Hello, friends, welcome to the show, this episode, the podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is a place where you can make a website, my website, Joe Rogan Dotcom was made from Squarespace. You can do it. It's not hard if you know how to move stuff around on your desktop. Can you do that? Well, guess what? That's enough. You don't need to have HTML skills like back in the day. Back in the day.

If you wanted a website, you had to hire someone that actually knew how to code and trying to get exactly what you wanted. It's a nightmare. Well, now it's easy. Squarespace has got simple, easy to use, drag and drop, user face and gorgeous designer templates. These templates are beautiful. It's really easy. You drag and drop, you put it in place. You could do anything with it. You can. First of all, you can sell things.

Each website comes with a free online store. You can promote a physical or online business, announce an upcoming event or a special project you're doing. You can customize the look, the feel, the settings, the products and more with just a few clicks. Everything's optimized for mobile right out of the box. It used to be a pain in the ass. Like people don't understand how hard it was to get a good website. Free and secure, hosting nothing to patch or upgrade ever in 24 seven award winning customer support, and they'll let you try it for free.

That's right. Go to Squarespace Dotcom slash Joe for a free trial. Then when you are ready to launch, use the offer Cojo to save 10 percent off your first purchase of a Web site or domain. Oh, yeah. We are also brought to you by groove rings by groove life. I wear one of those. If you look at my finger and you see a black wedding ring, that's my groove ring. It's a silicone ring, but it's designed by someone who is first of all, you realize that regular wedding rings, although beautiful for men, you can do what's called sheathing.

Google it. It's horrible wedding ring sheeting. Basically what happens is if you get into some sort of an accident, something heavy lands on that wedding ring, it cuts the meat off your finger. Not good. Well, Groove Rings were founded by Peter Goodwin and he needed a ring that was as rugged as the backcountry of Alaska, where he spent much of his time leading expeditions and bear hunting. Well, he developed this ring. It's the perfect ring.

It's a silicone ring. But other silicone ring, sweat groove rings have patented breathable channels on the inside to allow air in and moisture out. It's much more comfortable than any other silicone ring that I've ever had. And I'm telling you, if you're an active person, I can do anything with these things on. I can lift weights with them on the kick started in twenty sixteen and the company has grown exponentially. The located in Nashville, Tennessee. Shout out to my man Michael Chandler.

True American business. They've continued to innovate and grow through the pandemic and they now employ over one hundred and twenty people. And not only did grooved life solve the sweat problems, their newest zoos ring, a.k.a. the King of All Rings, is made with an inner A.I. stretch band. They flex and will break safely, but they don't stretch ever. They're warned by Olympic champions, championship bull riders, again, my buddy Michael Chandler and over a million other customers, sixty five thousand five star reviews, try it out.

If you get the wrong size, you don't like the design or anything else, you can exchange it or return it in the first 30 days. And if that wasn't enough, they also have a ninety four year no B.S. warranty. If you break it, if you tear it, if your dog eats it, even if you lose it, they'll replace your ring.

Come on. What more do you want. Get yours.

Atragon loves groove dotcom and use the code Rogan at check out to get 15 percent off. So that's Rogan Love's Groove Dotcom. And use the code Rogen for 15 percent off, we're also brought to you by Bamby when you're running a business, H.R. issues can be a pain in the bootie. Wrongful termination suits, that was a good sound effect, actually, to have in the background when someone got terminated. Boink minimum wage requirements, labor regulations and H.R. manager salaries are not cheap.

An average of seventy thousand dollars a year. Well, here's your solution. Bamby spelled BRM b E was created specifically for small business. You get a dedicated H.R. manager craft H.R. policy and maintain your compliance all for just ninety nine dollars a month. With Bamby you can change H.R. from your biggest liability to your biggest strength. Your dedicated H.R. manager is available by phone, by email or real time chat. From onboarding to terminations, they customize your policies to fit your business and they help you manage your employees day to day, all for just ninety nine dollars a month, month to month.

No hidden fees cancel any time. You didn't start your business because you want to spend time on human resource compliance, right? No. Let Bamby help get your free H.R. audit today. Go to Bamby dotcom slash Rogen right now to schedule your free H.R. audit. That's Bamby dotcom slash Rogen spelled b a m b e e dot com slash Rogen. We're also brought to you by all form. All form makes premium customizable sofas and sectionals and chairs shipped right to your door.

You get to build a customized sofa made here in America using premium materials. You pick your fabric, you pick the sofa color, the color of the legs, sofa, size and shape to make sure that's perfect for you and your home. The fabric is still stain and scratch resistant, which is great if you have kids or if you have dogs or if you eat on the couch like a slob. Well, they've got armchairs and love seeds all the way up to an amazing easy to set up eight seat sectional that you can even have in a U shape with an in an awesome color like gray or blue.

It looks really high end. It's super comfortable, all at a reasonable price. All form takes three to seven days to arrive in the mail and you assemble it yourself. And just a few minutes anyone can do it. I could do it. It's a tool free assembly. You don't even need a screwdriver. It's so simple to do. And you could always start small and buy more seats later. If you want your all formed sofa to grow and change with you when you move.

Well, it's an awesome way to build exactly what you want in your house. And I haven't got to the best part, all form is offering 20 percent off all orders for listeners. When you go to all form dotcom slash Joe, that's a L l R.M. Dotcom Joe. All right, friends. Who? This was a long one. My guest today is an awesome human being. He's a brilliant artist. He's a crazy man, but honest and and fascinating and interesting and one of the best storytellers I've ever met in my entire life.

He's just he just ropes in. He's awesome. I love him. I'm glad to see him. I haven't seen him in years.

Please welcome the great and powerful David Cho government podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience Train, my day job podcast, my night all day.

But buddy, if I leave right now, this will be the shortest one you've ever done ever, ever.

Now, you don't have to do this. I know you were. You're going to say some crazy shit and you're going to torpedo your life.

Now that you're a cult guru with strawberry blonde hair, it's more strawberry blonde.

Well, it's a home job. It's it's beautiful yourself. So it's more my therapist would always say, lean into this comfort what you don't like and I hate Ginger's.

So I said, why don't I just become more I'm like your therapist says, lean into discomfort.

Yeah, if there's something that like I'm in a men's group also, and they said and I told them, I said I'm going to go back on the Joe Rogan experience after four or five, six years, I don't know when the last time I was already five.

Right. I don't know. It's been a while. And so they go lean into the discomfort, start with what you least want to share. Oh, and I go, this is me trying to they don't know you that well.

That's fucking terrible advice for you.

So I sit there, I'm driving over here and I go, OK, start with what I least want to share. I pulled over on a Van Nuys Boulevard and I puked.

Really? Yeah, I puked. Wow.

I'm. I have a I don't get nervous, you know, I start my own podcast, I've talked to you a million times and I just had like a visceral response. And I was like and I just pulled over on Van and I think someone took a picture of me.

So we're out there and I don't get nervous like these things.

Like I'm able to just almost disassociate, like whatever and just grab it and just go into any situation. And I just felt, you know, and I was like, oh, maybe it was the breakfast I had. I had a hard boiled egg. And chia pudding, that's what I have for breakfast, so that's it, that's it. And I pull over and I was like, oh my God, I'm fucking nervous. I'm just going to puke, puke.

Look across the street. There's a guy like that.

And then I get in the car and I'm like, Do I really want to share with Joe that I tried on like four different outfits last night?

Do I want to share with him that I got caught yesterday and I was eating at a place called Johnny Pastrami in West Adams that just opened its old restaurant that just reopened. And I know the the guy that runs it, Danny, and he said, you know, there's an outdoor I don't need an outdoor sports right now and. Like, what the fuck? I'm so scared I'm going to be canceled if I talk to Joe, you're going to be fun and that way through this.

But then I go, I've been canceled so many times.

Like, I kind of like you like you haven't been canceled since the age of real cancelling. Now, the age of real canceling has been since you were on the podcast last. That's when canceling is kicked up to new level because now the pylons happen right before there was just canceling, like you'd get in trouble for things. Someone write an article like, oh my God, what it David do? He's crazy.

But now the pile on the social media and the effectiveness of the pylon has been established. So now whenever someone anything happens to someone, all the the the pile on people.

But but I like I like getting canceled. Do you enjoy it? Do you see the Michael Jordan documentary? I still haven't seen it. All right. I'm not going to ruin it for you, but it's I heard it's awesome.

It's the actual filmmaking is kind of amateurish, but the subject matter so dynamic that, like, you're in it and like the guys are full on gambling addict, you know, and it's 12 episodes. It could have probably been like four. And the story's the same. It's just this guy didn't give me the best seat on the airplane. This this guy overlooked me in high school. It's like all these slights. And he takes it and he uses it as fuel.

And so I sit here and I go home driving to Joe Rogan's. Right now, I'm scared to be canceled.

And I sit here and I go, every fucking horrible thing that's happened in my life, physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, spiritual abuse, prison, getting my career taken away or this or, you know, anything has always led to bigger and better. So I'm like kind of like it, you know, that's.

Yeah, but that's just because you're a real person, like you're not you're not full of shit in any way, shape or form. You might be crazy, but but you're a lovable, crazy and one people know who you actually are.

It's like you have these moments where things are uncomfortable and, you know, and you're confronted with, you know, bad a bad scene, but then you rise above.

Thank you. I appreciate that. What is your threshold with receiving compliments?

My threshold, yeah. What's your comfort level? I haven't seen you in a long time. Yeah, it's been a while.

Can I give you can I give you five. Sure.

OK, you're you only look better as you get older. Oh you have a beautifully shaped skull. Like as an artist. As a sculptor I painted you.

Yeah. I don't like the painting anymore. I think I can do a better one else.

Awesome. It's an awesome painting. I'm like this guy like all artists and sculptors out there listening paint this guy's skull.

It's beautiful.

You're unbelievably. Curious. Inspirational. You give me hope you're funny, you're entertaining and you're a leader, just talk to all your guys right now like you're leading this charge to Texas right now and.

You're a perfectly imperfect. Unrepeatable miracle of the universe. Wow, that's heavy, you're great, man. Well, that's very sweet of you. I appreciate you. Thank you very much, man. That's very nice of you.

Yeah. I love you know, I haven't talked to you and it's been a long time, but I told you, I just I'm sure a lot of people feel this way. You're just on all the time.

You're in on YouTube or on a podcast or on someone else's podcast. So it's still like, fuck, I think about you.

You're in my ear. In my head. Can I give you on air gift? Sure. I was while I was trying on all my outfits last night, I was like, I want to see who Joe's talking to. Mike smells like Possuelo.

So I was I was painting last night and I made you a shirt. Oh my good. Because you guys got on a little thing. I didn't listen to the whole episode. Yeah.

Because it's four hours. But you were talking about ghosts at the beach goes on the beach. So there's ghosts on the beach. Right. You made this. Well, I didn't make the it's it's you see the ghost work. You see the ghost on the front.

Yes. It's fucking awesome where you could give it away. I'm going to wear the shit out of this. Thank you very much. Yeah.

That's so cool.

You're welcome. That's awesome man. Yeah. Ghost of a beach.

Yeah. You never see ghost on the beach. All ghost stories are true, right? Yeah. That was a good point. I was like I made a good point. That was a great point because like I mean, if ghosts were real, if they were really scary, you'd see them in cool times, like at the pool, you know, back in Vegas drinking.

Everybody's having fun. Fucking ghost shows up, freaks everybody out. Never.

So I got all the embarrassing stuff out of the way, I think. Oh, no. So I was at this outdoor restaurant eating at the corner and not having a full on panic panic attack.

But I have a nice, beautiful, wonderful, quiet life. Now, I'm not on the air. I don't do podcasts. I don't do interviews. I'm not I'm not like my life is amazing. Like, I completely changed my life since the last time I saw you.

And I go, I do want to talk to Joe, but maybe, you know, maybe I'll just talk to you on the phone or go visit you in Texas like I do. I need to go on the air.

Well, I gave you that option. I was like, you don't have to do this, but. Right.

But I'm a sick person, but you're a fun guy. You're fun. People enjoy listening to you.

So I had this sculpture that I made and it was in my car and it just brought it out. And I sat next to it and I said, I'm just going to prepare a little bit. So I started preparing for the Joe Rogan experience.

And I start talking to this sculpture at there and I'm like looking.

I'm like, you know, it's three o'clock. There was no one eating there. And I got caught. I got caught.

I got talking to a sculpture, talking to sculpture. I was talking to this thing I made. And it wasn't a it was a friend, but it was a guy I knew and he's like Dave. He comes over and I'm like, Oh fuck, dude, it is like a shame red face.

I'm like, Oh, hey. And he's like, are you talking to thing right now? And I was like, Oh yeah, I'm going on this thing tomorrow. I just wanted to prepare a little bit on a little bit nervous. I got my nerves because I talked to you, what, Thursday?

No, I talked to you a few days ago and we talked for a while. And I'm like, this guy is a professional talker. He's a commentator. He's a standup. He has this podcast that goes on for hours and hours, thousands of hours.

It's an art. You're a painter. You're my artist in in my world. I'm also an MMO artist. Mixed media artist. Right. That's yeah. The bisexual of painting. It's like you use everything. Everything, anything goes so. I know this guy is so fucking good at it because I got off the phone with you and I'm like, he's so good at talking, he's so good at talking.

He's just it's like it's like when you practice something so much that you don't even know how how good you are at it, you know, and even even even your podcast, they they go on for a few hours, which is against everything.

Everyone's like, oh, kids, they have no attention span these days. Like ten seconds, 15 seconds. It's fucking tick talks or Instagram.

And here's this guy talking to Postman alone for four hours and and making it seem just seamless and effortless.

And that's because you're a master at it. And I go, I'm a. My confidence level is as far as this art form is low, I don't talk to people anymore. I mean, I talk to my friends, but I don't talk as storytelling or entertainment.

My memory's shot to shit. I cried.

I watched three seasons of Ozark and I can't even tell you anyone's name. I go, There's Jason Bateman and there's the kid and the kid with the drone. And I don't know the wife. I don't know anyone's names. I can't recall anything. And you have all these scientists that are brilliant.

You have comedians and everyone's like quick-witted and they're fast and they're and I go, I'm dimwitted.

I'm like a human soft serve.

I'm like I comparing yourself to the other people.

You got to let that go right now. Well, you are who you are. The people can't do what you do.

That's true. Yeah. Your abstract way of thinking, like the way you are as a person, you're so freely yourself. That's what allows you to create such amazing art. Like, you just you're free. Some people can't be themselves and not good at it. You're really good at being David Cho.

Thank you. You're really good. I'm horrible at taking compliments, by the way, so it's uncomfortable for everybody, I think, unless you're a real creep, that you did a great right now.

Just fucking awesome hung in there. That was good. Could I could have done more. Kind of given you like. OK, we're good. You want to hear something funny.

OK, so the reason why I kind of did that was. I wake up every morning wracked with anxiety and nerves, and it starts immediately, you're a piece of shit, you know, good people like you, this and that. And then like, what did I say when you showed me my painting from twenty eighteen? I immediately have to self. It's not that good.

I could do a better one so. I talked to my therapist about it. I say I don't have a cellphone, I don't have a high self opinion of myself, and they go, well, an average human living in society today from morning till night will say thousands of horrible things about themselves. Like thousands, like not good enough. I'm fat, I'm ugly, this and that.

Just and for you to say just a few nice things, I'm like one of those is some fucking Stuart Smalley shit like and I'm good enough and and they go, see, you did it again.

You just went right into it. Like, why can't you say you're a good painter, you know, you're a good painter. Why can't you say you're.

And so they go, give me five right now.

Five would say five fucking things about yourself that I couldn't give them one I couldn't give them one. And they're like, don't you think that's always been the case?

I think so I think it's to go into that kind of self-hatred, as I could sit here and say it's a Korean thing carriage, but it's gay, which they said, you know, take a stick of deodorant, go home tonight and write, I am enough on your on your mirror.

So you see it every morning. And I go, I'm not doing that again, retarded on the wasted deodorant. Yeah, they go where you're paying us, you're here.

Just do it. All right, fine. I'll do it. I go and I write. I am I misspelled e n you f I am enough. And then I go next week and they go, so how's it going, you know, brushing your teeth. You look at I'm enough. I can't see it. Like what kind of deodorant did you use. You know, the clear and visible one.

No get the thick white chunky whatever. Antiperspirant. Yeah. Old Spice and like like your fucking graffiti artist. Right. So OK.

And I said I. I can do it, but I don't believe it because I can sit here and tell you the amount of times in my life that I wasn't enough, like I can sit here and go through many, many stories of women dumping me for richer or better looking, more famous, better this better that I can tell you of jobs that didn't get. So I'm not enough and I'm not, you know, so and it's this struggle.

It's this burning fucking like the Michael Jordan shit. Like, I got a fucking I'm not I'm not at war. I'm not.

You can't fucking cancel me. I've already canceled myself. How are you going to cancel someone who's already canceled? There's nothing you're going to say. There's nothing you're going to fucking do that's going to outweigh anything. I've already said to myself, you were that guy sucks.

He's ugly, he's fat, is full of shit that I've already said that, you know.

So do you think that fuels your art? Do you think there's a benefit? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But. You know, there's been that there's been that debate forever.

How do you create great art, and I'm not talking about good art, but like the transcendent art, the art that like you remember it, you're it'll live on for generations.

And it's like, oh, it's like the Picasso and and Van Gogh and all the comedians that fucking hate.

It's it wasn't a debate for me.

When I look at the art that I enjoy, the comedy that I like, the music that I like, you must fucking suffer. You must suffer.

You have to suffer. Comfort is the is the killer of creativity.

That's what I used to say and. You know, and you know, I'm saying it now, but like I'd be like in a room like renting this comfort is the killer of you got a fucking it's a killer of everything, man.

But I'm rich as fuck. Yeah, I'm very comfortable. But you're comfortable financially. But that's how you keep sharp. You keep sharp by not being comfortable in other ways.

So I sit there and I'm going off on this rant. I'm like in a fucking echo chamber. Like, how long you been telling the story for my whole life? I've it's not a debate for me. Right. Do do you know great artists that are comfortable and they're happy and they're like they have loving families and there's always something.

There's always somebody. I think you can have a balance, but you have to have this thing right. Whatever that thing is, there's got to be some sort of a struggle.

And that was never a debate for me. I go there has to be that struggle and they go, but what if you take it away? Like what if you chose happiness over great art?

What if you chose and they go, Dave, for someone who's rebelled and like, made your own rules and done everything your own way, it's so weird that you just kind of accept this.

They go can like what you just said. Can great transcendent next level art be created without that thing, without that edge, without with you pursuing joy and peace and love in your life.

And I go, you know what? Never tried it. I never tried it. Why haven't you tried it?

Would you just say, I don't know, FPP, S.H., fear, ego, pride, shame, humiliation, that's why you never tried it.

All right. Fuck you. And I go, you know what? I'll try it. And today, I'm the happiest I've ever been, you know, like, I think I might be a little bit sick because I'm sitting here because I'm like, why?

Why would I risk how awesome my life is?

Why do you keep saying that? Why do you think that you're going to risk your fun guy to talk to? We're going to have fun.

We're going. But you associate public speaking and podcast with causing trouble because you were so poor. People don't know. Your podcast was legendary, Jamie, for being so ridiculous.

Jamie, you're moving you guys are moving to Texas, right? Will there be any vacation or break between small by. I said I. I guess because I tell myself a story I know. A lot of podcasters, I know a lot of comedians, and they don't oh, OK, you know what? Fuck that. Forget I'll use I statements.

I had a podcast and yes, but while podcast, son, I listen to your podcast sometimes. Oh, go God. Dave, Dave. Holy shit.

And you sing that right now. I'll get a hit right now. Dopaminergic is fun by the great Joe Rogan is telling me my show is Buckwild and well it was is like you like even the way you describe your own anxiety and self-hatred.

It's like there's a freedom to your expression that you would talk about in the podcast. You would say the most embarrassing, humiliating shit, and you would say it freely and openly and then discuss why it's embarrassing and why it's humiliating and what you did wrong and what was fucked up about it and what you were thinking, why you're doing, how you knew it was fucked up. It was like riveting, man. I remember parked I was parked my car once in U.A..

I forget what you guys are talking about, but I was like, Jesus Christ, I have to see how this plays out. So it's in there. I didn't get out of my car for like five minutes just waiting for this conversation to play out. Wow.

Thank you. I mean, I don't even know where you would even listen to it. I, I have a strong support system of friends and family that care about me. And when I went off the rails and completely lost my mind, they took it off the air, which I went crazy. And like, I don't even know. This was back when it was on. I'm sure it's like on the dark web somewhere. Oh, for sure.

Well, we were talking the other day about how you kept recording it. You didn't you didn't release any of it. I never stopped. I know. But what I said is what you should do is because you were talking about doing it again and you like, should I do it again?

Like, what the fuck of my life is so good right now? Should I do it again?

This is why I'll tell you what I said over the phone and I'll say to you in person, you should do it if you want to. And the reason why you should do it, if you want, is because the world needs more wild people. The world needs more wild people. People are goddamn scared right now, David. They're scared. There's a bunch of people out there that are terrified to be free. They're terrified to express themselves because they're so worried about being attacked.

And it's that self limiting and self censoring is one of the real problems with social media censorship. It's not just that you're censoring people for opinions you don't agree with, but it causes other people to self censor because they're afraid. I can't control myself. Of course you can't.

This is a fucking like I went on stir. That was life. Yeah. This is this isn't life now. OK, but used to be life.

Yeah. It's a fucking high wire act. The high wire. I don't know, I've no idea why I'm a severe like co-dependent like person like when I go in the Joe Rogan show like I feel like an absolute failure when I leave here. If I'm like I didn't make Joe laugh, I didn't entertain anybody made me laugh.

Stop right now. I know what I'm saying. So at that time we're going back. Yeah. Five, six, seven years.

I felt I needed one up myself every time.

Like, man, Joe just said, fuck, man, you went to a crazy place with Orsa. So I was like. I took my you ever do you have a lot of I know we were talking about Alex Gray, but you have a lot of painters on here.

I've had painters on here. I wouldn't say a lot, but they're horrible speakers. They're not. They live up here. Yeah. So they have a very hard time verbalizing, like and I get there.

Well, Alex is he's he's one of my favorites to have on and to talk to, but he's just so deeply embedded in the spirit world. He's got like two feet on earth and the rest of his body is in this. Yeah. Dimension of spirits.

He's an he's an anomaly, but usually artistic types of painters, artists, they have a very difficult time speaking, which is why they paint. Right. They're internalizing everything.

And I.

I got bored of painting in the same way that when I went to go to the you know, I'm going to kind of do a weird flex right now, but I went to the Picasso Museum in Spain and they have the the all his art displayed by decade year is art from zero to 10, 10 to 20.

If you look at the art that he did by the time he was 15 as an artist, that he's bored, he knows how to paint whatever, like unrealistic stuff.

And then you just see him going, I'm bored with that. Let me go Cubist. Let me go blue period. Let me. And then at the end, it's just scribbles, right. It's just like, fuck I, I'm trying my hardest to get back to drawing like a kid where I don't give a fuck, you know, and people go, oh I like this stuff.

And for me. I'm like, man. I. People oh, man, that guy just got lucky. Everything I come in, I come with, like, a killer attitude, you know. So when I when I did Howard Stern, when I did your show and I just start I was like a year and a half. And I met with Jason Kaplan, the producer of the Stern Show. And he's like, you know, we have a channel here at Sirius.

And and I'm like, hold on, time out.

I've been podcasting for fucking one year and I'm going to be on the Howard net. Like my head was like exploding.

I'm like, so they offered you a show on their channels.

We were talking about it and I was like getting pumped up and I was like, I fucking knew.

I was also about talking. I fucking knew the shit. And I go, but what am I what are we doing?

Talking about relationships. I'm talking to a porn star. I'm talking to this. How do I take it to the next level.

How do I like it when I close my eyes and I hear a podcast, I'm going to interview this interesting person. And can you believe this person? And this should be an interesting thing. Story, weird anecdote.

And I go talking, talking fuck enough with the fucking talking like I'm a fucking artist. I'm a fucking artist. Like, I want to bring some shit to this. What does that look like?

My guest today. His yellow why I'm the color blue, what what are you talking about, Dave?

So I'll tell you then you fucking tell me here in person whether this shit should come out or not.

I feel like I need to get high. Go for it. Just keep going.

I go.

What is that like for me to meditate, close my eyes and be the color blue, not think about the color blue, but be the exact color blue.

And my guest today is yellow. OK, you don't get that right.

I don't get I, I, I think you'll see why I don't need to see it.

And then, and then I go oh fuck. I'll get triggered one day and I'll think of someone who's like like my enemy, someone who's coming after me.

I'll be like fuck this guy fuck. And I'll read all the comments and shit. It's like they've chosen a piece of shit go I'm going to become my victimizer right now. And that person I'm going to interview is myself as a kidnap victim. What it's like gag myself. I gag myself. And then I become the person who just kidnapped me and I start screaming, take your fucking piece of shit, because you fucking do this and you steal and you rip off people and you're fucking and then it sounds like, oh, fuck you.

And and and and I'm not protecting your head. I'm not pretending. OK, I'm I'm I'm so you locked in. I'm locked in. I'm like my only goal right now is to try to convince this guy to let me go like I'm a kidnap victim right now. Right.

And I go, I need to fucking figure out how to like hostage negotiate myself out of this. And then and then I play this guy who's like my only job right now is to murder you. I want to fucking kill you right now. And I'm like, my friends come in, open the podcast or I'm on the floor in the fetal position and they're like, let's go to dinner.

And I'm like, can you guys you guys want to hear what I just recorded? This should never go out into the world.

Should never go out.

I go, Hey, I'm not gay, but what would it be like to just do a podcast with a huge dick in your mouth? So I go on Amazon, I order like a butt plug and I stick it in my mouth.

And for then three hours, for three hours, you did a podcast with a plug in your mouth. Two and a half. Two and a half. What did it sound like?

You want me to send it to you? Sure. And why wouldn't you just want it after, like, the first couple of seconds, like, oh, yeah, this isn't going to work.

Hey, there's a lot of nuance to butt plugs in the, you know, like where it's going to go.

Right. There's no standard. But plus I started getting like cutups. It was a huge one. I was getting TMJ, my jaw was hurting. And so I'm listening to this stuff and.

My friends are like, at this point, there's no difference between you and the homeless guy on the street that's talking to himself, that's having a fight with his boss that fired him 20 years ago. And what's. And I go.

Were you raised religious at all from the time I was like five till I was around seven, I kicked it.

You ever you ever see people talk in tongues?

I have never seen that live, but I've seen a lot of videos.

It looks like be a good time. So, see, you're an adult, so you're like this would be a good time as a kid. Terrifying. Terrifying, right. So you've seen it. So my mom took me to this church and.

I mean, I'm scarred, you know, like, is it Pentecostal? It was Baptist, Baptist, so I walk into this room and I was six, six, five years old. Writhing in a limited dinghy, right?

Yeah, and I go, Mom, let's get the fuck out. What is it like? These people are touched by God right now. They're talking directly to God.

And I go, oh, my God. Like, it stayed with me. You know, I start teaching autistic children when I used to live in San Jose. Art, you know, I try to help, you know, give back to the community. And my friend said, can you start teaching this kid Joseph? And then I let a network of, like all these autistic children that needed art lessons. So I meet this kid, Steven, and.

He can't put a sentence together, kind of like, oh, hey, hey, come on, let's paint today fearless. And we go outside on my deck and we look at the San Jose skyline, right, photographic memory photograph, like not to scale, like everything's off proportioned, looks very like I come back, I go, OK, Stephen, let's paint starts drawing buildings.

And I'm like fog and like this, like not looking just like and like and like some kind of weird little.

And I go.

This fucking guy that can't put a sentence together is a genius, his a photographic he's got something in his brain, is tapped into something that I'm not tapped into. And now some words are coming out of his mouth that sound like that fucking tongues kind of stuff. You ever see that a Jay-Z documentary where they say they show him like he never writes anything down, like it's all in his head. Yeah, I've heard that. And he's like a duck.

And he does like a weird mumbling.

He's like it's where he's like doing it, but it sounds like it sounds like that.

So I go, I need to do a podcast about that. So I go in the room and I go right now as someone who's never spoken in tongues or not hooked into whatever Jay-Z is hooked into and whatever, my friend Stephen, I'm going to talk that one went on for six hours, six hours of me creating an alien fucking language, trying to talk directly to God.

And that one 100 percent, my friends go, you cannot put this out. So you have a fucking butt plug in your mouth. You're talking in tongues to kidnapping yourself. And these aren't all the same episodes. I don't know the many different. But the butt plug. You didn't talk tongues. The butt plug. Right. This is it sounds very similar to two episodes of. But the talking tongue. So you there was no real words. You just sat down and just this is what the gun sounds like.

How many hours is it. Go for a half hour. I don't understand why you wouldn't have stopped after the first few seconds of rock n roll.

That's a hell of a butt plug.

Like a water bottle, an eight ounce, what is it, eight ounces, six to eight ounces.

I mean, do I get it?

So you go to the language thing that you did. Did you talk any English? You just get in there.

And my gorgeous podcast just don't don't try to I want this to sound like complete gibberish. Right.

From the moment you started, there was no like, hello, I'm going to try something right now.

I don't know how you know, who did that man. It was real weird. McKenna used to do that. Terence McKenna used to he used to do it. I think he did it under the influence of psychedelics. He would talk in like these weird, crazy, fake words.

What is that called? There's a there's a term for it not just speaking in tongues, glossolalia gibberish at it.

Oh, scat. It's called glossolalia. Yeah. Oh this MACKENNA. Yeah. Play this.

Just so you listen to some of this seems to be of like some of the finest attached its its language like activity because he talks about it.

Oh he talks about it very well. He, I've heard him do it in.

There was a song, he did a thing with you.

You want to try it with me right now. Sure.

What you want to do don't don't use any words that sound like the English language.

Just close your eyes and try to think I have to close my eyes just just like you don't have to close your eyes.

And I was worried about whether or not there's a lot of which ba ba ba sounds fake.

See you any time you need time. I need time to work on that. But I would bet. But does anyone need to hear that I was in moldy roof.

No. Looking at efforts to Hennesey. I need to get on that level.

I fucking dare you to do stand up in that language.

You know, people pay money, people pay money. I can't do that to them by myself. Alone, maybe.

But that thing I was just joking around about it was it was it the postman thing I was saying, I think that aliens would be so good at language they would be able to talk to us in a in a language and we would understand it that they would be able to figure out sound to the point where sound could they could they could embed information in sound with their super complicated language to the point where they could talk to you. And you don't have to understand the language.

You don't know by now.

Well, what do I not know? You're an alien.

Oh, that's ridiculous. Like the mountain. You you don't think there's any part of you that your fascination with it, that you might be like a sleeper cell, that. No, I'm serious. Like what? Come on. I've heard all this like simulation theory. What are the chances?

That this man with this beautifully shaped skull is born on planet Earth and whatever, this is probably some kind of block that's. But then. You you become this person and you use the human voice to connect with sports science, comedy, and then you amass. An audience of hundreds of millions of people. And I go, this fucker's an alien, no, there's no way you're an alien.

No, I think I'm a moron. Listen to me. Trust me, I just do things a lot.

That's what I do. I just do things until I get good at them.

I will start the church, man. I'll fucking join Joe Rogan.

I don't have any talent at anything. See doing right now then working hard and getting obsessed with things. That's my number one. Extremely talented. Well, I had physical talent when I was when I started doing taekwondo, I had physical advantages that I recognized very early there. Real advantages, like some people just have extra speed, have extra power. They have things that their body can do that's not it's not warranted by the amount of effort they put into it.

There's there's that. But outside of that, everything is just been being obsessed with things. And that's a human characteristic. That's not an alien characteristic. And a lot of it is like we have our own struggles. Right. Like your struggle as you tell yourself you're not good. I don't tell myself I'm not good, but I'm never I'm never fully satisfied with anything, anything that I do personally, whether it's the way I behave or the things that I write or perform or podcast or a stand up comedy special.

So you do the same shit I just did. Yeah. But I don't hate myself, but I'm never happy. I'm never happy. Like but I'm never I get to a point where I go, all right. As I did my best. I know I put in the effort, I know that I researched it.

So that's what makes you inhuman because most humans do hate themselves. Well, what it is, is that alien mother fucker, because of the fact that I'm obsessed with doing better things. I put the work in and for my own personal experience when I have had moments of self hating, it's not like I've just never had any self hating. It was mostly because I didn't put the work in.

You spend a lot of time with this guy. Have you ever seen him do like weird bathroom or like anything that would be like non human?

Would you to maybe you're fucking alien to Jamie's way more of an alien than me.

He Jamie reads my mind 100 percent. Wow. I'm about to say something to Jamie to just go and type it up. Did you know Chester from Linkin Park? I did not.

I met him once, but I did not know.

So I know Joe Horn in his band, the deejay guy. So I went to his house once and he played, I don't know, scratch tracks or something.

And the way I know that they make music is they all live in different cities.

So they just like the guitar player will make something and then send it to like Mike Shinoda and and Joe played me an entire album where Chester just sings over every track gibberish. Oh, wow.

And it sounded better than any other music that I've ever done. And it was like because he's just trying to get the Abbotabad and it was like scat. I don't know what you call it. Do you know the Black Keys?

I've heard their music. I don't know that. Dan Auerbach. Yeah. He told me he just makes up words. That's fucking awesome. Yeah. Should we do. Yeah. He just like he first of all, that guy smokes tons of weed. I mean just constantly high. Right. He's like I get high and I just, I just come up with lyrics, I just start singing, I start playing and I make up words when I think of words because.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's r to sound. Yeah. Fuck yeah. It's ah. So you just said some black keys are phenomenal.

These people are paying money to come see me do comedy, so I'm not going to do my true alien tongue version standup set.

That's something I would have to practice. So that's, that's the thing. Like if I'm going to that he'll be too indulgent to do it in front of them without any practice. If I knew that there was a way that I could do it, that I could distill it down to an entertaining form. Right. I would definitely do it.

So you've you've done like thousands of these now? Yeah. You've had every single different kind of profession and weird personality sitting here. And and I was getting to the point in my podcast where I was getting pretty big guests and I was finding myself dissatisfied, but unlike you hating myself and becoming very bored.

And I said I'm I'm not good at speaking because I have blind spots. I stutter. I say like a lot I say and I talk over people and I'm trying to sort of like wedge my agenda and try to get my point across.

And I go. If my consciousness, my soul who's talking in this mic right now is. What does the interview we want to learn about ourselves through another person we want to learn, you know, and I go, there's a lot of people living inside me.

There's a lot of there's like I'm like, oh, there's a guy here right now that's fucking puking on on Van Nuys Boulevard. And there's another guy that's super confident and cocky.

And so I go, there's a collective there's a shortbus in my brain. And the person driving right now, today, right now is a confident, sober, mentally stable. But on that bus, there's a racist Dave. There's a sexist Dave. There's a werewolf Dave. There's a trans Dave. There's an experimental blood plug.

Dave there's there's many Dave's and there it's whatever attention I want to give them. Yeah. And. You ever done a psychodrama, psychodrama? Yeah, what does that mean?

It's like a therapy tool where you're in a room like this with like five other patients and I don't know, it could be like up to ten, I guess. And you identify one of the most traumatic moments of your life and that you can't you're stuck. You can't you can't get past I can't get past my parents divorcing.

I can't get past failing at the national, you know, whatever that moment is, OK? And so then. You keep playing that on a loop in your brain, and no matter what you do in life, that's always still going on. And so it's a tool to to rewire your brain. So it's like, OK, you're going to play yourself. How old were you then? 16. OK, so you're Joe Rogan, 16. Who was there?

My dad was there. My mom was there.

My coach, you know, and then so all the other people play the roles of those things and then you just go through and then what happened? And then this guy punched me. Pause. What are you smelling right now? You go around the room and you just dissect the moment and you're like, so what did you need at that moment? Well, I needed my dad to fucking step up for me and. But did he know? So in this version, have him come in?

So you're rewriting history and I go home.

I've done hundreds of these now and I go, has anyone ever done a psychodrama with themselves? Right, because there's many voices on the one to one over here, it's like they turn the car around. Who's talking right now?

Scared, fucking confident. We need you up in the bus. Come to the front. OK. Hey, why the fuck did you stick a pure life water bottle in your mouth because you wanted to explain to Joe what a butt plug. Did you need to do that and then so I do this for a few hours.

Of course I'm recording and once again I'm in a fucking room talking with the hot mic, crying, laughing, screaming to myself, this sounds like an awesome ad for a on page.

So you do you take those episodes, you start new ones and you take those crazy ones and you just put it put it up only for Patrón members and just ask him to please not share it unless people are paying and then use that money for charity.

I make a million dollars in a week, so I'm, I'm trying to heal myself.

We all are. Right. We all are. Well, what you're saying is mirrored in a lot of people, especially the you're you're different. I'm a different person all the time. I'm a lot of different people and some of them have their shit together. And those ones guide the other ones away from the fucking rocks in a in a fight flight or freeze situation.

What are you. Because I'll just tell you, I could give a master class, if you can get out, you should get out always. You can fly if you flight is always the best option. I'm a master freezer, Frayser. You can't freeze flight.

I'm either flight or fight. Those are one. It's one or two. And you can't take either one of them lightly, OK? So if you're if your flight, you have to know there's a reason to get out and that reason has to make sense. And you you have to be able to assess very quickly whether or not this is even going to work. Are you going to get out of here? Is this going to work or am I going to have to fight?

And if I'm going to have to fight, I should fight now. And I should be only thinking about that. You can't if you're going to fight, you can never think maybe I shouldn't be doing this or maybe I should get out. Maybe I should back off. Maybe I should. I don't know. Maybe I fucked up. You can't think that once you pull the trigger, you got to let the wolf out of the cage.

OK, if you're going to run, you got to run. You've got to. You can't you can't go. Jesus, am I really running? What am I doing now? You just got to go. You've got to get the fuck out of there. You can't worry about your ego if you can escape especially violent encounters, if you can escape and your ego's the only thing that gets damaged. Congratulations. Your ego can you can get over that.

But physical violence is terrifying.

So I need your help then. OK, ok. I told you the other day this this is pre quarantine pre panda. I'm in the car with my dad and we were going to our favorite Chinese restaurant in San Gabriel Valley, which by where we live should take fifteen, twenty minutes tops.

We live in Los Angeles. I look at the Google Maps as an hour and ten minutes to get there, primarily traffic.

My dad had a stroke two years ago, so he's got a kind of gimpy leg. He sort of drags his foot. So I'm like his Uber driver. Now I take him everywhere and. And he's he's like a typical old Korean guy, he doesn't he likes to eat close to home, no lines fast in and out, done. So yeah, we get in the car, 536 that on a weekday night and it's just traffic bumper to bumper.

And he's like fog like this traffic.

And the thing that added to this, which I didn't know, was it was the Academy Awards night. Oh, no.

So now it's like we're not moving and we're sitting we're sitting at the light and my phone starts blowing up like congratulations, like, fuck, like all caps. You know what's going on?

I look at my phone, my daughter. Hey, don't look at your phone when you're driving like we're not going anywhere, bro. Chill, fuck out.

And Parasite. The Korean film had just won best film like in the American Academy Awards. And all my non-white friends are starting to like because Asians all know each other, right? We kind of do, but. Congratulations on Parasite, and I had nothing to do with that movie. Well, you get when you're getting congratulated because it's Korean. Yeah. They're like, you must be so proud of your people. Like you did it, man.

Let me ask you this. Is that racist? For them to do that, it seems a little racist to racist congratulatory thing, like people like if somebody called me up and congratulated me for something Italians did, I'd be like, what? Beautiful fuck is wrong with you beautiful people. I don't even know that guy, so that's what I'm saying. I'm in the car going, I don't even fucking know that guy. Is it all white people that are calling you congratulate one one Mexican guy to two white guys, three people, three people.

And it's the news just hit first time in history. Non American film wins. You know, it's a big deal. The Koreans are fucking, like, going crazy in Koreatown.

And and then my mom, who's in another car, calls me and she's like, get that guy over to our house for dinner. I want to cook for him.

And I go, Mom, you fucking think we all know each other?

You you know that fucking guy. You know that guy.

Mom, just because I'm a Korean, in the end, I don't know all of them. She's like, you know, Steven, you he was in Okja Ojai's, you know, Bong Jong. Fuck you, mom, the fuck off.

Like your mom's even more racist, but my dad, he likes that shit. He's very prideful. He's a prideful Korean guy, except he was born in China. Oh, wow. So during the war times, he's, you know, he's Korean, but he was born in China. He was on the run.

And when I like to fuck with my dad, I grabbed by the neck and I go, he Chinese motherfucker, Ching Chong motherfucker. Is it racist? I don't know. No, I don't think I grabbed my dad by the neck. He's very he's one of the most prideful Korean people. And and we're not going anywhere. We're sitting at the lights and I fucking did it, man. What you know, I'm having a, you know, connection with my dad.

I go, you ching chong Chinese motherfucker came to America in the 70s. There was no traffic then. I just fucking let me let me let me tell my story.

You come here, they try to fucking burn you out of Koreatown. They burn your fucking shop down, they call you chink, they call you fucking gook. You come here with nothing. You're working on an assembly line. You're poor. You have you raise three boys, you have no fucking money.

And look at us now. Parasite, bitch, parasite.

Dave Chang, best fucking chef in America. Roy Choi, fucking k pop dominating, dominating the fucking Bobby Lee, Bobby Lee, Steve Lee. Like we're kimche on the menu. Everywhere now.

Everywhere, everywhere. You want some kimchi pizza, you want some probiotic probiotic shit up in your gut, you know, like everywhere.

This tiny fucking country in Korea, you know, my dad's getting pumped up. He's like, yeah, we fucking did it, man. And all the techs are still coming.

Yes, there's a there's a racist. What the fuck's the term?

It's called a perpetual foreigner where it doesn't matter that I was born in Los Angeles, that you always feel like a foreigner growing up.

The message from my parents was, don't piss off the white people like we need to act in a way that's what's the other one model minority.

We need to we can't do anything that, like, upsets them because we might get sent back on the boat.

You know, it's like you need to act in a certain way. You have to dress a certain way. You have to comb your hair. You have to get a certain kind of job, doctor, lawyer, doctor, lawyer. And you need to act that fucking way because we don't want to get sent back. And so.

Yes, yes, father. Yes, honorable father. So I'm sitting there and I'm feeling myself.

I'm feeling my race. I'm feeling my dad.

And I'm like, I'm fucking dead in fucking men everywhere. PopCap Food, the tiny fucking country that's been under attack for generations. Korean barbecue fucking dominating.

Now they'll like us now they'll let us into the club now, you know, and.

We haven't moved an inch. We're still stuck in traffic and he goes. I would trade all of that for for us to fucking go home right now or beat this traffic.

All right, whatever cut to Academy Awards to what was that? It was the Academy Awards. And then when was the quarantine? Two, three months later. No traffic, no traffic. I can get to the beach in 15 minutes from my house that used to take an hour and a half, I go down. Let's go to the beach.

Let's get the fuck out of here, sitting in the car.

And you remember when the quarantine first started, you saw families walking down like entire families walking the dog. Everything was close. Like there was no smog in L.A.. We fucking drive to the beach, we're almost there at a red light, and there's a guy walking his dog with his kid. And I and I get a kind of mad dog kind of vibe, like he's staring at me or windows are down and I'm I don't know, I'm always talking really loud to my dad because he's hard of hearing and the light turns green and he just.

He like with like disdain and disgust, he just goes like this and pulls his eyes back, he made the fact that he did that. He did that to you and your dad. And I can sit here and call tough guy from the fuck that guy, I got a thick skin and maybe because it was I was with my dad and I love my dad. And I saw that my dad saw him do that. And I was like. Like, fuck, man, like.

And I froze, I froze, I was like, my dad is that's wise, that's wise.

I mean, he's with his fucking kid. And I go, listen, it doesn't matter. You never know. If you go over and engage some guy in a physical confrontation and he beats you to death.

There's no comfort in the fact that this kid was there to watch. You have to really.

People are so flippant about engaging in physical violence. It's very fucking dangerous. It's dangerous for everybody. And you never know what someone knows. So I snap in those moments.

I go to rage and like maybe if I was by myself, maybe I would have been more quick witted and had a snappy comeback, but. Someone hasn't done that to me the last time someone did this to me, I was probably in a third world country 15, 20 years ago, and before that, maybe I was in grade school. And as a 44 year old man who's in a lot of pain that's been working on himself to heal it, like hurt me, you know.

Well, fuck that guy. Just just get away from him. That's the best. You're not going to fix him by beating the shit out of them. You're not going to change anything. You got me the idea that you're going to punish him for that and it's going to you know, it's going to make him hate Asian people more. He's just a fucked up dude. A guy would do that to you for no reason at all. Just sees you and wants to hurt you and make you feel bad.

That kind of guy is hurting, man. He's probably been abused his whole life. It's probably something real wrong with him. It's probably had a fucked up alcoholic dad or something or some uncle did something to him. That's always something. People that lash out and try to hurt people randomly for no reason are all in pain. You know, that old expression hurt people, hurt people. Definitely.

And that's true. And I'm hurt. Yeah, but you're but that's not a that's an intelligent thing to do. Nothing because you're pause you're pauses wise because you can call it freezing, but you're stuck in an unwinnable situation. If you go over and beat that guy's ass like that is violence. It's dangerous. You never know how it's going to turn out. You never know if he has a gun or a knife or fuck go darker than you kill him.

If you kill him, I go darker than that. Fuck him. Just beat up his kid in front of them. Oh, Jesus. I mean, no, I don't think he would let you do that.

Then he would really kill you. But the idea is that the best thing to do is get the fuck out of there.

So the freezing and trying to figure out what, because it's a it's a real decision if you run over it. But if you get the fuck out of there, then that guy hurts you and then you feel bad. You never feel like you got him back.

But growing up in the 80s, I got that all the time. And I and I built up a thick skin to that. And I was I was like, I'm going to go to a new black school. I'm going to go to all Mexican school, and they're going to make fun of me. They're going to do that. They're going to call me Mr. Miyagi.

So I pull into the beach parking lot and my dad had just already deleted it from his like, I was like, sorry, dad.

And he's like, I I'm like, what the fuck am I important? He's like, whatever and.

And, you know, I'm seeing it with my whole career and I was feeling very braggadocios and proud and at all like deflates and I go. Parasite got us here and then a virus sends us right, our dick shrivel back into our body and like, fuck dude, well, that is a virus, too.

Well, that guy is a virus. Well, look, it's like that's that guy caught that from somewhere.

Well, it's our leadership. They're calling us. You're calling a 40 year old man.

And that's that's who Trump is not going to.

Now, that guy probably has always been like that man, but it's like people are inspiring, right? If you inspire hate, then people become if they have that in you, it brings it back out.

And I think by just him saying that it's a Chinese virus, when he called it Chinese virus, when he called it kung fu and not correcting it, the violence towards.

But he didn't call it kung fu. He didn't. Well, if he did, he didn't say it publicly.

I don't know if he said that. But he like there's all those things showing that he crossed it out and he still does.

He says Chinese Chinese virus. Right. The little kid got stabbed at Sam's Club in Texas, that Asian kid and violence. And, you know, it's Asians don't speak up. We don't ask for help. We fucking stored inside and then we explode.

So a little kid got stabbed. Look it up. No, I believe it. Right. Because just because he was Asian, just because he was Asian, because of the Chinese flu comment.

But Trump, they did a thing where they measure it every time he calls it Chinese virus. The violence towards Asians goes up in this country.

Really? Yeah, it's fucking crazy. Oh, he did say it. Yeah. Oh, Jesus, that's crazy. Because remember, that lady in the White House was saying, I heard someone in your administration called it the flu. And he was like, remember? He was like, what? Yeah. So he was pretending he didn't know what, but he had already said it unless that was after that.

I think this was after that event. This was after that.

So he's like, that's a good name to consume and use it in this thing where he was saying is like people call lots and there's lots of names. Right. Coronavirus, right. Choung Flu. Yes, flu. Yeah.

Well, there's been a lot of viruses named after other places like the Spanish flu, which killed a fucking shitload. But if someone shows you the stats and they're like, look, yeah. You choosing the words you want right now is causing violence towards Asian people in this country. And he's like, yeah, fuck them.

You know, I don't think he's that insightful. Right? I don't think he's thinking about it.

Fuck Trump or anyone else that's saying that. Right. It's like, no, but I'm saying like that maybe someone needs to say it that way because you saying it that way in. I didn't know that there was a stat that showed that violence against Asian people went up every time he said it. Then it makes that first of all, it has a name, right? Yes. Coronavirus covid-19.

It has a name to call it anything other than that name. It should either be funny or descriptive.

Now, if he calls it the Juhan virus, that's really tectonically where it's from. Right? I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But the problem is actual racism and actual violence, that's the real problem. Now, the other thing is when you're a leader, that's when things get slippery because you can't just just be a regular person, because if you're a leader, you literally can help other people. But you don't maybe doesn't even realize it, but you really can change the way people think and behave when when a really powerful person like him or the most powerful in the country, arguably when he says something.

That prescribes unity, that that that promotes the idea of companionship and of friendship and of love and of support and camaraderie literally can change the way people feel. And also, if he says something hateful, it'll change the way people feel like we move, whether we like it or not. There's so many of us is 300 million in this country plus. And we move to inspirational words or angry words.

That's you, man. That's you. You are an inspiration like you. When you say things like that, people listen. You see how people are if you want. We were joking right now, but if you did start a cult, there'd be fucking millions of people signing up tomorrow and they would listen to you. And if you said this is a fucking fuck these Chinese people, then they'd say, we're with Joe.

You know, I don't know. I think most of them would leave if I said that there would be smart enough.

And Tupac. Come on, Tupac. Stay with us. This canyon one does not want to stand up. It's so ironic.

So this is what I need help with. OK, how fast did answer the phone when you called me the other day? Like it was like a normal.

It's it's like the first I don't we text in first, texting first.

But then when you called me, I'm so thirsty that people, people assume right in our in our workaholic culture, people assume that you must be really busy.

I mean, you actually are busy. I'm not busy.

I don't have anything going on. Like when someone calls me, I make it a game.

Now, like, here's another thing I don't want to admit to you. Like, I pulled up right here.

I was sitting outside for an hour. I was sitting like I was talking to this homeless guy outside for an hour before I pulled in here.

And so when someone calls me now, I you know, it's cool to let it ring three times.

I'm like, boom, I do the same thing. I just answer so I don't got anything going on. Let's I know. I know in our culture, it's really cool to be like, hey, bro, what's project you working on? What are you doing?

I'm like, nothing. I'm working on myself. That's what I'm working on. That's really cool. Yeah. So I, I take my dog, I got a rescue from Costa Rica. I love my dog and I go on walks with my dog now that are so long that my dog looks at me and is like dude where the fuck are we going. Go back home and I'm walking and I'm, I'm, I'm not taking in my neighborhood. I'm smelling the petunias.

I literally stop to smell the roses. I go, this is my life now. I stop to smell the roses. I walk to this underpass where there's, like, entire homeless community. I you know, I give them snacks, clean underwear. I just talk to them and they see me coming. They're like, oh, there's a fucking guy that's going to talk to us for like six hours again. And they're really busy today. Dave, Sam, don't we go like a one o'clock brunch, you know, and and this is my life now.

Not much going on.

And and you got to tell me all this just because you answer the phone quick like crazy trying to set you.

Well, I'm trying to set up how soft I am. That's not so not hard. I don't have I'm not on it, OK? I'm not on it. Let me pause for a second, OK?

Let me help you out here. First of all, if you just sat there and you weren't busy and just stared at your phone, let it ring three times, you'd be a fucking idiot.

But people do that. People are idiots.

You should you should record them. Everyone should have like a secret video of your friends staring at the phone, deciding whether or not to talk to you or whether or not to let it ring three times.

You see the phone ring and you pick it up right away.

Yeah, if I can. You don't do that. You don't see a cool guy like, oh, let me let me not cool guy. Someone calls me.

I'm like, what's a mystery? I tell my friends I miss them.

I tell them I love them. I'm not cool guy. I answer the phone.

I'm not I'm thirsty, desperate. It's like, the fuck are you? Don't even think it rang. My game that I play is that I try to I try to pick it up before it even rings. Once it's like you like like oh shit. This fucker's telepathic. Yeah.

Oh also some but Dial's may I call him right back.

So my point is I don't, I don't got much going on. I'm working on myself, I'm trying to stop and be present and enjoy things and I'm having a great day.

Beautiful. This is this happened last week, by the way, walking back home like I've been gone for like two and a half hour walk.

I'm walking back home once again.

I'm at a red light car, pulls up, window comes down, and I'm just sitting there and I get that feeling that something is about to happen. And the light turns, you know, on the other crossing light turns, it's about to turn red.

And he goes, hey, hey, hey. And I look over and he goes, Go back to where you come from. What do I got seven seconds before, you know, like I got a few seconds and I go once again, this to go back. This is the second incident since the pandemic started. And I go, I got this.

I know this one.

People used to say that to me, fok and like, there's there's like if you if you Asian people that are born in America go back to where you come from, Bellflower, woodier Garden Grove like that's and I and I and I froze again.

I go I have this come back, come back, clap back, whatever. I have that and I go Joe will know what to say.

He's a comedian, he's on stage with hecklers. The best thing you say to someone like don't stare at them, but he's gone already.

Luger's I fuck let them go like mad dogs.

They're like empty blank. You're a mirror. Doesn't mean anything. Go back to where you come from. The guy's a moron again. Like why why would he yell out at you. You're not an argument with this person. He's a piece of shit. He sees you on the side of the road and just yells out of you again. I guarantee you that guy was abused.

His life sucks back to where you come from.

That's a crazy thing to say to people.

And then it's like, what my my buddy, your mom's pussy, do I go offensive or do I go sell some shit?

Everybody is from somewhere else. This is the place. Unless you're fucking Cherokee, unless you're Native American.

So the best come back for that is just stare down. Just nothing. Just give them nothing. You wouldn't argue with the guy. Then he gets out and beats your ass again. He threw my whole fucking day off.

I went home. I put I laid down on my bed and I was like, God damn.

That's what he wanted to do, you know? And I go, When was the last time I got that high school, high school? Some Persian kid said, Go back to where you go.

It's twice since the pandemic and all from from high school on.

Always that red lights. Maybe I should just just maybe I should just run the risk. A lot of returns. Maybe just roll the windows up and just look straight and there's going to be shitheads this get look, life is an unfair game.

It's unfair. It's unfair. With your mind, the idea that everybody has the same mind is ridiculous. I know my mind is dog shit compared to Elon Musk's. I've talked to him. Everybody has different different attributes. Every has everybody has different environment. Everyone has different family life. Genetics influences, abuse, assaults, different things that have happened to that have been horrible that you've had to get through, you know, the loss of loved ones, all these different things.

There vary so much from person to person. We have a rough idea of what it means if your mom dies when you're five. We have a rough idea. We have a rough idea. If it means if you got beat up when you were thirteen in front of your girlfriend, we have a rough idea, right? We don't know until we experience it. And everybody experiences a different fucking hand of cards. And then here you find yourself, you know, whatever age you are in life, just still battling demons from your childhood and all fucked up from things that have been happening to you.

And you've never had a good path. Your fucking brain doesn't work that good. You've never had a thing that you do that makes you feel special. Right. When you paint and you get rewarded for that painting and people love it, there's a charge. There's a thing. Some people don't have a thing. They ain't got shit. And that kind of person sees you on the side of them at a red light and says, go back to where you come from.

And that gets into your head and it fucks you up. That's what they want to do. They want you to feel what they feel when someone says something hateful. One of the reason why it works is because, like, you feel their hate. It's like it comes off of them, like you get it on your system. And that's one of the ways, like men intimidate other men when men are angry and scream at men and get in their face, what they're doing is they're not just puffing their chest out.

They're not just signaling that they're aggressive and violent.

They're getting their hate in you. You have to feel it. You feel it like a drug. Like if someone's mad at you, you feel and it's all about how much tolerance you have to that drug of other people's aggression and anger and resentment and jealousy and all the various toxic emotions that people have when someone's at you. Yeah, like, I'm sure you've dated crazy women.

Right. And I don't even have to ask. So there's a moment in time when a crazy girl is yelling at you and they're mad at you like Jesus Christ, you're making me crazy.

It's getting into me like you're crazy is on me.

It's like, oh, I got to get out of here. It's fucking contagious. And like a virus, it can change the way you feel. And if you're in a fucking hive, just like of if you're in like just a hot spot of nasty thinking and behavior, you grow up and that maybe you have abusive family, maybe your dad beats your mom and your mom beats you and you beat your brother and your brother beats your sister and just fucking madness.

And then you have neighbors that suck, too, and everybody sucks. And that's as much of a virus. As the flu, it's a it's a mind virus that gets out into the other people that are around you, and you could be real lucky and you could live in a in an area of mind nature, a peaceful valley with a beautiful mountain and a creek that goes through it.

And that's the that's the community that you're in. You got lucky. You grew up in a wonderful community with fantastic parents and great neighbors. And your aunt, your aunt, your uncle come over and everybody has good times. And, oh, sure, there's a little bit of hardship here and there. But for the most part, people love each other. It's a fact. It's not fair.

It's not fair. When that guy yells out at you like that man, it's hard to internalize all this in the moment because you are feeling his hate. Well, I'll tell you I'll tell you what happens.

I go I become jealous of comedians because when I'm at a comedy show and I see hecklers and I'm like, that guy was so quick with that, come back.

Yeah, but let me tell you something. I won't do that in real life. Oh, I don't do that in real life. Really very. No. Some guy cuts you off. You don't have a fast one, right?

No, no. But you know what? So I reflect on it when I go home and I go, what did I say the last time this happened? And then I start laughing because it was high school.

Like I said, hey, why don't you go back to you know, we got an argument goes, hey, why don't you just go back to where you come from back home?

I'm like, fuck. But it's a learned thing. Years went by.

But the guy was a senior in high school. And I said, I got it. I got it completely.

Revenge is the best disserve Caulder. All that, but not for comedy. I see him in class and I get my balls up and I go, I got it completely out of context four years later. Right. Your mom's pussy. And guys like, what the fuck? That's where I come from, and I just walked away and I know that that landed so flat like that. Not really, though, because think about it right now, we're laughing like it's a slow burn for a joke delivered four years later.

Even worse. Even worse, a joke delivered four years later and talked about 15 years later.

See, now it's effective. It's just a real slow bomb.

Whenever whenever I see stuff like that, I go. Because I grew up with it, if you know, when you were in high school and people go, hey, pick a superpower, invisibility or flight, right?

I'm already invisible, like being an Asian and growing up in the communities that I grew up with, I was invisible. Like, I don't even have a voice. Like, you might find this hard to believe, but I never talked to growing up. I was the kid in the corner and like girls would form groups and talk about which guy they want to fuck. And I wouldn't even be there like Dave sitting right there. And they're like, yeah, he's not even he's not even on the fucking roster.

And like, so I. I go, wait, is this racist? Yeah, but what has it. How can I turn this around. What it did for me. The Asian superpower is. If you're not seen and you're not heard and we're seen as non-threatening, I can go anywhere, I can go anywhere and people open up to me. I've been to the Congo, I've been to Third World countries.

I've been to every fucking state in America. I might be the most American person like I've been to every fucking state. I've hitchhiked from the time I was 15 to every fucking state, every country. And I've talked. And because.

Would a black guy be able to do that with a white guy, be able to do that when people see, oh, that guy is Chinese, he's like Jackie Chan or he's whatever they think, they don't think that I'm going to do anything or say anything or I'm going to, you know, pose any threat.

So they just open up and they say the most, I don't know, like when I started hitchhiking, people said, no one's going to pick you up. Right, like 60s, 70s, everyone hitchhiking. And something weird happened in the 80s where, like, you're going to get raped, kidnapped, murdered, you know, but I go I don't think so.

I think if I put my thumb out and ask for help, someone's going to give it to me. And with that, I got to see the world for free. I got to go everywhere and. Much like what happened was I would sit shotgun and I'm getting these free rides and two things would happen, either the driver has a long drive and they want someone to talk to or they want me to talk to them.

And something would happen, like I'm in the car right now with a complete stranger. Anything could happen in the first hour is always small.

How long you been on the road? What would you do? You know, it's all that kind of stuff.

Something switches when they know the rides about, like I'm about to get out or whatever.

I'm never going to see this guy again, I'm never going to see this guy again. So now we've been talking about news, sports and weather for an hour last ten minutes. I fucked my sister when I was 12. Whoa. Everything comes out. So I've heard. Think about how many rides I've.

How old was he? He was 12. How old was a sister? I don't know.

Eight. I mean, everything. Drugs, incest. You know, I killed somebody like murdered a guy to murder confessions. Really. I've heard the most insane one at a time. Murder confession.

I don't know if I should be telling you different. Should it be.

A guy confessed to me that he was thinking of raping me when I stayed at his house.

Oh, Jesus. You stayed at his house. You didn't just hitchhike. You hitchhike west. I was in I was in the Deep South. I was in the Deep South. It was like my I was trying to hitchhike from L.A. to to New York City.

I was with my friend Brian. Same thing. No one's going to pick up to two fucking dudes. And John Wayne picks us up, cowboy guy wearing 10 gallon hat, you know, damn you boys look, you know, hot out there.

Get in the car. And he's telling us about shrimp po boys. And, you know, he's just he works on a offshore offshore oil rig.

And it's two weeks on. Two weeks off. And it's just two weeks off right now.

So he's like, where you guys headed? And we're like, we're trying to get to New York. New York. You want to go there for a bunch of queers out there? And we just want to check it out. You guys want to stay at my house tonight? Like this guy looks like grandpa. Just cowboy boots, cowboy hat, just big gut.

Like he's a dude, right?

Know I'm young. I'm 17 or 18 at this time. We get to his house in. Fox is what I'm talking about, tiny town in Louisiana, deep south, like we get in his house, die hard movie collection, Rambo movie collection, shotguns and.

Lub just just just the dude, just a man's man, and he has an inside in his part time job as an anesthesiologist, that part time anesthesia part time and then part time offshore oil rig.

And I'm you know, this is summertime deep south covered with like grease and mosquitoes living outside on the road. Hitchhiking is like you guys want to take a shower and like fuck yeah. I'm the first one in the shower. And and then I come out, I got the towel wrapped on his, like he made us like a frozen pizza or something. And there's a protest on the television, it's Sanford. This is 1993 or 94, there's a protest of something with gay people in in San Francisco and there are protesting and he's watching it.

I'm like, what? He's like, I'm queer.

You never see me out there protesting. And I'm like, oh, shit.

And then he and then my friend Brian, who's covered in Greece and dirt, he hasn't showered yet. And I'm like, oh, shit. And I started getting my clothes on.

And, you know, it's one thing to be gay and then it's one thing to be picked up by like a you know, a big gay guy with a cowboy hat.

It takes it to his house. So and and here's the thing.

I don't want to discourage people from hitchhiking. This is one weird incident that's happened in like 15 years of hitchhiking. So he's like, hey, Brian, why don't you it's your turn once you take a shower. And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, you're filthy. Why don't you get in there, take a shower? He's like, No, no, I'm I'm all right, I'm OK.

And I go, oh, fuck, what do we do? You know, do a little powwow in the corner. And he's like, he's old.

We can take him if he tries anything. We're tired. We were fucking so tired. We're like he he looks like he was like falling asleep on his on his couch and.

He goes, he's going to go to sleep, so let's just fucking stay the night, it's fucking air conditioned in here and then let's leave first thing in the morning before he wakes up, like, OK, fuck it, let's just do it. All right, boys, I'm going turn in like, yes, so we take the couch and I go, let's sleep in a formation and let's take turns, you know, we should have just left.

You go you stay for an hour and then wake me up. I'll stay up for an hour and then we'll leave crocodilian, you know. I had a pocket knife, so I slept like this. I took the knife and I put things like this and I slept like that.

And I stayed up for the first hour and I see him walking around his room. The lights are on and I'm like this.

This guy is not going to sleep midnight, 1:00 in the morning. He's still I'm like, what the fuck?

Why won't this guy go to sleep in his mask?

So I nudged Brian.

I go, Hey, it's your turn. I got like, I'm going to fucking pass out. He's outcall. I'm like, fuck, dude, fuck, man, I'm too tired and I go, OK, I'm just going to stay up the whole night, so I'm up. I'm like, OK, guys are closing him back up again, gripping the knife. And then sometime around five thirty in the morning or something. My eyes are closed, but, you know, when you feel someone so he comes out of his room and he's standing there and I could see and then I and then I grip the knife and I go, this is it.

This is it. It's going to happen right now.

And he just leaves. He goes out the door and I go, oh, fuck, like. And then I wake up Brian, I go, Brian, the fuck out of here, he's like, what's going on? He's like, Dude, he just left. He's like, OK, I'm going to take a shower.

Then I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, if he went to the store or something, like he's not allowed some duck. Yeah. He's not going to be back for a. Let me I'll just jump in and jump. I go dude, let's just go right now like he was I don't know if he was jerking off or what, like he was. I had my eyes closed, but he was standing right there and he's like, I'll be I'll be quick.

So he runs in, takes a shower. We get our clothes on. And like, just as we're walking out, he's like, hey, he's he like pulls in. You guys leaving without saying bye? I just went to the market to get some eggs for breakfast and like, oh fuck dude.

So I'm like, I have no knife in my hand the whole time.

I go like it's that, that thing where I'm a people pleaser, you know, like I'll even put my own life at risk to like this guy went to the store and got eggs for me, you know, like, yeah, sure, we'll have some eggs.

So we go in. And the guy starts talking about.

His wife and how he works on this offshore oil rig with like a younger dude, it's just two guys running this whole oil rig and the other guy just talks about how much he hates gay people the whole time, not knowing that this guy is white and.

And then he just like like like all the other times I've been picked up, he starts opening up about how he was married. He has a bunch of children, and then he figured out he was gay. And and then he was like, I could see it.

He he knows we're on our way out.

He's never going to see is just fucking let it all. You boys look so cute on the side of the road there last night. And it was like I was so like I'm so lonely. I don't get to you know, you don't know what it's like to be a queer guy in the Deep South and. Man, when I came out this morning and I saw you guys sleeping together, you guys on the couch, you look so beautiful and perfect.

And I'm like, oh my fucking God, dude.

And then he says, I thought about just, you know. If you guys wouldn't mind if I just touched you a little bit and I'm like, what the fuck? And, you know, once again I froze, I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, cool. Yeah.

So and so I said, yeah, we're going to we're going to leave now. So we just fucking booked it. And then all of his neighbors were black, like he was like in a black neighborhood and like the houses are on stilts because of the swampland and whatever.

And I don't know if he's done this before, but as we ran out, like I heard, like the kids laughing and they're like, oh, Tom, they're trying to do it again.

Or and I'm like, oh, fuck. Like, this isn't the first time. Like, oh, of course.

And look, this is looking for hitchhikers. I've hitchhike all over the world and that was the only time.

Right. And and so I highly recommend it. But yeah, what I was saying about being invisible is. A lot of times people will do this or go back to where you come from because they're like this fucker's not going to do anything. Mm hmm. And. That's just not the way the world works, you know, like someone was explaining to me the other day that no one ever wins a war. What are you talking about? We come in, we blow shit up, and then we take the it's like.

If you look at. Germany and Japan, right? Two countries that are very small. You look at a globe and you look at how small they are, these are two countries that are very tiny, that have tried to dominate every country around them. And Japan is start, you know, the Germany starts every world war, right?

And so you're like, oh, but we won those wars, but we drive their cars now. We drive Lexus, we drive. They won in the end. And then you think of the soldiers that come home, the PTSD, the drug addiction, the homelessness, it's like, look at our country now. It's like, did did we win? Like you won like on the charts. You look at the numbers. We took this town. We did this.

We did that and. When you fuck with people, when you hurt someone, it stays with them forever, like it stays with them for a long time unless you have tools and different things to, like, work through those things, which I have been working on a lot. But, yeah, being. Oh, fuck, that's sort of racist that no one really thinks of me as a threat. How can I turn that into an advantage? I'm going to travel the entire world.

I'm going to train hop. I'm going to hitchhike. Vice gave me, like, one of the first five shows with thumbs up. I, Gavin McInnes, Shane Smith, those guys I used to I've been writing and drawing. I found out about you. Really?

Yeah, I found out about you from well, from two places, one from Baudin, but two from a video that I watch of you go into the Congo looking for a dinosaur. That was the first thing I ever saw of you. I think that's like and then I talked to Bourdain about you and he was like, you got to talk to this guy. And when I saw your show was like, look at this, dude, this is crazy.

He's looking for a fucking brontosaurus in the middle of the Congo.

In 1994, I was living in Israel in a farm called Ramat Jakovčić, and it was a kibbutz. And to live on the kibbutz, you have to work. And I was the illegal immigrant there. So I'm trying. I have no money. So I'm making enough working on the farm just to live on the farm. And at this point, I'm 18 years old. I've been hitchhiking since I was 15 and I've seen the whole world.

I've hitchhiked through Europe. I've hitchhiked through the U.S. back and forth and I'm bored. This is in nineteen. I'm like, what? You go to the Eiffel Tower, you take that same right.

What haven't we done yet? We've it's all mapped out. We've been to everywhere. We've seen everything. We've done everything.

Well, I'm a I have a heart of a of an explorer and I want to find new things, you know. And so I'm living on this kibbutz. Most of the other people there are from Australia and South Africa.

And what I love about them is they're so racist that they don't even know they're racist. Like I'm the only Asian guy there and they're like Nintendo second Genesis. Like, I'm like, I got a name. They're like, no, your name is Nintendo. I'm like, OK.

And so I'm working illegally in a casino, illegally at a wedding catering place and then working on this farm. So I have three jobs I'm making like, you know, under the table. And there's a library on the farm of books that have been left behind by past travelers.

And of course, there's an old from the 70s or 80s National Geographic catalog. And I start reading about McKeyla Membe.

I don't know if that's how you say it, but it's. Scientists, National Geographic people have spotted this fuckin brontosaur like thing in the Congo and and it's still there and the Congo is still it's the heart of darkness.

I got to fucking find this thing. I got to go there like I was. I was. How old were you at the time? I was 18. You decided you were going to go there?

I was like, I have to go there.

How old were you when you went 18 years old? It was. No, no. And then Vice, I'll bring it back to how that turned into Vice.

But so I. I get on a plane, tons of lying and manipulating to get the visa because it was an open the tourism was only open to business.

And so I, I make up the story that I'm a I'm a bodyguard to a toothpaste executive and I work day and night to get a ticket to the Congo and there's no tickets.

It's this airline, Aeroflot, and I'm in Israel, which is close to Africa. But because it's this Russian airline, I get on this flight, it goes to Moscow and then Malta and then like six other African countries and then it lands in Bronzeville.

How long? Like three days.

Almost like like and like a shaky airplane, you know. And, you know, everyone in there is the ones that got to get out.

Right. So when they're coming back to bringing chickens and goats and all kinds of shit on the plane and it smells like shit and I don't know, this is pre Internet, right.

I don't have any information on the Congo except for I heard that there's a dinosaur there.

What year? 94, 94, 94. I lost track of time, but it was right after high school.

So 18. So you don't have a cell phone, no cell phone, nothing.

And. The second I get off the plane, it smells horrible because they're just burning trash everywhere and it's hot and it's oppressive and.

I go, what the fuck am I doing? Why am I here? And everyone there ask me, what are you doing here? They don't speak English, they speak French. I didn't know that they're in the middle of a civil war. I think the two factions were called the ninjas and the Cobras.

Like little kids shooting at night. Every third bullet is like a tracer bullet. So it looks like fireworks like what is that like? Oh, they're just shooting into the air.

First breakout of Ebola, malaria and. People go, why did you do that? It's not normal behavior and I go. The L.A. riots happened in 1992. I watched normal civilization, normal, civilized. Manners, you know, this is how people are, you go to story. I saw that crumble overnight in one night. It went from fuck you, everything that's burned down, let's rob, pillage, steal everything. I go, OK, it happened that fast.

And once again, that same kind of oh, I think I'm accepted in this country.

I think people like me for me and it's like, no, we don't want you get the fuck go back to where you come from. So I think.

You know, and I could go on and on about all the traumas I've experienced in my life, but I hurt people, hurt people, I was in a lot of pain.

I was like I didn't like Korean people. I didn't like myself. I didn't like I'd experienced a lot of lot of abuse from black people.

And I just wanted to I didn't know anything.

There was no Internet. I didn't like I felt like an alien. I'm like, I don't belong anywhere.

I just. So I would go. Everyone goes, don't go to Bosnia, don't go to the Congo, don't go to the Gaza Strip, and I'm going to go every fucking place, my life has been very reactionary, right?

My life has been like, you don't tell me what to do. You don't tell me how to podcast. I'm going to stick a butt plug in.

You know, I'm going to do what you know, so. I'm in the Congo. And. It's in a full blown war. There's people being and everyone's like, who are you? Oh, my God, who is this blonde Asian here?

Like, I had my hair dyed then, too, and the. And so. I could go and tell a million stories about the Congo, but at some point, why are you looking for this brontosaurs for real or you just wanted to go to the Congo one as well?

What I know the kids like to say 100 percent. I've heard you say it, too. Yeah, why not? Ninety nine percent just to leave. One percent for the 99 percent. I was there for the dinosaur like like I was so young and dumb and stupid and ignorant. Where. I truly, truly thought I was going to find it like I didn't know enough about like everything made sense to me because. Anyone listening to this right now, we're talking about a story from 20 years ago, right?

Right. I was a stupid kid. I believed in Santa Claus very late, you know, like I was a bedwetter.

I'm fucked up, man. So when I finally did get to the jungle, I got out of Brazzaville, I got out and I got to.

This jungle area called Wasso then, I believe, believed because the spiders are this big and the frogs are this big, and how big are the frogs?

Just everything is looks insane. The snakes, they got snakes out here this big, like it was like, OK, now I believe, like every year scientists were finding a new species of something that they thought was gone. And I'm like, OK, the.

And it's. And then. And then. And then I meet the pygmies. Whoa. And and that was fuck.

I don't know what version of the story I should tell because it gets so dark.

I met a German guy named Farkash and say his name.

I met a German guy there who was the same age as me and he could this is in the city. And then he could tell that I was lost. I didn't know who this guy was. He was being groomed to be like the next big politician in Frankfurt or something. Right.

And so I didn't I didn't get this until later. But he was here as is like sex vacation to fuck as many black. He liked black women. So he's going to fuck as many.

Curb your language to have as many intimate relations with women as possible. So I better know the other one, I'm trying to be better for myself, that's what I'm sure the way was better. You're explaining what it was. It's not about that.

That's what he was doing. So I figured it.

So he sees me as another just a bad thing to explain things accurately, you know? You could use other words, though. Yeah, but that's what it is, right? It is what it is. But I. I can I can come off, I can turn people off when I use that language, I want who are these people? Um, people that don't like, you know, know there are people they want Dave knows where Dave I came here for gyrated days and I want my money back to be graded.

I'm just trying to PG 13, Dave.

That's what I was signing up for. Occasionally the word shit, PG 13, they have like rules, right? Didn't like to shit.

Ninety nine percent.

OK, so I'm with the thought that there was a real dinosaur in there. And when you got there and you saw the big frogs and the big snakes, I'm like, maybe it is.

Yeah, maybe it is. And what happens is we go to the last spot of it. Right. And then I meet. So any evidence at all? Like everyone I talk to.

Oh yeah. Yeah. We've seen it like there's no like no that's crazy.

Every fucking person I meet is like Oh yeah, it's in the US.

So is it one of those things where realistically there's not a whole lot of people looking for it anyway?

No, but there are scientists that go out there. And in the meantime, I've never seen anyone murdered before until I got here. Right. I've been through the L.A. riots. I've seen things broken and burned down and guns pointed, but I've never seen anyone hung. I've never seen anyone stoned to death. And and it's absolute chaos. I'm seeing people murdered.

I'm scared for my life. I got attacked one time, so I go, I need to find it now. I have to find this dinosaur. And I also know that there's a chance that I might never go home again. So I write a letter to my parents. They don't know where I am. They think I'm in Israel on this farm like I didn't tell anybody. So I wrote my parents this long letter of I love you guys. I'm about to embark on a journey to find a dinosaur.

And I sent it at the airport before I got on the plane to the jungle.

I have no money. I have only one change of clothes. I fucking blond hair and I go into the jungle and we get lost immediately.

I'm a fucking city boy. What the hell do I know about the jungle? What do I know about the jungle? Where were you?

Did you have any direction? Nothing. I just. I just knew what you know. You know what? When I landed in the jungle, there was a guy that I think I want to say his name is Chris. That was a Peace Corps guy. And he was there to help build wealth and this Bontecou village. And he said the place what you guys are looking for is like it's a you're not going to find a time. You know, he was like the reasonable one.

And I go, how do I know if you don't try?

You know, I still believed I still wanted to believe I was willing to risk my life for it. So we get I haven't fucking told the story in so long, so we get to the jungle and and we start walking. There's a minor trail and then it disappears. It's just gone. And I'm like, we're fucking lost in the jungle.

We're lost in the jungle. So. I'm with this guy that. The what we told people, he was here to fuck as many women as possible, but we went with the story of he is the toothpaste executive and I'm his bodyguard.

That's a fake bullshit story, right, as we're lost in the jungle. He starts to think that story is real. Hey, go fetch me a pineapple. I go do it. I'm not sure he's like, you're not a real executive, bro. Like, I'm not going to get. And he starts, like, telling me, like like I'm like, hey, you know, that was a fake story, right? Like, he's like and there's no one around.

So we get lost four days and he starts to really be like humiliating towards me and right on my nerves and we had rations. We went in with some crackers and some like tuna in a canned thing. And I go, hey, man, we're fucking lost.

I don't know how to survive. We need to ration this food out. I come here at all. Here at all. Well, and and and now, like. Have you ever been in that kind of situation where you're like, I'm going to die here, like I'm never going to like hope is gone, like I'm in a thick, thick Congolese jungle, like I don't know how to get out.

And we've been lost for days. Like, I don't know how to survive. I don't fucking know how to like this.

Is it, you know, insane.

And on top of it, I have this fucking German asshole who's like talking down to me, making fun of me and eating my fucking rations, like I would pump all the fucking water and put the water purification tablets and be like, thanks.

And I'm like, dude, what the fuck, man? Like, I did all that work so we could share it.

And so he was just he was a dick and so. Man And you're stuck in that. You've been in a jungle like that before. No, dude.

So we set up a tent. We have one tent, and so we're in close quarters with each other. At night, the moon is like this fucking big, like it's humongous and you hear the entire jungle come alive, we're like fucking monkeys and like things are bumping into the tent at night, like huge insects and like and I'm like, I'm I'm like, I'm going to die here.

I'm going to die here. So the few times in my life where I've been in this kind of hopeless situation, the only thing that's going to get me out of it is if I can control my mind, because if I because I'm fat, I'm like falling into despair.

And in the daytime, I'm doing stand up to the trees because we're just walking in circles and I'm like, hey, how are you guys doing all tonight?

So you don't know where you are. I don't know where I am. I'm talking to the vegetation. Oh, my God. And this guy is writing my last nerve.

And he's and so I could safely say I lost my mind.

And so. We're down to our last food. And he did it again. And I said, bro, what the fuck did I tell you, we got to make this last. I'm starving. You ate the rations that were supposed that was it.

And he's like, whatever.

And he's he has a more like dissociated, like checked out, like like we'll get out of here somehow.

And part of I don't know, his coping thing was to talk down to me or whatever, and so that night and we're lost at this point a week and a half, maybe we haven't. You know, I'm fucking 90 pounds. I've lost all this weight.

I'm going to kill this guy. I'm going to murder him. I'm going to fucking murder him because I don't like people talking shit to me like that.

I don't like I've been a punching bag for this guy for four weeks now, and I'm just going to fucking kill him. And if I have to eat him to survive, I guess I'll do that. And so he's out cold.

He's got fucking crumbs on his face, tuna fucking juice from the food that was supposed to be shared. And I pick up I go outside the and pick up, I pick up a huge rock, like bigger than this. And I go, I'm a fucking kill this guy. I have officially lost my mind, like, I can't I'm barely going to survive.

I can't do it here with this guy. So he's was fucking looking at his face and I pick up the rock and I go. Just like I don't even have to apply any pressure if I just drop it, he's done like he'll be fucking dead. And I go, OK, is there anything left? Is there any common sense, is there any light left in my. I got to fucking kill this guy. He has to go, he has he has to he has to die.

He has to die. He has to fucking die. And then I just I didn't do it, I'm not a murderer, I can't like in the mind, I'll do it. I'll do I'll do it. Murder Dave, come to the front. No one's ever going to know. He does. His family doesn't know he's there. Your family, nobody knows who's who you are. This guy, Chris, the Peace Corps guy, he's not going to fucking say anything.

You can kill him right now. He has a ton of cash that he hasn't been sharing with you. You can get out of here. You can fucking get some of your pride and your ego back, those fucking guys treating you like a fucking like like a Chinese waiter or something.

Do it. No one will ever know, no one will ever fucking find out you are you're probably going to die to. You want to die like fucking catering to this guy, just do it. And I'm not I don't I don't want to I don't I'm not a murderer, and I didn't kill him.

I woke up the next day and I'm just looking at him like, motherfucker, you don't even know you don't even know what almost happened last night.

We're walking around. Hey, what's that? There's a fucking me up one of those 200, 100 foot trees. He's just sitting there chilling and I go, what is that?

Is that a person with a. 200 feet above you? Huge tree. Like, just. I don't know. That's so high. It's so high. Like it was so high. How did you spot him?

He was he was like he was shaking a little.

From the place he was to get in front of us was seconds that high, like this short was this jungle that was I mean, when you when you're in there, do you even see sunlight through it or is it just, you know, it's so dense.

I mean, like, yeah, there's some cracks, but it's just this was also in the National Geographic. Why that the dinosaur would be here.

It's because cameras can't see it because it's such a dense, thick forest and there's things in there that are like moving and, you know, to your description sounds terrible.

It's terrifying to sleep in the tent. Oh, my God. God, dude. Freaking out over here.

So so the the the guy comes up. He's this short. He's like tiny. He's like, you guys want some honey? Like what? Oh, my God.

And this is this is where my skill as an artist has gotten me out of so many situations. Right. Because if you're if you're in jail and you have any kind of skills singing, dancing, telling jokes, drawing your celebrity so this guy doesn't speak English, we don't speak whatever language he speaks. So I start drawing stuff like food, like, you know, in the dirt.

And he's like, oh, yeah, I got you. And any and he goes and he brings us some meat that's all charred.

And I'm like, I don't know what that is, you know. Right. And I took one bite and it tastes horrible.

And I'm like, I'm going to starve to death, but I can't eat that. Wow. And so it was like a movie. He's like, come on, come on, we're walking. And, you know, it's us, like stumbling machete trying to he's just like like we get around a corner entire village of Pygmies.

They've never fucking seen an Asian person before. I'm see three people and you walk from. Blunt, they're coming, they're touching my face, they're like, yeah, look at me like he's like, I don't know what the fuck they're saying.

Like, um, the kid keeps doing this thing.

Like, I go, what are you saying?

There was one older older guy in the village that I just spoke, a tiny bit of French. So the German guy can translate. He's like they're saying, you come from the stars, that you're coming from the stars. And I'm like, oh, my God, that's heavy. So I'm like, so I'm like, we're saved.

They bring us some honey, they bring us some fruit. And I'm like, oh, God, I'm like, just devouring. They're laughing at us.

And, you know, it's like the National Geographic, the women's tits are like down to their ankles.

And a guy, he's an alien. He's an intelligent nineteen ninety five. I was, I was nineteen years old. Yeah. Nineteen years old. Yeah.

And they put that, they put their clothes on for the picture. They were all naked when I got in there. Wow. Look at my TV.

That's amazing. That pictures. Amazing. So I never had any of these people seen it. Did you ever describe it to them? Oh, yeah. So I had to draw the dinosaur. I go, here's the dinosaur. And what were they saying? They go, Oh, yeah, yeah.

There's never like no, it's always like, OK, there's a dinosaur and they go, let's go.

And I go, they go. It's through wetlands like this. There's going to be leeches like there's a disease called Bilharzia where there's like snails under like still moving waters. And the second a mammal steps in the water, little fucking parasites shoot off the snail like like heat seeking missiles. And they go in your dick hole and then you piss and shit blood till you die.

And I'm like, OK, I'm done, like, out.

So they're explaining, like, all the the trek and the way to go find this dinosaur. And I'm like, I went, I went up until the leeches and then when I came out with the leeches, I go, all right, like this is it. You know, I go, can you help us get out of the jungle?

And they're like, it took less than a day. That's how close we were to like, Really?

Yeah, we were probably fucking walking in circles. So we get out in less than a day. I get I get back home, I'm 19 years old, I start writing for four vice, I start drawing pictures for them, I do comics, I'm writing and oh no, I was writing for a magazine called Giant Robot. And Gavin and Shane would read that magazine and they're like, they were ahead of the curve, right?

Like when all print magazine. Right. Existed. They were like, we need to go to digital, like like they were, you know, vises always been free, everyone feeds it, they go to those magazine shops or wherever. And yeah, and they're like, we need to have online presence. The Internet was brand new. And they said, Dave, that is the fucking. And I told you, not the PG 13, but that story gets very dark, darker than what I said.

Nego, will you go back with a camera and a camera crew? And I said. That was one of the most traumatic I almost died, I saw people murdered, there was a fucking virus where people were bleeding out of their eyeballs.

I'm not OK, I'll go.

Enough time had passed. It was 10 years later. Actually, it wasn't. It was that was ninety five. And then it was like eight or 10 years later. And so that was the one that vice filmed there. Like, can you go by that photo for the Mickey Mouse shirt earlier?

That was from when I went with the film, like just my camera. So I go back and how do we even get to this?

The dinosaur, the Times. They all see the same dinosaur. Have you oh, shit, look at that. There it is. Dude, you're fucking on fire, Jamie.

Holy fuck. Yeah, that one. Number three. Number three is bonkers. What does that mean? It's a log. Could be a log.

So I'm on my second trip back. I met the doctor. There was a doctor that lived in the village close to that river.

Look at the track. And he said he'd seen it really. And he's like, not, you know. I wonder if any, like real legitimate biologists have looked at those tracks. Maybe they could tell you, by the way, the footprint, like they can kind of tell whether things are fake or real, not based on like how where the weight is distributed. Like someone who really understands how these animals would walk.

I think it would be really hard to fake dinosaur footprints. Right, because the weight it would have to have. Look at their description.

I just read in this that it wasn't that big oceans had not big, but it's like 30 feet. Thirty five feet. It's pretty big. It's like a big, big, giant elephant.

Think about how big those fucking alligators were that we were just talking about, that it might be a turtle they were seeing. That's why I don't know what they actually found a turtle through here.

Their dicks were so big, like when we went to the river to bathe. They're like, OK, they just take their clothes off. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to keep my clothes on.

And I go, they go, I go, did I have like a normal penis for like, I'm proportioned correctly? Like your shit is down to your knees.

And this was back in the city when it got back to Brazzaville. And they're like, bro. You know, our dicks are so big, I'm like, why there's all these naked kids running around because we never wear underwear. And I'm like, why? Like, see, the girl whose tits are down to her stomach, never wear a bra, gravity bra. Everything just droops like that's why your digs are so big. Like I'm sitting in my underwear.

I think this takes too much time. But you've never you've never been to Africa? No, never been.

Now, dude, I'm begging you. I know you're into the hunting and the bow hunting, please. Like, so when I texted you, I have to do anything. Africa, man hunting in Africa, you mean.

So when I texted you the other day, I saw that the last time I texted you was twenty eighteen. I was like, dude, I'm going to Africa. I'll see you when I get back. That's right. Yeah.

And OK, this is the, this is the. Yes, yeah. You leave me. This is very heavy.

So there's a there's Hunter-Gatherer tribes in like the Arctic, Papua New Guinea, the Amazon, Africa.

But very few like they're almost gone. There's very, very few people that live off the land.

And I just whenever the podcast went off the air and I and I and I ghosted I, I just lost my mind. I hit my rock bottom and. Very similar pattern of what I always do when things get rough is I just go to Africa, I go, it's a weird thing to be.

Like rich or be in a country that's rich or have stuff and some as an adult, someone has to teach you gratitude, like I hear you say it all the time.

I thankful. I'm thankful. I'm grateful. I go. But I'm not. I have everything. And yet I fucking complain like crazy. I'm like, I need to I need to get the fuck out of here.

I need to go someplace where where I can learn humility. I can learn to be grateful. So I get to I'm traumatized now by the Congress. I don't even go to my second story. When I went with Vice, that was even crazier with the fucking chief, try to kill us. But so Congo is the heart of darkness. I get why those books are written. I get why people have these mind losing experiences out there, because it is one of the fucking darkest countries I've ever been.

So I don't want to go somewhere different this time.

Do you know the European settlers? They tried to live in the Congo for a while. I met one. Did you see the houses that they left behind?

Dude, when I got to this Bonta village and Chuck, his name was Chuck. Chuck, if you're listening, I know it's twenty years ago. Long blonde hair from Oregon Peace Corps guy. He got malaria while we were there.

And he goes, please contact Francois. And I go, Who the fuck is Francois? And he goes, he's he's in the jungle. And this is this isn't in the Congo village is the Bonta village. And he goes, you go down this tree and you go. So he's deep in the in the. But this is still near a village. It's not, you know, so we go into the in the jungle and there's like a giant Victorian French like European house in the middle of the fucking jungle.

And I'm like, how did this happen? And it's like, so we go in there and Francois is just like like some fucking weird French dude that just said, I'm going to stay here. He had like twelve Bonta wives. There's all these like half black, half white babies crawling around. And he has a ham radio and he's like, what's going on? I'm like, Chuck is fucking dying. Can he said to come contact you? And he's like, OK, I'll contact the aircraft carrier and they'll send a chopper in for him.

It's like, oh, shit. But yeah, that's that's the one time I saw French, Victorian. I don't even know how to describe the architecture. It was like a beautiful French home in the middle of the fucking Congo jungle.

There was a website dedicated to those people that try to do that and it just detailed how it all went terrible for them. In the jungle, just over came the house like you can't keep the jungle back. It's too powerful. There's too much there. The jungle, everything grows so quickly.

It's just fucking I mean, you'd have grass popping out through the middle of your floorboards and shit trees trying to grow through the side of your sewage system like they're just it's just too much. It's wild when my life when you just said too much, like I just thought right now, every time I might hit a rock bottom in my life gets too much. I go back to Africa. So when someone says go back to where you come from, maybe it's Africa.

Well, we all do, right? We all do.

So I look at Tanzania on the map and it's pretty close to the Congo. And I'm like, fuck, am I ready for that? And I heard from so many people. How nice to Tanzania. So I went. Life changing experience, I meet I meet the Hadza, who you've got to understand, this is how humans have been living for two million years and the hordes have been in this area for fifty thousand years. And and. I go, same thing there, like, who are you tourists, I go, can I just, like, leave with you guys for a little bit?

They're like, they're so nice, they're so welcoming. They don't even. They don't even have, like, the words for like violence and hate and, you know, they're very present. And. I go, I my my life is falling apart like I I'm. I'm mentally ill, I'm bipolar, I'm manic depressive, I'm addicted to fucking everything, my disease is a disease of more. I need more. It is a bottomless pit I can never feel.

I just need to, like, run away. That's that's my action. My my my action response to everything my whole life is to run away. So I'm in Africa. No one's going to fucking find me here. And I'm living with this tribe, the Hadza, and they go, so I say living. But it's not really living because they're living in a cave. They're hunting. They're gathering. I stayed there for a week doing the fake living, I am in a tent, I have a like these guys are carrying all this shit for me, my water like truckloads of water.

And in that time, I saw in one week how much trash I leave behind.

Like, I don't see it here because it goes in the bin. Trashman comes in one week. These guys leave zero carbon footprint. They come to a place, they're nomadic. They set up the shop, they hunt, they live, and then they go to the next place.

I left a mountain of bottles, toilet paper, Clif bar wrapper, you know, that's what I was eating there. And I go, this is sad.

One human being left a mountain of trash. And I go, what do we do in there? Like, we burn it, we burn trash. And I was like, well, environment and.

They go, do you want to? Do you want to really live with us because one week in any kind of situation like that, is it just withdrawal? Right.

I mean I mean, Internet withdrawal, phone withdrawal for like, just comforts of normal, like Western society. And I go fucking fuck the tent that I'm going to live with you guys. I'm just going to fuck, you know. So I'm in my fucking underwear and I'm living on top of a rock in this cave and the oldest guy in the village. Is when he starts talking, it's like I'm in like Lion King or he's like when I was young and all, you know, I have a translator with me.

He's translating Husaybah into Swahili to English.

Mm hmm. He's like elephants, lions, hippos, like everywhere. And like, it was like a buffet. We just wake up. We could kill anything.

And in my lifetime that has been gone. It's gone.

It's like but there's very few animals left to hunt. And the ones that are like, they're endangered. You can't kill them.

So life there is very, very hard.

And they go, you want to hunt with us? And I'm like to look at my body.

Do I look like and there was like a Catholic priest that set up a mission in that area. And he's been I met him.

He's been trying to convert the Hadza to Catholic Catholicism for 20 years. And he's like they use the the Bible pages to smoke weed.

So what do they hunt with bow and arrow like?

Homemade Bonura, homemade bow and arrow like like just they take this wood and they spend all day making the arrows. Yup. They used to show you.

Yeah.

So you how they did learn how to make it and then they use their teeth to like I know that that might be Rasouli and then they, there's a plant that they, they harvest and they, they do all this stuff to it and then that's the poison that they put on the tip of the arrow. And these guys. Yep. There it is. How crazy it is to think that this is how people hunted, dude, I live longest time, dude, I live in a state of the art.

I lived like this for fucking months, man. It was like.

So you did this as well, dude. So first first day of the hunt, they're like, do they teach you how to shoot a bow? First they might be shooting is so off and yeah. So we practice. Had you had shot a bow in the past.

I've never shot a bow in my life. There's one of these, one of these guys see it.

It almost looks like a toy like you think it wouldn't work. There's one guy in the village, Ciani, that's so strong that he could shoot the arrow through the fucking koutou it up.

And I was like, you're fucking awesome back muscles and my oh my God, they're fucking ripped, dude.

My God, that guy is Jack the Ripper. They really these are very strong bow. So pulling him back is probably tremendous, like back muscle.

Everyone knows how to hunt. The kids know how to hunt, but they use it for the feathers at the end of. I know it's the one.

Which guy. No doubt. Yeah, that guy. Yup, I stayed with that guy. Wow, really? Yeah, he's older now. See the cuts on his face? Yeah, I have that they cut my face. Yeah, I asked them to because I like pain for real, but look at that guy.

Once you cut, it's almost gone now. This was a damp dude. But don't don't they look like supermodels?

Like they're like really powerful genetics.

Yeah. I'm like just and also, you got to think of the amount of effort to doing Crosthwaite classes every day. Right. I mean, think about just getting by as a hunter gatherer with their crazy bow that you have to pull back and you run running through the woods all the time like. You have to be fit. It's it's unbelievable what a crazy way to live. Yeah, look at that. I mean, what's the occasion for the feathers, for the fledglings to, you know, do these motherfuckers are so in tune with nature that they'll go they'll make a bird sound and they're talking to the bird and the bird will show you where the honey is, what like and then there's a pack of 50 dogs following us.

And the dogs aren't pets.

They're hunting tools. Right.

So the dogs are the first line of defense. They sniff it out.

And I'm like, this is this is mental, right? It's like, oh, like I'm on a fucking insane experience right now. Never did. I thought I would just wait. Why am I going home? So if I walk with one of the kids. Oonagh amazing. It's a clicking language. It's like like that kind of language. Did you learn any of it? Tiny bit. And of course, I did a podcast where I speak.

Oh, imagine if they take that out of context. It turns out it's really fucked up shit. I try not to be careful, right. If you're making up a language like you might accidentally hit on some real shit there.

I tried. I tried just say one or two forbidden words.

So if I walk with one of the kids and it's like him giving me a tour of his house, like, oh, come to Joe's warehouse and he's showing me, he's like grabbing a snake, biting his head. Off you go. Oh my.

He's like some thing climbing a tree where he just grabbed a snake and just right off he takes out a slingshot.

The rock, a pebble this big bam hits a fucking bush baby out of the tree, breaks his leg, breaks his legs, puts it here. It's like snack for later. Everything is talking there. It's like it looks like they're just goofing off and playing. But they're they have like most they have some, what do you call it, microbes and gut biome kind of things in their stomach that no one else on the planet has.

So the translator is explaining to me, Canadian like scientists come and literally steal their shit. They find them and they steal shit.

And I'm like their actual poop, their actual just to get their bio, because there's biomes in there that don't exist anywhere secret to a healthier they might have hidden in the Hudson diet.

If you Google Steel African shit, I bet you. Come on, I wonder. Look, there it is. So this. See the bees on his fucking head? They're lighting him up and he's eating.

And it does nothing to him, really. So we go, hey, come on, climb the tree. Guy sticks his fucking hand in the tree, scoops that out, starts eating it like it's a fucking hamburger BS. And I'm like, Bro, I'm cool. No, no, no. Come on, come on. Like we've been there's a kid doing this, right?

The kids I go in one sting, my fucking hand inflates to like a Mickey Mouse.

Like it's I'm like, you've been getting stung since you were a kid. So you're like immune to it. And there just doesn't bother them.

It doesn't bother them. They're fine with it. And their body has also gotten immune to it. Right. That's crazy to bite in that honeycomb like it's a snack. And all those bees were on his head, his hands.

And the thing you never see in all the National Geographic's and all the Nature documentaries is that. It's always serious, and here's the Hudson warrior and here's, you know, whatever these guys crack, you know, they're like, do you want to do you want to come with us tomorrow? Like none of your eating Clif bars and hanging back like you want to? I'm like, yeah, I'm in. OK, we leave at first, you know, the second.

How are they saying this all to you? I have the translator with me. Oh, ok, ok. He, he, he like works with them and the you know, it's like worst case scenario when they, they don't do food. This is the sad part. They do the fake show for the tourists, like the tourists come in usually European and then they put on the fake. It's not fake, it's real. But they dress up and do like dances and stuff and they give them money.

So I wake up at five, five thirty first.

Nice. And then laughter. I'm like, are these fuckers doing fart jokes at 5:00 in the morning? And that's the thing that people don't realize is. When you don't have TV, Internet entertainment and you're just with your family in your homes all day, you're bored as fuck.

So they joke morning till night, like, I don't know what they're saying. Laughter, laughter. Someone cuts a fart joke and I'm like, All right, let's go.

So you saw the pictures there ripped back muscles, six packs. The kids have six packs.

I was very out of shape. I'm still out of shape, but I was the most out of shape. And think about waking up at five thirty in the morning and the thing that's the final animal that's like kind of left is baboons, they call they almost call them in that part of Africa, like the baboon man, because that's what they eat.

Tastes horrible to me. Baboons look human. So we're in a cave. Men sleeping in the top, but women on the bottom.

We wake up, there's another cave and you see, oh, there's people like, you know, they're baboons and they're pointing at us. They're pointing. They're like, look, they're coming. So I'm like, this shit is crazy. We're hunting baboons. Like there's tons of meat on them. We're going to it's enough to feed our family.

Think about, like, running again. I was pretty fast in high school. I could do the 50 pretty quick.

I can't run at top speed for hours. And I got these.

I'm drinking water.

And in this environment it's an advantage to have black skin because it's cooling. These guys aren't sweating.

I'm like, what's going on? We've been running for five hours. You guys are sweating the fuck and they don't get tired.

And then they'll just start digging a hole and drink like like a handful of brown water.

And that's enough for them. And I'm like, dude, what the fuck like? And they're telling the translator, this motherfucker looks like he's never caught anything in his life. And he's like, he hasn't.

And to me, I'm an alien. Right, because he he gets his food from supermarkets. What's that? They hunt the food for him, they cut it up and package it, and so like, they don't believe it, right?

The shit I tell them, they're like, Hey, you guys, you look like a fucking supermodel. Can I bring you to America and do a fashion thing and get you guys paid?

And why would we want to go to America? Tell me what you know about America. Isn't that the place where people jump off? Buildings to kill themselves like that concept is so foreign that when someone explain suicide to them, I was like, oh my God, they don't.

And in the time that I'm there, like I said, that first week is withdrawal, I'm like, fuck, where's my phone? And then all of it goes away, right. I'm not thinking about any of my addictions.

I'm not thinking about like, I feel peace. I'm not I'm not miserable.

My depression goes away and I go morning till night. You wake up, you hunt for food, you get home celebration. Everyone's happy that the men brought the food back. The women, you know, gathered the berries. We have a big dinner celebration because every meal you got to be grateful for dance party by the fire and you're out a couple of fart jokes and you're out. Repeat the next day.

There's no time to be like bored and sad and upset and worried about some bullshit. And so I'm trying to keep up with these guys. You know, they're running at top speed, like say this is say these are the baboons. On top of that, they're doing a perimeter. They're doing OK.

We're going to come up all the sides and the and the and the dogs are on the forefront. Right? They're running faster. There's a guy named Aulani, he's got some dreads, he's he's the the the tribe we spotted, he's got the Bible, he's rolling joints for everyone.

He's about 50 feet behind. You know, he's running at, like a he's not doing this. He's like he's got.

I may be. Like two or three hundred feet behind this guy. So they're trying to like, you know, come on, so he's running and rolling joints, he's running rolling joints and. And had you done any running before this, not really, man, I'm a sprinter, I don't I can't I don't have the sense you're doing this for hours. I got I almost blacked out. How many miles you think you were running, dude?

Because they're like going back and forth. We're like like, dude, I'm just going to chill. They just run everywhere, run everywhere, just running.

And, you know, they don't some of them have shoes like they make homemade shoes, but some of them don't. So it's just barefoot and I'm their run. It's the dry bush.

Right. So there's like plants that have like thorns and like it looks like this on them, just like that white scratch to me.

I'm getting cut open. I'm like bleeding everywhere.

Oh, their skin stuff. And they're just fucking they're just clowning me to it. They're clowning me.

They're like, bro, how did you ever survive? And I'm like, I'm like, come on. Come on guys. I put a GoPro on the dog.

So I go back and I watch it, the baboon is like a human, like it's talking.

Get the fuck away from me, the fuck away. The baboons running the dog are like, fuck you. They hunt them with dogs.

He gets hit right here. He's bleeding. He's leaving a trail of blood fucking hypes up the tribe. Let's go. We got him. He's hit the dog gets is not sick.

Rips his fucking dick off. I'm running. The guy holds up his nuts. He's like, look, we got the nuts. And I'm like, why you show me that? It's like we're getting close. They finally fucking hit the guy like sort of here and they're saying the guy to you not just saying the baboon, you're saying hit the guy.

It looks human, man. God, it right.

It looks real close. He backs into a tree like a dog.

Human, though. Yeah. And all the dogs, the dogs are dope. I love these dogs so much. They're all hunting dog. So they all have scars and fucking tails, like because the baboons have fangs.

Yeah.

That's what makes the dogs up and they rip a chunk off. Oh my God. And these dogs are so hardcore that there's a dog that had one leg missing. There's a dog that you could see his ribs and they're still down to hunt. Oh, like like they're in the back with me. But there's still like I want to show value that, you know, because I talked I interviewed each person in the tribe and I said, what is the happiest day of your life?

And they all had the same answer the day that I hunted the biggest animal and I got to feed everyone and I was the hero.

And so I'm all baboon's for how long how long have they been only hunting baboons? I mean, it's been for a few years now.

I mean, they'll on anything, they'll kill anything and there's nothing left but baboons just recently it's getting to just that.

And even even then because this day, that that day that I was on the first hunt because there was many days we hunted where we didn't catch anything.

And that's like super downer for them.

But this is my first one. I had the GoPro, the guy shot.

He backs into a tree like his last stand, and the dogs just start ripping his guts out and start fucking, you know, and I'm watching this and he's like and it's like he's going, fuck you, fuck you.

And he's just like he's like picking dogs up, throwing them.

Oh, my God. And just come up and they go right in his chest. He's dead. This is all on GoPro. I wasn't even close. I was like I was like, wait up guys. Fuck.

They tie the the foot and the leg and they make a backpack. That's how they carry it. So they cut for that day. So they bring it back to the village. I don't know if you saw that picture.

I brought my Top Ramen with me. So it's like they don't waste a part of this thing. The person that killed it gets to eat the dick in the balls. They eat the head, they eat the brains. They turn the fur into like jackets and they just they eat the brains, dude.

So at night, I thought I thought dinnertime was over. But think about how much protein and nutrition is in the brain. Right. And it's the final thing, right? They do the head. It's in that pot. And so the brain gets cooked and then it's like a delicacy at the end.

They, like, tap a hole in and it's you know, they have black skin like I remember it was fire.

It was in the cave. It's nighttime.

And I hear and you just hear eating and I turn my my flashlight on and I see, like, the whole tribe just chowing the brains at the end. They're like, this is our favorite part and save for the end. Yeah.

And they're just like and then so it's all this white brain's like streaked on their face. And I'm like, oh yo, you want to get in on this, give me some of that brain. So I had some brain and you really I ate everything.

I mean, it's there it is. Oh my.

Doesn't that look like a person that's so intense. So once the fur is not on the screen, just. No. Yeah, good.

Once the the the fur. Look, this is fucking Polonsky or. No, look, I was in trouble.

This I'm just not for this. OK, well, let me just say this.

If that's how hardcore this picture is. Right. You can find it, you can find it easily look like like you want to talk about this is life or death, you know. I understand. So when when.

But I'm saying it is intense. And there is a thing about primate brains, right. Prions, prion diseases that you get they find them in cannibals.

So there's something about eating a human stomach in humans, eating human brains. Oh, so they did get a bird there. Yeah. So sometimes they get birds too. So I am but they're eating mostly baboons.

I, I tasted it, I wasn't eating it. I'm like I have a million Clif bars in my backpack. I know that is so intense.

There's the dogs. Seen that guy carry a baboon on his back. Like the way you're describing is so intense. They got to some sort of an antelope or something, and then they drink drinking all that water, but they're all we with the Bible there.

Do we get this fucking good?

So I pass out. There's nothing left in the gas tank I pass out in the next day. I'm like, OK, like like I'm becoming a man.

They're like, did you eat the actual baboon meat as well? I ate the baboon meat. It's not for me. It's and I eat everything what it tastes like. I've never eaten a human, but I'm imagining that's what a human would taste like. It was just, I don't know, gamey. That's the only it was just it was strong, but.

Well, you got to think of the physical strength of those animals to see how tough they're muteness and all the testosterone and everything is being released, though it didn't taste good, but they loved it.

They love they're happy. You know, Steve Rinella know Steven Now is the host of the TV show Meat Eater. And he went to I'm trying to remember where it was somewhere in South America. And they they ate monkeys there. And he had some of it. And he said it was it's like they smoke it and then they cook it in like a stew and it's like smoked turkey. They did that to the head.

But but there he is.

There's so they're eating this monkey in the chewing on it. Like, that's that's intense, man. Bolivia, that is fucking intense. Like seeing someone chewing on a monkey, like is intense, you know.

Yeah. There's just something about it where it's like that. That's our cousins. That's next level. I mean, there's something about it.

It's like, well this is this is life, life or death. It's crazy how much we but we think that way about mammals in general, because if you get to deer, like people are way sadder when they see a dead deer than they see a dead fish. There's something about like mammals. Right. Right.

Like we don't give a fuck about a dead turtle when they throw that thing on the fire and you see all the fur burn off and oh, it's like in the Christ pose. Oh, looks like human.

So the next day I'm like, all right, I'm, I'm getting my endurance up and they're like, we think you're more of a gatherer.

Why aren't you going back today. Because they were like humoring me right now. I was like, OK, OK. And I brought all my art supplies with me and the kids are like they use the beeswax and they make little sculptures and they take little you know, I'm like, these kids are awesome. So I fell in love with the kids. I'm like, I'll adopt all of you. And they're like, we have parents.

I was like, all right. So I brought all these art supplies with me. I got Marker's, I got watercolor. And, you know, it's we're in the desert. It's all brown. So, I mean, not the desert. We're in the bush, everything's brown.

And so I got all these bright blues and reds and the kids went nuts.

Like when you give kids art supplies and I'm just watching them, like, this is fucking amazing. In the day just went by, I just gave art lessons and like, just someone who's never seen art supplies.

That must be fucking insane. And I'm. Yeah. And I'm asking them like what you know, and they're drawing like the they're drawing because they've never seen TV. They've never they don't have any of the visual like stuff that we grew up on. So everything is pure from that perspective. And in my head I'm like, I cannot wait to get home and show this to people. And maybe we can do prints and books and sell it and help you guys.

And they go, OK, they show, you know, everyone comes back from the hunt, they show and they go, we're on top of this this cliff, the cave.

And they just throw it, hey, what the fuck are you guys doing, man? I was going to, you know, in my head, it's like, come home, frame it. You know, there's a memory of my time there.

They're like, oh, nomadic. You don't guys. We were present. We created it. We lived it. We enjoyed it. Bye bye. Like, what am I going to walk around with the fucking canvas and paper?

And I was like, damn, dude, this shit is so people are next level.

And so it's a different world. Well, that's what I'm saying.

Like, I was like, man, now I got this experience. I feel good. I'm going to go home and I'm like, why am I going to go home?

Like, I'm fucking falling in love with these people. They're showing me how fucked up I am and like what I and so I just stayed there.

I just stayed there about how long I stayed there for a few months. I bought a huge piece of land I work with. If anyone that's listening right now is interested, it's Hoser had a dog and you can you can if you want to like sponsor a kid or you want to see how they live. And because it's this is it. This is the end for them, like it might already be the end. Like, I don't know if anyone listening has Tanzania contacts like this way of life is pretty much over.

Like there's less than a thousand hordes of left.

Yeah. These are the guys I stayed with. They're fucking amazing. And. Dude, will you come? Yes, but don't go to Africa. Is that what you say? Yeah, I thought you meant come to, like, the movie premiere. No, dude, please, please.

Your daughters, your wife will fucking love it, but you don't. And here's the thing. We could set it up where you don't have to like I gave you, like the fucking hard malaria tour.

You take malaria pills, you're not going to get malaria and you can't do that for kids.

So you could malaria medication. So I met I met a Spanish German couple there that have like a nice kind of bed and breakfast kind of thing, like not in the that area, but a little bit away. And the guy raises his kid like a nice private schools in Germany. And then on the summertimes, he comes in, the kids in their underwear run around and they hunt with the she tries this and I'm like, this is life changing.

Your fucking kids will look at these kids.

Yeah, look at look, they're all smiling. I'm like the fucking time of their life. I'm going to document their life, look at the dog. Yeah, Hartzog, how many baboons do you think you ate while you were there? I'm I'm being honest with you, I just tasted a little bit, and then I go in my my my little cubby hole in my cliff bars.

So you only ate their meals like that? I painted the. Oh, my God. See them biting a chunk off the baboons head. Oh, Jesus, dude.

I mean, it's it's crazy to think that that's like the cure to like future medicines and shit might be in these guys as shit and they're going to be crazy. Dude, it's fucking insane.

Like we met those scientists that are collecting that data out there.

Well, fuck, I can't remember her name. Well, obviously, neither one of us is a biologist. But if you think about it, you're living like in a completely natural way in the middle of.

I mean, what a crazy biosphere there's so much life there. Yeah, there's so much so much life there that you got to imagine there's so much bacteria life to write. And have you survived to 2020 like your ancestors got you to to live in like that? Like you have to be robust. So all those people that do live there, they're probably just a superior version.

Any one of those guys could have been a supermodel because when they take their shirt off, they're fucking ripped.

And the guy shot that. I said when he hits a Koutou like the big with the arrow, it goes all the way through.

And I'm like the other other guys in the tribe.

When they hit it, it hits their fucking dude like those guys in the center. That's insane. They're fucking shredded. It's like jujitsu champ, dude.

They're fucking amazing.

Do those guys. Well, you got to think, man. I mean, the amount of physical activity and exercise, but probably their endurance is like never waning. You're running doing it.

And I'm sitting there and I'm I'm thinking with my Western dude, if I take you back, you guys are going to be the toast of the town fashion models. If if someone trains your both thing, like you could be in the Olympics or maybe you could be a fucking baseball player, or how about runners from their runners from parts.

There's one part of Africa in particular that's responsible for a tremendous amount of long distance runners, and they have Radiolab podcast about it. And they said that it was because of their ability to endure pain, that they had a ritual while they were coming of age ritual where they would circumcise the men like with a dull knife and have them crawl naked through like thorns, like they did some hardcore shit to these guys when they were young to get them to just be able to endure pain in a way that most people just incapable of.

They've developed a tolerance to pain because some of the rituals, the episodes called cut and run, it's really crazy because this guy talks about it. But he also says because he had gone through it himself and he also said he doesn't want to do it to his son, wouldn't want a son to do that. It's like you don't have to do it.

It's too hard. But that makes sense, man. It doesn't make sense. It just makes total sense just because I think look, I'm not a long distance runner, but those people that are they say it's all about your mind, right? It's all about being able to endure the pain. Right. And some people can and some people can't. And if you're a person who's grown up dealing with pain, it's a part of your culture. You know, you got to be hard as fuck to make it on the dude.

Hard as fuck to make it in Tanzania. You've got to be hard as fuck those people. Like, you got to think of all of those different obstacles their ancestors have overcome to get them to twenty twenty living a nomadic life in the jungle. Holy shit, man. I mean, you can't be lazy. You can't be slow, you can't be stupid. You you have to be able and you're taught to be able to maneuver in that world from the time you're a baby.

Yo, you can't just read about it. You've got to live it. What is the fear like that you might get malaria?

I'm really high. I took a bunch of hits that blunt during this podcast.

You too, Jamie. You're freaking me. You're coming to Jamie's not leaving this apartment. You're crazy. I'm going to.

I'll make it so it's the most. The best. We'll talk for your family and talk about it after the show. I'm going to keep because dude, like I love you when you bug me about things, I say no to you.

Please keep going.

I thought you like bow hunting, man. I'm not going over the.

If I did that, I would only go over there, you know, just observe. Come to observe.

If I if I went to hunt over there, I would do it because that's what I wanted to live off of. I wanted to eat it like you can't. I don't think you bring it back. No, no we don't.

We were tribes. We would do that. Yeah. Trust me. We would eat it would get eaten. Everything there gets eaten. Yeah.

I talked to a dude once who shot an elephant over there. I was like, whoa. Like, why? And then he said, well, first of all, the reason why they do it in the first place is because some of these elephants will make their way into towns and start eating in the village and eating all their crops. And so they want someone to come and shoot it. And I'm like, oh, man. Like, that's a crazy argument.

Like, there's there's certain animals that I feel way worse when they die.

And elephants, there's something about lf elephants are cute, that's it's they're not just cute man, they're dinosaurs. There's something majestic about that. Yeah. They're fucking amazing.

They can crush you and they, they're generally pretty cool. They're so cool. Strangers' like regular tourists are allowed to climb on them in Thailand and ride them through the jungle.

You ever meet Michael Jackson, the the singer. Yeah, no.

So I got to meet them close to before he died and I got to go to Neverland Ranch.

Whoa. The the mismanagement of the animals there is like the they were already gone by the time I got there, but where he used to keep the elephants, the bars are like this thick and the elephants were so like depressed and and, you know, just from like they didn't have an actual zookeeper that knew how to handle them.

So they would just keep them locked up and like not the elephants would fuckin head being the bars.

These bars are like this thick and they'd be bent like this. Oh, my God. I'm like, man, these fucking things are dinosaurs.

They're also intelligent. They're really smart, they're smart, yeah, they're smart and feelings, they feel things like, have you ever seen that they taught him to paint? Yeah, I seen that. That's awesome. How crazy is that? I mean, that thing painting itself. I love that. Here's my question. Do you think they taught it? We actually talked about this, Jamie, didn't we? Like do you think they actually taught him to make that shape or do you think they taught him to paint himself?

Right. Like, if you if you could show an elephant like this is the shape I want you to make and it's the shape of a of an elephant, if you drew it for him and you said recreate that to give you a fruit, he recreates how you give him fruit. Right. That's a little different than if he looks at you and starts drawing an image of you, because that's we were led to believe that the elephant was thinking of itself and drawing what an elephant looks like.

Right. It's just a slightly less impressive thing that it might just be a motion that it's taught to make. But the way you look at it like you go, no, it's too good. It's too good. Like the elephant has a little talent.

Like it's like I would buy an elephant painting. You just just to know that an elephant did it. But I don't want elephants to have to be forced to work for. Right. Right, right.

You I want the elephant to want to. Yeah. I'm glad the elephant really paints here. And if you want to do it.

Yes, exactly. Like if you if the elephant was living a charmed life. I went to an elephant rescue place in Thailand a couple of years back and they rescue these elephants and release them back into the wild successfully. They've done it with several I think they said seven at the time that I was there. But they basically take elephants from like a circus or a zoo and they rehabilitate them and they they they have them out here. There was like piles of sugar cane.

You could feed them sugar cane.

And this thing is like this big. It's heads this big and I'm petting it and I'm just feeding it. Sure.

But they're so gentle. Let strangers like me. I just met them. Right. But if you wanted to, you could just you do just your beer can man. Just fucking. Yeah. Piledriver you he do whatever he wants to you.

He's so big. And then when you, you feed them and you wash them and you hang out with them and then they'll let you ride them like you mean that you develop like a little bond with them.

It's interesting man, because like you're hanging out with this elephant and you're feeding them and he goes to you to try to eat and then you petting them and then you could wash them. And he's enjoying it. He's enjoying that. You're doing this. And then then after all that, then you ride him. I don't like the riding part. If I had to do it all over again, I'm like, I'm good. I'll meet you guys at the end.

I don't want to where I don't want to ride them, but I get that it's but it's fascinating.

And they're they don't give a fuck like you weigh nothing. You're a baseball hat to them.

What's the prehistoric. What's the mastodon. Is that the the Snuffleupagus guy from says oh well woolly mammoth mastodon.

There's two different ones. Yeah.

So when you're when you're in the presence of something so majestic, you're like. You can believe there's a dinosaur. Oh, 100 percent. Well, it would be a dinosaur if it didn't exist. Right leg of an elephant didn't exist and someone talked about a giant giant white teeth to come up up into the sky. It's enormous. It's as big as a house. What I love the baby is a house. So cute. Yeah.

People who if you didn't know what an elephant was and someone would describe it, it didn't exist. And someone's describing it to you. And they said it was off in the jungle somewhere you like. What. Right.

What is it? A leftover dinosaur.

You know, we were trying to figure out the other day and we forgot to check how old are crocodiles? We were saying that crocodiles are dinosaurs, but the dinosaurs supposedly were killed off 65 million years ago. Right. Are are crocodiles something that actually survived before them?

How old is it? Say they are. Holy shit.

Those dirty motherfuckers made it through the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. Those are those are dinosaurs. They are dinosaurs.

Yeah, if they're if it's 200 million years ago, I mean, of course, they're dinosaurs. Of course they.

All right, Jamie, are they're crocodiles that paint.

I was looking up so that there's one that one elephant that that was another viral video of it.

It's got its painting in really good detail. Yeah.

But there's there's a. Oh, wow. That has no way. Lots of elephant.

That's like the conservation elephant ARCOM. So these things are way different. OK, it's like Picasso. Is there some cheating going on? I mean, that's what I'm saying. Right.

I was saying maybe he's the Michael Jordan of elephant painters, but there was one or two of us like digging through here that was painting like flowers with stems and petals and leaves.

The rest of this is just like you should see the video play, Dave, the video, because the video is interesting because there's a painting elephant, the bull carrying a up. And look, it does the whole outline itself like no one's guiding it.

Great composition. Not fucking bad.

No, it's gets lots. Look at that. Good stuff.

You're not seeing you're just seeing the trunk.

Is there someone behind it with a stick taped to it, like sort of moving it?

I don't think so. Back here, it does show you. OK, all right. It zoomed out.

Yeah, I don't think so. I think it's skills man. Right. Control. Look, look, it knows how to outline the ear. That makes me feel like it's almost been classically trained though. Look look how thick the line is of the ear and then it sort of tapers off.

Speaking of painting, are you painting at all? No. Why don't you paint, man? I never paint. I, I used to draw a line. I know that I did, but I never I've never really gotten into painting. Not that I don't think it's awesome.

I just look, I come to your place. You have these fucking paintings everywhere. You know, I've seen your tattoos that you that you like to draw, you like to draw werewolf's, you talk all day.

You don't you want to do something where you don't have to talk and it's still expressing yourself. And you like art.

I do. Sometimes I still scribble. I draw things sometimes, but mostly my days are busy, which is like the worst way to like archery.

I like archery for coming down, OK, because that just makes me just focus on a target. I just it's a very Zen thing to do.

I'm going to send some art supplies to Texas. You just leave them there, OK? It's like the elephant, OK? I'm not going to force you to do it, OK? They're just there.

And if you want to and you do it OK.

I do love drawing still to this day, but I've really never been drawing a lot lately.

But I'm, I recognize my limitations because with a particular mental mental health problems that I have, I get obsessed with things and I don't have the time to get obsessed with painting. Oh, I see, so if I if I draw like I've been drawing since I was a kid, it's like a new thing. New things are dangerous to me. You sound like me. No, it's true. Well, that's why I, I walked away from from podcasting.

I just I go I know what this means to me. I know what kind of person I am. Like, I'm all in like, this is like I'll never paint again. Like, this is going to take over my life.

And then I remember. I went on the Stern Show, same thing like five, six years ago, and I was like, I don't even know what I said. I was completely like out of my mind. And Scott Rudin's assistant heard it and the Hollywood producer guy and he heard the show send a tape to Scott Rudin. I get a call from Scott Rudin. He's like, I need to turn your life into a television show. It's like it's it's too like it's unbelievable.

Like, it's like I've never heard, like, you're in the Congo, you're in jail. You're this like, we got to turn this into a show.

So I'm. Thirty eight, I don't know, something like that, like made it would be famous going to be on TV. And I was like, man, I got a fucking podcast, it's going to be huge, I'm going to be on TV, I'm doing the fucking news for Vice. We just got an Emmy. I'm a painter.

I got every fucking thing I do towards the goal. I'm the best. Like, I'm multitasking. I could do it all.

And at the time is when I got introduced to Bourdain and and Scott and Scott had this deal with HBO, he's like, what kind of show you want? I'm like, I love Curb Your Enthusiasm. I like Eastbound and Down. I like stupid, irreverent comedy.

I'm like, make me look like shit and make me the he'll just fucking clown on me. Make every episode, just whatever story I tell you do the worst, worst fucking version of it.

And they're like, OK, I get the Hollywood lawyers and that fucking thing and I'm like, Mom, I'm going to be on TV and I'm having lunch at Chateau Marmont.

I just met Bourdain and. Chateau Marmont, like the hipster Hollywood thing where even celebrities get left alone, not Bourdain in one lunch, and you must get this all the time now.

I'm sorry, I see you guys are having lunch. I just got to tell you what you mean to me, and he's gracious every time. Thank you. Thank you. Can I get a picture?

Can you sign my book or can I get another picture for, you know, lunch is interrupted 20, 30, 40. I don't know. Every five minutes someone's coming to the table.

I know. And I go, is this how do you get milk? How do you he's like he's like everything just takes longer. Dave just takes longer now. And I'm like, wait, let me let me let me do a quick scan of my life right now. Lots of women I got I can eat at any restaurant and I have no wants or desires. Everything's handled.

And I have just the amount of little bit of fame for my art where, like, no one's bothering me when I walk down the street once in a while, I'm at a supermarket. It's almost like DVDs. And that's it.

Mm hmm. I have it. Why am I. So I walked away from that deal. And at the same time, I've been flirting with it, Bourdain, he wasn't going to do it forever and he started grooming me, Roy Choi, David Chang, to kind of take over for him. He's like, you're you've had it wasn't like a huge step for me because I've already been doing that. And I think that's how we connected is like.

You know, I have thumbs up, which is a travel show where I fuck with people and I go meet people all over the planet, you have yours, millions of people watch your show. Ten people watch your show. But you can do it with, like, an art twist, you know?

And I sat there and I was like, fuck, bro, I don't know if I want your life.

I don't know if I want this. You know, I had that moment of clarity and all the chaos of I need another thing in my life to show people that the gambling wasn't a fluke, the art wasn't a fluke, that that I'm not just lucky, that I'm talented, that I am enough.

And the anger is like, oh, I want to be on fucking TV now. I want to fucking kill it.

And I was like, my life's pretty dope right now. I don't know. And dope, like on the surface, like underneath, you know, I'm just a cauldron of suffering.

But I said, I think I'm not going to I'm not going to take this one. And Scott, if you're out there, I'm sorry. Like, we we walked away from that project and then.

That's interesting, just because you saw the what the repercussions of the fame part. Well, it isn't a Bill Murray quote. I want to be rich and famous. And he goes, why don't you just try the rich first and see if you want to add the famous to it or something like that. It's like you deal with that now, right?

Yeah. I mean, people just some people see what. What other people have and they wish it was them, like I remember being a comic in the beginning, the early days when I was, you know, just coming up and opening for people, I remember seeing people that would be excited to see a comedian. I'd be like, wow, that's fucking crazy. Like the person this person I know people want to meet him. They want to see him like, man, why would I have to do like there's a part of you at 21 years old, right?

Like, what the fuck do I have to do to to be like that guy?

So what is your life like now with like the last time I saw you? I mean, you've been famous since I've known you, but it's exploded since then. Can you go to the restaurant?

Can you go to restaurants? Most people are nice. Most people are friendly.

So how do you deal with the great experiences of my life? Like I say, what's up? So, so nice to me. And you just keep walking. Moving. Nice to meet you.

I'll get you out of here.

But most people are cool. They they just want to say hi. Hi. I'm fine man. Nothing. I love it. I'm happy. I love that people enjoy it. But it's a mindfuck and you got to be careful.

It is a mind fucking mind mindfuck is it's like just meeting people that know you and you don't know them. That's not a normal state for human beings. It's weird. No, it's not.

You know, so someone said it best once and I took this on early on. Like you meet like you have to have like reset like the real problem. Like sometimes people get upset and they meet too many people. But I'm like, we to have a reset. Like every person's a new person. Like this is a first time. You're right. They don't it's not their fault. You met three people in a row on your way to the bathroom.

This is still the first time they're meeting you.

But you could get stuck in a spot, too, though, right?

You go to a bar, everybody's a little drunk and then you're mobbed. And then people want to take pictures and hug you.

And do you think that's going to be more or less in Texas? I don't know, man. I think of a thought like that.

I would never do anything. You never take any chances, never do anything different.

I'm jealous, man. I think it's I think I need to get the fuck out of L.A., man. I was born and raised here. I'm an Angelino.

I think for everybody we're all realizing because this pandemic that there's pros and cons to cities. But when shit gets ugly, there's a lot of cons, there's a lot of cons to being overcrowded. Right. And there's a lot of I mean, there's also a little bit of a problem with the just the sheer amount of people if the virus is spreading. Right.

Because there's so many of us and we're in the hotspot. We're in the middle of it right now. Yeah. And there's so many of us, you know.

Do you see the Herman Cain thing? No. Herman Cain, the guy who ran for president, he just died of coronavirus. And this is after he had went to a one of the Trump rallies, one of those campaign rallies with no mask on. And then was I think he was admitted to the hospital ten days after that. Right? Is that what it was?

It's a rough way to go about it. The shit's crazy, it's crazy, you know what it's like, dude, it's like that's like 10 different diseases. Like you talked to one person. It seems like no big deal. The other person tells you they're still not. Well, four months later, they're neurological diseases. One person's mom beat it in a day. The other person almost died.

Do you remember in the 80s when AIDS like. Yes, like people didn't understand it.

Speaking AIDS, I have to pee so bad. I drank so much water before this. So let's pause. This is not speaking of AIDS, OK, we're making an AIDS joke. I was I just have to pee. We'll be right back. Ladies and gentlemen, I just drank too much water. My apologies. No worries. Welcome to Real Talk with David Cho. I didn't, I didn't. We'll get back to AIDS, but I didn't.

I didn't I didn't dye my hair because I'm trying to, like, empathize with gingers or whatever, because I'm going bald now and it sucks.

I'm 44.

I'm a middle aged man now. I like to think that I'm like a young, free spirit, but I'm starting to thin up here and I go, what are my options? Right.

Shave your head. Shave your head.

Yeah, comb over, man bun hat, hair plugs, hair transplant, propitiate a wig sewed right into your fucking skull.

Dude, I've never thought about it because I shave your head. I swear to God, I wish when I first started going bald, I would just shaved my head from the beginning.

But my my answer to it was try to dye your hair the same color of your skin so people don't see your bald spot.

And then I said, then I have like a dark week where I'm just like.

I'm fat, I couldn't keep up with the tribes, the hordes of tribe that's still feeding old and well, it's when you go, I haven't seen you in a while, you look fucking great. Men like it, like you're always been in shape.

But I've tried trainers before, like I think I told you last time. Thank you for talking me out of becoming a UFC fighter.

My special, you know, the Korean zombie. Yes. And I go, why? Why do they call them that? It's like because you can take a punch and oh yeah, it just keeps going. That's my special skill.

Every fucking fight I've been in my life that I've lost most of them. I think I told you that I never. Tapout, you have to break my arm. You have to. I've had my face disfigured so I don't know. That was stupid.

I'm not going to go into UFC fighting, but I go I when I think of myself as a person, I remember myself being relatively athletic, in shape. And when I go, oh, my hair's going, I'm getting fat, I can't run as fast as I can go.

I need a trainer, I need help. But what kind of trainer do I need? The one like you where they're like, hey, every morning here, it's sort of like Sergeant Drills style or more. Hey, Dave, like so I went with both. I went with the hard ass that shows up at my house, Dave out of bed. I don't give a fuck runs me till I puke.

I was at one lasted a week out. Done how many days a week.

We try to have him on three Monday, Wednesday, Friday and after Friday like get the fuck out of here. I just was like this isn't my style. Like let me try this the like soft spoken. So I got this Lady Claire shout out to Claire and she she would I told her, I know myself, I don't like to be uncomfortable.

Like I run from discomfort, like. Right. I want to get in shape. But if you push me too hard. I'm an artist, I'm a sensitive being, I don't I'm not I'm not trying to get into fighting shape, just get me somewhat relatively healthy. And then I sort of dropped off with that, too. And then the pandemic didn't help. So I'm sitting here and in my brain, I'm like, I have a fucking fire in me.

I know I can fucking. You know, if I I thought when we were starting the hunt with the tribe, I was like, I'm going to keep up with them. And I did in the beginning. It's right in the front with the head guy we're running.

No, no, that's his name. And and then I dropped off and of course, he dropped off, but he, like, run every day.

You're going to drop off. That's just part of being a human. I mean, it doesn't matter. All this fire in your heart shit. Listen, everybody feels that like there's a reality to physical fitness and performance. And the big reality is you got to put in work and recover.

Can I tell you it takes forever? Can I tell you how I feel when I listen to the Joe Rogan experience? Because I leave you on all the time when I'm painting. I was listening to you when I painted that thing of you is.

I do feel extreme gratitude because I'm like. Even though I've listened to Joe for hundreds of hours now and there's tons of stuff, I do disagree with him, thank God he exists. He doesn't have much of an ego.

He, like you've always uplifted me, promoted me, all your friends. You have a great sense of humor and. Where the fuck was I going with this? I don't know. It makes me uncomfortable. Oh, I love it. Where were they going like this? This is what I'm talking about with the memory, we're talking about the tribes and then we're talking about how soft we are. And we were talking about how they have awesome poop people trying to steal that poop.

Maybe I'll remember it, but I funny that you would think that someone's poop like I know how to become like him.

Oh, we're talking about feelings o feelings. So I. And you know, I love you and I love you, too, thanks, man. I got really uncomfortable and and and you have such fucking powerful people on here that are smart, that are inspiring that I start to feel self-conscious.

And you have like David Gauguin's eyes, like this fat guy that just turned his life around.

And then I start to really feel less of a man self-conscious, like a failure. I'm like, fuck, man.

If I just if I just pulled myself up by my bootstraps and I just got a who's who's speaking right now, fuck you, you fucking pussy the fuck up. Oh, shit. OK, OK.

And you know, it's Dave was that that's the Dave that tells me I'm a pussy. That's Drill Sergeant Dave. Yeah. The drill sergeant Dave is you know, I got diagnosed with severe antisocial personality disorder traits and I said, what that mean?

I don't have the actual disorder.

And they're like, because we've never met anyone that's so fucking hard on themselves. Like, what's the first thought when you meet anybody, like friend or foe, anyone? It's fuck you that you think that all day.

Fuck this guy, fuck you. Who the fuck fuck.

But the strange thing about you is you actually have friends and people like you and you have a lot of people that love you and you love a lot of people. So we can't diagnose you with the actual disorder. But you fucking have a lot of so you can see people and just say fuck you immediately.

That would be such a I have such insane abandonment issues. My parents sent me away since I was a kid.

So I have a really weird thing with authority or even anyone saying, Hey David, are you open to suggestion? Yeah, sure. Let me hear it.

In the second they open their mouth, I'm like, you don't fucking know me. You don't fucking know me, you don't. And it's like, so, so.

So I listen to your show and I'm like, damn, dude, you fucking did this.

She's got all these inspirational people that turn their life around, like, why the fuck do I still have a gut? Why can't I?

And why am I still depressed? Why am I still addicted to this?

Why am I why can't I get off the fucking Internet. Why? Like I was talking to you a little bit about the video game stuff, right?

Yeah. Yeah. When I was in my mid twenties. People couldn't wait for Warcraft three to come out. It's like the new shit coming out. I remember right there, like it's going to come out and they delayed it and it finally came out. And I didn't I didn't have any money then. And I got Warcraft two and Warcraft two. The interface for the kids out there listening.

It's like God interface, like your little Peasants' and Paladin's and you're moving them around where Warcraft three is more 3D.

What the fuck? I'm explaining video games and I got on there.

And because the entire world was waiting for Warcraft three, no one was playing Warcraft two. So I was the God of Warcraft two.

You know, when you go on online games, you get a game really quick. This was back in the day. This is like 20 years ago. So wait, I'm 24. Yes, like 20 years ago. So I get on the game and I'd be waiting and start a map and I'm like, who wants to play? And I wait and I have to wait for people to join.

My career was just getting started. I was in a wonderful relationship with this woman that I dated for seven years. My life was like on the up and up. And this thing completely took over my life. Have you ever seen this documentary called Web Junkies about the Internet problem in China?

I haven't seen that, but I'm aware of the problem. It's Teutul.

It's a document from 2014, and it starts with a kid just crying and they're like, why are you crying?

And so China had declared. PC rooms, Internet video game addiction, a national emergency, so they said it's OK. We set up these centres and you could either poison or drug your kid and just drop them off there like or you could lie to them and tell them they're going to like a camping trip and then just drop them off there and then they stay there for 90 days because that's and it's like a prison. And these are the start of the movie.

Yeah. Look at the kid crying. You see that? Wow, so so they can't stop playing video games, they can't stop watching porn, they can't function. So this thing in the movie, at some point I'll spoil it. They escape like like from this.

A documentary. Yeah, it's a documentary. They escape from the madhouse at one point, like the kids, you know, they form a plan and they go, where do they go? They go to the PC room down the street.

They just can't they can't stop. So it almost looks like an independent film.

That's why I asked to visit. No, it's a documentary. The way they've shot it is very interesting because for me, you know me, I don't smoke.

I don't drink or do any of that.

But I fucking I've been to over a thousand AA meetings and I don't drink what people what do you do that I'm like because I can't stop porn, I can't stop video games, I can't stop gambling.

And I know that they have meetings for that too. But they're harder to find. They're more shameful. There's less people. And if I go to a room and I'm talking and there's a guy speaking about how he got clean from alcohol, I just listen to him. And every time he says alcohol, I replace it with porn video game.

And I and I. And I'm like, and not just that. I'll do that in a glass case scenario, but I'll I'll go to all the meetings.

I go to all the fucking meetings. And so I'm sitting on Warcraft two and I'm and something's missing from my life and my rage and my anger and all my, my addictions and my my mental illnesses are coming out in this Warcraft game. And I find this map that's perfect. It's a small map and it's called paintball. And it's just everyone dies. Everyone has one hit point, so one hit and you're dead.

So it's more like a like a chess speed ball game. So the games don't last more than fifteen minutes. You have one peasant, one Palladin and one wizard. And I killed at that game.

I killed.

And within five minutes, you know, like the way it goes, you bring down a blizzard storm and you build a cannon tower or whatever. And you know, if you're going to win and this is before five minutes because it's a fast game, everything moves fast and you don't have to wait for the wood to chop.

It's really fast and never fucked with those games I didn't have. This was before the earpieces. So within five minutes the game is sort of on auto. So, you know, it's like who can do the things the fastest? Then I start talking shit, I'm going to skull. Fuck your parents, you dumb mother.

This is a kid like, oh my God. And I'm like, like all, you know, the way people talk, like all their demons come out. Right. And these and I'm playing kids and they're like, why, what is the skull fucking like.

Like I am a horrible person.

And then one day I was the king of this map, like in this one area in my life where my art career is kind of going good, but not really.

And I don't know how to be in a relationship. And I'm just sort of lost in my my mid 20s. I don't know who the fuck I am.

I don't in this game. I am God, I'm God like. And I'll go out and I'll be checked out.

I'll be out with my three hours a day playing this game. I'm not going to lie and be like all day. I'll be like, oh, I got to go to work.

And so is the first time in my life ten, ten hours a day, you know, 12, 16, 18 hours, 20 hours a day.

So I would play this game and I would lie. I started lying. I started lying to my friends about what I was doing. And when I was out, I'd be checked out. They'd be talking about, hey, what this new thing, we're going to go here.

And I'd be like, ice storm, ice storm.

You know, it's like, dude, you're laughing. And I could laugh with you today because it's fucking twenty years ago.

But at the time I had I had I don't want to admit to you that I played the fucking game twenty hours a day.

I mean, I had played eight hours. Well, you know, listen, I know I had a video game addiction. I know. Hardcore one. Right. So I get it.

I get it. But but see, we're older guys. I mean, kids today I was talking to a kid the other day is twenty years old and he said. He said, I can't get hard and I'm a virgin, and I and I said, Wait, wait, hold on, back up.

Guys like you and me, like older dudes, all have the same story of how we saw our first pornography.

It was print, right?

It's always Playboy. Yes, exactly. It's always print. It's a naked photo on a piece of paper.

I had a whole bit about how we would find it in the forest. Like, yeah, it's in the forest. It's in your parent's garage. Stepfather's garage. That's our generation. That's what we found. And then the first time you saw porn, how old were you? Like physical porn.

Like with the moving. The moving. I was in junior high, so. Thirteen, fourteen, I think I was probably around there, too, maybe maybe I was 14 and pixellated, right?

It's on the on the Showtime with the no scrambled tape, I saw a VHS tape. That was the first time I ever saw it. My head was fucking exploding shit. Couldn't believe you could see. It's crazy because you had never seen anybody fuck before then. Like, you kind of knew what vagina's looked like because the playboy and breasts look like. But there's something about watching people actually have sex. You let your whole body take it when you're a 14 year old kid and you see that it's like a drug, right.

Like a drug. It's not it's not like a drug.

It is it is a drug. I mean, for the kids out there, they don't take it in a pill or smoke form, but it's a drug.

We live in a society today where we have a strip club, a drug dealer, a casino. It's all right here. You don't have to leave. You remember the VHS tapes that were in the.

Oh, yeah.

So I live in a house, a small house, three brothers, me and my older brother, my younger brother and.

My head exploded because I saw scrambled porn and my friend Al Hunt was I was like, I think I could see it. TV don't even know what you're saying. When you say scrabbled. It's like it's like it's like my new paintings. There's, like, glitched, like you see a tit or whatever.

But it used to be let's just explain that used to be there were certain channels you couldn't get to and you doubt your parents would have to subscribe to Showtime. Right. But you take like HBO over an HBO Showtime package, you would decide, well, let's just get HBO or we can only afford Cinemax. But there was some of those channels like they'd call Cinemax Skinemax. Right, because there's some of those channels.

There was so much they were like they were like fake movies with an excuse to show, like softcore fashion.

But you didn't see penetration? No. Like the first time I saw penetration was when I think I was 14. I don't remember who got the video, but one of my friends got a porn and actual porn and we were watching it like in stunned disbelief. Like what in the fuck. Right.

And so that what the fuck? I see the scramble porn and I can't function as a normal human.

Now, I'm 13, 14 years old, scrambled for living in a two bedroom house with like three boys that are all hitting puberty. And I go, I need more. I need more. Well, so I go and wear my dad's trench coat. I walk into a adult bookstore on Libya and like Highland and sorry, in Santa Monica, it's where Trejos Taco's is right now, because I wanted to look like an adult.

You know, I'm like a fucking like Zedi Asian kid. And I walk in and you remember they used to be like 40 bucks and like in a carton.

They were like expensive. Like the packaging was really big. And I and I went in there and I. I saw I saw a package, it was like and I remember perfectly up and comers Reylene first, you know, and I'm touching the box and it's taped up and there's a metal detector and there's cameras.

And I go, I lost my mind. I lost my mind. I was like, I have to have it. I don't have 40 bucks. I'm fucking 13 year old kid. I use my fingernail to take the tape off. I take the tape out and the guy sees that. What's going on there? Fucking jamming on the bucket.

I run home. You got away.

There's yeah, I ran all the way. That's when I should have been with the tribe.

That's when you're 13 and horny, 13 and horny and I get home.

We have VHS and a beta machine because my dad chose wrong, and then we have to eventually get the VHS and my mom, my grandmother is watching WWF wrestling. So you got to understand the dynamics of a tiny home.

So my grandma, my two brothers and my parents and I and someone is always home.

Someone is always home. So this thing's burning a hole in my pocket. I got to watch it, but when can I watch it? So I finally put a plan together. I go, I'm going to watch this.

And I don't even know how to masturbate. I don't even know what that is. I have no sex education.

I go at dinner time on Wednesday, I'm going to eat my dinner really quick, run to the fucking living room, and so it happened.

So we're eating dinner and hey, slow down. What are you eating dinner so fast? Fucking scoop up the rice, get some kimchi, OK. Hey, can I be excused? Like, no, we're having family dinner right now with. Tell me. Oh no, I'm good. I'm good. I run to the fucking living room and you can. It's not that far. I don't live in a huge house so you can still hear the silverware clinking like they're eating.

I pull out the there's like a Disney movie in there. I pull out the VHS. I put in my thing. There's the FBI warning. I'm fast forwarding. I'm like looking and looking and fast forwarding. And you hit play and fast forward.

And then I see tits and it's and she's wearing jeans and then oh like, oh, that's the cover.

No, no, Jamie, no, don't do this to me on the actual video to if you're like no, no, no, no. Time out, time out, time out. This is outrageous. Yangcheng I actually I don't watch porn. It's outrageous. You're making me real abs right now.

Let me see that one more time.

So I fast forward to the end. You got to understand, I had seen print Playboy.

I'd seen I'd never seen that the moving in the fucking vaine their dicks are in like, you know, like I'm like, fuck man.

So I'm everything's dopamine serotonin, you know, I'm like, my dad could walk in any second and I'm like I'm like my mom pressing my dick against the wall.

And then I was like, OK, and I'm studying. And I'm like, save this for later. This goes in the spank bank save. OK, this is enough. One more second, two more seconds. OK, delete tape. Put the Disney tape back in, run back.

Hey why are you breathing hard. Why.

Oh nothing. Nothing. And then I get to my room and I share a bunk bed with my brother.

Oh no. And I'm like, are you on top of the bottom. I'm on the bottom. Oh no, I'm on the bottom.

That's a little fuck. Just look down. See you at any moment.

So I have I am full of cum coming out of my eyes. I'm full. I'm like, I got a fucking jerk. Like, I don't even know. I'm like, so. And I always knew when my brother fell asleep because his breathing slows down. So I'm like sitting there and pressing my dick against the wall.

I'm like, and he's like finally he finally falls asleep and I go, OK, I'm going to like hold my whole arm because it's a squeaky it's like a shitty bunk bed.

Oh no. Hold my whole arm against my this and jerk off fucking.

They've, you know, OK, whatever, and and talking to yourself again, I start doing a very gentle, quiet masturbation, but it's still doing a light tug with a little squeak because I want to make what I want to do is I want to fucking crank it.

And then I hear David, it's my brother. It's like. Why are you shaking the bed so much, I'm like, oh, fuck, man, like and now I'm like, God damn, I got to find a place in my anyways I can go on and on about your brother's cock blocker.

He's a cock blocker.

He fucking cock me, block me from myself. So I bring this up because this is, this is what we had to do to bust the nut in the back in the day.

It's not that hard today. It's everywhere. So I meet this 20 year old kid and he goes, I'm a virgin.

I've heard your story before because your story is every old guy story.

My story is my mom was watching me. She left the YouTube video Baby Shark or some shit up. And I she went to the bathroom and I clicked Pokemon and then it was Pokemon cause played triple anal gang bang. And that's the first thing I've ever seen at age four.

Whoa. Straight to angel, age four.

How it's how is that possible, dude, if you have an unblocked phone like it's very easy kid to get to Pokemon porn.

Is it that quick.

Jamie, that doesn't is that very day that could have happened. Sure, yeah. Is this also like back in the day when YouTube used to have it set up, like did they have restrictions back in the day? Because when when things first started going up, there was a lot of people sneaking things in. Yeah. That weren't supposed to be on there.

And then they would catch them. They'll be fine. But they didn't have porn.

None of those none of those have had like I don't think so, but I think people can probably get away.

It could be up there for like five minutes before it gets taken down or something.

You know what's so crazy that Twitter still has porn, right? Hardcore. Right. Like if you let your kid look at your phone and they click on Twitter, they could see someone taking the ass of a block phone.

Yeah, that could happen so well. So this kid's like, that's my story. And that's most young people's story now. It isn't.

They found their dad's playboy in the forest, accidentally stumbled upon something or or some kid. That doesn't it wasn't an accident.

Someone tells some older brother goes, hey, so my first visual burned, programmed into my young mind isn't a still image with a woman with a huge bush. It's fucking anal penetration. That's my first image. And as the addict craves novelty, as you get older, you need more and more.

So by the time I'm thirteen, I've already that's I need prolapsed anal stuff. I need transsexual. I need gay sex. I need. So he says this kid is twenty years old. He's never had sex.

He's like, what a simple Insull, whatever they call them.

He uses Viagra to get half heart. He can't even get fully heart. And it's his life is just scrolling. It's just porn, video games, porn, video game porn. And it's we could sit here and we could laugh at it. And I have laughed at it.

But that's a problem. That's a problem. So if I take it back to when I'm twenty four, when the technology was way less.

I missed my first deadline. I was late to work, I didn't. I lost that girlfriend not just because of that, because of other issues, too.

But I didn't get up for one weekend from Friday to Sunday without pissing drinking water.

And at some point I had found my this guy, this arch enemy on this Warcraft game.

He'd win one. I'd win one. One more, one more, one more. He'd win one one more. And the guy was like a British guy who had a wife and kids. He's like, Bro, I got a life dude. And I'm like, fuck you pussy.

We go, we go, we go ours, ours. I'm seeing fucking wizardry in my mind. I'm seeing Paladin's. I'm seeing him. Or I feel like God.

When I finally got up I fucking collapsed, my legs were gone.

And then I almost had to call 911 one because they just wouldn't work for an hour. And I called my friend who's a doctor, and they're like, you're dehydrated. Go drink some water. And if Jamie just Google's Korean video game overdose, it's always a Korean, it's always an Asian. They play video games to death. There's a Korean family.

Why do you think that is the culture there? It's like intense. It's like it's if we think we like. The addiction that most people if you play whack a mole like I used to be, addicted to sex, gambling that did it, and I jump and I jump, I'm addicted to this.

The one where you can hide in plain sight, where everyone pats you on the back is workaholism, right?

I could work all day and night. And in this culture, you get a pat on the back. Asian culture is the same. Except if you fail, you either kill yourself and you're an absolute disgrace. And, you know, it's like in Japan it was the suicide rate was really high. Now it's in Korea.

But it's all your identity is like, who are you? Oh, I'm a podcast or I'm this. You are only what your job is. And if you're not good at it, then what's your drug? I'm going to fuck and just zone out in this video game. PC room. My life's not going well. There's a there's a man and a wife in Korea. I saw this in some documentary that they would keep going to the Internet room to play this video game, like where you virtually raised like The Sims or something like that, that they forgot to feed their own kid and their kid died and they went to jail for it.

And then when they went out, it's like this is a fucking problem.

This is like a real problem and.

We live in a culture where there's things that are accepted addictions, right, if you fucking do opioids and heroin and like I've been to those rooms, man, I see how they treat people.

If you're like a heroin addict, there's a hierarchy, you're a real drug addict. But if you smoke weed, come on, man, you're going to die from that.

But. If you look at the amount of people that kill themselves now, it's almost normalized and how many of my friends have done that? How many people that you know, that in especially during this pandemic, the suicide rates gone up like crazy?

That's a fucking real problem, man, like and people. When I think of Bourdain and I think of myself and even starting the show off, giving you compliments, we live in a culture that doesn't know how to when people who don't shoot the messenger, the messenger people say that because the messenger gets shot, we don't know how to ask for help. We don't know how to receive help. We don't know even how to give help. Like if I try to help one of my friends who's, like, addicted to video games and jerking off.

Get the fuck out of here, Dave.

You don't fucking I'm like, bro, I'm just trying to help. Right? We are it's very hard to help people. They have to want help. Right? People don't want help. You're not going to help them. You're going to bully them around. You going to yell at them. They're going to eventually do what they want to do anyway. But when someone comes to you and says, hey, I need help, that's when things get serious.

Because other than that, you're forcing like I have friends that I would like if they did things differently in terms of their health. I can't say anything to them. Like, I just you just have to accept it. This is what it is. You know, the people come up with their own excuses, their own reasons. You brought this up earlier, and I wanted to ask you now, like you were talking about. Like physical stuff, like you get angry and get anxiety because like you don't, you let yourself get overweight.

Like, how much does that fuck with you and how much would you give to not have that anymore? Like, isn't that wouldn't I mean, if there's one major thing that keeps fucking with you over and over again. That you could fix, I have that's a fix one you could fix that. So I have a disease of more like I was saying, I have a Qasm a black hole that it doesn't matter how many women I have sex with, how many porn I've jerked off to, how much money I've gambled and lost in one small fortunes, huge fortunes.

I have had an eating disorder, which is like I thought that was a girl thing. That's what I thought. Like I got to when I went to rehab for gambling addiction.

This is the first rehab I've went to. I've been to every fucking rehab mental health wellness center in America.

Now, I said, hey, do you guys deal with process addiction? Know, like, I should come over. And when I went there, there was only meth heads there. They didn't even know. They just wanted my money. Yeah, I just come over here and I learn they're like serious gambling addiction, like one out of four kills themselves.

And yeah, it's a it's the reason why there's no balcony's in Las Vegas.

The only place that has balconies is the Kozmo, I think, and they had like two suicides the first month they opened, I think because you're so I I'm like I have things that when I talk about it funny, I can't stop jerking off. It's all I can't stop working.

Just fucking got me working for Vice and I got my podcast and I got this and I got this next project in my next article is going to make a million dollars and you're addicted to that.

There's no end to it.

There's no there's no nothing.

And when I meet when I watch the Jordan documentary and I meet famous people that have succeeded at the highest levels, I go, how long were you happy for?

Maybe a day, maybe 24 hours. And then what happens the next day? Back to the grind. It's not enough. Got the gold medal, back to the grind, back to the grind.

And I go, it's it's never going to be enough. I'll never have enough women money success.

It's this. And I go.

I have so many friends who've killed themselves. I have so many. Like Bourdain asked me for help. He asked me for help. Like I'm like, yes, what did he say? He said, I'm fucking miserable.

I'm miserable. Do you how do you deal with this? And I was like, I've been waiting for this fucking phone call. Thank you.

How how recent or how close to when he died was it was within the year. It wasn't like. Right. But so he said it was miserable. And what would you describe it? He said, you're successful. I'm successful. Do you find yourself suffering? And I go, absolutely, please.

And then I called him and and this is what I mean when I say asking for help and receiving for help.

That was a fucking, you know, people that nobody I know as friends, I know his manager. You won't find a fucking person that will say a bad thing about him. That guy is a fucking he's so awesome. He's always looking out for you. He'll show up for you whatever you need. He'll take care of you.

Is an amazing guy. Very, very interesting guy. But a company. And so you can't find anyone. But I'm like, you're a fucking asshole, dude. You're an asshole. You murdered yourself. You murdered yourself. You killed someone. That person happened to be you, but you couldn't even show up for yourself. You. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, man. Listen, I get it, you love the guy, I loved him, too.

It's. I've known many people that have killed themselves now. It's a very sad thing that that you can't you can never fix that.

That sadness is always going to be a part of you. You're always going to think maybe I could have gotten to him, maybe I could have talked to him, maybe if I was there. But that was it.

He he he did it. He reached out. He's like, I relate to you, Dave. I connect with you. And I was like, yes, so what did he end up doing? I talked to him. I said, Hey man, here's all the things I've done. I'm in a really good place now. I can help you. I can I can refer you to places I got you.

And it was almost like. Thank you for caring for me. Thank you. Like he was he was a severe co-dependent, like he was a people pleaser, right? He's like I'm like he never said no. He's like, I'm going to fucking help everybody except for myself.

It's OK, man, I get it. So. I'm going to help everyone except for myself, and I think I make this up in my head, he's like. And I've done this, too, before. It's like I kind of half ass ask people for help. Oh, Dave, I got resources, so that's enough just to know that you cared and that I know that there's places I can go to. That's enough. I don't have to actually full start my life and change until.

You know, fuck, so that's what I mean when I say we don't as a culture, people don't teach us the shit, people don't teach us how how to how to fucking ask for help and then receive help and. I fucking gave you five compliments at the start of the show. I couldn't take a fucking I couldn't take a compliment. I couldn't say one nice thing about myself five years ago. And if someone try to say something, hey, Dave, you're good, I'd shut them down.

They'll be OK. It's like. And I turn I turn everything into a joke, right? Everything I can't sit here in this discomfort. I don't want to be uncomfortable. So I find I find this place. I go, I'm fucking ready now, I'm ready whatever my best thinking got me here, like whatever talking to people sitting around like something's fucked up with me, all the shit that happened in my life, I'm like throwing myself in a fucking jungle with, like, I'm going to jail repeatedly.

Hold on.

Hold on. Yeah. Why are you choosing to look at it in a negative way in the way you're describing it right there. But something must be fucked up with me. I go to the jungle. I'm doing all this crazy shit. That's one of the things that makes you interesting is this extreme, real curiosity. You have a real curiosity and a willingness to do wild shit like go to the Congo and look for a fucking dinosaur and sleep in a tent.

We're telling you, just crawling around.

I'll tell you this story now because I'm alive. I could have easily died there multiple times.

And then going back. Yes, going back 10 years later. And I think a film crew is going to make that easier. I get it. But the fucking chief's sister had a machete in her mouth. Things like, let's kill these fuckers. And I'm like, why am I back here? Why? Why do they want to kill you?

Because they thought we were they wanted money. And we we had used all our we gave them all our money for filming rights. And the sister was like, they have more like he was like the evil warlord of it wasn't the pygmies.

See. No, I still look.

It's not. You're looking at it. You're what what makes you interesting? You're looking at it as a negative. One of the things that makes you interesting is that you're a wild person who takes chances. That's why I told you you should do a podcast.

Look, Joe, I that's.

But Dave is not a bad thing. All these things you're saying are not bad things. Can it be both? I don't know, man. I mean, I think. Can I teach you what I learned? Yes.

The way I'm talking to you right now is how I talked coming into like these loony bins that I've been to, they're like, wow, the way you talk, it's very black and white. Fuck this. This is bad. This is the fucking bomb. This is the shit. This is lit. This is fire. This is fucked.

I don't even know why I said that. I don't talk like that. It's like it's like I was in the parking lot in Koreatown and I'm like I'm looking at the next generation of Koreans. They got shit in their face. They got piercings.

I watched these two Korean kids talk to each other for 20 minutes and they only said bror lit and fire.

And I'm like, what the fuck did you guys just say anyways?

Because of my religious background where it's heaven or hell, God's way or Satan, you kind of look at everything like that, right?

Joe Rogan is the best. That podcast is the worst. That right. So you ask me right now, why do I look at in this bad way? And I go, can it be both? Because you don't have agree. There's no Fifty Shades of grey. There's it's just black and white. It's only the best and the worst. That's if you could you feel something if you fucking come off a big win. Yes. I just want a shit ton of money in Vegas.

I did this. I did that. Or if you get canceled but in here in the middle you feel nothing. So you got to go for the highs and usually you feel more when you lose.

So you chase the losers like you don't fucking get it.

Well, if you're going to fuck it, I like losing you.

Don't fucking get it. I like feeling shit. You almost died in the Congo. Why are you going back. Because because maybe they didn't get, you know, so I get a thrill out of escaping the jaws of death.

There's something severely broken in me that I get a fix, I get a hit, I get it.

And the thing is you've heard heroin addicts that say, I get this high now just to feel even I don't even get that's where I was that I'm fucking playing Angry Birds to my fucking fingers split open.

I'm fucking gambling, you say, but you're not saying current tense. No, no, no, I'm telling old stories.

Right. I know I shouldn't. You're saying it now, right? No, no, no, no.

This is I'm I'm I'm self serving. God, I'm fucking smelling flowers.

Are you still you you channel. They've evolved. Yeah. Well, that's another Dave that's inside of you. Dave old.

Hey, you're driving the bus right now. You want to sit in the back or you want to come back. Dave of old. You know what Jamie you into to deter. Can I can I can I just do 10 seconds to get back to sure. This is the weirdest podcast we've ever done. Thank you. Thank you so much. I like because I'm hyped up. You saw that. You saw oh they've come up and I want to I want to ramp it up.

I want to keep going. Hi. This is awesome man.

So I so. I can't like you meet people and you're like, you're wired this way and you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

And that's just Joe Rogan that you see today in his 30s, in his 40s and 50s. It's going to still be that. But a little different version of that.

When he's 50 and I meet these guys, I meet most of these places are very expensive. And the people that end up there, it's like everyone has cut them out so they have to be there or they lost their job. So I'm usually the youngest guy there. I'm independently wealthy so I can pay for it. And I'm looking at these guys that have everything.

They have all the money, all the fame, everything, everything. And they're successful only in their career, everything else.

They're a failure at their kids, hate them. Their wives hate them there. And I go.

I got a fucking. I got to rewire myself like I can't live like this because you go, why is this good or bad?

And I'm like, because I don't care if I live, I'm ready to die. I want to die. Like I. But wait a minute. But you enjoy life today. I do. Today. Sometimes in the time that you met me, I really probably didn't enjoy life so much.

It's more everything feels like a chore. Everything feels like I'm underwater right now.

No, not now. Now, now I do like.

So part part of that is the thing leaning into discomfort.

But what got you over the hump? Like there's a lot of people that have experienced what you're describing. So what got you to the point where now it's all flowers and happy friends, friends.

That isn't that that that is one of the most underappreciated. It is recipes. You have people that will die for you. I have people that will die for me. That is a fucking rare commodity in this world.

And when I say friends, I mean, they left me. I thought I was a genius. I was like, whatever the shit you see with Kanye, that's what I thought. I'm like, I'm a genius, I'm doing.

And there was the people that were like, you are a genius, Dave. You are great. And I go, you don't get it, dude, I want to fucking die right now. I want to cop to come out and shoot me because I'm fucking his wife right now. That's what I want. That's a fucking crazy story for the podcast, Dave. That's I'm not living. I'm not no one's home. Hello. No one's own. And so my friends say we're done with you.

You're my homies down for life. Right. Right. Or die. We're fucking done with you. Who the fuck are we to you? Who are we to you? You've I've have friends that I've known since I was eight years old, I'm 44 now, my whole life go. And so in a moment of clarity, like the same way I didn't fucking kill the German guy. I go, wait.

Every person in my life that I chose to have a friendship with is telling me I'm an asshole, that that I'm not me anymore, that I'm not making sense, that I need help. And I and the thing is, I know I need help, but I'm like. Why did I get sent away when I was a kid? There's three boys, why did I get sent away? Because you are the most well-behaved. You know, we didn't have enough money to raise three boys.

So we sent you away because you didn't cry. You didn't cause problems. So I'm a kid now.

I'm four years old, and it gets in the way.

The wiring is going to get sent away for for one year to Korea. I don't know who. I don't speak the language. I don't know who these people are. And there was no explanation. There was no I just woke up one day.

I'm having the best time with my brothers and they're like by my mom's crying, like, why are you crying, bitch?

What the fuck's going on by I'm all of a sudden in this smelly country.

And and so I'm like, I'm trash, I'm trash, I'm fucking worthless. You don't give a shit. You can. Nobody explained. Nobody explained. Nobody explained shit.

So now I'm wired when they do explain. Oh, when you get sent away. Because you're good, good behavior is punished. Oh, why didn't my brother get sent away? He was crazy. He was like he was a problem child. He was like Chucky.

He was like, he got to send you away to do what did you do when you got to Korea? It was just to live with my uncles and my aunts and and just to have other family support me because my parents weren't doing too well financially.

So then the whole concept of nice guys finish last. Right. Right.

So on this quiet Asian guy and you could just say whatever, he's a pushover, you keep getting fucked or get fucked over, fucked over the guy with the eyes outside the.

Then I get out of jail. What do I get sold out show in New York City.

Dave Cho says whatever the fuck he wants does whatever the worst act, the look at what's happening to Trump right now.

Can you act as shitty as you can and you get fucking gap deals and presidencies and you never fucking apologize, you never calm down, do come down, come to Dave evolved.

So you so my my thinking is acting right.

Acting like the model minority, acting like the good little Asian boy got me nowhere when I talk a fool, when I do whatever the fuck I want, when I fuck, when I fight, when I gamble, when I act crazy, I get television deals, I get on Howard Stern, I get on fucking Joe Rogan, I get fucking sold out art shows, they pause you OK?

Do you think that you are the victim of the attention that you were getting? Do you think you leaned into it and it became who you decided you were because that was giving you the most love and people got a kick out of the fact that you genuinely didn't give a fuck, so you just leaned into that. So it changed you?

It's absolutely that, but it's more nuanced than that. I'm sure it's everything. Well, there's no already mentally unstable four year old thing, man.

Right. That's it. That I mean, when that I mean, that's the fucking that's the gasoline that was poured all over you.

So things don't make sense to me because they can't make sense to you.

And as an adult, I go, I have wealth, I have money. I know famous people who have wealth.

Why we know the story. Rich, famous, fucking blow your brains out. Hang yourself.

Well, we know that that doesn't have your alive right now and it doesn't have to ever go down that way. But when when the one thing that you've got to know is you can't fix any of the shit that happened to you, that's that's a that's a real problem because the shit that happened to you was Titanic.

For that to happen, you had four years of age as you're growing up and developing to hit a horrible situation like that for through no fault of your own. All that makes sense. It's what we were talking about, that everybody doesn't start from the same spot, you know, and it's it's what makes unfortunately, it's what makes people so goddamn interesting sometimes, too, whether it's Joey Diaz or whether it's you are most of my friends that are really interesting, had these fucked up lives that you would never want to wish upon your kid.

But see, when you say that I hear that and I love it and respect you, so I go I this is just how I feel. I go. Joe loves me because I'm weird and I'm interested. No, no, no. And for me, no, I'm saying how I understand that and I need to stay far enough to be interesting for me to get help.

Who can I look to who navigated their way out of this jungle? Who did it right? Who can I look up to go, man? That guy was wild, crazy. He did all this crazy shit. He got rich and famous and whatever.

And then he sealed half like, where can I find that? And I go, No, I just accept I'm not, you know, yes, I've had suicidal ideation. Yes, I am fucking mentally disturbed. Yes.

I've had to go to jail and lock myself up many times, but at least I'm rich, you know, like, let me stop you again.

OK, here's the thing to concentrate on. What is the goal of the goal to be happy. Right. The problem is a lot of people are doing things to be successful because they think becoming successful is what makes you happy. It doesn't always sometimes you feel empty and you feel angry that you spend all your time working for something that you don't even appreciate when it's over. But you're on paper, you're successful. That's not really successful.

Can I tell you one of the can I tell you a story of how I got better?

And let me hold on one second. This is what I want to get to. Yes. Some people are happy. Right. Would we can we say that do you think some people think there's a percentage of this population that's happy. Some people are happy. Yes, of course, some people are happy. OK, yes, there's no characteristics that exclude you from that group. You could also be happy and I say this anybody anybody who's been happy with how Joe.

But this is what you've got to do, concentrate on what it is. First of all, that makes you happy. And I guarantee you for a big part of it, for a lot of people, is their physical health. Improve your physical health. You'll improve your enthusiasm. You'll improve your energy and improve your ability. Absolutely. Other things, you'll be happier. Right. And then do what you're doing. You've already you've already gone onto this great path where you've changed basically who you are.

You've become like this. This guy was more introspective.

Can I tell you, just growing up in America, part of being a man, because someone asked me, where's your idea of a man come from? I go from Clint Eastwood watching the guy movies growing up, you know, the way Korean men are so macho. And so that's in me. And what is what is that? What is being a man is like, shut the fuck up and handle your business. Don't ask for help. Yes.

Korean, Asians, we don't like asking for help. We never ask for help. And so when I tell you that I've been to every fucking mental health institution, then like there's sick people all over the country in the world. I never saw one fucking Asian guy until I saw one for fucking five years.

I'm going to all these places and I'm and I don't ask for help. They don't ask for help.

You just suffer silently.

There's people listening right now that are suffering because you know what they do the story I've just told you right now, I wasn't able to say that for years because I made trauma a competition.

Big fucking deal. You left your parents sent you away. You weren't starving in Korea. I'm like, I'm four years old, dude.

I don't know where my fucking parents are. Yeah, but your grandpa, he has this big ginseng farm. You having a nice life out there? OK, you know what? There's someone else down the street getting fucking molested, getting beaten.

I don't everyone tries to do this, like, hierarchy of like, I got it this bad. Shut the fuck up. Who are you?

And I go, but everyone's pain is maximum to them, right? Everyone's maximum pain is right.

So when you're dating, when someone's doing this and to someone that like big deal, that doesn't hurt my feelings and I go. But to me it does.

I'm not thinking, well, you know, there's people getting killed in the streets right now. So I have no I'll say that to myself. And there's people getting killed in the streets right now. So just because one guy said, go back to where you come from, I have no I'm going to quite zip. I'm not going to say anything because. What is that? That's nothing.

That's a oh, you hurt me with your words, but I go. But it did. Your words hurt me and. Well, you're not allowed to feel that. And yet I do. I feel shit and my whole fucking life is reactionary to stop that by building walls and come up with these coping mechanisms.

And I go teach me, I want to fucking learn. And they go, you're not going to like it. And you already know because I already talked about here step one was I was like, I'll do anything. And they're like, it's not going to happen overnight. And then someone said, there is something that will happen overnight. Ayahuasca. I'm like, I'm in, I'm an addict. I want it quick. I love you because you do fucking psychedelics.

I don't know what kind of person you would be if you didn't like it changed my life. I did Ayahuasca 30 when I was thirty five years old, so almost nine years ago and it fucking the trip I had in the jungle in Colombia. And they told me this isn't going to change your life, but it'll kick the doors open for you to begin to become a different person. And we're sitting here, we're sitting on fucking microphones. There's this in this.

There's other dimensions.

There's shit. It's like I can't I'm I'm telling you, I agree with everything you said. When I exercise, I feel great when. But there's something I'm an addict. I'm a fucked up. I can't. I am. But teach me I need something besides.

And this is why I said when I listen to all the motivational stuff and I and I get fired up, I go, yeah, if I just fucking got up and pushed myself and I go.

But that's not me. I need something more and I'm going to fucking be curious, I'm going to search and so I get to a place where they go, Dave, you turn everything into a joke, you lie a lot.

Right, starting with. What's a what's the every guy answer to how are you doing? I don't care if your dad just died or you just got great, OK? Right, OK is not a feeling good is not a feeling something horrible. I could have had the worst day right now. And if you ask me how are you doing, I'd say, good, I'm OK.

And that would be lie. So I know what I'm going to go to a place in Mississippi. I'm not going to say the name. I don't know if there's like lawsuits. Shit, but. I went there and it's a mandatory place for crooked judges, Congress like high like doctors, lawyers, and they have to be there and they have to relearn rewire or else they don't get their licenses back to practice. Whoa. And I was the only one there by choice.

I didn't have to be there. And so I get there and they go, why are you here? And I go, I can't stop thinking a certain way. I can't stop lying. I can't stop exaggerating. I can't stop storytelling. I can't stop period. I have uncontrollable behavior. I'm impulsive and I don't like who I am. And I'm suicidal at times. And I want and they go. We're going to do something here. So they took the yellow sticky pads and they wrote No.

Joking. So they put one on here and here and they go, no more joking and they taught me different ways to like that guy.

Sounds like a bummer, total bummer. And they can all joke and they can act like they go. We know that this place that you're at right now is not how the real world exists. But while you're here and by the way, you could leave at any time, we're going to ask you to to change your behavior.

So what was the problem they had with you joking that was your defense mechanism for having fucking serious thing, right?

Oh, here's a fucking I was better. I was better at the couple.

I told you before when I saw you do that thing in L.A. that you did at UCLA.

Am I going to be a comic? You want hundred percent? Could be a comic. You have a comics mentality. You fucked up like a comic. You have crazy ideas like a comic and you're insightful. You're smart guy to be really good at it.

Thank you for saying that.

And 100 percent like you're there's comics you meet in life. Obviously, you're a multifaceted guy. You could do a lot of different things. You're a great artist. You could do whatever you want. But there's something about comics that never became comics. There's a lot of them. I worked for one at one point in time, I worked for a private investigator, Dave Dolen. The most fucking hilarious guy I've ever met in my life totally was a comic, just never did comedy.

I met a bunch of guys like that. We're totally comics. They just never found comedy. Like if they did, they'd be one of us. They'd be hanging out in the back of the Comedy Store.

Can you admit that you can draw, like, relatively good. You could draw relative. OK, so, you know, through everything else you've achieved in your life, if you practiced, you'd be awesome at it. But you said the same thing. That's funny, Dave. We're going to keep asking you to paint. I'm not going to do it. I know who I am. I get obsessed and whatever. When I walked off the stage at UCLA, I did two hours like improv and I and I invited, like Harris Wittels, rest in peace.

He's not here anymore. I invited comic writers and I said, shoot me straight. Like, don't do the like. Dave, you were great. They were like, you fucking killed two. You've never done comedy before and you killed for two hours. There's some rusty parts, but if you just kept the reps in and then similarly, I've always, always wanted to be in a band. Right. So MCE from Beastie Boys passes away and then money Mark who's been touring with them for twenty years, is out of work.

He's a friend of mine and I'm like, I've known you for a while, why don't we fucking make a band. We do a I formed the band Munchy We with Bobby Lee's brother Steve Lee as a singer and money mark we fucking tour the US and we sell out like two small like two or three hundred seater clubs and every fucking high school like rock band fantasy is fulfilled.

And at our last show I think Bill Burr was there. I'm like, we're playing here and those clubs in Silverlake and I'm playing to the sold out.

Two hundred. It's all my friends, my family, there's comedians, there's porn stars, and there's like a super famous, you know, one of the most famous rock band lead singers in the audience. And he's like, Can I talk to you after the show? I'm like, Yeah. And he's like.

I play to like 20, 30 thousand seat stadium people now, and what you just took me back to was our first days when we started, I would do anything for that.

And I sat there and I was like, wait, Joe Rogan told me, like, I don't think he's bullshitting. He thinks I could really do this comedy thing. I felt I felt like on fire when I was on stage. This guy is telling me if I just keep touring and I keep putting out videos, that at some point I'll be selling out five hundred one thousand and then in five years and I go, I love playing music, I love comedy.

And I think I've tasted just enough where I don't want to fuck you.

These things take time man, to fucking perfected and craft. You've done this for thousands of hours, like I said.

In this and this is all like after I've done a lot of work on myself, I'm like, I'm going to walk away from this as someone who doesn't know how to say no.

And like, I have that overachieving attitude, I'm like. Why not, why not? Did you have a good time on stage? Yeah, I loved it. Did you love them when people laughed?

He was like a drug. I felt it.

Do you want to keep doing that and the torture of coming up with new material and like, you know, and the bands, if you don't like, I'm like I know myself well enough now that I I'm going to stick to one thing at a time, you know?

So I'm going to I'm going to tell you the story. And, you know, I could tell you jail stories, porn. So I have all these stories. But the fucking weird is shit that I've ever done in my life was to go to this place.

And it's like an intensive outpatient place. So I have an apartment with a roommate. I don't fucking roommate in years. And they go in the time that you're here once again voluntarily, you can leave at any time. We're going to ask you to fucking do everything you say.

It's counterintuitive to who you are and the way you're wired, but we're going to ask you to tell the truth and just fucking and I go, yeah, sure, I can do that. I don't even I haven't even checked into my apartment, I'm opening the door, I Cohon, there is a man that's obviously overweight, sitting on a couch in his fucking tidy. He looks like he's naked because his gut is covering his white underwear and he's watching Walter White.

I see Walter White. He's watching Breaking Bad and he's on the couch like this.

Are you my new roommate? Don't tell me, don't tell me. Bro, I don't even fucking know you don't tell anyone, it's like I like to do math and get really fucked up and go to bathhouses and let Mexican guys suck my dick and I'm like, oh, shit.

And this guy, I don't know where he from specifically.

They had to be Mexican. We got into it later. His name was Paco. It's like Mexican guys. And I take my stomach and they have to find my dick. And I hit their head with my stomach.

When I go, I go, Yeah. I said, it's a fetish, right?

And I go, this guy sounds like he wants to get caught. Like, I'm like, don't tell on me.

And so what do I go, yeah, OK, fine, whatever. So the next day we go into the rooms and every morning starts with community. We sit in the circle here and like, does anyone have any agenda items they want to put in?

And I go, you know what I got on a fucking plane to come to Mississippi, I paid the money. I raise my hand. Let's call this guy Walter, because I was watching Walter White. That's not his name. I go, Walter was watching Breaking Bad, this guy.

What the fuck, Dave? What the fuck? I thought we were roommates. I thought you were my homie.

But that's not how he talks. He taught me. Right. But what the hell the fuck do man?

And I go, I'm here. I'm a fucking rat. I go, this is not how I talk back at home.

I don't tell on people. It's like I don't give a shit, you know. We know, Dave, just while you're here, we're going to train you and then whatever sticks, we want you to be about your word when you say something and I go, I don't I don't see how this is helping me.

You're severe, co-dependent. You don't know how to show up for yourself. You don't know how to say no. People just take and take. People run over you. We're teaching you how to stand up for yourself. Am I fucking a grown man?

I need to learn how. Yes. Yes. You weren't taught this. You weren't taught this shit. You learn from movies and your dad didn't speak the language perfectly. You don't have any fucking no one taught you these simple things. How to show up for yourself. How to stand up for yourself. I go, oh fuck. And this guy is huge.

He's like a obese guy. And immediately I have to apologize.

Sorry, man, I'm not sorry. That's what I'm here for. But I have to have him like me. So this session the class ends and. Sorry, dude. Sorry, Walter. I'm sorry. Why did you do that, Dave?

I thought we were friends. I'm like, dude, I'm here. I'm trying to get better. And I go, I have these things on my think, oh my legs, it's say no joking. And I go, I got to crack a joke with this guy. I got to fucking like make him like me again. I go, How do you wipe your ass, dude? I'm like, what are you talking about? Because we have a tiny shower and he's he's fucking humongous.

He's like morbidly obese. He's like Dave man. Not like no one ever asked me questions like this. Man, are you my friend? And this guy is this guy in his regular life was like a high power, something like in government.

What.

Yeah. Wait a minute. He's doing meth. He's morbidly obese. Yeah. And he has a high power position in government.

He's let's just say he's a professional like he. And so I never been to a place like this where every person there, no matter what you say, they put you on a lie detector at the end of the week. They go, cool, cool story. And I'm like, wow, they want to hold you accountable.

They really, really want to you've got to be so. So I'm like and then so I've become friends with this guy over the week and I'm like, OK, cool. I hope he still likes me. And he goes, Dave, you're not like anyone else here.

Everyone else here is like some kind of professional, like you got the weird hair.

You dress like a homeless guy, like, are you famous or something? I feel like I seen you somewhere and I'm like, no. And I had just taken a class on how to hold a boundary and stand up for myself. I said, Walter. While we're here together, I'm going to ask you. Just know me as David, your roommate, and if you want to Google me when we leave here and the thing is he everyone has different privileges, one of his is he doesn't have a phone, so he couldn't look me up or whatever.

I'm going to ask you, this is my boundary. Please just know me as your roommate. And if you want to look me up when I leave, you know, it's like, OK, I could do that. I get home that night.

I fucking knew I saw you on TV, man. You're the Facebook guy. You're the fun, you know.

So my normal.

OK, cool, whatever I asked you, you didn't do it, and I go to my room and I'm like, fuck man, that really that really chaps my hide, you know, I'm like, I asked you.

And then now he has all the questions and you and you're rich.

Do you do this? I read this story about you and you have a fucking roommate.

That's part of the thing. I know. And that's what I'm saying for him. Oh yeah. Why don't you fuck roommate man and.

And I sit in my room and I go once again. I got it. I'm here, why don't I just experienced this fully? So I go out in the other room and I go, Hey, Walter. I asked you today not to do that, and I'm I'm like kind of shaking because, like, I don't talk to people this way, I just bury it. I just, like, let things go and I get turned into a passive aggressive person.

So I go tomorrow, a community. I'm going to have to call you.

But please, please don't please don't do that. Come on. And actually, he went to anger first.

He's like his build is like this giant guy and he's hitting the table, his foot. What the fuck, man? I'm one week away. Don't. And I'm like a week away from from getting out.

He was almost done. By the way, what does time feel like to you right now? Like, is it going fast or slow? Its regular must be slow as fuck in there.

Well, the way people are explaining this pandemic where the quarantine I'm like, this is jail time.

Like when people are like waiting for when when am I going to get out and when do you get out, when you're on good behavior in the society, get out when you're on good behavior, when people start little. Yeah. And when you're on bad behavior, stay longer.

Oh, my God. We're going to close the bars down again.

So he he goes he starts getting really physically threatening. And part of what I love about wearing masks now is I don't know what your interaction with your fans in public have been since you become famous is people try to break my hand when they shake my hand.

Do they really they try to break my hand or they they think they're going to have more impact if they talk close to my face.

So they try to cross your fingers. They do this. What's up, man? And then they hold it. And then I, you know, normal. And then they hold onto it and they do a little squeeze at the end. I go with the dick flexing shit was that, you know, weird flex, bro.

And so and then people do the close face talking and I hate so this guy is like, you know, he's using his his girth to just like, intimidate you.

And I'm like and I'm like and this is during Caronna or no, no. This is like years ago.

And I say I say, you know what, I love Walter.

If you told on yourself if I didn't have to, because that's one thing you could do.

Oh. And he gets really angry and then he calms down and he goes, I'm going to do it, Dave. I'm going to do it like, yes, fuck. Yeah, I'm changing as a person.

I'm learning skills. I'm learning tools. We go to community the next morning and I'm waiting. We're going in a circle and I'm like, fuck to do it. I don't want to call you out, bro. And he goes, Yeah, I got something I want to put on the agenda this morning. I got an interaction with one of the other patients here and we worked it out and I'm going to take care of it. And I was like, what the fuck was that?

And I go, hold up, hold up. Hey, Walter, fucking I asked him not to Google me. And the therapists are like, that's a complete violation of the anonymity rights here and there.

And he's like, this is and now all the information, this is your twelfth time fucking violating a patient's. You tried that. He tried to fuck the roommate that was in the room before me. Like, the guy was sad and he was giving him a hug and he tried to finger his butthole when he was giving him a hug. Oh, boy, he doesn't have phone privileges. So he asked another patient, can I use your phone to call my wife?

He calls his wife. And then that's what he says. And then he gives the thing back to the phone, to the other patient. And then ten minutes later, he starts getting dick pics from Pochoda, his Mexican boyfriend, that he only fucks when he's on meth. Right. I'm not gay. Only when I'm on meth. Who? And so they're like and so I'm like, fuck, this guy hates me.

But I'm like, no, he's out. He's Breaking Bad, he's out of control. And I go, oh, fuck.

And he's not on meth while he's in that house. No, no. Well, I don't know. He might have been. And because he's he's acting like meth up. So they're like, that was your last strike.

You're out of here and pack your bags and, you know, your wife's going to pick you up tomorrow morning.

And I'm like, so I go, I this is me. I'm like, I did the right thing. And I go immediately to shame and guilt. I'm like, fuck he I take the I become it's my fault he's getting kicked out because of me like oh fuck.

And and I raise my hand again. I go, I don't feel safe sleeping in that room tonight. Can I know some other guys like you could crush on our couch like OK, so I'm like, wow, this is crazy.

Like I'm standing up for myself. I haven't ever done this. I've never spoken this way. And I guess I kind of get what's happening. If I could learn how to speak like this to strangers, maybe I can come home and finally talk to my mom and and and have a boundary with my parents, with Asian parents or fucking boundaryless, you know.

So that night I'm I, I'm like, fuck, I could get my toothbrush.

I get some stuff in the room and my friends like to just we'll go get it somewhere else you don't like. Why are you playing with fire again. I'm like because I like it when it hurts and like dude the guy is totally made up in his mind. He's getting kicked out because of you. I just got to go to my room and I just got to get my toothbrush in a workbook and something and they're like, don't do it, don't do it.

I'm like, I have to. And it's like, do you. Do you have to? OK, maybe I don't have to. So I go up, he's like, I'll just wait here in case something goes bad because that guy can get violent. And I go in the room and he's sitting there and he's like stewing. He's like stewing. And he's like watching, like the final episode of Breaking Bad. And I'm like, hey, what's up, man?

And I'm just like, sort of go to my room, get my shit. And then I had to do it like I'm almost out the door. And he's like, I was trying to guilt me, I was almost out of here, Dave, you had to do it, huh? And I was like, Look, man, I don't know you. We've known each other for like a week. Like, I don't have anything against you.

I'm just trying to get better. I'm fucking I'm a sick person. I can say that I had a hard time saying that I had no voice. I'm a sick person and I'm willing. I'm fucking helpless right now. I'm desperate. I'm going to do anything right now to fucking get better. So if it means I got to tell on you for Googling me, if I got to tell on you for watching Breaking Bad because you like to do meth and suck Mexican guys dicks and vice versa.

And so I get a little cocky. I get a little and I go. Same thing. Like the hitchhiking. Like I know I'm never going to see this guy again.

I go, Hey, Walter, you've told me the whole time we were here you always got to end shit with I'm not gay, but I'm not gay.

Did you ever think that maybe instead of, like, hiding who you are, finally divorcing your wife and like, you can go to like the gay parade and where crazy shit and just be out?

You don't have to because this whole thing is I only do it when I'm on meth. You don't have to hide behind meth anymore. And he chuckled a little bit. And like in my head, I'm like, oh, cool. I'm like maybe making maybe some of these words are getting in and he's like. All right, and so I felt good, like it felt like so I leave and then I stayed at this place for six more months and during this time.

I got to, like, learn and become like a better version of myself and learn new tools and like even these people forgot how to have fun.

They're like lawyers and doctors and it's like entitlement out the roof. They're all the super best at their job, the best lawyer, the best doctor, the best. So they're used to like playing God and saving people's lives and people just catering to them. So they have they're all Breaking Bad. They're all Walter White. So they just and we're here as adults being trained.

And I'm like, I'm going to teach these fuckers how to have fun.

So I'm like making little scavenger hunt for them and they, like, love me. They're like, Dave is the best. He's teaching me how to be a kid again. I'm doing scavenger hunts all across Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. I'm teaching people how to make sculptures out of aluminum foil left over from lunch. And people groan, people are crying.

They're like, Dave, I haven't had this much fun since I was like my dad beat me into being the best that ed it. And so I leave this place and I'm like. I feel good and I get home and I get a text from a number I don't know. This is like seven, six, seven months later and it's a picture of me sleeping in that apartment. The guy fucking took pictures of me while sleeping. Fucking crazy. It is crazy.

That's the messed up dude took pictures of you while you were sleeping.

Yeah, and I remember thinking that night after hearing the story of, like, how he I was like, maybe I should lock my door and I never should have. I should have. But Dave, that's a crazy story and I wish I could hear more. But it's four thirty. Is it really. It's four thirty. This is a four hour podcast, right. Ridiculous.

Can I please please, um, invite you to my next show when isn't it. So thank you. By the way, my last show was two years ago. It was the Cho show and reposted posted the billboard that I put up and painting for me is I won't say it's boring, but I just know how to paint now in the same way, like, you know, how to do what you're good at.

So. I'm going to create a Joe Joe Joe Rogan experience for you. Oh, Jesus. Can we just not. I really do. I got to go. It's four thirty. It's super late. OK, can I can I just throw out the hottest thing again?

The just. OK, so if anyone's interested in sponsoring a kid or learning more about this culture, please go to Hodzic had a dog and if you're in L.A. and you want your show.

Oh, so, yes, I could talk forever, I have a TV show that I just sold that I don't know the name of and I don't know when it's going to be out.

But just look, we'll check back in with you later on. All right. That's it. Thanks, David. Ladies and gentlemen, you. Goodbye. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. And thank you to our sponsors. Thank you to Bamby. Go to Bamby Dotcom Rogan right now to schedule your free H.R. audit. That's Bamby dotcom slash Rogen spelled b m b e dot com slash Rogen. We are also brought to you by groove rings. I love these fucking things.

I wear one every day. They're better than any other silicone ring I've ever used and they have a ninety four year no B.S. warranty. How about that. Break it, tear it.

Your dog eats it or you lose it. It's covered. Get yours. Atragon loves groove dotcom and use the code Rogan to check out to get fifteen percent off. So that's Rogan Love's Groove Dotcom and use the code Rogen for fifteen percent off And we're also brought to you by Squarespace the place where Joe Rogan Dotcom was created and is run. Duncan Trussell Dotcom. That's a Squarespace site. Doug Stanhope Dotcom. You can do it. Anyone can make a beautiful professional website with Squarespace and they'll let you try it for free.

Go to Squarespace dot com slash Joe for a free trial. Then when you are ready to launch, use the offer Cojo to save ten percent off your first purchase of a website or domain from the deepest company that you're ever going to build a fucking website with. Squarespace dot com slash Joe free trial offer Cojo save ten percent off your first purchase of some awesome shit. That's it. My friends, much love to you all. Thank you for tuning in by.