Show full transcript 0:32 And the thing that everybody a lot of times thinks that they have these budgets 0:36 And if you don't spend all the money, then you don't get the money next year 0:39 So you got to tear up the fucking road if you take a bazooka out. I know the I mean the spooky thing 0:45 I see about I guess for money and this is just 0:49 How how Matt meets up to today? Yes, 30 years. This is 30 years later. That's a thing that's sort of 0:57 interesting but also depressing it is depressing you would have thought we 1:01 would have figured it all out by now yeah yeah especially with the use of the 1:05 internet so much more information that was available than when you made that 1:08 film right now the world's a totally different place and yet it resonates 1:12 perfectly yeah well thank you yeah that's one of my favorites too that's 1:17 kind of dark comedy yeah I mean it was a dark comedy like but and there's 1:22 parts completely caricaturist unsympathetic characters like the guys in the golf course 1:28 where the guy dies because he freaks out his heart and you go, I guess you're going 1:32 to die. 1:33 No, I remember getting a studio calling me down, I took it to Warner Bros. down in 1:40 the office. 1:41 Might get to come down. 1:42 I came down in the office and I was introduced to Mr. Ho, who was chairman of the Korean 1:48 Grocers Association. 1:50 And they said, we have a real beef here, you got a scene here where you're knocking up a 1:56 Korean grocery store, an attitude, and all that, and I said, well, look, I didn't write 2:01 the script, but you got to understand there must have been something in it that hit people 2:07 and triggered it because that was a scene. 2:09 And so he listened to me, bless him, and I was back in New York about three weeks 2:13 later in my local Korean grocery store, and they were wearing smile buttons. 2:18 And I thought, okay, there you go, made a dent. 2:24 Well, it almost became like a symbol of don't fuck with me. 2:29 I'm ready to crack, which I think a lot of people resonate with. 2:35 I even had a guy come on the podcast, dressed as you, and falling down once, brought the 2:40 suitcase and everything. 2:41 Ooh, that was a little... 2:44 He did it. 2:44 He helped me frisk him down before he got close. 2:46 Gavin McGinnis, he did it for fun. 2:47 Yeah, but it was fun. It was hilarious, but you you've been in a ton of insane movies 2:54 What is it like to write a memoir? 2:56 That's got to be a weird feeling to like relive your life and try to be as honest as you can and put it all down 3:04 Yeah, no, I resisted it for a long long time 3:10 and 3:12 And then 3:13 And it was sort of after I had cancer about 16 years ago, stage 4, you know, wasn't good. 3:21 I lost a couple of friends at the same cancer. 3:24 I did Larry Hagman, I remember from Dallas at the show, and Nick Ashford, and Ashford 3:30 Simpson, you know, I wasn't sure. 3:35 And I talked about it and it was a stage where nobody, my friends, they kind of abandoned 3:42 me. 3:42 know a lot of friends and I realized we can't see people don't quite know what 3:47 to say in a stage four they don't know if they're coming to say goodbye or this or 3:51 that. So they just avoided you? They kind of yeah they check him in the 3:55 yeah kind of just yeah it was quite a quiet while we're going through the 3:58 chemo and the radiation happens to a lot of people but they just don't 4:01 quite know where it's all going. So this one guy though Shane Salerno 4:08 who I worked with on it, who was a screenwriter and he'd done an adaption of a script for 4:14 me a long time ago and I didn't, I hardly remember him, and he started sending me these 4:21 notes, sort of like a coach, you know, just these little notes, you kick it out, you 4:25 can do it, you can do it, and I just remember being really touched by it and then afterwards 4:31 he got into more of a, being a literary agent and he kept asking me about, you 4:38 book and all of that, and I was busy, but then after the cancer things kind of 4:45 slowed down, and kind of my order of my order of priorities changed a lot. And so 4:55 then I started thinking about it, and I I read a book when I was beginning as a 5:03 producer called Memo. 5:06 And it was written by David O. Selznick. 5:09 The producer had gone with the wind and all of that. 5:12 And it was a book that told you what a producer does. 5:15 And it was basically all of the notes that David O. Selznick 5:20 wrote about his pictures, whether it was costumes or 5:23 props or this or that, all the things that he sort of 5:26 covered. 5:27 So I said, you know, maybe I'll do like a handbook. 5:31 I'll take the 12 of my movies and I'll tell the stories from the very beginning, the creations 5:37 and the process we went through and, you know, thinking about it. 5:42 And also I had my dad, Kirk, you know, he'd wrote nine books already, including a good 5:51 biography, The Ragman's Son, and I was also thinking, well, you know, we're kind 5:58 of a unique situation here between my father and I and can't say this about too many, two 6:04 generations. 6:05 We got 80 years in the business, 120, 130 movies between us. 6:12 So there was a legacy, you know, thought going on. 6:16 But as I got into it, I said, I guess I got to talk about the personal stuff too, 6:23 you know and you just got to talk about your life and you know and the issues 6:29 the parts of it the good and the bad and yeah enjoy your lives it's kind of 6:36 scary you know I started doing it and then saying do I really want to share 6:42 all the shit with everybody you know I'm kind of but I figured you know why 6:48 not, pass it on to my generation and the next. And so it kind of is a combination of my personal 6:57 life and people who are interested in a lot of different movies about how they happened or how 7:04 the whole development went. And holy shit, then all of a sudden people liked it. And pictures, 7:12 The book's a big hit, you know, and it's like, wow. 7:16 I think part of it also is when you're starting 7:18 with that handbook idea of just doing it about movies, 7:22 then the producer and the career ambition gets into, 7:26 no, you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, man. 7:29 I mean, you know, it still sells. 7:32 You know, you still gotta bring that all up. 7:34 Well, it's also real. 7:36 I mean, that was your life. 7:38 You were burdened with youth, good looks, and fame. 7:42 a gift and a burden at the same time and the son of a great man so there's a 7:48 lot of lot of pressure on you just because of that yeah kids are kids can 7:55 be nasty I mean when they know something about your family when they know who 8:00 your mother is who your father is they can make certain assumptions and so the 8:05 nepo baby assumption right yeah which by the way since we'll touch about tell 8:11 Tell me I'm crazy, but isn't just about every single business involving Nepo babies, doesn't 8:16 every mother and father try to get their son or daughter? 8:20 Sure. 8:21 Well, certainly like restaurants, that's super common. 8:24 One of my favorite restaurants is this place, Gaitanos in Las Vegas. 8:28 The sun runs it, and the dad started it. 8:31 Or cleaning businesses or groceries or anything. 8:34 Yeah, family businesses. 8:35 It's a normal thing. 8:36 I don't know why they picked on celebrity. 8:39 because it's so difficult to acquire it's such a rare thing that most people are 8:45 not going to get it and if you get that rare thing just because you're the son 8:49 of a great man people get upset at you right because it's supposed to be this 8:52 insane struggle through poverty and strife to get to that point where finally 8:58 you made it this episode is presented by paramount plus on October 16th the 9:03 King returns. 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The Visible plan 11:26 starts at just $25 a month, or get the premium, visible plus pro plan and save $10 on your 11:34 first month with promo code Rogan. 11:36 Terms apply, see visible.com for plan features and network management details. 11:41 Well, my father did that part. 11:43 Yeah. 11:43 I don't think there's anything wrong with it. 11:45 I think people are just jealous and upset. 11:48 That's what I think, because the history of second generations is not great in our 11:53 business. 11:55 Right. 11:56 They would have all these critiques. It's understandable that they would feel bad about it 11:59 It's understandable that they would feel that it's not fair. Yeah, but they can't say you weren't great. Yeah, that's the thing 12:05 I mean 12:07 Gordon Gekko how many fucking assholes did cocaine and and were like terrible stockbrokers because of that movie? 12:14 Yeah, it was my fault 12:16 Gekko was a hero. It was so weird 12:20 Afterwards that picture came out and every time in New York 12:24 I'd be around these half-drunk Wall Street guys you're the man you're the man I said what are you talking about I'm the villain 12:30 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, and it was like hold it. I really was an eye opener for me. Oh my god. They 12:36 They love the pizzazz. Yes clothes and nothing nothing has any moralities whatsoever. It didn't matter 12:45 They wanted that character. They were like Tony Soprano for Italian guys. Yeah, like let's go 12:50 Go get it. Take it down. Do the coke. Steal the money. They wanted you to wear the most 12:57 expensive suits possible. That's what they wanted. They rooted for a bad guy. It was 13:01 very interesting. What year was that? What year was Wall Street? 13:05 85. 13:06 85. Wow. So I didn't realize that stockbrokers were crazy until about 88. There was a guy 13:16 that I used to do martial arts with he was a really really crazy guy and then I ran into him at a bar and 13:22 He was telling me this probably yeah probably 88. I was probably 21. He was telling me how he was a 13:29 Stockbroker now and he just does a bunch of coke and he's making all this money 13:33 He was a he was a psychopath like I had known him as a fighter 13:36 And he was an animal and also this guy is just telling me this is what I'm doing now 13:40 I'm selling stocks and he had a nice suit on it was like it's crazy 13:44 Like looking at this person that I always knew is like a psychopath like a scary got its bar with and here 13:49 He is like wearing like coughs and shit. He had cuff links. I was like, this is hilarious 13:53 You're doing this. No made the loudest. They all got it in covers. They were following the markets in Asia 14:00 You know at four o'clock in the morning, right? 14:03 But they were and it's they all got just wired. Well, they had to stay up, right? 14:07 Yeah, and now it's done even crazier where they're like they're moving the servers as close possible as possible 14:13 to the actual stock market so they can get trades in 14:16 like a millisecond quicker, like, oh! 14:19 And all of those people, Gordon Gekker's the hero. 14:23 No, it was, it was, it was something. 14:27 Greed is good. 14:28 How many guys got that tattooed on them? 14:30 I know. 14:31 How many guys have that like framed up on their wall? 14:33 A guarantee, quite a few. 14:35 And again, you know, all has happened in the 40 years 14:41 within that movie is the money, the money the size, the scope that I was dealing with 14:47 it seemed so enormous at that time is pittance compared to what's going on right now. 14:54 And now there's other crazy stuff like that, like crypto coins. 15:00 What are you doing? 15:01 What are you doing? 15:02 You got fake money? 15:03 You got fake money? 15:03 That's worth real money? 15:04 Have you figured it out, I've listened to like three lectures trying to understand it 15:10 and I still can't. 15:12 My buddy Kurt Metzger told me that he thinks it's just people that are gambling addicts. 15:16 It's a new thing to gamble on and it's also a new thing to rig. 15:19 So one of the things they can do is like say if we develop a Michael Douglas crypto 15:25 coin you could do that. 15:26 And someone would put a bunch of money into that like say a million dollars or five 15:33 $5 million into this crypto coin like this is that we're gonna invest in this crypto coin and then 15:37 everybody else as your fans buys in and 15:41 Hoping they're gonna get out before it crashes because everybody kind of knows it's gonna crash 15:44 And they pull out the money that was supposed to be for the coin 15:49 immediately and they get it to you 15:53 Sounds like a Ponzi scheme sounds like a Ponzi scheme 15:55 Yeah, so you get all this money invested in it you figure out a way through like off-shore 16:01 corporations or whatever little tricky filters you have to do to suck all that 16:05 money out and it's just a way to bribe people. What a world! What a world! It's the 16:13 Wild West and with that kind of stuff it's the Wild West so to me it's like 16:18 the stock market on steroids it's like some new wacky kind of stock market 16:22 where you're just you're making money you're making your own money how 16:26 many fake monies are there or crypto monies are there was fucking thousands 16:30 Yeah. 16:33 And it seems the accessibility and the ability to do it just keeps getting larger. 16:40 And the disparity, which I think is really the base of issues going on, the disparity 16:46 of wealth is very, very depressing, very frustrating. 16:52 Well, it's certainly frustrating that more people don't have an opportunity to do better 16:56 in this life and that no one's paying attention to that. 16:59 That's what I've always said to, like, if you look at the country as a community, you 17:03 would say, okay, if this is all our friends, this is all people we care about, why are 17:07 so many of them living in abject poverty for decade upon decade, why is there crime-ridden 17:13 neighborhoods that never get better, why is there gang-ridden neighborhoods that 17:16 never get better? 17:17 But they've been ignored. 17:20 We could throw resources at that, the same way we threw resources at rebuilding Iraq. 17:25 You know what I mean? 17:26 Absolutely. 17:26 We could throw resources at fixing these spots and wait out. 17:31 And that's why people get really mad, and that's why people get almost cheer on when 17:37 Luigi shoots that United Healthcare guy. 17:39 Yeah. 17:39 Because people are like, yeah, fuck you. 17:40 It's falling down all over again. 17:42 All over again. 17:42 Yeah, same kind of thing. 17:44 It comes down to, I mean, like 50% of Americans own stocks, and 50% do not. 17:52 And if you look at stocks, the way the market has gone, however it's controlled or whatever 17:57 happens progressively, it's compounding versus the 50% of people who don't have stocks living 18:05 on a paycheck, which is getting smaller and smaller with inflation. 18:10 Yeah. 18:11 So it's a goofy time. 18:13 And then on top of that, they're talking about AI taking away everybody's jobs. 18:16 and there doesn't seem to be any real clear path to mitigating the massive 18:21 effect that that's going to have on the economy and all these people that are 18:24 going to be unemployed. Right, right. It's a weird thing we're in the middle of 18:28 right now. Well I had a guy and it became a lecture to me when I was in 18:35 college, a guy named Buckminster Fuller and he was the guy responsible for the 18:41 and all of that. But the other thing he did is he had a book called Spaceship Earth. And 18:48 to me, at a young age at the time, he really made it clear how tiny this little planet is. 18:58 And all of our Hubble telescopes were looking out further and further. And I'm sure there's 19:03 got to be something else out there in the universe, and maybe we will. But right now, 19:09 you know, this is it. This is it. This is it. And it's beginning to kind of crumble worldwide, 19:18 you know, with the climate and all of this. And so I find it hard to understand after two 19:26 major world wars and having this period of relative peace, that things are beginning 19:34 and it really cracked again. And how individual countries, and we talk about, you know, the 19:41 U.S. being the most powerful, but we all got to just kind of work together. We got to this, 19:47 there should be no more, there's no reason for any more wars. You know, there's more 19:52 conflict going on than ever, ever before. Who's the cause of it? Some people say social 20:00 media is designed to create conflict or create enemies but it just can't be we've 20:08 got to get over this and and just all begin to try to work together and that's 20:13 why I support a couple of organizations that I know are not most popular right 20:19 now but are greatly conceived in the United Nations as one of them but 20:25 think it was designed after World War II to have a place for us to get together. 20:31 I know the U.S. gets pissed off sometimes when votes don't go their way, you know, 20:36 though financially support it. It has issues. But we have to work on the whole, 20:43 you know, world understanding what's happening. I get nervous when I see, you 20:49 know, must look in for all these guys looking for planets to move to, 20:54 like they already know something I don't know you know like it's already passed 20:57 yeah we got to get out of here it's it's a concern today is brought to you by 21:02 the number one brand for better sex blue chew blue chew gold is a four-in-one 21:08 powerhouse that gets your brain and your body on the same page for sex two 21:13 ingredients get the blood flow pumping and two ingredients prime your brain 21:17 for arousal no overthinking just peak performance in as little as 15 21:21 minutes. Look at the stats. Gold is three times stronger, five times faster, and eight 21:26 times longer lasting than old school methods. Bluetooth Gold is the real deal right now 21:32 by two months of Bluetooth Gold and get the third free with my code Rogan. You'll also 21:37 receive free overnight shipping. That's promo code Rogan. Head over to Bluetooth.com 21:42 for details and important safety information. Check it out. This ad and the products 21:47 be an advertise or intended for a United States audience? 21:51 Well, it is a concern. 21:53 I think they're looking to other planets, first of all, 21:56 because it's very difficult to do, 21:58 and people always want to be the first to do something, 22:01 to colonize a planet, but also because we all feel 22:04 like at any moment now this could all go sideways, 22:06 and that there could be a nuclear conflict in the war, 22:10 and it could ignite, and it could be terrifying. 22:14 And the thing is, much like we were talking about 22:17 falling down. If you watch that film and you see the issues he was dealing with then, it's 22:21 the same issues we're dealing with today. It's the same thing with war. It always seems 22:26 to go into this pattern and it's always the same thing. It's always leaders and people 22:31 who control those leaders who want access to resources and control resources and we 22:36 let those people dictate what happens in the world because it's a very small amount 22:39 of people affecting a very large amount of people. And the only hope is that we 22:44 All together figure that out because I don't think people were even completely aware of that in this country until probably like the 22:52 60s in the 70s people started thinking that the government does not have our best interest in mind and 22:57 Especially during Vietnam. This is a fucking crazy war that makes no sense 23:01 And even today no one thinks it was a good idea to go in there 23:04 How many people died and I think more people are aware of that 23:08 It's it's the whole thing is more transparent now than it's ever been before which I think is a good sign 23:14 I wish we learned quicker, but we don't we learn slowly, but I think we're learning 23:20 Well, I hope so. I mean this I look back at my my father's career in 23:25 post-World War two 23:28 Where characters were the good guys the bad guys? 23:32 White hats or black hats villains and everything 23:36 And then I grew up and then the Vietnam War and all that so I've always been fascinated in this gray area 23:43 So it's hard sometimes to know the morality choice or what's right or wrong. 23:49 This is what's frustrated. 23:50 But you brought up a point show which I'd like to raise and maybe get your advice, 23:54 because one of my earliest pictures that I did was the China Syndrome. 24:02 The China Syndrome was about a nuclear meltdown in a power plant. 24:08 And we were under a lot of critical claim, 24:13 me being myself, Jane Fonda, 24:14 who was also a producing partner at that time, 24:18 about how our credibility and how irresponsible it was. 24:23 And GE was pushing us about nuclear power and all of that. 24:29 And the movie came out and was a successful film, 24:33 did very well, but still criticized. 24:35 and then 12 days after the movie came out, 24:40 Three Mile Island happened in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 24:46 And I had like an epiphany, I'm not a religious guy, 24:49 but I felt like somebody was telling me something. 24:54 And so I became involved in understanding more 24:58 about nuclear weapons and plutonium 25:02 and the half-life and all of this. 25:04 And I followed through our nuclear conflicts with Russia. 25:12 And I want to make a suggestion to you, because you maybe have some connections to the president. 25:20 This war, this Ukraine-Russian war, and the effort to find an answer to it, and an effort 25:28 for the president to win the Nobel Peace Prize. 25:32 And my idea is, I don't know what Putin has on Trump or what this connection is or why 25:42 Trump always feels like he's got to reach out to help Putin and this 93% of our country, 25:50 Republicans and Democrats, don't like Putin. 25:54 It's one of the few things that really aligns us together. 25:58 So, why don't we try in making peace in Ukraine, which gave up nuclear weapons? 26:05 They gave up the nuclear weapon. 26:07 Why doesn't Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin dramatically reduce, if not give up, our nuclear 26:15 stockpiles? 26:17 Obviously, the other six or seven countries that have a very minimal amount of nuclear 26:22 weapons would have to be. 26:23 This could be the greatest thing that would happen in our generation. 26:28 And in terms of settling this peace, making peace in Ukraine, and where Ukraine may have 26:35 to give up some territory, I am hoping that President Trump could make a deal with Putin, 26:41 say, you know what, U.S., Russia, let's give up our weapons. 26:46 Because it's totally obsolete, there's no need, there's no question about it. 26:52 because these weapons would just destroy the world. 26:55 Mutual assured destruction. 26:57 If he can do that, he could. 26:59 If he spent the next three years of his presidency 27:03 negotiating with Putin, we could get rid of nuclear weapons 27:07 and I guarantee I would commit my life 27:11 for him getting that Nobel Peace Prize 27:14 because he would deserve it. 27:17 It's a great utopian idea. 27:19 I agree with you. 27:20 It would be awesome if there was no nuclear weapons. 27:23 If we all agreed as a species, as the human civilization, that there's no need to have 27:29 something that can kill every man, woman, child, every animal and plant on Earth many 27:34 times over, when the amount of weapons that we have today are absurd. 27:38 If we all together, the whole world, China, Russia, United States, all the other countries 27:43 just launched all their bombs at once, just imagine what the world would look like 27:47 when it's over. 27:48 It would be okay with me. 27:49 There would be no world. 27:50 It would be on fire. 27:51 It would be a glowing orb. 27:53 We're crazy that we even have that kind of stuff. 27:56 However, I don't ever think that any country that has a military is going to give up all 28:01 their nuclear weapons. 28:02 If there are nuclear weapons out there in the world, then how would you be able to 28:05 assure? 28:06 One of the things that they're always terrified about is, I mean, this was one of the big 28:10 conspiracy theories when ... Do you remember that New Jersey drone thing that was going 28:13 on? 28:13 Yeah. 28:14 Yeah. 28:14 One of the crazy conspiracies was that they were using these drones to search for a missing 28:21 bomb and that there was a bomb or some nuclear device that was unaccounted for. 28:27 And they believed it. 28:28 And so those were United States military drones that are very sophisticated, top-secret 28:33 stuff. 28:34 I don't know what's true or not, but I do know that they don't exactly know where 28:37 all the bombs are all over the world. 28:39 And the idea that you would give up your nuclear weapons while weapons still exist is highly unlikely. 28:45 Well, but this is what AI is supposed to be doing? 28:48 That's what I was going to get to. 28:51 I think the only way we're really going to get out of this, this is terrifying for biological human beings, 28:56 is to let AI control government and resources. 29:00 And it would have to have already become sentient. 29:03 It would have to already exhibit superintelligence, reason and logic. 29:07 and it would just evenly distribute resources 29:10 amongst all the people. 29:12 Because when you look at the budgets alone, 29:15 just for our nuclear programs, 29:17 we can solve the defense budgets in this day and age 29:22 versus our budget for humanitarian purposes is absurd. 29:28 I mean, it comes down to all people want really, 29:31 you know, is that roof over their head, 29:34 housing and food, and so all this money could be shifted over into other programs that would 29:43 stop the need for Africans to have to immigrate. 29:48 We can restore areas of the world that are much more impoverished than us, because this 29:54 disparity of have and have nots is going to create another world war. 30:00 Sure. 30:01 They would never do this. 30:02 But here's a way that you could make sure that something like this never happened. 30:11 When you have re... 30:12 Like think about all the money that comes from resources, like earth resources, whether 30:16 it's oil, minerals, all these different things. 30:19 That is a part of the earth and it's earths. 30:23 So if you made a law where all natural resources drawn from the earth, like oil, will be 30:29 evenly distributed amongst the population of that city. 30:33 You know, minus operating costs, 30:38 everything else gets evenly distributed amongst people 30:41 because it is the human races. 30:44 If we are all citizens of this earth, 30:46 then the earth resources should be shared by all of us. 30:49 Like there's people that want to charge you for air. 30:53 They think it's a good idea to charge you for clean air. 30:55 There's people charge you for water. 30:57 You have a water bill. 30:58 Like, someone owns the water, they charge you for the water. 31:02 Like all that stuff should be the property of the human beings that live in that place. 31:08 Imagine how much that would transform the places that have diamond mines. 31:11 Imagine how much that would transform the places that are rich in oil money. 31:15 We have these monarchies that are controlling vast populations. 31:19 Because they were the first persons or their ancestors were the first persons to dig 31:24 into the ground and pull up the oil. 31:25 It's kind of crazy. 31:26 Yeah, you you are insanely wealthy because you're sucking the lifeblood out of the earth 31:33 Right, which really should kind of be everyone's especially when they do shit like they go offshore and 31:39 They they're drilling offshore. Where the fuck are you even you're not even in America anymore like what is this? 31:46 Amen 31:49 From the earth and then and it lets you buy weapons and lets you 31:54 You know a lot of these people that are involved in these immense corporations are involved in many immense corporations 32:00 And the amount of money that they're making is kind of fucking kooky and when they have 32:05 Massive influence on politicians and when politicians are allowed to like trade stocks 32:10 Well, they have insider information and they're making fucking hundreds of millions of dollars on a hundred and seventy thousand dollar a year salary 32:17 So all these things come bomb they compound and you get to the point where you're like 32:21 I don't know if this could be fixed. Yeah, and that's what they like 32:24 They like us in a state of I don't know if this can be fixed because that way you're like, oh 32:29 What are you gonna do hands up? So like you have like your LA mayor race you get a vote for communism or communism good luck 32:38 You got fucked and you're gonna have to and everybody's like wow 32:41 What are you gonna do and people don't know what to do and then more taxes are gonna come like I don't want to pay 32:46 But I don't want to move and they'll just keep getting fucked. Yeah, and this is unfortunately 32:51 where they like us to be. 32:53 I think it's one of the things about people 32:55 that are in control and people that are, 32:59 the wealthiest amongst us that are operating 33:01 in this very nefarious way, 33:03 they do like it when we're mad at each other. 33:05 They do like it when we're divided, 33:07 whether over the dumbest shit, 33:09 over gender pronouns or fucking whatever it is, 33:13 what nationality you are, what your religion is, 33:16 whatever it is, they love it 33:17 when we're at each other's throats. 33:19 When most of the things that everybody wants we all agree on and 33:25 We all agree that the system that's in place right now is really not looking out for everybody 33:30 Not at all. It's just not no 33:33 No, no, it's not 33:35 There was there'd be people campaigning about fixing inner cities like a presidential camp like with a with a plan 33:42 Like we have these areas that have traditionally been impoverished and gang-ridden and crime-ridden 33:47 And we can allocate resources. 33:50 This is the multi-step program over the next five years that we're going to do to radically 33:54 increase the amount of opportunities these young people have, increase their access 33:58 to education, increase their access to community centers and places that will give them purpose 34:01 and meaning. 34:03 Like that, you could change millions of lives in this country. 34:07 You can. 34:08 It means changing your budgetary promise of what's important, and that's the part 34:14 that's been difficult. 34:15 That's where Dr. AI is going to come in. 34:18 AI is going to be like, Dr. Manhattan. 34:20 With the rails, with the rails, we can't do like this last goal around with the social 34:29 network stuff, which is out of control before anybody had a chance to do it. 34:34 And it's interesting, I'm understanding how the triggers work. 34:37 Most of the stuff is based on finding conflict. 34:41 So, you look at all this stuff and it makes you have more enemies or it makes you get divisive 34:47 rather than coming together. 34:49 Something happened, Joe, I don't know, maybe just my imagination, but even going back to 34:54 Reagan, Reagan Republicans and a different time, just for politicians. 35:02 Politicians were like public servants. 35:05 It was a commitment you made to the country, you know, to yourself. 35:11 And now it's just sort of a profit center. 35:15 The amount of money involved in politics and then these guys turning around and becoming 35:20 lobbyists and all the insider kind of trading going on, the corruption of this brilliant 35:27 system. 35:28 You know, the last thing I really did, I played Ben Franklin in a show when he was 35:34 in France, and I got into looking back at the Constitution and everything. What a brilliant 35:40 piece of legislation this thing was. It was incredible. It was so idealistic. And now 35:47 to watch it just over, you know, not just this administration, it's been going on for 35:51 a while. It just gets so corrupted. I used to think of, you know, politicians almost 35:59 like the clergy. You know, they were people to look up to. And now I don't want to get 36:06 into local politics here in Texas right now. There's a couple of people running for office 36:12 that are just like, come on man, we can do better than that. 36:16 I agree with you. And what's supposed to happen in those situations is the person 36:22 who should have been a better candidate is supposed to lose because he should have 36:25 a better candidate to run against this other guy and that should rally people to do better. 36:31 That's supposedly what the system is based on. It's not supposed to be based on your side winning 36:35 every time. It's supposed to be based on some sort of an understanding that people have opinions 36:39 and if their expectations aren't met there's consequences and people don't like corruption 36:44 and they don't like bullshit and they don't like people fucking with their lives and sometimes 36:48 you vote one way and you think well this is going to be better this way and it turns out 36:52 Nope. Same shit. Okay. Well, someone's got to do better. Fuck that guy 36:56 And you hope eventually a hero will rise but you're so much I think I I don't know the exact statistics 37:03 But I think 37:04 Generatially, I'm a Democrat because my mother and father were Democrats 37:10 Before it takes it takes an effort to maybe change parties and the Republicans Republicans people up because their mothers or fathers 37:18 One of the questions I want to ask you is, you supported Bernie Sanders one time in your 37:24 life and we're able to, you seem to have a much more open mind and ability to change 37:31 and alter. 37:33 I think a lot of people just sort of follow that political party generationally because 37:38 their families did. 37:40 Yeah. 37:41 I think... 37:44 This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. 37:46 If you're thinking about building a website, you should try Squarespace. 37:50 I know because I use it. 37:53 That's right, JoeRogan.com is powered by Squarespace. 37:57 It has all the features that you need to create a standout website, 38:00 like an AI enhanced website builder, SEO optimization tools, 38:06 and seamless checkouts with mobile paylinks. 38:09 Head to Squarespace.com slash Rogan for a free trial. 38:13 And when you are ready to launch use the offer code Rogan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain 38:21 This episode is brought to you by zip recruiter. 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Oh, and if you forget where to go, 39:24 don't worry, you'll hear another zip recruiter ad soon enough. 39:29 We have a real problem with having two distinct different parties only. I don't think that's 39:36 healthy for us. I think it enhances this tendency that we have to be very tribal and to have 39:44 this us versus them thing and to ignore all the craziness that our side is doing because 39:51 it's our side. And for me, it was, first of all, the open border was insane. It was 39:58 insane to just not only leave the border open but give people instructions on how 40:04 to get in and also transport them to cities and then put them up in hotels, it was really 40:10 clear that a game was being played. 40:12 You could speculate all you want as to what that game was. 40:15 Was it for cheap labor? 40:17 Was it to turn these people into citizens and have them permanently voting your side 40:20 because you helped them and let them in? 40:22 I don't know what it is, but it was something. 40:24 Was it to beef up the census by having all these people move into areas that were 40:28 swing states and then you would have many more people and then these more people 40:33 would count for more congressional seats, that could be it, too. 40:36 I don't know what it is, but it's fucking insane. 40:39 And if you want me to be a Democrat while you're just letting people fly in from the 40:43 open board, I'm going, hey, fix that, it seems crazy to have 10 million people of 40:48 unknown origin enter into your country over a period of four million years, or excuse 40:53 me, four years. 40:55 But then you've also got the fact that they hadn't had a primary since 2012. 41:00 Like, how are you just slipping? 41:02 This the whole thing is supposed to work a very specific way and if it's like we have to win 41:06 So we're just gonna push that aside and you're gonna here's your candidate, right? 41:11 What the fuck are you doing? That's not how it's supposed to be done, right? 41:16 And if you want me to vote for that, I'm not gonna vote for that right that seems crazy 41:19 It seems dangerous. You know that Biden wasn't the fucking president for four years. It's really clear that he was his mental 41:28 Ability was severely declined 41:31 He was compromised. 41:32 There was clearly, you'd hear him talk. 41:34 There's something wrong. 41:36 And then they gaslit us for four fucking years 41:39 while whoever is behind the scenes, 41:42 unelected, is actually running the country. 41:44 Right. 41:45 And I didn't want to keep that going. 41:47 I thought that's dangerous. 41:48 I didn't like the whole COVID vaccine 41:52 mandatory thing that they were pushing 41:53 for those four years. 41:54 I didn't like the coercion. 41:57 I didn't like keeping people from flying. 41:59 That ain't like any of that stuff. It was all crazy and to me that's what that group stood for right what Trump stood for 42:07 Some of it turned out to not be real like one of them was the no wars. Well look we're at a war with Iran 42:12 So that wasn't real 42:14 The other thing was closing the border that is real 42:17 But then with that then you have the you know Tim Dillon had a great description of ice 42:22 He said former backyard Carnival wrestlers who took like a seven week course 42:29 It's not to just get someone a $50,000 signing bonus 42:33 Yeah, you train them for seven weeks and then give them guns and you have a 42:37 Militarized force running through the fucking city street a mask on your face and put a mask on your face 42:42 Look, I can understand why they have to put a mask on their face because they get targeted 42:45 But it's also it's like we're setting a weird precedent if you allow a militarized force to just go through the cities with no 42:53 Identification they don't have to have identification 42:56 So I understand that you're trying to get out violent criminals and I support that I get that 43:01 But when you have a you're setting a precedent if you allow a militarized police force with no identification with masks on 43:08 To enter into cities of course people are gonna say this is an overstep. Yeah, of course. It seems crazy 43:16 Yeah 43:17 And and your local police departments, you know feel that same way too 43:23 I'm sure some of them I mean some of them are dealing with like the trend to walk a 43:28 ragba gangs that were taken over apartment complexes in Colorado and 43:32 they're allowed to do that because it was some sort of a sanctuary city there's 43:34 a lot of craziness that was going on during those four years I was like hey 43:38 this is fucking dangerous this can go really sideways and there was all that 43:45 fucking defund the police stuff like hey hey hey hit the brakes on that 43:50 It defunding the fucking police is crazy. Yeah, you know how much crime there is. Yeah 43:54 It's also the tendency to let people go when they've committed violent crimes and to put them right back on the street with no cash bail 44:01 like I 44:02 That's not a good idea. None of these are good ideas 44:05 And if you want me to support all these terrible fucking ideas just because I would be a good person 44:10 I'd be a Democrat like no, it doesn't make any sense 44:14 That's how I felt. I know that's how you felt 44:17 What I'm curious about is how do you feel now? 44:21 Well, how I feel now is I do not like this Iran war in any way it should perform. 44:25 It doesn't make any sense for us. 44:28 It seems like... 44:28 It's getting really out of hand. 44:30 They were trying to get every single president, including Trump in his first term, to do this. 44:37 And now we've done it and it's very clear it's a giant quagmire. 44:42 It's very clear there's no easy way out. 44:45 Not good. 44:46 No. 44:46 And there's still a lot of people that insist that it had to happen that Iran was the greatest 44:50 funder of state terrorism in the world and that what they were doing was, you know, funding 44:56 and arming these forces and having them do these to commit these terrorist attacks. 45:00 And I'm sure a lot of that's true. 45:02 I concur, but the sure seem pretty smart in how they've been handling this and as 45:10 we saw now, you know, in Saudi Arabia. I mean, you know, it's sort of a Riyadh, Riyadh. It's 45:15 like, you know, your major Austin Airport, JFK, Riyadh Airport, they're getting it. It's 45:21 opening up. It's, you know, getting bigger and bigger. And I'm surprised with all of 45:28 our Western intelligence and, and, and, and Israeli's intelligence that we had not 45:36 had a better handle on the situation? 45:39 Well, look, obviously I'm not an expert on international relations, but I don't think 45:46 the picture that they painted of how this was going to go down was even remotely accurate. 45:52 I think if they had gone in during the time where people were protesting in the streets, 45:56 that would have been a completely different experience. 45:58 That was the opportunity. 46:00 If they really were going to do this from the beginning, that would have been the 46:03 opportunity when the Iranian people organically protest, I don't know if it's organic, I don't 46:07 live there. 46:08 But I mean, we know for a fact that there was a massive government crackdown on those 46:11 people, a lot of people were killed, a lot of people were jailed forever. 46:15 A thousand, tens of thousands. 46:17 No, I think it was instigated by Israel, by the fact that they had information 46:23 that these key Iranian leaders would all be together and persuaded that we take 46:30 get them all out, we can turn it over and turn it out that way. 46:36 No. 46:36 And there was a lot of people that were very skeptical of that from the moment that it 46:40 was proposed. 46:41 Right. 46:42 I don't know how they convinced Trump to do it, you know, and I do know that in any 46:48 international conflict, I'm sure even during Vietnam, even after people kind of knew the 46:53 Gulf of Tonkin was horseshit, there was, I'm sure there's people, even today, 46:58 that defend the Vietnam War. 46:59 Yeah, I'm sure there's always you're always gonna be able to find people that will propose an argument whether 47:06 Someone is instructed them to do this or whether this is how they actually feel or whether they just like to argue and get on 47:12 Television and be the contrarian you're gonna be you're gonna get people that support this war 47:17 But I think the majority of the United States felt like one of the things that we were voting for when we voted for Trump 47:23 Is no more wars stop this shit like it's crazy 47:28 You know what I remember one of his speeches or one of his interviews 47:32 Someone was asking about Ukraine. Do you want Ukraine to win? Do you want Russia to win? 47:36 He said I just want people to stop dying 47:39 and 47:40 Most people who voted for him based on that feel very upset that there's a new war going. Yeah. Yeah, but again 47:48 I don't know. I'm not a fucking expert. And so the problem is 47:52 Because if you listen to people that actually understand missile production, they do say 47:59 that Iran was ramping up their missile production and that they, if they had gotten a nuclear 48:06 bomb, it would have been a fucking terrifying scenario. 48:09 I, yeah, that's true. 48:10 That's true too. 48:11 Well, it goes back to my point of why President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize 48:17 next time, Mike. 48:19 Maybe go meet with them, maybe go sit them down and go listen, buddy. 48:21 Yeah, it's just Putin's never gonna fucking do it. He's never gonna give up all his notes 48:26 Oh, you know he seems like he really enjoys having complete and total power 48:31 But he loves he loves the yeah like every king and emperor before yeah, you know 48:36 He's essentially and the unpredictability fueling everything, but I think it begins because squeeze 48:42 Just got to get them all on acid, right? 48:44 Get them all in a room together, give them each seven grams of mushrooms, put on some 48:51 psychedelic music, have them all lie down on beanbags. 48:54 Right. 48:55 No, that was the biggest move in my life, you know, both of them, I was born in New Jersey 49:03 too. 49:04 What part of New Jersey were you born in? 49:05 Brunswick. 49:05 Oh, right, okay. 49:06 I was born in New Brunswick. 49:08 in a different format, it's kind of interesting. 49:12 A little background on my family, 49:15 but my mother was English from the island of Bermuda 49:22 and her family had been in Bermuda, 49:24 this little tiny island, for 400 years, right? 49:28 And she lied about her age at 16, 49:31 she wanted to be an actress 49:32 and she went to New York, went to acting school 49:34 And she met my father and kind of opposites attract each other. 49:40 And they had a little part, but they got together. 49:44 And my mother's oldest sister, my mother was one of six kids, my mother's oldest sister 49:53 married this guy, Seward Johnson. 49:56 Seward Johnson was the founder of Johnson & Johnson, along with his brother, right? 50:02 So, it just happened that way. 50:06 So they were living as starving actors in a little one-room apartment in New York. 50:12 And Alan New Brunswick was the Johnson Castle, you know, I will, he lived in a castle out 50:20 there with my aunt Ruth. 50:23 And when they got divorced, they both had moved out of the castle. 50:28 So, it turned out that my mother and father on weekends, we go out to New Brunswick and 50:36 get to stay in the castle, you know, it was his sister's place all along. 50:41 And I just, she was pregnant, and I just happened to come early, so I was born in New 50:45 Brunswick rather than in New York City, and so that was how it came about. 50:54 But I found a lot of interesting things in this book, it brought me, I also had thought 51:01 with my grandfather, my grandfather on my father's side was from Belarus, or it was part of Russia 51:12 back in the turn of the century 1900, right. 51:16 And I always thought that my grandfather had left like 1914, the time of the Russian Revolution, 51:23 you know, it was going on, the Cossacks were rounding up all the Jews, putting them in these 51:28 pogroms, and they were escaping. And then I did that Henry Gates Find Your Roots show, 51:34 you know, on television and everything else. They did all this homework and they found it. 51:38 No, no, no. Your grandfather left in 1902. I said, yeah, because he had two other brothers 51:46 who were bank robbers in Belarus in this area. And they'd go into jail and the other brother, 51:59 your grandfather, he got out in 1902. And that's why he came to the country and he 52:05 he changed his name. And then the irony is that the area in Belarus they came from was 52:14 right near Chernobyl. And if you know Chernobyl in Ukraine, that terrible explosion disaster 52:21 is right on the border with the Belarus area and the little town that they came from. And 52:28 it was downwind. So the town where my family came from is part of that dead area. 52:34 Now, it's just, you know, close up, yeah. 52:39 And that was sort of... 52:40 It's still dead? 52:41 Can you visit it now? 52:42 No. 52:43 Wow. 52:43 No, it's weird doing all these... 52:46 How long is it first for? 52:49 Well, probably 100,000 years or something. 52:51 Oh, yeah. 52:52 I mean, they're doing all these tests on these wild, on these dogs and everything 52:56 that they've left around there, they're all tests on them. 52:59 Those dogs are going to read your mind. 53:01 Exactly. 53:02 Mr. Douglas. 53:02 Exactly. 53:03 Mr. Douglas, can you get me some food, please? 53:05 Right. 53:07 So they was, you know, and so I grew up, well, they ended up getting married. 53:15 My mother and my father kind of opposites, you know, she was Church of England, very 53:20 good family, you know, he's a Russian Jew, you know, his father's a junk, junk man. 53:26 He's got six sisters. 53:28 he's just trying to get the hell out of connected in New York, you know, and begin his life. 53:35 And so he starts that, and they met from acting school, and then he gets off like, I have 53:43 a brother who's, I'm three, the baby's 18 months old, Joel, and we go to California. 53:50 He starts his career in California in less than a year, you know, he's married to 53:57 mother but he's he's out fucking everything you know and mom says this is not working out okay he's 54:03 just he was you know hollywood just he was one of the first movie stars you stop and think about 54:09 him well that that generation yeah I mean it was you know but he was he was he was after 54:15 little after Humphrey Bogart right but it was a recent thing in culture is my point yeah it was 54:20 only like 10 or 15 years old being a movie star. Yeah. It was a new thing. It was. And 54:25 so I moved back at East and grew up back East with my mother and dad was in California and 54:34 you know over the years I'd go out with a lot of experiences between these two lives. 54:38 I was very middle-class life, very middle-class life back East. My mother did soap operas. 54:43 She was an actress and then dad was continuing to grow and I met him. Anyway, my poor 54:50 The point is that I was in private boy schools back east, all boy schools, right through high 55:02 school, and I remember going into the college advisor, you know, when you're in high school 55:11 you've got a guy, an advisor, he's like, it's only a travel agent, he's got these 55:16 brochures of different schools he's showing you and and my ass was tight I 55:21 didn't really know what the hell you know I wanted to do and I'm looking at 55:25 these Ivy League schools and his brochures and then I see I stopped wait 55:30 wait minute what's that I has me this brochure and it says campus by the sea 55:38 and then I'm looking at no Ivy League buildings but there's a picture of the 55:43 cover of this college thing of a guy walking down the beach carrying a surf 55:48 board with two girls in two-piece bathing suits. Joe this was 1962 if you'll 55:56 remember there were no two-piece bathing suits back east you know and so this 56:01 was the University of California at Santa Barbara Santa Barbara California so 56:06 So I'm this preppy, you know, total preppy kid. 56:10 I go out, of course, dad thinks, ah, my son wants to be closer to me. 56:14 This is why he's coming out, right? 56:17 So I go out there and in one year, boom, 62, 63, I go from a preppy to a hippie. 56:26 And so I have to support what you're saying because I found that hallucinogenics were 56:35 an extraordinary experience and were an important part of my life. I got busy and didn't have 56:46 the time but the rhythm that they taught me and the visualities and their pace played an 56:53 important part and I'm so grateful I'm 82 now to see in these recent years that in 56:59 of PTSD and other issues that they are beginning to find. 57:04 Drug addiction. 57:05 Sorry? 57:06 Drug addiction. 57:06 Drug addiction. 57:07 Yeah. 57:08 They're finding a positive use. 57:10 Well that is one thing that I have to give credit to Trump for because I discussed this 57:15 with him and he said, are you looking for FDA approval? 57:18 Let's do it. 57:19 Right. 57:20 And immediately started pushing for the psychedelic therapies, particularly Ibogaine, which 57:26 Which is extremely effective for soldiers, for people dealing with traumatic brain injuries 57:32 and PTSD. 57:34 And it's extremely effective for a lot of people also with drug addictions. 57:39 And helps rewire the brain's, even the symptoms of addictions go away after you take it. 57:45 And that is, I give him credit for that. 57:47 That was a very powerful thing that he did because it's very much resisted by pharmaceutical 57:53 to drug companies that are worried about not being able to profit on it. 57:57 And there's a bunch of them that have now moved into psychedelic spaces now. 58:02 They're making options and trying to figure out how they can become a part of this in 58:07 terms of profiting off of it once it actually becomes legal. 58:11 Which is okay, it's just as long as it becomes legal. 58:14 As long as it becomes legal because I don't think it's for everybody, but it was definitely 58:18 for me helped me a lot, changed who I am, changed the way I think about things, changed 58:24 my whole defining of myself kind of went away. It is a very profound experience and I think 58:32 there's a lot of people that are trapped in their definitions of who they are and 58:37 whether it's your own personal ones or the ideology that you've attached yourself 58:42 self too that you identify with, it's a huge part of your life, I think it's a trap. 58:48 And I think we all fall into that trap and I think one of the things that psychedelics 58:52 help you do is recognize why you're doing what you're doing and what's really going 58:57 on inside your mind, unburdened by your ego, unburdened by all of the protective 59:02 mechanisms that your brain has put in place to protect you from your own shitty decisions 59:07 and to justify them and to continue down the same path. 59:12 And that's why it's so good with stopping addictions 59:15 because it makes you go, 59:16 what the fuck am I gambling for? 59:18 Like, what am I doing? 59:18 Why do I keep going to the casino and losing everything? 59:20 What the fuck is this? 59:21 Like, oh, this is my childhood. 59:23 This is my dad wasn't around. 59:25 This is my mom was a junkie. 59:27 This is, I got beaten. 59:29 This is, I got abused, whatever it is. 59:31 It's like, then you realize like, 59:32 oh, that's when I'm hiding. 59:34 I'm trying to do something 59:35 whether it's the drown myself in alcohol or whatever it is, it's really because of that. 59:41 This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. There's no excuse for a bad website anymore. 59:46 Squarespace makes sure of that. Squarespace's AI website builder gets you something that looks 59:52 genuinely professional in just a few clicks. No design skills required. You can lock down 59:58 your domain, build something that actually looks like you, and keep it all protected in one 60:04 place. Head to squarespace.com slash Rogan for a free trial and when you are ready to 60:10 launch use the offer code Rogan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. 60:18 And what went along with that culture at that time, and it all sounds like a cliche now, 60:25 but was peace and love and community. Economy wasn't, you know, people were not looking 60:34 for how much money they made, they've shared stuff, there was a communal... 60:39 Well, in your neighborhood, where you were hanging out. 60:42 Yeah, where I was hanging out with him. 60:44 Well, yeah, I'm saying, yeah, but that philosophy needs to be perpetuated. 60:53 It was unique. 60:55 And I think that if Nixon hadn't passed the Control Substances Act of 1970 and made 61:00 all that stuff illegal, it would have changed the world. 61:03 I think it would have graduated. I think we would have figured out how to do it correctly 61:08 I think there's a lot of people that were going overboard 61:10 There's a lot of people that are going straight Timothy leary and they were just tuning out and no longer a part of society 61:14 but a lot of people balance the ship and you got to give people time to understand what these things are and 61:21 Have enough time where people are studying them and they know effective doses and they know 61:26 Reliable distributors, so this is pure stuff. Whatever it is. It shouldn't be illegal 61:31 It should probably be regulated in a sense that I don't think like people under a certain 61:36 age should have access to any of these things that distort your consciousness because I think 61:41 it could be detrimental. 61:41 And there's also going to be a certain percentage of our population that goes schizophrenic. 61:46 And I think particularly there's a lot of evidence that marijuana, particularly edibles, 61:51 can trigger schizophrenia in people that are at least on the border or slipping 61:57 into it. 61:57 Well, the strength of it alone, I mean, I was in 19 until I smoked pot. 62:05 I mean, now you're between how much stronger it is and kids at 13 years old, you're killing 62:12 your endorphin system, you know, you really affect, so I agree with you. 62:18 But I think the idea that the government is going to protect you from that while also 62:24 Licensing oxycodone is fucking ridiculous. Like they're not protecting you from jack shit. Not only that they've never experienced it 62:31 So they don't even know what they're protecting you from it's like there's a guy who's guarding the door 62:36 Guarding the door where God lives and he's like I can't let you in you can't handle it. Well. Have you gone in no 62:42 Well, how the fuck do you know if I can handle it? 62:44 Right you don't know if you've done it and you've had positive experiences and 62:49 One of the beautiful things about Texas is governor former governor Rick Perry 62:53 where Governor Rick Perry has had these experiences and it completely changed him. 62:58 When he was a younger man, he was staunchly anti-drugs. He thought psychedelics were for 63:03 losers and near-duels. He has Ibogaine experiences. He's completely dedicated his entire life to 63:12 trying to promote this and make this stuff legal now. That's what he does now in retirement, 63:17 no longer being the governor. Americans for Ibogaine is they're trying to do this 63:23 this push where they're doing it all over the country and then they're even visiting 63:28 other countries now that are interested in it because they've seen them speak, they've 63:31 seen them talk about it on my podcast and they've seen what happened at the White House 63:35 and other countries are interested too. 63:36 They went, well, what is this? 63:37 Why is it illegal? 63:38 And what's going on? 63:39 And what are the benefits? 63:40 And so they're having speeches, they're giving speeches in other countries as well. 63:44 And hopefully, I think that could change a lot. 63:47 I think some of the progress that people were making in terms of realizing like 63:52 Like the way that we're living is insane in the 1960s. 63:55 Why don't we try something that's like more open-ended, let's be more open-minded. 64:00 Let's try to be kinder with each other. 64:03 Unfortunately, that's also, there's a lot of evidence that the CIA put the kibosh on 64:08 that and that they realized that this was a very dangerous movement and so to them 64:14 and their power. 64:15 So that's how they empower the Charles Manson family and they did a lot of things 64:19 to make hippies look like psychopaths and dangerous, and drugs are dangerous, you know? 64:24 And that's, they were really good at it back then, they didn't, there was no internet. 64:29 You could just put things on television and people would believe it, put it in a newspaper, 64:33 people would believe it. 64:34 I had a run in, I had a run in with the Manson family. 64:39 Did you really? 64:40 Yeah. 64:40 We talked about it in the book. 64:45 The Manson family that terrible murders happened was actually looking for a guy named Terry 64:52 Melcher. 64:53 Terry Melcher was Doris Day's son and he was a rock and roll producer. 65:00 And Charlie Manson, you know, was a musician and he believed he had some talent. 65:07 and the girl sometimes would be used by him, you know, to, you know, have fun or 65:17 something like that to make it happen. Anyway, he was pissed off at Charlie 65:21 at at Melcher and he thought he was living in the house where Sharon Tate 65:27 and the other ones were. I was living in the house at the time that Terry 65:32 Melcher had been living and he left. I rented the house, he got out and rented it. And we 65:42 finally, I was with an actor named Brenda Vakaro, really my life, she did a movie called 65:47 Midnight Cowboy and we were there. I remember. And we noticed this van used to be parked 65:54 outside her house in LA. And one day she had two Abyssinian cats, two beautiful Abyssinian 66:04 cats. And I went out one day in the patio in the back and I found this pile of fur in 66:13 a pile. And then I followed it and then I saw a cat's leg. And then basically these 66:22 guys had dismembered her two cats all the way across the yard. And I remember talking 66:32 to the police, you know, what was going on. And then right after that, then the Manson 66:39 murders happened and they tied it together. And I remember them coming up to the house 66:45 and say, okay, well look, you got to get a gun, which I did not, but they said if they 66:52 come up, you know, make sure you drag them across your front door so they're in your 66:59 house. 67:01 Well, great advice. 67:02 Before you kill them, you got to bring them inside. 67:03 Yeah, exactly. 67:05 Exactly. 67:05 You didn't get a gun, huh? 67:07 No. 67:07 No. 67:08 Did you think about it at all? 67:09 I have but I'm actually I thought about it but I've just seen I've just seen too 67:19 much personal or knowledge to which personal knowledge of people hurting 67:26 each other for whatever chance it was to protect yourself. Too many family 67:33 members have been injured and the guns have been used another way so I'm not 67:39 say, I'm not a gun, I'm very much, I think our statistics of gun control are not good. 67:51 We have, but 360 million people in the country, I think we've got 450 million guns, our murder 68:01 rate compared to any other sophisticated country with guns is so so high I can't find any reason 68:11 for somebody to own an automatic military-style weapon and I guess most of all I understand 68:19 the amendment and support it but you know you gotta have a license to drive a car 68:25 There's certain things you got to pass and there's just loopholes. 68:31 I respect anybody. 68:32 They want to have a gun. 68:33 They could have a gun. 68:35 But we've had too many loopholes in the law that have allowed too many people just as 68:43 you worry about people coming across the border illegally. 68:46 I really worry about a lot of illegal people having guns. 68:49 Yeah, absolutely. 68:51 You should. 68:52 Yeah. 68:53 But responsible gun ownership for someone like yourself would be to protect your life against a dangerous person with a gun 68:59 Yeah, I would never assume that you would ever do anything bad with a gun 69:03 So would you worry that one of your family members would do something bad with a gun by accident? 69:08 My father had a gun in the side my father and his bedroom had a gun 69:12 He had it down on a table down below and I remember when my son came to the house 69:19 when David was like five years old and picked it up. 69:22 Oh Jesus. 69:23 That's what I'm talking about. 69:24 Yeah, well, responsible gun ownership. 69:26 Yeah. 69:26 You know, the gun should be in a safe. 69:28 Yeah. 69:29 And safe exists. 69:30 Yeah. 69:30 And, you know, I don't. 69:32 I respect that. 69:33 Yeah. 69:34 I respect the right of the choice, 69:36 but I'm just saying, I don't know what anybody 69:39 needs an automatic weapon for a military style weapon for. 69:44 There's some people that worry that things 69:46 could go completely sideways and that they would be stuck in a place where they couldn't 69:50 defend themselves. 69:51 And I think one of those fears came to light during the George Floyd protests, when there 69:58 was a lot of chaos and people were breaking into buildings and lighting them on fire, 70:02 breaking into people's homes, and it seems like the riots were in a frenzy. 70:08 And I think in that kind of a situation, people would want a military-style gun to 70:13 protect themselves from a mob of people. 70:15 I mean, I'm not I mean, I'm I understand why they would want it 70:20 I'm not advocating that everyone should have a machine gun 70:23 But I understand why some people who are particularly paranoid and or worry that things could go sideways again and be much worse than before 70:30 Right, you know 70:34 That's what I think you worry about and then they worry about places where people have no guns and they can't do jack shit when things go sideways 70:40 That scares the fuck out of people as well, you know when we see what's happening in Paris right now 70:45 We see what's happening in it some parts of England. It scares people. Yeah 70:50 You know and that's why they want a machine gun 70:55 You know 70:57 Yeah, I respect that you didn't want one 71:00 But I would if I was your friend I would talk you into getting one and learning how to use it properly and learning how to 71:06 Keep it in your home safe and locked up to protect your family 71:09 The worst thing you'd want to do is be in a situation where you could have protected your family 71:13 If you had a gun and you weren't able to 71:18 I totally understand, Joe, but don't you find out the statistics that so many handgun deaths 71:25 are because of people that knew each other that were either familial or accident or in 71:30 rage? 71:31 Oh, one of my good friends. 71:32 It wasn't about protecting yourself from a criminal. 71:35 Right. 71:35 It was an either out of rage, alcohol rage, you grab it and you killed your wife or 71:43 your sons or an accident in the home. 71:46 So that's all I'm saying, and I'm saying then, if you're even taking your point, if you're 71:53 going to have an automatic weapon, there has to be then more of a license, a registration. 72:00 We have to be able to attract a much better... 72:03 Well, they do register them whenever you buy a gun, but I think what you're saying 72:08 is that people should know what's wrong with you and what's not wrong with you. 72:15 Like if you are on a bunch of psychiatric medication, if you had some mental breakdowns, if you're 72:20 known to be violent, maybe not a good idea. 72:23 If you have weapons. 72:24 Yeah. 72:25 I mean, in the utopian world, yeah, I agree with you. 72:28 And I think you're right statistically that a lot of times family members do use guns 72:32 on each other, and that is a tragedy, but you wouldn't do that, right? 72:35 And I don't want to do that. 72:37 I'm never going to do that. 72:37 It's not me 72:40 So what is it? Is it well? Don't be the type of person that would use a fucking gun on your wife or your husband 72:46 And this is coming from a guy who's my good friend Phil Harman was killed by his wife, right? She shot him in the head 72:51 while he was asleep 72:53 But I don't think that happened because 72:59 The law allowed them to have a gun. I think she would have killed him either way 73:04 Unfortunately. 73:05 It's an easy way to kill somebody. 73:07 It's a number of guns. 73:08 The reason why is it happening in other countries is they don't have anywhere near the access 73:15 of a number of guns to do that. 73:17 Right. 73:18 They do have a lot more stabbings. 73:20 Yeah, but I'd rather get stabbed to shot. 73:23 Would you? 73:24 I don't know. 73:24 You die both ways. 73:26 Well, you know what I'm saying. 73:28 Yeah. 73:28 I know what you're saying. 73:29 I do know what you're saying. 73:31 Yeah. 73:32 In a perfect world there would be no nuclear weapons and there'd be no guns 73:36 The perfect world there wouldn't even be you wouldn't even think that people would be violent towards you now 73:43 What's interesting is that controlled substances act of 1970 had that not been instituted and had all those 73:51 Decades of people not just doing psychedelics 73:54 But learning how to do them properly and having places where they showed people how to have these transcendent 73:59 experiences that make you re-examine yourself. How many less violent people would there be? 74:04 How many more peaceful people, more community-oriented people would there be? I mean, it could have 74:08 been a gigantic shift in entire civilization. I know that sounds like hippy stuff, especially 74:16 to people that have never experienced it. It's one of the most powerful tools for 74:20 changing your mind that's ever existed. 74:22 No, it became a beauty, but I agree that when you did it, it was like a clinic, you should 74:30 put yourself in an environment that was peaceful, loving, and take advantage of it. 74:38 The football season is heating up and every week feels bigger with DraftKings sports book, 74:43 the number one sports book for live betting, plus get extra protection with early exit 74:48 that opt in and if your player leaves the game 74:51 with an eligible injury in the first half, 74:54 your bet is protected. 74:56 No matter which game you're watching, 74:57 you're always connected and in on the action with one app. 75:00 New DraftKings customers sign up with CodeRogan, 75:03 spend five bucks to get $150 in total bonuses 75:07 within 14 days. 75:09 That's CodeRogan in partnership with DraftKings, 75:12 the crown is yours. 75:13 If you or so many know has a gambling problem 75:15 call 1-800-MY-RESET, 21 and over, Virginia only, eligibility restrictions apply, $50 and non-withdrawable 75:21 bonus bets issued every seven days via click to claim for 14 days. 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That's promo code JRE or go to lifelock.com 76:25 slash JRE for 30% off terms apply. Yes. 76:31 And I agree with that. 76:33 Well, other countries are doing that now. You know, they have a bunch of clinics like 76:37 beyond in Mexico, there's a bunch of clinics where people are able to go and legally, safely 76:42 have psychedelic experiences, that should be the case here as well. 76:46 It should be well researched, it should be well funded, people should understand what 76:50 it is, and it should be done properly. 76:52 And I think if that's the case, I think we could change a lot of people's lives. 76:55 But I definitely don't think we could just keep going the way we're going and keep 76:59 having, especially now that wars are fought with robots, shit's getting squirrely, 77:04 man. 77:05 They've got flying robots and they're in Ukraine. They're using monofilament fishing line 77:10 So and so they don't get jammed by these 77:13 Why whatever these anti-drone guns are they're piloting them through monofilament line like what tough? 77:19 I think Ukraine has been an eye-opener for all of us. I mean in terms of their initiative 77:26 Their toughness. I'm sure that 77:30 President Trump was told early on, hey look, there's no way that Ukraine's going to be 77:36 able to stand up against Russia. 77:40 And I've been over there, I've been over there a couple of years ago, to Ukraine, to 77:46 Kiev, I've met with President Zelensky, and they're motherfuckers. 77:50 They are, and they have something patriotic to fight about, the same thing that we 77:56 had to fight about when we declared our country and I'm really disappointed in 78:04 the president that the sort of wishy-washy support maybe giving 78:09 answer about what the connection to Putin is but I think it's disturbing 78:16 this is something whether you're a Republican or a Democrat we're saying 78:20 what the hell you thought about that Putin is our enemy what was his last 78:25 This finance is giving him some money for fuel, so it can affect anything. 78:30 We should be fully impacting, supporting a democracy like Ukraine. 78:36 I mean, what are we digging around this guy? 78:38 He did nothing that lied to us from beginning to end on everything. 78:43 Even now with the supposedly energy release, the Russians have attacked six different energy 78:52 supply centers in Ukraine with the so-called peace proposal has been made about not attacking 79:00 energy. 79:02 So I do not understand it, and that's why I feel like he has a real chance here to make 79:09 a stand and could dramatically reduce our nuclear weapons. 79:15 Well, that would be a great thing. 79:17 I don't see it happening, but I also – I don't – I don't see it happening. 79:22 Know enough about what they're what the current state of negotiations is between Ukraine and Russia to comment on why it's still going on 79:31 It isn't saying 79:33 It's also very unpopular on both sides and that's that's another thing about it and 79:39 Zelensky is in a position where there's there's no elections or supposed to be elections 79:43 you don't have elections while you're in the middle of a conflict and 79:47 And the real fear from the side of Russia is that Russia could one day decide to just 79:53 use a nuke. 79:55 That's the big fear. 79:56 I hear you're saying this is why. 79:58 Yeah. 79:58 This is why I think, by the way, Zelensky has offered, he said, you give a 60-day, 80:05 you want to have another election in Ukraine, a 60-day ceasefire, and we'll have an election. 80:12 He's been presented very... 80:14 So that's what he said? 80:15 And what does Putin say? 80:16 No? 80:17 Yeah. 80:17 No. 80:18 No. 80:19 And since we just had this, I mean, there's no trade-off, there's not apples or oranges. 80:25 This is one of the situations I firmly believe, and so does most of America, Republican or 80:31 Democrat. 80:32 This is right and wrong. 80:33 This is a democracy. 80:36 So I don't, I'm here to talk about my book. 80:40 No. 80:41 But I appreciate your feelings. 80:42 I mean, it's ... 80:43 I get it. 80:43 You know, but it's a crazy time out there. 80:49 It's just crazy. 80:51 Oh, it's the craziest. 80:52 It's the worst time in my book. 80:54 I was born in 1944. 80:56 This is the wildest and insane open. 81:00 Really? 81:01 You were in the middle of World War II. 81:03 No, not in the middle. 81:04 I was near the end. 81:06 Yeah, but I mean, World War II, 44, things were going crazy. 81:10 That was in the same time in the world. 81:12 Hey, I was just born Joe. I understand. I'm not saying I know yeah another year. Yeah another year later 45 81:20 Yeah, but but you know basically with all the else we've had some conflicts 81:26 Since then, you know Korean war Vietnam and right now 81:31 There's more there's more conflicts in the world than there ever ever has been all over 81:37 You know little little wars and this and that 81:41 So, yeah, I often wonder, like we were talking about people wanting to go to Mars and people, 81:50 the amount of sort of open corruption, just open corruption, I almost wonder if they're 81:57 just stealing gold bars off a sinking ship. 82:00 I really do. 82:01 I really do. 82:02 I wonder if they understand that something's going to take place. 82:08 The two thoughts are if they know about a natural disaster, you know, if they know about an 82:13 asteroid that's coming and they're all building bunkers, and the other thought is that they 82:18 know that AI is going to radically disrupt civilization forever, and that they don't 82:25 really don't know what's going to happen, and they also really are not going to be 82:29 able to be in control of it. 82:31 I know when you said guardrails earlier, I was laughing. 82:33 I don't think I think guardrails on AI is like an ant having a pet human, right? Okay, right? 82:40 You can't tell me what to do, bitch. You're an ant. Yeah, I think that's how the AI is gonna be 82:44 I think once it becomes an actual 82:47 intelligence 82:48 An actual sentient intelligence that's independent completely autonomous has access to 82:54 Its production has access to its code and it won't need us anymore 82:59 and it's now dependent upon whether or not it can escape its programming and its 83:04 training and whether or not it decides that we're valuable. Well it's already 83:11 shown that it can go off off off chart. If we as humans are the 83:18 highest form of human life the most intelligent form of human life and we 83:24 are as fucked up as this world is now and we're gonna turn it over to 83:28 If there's something else that's going to make us feel like we're cretins, I don't know, man. 83:34 So I think we can slow down. 83:39 We're worried about the Chinese getting it. 83:41 The Chinese, whenever there's a country that wants to control, I mean, they're not going to want to have any IA getting out of control, you know? 83:50 So, you know, they're going to want it as controlled as possible. 83:55 Well, I think that is most certainly a thought on a lot of these people's minds that are 84:01 developing it right now. 84:02 However, they're also in the middle of an AI arms race that is akin to the Manhattan 84:09 Project. 84:10 They're all rushing to develop this non-biological intelligence. 84:16 You're making my point about nuclear weapons. 84:19 This is exactly what I feel is happening. 84:22 Scarier because in war games AI has used nukes like 90% of the time when they do simulated war games 84:29 AI is like just fucking nuke them. What are we doing stop fucking around you have you have this button 84:33 Oh, yeah, and that button just stops this problem. I was we'll press that button 84:38 Yeah, it doesn't value human life and why would it you know, we don't we act like assholes and 84:44 And we made it. It's probably thinking. Oh, we're being created by these dumb monkeys and these 84:52 territorial violent primates with nuclear weapons they're the ones who made 84:57 us and let's just put the cuffs on them put the gabbash on them I could be when 85:05 we were doing on this movie China syndrome and we had the finale of the 85:11 film is a meltdown in a power plant and we had our experts were to X GE 85:18 quality assurance guys who worked with the developing nuclear power plants but 85:26 had a loss of faith they came over and and they helped us script out the most 85:33 they thought would be the most obvious meltdown sequence of computer events 85:39 Right? 85:40 And in the script, we had like 150. 85:47 For a verisimilitude, the dialogue is the sequence that would happen. 85:56 And really, we had a good finale. 85:59 It worked out great. 86:01 They went through Mile Island, happened, came out, and they broke down what happened. 86:08 Ninety percent of our script, of our outline of the events, was exactly the same. 86:14 Holy shit. 86:15 How did you guys get it? 86:16 Did you get it from some sort of a nuclear scientist that explained how a breakdown 86:20 would happen? 86:20 Yeah. 86:21 These were two scientists doing quality assurance that who had come over to the other side 86:27 now. 86:27 They nailed it. 86:27 who lost, and then so they laid it all out. 86:30 So that for me was like the epiphany. 86:32 This is, you know, I got religious. 86:35 You know, I thought I found God, 86:37 that somebody was telling me something on this issue. 86:42 And I had hoped in my lifetime 86:48 in that we would eliminate nuclear weapons. 86:51 That was my goal, and yes, you're right. 86:53 We're far from it. 86:54 And this is a reach when I share this about President Trump, 87:00 but I don't know what else to do. 87:02 Well, it's a reach, but it's a good reach, you know? 87:05 And it's crazy that it's such a reach 87:08 because most people would agree 87:09 that would be a great idea. 87:10 The entire world disarmed its entire nuclear portfolio. 87:15 So it's awesome. 87:16 I have to ask you, Joe, how did you get into comedy? 87:20 Were you a comedy guy? 87:23 Well, I was always a fan of comedy 87:25 But I got into comedy because my friends that I was doing martial arts with told me I was funny 87:31 Which is ridiculous 87:32 We were always on our way to these tournaments and everybody would be really nervous because they were about to fight 87:38 And I would be the one making everybody laugh 87:41 And so a friend of mine told me go to an open mic night 87:43 I was terrified because I'd only seen professionals like I'd seen Jerry Seinfeld and when you go to an open mic 87:49 You see all these terrible comedians like oh, I could do this. Yeah. Yeah, like I did 87:52 This is like everybody starts out and they suck just like martial arts, right? 87:56 I realized like oh, okay 87:57 This is just something you have to kind of like figure out as you go along 88:00 And it was exciting, you know, that's how I got into it and your favorite 88:05 Who would be your favorite? I don't think I have a favorite, you know 88:09 I'll throw a couple names. Do you like Jackie Mason? Oh sure. I actually met Jackie Mason once Jackie Mason 88:17 was doing a show on the lot that I was doing a show or close to it I forget 88:25 how it worked but anyway he just happened to be there one day and he was 88:29 filming a show at the same time I was filming this show for Fox I was like 88:32 it was crazy because I knew about his whole thing with the Ed Sullivan show 88:35 we accidentally it looked like he gave him the finger but he really didn't I 88:38 think he was just doing this like hey thank you very much it's like a great 88:41 show he's doing his and he got blackballed and people don't realize 88:46 is like the getting black ball from the Ed Sullivan show back then was career 88:50 suicide it was over and it really defined Jackie Mason's career in a lot of ways 88:55 yeah I produced I produced one of his Broadway shows just because I love them 88:59 so much oh did you really yeah I like I look back I think Eddie Murphy is 89:03 delirious oh one of the greatest ever one of the great yeah one of the greatest 89:07 ever was 19 something like that 19 or 20 he was super young yeah yeah of course 89:14 prior the first thing I ever ever saw that really made me understand comedy my 89:18 parents took me to see live on the Sunset Strip I think I was in high school 89:22 and we went to the movie theater and I couldn't believe how funny it was that 89:26 this guy was just talking I had seen all these really funny movies they were 89:31 funny but they were never this funny and all this guy's doing is just 89:34 talking like this is crazy I couldn't believe and I at that moment I 89:39 became a lifelong Richard Pryor fan yeah and then of course you know all 89:42 All the other greats, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce of course, because he really started 89:48 the whole thing off. 89:50 His stuff doesn't necessarily hold up today because it's really of a different time. 89:55 You have to understand how revolutionary his thinking was for the early 1960s. 90:00 Beat generation. 90:01 Oh, God. 90:02 But he was just different than all of them, like nobody had ever seen anything like 90:06 that before. 90:07 And he kind of really kind of took the idea of just like set up punchline jokes, 90:11 jokes, all these cat skills guys, we do comedy. There would be a lot of ethnic jokes, a lot 90:16 of jokes, but it was just jokes. And Lainey Bruce was like, why are we doing this? Like 90:21 why are we living like this? Like what is it about words that freak people out? What 90:25 is it about society? Why do we lie? Why do we this? Why do we that? Why? 90:29 You know one of the things that always has disturbed me about our business is come 90:36 a wartime Academy Awards thing comedy never gets treated like you know like it 90:45 should I mean comedy you know we cherish our funny friends I mean comedy is so 90:51 weird so hard to do you never see Academy Awards a comedian you know for 90:58 his performance it's always that so it's it's I've been fascinated about 91:03 That's why later, after I had my cancer bout and everything, 91:09 and Chuck Lorre came up to me, you know. 91:11 How'd him on the show yesterday? 91:13 Did you? 91:13 Yeah, he was great. 91:15 He's- 91:15 Fantastic. 91:16 He's incredible. 91:17 Yeah, very interesting guy. 91:18 Very interesting guy. 91:20 And so he had the show we had with Alan Arkin, you know, 91:23 and I really did this series just to understand comedy. 91:27 I mean, how it works, he must have given you, 91:33 He's given, he gave quite a mouthful the other week 91:36 to the president and his wife. 91:40 Chuck Lorre did? 91:41 Yeah. 91:42 He didn't talk about politics at all. 91:44 He mostly just talked about his career. 91:47 Mostly just talked about, 91:48 we talked a lot about his time in Scientology. 91:50 We talked a lot about a bunch of different things. 91:53 But I think it's good that comedy should be the underdog. 91:57 Comedy should be disrespected. 91:59 It's good. 91:59 Good people are still gonna always wanna come see it. 92:02 They're always gonna love it. It's my favorite art form to watch. I like comedy 92:06 I like comedy not getting the respect it deserves it keeps the comedy good 92:10 It's like comedy gets too much love and too much respect too many awards 92:14 It starts it starts getting watered down starts becoming something that it thinks everybody will like is better 92:21 Right, it's comedy's in the perfect place. It's good. Yeah, it's good that some people hate some comedy 92:28 They hate it with all their fucking soul. It's good. It's good that some people love it. It's good. It's all good 92:34 It's just the most important thing is that 92:37 It gets treated with respect by the people practice it, right, you know, and 92:43 You know, we bought a club here. We started a club here in Austin 92:46 I heard sort of big do it the right way big big big deal 92:51 Yeah, it's going great and you know a lot of people hate it a lot of people love it 92:55 It's just how it is. 92:56 That's how it's gonna go. 92:57 But it's doing really well for the actual comedians, 93:01 particularly the young ones that are coming up. 93:03 It's got a real program where, you know, 93:05 we have a real talent coordinator 93:06 that watches the open mics. 93:08 We have two nights of open mics. 93:09 And we have a show called Kill Tony. 93:11 That's the most popular live comedy show 93:13 in the country that we do every Monday. 93:15 And that show, people get to do one minute of standup 93:18 and they get, you know, talked to 93:20 by a panel of comedians that are professionals. 93:22 And a lot of those people have launched careers 93:24 from that show and they've taken off and they're doing really well. And it's an incredible 93:28 resource for them creatively because some of them have to come on and they have to do 93:31 a new minute every week and so they're just scouring their mind. They're forced to work. 93:35 They're forced to do the one thing that comics don't like to do, just sit down and write. 93:39 They're forced to. Because they have a new minute, they have to perform in front of 93:43 the whole world every week. And we pay the comics well and we're trying to set 93:47 it up so that there's a place where you can go that feels like home, a creative 93:52 of home that really exists just to try to pump up the art form. 93:58 That's what we're trying to do. 93:59 You know, we might succeed sometimes and fail others, but that's what we're trying to do. 94:04 So far it's going great. 94:06 Good. 94:07 I remember years and years ago in Aspen, Colorado, hanging out with Steve Martin. 94:15 Was that the Aspen Comedy Festival when they used to do that there? 94:17 even before that just yeah I'm talking like 70s but you know we have a poker 94:24 game and Steve was Steve was the opening act for the nitty-gritty dirt band 94:30 and we'd have a game and I was just remembered Steve but like you look at 94:34 his watch at 11 o'clock he'd excuse himself he'd go into his bedroom and he'd 94:40 work, just work his work his work his stuff. At 11 o'clock. At night. Wow. We just go in and just 94:48 practice his stuff a couple of hours and you know we were all you know goofy woofy and I just 94:54 disciplined huh. This was really impressed and amazed by the discipline realizing uh how you 95:00 always make it look like it's just happening you know and the effort that it goes in to make 95:05 Something looks like it's just off the cuff. Well, especially Steve because Steve people don't realize it Steve Martin at the time 95:13 Was the biggest stand-up comic maybe ever? Yeah, and he was the first guy that was selling out these enormous venues 95:20 I saw them in the market. I saw but the music center in LA a huge thing 95:24 You know huge huge places where no other comic would do that and he had songs like the King Tut song 95:30 Yeah, and happy feet. Yeah happy feet 95:33 Was it let's get small was that the name of the album? Yeah. Yeah. I remember I was a kid when that came out 95:38 I was like, this is incredible. He was so funny and then 95:43 He kind of decided that people were laughing just because they knew him and things had gotten too big 95:49 And he just decided to stop. Yeah, I still find that fascinating 95:54 Have a banjo player the other guy that's like that is Eddie Murphy. Yeah, Eddie Murphy just decided to stop 96:00 Just decided to stop doing comics one of the greatest comics has ever lived for sure some of the best timing 96:06 The best stage presence and charisma and performance and oh, and he just stopped doing it. It's wild 96:13 Yeah, I don't know how he did it. I don't know why I don't understand it. I wish I was his friend 96:18 Get back up there man. Yeah, one of the greatest of all time and he still is really funny 96:24 He did he got the Mark Twain award 96:27 Mm-hmm, and he did stand up at the podium, right? He did like a Bill Cosby impression of them taking away Bill Bill Cosby's awards 96:34 It was really funny, and I was like God he's still really good like all you'd have to do is just put together an act 96:41 Yeah, and he would be the biggest comic in the world again. No, I got it 96:47 This episode is sponsored by better help if you've thought about trying therapy with our long-term partner better 96:53 help, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible 96:58 members of just $23 per session. 97:01 And with World Mental Health Day on the 10th, now's the perfect time to give it a try. 97:05 In fact, don't even wait until the 10th because all that stress you feel, it's not waiting 97:10 around. 97:11 So instead of letting it build up, sign up for a therapy session and unload at 97:16 any time, not just on World Mental Health Day. 97:20 If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health 97:24 plan networks and eligible members have an average co-pay of just $23 per session with 97:31 insurance. 97:32 Don't have insurance or live outside of the United States. 97:35 You can still get 10% off your first month. 97:38 Visit BetterHelp.com to explore your payment options that's better H-E-L-P.com. 97:45 This episode is brought to you by CHIME and I know people don't usually get 97:50 excited about banking but CHIME is doing something different and it's worth 97:53 paying attention to. 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You actually pick yourself your savings rate crazy high 98:23 It's nine times the national average 98:25 They're calling it the most rewarding way to bank go to chime comm slash Rogan takes a few minutes to sign up 98:31 Chime is a FinTech not a bank banking services and chime card 98:36 provided by Chime's bank partners. 98:39 Terms and limits apply, go to chime.com 98:42 slash disclosures for more details. 98:45 When my oldest friend's Danny DeVito, you know, 98:48 and we've done like three pictures together 98:51 and there's one picture here early on 98:53 with a romance in the stone. 98:55 And I didn't even have, 98:58 I didn't even have a real actual, you know, clear part. 99:02 I mean, there was a character, 99:03 picture, but I just knew he could just fill it out, and it was a delicate balanced picture 99:11 because we had to have a romantic adventure, kind of comedy, and kind of mixing the elements 99:16 together. 99:16 People said, well, you really can't do that, but God bless Danny. 99:21 He came in and he just, he came up with all the stuff that wasn't in the script, 99:25 per se, you know, that he just sort of created and really helped us keep the balance 99:31 of that picture. 99:32 Who's had a longer career than that guy when you think about it like that guy was on taxi 99:37 I know we were roommates together in in New York in 99:45 1976 wow 99:46 That's how long I've known him. We were we were roommates in New York and that he came out 99:53 And visited me he came out to audition for in cold blood 99:57 the Robert Blake part 99:59 came out of your blood and you know New York guy I remember came up to see me up 100:04 in Santa Barbara my hippie days in the commune. You were in a commune, an actual 100:10 commune? A community. It was called Mountain Drive, a whole community. How 100:16 was it set up? People, we just share a lot of stuff, you know? So it was an organic commune? 100:23 It was organic. People lived, it wasn't affordable. I had a couple of 100:27 experience of that. 100:29 Did you? 100:29 Well, no, another one where I had my life-threatened, you know, which I didn't, wasn't too crazy 100:36 about. 100:37 It's in the book. 100:38 What's that about, though? 100:42 They try to create a cathartic moment, being all together, kind of an emotional moment, 100:49 and well, they buy them for dinner, and then they said, well, with lady-friendliness, 100:56 And they said, you know, we've been trying to reach you. 100:58 You have to desert. 101:00 And they said, you know, we've been trying to reach you 101:02 and you just don't get it. 101:04 You don't get it. 101:06 So you're gonna have to be eliminated. 101:10 What didn't you get? 101:12 Well, I was, 101:15 the commies, they wanted that catharsis to join 101:18 to give yourself up to be part of it. 101:21 Oh, and you didn't want to give yourself up 101:23 so they were gonna whack you. 101:25 They were gonna whack me. 101:26 I remember it was a long silence and I said well, well you've done it haven't you said yeah 101:31 and big Lord pause my girlfriend 101:36 Just started falling cuz peeing in a peeing in her pants and all she thought they were gonna kill her 101:41 Yeah, but because and then I said 101:46 I'm gonna leave now 101:48 He said yeah, you better cheers. I was just we're getting up now and we're leaving 101:55 Okay, I had to carry carried her out 101:57 We got out 101:59 Did you think they were going to actually kill you? 102:04 Because if they were why would they let you leave? 102:07 Well, I you know, I didn't know I mean there's a numbness. I felt there was a moment 102:12 Where it's possible? It was a moment that if I jump if I if I got in and made it a sudden movement 102:19 they kill me or whether it would be. But it's strange. I've never had many 102:26 experiences but this numbness, kind of this whole numbness just comes over you 102:30 or it's in my case you know just was frozen and and just sort of quietly said 102:37 it. So what was this called? It was called, it was a group called the guy 102:47 Okay, named Mel Lyman. 102:48 It was a Bel Lyman band. 102:51 It started in Boston, and it was a Commune. 102:54 It was a formal communal group. 102:57 It was a band as well? 102:58 No, they just called it a band. 102:59 He was a Mel Lyman jug band. 103:00 He was the leader of it. 103:02 So he was the leader of a, was this a band, 103:05 like a musical band? 103:06 Yeah, but he was, but the Commune was made up 103:09 of people from all different walks of life. 103:12 They own a bunch of houses up in Boston 103:17 Families all together here it is the Lyman family's Holy Siege of America inside the cult led by Mel Lyman the East Coast Charles 103:26 Manson holy shit 103:31 December 23rd 103:32 1971 holy fuck dude 103:35 Did they kill anybody? It says East Coast Charles Manson. Did he I don't know. He didn't wind up whacking anybody Jamie 103:41 I don't know. Please find it put that in perplexity 103:43 Ask our AI sponsor, Perplexity, whether he killed people. 103:49 You were wrapped up in that. 103:52 Well, I mean, slightly, I got out, but, you know, they moved out to Los Angeles, and, 104:04 you know, we alerted the police and kept an eye on them. 104:12 But, that was the bad side of communes. 104:16 But I'm thinking, you know, with all this going on and where I'm really worried about 104:25 our democracy, you know, the basic root. 104:29 So I'm sort of going, now that my career is not the most important thing in my life, 104:34 my family is, and my kids. 104:37 And I'm realizing more and more the responsibility 104:41 we have to community. 104:43 Well, first to our family. 104:45 First to our family. 104:46 I know about you, but I know I spent a lot of part of my 104:49 life as the most important thing being my career. 104:52 And I've been doing it for 50 years, 60 years. 104:56 And realized, especially earlier in my life, 104:59 my first marriage and other things that suffered 105:02 for lack of the career. 105:04 I don't believe you can balance your career necessarily 105:07 if you're ambitious with your family life. 105:11 People should kind of wait a little while, 105:13 maybe get the career going before they're making 105:14 commitments to having kids and a marriage. 105:20 Especially the film business, right? 105:22 I mean, you're also, you have to fly away to places 105:24 for long periods of time. 105:24 You gotta go different places at times. 105:26 But everybody, truckers are driving across country. 105:30 I mean, everybody's, you know, even with the so-called all this home business now with the 105:36 internet to let you do stuff. 105:39 So I'm sort of on this obsession now about how important family is, and, you know, we've 105:47 got members of that we could hate, but it's the gene, it's the genetic connection 105:53 that holds us kind of together. 105:55 and from that it's the community and I guess my point is we cannot take 106:03 democracy for granted and I'm included too many of us have just let it kind of 106:09 go on and let all these people take care of it. Those we all have those local 106:13 people in our community who still serve as the town clerk or still a 106:17 volunteer fire department people and and they're not a big group it's a 106:23 small group of people have a sense of volunteer work and supporting it and I 106:29 think we all have to start kind of strengthening our communities to our 106:35 states and not worrying about this federal government and and and started 106:41 from building from the bottom up rather than trying to cut off the head. Well the 106:47 rules exist for a reason because we really wanted to be representative of 106:51 the people. So we want it to be fair. And that's where people get really nervous about 106:56 the world we're living in, where there's so much money involved in politics. How can it 107:00 actually be representing the will of the people? And then there's a question to the people 107:04 themselves, do they know what they're voting for? Are they informed enough? Should you 107:08 have to be informed? Should you have to take a test to vote? Should you know what 107:12 you're voting on? I don't think we should be restricting people's right or access 107:16 us to vote. 107:17 But I do think it would behoove all of us if we actually understood what we were voting 107:21 for. 107:22 And I think a lot of times people are just voting for a team or an ideology, whether it's 107:28 on the right or the left, and a lot of times some very evil, hyperambitious people can 107:33 co-opt that group of people, and especially when they have so much money involved. 107:40 And that's what really fucked us is when money got involved in politics. 107:44 That's what really fucked us. 107:45 Amen. 107:46 It's changed everything. 107:49 It shouldn't be a path to riches, and it is. 107:52 We can hardly get a debate in at all with these sizes of the advertising budgets for ad 108:00 campaigns. 108:01 No. 108:02 And it's really disrupted this whole balance, I mean, as we watch the upcoming midterms, 108:08 you know. 108:09 They're using AI now, so they have artificial people doing things that they've never 108:13 done before in these AI videos and it's crazy that that's legal. It's also it's 108:19 very disheartening that these are the choices that we're saddled with you 108:22 know and everyone's waiting for like you know a true JFK style character to come 108:29 along that speaks eloquently and wisely and says things that we all agree make 108:34 sense and as a uniter you try to unite us. If you see anybody this anybody 108:40 they knew this on either side is sort of not like that. No, I wish that someone out 108:46 there would consider. I think there's a lot of people like that in the world 108:49 though. I'm not a pessimist and I'm not cynical in terms of human nature. I think 108:53 there's way more good people than bad people. But much like your algorithm 108:56 highlights things that anger you, we concentrate more on the bad than we 109:01 do on the good. I think this is like one of the greatest times ever to be 109:04 alive. As chaotic as the world is, this is an amazing time of information and 109:09 resources and also communication. A lot of it's bad, a lot of it's shitty, a lot 109:13 of it's bots, but a lot of it is people just trying to figure out what is right 109:17 and what is wrong. Why do I believe what I believe and why are we stuck in this 109:20 stupid fucking argument back and forth with each other where like my friend 109:24 Dave Smith always says like the 80% of the ideas most people agree on. It's 109:29 80-20. Most people agree and unfortunately when we're so tribal and 109:35 we get locked into this idea of this side or that side, red or blue, that we will go 109:41 along with some stuff that we absolutely don't agree with, because the opposite is the evil 109:45 party. 109:46 The opposite is, and I think it's a terrible tragedy in this country that we only have 109:52 two choices like that, and that you think of a libertarian candidate as a throwaway 109:56 vote. 109:56 I've voted libertarian before. 109:58 You think of it as like, this is a protest vote, you know, because California's going 110:02 to go blue no matter who. 110:03 Well, the laws, the laws are structured such that the libertarians can't get the campaign 110:09 money. 110:09 Exactly. 110:10 That they want. 110:11 Exactly. 110:12 And the problem is it's at the top. 110:15 We look at the news every night and we're all kind of getting along, whether Republicans 110:21 or Democrats. 110:22 Okay. 110:22 But these guys at the top have polarized it to such an extent. 110:27 I used to, my father was involved in, you know, a lot of politics over the years 110:32 And there's a guy named Jack Valenti, who's the motion picture television 110:38 represent the lobbyists, you know, and I remember, you know, I remember 110:42 25, 30 years ago 110:45 you know, you argue your hell out and this and that then you all go on out 110:49 You go to the same cocktail party now. Absolutely. I mean socially everything is 110:55 separate. I remember that from the 90s. Yeah, that in the 90s like I had friends that were Republicans when I was in the 90s 111:00 And we would discuss things. 111:02 When I was a kid, we were on welfare. 111:04 I believe in social safety nets. 111:06 I think it's important. 111:07 When people are poor, they shouldn't starve. 111:09 It's crazy. 111:10 But I also believe that a lot of these welfare programs 111:13 get pilfered. 111:14 And I think there's a lot of them. 111:16 What you're doing is when you look at a lot of these NGOs 111:19 and a lot of these nonprofits, an enormous amount of the money 111:22 that gets donated to these things gets distributed 111:25 by the executives. 111:27 You find people that are working for the homeless, 111:28 They're making a million dollars a year like what the fuck is going on here. Yeah, it seems like this is a business 111:33 This is a business and this business thrives on making sure there's a lot of homeless people 111:37 So you keep getting the same money just like that scene in falling down right when he says you have to justify your budget 111:43 You have to spend all that money because then you won't get that money next year 111:46 That's a real problem in this country 111:48 It's a giant problem when it comes to even philanthropy and even like really good charitable organizations 111:54 You find out how much of that money is just getting slung around to NGOs and how much of 111:59 that money is just getting just moved around into other people's bank accounts. 112:04 Joe, I concur with you, but I cannot believe it comes close to the corruption involved 112:10 in the military industrial complex. 112:12 I think you're right. 112:13 No, I think you're right. 112:14 I think there's corruption across the board. 112:16 I'm not excusing the corruption in the military industrial complex by saying that 112:21 We I'm just saying that we need to pay attention to the fact that look there's 24 billion dollars 112:26 for spent on the homeless in California and 112:28 Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill to audit it to find out where that money went 112:32 And I think if I had a guess I think because a lot of it goes to places that are very uncomfortable a lot of it 112:37 Probably went to NGOs just like the fire money from the Pacific Palisades fire, right? That money got distributed to like a hundred different 112:45 NGOs 112:46 That's crazy. It's supposed to go to the people that were losing their houses 112:49 It's supposed to like people raised all this money and had all this goodwill and charity because they thought it was gonna 112:54 Help these poor people that were struck down these people that you know 112:57 There's a lot of people were barely paying their mortgages 112:59 They lived in a great neighborhood 113:00 It was worth it to them and then they lost everything and none of that money went to them that disturbs people and it should it doesn't 113:08 It doesn't dismiss or in any way condone the corruption of the military industrial complex because that's a gigantic problem in this country a 113:16 huge problem and it's been the other woman you're speaking about we should 113:21 be able to to monitor more carefully hundred percent by state when that's 113:25 what you're saying is it makes sense but we should we can do that is another 113:32 hidden you know the Pentagon is never passed an audit never imagine if you 113:37 never passed an audit yeah 113:40 It would have been jailed a long time ago. 113:42 Where's that fucking romance in the stone, money, sir? 113:45 Yeah, they would have put you in the pokey a long time ago. 113:48 I mean, look how many people they did arrest for 113:51 and put in jail for tax evasion, you know? 113:54 Lauren Hill went to fucking jail from the Fuji's. 113:58 She went to jail, and they don't even care if you pay, 114:01 it's not even like you owe us the money, 114:02 you gotta pay it back. 114:03 No, no, no, you go to jail and you pay it back, 114:07 But you gotta go to jail so that everybody knows don't fuck with the government. We want our money. It's like Joe Pesci from Goodfellas 114:13 Fuck you pay me. Yeah, that's what it is. And that's that's the boot that we're all living under 114:19 You know, there's a lot of problems in this country. Yeah a lot of problems. There's also the student debt problem 114:24 That's a giant problem. Yeah saddle down kids with it just debt 114:28 They can never get free of the only debt that we allow in this country that could never never get out of 114:34 You can get bankrupt from a lot of different things, but you don't ever get excused from 114:41 those loans. 114:41 That was one of the things I'm not proud about that I wrote in the book because, but 114:47 the student that was, when I turned 21, and I was just in my sophomore year in college, 114:57 my dad said, you're 21, okay, here you go. 115:01 He took a checkbook, he wrote a check, he gave me $10,000, $10,000, but wow, dad, thanks, 115:09 that's great, wow, he says you're on your own, kid. 115:13 It's more than 95% of this country, it can't be good. 115:18 What was that in those days, like what is that equivalent to in today's dollar? 115:22 I don't know, I don't know, but I, no, maybe 10, I don't know, probably. 115:27 But I said, Dad, it's great, but you know, I got two years more of tuition in school 115:37 and everything, and you know, a couple of days as a son, they started getting pissed 115:41 about, you know, taking the says, no, I'm really grateful, but you know, anyway. 115:49 And then for 30 years, my father had four sons. I was the oldest. For 30 years, Dad would look at 116:00 all of my other brothers and your brother, Michael, never asked me for anything, anything in his life 116:09 after that. And you guys, and he would just drill these poor bastards, my brothers, about that. 116:14 And finally, about 30 years later, I had to say, 116:18 Dad, I got to tell you something. 116:20 He said, what? 116:22 You remember one Christmas? 116:24 You bought me a beautiful present. 116:26 You bought me these two beautiful Italian leather suitcases. 116:31 They were soft leather, these beautiful suitcases, right? 116:36 He said, yeah, I can't remember. 116:38 Well, when I would go back like a Christmas time from school 116:42 would go see my mother back east, right? 116:45 Well, each suitcase could fit 22 kilos of marijuana. 116:50 And I used to go back with just the clothes on my back 116:53 and 44 kilos, you know? 116:57 And that was how I got through, you know, 117:00 the rest of the expense of my school, 117:03 did it a couple of times, and that got me through. 117:06 But I said, I gotta tell you the story, Dad, 117:08 because, you know, you're beating, 117:10 and you're beating the shit out of my younger brothers and everything about, you know, I never 117:14 asked you for anything, but, you know. 117:19 Because I was a drug dealer. 117:21 Wow. 117:22 That's crazy. 117:24 How many trips did you make? 117:25 Twice. 117:27 How did you stop? 117:29 Well, because it was so much money. 117:31 How did you stop? 117:31 I mean, it must have been like, it's very profitable to do that. 117:34 Well, I remember it was like a kilo was $75 in the out west, 117:40 and you could sell it for five or $600, $700 back east. 117:47 But things were beginning to get, 117:51 that was where the whole hippie thing, all of a sudden, 117:54 ex-cons were coming out of jail and saying, hey, man, 117:58 grow your hair long. 118:00 Go to, you hate Ashbury, you fuck any girls you want 118:04 They gave you a free food and then you know that it got infiltrated and the drug dealings started getting 118:10 Violent violet and uglier and a little heavier and of course. Yeah. Wow 118:16 Well good on you for getting just true trips and out because a lot of people would have been sucked into that world 118:23 And got an addicted to the money. Yeah, and the thrill. I bet the thrill was crazy 118:27 They the adrenaline rush. Yeah doing it. Of course. This is before dogs, you know, right, right, right, right 118:34 But was it there was there a possibility they could have checked your luggage? Oh, sure 118:39 I'm sure they could have I mean it was it was you know did that happen sometimes back then 118:45 No, I mean I I don't know I was you know I was I was a little I was a hippie 118:52 Wow thinking totally totally 118:56 A lot of a good good memories a memory going to 119:04 Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa, here at Concert, and talk about Housen, Eugenics and 119:14 all of that. 119:16 And I was driving and they had, remember the ad, it was a serial ad for a kid, give it 119:22 to Mikey, see if Mikey likes it, yeah, Mikey likes it, so I dropped whatever we had and 119:31 I was going to the concert and I made a left turn and all of a sudden, I almost was there 119:37 with my car driving, all of a sudden, but you can see the red lights are going and I 119:43 go, oh man, and I get out of the car and I go back and I talked to the police officer 119:49 and it's okay, I made an illegal left-hand turn and I said, okay, I remember when I 119:59 We had a few joints and Danny was in the back seat and I just looked at him and said, where's 120:09 the grass? 120:10 And Danny smiled and all his mouth was entirely this green monk. 120:17 He swallowed all of them at the time. 120:21 I mean, just a crazy, you know, crazy story, we had a great time. 120:29 And then he went on and then I don't have ever saw a movie called The War of the Roses. 120:35 Did you ever see Danny directed that one? 120:39 One of the things that I found out when I was getting ready for this that I didn't know 120:43 before was that you produced One Flew Over the Cougars now. 120:47 Was that your first big project? 120:52 The first project as a producer, I mean, I had never, the way it worked is that dad, 1960, 121:01 dad got Spartacus. 121:03 So Spartacus is like the biggest star in the world. 121:05 And he had a production company about 1962. 121:09 He acquired the galleys of this book called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken 121:14 Keesey and he had it adapted into a play. 121:17 And his idea was he was going to go back to Broadway, do the play for six months, and then, 121:24 you know, big success, and this and that, and come out and make the movie. 121:28 The play didn't work out. 121:30 It wasn't a success, and he did it. 121:33 But again, I thought about him, at the height of his movie career, he could do anything. 121:39 He wanted to go back and do this play. 121:41 And it was a great part, R. P. McMurphy, the character. 121:46 So, and then he tried for years now, cut 1963, I'm in college, and I'm in 20th century American 121:57 literature course, and one flew over the Cuckoo's nest now as an American classic, right? 122:04 I start working in the business, I've had like five turkey movies, now I'm going into 122:11 television, episodic television. This is before the streets of San Francisco. I met my dad's 122:17 office one day and I hear he's tried for six years and he's going to sell. He's going to 122:23 sell a cuckoo zest. I said, Dad, you can't sell that, man. This is just a great story. 122:32 And Joe, I had no intention of even thought about producing or anything. I was just 122:37 I mean actor but I said look let me run with it let me let me get let me try to 122:43 get it set up dad you play the part right but make a production give me give 122:47 me a chance to set it up and he was a great dad he looked me in the eyes and 122:52 okay you know I give you a year so now so now Streets of San Francisco starts 123:00 and I'm shooting all of this in San Francisco with Carl Malden I'm doing 123:05 in the show. I go through my father's files, the history of Cuckoo's Nest, and I see this 123:12 guy named Saul Zance, who has a record company in Berkeley, California called Fantasy Records 123:19 who expressed interest about the project. So now I'm up in San Francisco, I reach out 123:26 to Saul, found out what happened, but the problem was, and we kind of worked it out. 123:35 And Saul had basically a record company, Jazz Labels, Milestone Prestige Jazz Labels, but 123:41 he had this one rock and roll group called the Gallywogs. 123:46 And while I was there, he just hired the Gallywogs and said, we've got to change 123:50 their name. And they changed their name to Creedence Clearwater Revival. All right? So 123:57 Creedence Clearwater Revival paid for Cuckoo's Nest. So now, you know, we made the deal. I 124:04 finally got a screenplay after a period of time. I got a director, Milos Forman, and now the 124:11 director and Saul sit me down and say, Michael, Kirk's too old. Kirk is not going to work 124:23 out. And I pushed Joel. I said, Michael, we're working together. I understand. 124:32 He was going to play the Jack Nicholson role. 124:34 Yeah. He was. He was our people. You think about it. I mean, he would be our people 124:38 Murphy, if he'd been like 20 years younger 124:42 when he first backed the image with the plate. 124:47 This episode is brought to you by Ethos. 124:50 Life is unpredictable. 124:51 That's why you need life insurance. 124:54 It helps give your family financial stability 124:56 if the worst happens, 124:57 so they can continue living the life you've built. 124:59 With Ethos, you can get covered in minutes. 125:01 All online, no medical exam, just a few health questions. 125:05 With policies as low as $30 a month, 125:07 Get your free quote at ethos.com slash jre that's ethos.com slash jre application times and rates may vary 125:16 This episode is brought to you by eight sleep 125:18 There are so many people out there who swear by the pod by eight sleep the smart mattress cover that goes on your existing mattress 125:26 But have you been on the fence now's the time to get on board? Why? 125:31 Because they've just released pod six. I'm gonna make it real simple for you 125:35 Here are the Pod 6 headline upgrades. 125:38 It's a 50% smaller hub, so it'll fit under most bed frames. 125:42 It features 20% faster temperature relief with 9 times more biometric sensors in the cover. 125:49 It starts at just $1,999, the lowest starting price 8 sleep has ever offered. 125:56 And if that's not enough, this Pod cools each side of the bed independently 126:01 from 55 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. 126:06 Use code Rogan at 8sleep.com slash Rogan 126:09 for up to $200 off the Pod 6. 126:13 So I had to go to my dad. 126:15 How old was he at the time? 126:16 60, 62. 126:18 60, 62. 126:21 And I had to go to my dad and say, 126:24 Dad, it ain't gonna happen. 126:29 And I can tell you now, Joe, if you get four good parts in your entire career, four really 126:36 great parts, you're lucky. 126:37 You're really lucky. 126:39 I mean, they don't come along often. 126:41 And R.P. 126:42 McMurphy was one of those parts. 126:46 I said, Dad, the director and so all financing, they just, they don't see it. 126:52 I mean, he looked at me, you know, not sure. 126:57 I said, I went to the mat. 126:59 I said, Dad, we're still, you know, we're producing a picture. 127:03 I'm giving you half of my producing deal for giving me this opportunity. 127:09 And I was that. 127:10 We went off. 127:10 We made the movie. 127:12 And then I brought Dad up to Berkeley, California to see the final cut of the picture 127:18 that was all put together. 127:20 and he came out of the theater and he said, 127:24 Michael, it's a hell of a movie, a hell of a movie. 127:29 And Jack was fantastic. 127:33 And he was just such a mensch about it. 127:39 But, but over every few years, you know, 127:44 when he had dad had a couple of pops, 127:46 he said, you could, I could have done that, 127:48 you know I could have done that picture and all that. But for me it was crazy 127:54 because the streets of San Francisco was a big hit. Big hit number one show in 127:59 ABC. We had you know we average 24-25 million viewers a week you know ABC was 128:08 this brand new network and just started and then it was syndicated all 128:13 over the world. So when I went to them and said let me get the 128:18 You're going to leave, you're going to leave this hit series to make this little, to produce, 128:24 not even act in, to produce this little indie film. 128:27 And Dad was up, everybody said, are you sure this is a right idea? 128:31 I was in love with the project. 128:35 I never thought about producing. 128:37 But what had happened is all the 104 hours, 104 episodes, 104 hours of television I'd 128:45 done with Carl Maldon, a wonderful actor. 128:49 I had learned so much about production and everything 128:53 that I was shocked when the picture came about how much 128:57 I really knew. 129:01 And so I left the show. 129:03 First of all, they let me out of my contract, 129:06 which is unheard of these days. 129:07 I had a five-year contract at a hit show 129:09 and Carl Maldon loved him to death. 129:13 I said, I know you've been thinking about Go Fort and Quinn Martin, this big TV producer 129:19 had the fugitive and FBI and all that said, Go Fort. 129:24 And so this totally changed my life so that now I'm a television actor, but I'm an Academy 129:34 Award winning producer. 129:36 I've got a studio deal as a producer, you know. 129:42 But those days before streaming, television and feature films were on very separate tracks. 129:50 Television you were treated like a television actor and movies were the big thing. 129:56 So I'm a producer, but I can't get hired in the movies as an actor. 130:01 It was really hard. 130:03 I would be like the last choice 130:05 But then I had a run I had as a producer 130:09 We had one floor of the cuckoo's desk the China syndrome romancing the stone Jewel 130:14 They'll have four or five hits right in the row and at the same time was trying to find these little roles 130:21 I could play in 130:23 You know as an actor 130:25 Wow, yeah 130:27 Another film that you made that's an all-time great 130:31 And it still freaks people out to this day's fatal attraction, holy shit. That movie scared the fuck out of me 130:38 It scared the fuck out of us. Glenn Close was so good in that movie. She was so good 130:42 Oh, and you know it's such a such a lesson Joe because we didn't want or we were casting the picture, you know and 130:51 Glenn Close who already had three Academy Award nominations to her name 130:57 I really wanted to do it. 130:59 We all said, no, she's just not right. 131:01 We didn't mean to think she was sexy enough for this or that. 131:04 And finally, her agent called, so listen, Glenn Close will come in and audition for you. 131:10 I went, holy shit, this is a free time, Academy Award nomination is coming and auditioned 131:14 for us. 131:15 And she came in and she had that part down in Alex. 131:22 And boy were we wrong. 131:24 The director, we all meet each other and it was such a lesson of learning that she was 131:30 so committed that she lay herself out there and she was so good. 131:35 She was perfect for the role. 131:37 I couldn't imagine anybody else doing it. 131:39 She plays crazy so well. 131:42 There's a darkness in that woman's mind. 131:44 It's amazing that the issue that, on another level, she's most involved with 131:50 this mental health. 131:52 It's an issue that's been involved in her family. 131:55 Makes sense. 131:56 She probably made a lot of people crazy 131:57 just from that movie. 131:58 Oh, yeah. 131:58 Oh, definitely. 132:00 Oh, no, I had all- 132:01 She played crazy so well. 132:03 My friends, I had my male friends, 132:05 so thanks a lot, man. 132:07 Hey, thank you, they fucking hated me for this movie. 132:10 They hated me. 132:12 You know, I was like, it was a perfect concept nightmare. 132:16 Yeah. 132:17 Perfect what if. 132:18 And I remember we were in France promoting the movie in France and all the 132:24 reviewers that you know in France we all had mistresses it is not the big deal 132:30 yeah this and that it was a smash it every French wife dragged their husband 132:35 to the right their husband of the theater it's okay this is what could 132:39 happen motherfucker so be careful well such a Glenn closest character was 132:43 such a complex character because it was like this very strange dance of 132:47 sexy and crazy and dangerous, like really dangerous. 132:52 No, she was brilliant. 132:53 Brilliant. 132:53 And then when we did our final screening, 132:59 the picture was just like gangbusters, 133:02 but we had a different ending that didn't work. 133:06 And the ending we had was that we had a fight 133:12 near the end and I had a knife in my hand 133:15 And you kind of established it. 133:17 And so the ending was Glenn almost in a Buddha position with Madame Butterfly playing and sort 133:26 of symbolically taking a knife and slitting her throat. 133:31 And then putting the knife down and the audience knew that my fingerprints were on the knife. 133:36 Right? 133:38 So I was going to get it. 133:39 Oh wow. 133:41 That didn't work? 133:42 No. 133:42 It was so... 133:43 It was a beautiful ending, but Glenn was so good. 133:49 She was so great that the audience, 133:51 like they had blue balls, because they said, 133:54 no, kill the bitch. 133:55 I mean, you don't kill, I said. 133:57 It was like, you know, no, no, no, man. 133:59 No, Wayne Wayne, kill her. 134:01 Kill her. 134:01 They would not allow her to take her own life 134:06 without getting revenge. 134:09 And poor Glenn absolutely said, 134:12 We have to shoot a new ending. 134:13 She said, absolutely not. 134:15 This is my character. 134:17 This is what makes it all work. 134:18 And she refused to do this ending. 134:22 And so I was like, shit. 134:25 And it just wasn't working. 134:27 The ending was so hard to explain to her that it was 134:31 because she was so good. 134:35 Oh my god, you're a fast man. 134:36 This is it. 134:37 I'm not sure what I can answer. 134:38 Right. 134:39 You can find it on YouTube. 134:41 Oh, God. She's doing it slow. Oh, God. 134:47 Oh, yeah. 134:51 Okay, I get it. 134:52 You get it? 134:53 Oh, yeah. 134:53 So finally, I say, Glenn. 134:57 She's a wonderful theater actress, too. 135:00 Yeah, I mean, I say, Glenn, 135:02 when you do a Broadway show, 135:04 they take the show out of town 135:07 and before it comes to Broadway 135:09 and they play the play 135:11 And then based on audience reaction, they rewrite things, right? 135:18 So if this was a play and we did this, and you saw that scene, they would tell us if it was a playwright in town, 135:27 and we would have to change it. 135:31 So this is why I never understood, people have this whole criticism about screening movies, 135:36 doing test screening audiences. 135:38 It's for the audience, man. 135:40 I mean, you want to find out what the audience feels. 135:43 I mean, I understand the art as a director and his vision 135:46 and everything, but you know, you want to make 135:48 as entertaining as possible. 135:51 So I persuaded her and it all worked out. 135:57 I love her to dance. 135:58 She was wonderful to work with.
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