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May 25, 2018 - Louder with Crowder
01:25:52
#336 AMERICA BUILT ON SLAVERY DEBUNKED! Ralph Macchio and HodgeTwins | Louder With Crowder
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Hey there, YouTube.
It's Rare.
I speak with you before the live show.
We have our cold open coming up, Silence of the Mug Club.
Just wanted to let you know that YouTube has announced they will now be curating your subscription feed.
So, it's not going to be chronological.
This is a major change.
Obviously means a lot for Loud Earth Crowder.
So, listen, if you want the show to keep going, it's more important than ever that you join at loudearthcrowder.com slash mugclub to see the daily show.
Or, if not, if you can't afford that and watch the daily show, just bookmark the page and check it every day.
We do videos every day.
It's the one way YouTube can't keep us from communicating with you.
Enjoy the show.
Louder with Crowder Studios.
protected exclusively by Walther.
Hey, I can smell the bug! I'm gonna get you!
Hey, I can smell the bug! Hey, I can smell the bug!
Hey, I can smell the bug!
Morning, Mr. Shapiro.
My name is Not-Gay Jared.
May I speak with you?
You're one of them.
Crowded, aren't you?
I'm still working in a studio, yes.
Still?
Still not gay?
Well, you see, I... I...
Okay, now tell me.
Kimmel, what did he say to you?
Kimmel in the next cell?
He hissed at you.
What did he say?
He said, I can smell your mug.
I see.
I myself cannot.
You drink folders?
Sometimes at Maxwell House?
But not today.
Did you do all those drawings?
Mr. Shapiro?
These are my beloved tumblers.
I've seen Holding Leftist Tears.
All that detail just from memory, sir?
The simple fact is, memory is what I have.
I'm not gay here.
Instead of a view.
Perhaps you'd like to lend us your view on this Mug Club registration form, sir?
No, no, no.
The fact is, you were doing fine.
You had been courteous, receptive to courtesy.
I'm not gay.
And now with this ham-handed segue to the Mug Club registration form.
The fact is, Simply won't do.
It's much better than your Tumblr.
You're so ambitious, aren't you?
You know, you look like to me with your jogger pants and your hipster glasses.
You look like a f**k. You look like a well-trained, late-night-producing f**k. With a little following.
You're a smart guy, Shapiro.
But are you smart enough to point that high-powered perception at your asbestos-laden Tumblr?
What about it?
Why don't you really look at it and write down what you see?
Maybe you're afraid to.
Pierce Morgan.
Once Freddie tapped me, I had his liver with some latkes and a nice man of shevitz.
Like the wine?
Yeah.
Why?
That's unnecessarily Jewish.
That's just your lady writing.
I'm not going to be able to do that.
I'm not going to be able to do that.
That's called the Kevin Spacey at the Boy Scouts ball.
Or the Kevin Spacey at the Boy Scouts ball.
That's called the Kevin Spacey at the Boy Scouts ball.
That's called the Kevin Spacey at the Boy Scouts ball.
At the Boy Scouts ball.
Or Fleet Week, really, as long as they're young enough.
Listen, we have a huge show we have to get into.
We have Ralph Macchio on the show.
Yes!
Boom!
Then we have Martin Kove, Kreese, Sensei Kreese on the show.
Oh!
And then also the Hodgetwins.
And the Hodgetwins.
Hope you have your censor button ready.
It is... So you have a lot of work to do in post.
And we're going to be talking about the NFL, their latest policy regarding kneeling, how President Trump weighed in on it.
We'll be talking about North Korea.
Also, we'll be talking about the myth that the United States was built off of the backs of slaves.
Hint, spoiler alert, it's not exactly true.
So we have a lot of news to get to today.
And my question, I guess, well, first off...
I guess let me ask the question before I introduce him.
The question's more important than who's producing.
Do you like seeing President Trump tossing in his lot here with the NFL?
Do you think it's time that a president chime in on cultural issues, or do you think it—some people think that it takes away from issues like North Korea, which could involve our impending doom?
If they had capabilities.
What do you think?
Do you like it when they put their oar in a president?
Do you think he should be more presidential?
Or do you think, hey, alright, it's time.
I'm curious.
I've seen opinions on both sides from both Trump supporters and people who cannot stand Trump.
Produced and going to be in video studio as always is Jared, who is not gay.
Follow him on Twitter at notgayjared.
Meet us, crowd over at the comments, chat, thoughts, your photoshops.
I fulfill my legal obligations.
Draw your own conclusions. Are we good?
I can smell your mouth.
Oh, careful now.
That might be misinterpreted.
At G. Morgan Jr., how are you, sir?
I'm doing well.
I watched Karate Kid last night.
Did you?
Just to get ready for this.
Wow, you finally prepared.
Well, yeah, on accident.
I had no idea.
No, I'm kidding.
How much wine were you consuming during Karate Kid?
Most of this bottle.
Duckhorn, Three Palms, Merlot.
Duckhorn, Three Palms, Merlot?
Who comes up with these names?
Why is it so long?
There's three palm trees.
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.
He's soused too.
Sven Computer, are you ready?
I'm ready with the overlays.
Beep beep.
I blocked Gerald on Twitter because he's an alcoholic.
Naturally.
I blocked Sanka Edward, beep beep, because I'm still salty that he curbstomped me.
Yeah, that's true.
I blocked Jared because he likes milk and he shouldn't drink it.
And I blocked you because you don't let me talk.
I didn't even know he could block anyone.
I thought he was off Twitter.
Really?
You're not allowed to block now.
I'm not allowed to block.
That's going to be a gif.
So news of the day.
Donald Trump.
First, we have to get to this.
He's pulled out of the North Korea summit.
So CNN has this.
This is what he said in his letter to Kim Jong-un.
Let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit will not take place.
OK, frankly, you talk about nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive.
This is a quote.
Ours is so massive, so powerful, that I pray to God they will never have to be used.
Figures crossed, you filthy son of a b****.
You oriental son of a b****.
And I said, I don't care.
Oriental son of a b****.
North Koreans count, yeah.
Go for it.
So this has been a rough, fast-paced few weeks on the deal.
And courtesy of Obama, we actually have leaked tapped audio from their latest phone call.
Yeah, hey, Donald!
You see, I did found my nuclear facility for you!
Yeah, but I hear you've been talking a lot of trash, okay?
I don't know, Donald!
You listen to the wrong people!
No, no, no.
See, frankly, it seems like we're going back and forth.
All the time.
And it seems like such a waste of time.
And if that's what it's all about.
Then I pull it out.
Pull it out.
Who wants to deal with the zipper head?
How about I just nuke your whole country?
He is not one for diplomacy.
He has pulled out of more deals than Morgan Freeman has nieces.
Come on now, that is terrible.
It's his own fault.
And far too accurate.
And I also don't have a bit of faith that Kim Jong really got rid of his nukes.
It would be like Trump walking into a little kid's room saying, did you clean it up?
Yeah, clean it up.
What's on your blanket right there, Kim Jong?
Gimme, gimme.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Is that a dead dog?
Yeah, and nukes.
And nukes.
Don't look!
Did you see Nancy Pelosi saying this was a big win for Kim Jong-un because he was legitimized?
You're the architects of the Iran deal!
Yes!
How do you get to say this?
Because it was going to meet with them?
The words come out of your mouth.
Listen to them, not kill yourself.
Listen to them?
Maybe kill yourself on two more urgent stories Stormy Daniels was now awarded the key to the city. That's
about time of wait for it West Hollywood Yeah from USA Today
Officials of the city said in a release that they chose to recognize Daniels because in these politically tumultuous
times She's proven herself quote to be a profiling courage by
speaking truth to power even under threats for safety and under extreme intimidation
So they were really big fans though half the audience actually left when they realized stormy was in fact a woman
So they just thought oh We thought she just did it
We thought she had a really good stylist.
Unfortunately, the event was actually cut short when she choked on the city key.
So that was something that... Old habits die hard.
So did Stormy Daniels.
Yeah, she did.
She was not as skilled in the art of key love.
How many people have keys to West Hollywood these days, by the way?
Everyone has a key.
Pretty much the entire cast of Rent, I think.
Just like Stormy's chastity belt.
Everyone has a key.
Everyone has a key.
Why are we glorifying a porn star?
I don't think there is a chastity belt.
How brave is she?
She's very brave.
I don't know.
She's brave.
Incredibly.
You have to be somewhat brave to sleep with that guy.
Yeah, exactly.
She's definitely brave.
I don't know.
So now that Obama is speaking of brave, brave and beautiful, they've now signed a deal with Netflix and formed the company Higher Ground Productions, in case you were under the ill-informed illusion that they were self-important.
NPR.
Netflix said in a statement that the Obamas would produce, quote, a diverse mix of content including docu-series, documentaries, and features.
So their main show is launching on Netflix.
Also titled, ironically, Orange is the New Black.
They didn't really need to change a whole... They already had the template.
And apparently, right, they might actually, the Obamas might wade into doing fiction, right, Sven Computer?
Yeah, this is from inverse.com.
They said, fiction is probably an option, you know.
Fiction, like your legacy.
Oh, geez.
For some reason it sounds much more harsh coming from a German.
It does.
Ironically, they're probably more qualified for television than the White House.
Yeah.
I mean, this is the same guy who said no to Netanyahu to meet with Glozell Green, right?
Yes.
Same guy?
We already gave him one.
I forgot that.
I forgot that.
That's one of our favorite memes we ever did was the Glozell Greenfield.
People don't remember it.
That Yahoo Dad.
Mr. President, there are rockets being launched from the Gaza Strip.
We would like to... But I ate Cheerios from my bathtub!
No!
I want a summit!
And I'm gonna drink coke!
I'm on the YouTubes!
I thought you had something to say.
I did, but you went past it.
I'm sorry.
I'll cry about it later.
A 30-year-old man has now appealed a court's decision, which ruled in favor of his parents, who kicked him out of the house.
Every now and then, you get this perfect moment.
That moment on national television when you realize that you've done... You've thought none of this through.
Let's rewind for a second, because it's my understanding you've lived, you know, at your parents' house rent-free for eight years, and I know you do your own laundry, you buy your own food, but they asked you five times, please move out.
Why couldn't you guys resolve this without the court?
I would consider much of what they were doing to try to get me out as a tax and what I was trying to... I was just... Think fast!
Think fast!
Think fast!
David Hogg freeze frame!
Am I still in the split view?
Are they going to play me off?
How do I get off?
He looks like Weird Al Yankovic ate a fatter, weirder, more lonely Weird Al Yankovic.
I was hoping that he wouldn't look exactly how he looks.
If someone said, sketch me a 30 year old who lives with his parents, that's exactly what you would draw.
It's that guy.
He's going to be in movies from here to... To be fair, he actually has a very awesome girlfriend.
From Canada.
She's a model.
You don't know her.
Actually, she's a level 7 Windrunner from World of Warcraft.
Okay, six.
He...
I'm trying to... I was just... you know...
Don't make the sound! Don't...
Don't narrate when your brain breaks.
That's brain breaking 101.
In his head and he went... You sound like Milton with the staple.
Just don't say anything!
Just stop!
It's like me stepping on jokes and saying it out loud.
How awkward was it when he had to go to his dad and ask him to borrow a suit to wear to court?
So you're suing me.
Why would I give you a suit to sue me?
Dad, you're such a son of a bitch!
I can't believe you guys!
Also, by the way, he actually does make a living as a roadie for GWAR.
I don't know why that's what I thought.
Gainesville, Florida.
A man has been accused of...
Okay.
You're gonna get mad at us until you see the punchline.
So it's okay, right?
He gets this.
Gainesville, Florida man has been accused of punching a pregnant deaf woman that sounds bad on its surface.
Yes, we know.
And her service dog aboard a Frontier Airlines flight.
Manley complained of being allergic to dogs as the plane descended and was being taxied to the gate at the Orlando International Airport.
Timothy Manley then punched the service dog, causing it to yelp.
Police said he then punched the owner, who was deaf and about 20 weeks pregnant.
That's like the trifecta.
Sorry, we're overbooked, said Satan.
He didn't even have the right form for you to fill out.
But your honor, it was Frontier!
Exactly.
Imagine him, Jesus!
Close one.
Almost caught the devil.
The story clarifies by the fact that he was actually upset.
It turns out he was upset with the husband, the owner, actually, of the dog.
But then, when he was confronted, he instead opted to punch his deaf, pregnant wife.
So this is a special kind of... Similarly, when he was approached by what he saw as hostile air marshals, he teabagged a nun.
Oh, yeah.
That's reasonable.
And then threw a small child out the window.
Can you imagine this guy starting any sentence with, okay, okay, but in my defense... I was on Frontier Airlines.
It's hell.
In my defense, you know what?
I'll allow you to continue.
Let's see where this goes.
It was Frontier!
What are you saying?
Who, well certainly, who amongst us on a spirit flight has not felt like they wanted to punch a deaf, 20-week pregnant woman?
Yeah.
I think you're alone on that one.
Don't you love how the left, by the way, is just outraged by this when it's a 20-week pregnant woman who wants to have the baby?
Yeah, exactly.
She doesn't want to have it.
It's like, that's a human right!
No, it's not.
It's a clump of cells.
Who knew?
Let's flush it down the airplane toilet.
Horrible human beings.
They're evil.
Okay, so Germany, speaking of evil, Germany, your homeland, see that?
Yeah.
That's Fencom, shut up.
Germany is now training Syrian I don't even know.
People will think this is funny.
Syrian asylum seekers to become truck drivers.
The transport industry slag holstein... What?
...lacks 1,200 motorists, so with a nationwide unique project, the Logistics Association, the UVL, and the DRK Care Services in Kiel now want to hire refugees as truck drivers.
Really?
Said all the Syrian migrants trading in their machetes for CDLs.
It's true!
Germans really do make everything more efficient.
Why stop there?
Just throw in some 747s and box cutters.
See what happens.
What do they think?
Like, they just... Germany should just host a shark tank for terrorists.
Okay, look!
This looks like a normal knife, right?
Okay, I am seeking 20 million for 40% stake to kill the Jews.
The WIC program already covers beard trimmers and acid, so just, you know, why not?
I just... You know there's going to be a story about this.
Yeah, such a lack of awareness of what's going on in the rest of the world.
I can't believe... A lack of awareness of what's going on in their own country!
Yes, of course.
How else are we supposed to drive away from climate change?
They would have a job if... They wouldn't be terrorists if you drove a Tesla.
Teslas are human rights.
Teslas are human rights.
Okay.
All right, so speaking of human rights, speaking of birth rights, obviously freedom of assembly, freedom to protest is one here in the United States.
So the NFL kneeling, it was a big situation a long time ago with Colin Kaepernick, and now it's come full circle.
Everyone's talking about this.
That's why, again, the question of the day, do you like when the president weighs in on this?
And I wanted to tie this into the myth to That the United States was built or dependent on slavery.
That's one thing that I don't... Just take a basic economics course and it won't hold up.
Slavery was bad!
I'm not defending it.
Anyway, let's start with the NFL.
So the NFL has now announced their policy.
It will require players on the field to stand for the national anthem or teams could be fined.
This is them announcing it.
If anyone is on the field and is disrespectful to the anthem or the flag, there would be a fine from the league against the team and they will make their own decisions about how to manage that from there.
Okay, that seems pretty cut and dry.
Of course, this has the left everywhere, but we just wanted to pull one clip.
You'll see why.
Throwing a race baiting tantrum.
Roll Buffalo.
First of all, the commissioner says they will impose appropriate discipline on the players if they dare to express their freedom of speech.
Lashings, maybe?
I don't know what the discipline will be.
Lashings.
Slavery reference.
Lunchtime.
So, um, now here's the thing.
Despite the trending narrative right now, a lot of people are saying that the NFL kneels for Trump is what was trending exactly on the New York Times.
Yeah, and the New York Times or the NFL kneels for Trump.
We'll come back to.
That's not what this is about.
I want to make sure that there is no order from the president that you understand.
The NFL first created a policy in response to kneeling during the anthem.
By the way, which is common across a lot of other leagues like the NBA.
Yes, exactly.
This is not... Absolutely.
Nary a black man to be found in the NBA.
It's black, black, black, black, black, black.
Nowitzki for a couple more years.
Black, black, black, black, black.
Hall of Fame, Stockton.
That's about it.
But they did.
They made it a policy, likely because of record low numbers in revenue, which they were seeing as a result of all the kneeling.
Some people want to just escape and watch football as opposed to dealing with politics.
That's why they're turning to sports as opposed to Fox News.
So President Trump, again, this is what's causing all the controversy.
He spoke out on the NFL's policy.
This is the first time you're hearing this.
What's your reaction, Mr. President?
Well, I think that's good.
I don't think people should be staying in locker rooms, but still, I think it's good.
You have to stand proudly for the national anthem.
Well, you shouldn't be playing.
You shouldn't be there.
Maybe you shouldn't be in the country.
Well... No, I don't disagree.
I understand the sentiment.
Yeah.
Yeah, I do think there's a little bit of those things like, Trump, just let Roger Goodell be the bad guy for five hot minutes.
Wait a second, wait a second.
Twelve hours where someone... Roger Goodell's the a**hole.
No, I'm the only a**hole in this!
What do you think about it?
Get rid of the blacks!
If I was his press person, I'd take away the phone.
I think it would be great, frankly, these blacks are so good at sports.
If we could have one to call our own, don't you think that'd be great?
That's the kind of thing.
Anyway, the point is, I guess we have golf.
Except what is the buy rate to Tiger?
I don't know.
But we both had to go with Stormy Daniels.
So many of the players, of course, are now threatening to move to Canada if the new rule is implemented.
And Colin Kaepernick is now the MVP of all of Canada.
So that's good.
There's a silver lining.
I'd be laying on your feet, Collin.
I mean, I think, yeah.
Look, the NFL is a business.
These guys have the opportunity to do whatever they want any day of the week.
Except they're a non-profit, which muddies the water.
Well, I mean the owners, their own teams, right?
You sign on, there's code of conduct, there's everything else.
Fine, use your platform outside of that.
You got six other days of every single week to be a jerk and uninformed.
Go for it, right?
Use it to your advantage.
It's fine.
Yeah.
Why is this a problem?
Well, I think a couple things here.
Like we said, it is a non-profit.
I know people talk about that, but you're talking about business.
How in the world did they get that?
I have no idea.
I want to know the backstory of how a multi-billion dollar business is a non-profit.
I don't know how the IRS looks like.
Walks in the merch store.
Okay, and what is this?
Well, that's a jersey that sells for about $125.
That's a mug that sells for $49.95.
That's an autographed mug that sells for about $255,000.
And we'd like our 501c3 status, please.
We'd like to not pay taxes on any of it, thank you.
It's the insanity plea of business.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I was crazy when I murdered those five people, but I'm not anymore.
I'm good now.
I think I should be free.
Got it out of my system.
Well, button drive for me!
I do think they should have let this whole story die a little bit, though, because it was kind of old news.
It was over.
They kind of brought something back to life that probably should have just faded away.
And I would have a problem if the president were to try to implement some policy or tell the NFL what they should do, exactly.
Here's the thing.
He wasn't.
He was responding in an interview with Brian Kilmeade when asked about the NFL's policy.
Perfectly appropriate.
Perfectly appropriate.
They said, what do you think about this new policy?
Why?
Because it's been politicized a lot.
It's a big issue.
And he answered with his opinion.
That's why Donald Trump is actually gaining popularity.
And this is one thing I will say.
I'm not the guy who says you can never trust polls.
Right now you can't trust polls on whether you have a favorable or unfavorable view of Trump because people feel they need to have an unfavorable view.
I don't think many people are that offended by what he said there.
And the fact that the media is acting as though he was somehow like a king dictating what the NFL should do is why no one trusts them.
Well, and a lot of the players, I read a lot of their responses to this on Twitter.
They're saying that they have the right to go ahead and do this.
They can do this.
It's not about the National Anthem.
They don't understand that they are disrespecting the National Anthem by protesting during it.
That's what they're missing.
Yes, yes, that's a good point.
By choosing to protest during that, they're disrespecting the National Anthem.
Listen, this country is imperfect, right?
They're talking about the injustice.
This country is imperfect.
There is injustice.
I think everyone here would agree with that.
Just look at Sven Computer when he was trying to get his work visa.
We may still lose him for two years.
Hashtag saves Sven, but don't follow him.
You can strike the correct imperfections.
We do that on this show all the time.
We're constantly criticizing our government and our media.
We're constantly criticizing the establishment.
I have no problem with that.
Kneeling at the NFL is not about that.
It's not a, if you don't like America, get the hell out, kind of reaction.
This is about goofy, dumb, dumb players trying to make a political statement on the dime of the viewers who've paid them to play football.
This is the unwritten contract between the viewer and the football player.
They're tuning in precisely because it is apolitical.
It should be a sporting event.
And worse, it's a protest predicated on a lie.
This is what bothers most Americans.
We've done a whole video, I think.
We even have people here of us going through each and every Black Lives Matter case.
It was 20-something, right?
Not KJ?
We do all of those things.
And I think all of them, except for maybe two, which were like, okay, we'll give you those.
Proven to be fraudulent.
But here's the thing, it's like drinking from a fire hose.
These people are saying, we're kneeling until there's justice because police brutality.
All right, well, let's just go through the stories from the last month, okay?
Just this last month.
May 22nd, okay, the body cam video revealed that Sherita Dixon-Cole, remember that name, a black woman from Texas, lied about being raped by a cop who pulled her over for DUI.
That was trending for about a day.
May 14th, the NAACP president in South Carolina, I think it was Gerard Moultrie, if it's pronounced, said that he was racially profiled and the body camera footage showed otherwise.
May 10th!
Remember the black woman named Dawn Hilton Williams from South Carolina?
She created this tearful video claiming that she was harassed by a white cop during a traffic stop because she was black.
Body cam footage revealed none of that happened.
So it's like, you want the body camera footage?
You want to be the world's most powerful genie?
Everything that comes with it?
Nooooo!
Now all your claims go away.
Who knows?
That's the entire Black Lives Matter movement.
Dang it.
This is just last month.
You probably don't even remember, we've talked about Coren Gaines, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, all these other cases we've written about at loudearthcounter.com.
But they were all trending, they were all under the narrative of police brutality.
By the way, you're actually more likely to be shot by the police if you're a white guy.
People don't understand this.
We've written about that on the website.
People have said, I don't believe that statistic.
Well, okay, go to the website, look at the FBI crime statistics.
That's when adjusted for population.
It's when adjusted for population.
And we covered it in detail on the show.
And so this is the protest based on a lie.
That's the problem.
It's a protest on someone else's dying based on a lie because you're an idiot.
And sometimes I say, well, it's not about police brutality.
I think Colin Kaepernick said it.
It's about the basis of the United States.
It's built on slavery.
The United States was built off the backs of slaves.
First off, okay, you're not exactly eating exclusively shellfish while being bullhopped in the hull of a boat, Mr. 20 million a year Amistad, okay?
Let's start with that.
They're so far removed from slavery.
So at what point do you say, alright listen, maybe there were some bad breaks before, but now you've kind of had a leg up.
Namely, fantastic genetics that allow you to run like the wind and set 1 through 25 speed records.
Okay?
Second, is it even true?
And jumping, right?
Is it even true?
Was the United States built on slavery?
We're told that so much.
You hear that all the time, yeah.
You hear it all the time.
And nobody challenges it.
No.
The truth is, the free North outperformed the slave state South in nearly every economic way imaginable.
Yeah, well, and many economists actually attribute it directly to the long-established economic detriment of slavery.
So if you're a slave, you have zero incentive to come up with new ways of doing things, to be more productive.
Basically, you're just going to keep your head down in a bad situation and not get hurt, right?
Exactly.
It's never going to change.
It would still be the same way today if we didn't change it.
No, and I think some people got a quote there, right?
Was it from the...
Yeah, I mean, you can read the quote right here.
I mean if you're if you are one of those slave owners people you're not living really in a free market and you're
not Really trying to compete as it was a free market
So you're living more for the pomp and not to innovate and slavery would have much more in common with Marxism
Which is what I always find so far like this capitalist society office. Really?
Okay Well, the whole idea of capitalism is to incentivize people
to benefit from their labor to benefit from what they create
Guess what you have guess what your pot of gold is at the end of a rainbow if you're a slave and you do a
Fantastic job damn it more slavery I'm gonna get an underground railway to Canada and
Canadians. Look great. No more slaves. Bring them over bring them over
It's over!
There's no incentive to be entrepreneurial or scientific.
That's why you go, well, hold on a second, what's the correlation here?
Because almost every measurable economic facet here, the North did better than the South, without slaves.
There you go.
Is that why they won the war, or was it just because they had a little less than enthusiastic troops in the South?
In cooler hats.
That might have been it, too.
I don't think that's true.
I mean, we have this image of the cotton picking South.
But the truth is that only after slavery had ended did the cotton industry actually soar and innovate.
And there's a strong argument to be made that that was due to technological advancements,
which came after slaves were gone.
This happens in almost every business.
Think about it.
Nearly anyone who runs a business or is a CEO, if you look at stories today, these success stories,
it's someone who started their way at the bottom.
Carly Fiorina is an example that comes to mind.
They started their way to the bottom, and they learned everything.
They came to the top.
Why?
Because they spoke with the boss and said, hey, I think you could be doing this better.
I think this could be more efficient.
Why would you do that if you're a slave?
You wouldn't.
They were impeded by it.
There's a reason the best cars don't come from the Middle East, where they have endless slave labor available to them.
Right, exactly.
Innovation doesn't exactly breed innovation.
No, it does not.
You can build pyramids and all, but that's about it.
Yeah, I think that was the aliens.
The point is... No one today... Nailed it.
By the way, also, hey, Gerald, do me a favor.
Right now, jump up.
Just jump up.
Jump.
No, give me an actual jump.
What do you want to jump for?
Jump.
He landed in the same spot, there's no round earth, it's flat, it's flat, it's flat, we're not rotating.
So the point is that YouTube video, 5 million plays, you get to disprove it!
The point is no one today, okay, out there needs to feel guilty of their privilege because of slavery.
It was horrible, listen, absolutely terrible, but thank God we ended it.
And thank God that it's not what actually made this country.
In a lot of ways, it's what held us back.
So you can speak morally, slavery, bad, thank God we ended it.
And then intellectually, you can look at it, you can look at the statistics, you can look at the difference between the North and the South, you can look at innovation, you could look at slave nations, some of which still exist today, not exactly the pinnacle of innovation, and say, that's not what made this country.
It held us back.
So maybe the fact that these people right now who are protesting don't know anything about police brutality statistics, maybe the fact that they don't know, maybe they don't do any due diligence on the Black Lives Matter charlatans, maybe the fact that they actually don't know anything Anything about the United States and slavery or the history could also explain why they're under this asinine impression that anyone is, quote, kneeling to Trump.
Trump's not a king.
Trump did not issue an executive order commanding anyone to kneel.
The NFL made a policy because, contrary to the media, the American citizens don't live in a monolith.
And with their dollars, with their viewership, they voted to send you a message, NFL fans.
So the NFL, the owners, the organizers, responded out of necessity for survival of the league.
And the president responded when asked about this policy specifically.
This is exactly why the president is so popular with anyone who's not a dynamo leftist.
Millions of male Americans say, you know, I really think it's disrespectful.
I think it's just respectful to kneel during the anti-media football game.
Then dumbass NFL players, activists, and their lackeys in the media either blatantly or passively accuse said middle Americans of being white supremacists.
Then all of a sudden Trump, all he has to do is say, you know, I don't think they should kneel.
And so millions of Americans breathe a sigh of relief and go, oh, OK, see?
I'm not a white supremacist.
I'm not a white supremacist.
I'm just a veteran.
I'm just a veteran who respects our flag, and so the media now has one of two choices.
Either start telling the truth and admit that maybe they were wrong, that maybe there's a cultural divide, maybe there's some disagreement, or double down and not just call you Middle America white supremacists, but run with a narrative, of course, that Donald Trump is a white supremacist.
So they have to make that choice.
And which do you think they do?
Exactly.
We'll be back after this with Ralph Macchio.
There it is again, so strong.
Thanks for watching.
It puts the mug in the basket.
Huh?
It puts the mug in the basket.
It does whenever it's told.
Huh?
It places the mug in the basket.
I just can't really... PUT THE MUG IN THE F***ING BASKET!
Huh?
It puts the mug in the basket or it gets the hose again.
PUT THE F***ING MUG IN THE BASKET!
PUT THE MUG IN THE F***ING BASKET!
PUT THE MUG IN THE BASKET!
PUT THE F***ING MUG IN THE BASKET!
I'm f***ing bored of this f***ing thing!
I'm bored of this f***ing thing!
I'm out of the dog!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
Ewww!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
Ewww!
I'm out of the dog!
Ewww!
Can you believe this?
We didn't even show it to the audience.
Usually it's a comedian or something.
Someone who's, you know, opening up for someone at Hilarities in Cleveland.
True.
And they feel they have to dance to impress the audience.
But our next one, he really needs no introduction, but we're going to introduce him anyway.
Of course, star of the new show, Cobra Kai.
Biggest hit ever on the YouTube Red.
At Ralph Macchio, C-C-H-I-O.
Mr. Macchio, thank you for being here, sir.
Great to be here.
Thanks, man.
Thanks for having me.
Oh, I am absolutely thrilled to have you.
I mean, you know, we have people on the show every now and then who, listen, I tell them, I say, read their book.
I don't really read their book.
And then, uh... You read the first page.
Yeah, exactly.
First and last page.
Right, I have the cliff notes, and I determine whether I like it based on that.
But I grew up watching you, Karate Kid.
That was, I mean, that was my jam as far as a film.
And now Cobra Kai, I think we have some B-roll here from Cobra Kai.
For people who have not seen it, you need to join up at YouTube Red.
It's the biggest show.
Their numbers are incredible.
For people who don't know, it's the biggest hit.
I mean, it's among Netflix, Hulu, it's huge out there.
What's this been like for you coming back after so long with this franchise and the wonder of the internet to reintroduce this in a way that's been very positively received?
Well, listen, it succeeded my expectations.
I mean, I knew going in, I felt really confident.
These three, three creators of the show were just the guys who sort of, they created Harold and Kumar franchise and Hot Tub Time Machine.
And they, they sat me down and I was the last one to come to the party because I've always been quite, Quite protective of that character in the franchise, and I've said no for 30 years, it feels like.
And I have, because everyone says, how about this?
How about that?
An idea!
Daniel LaRusso in a shark tank!
That's right, that's what he is.
Or maybe, you know, Rocky Balboa had a kid and met up with LaRusso.
I mean, you have no idea.
But more gender-neutral, because it's 2018.
That's right.
That's right.
Of course.
But these guys had such a clear vision of what they wanted to do, and the groundswell response, sort of the build-up to it and how YouTube handled the promotional elements and sort of sneaking stuff out slowly, and people kind of snickered, maybe had their arms crossed a little bit.
okay, this is another one of those.
And it is not.
It is very much its own unique take on a classic franchise.
We're very proud of it.
The audiences are just running to it.
And the coolest part is everyone's just telling their friends and their cousins and their kids.
And you really have the nostalgia, it feeds the nostalgia part of us
that sort of grew up with that film.
And yet has a very fresh, relevant take on bullying in 2018.
It's not the Fuller House of Martial Arts.
No, it's not.
It's not the Fuller House of Martial Arts.
It's like, how rude!
Yeah, but the speech impediment's not due.
You're 45.
No, I told them, and we have hundreds of emails now and thousands of tweets from audience members, because I said, listen, you really need to go watch Cobra Kai.
It's one of the few shows out there that is a wink and a nod to what it used to be.
And you know, this nostalgia obviously, it induces incredible nostalgia, but it writes for what it is in today's era.
And not in a corny way.
It does it in a way that is congruent with the characters.
I don't want to say anti-hero at all, but some of the, at some points the role, I don't, spoiler alert, some points the roles are a little changed between you and Johnny.
That's what's great.
The Karate Kid was clearly a film that was built on the You know, good over evil.
It was very black and white.
And this show has a lot of gray areas.
Your allegiance week to week, or week to week, it's funny, you can binge watch it.
Episode to episode.
I'm still old school.
It's Twinkie to Twinkie.
When you reach for a new vertical row, it's time for a new row.
When you reach for the next ring thing, you're fine.
But it goes, the allegiance switches and there's sort of a moral ambiguity at times, even in In the High School World carriages, and certainly in the Daniel LaRusso-Johnny Lawrence carriages, and I think that freshness and that angle in makes it unique, yet it still pays homage to the source material.
Yeah, it really is.
Well, I can't recommend it enough.
People give us so much flack because for the film reviews, like, you don't like anything.
It's like, no, I just didn't like Thor 3, okay?
But one thing I will say here with Cobra Kai is I'm trying to see what I can say without spoiling anything.
It's very, very hard.
Did you see the YouTube video, by the way?
Because there's a sort of conspiracy thread.
The YouTube video, Daniel LaRusso was the bully.
Did you ever see that?
Right, right.
Yeah, the illegal kick, the one move.
It was pretty funny.
It was well done.
The guy did a great job because he did a very classic breakdown style of, you know, watch this punch while he wasn't looking and watch how he just innocently took away.
I think the best part about that, because people ask me about it all the time, the best part about it is it's like 34 years later and people are still making videos about it.
Right.
And this is before Cobra Kai came out.
It's like, I love the fact that it's a conversation, that the groundswell of justice for Johnny exists, although Daniel Russo is clearly, you know, that underdog character that we all root for.
He was a piece of all our childhoods, you know?
And none of that gets taken away.
Cobra Kai just adds to that.
Do you feel partially responsible for all of the asses that were kicked in the school ground from the kids who tried to fight off the bully with a crane kick?
There's gotta be some part of it.
It's my fault that this thing never really worked in the world, but it was genius on film.
It was genius on film.
I do want to bring something up. Not to be a kiss-ass here, but this is one thing.
I think people get caught up in the franchise and Karate Kid and you have, obviously, you have such, people look at your catalog, so much work, that sometimes it's overlooked how great of an actor you are.
And there's a scene that I've always thought, and I've talked about it on this show, I'd like to roll a clip, there's a scene in Karate Kid, the first Karate Kid, And I've told people, because we've talked about, you know, James Dean, Rebels Without a Cause, and East of Eden, this sort of portrayal of teen angst.
I think this scene, where you're talking to your mother after being beaten up by bullies, is possibly the most genuine feeling portrayal of teen angst, confusion, desperation.
I'd like to roll a clip, and then get your thoughts afterward.
Let's see this.
Your bike!
Your stupid bike!
I hate it!
Daniel!
What's the matter?
Nothing!
Why did you throw your bike away?
Because I felt like it, Ma.
Please, look at me when I'm talking to you!
Oh, my God!
Mom?
Oh, my God!
Would you tell me what's going on here and don't tell me about another bike accident?
What do you want to hear, Ma?
I want to hear the truth.
No, you don't want to hear the truth.
All you want to hear is how great it is out here.
Well, it may be great for you, but it sucks for me!
I hate this place!
I hate it!
I just want to go home!
I can only just go back home.
Listen to me.
What?
I cannot help you unless you tell me what's wrong.
I gotta take karate, that's it.
You took karate?
No, not at the Y, at a good school.
Fighting doesn't solve anything.
Oh, well, neither does palm trees, Ma.
That's not fair.
Yeah, well, like it was fair coming out here without asking me how I felt about it, right?
That was not fair.
You're right.
I should have asked.
Yeah, well, I just want to go home.
That's it.
I don't understand the rules here.
I want to go home.
So, for people who don't know what they're watching, that's a one shot.
That's one long shot.
It is one.
It's one steady cam shot.
And the great John Appleton, our director.
Go ahead.
Sorry, it's always uncomfortable, but it's such a great job.
People who don't know what they're watching, because a lot of people they just watch films and they see it from an entertainment standpoint.
That's one shot, you're conveying a lot of different emotions.
Anger, to helplessness, to wanting to go to a karate school, the losing it in your voice.
I always watch that scene and say, people don't realize how well performed the scene, how many takes did that take, and how did you get into that headspace?
Because it really is something incredible to watch.
Well, first of all, thank you very much.
And it was nice to, it was even nice to just revisit that audio-wise, because, you know, we've watched this film a bunch of time over the years.
That's the great Randy Heller also playing Mrs. LaRusso, who is a nice, without making spoilers, it's a nice Easter egg, and I just gave it away in our series.
And we're hoping to have that role and other actors from back then Back in the future of the Cobra Kai show the you know the scene we did it a bunch of times some of it was because the camera
You know, some of it was on me, some of it was on the camera.
You know, we didn't get it perfect every single time.
And I think if you actually watch that take, if you really analyze it, there's one point where the steadicam just does a little bit of a wobble.
Am I there?
It should be back.
There we go.
There's that wonderful point.
Okay, so continue.
You were saying the camera got a little crooked.
Right, so the camera got a little, you know, it had a little wobble in it and by technical perfection standards you would say, let's go again, we have a little bit of, but the performance, credit the director, You know, you always go to a performance because that stuff falls away.
Right.
You know, that stuff you don't notice.
I think that scene did have a lot of levels.
I mean, the whole, I hate this bike, this stupid bike, that was all John Avilson saying.
When you walk up, you know, I think he was trying to help me get to that level.
Yeah.
And he had me walk down and keep throwing, he said, just keep throwing it in there.
He said, go back, do it again.
And he had the camera rolling, and I had to do it like three and four times, sometimes, per take, just pick it up.
So I went and done it.
He said, take it out again and do it again.
And he was, I think what he was doing, I'm sure what he was doing, was getting me to that place of frustration and build all that level of emotion.
The line when he says, not at the Y at a real school was basically Ralph Macchio forgetting the line and figuring it out.
At a good school!
It's funny, we quote that in our house all the time.
When I was a kid, if we had a problem, I'd be like, I gotta take karate ma, not at the Y, at a good school!
It was sort of a line in the house.
I think it's a credit to all of us working together, a well-written scene, a fantastic director, a beautiful and wonderful actress to play.
Opposite.
We had a great chemistry together, and it's just one of those that we caught on film, you know?
It doesn't always happen, so it's nice.
And yourself.
Look how humble you are.
That was still, that was... And we did a good job.
You did a great job with that.
I mean, when I was a kid, I watched it.
I remember everything else kind of happening and me going, oh, rewind it.
And I was transfixed because I was always watching the performance side of it and going, this is just... And you wouldn't stop telling Ben Shapiro about it when you met him.
That's right.
Ben Shapiro actually lived, I think, in the home next door to where they shot that.
Right.
Where they shot where you were.
And I was like, Ben, This is where they shot Karate Kid!
It's great.
Thank you very much.
It feels good to hear that and gain that compliment and know what, you know, that was the birth of everything that moved from that point, you know?
I have one question, and again, everyone go watch Cobra Kai YouTube Red, but this is somewhat unrelated.
And I see the poster behind you, so I'm happy.
There's an easy segue.
The Outsiders.
As far as I'm concerned, this should be Casting 101.
For people who don't know, who haven't seen it, you've got Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, C. Thomas Holt, Diane Lane, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise.
I'm sure I'm missing some.
As far as I know, before any of them were stars, it might have been their first actual main role in some of these films.
And you all went on to be marquee names.
Were you aware when you were on that set, like, oh, he's going to be a multi-million dollar star.
Oh, she is.
Oh, he is.
Or was it just...
We didn't.
We all felt like we were.
Right, yes.
Back then, we all did.
I mean, Matt Dillon had a few films at the time.
That's right.
My Bodyguard, I think.
Yeah, and all that.
Yeah, My Bodyguard.
I think, yes, yes.
And Over the Edge was his first one.
And then I think Tom Cruise just had, he was just in Taps with Timothy Hutton.
That's right.
And George C. Scott.
So he was, and Leif Garrett was probably the biggest star on the set.
It's true.
With his music career and everything else.
And Diane Lane, obviously, she started really young.
And, you know, obviously we're all on the set with Diane Lane just to this day.
She's just a beautiful human being and a terrific actress.
I think we, you know, we had hopes.
We were in a movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based on a classic young adult novel that we all read.
I read when I was 12 years old.
The Outsiders for me was It's your first love.
It's your first kiss.
You never forget it.
It was a great role.
I love that part.
It holds a special place.
I still go around and at certain times go to middle schools and talk to the school classes that just read the book.
A lot of the guys do that.
A lot of the guys do that.
It's a great one to be a part of.
It really is.
It really is.
I remember I read it.
I had Mr. Rooney in the 7th grade and I remember he kicked me out of class because I said the Sox when I first read it.
The Sox?
Well, everyone did.
So did I. Yeah, but he kicked me out of class and he called my father.
He called my father and said, you know, your son is a 12-year-old who thinks he's a 13-year-old.
And my dad said...
Okay, I'll bite.
It means he thinks he knows more than he does!
I know, I was like, this guy teacher was out of his mind.
But I remember reading The Outsiders, and it's one of the last classics that I think I read.
Everything else was just sort of, you know, experimental.
People don't read the classics in college anymore in high school.
Right.
I was reading Naomi Wolf.
Yeah, Naomi Wolf.
Well, it helped.
I mean, S.E.
Hinton from my generation, you know, jump-started My reading, and so many young readers, like J.K.
Rowling did with the Harry Potter books, you know, where every kid, you had to read it, you know?
Don't bring up the Harry Potter books, because my wife is going to be watching this in the green room.
She's going to run on in.
I had to take her to Harry Potter World.
She's a giant nerd fan, and we will derail this whole conversation.
Look, Barelka, I didn't mean to... No, no, no, but this has been... I'm just trying to make a parallel.
I get it.
You actors, you all speak allegorically.
Can you just calm down on our level?
Uh, Mr. Macchio, I know you're a busy man.
We actually have Martin Kove coming up after this, a different side of you.
Ah, you got the Darth Vader of the 80s.
Freeze!
And, uh, yeah, it's great.
He's excited too for the, you know, I think we really have.
I mean, he was the king, Cobra Kai king.
So it's nice, it's really nice.
And looking forward to season two.
And I'm just, I'm hoping, you know, there's always that season two,
you're like, please don't get season two-y.
I know, that's sophomore jinx, right?
I think we really have, I just spoke to the three writers the other day,
and you know, it's important that we pick up right where we left off and forget all this,
you know, don't read the press as great as it is.
I've never experienced anything that has like 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and 35 million views.
And it's really been incredible how much of a hit this has become.
But we really have to pick up where we left off and Stay focused and charged in that way.
If it's focused, there's a Miyagi-ism for you.
So we continue to be smart and push the envelope, but yet give that big, fat, warm embrace, that nostalgic embrace that people are feeling by watching the show.
And we'll have Martin Kovan, he has something, 200 something credits to his name.
The one thing I will say, it's hard to bring a series back often, or you do a reunion, because you're like, oh my gosh, they look like that now.
All of you, the main portions of the cast, like you said, those who are still with us, continue to flex the muscle, continue to work, and so it really does work.
It's a great show, I highly recommend it.
Mr. Macchio, at Ralph Macchio on the Twitter.
Thank you so much, man, I know you're- Awesome, thanks for having me, this is a lot of fun.
Yeah, absolutely, we'll talk with Martin, and we'll talk with you soon.
Thank you, sir.
Thanks for having me.
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That's perfect, because our next guest, we just had Ralph on.
Yep.
Good guy, Ralph.
Though, actually, there's a change of roles at Cobra Kai for people who haven't watched it on YouTube Red.
And our next guest is known as Kreese.
Mm-hmm.
The bad guy, often.
You can follow him on the Twitter at Martin Cove.
He has something like 200, I want to say 250 credits to his name.
It's insane.
If you look, he shows up everywhere.
Do you think he's running to Clint Howard at some point?
We should ask him.
He's almost a catalog of Clint Howard, but he doesn't have to be Clint Howard.
So, you know, he has that going for him.
Clint, we'll have you on soon again, brother.
Mr. Cove, thank you for being on, sir.
Thank you, thank you.
By the way, Clint Howard, I killed him on gun smoke in my first year in Hollywood.
Well, who among us hasn't?
Are we talking about the same Clint that was the father of Ron Howard?
Yeah, Clint is Ron Howard's brother.
Brother, brother, yeah.
Yeah, killed him a couple of times in a couple of movies.
Yes, pretty much if Clint Howard's in a movie, you're writing around the death scene.
But we brought him in, and he did a sketch with us where he actually played Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, because we needed an actor.
And we're like, Clint, you could do this.
So we dressed him up.
And I remember directing him.
Oh, I got to tell you, Mr. Cooper, it was very hard.
It was a very long, arduous process.
And I thought, this is going to be terrible.
And then when I looked at the rushes, I said, this is amazing.
He's a guy who really knows how he registers on camera.
And that leads into you.
You often play the villain, right?
This is no secret to you.
I know you're a nice guy.
Are you a nice guy?
I shouldn't lead the witness.
I cry at supermarket openings.
Okay, okay.
That might be disturbed.
I don't know that that's necessarily nice.
But you often play the bad guy.
Now, you're one of the few guys out there who is disrespectfully, like, is good-looking enough to still play the tough bad guy.
You know, you're like, you're ruggedly tough.
And I notice you have the Clint Eastwood, and I don't know if that's, I can't see the one, Coburn behind you.
Yeah, there you go.
Oh, there you go, okay.
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Those are my theme songs.
Did you set out to do this?
Did you say, okay, I think I'm probably going to be able to do the bad guy role really well, or did it just happen organically?
No, I guess it just happened organically, really.
I have an eight-month-old grandchild, and if I don't see him every day, I cry.
I just love this baby.
You're strong featured, and I love the physical.
When I did Gunsmoke in the first year I was in Hollywood, it was heaven, because you got a chance to do, you know, work with James Arness and all.
And the bottom line is I loved Westerns.
But when you're starting out, you do heavies.
You just do.
I mean, unless you're looking like Gregory Peck, who never did a heavy.
Gregory Peck started out with leading men in the late 30s, you know?
And there's some people that just go right into it.
And I didn't, like so many of my, you know, good friends.
And you just, you know, it's sort of like you create a staple of those roles.
And I think for young actors, bringing up anger and toughness is probably the easiest emotion to call upon.
Because when you're young, you're kind of, you know, touching the vulnerability and doing what Mel Gibson does in all his movies.
It's a lot harder.
And his voicemail.
And his voicemail, right.
You have no soul!
The reason I find those so funny is because I always would talk, I'd say to you, I was like, oh, come on.
All of you are judging this guy in a private voicemail, a private argument.
You have had that rage, even if internally at some point.
Let you who has not felt that way cast the first stone.
Let me ask you this.
You've done so many roles.
Is this, is Kree still the role you think you're most recognized for?
Certainly now with Cobra Kai.
But is that the one people connect to most, do you think?
Yeah, that and when I did, I followed up the original Karate Kid with Rambo First Blood Part 2.
Yeah.
And I was doing six years on Cagney Lacey.
So a lot of them remember that.
Oddly enough, many people are big fans of The Last House on the Left, which is a very bizarre cult movie, which was Wes Craven's first film.
I personally don't understand that, but it was 1972.
And the other one, which is a cult movie, which also surprises me, is one that Stallone and I did You know, prior to Rambo, which was, um, Death Race 2000.
Yes.
Yeah.
You wouldn't believe how many people, you know, just remember those parts.
And, you know, you were playing a crazy, you were playing a, like you say, a tough guy.
It was the early parts of your career, you know?
And I think that you try to graduate.
You know, when I did Cagney and Lacey, I kind of stopped doing bad guys
because I played him as a macho, you know, he kind of didn't like women being detectives,
but he had a lovable quality about him.
And I kept trying to graduate into that area and not do any more wise guys and tough guys.
I think you mentioned Last House on the Left.
I think that was one of the few films that Wes Craven remade himself.
I think Wes Craven remade the Wes Craven because there's a recent one.
And I don't know if it was Jennifer Lawrence, but I appreciate your candor with that.
You know, Clint Howard, a good friend of the show, has made a living off of cult films.
Remember, he was on the show and he goes, you know, some of the trash I've done.
I mean, it's borderline unwatchable, because he's done so many.
It's practically pornography.
It's pornography of the lazy mind.
Let me ask you this.
You've been around for so many decades now in the film and entertainment industry, and it's changed.
Radically, where we've kind of come full circle.
I talked about this before.
Remember, they used to say, we'll never have the numbers that we used to have with Carson.
And granted, that's probably true.
But then American Idol was 30-something million.
They said, we'll never have those numbers again.
The Voice was lucky to get maybe 15 million.
Because cable became so spread out.
But now we're sort of back to a few main networks with YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and HBO.
And you're getting these numbers.
There's a season of a lot more less famous people.
Yes, there was for a while.
But now you've come full circle and Cobra Kai is getting those kinds of numbers that people thought you would never see again.
What's it like to be a part of that whole transition and back again?
Well, as I said earlier, you and I talked about the writing and the extraction of the great values from Karate Kid.
Karate Kid 1 was a religious experience for so many people.
You either were bullied in that period of time and you identify with that, you had a love affair that didn't work out as a high school student, or you were fish out of water.
You know, and most of the people we've experienced have had one of those things going on in their life when they saw Karate Kid.
And I think that, you know, the writing that brings in all of the the fantastic values of the movie into the series is what's
making the series work.
Yeah.
Because all those extractions, the moments, the feelings, the emotions from the kids of what they're experiencing on
the show is what Ralph experienced back in the day in 1983 when we made the movie.
So I think it's highly identifiable.
They've chosen the right experiences to recreate on a weekly basis.
And that's what's really selling.
It's a show that just like Ed Sullivan in its day, the family can get around the TV and watch it.
Right.
And that's the value.
That's the value, and that's why the numbers are so high.
It's a family deal.
Yeah.
But it's a family deal 30 years later in a more active way.
But it really does work, and we talked about this just with Ralph.
You know, there are some gray areas.
There is some, I wouldn't, but I wouldn't say moral ambiguities because there is redemption.
That's kind of hard to do, to have a gray area, to have a bit of an antihero, but for there to still be moral redemption.
Otherwise you end up with some of the series out there that are just bleak for the sake of bleakness.
I don't want to, you know, no spoilers here.
The people on the message boards will go absolutely nuts, but you can see at one point this guy seems like the good guy.
Well, then maybe you're not so sure, but there is no moral ambiguity about making the right decisions, and I think that's why it works.
I think people are craving that a little bit.
What I learned from the original Karate Kid when I was young was that all bad guys had dirt bikes.
That's what I thought when I watched it.
I was like, he has a dirt bike!
He must be a teenager!
Mr. Cope, we don't have a ton of time here because Ralph went overtime.
Talk with him, being a little bit of a diva, but where's the best place for people to find you?
What should people be looking out for next along with Cobra Kai?
Well, we just did, we're doing a little comedy now with Barry Bustwick, but primarily we're going off June 8th.
I go off to Illinois.
to do a very exciting picture about Gettysburg.
And there was a character who was 69 years old named John Burns, who in history literally fought in Gettysburg because he lived in Gettysburg and he became a hero and he met Lincoln.
And it's all, you know, it's all nonfiction.
Yeah.
So it's all brilliant stuff.
And it's always fun to play someone who's nonfiction.
And I believe you said that your son will be acting.
You've acted in quite a few films with your son now.
So that must be nice to be able to pass the torch.
The best, you know, Jesse Coates is the best.
You know, he's doing a part in there and we meet on the field of Gettysburg and I'm, you know, a guy who doesn't even have the right musket and he gives me, you know, the bullets and everything circa 1863.
Yeah.
Because I came out of war in 1812 and they wouldn't let me join.
So I'm, you know, old, too old to fight.
But it's really interesting, the values and how it affected the entire city of Gettysburg.
The town was enormously affected by, you know, every house was turned into a hospital.
One moment for the Confederates, another for the Union soldiers.
So it's emotionally very, very, and historically a very, very effective film.
Terrific story.
And I love anything historical.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
There haven't been as many great Civil War films when you compare it to World War II or the Revolutionary War.
It seems like it's a tough one to do sometimes because of, obviously, kind of the connotations here in the United States.
So I'm looking forward to that.
Of course, people can follow you at Martin Kove.
Mr. Kove, thank you for making time, sir.
We appreciate it.
Very good.
You follow me at martinkoveonline.com.
But thank you very much.
Oh, there we go.
martinkoveonline.com.
We have to be back after this.
I don't know who has the hot sauce. Maybe.
You want to come back to me, but I don't know.
I wonder you'll try to make me this way for sure.
That's the helicopter wheelchair that doesn't really work.
Oh, that's disappointing.
It just propels you the wrong direction.
You've got to crack a brawl, Daniel.
Just ran Stephen Hawking straight into a building.
Really glad to have our next guest, who are apparently broadcasting from, I think, a warehouse in Bangladesh.
You can follow them at Hodgetwins.
Hodgetwintour.com.
They're going to be starting their European tour date soon.
The Hodgetwins, how are you?
Keith and Kevin.
What are you hanging in there, man?
It's tough, though, man.
Why is it tough?
Nah, I'm just kidding.
Life's great, man.
Nah, tell them to be honest, man.
It's tough being black in America today.
Is it?
I might have a blind spot.
When you lean conservative, it's real tough for black people.
What about, uh... Look what they're doing to Kanye.
Look what they're doing to Candace.
Yeah, black lives matter if you're not conservative.
That's true. Actually, I thought we were gonna have Candace on the show today and I think there was a miscommunication
or she missed it. So she's always welcome to come on the show. But has she reached out to you, Candace Owens? I don't
think we her speed. No, no, I guess not.
I guess more so Kanye, you know?
So maybe you guys cut a couple of albums and claim that you're the black Jesus.
You'll have something to offer.
Now, you talk about how it's hard being a black conservative.
See, you just used the word.
I didn't.
What's your opinion here on that?
We've talked about this before, the kneeling with the NFL.
But obviously Trump was asked a question about this.
He said, what do you think about Goodell's new policy?
He said, OK, I think it's disrespectful to kneel.
And the media acts as though it's this decree from President Trump to the NFL.
I think it's cool that he does it, he's just not too presidential when he does it.
He's not a politician, he's a businessman and he knows that's bad for business, especially for the NFL.
I just want to look at my football.
I'm not looking at these fools neither.
I mean, it's your right to do so, but come on, man.
You got a brain.
There's so many other constructive ways you can do to help bring awareness to police brutality.
Why you got to go out of your way to offend people, you know?
And to hurt your business that you're getting paid from.
So it's like, I don't get it.
I'm glad he didn't.
Yeah, well, this goes back to Kaepernick, which if you guys have been accused of not being black enough, I mean, Kaepernick looks like someone you'd cut out of the Iran deal.
I'm not entirely sure.
Do you know the background?
I think he just likes skiing, that's all.
I don't know.
Maybe just because he looks sinister.
Yeah, he does look sinister.
I'm going to have a bad throwing average.
What are you doing?
Did you Jafar?
Did Jafar sleep with one of the Cosby kids?
Let me ask you this.
You said you told me recently you guys were in Canada.
And I guess some fans of the show, first off, I'm glad they let you in and out of the country.
I don't think I'm allowed back, but you had some people approach you who are fans of this show and fans of your newly expressed political opinions.
Explain that.
Yeah it's um like right after our comedy show we have like a meet and greet and uh a lot of people come to say we found you guys on Crowder that's the first words out of my mouth that and they say um bitch can't breathe Yeah.
Yeah, but I guess we experienced that in all our shows actually Canada was out there in London
Got a lot of fans out there. Yeah, we was in what was that Calgary? I'm at show. It was a Trump supporter female
Oh my gosh dress from head to toe in American flag, and she had to make America great again
But you know what?
Raster anything nobody was just grateful to her or anything.
You know, I think they almost think it's it's it's a caricature at that point
I don't think they think it's real in Canada, because there is no sort of Trump, there is no sort of right wing.
It's kind of like when you went into the gay bar dressed as Trump doing show tunes.
Yeah, I went to a gay bar in Houston as Trump singing show tunes to Hamilton, but flipping on the bird telling him to kiss my ass, and they were cheering because they thought, oh this can't be real.
So I think that's all of Canada.
Canada is one big gay bar.
Your thoughts?
Real touchy.
He kept, after the show was in the bar, he went to our show, he kept touching me and said, man, you got some nice arms.
I was like, um, quit touching me.
This is in Canada?
This is in Canada.
And it's, uh, his girlfriend was right there and it was just weird.
Maybe they were swingers.
And you're twins, so you're right up their alley.
If you could fit Morgan Freeman in there, you'd be the trifecta.
Man, not Morgan Freeman.
Morgan Freeman, another good black man.
I don't want to use the term good too loosely there.
He's good.
He's a good actor, man.
He seems wholesome, man.
Man, if Bill Cosby was bad, man, he was the pudding pop guy, man.
He was the most wholesome black dude we had.
He was putting women to sleep, man.
That's crazy as hell.
The Puddin' Pop man, man.
Yeah.
Back in the day when he first started, he was putting stuff in people's Puddin' Pops.
Man.
Shut up.
Alright, well, I'm glad they let you in and out of Canada, and I hope your shows are going well and you're doing live.
You're going to be in Europe soon.
I know you were in Europe last year.
When does this start?
Oh man, it's starting in June.
First, we're going to Dublin, Ireland.
Okay.
We're going to London.
We're going to Manchester, UK.
Calm down.
Calm down.
Just calm down, man.
Calm down.
Take a breath.
Calm down!
Shut up!
Then we're going to Leeds, UK.
Then we're going to Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool.
Tell them Amsterdam, man.
We're going to Amsterdam.
No, no.
We're going to Rotterdam.
That's in Netherlands.
Tell them Sweden, man.
Then we're going to Sweden.
Did you tell them Ireland?
We're going to Norway, and then we're going to Glasgow.
That's in Scott.
Hey, I think you forgot to tell him about the United Kingdom, man.
I told him that.
No, he told him that.
So, you're going to Norway... Basically, he's picking up the backpacking map for Syrian migrants.
It's gonna be Syrian migrants hitchhiking.
They're going to Hodgetwins!
Oh, haven't seen you in a long time!
Just kidding!
Oh, black people.
We don't have many of them.
We usually burn them.
So, wow.
Norway, Sweden, Germany.
You guys really do have a white fan base.
You're going to a country with the population of Rhode Island and nary a colored amongst them.
You know what's funny?
All the black people come to my show, they got white girlfriends.
Well, it's like, don't they get a free drink or something on the two drink minimum if they do that?
I don't think we need to beep that because you said it.
I don't know what it is, man.
I've never had a lot of black friends, man.
It used to hurt me.
We had a couple.
Yeah, I had a couple, man, but...
We did it by force.
I busted y'all to kill you.
Hey man, we was playin' basketball, man.
He pulled out a damn big-ass... What's them big-ass blades called, man?
A shank.
No, not a shank.
Which blade?
Machete?
No, not a shank blade.
It was a machete.
Wait, where was he carrying it?
How long had he been playing basketball?
Was this, like, in the third?
I mean, when does this happen?
It was about that big, man.
It hit me on the ground because I was frying them all day long.
I was shooting threes all in space.
I was talking trash.
He had a machete?
You didn't notice he was walking around like he had a peg leg?
At no point did any suspicions arise?
He had it.
He used to show everybody, hey man, look at my knife.
I was like, wow, that's a nice knife, man.
What you gonna do with that?
Okay.
You gonna go hunting with that knife, man?
You gonna go kill some deer with it, or what?
All right.
On that note, listen, okay, I want people to go, obviously, to go see you.
If you're there in Europe, I know we have a lot of European fans, particularly in the UK, where I cannot go.
So you can go enjoy the Hodge Twins in our place, Hodgetwinstour.com.
You can follow them at Hodgetwins.
And obviously, they have a lot of merch.
Maybe we need to co-create a Bitch Can't Breathe shirt and sell it in our store.
There you go.
Just you with the Little News Boys hat.
Fish can't breathe!
That'll be our top-selling shirt, I guarantee it.
Alright, Keith and Kevin, please stay strong.
We appreciate your voice out there and don't get hurt when you go to Europe
Now you best start.
When the dance time, have to deliver the cookies, be back.
Cookies, be back.
Oh Oh
That was a Morgan Freeman.
Before I jumped into the pool I had to put the sunblock on my freckles.
You have to get down under so you can look up.
Get busy.
Get busy swimming.
Holding my breath is completely unnecessary.
Get busy perverting.
He's a rapist.
That is the undertone.
Allegedly.
That's the undertones.
They're a little bit dark.
Thank you to the Hodge twins, Ralph Macchio and Kreese.
I just forgot his last name there.
You okay?
You looked like you were suffocating for a bit.
I was.
Honestly, I don't know why I don't do more acting on that because it's hard on my body.
Yeah.
It's almost like you don't consider it your job.
I know.
But, uh, looking forward to it.
Next week, by the way, no show Monday because it's, uh, obviously because it's Memorial Day.
Remember, it's Memorial Day.
And then I don't know if we have a show on Tuesday.
I'm not entirely sure because we have some renovations going on in the studio like we've talked about.
If you watch the behind the scenes, we're building a whole new green screen studio.
So not entirely sure, but definitely not Monday.
And then we have a pretty big week of shows Wednesday and Thursday.
Thanks for Silence of the Mug Club.
Everyone did some good work on that.
And thanks to the Hodgewoods for coming in here last minute.
Like we said, we were booking Candace Owens today, and I think it was just a miscommunication where she had communicated with the booker, and then I don't know.
I had it in my schedule.
So sorry, Kate.
We'd love to have her on.
A lot of people had some questions for her, so hopefully we can have her on soon.
You know, one thing I wanted to talk about here at the end of this week It's been a pretty tiring week.
Let me just start with this.
You can't be anything you want to be.
You cannot.
You absolutely cannot be anything you put your mind to.
That's reality.
Now let me clarify this because I've always been one, especially... People say, hold on, isn't this usually where you encourage people?
No, listen, I can't stand dream stealers.
I can't stand dream stealers at all.
There are people I despise.
There are far I can't think of any people I despise more than dream killers.
I do think that people out there should dream.
I do think people should have ambitions and you can achieve unbelievable things.
Certainly, when most people say you can't, usually they're wrong.
But you cannot be anything that you put your mind to.
Now why do I say that?
I say that because if you're going to start chasing some dreams, and I get some emails Again, let me talk about a lot of college students, a lot of people feel lost out there, and we have, there's some modicum of success with this program.
We're incredibly grateful to everyone who's subscribed, who's signed up for notifications, who's bookmarked or joined Mug Club, because YouTube, of course, is trying to make it more and more difficult to reach you.
So sometimes people say, well, listen, how do you make it happen?
How do you determine success?
How do you go after your dreams?
Here's something.
For example, I'm not going to be an NBA player.
Neither is Nakai Jared.
You're not going to be a champion eater taking out Kobayashi anytime soon.
No.
I also can't drink milk.
Well, goat's milk.
You said you might be able to try goat's milk.
When did that start?
You weren't lactose intolerant.
I don't know.
Are you jumping on the gluten trend?
Maybe.
Could be a queer.
The point I'm trying to make here is we talk about truth a whole lot and you do have to be truthful with yourself and it doesn't help anybody just to blindly tell people you can do anything you put your mind to.
No, you can do most things you put your mind to and most people don't fulfill their potential and most people don't fulfill their potential not because they didn't put their mind to take a pick.
They didn't fulfill their potential because they didn't fulfill their purpose.
You were designed Let's say you don't believe in God.
Okay, you exist for a purpose in the mere pragmatic sense that there is something you can probably do better than anyone else or as good as anyone else.
And there are some things that you can't do very well.
When I was in the 8th grade at one point, no, sorry, not the 8th grade, it was the 5th grade, because I had watched Space Jam, I think, I wanted to play in the NBA for a bit.
Then I realized it wasn't in the cards.
No, that doesn't mean you're giving up on a dream.
You need to figure it out and experiment with things.
If you want to know how are you in your wheelhouse, how are you in your purpose, I think everyone has had this moment.
This is one thing.
I want you to take some time here.
You don't have to do it right now during this segment, last segment of the week.
Take some time, reflect on it, and think if this ever happened with you.
Did you ever have a moment where You realized you weren't good at anything else, and all of a sudden it clicked that you were good at something.
Let me tell you that for me, the reason that I'm doing this show, the reason this is the only thing that I could do is, I remember in high school, not only did I have horrible handwriting, not only was I terrible at math, I mean, they thought I was retarded for a while because of my handwriting, and then also because of the fact that they thought I was retarded, and I was in French immersion.
Turns out I just needed to go to English school.
And I was picked last for gym class, I think I told you this, after way long,
the autistic Asian kid, legitimate autistic, by the way, not like on the spectrum, you know what I mean?
Like the kind of guy who would piss his pants, forget who he was, and punch you in the balls,
like that kind of guy.
Way long.
I remember, I was picked last after way long.
And I remember, for some reason, I could make teachers laugh.
For some reason, I could argue pretty well.
For some reason, even though I was terrified of giving public speeches, I was put to a provincial competition in public speaking in high school.
For some reason, bullies would have to stop themselves from laughing while kicking my ass.
And I remember sitting in class when I didn't open my textbook at all.
At all, at all, my senior year.
My 10th and 11th grade years in high school.
My math textbook.
I miss her a lot as a teacher.
God rest his soul.
Nice guy.
Terrible math teacher.
I didn't open it.
And they said, what are you doing all day in class?
And all I did was think.
All I did was, you know, you call it daydreaming.
And I know it sounds like daydreaming.
But all we do is think about performing.
At this point, I'd been writing stand-up.
I remember when I got to college, I'd been performing stand-up.
At that point, by my teens, I'd been doing acting since I was 12 years old.
All I would do was think about going to Los Angeles to finish what I was doing with acting, or doing stand-up in front of big crowds, or something like hosting a show.
Podcasting hadn't been around yet.
Immediately when MySpace came out, and Dane Cook was a thing, MySpace comedy didn't exist, but through coding, we uploaded these clips, and I got into the Just for Laughs.
But I remember sitting there, and when they said, well, what are you doing?
I just, I've never thought about anything else, and I wasn't good at anything else.
It's not like I woke up as a kid, and all I ever wanted to be Oh, I knew right away I was going to be a podcast slash first ever online late night host who didn't endorse Hillary Clinton.
I didn't know that.
I wanted to be a firefighter at some point, and then I realized I wasn't very strong.
And then I wanted to be, like I said, a basketball player.
Couldn't run or jump.
And so I had to be realistic with myself and say, oh, you know what?
Here's one thing that you can do pretty well.
You can do it pretty well.
You've tried the other things.
Here's one thing that you can do pretty well.
See how far you can go with it.
And what did that lead to?
That led to striking out cold-calling agents.
That led to Tony Camacho, my first manager, sleeping on his daughter's couch in Jamaica Hills, Queens, when I was 18 years old, doing two, three sets a night every night in New York City.
And I sucked.
A lot.
That led to doing festivals and hosting shows with MTV that sucked and were terrible and a lot of the time I thought I wanted to quit because I can't believe that I'm hosting a game show on MTV for pennies on the dollar and this is the only thing I was good at?
Why couldn't I be good at building spacecraft?
Why couldn't I be the best astronaut?
I was really pissed about it.
I was able to speak relatively well.
That's what I was good at.
I want you to think that there's a moment for you in time.
Almost everyone has a moment that you can think back to where you realize, okay, hold on a second.
I think this is something I can do.
I think everyone has that moment and a lot of people just push it back because maybe it scares them.
Because they want to think they can pick whatever their purpose is.
But you can't!
Can you think back to a moment where you said, okay, this is something I can do.
This is something I'm good at.
It came to me later in life because I was always inclined to technology and kind of performance kind of stuff in high school, but it didn't hit me very early on.
Not as early as it hit you for sure.
But once you did find that, once I found that, I'm like, oh, I enjoy this and I'm good at it and I think I can make a dollar doing it.
Yeah.
Support a family with it.
So there was a moment I clicked it and I was about 21, 22 years old.
What a click for me.
And by the way, this purpose can change, by the way.
You can be careerful, and then your purpose could be to be a fantastic father, or a fantastic husband, fantastic wife, fantastic mother.
You could be a career woman before that.
I want to make sure that people understand you're not fixed.
You're not in one fixed track.
I think one of the things that we talked about a couple weeks ago, learning which people in your life, as you grow older, you have to figure out which ones do you own and which ones you don't.
It's also, there's a flip side to that, which voices matter and which ones don't.
Because a lot of people will tell you, Yeah.
you know, the dream killers of life, that you can't do this.
And then those people have inspired me to do all those things.
Yeah.
And then there are people in your life you need to realize, oh, my dad or my mom, you know, they really love me, look
out for me.
And they say, I'm, you know, I am awful at drinking milk and I have to take the work for it.
Thank God. Thank God.
My purpose is not professional milk tester.
No. If that's even a real thing.
Okay, that's a good point because you need to learn which voices to ignore in yourself.
Everyone is pulled apart by voices.
Let me give you a couple examples, okay?
I graduated young.
Usually I try not to get into names, but I'll tell you this.
It was my ex-girlfriend's uncle.
And I remember I've told this story, maybe it was back when it was a three-hour show.
I've told this story, I still think about it.
I was doing relatively well.
You know, I did The Voice on Arthur.
I was doing a lot of commercials.
Enough where I had saved up some money working in high school, missed a lot of days in school.
The Voice on Arthur, they just give you a podcast after that, right?
Yeah, they just give you a podcast after that, of course.
That's how you leverage it.
That and the big Jew money.
And I was sitting there going, what are you going to do after high school?
And I said, you know what?
I don't know.
I think I owe it to myself to try to go to Los Angeles and really see how far I can take this.
And him, his wife, and his son started, and he had a laugh like this.
I started laughing.
Imagine the kind of person you have to be to 16 years old.
By the way, it's not like it's totally just, I'm going to be an actor.
It's like, at this point, I had already had my union card for six years.
You know, like I had done some stuff and laughed and said, oh, maybe get your head out of the clouds and think about
going into engineering, which was far less realistic.
You don't want me building your planes at Pratt & Whitney.
I don't want to fly in you with planes.
And I remember I had a realization going, the fact that everyone thinks this is laughable and I don't,
Okay, maybe this is something I can do.
One more story.
It was in college.
Spanish teacher.
Couldn't stand her.
I can't even remember her name.
I knew I was doomed to fail.
I knew I was doomed to fail Spanish.
She immediately removed 30% from my grade at the beginning of the semester.
The reason for that was, this was in Canada, and the reason, yeah, I was learning.
I thought, ah, I don't know.
I can learn three languages.
Turns out I know more Brazilian-style Portuguese than Spanish.
That's how effective it is.
That's how effective learning a language in school is.
And not at all.
So, she took 30% off my grade.
And the reason was, I had missed three classes.
Now, we were visiting my family in Texas at the time, and Hurricane Katrina happened.
And so, actually, we ended up staying a little bit longer.
I remember calling my teachers, saying, hey, listen, I'm not going to be in school for the first couple of weeks.
Can you send me the homework?
All the other teachers sent me my homework.
She didn't.
She said, you lose 10% for each class you miss in my class.
Talk about a horrible human being, right?
So I go, and I'm like, well, listen, I really want to pass this class.
I'm really not doing very well.
And I'd like to be tutored.
She said, you don't need to be tutored.
What you need to do is come into my office twice a week, and I'll help you, and you'll be fine.
Well, we get about 2 3rds through the semester, and she tells me you're failing.
I'm like, I know, right?
She says, I think you need a counselor at the library.
I said, but I, but, ah!
But I said I needed it.
That's what I said.
And you said, don't do it.
She said, no, no, you use the word tutor, not counselor.
And we're sitting there going, OK, I see where this is going.
And she said at that time, she said, well, I don't know why you screw around so much in my class.
I don't know what you're thinking about in class.
What do you think?
Are you going to do the Just for Laughs or something?
And the day before, I had just found out.
And not a big deal, but it's a pretty big comedy festival for young aspiring comedians.
The day before, I had just found out that I was the youngest comedian ever to do the Just for Laughs.
And so that was a defining moment for me, where I said, okay, the fact that she thinks it's so absurd, and I don't know what I can accomplish, but I do know there's some confirmation that I'm certainly better at this than Spanish, that I'm certainly better at this than math, that I'm certainly better at this than basketball.
So when people go out there and say, you know, I want to be successful, but you know, I'm down, how do I, how do I, you know, it seems like you haven't figured, I don't have it figured out.
This is honestly pretty, since I've known Not Gay Jared, who were doing an AM radio show, And I said, as long as I own the rights, we'll syndicate this out nationally.
And then we started podcasting it.
And remember, we said, I don't think this can work on radio.
I don't think radio is going to live for a much longer time.
Then we started doing this with, I don't know if conservatives are going to want to watch a late night show.
They're so used to listening to AM radio where all people do is bitch about Obama.
We didn't know that it was going to work, but it hit a certain point when we had the Nick DePaulos and the Jim Nortons and the Owen Benjamins of the world banging on the door saying, hey, I really like what you're doing.
I really appreciate what you're doing.
We said, we can do this.
Not even a year before I met you, I had a close friend tell me, when I told him I really wanted to make a go of producing and things, he said, you need to get your head out of the clouds, Jared.
Right.
He told me that.
It has driven me mad ever since, and it's kind of, you know, I don't want to say, you know, revenge is the best form of success.
Sorry, success is the best form of revenge.
Revenge is the best form of success.
Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow!
That's successful!
No, you're just a serial killer.
Tomato, I say broken spleen.
We'll fix that in post, but yeah, you know what I mean.
I mean, it really has driven me, some of those words.
It absolutely does.
It absolutely does, Trevor.
Look at what you're doing now.
Here's the thing.
If you were going to talk about fulfilling a purpose and living a life where you feel fulfilled, people who say you can do anything you put your mind to, they're about as stupid as the people who say men can do anything women can do, women can do anything men can do.
Those people are just about as stupid as people who tell you just play it safe.
Just don't leave the state, stay close to mom.
Don't try something that most people don't do.
What you need to do, like you said, is you talked about eliminating voices from your life, other people.
Figure out the ones that matter, figure out the ones that don't.
You are doing yourself a great disservice if you aren't being truthful with yourself in your alone time.
And I have found in my life that when I sit and I speak with people, when I speak with fans, particularly young fans who are trying to find direction in life, particularly people who we've even hired here who are younger, I talk with them and I say, when did you realize this is what you wanted to do?
Or, when did you realize what you want to do, and what is it?
Almost everyone can pin that moment.
Just like the flash of genius, an invention with a product or some kind of a new service, that's a film, it's actually a legal term, flash of genius, it can be traced.
Almost everybody can trace back to a moment where they realize, you didn't know you were going to be the best.
I don't think Michael Jordan knew he was going to be the best.
I don't think Wayne Gretzky knew he was going to be the best.
I think at some point they said, I can do this.
and owed it to themselves to do it to the best of their ability to chase that trail down with everything they had and sometimes it pans out sometimes it doesn't but you'll be happier if you try it the key is that starting off point like everything else we talk about it's got to be true find that moment there's something you can do that someone else can't do either you can do it to the You could be the best in the world at it, or at least as good as the elite of the elite of the elite, and people around you can't do it.
Everyone has that.
And by the way, people are saying, well, yeah, that's a nice thing to say, but what about people who are retarded, for example?
I can tell you there are people at Friendship Club right now where we used to work with special needs people.
They could give you a multiplication table like that.
Any number you pick.
I can show you people there with a capacity for love that I've never seen with anyone else.
People who have the ability to pick up on emotions from other people that I've never seen in a while.
So sometimes people will surprise you with what they're capable of doing, and sometimes you'll surprise yourself.
But it's got to start from a point of truth.
Trace that moment.
Figure it out.
What do you think you can do pretty well?
What do you think you can do better than the next guy?
And do it to the best of your ability.
Do it with everything you have.
See what happens.
And if you fail, well, at least you had a life of purpose.
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