The Rich Roll Podcast - [EXPLICIT] The Punk Iconoclast on GMO’s, The “V” Word & Expanding Consciousness

Episode Date: December 23, 2013

S$#*t's about to get raw. Authentic. And real. Back by popular demand, Cro-Mags' frontman John Joseph– aka “Bloodclot” — returns to the podcast today to do what he does best – light fires, blow stuff up and burn the house down. All for the sake of getting people to wake up, expand consciousness and take control of our lives. Weaned from the ailing womb of Scorsese's Mean Streets, JJ is a true American original. Lower East Side thief, abuse survivor, drug dealer & brawling gutter rat reborn as spiritual warrior. CBGB Street Poet. Punk-ass Robin Hood. Plantpowered Ironman. Spiritual evangelist. A life story so astounding it echoes some demented amalgam of Bukowski, Hugh Selby, Jr., Jerry Stahl, Eckhart Tolle & Paramahansa Yogananda. Plus he can write. His tale of survival is so vividly depicted in his autobiography Evolution of a Cro-Magnon, it's currently being adapted into a movie. And July 2014 brings Harper Collins' wide release of his previously self-published (and currently out-of-print) cult hit Meat is For Pussies*– with a foreword by yours truly. But more anything, this boy can spin a yarn. JJ's first appearance on the podcast was a massive hit, and we barely scratched the surface of John's ability to opine and pontificate on a vast array of subjects — life on the streets, GMO's, Monsanto, the strange history of Aspartame, the power of meditation, the importance of expanding consciousness, the problems with the “V” word, what it means to be truly punk in this post-millenia era, and why meat really is for pussies. If you're new to the show, be sure to check out JJ's previous appearance in RRP 41. It's like a bomb exploding in an elevator. Enjoy! Rich

Welcome to episode 66 of the Rich Roll Podcast with John Joseph. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, happy holidays. I am Rich Roll. I am your host. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, happy holidays. I am Rich Roll. I am your host. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. What do we do here? Well, each week I bring to you the best and the brightest minds in health, wellness, fitness, nutrition, with one goal in mind, to help you unlock and unleash your best, most authentic self. I've had all kinds of people on the show, world-class athletes, doctors doctors nutritionists lawyers yoginis yogis meditators spiritualists entrepreneurs

The whole gamut and you know, I don't agree with everybody that I have on the show and I wouldn't want it that way Anyway, you don't learn anything unless you have people on that have different ideas from you that help you broaden your perspective I only ask that you listen with an open mind, take what resonates with you, discard the rest. It's cool. And again, the idea is to help give you the tools that you need to improve your life, to maximize your short time on this planet so that you can be the healthiest, most present, most actualized version of yourself. And today on the show, I've got a great guest. If you're a fan of the show, if you've been listening for a while, then you might remember episode 41, John Joseph. He just made a small appearance in the Best Of episode. John is a good friend of mine, and that episode was by far one of

my most popular ones. I was recently in New York and thought I would be remiss if I did not sit down with him again. He's not short on words, and one episode is not enough to pick that guy's brain. And I find him fascinating. His story is extraordinary. He is a survivor growing up reared on the mean streets of the Lower East Side in New York City, growing up reared on the mean streets of the Lower East Side in New York City, and come out the other side to be an amazing example of selfless service to others. If you're new to the show and you've never heard of John Joseph, who is he? Well, he is the iconic frontman for the punk rock band The Cro-Mags. He's a wellness warrior. He's a plant-based iron man, in addition to being a rock

star. And he's also an author. His autobiography is called Evolution of a Cro-Mag. And he wrote another book that came out in 2010. It was self-published called Meat is for Pussies, which is sort of a primer on the role of meat and how it becomes identified as masculine and why we all could benefit from eating more plants and getting plant-based. It was a really cool book. Unfortunately, out of print now, very difficult to find. But the good news is that HarperCollins has picked up the book and they are going to be re-releasing it this spring. And John spent the better part of the last year revising the book, beefing it up, adding new sections and turning in a new version of the book that's 10 times better than the last one, which was great in and of its

own right. So we talk a little bit about that today. It's pretty exciting. And I know that Harper has big high hopes for the book and I think it has the potential to be a real breakout hit. And I'm excited to see that happen. John is opinionated. He is outspoken. He is also explicit in his language. So if you're a little queasy about that, just a heads up, or if you're at work or driving around with the kids or something like that, you might want to stick the earbuds in, just letting you know up front. But please do not tune out on that basis or you will be missing out on some amazing information. We talk about a lot of amazing stuff today. GMO is the evolution of how aspartame became FDA approved and all kinds of good, crazy, awesome information.

Before we get into the episode, it's the holiday season. In fact, it's only a couple of days before Christmas, last minute shopping. You're on Amazon going crazy. What can I get delivered overnight? We ask that if you want to support the podcast, use the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. Just go to richroll.com. It's on the right hand margin there. Click it. takes you to Amazon. Get whatever you're going to get. And it will not cost you one cent extra, but Amazon kicks us a little commission on it that

does not come out of your pocket. It comes out of their pocket. And that really has been floating our boat over here. It's been paying all our podcast bills and we are so appreciative, appreciative, appreciative of the support you guys have really, uh, outdone yourselves, um, with this. And, uh, it means a lot to us. I know it's kind of a mental leap, just that extra micro millisecond, uh, to go to my site first before Amazon. But the fact that you guys are doing it is awesome. I appreciate it. One more thing before the interview, Stitcher Radio, they are accepting submissions right now for their Best Of podcast for the year. And it would be great if you've been enjoying the program, if you would go to stitcher.com and click on the Stitcher Awards

banner and vote for us for Best Health and Lifestyle Podcast for 2013, that would be cool. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs.

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To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Ladies and gentlemen, my friend, the outspoken, iconic, John Joseph. Enjoy. Yeah, man. Oh, Rich Roll. We're back. In the hot seat. Number two, man. Number two. Whoa, don't say that. By popular demand. Why? Why not say that?

Number two means, you know, you took a dump. Yeah, well, hopefully this will be better than that. But maybe just as satisfying. Yeah, man. You know, I was bugged out because we ate at Candle last night, and then the English girl came out with her mother, and she said, oh, I heard about Candle 79 because you and Rich talked about it on the podcast. That was kind of trippy, right?

I know. It was insane. Actually, I love coming to New York. It's the third time. I've been here like a day and a half. It's the third time someone stopped me on the street and said, hey, are you Rich Roll? I listen to the podcast. Of course, they were all in front of vegan restaurants.

So it's not like it just happened randomly in the middle of nowhere. But yeah, we have dinner at Candle Cafe at Candle 79 last night, which if you're listening and you're in New York City, you got to go to this place. It's incredible. Food is unbelievable. All organic. Organic, plant-based restaurant. And it was you, me, Mishka, and his girlfriend, Lucy.

Awesome time. And we're leaving. And this British girl rolls up. She's like, hey, are you Rich Roll? I listen to the podcast. She was visiting from London with her mom. And the only reason she was at the restaurant is because she had heard us talking about it to the podcast. She was visiting from London with her mom, and the only reason she was at the restaurant is because she had heard us talking about it on the podcast.

And then I go, yeah, John Joseph's standing right there. She freaked out. I mean, how weird is that? It's crazy. I don't know. Amazing. Got a lot of legs on that first podcast there. Dude, I think it might be the most popular episode that i've done

so you're definitely back by popular demand my girl was like you saw the text she drew a heart around the picture of us right i know it's a bromance it is man it's cool always good to uh connect with you man and uh i'm excited for all the good stuff that's coming your way coming up man it's gonna be a big year for you yeah you know i'm just doing my meditations and keeping everything level-headed but uh you know so harper collins picked up the book that was the thing in the last podcast there was like a mad rush on people trying to track down uh me's for pussies and i got all these messages tweets and emails like i tried to get it i can't find it where do i find the book and when you first released it what year was that 2010 and that was was it a it was self-published we todd uh erwin

who's my business partner in loudspeaker um put the book out what's loudspeaker it's our uh llc because we wrote uh i wrote a movie and uh we're in you know development of a uh reality show um based on what we do which is help heal people and you know pma positive mental attitude and work with people so everything's coming through our production company right i got you because i'm kind of a loud dude so they called it loud speaker you want to call it blood clot in the streets man i got it i got a film coming about the blood clot brothers which is me and my two brothers and stuff, a comedy, obviously. But yeah, so HarperCollins, Wave, picked up the book. How did that happen?

So you self-released it. You did a limited run, so you ran out of print copies. I think you can buy it if you go to eBay or something like that for some top dollar amount, like crazy amount of money to buy. Somebody wrote me today that Amazon, somebody's got the book up there, The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon, which is my other book, for like $80 or something. I just told people, you know, don't buy it.

The book's coming out end of June, July. And the way it all went down was I got a lot of movement. I wrote this screenplay based on the first book, Evolution. And, you know, it was just like, I don't know, people in the industry, they get so many films, you know, because you write as well. But like it just sat in a pile. And then like my friend Dante Ross gave it to Flower Pictures. That's Drew Barrymore's company.

Yeah. And so I didn't hear nothing. And then all of a sudden, like a month later, a month and a half, Dante calls me up. He's like, yo, they bugged on your script. Like, they want to meet. She's coming into town. So I met with them. And sure, her partner, Drew's partner is Nancy Juvenon, right,

who's married to Jimmy Fallon, I think. Yeah, yeah. But I'm talking with one of the VPs over there. Right, development. Yeah, development VPs. And then so then. But I'm talking with one of the VPs over there. Development. Yeah, development VPs. So is there any development on that since the last time we talked about it? Yeah, well, they sent it to my friend who's a director and see if she wants to sign on to it.

That's Patty Jenkins. Yeah. I mean, she's really busy. She has an amazing film coming that everyone's going to be hearing about, which I don't want to really drop the name because she's having issues over whatever. But she's an amazing – she's married to Sam Sheridan, who wrote all the books, A Fighter's Mind. He was in that movie Warrior, the MMA movie.

I just listened to an interview with her not that long ago, and she was doing the press circuit because she created the television show Betrayal, which is on ABC, I think. Yeah, ABC. So she was doing the junket on that. It was on KCRW. It was a show called The Business. They talk about that kind of stuff.

And I think she was cagey about her movie. She didn't want to talk too much about her movie. But the tv show what's interesting about that if you haven't caught it um it's sort of about uh it's kind of a love triangle or these two people kind of meet they're both married and it's about um you know searching for happiness how long do you stay in an unhealthy relationship all this kind of stuff but there's a character in the show who uh who's the son of kind of the baron of chicago real estate and he's a little off he had a car accident but he but he was really into the music scene and in almost every episode he's wearing a chromag's t-shirt and i'm like oh that's patty's you know signature there a little shout out to you patty hit me up and asked me to send her a bunch of

stuff and you know i mean she got like i went to the premiere of uh monster because in case anyone doesn't know patty directed and wrote monster and charlize won the academy award for the screenplay i mean without the screenplay and the directing of course then nobody gets the academy and and the sheer force of will that it took to birth that movie because that movie came out against all odds. Amazing. It wasn't like she was a big-name director and it was very ballsy to cast somebody like Charlize Theron in that role. And nobody ever thought that anything was going to come of that movie.

It was going to be a directed DVD kind of thing. Un-fucking-believable. I mean, when I went to the—I mean, Patty comes from the punk rock scene. That's how i know her and like they were like looking at me all fucking inked up and like i'm sitting in the in the row with like charlize darone and everybody else and patty was working the red carpet and they're like so how do you know patty who's the gutter rot gutter rat yeah like did this dude fucking, you know, crash out shit? Like, what's up? But, yeah, Patti comes from punk rock.

And, I mean, I love her because of what she endured to get where she is. Nobody gave her nothing. She waited tables at Dojo downtown, put herself through all this, through her whole film stuff. And, you know, I mean, she's got serious street cred man she is nobody to play with and like you know i told you that story last night she punched this like big uh rasta black dude that you know he was a bully and patty punched him in the face with a beer mug and slid his whole face open because he fucked with her and called her a dumb white bitch and big mistake

but uh yeah patty is um she's an amazing person and i'm so happy so she's still attached to the project and he uh she's doing but i mean she's got her but she's got a new movie uh you know coming and stuff which is going to be i mean i know mean, I know the premise of it. It's going to be, you're going to be hearing all about this because like a few people I know that are writers read the script and they just fucking bugged. They're like, wow. But,

uh, so what happened with me was that, um, back to the other thing, um, we got movement on the script. So then my business partner, Todd used that to get the agent and ICM, so then my business partner, Todd,

used that to get the agent at ICM, and then he was like, the Thug Kitchen blog, they were shopping a book deal. So oddly enough, we're sitting down there with our agent from ICM in the lobby of HarperCollins, and the assistant comes down, and she's like, oh, she looked at me, and she goes, oh, you must be with the Thug Kitchen people. And I was like, you know, damn, girl. Like, you know, looking at me or whatever. And I was like, no, we're meaties for pussies. And she was like, oh, oh, oh, okay, yeah.

So then we went upstairs, and I looked at my agent. He's like, very interesting. Like, they were coming in the same day to pitch. Wow. But, you know, when I first heard about those guys online, I was reading their shit, and, you know, they were like, you got to eat your motherfucking kale. It got, you know, mad.

Like, I thought it was a dude from the street, and I was writing them like yo i love your blog and they would never respond like and i'm like that's weird and um then i find out it's like this nerdy white dude and his girlfriend in california putting on all this affectation so they're like so that when i walked in to pitch the book i said let me tell you something i'm the real motherfucking Thug Kitchen. And the lady was like, I don't care what you have to do. I want this book.

Because we pitched it for 15 minutes and talked. And just what they do, we vibed. Because Julie from Harper was friends with Brendan and Brendan Brazier. So all this stuff is going on now with the TV show, and I'm writing a pilot for another scripted TV show, and the script's got legs. So it's kind of like this big ball of momentum coming. When you work hard, it's like what Alan Ball said

when everybody congratulated him. Oh, you're an overnight success. And he said, oh, yeah. On American Beauty. Yeah, on American Beauty. And he was like, yeah, it only took me 10 years to become an overnight success. Right, of toiling and obscurity. Exactly.

And that's what writing is. You know yourself being a writer and you just have to like sit down and write every day. And if you do it, then, you know. You can't be attached to the outcome. You have to love the process of it and, you know, be willing to show up for it every day regardless of what happens. Well, that's Bhagavad Gita. That's the only way you can stay sane through the whole thing.

And that's Bhagavad Gita. You have a right to the work but not the result of the work. If you do something, even music, you see all these guys you know because i've been on the music scene you know 30 plus years and like whatever's hot like you know when the emo or the grunge like everybody's changing with like the weather like the seasons and really not doing it from a place of purity and the love of the music they're trying to you know imitate what's hot at the point. And all those bands are gone.

And here, the crow mags are still out doing it. Cause we just did it for the love of the music and not for the money or whatever. It was always about, you know, going out there and putting on the best show and, and just being authentic to who you are.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So with all this stuff going on, the pilot, the, the book and and and actually to backtrack a little bit uh so this new release of meat is for pussies that's coming out through

harper collins in june you did quite a bit of a re of rewriting though this is going to be for people who have already read it this is going to be oh it's different right yeah new chapters uh by the way mr rich roll i have the honor of uh having you write the forward for the book which is i mean they just you wrote such an amazing forward they i mean you know top people in the literary world would just you know harper collins is like the creme de la creme and they've absolutely flipped out on it and i'm glad on it and yeah dude they loved it they were i mean it was so well written and just you know because i asked you actually to write the afterward and then like i was like wait a minute this is kind of and then you like you know you

sent me the message you know like i wanted to tell you i you know that i wrote the forward well first of all it was an honor for you to even ask me to contribute at all i was happy to do it and it started off with hey i want to you know i want to profile a couple athletes in the book will you send me a picture maybe i'll interview you i was like cool man whatever you need dude like i'm i'm here for you just to be of service to whatever you know the book to make your book the best it can be and then something happened and you said hey you know what would you think about writing the afterword and i was like yeah man it's cool and then you're like texting me every day like because you're on a deadline you're like yeah i have to turn it on this day i have to turn you know i'm

like don't worry dude like you said uh this is not my first rodeo like i got it man i got your back don't worry about it and then on the last day it was i sent it in to you but here was my my thinking was i'm gonna hit this one out of the park. And I wrote it. I go, I'm actually going to write the foreword to the book, but I'm not going to tell them that. Well, the powers that be, the light came on. I was like, this is the foreword.

So my plan worked out. I was going to write that in the email to you, and then I was like, oh, then I'll jinx it. Yeah, but right away, I was like, yo, this, you know, they read it, and they were like, this is the forward. And I was like, yeah, that's the same thing I thought. Right. Well, I'm glad that worked out, and I'm honored to be included in the book. So I'm looking forward to it.

So what else is different about it? There's new chapters. We added about five new chapters, updated all the information. I mean, so much has transpired since that book came out with the plant-based movement. I mean, even Forks Over Knives wasn't even out when I put that book out. There's a lot that's happened. And then my trainer, who is an NASM master instructor and plant-based trainer. He's a beast.

Aaron Jarzabinowski did a 30-day workout plan with me. And so that's in there. And there's mental toughness training tips for every one of the 30 days from, you know, guys like you, Brendanan my friend who's a navy seal green berets like like the whole gamut uh of just people who had to push past mental stuff to accomplish amazing things in their life because that's really an important part of the whole process it's not just about like do you have kale on your plate yeah you have to be mentally tough and and and you know pro iron men and ufc fighters uh you know all contributed james wilkes who's a good friend yeah and uh and then there's new recipes from raw food chefs and all

kinds of people you have a couple of those transitional kind of meals because i'm not so anal about like oh my god you ate wheat gluten it's like dude you know give me a break like you know just because you may be raw foods now whatever that's not for everybody and you know i tried to put something in there for everyone so that um you know right so um just to backtrack though a little bit if somebody's brand new to the podcast maybe they didn't listen to the other episode uh and if you haven't you should go back and listen to it i think it's episode 41 where we get into this more depth but if you're new just lay out what meat is for pussies is the book because it's a lightning rod title you got a little trouble or a little yeah little controversy over that when it came out before but uh you know who attacked me the most

was all these bull crap politically correct vegans were just like up in arms like well this is like the thing that kind of goes on in this subculture um where they can all be their own worst enemies there's like a big controversy right now happening in the fruitarian community over like Durian Rider and the Woodstock Fruit Festival and all of that. And regardless of where you come down on that, the point kind of remains the same, which is that there's a tendency to lose sight of the bigger picture or the more important things.

Like within the vegan world or the plant-based world, there are all these subcategories, right who believe this way or one way and and there's a lot of kind of infighting that occurs or you know sort of just debate that uh i think for the general public you know the mass population at large uh they look at that from the outside and it becomes off-putting to them and so something that they might benefit from or learn from or be interested in, they end up turning away from it. And I think we're aligned in our sort of willingness and desire to transcend that a little bit. I mean, I never call myself a vegan for that reason. Even though I am, I don't wear leather.

I don't use anything with any animal products. But I refuse to be labeled by that title because to me, food is not the all in all. And that's the thing. Those people, it's like they're staying stuck on stupid. They're like, you know, foodies, what I call them. It's like everything's about, you know, food. And like they get so anal about everything, they miss, like you said, sight of the big picture. The food is just the start. The food is like a portal to a greater awareness.

Evolution of consciousness. Exactly. And that's what it's all about. That's what I deal with. That's why, to me, I'm like most of the people that are involved in this whole movement, I hang out with maybe 5% of them. And it's guys like you and brendan people that james wilkes you know that are real down to earth and and um open-minded about stuff and

you know i like i said i'd rather go hang out with somebody eat you know that eats mcdonald's and is and is cool that's open-minded you know just like even last night uh your friend um mishka mishka the author and uh you know ultra runner like he you know it was so cool to talk to him now am i gonna sit there and judge him because he eats whatever no i deal with people uh you know at one point i was yamming hamburgers and i would eat meat that fucking nobody else would eat rotting you know i was starved as a kid i would like steal rotting green molded meatballs out of like diners that's how hungry i was so who am i to judge anybody and that's the thing when all you care about is food you could be become obsessive about it and i don't want to do that i'm like okay eat your fucking kale

and move on let's get on to some bigger bigger bigger issues that's going on in the world and that's really you know i got my hands in everything man helping kids who are incarcerated i mean all kind of feeding the homeless all kinds of stuff you know right yeah we were talking about this last night you know there's this bifurcation of people that get into this way of eating, and they either come into it from the ethical point of view, like they're animal rights people, or they come in for health reasons. But I think, and we were talking about this,

I think that what happens is once you sort of make this transition and you clean up your diet and you start to realize that this has sort of a domino effect on all sorts of aspects of your life, from your consciousness to your perspective the way you interact with people that this world of of this distinction between ethics or morality and health and diet start to merge that it really is one thing it becomes the same thing and i think you you know you're kind of in many ways the embodiment of that because it is for health but it's also health and health and morality is not is no longer like a distinction with with you in your life right because that's what happens as you start to eat like the bad brains are the ones that got me

into it like you know they got me into the raw foods their sound man the late jw was you know raw foods and so i started uh simultaneously simultaneously getting books on philosophy and all this other stuff, but also cleaning the carcass out of my system, which affects your consciousness. It was a simultaneous... For me, there's two tips on that spear. I'm doing it because I care about animals. And it's also for health reasons as well because I'm training. And that's the thing I always tell these people.

You people are so nice and you go to animal sanctuaries and then you treat each other like shit. And you treat other people like shit. So where's the compassion for the people? Where's the compassion for your fellow man or you know or sister out there and that's what it's all about that's why people get turned off by the whole thing because you know some of these people's attitudes are just like i'm just not down with it man i come from the streets of new york i keep it real with everybody. And, you know, that's how I roll.

Right. Yeah. All right. And yeah, I mean, speaking of this, you know, idea of veganism and how it can divide rather than unite, you actually have a chapter in your book titled... I won't.

You don't want to say that? No, I don't want to say it. All right, we won't say it. My book ain't coming. Yeah, usually before the podcast, I sit down and go, is there anything you don't want to talk about? And usually the answer is no, but I forgot to ask you that before. You know what world we're living in now?

I'm 51. I grew up on the streets of New York. It's like everybody had respect for each other. You know what happened to me when I announced the title of meters for pussies man did somebody went and they read it in an interview and this guy trademarks the websites meters for pussies.com meters for pussies this that the other thing and then reaches out to me and goes yo do you want to buy the the domain names from me and i was like yeah i'll tell you what there's a park uh at the end of uh you know meet me there uh 11 30 and come alone motherfucker you know like that really happened what year was that that's like illegal now like yeah like two right

before the book came out and then i was like yo todd my business partner i was like yo this dude like we went to start registering the door and then the dude hit me up on the on the meetings with pussies facebook page and was like i'm willing to negotiate about yeah i'll negotiate with you wow you know like trolls yeah so i just try to keep you know everything yeah but there's really there's a it's not really a chapter it's kind of like part a sub chapter of a chapter but it's about that whole attitude and what my stance is on the whole calling myself a vegan or the way these uh people have become obsessed you know either with Like, you see what the raw food is, too.

It's like, motherfucker, if I got to hear you talk about kale chips and flax crackers and sprouted hummus, I'm going to, like, beat your head into the ground. Shut up, you know? Uh-huh. day and this guy just uh he's one of these dudes that like you know forces his conversation on the people eating next to them and just goes on to this rant for like 15 minutes about raw foods and this that the other thing and i'm like yo like you know yeah it's just not my thing man you know so uh the idea though of meat is for pussies goes beyond this idea that you know i mean sort of on its face you read the title and you go oh you're you're you're a wimp or you're a puss if you're if you're eating meat and i think what you're really getting at more is

is don't be a pussy in the context of becoming enslaved by the sort of general operating system of our society, you know, not just believing everything you read and having enough independent thinking and backbone to inquire for yourself and to make the right choices that are in your best long-term interest, not just in health, but in consciousness and living the way you interact with other people, you know, whether it's your relationship with pharmaceuticals and processed foods and GMOs and all of these things that we've slowly become enslaved to that we've almost welcomed into our lives.

Like unsuspectingly now we're all eating all these foods that are poisoning us and have kind of signed up for this without even being aware of what's being done to us. And to not be a pussy is to take a stand and say no and exempt yourself from that equation. Is that fair? Absolutely. And, I mean, like we had the discussion about aspartame.

Right, I wanted to talk about that. And then I sent Mishka that whole... Yeah, so get into that. Well, let me just backtrack just at one point and what i even say in the intro because because the title came as i said it was some dude saying that everybody who's a vegetarian or whatever is a is a looks like a skinny pussy and that's you know so we were trying to come up with the name for the book and then i was like my my my um todd erwin was like yo you need to throw it back in their faces that's the assumption all these guys make was that i'm gonna be a wimp and weak if i

you know don't eat meat so that's but you know where the title kind of because he said vegetarians and vegans were pussies and then todd was like nah man you gotta and I said to him in that conversation man fuck that because what these people don't realize is unknowingly they're consuming these products and that's what I even say in the introduction of the book I'm like if you continue to live a sanitary lifestyle eating all this poisonous food you're going to become a pussy dependent upon the pharmaceutical companies to keep you alive. And, you know, like, put a bandaid over shotgun wounds, which is what you see in this country, right? Yeah, that's exactly I mean, that's a much better way of putting what I was trying to get. So we're at dinner last night, and, and the topic of aspartame came up.

And I mean, of course, I know it's not good for you, but I didn't know the extent to which this essentially conspiracy runs that runs through our culture that allowed this product to come onto the market. And you were kind enough to enlighten us. And then I came back to my hotel room and i went on google and checked it out because i was like i don't know man that sounds pretty crazy what john was saying i gotta find out and like sure enough there's tons of websites on this stuff so break that gd surl man that's rumsfeld's brought the patent so yeah monsanto bought gd surl which was a which was a is it a pharmaceutical and uh donald Rumsfeld was the CEO, and they controlled the patent on aspartame at the time,

which at that point in time, like 1991, had been outlawed. They kept trying to get it on the market for years and years and years. The FDA kept saying, no way, there's no way we're putting this on the market. It's toxic, it's poisonous, it's been linked to the activation of cancer and brain tumors and migraines and all these sorts of problems, right? Yeah. So what happens? One of his good buddies, I'm blanking on the name right now, gets appointed as one of the high judges in the administration. And basically, Rumsfeld says, I'm going to call in my marker as soon as that happens to my buddy.

So sure enough, boom, guy gets in there. They get Arthur Hayes appointed to be the head of the FDA. He was sort of a pawn to these guys. Yeah, and he appointed to be the head of the fda he was sort of a pawn to these guys yeah and he kind of broke the tie of the vote they started working behind the scenes to convince all these people and because i guess once the fda denies a product they can still resubmit every year right so they were resubmitting every year and it was getting turned down right but then they get haze in they get haze in and they resubmit again every year. And it was getting turned down every year. But then they get Hayes in, and they resubmit again, and they knew he was going to tip the vote this time.

Yeah, and he tipped the vote in favor, and it got approved. It was like 94 or something like that, I think. Yeah, but oddly enough, even when I posted it today, because I posted that excerpt out of my book, Meat is for Pussies, And all these people were like, dude, ever since I read your book, I had like 10 of those symptoms. And I read your book and I took everything that I was eating. It contained aspartame, which now they realize that everyone got hip to aspartame.

So now what you have to watch out with is a additive called amino sweet and that's named it they've they've rebranded it because so many people got hip to the aspartame thing and she said she told me that as soon as i excluded everything that had and i went to like um you know natural like coconut sugars or whatever for sweetener uh all of those symptoms went away 10 she had 10 of those symptoms of all of those symptoms that i was you know listing and um joint pain i mean i think aspartame is in uh over 6 000 5 000 5 000 food products on the market and you know everything it's not just the what it's equal right is the package one but but you know diet every diet food every every the gum everything just looking just

looking everything and if you see aspartame man that that thing should have a skull and bones on it because that was never meant to be consumed um you know by human by human they got it they didn't they never did human trials on it they just released it exactly which is what they're doing now with the gmos too it's like you know when you have people that are involved in these companies monsanto syngenta and the rest of them uh you know they're funding the research so it's like how are you gonna let somebody like that fund the research like even if you know like all these people are coming out against Jeffrey Smith, because I posted something on the Cro-Mag page, oddly enough, that everybody should watch Jeffrey Smith's documentary called Genetic Roulette. And this guy just comes out and starts attacking me and going back and forth.

Sure enough, I click onto his page. Guess who he works for fucking monsanto dude i'm like dude you're a monsanto scientist of course you're gonna cite so every study that i cited he said was bogus and every study that he cited which was done by monsanto he said these are the legit studies right Right. And what were those studies saying? Just about the safety and side effects of genetically modified food on human beings. What are the studies that are not funded by Monsanto saying? That it causes all kinds of endocrine disruptors. It causes all kinds of diseases uh in human beings i mean the

test trials that they've done i'm not into animal testing but it produced uh tumors like just crazy stuff and now they started putting um epicyte has been put in this in the soy and now it's getting it's a gene by this company that they put in there and guess what it does it disrupts the reproductive system of women and it kills sperm in men so you know if anyone's having out there having trouble conceiving and you know the whole thing about this stuff is all you may be eating uh vegan food or whatever or vegetarian but if you start looking into every single thing like what dr fred b she says any doubt leave it out you need to really know where that stuff is because anything with any type of soy emulsifier

or anything that's coming 98 of all the soy out there is genetically modified if it does not say organic non-gmo soy so you're eating all of these poisonous um there's no legal requirement to label these foods uh to make sure that the public knows that they contain gmos right a company that is putting a food product out there that is non-GMO will volunteer to make sure that their consumers know that, but there's no obligation to do so. So if it doesn't say non-GMO, it's going to be GMO. Well, the hottest labeling right now in all of the whole food industry is the non-GMO project.

That's what everybody's looking for so the word by people like you doing your show with all the listeners and guys like jeffrey smith and and all these people that are saying man hold on you know you got these people these conglomerates that have billions of dollars to throw out there stopping uh the labeling like i said i told the scientists that i said if you're so freaking proud of your product why don't you let everybody know what it is you know let the public know hey man this is our great genetically modified food and i'll tell you exactly why that is because in the future there's going to be lawsuits and they don't want it to be tracked back to them but now what's going on um you know uh people aren't really aware of the re the reach

of monsanto in these companies all over the world so now you got guys like uh bill gates coming off as a philanthropist but he owns millions of dollars in stock in monsanto yeah and he's going over there to africa which banned completely gmos except for south africa and now through the guise of philanthropy he's saying oh yeah we'll give you this we'll give you the seeds you don't have to pay patent fees that you know all the you know roundup you can possibly you know spray on your. But what's really going on is those are going to spread onto other people's farms. And that's what their track record is, is taking control. Because if we look at the history of Monsanto, they're a chemical company. Their job is to sell chemicals.

Their job, they sprayed sprayed agent orange all this stuff that and their job is to sell roundup or their pesticides so if you use their seed you must use their you have to use their pesticide because their pesticide is specifically designed to genetically engineered to fit correctly with that seed. So the progression of the chemical company to sort of creating these frankenfoods or these seeds where they've devised this DNA sequence that they can patent and control effectively allows them to control our food system. And when the seeds blow from one farm to the next,

these farms become contractors to Monsanto, right? They have these agreements in place where they have to use these seeds. And then the farm next door may not have that agreement. The seeds blow from one farm over to the next. Then Monsanto has a basis to sue that other farm and say, you're using our seeds without permission sign this agreement or we're coming after you and they sue incredibly predatory yeah and anybody if

you watch the future of food or any which is a great one about the politics of the world according to monsanto and the future of food get in to what some people that are um haven't done the research i have would say is a conspiracy but it's not a conspiracy because just like you proved with aspartame you thought i was out of my friggin mind no i didn't but i was gonna check it out you know because i'm one of these dudes i don't i don't know everything about all this stuff and you know a lot more about gmo stuff than right because i've been i mean like i said i remember when they first tried to pass codex alimentarius in the early 80s because i was working at a health food store and all these hippies were like you know bugging out like oh they're trying to like take control of the food and stop this whole organic food movement and sure

enough oh codex is you know going on in canada now and i think that's why they're attacking codex alimentarius uh was originally it was a food safety uh standard um by the world health organization in the un or whatever and it was really to protect the food across the planet but then these corporations got involved and bought out the whole thing. So now you have the pharmaceutical companies and the GMO companies and the rest of them kind of saying, wanting, they realized, look, if you watch the movie Forks Over Knives, that's the biggest worry that these pharmaceutical companies have. Because what happens by the end of the movie? The guy throws away all his medication.

He doesn't need it anymore. So this is the pharmaceutical companies and the gmo companies coming in getting behind this whole agenda and they're fining uh countries huge amounts of i mean i really believe that's why they went after brendan brazier and the canadian government to to pull his product where it was like they were like they were like you have to consume really a million pounds of vego because of this one enzyme that ended up yeah i knew there was a voluntary recall but i don't know the story behind it i mean that's a whole nother issue but codex is really you know if you look for instance now they want to prescribe that uh um um you know like uh

supplements and stuff like that that those are drugs you are going to have to get a prescription for and you know i had um go to i go to europe a lot on tour so somebody did some research and was like in germany and was like yo look at the look at the dosage of these vitamins and now look at the dosage of these vitamins uh today and it was like cut by a fifth in other words like you know they're you know they're making it harder to get herbs the supplements that people are taking which are all natural they're just you know basically they want people to be sick that That's what it all boils down to. And, you know, even getting back to the whole, you know, Monsanto thing and what's really going on with all of that,

it's like if you look at this movie, this other movie that I watched called The Idiot Cycle, this woman tracks that these companies really, cycle this woman tracks that these companies really you know pharmacia was originally um you know these these companies stem like i i put a whole family tree of where these companies all come from that make these uh you know psych i mean companies that made Zyklon gas that they used in the Holocaust are now making your food. And if you track all of these companies, what they're doing is they're putting these poisonous products out there, pesticides and these foods and all of this crap. And then those are the subsidiary companies of big pharma okay so they get you it's it's problem solution well it's a yeah they complete the circle and she yeah and and what this woman did was followed the money and that's what they always tell you to do follow the money

where does the money lead and that's where the money leads to is these pharmaceutical companies. And that's why these guys make astronomical amounts of money. And if you look on Wall Street, who's making the big bucks? Merck, all these companies, you know. It seems like the one place where people have organized sufficiently to rise up against this is in Hawaii. organized sufficiently to rise up against this is in hawaii like the protests that are going on there against gmo and monsanto etc that that seems like the one place where they've got like a center of gravity going on have you been following that at all well can i tell you that a friend of mine who used to live in new york knows all the organic farmers out there and here's another wild thing

that a lot of people are thinking is a conspiracy theory too. And it's what's coming out of those airplanes that are spraying all over the farms. And I'm talking about the chemtrail issue because Hawaii is a – the ecosystem of Hawaii is cut off from everywhere else. The ecosystem of Hawaii is cut off from everywhere else. So Hawaii has been, and she told me this too, has been the testing ground for GMOs and chemtrails. So what they do is... I think Monsanto is the largest landholder in all of Hawaii. Yeah.

So what they're doing is they're testing this stuff that they spray and comes down to the earth and what it does is it changes the ph of the soil so it becomes so acidic that the that no organic seeds they're having less and less yields and that's what she told me a lot of the farmers out there have had to switch to gmo papaya and all of stuff. That's the only thing that will grow. Because, and oddly enough, in 2009, a shell company in Brazil patented the aluminum resistant seed, okay, that Monsanto's getting a hold of now too. And that's what they're spraying is aluminum oxide out of those planes and barium and strontium and that is because they have to control they want complete they've said it these gmo companies

have said we want complete control of the food supply worldwide from from farm to table so they know the only watchdog groups and the people who are living off the grid and doing the organics, well, how do we stop that? Okay, well, we'll just go 30,000 feet above them and spray it all into the clouds and seed the clouds. And then when that stuff falls to the ground, and if you watch what in the world are they spraying, there's scientists that studied those soil samples for months and months and months. And, you know, even this guy in Mount Shasta I met when I was doing the Ironman in Mexico.

And he said, dude, man, everything you're telling me, I live in Mount Shasta. I've seen all that go down. They're spraying that in California where they do all the organics. So it's a huge it's a huge huge huge issue the food you know that's what kissinger said if you control the oil you control nations if you control the food you control the masses and that's where the manipulation of what everyone's being like i just watched one commercial today during the army navy football game and it came on and it was for like sonic and i'm like dude the food that they were pushing on people

to eat i'm like burgers yeah but it was like this foot long hot dog with chili peppers and then chili and then like a shake and like it's like you wonder why we are so sick in this country and it's not just a physical sickness it's it's it's a mental poisoning to what they're doing to us you know well if you watch morning television every other commercial is a pharmaceutical commercial i don't think in most countries they're not allowed and when they get off work, the 6 o'clock news when everybody gets off work is all pharmaceutical companies advertising medication. So it's before they go to work, and then when they get home, they're greeted by a big pharma.

That's why they call it the idiot box, man. Unplug from that and rethink everything that you're – that's what I said in my in meetings with pussies i'm like we went looking for wmds in iraq but the the sad fact of the matter is all you have to do is open up your refrigerator and your cupboards and there lies the real weapons of mass destruction it's the stuff that you know you're putting into your family, that's the real devastation. That's killed millions of people as opposed to how many people died on 9-11 or through acts of terrorism. I mean, how many people are dying from all these diseases that are foodborne?

Right. There's a lot of people that I think can easily get on board with this idea of the ills of GMO foods and the predatory nature of the Monsantos of the world, et cetera. But I think when you start to talk about chemtrails, you start to lose people. Then they start thinking, oh, he's going to start talking about crop circles next. Oh, no, dude. That's a little bit like, I can't go there. I can't get down with the chemtrails thing.

That just sounds too crazy. You can't? You're saying personally? No thing. Like, that just sounds too crazy. You can't? You're saying personally? No, I'm just saying like a lot of people. Like, mainstream society is going to tell you you're bonkers for talking about chemtrails. Well, if you Google Ted Gunderson, FBI, okay? Who's that? He was the head of the FBI for four states.

He was the head of the FBI for four states. Oddly enough, he ended up passing away when he went public that the chemtrail program is actually a real program and they're testing it to manipulate the weather. They do different things. But it seems like if that was going on, that there would be a way for everybody to verify that pretty easily. Well, you know what they do? They mix it in with the jet fuel of commercial airlines. So, you know, and then there's another company called Evergreen, which is Evergreen Airlines is the ones who are landing at military bases and all that. Just Google Ted Gunderson chemtrails on YouTube.

And I will say nothing else about that. Evergreen Airline? That's like the ironic name of all time. Yeah. Evergreen Airline is a private corporation. No markings on the plane. No military. He said point blank.

This is not a conspiracy theorist. This is the head of the FBI who went went against all this stuff that's going on the um you know the geoengineering program of what the chemtrail thing is all about it's not look it's not a conspiracy theory that it's money it's money it's the same reason they're telling you to take all these pills it's the same reason they they're stopping the organic movement because they know that that is what's going to heal people both physically, mentally, spiritually, and they want to stop. They want to stop what's going on. I think it's easier to take that leap of faith also because we're in the age of WikiLeaks and sort of figuring out what the NSA is really doing and all these things that sounded maybe even just 10 years ago as being insane. Now it's like, because it seems like every week there's some thing comes out

where you think, this is insane, this can't be true, and it turns out that it is. We're starting to open up our eyes and realize this Matrix-like world that we're living in. It's exactly what it is. It's the Maya. It's the illusion. Maya means illusion. That's what the Matrix was all dealing that we're living in. It's exactly what it is. It's the Maya. It's the illusion. Maya means illusion. That's what the Matrix was all dealing with.

Look what they did. You think they don't test on people? Look what they did to all the blacks in South Carolina. They have finally admitted we sterilized them and gave them syphilis and all this other stuff. If someone else wants to really check out, just Google how the U.S. military released viruses into the subway of New York and sprayed it off of ships and let it carry into San Francisco. And it's documented. These are actual documents. I've never heard that.

That is 100% fact. You do the research. You can actually read the military documents that have been declassified of the tests that they did to test viruses and all kinds of stuff. When did that go down? In the 50s. In the 50s. And a Navy ship even sprayed into the air and let it carry into San Francisco. And they tested flu viruses and all this stuff. And they did it in New york too you can actually read about it whoa that's the whole thing where people don't you know they when you start to talk about stuff like this they just think like you know i'm not the one smoking weed dude i'm like

i mean i think a more accessible example and and very current is the recent uh statin guidelines that just came out are you you're you're down with that right are you up on that a little bit i haven't uh so i i'm certainly no expert on it i just know in a general sense that these guidelines just were released that basically in a nutshell said that essentially regardless of whether you know you're dealing with these uh physical ailments that would require you to be on Lipitor, that everybody should do it as a precautionary measure.

And they're advising all these doctors to pretty much make sure that most people, most sort of people of age, middle age, especially men, get on Lipitor, get on these statins. And I mean, that's a perfect example of follow the money. And where is this intersection of government and these regulatory bodies that are supposed to have our interest at heart

and the pharmaceutical companies that stand to profit from these initiatives? Well, you know what I say? How many drugs were approved by the FDA and later recalled? How the hell did they get on the market to begin with? To me, FDA stands for Forever Destroying Americans. That's what I said in my book. You know, it's just, it's a joke.

And if you read a book, Confessions of an RX Drug Pusher, by the woman who outed the pharmacy she was a huge pharmaceutical rep and her niece died from a interaction of a drug that never should have been on the market in the first place and then she flipped and she and she dropped dimes just like howard lyman did the mad cowboy dropped all the dimes on what the beef industry is doing she dropped dimes on the pharmaceutical companies and you read this stuff and you would think how the hell could someone ever do stuff like that to people put them on drugs they don't need that kills them and makes them more sick and paying off doctors and sending them on vacations and cars and trips and paying off hospitals to put people on drugs. This is the, I mean, the drug industry in this country, man, is up there with the oil barons, man. These guys,

they are so powerful. And, you know, I mean, even, you know, Monsanto and the rest of them, they now hired a wing of Blackwater to spy on anti-GMO organizations and all stuff like that and keep notes and tabs on people that are coming out as activists against all this stuff then you obviously don't know what this what the people in this government are capable of because it's no longer a government by the people it's a government run by corporations to uh benefit the corporations and not the masses you know and that's why you know what you do and all these people and that's why what you do and all these people, and that's my message too. I don't put stuff out there unless I've researched it. I don't speculate, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I do the research, and I get the facts. I get to the facts of what's really going on.

And then when you start meeting people and talking to them, it's like you see the light switch come on, and they're like, you know, little you see the light switch come on and and you know they're like you know little things get proven all the way along now they're starting to say they're coming out and saying you know it's starting to be put out there that because of global warming uh we need to manipulate the weather and control it and the geoengineering program is important and yes you know they're starting to admit that this is going on but you know 10 years ago if you would have mentioned to somebody about that they they you know they think you were crazy or about

genetically modified food or you know that the drug companies are looking out for us you know they're they have our best interest in mind. Well, all you have to do is look at the anti-gag laws that essentially prevent anybody from going inside these food companies or the livestock producers and whistleblowing on what's really going on there. Colorado is a felony. Because there's too much at stake. So, yeah, I mean, that is a constitutional issue

that gets to our rights, our First Amendment rights to speak, and it's a clampdown on the flow of accurate information about how our food is made. Yeah, and if you see Mercy for Animals, who I love, just had an undercover video from Sargenta Cheese Company and what they were doing to the cows that provide the, like, these cows had huge sores. One guy was, you know, not even, I mean, the way they were just beating, stabbing these cows and kicking them in the face. And they had infections everywhere because you're milking this animal constantly it's it's you know so of course they don't want you to see that of course they

don't want you to see how animals are killed and the whole process you know last time i was in california man we passed one of these kfos with like hundred hundreds and thousands of cows. Oh, yeah, that one on the five when you're in between San Francisco and L.A. Dude, holy crap. Yeah, it goes on forever. Dude, and the stench stayed in the car. We saw the lagoons, and that's part of the research that I did was to really update a lot of the stuff that's going on in terms of environmental issues because if you care about the environment,

you know, Meat is for Pussies has something for everybody, man, because what those places do to the environment is, I mean, before BP ever spilt all those millions of gallons into the Gulf, there was a dead zone the size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico because of CAFO, which is, it stands for, excuse me, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation. So they have millions of gallons, these huge lagoons of urine and stool from these animals with all those antibiotics and everything. And they leak, they rupture, they get into the groundwater, obviously, and then they flow into the Mississippi and as well as the pesticide residue. And it flows to the Mississippi drains

in the Gulf. So guess what? All of that nitrogen, all those toxins killed everything in the Gulf. So before BP ever destroyed the Gulf, they were already destroying the Gulf all life. And the ecosystem of the ocean is so fragile, man. That's where we're really going to start running into problems. Well, we already have. I mean, big time. Big mean big time big big big now they're testing all this fish because of the fukushima where the hell is that in the news well how come we're not hearing about that but you know i got a friend in the military and he's saying like you know dude this is a real thing man the navy is out there testing those waters there is radiation

on its way to california big time so nobody talks about it it's like out of sight out of mind nobody's talking about all this stuff that's going down because who you know the the nuclear uh you know companies and all of this stuff has so much power and if everybody was flipping on nukes like they did remember no nukes movement and stuff you know like if everybody started doing that now they'd be trying to shut nuclear plants down you know all over the planet and that's where a lot of the energy of these countries is coming from. So there's all this doom and gloom, right? We're talking about all this really tragic stuff. And it seems like, well, what are you supposed to do? Where's the hope? I mean, where's the solution? And particularly when you work with a lot of people that are of a lower socioeconomic class, and you're pushing this organic message. And I would imagine the response is like, I can't,

I can't afford organic, right? Where do I get organic? I don't even know where to begin. I mean, where's the path to resolving this on an individual level? Well, you know what, brothers, that, you know, there's brothers in the ghettos now urban farming and these are there's you know you can go on uh on facebook these guys all have pages and they're going to the hood man to all these you know burnt out properties in detroit and everything there's that great ted talk of the guy who's doing it in los angeles i forget his name yeah i forget his name too but then there's another brother that's in, I forget where he is, but he's going into these neighborhoods and he's showing people

how to grow their own organic food and build greenhouses and do all this stuff. So it's like they're just wanting to make you think that it's an unattainable thing to do. But it's not. You start your co-ops. You get your stuff going. to do but it's not it you know you start your co-ops you get all you know you get all you get your stuff going you know you grow these urban gardens rooftop gardening and people's doing that

in new york city now organic i actually met the guy i went to do the healthy school lunch program with the canada 79 people who you know educate uh lowerincome people throughout the city on eating properly and health and education. And I met this guy, and he's going around to all these places, and he shows them how to grow organic rooftop gardens, man. And these people are growing all these vegetables, and it's incredible. The amount of space that is needed to do that it's

it's just everything comes down it's not it what it comes down to is having access more importantly than anything else is access to the knowledge and there's these amazing people out there that are educating people on how to do things on a grassroots level. And that's really what's needed more than anything. Where there's a will, there's a way. But to even get that will, you have to have that seed of knowledge planted within you. That's the nature of the mind, thinking, feeling, willing. First you think about it, then you're willing to do it, then you do it. But if you don't have that thought planted in your head that this could be done,

it doesn't even come to mind. You just go buy a bag of mcdonald's for two dollars right the will the willingness has to follow the access to information i mean well i always talk about willingness because you can't you've got to have the willingness but before that even comes into play there has to be an ability to to act on that willingness or access to the foods or the knowledge or the information. The seed needs to be planted, man. And it's a metaphor in both senses of that thought because it's like we're dealing with seeds. We're dealing with people trying to control seeds.

And it's also the seed of thought, of wisdom being planted. And that's why I try to always pick the brains of these people who have this knowledge because my whole thing has always been like breaking it down to street level. I get these brilliant minds telling me stuff, and then I try to break it down and be like, yo when you run into a kid who's, who's going to McDonald's where he can eat a full meal for two bucks or whatever on a daily basis, you know, farm subsidized products that are super cheap. How do you connect with that person to get them to think about it a little bit differently or take a different action?

Yeah. Well, what I'll say, you know, to that person is like, you have to look longterm. You can't just always be in the now you have to think of what this food that you're eating and consuming now the effect that it's going to have but that's like

telling somebody who's just trying to make it through the day that they gotta open up a savings count and put money away you know it's like acting in your long-term interest that's a tricky thing with people well you know what it is too? I also point them to an alternative. It would be better for them to go get a $2.99 hummus sandwich with lettuce and tomato, and those places are all over the place, too. There's cheap eats, too, in the city. It's not always like five-star dining that these kids can never afford. One of the great things is there's um

there's a website plant based on a budget you know there's all this information coming out and the problem is when people buy all this package stuff and all this it it is expensive but the more you can buy bulk and shop for the whole family and take the money that you would be spending on medications to eat organic you can eat like a king you know if you saw if you saw um uh food inc it's like the guy's sitting there oh i can't eat like this and then he's spending, by himself, $300, $400 a month on medications. His son is pre-Type 2 diabetes. He's going to be needing medication. The family's spending $500 a month on medication.

Right. So let's hold up. It's about the quality of life as well. Because the dude couldn't even walk up a damn flight of stairs from all the sickness and joint pains he has to take this and that and if you just change what you're eating then you don't even need those medications and you can take all the money that you're utilizing and your time of going to doctors and this and that. I mean, all of that adds up. You have to really show people. I mean, kids, come on, man.

When I was a kid, what the hell was I doing? I was out of my fucking mind, man. But kids, these days, what I find, and I have to tell you that I don't agree with that 100%, that statement, because with the internet and everything have to tell you that I don't agree with that 100%, that statement, because with the internet and everything, it is the information superhighway. And there's a lot of kids that are waking up to what's going on. I think that the kids...

Well, the kids see the generation that's older than them, and they don't want to be that. They just see a lot of sick, fat people. And more and more people going, hey, man vegan i'm plant-based i just i just was coming up here and this these three young girls were walking on the subway behind me i swear to god and one of them goes oh yeah man i'm vegetarian now i haven't even eaten any meat or anything in like three months and they're like where did that why'd you do that and i'm like tuning in on this conversation it's becoming as more and more down to earth people who really know and try to help people out of compassion and the message getting out these super athletes now and like yourself you know voted one of the you know 25 fittest men in the planet like you know and more and more people that are in the know i mean say what you

want about jay-z or whatever but here's the point man the fact that he's doing he went to tile's restaurant crossroads the fact that he's trying to do it then all the vegans are like she's wearing fucking fur like yeah that was a thing so so for people who don't know, Jay-Z and Beyonce announced like a week and a half ago, hey, we're going to try eating a plant-based diet for 22 days, right? And he even said like I'm not calling it vegan. I prefer plant-based. And immediately there was like this all sorts of criticism because they're wearing animal products for their clothes right and also oh why just 22 days and and this is like sort of gang rape of these people and i'm sitting there going these are two of the most culturally influential people on the planet and just by them making a simple

statement can change millions of people's minds or open them up to a new way of doing things like let's celebrate this meet people where they're at. They're just starting this. They're going to go on their own journey with it. Maybe they'll abandon it in 22 days. I don't know. Or maybe they'll keep going. And then maybe a year from now, they'll say, hey, you know what? Like, this fur kind of stuff is messed up. Like, maybe we should take a look at that too. And, you know, why am I endorsing Pepsi? Maybe I should think about that too. But you can't expect people to be 100% and meet with your expectations perfectly on day one. Yeah, man.

Give people space. Let people, you know. The fact is, this is what I said. If everybody on the planet did what he's doing right now for 22 days. We could wipe out all the hunger on the planet. We can feed everybody. We would save the environment. We would save millions of animals that are being tortured for food.

So what's the bad thing about that? And like you said, he's an influential cat, man. I know dudes that trained him, and he's cool. He's down to earth. Let the dude do his thing. I know people that also work with Beyonce, and she's a sweetheart. And it's like all these people, oh, they're for the new world order, and they hang out with Obama and whatever the hell. It's like I look at it like

it's a positive thing man you know and you didn't have to do it instead of throwing water on the spark why don't you fan the spark why don't you stop being an asshole vegan or whatever the hell you call yourself and and let these people do their thing and he's blogging about all these amazing restaurants he's going to yeah he went to cafe gratitude crossroads you know he's gonna probably come to candle 79 when he comes back yeah you know and it's like dude like that's why i just want to like smack half of these people that just open their mouth like everybody you know with this internet thing it's like i come from the school of like you pop shit you get smacked you know like now it's this whole thing where anybody could say

anything they want because they're sitting behind a keyboard and they come out of their face all wrong and i'm like it's developed this whole kind of mentality where it's just a bunch of haters man and i'm like to me when i heard the whole because i'm doing a show for converse and everyone so these vegans all write me they sell animal products and i'm like dude i play huge festivals where they sell hot dogs it's what i do but will i be wearing leather we have to live in the world you know it's like you cannot I mean the truth of the matter is if you want to look at it, take a step back and really look at it, we all pay taxes. And where does that tax money go? So we're all complicit in this system that is perpetrating policies, et cetera, that we may not agree with. But we have to live and breathe in our culture.

Exactly. But we have to live and breathe in our culture. So we have to do the best that we can. And we should be supporting anybody who decides they're going to try something that might have a positive impact. Just like Nike, a few years ago, they sponsored me doing this Urban Cro-Mag Nike training. They let me use their space. They gave me, they said they wanted to pay me. I said, no, you know what you do you give me that four hundred dollars twice a month and when I do my training program I'm gonna buy all superfoods I'm gonna bring all my stuff and we're gonna make people food we're gonna I'm

gonna have all my expert trainers Brendan came in my friend who's special forces came in, jiu-jitsu guys came in, Ironman came in, all different kinds of people training people. There was no charge. It was free. Nike let us use their space. And then we fed people organic plant-based meals. And I had guys like Dr. Bishi come in and educate people on nutrition. So it was a whole two-phase thing first we trained then we learned about proper nutrition but i had all these detractors on the internet saying how dare you do anything with nike and i'm like dude i took their money and i used it for good things what's wrong with you like like you know get the stick out of your ass well and most of those people are they're not doing

anything they're sitting at home and i volunteered my time yeah you're sitting on your ass and these people out there doing things and you're going to criticize them you know i mean it's like look at my friend tal ronan because he opened up a restaurant with the ceo of mcdonald's love your food every day life kitchen and half of it is completely plant-based right and whatever the other half that that guy runs it they sell they sell meat whatever they what they consider like you know green meat or whatever the fuck but guess what the dude's bugging out because tal's menu is outselling his now so and and what did the vegans call him the ronald mcdonald of the of the of the vegan world that's why tal hates all these people that's why these people are getting such bad names and reps

and ruffle every they ruffle everyone's feathers wrong and i just tell them to shut up like and tal tal is that for people who don't know, he's the head chef at a restaurant called Crossroads in Los Angeles that is now like the hottest restaurant. I was in there. Not just vegan, forget vegan, non-vegan, whatever. Like that's the place everybody is going. Leonardo DiCaprio was behind me, Barbra Streisand.

Like everybody's eating there. Oprah just went there. Yeah, Oprah was there. Well, he was Oprah's chef Ellen DeGeneres he wrote the book a beautiful book called uh The Conscious Cook and um Tal's just an amazing dude he's been he's from the hardcore punk rock scene too people don't know that like he used to come see the Bad Brains and the Cro-Mags in the early 80s and all that stuff but yeah so people people want to criticize him,

it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's like all these crows, man, and, and crows assemble where the garbage is, you know, and that's what I call these people, they're just fucking crow mentality people, and I'm like, the same people criticized Rory Freeman, Skinny Bitch, my book, Meat is for Pussies, or, or whatever, they just sit there there and they just throw all this, you know, dirt out against people that are trying to do things to help people and help the environment and help the animals. And I just don't have nothing really to do with those people, man. I would rather chill with regular people and educate them. Just like last night, we was chilling with mishka and he's like man you know and then he wrote me today i'm gonna write him back but you know i just think like

you know it's up to all of us to be cool to to everybody that's trying to make change in the world and and fan the spark instead of throwing water on it you know the solution lies in in meeting people where they're at and respecting them and understanding that while certain people are fighting over you know should you eat two nuts or four nuts and what's too much that most most people are really sick and eating at McDonald's and obese and diabetes. I mean, the statistics are unbelievable. One out of every two Americans is going to suffer from heart disease. By 2030, 50% of Americans are going to be diabetic or pre-diabetic. The obesity rates are through the roof.

And you've got to step back and see the big picture and realize that if you want to change people, you've got to be on their wavelength and create a welcome mat that is attractive for people to come over and explore something that's out of their comfort zone. I mean, that's what my beef is with this part in the pun with this dude, Dorian Ryder. It's like all he ever does is criticize everybody. I'm like, yo. And he criticized Fred Bred b she criticizes everybody now here's somebody who's healed people for the last 60 years he's been a raw foods doctor a phd in nutritional science this guy gets on there and starts slagging everybody he just

i mean i certainly uh yeah he's a controversial figure and he has his he has his detractors and and he has his fans and he kind of fulfills his little corner of the whole thing but there's always a lot of drama swirling around it and uh and and i think that he needs to pick up like uh a yoga book or a bhagavad-gita or something it's like well that leads me into the next kind of thing that i want to talk about which is sort of taking you know launch the launch pad out of food into expanding consciousness and what that's all about because i think for a lot of people that's foreign they want to lose weight they can understand that but the idea of whether it's spirituality or personal growth these become like elusive subjects that you know are slippery and and also kind of freak people out a little bit.

Well, talking with your friend Mishka last night and telling him about all the war stories about being on the streets in New York, it's like everyone who knows my story is like how the how the hell is this dude still alive I mean I got the cover of the village voice but the dude first that's when a million little pieces and these bogus memoirs came out that the guy made all the stuff up and all these bogus memoirs started coming out and at that point my book dropped in 2007 so the dude you know was like there's no way you did all this stuff in this book and you're still alive right because the publishing industry was smarting because james fry's book a million little pieces which was a yeah it was an oprah book club of the month book and it was a huge book and uh it was essentially

an addiction and recovery story but it turned out that he had fabricated or sort of exaggerated a lot of these episodes and and uh and then anybody who wanted to come out with kind of a tell-all memoir or somebody who had you know a colorful dicey past couldn't get those books published because the publishing industry was too afraid of getting mud on its face after that right so my book came out and then when the dude checked all the sources that i gave i'm like you know everything in this book she got a footnote yeah yeah man he he uh yeah but your footnotes are like talk to my homie so and so he sits on the on the stoop at the corner yeah it was like my mom's you know verifying

that we grew up in these abusive foster homes and being on the streets and getting locked up and all the shit i was charged with and the craziness and being shot and and stabbed in lock up and everything else and it's like you know until i really started getting into the philosophy of life it the real change just to become i mean i would have just been somebody that eats vegetables that still robs people it had to be you know it had to be a whole change in consciousness and it started with the bad brains you know because they were very mystical kind of you know they were like sadhus man especially the singer hr and yeah explain if somebody didn't listen to the other episode where we talked who the bad brains are and that influence

on you yeah i mean i got out of lockup i grew up in foster homes. I was on the streets selling, you know, this is what this TV show is basically, hypothetically, had I became 24 and never changed my ways, where would I be? Right, the pilot that you're writing. Right, and so I did time. I was in Spofford. I was upstate in Lincolndale, Lincoln Hall, which, you know, is no place a white boy wants to be. But, you know, I struggled through everything, made it, got out, went into the Navy, and ended up meeting the Bad Brains in Norfolk, Virginia, who were this Rastafarian, just starting to become Rastafarian punks and just blew me away, man.

And then I had this whole philosophical talk with the singer. And, you know, my naval career, I was selling drugs. I was out of my fucking mind. I was taking pills. I mean, just doing crazy shit. I mean, they thought they wanted to put me on medication and had me seeing a you know trying to get me to see a shrink and all kinds of stuff um because I never dealt with the issues of stuff that happened to me as a kid so I you know

and then meeting and then sorry and then meeting HR it was like it just like first of all he could have been telling me to worship the Pillsbury Doughboy and I would have done it because of the power of the band that's the first thing that's why I tell people if you have some type of influence you know people look up to you you need to kind of you know direct people in the right way because that's he basically that they saved my life being around those those people and you know luckily they weren't into drugs they weren't into negative things they were into positive things so when I met him at the Taj Mahal in Norfolk in 1980 that I mean they just blew me away and I had to find out what's these guys into

right and then I just went back you back after the show and talked with them, and it was this whole philosophical discussion about spirituality and all this stuff, and then I got to meet them later, and then the sound man was into all these raw foods but giving me all these philosophy books, and I got a job at a health food store. So it was like a domino effect, man. And that's what happens when you meet people who are on the positive path. I always tell people, I'm like, dude, take that first step. You're going to see amazing things start coming your way.

The universe, God, whatever, Krishna, responds to you in a way when you take those steps and and and you know remove stumbling blocks and puts amazing people in your life that are going to further your spiritual journey along and I'm not talking about religion I'm talking about a spiritual search which each one of us you know has to do that's that's what life's about man it's not about yeah you know, has to do. That's, that's what life's about, man. It's not about, you know, what is it, you know, birth, death, disease, old age, you know, you know, it's like, there's more to life than that. And so I went on my whole spiritual journey. I lived as a monk for a few years and, you know, but it was this whole education, what really saved my life. And, you know, my mother even tells people, if you would have known what this guy life and uh you know my mother even tells people if you would have known what this guy was like you know in 1978 and 79 and dealing with everything like the person

that he's become and it's just because you know if you take an iron rod and you put it in the fire it takes on all the qualities of the fire heat light all of that so i just put myself in that fire of other people who were in that whole spiritual place in their life and those qualities and reading prabhupada's books and all that and and not just reading it but actually applying it to my life because you know he always said we don't want armchair philosophers so if i it's just like if i read something about iron man or training or whatever or my instructor gives me something and it's like okay here's what you have to do trigger point therapy do and i don't do it i just read it what's the value of like i you know what is that

i can just say oh yeah i know about it but i don't can just say, oh yeah, I know about it, but I don't do it. Like that's the worst, to know about and not act on it. Yeah, it's like self-knowledge will avail you nothing. Like you can get all the information in the world, but until you start applying that to your life, what value is it? Right, and I just have to tell people, like when they ask me, I'm like, look, I don't, I just only know my own experience. And if you get something out of it, I never preach to people. They always say to me, man, oh, you got any books on, like, philosophy or the meditation you do or whatever?

And then it's like, you know, a person has to be willing to grow spiritually. It's not something you want to try to cram down someone's throat. That's the problem with religion, you know, with the Bible thumpers, and it's like, you know, all these other— Well, I think the thing is that, you know, a lot of people say, well, I'm not into spirituality, I'm not a spiritual person, and my response to that is like, I got news for you, man. You're a spiritual cat. You are.

Whether you like it or not, you're living a spiritual experience. It's just a question of whether you want to have a greater facility for understanding that or accessing that. And you had said a minute earlier, you know, when you sort of begin to explore this, doors open and people come into your life. And I've experienced that a million times over it doesn't make any logical sense at all but it's this idea of being uh uh you know you we were talking i was talking about this with mishka in the podcast yesterday you know you are you're like a radio antenna and you're putting out a frequency you know and and and that frequency will attract other like-minded frequencies.

You know, water rises to its own level. And when you're on the street and you're, you know, dealing drugs and getting in fights, then you're going to attract a certain crowd around you. And when you start reading these books and start behaving differently, then that's a different signal that you're putting out and that will attract different people and lead you in a different direction that you can't predict

right it's an untold story but those breadcrumbs will take you on a path that you know will change your life well that's why i wrote i i entitled the book the evolution of a crow magnon because it's like you know i was an overnight thing it was it was an evolution that's actually still still going on because well that journey's never over yeah exactly and you know i mean whatever you know state of consciousness one remembers at the time of death to that state he'll attain even in his next life so there's no loss of diminution on the path what you know of consciousness so that's why it's so important you know to to you know grow spiritually and even

since the last time i talked to you i'll just tell you one story about this guy you know that i was talking about last night uh my friend kevin mcquade and kevin mQuaid um he about seven or eight years ago he had stomach cancer had no way to pay for it so he robbed seven banks in New York City passed a note uh saying I don't want to hurt anybody I need this for my surgery but I have a gun and I don't want to hurt anybody but just give me the money no No mask either, right? No mask, no nothing. Dude, the guy was all over the news. He's got balls. Dude, he's got fucking balls of steel.

What year was this? This was about seven, eight years ago. His father was, you know, kind of disowned him. His father was an Irish mobster, Hell's Kitchen kind of guy. And Kevin was a steel union guy. And this thing happened to him. He started drinking. He lost his job,

lost his coverage and got sick. And that's the way he decided I'm going to pay for my surgery. So guess what? St. Paddy's Day, he goes and robs a bank and they put a dye pack in the money bag and it explodes on him and he's got

all this red dye all over him had he already been robbing banks or was that the yeah he was already robbing banks and he was on the news and everything so get in what like these are like small scores or just over the counter yeah like thousands man like. Right, but he's not going into the vault or anything. No, no, no. Just a quick smash and grab? Yeah, pass the note to tell her, give me all the bills in your tray type thing. So they put a tie pack.

So he's on the train, and he starts drinking, and all his whole clothes and everything are fucking covered in dye. So the cops came over to give him a summons for drinking and they're like what's that stuff all over you and he's like so it turns out stomach cancer and he's drinking stomach cancer drinking so he ended up getting locked up and they gave him seven years and uh they removed his totally removed his stomach they i have they have a way of creating another stomach out of something i don't know what the hell they did but anyway cured his cancer they took out his whole stomach and all this stuff so he goes back onto

the streets and he was but he was in jail for how long i think he did like five six years out of that whole sentence and then uh mitigating circumstances you know he never had a record he he did it to pay for his cancer surgery whatever but he was a fan of crow mags my band and i've seen him over the years he knew all all the people on the scene so then when he got out of jail he just went on to the streets and and just total alcoholic i mean pissing himself laying in the street and and i run the soup kitchen that does the plant-based meals for the homeless so he was i would he wouldn't even come to the park i would have to go to this park on second avenue and i

would bring him hot food and and like feed him and say and talk to him and and he kept having his ups and downs like oh i just got out of the program and then this went on for like four or five years but then last year uh he just hit rock bottom and basically he even said I I blanked I blacked out for seven months of my life I can't remember anything and uh you know I kept telling him about, dude, man, you got to give, read these books on philosophy, you got to try to, you know, try to eat some good food, you know, you got to, you got to break out of this, then the last time I seen him, I was like, you know, I couldn't even talk to him, because, you know, he's a good guy, man, that's the whole thing, and I just had to, like to not even say nothing to him because he was within weeks of dying.

You could just see it. And he just disappeared. And then I didn't see him for months and months and months. Well, right after Thanksgiving last year, I walk into Angelica's kitchen, which is this organic plant vegan restaurant, and he's sitting at the table completely cleaned up, like this big smile on his face, and he's like, Hey, man, I've been clean and sober and vegan for four months now, man. And it was like I just got choked up because I was like,

Yo, everything you told me, now man and it was like like i just got choked up because i was like yo if he's like yo everything you told me and he's one of the people that we interviewed for this you know reality show that they're trying to pitch for me but his story is so incredible and uh you know he was there and he cleaned up he goes i went to my father's house which i don't even remember and his father kind of disowned him but his father took him in because his father's house which i don't even remember and his father kind of disowned him but his father took him in because his father's older now too and you know he was a gangster and you know he just wants to do something good before he leaves the world so he took care of his son and he he just after he woke up after like two weeks of sleeping every day was like i don't want to eat meat i need

to eat soups and salads and and then you know he came down basically and found me at angelica kitchen and i walk in and he's sitting there it's it's back to the theme of today's podcast which is the seed you know whether it's the seed of monsanto or the seed of the food that you're eating or the seed of consciousness and the seed that you planted in that guy without holding on to an expectation of whether he would grab onto that lifeline or not. You know what I mean? Like you put the message out and then you move on to the next guy and then it comes full circle and here he is.

That's what, you know, we are like those farmers like you know we're we're planting the seeds even with the podcast or whatever or just helping people out that's the real compassion because if we don't help our fellow man you know i always try to reach out and help people because those people are touchstones towards other people that guy kevin is out there now and people just can't even believe the change that's come over him and i actually had him over it was his one year sobriety vegan whatever uh anniversary this thanksgiving and i had him come over to the house and you know he had you know nowhere to go because his father went to some turkey dinner thing and he didn't want to go there so i invited him over but like when people see the change that that guy's made they're like what the

hell did what did you do like how you know what and that's that's really what it's all about you provided the information and when the willingness finally kicked in that's where the magic happens yeah the part that i love best though that you didn't talk about was because he doesn't have a stomach, he has to eat constantly because he can only absorb like a small fraction of the food that passes through his intestinal tract. I've never seen anybody eat. And he's like, hey, Johnny. He talks like this. I'll imitate him for a minute.

I get a phone call. He's like, hey, it's Kevin McQuaid here I got beans and I got greens on top of that Now Dr. B she says that I'm supposed to sequence my food So I should eat my greens first Because they'll go through my pseudo stomach I'll absorb that Then I put the beans on

So he's like becoming like this He's all super into it yeah but he'll sit there and eat for three hours i had him over my house i'm like motherfucker you're like you're like it's like a bartender like yo you're cut off dude like i wanted some leftovers for people sitting on the toilet like all day yeah like i'll eat with him and he'll go to the bathroom like four times i'm like jesus. His grocery bill must be huge. Yeah. So does he have a job now?

Yeah, man. He got his union job back, steel worker. And yeah, he lives with his pops, is helping him out. And his pops wouldn't give him money in the beginning because he didn't want him to drink. But what he did was he gave him his credit card for the supermarket and Kevin would go there and buy organic food. I want to have that guy on the podcast. Yeah, I called him up because somebody called me from a weird number.

I'm like, yeah, somebody called me from this number. He's like, who's this? He's like, who's this? And I'm like, I don't know. You tell me. You call mine. He's like, I didn't call you. Who is this?

Is this John from downtown? and he's this old irish like you can just tell man and i was like yeah he's like this is kevin's father i just want to take a minute to really thank you for what you did to my for my son you and all your friends because we always buy like i i bought that dude dinner, like, for two months straight. My friend Arthur, the drummer from the Misfits, Googie, buys him. You know, the fact that this dude is still alive is confirmation that anybody, I always say if I could change, anybody can change. But Kevin is a prime example of, you know, you have to reach out and try to help people man because like you said everybody's spiritual and that's i told kevin i kept saying man you're an addict so listen he's like yeah the na is not my thing like you know so what is he into he's into reading the

pravapada's books he'll go chant with the devotees he'll go sit in a yoga class and just meditate so he's finding you know somebody who came from such a dark place like that was able to find his spiritual path because you know people reached out to him and that's what the important you don't know who these people are you you can't look into their souls and know what level of consciousness they've attained previous lives or whatever. And it's like, that's why you just have to always try to help people. That's been my thing. I've met so many amazing people in the last 30-something years I've been doing this.

And that's what I say. It's not like i created the knowledge i don't take credit for it what i'm really am is the mailman i'm just delivering the mail but it's all about paying it forward if you get gifts in life it's you have to pay that forward you have a responsibility to turn around and if if you're helped you need to go help other people right and the big secret or not so secret thing is that it's truly the the the roadmap to happiness if you want to be a happy fulfilled human being get out of yourself and your small life and your problems and just help up help other people that are less fortunate that you than you you know it doesn't take very much and and it will shift nothing will shift your consciousness or how you feel about yourself when you get out of yourself

and start helping other people and i'm going to tell you something else man everyone's so quick oh yeah everybody that's homeless is a fucking drug addict and that's just so not true i mean there's dudes who went to iraq and fought for this country that i feed on the homeless line there's a guy who's a veteran problem yeah out of control yeah and don't even get me started with that big shout out to my man, POW MMA Todd Vance in San Diego, California, who now got yoga certified. And he's getting into all this metaphysical stuff and teaches the mixed martial arts to help the veterans with PTSD. And he does it. He was San Diego's man of the year.

Amazing guy, Todd Vance. But, you know, I meet so many different kinds of people because I've been out feeding the homeless since 82 in Tompkins Square Park. And everybody thinks, oh, they're all on drugs. It's just not the case, man. There's dudes running around nowadays that are veterans. They the PTSD. It happened to my nephew. He did four tours with the Marines and was homeless.

And nobody knows where he went. And, you know, thank God somebody reached out to him. But another person I met, he was living under the FDR. And his wife and kids died in a car crash. And he was like a big-time Wall Street guy. And he lost everything. So nothing mattered to him anymore. But just the fact that I would sit there and talk 10 to 15 minutes with him, and,

and, you know, talk to him about life, and spirituality, and, you know, for the soul, there's never birth, no death, no having, once been, does it ever cease to exist, and that happened for a reason, you know, everything happens, you know, for a reason, we may not understand what it is, but know you you know you have this is going to make you stronger or it's going to break you completely and then like over the years i've so i saw the dude get his get his trip back together and that's what it's all about man because somebody reached out to me when i was in a dark place selling drugs like i sold the bad brains manager acid and quaaludes that night that i met them and i was out of my mind you know and dude just reached out and was like yo check this out

this is a we have to rewire our brains because we're we've been wired from materialism and selfishness and all these bad qualities that exist in the material world and society these days and we have to rewire that you know to have compassion to you know have attributes that you know are out there doing good towards other people instead of like i me mine that whole consciousness the i ching and all what it talks about you you know. And, I mean, you know, I mean, I made, I had a shitload of money saved, you know, back when I opened up the yoga center. And, you know, I spent my life savings opening up this yoga center that educated people on St. Mark's, and we fed people.

And, you know, and my mother my mother you know she's older so she was she knows where I came from I had nothing you know even in the foster homes we had to steal to eat they were feeding us oreo spit sandwiches so she knows where I came from and she's like you have to make sure my you know my mother was like you have to make sure my, you know, my mother was like, you have to make sure that you put away for yourself. And I can't, you know, you could own a house for what you spent building that place and maintaining it for 10 years. And I'm like, my, the relationships and the friendships and the love and all the people I helped opening up that place. up that place i would never trade that for anything because that is so rich and fulfilling uh to be able to help all those people and i've seen people come in they're hooked on drugs and within you know a year they're they're meditating and they've gone plant-based and it's like all these amazing uh you know that's what they said about the whole process Prabhupada brought over was that he

built the house for the whole world to live and you would see people of all walks of life coming into that yoga center and like gelling and getting along and having a common goal which was, you know, to awaken consciousness and, you know, and now that's what I'm trying to do with this next whole round of of monetary gain that's coming i want to open up uh another place a bigger place and and and uh you know facilitate more people uh becoming aware and and getting healthy both physically mentally spiritually you know there's nothing more important. That's how I get my satisfaction in life is trying to help other people. Yeah, that's what it's about, man.

I mean, I think that I'm 47 now. You're 52, 51. So the older I get, the more commonplace it becomes to encounter people in our age bracket who are living lives of desperation, really, and are searching for a solution to that but don't know how to access that. They don't know because we've been living a life of being told that if you do this, you'll get happy. If you go lease the new car and we're inundated with all these messages and marketing messages, buy this and you'll be happy. And people are starting to understand and realize that that's not the solution.

And really for me, and I know for you, it's a full-time, you've committed your life and then some to this idea of being service and you've become a fulfilled, happy person. In contrast, at the same time, people will say constantly, well, that's great, but most people don't change or people don't really want to change.

And so what is, disabuse me of that notion. And what is it that you've seen or experienced that people might not realize that is an effective catalyst for people changing their lives what i mean i just have to relate to my own experience and where i came from you know like i said you would cross the street if you saw me in the early 80s and 70s and how did I change I associated with people who were spiritually minded who were grounded they rewired me they rewired my way of thinking and we've become so uh kind of living in these cocoon worlds now like you, like the communication aspect with this whole,

you just see people walking down the streets and it's like they're texting. We're losing that communication aspect amongst. That's why I never do that. I walk down the street. I look people right in the eye. Hey, man, what's up? You know, like today too, same thing. You know, like today too, same thing.

And I really say that, you know, if people get a chance to associate with people who are, you know, spiritually minded or into all these esoteric things and philosophy and good eating, it's like, you know, people used to think, you know, devotees that are out there chanting were brainwashed because they were happy. No, that's, we're supposed to be happy. We're not supposed to be miserable with 2.2 children and two cars leading quiet lives of desperation waiting for death to knock on the door in Long Island. That's not what human life is meant for self-realization. That's the first book that changed my life. I read Prabhupada's Science of Self-Realization. And it was, I had to look not outside of myself and stop blaming, you know, doing the blame game. Everything that's happened to me

is because of what other people did to me. That's what I did for a long time, and that's why I was violent. That's why I was using drugs. I had to turn it in and say, okay, what happened happened, but am I going to let that ruin the rest of my life? No, I want to change. And the only way I was even inspired to do that, it's like those seeds of thought that were planted by bad brains by jw by all these you know

going to integral yoga in 1980 81 and meeting swami satchin ananda and then you know the harry krishna devotees or whatever just being around these people doing yoga and you know it it was just this whole community of like deeper thinkers and it really is about rewiring the way that we've been wired by society, and that's why I don't care about all this reality TV stuff and all this other nonsense that's in. This person said that. Well, it's not going to change how you live your life. It's like, dude, who cares?

Why is that news? Why are you dumbing down the masses? Because I think to a large degree when people are ignorant of truth, they can be manipulated. That's just how I feel, and I've seen it happen. Nobody wants free thinkers. And I forget which dictator, but it was during the Roman times, and his famous quote was when they invaded somewhere,

he's like, kill all the artists first because they are the free thinkers of society. And it's like, now look at the artists that are out there that are in a place to say something even look at music in the you know the whole social message of like look what they told Marvin Gaye when he wanted to put out what's going on if you ever read the liner notes that was like it's first of all it's Motown's greatest selling album of all time. And Barry Gordy told him, this is going to ruin your career because you're getting involved in politics and social messages. But Marvin Gaye believed in his heart that this was the thing to do. And he did it. And despite what everybody else said, look at the effect.

look at the effect you know inner city blues all these songs that were on what's going on and Mercy Me and all these

tracks that were on that record and it's like you know nowadays you don't see the artists out there

kind of you know putting that message out there and I think now's the most like what I tell people, now is the greatest time in the world to be a punk rocker,

like a real punk rocker spreading a social message, like the Jell-O offers, the HRs, you know. Why is now the best time? Because of what's going on in the world, man. It's like now the real, you know, the deep thinkers really need to step up to the plate because I really feel like, and I'm not biblical at all, but I really do see that this is the golden age, the age of Aquarius, of enlightenment. But I see at the same time there's a lot of dark shit going on too. There's a lot of manipulation. There's a lot of people putting that negative energy out there

so i always talk about what's going on and it seems so you know doom whatever but you know then the light comes on and you know it you know when there's light in the room darkness can't exist and that's what's the hope for humanity is that everybody that has a voice gets out there. And it is a grassroots movement because you're not going to hear about this stuff in the mainstream media. But it's, you know, podcasts and websites and all this type of stuff where the knowledge is really getting out there. I mean, how do you think the non-GMO project and all this other stuff is getting so much well it's the first time in the history that that the the modes of distribution cannot be controlled you know and it's the best and first time when something could really go viral without checks and balances on it yeah so that's that's like the ultimate you know avenue for punk you know punk rock so it begs the

question of you know what do you how would you define punk like what is your definition of punk and how has that changed from 1975 to what it is now i mean when i came on the punk rock scene it was really about drugs and fucking there wasn't much you know revolutionary type thought uh going on in that whole punk scene it was really about you know anarchy and you know destroying things and and whatever but it wasn't until

bands like the Bad Brains and stuff like that started injecting socially conscious and aware message into the music you know and then like i got into you know even the police what they were saying you know we are spirits in the material world and you know all these types of bands i would always look to like what's the secret language of that song like george harrison while my guitar slow you know, Here Comes the Sun.

And he wrote all these songs as metaphors for people's spiritual awakening and stuff. And he wanted it to seem cool, so he wasn't on the nose with the message, but it was there. So to me, you know... Except for Jai Gurudev. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a little on the nose. That was definitely on the nose. But I mean, you know, My jai guru that was a little on the nose that was definitely on the nose but i mean you know my sweet lord was great i mean all that kind of stuff and i mean to me you know punk

rock is anything that creates you know social change it doesn't have to be for the better uh social change for the better it doesn't have to be you know people covered in tattoos and doing what I do. I mean, I even say to people like, man, you're punk as a motherfucker. More than any people that I'm meeting, that to me is like dudes that are out there and chicks out there on the front line changing people's lives. That's punk. That's what punk came out of, a dissatisfaction with mainstream society and how we're supposed to do things. And this is the real revolution right here because to change a person's consciousness

and let them do it themselves by planting seeds of knowledge. Hey, yo, dig this. Look at this way of doing it. That's, to me, that's the real punk rockers that's you know guy fred b she's a punk rocker to me you're a punk rocker to me people that that's what it's really about is you know taking a stance against the the status quo and what people are out there doing man you know it's like and they're miserable in their lives where we're the most uh over medicated on prescription drugs for depression and everything else so if materialism

is the answer why the hell we taking all these pills to be happy get through your depression and if your depression doesn't work here take this other pill that works in congestion with the first medication you're taking and by the the way, here are all the side effects, which include... It's hilarious. I snap all over that because I got a chapter about Big Farmer in the new book too, and it's pretty hysterical. But look at this laser beam coming from over here. Oh, yeah.

See that? It's pretty cool. The city, we're looking out the window here. It's snow, been snowing all day. The city's actually really beautiful right now yeah cool man but uh great you know coming and seeing you yeah man thanks uh let's wrap it up um that was awesome man you're the best dude man you know i just try to bring things from my experience in life and you know for whatever that's worth and like i said it's

guys like kevin mcquade it's guys like me it's guys that i see who i mean i read in this one a vegan magazine uh that this guy uh went plant-based and got into buddhism and he was a criminal doing like 25 years he's like if i got access to this knowledge i wouldn't be in prison right now but he went vegan in prison really yeah dude it was in i forget it was this magazine called sacha or something did an article which means the mode of goodness in sanskrit and he got into buddhism and meditation and yoga and vegetarianism inside prison and it's completely changed his life and this is what we need to do to rehabilitate these people who made mr i mean my nephew's facing six and a half to 15

years right now he's locked up and i'm like if these people had access to this knowledge they would really change their life those prisons are not rehabilitating people they're warehousing people and it's just disgusting because they deserve a chance to change. I changed, and that's why I'm writing the TV pilot. Hypothetically, if I didn't change, where would I be? Who would I be running with? You know? I can't wait to see it all come out.

Meet us for pussies in July, man. I know. And let's leave everyone with a little bibliography of some of these books, like on the theme of planting the seed, some of the books and the documentaries, just so if somebody can break out their pen right now and jot it down, and I'll put them in the show notes. So the documentaries that we talked about, what were they again?

The Future of Food, The World According to Monsanto, Genetic Roulette by Jeffrey Smith, great books, Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher. Oh, another documentary is The Idiot Cycle. Are these all on Netflix? Yeah, those are Netflix or the internet. You can actually watch the whole documentary and books, Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher. Even Howard Lyman, Mad Cowboy. Right.

So, you know, and I love Tal Ronan's book, The Conscious Cook, man. If anyone's just now starting to get into plant-based eating, I mean, his book is amazing because it's gourmet and he just breaks it down so easy for you to right cook really uh healthy food you know in your book which was blew me the hell away man finding ultra brendan's book thrive thrive brendan's got a new cookbook coming out yeah pretty soon right yeah so lots of good stuff out there all right man and if people want to uh jump on your train you're on uh meat is for pussies you can go on that page you can follow yeah facebook you can follow me on facebook too john joseph on facebook like you you know like i can't add any more because i got like dude you need your own page so you can get more people and it just seems a little narcissistic

they copy you they cap you at five five thousand right so you've got to be your limit right yeah i'm definitely at that but the page too on facebook get somebody else to create the page for you then it's not so narcissistic yeah come on no i will but they'll be you'll be hearing a lot about uh i signed with red brick uh entertainment which they're gonna get me out there speaking at all colleges and doing the whole speaking circuit. Good. You know, because I want to get out there and talk to people about it.

I mean, even Dr. Campbell was like, when I meet those meatheads now, I want to introduce them to you. I'm just going to throw you at them next time I'm in here. That's funny. Yeah, so. Cool. And, yeah, you're on next time i'm in here that's funny yeah so cool and uh yeah you're on twitter you don't tweet that much though well my pages are linked up to twitter so when i post something on my page from facebook or whatever it goes to twitter yeah it's jj chromag yeah all right man that's about right? You got other websites and stuff? Nah. Cro-Mags playing around? Yeah.

Where are you playing next? Yeah, we're doing the show for Converse. We fly out Tuesday, play Wednesday. Where is that? Play in New York, in Antwerp. Oh, wow. Belgium. And then play New York on the 21st at Santos Party House, 21st of December.

So, yeah, I'm keeping busy man you coming out to LA anytime soon yeah the train with you go to Crossroads eat some of Tal's food cool man thanks a lot thank you bro alright buddy peace plants alright people that's our show.

Hope you enjoyed it. Hope you enjoyed John Joseph. Guy's amazing, right? I keep telling him he's got to get his own podcast. I think if he did, it would just explode. It would blow up the internet. But I loved having him on, and I hope you got some good stuff out of that.

If you did and you want to support the Rich Roll podcast, go to stitcher.com, vote for us for best health and lifestyle podcast of 2013. Go to iTunes and leave us a review. I'm not telling you what to write. Just write something, show up for us there. You got some comments, some feedback you want to give us? Want to give us a shout out? Go to the blog at richroll.com and go to the page for this episode and leave a comment there. We love getting the comments. If you have not yet subscribed to our newsletter, you can do that at richroll.com too. We've been sending out weekly newsletters, podcast updates, but also we are starting to beef it up and I'm

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Plants. Thank you.