WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 701 - Steve-O

Episode Date: April 25, 2016

Steve-O probably could have died several times while making Jackass. But that's nothing compared to the amount of life-threatening danger he faced in real life. Now sober and full of clarity, Steve-O tells Marc talk about his lifelong quest for attention, how it led to his downfall, and how he pulled himself up by embracing his past. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day.

They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fucking ears, what the fucksters, what the fuckadelics? I am Mark Maron. This is WTF, my podcast. Welcome to it. I hope you're doing okay. Heavy week. I guess it's all heavy, depending on where you're sitting and what your life looks like and what you're paying attention to and what's coming down on you. But it's a heavy week.

I'm on my way in a few hours. I'm going to go to a memorial for Gary Shanling. I'm recording this Sunday. But that's going to be a celebration of a man's life. We've gotten a little distance here, and not much, but it is an honor and a celebration of Gary's life. And I don't know what that's going to be like. I guess I'll tell you about that on Thursday. It's sad, but, you know, when somebody's left some great stuff,

and you can appreciate it and feel the grief and feel the pain and be with people that knew him or appreciated him, and you do that. That's what we do as people. I'm not sure at a different point in my life that I would have been able to do that. I don't know why. I was brought up with a certain avoidance of it. I guess we're all trying to avoid death, but out of respect and out of compassion and empathy, your heart has to go out.

It has to go out. Prince died this week. Horrible. Was not essentially one of my guys, but certainly I appreciated his music, and I thought he was a genius, and he was fucking ballsy and courageous and did things no one else could with music

and just with his place in the world and in culture, took on the big shots. And a lot of people out there are really reeling from that. And it feels like all these people are dying. What a bad year it's been. David Bowie. I guess that's true, but people die. these people are dying that they you know what a bad year it's been you know david bowie i i i i guess that's true but but you know people die every second it's just that when they have a a portion of your life in your heart in your mind you know it resonates and obviously large

you know see here i'm trying to i'm trying to frame it a certain way. And there's really, there's really no way to frame it. It's a, it's, it's sad and it happens. And there's a, no matter what we do to, to prolong it or avoid it, uh, it's there. It's, it's, it's, it's right. It's hovering. It's the knowledge of it is hovering and something that we talk a lot about on this show. And one way or the other close friend close friend of mine lost a loved one and it was devastating. And I don't know what to do other than put my heart out there to them and make myself available any way I can and offer my deep sorrow. I'm just happy that I feel that. And I'm just happy that I feel that. I'm happy that my cynicism has not caused me to be detached and own shit, so spiraling in my own little dumb world of neurotic pain and panic that I was not capable of empathy.

And I think it's very important. And I'm not preaching here, but I'm just learning this about myself because I'm somebody that came into empathy sort of later in life. I didn't really have the equipment for it because of the way I was brought up. And I was always sensitive, but a lot of times that's just about you. But to really, you know, be empathetic and try to understand the pain of loss in others, it's an important thing. And this is where, you know, this is like basic shit

that I have to figure out all the time. You know, love has to win. And a lot of us have become cynical and detached and self-centered about things and, you know, dismissive and snarky and on to the next thing. But it's okay to feel pain. It's okay to feel fear. but it's okay to feel pain. It's okay to feel fear. And if you can connect with the love that will enable you to appreciate the world,

it's not a dark place. You know, it's important. It's important to yourself. It's important to people around you. I'm not always great at it. You know, I go right to, you know, flashes of sadness that manifest themselves into anger. And then I want to eat something.

Then I want to have some coffee. I want to have a nicotine lozenge. I want to get on Twitter. i want to eat something then i want to have some coffee i want to have a nicotine lozenge i want to get on twitter i want to check my email i want to you know text somebody i want to i just want to get away i just want to i don't want to feel it the options to avoid feelings in the culture we live in now is like profound it's all that's that's what it's demanding of you get Get lost. Get a hit. Get a hit somewhere. Dodge it. Dodge the pain.

Got to sit in it. You got to sit in it for yourself and for other people. I'm talking to myself right now. You know, sometimes music helps move me through things. I've been compulsively listening. You know, I get records, and this cat, Nathan Amundsen, who has a band called Rivulets, and I remember playing one record that he sent me, and I was like, this is it.

I like that sort of three-chord kind of slow groove, ethereal, little bit of echo, little bit of vibrato, just that movement. And I came across this one single that I guess he had sent me called Right on Melina. It's on the A side, and I told Jesus Christ how much I love her. That's on the B side. It's a 10-inch.

And I just threw it on, and I get a lot of records. And I think I've listened to that thing like you know 50 fucking times in the last month and i don't even know why it's one of those songs that that somehow takes you different different place there's a a transcendence to it that's somewhat melancholy but but broad it's almost like you're floating in the sadness but it feels invigorating and that's been very helpful to me this week. And, you know, I'm going to personally thank Nathan Amundsen. And, you know, I love when I can find a song like that, that just kind of soothes all the darkness without obliterating it, without

detracting from the feelings, kind of lets you have them and lets you stay in them without feeling like you're going to disappear. And there's a lot of grief out there. You know, if you choose fear over love or fear over acceptance, you know, that's going to lead to bad places a lot of times. I'm sorry it's so heavy. I'm sorry it's so heavy uh yeah i'm gonna have to go listen to right on molina a few more times today fucking thank god for that song right now our guest today is steve oh and then oddly plays into what i'm talking about too to reckoning with the fact of tragedy and darkness and death every day. You know, that's the gift of consciousness.

You know, if you can get some peace of mind and some connectivity to your heart and then to your heart to the world, you know, great. But Steve-O is a guy who, you know, as a clown in ways, courageously confronts death for the most ridiculous reasons and it seems ridiculous and it is ridiculous and it seems stupid sometimes but i'll tell you there was no the first time you see that first jackass movie there's nothing like it in life there there there is some sort of weird point to the camaraderie and to the and to the risks they take for our laughter and for our surprise and this is a way this is like what i'm talking about like i watched his uh

his showtime special it's called guilty as charged it's on demand it's on vimeo you go to steveo.com you can check out his tour dates but as you'll find out when i talk to him that you know there's only there's only certain things he can do over and over again without really possibly hurting himself. And he has hurt himself. But why? I don't know. I tried to figure it out. But when you watch it, there's something bold.

There's something crazy. But there's something that transcends death in those moments where these guys are doing stupid, stupid shit that could really hurt them and sometimes do hurt them. And they come out laughing. It's a very immediate way in a very hilarious and, and, and, uh, stupid actions that, that, that we're allowed to laugh at. And at that moment, really sort of laugh in the face of death. And's a service life is disappointing life is hard but uh there there's there's some wiggle room so you know it's up to you and your perception like you know just the other day i you know i found out that i i actually experienced this weird pain that i haven't had in a while that i thought i was over that i thought that I thought I'd moved past as a grown man.

You know, I have my special more later, which is my new special, which I'm very proud of. And I can't believe I'm telling you about this. But, well, it's not that. Whatever. But, you know, I'm very proud of that special. And you can see it on Epix and you can see it on uh amazon prime or whatever that is and hulu my ifc show marin uh premieres may 4th very excited about that i'm going to be on the tonight show if everything goes properly on may 3rd um but uh but i had

this thing happening you know i i wanted to put out a vinyl because you know i'm a vinyl guy and you know and i and i want to feel like on some level that I'm, I'm not your average vinyl guy though. Every time I go to a record store to, to find some new vinyl or trade in some vinyl, I see a bunch of other dudes, my age and different stages of, uh,

social awkwardness and weight problems, you know, kind of foraging through the bins, but I enjoy vinyl and I like listening to new music. And, you know, I've had, you know, like I love Ty Siegel's music, you know, and I've had Stephen Malkmus in here and I've had, you know, Michael Cronin. I have Joanna Newsom, you know, coming up and, you know, and I listen, you know, I've been turned on to a lot of music by these people.

And like, I know I'm an old guy. I get it know I've been turned on to a lot of music by these people and like I know I'm an old guy I get it I know that but I'm definitely in it music plays a big part in my life to stave off death thoughts basically like everything else so I you know I have more later I want I thought maybe I put it on vinyl you know I don't have to and I could do it probably you know a lot of places I've been offered the opportunity to do a vinyl record. I did one for Thinky Payne. Comedy Central did it. But I thought that because I know Dan over at Drag City,

the guy who is one of the owners, I guess, and I have a relationship with them. I get their records, and I enjoy them, and I get excited about them. So I thought, man, that'd be cool, man. Maybe I'll just ask Drag City if we can, uh, you know, put out a vinyl, I mean, just a small pressing, maybe a thousand be cool. I'd add some, maybe do a bunch of stuff that wasn't on the special that's out there and, you know, be on the drag city level at the cool kids, you know? And, uh, so I pitched it. I'm like, you know, look at, you know, I own the rights. It would cost

and uh so i pitched it i'm like you know look that you know i own the rights it would cost just the whatever it would cost to press them and put the art together and it'd be nice thing to have and nice thing for fans to have and small release and i didn't hear from him for a while yeah right i wrote right to dan and i didn't hear from him and i'm like all right well maybe i'll just move on and uh you know uh and you know find another label or just you know self-release it and um well you know he got back to me he said look you know maybe we can put it on uh you know our secondary uh label and uh and i'm like i don't know kind of want to make a drag city record dan i want to make a drag city record then i don't hear nothing and then i i do one of those things like all right i get it i get it and i just write back and i go forget it forget it you know i can do it myself

it's not necessary it's just a fun idea i had and i thought because we were all pals and you know i want to hang out with the cool kids maybe you do it i know you do another comedy record what it gets back to me hey man you know i'm into it but has to be a consensus here and one dude not into it so he just throws some nameless dude under the bus who now i have to think like that dude didn't think i was cool enough i'm not cool enough nope nope not on drag city not cool enough the guy who actually reinvented his life in his fucking garage and still works in it who likes the garage sound I got Bonnie Prince Billy I like him on Matt Sweeney I had on the show I'm just telling you that some things in life come back around and i actually

had a little fucking hurt feelings because i wasn't cool enough to be on a label that i love and that's just the nature of being an old guy i guess so i'll figure out another way to put that out and get that out to you transcendence how do we do it i I had a nice conversation with Steve-O and I'm going to share that with you now. This is me and Steve-O. Again, his special Guilty as Charged is on Showtime On Demand and now on Vimeo. You can go to steve-o.com and check out his tour dates. And this was good. This was good. It's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats.

But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age.

Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city, home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA. A city

that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look out at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. Enjoy. enjoy i watched a special last night oh dude thank you so much man i was supposed to right oh hey man i didn't have any expectations yeah well i know i find that when i have the time i should probably do a a little of the homework given to me. But obviously, I know who you are. And I knew, like, here's my first thought was,

because I remember when he started showing up at comedy clubs. Now, I'm a comic. So there was a number of us who were like, what the fuck? What the fuck is Steve-O just, like, doing comedy now? But, you know know when i watched it it's like it's not stand-up per se it's like a one-man show sure right uh-huh i mean isn't that basically what it is i would say so i mean it's definitely storytelling right corporate stunts into it right and uh i just try to make sure that my stories are funny and the how are they not

going to be funny something's like it's either your dick is going to be in there you're going to be falling out of something or right fucking the wrong person i mean you can't lose no but like uh it's been going great and i've not modeled what uh what i do after anybody like uh right so i feel like it's uh it's original it's authentic well yeah well without when i watch it though because like there's always this weird thing with old comics where they're sort of like, you know, they thought you just got... Basically, it was sort of like, well, he's just selling tickets because he's Steve-O. It doesn't have to do with comedy necessarily or stand-up. But when I watched it, it was like you chose to use stand-up clubs to kind of like workshop

this funny show that has a narrative. It's got an arc. There's a beginning, middle, and end. You know, you move through some shit. like it's like a theater thing almost but yeah i i imagine that when you if you saw it out at the beginning of it to do small theaters around the country people be like no we we don't want you to burn our fucking theater down or duh man the number i used to do uh like fire stunts all the time and i was gonna do it on on my special too but the fire marshal got in and shut it down.

But dude, like tiny little, like comedy clubs with like curtains and everything. And I'm like blowing fire everywhere. And no one got in trouble? I got away with it a lot. Yeah. But not always? Not always.

I mean, I never set a fire, but I was pretty rarely shut down. And how's your health, buddy? You know, outside of fake teeth, terrible tattoos, and an esophagus condition that's pretty manageable, like, I'm in pretty tip-top shape, man. It's all, like, mental issues. What happened to your teeth?

Oh, you know, I've just made a habit of breaking teeth. And, you know, at first, like, I broke down, I broke seven of them in one go one time. Which, which thing was that? I jumped off a balcony at a keg party. Oh, this is pre-Jack? Yeah. A younger Steve-O?

A younger Steve-O. Yeah. Telling this girl on a balcony how I was going to become a rad, famous stuntman. Uh-huh. Trying to demonstrate, I said said imagine you know a fight scene and i pretended to get punched and just threw myself off the balcony and i spun over the railing and i landed on my face on the ground and um i broke like seven teeth like i said i had 10 stitches in my chin a concussion a fractured cheekbone how'd it work out with that girl it didn't it didn't right you know uh

and i broke my wrist too man holy shit how old were you i was at that point um 20 years old yeah i was 20 and that must have just been like there's something so horribly hilarious about that like you're you're trying to impress somebody and then they had to call an ambulance. I mean, like, not to, like, you know, if she's out there or whatever. She wasn't, like, just the hottest chick. Right. That was, like, the thing, you know. And I was, like.

That seems to be a theme with you. Right. Yeah, and there I was, like, face down on the concrete. I mean, I don't even remember landing. Right. But I know because I needed 10 stitches in my chin. I had like a pool of blood growing around my face. I'm face down in this pool of blood, not even moving at all.

And my buddies thought like if he's not dead, he's going to need that weed in his pocket. So like, you know, they came down and like rifled through my pants to get my weed out. So when the cops came or the ambulance came yeah and um you got friends that have interesting priorities right if he's not dead he's gonna need that weed right we got his back on that i hope he remembers his name if he is dead we're gonna need that weed like it's such a it's such a specific world of fucking insanity that you've like always lived in what where where the fuck did you come from where'd you grow up though because i know you mentioned in the show that your dad's a successful businessman but i don't i don't get any sense of

that yeah um i was born in england in lond. Yeah. Well, specifically Wimbledon. Six months old, moved to Brazil. Really? Spoke my first words in Portuguese. Really? Yeah. Dad was the president of Pepsi Cola Brazil. That was his gig? So he was like a-

Like all of Pepsi Cola in Brazil. He was a CEO type of guy? Yeah. He ran the Brazilian division of Pepsi. That's a big job. He was an international pepsi cola executive exactly uh-huh and uh yeah the weather specifically the president of pepsi cola brazil and um he uh he like my parents had shit popping off they were successful you know

like i was raised by uh live-in maids yeah now like like that's why i spoke my first words in portuguese because i was raised like my parents didn that's why i spoke my first words in portuguese because i was raised like my parents didn't inspire me to choose my first words right so you were raised by this woman who like was hired by your family right yes i mean i have no recollection or i don't even know anything do you speak any other languages i don't man when i was like uh in summer camp when i was a kid i spoke apparently portuguese in my sleep? Yeah. And then I was two years old, moved to Venezuela, did nursery school there. And he was what? Dad was promoted to more like Central America.

So now he's overseeing Pepsi in Central America. Right, uh-huh. And then moved to Connecticut when I was four. I don't know why. What part of Connecticut? Darien, Connecticut. Oh, that's nice. Right?

Yeah. So now that's where CEOs go to retire and hang out. Well, no. Dad was just getting started at that point. He was still working for Pepsi. I went to kindergarten in Connecticut. Yeah. I learned to speak three languages by the age of four.

I went on to completely forget two of them by the age of five. Yeah. And moved to Miami when I was six. With your dad? With my family. At that point, dad began working for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Oh, man. So he was a tobacco CEO.

Bringing home the cartons? Right. We lived in Miami, but dad oversaw R.J. Reynolds in South America somehow. Got real American, sort of like, you know, not so healthy businesses. Yeah, soft drinks. Yeah, but here's the guy. Then I moved to London, England when I was nine. Back?

Yeah, but it was my first experience there. Yeah, what was he doing there? At that point, I want to say he was working for Del Monte, canned tomatoes and shit. So you grew up like, you know, all over the place but pretty privileged i mean you know super privileged yeah i was super privileged uh corporate brat yeah and then 12 years old i moved to canada dad was i want to say the president of nabisco in canada you want to say you kind of think yeah i mean he worked for nabisco he worked for nabisco but i think he was like the president of nabisco canada he's like a high level corporate executive like you know food and beverage guy and occasionally tobacco right uh-huh did you get along with him did you see him dad and i were

super tight now are you still around yeah i mean he is he is my mom's not but my dad is and they stayed married through all this shit for Through a lot of shit. For 25 years, they were married. And she had it, right? She was like, I'm done. Well, mom was an alcoholic. Oh, really? Yeah, her alcoholism was pretty heavy, and dad didn't necessarily understand it. No Al-Anon for dad?

You know, when I got sober, I told dad, you know, like there we were, you know, checking me into rehab. Right. And dad's talking about like, you know, once we get this behind you, once we have this fixed. And I just snapped and I told him, dad, this doesn't get fixed. You know, it's going to be behind me. Like I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. It's always going to be that way.

Right. And I said, the fact that you still don't understand that after being a married mom for 25 years is frankly pathetic. Right. And I said, if I'm going to be, I'm serious about this, and if I'm going to be serious, then you need to be serious too, or you can fuck it all up. Really? And I told him, you got to go to Al-Anon, which was, I guess, pretty insightful for

a guy just checking in. Right, right. You knew. But I had just had so much of the history of my family, so I understood it. Did he go he did and after uh i don't know after maybe like a few months he said like you know i i've been going to these meetings and i want to like you know be supportive and stuff but i just don't quite understand it because i feel like the people in the meetings are are there for their own problems right now and he's like i don't have any problems i just want to

he's like i just want to be any problems. I just want to, he's like, I just want to be supportive and sort of help you in your recovery. And I said, that's great, dad. Well, next time just hand me a beer and a joint. Well,

that's the fucked up thing about it is like, they don't like they're stubborn in their ways and they don't necessarily understand like they, in their mind, it's, it's a willpower thing. And then you just have to, part of it is willpower despite whatever, but, but, but it's also thepower thing and then you just have to you know part of it is willpower despite

whatever of course but but uh but it's also the willingness and the you know doing the some of the spiritual work and the and and working the steps so you can learn how to think like a human but uh but a lot of times they just they can't process that they can't they can't see it as a disease they can't they just don't understand like why don't you just you know stop right and i'm glad you say that too because there really is a lot of willpower involved. It's willpower that gets you off your ass and go to a meeting or whatever. No, you're right. It's not talked about a lot.

It's talked about like it's a miracle or something. But in order to have the willingness or to get fucked up enough to want to stop, I mean, yeah, you've got to go to meetings and stuff. But when you're sitting home alone, it's still you going, like, I ain't going to do it. Right. You know what I mean? Like for whatever reason, I'm not going to do it. It may be God's helping. Maybe that guy called us helping. Maybe that meeting is helping, but I have, you know, I'm sitting next to alcohol right now and I'm not drinking it. And that's not a miracle. It's a choice. Right. I mean, people always say stay strong and i think to myself well stay powerless is what they mean sure right remember you know well yeah but that's that's the beauty

of that fucking that that first step thing you know we talk about this on the show but is that like to really understand that you can't do it because there's no way to do it without getting fucked up sure and to have that in your mind and in your heart that i mean that's the trick and that makes the choice a little easier right i mean i was saying just earlier today that uh that step one it's like a paradox there's so many paradoxes in the program um but uh you know in admitting that we were powerless over alcohol you know we admit hopelessness and in hopelessness is where we find hope you know right it's paradox well yeah and that's it and then there's all that you know that window into like you know really fucking

dealing with who you are and like you know dealing with your problems and like you know what i mean like the pain of sobriety of like that insanity but when did you start like um like you don't have any brothers or sisters i have an older sister yeah oh how'd she turn out uh she's got her own issues but substances aren't aren't uh really the thing uh she um is a high school teacher oh really in south florida in south florida even though she just stopped being a teacher and went into some weird like copywriting for like a financial institution kind of thing sort of a weird situation but yeah she's like as normal as could be yeah she was a high school teacher the the kids would find out oh no way i've got steve-o's sister as my teacher like this is gonna be awesome and then like after like day one like oh

fuck this sucks she just disappointed like waves of students every year what they expect for her to come in on fire i don't know like they expect her to be like kind of cool or yeah yeah yeah or yeah a little bit uh uh nihilistic and nuts right i mean we have enough in common but then again i'm not really nihilistic and that's like too much i mean i think that like the reality of me is is sort of uh would be sort of disappointing too to a lot of people well i don't know i think that well whatever the reality is you know there's documented evidence sure of you being nihilistic and that's and there's enough of it to where like even if you said that's not really me be like but dude you're right look your balls are on fire that's true too my balls have been on fire and they've been extinguished with

kicks but but so when does that like you know she how much older is she three and a half years when do you like what how old are you 41 i'll be 42 in june so you came up like because you were a skate kid right uh not not a super talented one but yeah but you could do it you did pools and shit sure that's what brought me to the video camera right because i when i first saw jackass i you know i it's one of these astounding events in my life because i didn't know what to to make of it and i talked about i talked about it to knoxville because you know your first assumption you know as a dude like me is like who the fuck are these you know alpha dicks being all you know bro and then well that's like a judgment you make before you go and then you go and you're like this isn't that that. This is like fucking punk rock insanity.

This is like fucking crazy shit. And I was so impressed with it and so hilarious that I'll only watch it. I watched it the first time and the experience of watching that thing for the first time is so overwhelmingly hilarious. That I can't, I want to watch it again, but I want to save it for another decade or so. So it's funny. And I've watched a couple of the other ones, but you've made, like, what, 20? No, no, no. We had three theatrical movies.

I saw the second one. I didn't see the third one. Oh, the second one was The Masterpiece. I really think, if you ask me, the third one was kind of tiring. That was a 3D one? Uh-huh. Yeah, I checked out at 3D. If it wasn't for the technology, you know, like we didn't have a whole lot.

Well, why do you think the second one was a masterpiece? Because you guys knew each other well enough to really kind of, what, trust each other or take chances that were, what was it? I think that it was just the reckless abandon was at its peak. Oh, yeah? I think the reckless abandon and i think that um that we weren't out of ideas right like there was enough like uh and i think that we were there was a mixture of of us having been at it long enough to have gotten kind of good yeah

but not too good and not and still had ideas and were and the reckless abandon well what what remind me what were some of the things that happened in there? That was Knoxville did the rocket riding. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Into the water. And he put the cigarette in his mouth in the blindfold and then the yak just goes and takes him out.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had the fish hook through my face and got cast out to the sharks. Like everything in that movie. And that was the other thing. It was just like a blessed production man every time we did something it just worked everything worked well where did so where do you remember it starting this what was it driven by music was it driven by a need for attention was it driven by attention oh really attention seeking all the way

that's what drives everything i've done it goes back to that neglect is when i was a baby in brazil well when you're what so your dad was sort of like uh working and checked out and your mom That's what drives everything I've done. It goes back to that neglect when I was a baby in Brazil. So your dad was sort of like working and checked out and your mom was like... Mom was pretty drunk. Dad was absent. But that was tangible to you during your childhood that she was wasted? You know, not until I was, I want to say, like seven or eight. Yeah.

And then it was, yeah there was yeah it was pretty acute oh and that's that's sad man i mean hey you know like um uh it's nothing to bitch about you know right i think that uh most things that that are notable serve as advantages as well as disadvantages sure almost whatever the case may be did you find yourself like you know when you were younger did did you find yourself feeling responsible for it or like trying to to help her and that kind of shit because not at all if anything um the fact that when mom was drinking going to school became optional it was a real treat i didn't you know like i and, whatever, like, if she was sober, there were, like, boundaries and rules. And when she wasn't, there weren't.

You know, like, I wanted a hamster. You know, I couldn't get the hamster until mom was drunk. You waited it out? You timed it right? You knew when to ask her? Yeah. You know, the word no didn't exist when mom was drinking. And, you know, so in a sense, it was really sad, but whatever.

Yeah, yeah. And dad became more successful as I went through my childhood. And he was around less. Right. He was always on a business trip. Were there a lot of private planes in your youth? Not private planes, but there were definitely a lot of private planes in your youth not private planes but uh but there were there definitely a lot of planes yeah for sure and my sister just sort of had enough but you know

when i was 12 she went to boarding school oh yeah so the dynamic was sort of like mom got drunker the houses got bigger the family got smaller yeah dad wasn't there yeah dad wasn't there so so like was uh so when you're in these like mansions is that where you started doing crazy shit um i mean like really crazy shit didn't start until after i graduated high school i went to high school in the um the in the american school in london england really yeah i mean i guess i should say the really crazy shit started once I let go and let booze. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That was the thing. But like, who were you in high school? Was it because like you were constantly, you know, moving around that you had to make an impact wherever you sort of ended up? You know,

it's so sad because like, uh, I was always such a, uh, a desperate attention whore. And I so was so desperate for the affection and approval of my peers yeah yeah and uh you know like this one report card from sixth grade said steve so wants the affection and approval of his peers but everything he does to uh to try to get that brings

about the opposite result you know so like that was like the story of my childhood that's on your resume i would just i would just try you know like whatever there was i the story of my childhood that's on your resume i would just i would just try you know like whatever there was i just like me me look at me and it would just turn everybody off and i because you didn't know when to stop i just didn't know were you the kid that sort of like you know like eat this and like you know yeah i mean i was i would that was next level i was like you know everyone check it out and i would unscrew the cap off of the salt shaker and then just consume the whole thing you know like right at the beginning just upsetting shit yeah where nobody thought it was cool right you went one step beyond to where people are concerned and

frightened yeah just not cool and so like i wouldn't i had a really awkward childhood and each time when i found out that we were going to move, I was excited. I thought, oh, this is great, because now I get a new shot at it. Now I get to start over, and this time, I'm going to be cool. I got a whole new shot. This time, I'm going to be the cool kid, but then everywhere I went, there I was.

Doing fucking crazy shit. Do you remember any moments outside of chugging an entire container of salt? Oh, my God, damn. Were you just terrified of your classmates? Dude, there was one, and I remember it so well. I was 10 years old in fifth grade in London. I went into my Spanish class.

One of my very last baby teeth to go, it was just- Dangling? Not dangling. Only beginning to show signs of loosening up. to go like um it was just like dangling not dangling like like only barely only beginning to show signs of loosening up right so it wasn't ready to come out yeah and i knew that like if i if i violently rip it out before it's ready that it bleeds heavily right so i walk into class knowing this and i sit down next to the prettiest girl in the class who i wouldn't under like normally sit next to and i and and i told her as sat down, I don't have to be in class today.

I can leave whenever I want. She looked at me like I was crazy. And then the class started. And I just ripped out this tooth. And it started bleeding really heavily. And I raised my hand to the teacher and said, hey, I need to go to the nurse. And the teacher saw the blood and said, go, go. And I stood up, turned to the girl and said, told you.

the blood and said go go and i stood up turned to the girl and said told you and so like did the look of terror oh yeah just blood like all this you know you know how it goes and i told you and i just skipped out of there you know and went like uh whatever just so you were skipping through the halls like it was like you know you were that freak you were like a freak i was a fucked up troubling freak yeah there's no way anyone was gonna like you right right but then somehow so how did you ultimately like i guess the times culturally sort of like came to your assistance. Because it seems to me that when you were growing up, I imagine in high school, you were able to find at least a few dudes who were equally as crazy. Not as much.

Like, it was sort of like, Little League Baseball didn't really work for me. But then I got. What did you play? I don't know, like shortstop, I guess. Catcher, pitcher. Teams were no good. What did you do on the baseball team did you fucking allow someone to hit you with the ball or no um there wasn't anything like that um at that point it was just sort of when do i get out of like when do i get home so i can go through rocks and like you're lucky you didn't end up a killer right right you just killed yourself right i mean

there was definitely um i mean i don't know i have this one really dark memory that like i remember like i think i was maybe like seven or eight and probably eight years old and walking home like walking home and living in miami and um they were like all these older kids i'm guessing maybe they were like 12. And they were standing around with a knife. It was just a knife like this, too. Like a buck knife or whatever. And a folding knife.

And they had this big, huge South Florida bullfrog captured. And they're all sort of standing there. And I'm just reading it as I walked'd walked by, never said a word. I just walked up and I grabbed the knife, you know, and I just plunged it through this frog, like until there's like the handle was in the ground, like through the frog. Yeah. And I just turned, walked away and like not a word was ever said. So like.

You feel bad? Do I feel, I mean, I don't know. Like know like do i feel i'm not like proud of that i don't think it's cool you know and nobody thought it was cool at the time but i mean as far as like the fucked up thing about it is no one even pressured you to do it oh no there's no peer pressure like do it do you just like the sense i got was that they were like uh that was what they were uh like sort of setting out to do but nobody was willing to do it and so here's this little tiny kid just give it to me uh but not a word was ever said and it's such a fucked up memory i have yeah there's these moments but they were always driven by peer pressure you seem to just pressure yourself right but that's a totally accurate observation you know like you're gonna

you trump it you know what i mean yeah were you lucky you didn't really hurt somebody right but you're never a guy that beat anybody up or anything i never fought man uh yeah me neither but like the weird thing is like obviously you know you're an extreme but at what point were you able to sort of accommodate the discomfort of all this fucking insanity like the the pain or the fucking yeah i mean like uh as i recall like uh the little league baseball was which was never really that much thing gave way like everything was always my identity you know like i remember uh like that when i wore my little league baseball uniform which was which was only for games you know for a day like when you had an official game but i would always, I would wear that uniform

like when I didn't, on the days I did not have a game, you know, I was like, oh, going to the movies with a friend,

you know, and I'm showing up in my fucking baseball uniform because somehow, like, that makes me feel like I amount to more.

Right, right, right, yeah. In that suit, like, I'm a baseball player. At the movies.

And I'm like, yeah, dude, there's, like, there's like there was when I was nine oh you're just a fucking weird kid

dude I was nine years old on this on this little league Pop Warner football team yeah and you know I'm triple national I have a

you know Canadian citizenship because my mom was born in Canada I was born in England so I'm British and my dad was born in America so I've got

still I have all three citizenships wow three passports and that lasts a lifetime uh huh right you can only be a resident of one

but you can be a citizen of all three so right so it was when I was nine that I had to go to the the Canadian like whatever

like a passport office or the photo to get my Canadian my Canadian citizenship card yeah and I felt the need to take the photo

in my full pads fucking for my full pads game day football suit to this day i have the fucking card like i didn't have a game that day if i did i didn't need to be wearing shoulder pads with my fucking game jersey like in my fucking you know so you were able to track this now as a grown-up who's done some work on himself that you were you were you were just trying to to have an identity to fit in somewhere right and so then like and like that uniform like made me made me sort of like worth more somehow yeah because like my my self-worth wasn't there so so the little league sports gave way to the heavy metal music and my uniform changed into like the mullet yeah yeah the jean jacket and i would just alien that's a

little more acceptable in a way in terms of at least you have a community you're not just some kid at the movies and pads right right but i didn't even have a community i mean i just had the rest of the school just like oh you creepy devil worshiper oh really so you were the only one well i mean i like i got into pretty young you know like i i got into the heavy metal like you know like 10 who were your bands fifth grade sixth grade fuck my first metal album was the number of the beast you know maiden yeah uh that taught me that i was a metal head and then and then my first motley crew album when i was 11 like of taught me why I was a metalhead.

And then I was 12 and my first Slayer album taught me how bad the situation really was. But those were my bands. That's when I was Metallica and all that. And then the heavy metal gave way to skateboarding. And then skateboarding I found some comfort. Right. Then I had the community that you're talking about that seems to make sense yeah and then and then the skateboarding like once like the because i went to high school in england at the american school and then once i was like

the last skater skating i wasn't sort of you know comfortable enough in myself to be a skater on my own so then i and then that i turned to alcohol and drugs well they remember too like i was like man i'm not gonna be a skater anymore so what's my identity gonna be now i could probably be pretty good at smoking pot oh it didn't start till after that like anybody offered it to me or pressured me to do it i like went looking for it sure but were you getting like were you could you tangibly feel yourself getting off on the pain and adrenaline of shit i mean do you feel that like not really man really i wouldn't even classify myself as an

adrenaline junkie really not even later i mean not really like uh i don't fucking hate roller coasters i'm like scared of roller coasters because you're not in control right right when you're jumping off a building it's like you're making a decision but there's some idiot running the thing uh-huh and it seems like you're making a decision, but there's some idiot running the thing. And it seems like you had a certain amount of trust with your pirate friends who would strap you to shit. But not some anonymous guy running a roller coaster. If it's Knoxville, you're okay. Right.

Right. It's not adrenaline. It's more like, you know, man, once I get this on video then like the video is going to impress people or whatever oh really so it's still about that still about the validation and the attention man so when you strap into whatever you're about to do or whatever decision you're making all you're thinking is like you're you gotta get through it gotta just get through exactly couldn't say couldn't I could not have chosen the words better myself. I just got to get through it. Got to get through it, and then it's going to be fucking awesome once it's on video.

Well, that's so weird because if you read it that way, because when I watch, I've seen you do stuff here and there before, and I've watched a jackass movie, and I've seen the second one. I know you. And then when I'm watching the special, there was always something that I was a little uncomfortable with. And it wasn't anything you like that. I was a little uncomfortable with, and it wasn't anything you were doing. It was,

it was who you were. And, and I think that what it is, because I think I have it too, but I don't, I don't admit it is a need for approval. Like, you know,

when I'm watching you do stuff, there's a, there's a humility to it because you know, you're not like, look at, I can do, you're sort of like, right,

look at it. I did it. Come on. Where's my love? Oh, yeah. It's maybe uncomfortable because, like, it's like, I can't. How am I going to help that guy? Yeah.

I don't know. It's sort of bizarre. You know, like, even Knoxville, there's a, a like that's what makes it so kind of like because i just wrote this down that that you know there's no reason you guys should be so fucking likable but you are because you're there after a certain point even on the in the one-man show that you you're you're you you have out now it was sort of like you you kind of like it's not that you feel bad for you but almost sure because you're looking at people going like what's he doing why is he talking why is he talking about like they're just they're just

amazed at the that you have the uh i guess it's courage to sort of like you know you know splay yourself open because i think in in the in the one manman show, the stories you tell are sort of vulnerable and kind of tragic and sad in some ways. I mean, to say you're a premature ejaculator and a sex addict, that's horrifying. It's like you can't even win there. But then when you do the stunts that you do it is so it like it's not even that you think you're gonna die you're just sort of like you're so fucking wide open you're just on a fucking stage you know twitching unconscious in front of people and you're like oh my god you get up you're like hey you're like oh god he did he made it all right i was particularly

tickled with myself that i chose to get choked completely unconscious like about three minutes into my routine really you just didn't that wasn't planned no no no no I chose but ahead of time for that to happen like at the top most people would say if you're gonna get choked unconscious and dropped on your head

let that be at the end of the show but you you seem to, how many times have you done that? Oh, man. One time I got choked out six times in one day. And it took me longer and longer

to wake up each time. It got really ugly. Really? Yeah. And then I was just like, okay, six, that's enough. No brain damage? Not that I'm aware of, no.

But then again, I worry about like the like uh the cte the the concussions like that yeah because man i've hit my head a lot and it didn't really occur to me until recently like oh wow that like the damage from hitting yourself in the head uh it it lays in weight down the road. Yeah. It might not, it might get ugly later. Right. Like I'm okay now, but who knows what's waiting for me?

Were you ever, uh, diagnosed with a concussion? I mean, have you, I mean, I just know that I've hit myself in the head so hard that like a blacked out, you know,

like, like there there's, but that's, that's happened a handful of times. Did you remember waking up though? I mean, well, yeah,

I remember coming to and like, like, oh wow. I just like, I just like hit my head and I lost some time there, you know, like that's happened a handful of times. Did you remember waking up though? Well, yeah, I remember coming to you and like, oh, wow, I just hit my head and I lost some time there. You know, like that's super not good. Part of the job. Well, that was what I noticed like when he dropped you, when he choked you out, is that you seem to know how to fall. Like you go down, but you're like you're straight. Oh, I was unconscious.

There's no knowing anything at that point. I know, but you're like, you're straight. Oh, I was unconscious. There's no knowing anything at that point. I know, but you handled it well. Like, you know, there's a moment where, well, that's the weird thing about you, is there's a moment where you somehow transcend our need to be concerned. Because you just assume, well, it's Steve-O. He's going to wake up. Right, like a cartoon character. Exactly. And that fucking taser thing that was

oh dude that couldn't have been more real and that was like really no wrestling tricks oh no god no that was that there was there's no way to stop that thing like taser is a brand name and they're the only company that makes the 32nd taser because yeah the 32nd taser which is the one i used is the civilian version. The cops get the kind where the cops hold it, and they can keep administering five more increments. Oh, right, right. Or increments of five seconds. But the civilian version, it's just as much voltage, just as much electricity, same deal,

but it's designed so that you can shoot your assailant and then drop it and run for your life oh right so the 30 seconds is designed to get out to give you 30 seconds to run for your life and get away well the good thing about like you know talking about your shows there's no spoilers because even if you talk about it's not like i'm not gonna watch them get tased it actually makes you want to watch it more like well and and and i thought it was going to be like five seconds i was terrified of that that was your closer right right yeah i was like okay so it's going to be 30 seconds there's nothing i can there's nothing that can be done to stop the 50 000 volts continuing for a full 30 seconds and then i remember like reaching out to knoxville like hey dude can you

help me get psyched for this he said he said yeah think about how hilarious it'll be and like and you don't have to do anything he said you don't have to do it. He said, you don't have to do anything. You just stand there. And I knew it was going to be terrible, but that's what helped. I said, okay, it's just going to happen. That's his advice? Dude, it's going to be hilarious. He said, think of how funny it's going to be. And then I was like, okay, okay, I'm going to do it.

And then I was like, oh, well, 30 seconds, that might get kind of boring. And so I thought, all right, we're going to see how many questions I can answer. It'll be a 30 second Q&A. And that was, and then I asked Knoxville, how many questions do you think I'll be able to answer? And he sent a photo of him holding up his Zoom. And I got a few. Weren't tough questions. Yeah, there weren't tough ones.

Yeah, that was great. I was so thrilled with it, man. I thought the whole thing, I mean, I imagine, like, I'll continue to evolve, to grow, to whatever, you know, and maybe I'll look back on it and think, oh, you know, that was, you know, that point in my life. But, yeah, I just, I'm thrilled with how it came out. Well, it's just funny because there's, like, you know, and this is just me thinking out loud, you know, trying to sort of contextualize shit. Is that like, there's a vulnerability, you know, that is unavoidable when you're literally being shocked with 50,000.

Right. Like, you know, you look weird. That was the other thing, too, is that. You might shit your pants. In preparing for it it i looked through youtube to like 30 seconds and and i watched like a lot a lot of different people like uh you know get tased for 30 seconds and uh there was a i noticed right away a spectrum of how people handled it yeah there was like uh you know people handled it pretty well yeah maybe you could see there was fucking awful yeah but they handled it. Yeah. There was like, you know, people handled it pretty well. Yeah.

Maybe you could see there was fucking awful. Yeah. But they handled it pretty well. And then all the way to people just, it just did not handle it well. And I thought I would be

more on the... Like making noises and shit? Oh, dude, shrieking and begging for it to stop and just like, I didn't expect that I was going to look look cool not that i did

i didn't look cool but i could have looked way more uncool well that's the funny thing for a kid who like always wanted to be cool like just you just like turn that inside out and you're like now i'm gonna look really uncool and almost everything that i do yeah and i don't understand like i'm trying to figure out like from when i was a little kid like where like you know i mean it's at a certain point it kind of started working you know like like what i wanted to to happen like it sort of started happening um oh right where you're getting the attention you're sort of like uh respected i got some respect i got some uh some adoration some uh some. Weird women. Yeah. I made a living.

But then it's like it gets to a point where it's like, man, you know, I became so identified with this character of Steve-O and stuff. And then it's like, oh, man. When did things like when you're in high school, so you're a metal kid and you started drinking and you started doing drugs. I went heavy metal to skateboarding from skateboarding to to drugs right but there was no music involved then it was just fucking whatever i would listen to that but you went all in i had different genres of music for every little identity crisis i ever had

right so at this point i listen to everything so what what so you went full-on into drugs pretty quickly pretty quickly yeah like the first day i tried pot like uh and then i did the next day the next day the next day the next day and you know like it was like i hit the hit the ground really and what you know how how far to go how soon like what uh i um within a a couple months i was taking acid pretty regularly oh you're an acid guy mind blower uh yeah and and i enjoyed it you know but there's this unique type of personality i guess you're the kind of personality like a guy like me i took acid twice and it was like you know like oh thank god that's over but like you know

but there were certain guys like you who were sort of like you learned how to work within it i imagine well i mean and and typical to my form right like like i you know i i knew better than to uh take ass if i had some like i would take acid on the way to school sometimes like uh but only if i had been tripping like every day so then the the effect of it is more manageable right but i knew but but but if it was if i knew i was gonna like really be tripping hard i would uh take it at the beginning of the last class of the day right so that i would just start to trip as i was leaving school and so like i remember like going and i knew this this one day that you had a plan for taking acid during school is disturbing right you're saying it like like like like most guys like me i if you're going to be tripping all week at school.

Nobody like you. Right. I remember one day I knew this acid was going to kick my ass. And I remember walking into my last class of the day, sat down next to the hot chick, put it on my tongue, and then turned to her and stuck my tongue out so she could see it on my tongue right like that'll make her think i'm cool there's always that weird mistake where you realize in a moment even if it's in retrospect that no one's living like you right you know so it's so it's the identical fucking thing that I did with ripping out the tooth yeah when I walked in and stuck my tongue out so she could see the hit of

acid right like in what world is someone gonna go like yeah I mean I think what I think in both cases with the tooth and with the acid that I was clear that the girl wasn't going to like me or want me or love me. So it's just like, I can't have her. So, ha. Fuck you. I'm going to destroy myself. I don't think it was a fuck you but it was just like yeah i'm gnarly yeah yeah yeah i can't have you you don't love me but i'm not yeah yeah you

need to know yeah i've got guts okay i have courage i'm a warrior right i think that's really what it was but it's so it's so interesting that, you know, that like when people talk about self-loathing or low self-esteem or something, we don't manifest itself through our work necessarily. I do to a certain degree. I talk about it, but you're literally like destroying yourself in front of everybody. But it's not

I don't think it's what people think right away when you're, you know, letting a whale shark, you know, eat shrimp out of your dick right you know and they're not saying like that guy doesn't like himself but but it's sort of what it comes from uh-huh for sure i mean so there's there's issues man i can't even like do you remember all the stunts i i remember the first one i think i saw you do where I was like what the fuck was when he snorted

all that wasabi and that was pretty mild in terms of a stunt it wasn't that big of a deal I mean it played well it definitely was received you know it tickled people um at that point I was like my nose was just didn't give a fuck you know like I was when did you start doing blow started doing blow uh regularly like when i was 22 yeah yeah so did you finish high school i did i finished high school um i i actually was a relatively decent student until until i got in the drugs, you know. Yeah. Once I started drinking and doing drugs all the time, my grades took a nosedive, but I still, you know, stuck it out and I pulled it off.

I got early acceptance to the University of Miami. Oh, that's like the biggest party school in the world, right? I mean, it's a fairly academic school, like unfortunately situated in a place that's like... Yeah, it's Miami. Right, and so I didn't do very well I bailed out yeah I mean I made it I did all right my first semester my second semester not so much and I returned as a second year freshman oh and drop yeah I showed up to my dorm room and said freshman and I'm like wait

a second I'm a sophomore no your credit and it said, freshman. And I'm like, wait a second. I'm a sophomore. No. Your credit's gone. And then you bailed? And then I bailed, yeah. And then what did you do? I got in a van with this kid. We drove out to California to try to work at a ski resort in Squaw Valley. And I was like, I'm going to become a stuntman.

This is going to be great. Wound up having the government test drugs on me for money in Texas. What are you talking about? I got into this medical study that- What kind of drugs? It was called ractopamine hydrochloride, and they were trying to make it legal to give to pigs and cows so that the pigs and cows would have less muscle mass,

sorry, less fat and more muscle. So it was leaner meat. They could sell leaner meat. They were trying it on humans to see what would happen if a human ate the meat? Correct. In order for, like, they wanted to appeal to a more health-conscious consumer, but if the meat exists in the meat and then the people eat it, then it's entering the human body.

And because it enters the human body, they have to now test to see, like, how much the humans can withstand. And you just, why'd you get in? Did you need money or you're like that sounds fun i i when i dropped out of college like i you know i i guess dad raised me with enough sort of pride and you know or something that i just didn't have it in me to ask for like them to support me doing nothing oh really and so yeah so i was sort of figuring out and trying to figure out my own way and i needed money and what the drug do uh it made it they kept giving it to us until somebody's resting heart rate was 150 beats a minute and uh so like it was pretty heavy like the dudes were drenched in sweat and stuff and it turned out i have a pretty strong heart

so i was okay and uh it paid 2 000,000 for 12 days. Did anyone die? Nobody died, no. Nobody died. And then... How high did your heart rate get? Like, barely cracked 100. I think only a couple times. Oh, wow. So, yeah.

So I was... Did they end up approving that drug? They did not. It's actually banned, I think, everywhere. I don't know. It's not only not approved, it's like super banned think everywhere i don't know like yeah it's it's not only not approved well thanks steve thanks for doing that work for all of us it might it might have been used somewhere in the world but i recently like googled it and uh and wikipedia

just says terrible things about it yeah another another weird scar you might end up paying for a few years down the line yeah you never know that might be waiting for me too and what'd you do after that after that um you know i went i wound up back at university of miami living on everybody's floor like uh no that guy huh yeah totally that guy and then um i roamed around uh following the grateful dead selling drugs like uh like real drugs or were you like selling acid and stuff but were you ripping off hippies with fake acid i never ripped off anybody with fake acid good for you pretty sure i know like uh i mean if if if there's fake acid involved like i didn't know that right yeah right so that's weird so another identity shift now you're following the grateful

dead you go from skater i got into the hard rock dead into the Grateful Dead. I got into the Grateful Dead. That was part of my drug identity. Right. You have to. Yeah, I did that for a couple years, but not as hardcore again. I went to a few shows and I live with deadheads,

but you got on the road a bit. I figured it out. You show up at the show and you go to the real deadhead and you get three hits of acid for five bucks and then you sell each for five bucks a piece and then you got 15 bucks and then you buy like an eighth of acid for five bucks and then you sell each for five bucks a piece

and then you got 15 bucks. Then you buy like an eighth of weed for 15 bucks and you sell it for 30, you know, and then you buy like some shirts or, you know, and then, but once I had a hundred bucks, I was pretty happy and then I would just skateboard and hacky sack. Never go in the show.

I was never like- You're a parking lot guy. Right, I was never worried about that. Yeah, and, you know, I had one guy like I was traveling with. You're a parking lot guy. Right. I was never worried about that. Yeah. And, you know, I had one guy, like, I was traveling with who would, like, by the end of the day, he would have, like, literally, like, hundreds or thousands of dollars, you know? Hundreds of thousands? No, hundreds or thousands. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not hundreds of thousands. He would have, like, just all this money. And I remember just, like, sort of being like, oh, you know? And I just wasn't ever that uh i don't know if entrepreneurial or just money driven you know i think i always was uh because even when jack has like came along boy did i not fucking do good business deals you know well yeah well i think it goes either way if you brought up with money either you only think about money or you don't really i guess yeah

you know and i think that i i was always pretty convinced that i was gonna die like pretty young you know like i figured out like what do i need money for not not unreasonably not illogical right thought so you fall into debt for a while and then what happens and then uh i wound up um just sort of struggling being homeless like uh whatever and then um you know ultimately sort of ran into like i had a used car yeah and and at the point where like i wanted to like get in the car and carbon monoxide myself to death you were suicidal i i've i've had like the idea that that would be a rad thing to do. I don't know however close I got to it. I wouldn't have known if I was willing.

When I really wanted to, I couldn't afford to fill the tank with gas. But I was just in this place, and the car got stolen. And I was just like, man, I don't even have a car to live out of. And I called my sister really despondent and and um she and i'm out of moving in with her and uh in albuquerque new mexico that's where i grew up oh cool man yeah i lived in albuquerque for like two years you did from uh 96 to 98 but did you go to the unm or anything i did i went to i went to unm like that was my deal with dad.

Dad wouldn't cover my rent to live with my sister, but that's it as long as I got a certain level of grades. Yeah. And I started like, I was still beaten down at that point.

I was willing to actually go to class. Still using a lot of drugs or you took a break? That was where I actually, that was where I started doing blow. In Albuquerque? Yeah, in Al that was where I started doing blow, you know.

Albuquerque. Yeah, in Albuquerque. Yeah. Yeah. And meth. I never really got into meth, but I never turned it down. Right. It's a bit of a time commitment. Right.

Right. And by that point, I was, I really, I was super focused about, I want to be a stuntman. Yeah. You know, I'm just going to school, to school to get the grades and sort of survive. But I was focused on videotaping and organizing what my next stunt was going to be and putting together a reel. And I found out while I was living with my sister about Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. And that was where I thought, man, if I can get into there, if I can get into clown college and graduate with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, then people would take me more seriously as a stuntman really that's what i

thought yeah based on what just i i knew about like if like uh if i was a trained circus professional you know like i would be like a rad there would be a radness about that right like you're willing to do anything and you can and but you're also like right i had the're willing to do anything, but you're also like... Right, I had the willingness to do whatever, and I was crazy, but there wasn't anything that's seemingly professional about me. So I thought if I was like a... You're just a crazy kid. Right, a trained circus professional who's crazy and like... A clown.

Right, then... Where's Winging Brothers Clown Club? It was in Sarasota, Florida. So did you go for the full ride over there? Well, I graduated, but I wasn't one of the clowns got picked to be in the circus how long is that school i mean once you get into it it's like a summer you know it's really it's more like boot camp for the circus and what'd you learn uh i learned how to walk on stilts which which i showed up in jack i made useful in a number of ways um Again, learned how to put on clown makeup.

Did you learn how to clown? A little bit. A little bit. Not like, I wouldn't say that my skills were exceptional in that area, but I went on to have a career as a circus clown, and I think I did a reasonably good job. Yeah, but there was no specific clowning class? We had clowning. We had dance, clowning, skills, acrobatics.

We had classes all day, trained 14 hours a day. Really? Yeah, and I was in it to win it, man. When I got there, I sort of fell in love with the dream. Of course, within the first week of clown college, they have to cart me off to the hospital because I'm drunk need my need to get my head stapled together because what i did after 14 hours of training drunk you know not so funny right and so this so uh i didn't make a very good how'd you rip your head open skateboarding while i was drunk like uh you know you didn't feel it

as i'm starting to think that like a lot of the shit that looks like it would hurt other people you just weren't even registering no it's i've never had like an exceptional threshold for pain or anything like that i mean i i feel pain like anybody else yeah um but uh but yeah i just sort of get through it did you like i know you have to design your own face and everything you do all right uh-huh yeah the first day of clown college they just hand you hand you a makeup kit and they give you no instruction. Their deal is, here's the makeup. You learn how to use it and you just do it every day and you figure it out.

And did you settle on a face? Uh-huh. I have the same face the whole time. Really? Uh-huh. And like today, if you were to put on your clown makeup? Yeah. Every so often, you know, like something will come up where I do.

I don't know that I've ever gone more than a year or two without. Without putting on your face? Without getting your clown makeup or something or other. Yeah. So where did you work as a professional clown? I didn't get picked for the Ringling Brothers. So I went back to Albuquerque and I'm selling pot and you know yeah and uh scary clown selling pot do you sell pot from your clown makeup i never sold pot in clown makeup but i sold it out of the room where the

fancy clown costume hung in the closet like that's i told this story on the show before but one time i did a pa job when i first moved to la it was circus vargas and they were they were out on on a lot and there were clowns the lot and there were clowns. The two guys who were clowns for Circus Vargas were there and after the shoot, they were like, you want to come back to the trailer

and get high? And I just remember this moment where I was like about to get high with clowns. I'm like, you guys got to take off the makeup because I don't think I could handle the clowns in full makeup.

And then see, I wound up working as a clown on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Really? Uh-huh. What? We were only actually in clown makeup once a week, but, like, otherwise we were called interactive performers,

and we would sort of take on different characters, and we would do shows, and they'd warm up the crowd in the theater. Oh, yeah? So all I did was perform. How was that uh it was great man i've got 625 bucks a week um you know one of the first times and they paid me in cash every uh two weeks yeah so i i'd like it and mostly like hundred dollar bills right and so like you know one of my first times i got paid i got my like clown buddy filming me while i'm stapling hundred dollar bills across my body and i was like i'm the thousand dollar man because i had never like made that much money yeah it was my first time and you just thought that you have to staple them

to your i was like i have this much money i'm fucking making a video with it all right just give me the stapler so the videos of doing that kind of shit that start yeah it never stopped that was your thing. I never put it down. A lot of things have been pulled out of your body and out of your skin. Like staples, darts. Uh-huh. For sure, man.

Yeah. And then a lot of it stays in there. I got a BB in my nipple for six years now almost. Why don't you get it out? Because. Fuck, man. It's super cool. Like in my book, I got...

In my book, when... Super cool. Again. To who? Here we... Some things never change. It's somehow fascinating, you know? Right, right.

Like, I have a picture of a wee man. Because this was something we filmed for Jackass 3D. It was important to me to film it. And everybody knew that it would never get used. But I called it BB gun nipple piercing. And we're going to shoot, we're trying to shoot my nipple off with a BB gun or whatever. It was just dark and gross. But Wee Man did it, and he shot it at such an angle that it went into my nipple and stayed in.

And of course, the footage didn't get used for anything. But I told the story in my book, and I put it in the photo section, a picture of Wee Man. And a little before and after, you could see the close-up shot of the nipple. And then I said, like on the caption, if you see me and you're curious, just ask. Like you can feel it still in there. You can feel it. Just ask. So people will ask me every once in a while, can I feel the BB?

And I love it. Do you sense a certain type of person is your fan? You know, I think that there are different levels of fan, but I think that at some level, it almost defies demographics. And I say that because like like uh everybody is is fascinated on some level and driving by an accident right like they want to sort of slow down and check it out right and so like that's kind of like what has been our art is to create accidents on purpose

knowing that they're inherently fascinating to me there's something primal about that and and I think beyond that I think that like you've got that primal kind of urge to witness an accident and then you've got like us being I guess there's something endearing about how we've been like willing to to be splayed open you know and said right to to sort of okay with looking uncool and being vulnerable yeah you know and and in the most extreme way possible right so so like the the endearing plus the primal i think like creates a combination that's almost universally that moment where knoxville wakes up after uh what's his name knocked him out what was that guy's name?

The Butterbean. Butterbean. Where Knoxville fucking comes to and he goes, how's Butterbean? To me, that's all of it right there. How's that guy?

Just fucking leveled him. Uh-huh. Oh my God. So what, so like in the show you talk about uh getting sober from drug addiction and and then uh you know after that sex addiction to a a fairly disturbing degree what what what were the events that led to you like finally really getting sober um the for chemically sober yeah um well i mean that was where knoxville you know i was i flamed out pretty hard when it was time to get sober and um but like

you you just kept drinking and they all knew it and it was all part of the atmosphere but at what point you know what happened where it became a concern to like Johnny? Oh man, like I, with just the drugs really sped up the process for me. Coke? Coke, yeah, for sure. I mean, I can thread my nose with a shoelace. I had the hole going through, so there's a pretty big hole through.

Yeah. And Coke was always a thing and I would get like with ketamine and PCP and nitrous. That's weird because you'll do anything with your body and anything with your brain. With the same sort of thing, I'm going to get through it. I imagine that some of those drugs, because you lose control. Yeah, and I think that's more specifically like psychosis was a regular thing for me. I would be like on Coke like once I got into like my

third day of a coke bender and I'm inhaling nitrous like you know almost like to the exclusion of air I'm just trying to inhale nitrous oxide and be on cocaine and I would go through these episodes where I was hearing voices yeah no I've had that

yeah cocaine psychosis I fucking loved it too man like people would be walking around my apartment like they're they're like uh they were never there but like i see them oh right you know like you guys see people walking through the walls and shit surprise friends yeah and i'm hearing voices and all this and you were entertained by it i loved it man i fucking loved it like like frankly like i missed that you know like a lot of people think like oh you know like a drink would be nice it'd be cool if i could just smoke a joint like no like i want to pile drugs into my body until there's a fucking room full of people who

don't exist that's what i want i'm sorry that you you miss friends. And my behavior with the psychosis was just got creepier and creepier. Did you ever think you were actually actively trying to fucking die? No. I remember at one point being in this big swiveling office chair and sort of, you know,

like a big pile of drugs in front of me, coke and nitrous and whatever. And then all like everything. You had a tank, I guess. I never had a tank, man. I would have like a... You weren drugs in front of me coke and nitrous and whatever and then all like everything you had a tank i guess i never had a tank man i would have like uh you weren't committed huh no i was committed but i just didn't know how to get a tank um like uh no dentist friends somehow we got a tank in college from some guy who knew work for a dentist i know i was just so like i was happy enough to have like the the guy from the head shop who was also a customs agent or something. And I would get the...

There were 24 cartridges per box and 25 boxes per case. Right. And so I know because I got so many cases, it's 600. Yeah. 600 per case. Right. And so I would just do case after case. It wouldn't be unusual for me to do 600

of the cartridge in a day oh my god what a weird fucking addiction and the whole floor of my apartment was just like nitrous canisters I was swimming in them and I was just like it's almost like a game to see like to fill up

like the balloons you know I would still hold the breath so I can just only be breathing nitrate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, dude. Crazy. Yeah. That's the one thing I remember about nitrous is coming back into consciousness. Right, for sure.

And it was killing me. And I remember that. So I'm in this chair and I'm looking at all these drugs and I'm thinking to myself, I'm fucking dying. I'm dying. I and I'm looking at all these drugs and I'm thinking to myself, I'm fucking dying. You know, I'm dying. Like, like I'm, I am literally killing myself here. And I thought, like, I thought the words like specifically at that, I don't care if I die. And I lean forward to like, to just snort and like more. And as I thought, I don't care if I die.

And I lean forward, like physically, like my experience, the, the chair that i was in just spun around man like like this fucking like some like if there was like a big huge guy yeah like that like they almost like it turned into a mechanical bull style it spun around like uh yeah of course like i mean this is like a tactile hallucination but it was such no maybe one of those guys you were making up was like you've had enough for For sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. And to this day, to this day, that marks a moment where it was like, I don't care if I die in some fucking higher power, whatever it is. I had that.

I know what you're talking about. The message was so clear when that chair spun. Think again. It is important that you think again. You got to not die. You got to get better. think again like it is important that you right you know think again like you can like you gotta you gotta not die you know you gotta get better the first time i i got sober was in the psychosis where i was hearing voices and i i remember at out loud going like how far out can i go and a voice i never heard before like right next to my head said you've gone far enough

and i left the fucking next day and i left town i left la and i got sober the first time i didn't stay sober right i was like i didn't do anything about it no you know i mean that night i remember i remember that night like there was this like whole like intervention like of like spirits and like god was in my apartment it was just like dependent like on the next day like my buddy's hard like you know god was in my apartment last night man and i'm now i'm gonna get sober no more drugs you know i'm gonna be sober and they're like okay cool and then like in the next day like i'm at it again got a little rest right yeah and like uh but i remember like when i got to rehab like when i finally was ready well how did now they did they do an intervention that all those jackets like uh they did i was like uh broadcasting my downward spiral in virtual real time on YouTube and MySpace and emailing 200 people.

Oh, so yeah. Very public. Very public, man. I was just email blasting Knoxville and everyone. Like the last people in the world. I cringed to think of who I was emailing all this stuff to. And it's still out there. Sure, yeah.

But I'm grateful for that today because that's sort of the fire. And the humiliation that that brought about is really what inspired the willingness. Yeah. And did they actually come over and get you? Well, yeah. Knoxville reached out to Dr. Drew and he's like, hey, man, Steve was going to die. Dr. Drew, of course, is on the email list as well. Dr. Drew said, I agree.

He said, I agree. We're about to lose him. Drew said I agree he said I agree we're about to lose him and so so Dr. Drew instructed Knoxville

to just get to get over and just get me get me into the psych ward they said you gotta duct tape him throw him in the trunk whatever

not a rehab at first a literal psych ward yeah 5150 him and so they showed up eight guys strong and at this point like did they film it I flamed out

well no I did though the one thing they didn it? I flamed out. Well, no, I did though. The one thing they didn't film. I know. I flamed out so hard. I mean, I got arrested for vandalism. My neighbor was calling the cops all the time because I was so out of control. Yeah.

And so I started. So I would just piss off the neighbor. I would be pounding on his wall. I wound up pounding a hole through the wall. And so now the cops come over to arrest me for vandalism because I'm now yelling at the guy through the hole in the wall while I'm looking into his apartment. Oh, no.

So the cops come to arrest me. Fucking nuts. Yeah, I mean, I'm all fucked up on Ketamine. I don't know what's going on. I pounded a hole in the wall. The cops show up. They're like, we got to take you to jail. And I'm standing there with no shirt on, no shoes uh and they know who you are yeah they know they're like we got no choice

we have to take you to jail and it's going to be fucking cold so you if you want to put on a shirt and some shoes before we take you we'll let you do that which gave me an opportunity i could have gone into my apartment take the big bag of fucking cocaine out of my pocket and maybe leave it in the apartment but i'm like i told him fuck his shirt fuck shoes let's go with the cocaine so i get booked into jail with the fucking you know like an eight ball or no it wasn't anything that much but enough you know i had a bag and um and so they arrested me again and i was in jail for a few days but i get back from the from uh from jail

and uh and there's a the eviction notice on the wall get the fuck out in three days kind you know and and I and and so I go on a crazy bender and by the and by the time like and you are you are you charged um cocaine possession totally charged with cocaine possession and within a couple hours I'm fucking like all fucked up on ketamine, jumping up and down. I've got my buddy filming me. I'm jumping up and down on a parked car, screaming.

The drug buddy. Screaming, God is the son. And getting, you know, like, I mean, like within two hours of getting out of jail. And you're putting that out in the world? You posted it? Oh yeah, I posted it. Yeah.

I actually had them post it while I was in the psych ward you know like giving instructions you know and uh it was just so fucking gnarly man and uh and so then now i get back to my apartment and i got to be actually cleaned out like like the next day but but but before i clean out i'm i'm emailing my mass email list i got to be out of my apartment tomorrow, so we got to hurry up and film. I got to jump out of my fucking bedroom window of the apartment building. And I'm going to need something to land on because it's like 25 feet to the sidewalk. And so I'm like, Knoxville, you guys, come on.

Bring me, I don't care, cardboard boxes, preferably a hot tub. Something to land in on the sidewalk. And I want to ride a motorcycle through the living room and out the sliding glass door and jump out onto the roof of the building next door. And these are my stunts, and I want to make them happen. And I'm telling the guys, like, bring me something to land on. Come on, like, be here at 10 a.m., you know? Yeah.

And if you don't fucking come like i'm gonna fucking jump anyway i don't give i'll find out how many bones get broken when i land on the sidewalk fucking i'm ready to die yeah which qualified me for the 5150 right now which i sent to 200 people i promise i'm gonna jump you know yeah yeah i'm ready to die. And so Knoxville responded. He wrote, what's with the early call times? Sheesh. Bring the cameras, you know. He said, we'll be there, you know, but can we make it noon?

And I was like, okay, noon, noon, noon it is. Cool. And so what happened was I scheduled my own intervention. Who showed up? A lot of friends? Dude, they showed up. Knoxville. It was a whole crew of jackass.

The director, Jeff Tremaine, Dimitri Eliascovich, the director of photography, the camera guy, Rick Kosick, the sound guy, Cordell, the executive producer, Tripp Taylor. Oh, yeah. And then a couple other just big dudes. Yeah.

And none of the cast? No, none of the cast was there for that, no. But Knoxville and the Reds. There was eight guys. Had Ryan died yet? No. No, Ryan died. This was 2008 when I got sober.

Ryan died in 2011. And so it was just like Dr. Drew was really clear. If you've got to tie him up, if you've got to beat him up, or just get him into the hospital. And so they took me to the hospital, 5150. I was pretty sure I was going to... Did they have to tie you up or beat you up? Well, yeah.

Not to get me there. Not to get me there. But what happened when I got to the hospital i thought i was going to just calmly explain that this was a misunderstanding right i didn't realize they printed out my emails and so like so there was no talking my way out of it and uh and then when i found out i wasn't going to talk my way out of it then they uh they got i just got belligerent like oh i want you know i I want a smoke cigarette now. This and that.

Like, I'm trying to throw chairs. It's like an episode of Cops. You always wonder what drives a guy to be like, yo, fuck you. Exactly. You know you're done. Right. I remember the moment when I went to go grab the chair and maybe I got it up over my head to throw it.

Just dudes appeared. At the hospital? Yeah, at the hospital. And dudes appeared, like these orderly guys, you know, like appeared out of nowhere, just like with a swiftness, and just grabbed me and slammed me down onto this fucking, this bed, this stretcher bed thing. And someone jammed a needle into my butt cheek, and then that was it.

I just took a nap. It's over. I was just like, Thorazine or whatever it is, it just knocks your ass out. And you woke up in the hospital. just knocks your ass out and you woke up and i woke up and i'm i woke up and then now you strapped down uh i can't remember i remember seeing the straps i'm kind of claustrophobic so that like uh made me a little a little bit like more reasonable yeah um but yeah once i woke up from the nap i they didn't yeah they

didn't have to strap me down i woke you know i woke up and and now i'm like in the psych ward they changed my status to from 51 50 which is three days involuntary hold to 52 50 which is two weeks and uh you know i'm i'm just a fucking mess man and i'm in there and um and they had me like for uh for a little over a week and and finally i was like okay you know it's time and you went to rehab then i went to rehab yeah and you've stayed sober since stayed sober ever since yeah that's fucking amazing and then um and what were you doing in the psych ward they were evaluating you and i was just like fuck i went i went to like my home group and i was like you know i said i i shared openly like all the work i'm putting into my steps i feel like all i'm getting out of it is

just self-hatred and i hate myself like interesting yeah i just i just hate my like everything i'm looking at in my step work just makes me hate myself right and and uh and i just like i was just feeling suicidal man i'm just like i hate myself so much you know right so my home group sat last and seen his hospital and so they just at the end of the meeting just walked me across the ground to the psych ward just walked me across the ground. To the psych ward? To the psych ward, yeah. And I was in that second psych ward for like three weeks.

At one point, Mike Tyson came through. Oh, really? To visit you or just? I don't know. No, because he. Yeah, I was like, my last day was like his second day or something. Did you talk to him? Yeah, totally. I was talking to him.

I was begging him to film a stunt with me when we got out. I'm like, Mike, I'm not asking you to punch me. I'm just asking you to hold your fist out and keep it still with your elbow locked and let me run into it with my face. Yeah. What'd he do? What'd he say? He says, I don't want to hurt you steve

yeah we wound up doing that at the charlie sheen roast a few years yeah yeah did you do it yeah i broke my nose on his fist like uh you know which was great because bam had broken my nose on the uh jackass 3d and i let it heal. It fucked up. Then I went to a nose doctor after two months, and he said, I'd love to help you, but it's already healed this way, so now if you want me to fix it, I've got to re-break it with a chisel.

And I was like, oh, it doesn't bother me that much. Then I dove into Mike Tyson's fist at Charlie Sheen Rose and super broke it. And then this kung fu instructor comes out of the crowd and fucking says, dude, it needs to be set straight now. And I'm like, okay. And he fucking picks you up. Things work out.

Just stay sober. Yeah. For sure, man. So, yeah. I like that this obsession that no matter where you are or what you're doing or how fucked up you are that the obsession is always like god get this on camera like that was what was driving you this is this need to document after uh that second psych ward that was sort of the point like like from when i got like when i was in the first psych when i went to rehab like i was almost like like looking at it like yes i was serious about sobriety, but I was

like, man, you know, I'm going to get sober. And then like, I'm going to get like respect and, you know, like the, the world's going to somehow, Oh me, I'm going to do a lot of good. And it was kind of like, I was getting sober for what I could get out of it. Right. And by the time I like, you know, the, the steps beat me down. Yeah. And then I was like, and then, and then it was like, it got real and it was like, okay.

And I remember being in the, uh, I mean mean i feel weird even talking about like like the book and so but i'm reading in the book in the second psych ward i like uh it's in the the family afterward chapter about how like um the the um the the past of every alcoholic is you know there's specters of you know shame humiliation right and and all of this uh you know all of this you know worst shit we ever did like it comes to be useful you know and it becomes it becomes not only an asset to us right but but really like the the greatest asset that we have right i remember reading that and thinking okay so like so that the so so it's not like i need to hate myself and judge myself i'm not like now i just need like that like it becomes my asset

everything you stay sober and you share your experience right everything that made me hate myself became and like a the asset that like uh like i just don't want to be that way anymore right now i'm not gonna now i'm not gonna work program in sobriety for what I can get out of it. Right. Now I'm going to work a program in sobriety to fundamentally change the person I am so that I don't hate myself. That's right. Yeah. So my motivation became sort of correct.

Right. Reframing it. You're right. Training your brain. I was in it for the right reason. Yeah, it's great. That's a great moment. And once I got out of that second psych ward, I went back rehab and uh and i just put down the camera i put down all everything

and i was just focused on really and sober yeah that's amazing and then after then when i was at six months um and and like you said it took a long time to fucking you know like after clear out the fucking ghosts and goblins. Right, after six months I left that rehab and moved into a server like a halfway house. Yeah. And I remember going to speak at the Salvation Army. Yeah. Like at six months. And then like

sometime like way after that I was at like a meeting or something. The guy was like dude, I was there when you came to speak at the Salvation Army. Man, we were worried about you. You thought he was going to say thank you? Man, we were worried about you.

I was in there talking about reincarnation and spirits and ghosts and goblins. We were worried about you. Yeah, but I stayed in sober living, like the halfway house, until I had two years of sobriety. Oh, wow. You really locked in. Yeah, I mean-

Did you find that the- Did you get diagnosed with any other mental issues? I did. I got the bipolar diagnosis, and I got a bunch of meds with it but i i honestly think that you pile enough fucking chemicals into yeah anybody that took as much drugs and the kinds of drugs i was doing yeah would be bipolar too is kind of what i sure so you waited it out yeah i don't have any of that like psych med deal now and do you experience depression or mania not on any kind of level that uh that i that i used to right and um and and i also i think that

i don't experience depression or mania without like an event right tied to it right it doesn't just come out of nowhere so it's like you will react like really right really heavily and unreasonably yeah like like like my like life is not okay you know over little stuff sure but there's always but that's just fucking being an addict sure there's always something to motivate like whatever right you can track it right that's good and when did you when did you wrangle with the sex addiction because you talk about that how many years into your sobriety did that start to happen well i mean shit like uh i think this this sex acting out sexually was was always there yeah um where like it got pretty fucking dark man um like uh well the event you talk about in the special pre it's it's it's funny in a way but it's pretty dark it's it's dark and it's also nothing compared to right you know right like

that's not like uh that's not even that big of a fucking deal like well i remember like uh the the sex got super out of control because once i started doing like stand up on the road yeah you know and after every show i'm taking photos with the whole crowd and i wasn't even selling merch i was just like it was basically auditioning to see who was going to suck my wiener that night right yeah and so like it was and and i would keep coming back like from my for my like gigs you know like you leave on a on a wednesday you come back on a sunday or monday yeah and it's just like i you know talk to my sponsor and i'd be like dude you know like i just like i i really like feel shitty about myself for like you know like hooking up with all these chicks and i don't want to do it and i just keep doing it yeah and uh and i just couldn't stop man and um that's kind that's that sort of

like weird sexualizing wanting love and shit and just like and getting feeling that connection yeah just like well i just want i just want to like like get off and then as soon as you do then all of a sudden like in comes this cold dark yeah the shame yeah because they leave and you feel like you treated them badly and right because you realize like at some level yet that there's some unresolved thing where you're kind of like compelled towards the shame like because like you know that it only ends there and in like right there's a whole cycle and i was reading about it too i was reading about like this cycle of like preoccupation of like you know like uh ritualization like like acting out yeah shame and it just repeats right it repeats and it gets worse and worse and um man it was

so gnarly and at that point uh i wound up i was already seeing the sex therapist you know and then i was like i just dove in fully and i went like uh into a full like uh outpatient an intensive outpatient program like full-on sex out of greed really yeah like uh it was like a two-week outpatient program like just all day every day for like for two weeks and um and then when i after that when i left out and then i started bringing my buddy on the road to be like the cock block you know right and i i went full celibate man for i didn't i didn't even jack up i did not blow a load period for uh a year and three months holy shit yeah and then i tried to uh and then i got into

a relationship and that was a disaster yeah it just didn't work and then how did you feel not blowing a load for a year and three months just like i'm just i don't know moderation you know so it's just like oh that was just my next thing you know to like and so it was just like you know did it help your brain i never had a fucking wet dream because like in the dream where like, I remember a bunch of dreams where I'm about to blow a load, but then I'm like, oh, I can't lose my time. I can't lose my sexual sobriety in my dream. Yeah.

And so like, so whatever. Like at this point, it's like I've known, I've known like being promiscuous and it doesn't work for me. I've been completely celibate. Like that's just sexual anorexia. It doesn't, it doesn't work for me. And I,

and I've, I've tried to be in relationships and I just haven't been successful there either. So that's like the thing, you know what I mean? But are you hopeless or are you just sort of like going to keep trudging the road of destiny? I'm not hopeless at all,

man. Like, I just think that, um, I just got to keep to keep working on myself and try to figure out, like, how I think to sort of pick the relationships better. You know, I think there is a relationship for me that will work. Yeah. I just haven't picked successfully. Sure. I just haven't picked successfully.

And I think that the rigidity of... I just need to find some kind of balance. And do you have a spiritual life? For sure, man. I got into TM and that's been cool. I've been kind of slouching on it a lot lately. But yeah, all the 12-step shit and the prayer meditation. You do it. I do, man.

And you're vegan know and you're vegan now too and you you're uh standing up for the animals climbing up on shit and getting into trouble right you're using your uh your your skill set for good for actual for an actual reason other than just like i can't fucking believe i did that new outcome and useful what'd you do you climbed up a crane and i climbed up crane man yeah it's I can't believe I did that. It knew how to come in useful. What did you do? You climbed up a crane? I climbed up a crane, man.

Yeah, it's amazing how dumb that was. I'm trying to protest SeaWorld, so I go to a fucking random construction site nowhere near SeaWorld. I fucking climbed this 150-foot crane with an inflatable toy whale, which is way too high up in the air for anybody to see the fucking whale right so you still got a little your old uh your old behavior that's old behavior like dumb shit steve-o's on a crane with a whale right and and like uh you know people can see like oh maybe he's gonna jump whatever and i'm in the middle of hollywood and so like by the time i get the fucking whale inflated there's 80 firefighters 18, 18 cops, a helicopter, and a SWAT team. You know? And I'm just like, you know, like a reasonable person would be like, oh, this is going too far.

I better like, hey, guys. You know? I'm like, nope. I'm fucking inflating my whale. And then I'm blowing up my fireworks like I said I would. Did you? Yeah. I taped three artillery shells, which are the thing that you drop into the tube, and

then it shoots up into the sky and then makes the display. Yeah. But I taped them to the crane itself and lit them like arm's distance away from me so that the- And you got no rope holding you? No. I got one of those fucking clips. Oh, you did?

Okay. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, and just blowing up fucking fireworks while the helicopter's circling just immediately around me. Oh, fuck. And what'd you get? You got arrested? I got arrested, yeah.

For what? How many charges? Five charges. Five charges. Like inciting, or no, not inciting, creating a false emergency. Yeah. Aggravated trespassing. Yeah. And then three fireworks-related related charges and where is that at now um now like uh well i got sentenced to 30 days in jail i turned

myself in i was released in eight hours yeah um they they have like uh this like this weird quadrant of streets where i'm not supposed to go or if I'm gonna go I have to have permission Which is like because they think you have a relationship with that crane Don't let him get near that thing Whatever it is. There's there's like a little area where I need permission if I want to go there Yeah, and and I have like 80 hours of community service Which I'll be good for you. Oh, i was able to choose like i i asked can i do it with the humane society and so i've been i did 25 hours this past week man yeah doing what

specifically fuck i've done it all man i was filling rabies uh um syringes with rabies vaccinations um like uh i've done cat trapping like outreach going around east la um offering free spay and neuter services and vaccines like um look at that man they forced you into service yeah i'm just cleaning exactly you know which is super cool man and um you know like i've gone like taking animals to the shelters been at the shelters and like i adopted two cats in the process yeah yeah yeah the first shelter i went to i adopted a cat and then the second shelter i went to adopted a cat so i'm up to two i got two rescue dogs two rescue cats oh that's sweet man well good man it was i'm glad you're alive yeah man you seem pretty good i'm in pretty pretty decent shape you know all things considered

you look good well thanks yeah man and, man. And the special's great. It's pretty fucking crazy. Yeah, it's great because I'm coming to it with my own baggage about stand-up. But the thing is, it's really a show about you, and it's handled with humor and humility and the little bit of stunts, which you're good at. It seems like I see it like there's part of me that just thinking about you, there'd be really no reason why you couldn't actually put together a show that would rival a magic show, just stunt driven. Do you know what I mean?

Sure. Like a Vegas show. Don't you think? If you did bigger stunts? It would be – it's difficult to figure out like uh what's in repeatable you mean without dying right like the higher impact stuff uh is the one off it's tough to repeat yeah well all right well don't die buddy and and dude like a super honor man thank you so much man yeah thank you it's a real big deal to do this, man.

Thank you. Well, it was great. I appreciate it. Cool. That's it. That's our show. I really was surprised and excited at Steve's recovery and his disposition around it. I liked him, and I didn't know how that would go.

So what else? You can go to WTFpod.com and see the new thing and get tickets to my Trippany House shows in May and June, small shows here in L.A., and do whatever you do over there. Check out the new site, though. I'm sorry I'm a little heavy-hearted, but I'm a little heavy-hearted today.

What are you going to do? I guess I'll play a little guitar this is sort of a riff like the that song i was talking about and i've done it before but uh that rivulet song yeah all right well let's play it out and um hey uh i just want to say um you know pat and my my heart goes out to you and uh and I'm terribly sorry for your loss. And a lot of people love you, man. Thank you. Thank you. Boomer lives! Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.

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