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Sept. 6, 2018 - The Joe Rogan Experience
01:52:12
Joe Rogan Experience #1168 - Mareko Maumasi
Participants
Main voices
j
joe rogan
51:16
m
mareko maumasi
56:58
Appearances
j
jamie vernon
01:52
Clips
b
ben obrien
00:03
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Speaker Time Text
joe rogan
Four, three, two, one.
Boom!
The lost art of knife making.
It's still alive.
How are you, man?
mareko maumasi
I'm doing good, man.
joe rogan
Thanks for coming down here.
I appreciate it.
mareko maumasi
Fucking huge.
I really appreciate you having me down.
joe rogan
Hey, listen, man, you've made two awesome, well, four awesome knives for me, but this one is one I use all the time that I've posted on Instagram that people freak out, as we were talking about before the podcast.
It actually has meteor in it.
Yeah.
Meteorite.
Meteor's a big one.
Meteorite's a little one.
Is that the idea?
Do you know?
mareko maumasi
I guess.
You should know.
joe rogan
You're the knife maker.
mareko maumasi
So I made the knife.
I forged the knife.
But the steel is a very special kind of steel that very few people can actually manufacture on a small scale in the world.
And that was made by my shopmate, Peter Swarsberg.
And so the meteorite is kind of a small element in the whole matrix because most meteorite is all nickel or all iron or something like that.
And this one particularly is a lot of nickel and some cobalt.
And if you're gonna make an actual usable steel out of it, you can't really use a whole lot of it in the overall mixture.
joe rogan
So, is there any meteorites that are made out of all iron?
mareko maumasi
Yeah, definitely.
joe rogan
You just have to find them?
mareko maumasi
You just gotta find the ones.
Yeah, and there are impact sites all over the world.
Like, they're hitting the world all the time.
joe rogan
Can you just take them?
Like, when they land, is it yours if you find it?
mareko maumasi
Yep.
joe rogan
Like, you don't have to report it to NASA or anything, right?
mareko maumasi
No.
Hey, bro.
joe rogan
Found some space junk.
mareko maumasi
Most of them are so small that by the time they...
Hit the actual Earth's surface.
They've completely disintegrated or burned up.
So it's the really massive ones.
And this was part of an impact, I think, in South America.
joe rogan
Oh, wow.
mareko maumasi
I can't remember where exactly.
joe rogan
It's just crazy to think that there's a piece of space in there.
mareko maumasi
Fuck yeah, dude.
joe rogan
This is a dope pattern.
I'm really into craftsmanship, man.
I always have been.
I love handmade pool cues and this desk, which is a handmade desk.
I feel like it's one of the things that I really appreciate in this modern digital world.
And I also feel like, unfortunately, it may be one of the things that's slipping away.
mareko maumasi
It definitely is slipping away.
I think with...
Technology has been great for us in a lot of different ways.
We couldn't be fucking talking into a piece of metal and it's recorded on a computer.
joe rogan
It's going through a wire, flying through the air.
mareko maumasi
Like it does a lot of great things, but in doing all those great things, it actually has taken us away from really creating and working with our hands.
And so like, you know, even this whole like farm to table movement or people even growing their own vegetables.
You got your own chickens.
They're laying eggs for you.
Like knowing where this stuff is coming from, having like firsthand contact with that, just having that relationship in general with it.
It brings so much more value to the overall experience of eating those eggs or using that knife or sitting at this fucking table right here.
joe rogan
And it seems like a fairly recent movement in that direction, right?
Like it feels like things got so digital that people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, with the Facebook and the fucking Instagram.
I want a wood table.
I want to saw this bitch myself.
mareko maumasi
Put your hands on it.
joe rogan
Yeah, I don't want it to be plastic.
I want real stuff.
And there's something about handmade things, whether it's a handmade pair of boots or a handmade bag.
It's like there's something about things that are made by hand that people get a deep appreciation of.
mareko maumasi
For sure.
Well, and I think it also kind of goes back, like I was saying, as technology has advanced, we've kind of grown away from these kind of what's considered blue-collar work and craftsmanship kind of work.
But I think people really are driven by a sense of achievement.
And when you're doing data entry that literally millions of people, fucking monkeys, can be trained to do.
Not to diminish anything that anybody's doing, but literally to be able to go into a craft and have a hands-on experience is very, very, very, very different.
And that sense of achievement, even when somebody comes out of something, and maybe I taught a class on how to make a knife and it looks like a fucking turd.
They're going to think it looks like the most beautiful fucking knife they've ever seen in their life because their hands and their creativity, their energy, their sweat, and probably some of their blood is put into creating that thing.
And that brings that much more value to it.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think that's an issue with people today that have jobs that they don't feel are very fulfilling, is that there's no real thing that they're creating at the end.
Whereas if you make a table, and at the end when you're putting the final sanding on and the final layer of stain, and you're looking at it like, I fucking made this.
This is a real thing that I can touch that I made.
Just like human beings in our current form.
There's a deep connection to making things, physical things, and an appreciation for things that people have made, whether it's a rifle that somebody made, or a knife, or a hammer that someone's made.
There's something about that that we just have a real appreciation for.
If you can buy a knife from the store that's made in a shop, I mean, it'll work.
You know, some knife that's made, some mass manufacturing process, it'll work, and it's fine.
I mean, you'll appreciate it.
But you won't appreciate it like, I appreciate this thing.
Like, every time I take this out, I'm, like, super careful with it.
And, you know, and then the handle, the handle's made out of, this is a moose antler and elk antler, right?
The elk at the top and the moose at the bottom.
mareko maumasi
And I saw your conversation, or I listened to your conversation with Guy Ritchie, and you brought up that there was, I think actually Jamie pulled it up, and it was like, bog oak.
And Guy Ritchie was like, bog-o?
joe rogan
What bog?
mareko maumasi
Are there American bogs?
I don't know if there are any American bogs.
It was from a bog in Russia, and it was carbon dated to 5,400 years old.
So essentially, it's been sunken in a bog.
joe rogan
That's the other knife that you made for me.
That has a handle.
mareko maumasi
It's a bog.
joe rogan
Bog oak.
How's one to get a hold of bog oak?
mareko maumasi
So people are raising logs like there actually was a show I think it was on Discovery Channel or History where people were their job was raising logs out of the swamps down in Louisiana and in the south and using making use of that wood for table projects and craft projects like this so that but that's happening all over the world and some of that stuff are these ancient logs that have You know, it's the right conditions where the tree falls over, it just sits there and steeps.
joe rogan
You know, that's a big thing for pool cue shafts, lakewood shafts.
They like to take these logs out of the bottom of Lake Michigan or something.
mareko maumasi
Right.
joe rogan
And then they dry it all out, and then they make shafts out of it.
And there's something about it being in the bottom of the water for so long...
It does something to the way they feel.
What do you got there, Jamie?
That's Ancient Bogwood Artisan Dice.
mareko maumasi
Some Dungeons& Dragons.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's some nerd shit right there, Sonny.
jamie vernon
It's super polished up, though.
It looks cool.
joe rogan
Are those Dungeons& Dragons Nerds Dice?
unidentified
Sort of, yeah.
joe rogan
Nerd Dice?
jamie vernon
Multi-sided, yeah.
16 sides on that.
joe rogan
Now, that was only for a game, right?
You wouldn't play Dice Dice.
jamie vernon
Yeah.
mareko maumasi
They use it for all kinds of...
They're actually like value holders for the most part.
joe rogan
Value holders?
mareko maumasi
What do you mean?
Yeah, so like 16...
So they count down with the dice and so they have an actual placeholder sitting there that says 16, 15, 20, whatever.
joe rogan
Oh, you understand Dungeons& Dragons.
You might be a dork.
mareko maumasi
Sometimes I'm a dork.
My brother-in-law is Magic the Gathering.
joe rogan
Oh, that's super dork.
That's for people that get kicked out of the Dungeons and Dragons.
mareko maumasi
It's just a different iteration of chess, really.
I mean, it's all strategies.
joe rogan
Oh, it's definitely not that.
What is this?
Oh, that's a beautiful handle.
Yeah.
mareko maumasi
Oh, Baring Made.
That kid's in Montana.
Really good guy.
He's a nice kid.
Met him a couple years ago in Eugene, actually.
They do a knife show there every year in April.
joe rogan
So that image that you just showed, Jamie, that's bog oak?
That's some other big chunks of it that they pulled out?
Wow.
Interesting.
So there must be a community of you people, these knife-making people.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, there are quite a few people who have started getting into the knife making.
The world of knife making.
Really, the resurgence of kind of handcrafted, hand-forged knives kind of started back in the 70s.
And it stemmed off from, I think it was the Custom Knife Making Association, or, yeah, Custom Knife Makers Association.
And then it stemmed off to the ABS, which is the American Bladesmith Society.
And that was all about the forged blade and kind of the mission to retain that knowledge and that history and the skills that go into actually taking a piece of metal and forging a blade out of it.
Your blades, they were forged to shape.
One approach is to just take a bar of steel, trace out a line, cut that out.
It's a totally valid way of doing it.
The forging aspect, especially if somebody doesn't actually know what they're doing, they're just heating up a piece of steel.
They don't know how fucking hot it is getting.
They don't know when to stop hitting it.
They may be hitting it too cold.
They may be overheating it and hitting it while it's way too hot.
They could really actually do detrimental damage to the material and turn out a piece of shit.
So the forged aspect really just brings kind of an aesthetic and kind of a depth of story to help bring kind of more to that product.
joe rogan
Well, it's another level, right?
mareko maumasi
Yeah, it's just another layer of it.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's not just hand crafting something from a, you know, just a piece of metal that you bought and you put all the pieces together and polished it down and sanded it.
When did you get into this?
mareko maumasi
So I, it's kind of a funny story.
So I got into this back in 2008 is when I met Bob Kramer.
At the time I was working in a restaurant and Actually in my hometown of Olympia.
And I was working in a restaurant.
I was moonlighting as an assistant salsa dancing instructor and doing like community performances and shit like that.
And I was 24 and I didn't know what the hell I was doing with myself and I didn't really have much of a direction in my life.
I was terrible at school.
You know, I had maybe 40 credits towards an AA, but I don't even have an actual certification or degree of any kind.
So anyways, I was sharing this with my dance partner, and she had just started working for this guy.
Who was a knife maker.
And she's like, oh, you should meet him.
He's really interesting.
You know, you kind of feel like you're lost.
He's been all over the world.
He's even like, he was even a clown at one point.
joe rogan
This is Bob Kramer?
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
He used to be a clown?
mareko maumasi
He was a clown, I think, for a year for Ringling, Barnum, and Bailey.
Yeah.
And from what I understand, it was a great experience and he loved it.
But anyways, she's like, you know, I think you guys would hit it off.
I think, you know, maybe he could help bestow some wisdom as to where you're at and where he was at and maybe what kind of choices or options you have ahead of you.
And so I met up with him at the brew pub that I was actually working at and got some beers, got some fish and chips, sitting bullshitting.
And it ended up turning into a job opportunity.
Neither of us really went into it knowing that that's the direction it was going to go.
But he was anticipating he had an article coming out in The New Yorker like in a month that was going to really like blow his shit up.
And he had had a couple big articles like in Savoir magazine and he was featured in Cook's Illustrated at one point.
And each time like there's a huge influx.
And so I think in part of anticipation for that, he's like, look, you seem like a nice guy.
You don't really seem to have a direction.
Maybe we could work something out.
I can't make any promises to you that I have full-time work for you.
joe rogan
So he just took you on as an apprentice.
mareko maumasi
Essentially.
joe rogan
I saw a video with him, with Anthony Bourdain.
That's what I found out about him.
He was making a knife with meteors.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
With a piece of meteorite in it as well.
Same kind of thing.
And I remember thinking, like, wow, how crazy is this?
This guy's...
Hammering this thing together and putting that, that was like one of the ways that I got interested in custom knife making.
mareko maumasi
Sure.
joe rogan
And I'd always had knives, you know, like pocket knives, you know.
mareko maumasi
Right.
joe rogan
And I always like kind of thought they were cool and enjoyed them.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
But until I watched that video, I didn't realize that there was a lot of people out there.
There it is.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Him and Anthony.
I didn't realize there was a lot of people that are out there doing this from scratch.
And then, you know, then I was like, oh, I gotta get a knife.
And then I saw your page on Instagram.
And I remember thinking, wow, this guy does some wild shit.
And I don't remember how you and I got to chatting.
I don't remember.
I just remember seeing your stuff on Instagram.
mareko maumasi
You reached out to me on email and I was like, Joe Rogan.
joe rogan
Was it an email or was it an Instagram message?
mareko maumasi
Oh, actually.
joe rogan
Not sure.
mareko maumasi
I think it was an email.
joe rogan
Email?
mareko maumasi
Either way.
joe rogan
Probably from your website.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, you had seen my email in one of our previous conversations somewhere.
But I was like, this can't be like the Joe Rogan.
And then as the conversation continued on, and I was like, because also your picture for the email is like this goofy picture of you doing like kissy face or something like that.
unidentified
It's fucking hilarious.
joe rogan
That sounds like me.
mareko maumasi
And I was like, holy shit, I think this actually might be Joe Rogan.
This is crazy.
But it's doing this craft and doing this work and finding and connecting with people who have an appreciation for the actual work that goes into it and appreciating that value has been, even five years ago, when I first started under my own brand, There's no way I would have thought I'd be sitting here hanging out with you guys.
It's kind of been a crazy ride for me.
joe rogan
Well, it's a crazy ride for me, too, man.
All of it is.
Life's crazy.
mareko maumasi
I believe that.
joe rogan
But, like I said, I've always had a deep appreciation for artisans, you know, for art.
I think your knife making is art.
I mean, I really do.
Like, look at this.
Jamie's pulled up an image from your website.
It shows this incredible blade design.
Now, this is what I've always wanted to know.
Like, is that Damascus steel?
Is that what that is?
mareko maumasi
That is Damascus.
And just a quick note, this is actually a post that I did to celebrate another maker.
His name's Julian.
You can actually kind of see it there on the right margin.
But he's a South American kid.
joe rogan
He's like 20. The blades that you made that you have here today that you're bringing with you for an auction, the patterns on those things are fucking insane.
How do you do that?
How do you make these...
Because it's not just steel.
For people that are just listening to this, that one is a great example.
I would really love for people who are just listening to just please go spread out, go back to the page, Jamie, so I can see the headline.
It's stuck?
What do you mean?
You can't shrink it?
unidentified
It got zoomed in and it won't zoom out.
joe rogan
What happened?
unidentified
I don't know.
jamie vernon
I did it with the touchpad.
What did you...
joe rogan
Oh, the touchpad.
These goddamn...
We got an old-ass laptop there.
M-A-U-M-A-S... Fire Arts.
M-A-S-I. S-I. M-A-U-M-A-S-I Fire Arts.
Malmasy Fire Arts.
mareko maumasi
Don't get stuck again.
joe rogan
M-A-U. Oh, it's stuck.
M-A-U-M-A-S-I Fire Arts.
If you go there, that's his page.
You'll be able to check it out and order books are closed.
You're fucked.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, I'm at three years right now and I just kind of like I had to shut it down because it's Kind of at an overwhelming point.
It's a good problem, but it's overwhelming because it's a fucking woman's show.
jamie vernon
I can only imagine.
joe rogan
Yeah.
mareko maumasi
And balancing doing the work with now the marketing and branding, maintaining relevance through social media, and taking the time to create content on top of all of that.
I mean, especially when you're first starting to do it, the content part side of it, it's fucking time consuming.
joe rogan
That's a crazy long waiting list, man.
Three years.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
And realistically, it's actually, at least in the knife-making world, it's not uncommon for people to actually wait longer than that.
joe rogan
It's the same thing with the pool cue world.
mareko maumasi
Right?
joe rogan
It's the exact same thing.
A lot of these famous pool cue manufacturers like Southwest or Sugartree, they have 10-year waiting lists.
And it's just because they do it right.
It takes a long time.
Everything's done by hand.
They're highly sought after.
And because of that, you could buy a pool cue from a company that makes them through a computerized process.
And they're fine.
They play really good.
Just like a knife that you'd buy from a store that's made by a machine and it's all done mass manufacturing.
It'll cut your meat.
It works great.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, it gets the job done.
But it doesn't...
joe rogan
It's not the same thing.
mareko maumasi
It's crazy.
You can feel the difference between a handmade thing and a machine-made thing.
It trips me out every time.
joe rogan
Well, there's a little something that people leave in things that they make.
I mean, there really is.
I mean, I think it exists in everything that people make, whether it's clothing or jewelry or furniture or anything.
I mean, I think there's a little something that people leave in a thing that they make.
mareko maumasi
There's something you talk about sometimes about how animals inherit, like, passed down through genes, like...
Watch out for this plant and watch out for these predators and shit like that.
Like passing something on like that kind of in a way.
Like where I'm toiling over something like that for, you know, 40 dedicated solid fucking hours.
unidentified
Right.
mareko maumasi
Making sure it's as perfect as I possibly can make that thing at this point in my life.
The skills I got.
joe rogan
I think there's something to that.
I mean, even if it's just...
Thought even if you just know when you touch it like if I touch this knife I know that you made this you know when I'm when I'm cutting something with this and I'm cooking I know that you made this so maybe it's just even if it's only in my head it's still it just feels different you know and I I don't know I mean there's there's Rupert Sheldrake who's a I don't know what exactly kind of scientist he is,
but he has this bizarre theory, and he's a really interesting guy to talk to, so I would never discount it.
He thinks that everything has memory.
He thinks you just can't access that memory, but he thinks there's things that have memories.
And he thinks that our idea that memory is something that only animals and humans possess is just, it's probably not true.
And that's probably one of the reasons why people don't want to buy a house where someone was murdered.
You know what I mean?
The idea is that a haunted house, even if it's not really a ghost, maybe that home has memories.
My dad went to Gettysburg, and he's not woo-woo at all.
He's as fucking...
Straight-laced, across the board, no bullshit as it gets.
And he said, man, you could feel sadness there.
He goes, you just think of how many thousands of people died at Gettysburg.
And he said, when you're there, it just feels sad.
Like, you feel death there.
I don't know if that's real, or if it's maybe the knowledge that you have that there was a war there.
I mean, I don't know.
mareko maumasi
I used to do this thing where I would walk through cemeteries, just interested, like, looking at people's names and, like, when did they live and what did people have to say about them or, you know, what's left behind.
And just walking through cemeteries.
Like, sometimes I would even do it on Halloween to try to trip my ass out.
And it definitely feels weird in there when you're there.
unidentified
It does.
joe rogan
I used to run through cemeteries.
I used to run through them because I would want to be reminded that life is short.
Get something done.
Make something happen.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
All these people that aren't here anymore.
But the thing about cemeteries is they're already dead when they get in there.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
I think the memory thing is if you're on a boat and someone gets murdered on that boat and you're in the boat and you're fucking freaking out.
unidentified
Right, right.
joe rogan
There's something about things, like if you had a thing, if you had a wallet that Mike Tyson owned, you know what I mean?
You'd hold it, you're like, damn!
You know, there's something to it.
Morphic resonance, okay, that's Rupert Sheldrick's theory.
According to a theory developed by Rupert Sheldrake, British biologist, a paranormal influence by which a pattern of events or behavior can facilitate subsequent occurrences of similar patterns.
Oh, that's right.
That is not about memory.
That is his other theory.
jamie vernon
It's referred to in a lot of other ways about memory is inherent in nature.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's part of it.
I think what I was talking about is part of his theory of morphic resonance.
But morphic resonance, I think he's...
Yeah, it's here.
It says that...
Hold on.
Scroll back.
Scroll down.
So the process whereby self-organizing systems inherit a memory from previous similar systems.
So what he was talking about with morphic resonance was how mice...
If they learn, like say if you have a pattern, and there's like cheese at the end of this pattern, and then they go through a maze.
If one mouse figures out that pattern, other mouse can figure it out quicker.
And there's something, somehow or another, they learn from each other.
And when chimpanzees are observed using tools, other chimpanzees on the other side of the world started mimicking that behavior without any interaction with those chimpanzees at all.
mareko maumasi
Wait, what?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, very strange.
mareko maumasi
That's like fucking butterfly effect.
joe rogan
Well, it's more intense than butterfly effect because it implies that there's some sort of collective information pool that they're sharing through the ether.
That there's something that they're sharing through some unknown method.
mareko maumasi
That's crazy.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It's actually been shown that there's something to this.
And there's a lot of criticism of it.
So if you're one of those people right now that's like a strict materialist and you're screaming out, I get it.
I get it.
Someone who's a real rationalist who just wants only science, provable.
The thing is it is kind of provable because there has been some tests and there's fierce opposition to this, which anything that has like some woo-woo attached to it is going to have some fierce opposition.
But Rupert was a really fascinating guy.
And he's also a rare scientist.
He was Christian, is that what it was?
He has a certain level of Christianity that he accepts and adopts because he feels like it's beneficial to him.
Very interesting guy.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, that's...
joe rogan
Him and...
There was a mathematician and Terence McKenna.
Who was the other gentleman?
It was the Trialogues.
They had these fantastic recordings.
It was Sheldrake, McKenna, and one other guy.
It was also brilliant, and they would go back and forth.
They had these...
Ralph Abraham.
Abrams or Abraham?
jamie vernon
Abraham.
joe rogan
Abraham.
And they did these series of talks, and this is one of the things that came up.
Like, McKenna was the most woo-woo, Ralph Abraham was the least woo-woo, and Sheldrick was kind of in the middle.
mareko maumasi
Right.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Interesting stuff if you're ever hanging around.
unidentified
Yeah, for sure.
joe rogan
Yeah, the trial logs.
There it is.
The recordings are still available somewhere.
I think our friend Psychedelic Salon, I think Lorenzo has them.
Are they available online?
Oh, there you go.
Bam.
mareko maumasi
Sounds fun.
joe rogan
Yeah, they're fucking cool, man.
jamie vernon
You can't actually play it.
I don't know why.
joe rogan
You can't play it?
I don't know.
jamie vernon
Maybe it was there.
I gotta take it down.
Yeah, that is the case.
Looks like it got removed.
joe rogan
Yeah, someone's probably selling it.
jamie vernon
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's really cool, though.
You get to see these guys in the 1990s, pre-internet.
Was it pre-internet?
Might not have been.
It might be like 98. I think McKenna died around 2000-ish.
He died post- I want to say he died like 2003 or something.
When did he die?
Why am I asking this?
This is all about memory and things.
We went on a fucking deep road off into the woods here.
But anybody who's listening...
2000. So he made it to Y2K and then he kicked the bucket.
Anybody who's just interested in really cool conversations, it's something to listen to.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, that sounds very interesting.
joe rogan
Yeah, just three super smart dudes kind of debating ideas and bouncing them around off each other.
mareko maumasi
You know what I've actually gotten into recently is listening to old recordings of, like, Alan Watts.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
Oh, he was great.
mareko maumasi
Reading Joseph Campbell.
Yeah.
I don't know, just absorbing it and trying to figure out what that means to me today in this very different world.
joe rogan
Yeah, Watts is a fascinating guy.
Plus that accent made him sound so much cooler.
mareko maumasi
Yeah His actually the first time I ever got into a good like Like a meditative space was a meditation led by Alan Watts from like, I don't know one fucking like 60s 70s and And just the way he explained it, for me, it was the first time it ever made sense how meditation should work.
Don't try to not think of anything, but just accept them that they're there, but also ignore them at the same time.
It was weird, and then I just totally felt like I was above myself watching me just sitting there listening to this recording.
It was a trip.
joe rogan
Well, he's such a heady guy.
The sound of his voice and just hearing his thoughts.
When you hear a really deep thinker like him, one of the things that it does is kind of gets you into that pattern of thought and you realize like, oh, I can probably kind of sort of think that way too.
I just allow myself to be guided by his words and sort of try to pay attention to how he's doing this.
Yeah.
He was an interesting guy because not just was he a deep thinker, but the influences of those people, it's very different.
There's very few recordings even back then for them to listen to.
This stuff was based on reading and their education and their actual life experiences.
So they were very unique and original.
They were really the cornerstones for a lot of these deep philosophical ideas.
And so then when you hear an Alan Watts recording today, maybe someone like me or some other people that listen to that, they might share those ideas or reflect on those ideas.
But clearly, these are not my ideas.
These are ideas that have come from these intense cornerstone people, whether it's McKenna or Alan Watts or something like that.
Do you get a chance while you're, when you're working, do you listen to shit or do you just...
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
I got all the time to sit and listen.
joe rogan
Do you, headphones?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because it seems like it would be loud as fuck.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, so I just got a hold of these, like, Bluetooth head, like, earbuds.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
mareko maumasi
And they have, like, this memory phone.
So they, uh, memory foam earbud, like, tips.
So it helps reduce the amount of noise that's actually coming in, so it helps protect it in that way, just kind of in general, like a normal inner earplug would work.
But also, because it's reducing the amount of noise that's getting in, you can also listen at a lower volume, so you're not blowing out your ears to be able to hear whatever you're listening to, like you would through normal earbuds.
joe rogan
Right, because it's so loud in your shop.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, so much noise.
Whenever I'm working...
Especially if somebody happens to pop by the shop and they want to see, and they're just curious.
And so we have stuff going on or we can heat some steel up real quick and do a quick demonstration.
Usually I don't take the time to throw all that stuff in.
It is so loud.
I actually feel like my hearing has become more sensitive since I started making knives than it was before.
joe rogan
It's probably your ears getting beat up.
Do you always have earplugs in?
mareko maumasi
I always have hearing protection in.
So my hearing is always protected.
So I feel like it's become more sensitive.
I have a better sense of hearing.
I don't know if that's possible to get your hearing back or whatever.
joe rogan
Maybe you're protecting it.
It's doing better because of that.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
I hear a lot of things.
All the things it feels like whenever I take my hearing or your hearing protection out, I'll be at home or something.
And I'm like, what the fuck is that noise?
And my wife looks at me like I'm fucking crazy.
joe rogan
I wonder if that's the case.
I wonder if like, maybe if like, you know, people don't use their hands and then the hands get soft.
mareko maumasi
I don't know.
jamie vernon
You can't gain it back.
But you might be protecting it longer.
And since you have a sensitivity issue, maybe since it's quieter all day.
joe rogan
So if you blow it out from like concerts and shit like that, that's it?
jamie vernon
All you can do is get a hearing aid.
joe rogan
What about the little hairs that pick up the vibration?
jamie vernon
Because it's literally what you're hearing with is like a hair follicle.
mareko maumasi
It's vibrating.
joe rogan
And you blow that shit out.
jamie vernon
They haven't synthetically made those yet.
Damn, man.
joe rogan
I feel so bad for those old rock stars that didn't know any better.
And now they're just fucking...
jamie vernon
Huey Lewis.
What's happened to him?
joe rogan
Huey Lewis?
jamie vernon
He can't play anymore.
All of a sudden.
joe rogan
That's the Lord's work.
Just kidding.
Just kidding, Huey.
Tip to be square.
Yeah, man.
It's fucked up.
The dude from ACDC. Who else?
jamie vernon
Angus Young.
joe rogan
Yeah, Angus is gone deaf.
mareko maumasi
Oh, Jesus.
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Fucking everybody's going deaf.
jamie vernon
They also probably didn't protect themselves like you should have.
joe rogan
Nobody knew any better back then.
mareko maumasi
Have you ever seen that documentary?
It's an older one.
Well, older one.
It was from the early 2000s.
But this woman, she progressively got deafer and deafer as she grew older until, I think, in high school or something.
She was practically completely deaf.
But she's a percussionist.
And she's a world-renowned percussionist.
There's this awesome documentary.
It's called Touch the Sound.
And she hears through her body, which trips me out, but the tones that she's able to achieve, the control she has over everything, whatever kind of instrument she's playing, it's an awesome documentary.
unidentified
Wow.
mareko maumasi
But she has almost literally no hearing.
She hears everything through her body.
joe rogan
Dude.
mareko maumasi
So it's kind of interesting to think, like, if Angus could figure that shit out, then...
I mean, he's holding the fucking thing in his hand the whole time.
unidentified
He's standing in front of...
joe rogan
It's not just Angus, the lead singer.
mareko maumasi
Right, right, right.
joe rogan
What's the lead singer's name?
Fuck's his name.
Second lead singer.
jamie vernon
Brian Johnson.
joe rogan
Brian Johnson.
I'll never forget that.
He's gone deaf, too.
Angus and Brian.
And Angus is like always headbanging.
What kind of CTE does that guy have?
mareko maumasi
Oh, Jesus.
joe rogan
I mean, fucking Christ.
You shouldn't be doing that.
ben obrien
God, you were talking to DDB about that the other day?
joe rogan
Yeah.
mareko maumasi
I was thinking like all through high school.
Like I played football from seventh grade all through high school.
And, like, all the stuff they're learning now, I'm just like, Jesus, what the fuck was happening to me?
And we always led with our head.
joe rogan
Of course, yeah.
mareko maumasi
My neck was always all kinds of fucked up.
And, you know, I definitely had some serious concussions.
joe rogan
I'm sure.
mareko maumasi
And, yeah.
Sometimes it scares me and worries me a little bit, like, what does that mean for me now?
unidentified
It should.
joe rogan
How old are you now?
34. Yeah, man.
Just turned 34. It's scary.
You're lucky you stopped when you did.
I know a lot of people with brain damage.
Me too.
I'm sure I have some.
I guarantee.
I must.
I mean, I don't think anybody rides for free.
I think you get hit in the head enough, you got some brain damage.
I got hit in the head on a regular basis for most of my younger years.
From like 15 to like 22. I got hit in the head all the time.
Nobody knew any better.
And back then, you thought that once you were slurring your words and stuff, if you just stopped...
Like, oh, he's a little punchy, he should stop.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Like, that's how people thought.
But they didn't realize that it's regressive.
And then, like, you don't even really show brain damage, like, ten years after the initial injuries.
mareko maumasi
Right.
joe rogan
That's when you really start showing damage.
So some CTE just compounds it until it just becomes unmanageable for these poor people.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
mareko maumasi
Well, and it's...
I actually...
I can't...
Especially after watching Concussion and seeing and reading, like, articles about the real-life people that this shit's happened to, I, like...
I have a hard time watching football.
Like, I used to watch football all the time.
I've never been, like, crazy into sports knowing all the stats and every stuff.
I enjoyed watching, like, a good contest.
I never really rooted for anybody.
But now when I see, like, even kids signing the draft...
Or signing up from high school to go to a certain college.
I'm like, man, that's somebody's fucking baby.
They're just fucking tearing themselves up.
Like, is that worth it?
Is that worth it?
joe rogan
I would support kids fighting way before I would support kids Doing football and both of them I'd be nervous about and you know, I mean there's other stuff like X Games type shit people that are into extreme sports and you know people that are into snowboarding snowboarders wipe out all the time and crack their head open Can you get a scholarship in martial arts of any kind like college just wrestling?
jamie vernon
I mean, that's like a big that's a big driver right there though, right?
joe rogan
Wrestling that's where the money wrestling is certainly a martial art.
It's probably one of the most important martial arts.
jamie vernon
That's probably it, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, that's it.
I mean, judo, maybe?
Is there a school that has judo?
They used to have boxing in schools.
I mean, back in the 50s and 60s and shit, boxing was a legitimate sport in college.
But not anymore.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
Yeah, it just...
I can't really watch it anymore.
joe rogan
I mean, you have to be careful, like, with your hand-eye coordination and your fingers and shit now.
unidentified
Oh, Jesus.
joe rogan
You know, I mean, you got to think, like, when you're working with hammers and hot metal, and you must always have to be super...
Because everybody that works in a machine shop is missing a fingertip or something's fucked up.
mareko maumasi
There's crazy stories, too.
Like, buffer, the buffer...
Like the fluffy little things, like one of the most dangerous things because it catches an edge.
Just like if you're snowboarding, you catch a bad edge.
And it bites, the blade bites into that and it acts as a hand and just rips it and flings it wherever.
It's thrown knives right back into guys and fucking killed them.
joe rogan
Oh, fuck, man.
mareko maumasi
My wife probably hating me saying that right now.
But it's a reality.
I've actually done a lot of work to get away from using buffers because of that.
And I'm still doing great work.
I have a lot of friends who just, they'll never touch a fucking buffer.
unidentified
Wow.
mareko maumasi
Because it's just terrifying.
It's scary.
joe rogan
What does a buffer look like for people who don't know?
mareko maumasi
It takes half a second.
joe rogan
Put up, like, what would you call it?
mareko maumasi
Like a buffing...
Shit, I don't know.
Usually it's like a bench top thing, like a bench grinder.
Usually it has like the hard, round stone wheel on one side.
joe rogan
Is that it?
mareko maumasi
That's it right there.
joe rogan
Those motherfuckers, yeah.
Oh, don't, it's not one fucking...
jamie vernon
No, no, it's just gonna go.
It's not a...
joe rogan
Make me nervous.
Yeah, that looks like something.
So if you fucked up and you got that blade too close, it would kick it and then...
mareko maumasi
So that one is what's called a sizal wheel.
So it's made from that type of rope.
But the ones that are the most dangerous are the softer cotton wheels because they want to grab that much easier.
They have more give.
But yeah, and what's interesting is I've actually been cut less.
Working in a metal shop and burned less than I ever did working in kitchens.
I worked in restaurants, back of house, for seven years, collectively.
Most of that has to do with other people not calling, like, hot coming across, and I turn around.
They don't call it.
I turn around.
They're there with this fucking saute pan right in the side of my arm.
I'm ready to fucking drop it.
joe rogan
Right.
mareko maumasi
But being in a metal shop, like you said, you do have to pay so much attention.
You have to be focused at what you're doing because literally everything in that fucking shop wants to hurt you or kill you the second you're not paying attention.
Because the second you're not paying attention, it's going to grab you.
There are horror stories of people working next to machines, and they have long hair, it's caught in a motor, and it just fucking...
joe rogan
Rips it.
unidentified
Scalps, like, just straight.
mareko maumasi
Terrible stuff.
Terrible stuff.
jamie vernon
UFC fighter and the power tool last week.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah, he got a power tool stuck in his balls.
Who was that?
mareko maumasi
Don't remember his name.
joe rogan
Yeah, poor bastard.
jamie vernon
Brian Wilson claims that he lost his hearing due to not putting in earplugs at a car race, not music.
Specifically.
There was a quote.
joe rogan
Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys?
jamie vernon
Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys.
I'm sorry.
This article has him at the top.
Brian Johnson.
joe rogan
Oh, Brian Johnson from Cars?
jamie vernon
Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, how the fuck does he know?
Motherfuckers in ACDC. I mean, wouldn't you think that'd be loud too, bro?
unidentified
Yeah.
jamie vernon
Angus Young says that he lost a little bit, but his quote says that he never really had a problem with it because that's why he was running around on stage so much, too.
He's never in one place so long.
joe rogan
What?
Just the fucking loudness of a room.
That's hilarious.
First concert I ever saw on ACDC. ACDC? I wonder if people are more susceptible, just like some people are more susceptible to CTE. Yeah, I remember Rhonda Patrick was talking about certain genes that you have.
What is it?
Apropos?
I forget what it was called.
But whatever genes that make you more susceptible and more likely to get CTE from concussions.
unidentified
Probably.
jamie vernon
Probably would have to be something.
Probably.
joe rogan
Makes sense.
Now, when you're in that shop and you're doing all this grinding, is there any concern about chemicals?
Like, is there chemical ingestion or smells in the air or something like that?
Because you're dipping things and you've got all this stuff that you're using.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, especially if you're working with synthetic.
I mean, any material that you're grinding, you're making it...
It's airborne.
Like, any of it can go into your lungs.
I'm almost always wearing a respirator.
Oh, wow.
Especially when I'm grinding.
And it's like double can, always like covering up my face.
joe rogan
Does it work?
Does the respirator filter out all of it?
mareko maumasi
It makes a huge difference.
In fact, where I have my facial hair right now, even this little bit, what you got even, that little bit, is enough to...
joe rogan
Create a little gap and I can get through that so you have to shave your face smooth.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, usually I keep it pretty well.
joe rogan
Now, how the fuck do you create those patterns?
Like Damascus steel?
What is that?
This doesn't have too much of a pattern?
mareko maumasi
That one's not Damascus steel, unfortunately.
It's beautiful, though.
joe rogan
Now, what does create those patterns?
Like that.
mareko maumasi
There you go.
joe rogan
How do you do that?
We're looking at a crazy image that looks like...
It almost looks like someone drew on it.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
This is a pattern I just came up with recently.
I call it a braid mosaic, for lack of a better term.
But it just looks like a braid, and it's something I've been wanting to create, and I finally figured it out.
So essentially, to create pattern-welded Damascus, First off, Damascus is kind of a blanket, has become a blanket term.
Traditionally and originally, it actually referred to the steel that, like the type of steel that your knife, this knife, the meteorite knife, is made from.
And it eventually became a blanket term for all kinds of kind of patterned steel in general, whether it's, it curls naturally or if it's kind of forced and created the way that braid pattern was made.
So that's pattern welded steel.
And so you have to start with at least two different types of high carbon steel.
Ideally, steels that heat treat in a similar range, when you heat them up and squish on them, they move at a similar rate.
And so most commonly, people are working with 1080 and 15 and 20. Those are just codes for two different types of high carbon steel.
But essentially, you bring them up to a high temperature.
You squish them either under a big hammer or under a press.
You can even actually do it by hand, but you have to do kind of a smaller billet to create the patterns and get it to stick.
Because the trick is really getting them close, evenly squishing it out.
And it's like if you've ever rolled out dough or anybody who's ever made pastry dough like you would use in a croissant.
You tear open a croissant, you see all those layers in there.
And that's from...
A piece of dough being rolled out, full of dough, rolled out.
And so it's kind of the same fucking thing, but with metal.
But you have to have the kind of the right kind of temperature environment.
You want as little oxygen in there as possible because the oxygen creates carbon or not carbon, but iron oxide that kind of is detrimental to creating solid weld bonds.
And there are different ways to achieve that.
The 1080 is the black steel, the black color, and the 15 and 20 is the silver color.
joe rogan
What's the difference in the way those steels perform?
Is one of them harder or more durable?
mareko maumasi
They pretty much perform almost exactly the same.
In fact, chemically speaking, they're almost exactly the same, except for the 15 and 20 has a high level of nickel in it, 0.2% by weight.
And so that steel is traditionally used in saw blades, especially large, big mill band saws.
You know, like in Oregon, one of the oldest and continuously running wood saw mill is still there doing its thing with these giant band saw blades that are like 30 feet in circumference, and they're like foot wide, and they're just monsters.
joe rogan
Foot wide?
You mean like thick?
mareko maumasi
No, no, no.
They're only like maybe a sixteenth of an inch thick because you want a narrow saw curve so you're not wasting material.
But they're wide to help prevent deflection, to keep it from kind of twisting off.
joe rogan
So it's a band saw.
I'm thinking of a circular saw for some reason.
mareko maumasi
Sorry, yeah, band saw.
So the circular saw, those saw curves are usually probably around an eighth of an inch to a quarter of an inch thick, but it's the same kind of idea.
Is that they're trimming down these giant logs so they need a big fucking saw.
joe rogan
Those things bind and break, man.
That must be a fucking nightmare.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's gotta be so terrible.
mareko maumasi
You don't want to be standing right there when that happens.
joe rogan
Have you seen an original samurai sword?
mareko maumasi
I've seen a few, actually.
joe rogan
This one's from the 1500s.
Check this shit out.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, let's see it.
Oh, shit.
This is the one that Mr. Neil deGrasse Tyson was posing with the other day.
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's a real one.
That's an actual real samurai sword.
mareko maumasi
Right, right.
joe rogan
From the 1500s.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, see the ray skins.
Nice.
Do you know when it was made exactly?
joe rogan
I don't think they know.
They just know it's from some time period in the 1500s.
Sure, sure, sure.
But there's a certificate of authentication that came with it that explains...
mareko maumasi
I'm just looking to see what the homone activity looks like.
unidentified
What's that mean?
mareko maumasi
So the homone is...
You can kind of see this line that runs parallel to the cutting edge.
And that usually indicates where the soft material stops and the hard material starts.
And so the idea with these kind of...
The challenge with any knife...
Is making a knife that takes and holds a sharp edge for a good period of time.
joe rogan
What's the key to that?
mareko maumasi
But it's also tough, which means you can drop it and it's not going to break.
joe rogan
So if you wanted a hunting knife or something like that.
mareko maumasi
So a hunting knife, a motion knife, a bowing knife, those are harder working knives, so you want to actually bring that hardness down.
You don't have to bring it down a ton, but just a few points will make a huge fucking difference in how it performs.
joe rogan
Like this knife here.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, exactly.
joe rogan
What's the difference in the way that knife is made and this knife is made?
mareko maumasi
So they were heat treated the same, so they were brought up to like 1500 degrees.
joe rogan
For people who are listening, not watching, one of these knives is a hunting knife.
mareko maumasi
How's that feel, by the way?
joe rogan
It's great, man.
I love it.
Yeah.
Nice.
But it's made very similarly.
If you look into the video of it, the handle's the same, and it looks very similar.
It has a different knife guard, though.
It's pretty cool.
jamie vernon
What's that?
joe rogan
What's that?
There you go.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, the guard keeps your hand from sliding up.
joe rogan
Yeah, and I like the way you made the handle, too.
It's an interesting handle.
It's curved and everything.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Where'd you get that pattern for, like, the handle?
mareko maumasi
Yeah, so...
joe rogan
I'm sorry, answer the first question.
I'm sorry.
mareko maumasi
I don't remember what the first question is.
joe rogan
Like, what is the difference in the way they're treated?
mareko maumasi
Okay, yeah, yeah.
So they were hardened.
So heat treating, the whole process, is essentially heating up the steel, make it hard, and then you put it back into heat, but a much lower temperature to kind of toughen it up.
And so you're pulling some of that hardness back.
So they were hardened the same way, but they were tempered at different temperatures because...
One is a hard use knife while the chef's knife is not a hard use knife.
joe rogan
What is the difference between temper and what does that mean?
mareko maumasi
So the tempering, so essentially, so I harden it.
So I bring it up to 1500 degrees, which is like a dull glowing orange color.
And then I dip it in a special oil that I have that's It's designed for quenching materials, not just in knife making, but all kinds of different industrial applications.
joe rogan
Quenching materials?
mareko maumasi
Oil, sorry, quenching oil.
joe rogan
What does that mean?
mareko maumasi
So that's cooling this hot steel down in a very short period of time.
joe rogan
And you do it in oil.
So is it a cold oil?
mareko maumasi
No.
So actually, depending on how the steel needs to be heat treated, you actually want to heat up the oil so that it's thinner.
And it also, there's this thing that's called a vapor jacket.
So if you've ever, like, been next to a wood-burning stove and you drop a little water on it and you see that bead water dance around on there, the same thing happens on the surface of the blade, except for the blade is the source of the heat, right?
unidentified
Yeah.
mareko maumasi
You put it in that oil, all that oil is dancing around on it.
So when the oil is thinner, it's not as large of a jacket because when that jacket is large, so jacket encasing that steel while it's trying to cool down, it actually kind of acts as an insulator and could potentially ruin.
So not only do you put it in the oil, but you want to agitate it to kind of break up that jacket.
So it doesn't get a chance to just sit there and all the way around the blade.
joe rogan
And if it was cold, it would...
mareko maumasi
It would be thicker, and so it would make a larger jacket, actually.
And also, it probably wouldn't be as efficient, I guess, in cooling the steel down.
Because ideally, for most steels, you want to cool them down pretty much as quickly as you possibly can.
joe rogan
So this knife...
Sorry, keep going.
mareko maumasi
I was just going to say, you essentially have, depending on what kind of steel you're working with, you have anywhere from half a second to five seconds to get it from 1,500 degrees or sometimes higher to below 800 degrees.
joe rogan
So this knife would be more durable, is that what it is, than this knife?
mareko maumasi
Durable.
Yeah, tougher.
So in knife making, commonly referred to it as being tougher.
So it can withstand coming into impact with bone.
You could chop with that thing a lot more efficiently with a tougher knife.
Because this hasn't been tempered at as high of a temperature, it's much harder than this one.
Even though it's a few points, those few points make a big difference.
And so if you were to take this out into the woods, try to do the same job as this one.
It wouldn't necessarily snap, but parts of the cutting edge would blow out.
Probably blow out in chips.
I actually recently just, from time to time, it's good practice as a knife maker.
To make sure that you're still doing your heat treating stuff alright, I take a knife and I just beat the shit out of it.
First I chopped through some wood and then I actually took it to an antler and beat the shit out of it too.
And it is amazing that if you're doing things right, you know, ten thousandths of an inch is enough to withstand impact of chopping through wood pretty well.
Of course, unless you're coming into contact with a nail or super dense knots.
joe rogan
That's crazy because it's so thin.
mareko maumasi
Right.
joe rogan
That's one of the more interesting things about this.
mareko maumasi
And that's actually on the thicker side.
joe rogan
This is on the thicker side?
mareko maumasi
Especially along the cutting edge.
That's probably twice as thick as it actually needs to be.
unidentified
Wow.
mareko maumasi
Which is crazy.
But it just comes down to the material.
Mm-hmm.
A lot of people mistakenly think steel is steel is steel and whatever.
But they're not.
Steel is made for many different applications and they're actually very specifically designed for those applications.
So like a structural steel, this kind of stuff that buildings are built out of, very different from this.
It doesn't have very much carbon in it at all.
The carbon is what helps make these really hard.
So lacking that carbon...
It allows it to be way tougher, so you can bend it all fucking day long.
joe rogan
It's not going to snap.
mareko maumasi
Exactly.
joe rogan
Right.
So that's why you want it for buildings in LA where the earthquakes hit.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
They wiggle a little bit.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
This is much thinner than a lot of other hunting knives would be, which is interesting.
With your use of this exotic metal and your methods, you're able to do that.
mareko maumasi
Well, and also part of the reason that you're able to do that is because it's high carbon steel, which means it has a high volume of carbon comparatively than other kinds of tool or cutlery steel.
joe rogan
And what's the benefit of high carbon versus less carbon?
mareko maumasi
So high carbon allows you to, especially for the meteorite steel, it's a kind of crucible steel called woots.
And so the patterning you see in there is actually strands of carbon or carbide material.
So all the extra carbon floating around in the iron matrix of this steel...
It jumps onto these bands called carbides and there are different elements and vanadium is one of the elements in this steel that draws that carbon in.
So what you're seeing are thousands and thousands of all these ultra hard carbon bands floating around through the Iron Matrix.
joe rogan
Do you watch Game of Thrones?
mareko maumasi
I do.
joe rogan
When they have like swords that are made out of valerian steel, do you get pissed off?
Get the fuck out of here with your fake magic steel, bitch.
mareko maumasi
Well, and what's interesting, back in the day, this shit was fucking magical.
unidentified
Right.
mareko maumasi
Like they didn't understand what was going on.
joe rogan
Now, how did they learn?
I mean, what is the history?
I mean, obviously that sword there is from the 1500s, but, you know, from back in the Roman gladiator days.
And I mean, how did they understand how to do this?
mareko maumasi
So the steel that they were using in Europe was not really that great.
joe rogan
Who had the best shit?
mareko maumasi
Japanese.
Swedish were pretty fucking good.
As well as the Persians and the Indonesians.
Vikings material wasn't the greatest.
joe rogan
Wasn't?
Too barbaric.
mareko maumasi
No, it comes down to what they had available to them.
joe rogan
Right.
So, who was, like, the pioneer of, like, really durable, badass sword material?
Was it Japanese?
mareko maumasi
So, probably...
So, the Japanese and the Persian slash Indonesian...
Persians.
...swords are probably the most legendary.
unidentified
Really?
mareko maumasi
You know, they're the ones where, like, it could cut through silk floating in the air and shit like that.
joe rogan
Why is that?
What did they do different?
mareko maumasi
So the Persian steel is very, very, very similar to these meteorites.
unidentified
So it's called a crucible steel.
mareko maumasi
So essentially there's this clay jar essentially called a crucible.
People melt all kinds of stuff in it.
But you can melt steel in it as well.
And so they were making these ingots of crucible steel and then forging them out.
And they really, really, very heavily relied on these carbide bands floating through the material because, unfortunately, they didn't really have a very advanced way of quenching that steel so that not only did they have the bands, but they also had hard iron matrix as well that those bands were floating in.
So they really relied on that banding.
joe rogan
So did they just learn from trial and error of thousands of years of experimenting with different materials and different locations that they got the iron from and different things that they added to it to make steel?
mareko maumasi
Yep, absolutely.
And that's why even watching Game of Thrones or other kind of medieval or movie set in medieval times, there were very specific makers who were the best.
Who could really make this shit happen?
And it's because they had a tradition passed down to them.
And a lot of that stuff was very fictional, but in the real world, that was the same thing.
You had very specific lineages of people who had essentially the most advanced technology and skills and techniques for creating the most highest performing weaponry essentially of the time, which was like the currency of the fucking time.
joe rogan
Somebody went to Japan fairly recently and filmed them working with a high-level sword maker for a television show.
I'm trying to remember who it was.
It was somewhat famous, but it was really badass.
They went to this sword maker shop, and he's doing the whole thing, hammering it all out and building the samurai sword from scratch the way it's always been.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, there are a few of those documentaries on YouTube.
Usually you've got to do a little bit of digging to find them.
I actually just watched a few of them in the last five years.
I do not recall what they're made.
joe rogan
Do you think you're going to make a samurai sword one of these days?
mareko maumasi
I might do it eventually.
I mean, I'm always going to do chef's knives because that's what I know.
That's the tool I know the most.
joe rogan
That's probably the biggest thing.
Like, market, right?
mareko maumasi
There's a giant, I mean...
joe rogan
People are super foodies, you know?
mareko maumasi
Well, it's not only that, like, but if you think about it, like...
joe rogan
Mamasi made this, made out of a meteor.
mareko maumasi
You know, there's a lot of mystique around Japanese swords, or even the American bowie knife, as well as, you know, Viking swords.
But nowadays, people have that shit made, but it goes on a wall.
The things that are really getting used are like a hunting knife and a chef's knife.
And cooking knives are used almost literally in every single household around the world every day, year-round.
And what's interesting is because of its ubiquity to our everyday life, it lacks that mystique because we see this shit every day.
We don't think much of it versus a Japanese sword.
People walk in here and they're like, fuck!
joe rogan
Well, I tell you one thing, man.
When people come over my house and I'm cooking and they go, where the fuck did you get that knife?
That happens all the time.
It's either this one or the other one.
When I show them the bog oak one, the same thing, they're like, dude.
I'm like, yeah, man.
Check it out.
Now, in terms of, like, this one or the other one that you made me, the other hunting knife that you made me out of Damascus, which one is, like, tougher or more durable?
mareko maumasi
So, they've been heat-treated to perform very, very, very similarly.
You'd essentially have to destroy them to really determine which one outperform the other.
joe rogan
So, you'd have to stick it in a bone and try to break it.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, essentially use it how it's not supposed to be used.
joe rogan
But it keeps an edge so well, man.
It's crazy.
I mean, I get nervous every time I touch the blade.
I mean, this thing slices through things.
Now, there's got to be an art to...
Actually sharpening things too, right?
mareko maumasi
Oh for sure.
joe rogan
And how do you know like the right angle to approach sharpening?
mareko maumasi
It's I mean there are a lot there actually a lot of great information online They're especially in big cities like Seattle LA New York Austin They're in Portland as well.
They're super reputable people, not only who will offer service, but usually offer lessons as well.
I suggest, like, if you can't afford it, you know, you can dig around, you can find the stuff online.
But it's not the same as having, essentially having a coach next to you saying, uh-uh, or, yeah, that's great, that's perfect, that's where you want to be doing that shit.
joe rogan
Do you sharpen both sides?
mareko maumasi
I do.
joe rogan
So you sharpen the top and the bottom?
mareko maumasi
I'm sorry.
You mean...
joe rogan
Both sides of the steel.
Like, would you sharpen it like this and then flip it over and sharpen it like that?
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Now, what are those things...
And they have those metal things where people go, shing, shing, shing, shing.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Those ones seem like...
I'm like, that looks brutal.
I wouldn't do that to a good knife.
mareko maumasi
So...
joe rogan
Am I right thinking that way?
mareko maumasi
Well, it depends on the type of steel that your knife's made from and then what the material is that those rods are made from.
So those are...
Commonly referred to as sharpening rods or sharpening sticks.
But the reality is they're not actually sharpening.
joe rogan
What are they doing?
mareko maumasi
So they're more accurately referred to as honing rods.
So what's happening at the cutting edge of your knife is you have all these micro serrations.
Essentially, if you go take it under a microscope and look at the cutting edge, it looks like a saw blade.
But they're fucking microns.
A micron is a millionth of a meter.
They're teeny tiny.
But what happens over normal use, those teeth, they bend over, they flex over, or sometimes they eventually wear out and fall off.
And so what the honing rod does, especially if they've bent over...
unidentified
There it is.
joe rogan
He's showing it right there.
unidentified
Ooh!
Exciting.
joe rogan
Look at that blade edge.
Ooh!
jamie vernon
That's crazy.
mareko maumasi
You want to ignore like those long streaks and you're just like the tiny little thin black.
Yeah, that's the shit right there.
joe rogan
Damn.
mareko maumasi
Pop that thin black line.
joe rogan
Damn, that's crazy.
Observation.
mareko maumasi
Are you looking at this?
jamie vernon
It's like someone's doing it to your instruction, but yeah, it's a YouTube video.
mareko maumasi
Crazy.
joe rogan
Yeah, that is crazy.
mareko maumasi
I was like, are you doing that shit right now?
joe rogan
300x magnification view from the top.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
So that's what's happening along your cutting edge.
And what happens is those tiny serrations where it bend over, like I was saying, or break off.
But as they bend over, and it's just normal shit, that honing rod, by swiping across that honing rod, and you don't just do it willy-nilly.
You've got to do it at the right angle and all this stuff.
But what it does is it realigns.
And hones those teeth back into alignment.
So people mistakenly call them sharpening sticks because all of a sudden their knife is sharp as fuck afterwards.
But the reality is that it's honed those teeth back into alignment so it can do its job again.
joe rogan
Now what's the purpose of the leather strop?
mareko maumasi
So that's just a gentler way, especially for things that are super, super razor sharp, which essentially have been sharpened to a really high finish, like 10,000 grit or higher.
So those micro serrations are even smaller, which means they're even more delicate, which means they don't need as much force to realign them.
So a honing rod or a strop So that's a human hair?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Jesus Christ.
unidentified
That looks disgusting.
joe rogan
Imagine choking on that hair.
mareko maumasi
So just to give you some reference, a typical and average human hair is about three thousandths of an inch.
Whoa.
Yeah.
And to help put that in a little bit better perspective, a sixteenth of an inch, like a normal measurement, one sixteenth of an inch is 62.5 thousandths of an inch.
So that's like one, I can't even do the math right, one twentieth of a sixteenth of an inch, which is fucking teeny tiny.
joe rogan
Wow.
jamie vernon
That's crazy.
It's like split the hair.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
jamie vernon
Just like shaved it.
joe rogan
Yeah, literally.
Yeah.
There's a big debate in the world of bow hunting with broadheads, with what kind of steel to use.
And there's harder steel that some people use, but it breaks.
And there's an issue with that.
And there's this big debate, harder versus steel that is less hard, but will bend more and give slightly more.
And then there's the broadhead that I use, which is a carbon steel broadhead from a company called G5. They make this broadhead called a Montec.
Let's pull up G5 carbon steel Montec.
Montec CS, they call them.
mareko maumasi
So you're talking it's just the head, like the triangular?
Or is it even a triangular?
joe rogan
What you use for hunting.
The one that I use, yeah, it is.
It has three points or four points.
Here, he'll pull it up.
unidentified
You see it.
joe rogan
That's it.
mareko maumasi
Oh yeah, sure.
joe rogan
So that's three points.
But that's a carbon steel broadhead.
That's what I shot my elk with last year with.
And that thing is virtually indestructible.
I have a crazy photograph.
I'll show you this crazy video.
Oh, I put it up on my Instagram.
Find it on my Instagram where...
I was fucking around with something on my bow at full draw.
I was trying to set something and the bow went off and it hit a cement wall.
And it stuck into the wall.
mareko maumasi
Like cinder block or solid cement?
joe rogan
Solid cement wall.
And didn't kill the broadhead.
I still have the broadhead back there.
It stuck into the broadhead.
Look at it did.
It's stuck into the broadhead.
mareko maumasi
The shaft is fucked up.
joe rogan
Look what it did to the arrow.
Now look at that.
Look at that broadhead.
That fucking thing's got my bet for life.
That thing's got my confidence forever.
Because if that does that to concrete, what will that do to bone?
mareko maumasi
Right.
joe rogan
Yeah, that will go through anything.
mareko maumasi
That's going to kick some ass.
So one of the things I would say after seeing that, especially that first image, is the geometry of the blades, the actual points.
They lend themselves similarly to how your hunting knife is sharpened differently from your chef's knife.
Like the chef's knife material is thinner, but they're also sharpened at different angles because they have different jobs they're supposed to do.
The more acute that is, the more easily that will break, as well as the thinner the material that geometry is living on is more susceptible to breaking.
That first image that Jamie pulled up, the geometry looked like it was pretty robust.
joe rogan
Pull that up again?
Yeah.
mareko maumasi
As well as, like, it looks like it's probably at least 30 thousandths of an inch thick, which is, you know, that's about, if not more, actually.
joe rogan
No, the original image, Jamie, we see the actual broadhead without the...
Yeah, my friend Brian Stevens turned me on to these.
He...
He shot a bear through the head with one of those.
It was from 10 feet away.
It was coming at him.
He's got an image of the skull that he sent me where you could see the outline of that broadhead through the bear skull.
unidentified
That's crazy.
joe rogan
Killed the bear and didn't even fuck up the arrow.
I'm like, that is crazy.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
And so a lot of, like, you see people doing these incredible feats, like hammering through nails and shit like that with their knives.
You're like, what the fuck?
Yeah.
The thing that most people are used to are a chef's knife, and they think if they did that with their chef's knife, they'd fuck it up, and 100% it pretty much would.
But with the right thickness coming up to the cutting edge, as well as the actual lead cutting edge geometry, like the actual angle that it's sharpened at, you could do that shit all day long.
joe rogan
Now, when you sharpen a blade, do you use something to hold it next to the stone so that it reaches the perfect angle, or do you do it by eye?
mareko maumasi
I do it by eye.
Actually, if you'll hand it over to me.
One of the things, especially when I first started learning, I would use my finger as a guide.
So that would inform me as to the angle.
So when the edge of my finger would touch the top of the stone, that told me that was about the right angle.
And then when I flipped it over to do the other side, I'd do the same thing with my thumb.
And essentially use the edge of my thumb.
joe rogan
And you just know this from experience?
mareko maumasi
I just know it from experience.
They do make sharpening guides that you can clip on to the back of the knives, as well as little ramps.
Those are all great, especially if you're starting.
The hardest part about all of this is the muscle memory portion.
It's figuring out how to lock in.
And maintain that angle without wavering and twisting your wrists and all that kind of shit.
It's like riding a bike or anything you've ever had to learn in your life.
With practice and repetition, you'll get better.
joe rogan
What do you think about those machines?
They're like little...
mareko maumasi
I think they're the worst fucking thing ever.
joe rogan
Really?
mareko maumasi
I have almost kind of a conspiracy theory that the reality is they're designed to destroy your knife, so you have to turn around and reinvest again.
Really?
One, because the knives aren't usually sold for very much money that are being used with those things.
Mm-hmm.
And when you're not selling them very much, you're relying on volume.
And what better way than to create a thing that does the job for a little bit, but ultimately destroys it and you have to reinvest.
joe rogan
What about those ones where you stick it in the slot?
It's the same kind of thing.
mareko maumasi
It's a little slower process.
But you'll notice the problem with those, the real problem with those, is that you can't sharpen the whole edge.
You usually start...
At the heel or just a little bit in front of the heel.
And then you do the major work.
I tripped myself out.
I was like, fuck, I'm going to cut myself.
This is actually still pretty sharp.
Oh, it's sharp as fuck.
And so the problem is because you're not getting the full length, you'll continue to dish this material out just in front of the heel.
And then when you go to cut, there's just this little bit of...
Shit there that's not doing any work.
It's not doing anything.
Especially when you're relying on that cutting board when the knife comes down to the cutting board to do some work.
It's not happening.
joe rogan
I cut my lunch with that today.
mareko maumasi
Nice.
Oh, fuck.
joe rogan
Cut elk with that.
mareko maumasi
That axis.
That axis elk.
joe rogan
Axis deer and elk.
mareko maumasi
Oh, my God.
That was killing me.
I commented.
I probably didn't see it, but I was just like, holy shit, that looks so fucking good.
joe rogan
Yeah, man.
You know, well, I learned how to cook.
I mean, I feel like there's some real art to that as well from my friend Chad Ward.
WhiskeyBendBBQ on Instagram, he's like a pit master, like a legit world champion barbecue master.
And he's the one that taught me how to cook slowly at low temperatures and then sear it after you're done.
I always thought you're supposed to just put it on high heat.
Cook the shit out of it and then eat it, you know?
mareko maumasi
Yeah, I mean...
joe rogan
It tastes fine that way, too, but, you know, when you're dealing...
I really had to learn, especially in particular, cooking with wild game is very unforgiving because it's...
mareko maumasi
It's low in fat.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's got none.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
You're basically eating a sprinter.
Here it is right there.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
So that's the end.
I reverse sear it in a pan with grass-fed butter.
You hear that, baby?
mareko maumasi
That's beautiful.
joe rogan
Listen to that sound.
unidentified
Oh!
joe rogan
Oh!
That's the last of my backstrap.
I gotta get some more meat.
I eat so much meat.
It's crazy.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Super healthy, though, bitch.
Fuck what you heard.
mareko maumasi
It looks like it works.
joe rogan
No.
Well, you know what, too?
There's something really magical about Wild Game, and I don't know what the fuck it is.
I really don't, and I don't think anybody does.
Because I don't think there's enough people out there that are eating it, but it has a different effect on your body.
It feels different when I eat it.
mareko maumasi
Even just beef.
Like, if you have a...
joe rogan
Grass-fed beef?
mareko maumasi
Oh, fuck.
Yeah.
Total, like, pasture-raised, like, oh my god, the difference.
joe rogan
Do you know about ButcherBox?
mareko maumasi
I'm aware of it, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, dude, that company's the shit.
They'll send it to your house, frozen, grass-fed, pasture-raised, like, pasture-finished, and it's pretty cheap, too.
It's a good deal.
It's one of the sponsors of this podcast, and I use them all the time.
I think it's amazing.
mareko maumasi
It's brilliant.
No, and the few times that I, and it's, actually, I feel embarrassed saying that.
I've only eaten really good beef, happy beef, essentially, only a few times.
joe rogan
Grass-fed beef, yeah.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's hard to get, especially in some places.
mareko maumasi
Oh my god, when you take a bite, like, even just that first bite, it's just like, it's, you've entered a whole different world, and it's like, what the fuck?
Just the flavors, everything.
joe rogan
I have my friend Mike Hawkridge.
He lives up in British Columbia.
Like, the real British Columbia.
Like, way the fuck up there.
And, you know, he's a hunting guide.
And got him some tickets for the fights in Vegas.
And he and his wife came down.
And then afterwards we went out to eat.
And they were eating steak.
We ate at a restaurant.
And they're laughing.
Like, pfft.
They're used to eating moose.
This meat is like this poor little sick animal.
It's all mushy.
If you eat a piece of wild moose meat, it's like, whoa!
You eat it, you're like, holy shit!
It's filled with flavor.
It feels like it gives you energy.
It's crazy.
mareko maumasi
I would...
Totally by that.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
mareko maumasi
It's like the...
What is that?
People are trying to inject young people's blood into their bodies to try to make themselves feel younger?
Like eating...
Putting good, well-sourced...
joe rogan
I don't know if those two things are...
mareko maumasi
No.
joe rogan
I don't know if it's the same.
mareko maumasi
Probably not the same.
joe rogan
No.
But I do think that there's...
I mean, there's got to be something to consuming an incredibly healthy, vibrant animal versus something that's like raised in a cage.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
I mean, this just makes sense.
But I don't think this is something that you can...
They have absolutely measured protein content, and the protein content is off the charts.
If you look at the difference between the protein content of chicken or regular beef versus moose or elk, it's much higher.
Much denser in protein.
I think something like six ounces of Axis deer is 48 grams of protein, which is incredible.
mareko maumasi
Well, it's interesting to think about that to get that same amount of protein, like you don't have to gorge on it.
You just eat that little bit, you're good.
joe rogan
Yeah, a little six ounce piece and you're good.
Even less if you want to stay in ketosis.
If you're like in a keto diet, you really need less than six ounces.
You need like three ounces.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
You know, food is, to me, especially as I've gotten older, I've started doing a lot more cooking, and it becomes a different thing.
It's not just, I'm hungry, I need to stuff my face.
The preparing of food, much like we were talking about with craftsmanship, there's an art to making food.
I mean, I'm by no means a chef, but I can cook a few things really good.
You know, and I take great satisfaction.
I fucking love it, you know?
mareko maumasi
I'll take...
My wife used to hate this, but we would get home and we're like, we're hungry.
We're gonna make some food.
unidentified
Two hours later, she's like...
mareko maumasi
She's like...
And a lot of people are...
My brother's the same way.
Like, I'm fucking hungry now.
I need to eat now.
I'm gonna rip your fucking head off.
joe rogan
Well, what you need to do is set up some cheese and some like salami or something like that.
mareko maumasi
So that's what I started doing.
unidentified
There you go.
mareko maumasi
Putting out some snackums while I'm working.
joe rogan
So everybody just relax.
unidentified
Relax.
mareko maumasi
Where, like, I could be starving.
I'll get done with a long-ass day of grinding.
I'll go home and I want to, like, I have this thing locked in my mind that I want to eat.
I'll take two hours to make the fucking thing even though I'm starving.
I haven't eaten since, like, 1 o'clock in the afternoon.
It's 9 o'clock at night.
joe rogan
Do you find that as a person who is a craftsman and an artisan that you try to have that approach with, like, other things in your life, too?
Like what you were just talking about, like, making food and...
mareko maumasi
Yeah, sure.
I mean, I feel like I don't really think too much about the fact that I'm doing it this way.
It's just kind of the way I do things.
I'm a little bit more methodical and I guess not necessarily more thoughtful than anybody else.
Just like when I approach these challenges or these things I got to do.
I take my time to do them right and try to do them right the first time.
Actually, when I was working for Bob, we would have to mock up stuff or build machines or fixtures or shit like that.
His mindset was quick and dirty.
We've got to get this done as quick as possible.
And if it doesn't work the first time, we'll make some modifications and we'll try it a second time.
Still doesn't work the second time.
And so forth.
So on and so forth until we got it right.
Where I would just think it through a little bit more.
First time was all I needed.
But there was a long time.
I used to do a lot of woodworking before I got into metalworking.
And I always had to measure five times and cut twice.
joe rogan
Right, yeah.
mareko maumasi
And so I started getting to this point where I really had to think shit through because to me it felt like a huge waste of time and energy and materials really to go through all that process and then...
joe rogan
There had to be a long learning curve though, right?
Especially, I would imagine, the forging aspect of it.
It's probably incredibly difficult.
mareko maumasi
When I was working for Bob, the only forging we did was forging the Damascus to make the patterns.
And then we would cut blades out and go from there.
I learned forging about five years ago, essentially, working with a gentleman named David Lish.
He's a master bladesmith.
He used to work in Seattle.
He's down in the Olympia area now.
But he's a blacksmith by trade.
That got into knife making.
And he's fucking skilled.
He's super talented, especially when it comes to bowie knives and hunters.
Like, he does some really great work.
And especially his Damascus patterns are really great.
But to watch somebody move and manipulate material.
And, like I said before, like, stock removal is a very valid way of doing it.
Because the cost of the actual materials...
Stock removal?
Stock removal.
So earlier I was talking about taking a bar and then cutting out the blade shape.
Okay, it's called stock removal?
Yeah, because you're literally removing stock from the starting, the parent material.
joe rogan
When you do that, would you take what's left and melt it down?
mareko maumasi
You could melt it down.
You could turn it and forge it into other stuff.
It's a really interesting practice.
It's actually, it's kind of like, you know, people refer to yoga as a practice and you're never going to be perfect.
Like there's never going to be perfection in blade forging.
But there's always an opportunity to learn something and to practice it.
And so when you see, like you have a decent little chunk, you know, you start smashing on that thing and see what you can get out of it.
To economize that material.
And again, like I said, you don't really need to do that because of how inexpensive material is.
But if you think back even a hundred years, this high quality material is fucking expensive.
You had to get the most out of it as you possibly could.
And so that's why forging was such a big deal.
And then as that price went down, people changed the way they manufactured just because then the time was the thing that cost the most, not the materials.
And so they turned around and made it easier to manufacture.
They didn't give a shit about the waste.
joe rogan
Now, how did you learn handle geometry, like the handle and this hunting knife?
How did you learn how to do that?
mareko maumasi
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
This is very unique.
mareko maumasi
It is unique.
joe rogan
It fits my hand perfectly.
It fits in your hand.
mareko maumasi
And that's the goal.
A friend refers to it as the knife shaking your hand back.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
mareko maumasi
Like it fits so well.
It feels like you're holding.
joe rogan
Like this little thing that you've got here for people that are just listening.
There's an initial smoothness in the front and then there's like this little bump and then it's thicker at the bottom and it just locks in your hand and it just feels perfect.
mareko maumasi
So I was inspired to do that by a maker named Claude Beauchonville.
He's a Belgian maker.
I first met him.
Oh Claude!
unidentified
Claude.
mareko maumasi
Claude Bonjanvi.
He's a Belgian maker.
The first time I met him was at Blade Show, which is a huge knife exposition.
It's the biggest one in the world that happens down in Atlanta every year.
The first weekend of June, he was my table neighbor.
And I had never told him this story, but the first time I saw his knives, I was like, the blades and everything look great, but the handle looks fucking weird as shit.
joe rogan
This handle?
mareko maumasi
Yeah, very similar to that handle.
His has more of like a nice gentle curve around to the end instead of...
Kind of how that one's kind of at a clip or an angle.
And so finally, like on the third day of the show, this really great maker that I look up to came over and he was just like doting over Claude's work.
And I was like, all right, there must be something.
And I feel like such an asshole.
Like I didn't even touch the stuff.
I was just looking at it and judging.
And I picked it up, and I was like, what?
unidentified
It was totally like, what the fuck?
joe rogan
Right.
mareko maumasi
Because that same feeling that you have when you're holding, like, it feels perfect.
I was like, it totally shifted my entire mindset and paradigm around what I thought handle shapes should look and feel like.
And that has definitely inspired, continued, especially for, like, hard-use knives.
Like, especially, like, for a bigger blade, like a bush knife that you're trying to chop through stuff with.
A handle like that is going to benefit you immensely because it feels like a natural extension of your hand.
joe rogan
And is this your logo etched into the bottom?
mareko maumasi
Yeah, it's my insignia.
My name's Marco Malmasi.
It's two Ms kind of swirling around each other.
And it looks kind of like a flame.
joe rogan
Dude, I'm such a dork for this shit.
I love it.
It's so interesting, man.
And the handle, too.
There's something about the handle being made out of antler.
Like, the antler, the feel that it has in your hand, too.
The organic materials.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, organic.
Especially antler and bone, they have this kind of, like...
I don't know if you've experienced it with these...
joe rogan
Especially cutting up the like the greasy meat but it from from my experience it does it stays grippy it doesn't become super slippery or anything the handle on my bow is actually made out of antler I had it custom made my friend John Dudley had these ones made from a bull that he killed on September 11 2001 like it's the 9-11 bull and he had these Handles made out of the antlers of this and it does the way it sits in your hand.
It's like it's got an even if you're sweaty or you know there's something you know it's raining out it just has an extra grip to it.
mareko maumasi
Well, and especially something like that, like, if you're skinny or breaking down an animal, like, it's important, but it's not gonna, like, it's not like one of those moments where you're relying on that grip for your life.
joe rogan
Right.
mareko maumasi
But when you do need that for your life, like, you're trying to do, or like, you're digging in the ground, you're falling down the hillside, and you're trying to jab it and get a hold, like, that's gonna be really important.
But obviously, that's a very rare thing.
joe rogan
Yeah.
mareko maumasi
Incident when that one happened.
joe rogan
Well, it's just something cool about it, too.
mareko maumasi
Well, and just, like, the tactility of it.
It's just, again, it goes back to the, essentially, the user experience.
Like, what does it feel like?
How is it different?
Like, it makes, it really does make a difference.
joe rogan
Yeah, and one of the cool things to me, also, about antlers is that they shed them.
You know, that they lose these things every year, and that every year they grow a new one.
Do you know that it's the fastest growing organic material on Earth?
mareko maumasi
No, I didn't know that.
joe rogan
That shit right there, that giant elk antler, that grows in a couple months.
mareko maumasi
I didn't know that.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Falls off.
mareko maumasi
Right.
joe rogan
They lose it after they're done rutting.
mareko maumasi
I thought it was like they fell off and they just kind of immediately started like kind of slowly growing back.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
They grow the whole thing back in a couple months.
It's radical.
See if you find a video that shows elk antler growth time lapse because it's crazy how fast it grows.
And it's all just for war.
I mean, that's all that is.
It's to show off for the ladies.
Hey!
And it's also for war.
mareko maumasi
That's interesting.
Deer and elk.
Look at my rack.
joe rogan
Yeah, he had that rack just so he could fuck people up.
Or fuck people, but also elk.
And definitely people.
You get close to them.
Fuck me up.
But look at that.
The following photos were taken about a week apart over a period.
Look at this.
April 1st.
Check this out.
Just have it play out there.
It says over four months they show the incredible growth.
So April 1st.
Watch this.
mareko maumasi
Is it like at a farm?
joe rogan
That looks like it is.
Looks like it's an elk farm.
Just let it play out.
April 8th.
Boom, so seven days later.
Look at that.
April 15th.
Bang!
Look how big that shit is.
Oh shit!
April 22nd.
It's getting crazy.
Boom!
April 29th.
That's nuts.
unidentified
Boom!
joe rogan
May 6th.
unidentified
Holy shit.
joe rogan
One month.
Nuts.
May 13th.
Kapow!
What, motherfucker?
May 20th.
unidentified
Getting crazy.
mareko maumasi
That's a lot of good handle material.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
May 25th.
Hee-yah!
June 4th, woof!
Right, he's getting ready to go to war.
June 10th, he's thinking about pussy.
Look at that.
He's like, now, now I'm thinking about some pussy.
June 17th, I will fuck a dude up, comes near me.
June 24th, look at that.
And then July 1st.
That is crazy.
mareko maumasi
What the fuck?
joe rogan
It's crazy.
And that's not even done.
July 8th, July 15th, now he's basically still in velvet.
mareko maumasi
Right.
joe rogan
And then July 22nd, that looks hard-horned to me.
That looks like he shed his velvet.
And then July 29th.
Isn't that nuts?
mareko maumasi
Bizarre.
joe rogan
So by the time August rolls around, they're, like right now, the beginning of September, they're in hard-horned.
And they'll go to war, and they'll keep that shit for, you know, till the end of December.
Probably December, I think.
Maybe January?
And then they'll lose it.
mareko maumasi
So it's the fastest growing organic material by volume, weight?
joe rogan
Yes.
mareko maumasi
Okay.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think by all those things.
Because it grows so fast and it's so heavy.
I mean, that's like 40 pounds just of antlers.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And it grows over a couple months.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's fucking nuts, man.
mareko maumasi
Seeing pictures...
joe rogan
I might have made that up about the fastest growing organic material, but I think it's true.
jamie vernon
Look, and it says the first fun fact I found, they can grow 10 pounds of velvet per year.
mareko maumasi
That's just the velvet.
joe rogan
Just the velvet.
jamie vernon
Yeah.
joe rogan
Hmm.
Yeah, but that's probably because it's a velvet farm.
You know, they use that stuff for human growth hormone.
Like a lot of baseball players were taking...
mareko maumasi
Oh, no shit.
joe rogan
Yeah, a friend of mine, my friend John Rivett, shout out to Johnny Rivett, he lives in Alberta and one of his friends had an elk farm up there in Alberta and he grew elk not for the meat but for the velvet.
Because that stuff that grows grows so fast and so ridiculously potent that they would take antler velvet and they would turn it into a spray that would equal the effects of human growth hormone.
mareko maumasi
How could you do that across the beach?
She's like that.
joe rogan
I don't know.
But athletes were taking it.
Athletes were taking this stuff and it was having this growth hormone reaction in their body.
mareko maumasi
Aches and...
It sounds like it's superficial.
joe rogan
No, just get jacked, son!
Get swole, kid!
unidentified
Is it applied superficially or are they squirted in the mouth?
joe rogan
I really don't know.
I'm too stupid to be answering your questions.
But there's something about Deer Velvet that was for quite, you know, I don't even know if it worked, but it was a big thing in the supplement and fitness industry that people were getting Deer Velvet.
mareko maumasi
I bought it.
joe rogan
You spray it.
And it's supposed to give you growth hormone.
mareko maumasi
What did you think of that Ole Beer?
Have you had Ole Beer before?
joe rogan
Yeah, I have.
It's great.
It's great.
Olympia.
Is this from Olympia, Washington?
mareko maumasi
Is that what it is?
Originally, yeah.
I think it's brewed in Milwaukee now.
joe rogan
What the fuck?
mareko maumasi
I know.
joe rogan
Everything's being sourced overseas.
I mean, what?
You're from the Pacific Northwest, but now you live in Connecticut, the state I shit on the most.
There's a whole video out there of me shitting on Connecticut.
People have made a compilation of me shitting on Connecticut.
mareko maumasi
I'm sure plenty of it's warranted.
joe rogan
Yeah, there's all of it.
Shout out to my good friend Tommy Jr. who lives in Connecticut.
jamie vernon
I finally found it.
So I think it's just antlers in general are the fastest growing tissue in any mammal.
joe rogan
Yeah, and then elk antler is the fastest growing out of all of them because it's the largest.
So it grows in the same amount of time that a deer would grow its antlers, but it's far larger.
mareko maumasi
Even more mass than a moose?
joe rogan
No, a moose would be bigger.
Some moose.
mareko maumasi
Those motherfuckers are huge.
joe rogan
Yeah, they're the biggest.
They're the biggest of all of the deer species.
By far.
I think a full-grown Yukon moose could be as much as 2,000 pounds.
A really big, rocky mountain elk under normal circumstances...
Is like a fucking giant one is pushing a thousand.
mareko maumasi
Jesus.
joe rogan
It's a giant though.
That'd be like a 400 inch bull.
What does that mean, 400 inch?
The inches, the measurement of the size of the inches of the antler.
Do you see that one that's in the front?
mareko maumasi
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
That's considerably bigger than this one.
The one out in the front is 382 inches.
That's a giant bull.
And that fucker was about a thousand pounds.
unidentified
He was huge.
Yeah.
Huge.
joe rogan
Moose is bigger.
Moose is twice as big.
Moose would see that thing and go, shut the fuck up, bitch.
And he'd go, oh, I gotta go!
And he'd just start running.
But moose, the weird thing about a moose is their antlers are like a door.
You know, it's basically like, they're so fat and thin.
It's not like pokey.
I mean, they're basically like, they're hitting each other in the head with doors.
mareko maumasi
Right.
They're like big old gloves on your hand.
I've seen a few pictures where, especially the moose, their antlers get locked up and they're fucking stuck.
joe rogan
More deer than moose.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because the design of a moose's antlers is like, it's not as intertwined, but with deer it happens all the time because there's a little bit of flex to the bone.
mareko maumasi
Sure.
joe rogan
And so they'll clash and in the force of the two of them slamming in each other, they get stuck.
CTE. Well, they drown.
They've fought like that and then wrestled and wound up in the water and wound up drowning.
There's a horrible video I saw of two deer that got stuck and one of them got killed by a coyote.
Not just a coyote, a whole pack of them, torn to shreds.
They tore them and they eat them asshole first, as I've documented many times in this podcast.
mareko maumasi
I feel like a lot of animals go for the butt first.
joe rogan
Well, yeah, lions do.
Yeah, a lot of them do.
I don't know what that's all about.
But the one deer was still attached to his dead friend And these hunters had to help it get released.
They sawed one of the antlers off the other deer, this dead deer, and freed it.
And then this other one ran off.
Like, what a nightmare that guy's lived through.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
You know, his buddy, it's his asshole torn apart.
They're literally eating him alive while he's stuck to the guy.
mareko maumasi
Oh, my God.
Probably fighting them off of him.
joe rogan
I mean, you talk about could have easily been you.
I mean, literally could have easily been you.
There's two deer, one of them gets eaten alive, and the other one's just sitting there, like, living with the horror.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
And then these people come over, and he can't get away from the fucking people, and he's like, these people are gonna eat me!
And they don't even eat them.
They let them go.
And they're hunters.
They freed them up and let them loose.
Crazy.
Yeah.
You got that?
Oh, there's one.
That elk got stuck with a dead elk.
That's a dead elk.
That's an elk head that's stuck on the other elks.
But see, I don't know what that was.
That, to me, makes me think that that could have very easily been like an elk found a dead elk and just started headbutting and ripped its head off and got stuck with it.
They kill each other all the time, though.
I mean, all the time.
mareko maumasi
Oh, jeez, look at those racks.
joe rogan
Dude, when you hear them fighting, like one of the first times I ever went elk hunting, we were coming over this hill and it sounded like two dudes slamming baseball bats together.
unidentified
Just crack, crack, crack, crack!
joe rogan
And when we came over the top of the hill, these two giant elk were just running at each other and smashing each other.
It was a magical day.
I can't even imagine.
It was like one of the first times I ever elk hunted.
And there's a thing that happens when you hit a peak rut.
And when the peak rut happens, they just go crazy all around you.
They're all screaming.
And it might only happen once in a season.
And you just, if you might be there for that couple of hours when it all goes down, it's insanity.
Yeah.
Insanity.
They're just all around you screaming and headbutting each other.
mareko maumasi
I can't even imagine walking over the top of the hill and fucking stumbling across that.
joe rogan
Dude, you feel so vulnerable.
unidentified
You're like, ah!
joe rogan
You just want to hide behind a tree.
mareko maumasi
I'm not supposed to be seeing this right now.
joe rogan
And they're screaming at each other.
And they're so big, man.
They're screeches.
Yeah, there's two going at it right there.
And you hear them.
They just clash and slam at each other.
mareko maumasi
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
You hear that?
unidentified
It's...
Oh, shit.
The poor guy's gonna go in the wrong spot.
joe rogan
Like, fuck, man.
And they don't even know he's alive, you know?
And they kill each other all the time.
mareko maumasi
And the hormones they got going on, they're just like, I don't give a fuck about anything else.
joe rogan
Yeah, my friend Cam came across one last year, and he crept up on it.
He thought it was bedded, and he shot it with an arrow, and it didn't move.
And he's like, what the fuck?
And he got over to it.
It was already dead.
And another elk had stabbed it.
They stabbed it through the heart and it laid down and died.
It happens all the time.
They're always finding them that other elk have murdered.
They don't give a fuck.
They're just trying to get them pussy, son.
Trying to get them pussy.
mareko maumasi
How much is the rut?
Is that a month?
Two months?
joe rogan
Just a month.
Maybe a little bit longer.
There's a second rut sometimes in October when another female will go into estrus and they'll resume the rut.
Yeah.
It's magical times.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, I can't even imagine stumbling across that.
joe rogan
It's pretty cool, man.
It's pretty cool.
You know, the real wild, the actual real wild.
Well, when you are in Connecticut, man, you gotta worry about two things.
Hitting a deer with your car and Lyme disease.
mareko maumasi
Okay, so that's something that we didn't realize we were moving into.
joe rogan
Oh, man.
I wish I told you because you and I were going back and forth when you were about to move.
unidentified
Right.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, that was definitely one of the things that we were like, wait, what?
They're everywhere?
joe rogan
Everywhere.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Ticks, if you're listening to this, anywhere on the East Coast.
Especially New York has got it really bad.
I mean, there's a Lyme disease map and you see like the instances of Lyme disease on the East Coast.
It's horrific, man.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
And I know fucking at least a dozen people that have it and it stays with you for life.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
And my friend Jim Miller, he's a guy who fights in the UFC, he's got to take a giant fistful of pills every day.
I mean, he's got it real bad.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Real bad.
And he's still fighting.
Still fighting in the UFC. And those deer, too.
mareko maumasi
I've been worried about, actually, especially when we were moving out, because I was driving through Pennsylvania.
I hit Pennsylvania.
We drove cross-country at sunset and drove from there all the way to Connecticut in dark.
And all I could think is, like, I'm going to fucking hit a deer.
joe rogan
You see so many of them, right?
mareko maumasi
You see so many dead ones on the side of the fucking road.
joe rogan
Yeah.
mareko maumasi
It blows my mind.
But the biggest issue has been actually other Connecticut drivers.
It's the biggest concern.
My wife and I both have been T-boned in the last eight months.
joe rogan
People in Connecticut, they're just giving up, man.
They're just hitting the gas and closing their eyes.
mareko maumasi
Well, what's crazy is I've driven in LA, I've driven in New York, I've driven in fucking Oregon, Seattle, all kinds of crazy places.
But they all have a culture about how they work.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
mareko maumasi
And I could not figure out Connecticut.
And a friend finally explained it to me.
He said, they're driving as if nobody else is on the road.
I was like, holy shit.
That makes perfect sense.
The choices they make are as if nobody else is there.
I'll be coming up in the passing lane.
Somebody's in the lane to the right of me.
There's no exits coming up.
There's no other cars for like half a mile.
I'm cruising probably like 5, 10 miles faster than them.
They change lanes right in front of me.
Why?
joe rogan
You know why?
unidentified
Why?
joe rogan
Because let's say there's a thing that you're making, like an epoxy, right?
When you're making an epoxy there's several ingredients that you have to add to it.
Or maybe that's not the best example.
Like say maybe there's electronics.
Just whatever it is that you're making.
So if you're making a thing and it requires ten different ingredients, If you're a person in Connecticut, you have eight ingredients.
You don't have those other two and you just do without.
You just deal with it.
You're just missing two things and you just hit the gas and just drive places.
And no one knows what they're doing.
And it's not a real state.
It's just not.
mareko maumasi
Well, and what's also bonkers that we weren't expecting is that, like, unless you're driving 15 to 20 miles over the speed limit, you're going too slow.
Or, like, a stoplight and stop signs are a suggestion.
People use right or left turn.
joe rogan
They don't even know why they're speeding, man.
They don't know where they're going.
mareko maumasi
Where are they going?
joe rogan
They don't understand.
mareko maumasi
The state's so small, you could drive through the state in two and a half hours.
joe rogan
They're missing all sorts of stuff.
They're just so confused.
mareko maumasi
No, and I'm not trying to sit here and shit on fucking Connecticut.
unidentified
Too late.
mareko maumasi
It's just...
Those things have been a serious culture shock for us.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It's despair.
Despair.
They hit the gas.
mareko maumasi
What's crazy is it's a fucking beautiful state.
Gorgeous.
joe rogan
Yeah, especially in the summer, man.
mareko maumasi
It's terrifying trying to drive around that fucking place.
joe rogan
And you get out of your car, you get bit by a thousand ticks, and you fucking can't walk anymore.
mareko maumasi
The humidity, too.
I was not expecting that.
joe rogan
It's great on your balls, right?
Ball sweat.
mareko maumasi
Yesterday I was in my shop.
I wasn't doing shit.
Like, I could have just been sitting here, like, fiddling around.
I was sweating my ass off.
unidentified
Drenched.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
Summers are rough.
unidentified
I was just like, am I in fucking Florida?
mareko maumasi
What the hell?
joe rogan
Yeah, well, you're used to, you know, that Pacific Northwest doesn't really get that hot.
And the summers are glorious.
Like Seattle and Oregon summers, God, they're glorious.
Everything's fucking neon green.
And the sun comes out.
It's amazing.
It almost, almost makes up for the winter.
But not quite.
mareko maumasi
The lack of winter?
Just the rain?
joe rogan
Just the rain.
mareko maumasi
Non-stop raining.
joe rogan
There is a winter.
It's just not frozen.
mareko maumasi
It's tempered.
unidentified
But it's just gray and doom.
joe rogan
And you're like, I could do this.
I could hang in there.
And then the summer comes.
You're like, hey, it's going to be fine.
But you're like a beaten wife waiting for your husband to come home.
You're like, hey, he's not home now and I got a great house.
But he's coming home.
He's coming home.
He's going to be home for eight months.
You're just going to piss on your hair for eight months.
It's just eight months of clouds and fucking craft beers and just everybody's shooting themselves.
It's dark up there, man.
I don't think people are meant to live like that.
I mean, I think it's gorgeous and there's benefits to it for sure.
mareko maumasi
Yeah.
joe rogan
But I had a buddy of mine.
He tried to convince me to live up there.
It's hilarious.
My friend Salami.
He moved to Portland.
unidentified
Salami.
joe rogan
That's his name.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
He tried to move to Portland.
He did move to Portland.
He's teaching jiu-jitsu up there.
Dude, I love it.
It's fucking great up here.
It's fucking amazing.
I go, you don't mind about the winter?
You don't mind about the rain?
He goes, no.
He goes, dude, the people are so fucking cool.
The restaurants are amazing.
And the summers are so good.
Three years later, he's back in LA. I go, what happened?
He goes, I couldn't do it, man.
Couldn't do it anymore.
I go, ah, I see.
So it's a thing.
It's like you hang in there for as long as you can, but you can't hang in there forever.
Is that what it is?
But some people can.
mareko maumasi
I can hang.
You know, a lot of people have seasonal depression syndrome or some shit like that.
joe rogan
Do you think it's because you grew up there?
mareko maumasi
I don't think so, because my sister and my mom both grew up there too, my wife even.
joe rogan
They can't handle it.
mareko maumasi
They hate it, especially the wintertime.
joe rogan
The wintertime.
mareko maumasi
When it is that dark gray, like it doesn't snow, it just rains.
It just gets dark.
I guess I think part of my issue is, like I said, I always worked in restaurants or in a shop.
So it's like I'm in a virtual cave all the fucking time.
So I'm not experiencing that except for the drive home or to work.
joe rogan
What's up, Jamie?
jamie vernon
You just said SADD as I was looking up seasonal affective disorder.
That's the acronym they give it.
joe rogan
Yeah.
SADD. That's what it is, bro.
mareko maumasi
That shit's real.
joe rogan
I mean, they probably called it that on purpose.
I mean, I don't think they needed to call it seasonal affective disorder.
That's not the best.
Feel like shit because of the rain disease.
mareko maumasi
Well, isn't it something about the lack of vitamin D? I'll tell you what, though.
There's light therapy.
joe rogan
I'll take it over Connecticut all day.
I'll take Seattle over Connecticut all day.
All day.
mareko maumasi
You know what I dream about sometimes is Denver.
joe rogan
You live in Connecticut?
mareko maumasi
I lived in Denver for only a few months.
unidentified
People that live in Connecticut right now go, what the fuck, dude?
joe rogan
It's a running gag, folks.
I don't really care.
mareko maumasi
Actually, when we first moved to Connecticut...
joe rogan
Denver's amazing.
mareko maumasi
Denver's fucking beautiful.
joe rogan
I fucking love Denver.
Love it.
Love it.
mareko maumasi
When I first moved there, I grew up in Washington, right at the base of the Puget Sound.
Water around me.
I actually used to sail on a racing team and stuff like that.
I was like, I'm going to miss the water so much.
And it was so green, too.
I got there and I was like...
I don't think I care about the water.
I care about the green.
But the second the spring rains hit, everything turned green.
All the trees started blossoming.
I was like, holy shit.
And it was beautiful.
Beautiful.
The only thing I hated about Denver, everybody had a fucking dog and nobody cleaned up the dog shit.
That was everywhere.
joe rogan
Lazy bitches.
mareko maumasi
I just didn't understand it.
It's probably worse now.
joe rogan
It's probably worse now because of all the free pot.
All the legal pot.
It's everywhere.
But you know what it has that's amazing, man, is the view of the mountains.
There's something about being right there and seeing those Rockies that just, like, humbles you.
It puts it in perspective.
mareko maumasi
That's what being in Puget sounds like as well because you always got Mount Rainier.
It's crazy like the road the cities were engineered so like you're coming up and down hills and like BOOM! The fucking mountain is a monster.
Mount Rainier is a monster.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's amazing man.
We went up looking for Bigfoot up there once, me and Duncan.
Yeah, we found them.
We just didn't want to tell anybody.
Yeah, that area too is so densely wooded.
It's really incredible.
When you go walking through the woods, you don't make any sound when you walk.
You don't leave any footprints because there's just feet thick of pine needles and moss.
mareko maumasi
Moss and needles.
joe rogan
It's just so soft and it's interesting.
mareko maumasi
Lush.
joe rogan
And filled with elk, man.
There's elk everywhere up there.
They run like 30 feet and you can't see them anymore.
Because there's, like, so many trees.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, they're fucking gone.
My in-laws, they live south of Olympia.
And they have 16 acres out there.
And, like, three or...
I think it's, like, four or five that are, like, cleared for, like, a field and a barn and a house and stuff.
The rest of it's all wooden.
unidentified
Wow.
mareko maumasi
Then they got black bears that cruise through there, large cats, or, like, bobcats and lynx and shit.
And elk, for sure.
And they have an orchard, and the elk are just out there standing on their hind legs.
unidentified
Brr, brr, brr.
mareko maumasi
We're eating that shit up.
They're beautiful.
They're cool to watch, too.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I mean, that is a lush, tropical rainforest up there.
It's so wild.
It's so interesting, too.
When you're up there, you realize how diverse it is with life when you're walking around in it.
And you see just elk shit everywhere.
You go walking through the woods.
It's just infested with them.
mareko maumasi
It piles all these little pellets.
joe rogan
Little marbles.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's gorgeous, man.
There's so much life up there.
There's salmon.
There's so much salmon.
There's eagles up there.
I mean, it's gorgeous, man.
Yet here you are in fucking Connecticut.
mareko maumasi
Mushroom hunting.
There's all kinds of stuff.
You can really live off the land.
There's some great spots to go.
Chantrelling and Olympia area.
Love getting out in the woods and just walking around.
It's actually been really cool.
Especially when we go back in the summertime.
Especially in the summertime to go visit family.
To take my little dude.
My son's two years old.
He just turned two.
And so walking with him.
And he just fucking loves it.
Walking through the...
And you don't have to worry about the fucking ticks.
You can get lime and shit like that.
You can go out there and roll around all you want.
But going up, they have a nice little quarter mile trail.
Goes up through the woods.
And you just walk through that thing.
He just marches along the whole fucking way.
Just that experience of stopping and listening.
You can hear the red-tailed hawk crying over the top of everything else.
They have great horned owls from time to time that Krusta was there.
You can hear the little chipmunks and red squirrels.
You can hear the fucking crows and the stellar jays.
Yeah, everything.
And telling him, stop.
You hear that?
You hear that?
And he just stops.
And he's so intense.
And it's wild to see a little kid who's so fucking rambunctious when he's in the house, but you get him out into the woods.
joe rogan
I'm overwhelmed with senses.
mareko maumasi
He's just listening.
joe rogan
There's so much sensory input, right?
mareko maumasi
It's so cool.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Isn't it amazing, too, looking at it through the eyes of your child?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Just watching them experiencing all these things?
mareko maumasi
It's like you can almost see the little cogs turning in their head.
joe rogan
They're just like, oh, shit.
unidentified
What is that?
joe rogan
No, it's amazing.
That's one thing that I didn't anticipate before...
We had children.
It's like watching them learn.
Like, oh wow, there's a crazy trip you get out of watching kids learn.
You know, there's something about, like, you learn, watching them learn.
And it really sort of reinforces this idea that every human being is essentially, I mean, they're not a blank slate, but they are most certainly Subject to the influences of their environment, what they experience.
mareko maumasi
Especially at those ages.
joe rogan
They take that data in.
Yeah.
mareko maumasi
Dude, it's crazy.
Like, we have...
He loves maps.
We got...
joe rogan
Maps?
mareko maumasi
Maps.
Yeah, we got...
unidentified
Oh, wow.
mareko maumasi
You know how, like, a lot of kids get those, like, bedroom mats that have, like, the roads and stuff?
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
mareko maumasi
We got one of the...
Like, the globe.
And none of the countries are marked out on it or anything.
But we knew some of the spots.
And so, we started teaching...
Like, he knows where, like, over a hundred different countries are.
Like...
He knows where they're at.
He knows where they're at.
He can point out the difference between Cambodia, Guam, Vietnam, Nepal, Russia, like Russia and China are pretty easy.
But then you go over to Europe, he's like Hungary, Turkey, Greece.
joe rogan
He knows those?
mareko maumasi
He knows where Portugal is.
joe rogan
Dude, I can show you three.
I can tell you where Africa is.
I'm pretty sure I know the difference between Australia and New Zealand.
mareko maumasi
The only reason I know them is because I'm playing the game with them.
So we got more maps that have like the world again, but everything's marked out.
And he's starting to learn all the different flags.
That's crazy.
He knows like at least a dozen of the different flags.
joe rogan
They're so open, you know.
Children, I mean, they learn language so quick.
They're so open.
I mean, think about kids learn language by the time they go to school.
They already know how to talk.
They don't learn school.
They just learn how to talk.
mareko maumasi
Well, my wife has her master's degree at the university level for teaching English as a second language.
And she's with him all day long.
joe rogan
Oh, wow.
mareko maumasi
And she comes from a family of teachers.
Both of her parents, her sister, her great-grandmother, or sorry, her grandmother, all educators.
joe rogan
This must be amazing for her to be a mom then.
mareko maumasi
Yeah and so she's with a dude all day long like she fucking loves the shit of him but you know like you try spending fucking day in and day out with the little dude like the little the little fucking numbskulls running around and trying to learn how to interact with the world yeah it's fucking crazy but it's so cool and and with that background understanding how to interpret what's going on in his brain a little bit so to help nourish it essentially and Yeah.
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's awesome.
So listen, I got to get out of here, but I know you have a blind auction.
mareko maumasi
Yes.
joe rogan
You have – why don't you go grab those knives so we can show them.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, I'll go grab those real quick.
joe rogan
Grab them real quick, and we'll tell people about the auction.
But he's got these fucking killer knives that he's made, these chef's knives.
jamie vernon
Is that the one that's going up?
joe rogan
I think so.
God, look how beautiful that is.
We're looking at his Mousy Fire Arts Instagram page, and the design, the pattern on this chef's knife, it doesn't even look real, folks.
I mean, it looks like someone's...
It looks like someone put one of those crazy cartoon filters.
mareko maumasi
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
Doesn't it?
Is that it?
mareko maumasi
That's the fucking knife.
joe rogan
That's the knife right there.
mareko maumasi
There's that one.
joe rogan
So people can see it.
mareko maumasi
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Here it is right here.
I'm holding it up.
So this knife is for auction.
mareko maumasi
No, actually, that one is not.
This one here in the cases.
You can pull that out.
joe rogan
And how can people auction?
How can people bid on this?
mareko maumasi
So this is for benefit for LA Loves Alex's Lemonade Stand, which is for childhood cancer research.
Smells good.
If you go to my Instagram profile, I have a link actually in my bio that goes straight to the auction page for this knife.
Now these knives are, right now my current prices, this one knife is $4,200.
But right now I think the bidding is at like, oh there it is.
$2,100.
So there's a chance that somebody could get it for less than what I would normally value.
joe rogan
When does it end?
mareko maumasi
The auction ends on Saturday the 8th.
So that's when the actual event is.
And I'm actually going to be there at the event, hanging out.
If anybody's got any questions about it, talk about it.
Or, you know, just kind of hang out.
That's dope.
You know, it's interesting.
Like, doing this kind of work is the first time I've ever had anything that I felt like I could give back with.
Because otherwise, like, I always just did shitty little jobs.
But this is the first time I feel like I have something I can offer.
So, and coming up from very little, very humble beginnings, this was an opportunity now to feel like I can give back.
And so, I try to do this from time to time.
unidentified
That's very cool.
mareko maumasi
For sure.
joe rogan
Well, listen, man, I'm glad we finally got together.
mareko maumasi
Absolutely.
joe rogan
And thank you for making me these awesome knives.
I will cherish them forever.
mareko maumasi
Absolutely.
It's my pleasure, my man.
joe rogan
You're a fucking amazing craftsman.
mareko maumasi
Thank you.
joe rogan
It was cool to do this.
unidentified
Yeah, absolutely.
joe rogan
Thanks for being here.
All right, folks.
We'll be back soon, you fucks.
Bye.
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