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May 30, 2018 - The Joe Rogan Experience
03:12:35
Joe Rogan Experience #1123 - Kevin Smith
Participants
Main voices
j
joe rogan
01:24:17
k
kevin smith
01:44:43
Appearances
Clips
j
jamie vernon
00:37
j
josh olin
00:01
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
Piaaaach!
Biatch!
joe rogan
We're live.
Dude, we always say we're going to do these regularly.
kevin smith
Yes.
joe rogan
Every like two or three years, we pledge that we will do these regularly.
kevin smith
And then a decade goes by.
And then we don't see each other.
But I hope that in your heart, just like mine, that it's not like, oh, I've had enough of that fuck.
joe rogan
No, no, no.
kevin smith
It's life.
I see how busy you are.
You're one of the few people I follow on Instagram.
And I've said it on the previous show.
I just love to look at your life because I'm like, fuck, he's doing everything he wants and nothing I'd ever want to do, but fuck, he goes to the hill.
And not in a judgy way of like, he shouldn't be doing that, but just like, you know, I've said, you live a man's life.
I live a boy's life as a 47-year-old man.
So you do things like you got a float tank.
You hunt.
You know how to handle a bow and arrow.
I'm the guy that writes about people that shoot bow and arrows to stop crimes.
They usually have boxing gloves at the end of them and shit like that.
joe rogan
Yeah, but that's good, too.
kevin smith
Oh, believe me, I ain't shit on it.
But I do...
I guess the point is, I know you're busy as fuck, and I know sometimes I get very busy as fuck, but I think we only don't do this because of how busy we are.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's all it is.
kevin smith
That's very kind of you to say.
You're like, that's...
Yeah, I'll buy that.
joe rogan
No, that's all it is for me, for sure.
kevin smith
For me, I'm like, fuck, I could do that once a week because I'd walk away.
I always walk away with a real like, I've never done cocaine, but I imagine it's what it's like to do a line of cocaine off, I don't know, somebody beautiful or something like that.
I always walk away with wisdom.
And it's wisdom that even though it's on a podcast and recorded and there's a record of like, well, that's where you learned those things.
I still go out into the world, present them as my own.
Like I'm a smart, well-read person.
joe rogan
Out there, there's dudes that have done a line of cocaine off someone, and they're like, what the fuck is he talking about?
I've never learned anything from that.
kevin smith
Except how to do it better, where the cocaine doesn't quite fall into the ass cracker.
joe rogan
Or where did all my money go?
I've got to think that.
kevin smith
That was never my poison, man.
I still have never in this lifetime done...
Knowingly done cocaine.
Somebody might have slipped it to me.
joe rogan
You and I both.
kevin smith
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah, I never touched it.
kevin smith
Come on, man.
That's fucking...
You know what I'm saying?
joe rogan
In Hollywood, we're rare.
kevin smith
Yeah, and also just as entertainers, we're rare as well.
Does it ever make you feel less than?
No.
Those of us who try to be funny in this business and those who have been insanely successful and become icons, they always have, you know, and then they did blow for hours and blah, blah, blah.
Do you ever feel like, oh, that's not part of my matrix, hence I must not be one of the greats?
joe rogan
No, I'm very lucky that I don't.
kevin smith
That you don't feel that?
joe rogan
That I don't feel that.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Because I think I'd have a real problem with speed and amphetamines and coke.
I think I'd have a real problem with that.
kevin smith
That's what draws your eye, like, from a distance?
joe rogan
I think I'd enjoy it.
unidentified
Really?
joe rogan
I think I'd enjoy it.
And I think it's the worst thing for someone like me, who's a probably overconfident person to begin with.
kevin smith
Right.
joe rogan
You know, which has served me well, but...
But that stuff makes you crazy overconfident.
kevin smith
I only giggle not because it's not facetious.
If you walked into the facility that I just walked into and had the grand tour that you were given, gentle listener and watcher at home...
I was saying to Joe before we went, like, he's got this new...
New to me.
I don't know how long you've been here.
Since October, you said.
joe rogan
Yeah.
kevin smith
But it's a paradise.
It's a, you know, fuck the term man cave.
This is like man empire.
You walk in and it's just...
It's like walking into Joe's head.
It's everything he loves under one fucking roof.
And I said it to him before, like...
You did this with your mouth.
You talked yourself into this.
joe rogan
Very strange.
kevin smith
Isn't that awesome?
joe rogan
Yeah.
kevin smith
I mean, I know you've got a zillion things that you do, but even in a world of the MMA stuff, that's still your mouth.
It's always your fucking mouth that is taking you from where you started till now.
You walk into this building, it's not like he had a family fortune and this was willed to him.
Your mouth put you in a building this nice.
Painted the walls the color it is.
You walk in, it's like a museum.
It's like you see pieces of him, hence me, all over the fucking place.
That's all out of your mouth.
If anybody's watching or listening at home, teetering on the verge of like, I wonder if I should do a podcast.
Send them a snapshot of that fucking room where you can launch bow and arrows for 45 yards.
They'll start talking.
joe rogan
Well, I think if you're interesting at all, you should do a podcast.
kevin smith
Fuck yeah.
joe rogan
It can be a way to make a living.
There's enough people.
I'm not one of those famine thinkers.
I think the opposite.
I'm like, you could do it.
Anybody could do it.
I'm never like, man, it might not be enough for everybody.
kevin smith
I agree.
I'm always the guy who encourages you to like, hey, try it because, oh my God, it's fucking fun for me.
And, you know, we're rare birds in as much as we've been around since the fucking art form started.
Like, you've been doing podcasts since a minute after a podcast began.
joe rogan
Corolla started first.
He was the guy who...
kevin smith
Well, I predate Corolla.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, yeah, for sure.
kevin smith
For sure.
But you're in the first five years?
joe rogan
You were...
Well, what year did you start?
kevin smith
I started, we just celebrated last year was our 10th anniversary of Smodcast, so we're now year 11. So count back from now is 2007?
joe rogan
Yeah, that's a couple of years.
kevin smith
When did you begin?
joe rogan
I think 2009. It was in two years of the big bang.
kevin smith
When I jumped in, it was Leo Laporte doing This Week in Tech, and I think he still does that.
And the Happy Tree Friends, and that was like the Apple Podcast Top 5. And then me and Scott started with Smodcast, and then later on we added a bunch of stuff.
But getting in within the first two years, we happened, and then right on the heels of us, Adam was on the radio, and then the radio job went away.
joe rogan
What year was that where Adam went to podcasting?
kevin smith
If we started Smodcast 2007, we start February 2007. Either he loses the radio gig in 2007 and moves to podcast, or it happens in 2008. But it was...
joe rogan
He's in that neighborhood.
kevin smith
Yes, and he was the model for a lot of folks now, like Ralph Garman, the guy that I do at Hollywood Babble.
joe rogan
I love Ralph.
kevin smith
Ralph's amazing.
He was let go by K-Rock earlier this year or later.
Yeah, at the end of last year, right before Christmas.
And so he too moved into a kind of online world.
It can sustain a motherfucker.
joe rogan
He's a smart, talented guy.
Ralph's a very smart guy.
kevin smith
The Ralph Report is his show.
joe rogan
I like him a lot.
kevin smith
He's a good dude.
joe rogan
He's a very good dude.
I always like talking to him at K-Rock.
kevin smith
When you go to K-Rock, that's how our friendship began.
You sit there doing the show and then afterwards, like I was a cigarette smoker in those days, and we'd sit there out in the parking lot and smoke.
And Slowly, like, I remember I came in once to K-Rock, just announced, like, hey, I've rented a theater on Santa Monica Boulevard, and we're calling it Smodcast, and we're the world's first live podcasting theater, and we're going to do podcasts there and stuff.
And so, Ralph was listening.
He's right there.
And then, like, months prior, he had approached me.
He's like, hey man, would you ever want to do, like, the showbiz beat?
That's what he used to do on K-Rock, on Kevin and Bean.
Like, as a Saturday show, and I was like, fuck yeah, hear myself on the radio?
That'd be fantastic.
So, we recorded a demo for the show, gave it to his bosses, and his bosses were like, nobody wants to listen to people talk on the radio anymore.
And so it died there, just like how years ago things died when you couldn't get past a gatekeeper who was like, we don't want your shit.
joe rogan
Was this after the talk radio station in LA went under?
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
Okay, so they probably were like, they got burned on that, it didn't work.
kevin smith
And they were just, you know, K-Rock was reading the tea leaves, which was like...
People don't want to hear people chat.
They just want to play music.
We're competing with satellite radio.
Now we're competing with streaming music where it's like they don't have to wait 15 minutes to hear a song.
joe rogan
They had some good shows, though.
Like Conway and Steckler.
That was a really good show.
They were great.
There's a bunch of really good shows.
kevin smith
So we had tried that.
It was called Showbiz Beat.
And then months later when I was in there going like, yeah, I'm opening this podcast theater.
Afterwards, in the parking lot, grabbing the post-show smoke, Ralph was just like, hey, would you ever want to try that radio show at that theater?
And I was like, fuck yeah.
You want to do it as a podcast?
And he was like, yeah, let's try it out.
And so I was driving home and I texted him at a light...
I said we could call it Hollywood Babylon.
There's an old book called Hollywood Babylon that was about, like, gossipy stories about Hollywood people and stuff.
But we spelled it, of course, differently and stuff.
And that's what I brought to Babylon.
Other than that, Ralph built that entire thing.
And then my job became...
To sit next to him and react to the news.
That's why I love that podcast so much.
As you can tell, I fucking love the sound of my own voice and I wind up talking, talking, talking.
On Smodcast, I would lead.
On Jay and Silent Bob Get Old, which is really about Jason Mewes, I wind up talking a bunch.
But with...
Babylon, I get to sit there while he's the main act and I'm, you know, the second banana.
It's nice to be able to top and bottom in the world of podcasting.
Like, you know, it gives you a place to go.
If I'm topping all the time, right, then I'm talking about my thoughts and what I believe in.
And these are the experiences I've had and people are interested in that.
But then sometimes you just want to check out and talk about somebody else's shit.
On a podcast we do called Fat Man on Batman, that's what we do.
I just sit around and go like, oh my god, did you watch the Avengers and shit like that?
So you get to concentrate on that kind of stuff.
So yeah, the Babylon thing grew insanely organically.
We started at that little theater, sat 48 people, and since he was on the radio every morning, he could just fucking sell it out.
He'd be like, hey, go to Kevin Smith's website, you get tickets for Babylon, it'd be sold out.
joe rogan
Is that your place on...
What was it?
It was somewhere in West Hollywood, right?
That little theater?
kevin smith
It was on...
unidentified
Melrose?
kevin smith
Yeah, it was on Santa Monica Boulevard in an area where they put up a few black box theaters.
This section's called The Complex, and we had one theater in The Complex, and repainted it and hung up all the artwork.
You got artwork based on the podcast out in the hallway.
Same thing.
I essentially built a shrine...
To Scott Mosher, my co-host of Smodcast, which I'm sure on some level creeped him the fuck out.
First time he walked in was just like, he wants to wear my skin.
And so the idea was, we're going to do nothing but Smodcast here.
But since Scott...
Didn't suddenly go into like, yeah, let's do five podcasts a week.
You know, it stayed pretty much the same.
We had a theater with nothing going on in it and stuff.
So I started trying other things.
Babylon became one of them.
Jane, son, Bob, get old also came out of that experience as well.
joe rogan
Do you still have that theater?
unidentified
No.
kevin smith
No, we let go of that.
Me and Matty Cohen, who's a co-host on this very fun podcast he does with Macaulay Culkin.
Have you spoken to fucking Macaulay Culkin yet?
joe rogan
No.
kevin smith
I'm just putting a bug in your ear.
joe rogan
Yeah?
kevin smith
Oh, fuck, dude.
Fuck.
He gives good talk.
unidentified
Really?
kevin smith
Good oral.
I mean, that sounds filthier than I meant to, but you know what I'm saying.
Right.
Fucking fascinating.
unidentified
Really?
kevin smith
And funny and gifted.
Anyway, Matt and Macaulay do a podcast called Bunny Ears.
And so Matt Cohen was the guy that I had opened Smodcastle with.
Like, I was the guy going, I wish I had a black box theater.
And Matt went out and found it and stuff.
So we kept it open for like one year and then let it go because...
What had happened was, like, the Babble show sold so well so quickly all the time that it became clear, like, we could move this to a bigger theater.
This is a thing.
He was on the radio all the time, so it was easy to move seats.
So we went up to the Lovitz.
Remember John Lovitz Comedy Club?
Ralph had went to the Improv and Lovitz, and Lovitz was like, you could have 95 or 100% of the doors, something ridiculous.
And that was the only reason we went up there.
We were there for a while.
Things fell out with Lovett's and stuff.
And then we moved to the Improv instead.
So we've been there ever since.
And now we do it on the road quite a bit and stuff.
joe rogan
That Lovett's place is always weird, right?
Because the people were way above your head.
They were like one level here and one level way up there.
kevin smith
It was B.B. King's originally, back in the day.
So it was like a jazz club where you wouldn't mind looking down at the acts, but for a podcast, and with a guy with a fucking bald spot, it was nerve-wracking, because how am I supposed to be funny knowing they're staring down at me judging my bald spot?
joe rogan
Yeah, we did some comedy shows there, and it was great, but it was odd, because you did have to go straighten up and straighten up.
kevin smith
Let me just jump off topic real quick.
Was it The Times you were featured in for being like the source for news?
joe rogan
It's this thing that these guys are calling something the intellectual dark web.
And they've connected a bunch of people together.
That are interesting people that don't follow the standard...
kevin smith
Poor name.
Bad marketing.
Because when I read it, I was like, I don't think of him as Dark Web at all.
I think of Dark Web.
joe rogan
My friend Eric Weinstein, he loves that sneaky cloak and dagger type stuff.
He came up with the name of it.
He just gets a kick out of it, I think.
kevin smith
But essentially the piece was about how you are doing media that...
joe rogan
Well, it's really more about the rise of certain intellectuals that are very controversial, like Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris and all the debate about them.
I'm just someone who they get a chance to talk to for three hours in a pretty well...
Well, subscribe to base.
There's a lot of people that are going to listen to these conversations and they go, well, why haven't I heard people talk like this before?
Why haven't I heard about the idea of determinism versus free will?
kevin smith
Why haven't I heard like- Last time we were here, we talked about the universal monetary, everybody starts with a salary.
joe rogan
Yeah, universal basic income.
I was super hesitant about that.
I was like, that's nonsense.
And then the more I thought about it, whenever I just immediately dismiss something, I always have to go, okay, why am I immediately dismissing it?
Why did I go, ah?
And then I thought, ah, those fucking people, they're just lazy, they just want money, and then I went, all right.
Is that true?
josh olin
Let me see what the fuck's really going on.
joe rogan
Because there's a weird reaction that I had.
Like a reaction against lazy people.
kevin smith
The unexamined life is not worth living.
joe rogan
Yeah.
kevin smith
So it's easy enough for you to be like, no, I don't care.
But most people end it there and their story goes in a different direction.
joe rogan
You're like, wait, why don't I? I didn't have a clear defense of my actions, the way I thought.
I didn't do anything.
But the way I considered this subject, I didn't have a real base.
I was very knee-jerk.
So I said, okay, let me really examine this.
The real issue, I think, is going to be automation and artificial intelligence.
I think it's going to remove a tremendous amount of jobs.
I think automation in terms of car driving and different functions, once they get better at robotics and being able to do things, then people will be less and less necessary.
They have a real problem, they think, with cars, with the number of males that drive cars.
It's in the millions for a job, and that they would all almost instantly be out of work if they ever get these automated cars down.
kevin smith
I mean, since we're a culture that believes in technology, one's inclined to believe, oh, they will get these self-driving vehicles down to a science.
joe rogan
I think they'll get it down.
They're pretty damn close, considering the fact that it didn't exist.
kevin smith
As soon as somebody gets hit, they get set back.
A couple hundred miles.
joe rogan
Well, there's been a few fatalities, right?
Several.
But how many have been fatalities because of humans?
And I always say, that's true.
But how many more humans are driving than fucking robots?
I mean, that shit is off the charts.
That number's got to be bananas.
Like, how many actual robots are out there driving?
What do you got, ten?
And two of them kill people?
Settle down.
kevin smith
But still, if you look at the numbers, though, billions of people driving cars, only 10 robots, and they've already taken two lives.
So those are bad odds right there.
joe rogan
They're going to eat us, bro.
unidentified
That's what's going to happen.
joe rogan
I really believe that.
I've been talking about this a lot.
There's a fucking robot that DARPA created, and it's called the Eater Robot, E-A-T-R. And it can fucking fuel itself with biological material.
kevin smith
Any?
Or is it programmed for certain biological materials?
joe rogan
I don't know, man.
But biological material means dead bodies.
kevin smith
No doubt.
But does that mean that A, it's aware of when it's powering down?
joe rogan
I don't know.
Remember Eater, the military robot that's supposed to eat humans?
This is the thing.
I think the idea of biological material is maybe it could sustain itself on plants.
Maybe it could sustain itself.
kevin smith
That's where I go.
joe rogan
It's possible.
It's possible.
kevin smith
But you want right to human remains?
joe rogan
It's also possible, if you can use this thing in a battlefield, that you would want to have it eat people.
Because you can have dead people everywhere.
Have this fucking robot monster that you're sending to kill people also eat them.
kevin smith
So not only is it killing people, but it's also cleaning up in the background as well, taking dead bodies away.
joe rogan
I was a diabolical scientist, and I was going to come up with the evilest, meanest shit to send to the enemy to go get them.
It would be a robot that eats people.
kevin smith
Why?
joe rogan
Because it's going to kill people, right?
It's going to be sent there as a military machine.
kevin smith
And then it's just like, even though I have killed your loved one, watch in horror as I consume its flesh and power me further to kill you next.
I defaulted to a pretty bad and kind of stereotypical, and one might even say racist robot voice.
I apologize for that.
joe rogan
What race would that be?
unidentified
Monotones.
kevin smith
I feel no love nor pain.
joe rogan
And they can make it look scary, too, man.
They can make it look like Venom, like from the Star Wars books.
Spider-Man?
Spider-Man books.
kevin smith
I don't know if that would be scary.
People would be like, holy fuck, Venom's here.
unidentified
This rocks.
joe rogan
It would be pretty cool if you were a Venom fan.
kevin smith
It needs to look like...
joe rogan
That face.
This giant face with the extra wide...
kevin smith
That just becomes unhinged.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I mean, that, if that was in the Eater robot...
kevin smith
Would that scare you more or would it scare you more if there were like the Eater robot, its head is full of hypodermic needles, each one more toxic than the last and infectable at a moment's touch?
unidentified
Whoa.
joe rogan
Those are terrible too.
kevin smith
Do you want to drown or do you want to get eaten by the shark?
joe rogan
That's a good question.
kevin smith
Have you spoken about Roseanne yet?
joe rogan
Not publicly.
kevin smith
Have you had private conversations enough to form some sort of thought process on it?
joe rogan
I talked to Ben Shapiro about it today on his show, but it won't be out until Sunday.
kevin smith
Have you ever encountered her in the world?
joe rogan
I know Roseanne.
I talked to her on the phone, and I believe every word she said.
She told me that she was taking Ambien.
And that she was drunk on Memorial Day weekend, and she tweeted a bunch of stupid shit, and she's out of her fucking mind.
And she said, you know, in her words, I need to adjust my meds.
You know, I'm not thinking straight.
And she was talking about how exhausted she got doing that television show, and she got bronchitis, and she was overworked.
I think she's stressing the fuck out.
She also told me that she did not know that that lady was even black.
She thought that lady was Jewish.
And she said to me, like, do you really think that I would make a joke about a black lady and say, I wouldn't fucking do that.
She's like, I thought she was Jewish.
Look at her.
So I did look at her.
Like, pull up her Wikipedia page.
This lady.
She, um...
I mean, she most certainly...
Pull it up so we can see it.
I mean...
She most certainly could be African American, for sure.
But she also most certainly could be, like, Hawaiian or Native American or Italian, maybe.
She thought Jewish.
That's what Roseanne said, Jewish.
This is what she said.
I do not know.
I don't think she's lying to me.
I don't think she's racist.
kevin smith
Have you ever taken Ambien?
joe rogan
No, I've never taken Ambien.
kevin smith
Anybody here ever taken Ambien?
joe rogan
A good friend of mine about it today.
and he got up in the middle of the night, cooked himself a meal, ate it, went to sleep, got up in the morning and had no recollection of it.
He had to be told that he did.
He was trying to figure out who put the plates in the sink, who ate this food, where this food come from.
He couldn't figure it out.
He got up in the middle of the night, doesn't remember a thing, and cooked himself a meal, sat down, ate it, went back to bed, had zero recollection of it.
He said it scared the shit out of him.
kevin smith
But during that meal, at any point, did he get racist or anything like that?
joe rogan
I wonder.
kevin smith
You know what I'm saying?
It's a spooky story to be like, I took Ambien and I made myself some food.
It's an even spookier story to be like, I took Ambien and I fucking killed somebody.
But it's a stretch to be like, I took Ambien and I said something I would never say in a million years.
It heartens me To hear you say that she said that she wasn't aware of the ladies' race.
joe rogan
Yeah.
kevin smith
Because, you know, I don't know her.
All I know her from is Roseanne.
All I know her from is decades of watching her in media, her TV show.
I followed her before the TV show.
It didn't seem like The Roseanne that I've watched for 30 40 years.
joe rogan
Well, see that's the thing.
I'm not close to her on a daily basis You know, I have tremendous respect for her as a comedian I think she's she was a real pioneer in a lot of ways.
She was this brash like really confident lady who shit on stupid men and And she did it in this, like, really bold way in stand-up that was very unique for the time.
I think if people go back and you watch, like, some of her early stand-up when she was coming out of Denver, The domestic goddess stuff.
She was a beast, man.
She was a beast.
She was crushing.
She was crushing.
And then she got that sitcom, and it's absolutely one of the greatest sitcoms of all time.
But now she's 65 years old, and it's fucking hard for her.
And that schedule, she was telling me, was absolutely brutal.
They were killing her with all the work.
I don't know her very well, but I do know there was another time where she said something about Susan Rice, who is another African-American woman, and she said something about her and compared her to...
unidentified
Swinging balls.
joe rogan
Yeah, something like swinging ape balls.
kevin smith
So that's two for two.
joe rogan
It's two, yeah.
Well, this one for sure, right?
Because this one there's no excuse for.
This is one from the past that there was no, you know, like, oh my god, I was on Ambien, I tweeted this.
No one said anything.
Susan Rice is a man with big swinging ape balls.
kevin smith
And that wasn't meant to be a compliment, I guess.
joe rogan
That's 2013. Okay, so that's a long time ago.
That's five years ago.
kevin smith
Oh, and you can, I mean, I don't know if it's still available, but you can go through a timeline and see a bunch of things.
joe rogan
Yeah.
kevin smith
Or not like a comedian being funny, but, you know, beliefs.
joe rogan
Right.
That one is, that was a rough one.
That to me is a way rougher one.
It's way rougher.
Like that one is like, that's what you said.
I mean, it is what it is.
You know, if you said that the other lady looked like Planet of the Apes just because of her haircut, because she looks like the lead woman.
kevin smith
Zira?
joe rogan
Yeah, she looked like Zira.
There was like a photo of her back.
It was just like the way her haircut was and her outfit was.
I think some people, you know, would...
But if you didn't know that she was black, it's a totally different thing.
Do we know that for sure?
You know, only she knows for sure, you know.
kevin smith
Were you surprised at how quickly it all ended?
joe rogan
Yeah.
kevin smith
That was the part of the story that, again, I have no skin in the game other than I watched the old Roseanne and I was enjoying the new Roseanne as well.
But I came home from, like, I was in Vegas the other day and I flew home yesterday morning and then I had a meeting over at the studios, like, at noon.
So I took a nap when I got home.
And all of a sudden my wife wakes me up and she goes, you got a meeting, don't forget.
It's 11.30.
Oh, and Roseanne's been canceled.
And I'm like, that's impossible.
I was groggy, but I'm like, that's impossible.
Like 20 million people are watching that show.
And she said, she tweeted something racist.
So I fucking pick up my phone and I look at it and stuff.
And by the time, this had happened in the span of the hour I took a fucking nap.
The network acted so fucking incredibly fast.
There was no prevarication, equivocation.
joe rogan
No, dude, they had that act sharpened and ready.
kevin smith
It was nuts!
Like, all of a sudden, they were just like, we're done!
We don't know her!
Disabow!
And I think it was so surprising because it's been a while since somebody did something even...
Superficially moral.
You know what I'm saying?
I've read a lot of articles online where people are like, hey man, ABC didn't own the show, so of course they didn't have as much skin in the game, so it was easy for them to cancel it.
Would they have canceled it as fast if they owned the show?
You can make a bunch of caveats, but at the end of the day...
Something bad happened and then the network reacted.
A major company, a major corporation reacted and acted.
joe rogan
Do you think what they did is the right way to handle it?
To just immediately cancel the show?
kevin smith
I personally would have...
Maybe fired her and kept everybody else.
Done like the, you know, Valerie.
joe rogan
Have her die off?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Or just use computer animation?
kevin smith
You could replace her with a Pixar-ish character, but I think you can tell equally compelling stories.
Like, without her.
Honestly, like, the nine episodes that they've done this season, she really hasn't been the driving factor of the stories.
It's been more about Darlene.
That's who I felt bad for when this whole thing imploded, because I'm like, she put this show together, Sarah Gilbert.
And she was crushing on it.
She was really good.
Showing off what a great actress she is.
But now everybody's out of jobs.
Feel bad for John Goodman.
I've worked with him before.
And he was wonderful on the show.
They could have sustained the show without her, I think.
joe rogan
Can she be forgiven?
kevin smith
Sure.
Didn't Mel Gibson get forgiven?
Isn't he working again?
joe rogan
Well, Mel Gibson, it was also a case of him being intoxicated, right?
He was yelling some anti-Semitic stuff at a cop who was drunk.
kevin smith
Well, I mean, never mind that.
Didn't he also punch his ex-wife?
There was a more violent action than him just saying, hey, sugar tits.
His wife had recorded him?
joe rogan
She recorded him yelling at her on the phone.
kevin smith
So nobody knows if he truly hit her.
joe rogan
I don't know.
kevin smith
All right, my bad.
I thought that was part of the story.
unidentified
I don't know.
joe rogan
I don't know.
I don't know even the specifics of any accusations.
kevin smith
I also didn't follow it that closely.
And not because I'm like, man, that's Martin Riggs.
I don't want to hear nothing bad about him.
I just didn't follow it because I'm like, ugh.
joe rogan
Yeah, man.
kevin smith
Can she be forgiven?
Sure.
Will she be forgiven?
I don't know.
I mean, look.
She should have tweeted what you said instead of, oh my god, I took Ambien.
That turned into an opportunity for a major pharmaceutical company to put out one of the best zingers Twitter's ever seen.
This is a company, they're not normally used to...
Hey, what should we say to be funny?
Like, they have to put out very staid information.
And for once, they were like, how about this, guys?
We say racism isn't a byproduct of our drug.
joe rogan
It was really well said.
kevin smith
It was.
It was funny.
joe rogan
It was well worded.
kevin smith
Makes you sit there and go like, why didn't I tweet that?
joe rogan
Whoever wrote it was pretty slick.
The thing Ambien does do, though, it definitely makes you act bizarre.
This is the sleep aid, right?
kevin smith
This is the one that's supposed to make you go to sleep.
joe rogan
I mean, if you just...
Can't people just smoke weed?
kevin smith
Eat edibles?
joe rogan
That would help.
kevin smith
Right?
joe rogan
There's websites dedicated to people that have had crazy experiences on that stuff.
kevin smith
I've seen a few of those stories.
The one that you told me about your friend cooking dinner is about the fourth time somebody's communicated that story.
Now, it could have been because they've been listening to your show and you may have said that story before.
joe rogan
We probably have.
People drive cars on it.
They go places.
kevin smith
Without realizing.
joe rogan
Yeah, they don't know what they're doing.
They get places.
kevin smith
It's like the serpent in the rainbow, man.
You become zombified and you're like, I'm not dead.
You're Bill Pullman in a fucking casket.
joe rogan
Well, there was a guy that got pulled over a few years back who was famous.
And I forget what he said something about like I got to get to the dance or something like that and the cops are like what the fuck are you talking about?
And they realized like he was kind of out of it and then after it was over it was revealed that he had been on Ambien and that he had gotten in his car and really had no idea what the fuck.
kevin smith
He didn't even know he was talking to cops.
joe rogan
Like literally the guy was in a dream.
kevin smith
It reminds me of when I was a kid.
This was not drug-related, but I was a kid.
I was sleeping.
I fell asleep on the couch watching TV. And before my brother had lost his fucking wallet at a school dance, and my mother was like, I'll drive you up there and try to find it.
And my father would get up for work at about 9 o'clock at night and then head to work at 10 o'clock.
And I think he started work at 11 o'clock at night.
He worked at the post office canceling fucking stamps.
So my mom tells me that and I fall asleep on the couch watching like fucking Dynasty or some sort of shit.
It was the 80s.
And then my dad wakes me up because he woke up and nobody was home.
Like my mom wasn't around.
Nobody was there.
And he's like, where is everybody?
And he fucking startled me awake, so I was like, what?
Oh, Donald, they had to go to the school because Donald lost his thriller.
And my father goes, what?
And I was like, Donald lost his thriller.
And he was like, I don't know what you're saying.
And I was like, Mom said that Donald lost his thriller.
And I kept replacing the word wallet.
With fucking Thriller.
And my father looked at me and literally set me aside the next day to be like, are you using drugs?
And I was like, no.
You woke me up.
I guess I was in some sort of...
Maybe I was dreaming about fucking Thriller.
unidentified
It was 1982. Yeah, your brain just never clicked back over into waking life.
joe rogan
You stayed in this weird zombie land.
kevin smith
Where wallet meant Thriller.
joe rogan
Did you find that...
No?
Dude got pulled over and I'm trying to remember what he told the cops where they realized that something was going on.
I think it was in one of the articles that I tweeted.
The story was in one of the articles that I tweeted.
kevin smith
What happens in that instance?
joe rogan
You get in trouble?
kevin smith
Can they arrest you for being the Ambien driver?
joe rogan
It's a rare reaction.
Because a lot of people take that shit.
kevin smith
And you don't hear this story all the time.
There's not a webpage.
joe rogan
They're not selling just a couple of those pills a day.
kevin smith
And there's no webpage devoted to stories of people who took Ambien and got fired for being racist.
joe rogan
Right.
Well, even better, there's no stories of people that took Ambien and, you know, became addicted to it and became some sort of a – where is there?
Is it addictive?
Is Ambien addictive?
Yeah, probably, yeah.
jamie vernon
I think they're like getting addicted to falling asleep or needing it to fall asleep probably, yeah.
kevin smith
Yeah, I guess if you're somebody who's like, I can't go to sleep without that.
joe rogan
Yeah, I wonder if it's addictive, like maybe like a heroin is addictive.
No, right?
Or like a speed, you know, like people get like physically addicted to things.
kevin smith
Where it kind of changes the receptors on your...
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I don't know if it dulls the senses to the point where like when you...
I mean, that's what the way I... Heroin was always explained to me was...
When you're on heroin, the senses get dulled.
The nerve receptors just don't take in as much.
But when you're not on heroin, that pain of withdrawal, part of it is the receptors coming back to life all at once.
And it was likened...
Yeah, Jason Muse, a long time ago, had problems with that shit.
So it was one of the rehab...
Doctors communicated it thusly.
He said, you know how when you sit on your hand and it fucking falls asleep?
I'm like, yeah, totally.
He's like, imagine that was your whole body and times it by a million.
That's what he's going through.
unidentified
Wow.
kevin smith
And I was like, oh.
And then, you know, because up until then I was always like, just fucking stop doing heroin.
Just stop it.
And then meanwhile I was eating a lot of sugar.
Just stop doing your drug and eating my fucking drug.
But once that dude explained it that way, I was like, oh, that would be fucking painful.
No wonder the kid doesn't want to get off heroin, because he's like, I know the path to not being on heroin is full of pins and needles.
But you never die from it.
That's the good thing about that.
You don't die from heroin withdrawal.
We know from Amy Winehouse and other cases that you can die from alcohol withdrawal.
When you're in jail and you're kicking heroin, the cops just be like, here, just keep throwing up and pissing.
But if you're kicking booze, they have to give you booze because your heart could stop.
unidentified
What are we looking at?
joe rogan
Look at this fucking article he pulled up.
An estimated 446,000 people in the United States were current misusers of Ambien.
kevin smith
Now what does a misuser mean?
joe rogan
Dangerous dependency to Ambien can develop after just two weeks of use.
Don't attempt to quit without proper knowledge and before putting a medical treatment plan into place.
kevin smith
Wow.
Two weeks is all it takes.
joe rogan
Two weeks.
And you're Gonsville, son.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
kevin smith
Maybe you're fine.
You're driving around having conversations with the cop.
joe rogan
Maybe one of those guys that uses Ambien and gets a good night's sleep and has a better performance at the job in the morning.
kevin smith
Where you just lose a word.
You're like, Donald lost his thriller.
And that's the lowest, mildest form of your Ambien.
joe rogan
Yeah, just every now and then you skip a word.
kevin smith
Which I do now.
I call that hitting a pothole.
joe rogan
You know, Roseanne is, she's an older lady.
She's in her 60s.
And, you know, she's had some mental problems.
And she's drinking and she's taking that stuff to go to sleep.
And she's not taking it for just two weeks.
She's taking it a lot, you know.
And she said she needs it to go to sleep.
And I think there's a lot of people that feel like they need something to help them go to sleep.
kevin smith
That's fine, but then don't tweet.
joe rogan
And for many people, I think it fucking works.
kevin smith
At the end of the day, it's not like, she took Ambien and that makes her bad.
Like, no, it's that she fucking tweeted what she did.
And it's like, if you think for a second that if in using this drug, which I need to go to sleep because I'm a late 60s woman and I need my rest or whatever...
Or you just deserve fucking sleep.
Mercifully I've never suffered from a lack of sleep, but I know people who have and it's fucking mind-bending itself.
But if you know you have to do that, and you know there's the slightest chance that You could become somebody else or say things that are not in your character.
Give up your fucking social media, man.
joe rogan
I don't think she probably realized that she was obviously going to do that.
I think she had tweeted ridiculous shit in the past before and it flew under the radar and nobody cared.
But it's a racism thing.
What's fascinating to me about it and what's positive to me about it is that we have, our culture has like a fucking zero tolerance for racism now.
Things have tightened up so much.
Like, it's entirely possible that within a few decades, like, racism can be almost completely eradicated.
I think it's possible.
With the spread of the internet, we're going into, like, 50 years from now, 60 years from now, racism could be seen as the ridiculous idea that it is.
Racism could be seen the way someone like you looks at it, or someone like Jamie.
kevin smith
It'll be like a Roddenberry.
joe rogan
Yeah, the distrust and hate for specific gigantic general groups of people, like Asians or blacks or whatever, and the disparaging ideas that you have about a race.
Just because a person's from a specific part of the world.
That shit has got to be a thing of the past.
We've got to get past that.
kevin smith
I would love to believe that, but unfortunately we live in a bubble out here.
joe rogan
We do live in a bubble, but I think the bubble's spreading.
kevin smith
California is a place that actually does kind of work.
Believe me, I've heard people out there about to like...
Judge the fact that he's fucking selling California.
California blows!
I'm not saying, like, yay, California, fuck the rest of the world, or fuck the rest of the country, but I will say this.
Everyone here lives fairly multiculturally, and there doesn't seem to be...
I mean, granted, in this area of the state, perhaps it's different elsewhere, but it feels, I'm not going to say utopian, but it feels like people get along out here.
Even if it's a plastic get-along, it's still...
joe rogan
They get along pretty good.
kevin smith
Yeah.
So much so that I think a lot of people in the state were mystified when the election went the way it did because they were like, what?
No, because that's not the way life works.
Well, it's not the way life works in most of California.
joe rogan
Well, the election went the way it went for a bunch of reasons.
A lot of the middle of the country didn't feel represented.
They have a significant say when it comes to the...
What's it called?
Electoral College vote.
That's when you get squirrely.
When you look at the points that different states are worth.
It's very weird that we still have that.
It's not a person, one person, one vote.
Not even one person, one vote.
It's like these weird fucking spots.
kevin smith
Why isn't it one person, one vote?
This was explained to me in high school why the Electoral College was necessary.
And even then I was like, Yeah, but one person, one vote kind of makes more sense, no?
joe rogan
Both you and I know jack shit about politics.
This makes this journey of words very difficult.
kevin smith
Some where people are bleeding from their ears going, fucking idiots!
joe rogan
But the checks and balances that are in play, like the representative government, is what keeps someone from just like running through the whole thing.
And we get a little bit of a test to it by like Trump.
kevin smith
I met a buddy of yours on a plane.
joe rogan
What guy?
Oh yeah, my friend Aaron.
The bear guy.
kevin smith
Nice guy.
But here's what I wanted to pass on.
Like we were on a 45 minute flight maybe.
joe rogan
Right.
kevin smith
Super smooth.
And not in the way of like, hello, I'm Lando Calrissian.
But this dude had a thing like a repartee.
Not like he wasn't having sex with somebody, but he had a repartee going with the flight attendant that was so effortless.
And I was sitting next to him and we chit-chatted before the flight and I'd mentioned something about fucking Joe Rogan.
He goes, I know Joe Rogan.
And he talked about hunting and blah, blah, blah.
But in any event, For the rest of the flight, I had a front row seat for him talking to the flight attendant.
And it was a real clinic in like, oh, he's got that thing that I've had to make up for not having my whole life.
joe rogan
You don't want to talk to people?
kevin smith
Well, not even just talk to people.
The way you watch a fucking movie star say two things and people are like, no, you.
He just had this person in the palm of his hand.
And I'm being very careful because I don't want it to seem like he was making the moves on it.
He wasn't.
But he easily could have been with that person by the flight's end.
And it was just, as I sat there watching it going like, I've had to make up for a deficit my whole life and be like, here, here's some funny things.
And hey, I saw Star Wars and talk about all this other shit to try to trick somebody into fucking me.
This guy just like sits down on the plane and was like, what's up?
And she was like, oh, you.
And instantly started going, talking to him.
And I was trying to discern throughout the whole flight.
Do they know each other?
Does he see her on this flight often or something?
unidentified
No.
kevin smith
Dry.
He hit that flight as dry as anybody else and literally could have walked away hand in hand with somebody.
It was very impressive.
joe rogan
He's got bow hunter confidence.
kevin smith
Is that what it is?
joe rogan
Yeah, that's what it is.
kevin smith
It's got to be.
It's the same thing you exude.
joe rogan
He's not even a regular bow hunter.
He's like a super advanced bow hunter where a compound bow was too easy for him.
kevin smith
He said that.
Well, he didn't say it like that.
joe rogan
So he switched over to a recurve bow.
kevin smith
Yes.
joe rogan
So he has to get closer to animals and has to practice more.
kevin smith
He was explaining that.
joe rogan
My friend Aaron Snyder.
He's a little bit crazy.
kevin smith
Without even, he was explaining that, and it didn't sound braggy.
joe rogan
Well, he's got a really good podcast.
It's a podcast called Kifaru Cast.
kevin smith
What's it called?
joe rogan
Kifaru, K-I-F-A-R-U. It's a company that he works for that makes really high-end hunting and hiking backpacks and military backpacks, and he does a podcast through them.
And he's very good at it.
He's very good at talking.
He's a funny dude.
kevin smith
I can fucking attest to it.
I sat there and watched him be very good at it.
joe rogan
But he's got that bowhunter confidence.
kevin smith
Is that what it is?
joe rogan
Yeah, I think so.
It's not a swagger.
kevin smith
Like, there was nothing about him that instantly, I mean, he was definitely very macho, but there was nothing about his thing that was like, I'm a guy's guy.
It wasn't even that.
Like, honestly, that flight attendant probably could have been a guy, and if Aaron was just as interested in short-range bow hunting, he would have landed that guy as well.
Like, he was very, I don't know, it was good.
Like, when he said, I do a podcast too, it made sense.
I was like, I bet you do.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Smart dude.
That's a weird way to live.
He spends like 200 nights a year in the forest, sleeping in either a bivy sack or a tent or under a tarp.
kevin smith
Just like Robin Hood.
joe rogan
He's out there all the time, man.
There's not a whole lot of people that are doing that.
kevin smith
More woods than man.
joe rogan
He's another guy who's ex-military too.
It's a lot of these ex-military guys that get really into bow hunting because they find it very difficult and a physical challenge and it's nerve-wracking and it's hard to keep your cool under pressure.
And for a lot of guys who they go from the military and maybe do a few tours overseas and come back to...
The mainland and just have a real issue with being just not stimulated enough and you feel detached and you don't feel like you're involved in anything that's got like a high adrenaline threshold and for a lot of these guys bow hunting is very therapeutic.
kevin smith
So is that an issue when people come back The issue I always hear about, of course, is PTSD. But that sounds like the opposite.
Like somebody who's like, I was there for the rush and now the real world offers, like that's that move, Hurt Locker.
joe rogan
Not even necessarily that they were, yeah, like Hurt Locker.
Not even necessarily that they're there for the rush, but that once they experience that rush, you know, gotta bring this book up too much.
But Sebastian Junger wrote a book called Tribe, and it's all about this.
And it's about these guys coming back from war and trying to Just sort of assimilate and having a really difficult time and how so many of them talk about when they were over there they had a purpose and that the life was intensified and cranked up to 10 and the highs were the highest and the lows were the lowest and they come back here and everything's just too flat.
It's just really hard for them to adjust and they feel disconnected from their community and they long to go back.
And that's why a lot of them keep signing up and going back.
And they feel that that life at the tip of the spear is actually more satisfying, more rewarding.
It just feels right for them.
And the regular world, just for whatever reason, they've just tasted it or they've adjusted to it.
But they have a very, very difficult time, some of them do.
kevin smith
What was the closest you've ever felt to that?
Like, have you ever gotten close to the feeling of, like, what have you done in life that has given you the adrenaline high?
What's your highest adrenaline rush, I guess I'm asking?
joe rogan
Probably the most nervous I ever got was when I was fighting, when I was doing martial arts.
Because that was a nervous for a good reason.
It's like, you might get fucked up.
It's really possible you might get kicked in the head.
But the second most nervous was before I did stand-up for the first time.
I was shitting my pants, man.
I was really fucking nervous.
kevin smith
Why?
joe rogan
I don't know.
I don't know.
kevin smith
Were you living room funny?
Were you high school funny?
joe rogan
I was locker room funny.
I would make my friends laugh in the locker room.
I got talked into it by a good buddy of mine, my friend Steve Graham, who I'm still good friends with.
He talked me into it.
Him and my friend Ed Shorter, they talked me into it.
I would make them laugh.
But I thought that they were laughing because they were my friends, and I thought everybody else is going to think I'm an asshole.
kevin smith
Oh, you thought they're just being polite.
joe rogan
Well, that, too, and, like, my sense of humor was fucked up because it was all fighters, you know?
And so everybody was, like, they were hard men.
So you had to have, like, a certain sting to your gallows humor while everybody was on their way to go kick people in the head.
It was just a weird life, you know?
It was a very, very strange way to be 15. Right, right.
And, you know, have 15, 16, 17. That was like my whole life until I was 21. So wait, that wasn't the adrenaline rush?
The adrenaline rush of doing stand-up was unexpected.
That's why it freaked me out.
Because I didn't think I was going to be so nervous.
And I was shitting my pants.
I just didn't have a background in performing.
And right before I was going up there, I was thinking all the times that I fought and I should be comfortable doing this.
kevin smith
Right.
joe rogan
But I was fucking shitting my pants.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
I was so terrible.
I was so terrified.
unidentified
Where was it?
joe rogan
It was in Boston, a place called Stitches.
kevin smith
Are they still there?
joe rogan
August 27, 1988. No.
unidentified
Oh, fuck.
kevin smith
You know the date?
joe rogan
Yeah, for sure.
kevin smith
You're going to make me cry.
That's awesome.
Why do you remember that?
joe rogan
I don't know.
I always remembered it.
kevin smith
Say it again.
August 27, 1988. Because naturally, everything I hear, I have to put through a filter of, how does this affect me?
So I'm sitting there going, what was I doing?
August 27, 1988. I had just graduated high school.
In June.
And where was I working?
I was working at Buy Right Liquors and shit like that.
And it would be...
Two years before I would go onto the stage at Rascals in Eatontown between the Monmouth Mall and the CV Square Mall and try it myself.
And I didn't shit my pants.
joe rogan
Was that from West Orange?
kevin smith
No, that's up north.
Ours is down by Asbury Park.
This place was a couple miles from Asbury Park.
joe rogan
Oh, that's right.
That's south.
kevin smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
I did that one, too.
unidentified
I did that once.
joe rogan
You were at Rascals as a pro?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, as a pro.
kevin smith
I went on an open mic night.
And I didn't tell my fucking friends because I was terrified my friends would be like, why do you think you're funny?
I was not the funniest of my friends so I wasn't sitting there going like, yeah man, come support me.
I kind of did it on the sly and stuff.
And I did five minutes and I made like one joke.
That really worked.
A bit about sucking my own dick.
And that wound up in Clerks.
It was tested in front of the audience, so I was like, well, I know that might get a laugh and stuff.
So how long was your first beat, and was it open mic?
joe rogan
It was open mic, yeah.
I think they gave you five minutes.
And I don't think I even had five minutes.
I think I had four.
kevin smith
What did you do?
Observe?
joe rogan
No, I just told some terrible jokes.
Terrible jokes that I'd written.
kevin smith
Like literally set up punchlines?
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they were awful.
The stuff that I'd written.
You know, just weird stuff.
kevin smith
Did you write them down?
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I even had a piece of paper that I brought with me on stage because I was terrified I was going to forget.
A lot of guys in the beginning.
You knew you were a pro when you could put that paper away.
kevin smith
I'm about to cry.
That's so fucking sweet, man.
A young you.
How old are you at this point?
I was 21. So, why'd you wait so long after high school?
joe rogan
Because you had to be 21. To get up?
Yeah, you had to be going to a nightclub.
You know, that's what I thought.
Apparently I was wrong though, and they would allow you as a performer to go in there younger, but I didn't know this at the time.
I thought you had to be 21. So I waited until I was 21, which was August 11th, and then I went up August 27th.
kevin smith
What got the biggest laugh?
joe rogan
Who knows?
kevin smith
You know the fucking date and you can't remember...
joe rogan
The material was terrible.
I tried to think past it as quickly as possible.
I had one joke that I remember.
This is my impression of a good-looking girl getting pulled over by a cop.
Like, do you realize how fast you're going?
No.
Do you like my tits?
Yes, I do.
Here's a warning.
Like, it was that bad.
That's how bad the comedy I was slinging in 1988 was.
kevin smith
I would have wanted to take you home, man, and put you on a shelf.
Like, that's an adorable joke, ladies and gentlemen.
Wait a second, so how many years before news radio is that?
joe rogan
Um, 88 was six years.
kevin smith
So, technically, if one follows the journey backwards...
That fucking terrible joke lands you eventually on news radio.
joe rogan
Yeah, in a way.
kevin smith
And gets you this fucking building.
joe rogan
Yeah, in a way.
kevin smith
Let's not mock that joke anymore.
That was a good, strong quote.
joe rogan
Well, that's the weird wings of a butterfly that becomes a hurricane, right?
Like, when you go back in your life and think about weird little lefts you took or rights you took.
There's a bunch of those.
kevin smith
When I had, three months ago, I had a heart attack.
When I was on the...
Table, because the doctor was just like, you have 100% occlusion in your LAD. And I was like, I don't know what that means.
He said, your LAD is the main artery that goes across the front of your heart.
He's going, 100% occlusion means 100% blocked.
Cholesterol is blocked.
There's no way for blood to get through, and that's what's creating your massive heart attack.
So he's like, we're going to take care of it right now.
He goes, but you're a comic book guy, right?
I said, yeah.
And he goes, you'll like this.
That artery, that's called the widow maker.
And I said, why?
And he goes, because in 80% of cases of 100% occlusion, the patient always dies.
He's going, but you're going to be in the 20% because I'm really good at my job.
And he fucking disappeared into my crotch, went up my groin, through my femoral artery, and fucking went up into my heart and put a stent in that LAD. And the moment he opened up, he goes, I'm going to open it up now.
And he showed me what it was, tiny little mesh wire thing.
He goes, I'm going to open it.
Suddenly it was like...
Because that artery had been like a hose if you bend it and it's fucking full of water and shit.
It was pushing down on the heart, which was in turn pushing down on my lungs.
I had no idea I was having a heart attack.
I just felt like I couldn't catch my breath.
I thought I was too high.
joe rogan
And it was in between shows, right?
kevin smith
Between two gigs.
joe rogan
And you were filming.
kevin smith
We shot them both.
Well, we were going to shoot them both.
We only shot the one because I had the heart attack and we didn't do the second one.
But it was for the folks at Comedy Dynamics and it became a Showtime special.
So we were shooting two shows that night.
It was meant to be like an hour and an hour.
But, you know, once you get up there, I feel like, I'm fucking rolling, I'm rolling.
So I did two hours.
And after the first show, they were like, we don't even need to do the second show.
We're only cutting an hour out of it, so you gave us plenty and stuff.
I said, I got two different hours, so I want to do the second show.
And plus, everyone was there.
They were lined up.
And so I took a big swig of fucking milk.
I was a dairy drinker, heavy dairy drinker in those days.
I've since become vegan.
I used to be happy, now I'm fucking vegan.
But I took a big swig of milk.
Then I went to the green room and I chit-chatted real quick with Jordan, who runs our company.
That's Jason's wife, Jason Mewes' wife.
And Emily was there.
She does my hair and makeup.
So we were chit-chatting and I was like, man, I feel fucking weird.
I feel sick.
I feel like I'm going to throw up.
Can you guys get out of here?
Because when I get sick, I just want to go off like an animal and fucking die alone.
Like, I don't want to be ministered to.
I'm like, fuck off and shit.
So they were like, yeah, totally.
And I laid down on the floor and I felt like nauseated and I never feel sick like that.
I wound up throwing up some bile, nothing chunky, but just like fluid.
And so I was like, well, maybe I'll feel better now.
I stood up and I looked in the mirror and I was just swamped, man.
Now, as a heavy dude, you sweat when you fucking breathe.
This was like, I'd look like I'd just come out of the pool.
And I felt really cold.
I couldn't get warm and shit.
Emily popped her head in and she's like, are you okay?
I was like, no man, can you turn on like a hair dryer and just like dry me off?
I feel fucking freezing cold.
And she touched the back of my neck while she was drying me.
She's like, you never feel like this.
This is scary.
You should do something.
I said, yeah.
I said, I still want to do that second show.
I was like, so I'm going to find a couch.
Just find a couch for me to lay down.
If I get like a half hour nap, I'm sure I'll be fucking fine.
And I couldn't get comfortable on the couch, couldn't sleep.
And that's when I started not being able to catch my fucking breath.
So, you know, I'm no doctor, but like fucking you think, you know, I know my body and I know what this is.
I smoke too much weed and I've got too much mucus in my fucking chest.
That's all this is.
So I said, I better sit up and put my arms up like this because that will help me breathe.
And Jordan comes around the corner eventually and she sees me.
She's like, are you all right?
And I was like, you know, having a hard time catching my breath.
I can breathe.
I just can't get all the way to the top and stuff of the breath.
Can't take a full fucking breath.
I was like, maybe we shouldn't do that second show after all.
And she goes, we already canceled it.
And I was like, why the fuck did you cancel the second show?
And she was like, because I've never seen you sick like this.
She's going, you know, this is weird.
Something's going on.
I said, yeah, maybe I should see a doctor.
And she goes, it's Sunday night.
All the doctors are closed.
So we called an ambulance.
I was like, why the fuck did you call an ambulance?
Oh, my God.
This is embarrassing.
She's like, they're already here.
And six firemen came into the room.
Big brawny fucking dudes.
When you call paramedics, fire department comes as well.
So, they're looking at me, because I'm sitting in the chair with my arms up, and some of them were young, four of them were young, and they looked at me like, why is Silent Bob celebrating a fucking touchdown?
All of a sudden, the medics came in, and there was a guy and a girl, and the guy puts a cuff on me, he goes, how you doing, man?
I was like, good, I just can't really catch my breath.
And he goes, well, we're going to look at you right now and put this cuff on you.
Have you ever had this done?
I said, oh yeah, I know how to do this.
And then the girl looked like a fishing tackle box.
Had a bunch of leads, wires coming out of it and shit.
She put that down as a heart monitor thing.
You know, they get your fucking blood pressure, all that shit on one arm, then the other thing they put on your chest to monitor what's going on inside.
So she's like, I've got to put these wires on you.
I said, okay.
And I'm sitting in the chair, and this is 40 pounds ago.
And sitting is no good angle for a fucking fat guy to begin with and shit like that.
So she just yanks my fucking hockey shirt and my undershirt up, and every titty I have falls out of my fucking shirt in front of these people.
And there's a room full of people, and I'm like, holy fucking shit!
And I yank my shit down.
She's like, what are you doing?
I was like...
Man, that's my fucking best friend's wife over there.
She'd never seen my fucking tits.
My wife's never seen my tits.
Like, I can't, you don't yank my shirt up like that.
She goes, I gotta get these wires on you.
I said, well, I'll hold the shirt out.
You reach up under and put them on my chest.
unidentified
She goes, how am I supposed to see?
kevin smith
And I was like, just use my nipples as guideposts.
Like, you know, I've spent all of my life trying to hide my fucking fat.
And when your life is in danger, I've never been in that situation, but when your life is in danger, nobody gives a fuck about your fucking ego and shit like that.
So they looked at their info and they realized, I guess, what was going on.
They were like, we're going to take you to the hospital just to be safe.
And I was like, don't do that.
That's fucking embarrassing and shit.
And they were like, nah, we're so close, man.
It'll be fun.
You ever been to the hospital?
I was like, no, not really.
They're like, oh, it's so fun.
It's fun.
He goes, you're going to have a good time.
I was like, all right.
And, you know, I'm a podcaster.
So I'm like, look, at the end of the day, no time is wasted.
Everything's a fucking story.
So if this turns into the opening five minutes of Hollywood Babylon, where I'm like, they took me to the hospital and it turned out I was just too fucking high.
Like...
Life's great when you're a podcaster because there's no such thing as fucking bad news anymore.
Like, it can hit you on the level of like, oh shit, that's unfortunate.
But right away, you repurpose it into like, alright, well, I got something to talk about.
And this latest setback is just the longest, is just a momentary chapter in the long story you're fucking telling.
So I was happy to go to the hospital, not because I was like, I think I'm dying, but because I was like, alright, fucking I'll have a story to tell after this.
Next week, it'll be fun.
I got to the hospital, like Dr. Leidenheim, he's the guy who's now my cardiologist, they pulled me into the ER and he's like, hi, how are you?
I'm Dr. Leidenheim.
I said, hey man, how are you?
He goes, what's wrong?
What's going on?
I said, I can't catch my breath.
And he goes, well, that's because you're having a massive heart attack.
And it was the first time anyone had said anything like that.
joe rogan
How did he know for sure?
kevin smith
That's what he does.
I think what he knew for sure was when they put the leads on me and the blood pressure, they looked at each other at one point.
joe rogan
So there's like numbers that'll show up that'll indicate that something just happened.
kevin smith
And they made this wonderful call.
I gotta find these kids and give them a hug one day.
On the call sheet, because we were shooting that night, on the call sheet was a different hospital.
But they took me to Glendale Adventist because they knew that I was having a cardiac episode.
And that's shy of one hospital in New York Glendale Adventist is one of the best cardiology wings in the United States of America.
So I happen to be in the right fucking place at the right time.
We were supposed to shoot my comedy special at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
It wound up being shot instead at the Alex in Glendale and stuff.
And if I hadn't been doing the show there, who fucking knows, man?
I've gone to a hospital, but I probably might have fucking died.
Because Homeboy told me when he went up the heart, when I was in the operating room, and he told me, like, they call that the Widowmaker and shit.
80%, 80-20, I sat there going, like, these are the weirdest odds I've ever had in my life.
I figure, like, look, you leave the house, it's 50-50, you're gonna fucking drop dead, right?
You get hit by a car, struck by lightning, you trip over a fucking dog, and then the dog bites your jugular, and you fucking bleed out.
You're like, but I always loved dogs, and you die, ironically.
But, you know, just stringing along.
But the 80-20, man, 20% chance of life was fucked up.
Fucked up thought.
First time I'd ever had that kind of thought.
And in my head, I had to cognitively reframe it and go, You don't know.
You might have been close to death so many fucking times in your life.
There might have been like a psycho behind you with a fucking knife and then all of a sudden you got a cell phone call and forgot about you or something like that.
So suddenly I repurposed it.
The whole time I was laying on the table I kept repurposing every thought.
Not repurposing.
Cognitively reframing.
I was sitting there because I couldn't At one point, they were like, your wife's on the phone.
Do you want to talk to her?
After they told me that I was having a heart attack and that they had to get up me fast and stuff.
So they're holding up a phone, and I see it, and that's the first time it crystallized where I was like, oh, these people think I'm going to die.
Like, I didn't, I was in no pain whatsoever.
I couldn't catch my breath.
They kept asking me, like, zero to ten, how do you feel?
What's your pain level?
I was like, negative three.
They're like, you're doing this wrong.
I didn't feel pain.
It wasn't like, you know, I grew up in the 70s watching Sanford and Sons.
So my idea of a heart attack is, Lisbon!
It's big and shit.
Felt none of the symptoms, no numbness in the arm, anything like that.
I was sweating.
I threw up bile, a little bit of bile.
I was cold.
And what was the last one?
It was just fucking shit you would never associate with a heart attack.
Like you would associate it with like, oh, I just feel under the weather.
But apparently these are symptoms of heart attacks as well.
I like to share it because some cats never heard that before.
And I've seen a lot of people on social media since who are like, you saved my life, here's why.
Because I talked about the fucking symptoms and shit.
So...
While I'm laying there, and they go up your groin, they go up your femoral artery to your heart and stuff.
He went up and he saw that it was all blocked.
I said later on, I was just like, fuck man, I dropped 80 pounds three years ago.
I've been walking up a hill a mile and a half every day and stuff.
He goes, yeah, but the kind of blockage you had...
He goes, that didn't start fucking recently.
He's going, that started in childhood.
And I was like, man, fucking hostess Twinkies.
And then I remembered we had no money.
So I was like, man, fucking Little Debbie Swiss Delights and shit.
That's how it happened.
It started way back then.
joe rogan
I prefer the Little Debbie Cakes.
kevin smith
I'm with you.
Because I was raised on them and shit.
But, you know, we were trained to like Twinkies more because they had a commercial.
Little Debbie would never bother with a commercial.
joe rogan
They didn't have a commercial, did they?
kevin smith
No, you can't.
Well, years later they did, but when we were kids they didn't because how can you have a commercial and sell your product for 59 cents a box?
joe rogan
They were like a moister cake.
It was like a better experience.
kevin smith
Because they had more of those trans fats that were just so goddamn yummy.
joe rogan
Did they have trans fats back then?
kevin smith
I think so.
When did they invent trans fats?
Probably, well, think about it.
Trans fats are part of when you eat like, what were those cookies that were Not Peacreens.
It was like a white Oreo.
Goddammit, I forget the name of it.
It was fairly well known, but when I was a kid it was an older brand from my parents' childhood.
And Hydrox.
So Hydrox, their name, Hydrox, comes from hydrogenized palm oil or corn oil.
joe rogan
That shit's terrible for you.
kevin smith
So that's when it began.
They were like, hey, we can take this and fuck it up and turn it into something edible and shit like that, not knowing it would block our arteries.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
Yeah, that canola oil, like all that kind of shit.
kevin smith
That kind of nonsense.
But I went, after a heart attack, I went fucking vegan.
Hydrox, that's it.
unidentified
There it is.
kevin smith
Hydrox.
joe rogan
That is crazy.
It's named after a chemical that can fucking kill you.
kevin smith
And that's how they marketed it back in the day.
Hey kids, chemicals.
joe rogan
Dude, I used to fuck up some Pepperidge Farms cookies.
kevin smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
Remember those Pepperidge Farms with the little white bag?
kevin smith
Dude, you're talking to a fat man.
I've eaten every fucking cookie there is, man.
joe rogan
With milk.
kevin smith
Do you remember when they marketed the almost home cookies?
joe rogan
Almost home cookies.
kevin smith
So essentially, there was a craze, and they still exist to some degree.
But when we were children, cookies were hard, unless they came out of an oven fresh.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah!
kevin smith
But then they started serving these soft-baked cookies.
You can get them.
There they are.
Almost home.
joe rogan
Dude, now I remember.
kevin smith
In your grocer's aisle and shit.
And so you'd take this cookie out of the package and bite it, and it was soft as if it came out of the oven.
unidentified
Oh.
kevin smith
That, too, is a chemical process, I believe.
Because things are meant to get hard after they come out of the oven.
Quickly.
Exactly, man.
It's like watching porn.
You get hard fast.
joe rogan
You're eating some mush that doesn't turn into mold.
kevin smith
I went vegan post-heart attack, but it's not an ethical thing.
My kid's vegan because she's like, I love animals.
But I went vegan because they were like, you know, if you go plant-based, you've got a really great chance of dropping your cholesterol.
And my kid had been bugging me to go vegan for like three years and stuff.
And honestly, not bugging me.
She would just make comments every once in a while.
Like, not your mom, not your milk, whenever I was drinking milk and shit like that.
So, after the heart attack, nutritionist was in the hospital room with me and going like, 100% blockage, man.
Definitely time to change your diet.
I was like, yeah, you're right.
joe rogan
What were you eating before?
kevin smith
Like, just fucking...
Not even like everything.
joe rogan
But you lost a lot of weight.
And when you lost a lot of weight, I remember you were doing a lot of juicing.
unidentified
Right.
kevin smith
Yeah, I was doing a bit of that, which they've since told me is not good because you're supposed to distribute the juice of whatever with the fiber while eating the fruit and stuff.
This juicing thing is...
joe rogan
So it depends on what juice.
I mean, vegetable juice is not really an issue, but it is high sugar content.
kevin smith
Now I'm a Weight Watchers ambassador.
joe rogan
Even people that believe that they like vegetable juices, they say that you're really better off with a vegetable smoothie.
kevin smith
Right.
joe rogan
Like where you get the fiber.
kevin smith
It is all about the smoothie.
Keep some of the fiber in it.
joe rogan
In the Weight Watchers diet, they got these...
kevin smith
You go buy points and shit like that.
joe rogan
Yeah, right.
kevin smith
Some shit...
If you eat a banana, no points.
If you...
Juice a banana or blend a banana.
Then it has points.
Because then it's no longer about the fiber.
It's all about the sugar.
joe rogan
Eggs don't have any points anymore, huh?
kevin smith
No, they took points away from eggs, turkey, and chicken, which broke my heart because I used to love turkey and chicken.
Then I realized I didn't love turkey and chicken as much as I thought.
After the heart attack...
I read...
Well, I listened to it on tape.
And not even on tape.
Digitally.
Penn Jillette's book, Presto.
About how he lost 100 pounds after his heart episode.
And it's a fantastic book.
unidentified
I'm sure you know Penn.
joe rogan
Did he have a similar issue?
Like a heart attack?
kevin smith
Yeah, but he didn't have a heart attack.
They were like, you're on the fucking verge.
And they were going to give him a bunch of bypasses.
And then a friend of his was like, instead of all that, why don't you just try eating radically different?
I can propose...
Ray Cronies.
He has a diet called Just Sides.
And so in Penn's book, Presto, he details how Ray was like, for the first two weeks, just eat potatoes.
Nothing but potatoes.
You have as many as you want.
Eat as many fucking potatoes as you want.
But you can't put anything on them.
You can't fry them.
It's just bake the potato and eat it, eat everything.
And you can have nine if you're in a sitting, but you can't put any butter on them, no salt, nothing.
Just flat out potatoes.
So, for me, that sounded...
joe rogan
And fuck your diet.
kevin smith
Well, I'd just come off the heart attack, so I'm like, I'd rather not die.
So, I'll fucking try potatoes.
joe rogan
So, how many weeks did you eat just potatoes?
kevin smith
Two weeks.
Straight up, just potatoes.
joe rogan
Did you eat them raw?
kevin smith
Not raw, like uncooked.
You can bake them, but you can't use anything to cook them.
You can't wrap them in tinfoil with butter and salt or anything like that.
Just flat out plain.
joe rogan
You just baked them and then ate them.
You must have been bored as fuck.
kevin smith
That's what happens.
The trick of the diet, at least in my estimation, is that you...
You're allowed to eat as many potatoes as you want.
And you think you like potatoes.
When I was reading Penn's book, or rather listening to Penn's book, I was like, oh my god, I can do that.
I fucking dig potatoes.
And then you realize you don't like potatoes as much as you like butter and salt and milk and everything that goes into mashed potatoes and stuff.
So, in the beginning...
There's a sense of satiety because potatoes have some girth to them and stuff, but they're mostly water, so it's an excellent diuretic, so you're pissing like a fucking racehorse, and that's dropping weight, like the more water out of your body.
joe rogan
There's some good vitamins in the skin as well.
unidentified
Absolutely.
joe rogan
A lot of potassium, right?
kevin smith
Vitamin C. But some people, like when I was telling them, you know, the moment you tell people what you're doing, you know, everyone's got their fucking advice about how to diet and shit, and when I was talking about, I'm doing this potato diet, people, you can't eat potatoes?
It's carbs, man!
That's too much!
It's bad and shit!
But in two weeks of eating nothing but potatoes...
I lost 19 pounds, just like that.
joe rogan
19 pounds?
kevin smith
Just dropped off.
A lot of it water weight, absolutely.
But at the same time, it taught me something more important than like, fuck, I hate potatoes.
It taught me to fast.
Like, it taught me to like, now I eat a meal a day.
I don't eat in the morning when I get up.
I don't listen to the propaganda of like, you gotta eat a breakfast and shit like that.
Not at all.
My body has enough stored energy.
I don't need to fucking eat eggs and orange juice in order to fucking feel good in the morning.
I just have to wait for my body to be like, Nothing's coming in, great.
We'll hook over to the fucking stored energy and shit like that.
And I got a lot of that.
joe rogan
So you're doing like intermittent fasting?
Is that what you're doing?
kevin smith
It's not so much intermittent.
It's like I eat once a day.
And then some days if I'm like, yeah, I don't feel the need to eat.
Like you go through it.
You hit a wall every once in a while.
Like generally about 9 o'clock, 8.39, I get a first pang of hunger.
And my instincts are like, fucking quick, fix it.
And then I remember like just in 10 minutes it's going to pass.
And then in 10 minutes, absolutely it passes.
joe rogan
Are you talking about 9 in the morning?
kevin smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
So you're eating one meal, typically dinner?
kevin smith
Generally about 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
joe rogan
And then you go a long time before you eat again.
kevin smith
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Dude, that's the way to eat, man.
A lot of people think that's the way to eat.
kevin smith
I think so.
Smarter people than I, like Ray, who created the Just Sides Diet, and Penn, who followed the diet and stuff, and led me to it.
joe rogan
They do the same thing?
One meal a day?
kevin smith
Penn, not...
I can't...
I'm trying to...
I don't think he's down to one meal a day.
I think he just eats better than I do.
Like, he was able to keep up with Ray's diet.
I couldn't.
After the two weeks, it was like, okay, now eat corn.
And I was like, I've never eaten corn in my life.
joe rogan
Wait a minute.
He's telling you just eat corn?
kevin smith
No, he was saying to add corn to the diet.
And they were adding more things after the first two weeks.
It wasn't like, potatoes, now just corn, now this.
joe rogan
Oh, so this just sides, that's his hook, is that you're eating the sides?
kevin smith
Essentially, you're eating everything that's kind of, it's all plant-based and stuff.
And so I couldn't, I was hoping that I could, you know, fucking go the distance and be a vegetable guy.
I fucking hate vegetables.
And so I had to figure out a way to be vegan.
joe rogan
You fucking hate vegetables?
kevin smith
I hated so much.
joe rogan
How could you be a vegan and hate vegetables?
kevin smith
You find a very thin corridor in which, you know, to live and exist.
joe rogan
Scooping up vats of tofu.
kevin smith
Pretty much.
Eating pinto beans, eating black beans.
joe rogan
Good source of carbohydrates.
kevin smith
Right.
What else?
You know what I've fallen in love with and never ate before in my life are chickpeas?
joe rogan
Chickpeas are great.
kevin smith
Such a great go-to snack, fucking full of protein.
And in vegan comfort food cooking, they use it as a versatile...
Ingredients.
So like if you go to one of my favorite restaurants in town is Crossroads.
They got like this They got real vegan food.
joe rogan
It's Travis Barker's place, right?
kevin smith
Is that the...
joe rogan
I believe it is.
I believe Travis Barker, the drummer, he owns that place.
kevin smith
That's his place?
joe rogan
I believe so.
Pretty sure.
kevin smith
They got a meatball sub there, dude.
I'd suck a dick for it so fucking good.
And mercifully, they don't make you do that.
They just make you pay.
joe rogan
That's very sweet of them.
kevin smith
It's a good business model.
joe rogan
It's supposed to be a very good place.
kevin smith
It is fucking fantastic.
This Meatball Sub tastes exactly like a Meatball Sub of my childhood.
joe rogan
There's a place about five miles from here, maybe a little bit more, called Follow Your Heart.
Have you ever been to that place?
kevin smith
Yes, I have.
That's where I met Ray to talk about the diet.
joe rogan
Yeah, they have some killer fucking pancakes, man.
I don't know what they're doing, what kind of voodoo they're doing to make a vegan pancake tastes that good.
kevin smith
In New York, they got a place in Brooklyn called Champ's Diner, which is also like all...
It's not plant-based vegan food, but they do comfort food, like you can get an Impossible Burger or Beyond Burger, or you're eating meatballs, and you think about it, you're like, alright, the bread is most of it, the sauce is the next biggest part.
And meatballs themselves aren't really that packed with meat.
It's much more breading than fucking meat and stuff.
So all you have to do is find something that'll stand in for the fucking meat.
Drench it in fucking marinara sauce and put it in between a nice soft roll.
And they use like ricotta, like cashew ricotta to like kind of finish it off.
It is fucking bliss, dude.
Now, you know, it's just like it's vegan comfort food so you can't do that every day.
joe rogan
Right.
kevin smith
But it's nice to know that if you're ever like, I miss real fucking food.
I want to eat a goddamn animal.
They can hand you something that's close to the approximate.
Now, the good news, because I know a lot of people are like, fuck veganism.
And you're absolutely right.
It's no damn fun, for me at least.
But after a month of plant-based, I was on a series of medications after the heart attack, and still am.
And I was on a full dose of Lipitor, which is a cholesterol fucking cutter and stuff like that.
So my doctor, I was telling him about this potato diet.
He's like, I don't trust this.
He's going, I want to do your labs.
I want to do your meds.
Give me some of your blood.
So he takes me.
He's like, I got to make sure you're getting all the nutrition.
He's like, you can't get it off.
I'm a fucking potato.
I'm sorry.
So he did my labs and came back and he was like, you're fantastic.
He's going, nutrients wise, you're great.
Everything across the board is great except for your cholesterol.
I was like, well, I did just have a heart attack.
And he goes, no, your cholesterol is in the toilet.
He's going, so I need you to break your Lipitor in half.
He's going, you can't take that much Lipitor anymore.
So he's like, what have you done different?
I was like, I'm just eating fucking potatoes.
joe rogan
So your cholesterol dropped so radically that he was worried?
kevin smith
Yeah, and enough to take me off of my half my prescription.
joe rogan
See, I don't understand enough about cholesterol levels.
kevin smith
This is what they told me recently that I found fascinating.
I thought, I was like, so this Lipitor, it's going to eat up the cholesterol?
He goes, no, it's in your system forever.
And I was like, really?
And he goes, yeah, it can loosen it up and move it about.
But then we have to be careful, make sure it's loose and soft and globule.
joe rogan
The cholesterol is in your system forever.
kevin smith
So that it doesn't go into your fucking brain.
Oh, Jesus.
Hard pieces.
Like, you know, I don't know if you ever pull, like, fucking grit off your teeth after you've eaten or something like that, compacted.
You know, that's plaque, technically, I guess.
But that's the kind of shit that's up in your veins.
When that shit gets hard, it gets super hard.
Like the cholesterol that was blocking up my LAD, my man had to drill through it to get the stent in there.
joe rogan
And you keep that cholesterol forever?
kevin smith
Now, I can't say that 100%, but that's the way it was communicated to me because I thought, I was like, this magic drug will eat up the cholesterol.
He goes, no, we have to be very careful with the cholesterol because it moves throughout your system.
So I guess maybe eventually it moves out of your system, but if it's in your blood system, right, there's a chance that it goes up near your brain eventually.
So maybe that's what they're trying to keep that shit.
joe rogan
Yeah, both idiots talking about medical stuff.
kevin smith
I know, but that's what it's all about.
You can't be an expert on everything, Joe.
Sometimes you have to take shots in the dark.
joe rogan
Yeah, so...
kevin smith
We know your audience.
You know the audience is sitting there right now going like, this irritates me.
If they're not going to speak truths and hard facts...
joe rogan
Don't they understand medical science?
kevin smith
We don't.
joe rogan
We don't.
kevin smith
That's why we want an entertainment.
joe rogan
But when you are getting a full blood panel done and all these different things, they're checking all your vitamin levels.
kevin smith
I've also become, yeah, and I've become the guy that does...
joe rogan
Are you supplementing with algae?
kevin smith
Not algae, but there are two pills that Ray turned me on to this doctor.
I bet you know his name, but his name escapes me, who formulated this.
These are the nutrients you need.
I guarantee you've probably talked to this guy.
His name escapes me.
But Ray was like, get these supplements.
They'll cover everything.
He's gone because you're no longer a meat eater.
Anything you need that would come out of meat comes out of this.
But, you know, it was kind of explained to me when I was like, I don't know.
Like, my kid was going, you could do it, Dad.
I'm like, kiddo, like, we were raised differently.
Like, granted, I wasn't raised with filet mignon.
I did eat steak-um through most of my childhood, but that's kind of a meat.
Like, it's tough to separate...
From something that you've lived with for so fucking long.
And she was like, you gave up cigarettes.
And I was like, oh, all right, you're right and stuff.
So it's nice to be able to go to places where you can eat food that's not just like grass and roots and kale and shit like that.
joe rogan
What did you eliminate?
This is what I want to concentrate on.
kevin smith
Cheese?
All dairy.
So cheese, milk.
I was drinking, no bullshit, two gallons of milk a day.
So that might have been part of the reason I wound up having a fucking heart attack.
So milk went away.
Cheese went away.
Animal food products went away.
So no burgers.
I wasn't a big burger guy, but I did like burgers and shit.
joe rogan
What about bread, pasta?
kevin smith
Bread can stay.
Pasta can stay.
Pasta can be vegan.
But I mean, you shouldn't overdo it, right?
You can't eat a fuck ton of bread and stuff.
joe rogan
Right, you shouldn't.
kevin smith
And honestly, they'd prefer if it went away.
Most doctors aren't like, hey man, eat all the bread you want.
As part of Weight Watchers, it has a value to it that you can eat bread, but it takes up like a quarter of the points you can have.
joe rogan
Is it harder to do Weight Watchers as a vegan?
Is it tricky?
kevin smith
No, interestingly enough, Weight Watchers is so fucking simple because the app, it's all app-based now.
I was part of it when I was a kid.
At age 14, I was part of Weight Watchers.
And I was like the lone male in the group and stuff.
Now it's so technologically based that if you're in a food store and you're like, oh, I... I want those, but I wonder how many points...
You just scan the fucking barcode and it tells you.
And so you can enter things like pinto beans.
Boom, it tells you.
They're zero points.
So anything you enter, they generally have a value for, even fast food chains.
So it's shockingly easy to use.
Take Weight Watchers out of the equation.
Is being vegan...
Difficult.
Yes.
Like, I watched my kid go through it where I'm like, you have no choices.
You're really limited to the places you can go in life and go out to eat.
But if it's a choice between winding up in the fucking emergency room again and, you know, eating whatever I want to eat, which is what I did for 47 years and then wound up nearly fucking dying, closest I ever came to death, I'm okay to go plant-based for a while.
Like, I told the kid, I'm doing it for at least a year and if I can live like this, I'll keep going.
joe rogan
So you cut out milk, cheese, animal products, and sugar?
kevin smith
Did you cut out sugar?
Sugar I cut out prior to this.
joe rogan
When I first met you, you were a candy junkie.
kevin smith
Yes, oh my god.
And look, I'm still a candy junkie at heart.
I just can't imbibe anymore.
I'll always be a candy junkie.
I'm a dry drunk right now.
I would eat all the candy if you presented it.
joe rogan
It was mostly the dairy and the meat.
kevin smith
That I had to say goodbye to?
joe rogan
That was the big thing you cut out.
kevin smith
Yes.
joe rogan
That was the most...
The biggest percentage of your diet?
kevin smith
Probably, yeah.
Especially dairy.
joe rogan
Now what about exercise?
kevin smith
Exercise, after the heart attack, they don't want you to do shit for like the first month.
So this is only three months ago that the heart attack happened.
So once the doctor gave me the A-OK, then I was back to walking the dog up the hill the way I always did.
I haven't gone harder than that.
And I don't honestly, like I'm so fucking lazy at heart.
unidentified
No.
kevin smith
That I... It doesn't...
Like, I know some people are like, I love getting out there, and it fucking helps me think, and my blood's...
Not me.
I can fucking think just fine at home, smoking a joint, sitting there fucking watching Colbert or something like that.
joe rogan
That's where you and I separate, right?
kevin smith
You like the physical, like the...
You know, you like the rush.
You're like the adrenaline junkies who have kind of raised their level, and so it's not enough for you to just sit in one place.
Like, you could do this, and it's shocking that you'll do it for three hours, but then after this, you probably do something like Razzle a Bear, I don't do any of those things, but I run hills.
Is that what you do?
joe rogan
Yeah, I run hills in the morning.
kevin smith
How far?
joe rogan
A couple miles is the most I do, because it's real steep stuff.
kevin smith
Do you listen to anything?
joe rogan
Today I did.
Today I cheated.
I cheat when I listen to things.
I think it's cheating.
kevin smith
Why is it cheating?
joe rogan
Because you're supposed to be in a meditative state where you're just pushing yourself at a certain pace.
And when you're listening to something, especially something cool, it distracts you to the point where you hear how heavy you're breathing, but you don't think negatively about it.
Because you're thinking about whatever the music you're listening to is.
It's really interesting because it's a nice trick.
Because you can actually work harder and not be bothered by it.
Because you're so tuned into the music that you're listening to or whatever it is you're really captivated with that you can keep pushing.
But most of the time I like to do it where I don't hear shit.
I just hear the pounding of my footsteps and my breathing.
And also I have a logical fear of mountain lions.
So I don't want to be the dude.
kevin smith
Did you see that story about the fucker outside of Seattle?
joe rogan
Yeah, it scared the fuck out of me.
kevin smith
That was terrifying.
And those cats, they weren't like, yeah, they weren't going like, hey man, we may fucking encounter a mountain lion.
And they did the right thing.
They swung the fucking bike.
At first they tried to get big because I go to a place called Canyon Ranch with the wife in Arizona.
And there's like one trail where they have a sign right at the gate that's like, you know, mountain lion area.
And it's got one of those little like graphic tutorials on what you're supposed to do with your body if you encounter a mountain lion.
And, you know, you're supposed to big up like the way they're like, hey, man, if a bear is charging at you, you fucking big up at it or some such shit.
Same thing here.
They're like, get big up, grab a stick, make noise and shit like that.
And that story, those guys did exactly as told and it fucked off for a minute and then fucking came back.
And that's when they started swinging the bike at it.
joe rogan
Yeah, and the one guy took off.
The one guy, his friend got bit and dragged and then he took off like he was gonna get help or I don't know what he was gonna do and the mountain lion said fuck this guy I'm gonna go after you now and chased him.
Chased him.
kevin smith
So wait, it didn't kill...
joe rogan
After he already had one guy down.
kevin smith
It didn't kill both guys.
joe rogan
No, it fucked up one guy and killed the other.
But one guy was down.
I mean obviously I'm just reading the story.
I wasn't there.
But one guy was down and the mountain lion had him.
This is the guy who survived.
He said that he felt the mountain lion's fucking jaws around his head.
unidentified
And then it released him to go after his friend.
joe rogan
Yep, his friend ran in the mountain lion, tackled his friend, and killed his friend.
kevin smith
In the tackle?
Or just tackle him and then...
unidentified
Just killed him.
joe rogan
Just bit, you know, fucked him up, man.
And this was not even a big cat.
This was a hundred pound cat.
And it was emaciated and it wasn't doing well.
It was probably like an old cat.
kevin smith
Maybe feral or something?
joe rogan
Feral.
They're all feral.
kevin smith
Are they?
joe rogan
Yeah, they're wild.
But it's like...
kevin smith
But I mean feral like, what was the other word?
joe rogan
Oh, that's rabid.
Oh, no.
Most likely just old.
kevin smith
They're all feral, motherfucker.
unidentified
They're in the wild.
joe rogan
We probably couldn't catch rabbits anymore and shit.
Couldn't catch deer.
It was getting old.
kevin smith
You can't catch a rabbit and you're like, I'm going to go for this human with a machine under him.
joe rogan
We're so slow.
We are so slow, dude.
kevin smith
Is that right?
joe rogan
Oh my god.
The fastest human is a joke to a cat.
But a deer.
Deers are so fast.
You ever see a deer try to run away from a wolf or something like that in a video?
kevin smith
Not a wolf.
I've seen deers run away from us.
They're all around our house.
unidentified
They're so fast, man.
joe rogan
You can't even come close to catch them.
A cat could catch a person so quick.
kevin smith
But even if...
All right, so it's a 100-pound cat.
It's still going to be smaller than the dude that it's attacking.
joe rogan
Did you ever get in a fight with a house cat?
kevin smith
Never.
joe rogan
I've never gotten in a fight with a house cat.
kevin smith
Friend to all animals.
joe rogan
I am as well, but I had a feral cat.
I raised him.
kevin smith
They're all fucking feral, Joe.
joe rogan
No, they're not all.
This is a cat that was actually born in the wild.
kevin smith
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah.
He was born in the wild and I had to stay with him in a room to get myself used to him.
Get him used to me.
This is pre-internet too, by the way.
So this is like in the 90s.
And so I locked myself in a bedroom with this kitten and just brought a stack of books.
Put a mattress in there, brought a stack of books, just hung out with this cat.
And every time I'd get near this cat, the cat would freak out and hiss at me and jump on the curtains and fucking literally like climb the blinds, screaming and hissing.
And then I finally would get my hands on him and he would immediately start purring and giving in.
Because once he realized I wasn't trying to eat him, that I was his friend, I would pet him and he would purr louder than any cat would purr.
It was crazy.
Like I developed this bizarre bond with this cat because this cat was so scared of the world.
I mean, he was scared of everything.
kevin smith
Was that the reaction every time?
joe rogan
No.
After a while, I was the only one that could touch him, though.
I was the only person.
Like, my friends would come over.
He'd hiss at them.
He would, like, wow!
Like, let him know.
Like, bitch, shit is about to get really crazy.
Like, I'm not a regular cat.
But I could go up to him and I could pet him.
He was a feral cat.
You know?
What was my point beginning this?
kevin smith
I don't know.
joe rogan
What did we...
Oh, I had to get him fixed.
This is what it was.
kevin smith
The cat.
joe rogan
I had to get him fixed, and I had to pick him up.
And I don't know how the fuck he knew that something was going on.
Oh, that's right, because I was trying to get him in a laundry basket.
I was trying to put him in the laundry basket because I wanted to bring him to the doctor to get him fixed.
kevin smith
So suddenly his buddy, who he trusts, comes at him with a fucking kiss.
joe rogan
And not that deep into our relationship either.
Because he's only like 10 or 11 months old.
He's spraying in my house, man.
He's lifting his tail up and just shooting piss on my walls.
I was like, hey, you fuck.
Dude, he pissed all over the place.
By the time I realized I had to get him to a doctor, he pissed in my house like 10 times.
Because they just piss in the house.
And then I was worried, like, if you don't get them quick enough, like, you got to clean everything up, deep clean all the carpets.
But if you don't get to him quick enough, he just thinks, well, he's spraying from now on, even after you fix them.
That can be a problem.
So I tried to hold on to him and put him in this laundry basket.
And dude, he tore me the fuck up.
He tore my arms up.
He just scratched me and clawed me.
And he was remarkably strong.
And he's a little cat.
kevin smith
And this was your friend.
Like, he had become your buddy.
joe rogan
Well, he was saying the same to me.
I thought you were my friend, bitch.
unidentified
I know.
joe rogan
He's like, I knew it!
kevin smith
I knew it, you fucking prick!
unidentified
No more purrs!
joe rogan
So I had to throw a blanket on him.
He was hissing at me and trying to get out of the room.
I had to throw a blanket at him.
And under the blanket, I scooped him up and I put him in the laundry basket.
And then I slowly pulled the blanket out so he didn't suffocate while keeping the lid down and then taped the laundry basket up so I could put it in my car and he wouldn't jump out my car and claw my fucking face off while I'm driving.
Did you just leave it?
Like someone seen in a Chevy Chase movie.
kevin smith
Did you leave it at the vet and just walk away?
joe rogan
The vet was a good friend of mine who has since passed on and he was a really...
That guy loved animals, man.
kevin smith
He was the cat whisperer?
joe rogan
No, he knew how to take care of it.
I told him the whole deal coming in, and he knew how to handle it.
He's the only vet I've ever had cry with me.
kevin smith
Over what animal?
joe rogan
I had a puppy that had distemper.
A friend of mine found these puppies at a gas station.
Someone was giving them away.
And he took a bunch of them, and he calls me up.
He says, hey, man, you want a puppy?
They're at the gas station.
I said, yeah, man, bring that puppy over here.
Man, the puppy just, after like a couple of days of being at the house, would have these seizures, like violent seizures.
It would just lie down, its eyes would roll back, and you could just pet it a little bit, and it would slowly come back.
Then it would be weak and delirious, and it wouldn't know what would happen.
And then towards the end, it was having them all day long.
I mean, it was just all day long.
kevin smith
And that's distemper?
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah, distemper.
kevin smith
So how does it manifest again?
joe rogan
It's just some horrible neurological disease that dogs get.
And if they don't get the right shots when they're young, they can get this, and there's a bunch of different horrible reactions, and it's fatal.
So I had to take him to the vet, and the vet was like, there's really nothing we could do with him.
He's having seizures all night.
I mean, all night.
It was awful.
And he was like, he's going to die any hour now.
We're going to have to put him down.
So he puts him down, and he comes out.
In the hallway.
I mean, I held the dog.
I placed him down.
I gave him a kiss.
I said goodbye.
And he put the needle in the dog and put the dog to sleep.
Then we both went outside, man.
He was just crying, just weeping.
You know?
unidentified
The guy just loved animals, man.
joe rogan
He had a ton of animals, man.
He had cats and dogs and all kinds of shit.
And he was killed by a drunk driver.
kevin smith
The vet was?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was rough.
That was a rough one.
I got an email, I believe, from his daughter.
It was a rough one.
Super good dude, man.
kevin smith
Who are you crying more for, the guy or the dog?
The dude.
Well, you started with the dog, though.
You started getting teary.
joe rogan
The dog was a bummer.
But it was more of a bummer even the way he was approaching it.
Just...
kevin smith
Human.
He was approaching it very humanly.
Like, you know, most doctors, I guess, were expected that they're like, I'm sorry, this person has passed on.
joe rogan
Yeah, he wasn't calloused about it at all.
You know, his feelings about it were super raw.
kevin smith
That's why I would imagine I would be as a doctor just like, I'm so fucking sorry.
joe rogan
That dude scared the fuck out of me with marriage.
In what way?
Because he would talk to me about his divorce.
And he would just grab me.
Like, grab me.
He goes, don't you fucking get married.
Don't you ever do it.
He's half joking and half serious, but he's like, trust me, you don't want to have to go through this kind of a breakup.
He goes, you got a girlfriend right now?
You break up with her, what happens?
You get broken up.
That's it.
You break up.
And he goes, you don't have to see them in court every week for a year over and over again while they're just trying to take money from you and lying about what you've done so they can get more money from you.
He went through a bad one, and I believe some of his friends went through real bad ones, too.
And just, he was one of those dudes.
And I was like, you know, 26, 27. I was like, Jesus, man.
kevin smith
You're like, this is a man of science.
He's a doctor.
He knows what he's talking about.
joe rogan
You know, a wise man who knew a lot of shit.
So when he, you know, I was a moron.
So when he grabbed me, he goes, listen, don't fucking get married.
kevin smith
Did you get married?
I got married.
joe rogan
He's just, you know, he was just a guy that...
You know, I mean, I really firmly believe when it comes to things like that.
There's these people that are just supposed to be doing what they're doing.
Right.
And he was a guy that was supposed to be working with animals.
Like, it just worked, man.
kevin smith
He had the heart for it.
joe rogan
I mean, he's a veterinarian.
He'd probably seen how many animals die, how many animals injured.
And still, the guy's...
kevin smith
A puppy is a baby dog.
Nobody wants to see a baby leave this world without a chance.
So the dude's got his heart in the right place.
That's the guy you want to bring your animal to.
joe rogan
100%.
He's also the first guy that ever told me, don't get my dog fixed.
kevin smith
Why?
joe rogan
Well, he said, look, he goes, don't let your dog have babies.
Don't be an asshole.
He goes, but if you get your dog fixed, you got to realize your dog's not going to have any testosterone anymore.
It's going to be tired.
It's not going to be the same dog.
And I was like, really?
And he's like, yeah.
And so, of course, I got my dog fixed.
kevin smith
You just would not fucking listen to this man, would you?
joe rogan
When I got him fixed, I was trying to calm him down.
He was a pit bull, and he was very aggressive.
And it did calm him down, but immediately lost most of his energy.
He just didn't have the same energy anymore.
He was kind of bummed out.
It was weird.
kevin smith
The yellow lab that I had, we had two.
When I first met Jennifer, my wife, she got pregnant shortly after we met.
joe rogan
Holla.
kevin smith
Yeah, that's how fucking virile I am.
unidentified
Feral, like a cat.
kevin smith
So, you know, we'd never, like I'd never even owned a dog, so I was like, we should get a dog to see if we'd be good parents.
And so we went to the pet store in the Menlo Park Mall in New Jersey and looked for a yellow lab.
She had it in her head.
She's like, I had a yellow lab when I was a kid, and they're the best dogs for children, so let's go get a yellow lab.
I'd never had a dog in my life, so I was like, that sounds great.
I knew what they looked like.
So we went to the pet shop, tried to find a yellow lab, and we found this dog that was blonde like a yellow lab, and they were marketing it as a yellow lab, but she'd been left behind.
All the other puppies had gone, and she'd been there perhaps a little too long.
Like, you know, she wasn't a dog yet, but she was fucking on the, you know, what was the Britney Spears song?
unidentified
I'm not a girl, not yet a woman.
kevin smith
That's where the dog was.
She was too big for the fucking cage.
Like her face was pressed up against it.
So we were like, what about this dog?
And it has been priced down.
You could see like $2,000 marked all the way down to like $600.
joe rogan
This is a Disney movie, man.
kevin smith
Truly.
So we got that dog.
And you never seen it.
It was like something out of a fucking cartoon.
Because we were the ones that were like, get out of this cramped-ass cage and come with us out into the parking lot.
This dog instantly bonded with us, loved us so fucking much, became so needy.
We called it Scully.
We were big fans of the X-Files.
So after a week of having that dog, and the dog was like up in our grill all the time, just like, thank you!
Thank you for fucking getting me out of there!
Like, you are my people and shit!
We were like, we should get another dog to babysit this dog so this dog has a friend.
So we went, instead of to the pet store, we went to a breeder's kennel, like a pedigree place.
And they had puppies, versions of fucking yellow labs.
And they were adorable.
Like fucking ten of them falling all over each other.
Like an animated, like a Pixar movie.
And Jennifer picks up one and bonds with it.
She's like, this is the one.
Let's get this one.
I went over to the counter.
I was like, alright, man.
We just bought a dog the week before.
$600.
And even then I was like, $600 fucking bucks, man.
They throw these things out.
We can get one for free and shit.
But I was like, I've never paid $600 for a dog.
So, you know, I went up to the counter expecting, well, that's the rate, I guess, the going rate for Yellow Lab is $600.
So I went up to the counter and I was like, we'll take that one.
And the lady's like, that'll be $4,000.
And I was like, for all of them?
I just want one.
And she's like, these are pedigree dogs.
And I just met Jennifer, barely knew her, so I couldn't turn around and be like, put that down.
That's too expensive.
I tried to represent.
So I was just like, well...
$4,000, we're paying too low.
We are stealing from you!
And we got that dog.
And to be fair, we named him Mulder.
Because again, X-Files fans.
Scully and Mulder.
And Scully was just...
Like happy, heart that just loved.
Mulder was so smart and fucking thoughtful.
He wrote my four best movies.
That's why he died.
I made Tusk and Yoga Hosers, like without that dog writing for me.
joe rogan
How'd he write for you?
kevin smith
It's a joke, Joe.
He was feral.
He's just saying he was so smart.
joe rogan
Bro.
kevin smith
He was so smart.
How smart was he?
He was so smart he wrote my last few scripts.
Joke didn't quite land.
Sorry, folks.
joe rogan
I was missing something.
I wasn't paying attention.
kevin smith
I didn't set it up properly.
I'm not a fucking pro.
But in any event, he was wonderful, but we got him clipped.
His demeanor never really changed.
He was always very low-key.
We called him Kilroy because he'd go to the other side of the bed and just look up like this.
joe rogan
Yeah, I got my Mastiff snipped, and it didn't really change his personality much.
kevin smith
He stayed the same.
joe rogan
Yeah, he stayed the same.
But he was always kind of a mellow dog.
He's very big dogs.
They don't like to do too much.
kevin smith
We got a rescue last year, a year and a half ago, that was like when Mulder died a couple years ago.
He was...
He made it to 15, which is, like, fucking deep.
joe rogan
That's old.
kevin smith
And for a big dog, too, it's pretty deep.
Like, a doctor will stick around, you know, for fucking, like, cancer.
But a fucking big dog like that, generally, you don't make it past 10, 11. So we got a lot of good years out of him and stuff.
But it was fucking horrible when he died.
I spent...
The last two years of Scully's life, almost as a rehearsal for Mulder, they're yellow labs, so what usually goes first is the hips and the back legs.
So Scully's back legs went, she just, the rest of her body could work, but she was literally dragging her carcass.
joe rogan
What was wrong with her legs?
kevin smith
They just went, doctor was like, that just happens, they're done.
unidentified
Wow.
kevin smith
And she was 12, 13, so she'd made it a while.
So they just stop working?
Just stop working.
Just give out.
joe rogan
So the nerves stop firing?
The legs stop moving?
kevin smith
There's no muscle lifting up?
joe rogan
And that's a common thing with labs?
kevin smith
Yeah.
So I put a scarf under her, the back end of her, called her the magic walking scarf, and I would become the back legs for her.
So she would walk and I would be the back legs and, you know, fucking get shit and piss all over her and stuff.
But I dug the dog, so it was no big deal.
So I did that all the way up to when Scully passed away.
And then Mulder was always very healthy and fucking mobile and loved walking and stuff.
Super athletic dog.
Jen would take him up on Runyon Canyon and shit.
Then one day his back legs started dropping and your fucking heart sinks because you're like, all right, Scully, she wasn't that active.
So when she lost her legs, like, yeah, it was a bummer, but she wasn't like the runaround dog.
She used to chase moldy.
You'd throw a ball.
Mulder would run after and she would just chase Mulder and try to bite his back legs to prevent him from doing it because she wasn't nearly as fast.
Mulder was the go-out guy.
He loved to fucking be active.
So when his back legs went, it was like heartbreaking.
And then he stuck around for two more years.
So it was literally two years of me magic walking scarfing this dog.
Then he got to the place where...
He did, you know, it wasn't distemper, but when you were talking about it, it sounded so familiar.
He would do that thing, this thing where he would be like...
And this would go on for fucking hours.
And you could tell it was exhausting for him.
And he couldn't fucking move.
So, you know, everyone in the family was like, it's time to let him go.
And this was like when he first lost his legs.
But I was like, are you fucking shitting me?
If I lose my legs, you better fucking put a magic walking scarf around my fat ass and not fucking turn me over to the needle.
I was like, this is fucking family here.
So, I held on to him for as long as I could until he got to that place where he was in obvious fucking pain.
And I remember I shot a video of it on my phone.
I still have it.
And it's not, you know, it sounds fucking cruel or sick, but...
It was just a reminder because every once in a while, I knew eventually that we would have to put him down.
It's such a weird relationship where one day you're like, I love you to death and I love you so much I have to fucking kill you.
So I had that video on my phone for the longest time so that when, in the wee small hours of the morning, I would wake up and be like, you killed your best fucking friend.
I could watch that video and be like, you had to.
He wanted to go.
His dog was sick.
So the doctor came over.
We got the vet to come over to the house.
And it was like a big deal.
It was like we all knew it was coming and shit.
I was flying home from a gig.
And I kept telling Jennifer, don't do anything.
Just freeze.
I'll be there as quickly as possible.
And so, like Dr. Kumar, who's our vet, was scheduled to come over and that last fucking hour was probably hands down the most difficult hour of my life, man, because we all knew what was coming.
And you're programmed to stop that at all costs.
You're programmed to keep people around, keep yourself around.
And yet, like, we were just all sitting there loving on him, knowing that, like, by the time Dr. Kumar gets here, it's all done.
It was fucking hard, dude.
It was the hardest thing in the world to do, and he was still in pain the whole time.
So even though you knew you were doing the right thing, it was like, like, I understand why that vet, you know, got emotional.
unidentified
Yeah.
kevin smith
It's tough.
So in any event, we lost that dog a while ago, a couple years ago.
And on my 45th birthday, we were back east doing a show at the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank.
We were doing Yoga Hosers, screening it, and we were shooting it for the comic book men's show.
So I was driving down the highway in Middletown, New Jersey, and I passed the place where we had bought Mulder.
And so I was just like, you know what, man?
I'm 45 years old.
I'm a grown-ass fucking man.
Like, I make my own money.
I can do whatever I want.
I'm going to buy a fucking dog.
I'm going to replace that dog.
Like, I'm going to get me another yellow lab.
And we've had two dogs since then, right?
We got Louie, which is a chocolate lab, and Shecky is my favorite.
This is a little miniature doction.
But, like, I missed Mulder, and I was like, I'm going to replace him.
And then, so I went into the pet store.
Same place.
The puppies, puppies, puppies, where we had gotten Mulder.
And I walked in, and I didn't see any yellow labs, and there was nobody at the counter, so I was like, alright, I'll get out of here.
And a lady comes out, and she's like, can I help you?
And I was like, um, yeah.
I was like, well, honestly, I came looking for a yellow lab, but like, you guys don't have any.
She's like, we have one in the back.
And so I was like, okay, can I meet him?
She said, oh, sit right down.
They put you into a little room and stuff like that, and then they bring the dog in.
And in my head, I'm like, I'm counting the money out.
I'm sure inflation has hit the dog market, so it's going to be more than $4,000, but I'm ready to fucking go.
And then they bring in this puppy.
And he was good.
Like, he was a good dog.
He was very bouncy.
He was energetic as fuck.
You could cut this dog's nuts off and it wouldn't have mattered.
But he wasn't Mulder.
He looked exactly like him.
But he wasn't him.
There's this weird lesson of like, when it's gone, it's gone.
And you need to appreciate it more when it's there because...
They tell you this from a young age, but everything dies and nothing's fucking replaceable at the end of the day.
So as I sat there playing with this dog, I was like, it's not him.
It's never going to be him.
And I would sit there, raise this dog his whole life, expect him to be something else.
Somebody else out there wants this fucking hyper puppy.
Not me.
But I took a picture of it because I was like, I'm going to fuck with my wife.
And so I took a picture of the dog and texted it to her.
My wife instantly calls me back to be like, do not buy a fucking dog.
You can't do that.
I said, I'm a 45 year old grown ass man.
I can do what I want.
She goes, no, we have two older dogs at home and it'd be so unfair to bring a new dog into the house.
And she hit me on that level going like, you know what?
You're absolutely right.
She's like, you got to wait until one of the other dogs dies.
Then you could buy a new dog.
I said, fair enough.
And two days later, my wife, right before we go home to Los Angeles, like uncharacteristically says, there's this dog in my Twitter feed.
Look at it.
And it looked like this emaciated fuck.
It looked like the dog from the Sarah McLachlan song.
Like in the arms, just thin ass, like the dog from the Haunted Mansion ride.
Dog you see on a fucking can.
Just like bones with a dog head on it and shit.
And I was like, that's so sad.
She's like, they found this dog.
He was tied up outside a kill shelter with a rope and was trying to gnaw through the rope.
And so these people, they took it home to foster it, but they can't keep it.
They already have six dogs, so they need a home for this dog.
And I'm like, okay, what does that have to do with us?
And she was just like, we should be the home.
I'm like, what happened to like, we can't get a new dog because it'd be unfair to the other two old dogs.
She's like, Kevin, look at this dog.
So we went over to a lady's house and saw this dog that sounded like the distemper case that you described with the puppy.
This dog was fucking dead.
Three paws in the grave.
Just weakly looked up at us and fucking weakly went right back down and shit.
Looked like hell.
Honestly, looked like a skeleton with just a dog head glued to it.
But heartbreaking, you know, and so instantly I'm like, this dog's on death watch.
If we bring this dog home, it's going to help these people, you know, so they don't have to take care of yet another dog.
But like, this dog's going to die on our watch.
This dog ain't going to make it.
Look how fucking lethargic it is.
When we picked her up, she felt like she was like 12 pounds.
And this is a dog that's mixed pit.
It's got a pit fucking head, hard as shit and shit, but she was all like emaciated.
We took her home.
After a week, man, that's when she started, like, getting alert and shit.
And the vet had told me, he goes, I said, what do we do for her?
How do we fatten her up?
He goes, give her eggs.
I said, eggs?
He goes, yeah, my egg's good for her.
Give her protein.
It'll fatten her up.
It'll also be good for her coat.
It'll bring her hair back.
I said, all right.
So I started making eggs every morning.
She had scrambled eggs, and I'd give her the eggs.
She'd, like, suck it up and shit.
And then I was like, these eggs are so plain.
So I started putting, like, bacon in them and cheese.
Started making omelets for the dog and whatnot.
Dog got fucking fat quick.
Healthy, all the fur came back, took the dog into the vet, and the doctor was just like, what the fuck happened to this dog?
This dog's like 90 pounds.
I was like, you said to give her eggs.
I've been giving her omelets every morning.
He goes, I didn't say to cook the eggs.
I was like, what do you mean?
He's like, you just break an egg and put it in a bowl.
It's a fucking dog.
They just eat it.
Like, you made it to eggs?
I was like, yeah.
Got in a fight with my wife many times because she was like, you never made me an omelet.
I was like, well, the dog is dying here.
So that dog, we nursed it back to health.
We named it Mad Martigan, Marty.
And she, since we don't know her history, like, we figure she's six years old, the doctor guessed.
She's clearly a street dog, and she lives...
In her head, I guess, the same way that that cat you described did.
Everything was fucking terrifying.
It took a long time for her to fucking trust.
And she loves my fucking wife.
Like, she must understand that, like, she was the one that fucking got her into this house and shit.
So when other people come into the room, she goes fucking nuts.
Because she's very fucking protective of the wife and shit like that.
She could flip fast.
And recently we had an incident in the house because she doesn't get along with the two other dogs.
So we had to put up all these like what we call checkpoint Charlies in the house.
These series of dog gates.
joe rogan
Do you have other female dogs?
kevin smith
They're all female.
joe rogan
Three females.
I've had problems with that in the past.
Females, they don't give up the alpha position.
Like, males would give up.
Like, if you have a couple males, they'll figure out who's the boss.
And the boss will run the house.
Like, I have two males.
One of them is 120 pounds.
He's a Mastiff.
And the other one is a Shibu Inu English Bulldog mix.
They have a very clear, you know, one of them is way bigger.
So there's no issues.
So who's the boss?
The one's the boss.
But females, they don't give up on that.
They keep fighting.
kevin smith
So it's just like I'm the alpha.
joe rogan
They keep going after each other.
It's really common.
It's really common with females, especially if you leave them alone for any length of time.
They fuck each other up, man.
kevin smith
It happened, not on my watch, thank God.
It happened while I was away.
joe rogan
It happened a bunch of times with me.
kevin smith
Did it?
joe rogan
Yeah, I used to have two females.
It was terrible.
Terrible.
kevin smith
Ours was – ours happened when I was away.
I was just doing a show two, three weeks ago.
I was in Vancouver.
I did a few Canadian shows and that night my kid called me and she was like, Marty and Shecky got into a fight.
I was like, what?
And Shecky is literally – she's not even a doction.
She's a miniature doction and Marty is the size of a pit bull and mixed pit.
So they've seen each other.
They walk with each other.
We walk them in the hills.
They'll walk side by side and shit.
But the moment you get in that house, it becomes territorial.
unidentified
You have to fight for love.
kevin smith
Why?
joe rogan
Because they want your love.
Like, your love feels so good.
Like, if you come over and massage them and another dog comes by, you might stop massaging them and start massaging that other dog.
So they'll attack that dog.
I'm not kidding.
kevin smith
That's what goes on in a dog's head?
joe rogan
100%.
Yeah.
Especially dogs that have been mistreated.
kevin smith
So they're just jealous.
joe rogan
Yes.
My dog that had an issue with this was also a dog that I got from the pound.
I got a couple from the pound.
One from the street.
She was covered in mange, and I nursed her back to health in a similar story.
She was two years old.
She had extended nipples, so she had had puppies.
kevin smith
Wait, wait, wait.
This dog has also extended...
What did you call it?
Distended or extended?
joe rogan
Yeah, extended.
I might have the wrong terminology.
kevin smith
But the vet said that doesn't necessarily mean...
In Marty's case, I was like, does she have puppies?
Because it looked like she had nipples.
But he was like, no.
Also, in some cases, it happens with dogs that are emaciated.
But I can't imagine A street dog didn't get laid.
joe rogan
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, the vet said she had had puppies.
I don't know.
I don't know why he determined that.
I think he had said because the nipples, they were hanging low like that.
kevin smith
That's what I always thought.
My vet was like, no.
joe rogan
But the two females, like the male got along great with both dogs.
He had no problems with them.
But those females, man, they would fight all the fucking time.
And they would fight whenever one of them, when someone would come over to get They got in a big fight once because the pool guy came over and the pool guy was like, hey, what's up kids?
And he pet one of the dogs and didn't pet the other one.
And so they started going after each other like, fuck you, no fuck you.
And you know, I get this call, hey man, your dogs are about to fuck each other up over the pool guy.
I'm like, oh my god.
unidentified
So I had to keep the girls separate.
kevin smith
We were keeping them separate with Gates, but somebody turned her back and the two wound up in the same space and fucking went at it.
And so one dog's way bigger than the other, and so the big dog picked the little dog up by her hind quarters and was like, shaking it like a dog shakes a toy.
But meanwhile, Shecky is the little one.
She has no Napoleon complex, so she's got no idea of like, you're bigger than me.
She didn't give a fuck.
So as...
The dog, as Marty is swinging Shecky, the little dog, the little dog is swinging from side to side, biting her, and then swinging to the other side and biting her.
She wouldn't go down, dude.
Like, I imagine if somebody bit me in the ass and shook me from side to side, I'd be like, you win.
But this dog was just like, from fucking hell's heart, I stab at thee.
She kept trying to go right back at her.
So when I came home, it was fucking heartbreaking, because I'd heard they got in a fight, and my daughter was like, she's got stitches and stuff.
So I was prepared for stitches, but when I got home...
It looked fucking terrible.
She looked like the fucking walrus from Tusk, like a Frankenstein version of her leg.
joe rogan
How was the other dog?
kevin smith
She had pieces of her missing chunks out of her fur.
joe rogan
Was she acting sketchy?
kevin smith
She knew she got in trouble because Jennifer put her into what we call chicken's prisons, the other side of the gate where you lured dogs in with chicken and then you're locked in the bathroom.
You can still see everybody else, but there's a gate keeping you on that side of the room.
So she went to jail.
For that.
And you can tell she felt fucking bad about it.
But does it linger?
Like, you seem to know more about dogs.
That little dog's always going to remember that fight, right?
joe rogan
Oh, they're both going to remember it.
Yeah, if you leave them alone, they're going to do it again.
They're girls.
If you brought home an extra wife, how do you think that would work out?
That's exactly how it's like with dogs.
How do you know that?
kevin smith
Who told you that?
joe rogan
Dr. Craig, my friend who died.
kevin smith
The vet who died?
joe rogan
Yeah.
He just said, you can't have two girls.
He goes, they're just going to go at it.
He goes, more often than not.
He goes, you leave them alone, you have a nice big yard, doesn't matter.
I want to sit there.
Why are you sitting there?
That's my spot.
kevin smith
And boy dogs want to do that to each other?
joe rogan
Boy dogs can do that.
kevin smith
They fight over other shit.
joe rogan
They can do that.
They can fight.
But boy dogs, if the alpha...
This is according to dog people, not me.
I don't really know what I'm talking about.
But the way it's been explained to me is that boy dogs, for the most part, with a few exceptions, will pick an alpha.
Alpha will lead the pack.
Then unless he's challenged by a new dog or one of the dogs gets bigger or something happens, he gets older.
Unless there's some sort of a shifting of the chain of command, he will remain the alpha.
unidentified
Forever.
joe rogan
He's the alpha.
He's the big dog.
kevin smith
See, I didn't know this about the alpha shit.
And with Scully, I was, again, a new dog owner, right?
So I would go to let Scully and Mulder out.
And Scully would barge through the door.
joe rogan
Right, he's the alpha.
kevin smith
First, she was the alpha.
joe rogan
She's the alpha.
kevin smith
And I didn't know this until later in life.
Later in her life.
I would get fucking shitty about it.
Like, hey man, him first.
And so I'd hold her back and let him out.
And the betrayal on her face and the confusion on Mulder's face of like, bro, bro, no, no, no, no, bro, let her go, let her go, bro.
joe rogan
Isn't it funny how we attach these human characteristics to animals?
We decide that we're going to stop bullying amongst the dogs.
kevin smith
Yeah, like, I know the order of things.
You should go first.
joe rogan
Bullying in grade school, bad.
Bullying in dogs, you ain't going to do shit about it.
You just better let that go.
Just don't let them fight with each other, but my...
My two older dogs, they're the only ones that have issues.
Marshall's the younger dog.
He runs circles around everybody.
But when I open the door to feed them, the big one comes in first every time.
And if the little one's too close to the door, he'll fucking sideswipe.
kevin smith
And you're out.
joe rogan
Like, nah, bitch.
I'm eating first.
kevin smith
That's what Muscully would do.
joe rogan
It's just clear rules.
But I let them do it.
They don't fight with each other.
They're cool with everything.
But this is just the leadership that they've established.
kevin smith
And it's one of those things that, like...
Hit me in the wrong way because I'm not an animal.
You know what I'm saying?
They've obviously got a system down.
They've worked it out.
Everything's fucking cool.
joe rogan
My friend Whitney Cummings knows way more about dogs and animals than I do.
She actually has a horse that she raises that's like a rescue horse.
She rides it with no saddle.
And she has a bunch of dogs.
unidentified
Wow.
kevin smith
Heartweight rescue horse.
Somebody got rid of a horse?
joe rogan
No, it's a horse.
I think if they use them for movies and stunt horses and stuff like that, they don't have one person who owns them.
Some horses get abandoned and she rescued this one horse.
Very similar to what happens with dogs.
kevin smith
Someone abandons a horse?
joe rogan
Yep.
Yep.
Horses get abused.
In fact, I was talking to Kat Zingano the other day, too.
She's one of the top UFC women bantamweight fighters.
And she was talking about equine therapy, too.
That she's worked with horses and takes care of horses.
And there's something about a human bond with a horse.
You're petting a horse and riding a horse and feeding a horse.
There's like a very good love bond that people develop with horses.
But Whitney knows a shitload about animals, is my point.
unidentified
And...
joe rogan
When I talk to her about her dogs, she's like, she goes, well, I'm the boss.
She goes, I don't walk around them.
I walk through them.
I walk through them.
They're out of my fucking way.
Like, we have a real clear, like, there's a power structure in the house.
Whitney's the top boss.
And then all the dogs have to just deal with her.
So she, like, pushes them out of the way.
100%.
She pushes them out of the way.
She decides when they eat.
She makes them sleep in pens.
kevin smith
Oh, really?
joe rogan
Yeah.
She gives them rules.
Yeah.
kevin smith
There's a lot of structure.
joe rogan
It's pretty gangster.
kevin smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
She's an intense woman.
kevin smith
I would not want to be mothered in that way.
Like you, get back in your corner.
joe rogan
But the thing is, she's like, they're dogs.
She's like, they're not people.
And we attach these human characteristics and needs to them.
And that's not what they want.
What they want is order.
And they want you to be, they want love and a lot of affection.
And they want exercise and all those other great things and good food.
But they also want order.
And her order is, she's the fucking boss.
unidentified
She's the boss of the house.
kevin smith
I guess that makes sense.
joe rogan
It totally makes sense.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
She's read a shitload of books on it.
I've read a couple books like way, way back in the day on dogs.
I read some books on dogs, but I don't know enough.
kevin smith
All my information is species picked up from fucking vets and also probably a lot of theories that I stitched together myself.
joe rogan
Sure, me too.
Disinformation.
kevin smith
I project onto the animals like fucking crazy.
Do you give your dogs voices and shit like that?
joe rogan
Voices?
kevin smith
Yeah, like do you do the dog's life for your wife and stuff?
Like I'm always like...
joe rogan
No.
kevin smith
You don't?
joe rogan
I do sometimes for Marshall because he's so silly.
Because he's such a silly dog.
kevin smith
So you'll be like, oh, you're a silly dog.
unidentified
What am I going to do?
kevin smith
There you go.
unidentified
What am I going to do?
kevin smith
My voice for Shecky is...
Shecky, in my world, the little doctrine calls me the man.
She doesn't know my name.
She just knows me as the man.
She knows my wife as that lady.
So she's always like, the man is home.
unidentified
Oh, I love the man.
kevin smith
He's full of pets and food.
Because I wonder how they view me.
Do they...
View me as an alpha, because I'm the guy that's like, I'll take you out for a walk.
joe rogan
I'm going to give you fucking food.
Well, your voice is deeper, you're larger, and you would be the most intimidating if you had to fight to the death.
kevin smith
But they don't see me like that, because they've never even seen me be mad.
I'm always like, I love you.
joe rogan
They hear your voice.
You have a deep voice.
kevin smith
They've heard me fight with my wife, and they're like, I don't want to get into shit with him.
joe rogan
If you guys are arguing and yelling at each other, for sure.
But the fact that you have a deep voice, it shows you're male.
kevin smith
That's enough for them to not...
Yeah, but alright, but let's say, like, Shucky I've had for 13 years.
Over 13 years, this little dog knows, like, I got him wrapped around my finger.
I can make the man do anything I want.
joe rogan
The way you talk and the way you look, if a guy the size of LeBron James was right next to you with his fucking crazy deep voice and super powerful body, and he talked to that dog, that dog would listen to him.
unidentified
Oh, really?
joe rogan
The dog would be like, oh, that's the boss.
kevin smith
You'd be like, finally, a real man's voice.
joe rogan
Well, there's just 100%, no doubt about it, that's a way bigger organism than that dog.
kevin smith
Right.
joe rogan
And it's talking with this deep voice, and it has confidence, like, yep, whatever you need.
I'm just going to lay down right here.
But if you were like some little...
What's that fella...
Like, give me a small person's name.
kevin smith
Herve Villachez?
joe rogan
No, no, no, no.
I meant, like, very thin.
kevin smith
Wispy?
unidentified
Tony.
joe rogan
Tony Hinchcliffe.
Well, Tony Hinchcliffe...
When Tony Hinchcliffe was 20, let's say that, and he tried to, you know, talk to the same dog in the same room.
The dog would be, like, dismissive.
Like, I'm used to LeBron James give me directions.
kevin smith
You call that a voice?
You call that timber?
joe rogan
I might be able to eat you.
So I think, like...
With Whitney's case, she doesn't leave any room for any gray area.
She just runs the roost.
But she's super affectionate with her dogs.
All these pictures on Instagram of her cuddling with her dogs.
She clearly loves dogs.
Until it's cage time.
To the book.
kevin smith
Then she's like, get in your fucking cage.
joe rogan
Some people sleep with their dogs and shit.
Which is cool, but the dogs are farting in your face and stuff.
You're trying to sleep and they're snoring.
Like, you're losing sleep for a dog.
I don't know about all that.
I don't know if that's the move.
kevin smith
Bro, you literally cried about a puppy before.
unidentified
I know, but...
kevin smith
And now you're gonna tell me, like, I draw the line of dog farts.
I don't care how fucking cute they are.
joe rogan
You can have your own bed, dude.
It's over there.
You go over there.
I'm in here.
No, no, no.
Let me come in bed with you.
They take their dog shit-smeared paws and rub your sheets with them.
Touch your pillowcase.
kevin smith
They don't wash their feet.
That's part of the deal.
joe rogan
Well, that's why they don't sleep in the bed, man.
This is ridiculous.
kevin smith
I let the little one sleep in the bed with us.
But she got very short hair, too.
joe rogan
When I was in high school, my dog had fleas real bad, and I had fleas in my carpet.
It was fucking rough, man.
I would go through the house, and I would find fleas on my calves.
Like, in the walk on my carpet from my bed to the bathroom in the hallway, I would have fleas on my legs.
kevin smith
When I lived with my parents in New Jersey at 21 Jackson Street, we were cat people.
joe rogan
Are you trying to out-flee me, motherfucker?
kevin smith
I am.
Here it comes.
Watch this.
I am about to pull out my flea dick and throw it on the table against your own flea dick.
We had cats, and the cats, a lot of them were outside cats, so they would come in with fleas.
We'd never had pets when I was a small child.
We didn't start getting cats in our house until I was about 12, 13 or something.
So, my mom, like, having no prior experience with cats and stuff, decided that, like, these flea problems are too much, we have to give the cats baths with, you know, fucking flea shampoo and stuff.
So, you would do that, and cats don't like to be anywhere near water and shit like that.
unidentified
That's a problem.
kevin smith
Oh my god, it was terrible.
joe rogan
You get scratched up?
kevin smith
Well, I know because my mother also insisted that I clip the cat's toenails.
At first she wanted them like declawed and I was like, you can't do that, man.
Like cats need their fucking claws and nature and shit.
She's like, well, you have to clip the cat's toenails.
They do that at the vet all the time.
So, you know, you take off the hooky point part, man.
joe rogan
Right.
kevin smith
And then you can bathe.
joe rogan
They don't like that.
kevin smith
They don't like it, but they like it better than if you took their fucking claws out altogether and shit.
So I used to bathe the cat, and then when you bathe in the cat with flea shampoo, every fucking flea comes to the surface to try to live.
And so they would fill the fucking sink, like just in the water.
And, you know, they're dying in the water because the shampoo is in the water as well.
But my mom would always take it a step further.
She would give me a set of tweezers and she would be like, get that one.
And I would fucking pull a flea off the cat and you have to press really fucking hard because they're kind of flat to kill them.
Otherwise, they just jump away and then come back to the cat when it's dry.
That was like my...
It wasn't a set schedule.
Like every Tuesday night, I bathe the cats.
But once a week, my mom would be like, you have to bathe the cats.
And that included the de-fleeing.
joe rogan
Did you ever get rid of the fleas?
kevin smith
Never.
unidentified
Never.
kevin smith
You know what got rid of the fleas?
There was a storm.
unidentified
The cats died.
kevin smith
Yes, eventually.
It was the nor'easter of 92 on the East Coast.
We had this big storm.
It was kind of like Hurricane Sandy, but though not as big.
And our town got flooded, including our neighborhood.
And we had like 30 outdoor cats that my dad would feed.
We were finding those cats for like weeks after the flood.
People would be like, we found six of your cats under our house.
And we're like, they're not our cats, number one.
unidentified
They were outdoor cats.
joe rogan
Alive or drowned?
kevin smith
Dead.
A lot of these poor cats were on fences.
joe rogan
Dead.
Dead.
kevin smith
I hit that.
That was all maximum impact.
unidentified
Dead.
kevin smith
Very theatrical.
We found a few holding on to fences to escape the floodwaters.
It was fucking heartbreaking.
Smart ones went up in trees, though, and they stuck around and lived.
But after that flood, no fleas whatsoever.
But not nearly as many cats, either.
That might have helped.
joe rogan
Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
kevin smith
You ever a cat guy or were you always a dog person?
joe rogan
I've always had cats.
Yeah, I've always had both.
Pretty much.
kevin smith
That's why you really don't want to die at the paws of a mountain cat.
joe rogan
Well, I just know what they are.
kevin smith
Nasty.
joe rogan
They're fucking super predators.
They catch deer with their face.
They kill deer with their face.
They use their face to kill a deer.
They bite it in the neck.
They tackle it and take it down.
That's why mountain cats are scary.
They're unbelievably powerful.
I had this guy Donnie Vincent in here yesterday.
He's an outdoor filmmaker.
And he was talking about a cat that these guys had hunted and killed that weighed 200 pounds.
And it was two years old.
Two years old.
It weighed 200 pounds.
It had been eating so many deer.
That it was just this massive, jacked fucking super predator that's just roaming through the forest.
Ask those guys in Seattle, the one guy that survived, the one guy that died from that attack, the mountain bike attack.
They're fucking terrifying animals.
kevin smith
So do you think they attacked the people just because they were like, we're fucking hungry?
joe rogan
Yes.
He was emaciated.
I think that's exact.
He tried to eat them.
He wanted to eat them.
He was starving.
And so he knew that they were an organism.
They weren't a normal thing on the diet, but it was so risky.
It was so rather hungry that it was willing to take those risks.
It was willing to go after some people, even though the people were swinging their bike at it and what have you.
kevin smith
That was part of the story that got me the most, the bike swinging.
Because you're like, that's what I would do.
I guess I would swing the bike.
And you would think, this bike will save me, but no.
joe rogan
It brings it back to my story about the house cat when I threw that blanket on him.
Dude, I couldn't believe how strong he was.
He was so strong because he was fighting for his life.
He thought I was going to kill him.
So when I'm trying to stuff him into this laundry basket, he's going fucking crazy.
And all I was thinking is, what does this cat weigh?
Eight pounds?
Like, maybe?
Eight pounds?
I'm fucking terrified of them.
kevin smith
All this has to do is catch your jugular, too.
joe rogan
It's a little more complicated than that.
unidentified
Is it?
joe rogan
Yeah, it'd be hard.
kevin smith
What do you mean?
joe rogan
You need to put your hand on it and stop the bleeding.
I mean, it's not going to kill you like a lion kills you.
kevin smith
What if it got both sets of claws on it?
unidentified
All four sets of claws onto your jugular.
kevin smith
Shredding it in so many different directions.
Really?
joe rogan
It's mostly giving you superficial scratches.
It's very rare that someone gets killed by a house cat.
kevin smith
Here's a situation.
You're fucking a house cat, and it reaches back and claws into your femoral artery.
joe rogan
Well, you should let it go, because you don't want to rape a house cat.
It's clearly not consensual at this point.
If you fought to the death with a house cat, I would bet on you.
You would win.
But it would be ugly.
Thanks, man.
But the force that you can generate is lethal.
The force that it can generate is ferocious, but non-lethal.
Like, if you put me in a room with a cat, I'm coming out of that fucking room 100% of the time.
kevin smith
With a house cat.
joe rogan
It's going to be dead.
I'm going to kill that house cat.
Yeah, but it's going to fuck me up in the process.
kevin smith
You're going to walk away from scars.
joe rogan
I'm going to get scratched up.
I'm going to have bloody hands.
I might get my face clawed up, but I'm going to kill it.
As soon as that thing gets to half my size, I'm dead.
kevin smith
Is that right?
joe rogan
Half my size.
Yeah.
Not even.
One quarter of my size.
unidentified
Why?
joe rogan
Let's say it's a 50 pound cat.
I'm fucked.
kevin smith
Why?
joe rogan
Because it's too powerful.
50 pound cat is like a 150 pound, 200 pound man.
Plus they have fangs.
They have claws.
It would be much stronger and faster.
You wouldn't be able to stop it from biting you and clawing at you.
It would be too big.
And if you got to 100 pounds, you're fucking dead.
Dead.
If it gets to 200 pounds, you're super dead.
You're dead quick.
It'll crush your head.
It's going to grab ahold of your neck.
It's going to crush your esophagus, crush your windpipe, and it has sensors in its teeth.
Like certain big cats, they can feel where your veins are with their teeth.
Their teeth have like a sense of where it can bite into.
You know how like...
You ever eat something and you feel like a hard piece of something, like maybe you're eating a crab or something like that, a little piece of shell gets in there, or you can kind of move that shell around inside your mouth while you're chewing, and you get the shell over to here.
That sense of moving your tongue and knowing what that...
That cat has that with a fang and knows how to hit like an antelope's jug or a lion when it bites into something.
kevin smith
To take it out quick.
joe rogan
It can feel where the blood is.
It feels where the veins are.
And then you just...
kevin smith
But it doesn't want the blood, right?
It's just like, I know that if I break this thing, this thing will stop moving and I can eat it.
joe rogan
It's mostly cut off the air.
If you see mostly what they do, mostly what they do is crush the neck.
It's more that than it is like cut you like a knife would cut your jugular.
It's mostly crushing everything.
kevin smith
If you have the presence of mind, like let's say this thing is crushing your windpipe, can you reach up and choke a cat to death?
joe rogan
I don't think so.
kevin smith
Why?
joe rogan
Because I think they're too strong.
What do you mean strong?
They're too strong.
kevin smith
So would it be swatting at you or something?
Or it would be too much muscle around its neck?
joe rogan
Too much muscle, both.
kevin smith
What if you put your fingers in its eyes?
joe rogan
That would be one of the only things that I could think might have an effect, but it would probably just rip your fingers off so quickly.
kevin smith
I have a second one.
I have a second one.
You jam your finger up the cat's ass.
Instantly, it stops what it's thinking about.
joe rogan
How are you going to get way back there, son?
How are you going to get way back to those things fighting your face off?
kevin smith
That's what I do with my last few fucking breaths, dude.
No way.
joe rogan
A few feet left or right and you'd be unsuccessful.
kevin smith
The same way that little kitten was attacking you is like, I'm going to fuck you up.
I would leave this life in the mouth of a big cat with my fingers up its ass.
It would know that I was there before I left this fucking world.
Because if you stick your finger up a dog's ass, it breaks its concentration.
joe rogan
No, it doesn't.
kevin smith
No?
joe rogan
No.
kevin smith
That's an old wives tale?
joe rogan
No.
You ever see two pit bulls fighting each other?
Stick your finger up their ass.
Watch what happens.
You're holding your finger in the ass when the dog is biting another dog.
That's what's happening.
Nothing.
They don't do shit.
They keep biting each other.
No.
kevin smith
I've always read that if you stick your finger up a dog's ass, it'll instantly stop what it's doing.
joe rogan
If you've got a bitch-ass dog that doesn't have focus and drive...
kevin smith
It ain't the dog.
It's you.
joe rogan
There are certain dogs that are going to hang on.
They're just going to hang on.
kevin smith
So if people have the presence of mind to be like, I know your fingers in my ass, but biting this other dog is the most important thing in the world.
joe rogan
They're driven.
kevin smith
Because you want to pet it, not me.
joe rogan
Yeah, they're very driven.
Your cat may want to kill you, study says.
kevin smith
I fucking buy that in a heartbeat.
I believe that.
joe rogan
Look, they would absolutely kill you if you were big enough, or if they were big enough, rather.
kevin smith
Look at the photo they choose to use.
joe rogan
They 100% would kill you if they could.
kevin smith
That's the joker of cats.
What, the cat?
joe rogan
Yeah, if you were the size of the cat and the cat was the size of you, you'd be dead.
A house cat?
Yeah, 100%.
kevin smith
What if you were its friend from the beginning?
joe rogan
They don't have friends like that.
I have a joke in my act about how you could have a dog and have a pet hamster, and that hamster could live a long and healthy life in the same house, running around.
If you've got a good dog and you train that dog, if you've got a cat that lives in a house with a hamster, the hamster has an hour to live.
If it's lucky.
There's no such thing as a cat that also has a pet hamster.
That's a dead animal next to that cat.
They kill everything.
Everything they can.
Canaries, lizards, whatever the fuck you leave around that they can kill, that's what they like to do.
They like to kill shit.
kevin smith
Why do we have this relationship with them then?
Because they are small and like, you can't kill me.
joe rogan
We're the bitches to the cats.
We feed them.
We give them free massages.
They don't do anything for us.
All they do is curl up to you and go, I want you to touch me.
And you go, I love you too.
He didn't say he loves you.
If you die, the first thing that happens to you when you die is the cats eat your face.
kevin smith
Is that true?
joe rogan
Yeah, they get hungry.
They start eating your lips.
kevin smith
If they can't get to anything else.
joe rogan
Yeah.
People that find dead bodies.
What does it say?
kevin smith
Woman nearly killed by stray cat left covered in blood because cats are mean at all.
That's an honest headline.
Wait a second.
Wait, go back to what we said before we read that.
joe rogan
Which part?
kevin smith
I don't know.
The thing you just said.
It was shocking.
unidentified
Sorry, I distracted.
kevin smith
Yeah, you totally took my head out the game, but it was about the...
Fuck, it was just about the...
joe rogan
Yeah.
Dogs.
kevin smith
The cat...
Oh, if the cat was as big as me, the cat would kill me.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah, 100%.
Yeah, if a cat was like...
kevin smith
But what about a dog?
If a dog was as big as me...
joe rogan
No, dogs can be giant and still be your friend.
That's why a woman could be like 90 pounds and have a 200-pound mastiff, and that dog would totally listen to her.
She raised that dog from the time it was a puppy, and, you know...
kevin smith
She can ride it like Khaleesi rides a dragon.
joe rogan
She probably could if she wanted to.
unidentified
Totally.
kevin smith
Totally.
joe rogan
But that dog will listen to her.
If you have a cat that big, like, you better hope that that cat just decides to not kill you.
Because one day it might just get bored.
And they're not planning ahead.
You know, they're not investment bankers.
They just don't like the way you're moving one day.
Just jump on you and just fuck you up and kill you.
kevin smith
It's true.
I've been, like, hit by cats.
Like, not, like, in the face.
But, like, you're sitting there and all of a sudden they're like...
Yeah, they swat you.
So if that cat was eight times its size...
joe rogan
Did you see that video of the guy who was a long-time animal trainer?
He trained lions, and he trained this lion for like 10 years, and he's in the pen with the thing, and the thing just looked at him funny, and the guy starts backing up.
It's like, oh no, and he runs, and this lion just chases after this motherfucker, grabs him by the head, and drags him around.
And apparently he survived.
The lion let him go and somehow or another they got the lion away from him and got the guy to a hospital.
But he was an older guy.
I want to say he was like deep into his 60s.
And this lion was dragging him around by his fucking head.
And this is a lion that he had trained.
kevin smith
Isn't that what happened?
What's her name?
Melanie Griffith?
Like her mom, Tippi Hendren, was into wild animals.
Lions, yeah.
And I think Melanie Griffith got...
She bit or scratched as a child.
unidentified
Oh, did she really?
kevin smith
Yeah, in her early teens or something like that.
unidentified
Oh, that's terrifying.
kevin smith
She had to have, you know, facial reconstructive surgery.
joe rogan
No, really?
kevin smith
I believe so.
joe rogan
Whoa, I never heard that.
kevin smith
There's a movie that they shot.
unidentified
I knew that she lived with them.
kevin smith
I forget the name of the movie, but they shot, like, the movie of them interacting with the documentary about them living with big cats.
joe rogan
Yeah, when you watch the video online, it doesn't even look real.
You're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Is that real?
That's really Melanie Griffin with lions and tigers and shit?
kevin smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
How many different cats did they have?
There was a lot, right?
I want to say there was five.
kevin smith
That's the kind of thing you just ask people.
How many cats?
How many big cats?
You can ask Jamie.
joe rogan
Jamie's a wizard with that Google.
Pull it up so we can see the photos.
It's so preposterous.
Look at that.
kevin smith
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
joe rogan
It's crazy.
kevin smith
But look how fun that looks.
Shouldn't that be the way life is?
joe rogan
Can you imagine if you were a burglar and you broke into that fucking house?
Holy shit, what a mistake.
Imagine you break into a house and you see a 600-pound African male lion just looking at you with that gigantic head of death.
Fuck, man.
kevin smith
The bizarre tale of Melanie Griffith and her pet lion.
Do they talk about the attack?
joe rogan
That's what I was looking for.
kevin smith
But look at her spitting water into the big cat's mouth.
jamie vernon
It says no one in the family was ever injured by the lion.
kevin smith
No one?
Well, by that lion.
unidentified
By that one, yeah.
By Neil.
joe rogan
But Neil certainly could have killed any of them at a moment's notice.
At one point, he did attack Ron Oxley, his owner, during a dinner party at his home.
Fuck all of that.
kevin smith
After Neil, the family went on to adopt numerous big cats, which resulted in a series of serious injuries.
Now 57 years old, Melanie has learned from the experience and runs a sanctuary.
joe rogan
She runs a sanctuary for 32 big cats.
Oh my god, look at that thing on the desk.
That is so insane.
First of all, doesn't that thing need exercise just to keep it shit together?
Look at the size of that fucker.
kevin smith
How much do you think you gotta feed that guy?
joe rogan
A lot, dude.
And only meat.
They're obligate carnivores.
They're not like a dog.
kevin smith
Look at how tall he is in the fridge.
joe rogan
It's a huge animal, man.
kevin smith
That's the point where I'm like, I'm not working here anymore.
joe rogan
It's just laying around their house.
Look at the fucking muscles in that thing.
kevin smith
And do you think they're like cats?
Will they only shit where they're supposed to shit?
They shit wherever they want.
joe rogan
The thing about the size of this cat, I mean, it's so big.
It must be a thrill to be around something that could just kill you at any moment.
And apparently lions in particular are pretty cool with people.
Yeah, that's nuts.
They're playing.
The lion has her by the leg.
She's jumping into the pool and it's fake biting her.
Fuck all of that.
Fuck everything about that picture.
kevin smith
Put that on a t-shirt with those words.
Look at her right there.
joe rogan
Look at her.
kevin smith
They were friends, dude.
They were buddies.
Look how young she looked.
joe rogan
She's a kid.
kevin smith
She's in her teens at this point.
joe rogan
She has a giant lion in her yard.
They're cooler with people, apparently, than tigers.
Tigers are a little sketchier.
Tigers are a little sketchier.
kevin smith
So you'd have an easier time owning a lion.
Than you would, I tell you.
joe rogan
I'm talking way out of school.
But what I believe is the case is that male lions are mostly there to protect the pride.
They're mostly there to...
kevin smith
Yeah, they're not the hunters, right?
joe rogan
Right.
They're the bigger ones.
The females do all the hunting.
Look at the size of that female!
Oh my god!
kevin smith
What's going on there?
joe rogan
It's attacking her in the movie?
unidentified
It's in the movie, yeah.
joe rogan
Watch this close call below.
So it's biting her?
jamie vernon
I mean, it's got her mouth around the ribs.
joe rogan
Is it actually hurting her?
unidentified
She doesn't look happy.
joe rogan
I'm not showing it online.
Whoa, this is crazy.
Alright, this is fucked up.
So this was in the movie, they were freaking out that the lion was biting somebody?
jamie vernon
Yeah, it says the father refused to yell cut.
kevin smith
Oh my god.
unidentified
This is real?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Oh my god.
jamie vernon
No blood was drawn and the lion grabbed her hair and pulled her back.
joe rogan
So the lion was just fucking with her.
But it's dangerous.
jamie vernon
She was once clawed to the face during the filming that required reconstructive surgery.
kevin smith
That's the story that I'd heard.
She was clawed to the face.
joe rogan
Fuck, they're so irresponsible.
And, you know, there's several lions in this house.
It's not just one.
kevin smith
In their house.
joe rogan
Yeah, the lions are just running shit.
kevin smith
And I think they picked them.
They were lions that came from, like, surfaces and shit.
jamie vernon
Yeah, they spent $17 million on the movie and it brought back two.
kevin smith
I'm Roar?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
This podcast, get ready for another 50 bucks.
kevin smith
And that's 17, how much?
1971. 17 million dollars in 1971?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
This is a nice way to launder cocaine money, son.
That's what's going on there.
kevin smith
What is that today?
Like 80 million dollars?
joe rogan
That's a billion trillion dollars.
What I was saying was I think what happens is that lions, the male lions, don't hunt.
They usually just eat the kill.
The female lions hunt.
They're doing all the hunting.
But with tigers, the male lions hunt.
They all hunt.
And they don't operate in packs.
kevin smith
They're independent, the rogue?
joe rogan
Yeah, they don't operate the same way lions do.
They don't have a pride.
I think tigers are pretty much on their own.
I think the females take care of the cubs as long as they can, but I don't think they have these big...
I could be wrong.
Fine enough, I'm wrong.
But I don't think tigers operate in that kind of a group.
kevin smith
In a world where I've got a miniature doction, that means that somebody genetically made that dog smaller, right?
joe rogan
Well, when you say genetically, they're not doing it through a laboratory.
They're doing it through selective breeding, and it's remarkably effective.
kevin smith
Can you do that?
I just needed that to get to this point.
Can you do that with a tiger, a baby tiger?
joe rogan
Yes.
That's what happened.
All house cats have come from some kind of wild cat that we turned into a domestic cat.
And there's a bunch of different varieties of cats, right?
The difference between cats and dogs is that all dogs come from wolves.
All of them.
kevin smith
Every one of them.
joe rogan
Every dog.
Every dog started as a wolf.
Tigers do not live in permanent groups like lions do.
For the most part, they live solitary lives except when females are raising cubs.
Although rarely seen, the term for a group of tigers is a streak.
Ooh, that's a dope word.
kevin smith
That is.
A streak of tigers, a murder of crows.
That's pretty hot.
joe rogan
That's dope.
kevin smith
My mom used to call me tiger when I was a kid.
Now I can tell her, Mom, if there was another one, we'd be a streak of tigers.
joe rogan
Tigers fuck things up, man.
They all fuck things up.
All the males hunt.
And they're a fast fucking animal, man.
Oh, what is this guy?
unidentified
It's on YouTube.
joe rogan
He got fucked up?
kevin smith
This is also Roar.
unidentified
This is Roar.
This is the whole movie.
joe rogan
It's on YouTube, if you like.
Oh.
jamie vernon
I just randomly clicked to a spot where they happened to be attacking him.
kevin smith
And the movie is about...
How they have these big lines...
What the fuck?
unidentified
This seems like an insane movie.
jamie vernon
It's called The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made.
joe rogan
Oh my god, this guy's an idiot.
kevin smith
And when they said the father didn't yell cut, that was Melanie Griffith's dad was directing?
joe rogan
Dude, this is crazy.
These lions are fighting for dominance and this guy is running around in between them while they're filming a shitty movie.
It's so crazy.
It's like, fuck you, bitch.
Stay out of my business.
kevin smith
Stay out of my business.
The lion just wanted him to know that that little tree branch was not going to stop him.
joe rogan
Jesus Christ, this is so stupid.
What's with the fucking blood?
Because they're cutting each other up, man.
They're biting each other and fucking each other up.
It's what they do, man.
kevin smith
And this was a movie that was meant to show how...
joe rogan
Stupid the guy made the movie is.
unidentified
What does it say?
kevin smith
Roar is a 1981 American adventure exploitation film written and directed by Noel Marshall, produced and starring Marshall and his then-wife Tippi Hendren, co-starring Hendren's real-life daughter Melanie Griffith and Marshall's real-life sons John and Jerry.
joe rogan
Oh, they were a Brady Bunch type family.
kevin smith
The film follows a family who are attacked by a range of ravening jungle animals at the secluded home of their keeper.
I always thought this was a documentary.
They were literally making a movie with fucking real lions about how lions were attacking people.
joe rogan
70 members of its cast and crew being injured by the many predatory animals used in the film, including its main stars, sustaining life-threatening injuries raining from bone fractures to scalpings and gangrene.
Much of the footage capturing the injuries was included in the final cut of the film, resulting in real blood on screen.
It has been considered the most dangerous film shoot in history.
Okay, we need to do a fight companion.
kevin smith
They had tigers as well?
joe rogan
Oh my god, they had leopards or jaguars.
Were those jaguars or leopards?
Do you know the difference?
kevin smith
Dude, look at the tiger.
joe rogan
I know one lives in a different part of the world.
kevin smith
He just jumped in the boat.
joe rogan
Yeah, congratulations.
kevin smith
They hit him in the fucking face.
joe rogan
Well, they have to, I think.
You have to get it to think who's boss.
kevin smith
Is that a panther?
joe rogan
Of course it is.
Fuck all this.
What are these people doing?
You're in a boat with a tiger and now the boat's sinking, you fuck.
You fuckity fuck.
kevin smith
This is life of pie.
joe rogan
Oh my god, look at that thing.
It's so big.
unidentified
Alright, we gotta save it for the companion.
Oh, yeah.
kevin smith
Jesus.
joe rogan
So what we'll do is, one day we'll do a fight companion.
Put that movie on.
Save it.
kevin smith
This week we're doing Roar.
joe rogan
Yeah, we'll do Roar.
Can we get in trouble for that?
Can we get in trouble for a fight companion for Roar?
jamie vernon
No, there's people that do things like this.
kevin smith
Yeah, no, totally.
What is it considered?
It's commentary.
You're reviewing it.
joe rogan
That needs to be seen.
That needs to be heard.
kevin smith
I'm completely educated.
I thought it was a documentary.
unidentified
Me too.
kevin smith
But they were trying to make a narrative, a fiction narrative.
joe rogan
I didn't even know there was a documentary.
I just knew that she had lived with lions and I'd seen it in a magazine article or something.
kevin smith
And that's not even her real dad.
That's her stepdad.
joe rogan
Her stepdad was fucking crazy.
kevin smith
Could you imagine your stepdad?
joe rogan
Don't show me anything, Jamie!
kevin smith
Don't you do this!
joe rogan
Don't you put that evil on me, Jamie!
Oh my god, more of the movie.
Look at all the cats in the room with her.
I don't know how many.
Dude, fuck all that!
Fuck all that!
People are crazy!
kevin smith
And I'm sure the cats are confused as fuck by the rolling cameras as well.
Being like, what is this all about?
joe rogan
Yeah, they're horrible.
I mean, that's the cleanup crew for the world.
That's what cats are.
They're out there taking out as many of those fucking zebras or water buffalo or whatever they can.
And so that's what they want to do all the time.
And if you're just feeding them and then you just have them in a yard, they don't even do anything, you've got to exercise the fuck out of those girls to keep them from just that kill lust that's in their body.
It's evolved over millions of years to get to this point where they're this enormous, hulking, supernaturally powerful animal that kills things with its face.
And you just take that away from them.
It's, no, you're going to be in the pool with us.
You're going to be in our movie.
We're going to start off in this boat.
Come on, hop in the boat.
kevin smith
Now pretend to fight.
And they're like, what?
Pretend?
joe rogan
And this cat is like, when the fuck do the antelope show up so I can start jacking fools?
kevin smith
Would you...
Would you agree that since you do more outdoorsy activity than me, i.e.
running, i.e.
you've gone hunting and stuff like that, your chances of being eaten alive are far greater than mine?
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
100%.
I mean, it's like surfers.
I'm in a 0% chance in most of my life of getting eaten by a shark.
But I have friends who are surfers who surf all the time, and they fucking love it, and they're willing to roll that dice because they like surfing that much.
And I'm like, you know, you can't get bit by a shark if you don't go in the ocean.
kevin smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
And they're like, it's worth it.
kevin smith
We've got the shark thing figured out and defeated.
Just don't go in the ocean.
joe rogan
They say it's worth it.
kevin smith
I gotta tell you, man, there's a bunch of bad ways to die, but I always felt like the...
The most indignity I would ever feel in death was if I was something else's food.
It's one thing if I'm like, my body goes into the earth and fucking the worms and the grass and shit like that.
But to be someone's fucking meal is so...
It's a temporary...
A permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Your life for their meal of the moment.
And they're just going to shit you out in a couple hours.
And that's why I think it's hard for humans to get their head around being eaten by something.
Because they're like, no, I'm too special.
And then they're just going to poop me out.
But that would be the indignity, man.
It's like, fuck, they ate me to stay alive, I guess.
But then it's not like I sustained them forever.
Like, I sustained them for a couple fucking hours and they shit me out.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, that is how it works, right?
Yeah.
It's very disturbing seeing images of humans that have been eaten by animals.
kevin smith
I've never seen any, and I don't want to see any.
joe rogan
You don't want to.
kevin smith
I saw this figure starting to move toward a keyboard.
I'm like, no, no, no.
joe rogan
Classic one of a body that they found that bears had eaten.
kevin smith
And?
joe rogan
It was horrific.
It's just crazy to look at.
kevin smith
Does it even look human anymore?
joe rogan
I mean, you know what it is because it was still wearing sneakers and it still had like half of its pants on.
And it's still like, you know the one?
Yeah.
You could see the thigh bone.
I mean, the meat from the bone had been completely stripped off and it was just nothing but the thigh bone.
And it's just horrific.
You got to realize like...
Those things, man, when they get a hold of you, the amount of power that a bear could generate, especially a grizzly bear.
My friend John saw a grizzly bear kill a moose by swatting it.
Swatted it with its paw and broke its back.
A moose.
I mean...
kevin smith
Second deadliest animal on the planet.
joe rogan
It is a big...
Is it really?
kevin smith
Yeah, right after the hippo.
joe rogan
Second deadliest?
kevin smith
Isn't that crazy?
Nobody thinks about it because when you think about the moose, you're like, oh, hey, Rocky, watch people who have it in my head.
Is that really true?
Hippo is the most dangerous animal to man on the planet.
joe rogan
In terms of how many people get killed?
kevin smith
Mammal.
The second is the moose.
unidentified
Wow.
kevin smith
Part of the deer family.
joe rogan
That's crazy.
They're the only deer, really, that will regularly rush people.
kevin smith
You don't want to be anywhere near the moose during the rutting season.
joe rogan
There's that, but really more importantly is you don't want to be near a cow when she's got her calves.
kevin smith
That's more scary.
We've seen video of that online.
joe rogan
That's the same thing with grizzlies.
Yeah, they say the real fear is not running into a male grizzly.
The real fear is running into a female with cubs.
They'll fuck you up.
kevin smith
She's got something to lose.
joe rogan
Well, they don't want you around.
You might be a hunter.
Maybe they've seen someone shoot an animal before.
Maybe they saw one of their family get shooting.
kevin smith
It's like that little cat that's just suddenly like, you're going to kill me, even though you were buddies with it.
joe rogan
Cubs.
If it has cubs, man, they're on fucking full red alert all day long because they get eaten all the time.
Their cubs get eaten by other bears.
kevin smith
It's so fucking weird.
It's like an animal has enough sense to be like, something's here.
I'm going to protect my kids.
And we just watched footage from a movie where the guy's like, get closer to that lion, honey.
Spit water in its mouth.
joe rogan
Yeah, because we're soft and we love the thrill of being that close to death in danger.
kevin smith
I don't.
joe rogan
No, you're a smart man.
kevin smith
No, I'm a chicken man.
joe rogan
No, you're a wise man.
kevin smith
No courage.
joe rogan
I just want to extend my lifeline.
That is not true.
You have courage.
You just choose to not put yourself in dangerous situations all the time.
You would have never taken this path in life and become this guy if you didn't have any courage.
You absolutely have courage.
But you're just smart enough to know that you're not like a physical person.
You don't want to do those things.
You definitely don't want to be around some fucking giant ass cat that can kill you.
It's not a matter of being a coward.
It's a matter of being smart.
kevin smith
It's true.
But if everything...
That's a matter of being smart now.
But if everything collapses and shit like that, then I got no livable skills.
joe rogan
Nah, no one does.
kevin smith
You're ready to fucking take to the hills with a fucking bow and defend yours.
joe rogan
Just like you are.
How many arrows do I have?
How long can I live with these arrows?
What happens if I break one?
Then I'm down to 20 arrows?
How long can I live with 20 arrows?
How many things am I going to miss?
kevin smith
How many broadheads do I have?
joe rogan
I'm going to have to break into a Cabela's, steal a bunch of arrow shafts, figure out if they've got a gluing machine.
I've got to learn how to restring a bow.
What if one of the risers snaps?
I've got to get some spare bows somehow and have them laying around.
I'm not doing well, man.
I'm going to be real skinny.
I'm going to miss a lot.
I'm not going to get enough food.
kevin smith
But you know what's going to happen?
You're going to be like, at least I didn't die years ago like Kev.
joe rogan
Oh.
kevin smith
Because he had no bow skills whatsoever.
joe rogan
But do you want to be one of the people that restart civilization?
kevin smith
Fuck no.
joe rogan
Yeah.
kevin smith
No.
joe rogan
Do you know there's civilization?
kevin smith
Because then you get blamed when everyone's like, this sucks.
It's your fault.
You restarted civilization like I tried.
joe rogan
What's going on right now in Hawaii is fairly minor.
kevin smith
What is it?
joe rogan
In terms of volcanic activity.
In terms of the world.
Like there's giant events that happen every 100,000, 80,000, whatever, all over the world.
And the giant events, these super volcanoes, have been responsible for knocking people down to an estimated, what was the number?
Something like 7,000?
7,000 people?
Somewhere, it was maybe a couple thousand, 70,000 years ago.
Is that where I'm getting the seven from?
But it was a super volcano that the human population killed everyone except for a few thousand people.
And this was somewhere around, I think it was 60, 70,000 years ago.
What does it say?
kevin smith
A Pompeii-like event?
jamie vernon
70,000, roughly 1,000 reproductive people were left.
joe rogan
1,000 people left 70,000 years ago.
1,000.
That was the last of the humans, and they repopulated from that number to us.
One says it was as low as 40. 40 people.
unidentified
Maybe.
joe rogan
So it's just a rough estimate.
kevin smith
This is biblical.
Where are they getting this information?
joe rogan
Well, listen, man.
If Yellowstone blows, we're dealing with the exact same situation again.
Most of North America is dead.
kevin smith
Explain.
joe rogan
What?
Yellowstone is a super volcano.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
Might have hit as low as what?
What happened here?
You went to a JFK thing.
unidentified
I don't know what that is.
joe rogan
Conspiracies.
jamie vernon
Breeding pairs of people.
kevin smith
Well, we've whacked so we can win.
Let's hope we wane gently because once in our history the worldwide population of human beings skidded so sharply we were down to roughly a thousand reproductive adults.
One study says we hit as low as 40. 40?
Come on, I can't be right.
Well, the technical term is 40 breeding pairs, children not included.
More likely there was a drastic dip and then 5,000 to 10,000 bedraggled homo sapiens struggled together in pitiful little clumps hunting and gathering for thousands of years Until in the late Stone Age, we humans began to recover.
But for a time there, says science writer Sam Keen, we damn near went extinct.
And that was because of a volcano?
joe rogan
That's amazing.
kevin smith
What is it?
unidentified
What killed?
kevin smith
Lava?
unidentified
The ash?
kevin smith
Blocks the sun?
joe rogan
Blocks the sun.
Everybody runs out of food.
Everything goes extinct.
kevin smith
It's the Matrix.
joe rogan
Yeah, it gets really fucking cold.
kevin smith
Oh my God, look at that very scientific drawing.
joe rogan
So look at the difference in Mount St. Helens, a little fart, Vesuvius, 79...
kevin smith
So the Toba supervolcano is the one that happened 70,000 years ago?
joe rogan
Yeah.
So that was a massive...
kevin smith
I was around from Mount St. Helens.
joe rogan
Do you remember that?
Massive, super...
Yeah, I remember that.
kevin smith
Capturing my imagination as a kid.
I was like, we got volcanoes on this bitch?
joe rogan
Well, Yellowstone is the spooky one because that's a super volcano.
kevin smith
I thought it was just water.
joe rogan
No, no.
Yellowstone is what they call a caldera volcano.
Meanwhile, what it is is it gets to this peak and the eruption is so violent, it flattens out and the mountain disappears and they just left this crater.
And so when they were first looking at it, they were trying to figure out what it was.
They didn't know if it was an impact crater, where was this crater from?
And then they started using satellite imagery, I want to say like 20 years ago.
20 plus years ago they realized that it was a super volcano, an enormous volcano.
I think it's something like 600 kilometers across.
And if that fucker blows, like that is a wrap for North America.
That's a wrap.
And it blows every six to eight hundred thousand years.
And the last time it blew was six hundred thousand years ago.
unidentified
So we could be on the verge of the worst blowjob in history?
joe rogan
Within the next 200,000 years, it's likely, if the history repeats itself again, that we get some sort of unbelievably violent event that comes out of Yellowstone that literally brings humanity to its knees.
So all of our problems with overpopulation, destroying the environment, crime and war and corruption, they will seem like nothing.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
Because there will be no fucking sun getting in.
There will be nuclear winter, plants dying, people dying.
kevin smith
This ain't even the Thanos snap and half the people disappear.
This is like, these are the end times.
The sky is black as ash cloud.
joe rogan
It's 100% possible that something like that, especially if there's more than one of them went off.
Like, say Yellowstone goes off, and then say one goes off somewhere else in the world.
I think, isn't there like seven or eight super volcanoes?
There's seven or eight of them, I want to say worldwide.
kevin smith
And if two went off at once, it could split the Earth?
joe rogan
I think it would just cover the earth with ash.
The problem is the ash, the ejections and all that stuff just blocks out the sun.
And it lingers for years.
jamie vernon
Three of them are in the western part of the United States.
kevin smith
What are they?
Wait, that's where we are!
joe rogan
Three!
Fuck, dude!
What are the other ones?
jamie vernon
Long Valley and Valley Grand.
joe rogan
What is that?
Never heard of those?
That one looks super close to us.
Where the fuck is that one?
kevin smith
We're sitting on it right now.
I used to be scared of that shit, and then after the heart attack, now I don't get scared of that some more.
joe rogan
Do you feel different now that you've had a heart attack?
Do you feel like you're a different person?
Do you have a second lease on life, as it were?
kevin smith
There is, but not in the way you see in movies, where you're like, can you feel a...
Is it Mammoth?
joe rogan
Mammoth is a super volcano?
unidentified
Long Valley Caldera.
joe rogan
Oh, shut the fuck up!
jamie vernon
It's adjacent to Mammoth Mountain.
kevin smith
Time to move.
joe rogan
So it could blow?
Mammoth could blow?
kevin smith
Yeah, but wouldn't you rather be that close to ground zero?
Because you don't want to live in the ash-covered sky.
joe rogan
Yeah, you want it to be in Glendale.
So it just erupts and just kills everybody anywhere near here.
kevin smith
We're all taken care of.
joe rogan
You don't want to be like a million miles away and watch it from the distance and know that in a month you're going to be starving to death.
kevin smith
It's coming soon.
joe rogan
Yeah, you're almost better off at happening right underneath you and just sucking you into the lava.
kevin smith
Did you ever have a near-death experience?
joe rogan
No, not really.
No.
kevin smith
It's not like it is in the movies where you suddenly...
You're like, no, I see everything fucking more clearly.
It's certainly an organizer where you're like, you know, I guess that shit just doesn't really matter so much anymore.
And periodically you sit there and go like, oh, fuck, I almost died.
So it puts things in a different perspective.
But I saw a lot of folks online going like...
I can't wait to see what he makes next, man, because it's going to be so profound, and that's not true.
The next thing I'm going to make is Jay and Silent Bob reboot.
There's nothing profound about it and stuff.
But I figured, because I started thinking about that, why?
And I think it's because I've just always, at least for the last 20 years, 25 of my career, Just conducted myself in a way like live a fucking bucket list life.
I just do the things I want to do.
joe rogan
Exactly.
That's why I hate you saying that you don't have any courage.
kevin smith
But that doesn't take courage.
That's self-centered.
No, it's self-centered.
Courage is like, I don't know how this is going to work out.
And also courage comes from a place that's not about you, I think.
For me, I just want to do shit that seems interesting.
That seems fun to me.
joe rogan
And you have the confidence to pursue that.
Listen, dude, if the shit went down, I could teach you how to use a bow and arrow, and you'd figure it out.
You'd eventually rise, just like you're losing all this weight and readjusting your life.
kevin smith
I don't know, dude.
I think if it all went down, they'd be like, eat him first.
And then I'd be so insulted because I'm like, you're just going to shit me out.
I'm good for a podcast or two.
Please don't eat me.
joe rogan
So tomorrow I have Robert Schock on the podcast.
He's a geologist from Boston University.
And he is one of many people that's now pushing this very controversial theory that the Sphinx and many of the other structures in Egypt are far older than people think they are.
Not just like a couple thousand years ago, but maybe even 10,000 years ago, maybe even more.
And he bases it on water erosion marks in the Temple of the Sphinx.
Like where the Sphinx was carved out in the Sphinx enclosure, there's all these deep fissures that they thought was sand and gravel and wind.
But he has, you know, he studied, he's a geologist, so he studied erosion his whole life.
And he looked at it and he's like, this is water erosion from thousands of years of rainfall.
And he goes into it in great detail.
The last time there was great rainfall in the Nile Valley was 9,000 years ago, which is many thousand years before they think the pyramids were constructed.
So it's one of these things like they didn't even know of a civilization from 9,000 years ago that was capable of cutting and moving stone like this.
Like this rewrites history to people who are super reluctant.
But the idea that all these people have, these people that are talking about these ancient civilizations, is that humanity rose to a very high level and built some incredible structures.
And then something like that super volcano or an asteroid impact or an ice age, some gigantic catastrophic event wiped out a shitload of fucking people.
And then people were forced to rebuild and sort of relearn.
So if you're looking at some of the construction of the pyramids, like the Great Pyramid of Giza, I'm pretty sure they've dated that to 2500 BC.
So the people that made the Sphinx and even some of the other structures, they might have been from longer ago in history in relationship to the construction of the Sphinx than we are to the construction of the Great Pyramid.
Like, we might have – well, we were talking about if the Great Pyramid was 5,000 years old, right?
kevin smith
Yes.
It's entirely possible.
This is required, right?
joe rogan
I have to – It's entirely possible, if the Great Period of Giza, which I think is somewhere around 5,000 years old, if that was 5,000 years old, the Sphinx might be 4,000 or more years older than that.
There might be structures that are 10,500, even 30,000 years old, as some people, when they go deep, like a guy named John Anthony West, that was his deep speculation.
Based on the way the Sphinx lines up with constellations and the constellation Leo, it does it at like 10,500 years ago, but it also does it at like 30,000 years ago or somewhere in that range, like really long ago, which people are going, get the fuck out of here.
That's just not possible.
And his take was like, we don't know.
We're just talking about rocks.
We don't know how these rocks got into this shape.
This is just, we don't have anything to test.
kevin smith
And there's no recorded history.
joe rogan
Well, they used to have some, but they've got hieroglyphs, they've got a few things, but they used to have the library of Alexandria.
kevin smith
The Aztecs supposedly had like an incredibly developed society.
joe rogan
The Mayans and the Aztecs.
kevin smith
The Mayans and the Aztecs.
joe rogan
Yeah, they built some incredible structures.
And they were like really into constellations as well.
They lined up a lot of their structures with the constellations.
They knew a lot about the summer solstice and they had a really complicated calendar that was like a 13 lunar cycle calendar.
You know, there was like the thing where the Mayan calendar was supposed to end December 21st, 2012. A couple years ago, yeah.
Dude, I thought it was over.
I was telling everybody, we've got a couple more years, bro.
Live your life.
I really believe that.
kevin smith
These cats seemed to know what they were doing.
Wait a sec, so go back.
So if that turns out to be the case, humanity...
joe rogan
has experienced these great, great, like, high achievements in construction methods and their ability to put together these enormous structures.
And then cataclysm.
People die off.
They get down to a small number, and then they rebuild.
And then they do these over the, you know, these dips and ups and downs over the course of thousands and thousands of years, which we've got to put into perspective.
This country is only— 250 years old.
Yeah, that's nothing.
So if you went back, just let's go full crazy.
Let's go back 500 years.
Go back 500 years, which is nothing in terms of the history of the planet and nothing in terms of even the history of human beings, relatively.
But 500 years, there's nothing here but Native Americans.
There's no structures.
There's a few Europeans that have visited.
There's a few people that have come over in boats.
But there's no buildings in terms of, like, there's no New York City.
There's no Chicago.
500 years ago, there's nothing.
There's none of this.
kevin smith
Yeah, go step outside a city, look around, do a 360 and look around and realize how improbable it all is.
joe rogan
You go a thousand years before that, same thing.
A thousand years before that, same thing.
This is empty.
This is empty for thousands and thousands of years.
Now!
250 years later, it's crazy.
It's stacked up with buildings and construction methods that we were never capable of 200 years ago, 300 years ago, 500 years ago.
We couldn't build these things.
We couldn't make airplanes.
We didn't have the knowledge yet.
We didn't understand it yet.
The idea is that people have gone through these great, great heights many times, but they did it in different ways.
And that's why, like, when you look at the construction of the Sphinx and the pyramids, nobody builds anything like the pyramids today.
2,300,000 stones, some of them cut from a quarry that was hundreds of miles away.
They used to take the fucking rocks and float them down on boats and fit them into places.
It's crazy!
It's the knowledge they must have had.
The wisdom, the understanding of construction methods.
If you're off just a little bit with each rock, it's not going to meet up at the top of this perfect pyramid shape.
It's a marvel of mathematics and engineering and construction.
And by everyone's estimate, it's 5,000 something years old or in the range of 4,500 years old, somewhere around there.
That's insane!
kevin smith
And then homie comes along and says, it may be older than that.
joe rogan
It might be older than that.
Well, they don't think the pyramid, I'm pretty sure, and maybe this is controversial as well, but I think it's based on the biological material that they can pull out from in between the cracks and the stones.
kevin smith
So of what?
People who died?
joe rogan
No stuff.
You know, like anything physical or anything biological rather, like wood or plant material.
kevin smith
Oh, like tree sap that might have went into the building material.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's how they carbon date something, apparently.
They need carbon.
So it's really tough to carbon date like a stone because you don't know what you're dating.
Are you dating the age the stone was cut or the stone was created?
Like, what the fuck is that?
Like, if you've got a giant piece of limestone, what are you dating?
Are you dating the actual origin of the limestone?
It might be millions of years old.
I don't know.
Limestone is like, isn't it?
I think limestone is seashells that have been ground down and smashed by gravity and layers and layers of earth until they form into a stone.
See if I made that up.
Might have.
kevin smith
It sounded awfully metal.
joe rogan
There's some shit like that, for sure.
Like, I know travertine is that.
Travertine is like old seashells that have been compressed down at the bottom of the ocean forever until they form this hard layer.
I'm pretty sure that's true, too.
That might also be bullshit.
kevin smith
Fuck your well-read.
joe rogan
Nope.
Incorrect.
Am I wrong?
Most limestone deposits are made from the shells of microscopic sea organisms.
Coral reefs are a beautiful example of organic sedimentary rocks made by creatures that are still living.
Okay, so yeah, it is.
So limestone deposits, it's made by the shells of microscopic sea organisms.
So these shells, they compress down, they make this stone.
They built...
They built fucking giant buildings out of this shit.
So just think of the age of that stone.
Like, what?
How old is that shit?
I mean, how old is that?
kevin smith
So everything that we think we know could literally be incorrect by a couple thousand years.
joe rogan
Yeah, but even that, I think it's weird that we're holding on to these numbers.
Instead of saying, well, we have some tests that show that we're pretty sure that this was created around then.
But that, you might be right.
That might be older.
But people really resist what he's saying.
They really resist it because you'd have to go back, and a lot of people that got degrees in Egyptology, you have to rewrite what we know.
Because once they...
Once they decide this is the age where this was made and Thutmose III was responsible for this and this guy's responsible for that, once they write that and sell the books, it's super hard to take that back.
kevin smith
And suddenly be like, well...
joe rogan
Yeah, it's super hard to admit they don't really know.
kevin smith
And this isn't something like, hey, Pluto's not a planet anymore because we were off by its size or whatever.
This is like we had literally no idea that people existed that far back.
joe rogan
Well, we knew people existed, but we didn't know they were capable of building things like that.
But I'm saying, why is that even surprising?
If people 4,000 fucking years ago could build something as crazy as the Great Pyramid, why would I be shocked that someone 4,000 years before that could build a Sphinx?
Or 4,000 years before that could build some other fucking temple?
kevin smith
It's also just a number that's really fucking ridiculous to get your head around.
It's impossible.
So wait, 4,000 from now, backwards, and then 4,000 from that point, forget it.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And then to think that humanity was probably restarted, at least to a certain extent, somewhere around the end of the Ice Age.
Like, humanity recovered and started flourishing again.
So who knows what number of people we dipped down to 15,000 plus years ago.
kevin smith
If they were...
If they built the Sphinx further back than we thought they did, did they have language skills?
joe rogan
Yeah.
unidentified
They must have.
kevin smith
You can't build something like that without being like, hey, put a nose on it.
joe rogan
I think they're pretty sure language is 40,000 years old.
See if that's true.
I think that's what they think.
I think they think language in the form that we would describe as language, you know, like maybe, you know, I don't know what language is.
unidentified
200,000.
joe rogan
200,000.
What?
Okay.
Psychology today.
Though definitely probably smarter than me.
So, okay.
So 200,000 years ago, more over around 50,000 years ago, for a period referred to by archaeologists of the Upper Paleolithic, an unprecedented cultural explosion began to manifest itself for human communities.
Maybe that's what I remember.
So 50,000 years ago is the number that's in my head.
So language.
They had it a long time.
They don't think, at least, they started writing shit until somewhere around 10,000 years ago.
But they don't even know if that's the case.
But I think the oldest known writing that we know of today, I think, is that stuff that comes out of Iraq.
Cuneiform, I think it's called.
It's from the ancient Sumerians.
They were the oldest civilization that were like modern, I mean, not modern, but advanced civilization that we're currently aware of.
kevin smith
And they kept records.
joe rogan
Yeah, they wrote with like old school...
Did you ever do any carpentry?
kevin smith
No.
joe rogan
No?
When I was a kid in Boston, I worked on a lot of houses, demolition stuff and carpentry stuff.
And you would go in these old, old houses and they had these weird nails.
Because the nails were all handmade back then.
They weren't a nail like you think of.
A nail like a tabletop with a pole underneath it.
That's not what the nails were.
The nails were like this weird kind of like almost rectangle or triangle thing.
And that was exactly what cuneiform looks like.
It has a very specific...
Pull up some Sumerian cuneiform.
So it's a series of lines, and it's really...
It's got to be insanely hard to decipher what they were writing and what they meant by all this.
But this is their language.
That shit that you're looking at right there.
That right there.
kevin smith
So it seems like an intermediate between hieroglyphics and an alphabet.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
unidentified
I'm too stupid.
I'll ask tomorrow.
kevin smith
Because it's still pictographic when you look at it, right?
Like, it's still a little...
Well, that's not.
That's leaning more toward letters.
joe rogan
What is that?
That's like...
If you saw that on a spaceship, you'd be like, oh, the alien writing.
kevin smith
Yeah, and apparently it's not even that alien.
joe rogan
But doesn't that look like, if you saw that on a spaceship, that looks like something from like Hangar 18. Yeah.
Right?
If that was on the outside of a spaceship.
kevin smith
It's a little Stargate-y, but yeah, it looks very Stargate to me.
joe rogan
Like, look at that.
Dude, that is like some sort, like if you had a computer printout, remember those old school printouts that would run through computers with little holes punched in them?
That would look kind of like that.
kevin smith
The, uh, man.
joe rogan
That's the oldest language.
I think that shit's 6,000 years old.
I think it's somewhere around there.
And that's like Babylonia.
kevin smith
Have they been able to decipher an alphabet or be like 48 letters in their alphabet?
joe rogan
Yeah, I don't know what they found, but they found a lot of cool shit.
They found a lot of cool shit from the Sumerians.
kevin smith
I remember when I was a kid, like, you know, I went to Catholic school as a kid.
And the big story when we were younger was we got like new nuns.
Sisters, like at a certain point.
Like when I started Catholic school, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, they had old school nuns that, you know, would wrap your fucking knuckles and shit like your parents would talk about.
And then all of a sudden these new sisters come in, the Franciscan sisters of the infant Jesus.
And they were more like about education, almost like a Jesuit priest.
So they definitely had their vows and whatnot, but they were more progressive in their thinking than like the previous generation that had come prior to them.
So, Sister Teresa, who is like our 8th grade teacher, captured our imaginations with the Dead Sea Scrolls story.
About how, you know, there was a Bible that we all worked off of.
And then thanks to some kid who threw a rock in a cave, they found all these jars.
And inside of the jars, perfectly preserved, were all these writings on parchments and scrolls.
us yeah and so that's where we started getting a clearer picture of the bible and that's where they found bibles or gospels that aren't included in our bible and man it was like this is a minute before raiders of the lost ark came out so then when that movie came out you were like it's all it's all connected yeah the the scrolls are fascinating man you
joe rogan
You know, they had to use DNA testing to make sure that they were getting the pieces of this parchment from the same animal skin.
So like, say, if you had these pieces, they studied them for years.
Right.
And to decipher them, they would have to lay them out on tables.
You ever see what they look like, like laid out on tables?
And so one of the ways that they had to determine where pieces would go, and this is an incredibly painstaking process, they had to take small bits of organic material, because it's animal skins, and then they would run it through a DNA test and go, okay, this is the same animal.
This animal is where all these pieces go in here.
This is likely from the same piece of skin.
kevin smith
How amazing.
joe rogan
Dude, and it's crazy.
And I think it's the only version of the Bible that was written in Aramaic.
kevin smith
Yes.
Well done.
Fuck, you're well read.
joe rogan
No, no, it's not well read.
It's well read about drugs.
See, this is all about John Marco Allegro.
kevin smith
We talked about this.
joe rogan
Yeah, that guy.
unidentified
The magic mushrooms.
joe rogan
That's how I found out about, yeah, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian myth and the sacred mushroom and the cross.
There's two books on that.
But he was a guy who studied that, the Dead Sea Scrolls.
kevin smith
At what point, we just saw an image of the...
Dead Sea Scroll parchment spread out.
joe rogan
What point do I give up?
Instantly.
kevin smith
You know what I'm saying?
Like where somebody's like, you might have to DN that goodbye.
joe rogan
Yeah, I'd be like, yo, if you guys need funding, I'm down to donate.
I got a jet.
I got a spot at the store.
kevin smith
I got a spot at the store.
joe rogan
It's not for me, man.
I mean, but it is for somebody and I'm grateful.
You know, I'm grateful that there's guys like that, like Robert Shock, who's, you know, taking these trips to Egypt to study this and really putting his neck out there, releasing this very controversial theory.
I'm glad there's all these people out there that are questioning these things and looking into these things and that someone has the energy to study the Dead Sea Scrolls and to go over and apparently there's some wacky ass fucking crazy stories in there.
Like, they've tried to compare the stories, like, way more extreme, way, way weirder, to the point where people are like, oh, I don't think we should use these stories.
kevin smith
Do they involve the same characters?
joe rogan
I don't know.
Like, is it a Jesus, the lost years?
I don't think so.
Like, maybe we could find...
kevin smith
Because that story has a big chunk missing.
unidentified
Yeah.
kevin smith
He's 12, and then next time they pick him up, he's 31. Yeah.
joe rogan
I think that's probably something that can't be just Googled.
kevin smith
Where was Jesus?
joe rogan
Probably have to read a book on what they learned out of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
But I remember there was some sort of a documentary on all of the hidden truths of the Dead Sea Scrolls and why these Christians were trying to omit it and not put it into the final version of the Bible.
It's so weird.
kevin smith
The Gnostic Gospels, they pull a lot from...
From there, the Gnostics were people that, it was a faith, I guess, or a section of faith, that they were great record keepers, but they were also not necessarily like, and it was the Christ himself, the mighty Son of God, you know, they were a bit more practical in their telling of the tale.
Didn't religion it up quite so much.
joe rogan
If you could go back to a time and observe life, like being like a giant bulletproof hamster wheel and observe life, would you go to the dinosaur era and see like live T-Rexes running around and predators and crazy thick atmosphere and heavy vegetation of pre-65 million years ago?
Or would you go and watch people from like 5,000 years ago?
kevin smith
Do I get one shot at this?
joe rogan
One shot.
kevin smith
I don't do the dinosaurs because I'm like, I've seen Jurassic Park.
And the real dinosaurs probably aren't going to be nearly as impressive as Jurassic Park.
joe rogan
How dare you.
kevin smith
That being said...
joe rogan
I've seen Jurassic Park, you son of a...
kevin smith
That being said, I go...
I go to the Christ era because that might solve a lot of problems.
If I can come back and be like, he was real.
And he turns out he was the son of God.
And here he is.
joe rogan
Let's listen to the clerks guy.
He fucking time traveled.
He thinks he knows everything.
You got fooled by a magician, bro.
kevin smith
Who's the guy who literally, who's telling us that the Sphinx is older than it is?
Somebody's got to put their neck out there sometimes, man.
I'd be willing to be the guy to do it.
joe rogan
John Anthony West was the guy.
He's dead now.
He just died recently.
unidentified
What?
joe rogan
Yeah, John Anthony West.
kevin smith
I thought this was a guy who was coming in tomorrow.
joe rogan
No, no, that's Robert Schock.
kevin smith
That's what I'm talking about.
joe rogan
He's another one of them.
He's the geologist.
John Anthony West was the guy who was making all these DVDs about it.
He's a really serious Egyptologist that just passed away.
kevin smith
He passed away?
joe rogan
Yeah.
He's the one who's really trying to put...
unidentified
He's old.
kevin smith
Old age.
joe rogan
Cancer.
kevin smith
So he was the one that first flowed the theory that, like, he might be older than you.
joe rogan
He just had a—he's got this crazy DVD series called Magical Egypt.
It's phenomenal.
I think he's got a two—one and two.
I really only watched one, but it's so good, man.
I mean, it's like a six DVD series all on the mysteries of Egypt.
What the hell happened?
We just got some— That's me.
Oh, fuck you, Siri.
Look, it just starts recording me, man.
kevin smith
Did your phone just come to life and start...
joe rogan
Yeah.
She just started...
It's the government, man!
They found out I'm talking to Roseanne!
Where were we talking about?
What was I just talking about?
unidentified
Magical Egypt.
kevin smith
Oh, the DVD series.
joe rogan
So this guy is the one who got me like really into it in the first place.
Wrapping my head around the concept of civilizations collapse and then a thousand years later rebuilds again.
And then you think about what the United States was like 500 years ago.
It was non-existent and now look at what it is now.
That these great moments of change happen periodically in human history, especially in places where there's a lot of commerce and there's a lot of food, like the rich, vast wilderness and the rivers filled with fish and places where people could get enough food and they would build these cities and then they would start inventing shit and innovating and a hundred years later they'd be better.
Two hundred years later they'd be better than that.
Five hundred years later they'd have crazy structures and then they'd be building things and Apparently, this is what it was like in the Nile Valley when they were constructing all these things.
It was just a bounty of food.
kevin smith
And then somebody just shook it like an etch-a-sketch.
joe rogan
Or the climate change.
That's the real theory.
Really?
Yeah, because this is what they're saying about the Nile Valley is that before 9,000 years ago, it was a tropical rainforest.
And now it's all sand and desert.
But before that, it was like fucking trees.
The climate changes.
Whether we fuck with it and make it change faster or not, it's not stable.
It's constantly going up and down.
And so this is probably also partially responsible for what happened to those people.
But those people had taken shit to another level, man.
I need to go there because I've only been watching DVDs and I'm scared of going to Egypt because sometimes it's a little unstable.
But man, what it must be like to see these 4,000-fucking-year-old gigantic stone structures that were cut and moved by who knows how many people and who knows how the fuck they did it.
They just have...
unidentified
Theories.
joe rogan
There's just guesses.
They don't know.
kevin smith
There's no hieroglyphic wall that's like, here's the real story.
joe rogan
Not really.
I mean, the problem was they think that a lot of the information was in the Library of Alexandria.
It was written down.
It was burned when they were conquered.
They don't really know.
Don't really know how they made them.
There's a lot of good guesses, a lot of good theories.
But fuck, you're talking about millions of stones.
And they're huge.
Like, how long did this take?
They say if you cut in place 10 of those massive stones a day, it would take you 664 years to make the Great Pyramid.
kevin smith
And for all we know, that's how long it took.
joe rogan
Just what?
Wait a minute.
Say that again.
Ten of those massive stones a day.
It would take you 664 years.
kevin smith
To build all the Great Pyramids?
joe rogan
To build just the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Just that one.
kevin smith
So whoever commissioned it certainly wasn't around to see it finished.
joe rogan
100%, unless they had some wizard magic shit that we're not aware of, and they did it way quicker than we think they did.
Well, who knows how long it took them to build?
We don't really know.
It might have been a thousand years.
You know, who knows?
kevin smith
Where do you stand on faith?
Or what happens when, in your estimation, we die, what happens?
joe rogan
I really don't know.
And I think in that regard, I'm right there with everybody.
I think you can have your ideas, and I think those ideas can strengthen your resolve in this life, and they could even help you.
And this is something that I had to accept as I got older, more of the same thing, like, okay, why do I have this reaction?
Like, there's certain people that are like these ardent atheists.
They're like, God is dead, there's no God, shut the fuck up.
I'm like, okay.
How do you know you don't know?
So even though logic would point, I mean, if you really paid attention to the way human beings tell stories, you would have to say, well, a lot of these religious stories are probably fabricated, or maybe there was an initial message, or maybe there was some wisdom that these people initially stumbled upon, they wanted to document it.
But whether or not all this came from God, you know, the Cain and Abel shit, and trying to trick a brother into killing another brother, like, oh, Oh, I almost got you.
You know, you're going to do it for me.
You're my boy.
You're going to kill your brother.
Thanks, man.
Or there's so many of those stories.
kevin smith
Sounds a little more human than God-like.
joe rogan
Yeah.
But does that mean there's no God?
No, of course it doesn't.
It doesn't.
This universe is too bizarre for you to leave anything off the table.
Any possibilities of what created it, what sustains it, other than scientific, you know, you get down to like the most reductionist perspective of it's just a series of quarks and gluons and atoms and, you know, and energy and maybe...
Maybe it is all that.
Maybe it is just that, but maybe that in itself is God.
Maybe God is not a material thing, but it's a creating force of the entire universe itself, and it also has good in its heart.
Like, maybe the reason why we love, like, hugs and good conversation and, you know, a cute puppy and all these different things, we like love and we like happiness, because all these things are powerful forces in the universe, and all these Things represent the greater will of the Creator, of whatever it is that makes this universe so spectacular, whatever the fuck that is.
I don't know what it is.
But anybody who says they know what it is, is lying.
You're lying!
You're trying to trick people so that you have the ultimate truth and they don't, and that's how we control people.
And that's fine up until around now.
It's fine when there was no internet.
It's fine when books were scarce.
It's fine when we had to keep order.
It's fine.
It's fine.
But it's not fine anymore.
Because we know too much now.
So it doesn't mean that there's no God, but it means you definitely, this guy that wants the jet, who's that televangelist that wants $50 million to buy his own private jet?
For sure, that guy's full of shit.
unidentified
See?
joe rogan
So there's things that we can be sure.
kevin smith
He's found a hustle, and it's not even an original hustle.
It's like, I know what happens after this, give me your money.
joe rogan
God wants me to be wealthy.
That's what he's saying.
kevin smith
Did you ever meet somebody who experienced the afterlife?
joe rogan
I've met people that my belief is that a lot of that can be attributed to the chemicals that your brain is capable of producing on a regular basis.
It does while you're sleeping.
It does while you're in periods of extreme stress.
And that all these different chemicals most likely are released in the brain during these overwhelming periods of anxiety and fear and terror and injury when your body is thinking, hey man, this might be it.
And I think that's probably what a lot of these near-death experiences are, is that people are experiencing what you would call an endogenous psychedelic experience.
Your brain is releasing these potent chemicals that it has, it absolutely has inside of it.
Your brain has a ton of different You know, things like dimethyltryptamine and different psychedelic chemicals it's capable of producing, as well as like melatonin, dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, cortisol.
There's a fucking storm of shit going on in your brain.
kevin smith
And in a moment like near death, it just jacks it all out into your system.
joe rogan
It probably pumps it through your fucking neurons and everything's firing and you're seeing things that aren't there and you're talking to dead relatives and you're imagining the pearly gates and your imagination is on 10 and you're just seeing everything.
That's the reductionist perspective.
The hopeful, optimistic, spiritual woo-woo perspective is this is a chemical gateway, and you're seeing through the door of the other side, and then when they decide it's not your time yet, you're sucked back to where you lie, and then you're allowed to resume this life because you have more work to do.
And that's the perspective that a lot of people feel when they come out of those experiences, right?
They feel like, I have more work to do.
I can't stop now.
kevin smith
My mom, years ago, God, it was like 10 years ago, more than that even, maybe 15 years ago at this point, had a heart attack, or a heart episode, rather.
My dad died of a heart attack, but my mom was on the table and they were putting a stent into her heart, into her artery.
And she was sitting there chit-chatting while they were doing the surgery.
I guess she was on a local more so than anything else.
And she was joking around with the doctor.
She's like, you gotta hurry up, doc, because I gotta pick up my mom for the...
And then went out.
And so she died for a minute and a half, clinically fucking dead.
They had to fucking try to restart the heart.
So I was like, what happened?
What was it?
And she didn't describe, like, I saw the bright lights and I saw people and blah, blah, blah.
She said I was floating.
And I was like, floating up?
She goes, no, floating on my back.
I was like, okay, well, you were on your back in the hospital.
Do you think that's what it was?
She's like, I don't know, but this is what I remember.
Every Iota of responsibility I ever felt in my life was gone.
She's like, I felt free.
Like I felt instantly lighter.
And just as I was heading in a direction, that's when like they pulled her back.
So she'd been dead for like a minute and a half.
Her heart had stopped.
So I was like, all right.
You've been in this best of all possible worlds for, you know, fucking 60 plus years.
Now you've seen a glimpse of the other side, which is better.
And my mom said, the other side.
And I said, what?
You were there for like a minute and change.
Why?
And she said, I was completely fucking free.
Like...
That was it.
I didn't know this one.
I don't have to care for this one.
I don't have to make sure this is taken care of.
I don't have to feed the cat.
She was like, it was bliss.
She's like, and if that's what happens, then I look forward to that again.
So when I was having my shit three months ago, and the doctor was like, you got a 20% chance of living, I was sitting there going through all the fucking shit in my head about like, all right, well, this is it.
You've spent your life with your head up your ass, you know, fucking trying to figure out who you are.
Go ahead.
Look at your head and heart.
This is it.
This is the big moment.
What are your thoughts?
What's going through?
I'm such a chicken shit in life.
I assumed that I'd be like the guy who was like, I'll fucking suck your dick to stay in this life.
Because I know this life and I don't know what happens afterwards.
So I thought I'd be begging for help from God or something like that.
But I was like, I made dogma.
I'm sure Jesus would be like, go to hell.
Fuck you.
Buddy Christ my ass.
So instead of doing the religious thing, I started thinking about just the journey itself.
I was like, well, if the journey's ending, what are your thoughts?
Just like when they held up the phone, they were like, do you want to talk to your wife?
And I was like, no, of course I did.
But I didn't want to because I was like, I know in my heart of hearts, if I speak to my wife right now, I'm going to be in the 20%.
I'm going to die.
I'm going to be in the 80%.
I'm going to fucking drop dead because that's it.
joe rogan
The intensity of it?
kevin smith
Not even like, oh my God, it's going to kill me.
The way they were so like, your wife is on the phone.
Do you want to speak to her right now?
Was very leading.
And, you know, they're professionals, and these cats deal with life and death every day, and this was my first experience with it.
So what I got out of it was...
joe rogan
You're probably going to die.
kevin smith
...was what they felt.
joe rogan
Yeah.
kevin smith
And still, I was in this state of like, I didn't even realize I was having a heart attack.
And so I remember looking at the phone and being like, if I answer it, if I talk to Jennifer, that's going to be it.
I'm not going to leave this room.
So I was like, I'm going to play the odds.
If I don't talk to Jennifer...
Maybe there's some part of me that's like, look, I like talking to Jennifer.
We've been together fucking 20 years.
I better enjoy talking to Jennifer.
Maybe if I put this phone call off, you know, that I'll get to talk to Jennifer when it's all fucking done.
So I said to the dude, I was like, you know what?
Tell her I'll call her back.
And the guy goes, seriously?
And I was like, yeah.
And I saw him talking and he got off the phone and I was like, what'd she say?
And he goes, she was fucking pissed, dude.
And I was like, well, I'm dealing with my own shit right now.
So I was laying there on the table and I was like going through my life and I was more grateful than anything else.
I wasn't scared anymore.
That was the thing.
That was the thing that I love to communicate.
I spent my whole life terrified of fucking dying.
And when I was as closest to it as I ever knew I was, and for all I know I was closer someplace, but like, I was cognizant and told by a professional, this is fucking risky.
I was just kind of...
I was grateful, more than anything else.
I was like, what a fucking journey.
Like, yeah, and I'm 47, and it seems short, but fucking, like, you gotta admit, you did more than fucking most people get to do, and maybe that's why it happened at an early age, because you weren't gonna get the rest of this time and shit like that.
But, like, I wasn't mad, I wasn't like, fucking, why?
This is unfair.
I remembered, like, there's an issue of Sandman, which I absolutely loved, Neil Gaiman's comic book series back in the day.
And after the first story arc, we meet his sister.
The main character is Dream.
Morpheus, the character of Dream.
He's part of the Endless.
And he's got other siblings, Delirium, Desire.
One of his siblings is Death.
And they represent death in the comic book.
You know, you're used to seeing the fucking Sky and the fucking Grim Reaper and shit.
She's the little emo girl, goth girl, wearing an ankh around her neck and shit like that.
It was written in the 90s.
And they don't tell you right away that she's death.
As you're reading the issue, you're like, oh, shit.
I think she's meant to be death.
She's ferrying souls over to the other side.
You see a baby pass and she's holding the baby and then the refrain is like I hear the sound of her wings and that's taking this soul over to the next place as she's sitting around talking to her brother.
And so she eventually gets into a room with this older guy who's like, who are you?
And she's like, I'm here for you.
You know who I am.
And he's like, that's it?
He's like, oh my god.
I did all these things.
I worked my fingers to the bone.
And what did I get?
This is it.
What did I get?
And she says, a line that when I read it when I was 18, it was powerful.
But when I was laying on the fucking table, it was powerful.
Constantly going through my head and made it all easier made me kind of at peace with the idea of dying There's this line she says to the guy she goes you get you got what everybody gets you got a lifetime and as I was laying there I was like oh my god I got a lifetime like that's that's what it was nothing more nothing fucking less and I did some shit in it and now it's gonna stop and people are gonna go on without you and That's not terrible.
Like, I thought I'd be fucking desperate to live.
And instead, I had that weird...
I understood what my mother said for the first time.
Because I was laying there, I was like, oh my god.
Like, I made it to the end.
Like, this is it.
This is the finish line.
And it had been something that I was terrified of ever getting to.
But then when really kind of faced with it, I was like, oh...
Like, I'm done.
Like, I'm not scared that I'm done.
I'm actually kind of relieved that I'm done.
And like, you know, fucking, like, I didn't get killed.
And I wasn't home invaded.
A shark didn't eat me.
All the things that, like, I've been terrified of my entire life.
Like, I don't have to think about it anymore.
I made it to the end, and it's kind of okay.
So it's weird.
My whole life I thought, like, you know, I'd be scared of death, and most people, we all are.
We're all terrified of fucking dying because we don't know.
But that was the closest I ever came, and I wasn't scared.
Like, suddenly the fear just went away, and it seemed logical.
Like, of course it's over.
Like, things end.
And I didn't want to die.
I didn't have a death wish, but I was like...
If it's done, it's done.
And count your blessings and be happy and don't be a bitch.
If the fucking ferryman shows up tonight, don't fucking hold out.
Don't be the last asshole at the party going, no!
Just fucking pay the ferryman, get on a boat and go.
We'll see what's next and stuff.
And then ultimately, Leidenheim did a good job and I fucking wound up living and stuff.
I know this much.
I got to read a bunch of shit like after I nearly died, and it was all nice.
People wrote very nice things about me and shit.
And I expected, you know, I'm a creature of the internet that some people would be like, I wish he had fucking died.
Fuck him to death and shit.
I wish he'd stay silent.
But generally, it was like very nice things.
People were kind of positive and stuff.
So I was like, fuck, man.
You know, again, I didn't want to die, but, like, if I had, like, that would have been okay.
Now I'm back at it.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, now, until it ends, like, I've got to, you know, and it's kind of easy.
As long as I don't wake up with a fucking dead girl or a live boy, I don't think, like, they'll fucking break me over the coals when I die in the future and shit like that.
But it felt weird to be so close to the completion and having something that normally terrifies you suddenly be like, oh, it's okay.
If you walked up and put a gun in my face, I'm sure I'd feel threatened, but I kind of lost my fear of death.
I'm not death-defying.
I won't go out and do anything differently.
But that dark cloud that kind of kills any good time, the moment you start thinking about like...
joe rogan
The fear and anxiety.
kevin smith
You're going to die one day.
Like, it's gone and all of a sudden I'm like, yeah, I'm going to die one day.
And it's going to be awesome.
But not for the reasons that you think I'm saying it's going to be awesome.
It's going to be awesome because I finish.
Like, it's nice to finish things.
We know how good it feels in life to complete something.
And that's the biggest fucking thing in life you'll ever complete, is your journey.
So, I didn't walk away going like, I gotta do more.
Like, I gotta fucking live life to the fullest.
I just gotta keep doing what I've been doing.
Like, living life the way I enjoy it.
Trying to do things.
Sometimes they work.
Sometimes they fail and shit.
Sometimes people are on your side.
Sometimes people are like, you fucking blow.
And just do that fucking time.
Have good conversations in the process.
Meet interesting people.
Hear new points of view and shit like that.
And keep at it.
But...
It's nothing to be afraid of.
I don't want to get eaten by a cat, don't get me wrong.
And I guarantee you, I would not be philosophical as a fucking big cat was crushing my...
I'd be like, Jesus, no!
I'd find prayer quick.
Death is no longer something—I'm not looking for it, and I certainly won't put myself in harm's way, but it doesn't preoccupy me anymore.
I've been there, and it's not the thing that I was led to believe it was.
Like, it's not the ultimate fear come true.
It's not the Grim Reaper.
There's a sense, at least in my case—and again, I didn't have a painful heart attack.
I'm sure people have heart attacks where they feel like their fucking body's being ripped and cleaved in twain— But it wasn't that.
It wasn't scary.
It was okay.
joe rogan
Well, listen, man, I'm glad you lived.
Because I love you.
And you're one of my favorite people to talk to.
And we don't talk very often, but when we do, I always love it.
kevin smith
And after the heart attack, I couldn't wait.
We started texting and being like, bro, you've got to come in.
I was like, definitely.
joe rogan
I didn't want to ask quick.
kevin smith
What's the protocol on that sort of shit?
joe rogan
That's so gross.
It's so morbid.
Listen, man, you might not make it.
Can you think you can get in here in the next couple weeks?
unidentified
Is Tuesday good?
joe rogan
Yeah.
kevin smith
But no, I'm happy to be here and stuff.
We all are happy to be above ground.
It's better than below ground.
joe rogan
I'm happy to hear your perspective, too.
kevin smith
I want to pass that on because you're a seeker as well.
joe rogan
I think it means a lot to a lot of people that are listening, too, because that's what everyone's scared of, right?
kevin smith
Oh, it blows, too.
joe rogan
Everyone's scared of the ride being over.
kevin smith
That's what we think.
We're trained to think that way.
Every fucking movie, every book you read, every song is about how it'll suck when it's over.
joe rogan
And that fear can keep you from enjoying it while you're living it.
kevin smith
And trying cool things and stuff like that.
And I don't mean like putting yourself in harm's way.
Like, let's shoot a movie with real lions.
That's been done.
Don't try it.
You can watch the fucking video.
But the things where you're like, I'd really like to try it.
Like, it fucking won't work.
Or, oh, there's maybe time later.
That's the one thing I did walk away from it.
Time?
You're fucking lucky for every goddamn second.
joe rogan
Every goddamn second.
kevin smith
So use it wisely.
joe rogan
And I think if you can just think that way, like today's a borrowed day.
Sometimes you have to trick yourself into finding more enthusiasm.
You have to trick yourself to be pumped up about stuff.
But if you can really do that and exercise those patterns in your brain and get them normal, there's There's people that have tricked themselves into enjoying all sorts of things that they know are good for them.
They just fire up those fucking chemicals and today we're going to just go out there and attack this day because this is a gift.
This isn't supposed to be here.
We got one!
kevin smith
I think that all the time now, honestly.
That's like an underlying that goes under almost every thought I have.
And it doesn't happen constantly, but it literally happens about ten times a week.
You'll be doing something, you'll be heading somewhere, you'll be eating something, fucking whatever the fuck, fucking having a conversation, and then you'll be like, this isn't supposed to be happening right now.
Based on the odds, I was supposed to die back on that fucking table.
So suddenly you're like, I'm playing on house money.
joe rogan
House money, son.
kevin smith
You know what I'm saying?
Live a house money life, kids.
joe rogan
Live a house money life, kids.
That should be a fucking t-shirt.
Thank you, Kevin.
kevin smith
Excellent period.
joe rogan
Really appreciate you, brother.
kevin smith
I appreciate you.
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