with it.

You're not following it. I'm not following it. Yeah, but we're public people. It's like it's wise for your health to not follow it, you know? True, but I hope and again, I don't have any prescription to it. I follow the same mantra you're saying. Quit tuning in, quit paying attention, quit passing it along, you know quit reading the bullshit, you don't know if it's true or not, just do just talk about what you know and talk about what you believe and and be who you are and quit trying to just keep the quit negative shit, you know keep it out of your mouth. Yeah it's just it's it's a problem because it's so addictive, you know?

It's people are constantly checking it. And when you're bored, you immediately grab your phone. And then what do you do? You open up social media like, what's everybody yelling at? What are they upset about? And you go read that. What's your social media that you go to? Mostly Twitter because it's the only one that's free in terms of like free speech,

like legitimate free speech. Call it X, whatever. I'm still gonna call it Twitter I hate when they say Twitter X for you know this Twitter. Okay, it's been two years three years I know but nobody calls it X Call it X everybody calls Twitter. Why do you change it? Anyway, cuz he's crazy the same reason why he bought it. I saw the picture of you shooting the bow at the Tesla That's crazy. Yeah.

I heard the tip came right off and came right back at you. Yeah, it blew apart. Yeah, it's thick steel. Do you think it was going to go through? I think if I had a reinforced arrow, so like, you know, there's companies that make like super durable, like much heavier grain arrows and maybe an iron wheel broadhead,

but like a single bevel, two blade. I had a three blade, too much of a big cutting surface. I need a smaller surface. I thought about it for a lot afterwards. And I may try it again with goggles on and behind it. No, I wasn't worried about it hitting me, but it's pretty impressive. I mean you can actually shoot a I think you could shoot a 40 What did what?

What what like round will that I don't want to lie I know nine millimeter bounce right off of it, but like what round is that will a nine millimeter bounce off bounce right off? No, yep. Yep, but not the windows. No not the windows No, but it would cause the windows? No, not the windows. No. But what do it cost to get the windows done? You can get the windows done, easy. Have you driven one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard they're amazing. My buddy has one. I drove my Tesla here today. Oh, you have one? Yeah, I don't have a cyber truck. I have a model S. He says you push the button and the car will come get you. Oh yeah, it'll do that. Okay. The body was 10, 9 millimeter handgun 22 caliber rifle has

not bulletproof against all calibers so when you get higher like an AR 15 fit well 50 caliber of course gonna penetrate everything trucks metal also crack of shots are fired close together but either way why would you do that Why are you making a car like that you fucking psycho? Like it's really kind of crazy and I think you can't sell them in some countries because they're, it's like they're so durable that it's like a danger to other cars on the road. Cause like you would hope that like if a Celica hits a Prius, they're both kind of kind of crush equally. What'd you think of Celica? That dates us. People still have those. Celicas were awesome. I heard they were remaking that. That's why. I heard that

they're gonna bring back a Celica. Celicas are awesome. Oh yeah man. What was your favorite of all-time American muscle car. Oh That's hard. That's hard. I love them. I got a lot of them. I love the other bring it back to tell Might be a thing I heard something about it. I don't have a favorite but it's all I like between Early you can get as low as 65 for a couple of them like I have a 65 Corvette that I love and Then I think you get as old as 71 if you get into like the Barracudas and the challengers some of the mopars But by 71 most of the Fords and the Chevy's had fallen apart For whatever reason I think because they stopped doing drugs. That's what I think. I have a theory. I have my psychedelic theory. I've heard a lot of

reasons they've stopped. More EPA issues. Well, EPA issues as well, but why make them ugly? You can make them feel efficient without making them so ugly. Like, something happened. They lost their design language and everything started being flat and boring, you know, except Corvette. Corvette is another one. Like Corvette, like they made good looking Corvettes deep into the 70s because they still have that curvy body. But if I had like, I don't know. Well Bowtie Mopar or Ford?

I love them all. I'm not picking one. I love them all. I mean, I have a 70 Cuda. I love them all. I'm not picking one. I just I love them all. I mean I have a 70 Cuda, I love that. I have a 68 Mustang, I love that. I just I just love that era of automobile and it's just like it's also that era of culture. I love the music and the fact that life was chaotic and loved the music and the fact that life was chaotic and you know there were so many changes in the culture there was so quick changes in society and yeah each year made I mean they went from Buddy Holly to Jimi Hendrix in a decade and everything was like what is what what's what's the baseline now my favorite movies that buddy Holly movie oh yeah Gary Busey, remember that?

Buddy Holly and the Crickets and Gary Busey. Oh, it was great. That was a great flick. Now, I brought the Triple D Camaro. I drove it over. What is the Triple D Camaro? 68 Camaro. Oh, nice.

It's a 68 Camaro on an LT4. So it's basically a 2022 Corvette with a 68 body on it. Oh, okay. I made two of them. I've had a few different cars inside. Did you take like the new Camaro and cut the body panels off and put the new ones on? No, no. Took an old 68.

Here it is. Oh, nice. That's me driving it out too. So we just made that car. I made two of them. No, that's not the picture of that, but it is that car. So we made two of them. I had that one for the longest time.

So you put a different chassis in it and everything? Yeah. Detroit Racing's chassis. Oh, okay. Great. But it's just a monster. LT4, Trimac 5-speed. But my boys were sitting there.

That's what I like. Resto mods. I don't want to drive something with drum brakes. It doesn't stop. Those are stupid. Well, it's so funny to think I have a Trans Am and a bandit car and it's great and I love it and it's a great car and you drive it and it's so nostalgic to drive it and it feels so good and it doesn't rattle and all that. But boy, my assistant's Camry can probably take it from the line.

Oh yeah, Model 3, I'll leave you in the dust. The Tesla. Those testers are fast as shit. Yeah, that's, I mean, as far as pure performance, there's nothing like those things. Everything else is stupid. But, oh, is this what it is? I mean, is this real?

Nothing official has been announced about this Celica. Damn, that looks good. Six speed manual transmission. Really? Oh, that's Forbes, dude. Click on Forbes. It's not showing up. I've tried to click on it a million times.

I'm only getting, I have to get the ads out of it, and then there's no pictures that show up. Well, the one below it looks like, that one that says 2025, that looks like a dark horse Mustang. That doesn't even look like a toy. Most of these are all like I think generated pictures. Yeah, there's a lot of that. There's a lot of those.

Yeah, go on and you can. I fell for the Scarface to movie. Oh, did you? Yeah, there was something going on. Maybe I had a couple of shots of Santos drinking a little bit. But I was like Scarface to and they did this whole AI thing and I'm like What I've been loving is a little people little three Theo Vaughn as a baby What's that? Oh?

Yeah, Theo Vaughn as a baby is my absolute favorite the AI Babies that take like podcast clips and have babies the things Having a security discussion the other day about babies. The things, just having a security discussion the other day about, you know, having so many words of mine on the internet or on TV or whatever and then someone could put together a whole sentence and the security person said, you know, what would you do if they sent a message to your wife and made it sound like you? I travel a lot, I'm you know so-and-so and you know I need such I'm

in Mexico and I need a,000 bucks, I'm locked up. What would you guys do? You know, and I'm like, that's a real thing? And like, no, it is a real thing. They're starting to extort money from people and, you know, granted, they're usually doing it to older people and so forth, but it's a real, this AI threat's a real thing. Yeah, that's one of the real things.

Yeah. We're going to encounter a lot of unprecedented challenges to reality over the next few years. There's nothing you can do about it. I mean, they're gonna try to figure out ways to stop it while it's happening, but you know. I think they're farther ahead of us. Yeah, the technology is just, it's reality-bending technology. You could essentially right now, just from the podcast that you and I have had so far, us talking,

you could have us say anything forever. They could do podcasts where you and I discuss fucking computer chips, the construction of them, and have conversations about nuanced details of the technology that we don't understand. And it could be anything, a big foreign policy. You could talk about anything and it would all be AI generated and no one would be able to tell. There's a whole podcast out there of me talking to Steve Jobs. I never met Steve Jobs. No shit.

No. Not no shit you didn't meet Steve Jobs. No shit. No, the whole not no shit. You didn't mean Steve Jobs. No shit. No shit. A 45 minute podcast of me and Steve Jobs having a conversation. I never met him. That's crazy. They could do anything with your voice man. And it's like a little weird like you can kind of tell it's fake. But this is

like, remember, imagine if you go back to just a few years ago, the AI generated deep fakes of celebrities were super obvious. And now they're not obvious at all. Remember the Tom Cruise one? That was the one that was interesting. Yeah, that was the first one I ever saw. No, it's, and we're just on the cusp of it.

I think it's even deeper and more convoluted, more screwed up than we know, but it's going to become something we're going to have to face because they're just, they're so far ahead of our legislation that's even interested in trying to control it. I don't think they even know what to control. It's scary shit. It is, but it's also like what is reality going to be? Because what you're seeing right now is just a visual representation of what AI can do. But what about once it starts being able to recreate experiences? Because that's

coming. I mean, whether it's 20 years or 50 years, there's going to come a time, if you stay alive long enough, where you're not going to have to experience things. You're going to be able to sit down and, you know, just like the Matrix, it's just going to plug you in and you're going to experience something. Okay. Okay. We're a little bit of the same age. Do you not trip out that Dick Tracy had a square watch that looked like an Apple watch? It's kind of crazy. Yeah.

Maybe we talked to it and everybody's like, that's nuts. He's talking to his watch. Right? Okay. So did we... All right. This is like we should be drinking or something should be going on. What happened? Did Apple just... Did we influence enough Apple people that

they just decided to make it a square watch and make it look like Dick Tracy's watch? Or did the Dick Tracy thing, did we already make the watch and did somebody go back and I mean, do you ever sit there and trip on shit like that? I definitely don't. You don't? No, not about that. I think square is just a normal, it's a normal shape for a frame. Not a watch you talk into though. Yeah, but it's just a screen.

Star Trek? It's just a tiny screen. Yeah, but the Star Trek thing was a fucking walkie talkie. Kirk out and they'd hang up. But then we made the Star Tech. Yeah. But that was also life imitating art. It's not art imitating art.

So okay, well we'll go back to Matrix then. Because I think of the matrix things all the time. Mm-hmm like how How real how possible is that? We used to watch that cartoon. There was a movie my kid watched When he was little about the people that all went and lived it wasn't too long It was maybe 10 15 years ago About the people all lived in a spaceship and the little robot and the plant grew and everybody was heavy set nobody walked They were all in space. What is it called? Was it WALL-E? At the little robot? Oh the

movie, yeah. The Pixar movie. Yeah. And you sit there and look at that stuff and you're like wow. Yeah, that's what's really happening. Okay, so you didn't buy my Dick Tracy idea but I think that the other stuff is... Well, when you think about buy my Dick Tracy idea, but I think that the the other stuff is well when you Think about where this is all headed There's only a few different directions that one could go to and simulated reality is a big one I think that's inevitable because I think you're gonna get more sedentary people more people that are very Uncomfortable with their own lives and want to live a different life, and then you're going to be able to have experiences.

Just like when kids play Call of Duty all day long, like what are they doing? They're playing war with zero consequences, where they're able to kill people with zero consequences, get killed, respawn, and they're doing it all day long just for the experience. Well, what happens when that experience is far more vivid? You're feeling things, you feel gravity, you feel your feet feel the concrete underneath you and the gravel you're stepping on. They're going to be able to recreate all that stuff. Whether they do it with an implant or whether they do it with a helmet that you wear that sort of interacts with your brain, sends signals into your visual cortex and recreates experiences. It's coming. You're taking this way past my Dick Tracy watch. Yeah, look at this robot.

Oh, I saw this yesterday. Yeah, look at this dancing robot. That looks so weird. It's so weird because they're moving like a human moves. And then eventually they're going to realize this human design kind of sucks. Let's make something that's better than a human. You see the one where the robot whacked out? The AI robot went crazy and they were trying to stop it. Oh yeah, in China? Like flint, flinting on everybody? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's going to be powered by AI and AI is not going to probably have the best

opinion of us because a lot of us are annoying Deep shit. Yeah, it's weird. We're talking about food and cars and Yeah, that's deep. It's a weird time It's a weird time for change because we're like riding this technological wave and we don't know when it's gonna break and where it's gonna break What's gonna happen? Are we cart and horse? Are we horse and buggy and automobile? I mean, is that the is that the energy or that the space that we're in? Think about all those people that were in that era.

Yeah, but those buggies are shit. They went 45 miles an hour. It was pretty amazing for somebody that did. Yeah, no horse at the end of it. And it's driving you down the road. It's what's that noise? What's that pop? You know, what I'm getting at is I think that the change is gonna be way more radical

than just going from a horse to a model T. I think it's gonna be, we're not, you know, there's a lot of people that believe we're already in a simulation. And not a lot of people like Cooke's and people with schizophrenia, but like actual real scientists, including Elon. He said that the odds of us

not being in a simulation are in the billions. Because the idea is that if technology increases, one day there will be a simulation that will be so good, you will not be able to distinguish whether or not it's real. And so then the question is, when will you know whether that's taken place and has that already taken place? The matrix yeah, essentially what the matrix was similar, but that's that same thing. I was saying take Tracy watch when Where did that come from? I mean that's a chasy watch seems kind of obvious. It's a square Yeah, but I'm just still saying TV your TV is a square. Most watches were round and all of a sudden it became a square. I don't know. Anyhow, not to get stuck on that. Because

it's crazy. He's sci fi. Look, it's a square. Like, look at the Jetsons. But I go back to the thing with the somebody. I mean, you were talking about people doing drugs and designing cars. Who sat around and said, okay, let's make up this movie where you take the pill and you're in the system You're out of the system or plugging in the back of the head you grow energy you you are the energy source now Like we use cows for you know grinding grain. Are we gonna become that and so forth you think about it? When was that matrix 20 years ago 25 years ago at least it's pretty advanced the matrix is in the 90s, right? What year was that Jamie 95 but still yeah what we know about AI we can look at and go make sense 31st I'm sure they wrote it even earlier than that so yeah and back then no one had any I mean we so if you're dealing with 99 that's the

infancy of the internet itself. You know, right? The internet. Pretty big thinking. I stumbled across this when we were talking about something the other day. This guy wrote a book in 1960 called The Man-Computer Symbiosis, which is a very early idea of what the matrix is. A concept of a human-computer collaboration, and this is 1960, where computers would augment

human capabilities in decision making and complex tasks. This vision involved computers facilitating both the solution of formulated problems and the formulation of problems themselves, essentially creating a partnership where humans and computers could work together more efficient or more effectively than either could alone. Well that's happening right now. That's already happening. 1960. Yeah that's real. What was the guy's name? Lick? Lick lighter. JCR Lick lighter. Strange name Mr. Lick lighter. Yeah man computer symbiosis. Look at that guy. Look at him. He looks like the type of guy would think up shit like that Lick lighter looks like he'd be trolling for prostitutes, too

Just saying I mean maybe did I sure he didn't It looks like we're those guys It's just a it's a very tumultuous time because the change is coming so fast and no one knows what to do with it. There's not enough laws to really stop it and even if you did have the laws, China's not gonna stop, Russia's not gonna stop.

And who do you go to for an answer? I mean, it's like, there's so many people that are so susceptible to it and it's just free will, I mean, it's just mean it's like there's so many people that are so susceptible to it and it's just free will. I mean it's just it's out there and people don't even know how to harness it or even understand what you're getting duped into or whatever the case may be. It's like the things that people are putting on the internet and it lives in perpetuity. I mean it's not going anywhere. Well this is all surface level stuff. The really crazy stuff is control the power grid,

alternative technology, alternative power sources. Like it's going to get very, very, very strange. Yeah. Inside of our lifetime. But people are always going to need food, bro. You know, AI is not going to make you a yummy sandwich. Give them time. You think?

Nah, I don't. You know. There's something about handmade things you a yummy sandwich. Give them time. You think? Nah, I don't. There's something about handmade things that people are always going to enjoy. Human beings know that someone, it's like when you go to a nice restaurant and you have a nice meal, one of the things you know is that a person did this. It's part of it. Like, damn, they nailed it.

When you're eating a perfectly cooked steak, oh, this guy nailed this. Well, it's listening to, it depends on your kind of music, but listening to music when somebody's up there riffing a guitar versus somebody making a guitar sound. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, you're experiencing the person performing. Like, you're watching someone up there jamming. I think the big thing in food, like one of my positions on it,

and I always tell people, you know, like, oh, you're the guy that does that show about deep fried cheeseburgers and pizza. I'm like, no, no. You don't watch. And I always tell people, you know, like, oh, you're the guy that does that show about deep fried cheeseburgers and pizza. I'm like, no, no, you don't watch the show enough if that's what you think, because I'm super opinionated about, not opinionated, but I have a real responsibility, I think, to show the profile of food in the world or, you know, in the United States. And we've got to get our shit straight about what we're eating.

We're just, we can't eat this processed food. Processed food is, you're not eating it. We got to eat the basics and eat great food and eat great food made correctly. But something that was made a long time ago, don't get me wrong, there's a place for everything. There's a place for fast food. There's a place for things that are pre-made and so forth. But it can't be all of one thing. But people need to eat better.

And you being a hunter and myself, I talk to people all about it all the time. This is a reality that if you eat things that are modified, I'm not saying genetically modified doesn't have a place, but it can't be all the same stuff. And if we don't watch it, we're going to get ourselves in some deep shit. And we're already in deep shit. Cancer is, where's the heart attack? Where's the stuff that was plaguing us for so many generations and now this cancer thing, I lost my sister to cancer, lost my dad to cancer,

run into more people on a daily basis that are, you know, stricken with cancer. And I think food has a, you know, the type of food and what's put on the food has a big play. It's definitely a factor. There's a lot of food and what's put on the food has a big, big play. So it's definitely a factor. There's a lot of factors. There's environmental factors, just toxins, herbicides, pesticides. There's a lot of different factors. I was just reading this thing about golf courses that if, or watching a video rather on golf courses, that if you live within a certain radius of a golf course,

you're, you have a much higher possibility of getting Parkinson's disease. Oh, shit. Yeah. Oh, here it is. Parkinson's risk higher for those living close to a golf course. What does it say, 126%?

Wow. So, found people living within one mile of a golf course have 126% higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease compared to living more than six miles away, said co-author Dr. Ray Dorsey, a neurologist and the director of the Center for the Brain and the Environment at Atria Health and Research Institute in New York. This isn't the first study that links Parkinson's disease with pesticides.

This just adds additional evidence that this isn't just happening among farmers. This is happening to people living in suburban areas that have an increased risk of getting Parkinson's disease simply because of where they live. That's crazy. But they're not the ones to bring the pesticides, it's like secondhand smoke. They're just basically breathing it in or consuming it in the water that they're drinking. I met a guy once that he had bone cancer and he had one of his bones in his legs replaced with a rod and he said that there's an enormous percentage of people in his neighborhood that had bone cancer and all kinds of different cancers. And it was all linked to this golf course. The runoff from the golf course had gotten into the water

table in the water supply of all these people. Yeah, it's dangerous. And that shit's not even legal in a lot of countries. That's what's crazy. That's glyphosate. And that is not... I think they're linking this golf course thing to glyphosate as well, aren't they? It's just pesticides in general. I'm even looking at now, so there's like a... this is a contentious new study, which obviously it would be, but I'm trying to see what the contention is or why. You know what's spooky, man, is like there's a lot of rich folks who live on golf courses

and they think like, hey, what a great life and are you opening I wonder what how many more of those fuckers are getting Barkins disease because of that. Scary shit man. You think about the other countries we don't talk about a lot in our country but what they ban in other countries of our products and just how they're holding the line. I remember when I lived in France, I lived right outside of Paris in a town called Chantilly. We'd call it Chantilly, which the term Chantilly Lay,

Chantilly Cream, that comes from. But I remember I was there, I was 16, and I wrote my parents and I'm like, food just tastes different here. I mean, I don't care if it's a steak and a potato, it just tastes different. I mean, like, it- Because it's a steak and a potato. It just tastes different. I mean, like, it's Because it's grass-fed steak.

It was. And they don't have grain-fed steak over there. I noticed that the first time I went to Australia. I had a steak. I'm like, this tastes like game. It was crazy. It was good. Everything tastes. And we didn't have, it's funny because we go to school. The lunch that we had at school was the, because I lived in this kind of this boarding house, I rented a room from this family and they were terrible cooks. You'd think you'd go to France, everybody

cooked good. But anyhow, I went to high school. I looked forward to lunch at school. It was the best school lunch in the world. You'd sit at a table like this. There were eight kids and they would come by with a cart and they'd put down a hotel pan full of, you know, the whatever vegetable, whatever starch, whatever meat, and we'd sit there and we had all the French bread we could eat. And it was just like I looked forward to it so much. It was such great food. And I just never got it. Well, and then I got older and started cooking and I kind of went, oh, really?

So that funny thing was I went back to France 25, 30 years later, took my oldest son Hunter with me. We did a whole tour through Europe when he graduated high school. I took him to seven countries and 14 cities in 30 days. And we did this whole tour of where food came from. But I took him back to Chantilly and I went to the grocery store because my best friend from school still lived there and I walked into the grocery store. And what had been a grocery store full of huge aisles of fresh produce and breads and everything you could imagine was now just freezer, freezer, freezer, freezer, freezer, freezer. Really?

And I said to Vince, I go, his name is Vincent. I said, Vincent, what? Qu'est-ce que c'est, what? And he's like, gonna be more like Americans. That was his, you know, kind of joking. But it had changed so dramatically. I was like, this is like, it was shattering. Yeah, I think fresh food is really the only thing that people are supposed to be actually

eating all the time. Real food. I mean, the more that you can get to a farmer's market, the more that you can have relationships with ranchers and people that actually provide your food, the healthier you're going to be. And the further you get away from the source, the more you're gonna have preservatives, the more you're gonna have processed food. Stay away from the inside of the supermarket. All that stuff on the inside. I mean, there's condiments and stuff,

but most of it's bullshit. The outside. Vegetables, meats, eggs, all that stuff that's on the outside, all that refrigerated area on the outside, that's all you're supposed to be actually eating All that stuff that's in the middle is just fucking your life up for the most part Obviously, it's a generalization plenty good stuff in the middle. Yeah, and I think that there is but Circumstances not everybody has the same budget and so forth, but I do believe that

The reality of it is education is a big thing. Education for people about what to do with real food and how to handle it and so forth. I remember Home Ec was a great class when I was a sophomore in high school. Home Ec, I took Home Ec. It was almost all girls, but I was in it because I didn't want to sew, but I did want to learn how to make a blackberry pie. And I just think those simple fundamentals

should still be something that are taught in schools, like just how to make a roasted chicken. Like give them six months of roasting chicken. How do you cook a potato? Just the basics, because there's a lot of people that, my son included, my son Ryder, you know, we did a crash course. I always made him cook with me in the kitchen, but it was usually grudgingly, you know, he'd

make things that he'd like to make pizza. Let's make pizza. You know, tacos. But even that little thing like how to sear a steak, you know, what's done, what's not done, what's overseen, what's done, you know, those things. We're missing that. You know, so you said go to AI food. I mean, those things. We're missing that. So you said go to AI food? I mean, scary shit.

Yeah. We've been bamboozled. And corporations, the same corporations that used to, well, still do, own tobacco companies bought out all these big processed food corporations. And then they started, I mean, this is something that RFK Junior's talked in depth about. And then they start, I mean this is something that RFK Jr. has talked in depth about, and then they started using the same tactics to get people hooked on these processed foods. And these processed foods are essentially designed to make them incredibly addictive and they're cheap and people just consume them en masse and it becomes a large percentage of the calories you take in. It's going to take a long time for people to adjust and switch away from that because it's easy to destroy something. It's very hard to rebuild

and they've kind of destroyed our health. But it goes hand in hand because when you start thinking about this cancer thing and how devastating it is, I'm like, we can't really solve this? And then you listen to some other sides that'll say, big business. You don't make money curing people. It's one and done.

It's over. I don't know. It weirds me out. But I think that we have, you've got such a massive platform. And I talk, you heard my little pitch there at the beginning of Food Network, real food for real people. I'm not saying these restaurants I shoot on Triple D should go eat every single day because not every one of them is always the healthiest situation. I think you need to have a good balance between things, but it's okay to have indulgence.

It's okay to have your pizza. Sure. Have a Twinkie every now and then. Have your pizza experience, but we just need to get back to some balance of it because we're imbalanced is my feeling. But then again, you're always going to have bad examples that are good for people to realize I don't want to live like that guy's living. You want to see someone who's morbidly obese, terrible diet, no enthusiasm for life because they're poisoned. And then you see a guy who's like super healthy and exercising all the time, he's got tons

of energy. Like, that's what I like. Like, you need to see bad examples too. It's part of the human experience. Moderation is my favorite thing that I talk about. I got into, I don't know, about three or four years ago, got into cold plunge. And thank you, by the way. You're a great advocate and you're a great – you were a great inspiration on it. I started doing it and then everybody would tell me that you're

doing it. So I listen to what some of the things – I do it in the morning. It's great. Just like you said, it is – It's a life changer. It – some mornings, it sucks. I mean I really have to force myself. It sucks every day. I'm going into this. This is bullshit. Okay, I'll just get through five minutes and I'm good. You know, I'll just listen to Paul Harvey I listen to Paul Harvey in the morning. That's my really Paul Harvey. Why the rest of the story? Why Paul Harvey?

Because I love history and I love to learn the little nuances of how things came about and It was something reminds me of my childhood. We had listened to it in shop class when I was in high school. And it was always that quick little in-between break. They syndicated. Pretty, I don't know, interesting guy. There's a whole bunch out there. Oh, he was great.

Yeah, Paul Harvick was great. I listen to music too. I have my set of music that I listen to that I know this is I'm going to do a 10-minute plunge or 12-minute plunge, depending on the song and if I can keep myself out of it because as soon as I start worrying about it, I think thinking I'm cold. But I don't do it your temperature. You do a crazy time. I do like 3839 year I heard you're like, I do whatever. 33's yeah It's no different. It's just cold just cold I've friends different your buddies earlier, so I friends will come and do it. I started with my cold punch I started with a watering trough and put ice in it mm-hmm. So I was way strong. You know you get that little thermal barrier running It's awesome. Yeah, okay, and then you have to you got to move or something

Okay, you move now you're cool. Then I went to a freezer. I built one out of a freezer. Oh, like one of them big game freezers? Yeah, big Westinghouse or whatever it was. Freezer, little filter in it, had a little thermostat. You'd plug the freezer into the thermostat and then the thermostat into the wall and then it would, and then you put a little temperature in there and it would regulate itself so it didn't turn into a block of ice. But every time I got in, I had to unplug it because they're not UL rated for humans to

be in them, you know, with the water. So then a buddy of mine, this guy Jamie Weeks sent me one from Sweathouse, his company, and then I got in real cold punch. Well that water circulates. That's a game. What difference is like a blue cube, like blue cube is one we have out here that one you can turn into a raging river It's got different Selection so you can have like a little if you get in it normal. It's just a slow

steady Circulation not nothing crazy right you can click that bitch one or two and at two It's that motherfucker's a raging river. It's just rolling on you, and it's hard to do a minute click that bitch one or two and at two it's that motherfucker's a raging river It's just rolling on you and it's hard to do a minute in that bitch It's hard to do a minute you do get that little thermal barrier. There's no barrier in the blue No, this one is called plunge. They're out of Sacramento these guys great great job The thing about it is like I don't know what the benefit is other than it's sucking more I think your body temperature stays the same

because it's like just by, I guess you don't feel as bad because your body, like in a regular cold plunge because your body develops that thermal barrier, but you're still cold as shit and you get all the benefits. I don't think you have to suffer through that raging river thing, but if you want the mental benefits, the benefits of overcoming adversity and the ability to just force yourself to do something that's intolerable, then I would recommend doing that. If you're one of those people that really enjoys torturing themselves, get a blue cube. I push people on this, and so they'll get, I was telling you guys, so a buddy come over

and, I'm not doing it, I'm doing it, just do one minute. If you do one minute, I'll get off it, I will quit busting your balls about it about you being you know Okay, get in there. So then I'll start talking to my okay. I got timer going and they'll go Okay, what you know talk about this and I'll freeze my ass. Okay, give me your favorite song Which is not then I'll look the song up take my time Hank Williams country boy can't survive. Okay. Okay ready? I'll play it for you. You're doing good You got you just few more You got like 30 more seconds. It's already been two minutes.

Play Country Boy Can't Survive. Okay, how many of the words do you know to this song? All right, besides the hook, what do you know of the song? Okay, you know, I'll sit there and just mess with them. They'll go four minutes and then I'll say, okay, and stop. They go, that was a minute? Bullshit, that song's over.

That's, and I'm like, that was like five and a half minutes, you see? Could be, you know, what's about? It's mental. It is mental. Yeah, it's mental. If you can distract yourself, it's- That's why Paul Harvey.

Yeah, well, that's why watching a movie while you're on a treadmill is a total cheat code. Cause if you can get like an iPad and put earplugs on and watch a movie, you'll get absorbed in the movie. You won't even think about the fact that you're running. You know what I watch? What?

Ridiculousness. Oh, that's a good thing to watch. I fucking love it. Yeah. I love ridiculousness. I went on there. To me, Deardick's comments are the funniest. All those guys, they've cracked me up.

And, you know, except for having to fight through a Commercial here and there because I don't remind you that you're still on the elliptical I don't do either of those generally. I mean sometimes I'll do a Treadmill with like a weighted pack on I'll do like who do you sort of? What I use outdoorsman's it's a it's a pack that has a post on the back of it so I can actually put like big plates on it Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, what kind of weight are you talking? Mostly when I go for long walks, I just put 45 on so the pack is probably five pounds and then the 45 pound plate Then I take the dog out

But if I'm doing hardcore workouts then I take the dog out. But if I'm doing hardcore workouts, I put 90 on it. So I put two plates. And then there's a great machine called – see if you can find it, Jamie. I think it's called the HIT sled. And it's like you do a farmer's carry. So it has plate posts on either side and you lift it up and it's at an angle so as you're walking you're carrying your one step inside of no no

no you just it's just a treadmill it's like a treadmill that's at an angle that's it was it called Jamie hit yeah the hit mail X that mother fucker unit itself that motherfuckers the shit that thing is the shit and it sets is that the tensioner in the front? Well, so you've got this you got the ability to just incline I think is that a just incline or is it static either way whatever that incline is and then You have those weight posts on the side. So you're lifting weight up and you're carrying weight So that guy's got 45 on each side. So he's carrying 90 pounds while you're walking uphill. And whoo, that'll get you in some shape. Whoo, baby. That'll get you in some shape.

Ass kicker. Yeah. What do you cook? Mostly meat. Mostly what I eat is meat. That's like 90% of my diet meat and eggs What's the what's your cheat? What's your like indulgent? My daughter is a really good chef Not a good chef a good baker. She's great at cookies. She makes them she fucking every time she's cooking I'm like god damn it Make me some cookies. She's really good though They're really legit.

She made these cookies, like these peanut butter chocolate chip cookies with Nutella. Woo! They're good. Now can you do just one or two or do you house the plate? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I work out a lot, so I allow myself to eat like a pig every now and then. But for me, cheap food is always either Italian or Mexican I love I love good Mexican food I love good Italian food I just love if I'm gonna

pig out and I'm gonna eat something I know is just for mouth pleasure it's probably gonna be Mexican or Italian carbs oh yeah yeah so addictive yeah the more I stay away from them the the less addicted I am to them. Oh, for sure. And then as soon as I have them, I find myself gravitating back into, you know. I look forward to going to New York just for Italian food. Because like, Austin is great for barbecue and steaks and Tex-Mex. Mexican food's great here.

There's a lot of great food in Austin, but there's not a lot of legitimate Italian spots like there was in LA. LA had some legit Italian spots. Chicago. Chicago's got great Italian food. My favorite- New York though is- One of my favorite food cities is Chicago.

East Coast Italian food, to me there's nothing like it. It's like that's it. That's the epicenter for me like Old-school East Coast Italian Sandwiches and pasta and pizza. Well, there's something about walking into a deli In Rhode Island in New York, whatever it just smells different the floor creates They're fresh cutting the slices the whole are fired up, they're so excited to get that fucking sandwich. The meatballs taste different. Yeah, the whole thing. So Federal Hill in Rhode Island is a real famous Italian place.

I've shot, it shows up there a couple times, but it's not too far from where my wife's family live. And I just remember going up there and going to the delis and getting those cherry peppers, stuff with prosciutto and provolone and just You know, i'll take six of them and i'll take 18 to go Yeah, I'd always I would always you know, bring them all back to california. You just can't find anything like it You know what else i've missed on the east coast that you don't really get out here is a legit jewish deli like a cat's deli Like someone needs to figure out a way to do something like that here where you can get like

a legit pastrami ruben, like a real one, you know? But the question I have about that, that's what people ask me all the time. When I first started Triple D, you could only get true Tex-Mex or great Mexican food really in this Texas, Arizona, Nevada, California, down in this pocket. But I will say that now I'm starting to find, because typically it's the people migrating to these different areas. I went to a Mexican joint on Triple D in Minneapolis, and it's a Mexican market, Canisteria, it's the whole thing.

And it was better than 85% of the joints that I've tried in these regions I was just talking about. So I'm starting to find this better cross-pollination of foods in different regions. When people move. Yeah, exactly. But you've got to have the market. See, the market is the key because who are they going to sell it to if people don't get it?

Because a fatty brisket from Katz Deli is just a different, you've gotta have the mindset. I've taken people there so many times and like, it's this much meat and there's little pieces of bread and I'm eating meat the whole time. I'm like, yeah, it's part of the idea. Shut the fuck up. I got a good one for you too.

You ruined it for me. First time I went to Katz Deli. So I'm in there filming Food Network Star, when I had a day off. My buddy lived in New York. Guy that was on the show with me So I'm gonna take any cats tell me I thought I was gonna bring you food today when I went and did the thing and I'm like Yeah, I'm not taking Joe the vegan food this I'm not gonna take this. Yeah, please don't take the beating

sausage for breakfast Look at this. Oh, come on, baby beating. Don't give me that. I had elk sausage for breakfast. Um, oh, I love elk. Look at this. Oh, come on, baby. Look at Katz's deli. Look at that. Look at that pastrami. It says keto. Keto pastrami rouba.

Oh my God, I'm eating healthy. How is it keto? Oh, no bread. Oh, they're just giving you the, oh yeah. Oh my goodness. Look at that. Oh. Is this supposed to be torture right now? the oh yeah oh my goodness look at that look how good that looks oh my god is your mouth oh I'd love cats is deli I do too I try to go every time I'm in New York those guys I see the same fucking dudes that I've been going since

I was going there in like the early 2000s I run into the same guys working there this guys that have been there for 25 30 years and they're such good dudes great and I'll eat more snacks over the counter mm-hmm they always do that at cats they give you a little piece and they have a tip jar and so people haven't been to cats when you go into cats you know but I'm telling them fucking Cats. When you go into Cats, you know, but I'm telling them... Look at that fucking sandwich, man. When you go into Cats, they give you a chip. They give you a ticket. Yeah. You gotta pay in cash.

Okay. So they give you the ticket. They don't take credit cards. You better have cash. So you pass a ticket over the counter. They mark off what they gave you. So then you take a ticket and you sit down and you eat your food. And then when you leave, you go out and you check out with your ticket. So my buddy and I go and I order up, we order up all the stuff I'm paying, so we put it all on my ticket. So we had a bunch of sandwiches, a bunch of beers, you know, we had some soup. So we're leaving and I turn my ticket in and I pay my bill. And they look at my buddy and they say, where's your ticket?

And he goes, I didn't get anything, I put it on his ticket. I said, no, no, no, you got to turn your ticket in. And it says right there, lost ticket, you know, 300 bucks or whatever the ticket would be worth if it was all checked off. Right. And I'm like, but he didn't have anything. It's all you can see it. And they're like, you got to have your ticket or you pay the thing. I'm like, what the? I mean, I've never been to a place like this. So we go back over to the table where it'd been sitting. Well, they'd already turned the table and it's all gone and done. And now there's four big construction dudes sitting there. Huge. In the yellow vest, hard hats

on, total New Yorkers. My buddy wasn't from New York. And he goes, and we're like, excuse me, fine sirs. Hello. And I don't have the, again, still in the same yellow jacket, bleached here. And my buddy's standing there and he's from like Iowa. Like, you guys see a ticket? And like, what the f- you want? Like, get out of here! You're interrupting their meal. So yeah, exactly what we're doing there on a lunch break. We're looking for a ticket, and he happens, my buddy happens to see the ticket on the floor underneath the biggest guy's boot, like halfway. And like, tickets right there.

Like, I'm not getting the ticket. You're the dumbass who lost the ticket. Get the ticket. So we had, I think we had to buy the guys like, you know, we had to buy him something or pay the tip or whatever for the guy to move his boot. And we got the ticket and we got, yeah, it was a tumultuous experience. I go with people now and I'm like, take the ticket, put it in your wallet right now. I'll pay the meal, but just don't lose a ticket.

Yeah. You have to be prepared for the experience because it's not like anything else, but it's bomb worth it It's worth it. You get the best fucking corned beef the best nice people and nice people Yeah, the pastrami is off the fucking chain that pastrami is insane I get the same thing every time just cuz I it's so good. I don't want to switch up Hmm, I got a pastrami Ruben and the exact same way incredible pickles the pickles are amazing I get the same thing every time just because it's so good. I don't want to switch up. I got a pastrami Reuben. Incredible pickles.

The pickles are amazing. So I love the thing they have on there. You see that one back wall. Send a salami to a sailor. That whole campaign that was going on still has something that needs to be done. Well, they've been around since the 1800s. Such the joint. Same spot. But there's a place there's a thing about places like that

where there's also like this deep history. You feel it when you're in there. You got a smile on your face when you walk in the door, because it's just an incredible history. You feel like, wow, this place is still around. It's still the same. Let's get up to the counter. Oh, he's chopping it up. Look at that

My mouth this is like torture my mouth. I know That's what I love about going to New York and eating there I like walking into a pizzeria and smelling everything and seeing the guy pulling the pies out of the oven like oh Yeah, and they're not always the cleanest and they're not in there and the counters are worn out in the whole thing exactly No, I mean that's part of the charm if they redid it. It would fuck it up Yeah, you know you don't remind. It's not my god if you read it cats is deli. I'd fucking slap you How dare you how dare you take the all the pictures of dead celebrities off the wall like you know? That's part of it the fucking you ever been to de faros over in Brooklyn

No, no old guy there cuts the basil with scissors You know that's part of it the fucking you ever been to de faros over in Brooklyn no no Oh guy there cuts the basil with scissors Oh, I remember standing there, and I'm just looking at the pizza come out, and it doesn't look like I mean It's just next-level pizza you've been to Reyes No, we're not Reyes is in Harlem Italian joint We'll call uncle. Oh are a r a o s joint. We'll call my uncle Bo. R-A-O-S. And it is the old... I mean this is an Italian joint that you can only get in if you know somebody, you're with somebody, tiny little place, maybe 15 tables.

Here it is. Since 1896. Wow. And I tell you. So you tell me when you're in New York next and I'll call my uncle Bo. What street is it on? I don't know. Click on New York. What is it on? I don't know. Click on New York. What does it say with the with the addresses? Yeah. East 114th Street. Wow. The original. The floor is all slanted like if you're sitting at the wrong part of the table, you're you're you're sitting having dinner and kind of cockeyed like this. Everybody's on top of each other. It's all family. It's it's it's an experience. But that's what you talk. Because then I went to Rios in in Vegas when they put one in the Caesar in Caesars. Same pictures on the wall, same all that stuff but it just didn't have it was good but it just wasn't that Rios. There it is. Look at that. That looks amazing. That's the table I sit at right back there.

Another place I fucking love is Peter Lugers. Oh yeah. Peter Luger's in Brooklyn. You being a meat guy? Oh my god. They bring that steak to your plate and it's covered in butter and it's crackling. I don't even eat the sides. I mean everybody else can order some. They just have it down too. It's so consistent.

Every time you go to the steak it's exactly perfectly cooked. You've been to Jeff Ruby's? Where's that? He's got him in Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati. Jeff Ruby's a character amongst characters. You got to, if you ever get a chance to go to one of his steak houses, this guy, they crush steak. I mean, some of my favorite steak in the country. I was just at the Derby and I was at his place and eating steak and took Taylor, Taylor Sheridan there and they were, they were pretty shit. They were like, Taylor, meat guy, meat guy. I said, meat guy meat guys are your friends with Taylor yeah I was just with him Saturday night he did the commencement speech at UT

great guy I mean you know you know incredible speech man is what he fucking killed it he is he walks the talk there's no bullshit about that yeah I love that he helped me with the fundraiser we do so I do a lot of philanthropy that's my you know being a dad is my biggest job, my biggest responsibility, husband, restaurant tour, chef, all that. But my end game is my philanthropy. Philanthropy to me, I mean, I have so much opportunity and there's so many good things coming my way.

I try to divert as much of that towards doing it. So my philanthropy is about first responders. First responders, active military and veterans. But now that I have this program going where we can do things to raise money, and it's not just raise money, raise the money and then do things with it. Like when the fires happened in LA, we went down with our team with a big rescue trailer that's 50 feet long. We can feed about 5,000 a day out of it. And I have a bunch of chef buddies, and so they all come and help, and we just pump out food for first responders. But I was doing, we had the fires in Maui and devastation. And I know the fire feeling because I was up there in Northern California in Sonoma County when we had our bad fires. And so we raised money. So I got

40 chefs together. We were all in town doing, I do a show called Tournament of Champions. They were in town for the tournament. And we put on a dinner for 150 people. So I called Taylor and said, hey, I'm doing this event. You want to come up? And he says, only if I get to cook. You know, we're going to cook together. So we brought up all these four sixes, ripped these tomahawk chops the size of a manhole

cover. And we cooked. And so we sat there, we raised money, and we did all these different things like, you know, go to Four Six's ranch, you can go be here, you can go, you know, have a culinary experience with Guy, blah, blah, blah, blah. And in one night, we raised 1.7 million with 150 people in the room. Trevor Burrus That's incredible. Jeffery Tullman And a big part of that was Taylor. I think three of the biggest packages sold were for over $100,000 to go down to his ranch.

No, actually, it was to go up to Montana to Yellowstone to see the filming. And he's just that kind of dude, man. That dude, everybody, he gives everybody the time. We were just at the Derby walking around together. Just class act. Just love that guy. Yeah, he's legit. And then what? The, he's a legit.

And then what the fuck? The shows he's making? I know. I don't know how he can do it. Landman? Well, I don't know how he does so many shows. I keep finding shows like this show looks interesting. Terri Lashurden show. Like what? Lioness. Yeah. He's got like- Landman 2.

10 shows. Have you watched Landman? Yeah, I love it. I'm a huge Billy Bob fan. Oh, and he's the coolest. He's the best. I said to him, I go, did you write that for him? I mean, it couldn't be Billy Bob any goddamn better. The one liners are the best goddamn thing. I can't get enough of it. But I love, I love Kings of, or Kings of Mayor of Kingstown. That was great. That was another one. Remember the starting, the first episode?

You didn't see that shit coming. Right. Right at the beginning, the guy that you thought was going to be the lead, you didn't think it was going to be Jerry? Spoiler alert. No, I didn't say that. If you haven't watched it by now, you're missing it. Tough shit.

Sorry I blew it for you. It's another Taylor show. He's got so many shows. It's like- Buying assets. I just don't understand how he can put together. So 1923 1883 Yellowstone like god damn. I think they're doing another one. I think they're doing like a 1943 I Just watched the end of 1923 and cried like a baby. I

Was bummed the Yellowstone ended the way it did though. Yeah circumstances were fucked up outside of the outside of the show Circumstances. Yeah, I don't know what happened. Why would Kevin Costner want to leave that show? I just don't understand what happened. I was, what I read or what I thought I learned was that he had his own project and his... I'm sure he did. I mean, Kevin Costner's been around for so long. It's probably hard for him to do somebody else's thing for so long too.

He was so good. Yeah, I know. He was perfect in that role too so iconic ending I mean even if you're gonna leave my bummer for it was my bummer about it was even if you're gonna leave just I mean well I would go out better than in this situation was me they did it the way they did it I'm not I'm not discrediting the show by any means but I'm just saying I just wanted it to be like the way it was from the

beginning yeah how they did it but it was almost kind of like a fuck you it seemed like to me from which side exactly I'm not coming back well wait till you see how you go yeah exactly and Taylor is a little bit I mean I wouldn't cross him yeah he's got a little bit of that in him it's funny I was telling him about this ranch that I hung out in California he's like oh he's got a little bit of that in him. It's funny, I was telling him about this ranch that I hunt out in California, and he's like, oh, he's the cowboy at that place. Like, he's a legit guy. It's a badass, too. Yeah, he's a good dude, too.

Solid human being, you know? You're talking to him, he's right there, you know? He told me come, he says, listen, I know what you're doing up there in Northern California, you've done your fundraiser there a bunch of years. He says, come down and do it at my ranch. He says, I will bring you the people with the money that believe in what you're doing up there in Northern California, you've done your fundraisers there a bunch of years. He says, come down and do it at my ranch. He says, I will bring you the people with the money that believe in what you're doing with these first responders and these.

Because when we don't have disasters, we just go do positive energy thank yous to different municipalities. We just did one in Florida, in South Florida. We just bring the trailer in, bring a bunch of chefs in, call up the local sheriff, call up the troopers, call up everybody, you know, bring your families if you want. It's free lunch, time for you to celebrate and be recognized. You know, we got people walking around the streets that don't understand why our country's free. They don't have any idea what it takes to be a free country. And they don't understand the sacrifice, not just the sacrifices that the actual individual

makes, but the sacrifice the family makes. Now we're not even talking about the loss of somebody, we're talking about just being deployed for seven months and not seeing dad for seven months or seeing your husband or your wife or whatever. And I remember I was on the USS Enterprise and I was doing a philanthropy event, and it was years ago. I was cooking for the the sailors and a bunch of Marines on there. It was like 5,200 people. And I'm on the line serving this young sailor, and she came through and we kind of talked for a second. She says, I have four kids. I said,

She wasn't very old. I said, how many? She goes, I have an eight month old baby. Babies on the ship? She goes, no babies, no. I said, how could you be away from your child at this age? And she's like, no, it's, you know, I'm deployed and I'm like, what a commitment, you know, what a commitment to do and the kids without. So I think, I mean, my mantra is we're talking about people pushing things on other people about their beliefs or their opinions or their attitudes. And I said, you know, I kind of divert from all of it and you know, if you don't want to like something, don't like it, that's your thing. But I am hell bent on what goes on in this country about how we recognize

our veterans and our first responders and our active military. We have, we're missing some pieces. We got some people that have made the ultimate commitment, the ultimate sacrifice. It's like the stolen valor shit. Oh, I'll lose my mind on that because- That's just crazy people. The commitment that it takes.

Of course. And so we put so much into putting the soldiers and the sailors and all these military folks into these programs. And then when they come back, the soldiers and the sailors and all these military folks into these programs. And then when they come back, I don't think that we put the same amount of commitment. And I think that we've got a lot of people need a lot of help. There's a lot of PTSD.

There's a lot of shit going on. So my interest is I'm not going to solve that situation. I'm not the one that's going to be able to change. But at least you could recognize and give them some love. Recognize, talk about it. We carry challenge coins. I ran into one of your guys, the first responder, also didn't know that he served our country in the military.

Please, when you see somebody in uniform, if you see somebody with a Vietnam vet hat, you see somebody that's in, you know, take a moment, just say thank you. Thank you goes so far. And people think, oh, there's nothing I can do to, no, it means a shit ton to people. Yeah. So I didn't mean to get on my rant, but know that's one of my hard core issues. That's good That's a beautiful perspective because it's it's especially with first responders and law enforcement in this country They just don't get any love

It's kind of crazy like the cops are the bad guys in this country Like that's why the defund the police movement is driving me fucking crazy Like you are you guys are out of your mind. But we're going to have a march and we'd like you to be there to keep people from throwing shit at us. Yeah. So, so here's the crazy is defund the police march, but we need the police. We need you.

So the people that are, again, so when we had the fires in Northern California, I was watching a lot of where they're feeding them. It was up and actually we're up in paradise. It was devastating fire. That're up in paradise. It was Devastating fire that was a crazy fire Joe. I drove through it. I don't know what I Don't know what the surface of the moon looks like but I can tell you it was as close to because there was nothing standing There was nothing there. The only thing that didn't burn down was a fire station I mean and not because they've defined those people that got stuck on the road stuck cars gone. Cars gone, everything gone, bombs went. It was, I don't know the term. But so I'm standing there and I'm feeding people. And I know for a fact, because I had just been

inside that I just went to the fire. I went and fed people at the fire station that was the only building standing. And I said, why aren't you guys over here eating? We're serving a bunch of food. Nah, it's, you know, we'll just stay over here. I said, why why aren't you guys over here eating? We're serving a bunch of food. No, it's you know, just stay over here I said you guys are fire victims your house is burnt down Yeah, but you know And you had all kinds of restaurants feeding people and all the stuff and I'm watching these guys eat granola bars and eat MREs And I said come over and get some food. No, no, no. I said, okay. That's it next day picked up my trailer We moved I said we only feed first responders not. Next day, picked up my trailer, we moved.

I said, we only feed first responders. Not that I'm not about the fire victims. I think the fire victims is terrible. But the reality of it is we have a lot of people that were focusing on the victims and giving them what they need. But these guys were doing, these men and women weren't going to bed. They were doing 72-hour shifts, sleeping in the back of the patrol car. They drove their patrol car up from Riverside, and they're up in Northern California now.

And so that's what I changed. I pivoted my whole foundation was when the disasters go down, we're going to get there and we're going to focus on the first responders. We were down in LA for 10 days. We fed 25,000 meals. Now it's not going to feed everybody and it's not going to take care of everything, but there is a point of them being recognized or knowing that we recognize them. And I had so many chefs in LA that showed up and jumped on the trailer and were cooking food and we

were almost cooking, you know, 24 hours, you know, just rolling over. And people were so thankful. That's awesome. Yeah. But we all can do these things. You know, we can do these things. We can make donate. Okay, maybe you don't have the money donate the time Maybe you don't have the time do the positive reinforcement on the on social media, you know If you don't have the time, you don't have social media. You don't have the money You don't have time just pat somebody on the back and say thanks. I mean that's we really can do we can do way more

Yeah, we can make a bigger impact. Well just as a society We need to recognize the importance of these people and appreciate them for what they do And I don't think that that's been accentuated. That's not been People haven't focused on that and that's a top-down thing that comes from the president that comes from the cabinet that comes from the way that the country perceives these people and the way they award these people and the way that our media treats them. The media had a field day after George Floyd with this defund the police stuff.

And it's just that kind of devastation that does for morale and for recruiting and just the overall feeling that these people have like why am I doing this job? Where not only am I not being thanked for it? But I am being thought of as the enemy and then if I do something if I do something I'm not gonna get supported right you know because I'm gonna get persecuted right and every day you show up you pull people over You're worried you're gonna get shot every fucking day. They all have PTSD every one of them. You go pull a buddy of mine's a fireman and I didn't really

understand I didn't think about it until he brought it up to me one day and he said his name is Jay LaVar and Jay said you know you go pull kids out of a car you go you go to you a face that and then you go home to your kids. Right. It's horrible. That'll just wreck you. But I, you know, like I said, I'm so interested in what we can do and we have so much. We're the greatest country in the world. We're finally riding the ship. We're getting into a better space. But gosh, let's start focusing on it. Let's start focusing on the fundamentals that made us the ass kicking, name taking center of you know, that made us the best. And we have to start ingrained, we have to start teaching that I was just talking about, I just did a podcast for the Dale Carnegie Institute. And that was a book

that changed my life when I was young, when I was coming. Thank you, bro rich. No, what is it? How to win friends and influence people. Yeah. And it talks really about just human age about how you treat people and treat people the way you want to be treated and think before you act and think before you speak or before you light somebody up on a text, you know, kind of. And I was I was going through this and I said, you know, this is this is like a course that should be taught at freshman high school. Absolutely. And we should teach civility and we should teach respect and responsibility.

Yeah. You know, back your mouth up. You know, don't go popping off on that. You know, and do these things the way we grew up. I mean, I'm not saying that violence is the answer, but you definitely didn't have people running their mouth like they do now because there was hell to pay at three o'clock, you know, that kind of stuff. So I think that we need to get involved in teaching our young America that they have a voice, they have an opinion, they're very worthwhile, and let's just do it the right

way. But I think that Dale Carnegie Institute, that How to Win Funds there, I didn't know how many things, they do it worldwide. And I just think, I was just telling my sons about it, I said you can all expect that you're going to be going to one of these programs or doing one of these courses. I made them all read the book. That's great. You know, it's really... I mean people in school get taught how to, I mean you get taught a lot of information, but I think one of the things that's missing is getting taught how to behave and think and how to critically think and how to view the world. The number critical thinking to

me is I mean even say the term to somebody critical thinking and they'll look at you and go but they don't know what it means. Critical thinking is solving situations, is evaluating the environment and coming up with calculating. It's not taking a risk, it's taking a calculated risk. There's just so many of those types of things. My dad was a huge critical thing. So we had a rule when I was a kid, Joe, we'd be driving down the road and my dad would say, what are you thinking? You're like, you're quiet over there, what are you thinking? One thing I was not allowed to say was nothing. He'd say, God, full of shit, what do you think?

What are you thinking? I'm saying, well, it's all grass, but under the telephone pole, there's no grass. And then we would spend the next goddamn hour talking about why there's no grass under the telephone pole. And why is there no grass under the telephone pole? Fire, you know, the ability to get to the poles, they have to be able to drive to them. So you look at it because like you go to the wine country You know you look at all these mountains that have all these telephone poles

Going that you find roads on top of mountains and so forth. It's usually fire break or access to the telephone poles But we would do this critical thinking thing and it was so funny My my young my nephew my sister was dying of cancer and I took him away for the day and we were driving around in Corvette. We're at the stoplight, manual Corvette, sitting there talking to Jules. Jules is about nine and he says, you know, Uncle Wade, he says, I really like talking to you. He says, you're fun to talk to.

He says, it's a little bit different than talking to Jams. Jams was my dad. He says, I said, what talk to. He says, it's a little bit different than talking to Jamps. Jamps was my dad. He says, I said, what do you mean, Jules? And he says, well, you know, sometimes when I ask Jamps, you know, like, what time is it? You know, I just want to know what time it is. I don't want to know how the clock is made. I slipped a clutch, man, a car burned down.

I'm like, Jesus Christ, I don't want to know how the clock is. Because that was my dad, man. You'd ask him a question. I'd go, well, do you understand the difference between the analog and you got a digital? My dad would go into this. He was a Submariner during Vietnam. He was a piece of work. Oh, really? Yeah. I lost him right around my birthday a year and a half ago when a pain credit cancer, but he lived for six years with it. God, you had a lot of cancer in your family.

It sucks, man. And I think that, like, I didn't, until you're in that club, the club sucks. But when you meet somebody that is in the fight, the fight for their life, tell them to give them a hug, give them, give them a smile, give them encouragement. And if they have battled and they have won, recognize them as a, as a warrior, as a smile, give them encouragement, and if they have battled and they have won, recognize them as a warrior, as a survivor. Especially breast cancer and all these horrible cancers that people are stricken with. We need to have more empathy, more understanding. And I'll tell you, one of the greatest groups of people in the whole world, hospice. I don't

know how much you know about them and what it is, but it is, if you don't have, if you don't understand what hospice does, they are, they're earth angels. They're people that come in when you're battling this, you're watching a loved one die, and they come in and they're the people that help you with the meds and help you with the caregiving and help you, and they're just these incredible, you don't even know them, and they come into your life and they leave your life once the cancer is, but they stay, you'll meet them on the street again or you'll see something. But hospice is one of the greatest programs we have in this country. I don't know if it's worldwide, but it is.

Hopefully you don't ever need to know it. It's just shocking how many people have cancer. Fucked up. Yeah. I've never been on a podcast where you can cuss really I've been on I'd have been How many podcasts you've been on I don't know which ones can't you cuss on I don't know I don't you know I've clits and I come from the Food Network. We don't do a lot of cussing But you give me all fired. I got fired up on my own about this shit, but don't you cuss a normal life?

Oh, I could say right right most people do so why why would they stop people from? Cussing I've asked him forever. Could we please bleep just the show once in a while? They say sometimes I'll buy I'll eat a dish people say I watch a show they say no you can't it's not really It doesn't really get it. I didn't But it doesn't matter it's it does I think it doesn't matter because it's authentic It is authenticity, and it is the spike it is the hammer it is the this dish is so fucking good. Sometimes I gotta say this is fucking great. It's real. Like Kat's Deli. Maybe you're gonna inspire me to push this button.

I just don't understand why they would not I mean if you want to beep it out that's fine. No it has to be you have to be bleeped out. Yeah why even do that though? I got a lot of kids. Oh kids would last thing we want to know cuz yeah They cuz they don't watch cuz they can't get remember when we had a playboy hidden, you know, yeah kids now Yeah, they got hardcore pulling on the phone in the middle school in high school. Yeah, it's high school kind of nuts Yeah, yeah, it's kind of nuts. It's not healthy. I'm sure they're being subjected to some stuff that I mean just the amount of murder They say you know kids are seeing car accidents and assassinations On I think on their phone Twitter every day and things that were very difficult to find when I was a kid

You had to find like faces of death Yeah death. Yeah, the monkey in the table. Yeah. You'd have to apparently a lot of that stuff was fake. No, really? Yeah. A lot of the faces of death stuff was fake. But some of it was real, like the one where they took took the guy and they tied him between two trucks and they separated his body. Yeah, good family fun. Come on over for Friday pizza night. Yeah. Remember when your kid though getting the VHS you'd go, you

know, we are we'd have to go get at the liquor store little town, you know, or you'd go all the way across the bridge and go get it and you'd put your, you know, name down for the reservation to get it and you'll get faces of death and your friends would all come over and yeah Yeah, pizza night. Yeah, you'd have to hide those things from your parents. Yeah, exactly Yeah, now kids just have access to all the horrors of the world on their phone. And then they have to deal with people DMing them and contacting them. Like who are these fucking predators that are reaching out to kids on a daily basis? They keep arresting people for that.

You keep wanting to think that that's not a thing. And then you keep finding out more and more of It's like fucking a Tim Tebow was just he just I just saw on Ryan's show. Yeah. Yeah, what was a hundred and ten thousand? But see we don't do We don't do anything about it. You know again. I don't want to get into well, you know the thing to do about it Oh, hey, you know, unfortunately, you don't want to encourage vigilanteism but Public Square? You mean maybe. Not even public. You know it's the problem is you can't do that because some people are gonna be unjustly accused and so it's the unfairly targeted you know there's people that you know you can't just you

have to have due process. Well Chris Hansen you ever seen his Catch the Predator? Yes. So, I love when they give the recap. I guess that show stopped and now he's doing it on his own or whatever the case is and they give the recap. And thank God he was doing that stuff. I know, he opened a lot of people's eyes because most of us, if you live in a normal neighborhood

with normal friends, you don't have, you know, you might have heard a story here and there. This is real shit. You're bringing their kids to it. Yeah. You don't see it every day. Coaches, politicians, attorneys. I know.

There's some sick people out there, man, and they live amongst us. That's what's fucked up. And then the Nickelodeon thing, when you find out that people that were actually working for Nickelodeon pressuring those kids oh God man But if you thought about it like if you were really cynical and you thought about it through an evil mind if you wanted to abuse Kids what would you do you'd work with work at Nickelodeon Jimmy Savile that guy in the UK? You know about that right you don't know about that guy

No, oh my god. He's the worst one your eyes. First of all, this guy looked like a guy who would molest kids he looked like a fucking monster and He had this show. I think was called Jimmy. He'll fix it is that what it was called Jim will fix it and Is that what it was called? Jim will fix it and he worked with all these like really sick kids and Everybody was like oh what a saint that guy and that guy was molesting children like who knows how many of them Oh, so there's a Netflix thing on it Jimmy Savile a British horror story Netflix official site

It says how about getting called to play that guy in a movie? you can't which suck cuz it's that guy right there must be playing the guy in the movie must be Jimmy Jimmy Coogan I feel bad for Jimmy because he looks like yeah oh my god yeah you don't even want to watch that I don't even want to know but they hid the fact people knew that this guy was doing these things well you know like send us scouts look what happened poor boy scouts. I mean I was I was I didn't make it to Eagle Scotty and that stuff but as boy scout Learned some great stuff Not any idea that stuff was going on. I don't think anything happened in my troop. I never heard about it

But that's exactly what you're saying. These guys would just go find their avenue, what's going to get close to them, and then we're going to start doing it. So where is the, remember who was the guy that shot the predator, the karate coach that took his kid and he waited at the airport? Yeah, the other famous video. Yeah. That guy. Yeah.

I mean. Yeah, he's a hero. That's how I'd handle it. Yeah. I mean. Yeah, he's a hero. That's how I'd handle it. Yeah, I agree 100%. I mean, it's just, it's sick. But it's like if you were a sick person, that's what you would do. If you wanted to be around kids, you would pretend that you're really interested in helping kids.

Yeah, I was in the Boy Scouts too. Nothing happened to me. And then I was in a good troop. But I was in the Boy Scouts with a bunch of crazy inner city kids. I was living in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, which is kind of sketchy outside of Boston. And they brought us to New Hampshire. We were all in the woods and they were fucking tying kids up to their cots and dragging them out into the woods in the middle of the night and leaving them there like other kids were doing that and putting toothpaste on all your clothes because you couldn't wash it off like they were just psycho kids and

they gave us 22s that was the other part of the problem I remember I was hanging out with my friends and I heard I was like what is that and someone goes that's a ricochet I was like fuck this so like the entire time I was in camp all I did was go fishing every day. They had all these activities I'm like you guys can kiss my ass. I'd grab a fishing rod and go down to the lake I'm like I'm just gonna go fishing the entire two weeks. I'm here fuck this There was just too many but no one was getting fucked at least it was just mostly kids being just unregulated What a great way to fuck up a great program you know you get these people to get in there and do

that stuff and kids are so I mean you have kids there's always going to be people that are evil and a lot of those people unfortunately have had evil imposed on them too when they were young and that's the really sad part about it it's it's just like it's almost like getting bit by a vampire and then you wind up doing it too. Zombie. Yeah, it's very evil and they exist. And then there's also people that are elites

and that's their thing. Their thing is to do something that is horrible and it's not available to other people. So it's like, I think there's like a sickness that people have when they have power, like extreme power. And then they will, what else can I do? What else can I do?

What else is, what else is taboo? What else is forbidden? Like all this ditty shit that's coming out. Like, I was just gonna say say doesn't that sound topical? Jesus Christ the first day of the trial. Did you pay attention to that? I just I looked at it for like 10 minutes this morning. I was like I gotta stop I can't look at this. Well, what I what freaks me out is The people sitting in the courtroom listening to it

Right, and that's a there's a wide spectrum of people that are getting subjected to it. And you just sit there and go. Yeah. Well, not only that. How about the fact that this guy was running this for decades? He was doing this for decades to who knows how many fucking people and everybody was scared to talk about it because he'd have him killed. It, it's really wild, man. Evil is a real thing, you know? Nobody wants to believe, because if you believe in the devil, right, if you believe in Satan,

you believe in something that's silly. Like, most people believe, a lot of people believe in God. If you ask people, do you believe in God? Yeah, well, I'm not religious, but I believe in God. if you ask people do you believe in God? Yeah Well, I'm not religious, but I believe in God Okay, well, do you believe in the devil most people say no But you believe in evil acts. Well, yeah, well people certainly do evil things. Well, where do you think that comes from? If evil is real, what is it about us that makes us want to?

What is it about us that makes us want to deny the possibility that there's some nefarious force that is in human beings that influences human beings? It's not as simple as like some people are bad, some people are good. Maybe evil is a real element that you have to fight in life and that maybe this is just something that's been documented all throughout history but our arrogance, our secular society wants to keep us from recognizing that as an actual factor and that's why it gets through. You know that's like that's a great that's a really great way to say it because if you denounce, okay so you say there's no devil. Right. So then you're somewhat saying that

there's no evil, but you're not branding evil with some type of identifying factor, then you kind of glaze over it a little bit. I think that's what I'm hearing you're saying. And I agree with it because it gets a little too, I think people want tangibility. I think it gets a little too, I think people want tangibility. I think people like to be able to understand things and see it for real and so forth. But when you start just talking about root evil, when you start looking at things, like I went to the Oklahoma bombing memorial, when you look at shit like that, you think about the hate on this country in the 9-11, or you just take it down to the Boy Scout troop leader, or you take it to the pre-… you take it to whatever. There is a common denominator there, and that is just what you call it, evil. So call it devil, don't call

it devil, but call it evil. The evilness is just, and not being aware of it or not allowing ourselves to believe it, I think is part of the... Well, it's the old quote, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled is making people believe he doesn't exist. Well said. But if you want to be thought of as a serious person, you never consider the devil. Like, oh, come on. There's no Satan.

That's ridiculous. Down there burning in the air. Outrageous. Get away. Yeah. So how do you – boy, this goes in a lot of goddamn – this goes down some rabbit holes. Yeah, well, there's rabbit holes in life.

Life is a lot of rabbit holes. But see, to me, this is when we talked about critical thinking. This is the stuff that when you really sit down and you have some conversations besides arguing whose team is better, this is the type of stuff that you really have to get into some perspective. You can learn a lot. If you're willing to talk about things

and you're willing to open up and you're willing to be wrong, it's one of the things I'm always into, is don't go into something with a predisposed opinion about it and be so hell-bent on it your way, because you might really get your mind changed or you might really learn something about it, but as soon as you lock down on it's this way, you know? Right. There's no devil.

Yeah. God's not real. I deal with it. When you die, you just die. How the fuck do you know, bitch? Have you been dead? Like Like what are you talking about? Do you believe have you ever been to a medium a medium like a psychic medium? No, not a real one Okay, so I mean I don't I don't think that I'm not like one of those people that says they don't exist

I think it's possible. I Was a very anti not anti preaching but anti-demon. So my mom believes that. Mom did. My wife does. It was my cup of tea. Not saying bad, just was my cup of tea. My sister died real close with my sister, and I kept getting this weird feeling. I mean, my wife's not telling me to go. My mom's not telling me to go. No one's saying a thing to me. Then this hawk is a representation of my sister. I'm driving my big RV cross-country with my family. Every year we do a big, huge road trip with the family.

This hawk flies outside of my window. Five minutes. No shit. It was a real five minutes. Flew flew along freeway with me as fast as I was gone dirt road So I asked my mom who's lady to call so I went and had this thing Didn't know me very well didn't know much about me. I had the most mind-blowing experience like mind-blowing and And I had the most mind-blowing experience, like mind-blowing. And I had to really sit there. I had to go back to my wife and my mom and say, okay, there's something out there that's

going on that's going that's bigger than us, then I can comprehend. And the way I kind of to make sense of it for myself, because I have to make sense of it, is if you're a baby laying in a bassinet and you can smell and you can breathe and you can poop and you can eat You can sleep and giggle and but I can talk to you. I can talk to me, but baby can't understand me But there's some transmission of connection. Why I make it get ya At this stage am I the baby in the bassinet and Yeah. At this stage, am I the baby in the bassinet and my sister's trying to talk to me and like I'm just kind of getting it, but I'm not, but is that possible?

The older I get, the more I start to buy into, it's gotta be something else. There's no way it can be all this and not be something more. We didn't just it doesn't vaporize go away so the other day maybe six months ago didn't a hot tub I had my routine of hot sauna cold plunge hot tub infrared I do all that but I'm sitting there and I keep getting this thing. I got to call this medium lady. And I text her and I said, hey, can I come see you? And she goes, yeah. She goes, your dad's been hitting me up quite a bit. Your dad wants to talk to you.

Your dead dad. on, dad wants to talk to you. Your dead dad. My dead dad. Has been hitting her up. To get in touch with me, to make. Does she know that your father's dead? She knows my dad's dead, yeah, she knew my dad's dead. But the point was, and there was more intricacies about it, but she said, yeah, he's been talking about it.

He said, she goes, were you just in Mexico? I said, yeah. She said, do something about him in Mexico, something about an owl. There's no way! In a million years, she would know this. An owl? Yeah, my dad comes back as an owl. So he said he was going to be as an owl.

This is what he was saying to her? To me. To you. So he said it was gonna be as an out Is what he was saying to her to me to you yeah this before you die before he dies I said I'm gonna come back as an hour. He's to Al was the thing wise guy Okay And I hung owls are dumb as shit. I Don't know I'm raising. I don't know that I've never seen it modern. He's the shit out of me. No, they're really dumb birds That's great. That's my dad. We're talking about. Thanks. Not you know. I've never seen it modern. They share the shit out of me. No, they're really dumb birds. That's great That's my dad. We're talking about things like you know, I'm not saying your dad's dumb I'm just saying it's weird that we all have this idea of owls being wise. I took this lady trains birds

She says is it a dumb one Thomas birds. It's like the only dumbest than them is emus It's like emus are dumb as shit saw emus on a ranch yesterday She's but she's like we have this idea that owls are really smart Well, whatever whatever the cases hung up of stained glass owl Where my dad used to sit in our house in Mexico No, you know that there's no way So, I don't know I'm not cheating your pre something there's something bigger going on there

Have you ever heard of the telepathy tapes? I know people are looking at me going, guys, guys fucking crazy. But it really is my, there's got to be something else. Have you ever heard of the telepathy tapes? No. The telepathy tapes are this podcast this woman put together from her work with nonverbal autistic kids and their families. Nonverbal autistic kids and their mothers in particular have

an incredible measurable psychic bond where the mother can be in another room, the mother can look at images, the kid will be able to write down what the mother sees, the mother could be reading things and the child will write down what she's reading. And it turns out these kids have abilities that are unexplainable. She documented a nonverbal autistic kid who had the ability to read hieroglyphs. They have the ability to read languages that they've never studied. It's very strange. And that they all meet up on some place called the hill. Psychically they meet up together and they all describe it.

So some place psychically where all these nonverbal autistic kids get together. Yeah, like so this documentary, the telepathy tapes, is like very well researched. Like what they're doing, they made sure they covered up any reflective surfaces. There was, they checked everybody for wires. They scanned the room for any device that could possibly transmit information. There was nothing. And these children were able to do this like a hundred percent of the time. This is, it's a real documented phenomenon that a lot of people were reluctant to believe in. You know, cause it's one of those things,

you believe in it all, you believe in fucking fairy tales, superstition shit, you're a sucker. But no, it's real. There's some sort of a bond that exists. And the more people that I've talked to about this think that this is, it's not that this is an emerging phenomenon in human beings, but it's a neglected aspect of our senses. Of awareness. Because of language and because of media, we're being exposed to things all the time.

So we've kind of let that part of our brain atrophy, but that's intuition. That's when you know things about someone, you meet someone you know they're full of shit. You know, some people you meet them and like right away like, get me the fuck away from this guy. You know what I mean? Like you feel their, their spirit. They got it.

Yeah. So there's energy, right? Yeah. But it's, there's something real to that. And if you're in tune to it, you'll live a better life because you'll make better decisions because that you'll feel that energy and you'll go, I see where this is going. I've had this, yeah, this thing has been going on. So it was funny because when I said to the medium, I said, I'm here.

Where's my sister? She said, oh, she just, she doesn't need to talk to you. I said, what the f, I said, I just made this whole thing to come here. She said, she talks to you every day. She talks to you all the time. Cause I was raising her kid. My parents, he lived with my mom and dad,

live right next door to us. Lori and I have the two boys, Hunter and Ryder, but we're all big family and within the same acre. And I'm like, wow, it is happening. I do. I get all these things because I'm thinking about things I'm talking to Jules about and things I'm working with Jules about as a young boy and just all these things that – and a lot of it coming from things I think of my sister. And I don't know. This is way outside of the spectrum of anything I ever talk about. I mean, I tell my close friends about it and probably people are watching this now and saying, isn't that guy that does

the show about the pizza? Where's he coming off on this talking to his dad, the owl, the non-smart bird? But I believe, well, we've seen the stories about somebody that's autistic and then they can just hear a song and play the piano. Yes. I mean, that's not hocus pocus. That's not fake stuff. This is really, our brains are so much more powerful than, you know, than we, it's like talking to people from, I have a buddy of mine that's from Germany. He speaks four languages. He's a pretty smart guy, but he speaks four languages. They all get taught English in school while they get taught German. Right. From a young age age from like first grade.

So they all, you know, most of them all know how to speak a second language. But once you can learn a language and learn the, you know, how to adapt to languages, you have the opportunity to, you know, be more, you know, available to learn other languages. I just, you sit there and look at it and go, man, do we, do we not utilize, how much do we use? Yeah, we distract ourselves a little on nonsense, but that's also like the difference between like an athlete and a sedentary person like obviously your body can do a lot more than You're asking of it, you know, but there's something about autistic kids. They tap into some aspect of the brain That's just unavailable to you and I like there's this one kid who flew over Manhattan in a helicopter and

then did a absolutely picture perfect detailed drawing of the skyline just from memory. Photo, yeah. And you watch him draw it, you're like, this is insane. And then you see the actual photo of the skyline, you're like, how? How? Here it is, this kid. I mean this is incredible man. So this kid's foot- look at that. How insane is that? From flying over one time? From fucking memory. Just from memory.

I mean, this is incredible man. Look at this. It's so nuts man. Like he remembers everything he saw. And then he's drawing it. And he's cleaning in perspective. Joe, he's not drawing a picture. He's drawing a billboard. Yeah, it's a huge thing. And he's doing every fucking window man this kid remembers everything it's nuts I work with a program called best buddies have you ever heard of it working with intellectually disabled adults and kids had a cousin with intellectual disabilities I just thought everybody had a cousin that was a little different little, and super major part of our family, Doug. And so I heard about, I learned about this program, Best Buddies, and it was started

by Anthony Shriver, who's Eunice Shriver's son. Eunice Shriver started the Special Olympics. And Sergeant Shriver was the, started the SEC, you know, the Shriver, the Kennedys, that whole group, you know, I'm sure you know. So anyhow, I work with this program. And I work with these intellectually disabled adults and kids called Best Buddies. And when I got involved, it was Tom Brady hosting a celebrity football game at Harvard. Everybody would come and get involved and the buddies that were athletic would participate.

I was just there too, because I was invited to go. So I had to do something. So I cooked. I made appetizers for the event. And it was so funny how these buddies would gravitate towards me and they wanted to cook. You know, food is that common denominator of all people. And so we really have developed the program into this Best Buddies program where we got all the buddies partnering with chefs and the buddies love to do the repetitive mode, love to things that are laid out, organized and put them together and so forth.

But just an amazing group of people and huge hearts and huge energy and huge – never a bad day. Always a smile, always happy, always want to give you a hug. You know, there's just so many, but again, when we were talking about things that get glazed over, things that get, you know, you had school, you had the special ed group and they went off to their space and we never really I think educated people how to work inside or work with or understand or have the compassion to understand, you know, people with disabilities. And fortunately, I think

we're getting better at it. I think our country is – our world is starting to – but when we can look at that and take that appreciation and see that and not see that as weird but take that and appreciate it and think it and say, wow. Here's somebody that's taking a difficulty or a major difficulty and doing something with it. I think that's – we need to be more – we need to open our minds up more to that stuff. There's a lot of- Well, we don't really understand all that the mind is capable of.

When you see someone do something like that, you're like, why is that available to an autistic kid and not available to everyone else? What is it about that? What is it about whatever he's missing in his ability to communicate or I don't know if he's nonverbal. I don't know what that young man's issues are in particular, but clearly there's something that doesn't work well, so something else works in an extraordinary way. And this is a thing with like some of them that are just geniuses when it comes to music

or mathematics or whatever it is. It's like the brain has this insane potential in all sorts of weird ways. Which brings us back to like how much of the problem is like what we're distracting our brains with every day? And what kind of fuel are you feeding your brain? You're feeding your brain a bunch of bullshit and nonsense and gossip and you know negativity. And how much are we not paying attention to? Yeah. How much are we not paying attention to? Like I was just saying when that now becomes because we

can chronicle it and we can see the video of it it gets on social media we can be aware of it. There's a positive side of social media but there there's so many of these buddies, like this young lady got up and sang the other day at this event. And, you know, very non-communicative when you just see her on the stage. But once she got on stage, she just blossomed into this other person. So I think that we're hopefully starting

to take some recognition to the fact that there's more potential and it should be recognized. Yeah. It's trippy. It is trippy. It's trippy when you see these savants and you wonder like what is it about them that makes them so extraordinary and is this like, is this going to be more people like that in the future?

Like obviously cavemen couldn't do that but these people could do that. Is there going to be more people like that in the future? Like, obviously cavemen couldn't do that, but these people could do that. Is there going to be more people like that in the future? Will there be more savants? You know, like, where is the, like, the human species headed? But then do we have some of these people that we don't call them savants or something? But there's some people that have invented some shit and created some stuff and took some recognition, some awareness to, you know, bacterias becoming, you know, Louis Pasteur. I mean, there's some people that have some higher

thinking power that you've taken us down some paths that, you know, it's like the computer and all of that. I mean, I can lose, you can lose yourself in it that somebody was able to, I do it with architecture. When I look at a building and you look at these gigantic skyscrapers and I'm happy when I can build a woodshed that's square, you know, that everything lines up correctly but somebody's going to do this out of steel and cement and glass and all this thing and they just build that and it's perfect.

You just look at that and go, wow, what goes on in their mind? Because I'll make you a really good pasta dish right now. Well, there's a place for everybody in this world. That's the thing. It's like whatever their personality is, the way their mind works, it's suited to architecture. Yours is suited to food. Some suited to music. There's some people that are, you know, comedic geniuses.

There's some people that are artistic geniuses. It's like that's the beautiful thing about life it's the most difficult thing for young people is to find the correct path and the worst thing is when you're on the wrong path and you just live a life of suffering and you wish you were doing something else that's the saddest thing to me is someone who really wants to do something else I mean that's the classic song right? That's sing us a song you're the piano man. It's fostering so what I try to do with when I speak to young kids or classrooms or schools or whatever I do I say quit chasing the dollar quit quit looking at it thinking I want to make

the money. I just say first thing I say to them, what makes you happy? What do you enjoy? Because if you enjoy it, it's not a job. If you enjoy it, you'll be able to put so much more time and energy into it without being tired. Go be your best self and go find what you love in life. And if you do that, it's going to come. See, the ability to survive, the ability to live and have a house, it will come to you. Now that's not to say just because you love art

means that you're gonna be Picasso tomorrow and you're gonna do it. You might have to actually go put in some hard work and take an art class. You're gonna have to do some shit. But you got to, and that's the other thing we're missing. Hard work? Yeah. Let's remember that. Yeah. Anybody says that there's no such thing as a to five job. I work every single day all the time. I mean, if I'm having fun, if I'm about, you know, ripping it up, I'm at stage, I'm having fun. But it's always going to be worried. It's always coming back to taking care of business. But I just think that when people start getting lost with that, one of the things I hope that the nucleus around these kids

is that we foster imagination, foster critical thinking, back to what we were saying, and foster them into achieving their goals. Help them write goals. Help them have belief. We can't just set them away. They're getting lost in their phone and believing that they're going to be a TikTok star. Yeah, that's a problem. That's a problem. When you ask kids like what do they want to do and a large percentage of them just want to be

famous because they see these famous people and they see like oh good that guy's got a Ferrari look at that guy's got a big house. Isn't that mind-blowing though? It's mind-blowing. It's such a false reality. Yeah but it's also a reality for some people. So it's like what they're looking for. And it's also the thing that they're getting on their phone all day long. They're getting people who are doing it. And you can do it. You know, it's a really crazy statistic.

Ten percent of girls that are between 18 and I think like 25 are on OnlyFans. What? Yeah, one out of ten girls are posing on OnlyFans. And here it gets even crazier. I think it's something like the number of, like what's the percentage of men that are subscribing to OnlyFans? I think it's 80 million. Watch, he's gonna pull up in 10 seconds. Can I call him for research by the way?

Sure. I think that there's like 160 million men in this country and 80 million of them are on OnlyFans. million men in this country and 80 million of them are on only fans are subscribing to only fans Yeah, it's like some of the staff is like literally like 50% of the men of a certain age are subscribing to only Fans and 10% of the girls are involved in being models So the the number you said about 10 percent checks out. But it's like it's using stats. So there's one point two million women aged 18 and 24 on OnlyFans.

And there are approximately 10 million women that age in America. So yeah. Ten percent. And then 10 percent of the girls are showing their body and doing things on only fans for money I got 82 million men are reported to subscribe to only friends might be overstated But this also weirdly says that the platform had 1.2 million American women So that's almost all of them are 18 and 24 There's two of it and this also says there's 3 million registered creators, so I don't know who the other one point Probably over 24 or dudes or dates. Yeah, that's right. There's dudes that do it, too

Yeah, there's that would be more dudes than women on there. That's that's kind of crazy Yeah, well, it's just we go wrap this up We got to wrap it up soon. We're doing it two hours and 40 minutes. I don't want to go anywhere. This is fucking awesome. If you would, by the way, congratulations on not drinking. But I have to. I can't keep this forever. Thank you. I've listened and I applaud you. I think that you read yourself, read your body, read your mind, tell you, you know, I heard you talking about it. I think that, you know, people need

to listen to themselves and, you know, see how it makes them feel. And I talk about people, what they eat and how it makes them feel. But no, that's a big, no, I think this is weird. It's like, there's so many other things that's gonna pick your brain about the dark web because that's another thing that I just sit there and go, what is back? I don't even wanna know what's behind that door.

You don't wanna know. And I don't wanna know what's behind that door. And it scares me, cause I started talking to that tech security people. But it's like this OnlyFans stuff. I mean, I don't even want to know about it. I don't even want to... The darkness of the human soul, it exists always.

And for a lot of these girls, it's like they just don't want to have a regular job, and then they get caught up in this OnlyFans thing and then you make a lot of money. You were talking about living in perpetuity? Yeah. I know. You were talking about letting that oneuity yeah I know that one right because people are screen grabbing that stuff and people are recording that stuff yes yeah yeah good luck on that one I know and it's just like nobody's telling them that when they're young they're not getting raised properly unfortunately for the little bit of scratch you're getting now and then how that affects you in your life later I

mean it's yeah we need it's I'm not know, I don't have the answer for it, but I really think that when I was talking about making a contribution to your community, you know, I remember how much, how many parents used to come to the classroom and help in the classroom when I was a kid. I don't know if that still happens. I don't know what goes on. But this mentorship program, I ran into a guy the other day that was a big brother, big brother, big sister program. And I was just so, it was great to meet him. I'm like, tell me about it, man. Like, you're

doing that, I didn't even know the program exists anymore. That's awesome. So there's things like that, that I just hope we still remember that we had some really core fundamentals. Doesn't mean our era was right or that we didn't do it without failure, we didn't do it without our issues, you know, as we were speaking. But I really hope that we continue to believe in ourselves because we can right the ship, man. Yeah, there's always going to be good in this world and there's always going to be evil

and you got to kind of like battle it out. That's part of what life is about. And the unfortunate thing is that a lot of that evil is why you appreciate the good, you know, and the good is there to show people that there's another path. Yeah. Well, back to the beginning of, you know, you're not political, you're, I mean, you've got your, but the positivity in the conversation that goes on. John, John Krasinski during COVID. I did his show, he had this really cool podcast or I don't know what exactly to call the shows. Did you see it? It was all the right it was about it was a whole pause. Oh, it's a great no, it's a great guy. I can't think of the name of it. It was an acronym. It was like all positive stuff or something along those

lines. Help me raise some money. I was raising money for restaurant workers. And we just need more positive noise. We need more positive message. Yeah. And people need to make a decision in their own mind that they want to accentuate the positive aspects of their own life and stop dwelling on the negative and move forward and try to be a positive influence in as many ways as they can. You're doing it, man. You're here. You're here.

You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here.

You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here.

You're here. You're here. You're you for the scars. It's very nice. Keep it up. Thank you. Tell me whenever I can help. Yes sir. Alright. Thank you. Bye everybody.