The Rich Roll Podcast - [EXPLICIT] Punk Icon, Spiritual Warrior, Ironman Triathlete & PlantPower Iconoclast

Episode Date: July 30, 2013

John Joseph is a true American original. John Joseph defines hardcore. John Joseph is a spiritual warrior. And he's got a message for you. First, let me say that this episode is EXPLICIT. John simply can't be edited or muzzled, and you wouldn't want him that way anyway. He has a strong preference for four letter words. He drops the f-bomb about a thousand times during the interview and recounts in technicolor detail the horrific, grizzly reality of his abusive upbringing, his criminal background and past penchant for violence in the underbelly of Manhattan's lower eat side in the 1970's and '80's. So I'm saying it now — if you are easily offended, or this just isn't your cup of tea, then this may not be the episode for you. That's fine. Let's just say this one just isn't safe for the workplace. Disclaimer aside, I love this guy. It's rare to meet someone so raw; real and authentic. Unafraid of life and certainly not shy when it comes to speaking his mind. And in this interview he lays his truth bare. With John, what you see and hear is exactly who he is. And his message — and life lessons — are amongst the most powerful I have ever heard. Conceived and raised in abuse. Deprived of opportunity. Left to his own devices. John turned to violence and drugs to make his way in the world. A path that led him to violence and crime — teen years spent as a drug mule; in and out of of foster care; and stints in juvi and jail. To avoid long-term incarceration, he enlisted in the Navy, only to go AWOL after a fight. Fleeing the law and rudderless, John found redemption in the hardcore punk rock scene flourishing on the lower east side of Manhattan in the 1970's. And under the wing of Bad Brains' frontman H.R. — a devotee of Rastafari — John began to explore not just his musicianship, but his spirituality as well. A journey that not only birthed the Cro-Mags — one of the most iconic and influential hardcore punk bands of the 70's — but led to life in a Hare Krishna monastery, where he found his spiritual salvation, developing his life-long love of meditation, yoga, sacred chanting, service to others — and a diet devoid of animal products. I'm not sure I have ever met anyone who has successfully transcended circumstances as horrific as his upbringing and lived to tell about it. And although John may have been educated on the streets, his spiritual acumen is legit — and vast. Make no mistake, this guys walks his walk. John is the true Thug Kitchen. During this conversation we tap into it all, culminating in his newfound love for triathlon. And how his deep connection to physical pursuit is a mere extension of his ongoing quest spiritual growth – something I can relate to entirely. I'm proud of this interview. And I'm proud to call John my friend. But again – this is a super intense conversation. Listen at your own risk. But I hope you do! Rich

Welcome to episode 41 of the Rich Roll Podcast with John Joseph. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. I am Rich Roll and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. Who am I? Well, I am a wellness advocate, a plant-based nutrition advocate, I guess you could say. I am a health and wellness entrepreneur. I'm the best-selling author of a book called Finding Ultra. I'm a public speaker. I'm a husband and I'm a dad. I've got four kids. And I started this podcast with one goal in mind, to bring to you the best and the brightest in health, wellness, fitness, and nutrition. I had the good fortune when my book came out last year to travel around the country, which I continue to do now,

I continue to do now and had the good fortune of meeting a lot of amazing people, a lot of paradigm busting personalities and people that are doing amazing things in health and nutrition and fitness, kind of pushing the boundaries and thinking outside the box. And this podcast was really born out of a desire to share these people with you guys, people that have helped me, helped expand my horizons in hopes that I could give them a little bit of a platform and an audience so that they could let you in on what is going on with them. So you can take that information, take the parts that work for you, discard the rest, and hopefully incorporate some of the insights and tools that my guests are sharing on this show to improve your life, to improve your health, your fitness, your nutrition,

but most importantly, like I said, expand your horizons mentally, emotionally, spiritually, so that you can unlock and unleash that best, most authentic version of yourself that is lying dormant inside you, yearning to come out. And today's guest is certainly no departure from that. He fits the bill. But it is a little bit of a new terrain for me in bringing John Joseph to the show. This guy is a one of a new terrain for me in bringing John Joseph to the show. This guy is a one of a kind. He is an American original, and I would say that he defines hardcore. So before we get into

anything further about him, I just want to let you know at the outset that this is a very explicit episode. I've kept the podcast very family friendly and tried to keep it kind of vanilla when it comes to the language. But when you have John Joseph on your show, there's no editing to be had. The guy walks his walk. He is who he is. What you see is what you get. And he has a very unique vernacular. I think he drops about a thousand F-bombs in this episode. So if you're queasy, easily offended, or just don't like that kind of thing, then now is the time maybe to tune out.

This might not be the podcast for you. And if that's the case, that's fine. John's not everybody's cup of tea. But I didn't have any interest in interviewing him and telling him what he could and couldn't say. I wanted to get the full John Joseph experience. And that is what he delivers in this episode. So who is this guy? Well, he is a plant-based nutrition advocate, just like myself. He's an author. He wrote a book called Meat is for Pussies, which I believe he self-published it, but he's currently revising it, and it's going to get a wide release with a major publisher,

and he talks a little bit about that in the show. He also wrote a book, his autobiography, The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon. And this is a guy who has transcended probably the most horrific life circumstances of anybody I've ever met. He was born and conceived in abuse, raised on the streets in foster care and juvie halls and in jails. in foster care and juvie halls and in jails. He really is born out of the school of hard knocks and found his way through violence, through the drug trade and through drug use. He spent his youth and his teens as a drug mule on the Lower East Side of Manhattanattan in and out of institutions ultimately ended up in the navy to avoid long uh long time a long-term jail sentence uh went awol from the navy and really found his solace and his redemption in the hardcore uh punk scene on the lower east side of manhattan in the 1970s he kind of fell under the wing of of the man, HR, of the band Bad Brains and developed his own band out of that called the Cro-Mags,

which is one of the most iconic and resonant punk bands coming out of New York in the 1970s that were playing around CBGB, the Bowery, the Lower East Side, And CBGB, the Bowery, the Lower East Side, and the clubs that is delivered only in his personal style, which is, like I said, very unique. And he's a very compelling personality. He's very magnetic. He's very charismatic. And he's very passionate about the things that he cares about. He's a guy who's's very charismatic and he's very passionate about the things that he cares about. He's a guy who's of service to a lot of people. He spends a lot of time volunteering at soup kitchens, raising money for organizations and helping out underprivileged kids who are in circumstances similar to the ones that he grew up in. And he most recently has kind of found a new passion in triathlon.

He's an Ironman triathlete. And we talk a little bit about the connection between his spiritual path and how triathlon is kind of the next step in his evolution and how those two worlds kind of collide and interrelate with each other. And he's fascinating. You know, he had me riveted for two hours at dinner before we did the podcast. And the whole time I'm thinking, why didn't I just record dinner? You know, how am I going to keep this guy going? But he's the kind of guy where you just wind him up and he starts talking and he talks intelligently and at length about subjects as varied as GMOs and Monsanto to what it was like to be Hare Krishna and his sort of devotional practices and meditation and yoga and how he

really overcame his horrific life circumstances by relying on these spiritual principles to transcend and develop new tools for how he lives his life today. So I'm proud to call this guy my friend. He's amazing and compelling and quite unique and remarkable. And like I said, I want to put this disclaimer up front. He is hardcore. He is the definition of hardcore. And if that's not your thing or you're a little bit lily-livered then uh i i can see how you might be offended by the way that he speaks but i hope that you can stick it out and see through the vernacular to the message that he's actually trying to communicate a message that is powerful and i think he has a unique ability to communicate to certain types of people that

could benefit from the knowledge that he's trying to impart simply because of who he is. We all, and I talk about this in the podcast, we all have certain types of people that we relate to or identify with. And I think there's a lot of people that identify with this guy and can hear what he has to say and only hear it from a guy like him. And that in and of itself is something of tremendous value. So I am proud to call him my friend. I'm glad to have him in my life and my life is better for having him in it. So I'm really proud about this interview, proud of this interview, and happy and excited to share it with you. Also, if you want to continue to support the show, and I appreciate all of you out there that have been doing that, the easiest, best, most cost-effective way to do that is to just use the

Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. If you go to the blog page or the podcast page, you'll see it's a little black banner ad. If you're going to buy something on Amazon, like Finding Ultra or John Joseph's books, Meat is for Pussies or The Evolution of Cro-Magnon, click on the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com, pixie to Amazon, pick up whatever you're going to pick up, throws a few pennies in our coffers and helps keep the bandwidth flowing doesn't cost you a penny extra but it helps us out a lot and really appreciate everyone out there who's making a habit of using the amazon banner hat it's been great and uh we love it so thank you you can also donate to the rich world podcast uh there's donate button on my site. You can throw a few dollars our way on a weekly or monthly basis. You choose the amount. But like I always say, the show is free. It will always be

free. Do not feel compelled to do so. But we love and appreciate those who are going out of their way to donate and support the show. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We just got back from New York City. It was a great trip. We just got back from New York City. It was a great trip. Obviously, I was in New York because that's the only place I would be able to sit down with John Joseph. Why were we in New York? Well, we went to go do a panel at the Apple Store in Soho. It was called Innovators of Health. Yeah, Innovators of Health.

Innovators of Health. And being at the Soho Apple Store was really cool. It's kind of become the new 92nd Street Y. It's sort of like this place that everybody goes to promote their new book or their TV show or their movie and when we were there in the green room getting ready to do do the event the the event organizer was telling us how snoop dogg had just been there a couple days before and he brought in like a giant louis vuitton bag full of like weed and they were trying to control him and a couple days after our event uh vince gilligan was coming in to talk about uh breaking bad the new season of breaking bad with Bryan Cranston. So it was pretty cool to be part of that kind of scene, doing our event in the same place where all these kind of cultural tastemakers are there as well to talk about what they're doing.

And the Apple Store has it totally dialed in. They filmed the whole thing. They audio recorded it. And it just went up on iTunes today. So if you want to watch the panel, which was myself, my wife, Julie Pyatt, Charlie Knowles, who is a master of meditation, Tara Stiles, who is a well-known yoga instructor, and her husband, Michael Taylor. We were all on the panel and it was moderated by Jason Walkub, the CEO and co-founder of mindbodygreen.com. It's an interesting conversation. So I'll put a link to that up in the show notes. Thanks for sticking around and lots of good stuff to come. lots of good stuff to come.

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And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Without further ado, let's get into the interview, everybody. Like I said, very proud of this conversation that I had with the one and only John Joseph. Enjoy. Hey, man, you know what? You don't lose your personality just because you get...

Oh, yeah, I get the... You don't have to put those on if you don't want to, but you do have to talk into the mic. Yeah, I'm done. This ain't my first rodeo, bro. I know, man. But I do like the... We did a show and they gave us

all of this free shit what was this company again? Paul Frank Paul Frank yeah Paul Frank gave us in California

you gotta love that you gotta love the monkey yeah so dude the force of nature in the house word yeah

so we just got back from dinner and it was just it was a non-stop talk fest i'm sitting there thinking we should be i can't believe we're we got to be recording this i'm gonna have to make him tell me all this stuff again never a dull moment i know but like we were talking i have a feeling that you can run your mouth at will hey my llc is johnny loudspeaker man so definitely uh new york based old school you are old school man through and through so there's been a and there's been a lot of people who've

been emailing me and stuff saying when you're gonna have john joseph on man you gotta get that guy in the podcast so honored by popular demand like one of my heroes over here come on man you've been living the life for real for a long time so i'm still johnny come lately to this whole thing you know 30 years now yeah but you know you laid a heavy ground heavy groundwork man you're the one who laid the groundwork no but i'm saying now with what you've been able to achieve man when i bring up your book to somebody they're like oh yeah i heard of that dude yeah but wait till you're wait to wait till meat uh meat is for pussies hits it wide dude because your your your uh your voice is powerful and strong and it reaches you know everybody has

their own uh you know kind of different people that they're able to communicate with or that can hear what they're saying, you know, and you, you know, you have the ability to, um, uh, get through to certain people in a way that most people, but I mean, all right, man, let's talk about the, let's talk about the, let's talk about the fireman talk about the let's talk about the fireman oh yeah well you know i met this dude like see my whole thing coming from new york is no matter what i'm gonna strike up a fucking conversation with somebody and he just happened to ride past rockefeller center and i was out there working for a charity and he didn't have

no helmet on and with his whole family and daughters and i was like get a helmet and then you know he came over and we started talking and then it switched to like you know my training i did a race and then we got into the whole plant-based issue and he's like you know this dude's like, you know, 230 pound firefighter, battalion commander from Jersey. Huge, huge. Right. And he's like, fuck that. I need my meat, you know.

And then like. But what did you, did you, you told, did you just told him straight up? Like. I said. How did he, how did you even get into that? What do you eat during, you know, during the fucking Ironman? What do you, he's like, no. And then I said, I'm, I'm, you know, I said, Hey man, I do Ironman, you know don't fucking iron man what do you he's like no and then i said i'm i'm you

know i said hey man i do iron man you know and i showed him my bike i said yeah i'm ready to turn 51 he's like get the fuck out of here what are you fucking kidding me i'm like dude i'm born in 62 i pulled out my id he's like holy fucking shit i'm like yeah well I've been plant based I haven't eaten any meat fish eggs none of that shit in like 33 years he's like fuck that I need my meat and then we got into this conversation and then he starts telling

me how his knees and his joints are hurting I'm saying dude that's the acidity levels in your blood your body is if you balance out your pH through alkaline base food you know alkaline foods and everything you're having all those issues and then he's like and then i was like i gave him the book i had one copy on me because i was actually going i can't say who the publisher is but i just signed the book to a big publisher and i was actually on my way to the

publisher so i had underlined things in the book of i wanted to discuss how we're expanding the book and everything and i had the book on me it was like the universal you know the universe just brought this dude my way and then i said hey man i had this book in my bag i wrote this i'm gonna give this to you he's like and as soon as i brought the thing out meat is for pussies you know like the wife starts laughing and then like he writes me this i mean you read the email he's like i haven't read a fucking book since 1969 about jim thorpe i don't read books you know and it turns out he read the book he's like this fucking thing's amazing i realize what a fucking pussy i am now like i gotta get off this meat yeah and uh you know

it's just but the point is that like a guy like that it takes a very specific personality to to penetrate a guy like that and get through to him and you know that you because of who you are and like your your life history and the walk that you walk you're maybe one of the only people on the entire planet who could have communicated that message to that guy well you know what it is uh like i go to i was i was locked up as a juvenile did yeah we're gonna get it i want to get into all that stuff where a white kid don't want to go just put it so like even now i go and i mentor kids in high schools and gangs and lockups and they they pick up on it they're like this ain't some dude with a phd trying to talk to me this is a real motherfucker this dude

bent through shit i said dude i've been right where you're at right now and all the dudes i was locked up with i bring my passport with me I say look working papers Paris Japan blah blah blah I show them the whole thing and they're like I'm like you know where the dudes are that were locked up with me who didn't change dead or in jail that's the only two places and uh you know it's the power of the conviction I know what this eating this way and being on a spiritual, not religious quest, but a spiritual quest in my life really saved my whole life, which I want to talk about, meeting the bad brains and all that. But just another story. Two years ago, I did the biggest rock tour in Australia. It's called Soundwave Revolution, right?

So it was like slipknot fucking system of a down and crow mags was on it so every day i had been training for my iron man out there in australia it was winter time here but summertime there and so every day i'm getting up fucking you know six o'clock in the morning training hitting the gym running and then i'm eating like you know so the guy that was the head of security for the for us is this 240 pound professional muay thai fighter ian norrington right and he has a um so he sees me every day doing he's like hey mate what the fuck like you know what's this fucking shit you're eating, man? What is all this?

So I start taking him to the restaurants. I always bring books out on tour. I gave him a copy of Meat is for Pussies. Motherfucker's a full-on fucking plant-based monster now. Still fights Muay Thai and goes to Thailand and fights. And he has a security company. See, we're like touchstones. You're affecting all these people.

It's like a ripple in the ocean. Then the next motherfuckers go out and they start talking to... So this dude as a security company, I mean, dude, he handles Russell Crowe, Taylor Swift. The biggest motherfuckers, when they go to Australia, you'll see pictures of fucking Ian Norrington standing next to them. He's a fucking beast. You'll see pictures of fucking Ian Norrington standing next to them. He's a fucking beast.

And now all the dudes who are like clearance divers, special forces, Hell's Angels, he's gotten all these dudes in his office to go plant-based now because they see what the fuck it's like. Hell's fucking angels and all kinds of motherfuckers like, hey, Mike, let's go get a fucking veggie burger. You know, it's like. That's insane. No, it's that's awesome man you know i mean i think that there's this idea that eating this way is some kind of elitist you know upper east side kind of thing and you can't do it unless you're going to you know yeah you're going to say the v word or whatever it's the five letter curse word

vegan right yeah we always tell that joke like how do you know if someone's vegan oh they'll Yeah, you're going to say the V word. It's the five letter curse word. Vegan. Right. Yeah, we always tell that joke. Like, how do you know if someone's vegan? Oh, they'll let you know. Yeah, there you go. How do you find the vegan in the room? Don't worry, they'll let you know.

So I'm going to chime in right here. I just want to know, so can you talk to us a little bit about your title of your book? And like, you know, where that came from? your title of your book and like, you know, where that came from. Well, actually, the book title came, I was going to call it something else that was all like the go green fucking blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And my publisher was like, my boy, he's my friend. He's like, dude, come on. It needs the John Joseph tone.

This is fucking bullshit. This is something some fucking twidget at fucking harvard could have wrote i we can't call the book that it needs a john joseph tone so it's funny how you know god the universe whatever works because i was in the gym this particular day my friends all train in martial arts and they fight so this my friend was holding pads for this dude and i'm like the guy had a fight coming up and i'm like yeah man you should be getting on wheatgrass eat three lives start eating food that were you going to recover quicker these last three months of training three weeks of training rather you want

quicker recovery time for your workouts and everything it's plant-based you know basically a very clean vegetarian diet so this like dude in tiger stripe-based, you know, basically a very clean vegetarian diet. So this, like, dude in tiger stripe fucking pants, like, you know, from the fucking 1980s with a fucking winger shirt on comes over and he's like,

here's, you know, the trigger word, vegetarian or vegan or whatever. And he's like, yeah, all those motherfuckers, they look like little pussies, fucking blah, blah, blah.

And I'm looking at this motherfucker like, dude, who fucking? I said, this is an A-B conversation. See your way the fuck out of it. But I was like, as a matter of fact, hold that thought. I'm fucking plant-based. You want to get in the ring, motherfucker? He's like, what? Bottom line was, he ended up listening to a lot of what, and he's like, yo, this shit works.

But I told the dude who helped put out the book, and he designed the book, my friend Todd, who I work with. The cover's awesome. Yeah, he designed the whole. I mean, the image and graphic is so powerful. He designed that whole book, and he's like, the message is so strong in the book, we want the cover subtle. And it's like, so he designed the whole thing, but he goes, dude, you got to throw it back in their face. That motherfucker said vegetarians are pussies. Yo.

And I was like, where? Because really, meat is fucking for pussies. Look what the fuck these motherfuckers are doing to the planet. He goes, dude, that's it. Meat is for pussies. And I'm like, whoa, I thought I was radical. You're like really fucking swarming up the bee's nest with that shit. I was like, dude, I don't know, man.

He's like, dude, you got to take the risks, fucking. And we ended up calling the book Meaters for Pussies. And I don't judge you. What I say is if you read the first part of the book. And what I really say is if you lead a sedentary lifestyle and you eat these fucked up foods and you're doing all this shit to the planet you're going to be a pussy dependent upon the drug companies to keep you alive if that's what the fuck you want put the book back it ain't for you but i'm you know that's why i put the section you know living proof with

the photos of these stud motherfuckers like mike mauler, Brendan Brazier, Dr. Bishi, and the rest of them who are like, yo, look at these dudes. You're going to tell me, you know, these dudes are plant-based fucking bad motherfuckers. I mean, you know, and I want to obviously get you in the next plug, plug. Yeah, that's why we're doing the podcast. Get you in the next year. What do you think you're doing here, man?

Oh, shit. It's a conspiracy. But you got a little heat for the title, huh? A little bit of a backlash for that. Oh, yeah, all the fucking, like, vegan feminists who fucking... I'm like, I know you think you have balls between your legs, but... No, they basically were like, fucking boycott this book. I'm like, you know know that's the problem with

you fucking people first of all is it says for dudes who want to get fit kick ass and take names i know you think it's written for guys it's written for guys to overcome this idea of what it means to be a man and what masculinity means i mean you get into like some serious gender stuff that is really deeply rooted in our identities as males in america right or wherever you live well that was rory you know they did the same thing to her too because she called the book skinny bitch rory friedman wrote skinny bitch they all attacked her too these people are so fucking like politically like oh they just fucking i don't I have nothing in common with any of these fucking people I'm like

bitch I was locked up before you were even fucking on the planet you're gonna try to read me the fucking riot act about what I called my book I was like it ain't got nothing to do with you mind your fucking P's and Q's and then the one who wrote a blog against me I had 60,000 Cro-Mag fans

blast her fucking page. She goes, this guy's a fucking maniac. He had everybody write me. I had to shut the blog down. I'm like, fangu, fuck you. That's the way I approach shit.

I'm just like, yo, the real message is how to help people. Whatever tone it takes, the bottom line is you judge a thing by the result. How many people i've had tens and thousands of people write me emails saying yo the book changed my life

that's the higher principle however you get you know the ends justifies the means however you know the mother you know disguises the medicine in in some fucking chocolate soy milk or whatever the fuck but the child still gets the benefit i take a certain tone because i'm reaching the motherfuckers y'all whack-ass vegans ain't never been able to reach i got fucking truck drivers and fucking dudes in the special forces and all kinds of people reading the book going yo this shit makes sense yeah and they're never going to pick up a book from that other sort of cadre person yeah they're just it's never going to happen so absolutely and you are living your

authentic truth and this is very authentic to you and just rings true from your heart right well i didn't lose my identity just because i stopped you know life is about growth and I didn't lose who the fuck I am. Like I told you and Julie at dinner, I said, look, this doesn't define me who I am as a human being. I'm into all kinds of stuff. This is a part of the process. Like I know eliminating these poisonous foods and, you know, animal flesh that's been tortured its whole life from my system and my consciousness changed my consciousness i told her i said quite frankly you should be fucking lucky that i changed this diet because i'd probably rob your fucking ass if i saw you on the streets in new york you know that's the kind of i think there's a lot of people that for with whom the diet is

sort of the be all and end all like the dialogue begins and ends with the diet and don't y'all motherfuckers got anything else to talk about and it's yeah for me it's like this is what you do so that you can change like you said your consciousness and your energy to then go out into the world and do like apply that right in whatever way is authentic to you you know what i mean like it's not it's not it's not just about the food the food is the beginning yeah it's the beginning of a bigger journey see i like the message that you and they're so judgmental that's why i love the message that you guys talked about and what you julie told me about the in the mac store the other night, wherever you're at, we embrace it.

We just say, you know, like, and that's what I've learned from my spiritual practice, even in yoga or whatever. If there's a spark, you fan the spark. You don't fucking throw water on it and try to light a fire. That's what these people do. They make it so unpalatable for these people to try to come and eat healthy because that's not the end all when your consciousness only stops at what you're eating

it's only it's only a cog in the whole big gamut of the picture that's meant you know you should eat plant-based foods because it's it awakens your consciousness and then you need to do other shit with that that's why i do all kinds of stuff write movies do this do that i chant every day meditate i mean it's all part of the process but it doesn't stop with just food when your growth stops at food you become an asshole i'm sorry for lack of a better term yeah and like I said I've been doing this since 81 I've been seeing all these you know people doing that and the original people when I got into it was Victorious Kavinskas you know and these people were so loving and like the bad brains and their sound man who turned me on to this stuff they were just so it was a different thing it wasn't all this judge

they was i mean if if i would have met some vegans that are around now or some of these foodie types i probably wouldn't have taken to this whole thing but i had the right kind of gurus showing me the right way well there was only a small group of people doing it now there's all there's there's all these factions that are kind of warring amongst each other about what's right and what's wrong and there's a lot of judgment flying around and i think that that that is a barrier to somebody who's standing on the outside of that who maybe is curious and interested and they see that and they're like well these people you know they just they can't even get along themselves they ain't got their shit together so that's why i love the whole thing we embrace where you're at and just encourage people to

you know i'm not down like i know i know what worked for me and i didn't go from like you know like eating burgers to just total raw foods there was even some transitional stuff, you know, the fake meats and all that stuff, too. You know, that's just being honest. I have to be honest, you know, with where I came from, too. Now, 33 years later, you know, I'm able to do because of my training and everything else that I have to really be careful what I eat. So I don't eat a lot of that. But you think I'm going to tell Joe Firefighter, don't buy Gardein because it's processed quinoa and stuff? I'm like, give me a fucking break.

Yeah, he's out the door. That dude's fucking ready to fucking go and be another person to say, yo, I'm giving this shit up. Now, if I try to get that motherfucker to eat sprouts three times a day see you later you know right it's like i'm trying to fan he's gonna go on his yeah exactly you fan the spark and then as he'll discover for himself and he has his own journey and that journey your job is to support and guide that not to judge it and to give him the respect that he deserves that you know he'll be guided in the

direction that you know he needs to go exactly and you know where else you know where i'm gonna tell him to go have dinner candle 79 that restaurant's delicious fucking meat eaters and i'm sorry i will tell him yo try the seitan chimichuris man because yeah he's got a he's got a he's got to take those baby steps and see that it's gonna be okay yeah do you know the history of of the whole fake meat shit of where that came from no it's an interesting history because knowing it i you know from going to vegetarian paradise in 81 the original story was the monks in china, the king would eat meat. So the monks were vegetarian and they would tell the king that if you fast for meats at these two phases of the moon twice a month, it'll bring

prosperity to the kingdom and good karma, good cause and effect. So because they wanted to make it easy for the king, they took, this is thousands of years ago. They took the soy and they made the fake meats out of the soy so that the king wouldn't miss the meat when he had to fast on those phases of the moon. How did you learn that? I've never heard that before. Because it was on the menu of the original vegetarian paradise. Interesting. I looked into it and it's like yo that's exactly like even in vedic

astrology there's there's a codicy where you fast from green green i mean you don't even eat any kind of meat or fish or eggs or any of that but then you would fast further from like beans and grains on certain phases of the moon and when i looked into that, I was like, that's exactly true. So if we want to change the collective karma of the planet, like I just read a quote the other day, how do you expect it to be peace when you're maintaining slaughterhouses that are killing billions of fucking animals all over the planet? That's hypocrisy. All these celebrities go to these fucking meetings for world peace and they're serving Kobe fucking steaksaks to them you're a fucking asshole you should shut up you don't know anything about world peace you want peace for who you know where's the peace every living entity is connected in some way and you know on this planet whether

it be mammals birds whatever we're all we're all have the same soul existing in our bodies as an animal does it's just that's their phase of evolution spiritually we don't have the right to kill them you know you you have dominion over your little brother would you fucking kill him or your child hope hopefully not so i mean it was presented to me in such a way and I came from I mean I was shot I've been stabbed fucking I came from the streets of New York I came from watching my father almost murder my mom getting put in abusive foster homes for seven years I mean I come from a violent background that's why I said on my book meat is for pussies if i didn't change the way i thought about fucking food i wouldn't even be here today so that's not no hippie bullshit that's real deal real talk from a real fucking dude motherfuckers might want to put out the thug kitchen book but i was the real fucking

thug kitchen and i wasn't proud of being that but when you're growing up on the streets of new york if somebody fucked with you you put a pipe across their face that's the way it was or you wasn't gonna open your eyes the next day that's the reality of the surroundings that i came from right so let's talk about that i mean let's go back a little bit and you know you're you're a small child and and you know what's going what's going on your dad father was a professional fighter from Ireland. And, you know, my mom, fucking whatever, hooked up with the wrong fucking dude and, you know, basically just used her for a fucking punching bag. He became an alcoholic. But he's a well-known fighter.

He's on Boxing Rec. If you look up BoxingRec.com, his record's there, everything. I mean, my brother talked to professional boxers that were like your father could have been an incredible boxer but he wanted to be a fucking he wanted to be a fucking gangster and and uh and he liked to drink too much but yeah he tried to murder my mom and fucking, I didn't even find out until I was 40 that she had left him already after my first brother. He broke in and fucking raped my mother. And that's how I was born. And then my other brother too.

You know, so it's like, I've fucking seen violence before. I've seen it before. I even conceived in violence, you through through violence and then you know the state took us away he tried to murder and uh you know i was you're in the foster care system of him was breaking down outdoor and fucking beating my beating my mother and then neighbors called the cops and yeah and then we went through the we were in an abusive foster home for seven years, surviving off of fucking getting fed. You and your brother.

Yeah, my two brothers. And then that house got shut down by the state. We kept bouncing around, ended up in St. John's Home for Boys in 1976. We were the only white kids in the home in Rockaway. And all the kids got beat up by the irish hooligans in the neighborhood so the kids took it out on us so we were fucking fighting them motherfuckers like crazy and i mean you know i just went on to the streets in the winter of 77 i was a heroin mule going down to the lower east side like i talk about all this on

the walking tour that i do now right so for the listeners he if you come to new york you got to do his walking tour he does a uh it's basically a walking tour of the lower east side where you lay out like in very graphic descriptive terms like what was going on in the 70s it kind of the heyday of punk rock and CBGB and crime and murder it's like crime punk and art it's rocksoft.com backslash walkintours

and it's voted like one of the best tours in the fucking city cause it's real anecdotes of you know a lot of stuff that you saw

yeah you saw yourself like you know yeah and went through it and everything so it's like so how do you end up on the lower east side uh well I started coming down here because these two cats that Yeah, and went through it and everything. So it's like... So how do you end up on the Lower East Side?

Well, I started coming down here because these two cats that sold all the heroin in Rockaway, the 9th Precinct, it was nicknamed the Dirty 9th in the 70s, in the mid-70s, because they had the biggest drug, cocaine, and heroin operations down Alphabet City and all that. Right. And so these guys didn't want to pay these cops. These cops, two cops, were corrupt. So all the dealers were paying them off so they wouldn't get busted. So they thought, okay, we're going to go fucking send this kid down here. And then I carried all the bundles of heroin.

A bundle is 10 bags of dope tied together with a fucking rubber band. It's called a bundle. So we would buy like, it's $10 a bag. That's $100 a bundle. These guys would buy like 30, 40 bundles and then cut it because it was so pure and then step on it by half. So they would have their heroin. They would sell the rest and make money and then re-up. So I was the dude carrying all their dope for them.

So that's how I started coming down here. And then all this crazy shit happened. I started going to Max's Kansas City and seeing the whole... The first time I went to Max's Kansas City in 1977, I got the shit beat out of me because the dude I was with, Johnny Dundas, was playing and he was stealing all the dude's money off the bar and drinking their drinks. This fucking maniac, crazy Dave. We were on like two and alls all fucked up. So he gets his ass kicked and comes out the bar like, help.

And then they're like, oh, you're with this motherfucker. And then I just kept going back to the shows and liked punk rock. So this is punk, but it's also like Velvet Underground. Like, what's going on right now? Well, more of the violent shit. Velvet Underground was like fucking, you know, I'm talking about like the real crazy. But like paint the scene at Max's at that time. Oh, violent.

Johnny Thunders, Sid Vicious, everybody hanging out. Like what I say, you look at punk, what they they call punk rock today these dudes are a fucking joke motherfuckers back in the day at max's would fucking stab you in the face 20 times with a bottle and kick and fucking they were just crazy motherfuckers like that's what like the ramones and all that shit they were like fucking you know they had a tough ass fucking crew with them. Like going to all the shows. I saw the Ramones in 77, fucking Dead Boys, you know, all of that shit. But to me, I like the energy of the punk rock music, even though it was fueled by violence and drugs. And like, you know, we taught the brat with a baseball bat.

Oh, yeah. Because I'm like'm like yeah that's that was you could connect with yeah you connected with that yeah it was just a violent and it was max's where it was like is that was that really like the epicenter of the scene there was it cbgbs and like you know hurrahs had shows and then you know later on there was other clubs too irving plaza and you know but i ended up getting incarcerated i racked up a bunch of charges on the street drugs violence breaking and entering and then they all ran concurrent i got locked up and then went into the navy all right wait well hold on a second here so how old wait so you're this drug mule

on the lower east side right and how old are you you're 14 years old and you stumble into max's how you're still that yet that young you're following these punk clubs well it was like the summer of 77 and and i didn't turn 15 till october 3rd so yeah you're like that young all right you start so you start getting collecting these petty charges for meal well see every time i would get arrested they would send me back to st john's and i would be like you know the boys home and i'd be like please they're like you're gonna go to spofford and that's where you don't want to go if you was a white boy because that was like rikers for 21 and under, and it was way worse than Rikers.

Because Rikers, motherfuckers just want to do their bid and get upstate. If some shit happens and you catch a case in Rikers, you got nothing in Rikers, no privileges, nothing. At least when you go to your prison shit, you got more things going on, right? Because you're just sitting in a fucking cell. So the motherfuckers that went to Spofford, like I just saw Tyson's one-man show, and when he showed the picture of Spofford, I go, P3, Mike! I yelled it out.

And he's like, I hear you, because, you know, Spofford was no joke. So they kept saying, you're going to go to Spofford, you're going to go to Spofford. Got busted again. They took me back. back they said this is the last time so when i got busted the third time for the angel dust sales that was it they were like you know they're all related to you mewling basically yeah breaking and entering well one was breaking and entering we we broke into the skyline of this fucking uh of this big supermarket in rockaway beach to break into the safe and like the next thing we know fucking spotlights hit us from the street and it was played the building was surrounded and you're you're 14 yeah like 15 if they beat the shit out of us like and then when

i got the angel dust charge they wanted me to rat out the dude in Forest Park that I was dealing for. And I didn't rat. So then they were like, you got two options. Rat out who your connection is so we can bust them. And then you can go to a drug rehab. Or you're going upstate. And you're going to Spofford and i was like i ain't no fucking rat send me to spofford and uh i went to spofford went to spofford i went upstate for

18 months like in real deal shit motherfuckers that were like you know attempted murder and murderers and you know being a white kid so you show up there you're one of the only like what's the survival i'm the only way so what's the survival mechanism like how do you get how do you find your way to get by i came from the street so my whole shit was and that's why i sing songs in the chromex like street justice and survival of the streets because you know if you don't stand up like i always knew that even when i got stabbed by the hitman, the fact that I fucking fought those motherfuckers with a chain, they were pissed off at me and put a contract out on me in, in,

in, in 1981, 1980. But they were like, yo, the dude got balls, you know, cause that's the whole law of the street was that you got to stand up for

yourself. Even if you fucking lose, you give it a go. And that's the way Spofford too but it's just that was the upbringing that you had you were trying you just that was the only way you were going to make it through yeah and then like when i went and then i got locked up i did 18 months 21 months total got out and i had nothing so right away what are you going to do i even was on scared straight the original shit they brought us to raw way they brought us to fishkill china's but like if you don't offer these kids an alternative you yeah okay i was scared for a week but when i got out of lockup

guess what there's no option there's no options there's nothing for me to do so what did i do i went back re-offended and then i was facing either going, getting locked up, or at that time, they were offering, you can go into the military. Because it was a drug charge, and it was like possession or whatever. So my mother was dating a Navy recruiter at the time, this dude, Ed McNulty. And he was like, I can get you in the Navy. So I chose the navy right and then like you know tried to go to buds got hurt you know i wanted to be like a seal what's buds seals buds

is basic underwater demolition seals it's like the seal boot camp i know what seals is yeah but i didn't make it i got fucking hurt in first phase and then like you know it's so where did they send you off to that i well i was on medical hold because i fucked my knee up and then they sent me to uh back to norfolk which was my duty station and uh and that's the life-changing event that i had i fucking i was into punk rock still and uh we were traveling down like military highway driving with all the squids in this fucking van and i hated the name i mean i went into the navy but you know like i really wanted to be a frog man and then when that shit wasn't gonna happen i was like these fucking you're kind of stuck it's all like hey man, man, fuck you, New York, like fucking redneck motherfuckers.

I'm like, you know, I just I didn't have nothing in common with them. So then we passed this sign that said like Taj Mahal, Bad Brains and fucking Bad Brains played it at night. And I just they fucking blew me the fuck away. And I had to meet these dudes and then like they're all like ja rastafari and vegetarian food i'm like what the fuck wait so hold on so so this is but you had when you were 14 15 you were popping in at max's right so you had you had been exposed to this yeah i like kind of scene so you knew the scene. I got the Clash, like, you know, 77, Ramones. So even in the Navy,

I was the only punk rock motherfucker on the whole Norfolk Naval Base. That's one thing the people that are looking at the screenplay I wrote now, they're like, you've always been an outsider

because when I was young, I liked black music and I still do. I grew up on Motown because they poured so much of their soul into the music like i would hide under my blanket every night in this foster home with this little fucking am radio that i found in the garbage listening to fucking motown and that's what got me through

all this shit and then like even in the navy i was like this anarchist punk rock fuck everything destroy everything you know fucking sex pistols fucking just like you know they didn't even let any navy people hang out at the Taj Mahal I said fuck you all the punk rockers in Norfolk hated navy people well these rednecks showed up at the bar one night and it was on the second floor fucking with everybody and all the punk rockers lost their nuts well guess who fucking broke beer mugs and chairs over their heads me so then that's how i kind of was like they were infiltrated is like then i started telling them stories about max's and they all were like fascinated by new york so then i was the token navy guy you know that

they let hang out so was was bad brains like were they from they were from there so they were playing there dc and they came down to the taj mahal and that shit was like this like spiritual experience and then you know hr they had another show coming up and they put me on the list for it and i went up to the 9 30 club yeah i know 9 30 i grew up in dc yeah and i went to the 9 30 and i seen him again and then hr got into this hole he's like yeah rastafari ja will direct you we will see each other again and then when i went awol from the navy because i couldn't take it no more i stayed at henry rollins and ian mck from Fugazi's house in D.C.

And after eating their food for like two weeks while they went to work, they're like, you got to get the fuck out. We love you, but your time has come. Go ahead, my son. Go on your journey. Henry Rollins tells people the whole shit about me living with him and Ian ian and then fucking like to take the walking tour too right because he's like yo if you want to hear the real history this motherfucker been around he does this walking tour so wait a minute all right so you skipped like five steps like i

want to keep it moving because you got like a million chapters of your life but uh so so hr from from bad brains he's the first guy who's like kind of planting this seed of a different way of yeah he was just like yo you know like this cosmic dude but really the whole thing was if anybody looks at old bad brains footage from 1982 c CBGBs or whatever. I mean, these dudes are on some next, you talk about powerful beings, man, and they were doing this music, amazing musicians. I mean, I saw Beat Acid. That was my gig when I was on the streets too at all the big concerts, Led Zeppelin and all that shit in the 70s at the Garden. So I saw all of those bands, the Who, Led Zeppelin and all that shit in the 70s at the garden so i saw all of those bands

to who led zeppelin the stones yes uh you you name it i've seen the whole concert all those bands bad brains blew them all away so when i saw that i didn't care what the fuck they could have been telling me to fucking eat twizzlers three times a day i would have fucking done it but they just happened to be embedded with this message of higher consciousness and then their sound man was like all into like gorjeef and ram das and like raw foods and uh just you know i'm it's this weird uh like mashup that and you know they're not the only punk rock guys that are into that kind of stuff. This extreme aggression in their music mixed with these guys like Ram Dass who are coming from this ethereal place. What do you think that is?

The Bad Brains were messengers 100% of... Definitely there's beings on this planet that are messengers a hundred percent of like definitely there's beings on this planet that are messengers of like a higher you know and then sometimes people get caught up in shit and then you know whatever but lose their way but i respect those dudes because especially hr the singer from the bad brains is like you know he pointed me in the direction of like when i had this talk with him about everything i've been through like you know he pointed me in the direction of like when i had just talked with him about everything i've been through like you know he's like why are you in the navy like and i explained the whole situation you know he was like a real spiritual big brother to me and then like

just linking up with that whole consciousness of that whole thing and everybody that was attracted and surrounded around them was all high vibrational people growing raw foods and like these amazing people were attracted to the bad brains camp and i was fortunate enough that when i went awol i hitchhiked this band the undead played at the 9 30 so wait a minute so you finally you just met your breaking point with the navy and you're like what happened i fucked this dude up on my ship the redneck that kept kept fucking with me and i beat him so bad with a i beat him with a full paint can but i hit him in all like the soft tissue parts of his legs and like his arms till he like shit himself because he kept fucking with me every

day and i was still taking drugs and i'm like dude you don't know me motherfucker you should not be don't you know why are you fucking with me don't fuck with me and then like one day i was just having a bad day i was restricted to the ship out at sea i did some shit in norfolk i got arrested selling weed and i sold drugs in the navy and everything acid everything i was a wild they didn't piss test back then when I was in. I was popping pills, acid, smoking weed. So I just was having a bad time out at sea. When the ship pulled into Bermuda, I was restricted.

I had to work in the fucking hot sun, and this dude just fucked with me on the wrong day. I locked him in the paint locker with me on the wrong day i locked them in the paint locker with me and i beat the shit out of them and then i got sent to the brig captain's mast and it was really weird like when you look at the whole that's why the whole evolution of a crow magnum which is my first book it really was like these crazy fucking steps that got me to where I ended up being because they put me in the brig and then they were, we were sailing down to fucking Rio, uh, Rio de Janeiro. And I had gotten a tooth pulled, uh, wisdom and that shit got so infected my face. They had to medevac me by helo off the fucking ship out in sea. And they sent me to Puerto Rico and they forgot to put in my orders that, yo, he's restricted to the ship.

He has to be handcuffed in the fucking hospital. Because they were trying to bring me up on felony assault charges. And then I had the drug charge too, which the Navy picked up. Because I sold drugs at this other club. The Kings had in. They busted me. So I had these charges. And then, like, all of a sudden, like, the dude,

when I went back to Norfolk, they also didn't know that I was restricted, so they had me in the transient personnel unit waiting for my ship to come back. So the dude who ran the whole fucking lockup it wasn't a lockup i was allowed to go out and everything but the transient personnel unit has lockup areas too and he's like uh mcgowan that's my name is john joseph mcgowan he goes uh your ships he he pulls me aside that morning and i'm like going out to do all my shit like he's like um your ship's pulling in today i'm supposed to put you in the lock up right now they didn't know that you fucking and he was like he gave me the nod gave me the heads up and i got on the motherfucking bus rode out the gate never looked back so did any of that come around to bite you later well you know uh

when i was in the crow mags one of the dudes who you know has been this ongoing bullshit whatever but the dudes uh ratted me out to the military the bass player and the guitar player turned me in i was awol 15 years you know fucking just doing it on mtv and everything with the chromex meanwhile i'm fucking awol i'm like on saturday night live awol like fucking just like yeah so like just crazy shit but i always feel that in that whole time i lived as a monk as a harikrishna and i just felt like the universe i had universal protection man you know as long as i did the right thing but so let's get let's get into that part i mean i don't want to skip any i mean every kind of step along your journey is is fascinating and you know a lot of it is because it's so different than,

you know, most people's life experience. But, you know, I want to get into the part where you kind of begin to have this spiritual awakening and, you know, kind of write your path and, you know, relying on those past experiences. I mean, you said a couple minutes ago, you know, you think these things happen to you, the worst thing ever. And you realize later, like you minutes ago you know you you think these things happen to you the worst thing ever and you realize later like you were you know they were divinely inspired or you were being protected or guided and and i believe that and i've experienced that in my life um so so you have this seed planted in you about kind of a higher path or a different way of living so like what's the next kind of kernel kernel of wisdom that comes your way well i got a job in this health food store in 81 called prana foods and it was run by the integral yoga

institute so they would give me free yoga classes but here in new york yeah so you you hightailed it back to new york yeah i hightailed it back to new york i caught a ride with the band the undead I found out they was from New York and I got out the van and the first motherfucker I saw was HR standing in the doorway of 171A and he's like yes Rastafari like I told you no bullshit dude I walked down this something told me walk down this street and he's standing in the doorway of 171a which was a studio where they every all the musicians lived it was like this fucking amazing community of motherfuckers coming over there like from the neighborhood and and and then like fucking i had that chain knife fight with the puerto ricans because they ran the big drug spot next door they

didn't want the punk rockers and so i was like they were smacking kids around in the show in 171a i was like yo how come nobody's fighting these motherfuckers what's up and jerry their sound man was like don't fuck with them they're a gang so i knocked the one dude out he pulled the knife on me i knocked him out and then i fought the other guys with a chain whatever but i ended up they gave me a job as their security and then while i was not on tour i worked at prana foods they got me i was able to get a job at this health food store that they went to every day and then while i was working there i think they gave me the job so i could give them free fucking sandwiches every day then but uh while i was working there i think they gave me the job so i could give them free fucking sandwiches every day then but uh while i was working there i ran into uh this dude that worked there and he had read all

a.c bhaktivedanta swami prabhupada's books and then we got into these you like jerry gave me all the ram das and all those books but i was still kind of you know a lot of it's speculation and stuff like that everybody like has their own theory or whatever i just didn't feel and i went to a lot of the meetings i went to a shree chin moi thing you know i was really in i'm like you know he rings a bell comes in fucking dude next to me drools on my fucking shoulder for an hour rings the bell they wake up okay buy my books fifty 50 a piece what's the uh the sri shin moi thing is a has a weird thing in new york with running too like there's some what's the relationship between i don't know because he did like some crazy he had definitely

some mystic power like mystic cities s-i-d-d-h-i-s like he was able to do shit like he has some weightlifting records at like 70 years old so like they're really into the whole fitness aspect and stuff like that i mean i think whatever it's cool it's just i didn't wasn't my pet resonate with you didn't resonate with no and then when i started reading pravapad's books and i went to a temple i was like wow man these people are living it they're up four o'clock every day chanting meditating like i don't know and his books just made so much sense i read this book that he wrote called the science of self-realization and you know but that's such a

drastic you know departure from the way you were living your life i mean there had to be something inside of you that was like magnetized by that i didn't know what it was it was just like a spiritual like a spiritual feeling like you know of serenity like you know what they say the brahma muhurta is two hours before the sunrise is the most peaceful time and the most advantageous time to meditate so when i got up at like brahma muortha and went up to the temple up in Midtown, I was just like, you know, this is like, you know, I just felt real peaceful. And then like reading the philosophy in the books, I was like, yo, I would like to give this a crack as, you know,

because when I get into something, I get into it. Like whether it's crack or whatever i go all the way so you definitely started getting up at 4 30 in the morning yeah i was getting up at 3 30 in the morning okay and so and how long of a time period did you like a few months and then i was like i would like to try to live this lifestyle and then they had this like boat in hawaii that sailed around the islands and since i had like boats and mate navigating skills and whatever yeah perfect they needed somebody to work on the boat they said in a in this magazine back to godhead so i was like called him up and he's like yeah come on out so i just you know went out there and lived as a monk for like a year and trained in martial arts up in the hills.

And they had a farm, the highest elevated farm on the Big Island. And then I lived in Coelho Way, too, up on the Pali Highway in the temple there. And I was like, it was, I honestly say, I mean, I've been on stage in front of 50,000 motherfuckers and done whatever and had amazing things. But the most peaceful time in my life and where I felt completely whole was just simply living with no possessions as a monk, getting up early in the morning for Brahma Muhurta, meditating, chanting, and just living on that but i i just kept feeling like all right i got this message but i gotta do something with it and since i had already been playing music with the crow mags and everything like i had this one encounter in hawaii i was out giving out books and this girl and her boyfriend had just seen the Bad Brains in the West Coast and they're like wearing the shirts.

I was like, yo, I know them. And then I ended up leaving the temple and coming back to New York. But you skipped a step about forming the Cro-Mags. Yeah, well, while I was living in 171A, I started rehearsing with the dudes in the band and putting this band together and we didn't know what it was going to be called or anything, but we started. Had you ever played music before? I mean, what was your?

HR was like, you have to play music. He was like, he's the dude who took the mic and said, put it in my hand. It was like, I wanted to be a drummer. He's like, you got way too much energy to be a drummer. Fuck that. And then he just was like, he started trying to hook me up with bands and since i knew harley because i met him opening up for the bad brains in dc and then he opened up for black market babies i met him twice so everybody was hanging out around the studio

171a and we'd have these jam sessions all night long. So we started putting the band together, and then we started writing songs, and then two dudes in the band quit, so it just didn't really happen at that point. And then I went to live at the temple. I see. And then when I came out, he put the band back. He's like, I want to put the band back together.

So we worked on this album called the age of quarrel which just got voted the number they put the top 20 uh heavy metal punk rock albums of all time by any new york band we were number two wow so like yeah just beneath what uh forget who the fucking main guys were but yeah we were like ramones or something yeah some big shit and then like yeah they said chrome eggs like you know and that that was your first album that was our first album but after that it just became how old were you when you recorded that that was 84 so i was 22 you know and uh we got we were getting ripped off by the manager fucking playing like arenas and coming back i was living in burnt out buildings fucking fighting puerto rican wait a

minute so so you're you're you're living in this you come back from hawaii and then you guys go you get this band back together and somehow you get into the studio and then i like kind of like floated around and then i moved into the the New York temple for like nine months, six, seven, eight months or whatever. And then I was like, that's when I really was like, I would go out, be feeding the homeless people at Tompkins Square Park, and I would see Harley and be like, come on, man. Fuck this Krishna shit.

Come, let's do the band. And I was like, this is my calling prabu so did you have the whole the shaved head and the whole thing and the robe and the whole deal so what do you think i mean good at the bells you're very good before we move off of this i want to you know we we all see the harry krishnas and the finger symbols and the chanting in the park and all of that and there's a lot of sort of mystery and misconception. If you peel back the layer of what that chanting is. So, yeah, why don't you just explain a little bit about what that is. The Maha Mantra, mantra means to free the mind.

Man means mind, trub means to deliver, and Maha means the great mantra. It's the chanting purifies anybody that hears that chanting. It's a spiritual sound vibration. So I used to chant japa two hours a day now if you try to chant coca-cola coca-cola coca-cola coca-cola for two hours you can't do it but this is a spiritual sound vibration hari krishna and rama so i would chant every single day and then you know you go out chant in the streets what's called Hari Nam,

and it's just an amazing thing because people think you're brainwashed, but you ain't. You're on another fucking vibration that's so powerful. It's just ecstatic symptoms, and you're smiling, and you're happy. And if you look at everybody in the material world, they're fucking miserable because if you do not as as a spirit soul engage the spirit soul in time some type of spiritual activity whatever it is it basically dries and shrivels shrivels up you know use it or lose it kind of you know you're meant to do spiritual things in your life whatever path it is but if you just only do things for the material body then you know so that's why it may look to the outsider like these are brainwashed

fucking people but the philosophy is deep i mean you'll never i mean pravapada's books are in every university and praised by scholars sanskrit's the oldest language in the world the vedas are the oldest spiritual teachings that's where all yoga comes from so the numb nuts that are all in there farting in yoga class with spandex and they're just coming out and smoking cigarettes that's not yoga that's fucking gymnastics real yoga means self-control you control the senses control the mind by the intelligence. It's a very, very deep process. It actually goes through the Vedic literature,

goes through all the eight rungs of the yoga ladder system. You know, everything. Hatha yoga is just meant to prepare your body to sit in meditation for long periods of time. That's why you do it. It's not the end all. Just like eating fucking vegetables ain't the end all there's a higher it's always the next evolution you know so when i read the books and everything else man i was like and it wasn't about how somebody told me i should be feeling it's about how i was feeling from doing it that's why if you look i still got my b bag with me and i still chant to

this day 30 is that your b bag that you had that's my japa mala is in that it's beautiful those tulsi beads are from india and i chant every single day because it connects you to the spiritual it connects you to the spiritual vibration you know it's just like if you plug in, if you try to have energy and you ain't plugged into the power in the wall, you ain't going to have no energy. You know, if you want to run your computer or, you know, so when you plug into the the powerhouse of spiritual vibration. And that's why even I don't agree with what the leaders did, because just like any other spiritual movement, it's a fucking pyramid scam. Now, Prabhupada and the reason Allen Ginsberg and everybody else helped him was he slept on the floor. He had no possessions. He fed everybody else that ever came in his center before he took one grain of Basmati rice and cleaned everything and served everybody. These guys that are running the fucking movement today are a bunch of fucking charlatans.

And they've created a pyramid scheme where they exploit all their underlings. And the underlings want to move up so that they can then have their disciples and exploit them for money. Now Prabhupada had no possessions. Now you got motherfuckers. They're fucking totally full of shit. They got millions of dollars in offshore bank accounts that they stole from everybody. So, you know, I've gone against these people completely.

And I say Prabhupada is the real teacher. That's the real master. Because Acharya in Sanskrit means one who leads by example. completely and i say prabhupada is the real teacher that's the real master because acharya in sanskrit means one who leads by example he led by example he was had more humility than any of you people and was more renounced he was in the renounced order of life sannyasi so how are you a fucking sannyasi when you got you know millions of dollars in bank accounts and all this property and all this shit you're a fucking swindler you know and papa said watch out that demoniac souls will come dressed as devotees to destroy this movement from within and he said that if they knew what i came here to teach

that meaning the government and those in power, they would have killed me. Right. Because, you know, everybody's trying to make the material world, you know, the prison house a nice place. But Prabhupada's message was, get out of the material world. You know, we don't care. We're going to grow our own organic food. We don't care what you do. We got our own thing going on. And some of the most intelligent people in society were taken to the movement the thinkers the scholars when they read prahapada's books

he translated bhagavatam bhagavad-gita all of that you know harvard scholars were joining and then all of a sudden now harry krishna 30 years later is the butt of jokes why why is that? Think about it. So I got to really get in there before it really started flipping over to what it is now. So I got to meet people that had direct contact with Prabhupada, and they were very, very special souls,

and saw how they were just so humble humble and you know it's a it's a movement of service the sankirtan movement is you know prabhupada didn't need to go come on a boat at 70 years old from india and cross two oceans and have two heart attacks and just to try to because his guru in india said you have to get this message out to the Western world. People are suffering in ignorance. And, you know, Prabhupada started the whole vegetarian movement in America. All those gurus up on Fifth Avenue were all eating fucking steak. Prabhupada really started the whole vegetarian yoga.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, and he was friends with Swami Satch and on swami satchin and on the and he said he's a yoga nanda yeah he said there's a few these guys that are the real deal and the rest of them are a bunch of hoodwinkers that came to the east to came to the west to exploit people and that's you know but when i mean from your own personal experience you know we all can only tell from our own personal experience. And obviously, this has been a very, very deep, deep transformative event in your life and experience about how you got in touch with your soul and were able to transcend some of the difficulties and challenges that you were born into. Yeah, I mean, speak to this idea of just how power, I mean, for you to be able to transcend your circumstances,

which are horrific by any definition, the power of these teachings and these tools and these principles that you were able to hear at this time. I mean, it's kind of amazing. I mean, like what you said before you see you know some something as a bad situation but then i'm like my particular set of circumstances prepared me and i would not trade any every fucking night i spent in that fucking foster home or on the streets or sleeping and fucking under a boardwalk and fruit

in the middle of winter or whatever i would never trade any of those experiences for everything because all of that made me who the fuck i am and like brought you know it was all part of the growth plan that you know krishna or the universe or whatever if you you know you know that it you know it was all to to to make me a stronger person really and uh you know they ain't shit that could phase me in this world now because i'm like i've been through the fucking battles so and now i try to really pay it forward as they say and, and help other people going through shit. And there's many ways to do that. Some people, it ain't going to be so much about the food.

Maybe it could be whatever their interests are. I try to find some way to relate to them, to get through to them, and fan the spark like what i was saying you know and that's i spend a lot of time now helping other people that's going through a lot of fucking crazy shit because i feel it's my duty to do that because you know i was giving gifts and you had you know you really do have a spiritual karmic bank account. All these motherfuckers that you see, they're making all this money and hoarding it and they don't help nobody. Wait till you see in the next life

what's fucking waiting for them. It's like, you know, they'll be born one of those people somewhere where they are under the worst circumstances because if you're giving, you know, certain facility in this life you have to use that for the benefit of all the humanity and not hoard it and and that's what we have now especially in this country if you look at the the lines between the rich and the poor it's just it's fucking incredible i think it was like i just read some statistic that like three percent of

americans own all the wealth in america like some crazy statistics that's just fucking bananas man right like you know you you have to help and that's one of the other reasons i switched to a plant-based diet and stuck with it because this whole scarcity of food myth, if everyone would just switch to a plant-based diet, we can end world hunger within one year. There'd be no starving people, but we're feeding all of these resources to animals to eat them. And here's a great example of what they're doing in europe now they started cutting down the rainforests and all the all the land in africa too to graze animals so they kill those animals and guess where that fucking meat goes that meat don't go to fucking feed starving africans that meat's going to fucking

feed fat fucking europeans oh your phone's ringing sorry i was making a buzz there that's all right um yeah so when did the when did the plant when did it when did the whole plant-based thing begin with you i mean was that a result of the the krishna experience while you were there or that happened afterwards the bad brains were like you have to be ital man you can't eat no babylon fuckery man it was like pure food it's like babylon trying to kill you with this poison man you can't fuck with it man and then i started meeting all these amazing fucking dudes like jwe jerry williams was all into the raw food shit and i was like yo victorius kavinskas i went to his see him speak at integral yoga institute so like that's when this is like early 80s this is fucking 80 like more like early 81 and then i just at first i

was like still being a knucklehead in 80 like eating meat and fucking you know drinking and then when after that fight happened then i got stabbed hr was like you could stay with us you can't eat no meat you can't drink and you can't take drugs and i was like all right i'll give it a shot and you just gave it up that was your version of rehab yeah yeah it was like rastafari you got smoke as much guns as you want, man, but you can't eat fucking meat. The Rasta version of sobriety. Of scared. I wasn't scared straight.

I was scared stoned. Yeah. So you start doing this, and this becomes, I mean, what has made you, like it seems like in the last, you've been doing this for a long time, but what leads you to this place where you want to write books about it and now you've really kind of come out of the closet like this is a big thing for you. Oh, you mean about the food. Yeah.

I'm just fucking around. I mean, you've been living this for a long time. Well, I wrote the first book, Evolution, and part of that whole book i wrote my awakening was when i stopped eating animals like something clicked in me where it was like i stopped you know the consciousness of that animal and their fear and all of that shit goes into the flesh it's proven just like we have a dream i was like when i stopped consuming the carcasses of dead animals and all of that fucking pain of that animal for its whole life something in me changed like i was like i just became less violent i mean not that i wouldn't i still fucked motherfuckers up i

was like a you know i wasn't i was never a bully though i just want to say that i always defended people i hated bullies because i was bullied on as a kid by older dudes in in homes and shit so i always hated bullies i stood up for the for the for the innocent and the weak people i couldn't defend themselves. But I just became very peaceful and like, wow, man, like, you know, I started reading these books and then like, you know, I would read where Ram Dass be here now would be like, you know, just meditate and look at his point. And then I just started doing stuff like, like actual practices. And that's when I got into the chanting and all the other stuff but like

i knew that was it i was like i ain't never eaten meat fish eggs none of that shit but let's say like if someone's listening to this and they're they're eating the standard american diet and they're like this guy sounds like he believes what he's saying but like you know like what does he mean like give me an example of i mean you the fighting thing the violence thing i mean that's palpable but like when you say i'm taking in a different vibration and that changed the way that i felt or my consciousness like what you know can like can you be more specific about that yeah it was uh i don't know it was like this heavy you know just from eating that food it was like this heavy like angry like you know every fucking little thing got under my skin and like i think that too was the background

but what i tell people now is i say yo give it a try for like two weeks and watch what happens i try to be practical about it i was like everybody's not gonna have the same experience as i had but i guarantee you if you do what i tell you like even when i wrote in meters for pussies i'm like dude be a fucking scientist what What is a scientist? You have a formula, you apply it, and you get a result. Don't alter the formula. And I'm telling you, if you take this formula and you apply it as is without altering it, this is the result you're going to get. And what is the formula?

And the formula is eliminate animal fucking products from your fucking diet. You know, sit down, stop, get out of like Bob Marley says, this is the rat race. Start taking fucking inventory of what your life is about. Slow the fuck down. We've been created like these cogs in a machine to just go, go, go. Go where? Where the fuck are you going? Take inventory of your life and what the fuck you're doing where are you going who am i what's the purpose of life to make a lot of money you know why there's no fucking racks on top of a hearst because you can't take it with you that's not the goal of fucking life and and then just start really taking inventory go do a meditation class you know go

you know start meditating on your own in your room like i did just stop the incessant flow of fucking bullshit that's being constantly there's a reason these lower vibrations are being fucking pumped at you constantly text messaging twitter google tv radio commercials flashing everywhere it's all designed to entrap you in the maya in the illusion and that's really what it boils down to they have you in their fucking grip and the minute you extricate yourself from that situation and pull back, question every fucking thing you're putting in your body from intoxicants to whatever, guarantee you, man, I'm just like the next motherfucker in line. You're not going to have the same experience as me because we have different backgrounds.

But I guarantee you, you're going to start to feel those similar higher vibrations and you only get those if you give up the lower vibrations that's what me and your wife right julie we were talking about that it's like you're being programmed constantly with all this fucking shit by these like people that want to keep the masses ignorant because when masses are ignorant they could be exploited. Well, and it's so easy to be on autopilot, you know, easier than ever because you're like you said, you're inundated with so many messages that are subliminally, subliminally, subliminally, you know, guiding you towards these decisions that you're not even consciously making. We're getting ebonic here. That you spend your time.

consciously making we're getting ebonic here that you spend your time and you actually have to have like a a spine to hit the brakes on that and like take stock and responsibility for those choices and decisions and look honestly at yourself and say you know what like it is kind of bullshit that i'm spending all my time doing this or that well you know that's hard that's hard that's like your book and certain books that have come out this book that book it's that proverbial like slap in the fucking face like when you see a bad b movie and the act the actress is fucking hysterical and fucking boom that's what this knowledge is it's that proverbial smack in the fucking face like wake up out of the fucking insanity you know the vedas say exactly what this is this is the kali yuga the iron age of quarrel and hypocrisy look at these fucking politicians and these motherfuckers that are doing all this

shit monsanto all the rest of them poisoning people for profit it's like you know these are fucking these are not nice people these are bad fucking people that are capitalizing just like i was talking about before the idiot cycle in this documentary that this woman traced all these companies putting out this poison can be traced back to the drug companies that profit off of the sales of their medicine to fight the diseases that their products cause right so these are not nice fucking people so it's like you know the whole thing is to extricate yourself from all of that bullshit and just slow the fuck down and take some inventory of what the fuck you're doing in

this life. Yeah. And by doing that, then you allow yourself to get in touch with your authenticity and who you are. And then the next step is self-responsibility. So you have to make your own choices and your own decisions but from a place of power and awareness and knowledge well you know what i say you can't stay stuck on stupid you can't when you get the fucking knowledge it's not just enough to have

the knowledge you have to apply the knowledge we don't want armchair philosophers. We want motherfuckers that go out and do shit. Like, all right, you have this knowledge. I just learned something. If I learned something, say in triathlon or whatever, I have to fucking then apply that shit when the moment comes up. Just like my friend, I ain't going to lie, I had anger issues too. My friend was just like, yo, take a deep breath, step the fuck back, man, before you start swinging. And even up to the last six or seven years ago, I was getting in trouble with that because people in New York, especially, would pop shit to you or whatever. I'd just knock a motherfucker out quick, elbow, whatever.

And I stopped doing all that. First of all, it's very expensive because you get fucking sued. And court cases and fucking all this shit. But the other thing is I had to control, you know, crota in Sanskrit means the anger. I have to control you know croda in sanskrit means the anger i i i have that you know that's just that's that i mean you're hardwired for that you know for you to be able to overcome that keep that shit in control and channel that that all that energy i have that could go to something negative i gotta put that shit in something positive like you know like even

meeting the firefighter or whatever like just stopping motherfuckers and being like i mean just triathlon is that part of the triathlon equation for you 100 i mean when did that begin when did that whole thing start you know i kind of always wanted like i've always raced bikes and swam and fucking ran and did marathons and kept fit was in the gym martial arts whatever and i was like i would always see like the kona fucking iron man back in the 80s the old days mark allen scott tinley fucking all of those motherfuckers then i'd be like i want to fucking do that shit someday like wow man and see the tour de france in like fucking 83 whatever. So then in the last couple years, I've just been like,

all right, I want to start. I want to take this shit up. And then I was going to Sid's, and this dude Larry was like, yo. Sid's is a bike shop. Yeah, Sid's is a bike shop in New York. Pro shop. They had an Ironman triathlon team. So my boy Larry that worked at Sid's was like, yo, there's this dude, Orion Mims.

He's like, yo, he's a fucking stud. Big brother, man. Big black dude, all fucking inked up. Realest motherfucker ever. And he's like, you know, he had a fucking rough upbringing too. The streets of New York and the fucking bad neighborhoods. He's like, yo, man, we're all fucking dealing with our demons, man. I have to fucking do iron man and

train every day and he took me under his wing as like a coach and i just love the feeling of like you know like to me it's just like i don't even care i'm not i know i'm not terrific at it i finish i start what i you know but it's like it's just part of the whole, like, you know, mindset of like, yo, I'm gonna fucking be out there like 11, 12, 13 motherfucking hours. I don't care what it takes. I'm gonna finish this. And, you know, that's what it's, and it just puts you in this, I mean, you know, because you're at the top of the fucking game and it's like you get on this next level of consciousness man for me something clicks in when i'm racing and training and i just love it it's like a high to challenge myself and the camaraderie of i hate the douchebag uh cyclists and fucking douchebag

runners and there's douchebags everywhere even in fucking triathlon i just don't so i like i've met so many amazing people though that the whole fucking the other motherfuckers i don't even give two shits about because i'm like yeah okay get off that bike and i'll fucking smash you in your face i'm just kidding no but i mean i think there's a had that conversation there's there is this uh you, there's definitely a relationship between kind of the pursuit of triathlon and the pursuit of kind of a higher state of consciousness. And all of that, you know, kind of Krishna meditation tools and yoga and all of that. I think they're very analogous, you know, practices. Absolutely, man.

I mean, that's the whole thing is like I'm very regimented and military in my whole approach towards everything. Like my sadhana, it's called in Sanskrit, like every day I fucking get up. I know I got to chant. I got to do this. I got to train. It's like I like to be regimental in the way that i approach things because you know i mean for me and they say it the idle mind is the devil's

workshop yeah and you're gonna if you ain't doing something positive you're gonna get involved in some bullshit especially in this fucking city so i just absorb my time either with writing my books, my screenplays, training for triathlon, mentoring other people. I just raced for Covenant House. I raised $5,000 for them. So I'm always trying to fill my life up, fill the bowl with positivity, man.

So that you don't make enough shit. I've extricated myself from so much bullshit because I just don't hang out anymore at all. Do you ever get frustrated with all the things you have to do on a daily basis just to feel normal or grounded? No, because it's kind of like part of my makeup. It's in my DNA at this point. I don't even feel like...

I never get the feeling like, oh, my God, I have to do all this shit today. I'm like, I love doing it. I love waking up, turning on my computer, chanting, doing my fucking training, you know, going out to feed the homeless, whatever it it is that's on on the fucking chalkboard for the day you know uh i just i i kind of embrace every day man like well that's just that's a that's functional practicing of gratitude right gratitude and action yeah and service with all this all the giving back i mean not for nothing dude you're a huge

inspiration to me i look to like guys like you and brendan brazier and scott jurick and the rest of them that's out there you know even like i was telling you about david goggins like right even when i was having my toughest days training i just was because my boy is a seal he's friends with him i met david when he tried to do the Chin Up record at Rockefeller and he tore his bicep. But I look at dudes who are just pushing the fucking envelope and I'm like, who am I to complain about anything? I never take that victim role, man. Like, ooh, you know, it would be such an easy cop out. oh man, like, oh, you know, it would be such an easy cop out.

I know a lot of people that come from my background that became scumbags and justified doing fucked up shit to people because they had it rough. I don't never take that cowardice path. I'm like, you know, it's really to show people, look, man, if I made it through all this you know you can too that's the last thing that i wrote in my book and is the true code of the warrior is like never give up you know no matter what you're going through you just gotta fucking put your head down and and get it done yeah i told you that um i told you i saw Goggins the other week, right? So we're out.

It's 120 plus degrees out. He's running bad water, and he's right behind Dean, the guy that I'm pacing. So I would see him throughout the day, right? Is Dean the guy that ran across the country? Yeah, exactly. Same guy. And David was struggling. He was having a hard time. And there were a couple times where I thought you know i don't know if he's gonna he's gonna make

it so early it's still so early in the race and you know he looked like he was really struggling and that guy like finished that race and just maintained his gap behind dean the whole time and like the sheer force of like will that he had to demonstrate to get through that is like a stout. It's beyond, you know what you can fathom. Well, he went through buds at 260 pounds. Yeah.

I think he was 280, 280. Right. And any guy who's like going for the world record and, and pull-ups and then like, what is it like nine months later, he's running bad water. Like it's,

it's unbelievable. Well, I think he actually went back, had surgery on his bicep, and then broke the record. Oh, he broke it? Yeah. Oh, he just didn't do it on the Today Show. No, I think he didn't.

I didn't know that. He tore his bicep on the Today Show, but I think, don't quote me 100%, but I think he healed up and went back and broke the record. Oh, I didn't know that. Because I met this other frog man when i did uh cabo this guy was racing for navyseals.com and he uh he knew my boy that was in act of valor the movie and i was like yeah i saw a guy and and i think he said if he tried or he tried to or he did or whatever i'll look into it you know the mind is so much more powerful than what the body is.

That's the point I'm trying to make. The mind. But that's somebody who has mastery over it, you know what I mean? And so how do you develop, you know, what are the tools, what's the pathway to develop a greater mastery over that so that your body isn't, like, telling you what to do, you're telling it what to do. Just practice every day, man, you know?

Like, that's what i find works for me i mean you know i've had a lot of conversations with my mind believe me fucking homes and lockups you're sitting in a fucking cell and you know like and it says in the in in the bhagavad-g the mind, for the conditioned soul, the mind is his worst enemy. But for a liberated soul, the mind could be the best of friends. So your mind is a tool. It's supposed to be controlled by the intelligence. Your intelligence is supposed to dictate to the mind, okay. The higher consciousness over the thinking mind.

Divine intelligence. Right, exactly. So, like, you know, you know what you should be doing but the mind is your is your worst enemy gonna tell you to do anything good for yourself no it's gonna tell you yeah go fucking smoke that crack like you know do this do that like you know but at this point i'm like i start the intelligence then kicks in, the spiritual intelligence, like, well, you know what's going to be waiting for you if you do do that fucked up activity?

I'm able to step back more, and that's, I think, Iron Man has given me that. You know what it is. You're out there fucking training and running, and it's like you and your motherfucking mind, and I've become more of like a master of realizing the tricks of the mind because the mind's job which it says you have to beat it with a stick every fucking day and that's the absolute truth because you know even

when you're hurting in a race it's going to to tell you, and then you have to use your, you start using your tricks. Like, okay, just get through this five miles, man. Just fucking, you know, like when I did Cabo,

I was sunburned like a motherfucker, dude. It was like brutal cycle, 7,000 feet of elevation. And then I'm like in the transition, the T2 tent, like fucking changing. And I'm cracking jokes and laughing and if i would

have sat there being like oh my god i gotta run 26.2 miles now i would have fucking dnf but i don't right i don't get to that point i'm like i'm like yeah can you bring me some fucking vaseline and a banana and no i'm not up to anything over here like Like, you know, like I just try to keep it light and keep the mind so it's not going to fucking crack me, you know? Right. Well, I mean, the arc of your life is so, you know, severe. I mean, was there something inside of you even when you were younger that knew like you were going to find a way out or?

I know. I knew what it was. I knew because we used to fantasize when we was in this home i mean these people were so fucked up to us if you read my book they starved us we weren't allowed in the house the dudes were beating us the older foster kids were abusing us doing fucked up you know the fucked up shit sexually abusing us so it's like the only way we had to what was to like fantasize about like you know one of these days we're gonna get a van and travel we were always into music we could play our eight tracks and travel all over the country in a van that's what our big dream

was we would steal like we'd have to steal food from like supermarkets and shit to eat but we would steal these van custom van magazines the custom vans are really big in the early 70s and we would be like that's the van we want like and then like the palm tree on the side like something little round window somehow or another i knew i was going to be involved in music it was just something that i always knew i didn't know how but music always was what got me through my fucked up times and i was like you know and then to become this musician who's like traveled all over the fucking world and i mean it's really was like you know definitely the divine inspiration saying like, yo, this is your path. And I've used the band not to be a rock star asshole, but to really kind of reach out.

Always stay, you know, grounded and help use the band to help other people, you know, because if people look up to you then you have to say like yo we're on the same level but let me turn you on to this you know this is what i do because they want to know what do you do and i tell them this is what i do you know and that's the reason i started taking up iron man now because it's like it's it's a way to show a lot of these dudes and kids and whatever like yo if you put the work in man you could you could do anything you want but it's like i said in a book never never surrender don't give in don't give up right you know stay on the fucking path don't take no for an answer you have to drita vrata in sanskrit means single-minded determination you want something you got to go after it it's not good shit don't come cheap you have to put

the fucking work in that's the thing this is this is the you know this is the microwave society everybody wants everything over you know instant stardom overnight you know i'm gonna be on fucking star search and whatever the fuck these you know i'm gonna be on fucking star search and whatever the fuck these you just you just dated yourself with a star search sorry what's the show called now america's got talent american idol or whatever the fuck american idol but it's like in sanskrit there's a words for that and it's it's sahaja it means one who takes things cheaply like if you get shit that way how you know what i'm saying it's like if you're looking for the easy road man what you're gonna get ain't gonna be anything worth keeping man yeah you have to put the work in you know even

my relationship now with my lady i got a a great girl. We fucking, you know. Hi, Erica. Yeah. But she's a dope, you know, that's like really I hate to, you know, because sometimes that's a corny phrase. We want to know about her. No, but she's dope. She's a plant-based, you know, fucking two black belts in martial arts. She fucking helps women.

That's good good so she can kick your ass if needed well don't get i don't know about that no we already had that uh demonstration don't make them angry no no but she's badass because she's you know she's a super humble she's a powerhouse man i met her you know helps women self-defense it helps women get in shape and get some more fucked up food and like she's just a good person and i'm really lucky to have her in my life at this point you know like she was definitely you know and it's like i even resisted it because i was like nah i don't want no fucking relationships but she's like motherfucker i'm the one you're supposed to be with you're gonna fucking realize that like she had to fucking

read me the riot act and i was like oh shit this chick's badass yeah you know well good man i'm happy for you but we gotta we gotta get into the um the other thing that you're super passionate about which is kind of the outgrowth of of this healthy lifestyle and plant-based nutrition is uh is kind of what's going on with the gmos right now like you've got some fascinating opinions on that and well let's get it's not just opinions no i mean those are your assholes everybody's got one you know especially these days but i've been all right man lay the facts out all right i've been following this shit since the 80s when they first tried to implement codex alimentarius they being they being the pharmaceutical companies that have

kind of taken control of america's health and and you know like the documentaries that are coming out now and i just tell them to people to see one amazing documentary about the whole thing that busts the whole shit wide open is a documentary by jeffrey smith um it's called genetic roulette and it just really exposes the whole genetically modified food shit what they're up to what they're doing monsanto the you know the world according to Monsanto is another one. But Genetic Roulette really proves by the scientific evidence that they did in 1992, the FDA hired their own scientists to investigate the dangers of GMOs. They found there was over, I think, 10,000 pages of documentation of the ill effects of genetically modified food endocrine disruptors

you name it the pesticide levels they were spraying on everything now because michael taylor was the overseer of the fda he buried all of that fucking information and that report was never allowed to come out now who does obama go and fucking nominate as the food safety czar of America? Michael Taylor. The fucking CEO, patent attorney, and all these, you know, basically he's a shill for fucking Monsanto. And this is the guy you're putting in charge of the food safety of America? I mean, it's a joke. So when you start paying attention to what these gmo foods are doing to people look it's not just about like you know oh you know people should have a right to know

like what the fuck they're eating i want they should they should in california they decided they didn't want to though the prop 37 because you know why because those companies went paid off a lot of motherfuckers to have them vote against it and even the organic farmers got the fuck out yeah they were able to change the dialogue to convince people that this would drive up the price of their foods listen if you really watch what's going on and and that's a bunch of bullshit because the scarcity myth is the main thing that gmo g crop yields, when you start looking at what happens, the research that's really been done about crop yield and everything

like that, if you start paying attention to the numbers, the crops produce less down the road. It's not a way, it's controlling the food, but what it's ultimately about and that's what i wrote on my shirt that i gave you enjoy monsanto food okay you now have a chemical company that's responsible for producing more carcinogenic chemicals than any company on the face of the fucking earth in the history of the earth and now they're producing your food so the only the whole thing that they don't tell you is the real goal is to sell more roundup and more pesticides because you have to use their chemicals on their seeds for the shit to work so it's really about taking control of the world seeds that's why now you have the chem trails going over every

fucking city and blowing all over the farms all in hawaii and everything and why is ground zero for testing because we were talking about this at dinner but hawaii is the one place where people really are up and arms about this and they really are protesting that's because they're ground zero for the testing of fucking of of the gmo aluminum resistant seed right now and they're bombarding the fucking hawaiian islands with chemtrails because it's a it's it's a contained environmental study that they're doing these companies and i know an organic farmer out there and she's telling me what the fuck is going on out there. She reads all my posts, and she's like, this shit is happening 100%. So I think a lot of the farmers that do the organics out there, if you watch What in the World Are They Spraying,

they interview one of the organic farmers from Hawaii, and he's saying our yields are down. So really, it's about total control. Look, Kissinger said, you control the oil, you control nations, you control the food, you control the people. It's about control. Look what's going on in this country. They want to control the masses, keep them ignorant. They don't want them eating high vibrational foods.

That's going to awaken them. You might have an independent thought if you do that yeah awaken their consciousness they want you plugged into the fucking tmz to the bullshit who cares about the fucking royal baby did the royal baby shit on himself this morning like every other baby hell yeah he fucking did who cares about all of this bullshit that's going on anthony wieners, Wiener, whatever the fuck. It's like, let's get to the real motherfucking issue that there's fucking people sick and dying

that don't need to be fucking sick and dying in this country and being kept as a fucking sheeple. And that's what they're creating, is sheeple. And the food's part of it. Because that's why they don't want people getting off the grid and growing their own fucking food and all of this shit because they want you plugged into the system. I mean, really look into the Obamacare fucking thing because a lot of it is really fucking getting into your rights and really keeping tabs on you now it's a lot deeper than just okay he's providing you know look into all the deeper aspects it's more surveillance on people it's you just see what's really the orwellian fucking society is coming about and the last

we're not not only is it i mean you know sort of george orwell predicts this society but what he didn't predict is that we would all volunteer for it that's right i mean actually it even says that that we will we're begging them because of what they've been able to do since you know 2001 protect us take out rights sure pass the patriot act do this do that you know irritate our food please protect us from ecoli meanwhile that kills all the phytonutrients in the fucking food and rendering it just simple vegetable matter with no nutrients so when you look at what the fucking big picture is of what's going on but you know what darkness cannot exist in light once you fucking bring the lamp into the room the darkness is dissipates and that's really why i i go around

i'm not trying to fight the new you know the only way you beat these motherfuckers is by consciousness is by every person waking up you're not going to outdo them militarily but it's like you know what fuck you fuck your system we don't care about it we're gonna go grow our organic stuff and live you know these high consciousness lives and i don't really give a fuck what you do but that's when the issues see and they know that and that's why they're going and spraying these this geneal engineering shit all over the fucking all over the land everywhere is because they know that that's what people are doing now. They're starting to fucking really pay attention. This is, you know, this is the golden period, the age of Aquarius, where people are really wakening up, man. I'm telling you, I've been doing this shit 30-something fucking years, man, and I'm seeing people are starting to fucking wake up. As much darkness and chaos as there is, there's also a lot of fucking people waking up spiritually and becoming aware.

I mean, you go in the restaurants and they're fucking packed with people. Just for instance, I had a layover in LA for two hours and I went to fucking Veggie Grill over there. And the fucking, the church, the black church led out across the way from Veggie Grill. It was a Sunday. The whole place was filled with these amazing people.

I swear to God. And then I'm sitting there and they're all like, yeah, you know, you don't have to eat the meat, man, because that's killing people. That meat is poisoning people. And this is just this tastes just like meat. And the guy's breaking it down to all the people

in his congregation. And I'm like, that's the fear of the motherfuckers that's doing all this shit is that scenes like that where people are starting to wake up. Like I say, I know what worked for me, man. Eliminating all of that bad energy from those animals that I would be ingesting was a huge step in my awakening of consciousness you know so if it works for me it could you know it could work for the next person in line it actually is but yeah and i think it's you know i think for for a lot of people it's a leap of faith to say

like oh you're you know you take in this tortured animal there's a violent energy that you're taking in you're taking in a violent vibration and that has an impact on you know your mood or your behavior or your consciousness or you know for a lot of people that's that's challenging oh no way that's cool um he just got an email he just showing me he got an email from brendan brazier yeah his ears are burning um but i i mean i i certainly feel strongly that that's true and it's this the kind of the analogy that i use is that you know it's it's like the company you keep you know what i mean like when you're surrounding yourself with high vibrating positive people then that has an impact on your

consciousness your behavior ultimately you know in the long term your personality and your choices you know you surround yourself with low vibrating people and you're going a different direction why is it any different from what you're actually taking inside your body right absolutely i mean that's that saying you know you could tell a person by the company they keep. To me, I'm like, if you're ingesting all of this fucking shit, some of these Bible dumpers are always like, it's not what goes in a man, it's what comes out. I'm like, well, how about the fact that what goes in a man affects what comes out?

You ever think about fucking that one there, Shakespeare? Think about it. Yeah. It's fucking, if I drink a bottle of fucking vodka, is anything good going to come out of what the fuck I'm going to do from that? Definitely not. But I think, too, one of the main things and what I touch upon is, like, I've seen a lot of fucking crazy motherfuckers that I've grown up with

in New York City that have done ill shit and the real game changer with them is when they had a kid now that these dudes have kids they put it it's kind of like the most self selfless act and you know becoming a parent because now you put the welfare of your child in front of your own like well fuck that i like fucking doing whatever because now i got dudes that are like yo blood clot like what's up with this fucking veggie shit like i don't want my fucking kids eating these fucking what do you call them gm gnos or whatever right like you know they're starting to suddenly they have an interest in something they would have never they start to say well look man i don't want to poison my fucking kids like you know then the gmos i mean you have to look at something and

and this is what some you know how do the pesticides that go on kill on those plants kill those bugs due to central nervous system and now they have ones that blow up the stomachs of the bugs so why would you feed that to your child why would you feed something so deadly that it's a neurotoxin that you're going to feed to your so what do you say to somebody who says there's never been a study that any of these GMOs have harmed people? But there has been a study. Go see fucking, go see, go put download for $2.99, Genetic Roulette by Jeffrey Smith. You get that on Amazon or Netflix?

Yeah, I think it is on, I like went to, I just Googled it, and I went on his site. I don't know if it's on Amazon yet. I know Forks Over Knives is and Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. But Genetic Roulette is like next level shit because it's not speculation that they're doing it. It's fucking scientific evidence that they're fucking doing it. and what's basically going on and like why is monsanto hiring a wing of fucking black water to spy and agitate on people who uh fucking anti taking an anti-monsanto stance in this country you know it's like there's like that guy who was following us down the street after dinner tonight

yeah what the fuck didn't you notice the red dye on your forehead from the laser sight no but like you know hey it's it you know what it's uh they say a lot that you know we have freedom of speech in this country but when you start opening your fucking mouth and speaking some truth you watch how much freedom you actually fucking have because well that's the thing with the nda too i mean there's a lot of people are like well of course they've been doing that they've been doing it forever and you know i don't have anything to hide but the truth is it just well a lot of people the nda like the whole thing about you know how the government's been spying on us and all that kind of thing so you know i mean there's a lot of people who's nsa yeah that's what I meant NSA why did I say NDA non-disclosure agreement yeah NSA sorry people um but yeah there's kind of a lazy reaction to that which is well I don't have anything to

hide who cares if they read my email but it just further centralizes power so anybody who kind of steps out of line and doesn't want to you know tow the party line they can just reel them back in by digging something up on somebody exactly and watching all your shit it's like you don't understand what the fuck's really going on they're eroding the fucking constitution i mean hey i'm not a fucking idiot sure a crazy motherfucker needs to have a background check to have a fucking gun hello you're gonna put a fucking you know ar-15 and some maniacs i'm in agreement like you know i'm i'm i float with whatever the whatever the topic is you know and i don't partake in any particular conservative this that liberal i don't give a fuck about none of that i'm a fucking realist i'm a i'm a seeker of the truth and that's really what i'm all about so like you know i could

be for some issues that one party whatever it's to me it's about i take the issue and i look at the issue of what it is and the spying and all of the rest of this bullshit, they're just eroding the rights of the people in this fucking country more and more and more. And if you watch a documentary called America, Freedom, the Fascism by Aaron Russo about the whole Fed and everything and what the fuck is going on in this country, and the one, I forget what his name was,

he said, we are now become what we used to fight against this country is now becoming the same types of motherfuckers that we fought against in wars supposedly you know

it's just crazy what's really what's really gone on but I think as I said my whole way to solve all of it i'm not gonna like i always i don't go to no political rallies that's not the solution to the problem you know it's you know spiritual solutions to material problems that's what really solves meditation is key well let's start you you take personal responsibility responsibility for yourself and you control

your behavior and your action person does that don't think about changing like whatever change yourself first charity starts at home that's what i did i'm like well i'm not going to be worried about what joe fucking schmoe is doing in the fucking pentagon because i have to worry and change myself first. And then you become an instrument for change, and then you help the next person in line. And this is a grassroots movement because that's what spirituality really is. It's not like, you know, this fucking brainwashing cult. Like, okay, put on the fucking cult ray and, like, everyone's, you know,

each person has to go on their own path and growth, and it takes time, and that's the one thing a lot of people, you know, it's taken me, whatever, I still got issues, but 30-something fucking years later, you know, like, you have to be patient with people, too, and I think, like, that's some of the problems, even in the eating movement. It's like, you know, like I said at dinner, they want to throw you in the deep end of the fucking pool when it's like, you know, you don't tow the certain party line about what it's like.

Yo man, fan the spark, man. That's why I love what she said. Like in real, really embrace where you're at. Just, you know, you you know there's a goal so you know you know it's uh uh you know what is it you know it's a fucking how many miles in i am 140.1 come on man you know 40.3 right 40.6 140.6 so it's like you know you know you know what you got to do so uh you know don't i i just stay the course and just keep doing what the fuck i do and try to help the next person in line and really my philosophy is like you know they have to want to change you're not going to change somebody i

don't want to change and then yeah and i've seen that because i'm always on tour i still tour the fucking planet and i do speaking engagements all over the fucking place and whatever and it's like you know when people are ready to accept that change, then you can give them the knowledge. But otherwise, it's like fucking trying to... It doesn't matter. It's like, I'm not a preacher that's going to fucking be like, and Jesus said, you're going to hell. It's like, you don't reach people being dogmatic or trying to fucking preach at them or even be a fucking preacher it's like let someone's you know

vibe you know they're they're like you know i told somebody that today somebody was like oh yeah like i made some comment on facebook and they're like oh man all that shit how do you know i was like it's not a matter of how do i know everything. It's a matter of tuning your station into the frequency. But you, on the other hand, are saying you're actually fool number one because you're claiming that through your limited experience in your life, no one else could have experienced anything on a deeper metaphysical level. That's just fool. That's just the most foolish thing

anybody could say you don't know what anybody else is experiencing but you know there's all kinds of vibrations out there even fit uh you know materially that you can't see there's fucking there's there's uh you know cell phone text messages and fucking satellite and everything else. Radio waves, you can't see any of that either, but it's there. But if you tune your instrument into that frequency, you pick up on it. So that's what it's all about is fine-tuning your instrument, this body, mind, intelligence, everything you have, the senses, use it as a tool to accept the frequency and tune into it

and then you know eventually you start to see there's more to life than just eating sleeping and fucking you know yeah and as you as you start to sort of release the structures of your mind or what you thought or what you believed and sort of, you know, relax your brain and start to realize that there are more horizons and there's many realities and, you know, many, many, many things that, you know, we haven't experienced or you haven't experienced yet. And then you're in more of an open state to, you know, get some surprises. Yeah.

Well, that's the whole thing too is you have to realize it's infinite there's no level of like i've learned everything now it's it's infinite wisdom it's like the more spiritual study you do that then you keep saying i don't know anything exactly that's that's the real consciousness, really. What do you really know in terms of all the knowledge that's out there in the universe? It's like, keep the glass half full. That's what everybody says. And I meet a lot of these pompous people who are like, I've realized everything. And they're out there on the lecture

circuit talking their bullshit but it's like philosophically they could be fucking destroyed in a matter of seconds but i you know to me i'm like all right whatever you know if you don't know the difference between real gold and fool's gold you're gonna buy the fool's gold so it's you have to know what's real and what ain't and uh you know one thing being in new york my whole life it's like you fucking are a pretty good character assessments you get pretty good at it because you know i tell people like even on the walking tour you know there used to be this thing called hanging out and talking before like text messaging people are really losing that art of communicating with each other you know it's uh it's be conversations becoming like a fucking real dying art like you know Rich and I have all our conversations on the podcast now.

Schedule a podcast. Yes. But it's true. I mean, look, we sat and we talked over dinner for, I don't know, an hour and a half, two hours. And now here we are, we're almost at two hours of this. And that's a gift. And it's almost like the podcast is an excuse

for me to get together with interesting people and have this long, because people don't have time. They don't do it anymore. It's really like a beautiful thing when you can have that in your life. And it really is a gift. It's amazing to be able to spend this time together and share so deeply and intimately and also having a lot in common with the food and also our spiritual connection and then have so much not in common, just completely different, completely alien. Learning from each other.

Everybody, that's the whole thing. It's always a two-way street. I'm always meeting people and learning shit from them. I want to, you know, like my aunt Petty Burke said, you have fucking two ears and one mouth, so you better fucking listen twice as much as you talk, man. Did you take that advice? When I started meeting a lot of people, yeah, I mean, I'm a big mouth. Johnny loudspeaker, I'm guilty.

But I also like meeting people and finding out what their fucking trip is because it's a two-way street. It's a conversation, meaning you fucking listen too. But it's amazing the people i've been meeting in the last you know 10 years or so and uh very very you know putting the books out and like even the first one evolution of a crow magnon was really like therapy for me because i never went to no shrinks or nothing i just always fucking dealt with shit on on my own and then the book thing was really working out a lot of shit catharsis oh dude and so tell everyone what's

going on with that man because that's pretty exciting well i mean i wrote i adapted the script my my i have to give props to mr robert mckee my writing teacher he wrote a book called story and he did taking his seminar three-day seminar was life-changing for me amazing man uh so fucking humble and funny and crazy and just you know so i've been wanting to you know write scripts but you know my writing partner at the time we were working on a movie and she's like you know your story because i was using some of my stories and my life based basing characters off of what i some things i went through and she's like she knew the whole story though with the crow mags and fucking she's like dude people are not gonna fucking you have a life that motherfuckers won't even believe like when I wrote the book all of those books Richard Fry or whatever his bullshit book

James Fry yeah they thought my they thought my memoir that I made it up the village voice was like interviewing me they're're like, dude, come on. He slides the book across the fucking table, and I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, dude, there's no fucking way that you went through all this shit and you're still here. I'm like, motherfucker, there's shit that don't got statute of limitations that I couldn't put in the fucking book. As a matter of fact, i left a lot of shit out of that book but uh you know it was really just a matter of sitting down and doing the work and then i wrote the script and uh kind of banging in uh doing rewrites for this pretty well-known film company now and uh um can you say who are you all right we won't say

like i don't you know but i to until the check clears it's legit it's legit yeah it's legit and you know it's like it's all a matter of like you know an adaptation adapting a book is very fucking difficult because you don't want to kill your babies man but you know what you you want to get the whole thing in there and it's well it's even it's even harder for you because you it's impossible it's it's a physical impossibility for you to put distance between yourself and your story and have an objective point of view about what is what's important to the story you want to tell. Because the art of screenwriting is what you don't write. It's the blank parts on the page. It's the subtext.

It's letting the audience make those intellectual jumps to not spelling it all out. And I'm learning as a writer still screenwriting is very difficult adaptation is even fucking way more difficult because you also you know can't drive a camera into the character's head it's not like the book i wrote i could put my deep thoughts film is show don't tell so it's like but we're getting to a point where like she gives me coverage notes and then you know so i've done two rewrites already for them now they passed it up the thing and their uh other business partner had uh uh notes too so we're gonna i'm waiting to address the next issue and just keep

keep writing but i've got other scripts too but you know you have to get one made and then the doors really fly open but i got some comedies written hilarious shit like about fucking i want to read your comedy i got a comedy about a cult about a punk rock band like fucking uh-huh i'm a lot of my buddies are special forces and stuff like that so i've had this like uh john gershon type fucking uh you know book movie thing i want to write so i got a lot of you know ideas but uh you know i also write every day. That's important. Whatever you do, you got to do it every day. That's the only way you get good at anything. Even if you write shit, you know, Hemingway said the first draft of anything is complete shit.

Of course, you have to show up consistently for the page on a daily basis. It's a practice like meditation. It's a practice like training for an Ironman or whatever it is. Every day, even if I write a shitty motherfucking scene guess what if you ever read one of my books that it's like my fucking bible is uh stephen pressfield's the war of art it's the best book ever oh my god it's i've talked about it on the podcast that is fucking seminar for anybody who's trying to break through their creative boundaries or holy shit anything you know resistance is a motherfucker it's an amazing way he talks and i met the dude too

he's fucking brilliant yeah everybody should get that book yeah because it applies to everything you know it's like resistance will lie cheat fucking steal just to fucking get what it wants it's like resistance is a motherfucker right i just love the you know the way he writes and everything's like you know but that's what he says you get the credit for showing up even if you wrote shit you showed up so the muse will and that's applicable and like you know look man that transcends the written page. It's like a lot of life is showing up and not giving up. And a lot of people that make it, some are always more talented than others. But if you continue to show up for something that's important to you, you're creating that space for opportunities to come into your life.

Yeah, well, that's one thing. for opportunities to come into your life yeah well that's one thing you know he always talks about the muse you know like how the muse will respect you for showing up and reward you with you know maybe the next time or the 10th time you show up you'll be like you know write this fucking great scene because you know it's like that's one thing McKee always used to say. I can't tell you what's going to happen if you write your script, but I can tell you what's going to happen if you don't. Nothing. Did you see Adaptation?

Yeah, I was just going to say, of course you've seen it. Fucking Brian Cox. Right, Brian Cox plays Robert McKee in the movie, and he deserved an Oscar for that. He's only in the movie and he he deserved an oscar for that it was he's only in the movie for a little bit but he completely steals a movie and if you know mckee because i've taken his workshops his three-day story seminar the whole fucking nine yards he had every little fucking idiosyncrasy fucking mannerism everything like mckee nailed it and then like i went i went to after that movie came out then like i went to like a comedy workshop that mckee did and like

he was kind of making fun of like you know how they portrayed him oh did he take it in good fun i was interested in whether he was offended by that. No, he loved it. He was like, fucking, that bastard fucking nailed me with the cigarettes. And I gave Robert McKee fucking green tea extract, organic. My friend sold this, which is so high in polyphenols that it helps for smokers and everything. And every time I'd ever talk to McKee, I'd be like i'd be like yeah the guy would remember i gave you the green tea extract and that's how he remembers me because then he had the assistants call me up can you get uh can you get uh mcgowan to send me some green tea extract but my friend arty the drummer from the misfits googie he put his sister uh he was sister's a writer in LA, so I had told him about the McKee thing.

So as a birthday gift, he got her the three-day story seminar. So Googie, he's like a total New Yorker, crazy motherfucker, the original drummer for the Minstrels, calls up the office, and he's like, yeah, I'm trying to sign my sister up for the seminar. Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, my buddy John, what's his name? John Joseph. Oh, yeah, the my my buddy john uh you know oh what's his name john joseph oh yeah the musician guy yeah we know him and then arty goes you know what his fucking nickname is and they're like no what and then he's like blood clot and then they're like the he the you the guy just fucking cracks the fuck up and he pulls away from the phone and yells in the office,

Do you know what that guy with the tattoos that gets Robert the fucking green tea extracts nickname is? Blood clot. And then the fucking, the whole office just starts fucking cracking up. Robert's intense, man. Yeah. It's great, dude. Did you ever take his workshop? I haven't,'t no i've studied

screenwriting though before i took a program uh at a place called writer's boot camp oh yeah it's you know this i've read his book though i have his book i gave his book to tyler he's reading it right now um it's a great book and i think yeah and it's the cat too did you read that i've read save the cat yeah and i think that you know like it's not so much it is for storytelling too because it's like you know it's good yeah it's good for that as is you know keeps you the hero's journey yeah yeah so i mean whether you're writing a screenplay or a book it's like you know understanding it's a great three-act structure and that yeah exactly how to tell a good story whatever it is

you're writing i think is important right um and in the art of conversation as well yeah you're good at it man we've been shooting this shit i know we gotta we gotta wrap it up so we gotta get you home um dude we've been going over two hours but listen meat is for pussies right we are in a health crisis right now. Like, I think one out of every two Americans are going to have heart disease. One out of every three is going to die. Well, look at the statistics they're standing for. The generation being born now might possibly be the first generation outlived by their parents. So, like, we really have to wake up and start analyzing, you know, what the fuck we're doing with the food supply, like, what we're putting in our systems, you know.

I mean, I fucking travel all over the country, too, and I was down, I forget where the fuck I was, and, like, you know, we got lost, and I was like, everybody in this fucking town is obese man it's fucking crazy and we pulled up for directions and i was like yeah can you tell us how to get back to 95 and the guy's like well you go about two miles down to the wing ding sally's you take a right there then you'll see a burger king on the left don't take a left there go two more lights down there'll be a pizza hut every yeah i mean the truth there's a lot of small towns where it's just like a fucking it's a fast food place and walmart you know and i'm like damn you're like not even of the human species anymore what are you like it's just all that gO and growth hormones and every fucking thing that is in the food, man. You're ingesting something that's meant to grow an animal

in fucking a third of the time. What do you think? You're going to be petite? But do you know who is really on it and who has really, really gotten the message is a beautiful gentleman named ben fenton oh yeah we gotta give him a shout out we gotta give ben the shout out so we're doing that so we're in new york city right now obviously and uh we're sitting in the living room uh of

ben fenton's apartment he was the the fine young iron man uh athlete slash gentleman slash plant-powered athlete who opened up his home to julie and i uh to stay to stay at his place while uh while we were here in town and he just left uh today's today's friday he's going to race iron man like placer on sunday so we're this podcast is probably not going to go up until mond, so he'll already be done with the race. But I want to give him a shout out. Good luck, brother. Yeah, say good luck. And also thank you for letting us invade your home.

And we are all extremely impressed by your superfood stash in the pantry. Yeah, this guy's got it dialed, man. Oh, yeah, man. I'm about to take some of that. I know. Listen, you could take me out to the streets. He's got the mason jars each with, he's got the chlorella, spirulina,

all the superfoods, the hemp seeds. All the books, Finding Ultra, Thrive, Forks Over Knives. I don't see Meat is for Pussies up there. I know, we're going to have to get him one. We're going to have to talk about that. We will. All right, man. So take us out with a quick wrap upup about Meat is for Pussies.

Who propagated the bullshit that meat makes you macho? My guess, it's the same assholes that told you the Marlboro Man was a stud. That's the opening sentence. The ladies that I just got to book there were like, I just read that, and I was like, holy fucking shit. So there you go man man so that's it man thanks for coming by thank you for having me uh pleasure you're one of my inspirations it was an absolute pleasure to have you you are uh you're an amazing guy your story is phenomenal

and inspiring and he's too humble to say but this guy is of service to a lot of people. He gives up a lot of his time to charitable causes and, uh, he's constantly on the move trying to figure out who he can help. And, uh, it's, it's inspiring to watch, man, you are an example and, uh, I can only aspire to, uh, your level of service. So it's been an honor to spend this time with you. Thank you. How many, how many, uh, how uh how many uh how many f-bombs do you think we we dropped oh man thousands i don't even count those i'm gonna have to put a little thing at the front of the show disclaimer yeah just a lyrical yeah that's right yeah exponentially nsfw but it's all in fucking love though man it is and it's so felt and uh we just wish you many

many blessings thank you and i hope i get to hang with you guys when i come out let's do it we'll be coming here all show if you come to if you come to la and you don't hit me up ahead of time let me know that goes without fucking saying brendan's the one I can never get in touch. Like, you know, Brendan's always fucking busy every time I come back. He's elusive. He's just, yeah. He's slippery. He's slippery, that guy. You might have a cult up there.

Anyway. All right, man. Thanks for having me, man. Yeah, it was good. You feel all right? I feel fantastic. Good, man. Cool.

Raw foods and fucking. Right on. Peace. And thanks for dinner. Peace. Peace. Blants. right on peace and thanks for dinner peace peace blants Thank you.