Adam Carolla and Joe Rogan debate how modern over-sterilization—from soap use to COVID lockdowns—weakens immune systems, citing Defense Soap’s benefits for fighters and a 30% rise in peanut allergies. Carolla dismisses climate change as the sole cause of California wildfires, blaming instead regulatory delays like the Palisades fire’s stalled rebuilding. They contrast rigid safety narratives with blue-collar pragmatism, warning that fear-driven policies stifle resilience, whether physical or intellectual, and may breed a generation of passive, untested humans. Early hardship, they argue, is the key to growth before life’s obligations take hold. [Automatically generated summary]
You know, it's like that thing where people have a near-death experience and then they swear they're going to change their ways and they're going to appreciate everything and they're going to do all that.
Do you think about the way you think and the way you live and do you analyze it and decide whether or not this is a good way to proceed or whether or not you need to make adjustments?
Some people don't.
They don't look.
They don't self-analyze.
They don't course correct.
They just don't.
And so something comes along.
I'm changing everything.
But you never change anything in your whole fucking life.
You've never done that.
You've never exhibited that kind of will.
You've never had that kind of discipline.
So like, how are you going to change now?
You're not.
You're going to say you're going to change, then you're going to go right back.
It's like if coaching is good, like if you can be coachable, that's like one of the best indicators that you're going to do well in life if you could take direction and instruction from someone who knows what they're talking about.
And if you're not good at that thing, do you take it as a slight against you?
Or do you just understand that you are a person?
This is you.
And this thing you're doing is something you don't know how to do as well as this person who's teaching you.
And if you can do that, then you can get better.
And then getting better at anything that you are trying to do that's difficult, any discipline, that discipline becomes a vehicle for developing your human potential.
If you can figure out how to get good at that by listening to this person and then proceeding and seeing the steps of improvement, you can apply that to everything in life.
But if you never learn how to do that, you're going to get stuck.
I've been thinking about how insecure a lot of people are and how they really react when you tell them something, criticism or coach them.
But I think it's their insecurity that's reacting.
And then I sort of realize like you have a skill set.
You have multiple skill sets, right?
And you take just martial arts, you know, okay, you know it.
You're comfortable with it.
You're real secure about it.
You know your abilities and you know your abilities as a comedian and you know your abilities as an archer and stuff like that.
So you have a bunch of stuff that you know, you own.
And for me, like I'm a builder, so I have a skill.
So I have a trade, you know?
And so I don't feel insecure.
I feel like there's stuff I know and then there's other things I do know, but I don't walk around with that insecurity that I realize like a lot of people, they don't have a trade.
They don't have a skill.
They don't have really anything who they could call expertise.
Like you would go, you know, what are you an expert at?
Well, you would go, I can teach UFC, mixed martial arts, jiu-jitsu.
I can do that.
I can do this.
podcasting, stand-up comedy.
Like there's fields of expertise, speaking another language, mastering an instrument, things like that.
And I realize so many people just are, there's just nothing.
They never found a thing that they don't find a thing and they're so insecure and they walk around in this heightened state of insecurity and then somebody runs into them somewhere at an airport or a Starbucks or something and they start ripping off, you know, throwing furniture.
And it's like, why are you in this state all the time?
And I realize it's an insecurity.
And how would it feel?
Like, how would Joe Rogan feel walking around not having a black belt, not being successful at stand-up, like not having any expertise?
Most people just get jobs and they never really find a thing where they can throw themselves into it and watch the improvement and understand that, oh, I know that I started this out as a beginner and now I'm really good because I put in so much time and so much effort.
So I know that I have that in me.
I know I have that willpower.
It's also like some people just don't have good brains.
That's just a fact.
You know, it's like some people were born with big ears.
Some people have small ears.
Some people have shitty brains.
And that's just true.
I've met a lot of people.
They're just dull.
They're just dull-minded and dull-witted.
And even if they threw themselves into something, they don't have the horsepower.
I bought a video game once, and it was a World War II one, and I thought I was going to go to the deck of the ship and shoot at some zeros who are dive bombing our ship.
But the video game started below in the barracks.
We're in our bunks, and a torpedo hit, and I could never get to the deck.
I couldn't get out of the bunk.
I kept burning up in a fire in the bunk.
And after 20 times of trying to get to the deck, I just abandoned it.
And I also just realized there's just a bunch of shit I'm not good at, and I don't care to even try.
I think there's another part of life where you have to kind of go, what are you good at?
What are you not good at?
And when you're not good at something, you should just pay somebody to do that.
It was a weird thing because it was always a sort of shut up.
So it was the opposite of encouragement, which is be quiet, be quiet.
You're disruptive.
So by nature, comedic nature is to sit in the back of the class and pop off and try to entertain an audience, which is sort of built in, which is the classroom.
But it is interesting that they then offer an award called class clown.
So I got the class clown designation, but all through high school, I was told to shut up by every teacher, which is a weird, it's a backhanded compliment, but it's a weird message to send to the clown, which is shut up, shut up, shut up.
It's sort of people that have, I know we have to call them heroes, but they've kind of opted out of the private sector.
They're just like, I want consistency.
I don't care if I'm underpaid as long as I never stop getting paid and I can retire early and I have a place to go.
And it's a kind of a version of life where you're not telling people to chase their dreams and explore the possibilities because you're in this place right now where you didn't chase your dreams.
You're just here.
You know, I mean, save that 10% who love kids or just want to work with kids.
But later on, when I was driving a truck, you know, to the construction side every day, I would listen to morning radio in LA and I'd listen to these morning teams and I'd go, oh, shit, I can do that.
Like I was inspired by their inability to be consistently funny.
Certainly at the beginning, you know, like if you walked right into a gym and as you were like Terrence Crawford t-shirt I'm wearing and Terrence Crawford's working out.
It was the first time you ever worked out.
And someone says, do you want to spar with Terrence Crawford?
Even when I worked with him when he was 48 or something, he still looked like that.
But so Weaver and then his half-triplet brothers, the fighting triplets, Troy, Floyd, and Lloyd, by the way, they're all fighters, right?
And I realized they were good fighters, but they didn't know how to teach fighting because they couldn't verbalize it and they couldn't intellectualize it.
They just did it, you know?
And it's not always the guy.
So a lot of time they got ex-fighters.
This guy's an ex-champ.
He's an ex-this and ex-that.
That doesn't mean you're good at teaching it.
That just means you did it and were good at it.
But you can't always articulate it and describe it.
And like my thing was, I wasn't an ex-champ, but I knew how to articulate it better than these guys.
And I could use these metaphors and examples and stuff like that.
I would end up being a good boxing coach, not because I had all this ring experience, just because I understood it sort of intellectually.
It's such, I mean, it's what happens when you are attracted to competition, I think.
So the people who aren't attracted to competition sit around and go, why would you do that?
Or how dare you do that?
Or this guy's wrong for doing it.
But you don't run an F1 team.
But if you're attracted to a job that makes you a trainer in UFC or running an F1 team, you'll probably be a person who's attracted to competition, thus attracted to winning.
And then at some point, your livelihood will depend on it.
I love it when, I don't know, Bob Costas gets all and Billy Crystal get all upset about the majesty of baseball and how you've ruined the sanctity of it and stuff like that.
Baseball was always kind of a pussy sport for me.
Like, I thought if you're a real dude, you play football and then maybe box or wrestle or something like that.
But baseball was kind of fun.
Like, I played baseball and baseball at baseball practice, you got to play baseball.
You got to hit, you got to field.
You essentially played baseball.
You didn't have a game, but you'd be out in the field hitting the cutoff or up at bat patting practice where you literally played baseball.
In football, I never touched a football.
You're just pushing a sled and getting in some tackling drill, running laps.
They just torture you.
But you don't play football.
I played football for 10 years and never touched a football.
I played linebacker and guard and there was no football.
There was just me blocking guys who were touching a football or trying to tackle a guy who touched football.
Wrestling practice and football practice are not dissimilar.
It's just torture young people, essentially, and kind of try to break them a little bit.
And wrestling is probably more torturous than football, but football is hot because it's the San Fernando Valley or wherever Florida, and you're outside and you're in a uniform and you're just baking in the sun and they didn't want to give you water because they thought it was bad for you.
But don't you feel, I feel like I fall back on my misery and those two-a-day practices and the San Fernando Valley and getting yelled at by coaches and being on a construction site and sort of getting yelled at by a foreman and like just doing sort of miserable donkey work all day.
As I get older, I realize, oh, everything seems pretty simple and pretty easy compared to that.
And I realize I talked to a lot of people that never went through that.
And so they don't really have, they're not calibrated.
Like, like sometimes, like ever since I got out of construction and into comedy, I've never looked at comedy as work, you know?
And then sometimes they'll go, oh, they want to add a second show or whatever.
And I go, yeah, go ahead.
And someone will go, you really want to work that much?
It's that old expression: the worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you, no matter what it is.
So if you've lived an incredibly sheltered life and the worst thing that ever happens is you get in a mild fender bender and you can't believe it and your world has ended and you're just sobbing and weeping.
Or if you're a guy who's lived a fucking difficult, hard life and then you get an offender bender, you're like, oh, they'll fix that.
Yeah, I've always thought that, you know, when it came to boxing or a sport like that, that, you know, people go, oh, you know how to box so you could use your hands and then you have an advantage.
You know, if some drunk guy comes at you or something, like you can use your hands.
So you know what you're doing.
But I always thought the real advantage is being used to having someone punch at you all the time.
That was sort of the real advantage of not freaking out if somebody threw a punch.
If you just get used to people throwing punches, then you know how to react.
And that was the advantage.
It was more like being used to being knocked around and punched and having people throw stuff at you versus you knowing how to throw back.
You know, one of the things I like about you is, and always stuck with me.
Years ago, when I interviewed you, I said, your biological dad, do you ever have a desire to get back in touch with him or reconnect or whatever that was?
And I think you went, no, screw him.
Like, I don't, I never knew him.
So I don't need to redo something that never was done.
I've been paying attention to a lot of your stuff covering the Palisades fire and all that stuff.
And I think I'm really glad that there's someone like you out there that gets to shine light on these things and show people how fucked up this whole thing was.
You know, we talked about it on the podcast that you immediately, once the fire happened, you were like, no one's rebuilding.
Like, you don't understand the Coastal Commission.
I don't know if your doctor would recommend it, but it's livable.
But the thing that I've always known is I've always known how burdensome regulation is in Los Angeles, and it's invisible.
And that's why we don't have housing, and that's why houses are too expensive.
And that's why there's no homeless shelters and housing and all that stuff is because it's so burdensome to build.
They make it so difficult to build that people don't build.
And I knew this is what was coming, but other people didn't really know it because they've not dealt with the city, plan check, regulations, plan approval, engineering.
Like this is stuff I've been doing my whole life.
So I knew early on that this wasn't going to happen.
And I think people who live in Los Angeles are sort of naive.
Like they just think that Coastal Commission and the City Council and Plan Check and Building and Safety, like they're there just to facilitate this stuff.
They're not there to facilitate any of it.
They're there to deter it.
Like they want you to go away, is basically what it is.
So I knew none of this was going to happen.
But also there's a thing that I don't think anyone really is aware of, which is they are so over-regulated that they make it so difficult to build that people can't afford it.
And they're then stymied by it and they tend to just get discouraged and they go away.
They don't do it.
So what they do is like I was friends with Suzanne Summers and Alan Hamill and they lived in Malibu and they loved Malibu and then their home burnt down years ago.
This was another fire and then they wanted to rebuild the home.
But the Coastal Commission made it so difficult that after five years of trying, they just went fuck it and they moved to Palm Springs.
But they wanted to live in Malibu, but they couldn't.
And it is so regulated and so difficult.
And the hoops they make you go through and the engineering is insane.
There is one place that they're building on on Pacific Coast Highway.
And I've been down to the construction site and I've looked at it.
They're sinking six-foot, six-story caissons, so 60-foot caisson cages.
They have to drill.
So a caisson, you just drill into the earth and you use a huge auger bit, and the hole's like 30 inches around, and you go down six stories, and then you drop a rebar cage into it, and then you pump concrete into it, and that's your caisson.
There's a house, and it's a small lot.
They're going to have 60 of these things into the ground before they can start building.
They go, we're an earthquake country or whatever they do.
But I've lived in houses in California that were built in 1923 and 1929 when they had none of this stuff and they had none of the technology and they saw their way through many earthquakes and they're just there.
So they blame stuff like earthquake or coastal or whatever it is.
And then they make you go 2,000 times further than you needed to go.
And I was talking to the guy.
I said, how much into this foundation before you can start building?
Well, what they do is they just add new ones every year.
So it just keeps getting more and more and more.
And then eventually that house becomes, it becomes impractical to build there because it costs too much money and then you don't have houses.
So that's what we do with all housing in Los Angeles.
And that's why the city council's like, we need more housing.
And it's like, well, you're not going to get more housing, bitch, because you're over-regulated and no one can reach that standard and it's too expensive.
Yeah, I mean, basically what they're doing is they're doing a cement.
Yeah.
So it's like the walls are like modular and it's filled with like foam and like sort of a wire cage.
And then the outside they spray on gunite, which is like lightweight cement and just like trowel it on.
So the inside and the outside is essentially cement.
But, you know, a stucco house is basically cement too.
Like really what they're doing now is they're saying, we're going to frame the houses the way we always frame the houses with wood.
Because I think a lot of people go, well, why aren't they using steel or metal studs or concrete?
Why are they using, why aren't they using non-combustible materials?
And what they're doing essentially, because I just walked one of these houses in the Palisades, they're building it in a traditional way using wood, but they're making the outside fireproof.
They're not going to have the eaves, the rafter tails hanging out, the wooden rafter tails hang out.
They're not going to have the vents to vent the attic where the embers can get into the attic and then get to the wood and cost.
Because most of it was just stuff blowing into the attic.
And then the house ignited sort of from the inside out.
So if you do a flat roof, a metal roof, and you do a stucco, glass, aluminum, and you don't do the rafter tails or the eaves and you don't have any way, then essentially you have this combustible house with a hard candy shell around it with nothing combustible on that.
Listen, when I was a carpenter in the, I think it was probably the later 80s, I built a house.
I mean, it wasn't my house, but I worked on a house.
Like I was doing Finnish work.
So I was like hanging doors and doing base and case and stair railings.
And like I was doing the Finn, I was like the Finnish guy.
And I showed up on one of our jobs.
You know, we had a few jobs going on.
I worked for this outfit.
But I worked there for like six months just doing all the stair railings and the doors and everything.
And that house burned to the ground.
Like I went up there some years later.
There was just the foundation there.
And remember, but to speak of me being able to watch a doc on the Holocaust and then go out and do comedy, I was sitting outside.
I was with somebody and all it was was the foundation, the whole place.
I said, man, I remember being here, like shaping the oak and making the railings and turning the oak and getting my router out and putting the finish on and everything.
It's all gone.
And somebody went, wow, how does it make you feel?
Was had to flee that night, had to go stay at a hotel in Burbank or something, and then basically just watched the news.
And I could see once in a while in the news, they'd cut to a spot where you'd go, oh, that's the restaurant in front of it, and it was ablaze.
Like everything, every time they cut to something around my house, it was all on fire.
So I was like in Burbank and I was sitting in a hotel room and I was like, well, it's gone.
It's gone for sure.
And that's when the following day, I did my podcast from the Burbank hotel room because the winds were so strong that the power was out to my studio, but the power was on at this hotel I was in.
So I just sort of set up in the living room of the hotel.
And that's when I delivered my none of this shit's going to work speech, which is like, you know, the difference.
It was like the opposite of whatever Winston Churchill would have done.
I'd have done the opposite.
Like, don't even try to build.
The city's going to fuck you up.
It's never going to work.
And that was like eight, that was like eight hours after the fire.
I was like, you're not getting a permit and you're not rebuilding.
See, LA sort of has process people, but they don't have get shit done people.
They just have people that talk about stuff and then have a committee and we got to talk about the homeless and everyone needs a seat at the table and no one's illegal and all this kind of stuff.
And then they go, all right, let's eat.
And they just leave.
They don't really do the nuts and the bolts.
Like I realized, you know, like Trump is a builder.
So he is a commercial builder.
So his world is hurry, hurry, get it done.
What's going on?
What's the holdup?
Why aren't we building?
And so everything, when you're a commercial builder, is, well, where's the foundation guy?
Foundation's done.
Where are the framing guys?
Framing's done.
Where are the drywall guys?
Where's the HVAC guys?
Where's the plumbing guys?
Like, what's taking so long?
You know what I mean?
Hurry.
And LA has a bunch of procedural people.
Like, they just sit around and talk about stuff.
They don't want to get stuff done.
And like when you had Karen Bass mayor and you had Trump at that presser, like a few days later, Trump was going, let's go.
Let's go.
Clean your own lots.
We don't.
And Karen Bass was like, slow your roll, man.
She was like on a different, you know, she was like, slow down safely.
We'll do it safely because everything is under the sort of tyranny of safety.
They don't really realize how much safety fucks people up.
I mean, that's what happened with COVID.
Like safety, say, we're just going to shut the schools.
Like, yeah, you're just going to ruin civilization because you said it was safe.
And no one argues with you when you go safety, safety, safety, but safety can be debilitating.
I mean, you can stop progress.
You can ruin young lives.
Like too much safety stops a society.
And they're all safety oriented and they're process people.
So they're like, slow it down, slow it down.
And Trump's like, speed it up.
And that's what you have in LA.
You have just sort of safety process, mostly women just kind of running the thing going, if one child gets COVID, that's one child.
No, no, no, bitch.
We got to open shit up and we got to get moving.
You know, that's basically what happened with COVID.
The thing about the fires is like, you know, Gavin Newsom's like, oh, climate change.
You know, just blame everything.
That was climate change.
It's hilarious.
Which is insane.
It's hilarious.
But it's like, look, New Orleans is below sea, below sea level.
They're down.
And so they have seawalls.
So man intervenes and gets involved with nature and says, we'll make it safe.
You know, like plenty of people live in Nevada now.
They have air conditioning.
Somebody figured out air conditioning and now there's casinos in Nevada where it used to be unlivable because of the heat.
Earthquake, you know, you take LA and I used to do earthquake rehab in Los Angeles.
You take a 7.3 earthquake in Los Angeles and almost nothing happens.
There's no death.
It's a couple apartment buildings and receita fall off or whatever.
It's really, it's almost nothing in LA, like a 7.3.
7.3 in Guatemala, places leveled, right?
So what's the difference?
Well, we have a bunch of codes, an earthquake, reinforced concrete.
We build four earthquakes.
And so when an earthquake hits, almost nothing happens.
So you can mitigate any of this stuff.
Like you're talking about climate change.
Well, earthquake is sort of the ultimate climate change, if you think about it.
Ah, I'm making an argument for some caissons, but not 65 of them six stories deep.
That's the point.
There should be some.
Once you keep going, that's where it gets real burdensome and real expensive.
Like, you know, your car should have a crumple zone and an airbag, but it doesn't need a full roll cage and a fuel cell, and you don't need to wear a helmet when you're driving.
It would be safer, but it would cost so much more to manufacture that car that most people couldn't afford the car.
So you can make cars with a fire suppression system.
And like my race cars have systems for fire suppression, but it would add 15 grand to the price of every car.
And it's not, so you have to kind of pick your battles.
So, you know, we can have a sort of end of days type Sodom and Gomorrah situation.
So that is the only time it rains is just to cause the mudslide after the fire.
But to prove your point with climate change, they're always talking about rising sea levels, right?
All the houses that burn to the ground are on the ocean, and the ocean didn't get them.
It was the fire that got them.
The places on PCH, many of those places have been there since the 30s and 40s.
The ocean's in the same place.
It hasn't moved at all.
The ocean is only six or eight feet below PCH.
It's not even that low.
It's never on PCH.
It never makes it to PCH.
And to show it's a weird thing because people in California talk about climate change, but the lots that are on the ocean side of PCH are 10 million bucks more than the ones that are up the hill that would be safe from the ocean that was rising.
In fact, there was some crazy thing that I was reading about, God, I don't want to say whether it's Iceland or what.
I think I put it on my Twitter.
I'm 99% sure I did.
So I'll send it to you, Jamie.
Yeah.
It's from Reuters, and it's about Iceland.
Iceland has declared a threat to the Atlantic Ocean current, a national security risk, potential collapse of which could trigger a modern-day ice age with winter temperatures across northern Europe plummeting to new cold extremes.
This is Reuters, and this is a new thing.
Like I have brought in climate change people, a lot of them who are scientists and skeptics.
There's also a thing that you come to realize as you're an adult.
If there is ever a public narrative where they're protecting you and protecting the future and trying to help and save people, that's a lie.
Almost always.
It's about money.
It's almost always about somebody profiting from some green energy initiative or some other bullshit they're trying to push through, some vegan meat, whatever the fuck it is.
Stop eating beef.
The cows are ruining the climate.
It's all lies.
There's no fucking real statistics that can point to that in any way, shape, or form.
And yet they spit it out on TV all the time pretending that they care about you.
They never, ever, ever care about public health and safety, ever.
It is always about how am I making money by scaring you about public health and safety.
I don't mean you or me, but I just mean as a society, they'll just go, what's next?
And they'll start pitching the next Ukraine.
Right.
Whatever their pitch, they'll imbibe it and they'll digest it.
And by the way, then they become sort of carriers.
They just go out and report on it and then tell you, you know, they somehow become ambassadors of bullshit.
They're like bullshit ambassadors.
Like we have deputized all you dumb, scared people to be released onto society as ambassadors of bullshit who are going to scare everybody.
Because COVID wouldn't have worked if we didn't have a bunch of dumb, scared people running around.
Like Gavin Newsom can shut the beaches all he wants, but if everyone just declared a beach day, then we'd be fine.
Everyone just show up.
They can't police it.
You know what I mean?
They are sort of limited in terms of what they can do in terms of policing it, but they deputize all these dumb ambassadors to go out and enforce it for them.
But also, but no anger towards the people that created the disease.
I mean, it's a literally once, once the information came out, and literally Newsweek was, I think, the first place that broke on the front cover the lab leak hypothesis.
And they were saying it seems like that is actually the case.
Nobody got angry.
You were angry at people that didn't want to get vaccinated, and you didn't get angry at the person who used science to create a horrible disease that was completely avoidable and that killed who knows how many people.
Well, I think what was going on, because you and I, and I've talked to a lot of people about this, like, where's the anger over finding out that it was made in China at a lab and so on and so forth?
And then where's the anger over being forced to be vaxed or all this misinformation being used and blah, blah, blah.
And I realize they don't want to say anything because they're ashamed because they were the ones who bought it and enforced it and got really militant about it and started screaming at anyone who suggested it came from a lab or suggested the shot wasn't good or going to work or spread or natural immunity.
They went after everyone so hard that now it's a lesson in embarrassment and humiliation for them to go, oh meacobola.
Like, okay, I get it.
I was wrong.
I think the people that were a little more neutral about it can definitely process it.
Everyone else is sort of reporting that they're idiots if they do this and they're gullible.
And it also leaves them vulnerable for the next one.
Meaning, if you go, hey, man, I was 100% wrong about all things COVID.
I thought it came from a pangolin and a wet market.
I thought getting triple vax would save the day.
I thought Iver Mectin was the horse paced or whatever.
Like I went all in and I was 100% wrong.
You do that, well, eventually there's going to be another thing that comes along.
And it doesn't have to be a pandemic.
It can just be whatever, climate change.
And then you go, well, you know how wrong you were about everything, COVID.
Perhaps you're wrong about climate change or this next thing or who you voted for.
And they don't want to open that window, that possibility.
Well, that's unfortunate because what you're saying is actually a formula for figuring out how to better navigate the world.
Because if you do say, hey, I was wrong, I really believed all that stuff they were saying.
And now I get it.
And I'm sorry.
And I'm sorry that I called you a plague rat because you didn't get the vaccine.
I'm sorry I thought it was a good idea to mask children and vaccinate children.
I'm sorry.
Maybe then the next time something comes along, you'll say, okay, wait a minute.
What is the public narrative that's being forced down my throat that I'm a bad person if I don't believe?
And let me analyze this and let me see: are there any dissenting opinions that are like from Stanford and MIT, which there certainly was during COVID, and those all got silenced?
Is there anybody else out there that makes a very good point that maybe this is bullshit?
And is there a financial incentive as to why they're pushing this narrative?
So if you go through something where you are totally wrong and you're adamant about enforcing this wrong opinion, and then you have to realize it.
And if you can come to grips with the idea that your ideas are not you, you are just a person and your ideas are just some things that you have that you carry with you, but they are not you.
And they will become you if you get married to them and defend them, even if you know that they're wrong.
Then they'll be like a child and you're hiding a body for them.
And instead, you can say, oh, this is why that idea worked on me.
Now I recognize, you know, it's like if someone cheats on you or if someone like, if you have a business manager that steals money, next guy, you're going to check the fucking books.
You know what I mean?
If you're working with a guy and you think he might be showing up at the job drunk, the next person you hire, you're going to go, you have a drinking problem.
You're going to be a little bit more ready for it.
That's a thing that could be happening here as well.
Like if you just admitted that you were wrong and then just came clean with it, you'd feel better about yourself.
People would feel better about your opinions because they know they can trust you to say when you were wrong.
And you'll probably be way better equipped to analyze the next narrative that's being shoved down your throat and go, hold on, before we jump right in this and blow up all the gas-powered cars, let's look at, before we kill all the cows, let's look at this.
For them, so much of their worth is tied up in this.
You know what I mean?
Like, I don't know, and I don't think you know any guys that really are good at stuff, really mastered something, could be an instrument, could be mixed martial arts, could be Master Carpenter.
They don't walk around with that so insecure, so they don't fight so hard.
Like, I remember when I was a kid, I would argue real hard because I guess I was insecure.
Like, I'm right, you're wrong.
You know, like, remember you're a kid, you get so caught up in stuff, you know, like, oh, who would win in a fight, Godzilla or King Kong?
And you'd start getting like really fired up and stuff.
And then I got older and then I got successful and I learned a trade and I knew some stuff and I had some race cars and did some stuff.
And I kind of went, yeah, okay, I can be wrong because I'm still going to be this person.
And it's like you own the building we're sitting in.
So you can be wrong.
It's your building.
It's still going to be your building.
You know what I mean?
But if it's not your building and you're just sort of temporary and you don't own anything and you don't master anything and nothing has your name on it, well, then you're fighting for that.
Whereas like COVID, being right or being wrong, wasn't really, I wasn't that wrapped up in it.
I had other things that was going on.
So I think we're dealing with a deficit of expertise and these people are fighting hard.
Like for me, a lot of it toggling in between the blue collar world and the sort of ideas world of air conditioning and cubicles and thoughts and ideas and stuff.
And then being on a job site, the job site guys are the most even guys I've ever hung out with.
By the way, COVID, neither here nor there to the workers, to the dudes putting on the tool bags and swinging the hammer.
I've spent a lot of time with these guys.
I would go from the job site, blue-collar, regular dudes, and then I'd go into the white-collar world and it's triple mask and everyone's distancing and dumping Perl on their head.
And I was like, what is so different about these two?
And the ones they're up in their head, they intellectualize everything.
And the other guys are tactile and they have a relationship with danger.
Everything on that job site could cut your hand off.
There's belt sanders and bandsaws and like routers are really dangerous.
They have, you know, carbide bits on them that'll gouge you and fuck you up badly.
And you got to know what you're doing.
Like, and a router is not the same as a high point saw, and that's not the same as a framing gun.
Like you have to sort of know, and there is no such thing as, well, that's dangerous.
Don't use, don't use the power saw.
It's too dangerous.
Like, well, we got to build a house.
Well, it's too dangerous.
We got to speed it up.
Meaning, like, you got to get up on scaffolding or you got to get on a ladder, but you have to do it.
And you have to weigh it.
You know, you have to kind of go, well, it's going to take a long time to put scaffolding all the way around this house.
How about I just put a ladder?
And you go, well, that's not as safe as scaffolding.
Yeah, I know, but we got to do this thing.
And so it's a constant weighing of danger.
Right.
Like pros, cons, what could happen?
Because everything could kill you in that situation, but you have to get the job done.
And so those guys are calibrated.
And so like COVID felt like something to them, but they calibrated the danger and realized, yes, it's a thing, but I also have to go to work and schools need to be open and it doesn't really affect kids.
Let's protect the old people.
Like they had to make those decisions.
And the white collar college crowd cannot calibrate and they don't know what to do with danger.
They don't know how to deal with it.
And they've been off the farm for so long and in the air conditioning that it's gone.
Like you grow up on a farm and that's part of your life.
And that used to be part of everyone's life.
You were just going to a factory, working a stamp or in a press, you know, whatever it is.
It could take your hand off.
And then you're on a farm and it's the same thing.
Equipment, stuff's above.
Stuff can happen.
You're constantly sort of calibrating for danger.
And then you move everyone out of the farm and off the factory and out of the construction site and you put them in an air-conditioned cubicle and you slather them up with Purel and they lose all their calibration.
So when something like COVID comes along, they go, oh, shit, close everything, get a distance, put a mask on.
Even if you're going to swim practice, you've got to wear the mask in the pool.
It's 100% safety Uber Alice because no one was calibrated.
And it was all of the administrators and the teachers and all the academics and all the people that ran college.
They were making all, they were the ones that were doing all the process for this.
They were making all the rules.
It wasn't the blue-collar guys making the rules.
It was all the white-collar college-educated people.
And so all the crazy ideas get supported by other people that think these crazy ideas are rational.
And there's not enough balance.
There's not enough people.
The fact that they did it with, I mean, all those people with children, right?
They must have known this is bad for their child's development.
They must have known the kid didn't need a vaccine.
They must have known that COVID, if you look at the statistics, it's very insignificant for kids.
It's not even like the flu.
That's how it was with my kids.
That's how it was with most of my friends' kids.
It was nothing.
But yet they allowed those motherfuckers to keep them out of school for a year and a half.
They told them to wear masks when it didn't make any sense and when there was no studies whatsoever that masks did any good.
In fact, not only that, but there's some real indicators that masks, like carrying on a dirty fucking mask and breathing into it all day, probably increases the amount of bacteria you're taking in.
Well, first off, I want you to know, I told my son, who was in high school at the time, if you come back from school and tell me that no one told you to put a mask up at least 15 times, I will disown you.
I want that fucking mask around your nutsack like the entire time.
I want it to be a constant correction where you put the mask.
When they're done telling you to put the mask up and they walk away, put it back down again.
Well, not only, but the thing that's crazy is the first time we heard the phrase mask up in between bites, like on an airplane where they'd yell at you to wear the mask the whole time, right?
And then at some point, they'd hand you the hummus box and they'd go, in between bites.
I was like, we all should have gone, okay, this doesn't exist.
Masking up in between bites.
Like I yelled, I was talking to Dr. Drew and I said, mask up in between bites.
That's zero.
That means zero mask.
Right.
I mean, it wouldn't work at all, right?
He goes, no, it's nothing.
And I said, if I ran a highway safety campaign that said belt up in between lights, it would make more sense than mask up in between bites.
Well, I would recommend just keeping the seatbelt on all the time, but masking up in between bites makes zero.
Zero.
And the weird thing is, is like people, the scary part is people weren't skeptical at all.
Like they should have heard mask up in between bites and went, oh, okay, so this is all theater.
This is bullshit.
Like I'm not going along with this.
Or half the people that lectured me on wearing a mask were wearing theirs down around under their nose, you know?
Or the one I liked, my favorite one was when the flight attendant would go, you're going to have to get that mask on.
Because for me, it was a constant.
You got to, you know, I'm a mouth breather.
I'm like, this is driving me nuts.
You know, I'm being like waterboarded with my own saliva here.
And they'd always come.
And half the time, the flight attendant had their mask with the elastic strap twisted 180, which made it create a huge gap on the side.
Like I can see three quarters of an inch of daylight coming in the side of your mask, bitch, and you're giving me a lecture about wearing a mask.
We should have known.
People should have been skeptical.
We should have seen it didn't hurt kids.
Like the whole lie was the kids part.
I was on to them early because I realized, well, somebody pointed out to me later why I was skeptical early, which is there was a pattern that had broken, which is every time they give you a death, like when you're driving and listening to the radio and they go, an 89-year-old man was struck and killed by a cyclist on, you know, and then they'd go, a 61-year-old mother from Laverne, you know,
whatever that thing.
And when I started hearing about COVID deaths, I didn't get an age.
I just got another person died of COVID.
And I was like listening to it, like this was like five days in.
This person died of COVID.
And I was like, how old was that person?
And they never said the age.
They just said died of COVID.
And I was like, but if you died in a motorcycle accident or a heart attack, they gave an age all throughout history.
I was like, I'm not getting ages.
I think these are really old people, but they're not telling us they're really old people because it wouldn't scare us as much.
Because if a 91-year-old dies of anything, you just kind of go, all right, had a good run.
But if you hear about an 11-year-old dying, it's a big deal.
And so I stopped hearing ages and I was like, they're trying to fuck with us now because they don't want to tell us these are elderly people who are dying of COVID.
And so I kind of caught on that kids weren't being effective or being affected, I should say, early with COVID.
And then they focused all on the kids, but the kids were there to scare us.
Because when elderly people die, it's just not a tragedy compared to young people dying.
And so they left the old people off.
They focus real hard on the kids.
They shut the schools.
And then when we start to catch on and go, well, I don't think these kids are dying.
They go, yeah, but they get COVID and they bring it home because they live with Nana and Pappy.
And I'm like, who lives with their grandparents in Los Angeles in 2021?
You know what I mean?
Like it's like Italy, 1930.
You know what I mean?
Like, I don't live with, nobody I know lives with their grandparents, but they were working the kid angle.
This thing is like, I wonder how many people, if something very similar happened tomorrow, if a new COVID that's just as bad as the last COVID, meaning that it's not really that bad.
It's not the bubonic plague.
It's something that's going to really mostly be a major problem for old people and for people that are already immune compromised or have many comorbidities, like most of the people that died.
Right.
But if that came along today, I wonder how quickly people would be willing to accept the rejection of alternative medicines.
Like if people found out, like one of the big ones that was really, I thought, insidious was monoclonal antibodies.
Monoclonal antibodies were really effective.
And because of that, they made them really hard to get.
Like there's a conspiracy there.
I don't want to connect any dots.
I don't know who was involved in it, but I do know that they were making monoclonal antibodies very difficult to get.
And when I asked my doctor, I said, why do you think they're doing that?
He said, to encourage vaccination.
100%.
He said, it has nothing to do with the effectiveness of it.
Listen, I was always really suspicious how everyone became overnight experts and everything.
You know what I mean?
Like, oh, they knew hydroxychloroquine.
They couldn't pronounce ivermectin 10 minutes ago, and now they're experts in it.
And also, I'll tell you when you should be suspicious.
Be suspicious when people aren't sort of agnostic about things.
Like, if you'd said to me, what about ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine?
I'd go, well, I don't know.
I'm not a doctor.
Why don't you talk to your doctor about it?
What are you?
Epidemiologist?
I'm a comedian.
I don't know anything.
Everyone on CNN was an expert, and they all knew that it didn't work.
And I'm like, how do you guys all know this all at the same time?
How does Rolling Stone magazine, how do you losers all know this thing that you'd never heard of before that you couldn't pronounce the day before yesterday?
You now all know it doesn't work based on nothing.
So now I'm suspicious.
Because if CNN was just sort of like, hey, maybe it works.
Maybe it doesn't work.
I don't know.
You should definitely look into it.
But they all knew it didn't work.
And when you know it doesn't work, then you should be suspicious of those people because it's impossible.
Not only was I not dead, I got better really quick and didn't care about that at all.
And I'm not young.
At the time, I was 53 or 4, 54.
It wasn't what they said it was.
And that was what the problem was.
When they found a healthy person who takes care of himself, got over it really quickly with these medications, they had to figure out, they turned my face yellow.
Why would you play so fast and loose with the only thing you really need to own?
Like, it's really all you got.
In terms of, you know, my house could have burned down in Malibu, but I can get a new house, you know, and my Paul Newman race car, I could crash in total, but I can get a new one.
He was more of just not being a very brave person and being confronted and not being very easy.
Also, it was like, I think one of the first times he'd ever been attacked, he got attacked publicly after, and he got attacked publicly even more after that.
And I actually like made a post about it.
Just like, he's a good guy.
He's a part of a system.
You know, I don't think Sanjay's a bad guy at all.
But my perspective was like, do you think you can just lie?
And what?
I can talk.
Like, you can't stop me from telling the truth.
Mortgaging your integrity is the perfect way to describe it.
Cause like, what a stupid thing to do for the whole network.
I wouldn't care if it's the pharmaceutical drug companies or whoever.
If I was the head of that network and someone said, we're going to just lie about someone and we're going to call a universally accepted effective medicine.
We're going to call it horse dewormer.
Something that's in the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines.
And, but it's always, it's what happens to all sort of old guard companies or many.
I mean, it can be media, but it could also just be automotive manufacturers.
Like the big three were so big and so dominant for so long in this country that when Toyota and Dotson started showing up in 1969, they're like, get out of here.
I'm just going to try that little pop gun.
No one wants that crap.
Come on, man.
We make land yachts, you know, and they didn't start changing.
Right.
It took them a long time because they were like, we're Ford, we're Chrysler, we're GM, we're huge.
We do it.
We sell cars to the world and they want our product.
And nobody, I mean, it happens countlessly, like in business.
Like somebody needs to sound the alarm, but no one says anything and they just sail off.
And at some point, their market share drops, you know, below 20% or whatever.
And I'm guessing legacy media is going through that.
They're basically going through what the big three auto manufacturers went through in the early 80s.
Like we need to make a more reliable, smaller car that's more fuel efficient.
Yeah, they were Toyota, Nissan, you know, Dotson, whatever, they were way down the road on that, making those cars before Ford and Chrysler and GM and whatever started to begin to think about that.
Right.
You know, so it's like a, it's like an aircraft carrier.
It takes a long time to turn around.
And these media companies, at least like traditional legacy stuff, are realizing we got to write the ship.
Barry Weiss is now doing the news division at CBS.
So CBS, who's like lying all through 60 minutes and editing and cooking and all that kind of stuff, they found somebody from our sort of media sphere to come in and sort of be a little more middle of the road.
And it's going to be tough because you got a bunch of old guard there who doesn't want to do it.
I mean, it's sort of like the first Trump administration.
Like he goes, I'm going to come in and I'm going to do a whole bunch of shit that I want to do.
And it's like, not with all these old guard people hanging around going, all right, oh, we'll call you president, but behind your back, we're not going to let you do any of this shit.
Well, it's going to take these progressive media companies a little while to flush out all of these college grads that have been there for 10 years that have just been used to having their way.
Well, when someone's doing something like that on purpose, that's evil.
That's an evil person.
And that's a giant chunk of that business.
A giant chunk of that business is purposely misrepresenting people because that's going to make for a more salacious story or that's going to push the narrative that you're trying to push.
And this BBC thing that they did with Trump, I'm sure you watched that.
That's a perfect example of that.
They felt justified in editing something to make it look like he had a completely different sentence.
Well, the funny thing about it is whenever they confront the outgoing head who's on the way out, they always go, yeah, we did this, but we're not biased at all.
And it's like, well, it's first off, it's one or the other, bitch.
And that means we don't need to listen to the BBC anymore, which is the part about mortgaging your reputation, which people, I think I've come to sort of learn that it's not always about accuracy.
I think it's about authenticity, which is to say people may disagree with something that Joe Rogan or Adam Carolla has to say.
And that's fine because it's going to happen.
I mean, that's society.
That's opinions.
That's how it works.
But they have to believe you believe it.
And if we believe you believe it, and I think a lot of your success is people go, he 100% believes what he is saying.
And even if I disagree with 20% of your 100%, I will listen to you because you believe it.
And I think that's the problem.
The problem is, is when you don't believe that person believes what they're saying.
Right.
So you can be inaccurate.
I mean, it's a lot of moving parts, a lot of information, a lot of stuff you never heard of before.
You can be, you know, something like COVID.
I don't know about ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine.
I don't know monoclonal.
I don't know any of this stuff.
So I'm willing to go, I could make a mistake.
I don't know this subject, but I am saying what I think and I believe.
And if you believe that, then we're going to have a relationship.
If you start thinking I'm lying, it's really going to hurt the relationship.
Yeah, I did a gig in like, I don't know, it was the summer.
It was like Catalina.
But yeah, it was the middle of the summer and everyone was wearing beanies and parkas and scarfs and stuff and Rolling Stone.
And that's the problem.
The problem is I used to subscribe to Rolling Stone when I was younger and I liked Rolling Stone and I would read their articles and I would believe Rolling Stone and now I don't believe them anymore.
Right.
And the real danger is, is they may be right about something, but I'm still not going to believe it because it's them.
Well, if I am wrong about something and I find out I'm wrong about something, I'll tell you I was wrong about something and I'll tell you why I thought differently and what I learned.
I don't think you should be married to ideas.
I think they should bounce around inside your head and you should cling on to them if they're rational and they make sense and if they've been challenged.
But if you don't want your ideas ever challenged, then they're not ideas.
You know, there's also, as we go down and talk about this, this sort of posture that you have, that I have in terms of your ideas, where I realize that having like a building background, my process is constantly saying to people, here's my idea.
Here's what I want to do with this deck.
Now tell me why I'm wrong or tell me how to make it better or give me a better idea.
And oftentimes people go, yeah, why don't you just do it this way instead of that one?
And I'll go, oh, that's a good, okay, I'll do it.
And you know, from training and training with people and being in that world, it's constantly going, is there a better way to do this?
And someone goes, you're doing this, but you should be doing that.
And this is a better way.
And you're receptive to it because you want to get better.
You want to get faster.
You want, you know, I was always like, I'm going to live in this house.
So I'll take any idea anyone has that makes it better because I own it.
You know what I mean?
And so your posture is always, tell me what I'm doing wrong.
Tell me why I'm wrong.
Prove me wrong.
Tell me a way to do it better.
Even in comedy, sometimes people go, you know, you could do it this way, or you could kind of flip it and start it with this premise and then make this the button.
And you go, oh yeah, thanks.
It's a better way to deliver it.
So you're in a dry sponge kind of receptive mode all the time.
But if all you had was your ideas and you had no other expertise or anything you could call your own, then those ideas you would be very protective of.
And they're constantly like circling the wagons, protecting their ideas.
Whereas you're saying, give me a better idea and tell me why I'm wrong so I can flourish.
When you learn jiu-jitsu, one thing that you learn is if you are doing something incorrect that leaves you vulnerable, you're going to get caught because other people are going to know that.
And so someone has to show you, hey, when you're doing that, you're reaching with this arm.
When you reach with this arm, the guy's going to get head and arm on you.
And you're like, okay, how should I do this?
Keep your arm tucked to your chest and use the proper technique.
If you don't, if you don't listen, if you say, this is the way I do it, I'm going to try to do it.
You're just going to keep getting caught over and over again and you're not going to advance.
So everybody understands that there's a reality to positions and technique.
There's a reality.
And then sometimes new realities get exposed.
So sometimes people have been taking the back, getting back mount a very specific way.
But then someone comes up with some new move that gets you in a leg lock when you go to take mount.
And you're like, oh, fuck.
Okay.
Well, now you can't go that way anymore.
And then we have to break it down.
And then we all like try different things.
And so that thing of not being married to any ideas is a giant part of the philosophy of jiu-jitsu because all of a sudden there's heel hooks.
Oh, I didn't think of that.
You can't stand that way because then the guy can get you in the heel hook.
But people who have dogs that are outside dogs who come in are exposed to more stuff and they get sick much less than just indoor dog people.
And so their immune system is not working out.
Like your immune system needs to work out like you need to work out.
Like it needs something to do.
And you taking away all the gravity gives it no workout.
It's like being in the space shuttle and just floating around.
You lose your muscle mass and you lose bone density.
And I think your ideas are the same way.
Like with microaggressions and stuff like that, you need some calluses.
You need a little something built up, you know what I mean?
Like a little intestinal fortitude, a little keep walking, a little just mind your P's and Q's.
You know, you need a little that.
And if you're so vulnerable all the time, like literally your gut and your biome and your bacteria need a workout, but your brain needs a little workout, like a little controversy, a little pushback, a little somebody disagreeing with you.
And if it's all bubble wrap and Purel and microaggressions, you have no system.
What I was going to say is, so I use special soap.
So I use a soap called defense soap.
And defense soap is like designed for grapplers.
And what it does is it kills bad bacteria, but it promotes healthy skin flora.
It's all like eucalyptus oil and healthy stuff for it.
Smells good, but it's good for your skin health.
So it doesn't torch your skin.
So, one of the dumbest things that I know grapplers have done, they get some sort of an infection, and then what they do is they wash themselves with antibiotic soap.
Well, I mean, if you think about how many people have peanut allergies now versus what we grew up with, because I've never heard of anyone being allergic to peanut butter when I was a kid.
Remember, they used to hand out peanuts in airplanes and they stopped doing it because people got so bad with peanut allergies that the peanut dust was dangerous.
And it's very difficult to break out unless you find a thing that you do, maybe a sport where you travel and go to different places and meet different people, something.
It has to be something.
You get involved in something where you tap into a community of people that think differently.
You start a band, you know, whatever it is.
If you find a thing where there's a bunch of sort of forward-minded people that are, you know, optimistic and have a good work ethic that's contagious.
But if you're just stuck in your neighborhood with the same people and the same family members that have, that are real negative, it's a giant problem because they program you, whether you realize it or not.
As much as you want to pretend you're wholly and entirely independent, no one is.
Everyone is at least partially dependent upon the people they surround themselves with and the energy of the people they surround themselves with.
Yeah, you're so like, sometimes people go, why'd you get into comedy?
And I'm like, I wanted some air conditioning, man.
Really?
I go, yeah, it was miserable.
Like, it was sucked.
I drove a truck.
It didn't have air conditioning.
I lived in a crappy apartment.
It didn't have air conditioning.
I went to a job site and there was no air.
And I was in the San Fernando Valley.
Like, boiling, you know?
So I did it because I wanted air conditioning, but I had to be miserable.
Like, I was, I, I, I had discomfort.
I was not comfortable.
I didn't have air and I wanted air.
And so I knew to get air, I had to get paid.
And so I was, I was like motivated to do stuff.
And when you're kind of comfortable, you're not really that motivated.
And I realized, like, when you were young, when I was young, like we were, like, I was probably confused, but I was hungry.
I was like, I want to get something done.
Like, I want to do something.
I want to do something.
And I would talk to people, like, young dudes, you know, who worked for me or whatever.
And I wasn't trying to insult them, but I was kind of curious.
I'd be like, you're a 30-year-old dude and you're just not getting it done.
Like, you're, I wouldn't say it to him, but I'd be like, what are you into?
You know, and I realized there was no fire in the belly.
You know what I mean?
Like, when you came up when you were younger, like when I met Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy was like 26 when I met him.
He was like, he was on it.
He had a motor.
Like he wanted to do something.
And I was like, good, I want to do something too.
We'll do it together.
You know, there's like a fire.
And I start talking to all these young dudes and I'm like, what's up?
You know, they're like, man.
And I go, what's the deal?
So you got a car and it's got air conditioning and it runs and you're not really a car guy.
Like I'm a car guy.
But when you're poor and you're a car guy, it's super frustrating, right?
Because you want something cool.
Like I wanted a cool car, but I had to drive a truck with a lumber rack and a bed box on it because I'm a carpenter and I can't have a sports car because you can't put plywood in a sports cart, you know?
So I would talk to these young guys and I'd go, you a car guy?
And they go, nah, I don't really like, I go, what do you like?
I have video games, edibles.
I like pot video games and watching stuff on Netflix.
And I go, you got a big TV?
They go, yeah, I got a 70-inch TV.
I got a Mini Cooper automatic with air and I like to eat pot, you know, and I'd be like, you have air conditioning?
Don't you think that some people are just internally motivated anyway because they become curious about something and they really want to get good at it?
One of the most interesting things, and I don't know why, it just stuck with me from years ago, but I was watching one of those like 2020 shows or 48 hours or something like that.
And they were showing guys who trained dogs, like dogs who sniffed out gunpowder at the airport or contraband or whatever, you know?
And I was looking at this thing and I was thinking to myself, I was like, every time there's a dog that does something, sniffs out drugs or explosives or whatever, they're all different breeds of dogs.
And I was like, why are they all different breeds of dogs?
Like, why isn't there like one dog that does all super good at gunpowder and cocaine and whatever?
And in the show, they go, well, we just go down to the pound.
We get any dog and then we can train them.
And the guy goes, well, how do you know what dog to get?
And they go, the enthusiastic dog.
Like you go to the pound, some dog's just sleeping.
You walk in, it doesn't lift its head.
The other dog's jumping up and down, doing backflips.
And they go, we'll get that dog because that dog's enthusiastic.
Now, he doesn't know anything about gunpowder or cocaine, but he's got a motor and we're going to teach him.
And I started thinking, oh, I know a lot of people that are like tired pound dogs.
Well, part of the motor is your physical body, and that's something that a lot of like self-professed intellectuals like to ignore.
The amount of energy that you have to think about things is dependent upon the amount of energy your whole system has.
A giant part of your system is your body, and it's not just a vanity thing, it's a function of it.
It, if it works better, you think better, everything works.
I I see it on a day-to-day basis.
If I have a day where I do not work out my brain, I don't think as quickly, it doesn't work as well, i'm more irritable.
Um uh, maybe I don't react the same way that I would if I was more calm and relaxed after a workout.
There's a lot of things going on where it balances out your mind and your ability to think.
It alleviates anxiety, lets you think more clearly, and one of the things that writers like to say.
It's one of the and I was actually just talking to someone about this yesterday.
A comic does this, after you write, to go for a walk.
Go for a walk and get your blood pumping.
And when you go for a walk, sometimes when you're thinking about those ideas, new ideas will just pop into your head, because it's like the seeds are already planted.
Now go for a walk, you're watering them, like it's.
The whole system works together and if you want to have energy, if you want to have a motor well, the the best way to have a motor is to have a physical body that works well.
If your physical body doesn't work well, you're gonna.
You're tired all the time and you could say it's, oh, i'm getting older, i'm getting this like a lot of it is just ignoring your physical body for too long and it atrophies, just like your body.
Everything needs gravity.
Well, you need fucking gravity.
You need weights.
You need to pick things up and move them around, because if you don't, you can't pick things up and move them around because your body thinks you never have to do that.
I agree, and I also would add, you need curiosity.
Yes, you're a curious person and all the curious people I know are doing just fine, and then there's people I know they're just not curious and that's a weird gift, I guess it's.
I I don't know how to make someone curious I, I think as a comedian, you're it's, you're sort of curious, you know, and I could remember, even when I was young, i'd go, what's the difference between?
You know why they call it a sofa or a couch?
What's the difference between a sofa and a couch?
Or curtains and drapes?
Is there a difference?
Or we just have a different?
And every one of my friends would go, I don't know, shut up, who cares?
You know what I mean.
I realized they weren't curious about stuff.
Like I was constantly being curious and, by the way, your curiosity is annoying to uncurious people, which happens a lot.
Oh yeah, and but if you're curious, it's almost it's like what you're saying about your physicality, like it'll, it'll feed you.
I'm starting to think of nature more than nurture.
Like I used to be more nurture than nature.
I have twins and I have boy-girl twins and they're totally different.
And one of them is that pound dog jumping up and down and the other's just sort of chillax, you know.
And I didn't make them one way or the other.
They got raised.
They got fed the same thing.
They went to the same schools.
They breathed the same air.
You know what I mean?
Like they just sort of were who they are.
And I think you can take something like a motor that's like a little too much and guide it and sort of nurture it and figure out an outlet for it, you know, like a sport or something.
And there's things you can do, but like my sister is totally different than I am.
And I didn't get this way or that way.
My parents didn't instill anything in me.
I didn't guide me.
I didn't have conversations with them about things.
And I know we do it because we're sort of narcissistic and we have to claim some dominion over things.
Like it's kind of religion.
You know what I mean?
Like where we had to create it to go, well, grandpa's in a better place now and he's been reunited with his old golden retriever who died eight years earlier.
And we're just kind of constructing a thing because we need some control.
Like we need to feel like not having control is really threatening to a lot of people.
I don't have that problem.
Like I don't mind not having control.
I don't, I realized, I realize when I'm racing a car and the car goes out of control, which has happened a few times, I sort of just relax.
I don't try to grab and overcorrect and because you'll get in more trouble.
Like there's a version of this for sports.
There's a version for life.
There's a version for relationships.
There's a version for driving race cars.
But to sort of relax, like if you can, you can see film of me spinning a 935 backwards in a race in the middle of the race and you can see me.
I'm not doing anything.
Like I will relax in that environment.
But people need control.
I mean, sort of religious control or like, here's the way I control my kid.
I get him violin lessons and then I take him to the French tutor and then I take him to this camp and space camp and that camp, you know, and they're trying to do something.
You have to just kind of admit they kind of are who they are.
You can't really control it.
You can fuck them up.
You can molest them and get them, you know, hooked on Vicoden or something when they're 14.
Basically, you're there to be there and not fuck them up and to offer things and try to go.
You know, if you see your kid banging on pots and pans all day, you go, somebody needs a drum kit because I think this is what I think this is what your thing is.
You know what I mean?
And somebody probably should have got a hold of me and went, seems like comedy may be something you'd like, not swinging a hammer.
Well, nobody could ever really give you that advice, honestly, because the problem is most people that aren't involved in it don't even know where to start, how you would do it, how difficult it would be, how long the process is, what is it like to actually put together an activity?
Maybe it's a family that doesn't encourage creativity.
Maybe the dad's in finance.
Maybe the mom is, you know, who knows?
But maybe they're just not into risk at all and they just want you to go to school and get a degree and you're just annoying and then they go, maybe we should take him to a doctor.
I think as a parent, you're supposed to observe and you're supposed to look and the kid will guide you.
They'll have a propensity.
They'll bang on pots and pans.
They'll like sports or whatever it is.
And then your job is to sort of go that way and help facilitate that.
And conversely, like I grew up, I started playing Pop Warner football when I was seven.
Like I played tackle football when I was seven and I played my whole life or my whole, you know, until I was 19 or something.
And I always was like, every good lesson I ever got was on that football field, man.
Like everything I learned, all my, whatever success I have, I owe it to that because I got intestinal fortitude.
I learned a lot of tough lessons and now I use that.
And so like I, I was like, if my son is going to play football because he's going to learn all those valuable lessons I've learned.
My son didn't play any football, didn't really like it, and it wasn't his thing.
And I didn't force him into it at all.
I was just like, all the stuff that I was into, football, cars, wrenching on cars, race cars, you know, that kind of stuff, swinging a hammer, building architecture.
My son's not down with any of it.
And I'm like, fine, but you've got to find your own thing.
But I'm not going to try to stuff you into this thing that's going to make you resent me later.
Well, you know, the thing that's kind of cool about where you landed is it's organic in the sense that like I ran into someone who I went to high school with and I like asked him what he's doing.
And he's doing fine.
He goes, I do outdoor signage.
I do big vinyl signs.
Like when the Oscars come to town, we print the signs that hang the whatever.
And it's his business.
It's his dad's business.
It's their family business.
And I thought, nobody, when they're 15, says, I'm going to make vinyl signage.
They want to be an astronaut or baseball player or comedian or whatever.
But you're doing it.
But is this really where you belong?
Or is it just because your dad did it and it's lucrative and whatever?
And the thing that I'm happy about, at least as it pertains to stand-up or comedy or whatever, cars or whatever I'm into, it's all organic.
There's no dad was a comedian or dad raced cars or dad had.
So you know you're where you should be because you didn't get sort of artificially coaxed or pushed into something where it's just kind of like, yeah, I'm a doctor because my dad is a doctor or a lawyer, like whatever that thing is.
Like you can own it 100%.
And I think it's fine if your dad's a lawyer and you become a lawyer and you take over his practice one day.
Like, that's good.
That's successful.
You're paying taxes.
Good.
But I don't know, can you ever 100% really own it?
And it also is freeing because like the aforementioned CNN, Sanjay Gupta, whatever, you're in an apparatus.
And it's an apparatus where I don't think people are actually explicitly told lie.
You know, here's what we're saying.
But it's sort of like if you worked at a big company and the president was vegan and you started showing up with a ham sandwich for lunch and someone's like, I don't think you should eat that in front of Gary.
And you went, well, he's vegan.
Yeah, okay.
Well, he doesn't appreciate.
You'd go, oh, okay.
And you would start getting the idea that this wasn't a great plan.
You know what I mean?
And so would everyone who worked at that place, right?
And then eventually you'd go, what's for lunch?
And they'd go, the veggie lover sub.
And you'd go, well, what about the roast beef?
And someone goes, listen, man, I'm not telling you you can't eat it.
I'm saying it's probably a good idea if you'd like to grow with this company to just eat the fucking veggie sub, would you?
Especially if Gary comes down here.
And so it's not like anyone, it's not like the boss showed up and went, you can't eat chicken anymore.
It's understood what's going on around there.
And if you're working for CNN and you just walk in and you go, hey, listen, I don't agree with Trump about everything, but I think he's right about this Ivermectin thing.
People start looking at you sideways and you'd get the idea that maybe you weren't long for that job.
And that's what you got to deal with in any environment, you know?
And the thing that's nice about creating your own environment is back to being organic.
It's what you believe.
Yeah.
I mean, it may not be 100% accurate.
It may not be right all the time, but it is authentic.
I think we're so obsessed with not being cast out.
You know, being cast out is like a major human thing, you know, and I've realized like I remember, I always bring it up on my podcast, but I don't know why, but I was in Maui and with the Brady family.
I was in Maui, you know, it was 10 years ago.
And I was sitting at a table having brunch with like a bunch of nice people we traveled to Maui with, you know, the couples and the kids and go to the resort and it's the dads and the moms and there's like 10 adults and everyone brings their kids and all that.
And we're sitting having brunch and we're like enjoying ourselves.
And somehow someone fired up a leaf blower in the back, you know, some gardener off to the side.
And it's like, ah, goddamn leaf blower.
Can't enjoy our conversations.
It's too loud or whatever.
And I said to the table, I go, you know, leafblowers are illegal in Los Angeles.
They basically criminalized leafblowers in like 96 or 97 or something, but it's not enforced at all.
And everyone's like, they're illegal?
And I'm like, yeah, the gas-powered ones are illegal.
And these guys up and down my street all day with these things.
I go, yeah.
They go, why don't they enforce them?
I go, well, because it's all Mexicans who make their living with the leaf blower.
And the city council doesn't like the optics of coming down on the poor Mexican gardeners who use their leafblower.
So it's really illegal, but the Mexicans use it and they turn the other way.
They look the other way because they don't like the option.
And everyone looked at me and went like, that sounds kind of racist or something.
I was like, I go, no, it's just what happened.
And they're like, I don't agree.
You're saying Mexicans shouldn't be whatever.
And the whole table like turned on me.
And I realized, wait a minute, none of you assholes know anything about this subject.
I know because I read an article on it.
There was literally like the million man Mexican march.
They went down to City Hall.
They brought their leafblowers.
And the Lily White City Council was like, we don't like the optics of busting poor, hardworking Mexican gardeners.
I was telling the table about, I wish he was with me and Maui could have defended me.
But I was sitting there and I realized like the whole table was turning on me because they were like kind of white liberal folks.
They're my friends.
And they were turning on me and I realized, I go, listen, maybe you don't like it.
Maybe it sounds racist.
I don't know what you think.
I'm just telling you leaf blowers are illegal, but they're used all day, every day, because the city won't enforce the law because they don't like the optics of it.
And everyone's like having problems with me.
And then I realized I ruined brunch.
I ruined brunch, but I was like, I'm not, listen, assholes, I'm not backing down.
Just I'm not apologizing.
I know all this stuff.
What do you want me to say?
Sorry you don't like it.
But what I realized is half the people at the table were just going along with the other half.
They didn't know anything.
They didn't know anything about leaf blowers or laws or city council.
They just realized that I was the one being thrown out of the tribe and they wanted to stay in the tribe.
So everyone took a subject they didn't know shit about and turned on the guy who knew something about it and said he was bad and should go out to the cornfield because they were all, and this is socially, it's like no one was going to lose their job.
They were just eating brunch, but it all kicked in.
And I could see like the wives who had no thoughts about leaf blowers, like going, yeah, man, I don't agree.
And the chairs are like scooching away from me and stuff.
And I thought, oh, I'm being thrown out of the tribe.
And that's when I realized that was just about leafblowers.
And those are my friends.
Now we go to COVID and it's a real deal now, that feeling of not wanting to be excommunicated from the tribe.
And it's so easy to get everyone to go along with everything because we have that innate baked in human quality of not wanting to be ostracized and pushed out of the tribe.
And I also started to realize that you're good at what you do.
And so you can say and do what you want.
Most people are mediocre at what they do and they can't afford to be unpopular.
And this is something I sort of, I was talking to Greg Gutfeld about it some years ago.
I was just doing a podcast with him and I was interviewing him and it started to kind of dawn on me that like when you're really good and you could be a really good carpenter.
Like if you're a really master carpenter, you're never out of work.
No one cares a shit what your thoughts are about politics or COVID.
You walk around with a MAGA hat on.
It doesn't matter.
We need you.
Like you're good.
You're skilled.
And when you're really good at comedy or you're good at whatever, you cannot be thrown out.
You can't be squashed.
You can't be silent, but you got to be good.
If you're sort of in the middle and most people are in the middle, it's a little bit of a popularity contest.
Like you got to, you better eat vegan because you better say the right things.
Well, it's the problem is, is like if you think you're good and you're not good, you get smacked down.
Like you get into trouble, right?
So if you're not that good and you go, screw this, I'm not working for CNN anymore.
I'm going to go do my own podcast and you're not that good, then you're in trouble, right?
And if you go, I'm going to blow this taco stand and get out of this business.
I'm going to do something.
I'm going to open a restaurant, but you're not that good, you'll get into trouble.
And most people are sort of living in the middle and kind of fearful.
But if you're good and you kind of own it and you're calibrated and you know you're good, then you can kind of say what you want and you can kind of do what you want, but you have to be good.
And like all the people that were sort of in mainstream media that like broke out and started doing their own thing were good.
I mean, they thought they were good and they thought they were good enough.
It's also that thing that you were talking about, the dinner table, where all those other people who didn't know anything about it were signaling to the tribe that they were, you know, that they didn't want to get cast out.
And it's also people, people in dignity, like dignity and character, like character used to be something we talked about.
We don't really talk about character anymore.
And it's also people like their resting state of a lot of people is weak and kind of like a little disappointing.
And it's, it's, it's like, I think guys that are have like high character people and also stoic type people are kind of really always disappointed by people.
Like you're probably a pretty stoic guy and you see how people act and you go, oh, like, like it's sad.
You know what I mean?
Like, like, yeah.
And it's sort of, I don't know why, but it reminded me, but when I lived in Santa Monica million years ago, somebody got their purse stolen out on the street at night.
I was this poor guy living in a rent control apartment, swinging a hammer, you know, driving a Zuzu trooper.
And I was coming home at night.
It was like nine o'clock at night.
I was just with groceries.
And I walked up to my apartment and I heard a woman screaming out in the street.
And most people don't really have any moments like that in their life where they can go, oh, remember that time that guy had the purse and he ran down the street and we tackled him?
Well, it definitely is, but it's also a symptom of a lack of being tested.
You know, the people, all the people that I know that, like, I always say this about MMA fighters, they're like the nicest people you're ever going to run into because they don't have to test themselves with you.
No, there's something about the boxer and the fighter and those guys that are like so secure in their version or vision of themselves that they're never overcompensating with a bunch of other horse shit.
And I sort of always like those guys and I've always found it to be that way, like being in boxing gyms and stuff.
Like the movie version of the boxing gym is, hey, tough guy, you know, whatever.
The rallies is people are like, I could remember like back in the day, like the bell, you know, because you're on a bell.
You know, the whole gym was on a bell, right?
Like three minutes and then one minute off or whatever.
Like sometimes you'd go walking up to a heavy bag because you didn't think the guy was on it.
And then some huge dude would come up and go, oh, I'm sorry, I was working on that bag.
And I go, oh, okay.
And he'd go, sorry, you can get in.
And like, it wasn't like, hey, bro, you know, there wasn't any of that.
It was always really, they always seemed like secure and kind of calm.
I mean, it was sort of like a big dog versus a yappy little dog.
You know what I mean?
The big dog sort of knows.
And I appreciate it.
And I like that.
And I definitely like those guys.
And I see why you like those kind of guys because they're just more attractive.
Like they're just better.
And I was going to tell you that, you know, when people like, there's so many weird, soft sort of dudes like transitioning and all that shit.
And then there's these sort of carnivore meat lovers, MMA guys going on.
And I was, someone, it was Dr. Drew.
Dr. Drew always says to me, where are we going?
What's going on?
Where are we heading as a society?
When are we going to fix this, essentially?
And I just said, safe spaces and octagons.
He's like, what do you mean?
I go, the fucking safe space people are going to go further that way.
And then there's a group of people that are moving to Florida and moving to Texas, and they're going the other direction.
Like in LA, when they started pushing electric cars, I started seeing tons of ram-doole pickup trucks popping up.
Like every for every one person you push into an electric car or Prius, another dude buys a ram and puts a gun rack on it.
Like that's what we're doing.
And I don't know how it's going to end, but I can tell you, we're just going safe spaces and octagons.
It's going to be move out to Texas and practice MMA with Joe Rogan, or it's going to be move to Seattle and get your dick cut off.
And it's certainly a symptom of going one way or the other.
But I always wonder, is it the nature of the nurture thing?
Like, is there something wrong with not just society, but also the environment that we are creating more biological organisms that are susceptible to weakness?
You know, like not just physical weakness, but emotional and psychological weakness.
Like there's a thing that's going on that's on top of what's going on as far as culture and society.
There's all of that, but there's also why do you need to be able to fight anymore?
You don't need it.
You know what I mean?
Like, we don't live.
Why do you need to be able to lift heavy things?
You know what I mean?
Like, hey, man, if you're a coal miner or you work on a farm and there's bales of hay and you got to check, you can't have a wimpy guy throwing bales of hay up under the loft, you know, but everything is computerized and air conditioned and you're in your cubicle.
Like, what do we need you for?
You know, like, what's the necessity?
Like, why wouldn't we get softer and weaker?
We're not bailing hay and throwing it up to the barn anymore.
We're not mending the fences.
Nobody's having to, you know, wrangle the steers.
We don't have to make cabins.
You don't have to chop a tree down and make a cabin anymore.
You go to IKEA and there's a cabin there you can buy, you know, made in China.
And the only reason why it's attractive, if you don't need it, is like a biological reproduction attractiveness, right?
The hips of a girl, the waist, the beautiful symmetry of the face, all that stuff is just biological reinforced to get you to breed with good genetic people.
But if all that's out the window and all breeding is done through some sort of a computer or something along those lines.
And I think doing things that are hard to do are good.
And I think doing things that scare you are good.
And I've had a bunch of situations in my life where people, like people would say to me all the time, they'd go, what made you decide to do dancing with the stars?
And I go, I didn't decide to do it.
I remember where I was.
And my agent called and he said, they want you to do dancing with the stars.
And as soon as he said that, I felt that weird fear.
Like, remember when you're in junior high and they're like, Johnny Finnegan wants to meet you by the tunnel after school.
And you're like, you had that moment.
Remember that weird fear moment?
And they said, do dancing with the stars.
And I went, I felt that weird junior high.
He's going to fight you after school.
Like the weird feeling of fear of making a fool of myself, you know, and I felt it.
And I could have went, oh, that's lame, or I wouldn't embarrass myself on that show.
But I felt fear.
And as soon as I felt fear, I was like, I'll do it.
Because I realized that everything would be a lie.
Like I could go, that's stupid or that's lame or I don't want to do that.
But that wouldn't be the reason.
The reason is, is I was scared.
I felt scared.
I can't dance.
I'm going to humiliate myself.
And you can get like most of the stuff I've done that has been good.
I did a professional Trans Am car race once and I was just like, someone said, you want to do it?
And I was like, I'll do it.
But it was only because I was scared.
Like, I was like, what?
I felt this moment.
I just went, fuck it, I'll do it.
And too many people do way too much.
Like, I don't know, I got to talk to a bunch of people about it, or that's not for me, or why should I?
Like my whole time I was a carpenter, I remember guys pulling up in new trucks and I'm driving a piece of shit beater and they're like, Adam, why don't you go down to Galpin Ford and get yourself a new truck?
And I'm like, because then I'd have payments and then I'd have insurance and then I couldn't go to the groundlings at night and I'd have to take care of that and I couldn't work on this.
And I felt the same way with kids and the same way with everything.
Like I got to get this going before I get weighed down with monthly payments and mortgages and mouths to feed.