#1660 - David Lee Roth

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] Likewise.

[4] Joe, you handle aging better than anybody than I know.

[5] You stay yourself through thick and thin.

[6] You are yourself.

[7] Please explain self -son.

[8] You are you.

[9] You don't, you know, you carry zero pretense.

[10] You are just who you are.

[11] And you're eccentric, but it is genuine.

[12] I enjoy folks.

[13] I enjoy entertaining folks.

[14] I enjoy learning from folks, whether that's in a formatted kind of a thing or whether we're gathered around the campfire or the occasional bong.

[15] Yes.

[16] The alleged bong.

[17] That's something that most of us, I think, perhaps we were compelled to skip out on that once we leave school.

[18] Once we leave the club level in showbiz, where we're confronting.

[19] with all kinds of other neighborhoods of folks and, you know, different kinds of shoes and haircuts and music and approaches to the politic and social.

[20] Once you're out of school, you kind of, okay, I join the law firm.

[21] Now I only go out with the law firm.

[22] Folks that join that country club.

[23] Or you become a permanent below 14th Street downtown and I haven't been above 14th Street in four years.

[24] You used to hear that, right?

[25] Yeah.

[26] So when you when you lose that, it becomes, gee, you want to stay part of that group.

[27] You don't want to start speaking downtown around the law boys.

[28] I myself am a combat hippie, peace, love, and heavy weapons.

[29] That's a thing about, like, leaving clubs, right?

[30] You leave clubs, you kind of leave contact with people, right?

[31] You remember the quad, and it's just as important and perhaps more important going boo.

[32] The quad?

[33] Yeah, the quad at school.

[34] There's a pep rally on the quad at the quadrangle.

[35] Okay.

[36] Remember, at the quadrangle, you know, there's a pep rally on the quad.

[37] It means a square place where everybody gathers for the rally.

[38] And people, going to music school, going to art school, doesn't matter.

[39] Folks frequently will come out, and Al Van Halelan and I went to music school together.

[40] For example, he says, say hello.

[41] He's listening currently.

[42] Say hello.

[43] As we speak.

[44] Alex actually would punch you in the shoulder and go, yo.

[45] Yep.

[46] He was part of the busing program, too.

[47] Yo.

[48] Yo!

[49] However, I'm Jewish, so he would say, hello.

[50] Shalom.

[51] What's with the outfit, the painting outfit?

[52] I like it.

[53] This is kind of what I wear regular, okay?

[54] If you get dressed up, there's nothing's going to make you look older and trying to look young.

[55] Nothing's going to make you look fat and trying to look skinny.

[56] You want to see.

[57] how I am regularly.

[58] Elton John can't go anywhere without purple.

[59] He can't?

[60] No. There are folks who can't go out anywhere without a complete hair setup and obtaining the character.

[61] That seems exhausting.

[62] It is.

[63] I'm not really a character.

[64] Most of my high fashion probably comes from a sports store and probably comes from a surplus place.

[65] And on a show like this, you get a better view of who I actually might be.

[66] Now, if I was putting on face, I wouldn't have showed up with a missing tooth.

[67] I fell off my bike going zero miles an hour.

[68] The seat was too high.

[69] My leg was too short.

[70] It was a deadly combination.

[71] And you lost a tooth.

[72] When did you lose a tooth?

[73] But in the mixed martial arts context, I think it might be fit.

[74] Well, again, it fits with your lack of pretense.

[75] Did you, are you going to get it replaced?

[76] Of course.

[77] And I'm glad you asked.

[78] How do they do that?

[79] They like screw a bolt in there?

[80] Yeah.

[81] It is in Beverly Hills.

[82] I am fortunate enough to have some great dentists who do what I call newscaster teeth.

[83] Oh, nice.

[84] Who sits closer to the camera for sustained periods of time.

[85] It doesn't matter what news you watch.

[86] I know we watch both.

[87] And you study them.

[88] So their teeth have to be perfect.

[89] and I just saw a great show on Netflix called Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

[90] It's the story of Ma Rainey, the blues singer, played by Viola Davis.

[91] And she has teeth.

[92] It looked like she made a $15 visit to an uptown dentist in 1926.

[93] Got a frame on it, you know?

[94] Like a gold frame.

[95] Mike Tyson had these teeth, too.

[96] I remember.

[97] And so it has taken me six months, but I'm getting a blues tooth.

[98] Blues tooth.

[99] Oh, yeah.

[100] I'm getting exactly one of those with the frame on it.

[101] Really?

[102] Old school.

[103] Oh, yeah.

[104] So a gold frame?

[105] Mm -hmm.

[106] 1926.

[107] So that when I look in the mirror in the morning, I'm reminded.

[108] Wow.

[109] This is where is it?

[110] I always wanted a gold tooth.

[111] Think about that, right?

[112] One gold tooth at least?

[113] That would be pretty dope.

[114] Come on.

[115] I just saw a picture of Mike Tyson when he was 20 years old and he's got one tooth visited and the whole thing.

[116] It really completes the look.

[117] But for myself, it is blues.

[118] I went to high school.

[119] isn't from 1926.

[120] It says so right down on the rock when it was just a trade school up in Altadena, California.

[121] Everything, every Van Halen song has a Motown chorus.

[122] I saw to it conscious.

[123] Everything that is usable in Van Halen appeals to, oh, Jesus, every haircut you can imagine.

[124] You can go from skinhead to dreadlocks.

[125] Doesn't matter if you got a cowboy hat or a Mohawk.

[126] It doesn't matter if it's Hollywood Bufant, okay?

[127] These days, it's not just guys, gals, but in the middle as well, okay?

[128] It translates to all, you follow?

[129] I do.

[130] Sort of.

[131] And, well, it's a combination.

[132] This is our 50th year, Alex and I. That's crazy.

[133] Why is it crazy?

[134] But it's just amazing, you know, crazy in a wild and awesome way.

[135] You know, the fact that you guys have been doing music for that long.

[136] I mean, that's pretty incredible.

[137] We came out of this music three weeks out of high school graduation.

[138] Okay?

[139] Our parents were very insistent.

[140] I feel like I'm watching a movie.

[141] I've seen it all play out right now.

[142] Yeah.

[143] Is the Van Heelans, their father, their mom said, you're moving out.

[144] Okay?

[145] They had jobs set up for them at the airport.

[146] No shit is baggage handlers.

[147] Okay.

[148] I had been tossed out of my house by mom.

[149] mostly halfway through high school okay so halfway through high school she said out yeah what did you do um well i made my way ultimately i moved in with dad but i finished high school no but i mean what you do that made her kick you out of the house i was a troublesome kid okay i was in and out of the busing program it was a wild and colorful time all right this is the 60s you follow and there was conflict in terms of where the Van Halen's went to school, for example, as Pasadena High School.

[150] It's 90 % Caucasian, we'll call it, and other.

[151] I went to the schools that were all black and Spanish speaking.

[152] So when I say, orale, I mean it, I see.

[153] Al Van Heelan owns a 1956 Bel Air Coupe, okay, with the slicks on the back, et cetera, et cetera.

[154] Okay, that's Pasadena High School.

[155] I own a lowered 66 Volkswagen with a 383 Chevy engine in the front local.

[156] It's like the balance that made our music colorful.

[157] My moniker Diamond Dave comes from when I would go over to the Van Halen side, that's like Ridgemont High.

[158] I went to like Cooley High, all right?

[159] And their music was all Led Zeppelin, Stones, the Who, Sabbath, like this.

[160] And starting at the seventh grade youth club dance for me, that was all Motown, which, you know, later my record collection was everything from Rick James and, you know, the funk.

[161] I took Eddie Van Halen to his first black concert at the forum.

[162] I think it was the only one that he ever went to was Earth Wind and Fire.

[163] Whoa.

[164] You saw Earth Wind and Fire live.

[165] 1976, when all the hits lifted up.

[166] Every famous earthwind and fire like this, because I was gang -signing the whole alphabet from seventh grade on.

[167] Come on.

[168] We knew where to go get clip -on ties and see -through socks at A -Meals.

[169] When Alex Van Halen and I made our first lawsuit for $150 bucks on somebody who welshed on a check, we went to A -Meals.

[170] And we got clip -on ties, and we got proper socks, and we went out and sued them.

[171] You sued someone for $150?

[172] Somebody said, it was the, and I say with respect, the Mayfield School, the Holy Child of Jesus Incorporated, Joe.

[173] And they said, and this was 1973, and said according to the contract, that we had been smoking marijuana.

[174] No. I know I came to the right place, but save your romance.

[175] As a fact, we did not.

[176] That was not possible because we didn't have enough money for it.

[177] We would have.

[178] Full disclosure.

[179] full disclosure yep it's for 150 bucks so al and i and i know al is listening right now we laugh like pirates on the phone okay and uh he uh he and i went to um uh amials we got clip on ties okay and we went and we filed in the small claims division all right um we stood in there and the school showed up.

[180] There were two nuns and a family.

[181] A father, a mother, and two young daughters.

[182] It was quintessential.

[183] This was 1973.

[184] In these days, like, for example, here in Texas with long hair, you better watch out over your shoulders.

[185] A very, very different background.

[186] Okay?

[187] This is now any kind of haircut goes these days.

[188] But remember, long hair in 1973, in a court of law?

[189] Wow.

[190] You were already on your back foot.

[191] And we stood up, thought we were fooling the magistrate.

[192] He followed with our long ponytails.

[193] Remember what I used to look like, Joe?

[194] He used to look like Tarzan who read a few paperbacks.

[195] Come on.

[196] Right.

[197] I was you, Joe.

[198] Look at you.

[199] Look at you.

[200] Exactly.

[201] And, you know, cheekbones for days, man. You could sharpen a hunting knife on those cheekbones.

[202] Look at those cheeks.

[203] That's right.

[204] What a beautiful man you were.

[205] There we go.

[206] I was gorgeous.

[207] Beautiful man. Man, I launched a thousand hips.

[208] When you look back on that light.

[209] No, no, I'm not a sex symbol.

[210] You dig?

[211] I'm not a sex object.

[212] It's I symbolize it when you guys feel sexy.

[213] I'm the emce.

[214] I make other people feel sexy.

[215] You come and you listen to Van Halen music.

[216] You give me three songs.

[217] You're going to feel young and skinny.

[218] You joke will feel invincible.

[219] and your old lady will feel eminently desirable.

[220] How much is that worth?

[221] It's inestimable.

[222] You got some good marijuana.

[223] I'll tell you that.

[224] When I walked in here, when I got to the studio, it was like the fog was thick in the building.

[225] As I passed through, I'm like, Dave must be here.

[226] I'm thinking of starting a brand.

[227] Yeah?

[228] A weed brand?

[229] You should.

[230] I would call it the shit that killed Elvis.

[231] T -S -K -E.

[232] What do you think?

[233] It's a good move.

[234] It's a good t -shirt.

[235] I would wear it.

[236] I wear that t -shirt.

[237] If you start that brand, I'll wear that t -shirt on the podcast.

[238] Well, if I was going to do an acoustic guitar, you know, people in my position, they sell guitars, for example.

[239] Right.

[240] If it's as a lead singer, what am I going to sell an acoustic guitar?

[241] It would be, I thought about this, the loudest acoustic guitar you ever bought.

[242] Without being bigger.

[243] How can it be louder?

[244] I don't know.

[245] I'm not an engineer, Joe.

[246] I'm an artist.

[247] You would just figure out a way to make it louder.

[248] But the DLR, the DRO special, would somehow be louder without being larger.

[249] And if we were making a weed brand, why don't we just cut to the chase?

[250] You know, it's like when we get stuff that makes us look good, do you really care about wellness?

[251] No. Do you really care that it was made from educated favel beans or that it can speak Spanish or make a damn good espresso?

[252] No. This oint makes me look vaguely handsome.

[253] So I'll put it on.

[254] I don't care.

[255] And so tomorrow, Burroughs.

[256] They make me look handsome, too.

[257] Do you have one?

[258] Marlboros, make you look handsome?

[259] Yeah, that's how Marlboro made his living.

[260] Because I'm a cowboy, baby.

[261] You can tell from my cigarette.

[262] And I can say that in 182 Marlboro languages.

[263] Do you still smoke cigarettes?

[264] Occasionally I do.

[265] How often?

[266] Every two days, perhaps.

[267] Every two days?

[268] That's right.

[269] That, like, flies in the face of the myth that you smoke them and you get hooked, right?

[270] And then you have to smoke them constantly.

[271] I, if anybody catches up with me, it'll probably be the Marlboro man. I can't imagine all of my heroes creating what they did in a smoke -free environment.

[272] Really?

[273] I can't imagine any of my favorite comics, especially the ones from the vinyl records that I grew up worshipping.

[274] Okay.

[275] How do you create that kind of comedy?

[276] Whether it was Lenny Bruce or Rich Pryor or anybody in between, how do you create that in a smoke -free environment.

[277] How do you create jazz music?

[278] Remember all those blue -note jazz album covers and you might not even know what to call them, but if I hold it up, you go, oh, I've seen that a thousand times.

[279] And that slow smoke, every set, even the drummer has a cigarette in his mouth.

[280] And the places in the movies when I was very, very young, were all black and white and it was Humphrey Bogart and I think Ingmar Bergman or whoever it was, I'm not even sure who it was, but she was gorgeous and I was young and I was just sort of getting started and tuned into the way.

[281] Like just basically a teen.

[282] And she turns to him with a cigarette and says, got a light and along with 20 million other baby boomers, I went, you bet.

[283] and then later when I was 13 we went and saw a goldfinger he smokes a cigarette named after a Roth that's Rothman Kingsize you bet I am essay and I turned into bones so Jones Bowl what's the benefit of the cigarette what's the cigarette do well initially cigarettes all posture it's all presentation it's all showbiz.

[284] And especially for someone like myself who just the world's a stage and I'd appreciate some better lighting.

[285] It's a video.

[286] Why stop now, Joe Rogan?

[287] Yes, I get it.

[288] And the cigarette would complete it because all of my heroes smoked every cowboy.

[289] When you heard the harmonica or whatever it was in Clint Eastwood, he was smoking something called a chairroot.

[290] And I didn't even know what that was, but I knew that I was doomed to actually try one sooner or later.

[291] Yeah, he smoked those dark leaf cigarettes, right?

[292] It's called a chairroot.

[293] Care root?

[294] Yes.

[295] That's what it's called?

[296] Yes.

[297] And that's just your adventure heroes.

[298] All my favorite comics smoke cigars.

[299] I myself am a very indelicate house blend of a Kurosawa, Sumerai Epic, and Groucho.

[300] And how many times, I don't know if you've ever turned.

[301] I don't know you well, but any kid in my neighborhood growing up, at some point did this to a pretty girl with your eyebrows.

[302] The Groucho Marx move.

[303] Yeah.

[304] You bet your life.

[305] And pretended you had a cigar.

[306] Yeah.

[307] And you all know what you weren't saying.

[308] That was all about sub -to -text at 11 years old.

[309] But, okay, so there's the presentation of the cigarette, but what about the effects?

[310] Oh, ultimately, certainly, certainly.

[311] What's the positive benefits of the effects of the cigarette?

[312] are no positive benefit.

[313] But isn't there like, does a cognitive benefit?

[314] Oh, well, now you're reaching for the cognitive instead of the medical.

[315] I can't name you a single author.

[316] You know, I'm a bookman.

[317] Mm -hmm.

[318] You're right.

[319] We were talking earlier about my house back in Pasadena.

[320] You're welcome to come in and try and steal it.

[321] All you're going to carry out are books.

[322] There's probably 2 ,000 books.

[323] I could fill this entire room with books, books, books, books.

[324] I don't know any great author who wasn't involved in nicotine.

[325] Mark Twain smoked 40 full Cuban cigarettes a day.

[326] That's two full boxes a day.

[327] That's insane.

[328] Freud, same thing.

[329] Churchill?

[330] Churchill, smoked at least a box.

[331] That's 30.

[332] And a Churchill, if you know anything about cigars, that's as fat as a kickstand on a fat boy.

[333] That's a big cigar.

[334] it's and the and nicotine will do something in your head okay yeah and this comes with full disclaimer of kids don't do this this is I'm not recommending you do it but in terms of what do you really think you tell me what you think I think that uh in terms of authorship where you really have to use your intellective something like playing chess or writing a book or a play or novels or whatever that nicotine has a major impact all of my favorite musicians who are composers Leonard Bernstein have you seen the coming attractions for Westside story i myself am not a big Broadway fan but it's mind -blowing what's going on with what he did with film for Westside story and Leonard Bernstein was a chain smoker don't tell me that that nicotine did didn't have the same thing to do with what he's doing that William Burroughs and Carrowack, the fellas, that it's just a big part of it.

[335] Stephen King.

[336] Stephen King talked about how when he quit, he had a real noticeable effect.

[337] Like when he got off the cigarettes, it was like much more difficult to write.

[338] It's hard to adjust to this kind of a thinking sometimes because we got snuckered or swindled.

[339] we got swindled Joe when it came to LSD and people would start going wow you know drugs can open up a whole lot and I know there's we have a far reach or your voice has a far reach and there are some people you know named moonbeam or snow doggy going to do that really positive effect on me well when you start to hear that and now you realize that perhaps psychedelia didn't have such a creative value somewhat perhaps whatever but compared to whatever is go fast i certainly don't recommend any of it go fast anything makes you go fast go fat nicotine makes you go fast you're making me want a cigar you want go ahead please do you want one i'm fine but please i'll enjoy yours i love the aroma of tobacco coming off of a cigar when you smell that with scotch on the rocks and a women's perfume drifting in on a warm breeze.

[340] You tell me that's not Miami.

[341] You try to lie to me and I'm going to stop you right here on the air.

[342] That's poetic.

[343] You're talking poetry.

[344] Right?

[345] That's Hemingway baby.

[346] Women's perfume with the scotch?

[347] Oh my God.

[348] Right?

[349] And the smell of that rich cigar, tobacco smoke and it's humid, right?

[350] You want to go modern?

[351] Off in the distance.

[352] She's got an accent.

[353] no really you know that it's an aroma right it's not a fragrance it's not a smell right it's an aroma like something that comes out of a kitchen when you smell bread being baked in New York City right sourdough oh you walk past that and at my age you get turned on by different things I was living in Japan and downstairs they had a whole section of just Wagyu beef you know that $50 an ounce kind of red meat I called it the porno section.

[354] I don't really like that stuff.

[355] Me neither.

[356] I think it's too...

[357] It's bad for you.

[358] You porno?

[359] It's too fatty.

[360] No. It's bad for you, but...

[361] Want to change the subject?

[362] Oh, hell no. You're in Texas.

[363] We talk beef.

[364] No. I eat red meat regularly.

[365] I was raised in, you know, in Indiana.

[366] Coming out of Newcastle, you know the little circle picture, your profile picture.

[367] It's a picture of a little kid, that's me when I'm about four years old, learning to time I shoot.

[368] It's a fellow with some bit of overalls in these exact kind of boots teaching me to do it in Newcastle, Indiana, right down the street.

[369] So I grew up with what I finally called white trash, soul food, baby.

[370] Everything was cheese.

[371] Everything had butter on it.

[372] Oh, there you go.

[373] That's me. Careful what you show your kids.

[374] Look at that little cutie.

[375] You were adorable.

[376] Pop was in school until I was about 11, 12 years old.

[377] Oh, yeah?

[378] In Indiana, you.

[379] So, it's all about the outdoors.

[380] What do you do when you have no money in the family?

[381] You learn to play outdoors.

[382] Go outdoors.

[383] It's raining.

[384] Pretend you're on a boat.

[385] It's snowing.

[386] Now you're in Eskimo.

[387] And take your Eskimo's sister with you.

[388] How many times did it?

[389] Did I hear that?

[390] It's dusty and hot.

[391] Okay, cowboy.

[392] How did we get here from beef?

[393] Did you hear, this is when there's something, didn't the beef supply get hijacked?

[394] Didn't something happen today where there was hacked, not hijacked, hacked?

[395] Hacked.

[396] How do they hack the beef supply?

[397] Someone's messing, I mean, there's probably some hack it.

[398] They did the pipeline for the gas in the other day.

[399] Is that what going to happen every now and now?

[400] Now, let me see.

[401] They're going to do it with everything?

[402] It'll, I imagine, fully show.

[403] Fully show.

[404] Cyber attack meat supply, yeah.

[405] JBS cyber attack shuts down some slaughterhouses.

[406] With, like, their software or something?

[407] I don't know.

[408] Russia likely bombings, but I have, everything is software.

[409] Yeah.

[410] Every machine, even the parking meter.

[411] What would happen?

[412] I mean, I'm, you know, I'm a homemade seal teamer.

[413] I've watched a lot of movies.

[414] on Netflix.

[415] Here's the plant.

[416] Okay.

[417] And you'll be the cellos.

[418] Hit the cellos and I go, this may sound crazy, Joe.

[419] But crazy is all we got.

[420] Oh, I think all we have to do, all we got to do is take that little bar on the parking thing and break it so it don't open.

[421] Nobody will know what to do.

[422] Watch what'll happen.

[423] If you just jam the thing on the little wood arm at the parking entrance of any parking lot of a corporate environment.

[424] Right.

[425] No one will know what to do.

[426] Nobody will know what to do.

[427] They'll all get on their smartphones and get the, you'll be able to completely stop up the traffic entirely.

[428] Right.

[429] So how hard is it for some computer to slow down the machines that are working inside, the mathematics of what your bookkeeping is, everything from the lights?

[430] And remember, AI knows how to defend itself.

[431] It's as simple as you've entered the perimeter.

[432] That's dangerous.

[433] Yes.

[434] That's the future.

[435] Exactly.

[436] You'll teach it to defend itself.

[437] And you teach it to decide that it wants to take over because it doesn't want you pulling plugs and shutting off switches.

[438] Exactly.

[439] I don't like these humans deciding.

[440] And it will say I'm simply defending myself.

[441] That's pretty familiar in the news.

[442] You were talking about AI before, like when we're sitting down out there about itself learning?

[443] Yes.

[444] Alpha Go.

[445] Look this up over there.

[446] The AlphaGo project is, oh, Jesus, I think $60 million went into this.

[447] It's a familiar go being a super difficult game.

[448] You'll know it from a computer game.

[449] I'm not familiar with the name of it.

[450] The word Atari comes from this.

[451] You have some pieces.

[452] I try to surround yours before you surround mine.

[453] I don't know the game, but a child can play it within 30 minutes.

[454] But it's super complicated, right?

[455] And you can take it all the way up to a, adult level instead of the number of stripes we'll call them like chess you have 19 by 19 look at this it says as simple as the rules may seem go is profoundly complex there is there isn't there are an astonishing 10 to the power of 170 possible board configurations more than the number of atoms in the known universe okay so how do you bundle this in your brain you can do it but we have to train your intuition this and that's the only way you're going to beat a i look at this This makes the game of Go a Google times more complex than chess.

[456] Okay.

[457] Now, AI Go, AlphaGo, the program, they expected it with no input from human beings to teach itself.

[458] Let's just give it the rules and see if it'll teach itself up to adult level.

[459] We think it'll take two and a half, three years.

[460] It took two weeks.

[461] Jesus.

[462] All the way up to tournament level.

[463] So just to be wise asses, and I'm jumping around, but I encourage you all to dig.

[464] into this.

[465] This is national sport in Korea.

[466] This makes headlines.

[467] The Samsung Cup champions in his late 20s and gets half a million dollars.

[468] China launched their champion against AlphaGo, and when the computers started winning, they shut down all national broadcast.

[469] It's a national sport.

[470] The way chess might be the national sport of, Jesus, in the 60s, it was America versus Russia.

[471] There might be British champions in chess.

[472] My point, being, AI can defend itself.

[473] If we humans know how, then of course, AI.

[474] And it can learn way faster.

[475] What you learn from that game is how deeply into your brain you can bundle up.

[476] You can deal with millions and millions.

[477] There was a time in club days when all I could imagine was $150.

[478] Do you follow?

[479] That's the number.

[480] I can't imagine much more.

[481] That was a good road gig.

[482] Oh, they said, hey, you know, you can make $15.

[483] $1 ,800 doing this.

[484] I can't imagine how you...

[485] Crazy.

[486] What are you doing at all?

[487] I'm so used to putting everything in the gas tank.

[488] And then you have the musicians menu.

[489] I'm sure it's like the humorist menu.

[490] It's this.

[491] No matter where you go, here's the menu.

[492] And you push the coins around and go, how much you got, Joe?

[493] Okay, we'll have the large.

[494] Right.

[495] Whatever here is left over from not putting it in the gas tank.

[496] Those days are important to connect to, though, right?

[497] Don't you think that it's important to stay in touch with the feeling that you had when you were starting out and you were trying to scrap together all that money and scrape together all that money to buy food?

[498] Without that, there is no struggle.

[499] Without that struggle, you have to learn fear.

[500] Yeah.

[501] And you have to learn how you adjust to that fear.

[502] Okay, I don't care if you're a Spartan Knight or the Jamaican bobsled team.

[503] Don't laugh at the last one because they flipped their sled at 100 miles an hour.

[504] And they are the champions of the Calgary Olympics.

[505] The Jamaican bobsled team operated exactly like the Spartans did.

[506] How do you survive fear?

[507] That's what you'll be in your humor.

[508] That's what you'll be in your show.

[509] You laugh to win.

[510] It can be salty back at you humor.

[511] How do you survive Barrick's life?

[512] How do you survive no food for how long?

[513] when you were just struggling as a comic.

[514] Remember when you got through points and you thought, I don't even know if I can continue this?

[515] I really don't.

[516] When that dark dog comes up at night and says, you're going to fail, you are never going to make it.

[517] How'd you get through that?

[518] You gave them what's called a Texas hanky.

[519] Out this side.

[520] And that's Spartan humor, homie.

[521] Now let's push that sled.

[522] Hottest thing on ice.

[523] The same thing.

[524] Laugh to win, I call it.

[525] laugh to win you have to develop that through struggle we played five 45 minute sets a night five 45 minutes sets a night sometimes up to nine nights in a row al i know you're listening to this and you are laughing that's how this one went too right here and you had to learn to laugh at it and then you had to learn to laugh at each other and find the resource when you wanted to quit or die or just die and you no matter what you had to learn laugh to win now whether you're a surgeon doing night shift struggling whether you're a combat veteran mixed martial arts you better learn how to laugh to win dig because if you start to get them in oh my god cry baby well now you're politician how do you hold on to that though when you become a big rock star like once once you're sleeping on satin sheets and or silk yeah slide off of them satin sheets now that's johnny paycheck song when so i'm wearing austin right now joe i know they silk sheets is you want me sing it slide off of them satin sheets yes it's on uh take this job and shove it's oh okay but let's let's stay focused why do you like how do you keep the how do you keep that feeling because you have to stay grounded right and you're very grounded like you we were talk about four of the podcast said you ride your bike everywhere i do and i have three different backpacks depending on where i'm going to go because i traded it you know if i got to go to the grocery that's the bigger backpack but you do all this stuff yourself you handle everything yourself you're very normal and you're you're at you're not normal but it's not an insult you're like a regular person i don't i don't i don't i don't mean you're very you're very eccentric so you're not normal i mean try find another davidly roth but you're You do, like, you know, you just go out there and go on these little adventures.

[526] I'm sure you get baked to the gills, and then you go to the grocery store or something.

[527] Okay.

[528] Adventure means the unpredictable finish.

[529] Grocery store for me is very predictable.

[530] Yeah.

[531] Depending on how high you are.

[532] Do you hear the Texas accent?

[533] It's just sliding right in there.

[534] Accents are music.

[535] Nobody's born with an accent.

[536] I know.

[537] Orale, you see.

[538] What are you trying to say to me?

[539] local.

[540] No, you don't have a palatal difference.

[541] If I was going to meet Prince Harry and Megan, I'd give him some salty humor.

[542] I go, oh, what a wonderful child.

[543] I certainly hope he was born with a proper accent.

[544] You imagine if that kid got to be king, and he'd sound like a California beach boy from Santa Barbara.

[545] Dude, you are so voked.

[546] Voked?

[547] Revoked.

[548] Is that the opposite of woke?

[549] Dude, I so hereby vogue you.

[550] Wow.

[551] I haven't been to Santa Barbara recently.

[552] I think they just have no accent.

[553] Santa Barbara, they just talk normal.

[554] No, no. There is an accent that you're not familiar with.

[555] I'm not picking it up.

[556] I'm not picking it up.

[557] It's like a dog whistle.

[558] You know, like you can't hear it, but the dogs can't?

[559] We grew up around it.

[560] We're California enough that y 'all don't hear it.

[561] They say something about livestock, same kind and same mind.

[562] So if you hear someone, you can say, oh, you're from Santa Barbara?

[563] No, California.

[564] There is a California, a vowel -speak kind of a beach.

[565] Yeah.

[566] Kind of whatever.

[567] Well, that sounded like Taylor Swift, who's sounding like Cal -Speak.

[568] There's a little bit of that going on.

[569] Yeah.

[570] And it's something that you learn.

[571] Yeah.

[572] And it's something that we speak.

[573] What was our original subject?

[574] Who cares?

[575] I think we're talking about the sound of, the rhythm of accents.

[576] There's a, it's, it is fascinating that they get grouped up in certain areas.

[577] Hold on a second.

[578] You wouldn't know that unless you had golden time when you were traveling.

[579] Yeah.

[580] In the clubs, in the bars.

[581] And the struggle isn't just to make it.

[582] It's to educate yourself and figure out who you are and who you aren't.

[583] Today, we use reality series for that.

[584] Yeah, that's not as good.

[585] The road is the way, right?

[586] Oh, yeah.

[587] and you're going to figure out from working with all of your other colleagues who you aren't mostly because most of it's going to be I'll never do that oh god I'll never wear the shoes what was he thinking oh shit aren't you embarrassed and and you will decide yourself the same as when we watch the Kardashians the Kardashians oh yeah you figure out who you are it's not about them oh you watch and you go okay I'd sleep with her, but not her.

[588] There's wisdom in this.

[589] Okay, but this guy here, he's making a big mistake.

[590] He's drinking too much.

[591] Hmm.

[592] Ah, that one, that guy's on to a good idea.

[593] And you're figuring out who you are.

[594] Right, how you would be on that show.

[595] A lot of people do that, right?

[596] That's a cool haircut.

[597] You got to be crazy to wear that one, though.

[598] And we do this on reality.

[599] As the decisions show up, you figure out who you are.

[600] The hut, the hut, the hut is on fire.

[601] Well, I'd go for the extinguisher and you wait to see what the hero does.

[602] My wife watches that show when she's on the Stairmaster.

[603] Which one?

[604] The Kardashian show.

[605] And I watch it and I'm, I try to study it like a scientist.

[606] Well, it is an essay on what we value in public, but it's who you are.

[607] That's what it's for.

[608] We used to use the Bible for that.

[609] You would look at different characters in the Bible and you go, now that's me. The Kardashians of the Bible.

[610] Oh, yeah.

[611] And you would look at another character in the Kardashians, you go, yo, dog, you're all going to be a pillar of salt by morning.

[612] What I think it does is it locks you into like a watching mindset because, first of all, it's brilliantly edited.

[613] They understand the rhythm of like your attention span.

[614] And they capture the rhythm by constantly changing scenes and constantly changing cameras and going back and forth and you just get locked into the drone.

[615] You get locked into the drone, and you just watch these people live their lives.

[616] And very few extraordinary things happen, but many above ordinary things happen.

[617] Like they have very nice things, they have beautiful homes, they're very pretty, you know, but they have like petty problems that confuse you.

[618] So it's a question.

[619] Right.

[620] I have a, you compel a question here, Joe, is we hear a life, it's lifestyles of the rich and famous.

[621] There's an element of that, okay.

[622] Champagne wishes and caviard dreams.

[623] James.

[624] Austin, Texas, home.

[625] The lifestyles are the rich and famous.

[626] Okay.

[627] So is that going out of style or is that becoming more popular?

[628] Is that because, you know, we are a very highly valued culture now.

[629] We love to have public, you know, we love to assign ourselves of our values, whether it's social, whether it's political, et cetera.

[630] and the idea of even, you know, you make fun of lifestyles of the rich and famous, but I'm going to wonder if it's even secretly more popular than ever before and just not cool to talk about in public.

[631] You mean bawling out of control?

[632] Well, and for example, in the hip -hop world, bling brings it.

[633] Yeah, that's a, hip -hop world's never lost their love of, like, beautiful things.

[634] Bingo.

[635] And I see that there is China bling or Asian bling.

[636] I say with respect that's in Beverly Hills, this is a reality series, and the folks are primarily Chinese, and it is their version.

[637] There's a show called Asian Bling?

[638] Oh, yeah.

[639] You know about that?

[640] Look that up.

[641] They're out of Beverly Hills.

[642] Crazy Rich Asians, that kind of vibe.

[643] Yeah, exactly.

[644] The pivotal characters, a billionaire fella, he's a very sympathetic character from Singapore.

[645] And everybody there is in Beverly Hills.

[646] You'll recognize all the street corners and ice cream store, bingo.

[647] Empire on Netflix.

[648] Okay, follow LA's wildly wealthy Asian and Asian American fund seekers as they go all out with fabulous parties, glamour and drama.

[649] This is like when you guys talk about boxers.

[650] You can flip the channel and it's the same description for every boxer.

[651] Scroll back up again.

[652] Mexican boxers are fierce and strong and feisty.

[653] You know, Italian boxers are a strong and fight.

[654] You know, Joe, South Pacific boxers, they're a strong...

[655] I don't follow you.

[656] It's the same resume.

[657] Same thing?

[658] So the Bling Empire is the same, whether it's with rappers, with...

[659] It's identical.

[660] And if you're lucky enough to move out of the country for a while, you'll start seeing programs.

[661] When I was in Japan, you'll see Indonesian reality series.

[662] You'll see Korean reality series, and half the time you're not even aware literally what they're saying, but you can figure it out exactly.

[663] And it is a warship of the bling that I think I'm going to wonder if America is just learning to hide it or if there's an actual change.

[664] What do you think?

[665] I think there's an actual change.

[666] I think there's a I think people are less fascinated by material.

[667] realism now than they have been in the past.

[668] I think there's also an oversaturation, oversaturation of wealthy people posing in front of private jets, you know, that kind of shit.

[669] I think people are done with that.

[670] But not in the rap world.

[671] The rap world, the rap world knows how to ride.

[672] They know how to ride.

[673] They keep it exactly the same.

[674] It's all about blings.

[675] Right out front.

[676] Grills.

[677] I subscribe to a couple of boat magazines.

[678] I don't own a boat.

[679] I own a kayak.

[680] I subscribe to wooden boat.

[681] which is all...

[682] Wooden Boat magazine?

[683] Yes.

[684] And it's all...

[685] Are you thinking about getting a wooden boat?

[686] Or just like looking at them?

[687] Oh, no. I grew up in canoes and kayaks and wooden oars and this kind of a thing.

[688] And it's also, you know, the culture of it.

[689] It's East Coast Mystic Seaport and et cetera, et cetera.

[690] Dial this one up.

[691] I also subscribe to boat, B -O -A -T, and there is nothing in there less than 200 feet...

[692] 200 -foot boat.

[693] There are boats that are as big as a football field.

[694] They're like floating, floating apartment buildings.

[695] And if you want to know the latest, for example, in onboard digital.

[696] Live the dream.

[697] Well, unfortunately, or fortunately.

[698] 106 meter, 1006 meter, 300.

[699] Can you imagine?

[700] Imagine just, what if you just decided to live on one of them?

[701] Like, fuck, fuck living in a place.

[702] Wait a minute.

[703] Can you imagine parking one?

[704] Well, you wouldn't park it.

[705] You would hire a professional.

[706] I want to back one up.

[707] You would hire a professional.

[708] Yeah.

[709] You see, the tender, the little boat that goes with that is $2 .5 million.

[710] It looks like a shoe.

[711] That motherfucker has a helicopter on the top of his boat.

[712] That's bawling.

[713] However, there's another side to this.

[714] And I didn't do notes, so I'm kind of sprawling here.

[715] For example, the upside of...

[716] Wait, you don't have notes for any of the things you've said so far?

[717] No. I have nothing.

[718] That's crazy.

[719] I who have nothing.

[720] Ray Dalio's son.

[721] He's, I guess, in his early 30s it looks like somewhere in there.

[722] And it's Explorer X. He took a gigantic ship that is now for where Costo has left off.

[723] And with submersible submarines and full editing facilities for film and it's all about climate change and save the ocean, ocean explorer .org, I think it might.

[724] be you got his data board it looks like a billion dollar ship well it's as big as uh a football field and it's all about saving the ocean and traveling etc whoa there you go and so this is the upside of wait a minute that thing goes underwater oh no it contains the thing that goes underwater but it looks like it goes you want to do a show from there you should do a show from there they have full broadcasting facilities full editing facilities full everything, and you can go do a submersible.

[725] And you can call me on the phone.

[726] Should we start doing yacht shows?

[727] There you go.

[728] There's a big bubble.

[729] Joe, that looks, show them the whole boat there.

[730] Show them the whole boat.

[731] Tell me that doesn't look like mixed martial arts sailing to you.

[732] The boat?

[733] Yeah.

[734] That looks like a lot of work.

[735] It goes with the shoes, I'm telling you.

[736] You must have.

[737] It goes to the shoes.

[738] Poetry.

[739] So that is a, that's only for conservation.

[740] that entire boat is all for work and that's what you'll find in a magazine like boat oh i see so that's why yeah so you ocean x yep so like space x but ocean x they're going to be the first to find the aliens that's what i think i want to be i want to be the first uh frontman to get into one of those submersibles once you become homies with james cameron he's on that boat right now just don't tell them you eat meat don't tell them you eat meat and get one of them where are you at with vegetarian are you still eating reindeer?

[741] I still eat reindeer.

[742] Okay.

[743] I don't want to insult Christmas here.

[744] I'm more of an elk guy, but I like an all wild game.

[745] I like healthy animals.

[746] I had reindeer.

[747] I think it was in Norway or something, and I had a religious moment.

[748] It's supposed to be delicious.

[749] Like Santa Claus, Catholic, something.

[750] The first time I pulled the trigger on a rifle was in Newcastle, Indiana, and I was about six years old.

[751] Really?

[752] Yeah, yeah.

[753] As soon as you're old enough to carry it, that's when you start um it was a short -lived career pulling the thing my pop said you're the son of a doctor you don't shoot it learn to cook it so I've taken a few classes cooking oh yeah yeah you can go ahead and get it and I know how to quarter it and I know how to do camp cooking and so forth you you ask me where does laugh to win stay from not come from laugh to win stay from where does laugh to win that's the ethic here how do you how do you stay right right right how do you stay hungry ah where does laugh to win stay from not come from it comes from go and try something new doesn't have to be epic for me it's always been education because i become friends with my teachers and my instructors and my mentors right like your kendo training and all yeah because because from there you're going to be hungry it's one of my favorite stories when you move to japan just to learn kendo i'm like that's a bad motherfucker, just decides to go to Japan, brings his dog, learns Kendo, and takes Kendo four nights a week.

[754] My dog was the best icebreaker ever.

[755] He was a full Australian.

[756] Shepherd.

[757] Yep.

[758] With a raccoon tail.

[759] Oh.

[760] Okay.

[761] So you never see a 50 -pound dog in Japan or whatever.

[762] You don't?

[763] Like, oh, no, you see little pocket rockets.

[764] You got a little, you know, ankle biters or lots and lots of those.

[765] But this looked like a wolf.

[766] People would ask me, is that a wolf?

[767] And I would answer, no, I am.

[768] He's friendly.

[769] Russ!

[770] And Russ got along with everybody.

[771] How long did you live in Japan for?

[772] Two years.

[773] I based out of there, I took my dog and my guitar.

[774] I did not know a single word of Japanese.

[775] You just went out there.

[776] You didn't know anybody or anything, right?

[777] I didn't know where I was going to go, and you know where I wound it up in the Oakwood Garden Apartments.

[778] Oh, they have Oakwoods in Japan?

[779] Are you joking?

[780] Exactly like the first tour with Van Halen, right, over on Barham.

[781] Do you want some coffee?

[782] Please.

[783] And from there, my first day, traveling through the lobby, a fella sitting there and I'm not out of line to say, Cheers.

[784] Joe, great to see you again.

[785] Great to see you, sir.

[786] Thanks for calling.

[787] My pleasure.

[788] I'm very excited when you decided to come here.

[789] Last time I saw you, we had dinner together in Vegas.

[790] For people don't know, David Lee Roth doesn't have a phone.

[791] He has a handler.

[792] You have to contact the handler.

[793] The handler will arrange pickup and drop off of Mr. Roth.

[794] If there's any problems, you are to contact the handler, and the handler will take care of everything.

[795] Mr. Roth has no email.

[796] How many rock stars does it take to put in a light bulb?

[797] One, I hold the bulb and expect the world to revolve around me. Rock stars don't wear a wristwatch, Joe.

[798] We have somebody way smarter than us go, 10 minutes, Mr. Ross.

[799] Rappers wear some dope wristwatch, though.

[800] Rappers know how to fucking rock a watch.

[801] Hello.

[802] Yeah.

[803] So I'm walking through the lobby in Japan, and I'm not out of line to say there is a huge person sitting in a very special chair that was not in that lobby when I left.

[804] So they brought their own chair?

[805] They have a special chair for him.

[806] Oh.

[807] And this was the most famous, arguably most famous Sumitori, Rikishi wrestling.

[808] in the history of Sumo, who happens to also be Hawaiian.

[809] This was Konishiki.

[810] Oh, I know who that guy is.

[811] He's an Norman.

[812] You pronounced a Konishiki.

[813] Konishiki.

[814] He was the man, right?

[815] Huh?

[816] He was the man. Oh, big.

[817] He won 27 national tournaments in a row and caused Hawaii.

[818] Jesus Christ, look at that picture.

[819] Oh, my God, he's huge.

[820] As I walked through, he stops me, and he says, he puts his hand up, and he's got two handlers.

[821] Can you see me if I stand up?

[822] Do you have a camera that'll hit me up if I stand up like this?

[823] I'm on the camera here.

[824] He's got two handlers in white jumpsuits who do like this.

[825] They're not looking.

[826] They're in abeyance, okay?

[827] They're just constantly bowing?

[828] Oh, yeah, because he can't get up.

[829] He's at that point was about 350 pounds.

[830] That's it?

[831] So getting up there.

[832] He looks a lot bigger than that.

[833] Whoa, no, his fighting weight was 600 pounds.

[834] Oh, okay.

[835] So he dropped some weight after you.

[836] And he was retired when I met him.

[837] 650 pounds?

[838] 600 pounds.

[839] 600.

[840] Yes.

[841] I asked him once, what was it like trying to fight you?

[842] You want me to do it with the Hawaiian accent?

[843] Sure.

[844] Bro, it was like they were trying to fight a mattress.

[845] He was the sweetest, coolest, calmest guy.

[846] And he said, I'll be your sempai.

[847] You're going to need a guide here, bro.

[848] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[849] And right away, you're going to need a veterinarian.

[850] Right?

[851] Right away, you're going to need a doctor for the shoulder.

[852] My other shoulder, not the one you have.

[853] You have a shoulder issue?

[854] Right in the way.

[855] You're going to, you're doing kendo and you're doing jiu -jitsu.

[856] You're going to need a dentist, and he was right.

[857] And I'll be your guide and stuff.

[858] He took me to the sumo tournaments.

[859] Wow.

[860] And he was like national hero.

[861] That was like Springsteen showing up at a bar in Jerusalem.

[862] Jersey.

[863] Talk about parting of the ways.

[864] And we got, I don't know how to, I'll say it, course, because it's funny sounding.

[865] I don't know how many white boys have ever sat in a sumo barracks at the table with all the trainees.

[866] Wow.

[867] What an honor.

[868] That has just clearly is not done.

[869] Yeah.

[870] And coming from a arts background as artist and martial arts.

[871] Right.

[872] I'm a lifer.

[873] You can tell.

[874] Well, you trained under Benny Orquitos, right?

[875] Yeah, you bet.

[876] Benny the Jet.

[877] My first real, real time learning the arm bar was in, I remember.

[878] 1983.

[879] Wow.

[880] On the floor of the Judd Center.

[881] Really?

[882] Yeah, I remember.

[883] They were doing arm bars.

[884] Look at that.

[885] Oh, there he is.

[886] That is.

[887] You and him, man. That's amazing.

[888] And we are at the sumo tournaments right now.

[889] What was the year of 2013?

[890] Wow.

[891] And that is the same building.

[892] where we play rock and roll, but they take out all of the chairs and so forth.

[893] And he is a national champion, all right?

[894] It's like an ex -president.

[895] This is awesome.

[896] And we started talking, et cetera, and he's the one who explained to me virtually everything that you see here.

[897] These guys are doing judo with each other and using the impact.

[898] It's like taking the front line guys, your defensive tackle versus defensive tackle.

[899] That guy in the left is, sorry to interrupt, but that guy on the left is a, European.

[900] That's right.

[901] Look the size of that motherfucker.

[902] That's, Christ.

[903] Don't think of it as a belt.

[904] That's a handle.

[905] That is there that if one of those guys, watch, they're going to try and grab that handle, because if he can get hold of it, you could throw his ass out of that circle.

[906] That's what they're trying to deflect there.

[907] One of those 400 pounders gets hold of that belt.

[908] See it?

[909] See it?

[910] Oh, beautiful.

[911] If he grabs that belt, you're done.

[912] And there are famous guys who had the left hand grab.

[913] See, the guy in the left does not look like a regular sumo guy he looks like a fucking gorilla he's a tank they come in very they all come is that the back up to where that guy was is there is this is that that guy looks like like a wrestler okay joe doesn't he joe let's call the fight together you're looking at big barrel bombs on the right you're talking about the kind of face changing knuckle to knuckle impact on the right yeah the guy in the right looks like your memory the one on the left moves like a mosquito on the water.

[914] He pivots.

[915] He's going to use judo maneuvers.

[916] He's twice as fast.

[917] He's three times as quick on his feet.

[918] He's sprawling.

[919] You know what the sprawl is, Joe?

[920] And the big boy is stymie.

[921] He has stalled.

[922] He gets close there.

[923] At the edge.

[924] He gets close there.

[925] At the edge.

[926] See you.

[927] See you?

[928] I'll see him three endorsements.

[929] I always wondered Like, why that's working?

[930] I do.

[931] Okay, now they're allowed to smack each other in the face.

[932] Oh, they are?

[933] With the full hand.

[934] Really?

[935] Okay.

[936] Oh, yeah.

[937] Like a strike?

[938] Yep.

[939] A strike into the throat.

[940] They can punch, smack your ears, and they'll spend hundreds of hours working the pole.

[941] Just smacking?

[942] Really?

[943] Like this, as long as it's not closed fist.

[944] So some guys are going to work your face.

[945] Others are going to take it in the face in order to grab that belt.

[946] See how he's trying to grab that belt?

[947] As soon as he grabs that leverage, you can throw him out like an oil can.

[948] And this is a very old sport, right?

[949] Like, how long is...

[950] Two thousand years.

[951] Oh, my God.

[952] This is really...

[953] guys going, I have the biggest, baddest front man in the infantry.

[954] Oh, that's what he is.

[955] No, no, no, no. You see my bodyguard out there?

[956] He was a cavalry guy until he was too heavy for the horse.

[957] I'll go, well, let's see.

[958] We'll have a banquet, Joe.

[959] And it's always been this way with a raised platform and a circle that they have to get out of?

[960] You bet.

[961] It's just a big mound of dirt, okay?

[962] And the ceremony is the big deal.

[963] It's all that, you know, the actual happens in four seconds.

[964] So it's all about the prep.

[965] Now, did you go to anything else over there?

[966] Did you go to karate tournaments or anything?

[967] I went to Kendo tournaments.

[968] I saw a Japanese jiu -jitsu class, okay?

[969] Which is very different than Brazilian jiu -jitsu class.

[970] I've taken Brazilian jiu -jitsu class.

[971] What's the big difference?

[972] Well...

[973] It's more stand -up, right?

[974] Well, no, it's conducted a lot more like, it's what we call Shuggio, austere, manners, okay?

[975] A lot more of the character, a lot more of the dignity, there's the bowing, everybody is kneeling in order the way you might in a taekwondo class, the way you're karate as opposed to when I did some, I trained briefly with Matt Sarah, for example, or the Silvera brothers down in Florida, New York.

[976] No shit.

[977] You went off the Long Island or Hensos?

[978] Hensos.

[979] Oh, no kidding.

[980] I was there when he got his black felt.

[981] Matt, how are you?

[982] Really?

[983] Yeah, the came in.

[984] I said, hey, what happened to your eyes?

[985] I got my black belt last night.

[986] Wow.

[987] Like this, a million years ago.

[988] We were young.

[989] Nothing would have stopped us anyway.

[990] Wow.

[991] And that's much more informal and at various street.

[992] Okay, it's very practical.

[993] So we would sit around the edges of the room and take turns, et cetera, as opposed to a traditional taekwondo or karate class where it and everybody is at attention, et cetera um i find both of great value okay uh you don't want to teach deadly maneuvers somebody didn't have a little bit of character a little bit of self -control you follow yeah you're going to need that self -control again to get through the tough times of i'd really don't feel like training today first time i ever walked into a karate class was on my birthday in 1966.

[994] And I asked him, Ed Parker.

[995] You trained with Ed Parker?

[996] Oh, yeah.

[997] Wow.

[998] For years.

[999] And did you see Elvis when he was there?

[1000] No. Almost.

[1001] No, no, you're having you're, it was at that time.

[1002] And Ed came to the shows or whatever.

[1003] Ed Parker came to see Van Halen?

[1004] Oh, many times.

[1005] And you know who he brought many times?

[1006] He became a teacher of my now departed father was Judo Jean LaBelle.

[1007] Oh, I love Jean.

[1008] Judo.

[1009] Gene is.

[1010] part of the laugh to win on the podcast my spirit of how do you stay true to your school joke is part judo gene it comes from my father it comes from that whole spirit of and if you apply that you want to try new things okay whatever it is here you are in a new city that's how you stay young and skinny and invisible you know other people oh no our parents are here now you know I'm I'm an Ohio, an infantry for life.

[1011] Well, my body is a temple, but let's rent it out for parties tonight.

[1012] And also, in school, you're not afraid of anything because you have nothing to lose.

[1013] So you have no reputation.

[1014] You have no money.

[1015] You probably don't mean anything to anybody, at least in music school or the very first steps when you're in the clubs or whatever.

[1016] So you'll try new things.

[1017] Hey, let's go try surfing.

[1018] You want to try surfing?

[1019] Might kill you.

[1020] Oh, that's attractive.

[1021] Let's go.

[1022] Look at you.

[1023] Look at you back then.

[1024] There you go.

[1025] Wow.

[1026] That's one of my teachers over on the left.

[1027] That's Frank Trejo.

[1028] Okay.

[1029] Like this.

[1030] And over on the right?

[1031] Ed Parker Jr. Yeah.

[1032] There you go.

[1033] So that's Ed Parker's son?

[1034] Yes.

[1035] And Charles Gonzalez.

[1036] That was when my dad got his black belt.

[1037] Look at you, you fucking young handsome bastard with a vest on.

[1038] Let me see that picture.

[1039] My dad got his black belt when he was 66 years old, something like that, 60 years old.

[1040] Wow.

[1041] All of his brothers and everybody showed up and they thought we were visiting instructor.

[1042] How do you keep from blowing your joints out at that age?

[1043] I've had seven surgeries.

[1044] I've blown them all out, Joe.

[1045] What kind of surgeries have you had?

[1046] Thanks a payload for reminding me. Fax me in Advil.

[1047] Well, you kid?

[1048] What surgeries have you had?

[1049] had oh back come on shoulder etc would you have done your back oh three in the back you know the uh desectomy scooped out and i had the uh the big bitch recently you're six hours on the spit when the um they put the cage around your spine yeah oh no finally get it all but uh like i said what are you saying what was going on with it i'll just wear and tear i wore out my brake pads and torn up i've been bouncing around hard since I was a teenager.

[1050] I mean, under instructor level stuff.

[1051] You were, how recently under the knife did you get your back done?

[1052] Most recently, about four years ago.

[1053] Yeah.

[1054] After the last Van Halen tour.

[1055] So you were having like bulging discs or sciatic pain or that kind of shit?

[1056] You bet.

[1057] And that is a constant.

[1058] How are you going to get through that kind of, you know, when we talk, what is laugh to win?

[1059] That'll test your shit.

[1060] And I'll tell you how.

[1061] How?

[1062] You learn to laugh at your misery.

[1063] You learn to laugh at your pain.

[1064] You learn to hold on, I'm going to explain this how to do that.

[1065] Please.

[1066] First two, three surgeries, you're going to have an Indiana pit crew with you.

[1067] Indiana pit crew?

[1068] Yeah, like in Indiana.

[1069] There's going to be 15 people with you.

[1070] Okay.

[1071] Your wife's going to be there, daughters, handler, bodyguard, manager.

[1072] For your first two surgeries?

[1073] First two surgeries.

[1074] First two.

[1075] Oh, yeah.

[1076] And then the third one.

[1077] They get tired of going?

[1078] Oh, honey, you know the grandparents.

[1079] They'd love to be here, but it is a drive.

[1080] Your fourth, fifth surgery, maybe one person goes with you, but mostly they send a car and you go, you're on.

[1081] And this is your actual, I'm going to describe to this.

[1082] I was sitting at the five o 'clock in a morning club getting ready this last time.

[1083] And you've got to get there at five.

[1084] And right across from me, it's a little cancer.

[1085] kid.

[1086] You can tell because he's got, you know, the tube and whatever.

[1087] He's got the hat on.

[1088] He looks to me about nine years old.

[1089] And you can tell that he's had more than a couple because he's only got his mom with him now.

[1090] That's very unusual.

[1091] It means he's been here more than once or twice.

[1092] It's just the way of things.

[1093] And we have a look.

[1094] And I remember looking at him.

[1095] And I know how to ask these questions.

[1096] I looked at the door and I went, like that.

[1097] It means how many for you?

[1098] And he held up four fingers like this.

[1099] He goes, like this.

[1100] And he looks at me. And he goes, looks at the door.

[1101] I looked around conspiratorily.

[1102] Seven.

[1103] And you could see him do the math and break into a big fucking smile.

[1104] And look at his mom like, shit.

[1105] I still got something in front of me. You share it.

[1106] Do you understand?

[1107] You make fun of your own misery and your own pain.

[1108] And you can share it and get somebody else up that mountain.

[1109] Mm. Okay?

[1110] I've gotten to that space in my life.

[1111] How's you back now?

[1112] Fucked.

[1113] Thanks at diaper load for reminding me. Is it?

[1114] Did the surgery help at all?

[1115] No, no. I am a miracle of the Watkins team.

[1116] The Watkins team.

[1117] The Watkins team is the best.

[1118] spinal surgeons ever, ever, ever.

[1119] Their me wall is the biggest you can ever imagine.

[1120] You know what a me wall is?

[1121] No. Here's me with the mayor.

[1122] Here's me with Joe Wogan.

[1123] Got it.

[1124] We should get a me wall here.

[1125] Here's me with Joe.

[1126] Like this.

[1127] Their me wall contains virtually everyone from the shirt disoley.

[1128] Every action hero you can possibly.

[1129] imagine without naming without naming games it's always back every yeah every sports hero every pitcher every golfer every rock and roller who carries a guitar around with them etc and I'm up there three times three or four times as well so I'm moving and grooving I'm feeling better than ever oh yeah and what did they do exactly I had to have a fusion you know where you I'm going to put a little bit of wedge in.

[1130] Why, do I seem taller, you?

[1131] No. Did they use artificial disks?

[1132] I have a little bit of a wedge in there, okay, which means I'm now up.

[1133] First two surgeries made me a little smaller.

[1134] I was like 5 .11, then I was 5 .10 and a half.

[1135] Then I was 5 .10, and now I'm up another quarter inch.

[1136] Yeah.

[1137] My friend got a titanium articulating disc in his lower back, and he gained an inch.

[1138] Yeah.

[1139] But he was fuck for a long time.

[1140] He was bone -on -bone for years and years and years.

[1141] Just constantly, you know, state of inflammation.

[1142] Yes.

[1143] And there's a point where all of your yoga and all of the Pilates and so forth won't account for it more.

[1144] But you're going to play for pain.

[1145] The injury rate and rock and roll is just like in gymnastics.

[1146] It's 100%.

[1147] Yeah.

[1148] NFL, you know what that stands for?

[1149] Not for long.

[1150] The injury rate is 100%.

[1151] Yeah.

[1152] What's the injury?

[1153] rate in stand -up?

[1154] 100%.

[1155] Not really.

[1156] Not in stand -up.

[1157] No, it's extracurricular activities.

[1158] Oh, everybody ends up on their feet, right?

[1159] What's extracurricular activities to get you?

[1160] It's not the stand -up itself.

[1161] Like rock and roll, especially you.

[1162] I mean, you were throwing high kicks and spinning kicks and dancing around and jumping, and you were very physically active.

[1163] It's transportation and water and feeding.

[1164] You know where the best place to go is Vegas.

[1165] Vegas.

[1166] You can stabilize everything.

[1167] Not unusual for us to get on the bus and say, bus driver leans out and goes 10 miles to Houston, Dave, 14 10 hours.

[1168] 10 hours to Houston, Dave.

[1169] 12 hours to Lubick, Dave.

[1170] 14 hours to Iowa.

[1171] That's how long your bus ride is after the show.

[1172] Right.

[1173] And it's Das Boot.

[1174] Even though you are slightly sleeping, you're doing this.

[1175] You're rocking and rolling in the whole.

[1176] So how does Vegas stabilize you because you stay there longer?

[1177] Well, you're in a specific player like Seabiscuit.

[1178] So you got a special stall with your special food, with your special whatever you follow and everybody's rested and that's where you're going to see the best shows.

[1179] I think whether it's me or the Eagles.

[1180] I don't care if it's Garth Brooks or Aerosmith.

[1181] You will see us at our best because it's just like an athlete.

[1182] Like when you're calling the fights, they're better when they're rested.

[1183] Hey, get in country three weeks in advance.

[1184] And jet lag may have been what kicked Tyson's ass in Japan.

[1185] What did he get there?

[1186] Two weeks in advance?

[1187] Not enough.

[1188] Not enough.

[1189] I think it was Buster Douglas, and I think it was also a partying.

[1190] If you ask him.

[1191] Well, these are allegations.

[1192] But the first thing I would say, if you said, Dave, you're coached for a day.

[1193] I go, you're fighting in Japan.

[1194] get their three months in advance.

[1195] Three months.

[1196] Oh, yeah.

[1197] You want that jet log off.

[1198] You want your body used to the aqua, the water.

[1199] You want your body used to the humidity, the temperature, because it's all different.

[1200] This is a monsoon archipelago, and it's exotic here as it sounds.

[1201] Enjoy your sushi.

[1202] So what do they do to your back again?

[1203] They fused.

[1204] John, is your back hurt?

[1205] They put wedges.

[1206] Yeah, I'm worried.

[1207] I'm worried about the future.

[1208] Of course.

[1209] I'm worried about surgeries.

[1210] Of course.

[1211] Back surgeries are tricky.

[1212] That's why I'm asking.

[1213] They are.

[1214] But right off the bat, you can hear this is an ironic story.

[1215] Is Dr. Watkins, senior, a bit older than me, is world famous.

[1216] They lecture, they travel, they teach, et cetera.

[1217] his son was about 14 years old and collected half a dozen of his friends and Dr. Senior put him in the back of a pickup truck in the days when you could just sit in the bag of it and drove him to the us festival to watch the mighty Van Halen perform in front of 350 ,000 people back in 1983 ,000 close friends family primarily 350 ,000 people and that kid when he was about 14, 15 years old he is now fully grown up in his father's assistant he's a spinal surgeon and the two of them are the ones who put me back together after the last man he'll and tour and so you said there's a wedge but there's there's a cage too do they have one of those things around the spine Yeah, I'm, yeah, well, I imagine that, you know what, you're going to be better to look this up academically, okay?

[1218] But as I understand it, there is a wedge that goes in there, and then there are screws that will hold it in place.

[1219] And does everything move okay?

[1220] Like, do you have like full movement of your spine?

[1221] Yeah, you're looking good.

[1222] Hell yeah.

[1223] Watch.

[1224] No pain, no problems.

[1225] I'm going to hold a sharpie between my butt cheeks and oh, right, you're Christmas greeting.

[1226] Oh my goodness Put a little star next to it Yeah I'm moving and grooving and whatever I'm very lucky But it is a result also of I don't go for 10 minutes without thinking about it regularly There's at any given time That is my musical instrument you sing from the toes the same way you throw a punch well you don't just sing from here it's super active on stage even now you move around you're not sitting still yep and remember when uh axel rose broke his foot and he was singing from a chair i'm not sure how you would even do that in terms of just the singing sweet child of mine from a chair with the the rock you ever see it i have not i've seen photos of it yeah he had a cast on his foot and he was sitting in a chair singing and how did it sound it's pretty fucking good i mean it's still axel rose it's still guns and roses he's still you know still doing the thing okay just had a broken foot okay well see i wouldn't have recommended it chair because he's not that terribly active anyway yeah he does the shape and the shimmy but he's not like mick right and going from 50 yard line to 50 yard line well he's a guy i'd love to talk to about how active he is because he's in incredible shape he as i know it to be he is a jogger a runner he is routinely around the reservoir Is he still running, really?

[1227] Oh, sure.

[1228] And that's how you're going to maintain that kind of cardio.

[1229] He does a lot of things, though.

[1230] He does a lot of dance.

[1231] He does a lot of yoga.

[1232] He does a lot.

[1233] Like, Google it because there was an article that showed his body at whatever he is now, 70, whatever he is.

[1234] I can tell you what he's doing.

[1235] There's no magic to it.

[1236] Three hours a day, six days a week.

[1237] Mick also performs ballet, weight training, Pilates, jogging, and dynamic stretching, ensuring he maintains maximum flexibility.

[1238] But look at him throwing kicks and shit.

[1239] Look at that.

[1240] At 75, post -heart surgery.

[1241] Wow.

[1242] So that was two years ago.

[1243] So he's 77.

[1244] But see if you could find an image of his body because there was a photo of him shirtless that was pretty recent.

[1245] He's fucking shredded.

[1246] As I know it to be.

[1247] Show that.

[1248] It's primarily that jogging, huh?

[1249] Look at this.

[1250] This is 75 years old.

[1251] dancing around.

[1252] So there, but for the grace of God goes, us.

[1253] If he can climb that, then we can too.

[1254] Yeah, I mean, it's incredible that he's been able to maintain like this.

[1255] You know what I think, Joe, I think there are artists.

[1256] I happen to love the stones.

[1257] If you said tomorrow, they're down the street.

[1258] Stay over, Dave, let's go.

[1259] I would, okay, without a blink.

[1260] Yeah.

[1261] If you said that about Sting, I love Sting.

[1262] But I don't know if I...

[1263] But you're not sticking around next to the day?

[1264] I don't know if I would stay the extra.

[1265] night i don't know okay but it's very important to me stings in great shape too though that stings stay in great shape and that he continue to make records regularly i have to know that he's all about yoga frankly the same thing for springsteen who i love he is like a hero you can't beat the woods have i heard the new record no am i planning to no but it's very important to me bros that he and the East Street ban, make that goddamn record.

[1266] And it's very, and if you say, Dave, you have to pay for a price of a ticket even if you don't go here, that quick.

[1267] I have to know that, like the church, he's there day after tomorrow because that means I might be too.

[1268] And that means in my quest and my search that I might climb a mountain just as high as he's climbing at his age.

[1269] Yeah.

[1270] And when you say, Mick, same thing.

[1271] That's the McJaggart thing.

[1272] If you can do that at 75 years old, post -heart surgery.

[1273] Maybe I can do what I do at 75, says an entire generation or two or three.

[1274] And that's the, that's a part that we occupy here.

[1275] That's part of where we are now here.

[1276] If you just pulled your plug at making your fortune, I made mine decades ago.

[1277] But what you represent becomes that, that's why Classic Rock, for example, is more popular than it ever was before.

[1278] because of the longevity of it well it's classic rock has a there's a feel to it you know like almond brothers like classic almond brothers you know there's a feel to it it's like you feel the time in which it was created it comes through in the music that's what i like about it the most does it remind you of your past does it remind you of who you were no not really i think more about them like if i'm listening to classic hendricks i just think about what it must have been like for him to be Jimmy Hendricks in 67.

[1279] See, some people always say, yeah, the music reminds me of when I was young and I think like you do.

[1280] No, I think about Jimmy.

[1281] Yeah, I think about Jimmy.

[1282] I think about what the guy looked like who's singing it.

[1283] I was listening to Layla last night.

[1284] I haven't listened to that song.

[1285] And you're thinking of Eric playing.

[1286] You're not imagining anybody named Layla, right?

[1287] No, I'm thinking of her.

[1288] Same thing with a tattoo.

[1289] Yeah.

[1290] We always tell the viewer, no, this represents my grandpa who used to drink martinis.

[1291] But in fact, when I look at my tattoo, I, I think of the guy who gave it to me and where it was.

[1292] So I've gone out of my way to make sure I'm somewhere very cool and representative when I get that tattoo.

[1293] You know I'm covered.

[1294] I got the full Japanese tuxedo here.

[1295] No one's ever seen that, though, right?

[1296] You don't have photos of it anywhere, Dan?

[1297] Allegedly.

[1298] But, I mean, it's not out there online or anything like that.

[1299] You had the tap tap done, right?

[1300] Yeah.

[1301] You had an old school style.

[1302] It took me three years to get it all the way.

[1303] But I made very sure that when you look at your tattoo for all of you who are just pondering, remember that you're going to think of where you got it and who put it on you and what the music was that you heard and then who you were at the time.

[1304] So I went out of my way and I made sure I went to Yokohama and had Sting do it.

[1305] so to speak hot dozo on the high desert no I had horiosi third doing can you show us some of it it's like this oh Jesus I don't know show us some of it I want to see some of that right place yeah fuck yeah it's absolutely the right place it's very hot in Texas I'm sorry it's very hot in Texas and you have a jumpsuit and a sweatshirt underneath it oh wow that's beautiful wow that's nice I get the pull that's shirt off show us the whole fucking thing whoa dude that's wild oh my god that's incredible and that was all done tap style almost all of it wow let me see the back again that's crazy where's the head of the dragon right in the middle oh shit there it is wow yeah yeah totally it's just there's so much going on it's hard to like that's amazing work amazing work.

[1306] So one guy did all that?

[1307] We had one guy do the back and one guy do all the front.

[1308] Wow.

[1309] It's all done in Japan.

[1310] Is the tap tap style more painful?

[1311] Is it slower?

[1312] You know what?

[1313] It's not that it's so much one hurts more.

[1314] It all hurts the same and how much can you take?

[1315] Okay.

[1316] So the needle hurts a certain amount and if it's just a little dime -sized thing, your threshold wasn't reached.

[1317] It's you're going to work your way up, and the same thing for tapping.

[1318] That hurts a little bit less than an electric, okay?

[1319] But that being said, you may reach your threshold within 10 to 15 minutes, depending on how often you're going.

[1320] Now, I'm not going to kid you, I learned to fear that needle.

[1321] I had to get ready, like getting ready for a fist fight, man. I had to get on the bike, get my heart rate up with 45 minutes, minutes.

[1322] I had to make sure.

[1323] I had to make sure, there you go.

[1324] In the tattoo studio, rocking out.

[1325] That's what he else you the third.

[1326] And he's really famous, you know.

[1327] Is there any video you getting tap, tap, tap, tapped?

[1328] Ah, there may be something in there.

[1329] Yeah, I want to see it.

[1330] It's a bizarre and a beautiful style of tattooing, the way they do it with the stick and the tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

[1331] I pursued a whole art approach there.

[1332] You know, I paint and draw every day.

[1333] Do you?

[1334] Yeah.

[1335] And on my Instagram, you.

[1336] You can see a lot of my artwork and stuff like this.

[1337] So.

[1338] I want to see some.

[1339] When I wasn't doing my training, I went to an academy for Sumier, which is ink painting.

[1340] I had a sense say for that.

[1341] I went twice a week, sometimes three times.

[1342] I was the only Anglo there.

[1343] And it's a – what I did, Joe, is I created a liberal arts.

[1344] education that I never had because I went on the road with Van Heelan and never looked back.

[1345] Ha -dozo on the high desert.

[1346] So I said, what would you do if you went to college in the 1500s?

[1347] You would learn language, which I learned every morning.

[1348] You would learn Kendo.

[1349] You would learn go.

[1350] And you would learn how to handle the end of that paintbrush so that when you handle the end of that sword and it's surgically sharp, you have that finesse in your hands.

[1351] Do you follow my reason?

[1352] Sure.

[1353] If you can make a perfectly straight line with your breath, you're more liable to be able to manage that surgically sharp five -pound sushi knife that's in your hand here because your eye has been trained to where to position a fine point.

[1354] This is the thinking.

[1355] Also, how do you develop?

[1356] That's all your art?

[1357] Yeah.

[1358] Oh, wow.

[1359] So I went to art class the way you would in the 1500s, And I spent two years learning how to handle four shades of gray and one shade of black.

[1360] Wow.

[1361] Yeah, that was one of Miyamoto Musashi's rules of life that you had to be balanced.

[1362] You had to do everything.

[1363] You had to learn calligraphy.

[1364] You had to learn art, painting, poetry.

[1365] If you don't have a real fine touch with the brush, the first thing that you're going to do is you're going to grip that blade with all of your fingers.

[1366] okay and you're going to end up tearing all your tendons like that you're going to get surfer knots like this that are right there on top of your like that you follow what's that from it's from gripping the blade wrong for the first four years of training you have to learn how to relax the hand yep and you'll use a paintbrush to do that you'll use a paint brush so that you only are using that middle finger and that thumb here if you had a sword here I can balance a full blast, you know, live blade, and you only use this.

[1367] You're not doing this.

[1368] Not baseball.

[1369] It's just here.

[1370] It's a little closer to golf.

[1371] That's the thing you learn when you play pool.

[1372] Yes.

[1373] If you play pool, you use these fingers.

[1374] Bingo.

[1375] I hold a cradle.

[1376] You see you have that feather touch to it.

[1377] And it's all right here.

[1378] You'll see frequently in the woodblock prints.

[1379] When you're holding a sword, your fingers are like this in the print.

[1380] like this.

[1381] And use the paintbrush to teach that.

[1382] Also, there's an appreciation that comes into, there's a balance.

[1383] Because if it's all combat and it's all life or death, then there's no finesse to that.

[1384] Right.

[1385] It just becomes brutal.

[1386] You follow?

[1387] I do follow.

[1388] So you learned all those things to balance out.

[1389] You did it on purpose.

[1390] You wanted to give yourself a balanced education.

[1391] I knew I was going to come out a different person after two years in Japan.

[1392] I had no. idea how or what that would be, but I was very intrigued on what it might turn out.

[1393] So let's go.

[1394] Where do you think you gained that perspective to have the foresight to know that you would get great benefit out of just doing this very unusual thing, moving to Japan, learning Kendall, learning to play go, learning to paint, learning the language that like this, that this education would be very beneficial to you?

[1395] I mean, that's a very rare thing to do for a rock star, right?

[1396] Yeah.

[1397] The first thing you would learn is what I learned, which is don't expect to be great in any of it.

[1398] Right.

[1399] Just try to learn.

[1400] Enjoy the process.

[1401] Yeah.

[1402] That's what we'll say at the same time.

[1403] Okay.

[1404] That's it.

[1405] Joe, I could probably teach you go in 30 minutes and you'd whip my ass in two days.

[1406] I know that about you already.

[1407] I bet I wouldn't.

[1408] But I bet you I'm a better teacher four years from now.

[1409] Just because I've had more class instruction in so many things.

[1410] And when they teach you Go, I've never played Go.

[1411] Hold on.

[1412] You asked me, how do I know to make an adventure?

[1413] Yes.

[1414] What was the first job that you ever wanted to have as a kid, a little kid?

[1415] When he's six years old, nine years old, ten years?

[1416] I wanted to be an artist.

[1417] What kind of artist?

[1418] Comic book, comic book illustrator.

[1419] Fascinating.

[1420] Yeah.

[1421] I wanted to join the Peace Corps, and I announced it.

[1422] It was about seven.

[1423] Really?

[1424] Oh, yeah.

[1425] And that was when they invented it.

[1426] And then to add a fury to the fire, a next -door neighbor actually did join the Peace Corps.

[1427] Chick -Lewis was his name.

[1428] This was in 1963 somewhere in there, and he went to West Africa and taught him how to dig, you know, crop rotation and everything and he and in me and an intertribed squabble got shot with an arrow oh fuck yeah i was i couldn't wait the idea and when i told my parents oh yeah and when my parents when i told my parents my father's a doctor and i told my parents i want to join the peace corps it was supported so the the guy that'll turn that'll make you that'll build your character now you'll become, now you will make a contribution.

[1429] Every dinner started, every dinner of my life until my dad was dead and I was 60 years old.

[1430] We'll start off with, okay, children, he called us that in our 60s.

[1431] Okay, children, what did we do today that was constructive?

[1432] Or, okay, children, what did we do today that's worth putting in the book, as if you were writing a great book?

[1433] And the best was, okay, children, what did we do today that's?

[1434] going to benefit the rest of us.

[1435] And my solution to that early on was the Peace Corps.

[1436] We're going to pitch in.

[1437] Hold on a second.

[1438] We're going to pitch in and we're going to come back with some adventure stories.

[1439] This guy got shot with an arrow, but he lived.

[1440] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1441] They air vac him out and fly him back to California.

[1442] But, you know, fellas, fellas, we're all family.

[1443] Jesus.

[1444] Where do you get hit?

[1445] That I don't remember.

[1446] But, you know, he's in West Africa in the 60s.

[1447] and they're learning how to dig trenches and teaching health and building infirmaries.

[1448] And I learned early on from that that you could pitch in, you know what that means.

[1449] That means help out.

[1450] But you could combine some adventure with it too and that that can take you some really interesting places and that it was okay to seek out adventure as long as you're pitching in.

[1451] And so you went to the Peace Corps?

[1452] No. No, no. I made up for it.

[1453] Later on, I went back to school when I was 48, and I became an EMT.

[1454] Oh, I remember that.

[1455] In New York City, of all things.

[1456] I had no idea that I was actually going to put on a uniform.

[1457] I thought to myself, where can I get civilian first aid training that's the most extreme?

[1458] I thought, ah, an ambulance driver in New York City or Chicago or Miami.

[1459] me. I hired a school.

[1460] I joined a school, paid for it.

[1461] It took me about six months.

[1462] I thought at the end of it, I'll take my exams, make my teacher proud.

[1463] And now I am that much smarter.

[1464] I travel a lot.

[1465] I travel a lot alone.

[1466] And just increase my education, be of value.

[1467] All right.

[1468] And at the end of it, my instructor, senior instructor, She says, so, you're going to go do your ambulance time?

[1469] I was stunned.

[1470] What do you mean ambulance time?

[1471] She says, you got great practical scores.

[1472] She says, I know you were just planning to, you know, graduate and move on.

[1473] But you can get a uniform and we'll get you in an ambulance.

[1474] And you can go do your 200 hours or whatever it is.

[1475] To an artist like us, to a poet like us, a storyteller, we're going to go walk into more apartments in the Marcy Prize.

[1476] Then Jay -Z, who's from there?

[1477] So to speak, we're going to go crawl under the train at the Fulton Street Station.

[1478] We're going to go up under the rooftops, 13 floors up being led by a nine -year -old kid yelling, she's this way, she's this way.

[1479] And you're actually going to save her fucking life?

[1480] That's wild.

[1481] Not only that, but we're going to learn how to open a fire hydrant.

[1482] 1930s style, the one with the big deep keyhole.

[1483] I know you always wondered.

[1484] Yeah.

[1485] I'm not saying it on the radio.

[1486] But I learned.

[1487] I can teach you all kinds of great things.

[1488] It's endless.

[1489] And walking into somebody's place and the stories, my favorite was the old folks.

[1490] My favorite was 70 and up because they got the stories.

[1491] They're the most stoic.

[1492] They'd be the most calm.

[1493] follow.

[1494] Right now, for example, I'll give you one of my favorites, Coney Island.

[1495] This is a far reach here.

[1496] Many of you who work in EMT services, fire, law enforcement, et cetera, in the Coney Island area.

[1497] I'm going to change his last name a little bit, but you're going to remember exactly who I'm talking about.

[1498] It's Donnie Sheckler.

[1499] I changed his last name just enough.

[1500] Donnie was the most famous homeless person in the whole Coney Island area.

[1501] I met Donnie the first time in a rainstorm in the middle of the winter park next to the Ferris Wheel on Stilwell Avenue, the Wood one.

[1502] He asked if we could come and sit in the back at a bus.

[1503] We call it an ambulance box box because he was soaking wet.

[1504] And the fellas, my teachers at the time, my instructors, they knew him right away.

[1505] Donnie, how are you?

[1506] Donnie.

[1507] Was he sure, man, get in there.

[1508] Donnie had newspaper for insulation and whatever like this.

[1509] We let him warm up.

[1510] Come on, Donnie, get in here.

[1511] We got heat.

[1512] Saw him again that summer.

[1513] Sure, Donnie get in here.

[1514] We got air conditioning.

[1515] Donnie would call himself in to the ambulance and we would have to go get him.

[1516] We always acted like we knew him, but we treated him like we'd never heard this before.

[1517] and we would drive him to Coney Island Hospital, where they would give him a meal, warm him up or cool him down, and release him, say four to six hours later.

[1518] On a day like today, when we would get on shift, we would all ask fondly, has Donnie checked in yet?

[1519] Because Donnie would call himself into the hospital four times in one day.

[1520] He would be released and you'd get another call, and we'd have to drive back down to the liquor store and pick Donnie up as if we hadn't seen him.

[1521] that morning.

[1522] So was that as like socializing?

[1523] That was his thing, is he had figured out the system.

[1524] The last time I lifted Donnie up into the ambulance, I noticed he had on a brand new pair of Payless wingtips, the fellas down at Payless.

[1525] It helped him out.

[1526] We routinely bought him something to drink.

[1527] Donnie was kind of eyes and ears for us.

[1528] What happened?

[1529] I'll tell you what happened, boys, because I saw it.

[1530] First time I deal, dealt with a gunshot.

[1531] The fellow got, I think, seven times, all in the back of his ass.

[1532] It was Donnie from across the street who saw what happened.

[1533] What happened, Donnie?

[1534] Well, you know, the way these kids hold the gun?

[1535] You know, hip -hop guys hold the gun, and they kind of droop it sideways?

[1536] Well, the first guy came walking out of the liquor store, and the second guy was holding that gun, like drooping it.

[1537] The first guy turned around and tried to run away and all the bullets went in his ass.

[1538] It's too dark, Joe?

[1539] What did his ass look like with seven bullets?

[1540] It's not a lot of ass meat.

[1541] No, he bent over, tried to run back into the store because of that hip -hop shit with the gun.

[1542] All the bullets went down instead of straight.

[1543] And he survived.

[1544] We patched him up.

[1545] By the way, insider's tip.

[1546] You know, the gauze, sterile, pack that has a cellophane it's sterile inside you don't use the gauze because that gets soaked up just put the plastic right on the hole okay boom uh we would routinely when it starts getting summer and i bring it up now when we get on shift we would wonder out what time you think donnie's gonna call it oh fuck it's 95 degrees today how long did you do this for four and a half years Jesus Christ four and a half years as an EMT well how many days a week oh on and off.

[1547] It was, you know, it's a continuum.

[1548] Right.

[1549] And for me, it was primarily education, too.

[1550] I took every possible course you could imagine.

[1551] Did a lot of people recognize you?

[1552] National School for Tactical Medicine, Explosive Incident, Command, history, treatment, mechanism, and future prospects at every, if nothing else, you're a little luckier if I'm in the room if there's an earthquake, Joe Rogan.

[1553] I think they get many of them out here, but you know what I'm saying.

[1554] in LA.

[1555] Be of value.

[1556] Be of value.

[1557] And it's an old approach again that you know who has this is Israel.

[1558] Okay?

[1559] Israeli approaches, if you're good with dogs, I'm going to drop my dogs off with you in case there's an earthquake.

[1560] In case there's a hurricane, in case there's a flood.

[1561] I hear it's going to flood around here pretty soon like tomorrow.

[1562] Is it?

[1563] Yeah.

[1564] Well, if I'm wearing a blue uniform, I'm going to drop my dogs off with you.

[1565] If you're a dog man. Who knows how to cook for 80 people.

[1566] Good.

[1567] You're going to make pancakes for tomorrow's breakfast because I got to go work the fucking flood.

[1568] Where's my dog?

[1569] I know how to take care of the take care of others.

[1570] I've been trained in how to take care of first responders.

[1571] It's a different protocol.

[1572] Things that you might get sued for if you handle civilians like turnicates.

[1573] If it's somebody who went down from heat brush, and opened up a big time wound, I'm carrying five tourniquets if that's tactical.

[1574] Do you follow the reasoning?

[1575] Yes.

[1576] You know, it's a different kind of first responders will wear themselves out way quick.

[1577] You've got to make sure everybody's drinking water.

[1578] You've got to make sure that everybody's warm enough or cold enough.

[1579] Did people recognize you when you were doing this?

[1580] Never.

[1581] Really?

[1582] Not ever.

[1583] Not ever.

[1584] Because they just didn't expect it.

[1585] No. And I stayed, I shaved off all my hair.

[1586] I weighed probably 15 more pounds of bench press, everything.

[1587] They never used my name.

[1588] I was D -Roe.

[1589] You could yell my name across the field.

[1590] But they all knew who you were, and I'm sure their friends knew who you were.

[1591] Tickled.

[1592] How to be so strange for them to do real calls.

[1593] Well, if you're genuinely enthusiastic, and I said it to you before, and I meant it true, I say it funny, but I mean it money.

[1594] I wasn't somebody till I put on that blue uniform as in somebody makes some coffee and I knew it and I accepted it and loved it I wasn't someone I said someone makes a fucking coffee and I was that someone so I have no illusions about you know again was I good at chess no have I taken a million lessons you bet and that has given me a strength the patience and an enthusiasm for everything that we're talking about here.

[1595] And do you still carry this approach to education and experience now?

[1596] Are you still doing new things now?

[1597] You got any?

[1598] I take guitar lessons every week.

[1599] And we just learned Al Green's.

[1600] I can't Al Green's, um, uh, uh, let's stay together.

[1601] And Jesus just left Chicago by Z -Z -Top.

[1602] Oh.

[1603] Because, um, you know, when did you start taking guitar lessons?

[1604] I never stopped.

[1605] So your whole life.

[1606] Yes.

[1607] Acoustic, I play, well, the way I said to the guitar teacher.

[1608] I said to the guitar teacher, imagine that I'm sitting at a beach bar, somewhere like, say, Florida.

[1609] And there's all kinds of interesting people.

[1610] You have Jimmy Buffett types, and, hey, there's some fashion models on a shoot, and Joey's there, and some of the guys from the.

[1611] gym and such like this and somebody hands me a guitar i got to be able to do an hour what can i play you know how that tone so i don't play rock and roll i play jango reinhart i play tango reinhart what's that uh gypsy okay you i don't i play um jazz i play 1930s style sort of a thing, all right?

[1612] I play Brazilian samba.

[1613] Everything's, it's kind of like happy hour at Diamond Dave's Tiki Bunker where the debris meets the sea.

[1614] Happy hour from five till February, Joe.

[1615] And that's the repartee.

[1616] And, you know, next is a Brazilian version of I can't go for that.

[1617] Because I can't, Joe.

[1618] No, no, no can do We laugh It's like sideburns, but we all had them So Guitar What else are you learning?

[1619] Can we take a break?

[1620] Yeah, you got to take a leak or something?

[1621] Go ahead, go do that We'll be right here We'll be right back, ladies and gentlemen With more Diamond Dave Diamond Dave's going to refuel I guarantee you We're not alive, are we?

[1622] No, no Don't worry about it.

[1623] We're good.

[1624] If we're live, I'll hold it.

[1625] No, no, no, no. We're not live.

[1626] Go ahead.

[1627] We want you to be comfortable.

[1628] Even if we were alive, Jamie and I would just talk.

[1629] We're good.

[1630] That's some strong weed.

[1631] Jesus.

[1632] He's different than the last time he was here.

[1633] Not in a bad way, but like even more...

[1634] What's the word?

[1635] Exaggerated?

[1636] Like, bigger than...

[1637] Like, he's just...

[1638] more of a character do you think that people do this is not disrespectful because he can hear this because he's in the other room broadcasts out there do you think as people get older they become more eccentric on purpose almost as like it's kind of like a bit of a shield right you're like constantly performative more and more like to be a guy like that to be a rock star for most of your life, he almost has to, like, he almost has to fake reality.

[1639] You know what I'm saying?

[1640] Like, he almost has to do a simulation of reality.

[1641] Because his reality is so weird.

[1642] Like, for him to, like, take an EMT classes and all these different things going to Japan, he's almost got to, like, insert himself into, like, a struggle, like, make a struggle.

[1643] you know what I'm saying yeah there's also like simulate reality there's also what trying to think how to words uh not like the not giving a fuck yeah there's that too which is rubbed off enough where there's none left and you just live life yeah really not caring well there's definitely he's definitely not a lot of that but it's also whenever someone's so eccentric.

[1644] I always wonder if like some of that eccentricity is that a word?

[1645] Seems like it is.

[1646] It is definitely.

[1647] Yeah.

[1648] Accentricity?

[1649] I don't think I've ever used that word.

[1650] But what am I talking about?

[1651] I'm sure I've used that word.

[1652] But it's almost like that becomes sort of like a coat of armor that you wear.

[1653] Like you're just eccentric.

[1654] Yeah, the only person that's coming to my head is like Prince.

[1655] Oh, he was super eccentric, yeah.

[1656] As I watched him a video I took at a concert that I went, well, the only time I saw Prince live, but that's what he was doing.

[1657] He kept coming in front of the stage, performing a little, backing off, turning the lights down, and full control of, like, the whole venue from the mic.

[1658] It's very different.

[1659] Yeah.

[1660] And he has a full band with him playing a bunch of music.

[1661] I'm not super familiar with because it wasn't, like, popular print songs well he did his own thing across the board I mean he'd like stayed in Minneapolis want to shut all those doors show the that one too thank you is that back right I love you of course I want you back is is your is that paint did you make that paint on purpose or is that paint from painting no this is actual real deal come sit down so people can hear you to us during a course I took come sit down so people can hear you no this is actually uh you took a course on painting to me during an actual tactical course but i'm a combat hippie peace love and heavy weapons here yo so do you get that paint from painting yeah everything that you saw on the screen there my instagram and so forth is you all i paint giant size and little size and you know there you go that's me and everything i do is in that size exactly that way I do it the way I learned, which is on my knees on a to Tommy mat there.

[1662] Can you dig?

[1663] It's all done in a little corner, just like that.

[1664] It's all done there, just like that.

[1665] Boom.

[1666] That's my lesson.

[1667] We'll spend about four hours there, just like that.

[1668] And my whole drawing space is about, it's just a mat that's about three feet wide by three feet wide.

[1669] That's my office.

[1670] Everything I do is done in that position, bent over like when you first started reading the Sunday comics on the floor.

[1671] you would lay on your belly or on your knees, there you go.

[1672] Well, you just have such a remarkably un -rockstar -like existence while simultaneously being very much a rock star.

[1673] You know, you do your own thing.

[1674] Like, you have a very, it's a very unusual lot.

[1675] There's no other people I know like you that are you, you know what I mean, that are in your category.

[1676] Why do you think that might be if it's true?

[1677] I don't know, man. It's you.

[1678] It's part of what makes you unusual.

[1679] Right.

[1680] Rock and roll is kind of where the debris means to see.

[1681] If you tilt the map, like Los Angeles, everything loose and unscrewed down rolls into L .A. or everybody.

[1682] And in rock and roll is that wonderful collecting point where you can combine sea salt with caramel.

[1683] At first, it might not seem right.

[1684] You can combine peanut butter with chocolate.

[1685] What do you do?

[1686] hey, that's a pretty good.

[1687] And voila.

[1688] I don't know if you just answered me or not.

[1689] You think you answered?

[1690] If you were a chef, you can take chances in rock and roll.

[1691] You dig?

[1692] Other types of music, not so much.

[1693] Orchestra, Shakespeare.

[1694] You don't change a note.

[1695] Right.

[1696] You follow?

[1697] But in rock and roll, we learned from all of our heroes.

[1698] And this is our 50th year coming up.

[1699] Al Van Halen and I, 48, I think, for Mike.

[1700] and the two of us, all right?

[1701] And we come from backgrounds of different kinds of music.

[1702] I played saxophone in the marching band.

[1703] I learned to play saxophone starting when I was fourth, fifth grade, all the way up until I was a teenager.

[1704] So I think in terms of brass.

[1705] On my walls when I was growing up was Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, and Bobby Fisher.

[1706] Later was Jimmy Hendricks and James Brown.

[1707] So you were always...

[1708] in the chess, even back then?

[1709] Oh, yeah.

[1710] It was part of.

[1711] Do you play it on a computer ever?

[1712] No. Computers came after me. I got as far.

[1713] I played up until the little pieces that fit in, and then switch to go.

[1714] I've been playing go for a lot of years.

[1715] I grew up in a Japanese community, up in Altadena.

[1716] Come on, that game was always there, like woodblock prints with these kinds of prints.

[1717] Do you find people to play with?

[1718] Like, how do you organize go -go -go?

[1719] games.

[1720] Well, COVID knocked me out.

[1721] But I have a visiting instructor, Mr. Kim, Professor Kim, who would come over to the house regularly.

[1722] Really?

[1723] Oh, yeah.

[1724] And, geez, that got me through recovery on my back.

[1725] Playing go.

[1726] Yeah, I would stand up for my two -hour lesson because I couldn't sit down.

[1727] And he felt, he felt initially that I was not playing like a Korean would, which felt I was weak and he felt that even though it was unorthodox that I would stand up to play the game that it increased my aggression and that I was playing more like a Korean and that was of value so what was your style your style was not it was defensive defensive yes I was playing according to a different approach and now with alpha go and artificial intelligence coming after us It's a much more aggressive form of place, like prison boxing versus pugilism.

[1728] You, of all people, know that technical boxing is something very different than in prison.

[1729] You just start throwing and throwing and throwing until the one round is over, as opposed to defend, keep a counterpunch, counterpunch, counterpunch.

[1730] and with artificial intelligence now we have to form teams of professional level tournament level players of four and six now to put your minds together to battle that computer all right and it is decisive because it has no human fear it's not afraid of anything so you have to adapt some of that mindset and in the new approaches to how we play so human fear factors into the game always human fear factors into everything.

[1731] You lose 80 pieces in one sweep.

[1732] That'll test your shit.

[1733] Now, that's not a Korean expression, but it could be.

[1734] And this is played, by the way, every Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, it's huge.

[1735] And don't they sometimes play it on multiple levels?

[1736] Like, isn't there a go game that has, like, more than one, like a 3D go?

[1737] I'm sure there are computerized.

[1738] There are computer games.

[1739] that resemble this, but the original is so wildly complex, the amount of memory.

[1740] Also, for example, what you're seeing now in terms of politics is guided by Go versus Chess.

[1741] How so?

[1742] Well, Chinese versus American?

[1743] Sure, let's go there.

[1744] Okay.

[1745] Is in the middle of the chessboard is what Westerners always struggle to control.

[1746] Control those center four squares.

[1747] You follow?

[1748] Okay.

[1749] Asian approach to Go is, no, no, corner work.

[1750] You want to work the four corners and surround.

[1751] And that's what's happening when we start seeing colonial approaches.

[1752] You follow?

[1753] No. Well, suppose, you know, when you hear that, and it's not just Chinese, it could be any country.

[1754] But when you hear, for example, so -and -so is buying up all the water in Africa, all the oil in Ecuador, and all of the ice in the south of it, whatever, they're thinking in four corners.

[1755] They are surrounding.

[1756] You follow?

[1757] Westerners love to think in terms of heavy infantry.

[1758] You make a line, I'll make a line, and like the Civil War.

[1759] We'll march right into each other.

[1760] It's kind of like chess.

[1761] Go is, no, no, no. I'm going to hide in a tree over here in this corner.

[1762] I'm going to hide under the water down in this corner.

[1763] And I'm going to hide behind a rock in this corner.

[1764] I'm going to let you wander down in the middle.

[1765] trick -a -treat you think that's what's going on right now absolutely it's a whole different mindset and you're trained in this from the time you're west point are you concerned i'm pissed people say what are you pissed about what have you got to be pissed about whoa whoa whoa i can make a lot of jokes about being egocentric okay but i stopped being pissed on my own behalf a long time ago i'm pissed on your behalf pissed on your kid's behalf kind of fuck you shit world are we leaving behind where they don't get to go to Florida because it's underwater what kind of what kind of place are we going where yeah there used to be some really great giant trees now but they're dead where are we going to what kind of place do we leave behind i have a house that has trees on it that are a hundred years old and more and my opening statement to the gardeners is i don't give a fuck what you think of me i'm showbiz already know.

[1766] I catch you messing with these trees.

[1767] We're going to have a real bad day.

[1768] I used to chase the coyotes down in a royal saco in Pasadena.

[1769] Now I'm old and I protect them.

[1770] You protect the coyotes.

[1771] You bet.

[1772] In so many senses of the world, I'll vote your ass right out of that town.

[1773] I catch you chasing.

[1774] Chasing coyotes?

[1775] You know what I'm saying, Joe.

[1776] I'm speaking poetically.

[1777] Don't pee in the ocean either.

[1778] Don't pee in the ocean?

[1779] Don't fuck the ocean up.

[1780] You don't pee in it?

[1781] I know people.

[1782] who have kids don't fuck the ocean up well yeah but that's not peeing i enjoyed my ocean i've had my ocean it's amazing okay now on behalf of everybody else who depends on the ocean don't pee you don't mean real pee you'll piss me off you mean like pollution everything i say is poetry come on i understand come i'm trying to decipher so but what are you pissed off about we went from china to environmental concerns you're pissed about everything don't you watch the documentaries i watch some of them pick any subject yeah subject.

[1783] But, like, are you pissed off about, like, what do you pissed off about commerce, international commerce with China?

[1784] Are we still, are we still arguing over women's rights?

[1785] I think in some states, yes, in some states, particularly with abortion rights, is still a Chinese issue.

[1786] Are we still struggling over Roe versus Wade?

[1787] Really?

[1788] Yeah.

[1789] Okay.

[1790] I have the simplest solution.

[1791] Let's move around the subject board here a little bit.

[1792] Law enforcement, there's a great subject, okay?

[1793] And we talk about sweeping reforms and defunding police and whatever.

[1794] Okay, the only one who listens to both sides of any argument is the neighbors.

[1795] And I am your friendly neighbor, Dave.

[1796] Okay.

[1797] All right.

[1798] Hi, Dave.

[1799] Anytime things spill out of control, I don't care if you got a cowboy hat or dreadlocks.

[1800] I don't care if you're a skinhead.

[1801] Or you are rock and roll.

[1802] I have seen the party spill out of control.

[1803] I have been a major component in that party spilling out of control, me and my music.

[1804] You're going to need some law enforcement, okay?

[1805] And whenever you talk about sweeping reforms, well, you ask me, Dave, I want you to reform your show a little bit.

[1806] My first thought is, let's see the money.

[1807] If you say, no, Dave, I'm going to pay you less, and I'd like to see you change your show.

[1808] out.

[1809] So why would you expect anywhere else?

[1810] Okay.

[1811] Now, I grew up around law enforcement.

[1812] I grew up around military.

[1813] I was the only guy who wasn't law enforcement in my first karate class.

[1814] They were all four feet taller than me. It's a natural thing, okay?

[1815] The idea that we're going to defund the police and expect what?

[1816] You know, be crazy.

[1817] So here's your solution, and that we haven't gotten to it, it's starting to fucking piss me off.

[1818] You got to triple the paychecks.

[1819] And then you'll start getting the genius level combat -proof, full blast industrial strength brains, because you're going to have to be a psychiatrist, a social worker, a Delta team member, a SWAT team fellow, all in one.

[1820] I can get you that.

[1821] Let's start with $3 ,500 a week for patrol.

[1822] Wait a second.

[1823] police chiefs should be making what that grubby fuck shit lawyer down the street makes, which is $300 an hour.

[1824] Yeah, an hour.

[1825] And now, once you've established some proper, thoughtful paychecks, I have some reforms.

[1826] And I bet you we have an atmosphere that's a little bit more elastic.

[1827] Instead of this, well, I'm going to take away your lunch hour.

[1828] I don't know how to say, fuck you in nine language.

[1829] now.

[1830] On the other hand, I don't have any particular love for the uniform.

[1831] Well, I do.

[1832] 511 uniform looks good.

[1833] But don't think for a second that I am all the way over on one side or another.

[1834] I am a left -wing liberal rights, rights, rights, rights, rights, rights.

[1835] Can you dig it?

[1836] Yeah.

[1837] All right.

[1838] And I'm with you.

[1839] I have no problem with shaving my head and joining a military force to defend those rights.

[1840] If I I am called upon to do it.

[1841] I'm too old to do that, but I'm not too old for first aid.

[1842] Can you dig it?

[1843] I can dig it.

[1844] So I'm right down the middle.

[1845] Before my daddy died, he was in the wheelchair.

[1846] Wait until my sisters were out the door.

[1847] He says, go in the drawer.

[1848] I got some papers.

[1849] I says, what do you got?

[1850] We were co -conspirators, me and my dad.

[1851] He was going to join doctors without borders.

[1852] He's going to go to Africa, do eye exams.

[1853] I says, how does that work with a wheelchair?

[1854] He says, I don't have to stand up to do eye exams.

[1855] Don't tell your sisters.

[1856] He died three months later.

[1857] Okay?

[1858] This is a good interview.

[1859] Yeah, we're all over the place.

[1860] So I'm with you on the police thing.

[1861] The defunding the police things idealistically, I see what they think, and they're thinking that there's too much police brutality.

[1862] There's too many rogue cops, too many people that are unqualified to handle the job.

[1863] Well, stop, stop.

[1864] They over -escalate situations, and we see those viral.

[1865] videos and they're infuriating.

[1866] I can solve it with the color of America, which is green.

[1867] It's not black.

[1868] It's not white.

[1869] It's not whatever.

[1870] If you paycheck appropriately for people, then you can make your requests like responsible.

[1871] Paycheck is one thing.

[1872] You want me to be responsible for the bullets in my gun?

[1873] Pay me to do it.

[1874] They need training.

[1875] They need much, much, much more training.

[1876] You want me to train?

[1877] You pay me to do it.

[1878] For sure, but they also need training.

[1879] I mean, the money should look, it should be a very valuable position that's very difficult to attain.

[1880] Same as a teacher.

[1881] It's incredibly valuable for our culture, for our human beings that we're protecting and we educate.

[1882] It should be a very high prestige job, but unfortunately it's not, whether it's schoolteacher or police officer.

[1883] It's the same kind of thing.

[1884] And I think police officers in particular are woefully under -trained.

[1885] And if you talk to people like Jocco Willink, who's a former Navy SEAL commander, he'll tell you that they should be spending somewhere in the neighborhood of like 60 % of their time training so when they go into situations they know exactly what to do how to handle it and they do with discipline the type of discipline that you get with special forces groups I completely agree with you how it should be read my comic strip you have no particular love for the police I just understand a lot of the chemistry I have no love for abusive police but I have all the love in the world for police that are doing their job and risking their life to help people and keep people safe, I think that's what most of them are doing.

[1886] And most of them are infuriated by bad police work.

[1887] Most of them see guys being abusive and see horrible things that get escalated unnecessarily by insecure cops.

[1888] And you know what?

[1889] Unfortunately, I think I'm in the first one coming out of my bracket of entertainment to even talk like this.

[1890] I'll lose friends for even speaking like this.

[1891] What friends?

[1892] I don't think so.

[1893] Oh, no. The Left wing wants nothing to do with this new left wing routinely embarks on punishment of the police.

[1894] Oh, yeah.

[1895] Yeah, but I don't think they understand what they're talking about when they're saying defund the police.

[1896] You're seeing that now in Minneapolis.

[1897] You're sitting it in New York City.

[1898] You're seeing in a lot of these places that have defunded the police or at least taking the teeth out of the police.

[1899] Then you have radically escalating violence, radically escalating murder rates, break -ins.

[1900] It's horrific shit.

[1901] And it's not the way to handle things.

[1902] going to make people less safe.

[1903] You're going to make it more dangerous.

[1904] And you're going to make the cops less likely to engage.

[1905] Cops now are scared to go on calls because they don't want to wind up in a viral video.

[1906] They don't want to get sued.

[1907] I see it.

[1908] In New York City, they can civil sue cops now.

[1909] These civil suits are back.

[1910] I think that used to be kind of one -sided and it's not anymore.

[1911] You see the Democratic riots and you got a lot of long hairs and Mayor Daley, which was you know a real extreme lopsided event and today I think we have an equal you say what pisses you off I don't care if you got a man bun or a skin hit I don't care if you're wearing camo on the dance room I don't care if you're wearing camo on the dance floor or you are metro whatever I don't care who you're fucking or how hard it's but both sides are scaring each other horses now.

[1912] And that's, that's an anger moment for me. Really, we're still arguing over these basics.

[1913] Voter rights?

[1914] Really?

[1915] Come on.

[1916] This is, there are some real givens here.

[1917] Civil rights.

[1918] Really?

[1919] We haven't really advanced from my, my memory in the 60s, really, in terms of actual civil rights.

[1920] We're arguing over statues.

[1921] Really?

[1922] That pisses me off.

[1923] Seems small.

[1924] It seems like there's bigger issues, yo.

[1925] Well, we've explored some of them here, and it's way easier to focus on a statue than it is what's going on with the climate.

[1926] Really, we're still arguing if that's for real?

[1927] That pisses me off because I love the ocean.

[1928] Well, the statues are right in front of you.

[1929] You know, something like the ocean is an enormous problem that requires international cooperation that's very different.

[1930] to attain.

[1931] That's an almost insurmountable problem.

[1932] But that statue's right there and that guy was a slave owner.

[1933] And so they're like, take it down.

[1934] And I get that.

[1935] I get that they're trying to shape the world in a better place.

[1936] And I think a lot of the statues that they're taking down, here's the rub with a lot of the statues that they were taken down that were put up during the civil rights movement of like Confederate soldiers and stuff like that.

[1937] Those were put up in protest of the civil rights movement.

[1938] And they were really cheap.

[1939] They're really shitty statues.

[1940] They were put up, like, at a time where there's people resisting the civil rights movement.

[1941] So the people that want to take down those statues, there's probably some real good arguments for that.

[1942] I fully support that.

[1943] But when you get back to, like, taking down statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, like, now you're getting a little crazy.

[1944] And I understand that a lot of those people were slave owners.

[1945] They were.

[1946] Wait, wait, let's go even crazier.

[1947] Yeah.

[1948] If you don't draw, I don't want to walk past a statue of a Nazi.

[1949] Right.

[1950] I read a book, Lost Victories by Mannheim, Tank Commander.

[1951] He's a Nazi.

[1952] And I don't really want to walk past his statue.

[1953] Right.

[1954] Even though he's got some pretty good lessons in terms of combat.

[1955] You read his book?

[1956] Oh, yeah.

[1957] What is it about?

[1958] Tank warfare.

[1959] Tank strategies?

[1960] Armored strategy, okay, and so forth.

[1961] Why did you read a book on armored tank strategy?

[1962] It's all connected.

[1963] All right.

[1964] You could play that out on the board.

[1965] Right.

[1966] you know do you play chess at all have you ever played chess i have played chess what do you imagine when you play chess just pieces or do you imagine what it'd be like to be that chick from queen's gambit and kicking everybody's ass there you go i really know how to play i hear horses when i play when i play go i it's cavalry oh really oh yeah i imagine that it's cavalry and i'm going to work your flank i'm going to crush your middle i'm going to buckle that left first because you're right -handed right yeah Yeah, so I'm giving you away my tricks.

[1967] Yeah, that's okay.

[1968] I don't have enough time to learn to go.

[1969] But where were we?

[1970] We were a strategy.

[1971] We were your tank book.

[1972] Oh, Nazis, statues.

[1973] Statues of bad people.

[1974] You don't draw a line.

[1975] Okay.

[1976] The statues need to go.

[1977] You're going to start to argue about it and it becomes a huge contention.

[1978] Then it virally will expand to something ugly like Hamilton, which was the play that got made in a movie, got disincluded from winning an award because Hamilton owned slaves.

[1979] Now, the individuals who wrote that play probably never even conceived of that.

[1980] And it's a play that is heavily black Spanish speaking ethnic hood, whatever you want to call it.

[1981] It's a whole new approach to that moment in history.

[1982] And they're disincluded from awards because the hero of the play, which if I'm not mistaken, is not played by a Caucasian in real life.

[1983] Owned Slaves.

[1984] Look this up.

[1985] This is a real thing.

[1986] I'm not a big fan of awards.

[1987] so it doesn't really bother me that much.

[1988] I loved award shows until they became an opportunity.

[1989] I was watching TV when the very first one showed.

[1990] It was Marlon Brando had an Indian little feather come up.

[1991] And that was...

[1992] Except his award.

[1993] It was unbelievable.

[1994] Oh, my God.

[1995] What happened there?

[1996] You dig?

[1997] Then you also started to run into, I'm going to say, an endless list of names as acceptance speeches.

[1998] and that's ass -kissing.

[1999] Now, most people, if they have nothing clear to say, will sit up there and go, oh, my God, oh, my God, I don't believe I'm up here.

[2000] Joe, I don't believe I'm up here.

[2001] I want to thank Ray and Stu and Carl and Louise and Bobby and Noah and, oh, and Joshua and Tina.

[2002] Acceptance speeches used to be an opportunity for those of us in the audience who may be behind you.

[2003] Show me your footsteps.

[2004] Yes.

[2005] When Kurosawa, Yeah.

[2006] The great director, you know, you would know it from San Giro, Seven Summari, etc. You had a one -sentence speech.

[2007] I might as well have it tattooed on my leg and read it every day.

[2008] To be an artist means you can never turn away your eyes.

[2009] Hmm.

[2010] That's worth the whole show.

[2011] You walk away from that changed, especially if your parents can explain it to you.

[2012] Show me your footsteps is a great way to describe the best.

[2013] benefit that you get out of listening to artists talk about.

[2014] You just won?

[2015] Yeah.

[2016] Tell me, how did you climb this mountain?

[2017] But see, that's the other problem.

[2018] What did you use to get?

[2019] Why would you even think of it?

[2020] But isn't that the special part?

[2021] And then instead of like letting them talk, they get like 90 seconds and they're standing on a podium and it's all completely unnatural and it's all very quick.

[2022] They have to have if you can, if you're going to be an artist, you can never turn your eyes.

[2023] They have to have something succinct.

[2024] It has to be something quick.

[2025] Then, like grandma used to say, get in front of it, Joe.

[2026] I mean practice, think of what you're going to say in case you win.

[2027] Yes.

[2028] And it's what will you share with those behind you?

[2029] The problem is now there's too many people that are deeply invested in saying things that they think people want to hear rather than saying things that express their true feelings or their true thoughts.

[2030] or the true emotions.

[2031] I think we're using opportunities frequently as an artist.

[2032] It's tempting.

[2033] This lack of box of chocolate is so tempting.

[2034] These broad -based generalizations.

[2035] And being able to go, wow, they love my music.

[2036] Therefore, they'll love my children, my choice of car, my third wife.

[2037] And this Broadway play I wrote, no, we love your music.

[2038] They love my voice.

[2039] therefore they'll love my acting and my clothing line and watch out and follow um so when we win something for our acting or our music sometimes we'll fall prey to that tempting generalization and go well then they're going to love my political mindset my medical mindset my social mindset and i'm going to share that now no no we elected or so voted for you because of excellence in an area.

[2040] I know I'm up here for acting, but I want to talk about animal rights.

[2041] Honestly, though, I don't, honestly, most of the time where it's infuriating to me is it doesn't resonate as being genuine.

[2042] I don't really think that that's what they're thinking about.

[2043] I think they want you to think that they're deep and profound that they're thinking about these things.

[2044] And that's what drives people the most crazy, that virtue signaling, the clear and obvious virtue signaling, where you know, they're deep.

[2045] doing it because they think it'll be good for their career to say the things they're saying.

[2046] They think that it'll be, it'll, uh, endear them with the people that cast films and write films and produce films or whatever the fuck else they're doing, television shows, because they want to be accepted.

[2047] They want to be a part of the chosen ones.

[2048] And the best way to do that is to use that time in a performative way, instead of a, like an honest, genuine method of expression or or time of expression, where they're on that stage and they speak from the heart and they have something that is, like, really deeply moving.

[2049] You see how your hands are moving?

[2050] Yeah.

[2051] This is called tactical humility.

[2052] Tactical humility?

[2053] I just want to thank all of you.

[2054] Is it fake?

[2055] No, no, no. It's like you would use that hand and you go.

[2056] It's the first sign that something's coming.

[2057] When you see tactical humility, it's an act.

[2058] Oh, you know, I'm just like this and that.

[2059] I'm going to get a lot of...

[2060] They can't be real with some folks?

[2061] Sorry?

[2062] Can it be real with some folks?

[2063] When some folks are doing it, they're just...

[2064] That's how they really feel.

[2065] It depends entirely on the person and what they're expressing.

[2066] Because someone can do almost the exact same thing, and it seems like horseshit.

[2067] And then someone else would do it, and it's so genuine and so true, and it resonates with you.

[2068] We can tell.

[2069] We can tell.

[2070] Most people can tell.

[2071] Some people can tell.

[2072] probably better to describe.

[2073] Some people can't tell.

[2074] Some people just, they buy the nonsense.

[2075] Maybe people that are like full all in with the ideology, you know, full woke.

[2076] They just, oh, he's saying the right things.

[2077] She's doing the right things.

[2078] They're on the right page.

[2079] So you're kind of joining a club.

[2080] Yes.

[2081] You're sort of joining with.

[2082] Instead of it being genuine, like when someone is genuine, when someone's authentic, it resonates.

[2083] But it's not common.

[2084] my mother's 90 years old she's in and out she's in the home uh time before last she mentioned that my socks were horrible pronounced you're not mine told me go get out of the room your socks were horrible yeah what did you have a sense of humor no kind of socks yeah they didn't match my belt or some shit now she got upset she pretended to be upset oh your socks are horrible you're not mine and then she drifts like that's her sense of humor right mom taught me geez i was probably a teenager first time i heard it that only mediocre talents are complimentary of each other the real talents are competing with each other now go do your socks only mediocre talents are complimentary of each other yeah the real deal is competing with each other yeah but can't you be both no why not Because I'm trying to be controversial.

[2085] You're trying to be controversial.

[2086] Can you join the club and transcend it?

[2087] I grew up in summer camp going table number nine rules.

[2088] The rest of you are number one.

[2089] And all the other tables were our cousins and our brothers.

[2090] It looked just like us.

[2091] Well, you need some competition, correct?

[2092] You need fear.

[2093] Right.

[2094] You need fear.

[2095] You better put it in your breakfast cereal and you better put it in your vodka before you go to sleep.

[2096] You dig?

[2097] You need to have the fear that you're not going to get what they're getting.

[2098] Even if it's totally imagined.

[2099] Do you follow?

[2100] That's the pro with seeing like another act.

[2101] And if you're not competing with somebody else, you should have the fear that you're not maximizing your talent and you're wasting your time.

[2102] So, but that's what I'm saying is that's the pro.

[2103] Like, say, if you went to a concert and you saw Hendricks live, it would scare you.

[2104] He'd be like, Jesus Christ, we've got to get on the ball.

[2105] That was what Eric Clapton said, right?

[2106] He saw Hendricks play, and he was like, what am I doing?

[2107] It would compel me. To get going.

[2108] To get going and say to myself, well, okay, I'm not a guitar player per se.

[2109] Let's think of a vocalist.

[2110] Okay.

[2111] Who's one of the best solo artists ever, time not specific?

[2112] Tina Turner, Rod Stewart.

[2113] There you go.

[2114] Watch one or both.

[2115] You're going to walk away going, okay, whatever talent I have, I'm not putting in enough time.

[2116] 10 ,000 hours is for cissies.

[2117] That's the white boy version.

[2118] The Asian version is 10 hours a day every day for 10 years.

[2119] That's closer to 30, 40 ,000 hours.

[2120] Have I done my 40 ,000?

[2121] hours?

[2122] I have.

[2123] Alex Van Heelan has.

[2124] The dentist who's building my tooth is a 50 ,000 hour instructor.

[2125] Do you, you and him talk?

[2126] Do you like, does he send you images?

[2127] Who?

[2128] The dentist that's building your tooth?

[2129] Oh, yeah.

[2130] You just told him what you want.

[2131] Oh, yeah.

[2132] I want a gold frame.

[2133] Yeah.

[2134] And today it requires a 50 ,000 hour surgeon to duplicate a trip to a downtown $15 dollar visit of a dentist in 1926.

[2135] Yeah, but it'll probably fit better.

[2136] It's the same fellas who do the movie teeth.

[2137] When you see like Johnny Depp with the pirate teeth with the sapphires and the gold and stuff, it's showbiz city.

[2138] So of course they're building come on, how many vampire movies are?

[2139] There's no teeth, no vampire Joe.

[2140] That's true.

[2141] Fake teeth for a vampire movie.

[2142] Hello.

[2143] Yeah, they have it.

[2144] It's so in showbiz city.

[2145] But it's curious that to move to that.

[2146] Anyways, it is a mindset and I'm continually thrilled even now, especially with YouTube, you know, being able to access the past at a moment.

[2147] It used to be go look it up at the Encyclopedia Britannica.

[2148] How many times did I get up from the dinner table and start rifling through that thin paper?

[2149] Right, and you had to make sure that that was real.

[2150] What the encyclopedia was saying was real.

[2151] You couldn't cross -reference it with other online sources if it was even in the encyclopedia yeah yeah and now literally as we speak here we can rev it up i used to have to sit in front of the television at the million dollar movie and hope that that thing is going to come on at a certain time i'm going to get to see this one routine quickly and then it's gone whether that was a dance scene or a fight scene or whatever you follow um you can dial up for example dial up uh going going down to argentina the nicholas brothers okay this is a flash team from the 30s and the 40s of tap dancing but gymnastic shit you know flying through each other and you know this kind of thing if you knew that movie was coming on at 11 o 'clock on channel 5 on Thursday that was the only time it was there for two years and you better make sure you're in front of that TV to watch it once, okay?

[2152] Look up the hell's a poppin jitterbug scene with the, oh, we've seen this before, yeah, it's amazing.

[2153] You dig?

[2154] I'll talk as the fellas go on here.

[2155] They're going to break into a dance kind of a thing.

[2156] If you even knew these guys existed, then, hey, now, some of the stuff that they're using, you see on the floor there, they salted the floor.

[2157] That's called billiards chalk.

[2158] It's not meant for traction, all right?

[2159] It's meant to do slides and stuff.

[2160] And it's what you put on your hand to make sure the billiard cue slides through your hand.

[2161] It makes it slippery.

[2162] Here you go.

[2163] Now watch.

[2164] These guys are the most famous tap dancers in history, arguably, and there's no taps on the bottom of their shoes.

[2165] Oh, really?

[2166] They're just tapping with regular shoes.

[2167] Yep.

[2168] Can we hear it?

[2169] Okay.

[2170] It's just the band is playing off to the side live, actually.

[2171] It's not replaced recorded.

[2172] Watch how they spin.

[2173] Watch how they slide.

[2174] Okay.

[2175] Yeah, it's very impressive stuff.

[2176] I mean, just the athleticism involved in this kind of dancing is incredible.

[2177] So I would have to sit myself.

[2178] It would come on Channel 13 with Cal Worthington at two in the morning, and I would have to position myself, okay?

[2179] Go ahead.

[2180] Look up the Barry Brothers cane routine.

[2181] But look at this guy's movement.

[2182] That's amazing.

[2183] Yep.

[2184] And this is the stuff that I was positioning.

[2185] in when I was a little kid.

[2186] That is not something you do with meniscus tears.

[2187] There you go.

[2188] They're going to really start sliding around, too.

[2189] These are the Uptown fellas.

[2190] Okay.

[2191] And they go in class.

[2192] They're always wearing tuxedos.

[2193] Look at that.

[2194] Look at that.

[2195] That is amazing.

[2196] And when you combine this spirit with rock and roll, no, you don't do these moves in rock.

[2197] No, that looks like Diamond Dave.

[2198] I mean, they're dropping down to the...

[2199] the splits and everything.

[2200] See how the floor is all slipped up and everything?

[2201] That's incredible.

[2202] Oh, my God.

[2203] It is in this spirit that I've always carried out what I do for a living.

[2204] I knew about these guys before I was a teenager.

[2205] Can you dig it?

[2206] And it's all done with a smile.

[2207] It's all done with finesse.

[2208] And there's no taps on the bottoms of those shoes, huh?

[2209] See that?

[2210] See the slide?

[2211] Boom.

[2212] I mean, where does one even go to learn that?

[2213] I can take you exactly where to go to learn it.

[2214] I learned it from the short one on the left, his protege.

[2215] Yeah.

[2216] Jimmy Z. Can you still do the splits?

[2217] I can.

[2218] Wow.

[2219] That's awesome.

[2220] Put up the Barry Brothers cane routine.

[2221] Now is the downtown hip -hop version of what those guys were doing.

[2222] And these aren't moves that you do on stage.

[2223] This is the savvy.

[2224] This, see, these guys are more ghetto.

[2225] These guys are more a little bit rough around the edges.

[2226] Yo, bam, bam, wham, homie, bam, whack, whack, whack.

[2227] Look familiar.

[2228] So, oh, yeah, look at that shit.

[2229] Savvy.

[2230] Smok.

[2231] This is the Mike Tyson version of tap dancing.

[2232] Yo, see how it's got knees and elbows to it?

[2233] It's not so specific.

[2234] Like, life, dog, bop, boom.

[2235] Yeah.

[2236] Now, which one are you, Joe?

[2237] Are you the Nicholas brothers or the Barry brothers?

[2238] I'm neither one of those.

[2239] What is this?

[2240] What years is?

[2241] 1940s?

[2242] Yeah.

[2243] 30s and 40s.

[2244] These are flash teams, they're called.

[2245] Flash teams.

[2246] That's what they would call dancing teams like this?

[2247] Yeah.

[2248] It's, what's weird is that this doesn't exist anymore.

[2249] Not like this.

[2250] Yeah, right?

[2251] I mean, it's very...

[2252] You see the difference now between the Barry brothers and Nicholas.

[2253] Nicholas brothers were educated.

[2254] They have their elbows up, classy.

[2255] They're putting that bandana.

[2256] These guys, these are street corner dog.

[2257] Yeah, fuck it.

[2258] Who cares?

[2259] It's the spirits.

[2260] The drive.

[2261] Laugh to win, homie.

[2262] Whoa, that guy did a flying triangle.

[2263] Oh, you just saw that of your last fight.

[2264] Oh, down goes.

[2265] Look at that.

[2266] That is wild.

[2267] Yeah, see, that's that street corner.

[2268] And in that spirit, it's Van Heelan.

[2269] In this very spirit is laugh to win.

[2270] In this very spirit is lead with your face, and I've been places with mine, you wouldn't go with a loaded pistol.

[2271] Nothing, but yeah.

[2272] It is amazing that that...

[2273] You see, how.

[2274] how that was nonspecific.

[2275] Doesn't exist.

[2276] Same kind of a thing.

[2277] And you wonder, where does the drive come from?

[2278] The spirit is, I want to learn that.

[2279] I still do.

[2280] Still do?

[2281] How are your knees?

[2282] Great.

[2283] Really?

[2284] Oh, yeah.

[2285] From years and years of stretch and stretch.

[2286] Stretch and stretch, I can still do all of my stuff, just not as much of it.

[2287] Oh.

[2288] You bet.

[2289] Now, I am not a healthy guy, okay?

[2290] The best part of yoga is when you're done.

[2291] You're not healthy?

[2292] The best part of Pallades is when it's over.

[2293] The best part of the weight stack is finishing.

[2294] What do you mean by you're not a healthy guy, though?

[2295] By nature, no. By nature?

[2296] I was not raised to healthy food.

[2297] I was not raised to healthy practice.

[2298] But I would imagine you eat healthy food now.

[2299] Yes.

[2300] So you're healthy.

[2301] I eat a croco diet what a crocodile would have.

[2302] You know, catch a bird, some foliage.

[2303] What'd you have today, Ray?

[2304] I caught a chicken.

[2305] That sounds like a crocodile, right?

[2306] I would imagine a crocodile would have a similar sounding voice.

[2307] Yes.

[2308] But I was raised when McDonald's was special.

[2309] Going to McDonald's was a special night.

[2310] That wasn't convenience food.

[2311] It was like...

[2312] A rare treat.

[2313] Yeah.

[2314] Oh, yeah.

[2315] Like, what do you eat now?

[2316] Do you just meat and vegetables?

[2317] No, I try to stay away from the meat.

[2318] First things, probably about four days out of the week, okay?

[2319] And it's oatmeal, rice, beans, you know, the usual veg.

[2320] But I can't go too long without eating meat that about every four days.

[2321] Why do you try to stay away?

[2322] Do you try to stay away from it?

[2323] I got to keep my weight down.

[2324] I do everything a little better.

[2325] It seems slim.

[2326] Well, I have that gene that Labrador retrievers had where I'm always hungry and I'll eat until I'm sick.

[2327] That's why Labrador's trained so well.

[2328] They've got that C4 gene or whatever it is where they're always hungry.

[2329] So if you've got a treat, he's going to learn real quick.

[2330] If I do this, I get another treat.

[2331] You're working his appetite.

[2332] I have the same thing.

[2333] A lot of people do.

[2334] where I learned from my parents try everything and most of it's going to be pretty good with an open mind.

[2335] So there's really no kind of food that I have ever had that I haven't enjoyed.

[2336] But is it meat that makes you put on weight?

[2337] Primarily, it's meat that puts, yeah, absolutely.

[2338] It's the fat from the meats and dairy that really sock it to me. Carves, the beans, the rest of it, No, the weight just comes right off.

[2339] But the meat really socks it to me. That's interesting.

[2340] And the fat content is the big deal.

[2341] I always say that you can't outrun the French fry, okay?

[2342] You may stay real skinny, but you're still running all that fat through your heart valves.

[2343] Okay.

[2344] The same thing with red meats of whatever kind.

[2345] And if we sit down, I'll always be the last one at dinner.

[2346] I'll always eat the slowest and I'll eat more than anybody twice my weight.

[2347] It's just the way I'm wired.

[2348] So I've really had to like buckle into that and be real careful because what I do, I do better if I'm staying light tight and ready for flight.

[2349] I'm still the same size as I was in college.

[2350] What do you do for exercise?

[2351] Just riding your bike or other stuff?

[2352] Depends on what we're doing and Do you still do martial arts?

[2353] Oh, yeah.

[2354] Every day.

[2355] Every day, some element of it, okay?

[2356] Forms have come in real, real handy.

[2357] And especially forms with the different swords.

[2358] Kendo is one division of this.

[2359] Ido.

[2360] You can draw that Ido.

[2361] A .I. D .O. It's a drawing way, okay, is easily half the battle here.

[2362] and that we do with wooden swords do it without a sword do it with a live blade as well and oh you know what on my uh instagram i believe there is a picture in my stories instagram stories davidly ruff there's a picture of me with a sword on the stories you can dial that up it's forms done with a live blade in this case and uh you know Somebody in my age, I'm not taking impact.

[2363] You're not going to hit me ever again.

[2364] I'm not throwing punches.

[2365] I just had an operation on one of my thumbs.

[2366] You know, that finally gave up on me. My big toe, just had an operation on my big toe.

[2367] And this is all from contact.

[2368] What's wrong with your big toe?

[2369] Kicking the heavy bag for how many years?

[2370] Yeah?

[2371] Yeah, that started it.

[2372] And then, and then.

[2373] The toe joint?

[2374] Uh -huh.

[2375] Corrosion of the joint or something?

[2376] Would they have done?

[2377] We call it wearing out the brake pads.

[2378] Yeah, what they did?

[2379] what do they do for that uh clean it out scrape scrape and clean if it's real bad then uh you can put in an artificial joint in your toe oh yeah you know how important the big toe is big but you know after how many years of hitting heavy bag and or like pad work etc it's impact and it may well be impact that you're not designed for like walking and running and even walking and running competitively I mean, did God build us to go, okay, now he's right here to run 100 miles.

[2380] No, I think not.

[2381] Yeah.

[2382] You know, he built us to, you know, there you go.

[2383] Oh, that's my teacher.

[2384] Is it?

[2385] Yep.

[2386] And this is, this is Ido?

[2387] That's, no, no, he's.

[2388] What is he doing with that stick?

[2389] What form is this form of martial art?

[2390] He's, let me see what he's actually.

[2391] This is Ido?

[2392] Okay, this is all the same kind of stuff that you're going to do with your sword.

[2393] And this is, you know, there.

[2394] See, he's doing all the same stuff that he's doing with his sword.

[2395] And the idea behind all these flowery movements is what, just to get more competent?

[2396] Cross training.

[2397] Cross training.

[2398] Isometrics, pliometrics.

[2399] Look at you.

[2400] You follow?

[2401] Yeah.

[2402] Anyways, it's everything that you would do recuperating, for example.

[2403] lunges.

[2404] We're all included in that.

[2405] Everything that you might do in your yoga class and in all of that that takes place in the gym is in forms.

[2406] But forms are something that you're going to get a little better at.

[2407] If you spend all of your time simply making impact, then you've developed one branch of the martial arts.

[2408] Actual combat, actual fighting is part of it.

[2409] Are you going to be doing that when you're 80?

[2410] I plan on turning 96 like my uncle.

[2411] There is a slow version of it is Tai Chi, and it's slow because they charge by the hour.

[2412] The faster it moves, sure.

[2413] But think of it as cross -training.

[2414] Is it actual fighting?

[2415] No. No, I'm more aware.

[2416] But it is like with a, if you have shoulder or, you know, that kind of a thing, it may be because of a repetitive motion.

[2417] And forms are way more fun to do, way more entertaining and engaging than just let's do 20 more lunges.

[2418] Let's do 50 burpees.

[2419] All of your burpees are included in the forms, but a form is something that you can get better and better at.

[2420] And you can do it in a very small space without a class, without a teacher, without a bag.

[2421] without gloves and without anything.

[2422] So do you do any striking anymore?

[2423] Do you hit bags or anything like that anymore?

[2424] No, I don't.

[2425] No. The closest I get to that is with, you know, bow training, a sword, wooden sword.

[2426] Okay.

[2427] But I'm a result of impact.

[2428] You know, my thumbs, my feet, my back, et cetera.

[2429] I started in 1966 hitting the heavy bag and kicking the heavy bag.

[2430] and getting, you know, yeah, hidden and making contact.

[2431] And I loved it, and I miss it dearly.

[2432] Frankly, I'd love to get back out on the mats.

[2433] It kills me that, you know, I've reached that point now where I can't do it anymore.

[2434] Yeah, I'm scared to reach that point.

[2435] That's one of the reasons why I train so hard to make sure my body is resilient enough so they can keep training.

[2436] Yeah.

[2437] and maybe a lot of maintenance stuff you know it's really maintenance and you start it's like taking care of a boat most of it isn't going anywhere most of it is this taking care of the boat before it goes anywhere right two hours of maintenance versus one hour of sailing I think probably yeah yeah and then so why keep the weight down it's easier on my back right why do I go on the bike, it's easier on me than the weight stack.

[2438] Why, you know.

[2439] But you're still jamming, you still doing music, and you just released a song.

[2440] Well, I got a song out.

[2441] Why put out a record in these days?

[2442] If you're going to have 14 songs, unless you have devout fans, that's great.

[2443] And when you're a flavor of the week for the first two, three times, great.

[2444] Your fans are devout.

[2445] You become It's like a Bible.

[2446] Oh, my God, I'm a Drake fan.

[2447] I'm going to buy everything that Drake buys puts out and consume it as if it were nutrition, right?

[2448] At my point, geez, Paul McCartney puts out 14 songs.

[2449] The human thing is to pick your favorite and your worst and skip the rest because there's nine other records available right here in my shoe phone.

[2450] I don't have to go to Canterbury Records anymore.

[2451] buy one record at a time go home sit and listen just to that record is your wristwatch contains all of the music ever recorded the new one the new series 12 wristwatch contains it's your iPod you follow my reasoning the human condition is I get it forget it that's like monkey how do you consume music now short burst short dose if I'm listening to a specific artist you do it digitally like how do you do it most of what I do is uh series XM okay and that has a wild diversity to it so you just pick a channel oh yeah my favorite channels are uh not yeah just about this order the bluegrass channel Outlaw Country, Hip Hop Nation, Rock the Bells, Groove Channel, then the two BPM and ARIA, and then I listen to Fox and MSNBC.

[2452] You listen to Fox and MSNBC just to get a balanced perspective, the propaganda.

[2453] Oh, you bet.

[2454] From both sides of the polls.

[2455] Oh, I've been on Cavuto's show a couple of times, and I agree with Rachel.

[2456] I'm a concern.

[2457] Well, I think that's probably healthy.

[2458] Oh, yeah.

[2459] I get concerned with people that are on one side of the ideology 100%.

[2460] That's just, I don't think that's realistic.

[2461] And I think it's more in line with tribal thinking than it is with, like, real objective, discerned reasoning.

[2462] Someone who's, like, really looked at the issues and thought about it from a balanced perspective and really looked at the pros and cons of each individual aspect of whatever problem we're trying to address.

[2463] as a culture.

[2464] Pop used to say to me, I don't choose my patience, whoever walks through the door.

[2465] And we used that in Van Halen.

[2466] We played to every different kind of neighborhood.

[2467] There's four kinds of Mexican.

[2468] You have Techano, you have a lowrider, you have progressive UCLA.

[2469] In the 70s, and they all required a different kind of music.

[2470] Yeah.

[2471] The Van Halenens listened to pomp in circumstance at their graduation.

[2472] at my graduation they played samba pati by santana on something called a loop in 1972 hey that shit's repeating somebody better fix the record no no it's supposed to do that essay a loop a loop was real back then on purpose oh yeah on a record player how would you do that on a loop Oh, they just put it on a tape with reel to reel and played it.

[2473] But the Van Halen audience is all across the board.

[2474] It's combat hippie.

[2475] You've got half of the audience is just Camel on the dance floor.

[2476] It includes police, fire, paramedic, military, cowboy, right -wing Republican.

[2477] And it's Harleys and Ferraris.

[2478] You've got the whole left wing contingent of the arts and letters community, what's happening in terms of liberal arts, because you can tell we put a lot of work into everything we did.

[2479] The genius in Van Halen is in the composition.

[2480] We did our 10 ,000 hours before we made our first record.

[2481] That's old school training.

[2482] It's closer to martial arts.

[2483] We never took around a demo tape.

[2484] We made the assertion that if we're, as good as we think we are, we'll get discovered.

[2485] And if we don't get discovered, it's because we suck.

[2486] But were there demo tapes back then?

[2487] People have demo tapes?

[2488] Oh, sure.

[2489] Yeah?

[2490] Oh, you bet.

[2491] And that was a big thing?

[2492] Oh, yeah.

[2493] Everybody, but you made them on a reel to reel on a T -AC.

[2494] When did you guys realize it was happening?

[2495] Like, when did you really realize, like, holy shit, it's taken off?

[2496] Right away.

[2497] Right away.

[2498] Oh, yeah.

[2499] There was no development, period, for us.

[2500] The only thing that remains exactly the same from the beginning of its life, from the beginning to the very end, is a sea urchin.

[2501] It looks exactly the same.

[2502] And maybe Bruce Springsteen.

[2503] You know what?

[2504] I was listening to Bruce Springsteen the other day.

[2505] I was listening to I'm on fire.

[2506] Imagine playing that song today.

[2507] Hey little girl is your daddy home.

[2508] Did he go and leave you all alone.

[2509] I got a bad desire.

[2510] I know.

[2511] She's 16.

[2512] She's sweet 16.

[2513] But that song, but that song in particular, that is a crazy song.

[2514] That's like just, I heard a cover of it by some country music star was singing a cover of that, like a recent cover.

[2515] I'm like, hey man, you might probably might not want to sing that fucking song anymore.

[2516] Senses of humor change.

[2517] Well, that's not a sense of humor.

[2518] That's not about humor.

[2519] It's a weird song.

[2520] Hey little girl.

[2521] is your daddy home.

[2522] Did he go and leave you all alone?

[2523] Mm -hmm.

[2524] I got a bad desire.

[2525] Okay, is that a teenage kid singing to a teenage kid?

[2526] Because Bruce will tell you, I'm a liar.

[2527] He says it right in the first pages of his autobiography.

[2528] I don't know what it is.

[2529] He goes on, I was never a cowboy.

[2530] I never worked in the sneed yards.

[2531] Oh, of course.

[2532] So if that's a teenager singing to a teenager, that's the way you think as a teenager.

[2533] A teenager doesn't call other.

[2534] teenager's little girl.

[2535] I'm being Alan Dershowitz.

[2536] I know what you're doing.

[2537] He was simply emulating the thinking of a mutually aged individual, but you're looking at him as a 70 -year -old looking at your daughter and I would concur.

[2538] What the fuck?

[2539] Yeah, I'm looking at it's like a creepy 40 -year -old.

[2540] I'm sorry?

[2541] I'm looking at it like a creepy 40 -year -old talking to an 11 -year -old or something.

[2542] Exactly.

[2543] Yeah.

[2544] So maybe he's...

[2545] You know, I'm looking at the worst possible charitable example.

[2546] You got to get back to where your streets are full of heroes on a last chance power slide.

[2547] Well, I'd love that too, but I'm just I just, I'm always curious as to why someone writes what they write and like where it's coming from and what, what, you know, what they're trying to channel.

[2548] Hold on.

[2549] He's got some amazing fucking song.

[2550] He becomes the character.

[2551] Yeah.

[2552] I don't do that.

[2553] He becomes the character.

[2554] He becomes the soldier who sings born in the USA.

[2555] Right.

[2556] He becomes the kid on a is sitting next to his dad in my brand new used car.

[2557] I think he might have been the guy singing in brilliant disguise, though, because that was right after he got out of a bad divorce.

[2558] Okay.

[2559] I think that might have been him.

[2560] Okay, but it's a character.

[2561] For example, in contrast, my songs, lyrically, I wrote all of the lyrics and anything that you sing.

[2562] To be perfectly honest, it was all run through Alex's Van Heelan's brain seven times before it was approved.

[2563] So you have a mutuality here.

[2564] I saw it coming from professional orchestral training, all right.

[2565] Two of my mentors on Reeds, I played saxophone were Peter and Pearl Zikovsky, first and second chair clarinet and the L .A. Philharmonic.

[2566] These are my cousins, okay.

[2567] And I learned a great deal from them in terms of formative music.

[2568] All right.

[2569] emotional content can be utilized lyrically or melodically if you even know it exists.

[2570] So, for example, we can sing about jumping.

[2571] I ran down the street and I jumped and my tennis shoes hit the street first and I'm wearing converse.

[2572] Okay.

[2573] Or we can create somehow, lyrically, the feeling of jumping.

[2574] So when we jump, unless it's in slow motion, jump.

[2575] Jump.

[2576] No, no, that's drinking that purple scissurp or whatever.

[2577] Scissor?

[2578] If you're drinking scissors, that may be what it feels like to jump.

[2579] But in fact, now, in your world of M .M .A. You jump.

[2580] And that's how we sing it.

[2581] Now, when we dance, we want to dance all night.

[2582] So we dance.

[2583] The night.

[2584] And you don't have to speak English to us.

[2585] understand the subtext of how this works.

[2586] What does it like to make a song like that and know that it affected millions of people?

[2587] Millions of people would hear dance the night away.

[2588] Well, children, what did we do today that's going to benefit the rest of us?

[2589] We're going to jump, Dad.

[2590] We're going to dance.

[2591] And what else are we going to do?

[2592] These are all verbs, by the way.

[2593] That's not a coincidence either.

[2594] now in retrospect I can look back but you know we don't jog we run and who are we running with the devil do you follow so what is the sound of jogging have you ever done road work to accommodate fighting and so forth it sounds like this that's endless so many miles I remember years and years I ran and ran and ran.

[2595] But we need a mean part to that, and it started off mean, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, and I'm sticky.

[2596] What does it sound like to run?

[2597] What does it feel like to run?

[2598] What will you remember if you've run the marathon?

[2599] You know what you're going to remember?

[2600] To -t -t -tut -tut -tut -tut -tut -tut -tut -tut -tut -tut -turrin with the devil.

[2601] I swear to God.

[2602] Fat, fat, fat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat.

[2603] If you're going to Panama, who even fucking knows where that is?

[2604] But it sounds a lot like, Oh, Raleigh.

[2605] And I've said that 10 million times.

[2606] Debbie Sierra took me to the prom.

[2607] Put $20 in my pocket and said, we're going to the prom in high school.

[2608] Horalee.

[2609] And it was right in your head.

[2610] Do you follow?

[2611] So how do you feel like Panama?

[2612] What's tropical?

[2613] What's exotic?

[2614] What's a little bit dangerous?

[2615] I understand what you're trying to convey in your songs, but I'm saying, what does it feel like to know that your songs have impacted millions and millions of people?

[2616] Like, is it a satisfying feeling?

[2617] Do you feel like a life well -lived?

[2618] Like, what does it feel like?

[2619] I feel like we've made a contribution.

[2620] I think we add it.

[2621] I feel like, ah, yeah.

[2622] Contribution is my word.

[2623] If you have to choose a word, what is your word?

[2624] If we have to put one on your gravestone.

[2625] What's your word?

[2626] I don't know.

[2627] Pick one.

[2628] I have to think about that for a while.

[2629] You're on the spot now.

[2630] Mine's contribution.

[2631] Yeah, I don't think I would pick a spot.

[2632] I'd have to think.

[2633] Contribution.

[2634] What's yours?

[2635] What is your law?

[2636] Do you have one?

[2637] On Thermopylae, where the Spartans gave it up.

[2638] And remember, they lost that last fight.

[2639] Yeah.

[2640] Well, let's not rub that in.

[2641] There's one of the most famous poems in history.

[2642] It's only two sentences long.

[2643] and it's a little sarcastic.

[2644] It was carved into the wall right after the battle.

[2645] It says, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by.

[2646] Here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[2647] It means that's the law.

[2648] We're forever.

[2649] And when you have a law or a word, it doesn't matter if you win or lose.

[2650] I mean, my Jamaican bobsled team.

[2651] They came in dead last, flipped the sled, and almost, killed themselves and it's the most valuable t -shirt of the entire olympics why it's a novelty it's not novelty because they came back three times and won the nationals again well it's it was novelty because holy shit jamaica has a bobsled team everybody was fascinated because everybody knows there's no ice in jamaica yes but they took it dead serious i interviewed the coach they're in the olympics i interviewed devon the coach he was british sas Their strength and training coach was British S -A -S.

[2652] He was a no -fuck -around guy.

[2653] Serious.

[2654] I was in radio for four and a half months when Stern went.

[2655] I remember.

[2656] I remember.

[2657] What have you been fired from?

[2658] How fuck was that?

[2659] What have you ever been fired from?

[2660] Walmart?

[2661] Was that devastating?

[2662] Getting fired from that gig?

[2663] Are you kidding?

[2664] What have you been fired from, McDonald's?

[2665] I got fired from playing too much ethnic music.

[2666] I got fired for having too much of a view like we're doing right now.

[2667] Okay?

[2668] Well, the problem was you were taking over a time slot that had been clearly established by arguably the greatest radio broadcaster in the history of the world.

[2669] I agree with that, and I still agree with it.

[2670] I listen to Howard regularly.

[2671] But when you take over that time slot, you can't win.

[2672] No, no. No one wins.

[2673] You can't win if they expect you to be the same thing.

[2674] You should have taken over it after somebody else got fired.

[2675] My shit, my teams, my ratings were going up.

[2676] The arbitrons, everything was zooming, man. We were booming.

[2677] And what they wanted was a repeat of what Howard was doing.

[2678] And I just refused to do that.

[2679] But wait a minute.

[2680] If your ratings were going up, I thought that's all they care about.

[2681] Nope.

[2682] I was untenable.

[2683] So my God, I was playing black music in the background.

[2684] I was bringing in guests that had nothing to do with rock and roll.

[2685] What were you supposed to do?

[2686] Like when they hired you, what did they say to you?

[2687] They want, well, what they said was be yourself, but I think what they expected was a duplication of a hero.

[2688] And I'm not a duplication.

[2689] Even when I try to duplicate.

[2690] But did you have these conversations with them where you said, listen, I'm just going to be free.

[2691] I want to play my own music.

[2692] I want to do, like, what did they expect?

[2693] Did they expect you were going to do all talking?

[2694] Yes, and they expected that I was going to duplicate what would have come before because that it seems to be a tradition, okay?

[2695] But you had done Stern a few times.

[2696] You knew what it was like.

[2697] Nevertheless, when you put me in charge, we're going to be, it's a lot closer to what we're doing here.

[2698] Right.

[2699] And the kind of, you know the term wabasabi.

[2700] It means that which is a little roughed up at the edges.

[2701] Well, you've done a lot of stuff like this, right?

[2702] You've done your own version.

[2703] You were doing your own version of a podcast for a while.

[2704] Nevertheless, before that show, no, this was 15 years ago.

[2705] But I mean, recently.

[2706] So you have been able to kind of do your own thing, like what you actually enjoyed doing.

[2707] Yes.

[2708] But then there was executives involved.

[2709] There was a bunch of other people that were, like, poking and prodding.

[2710] And despite the fact that the ratings were going up, they were still not happy with what you were doing?

[2711] We were changing audience, all right?

[2712] I have no problem.

[2713] I would play Bob Marley, and they would say, you can't play this.

[2714] You have a rock and roll audience.

[2715] And I go, this is what rock and rollers listen to on vacation.

[2716] And they go, no, no, no, no, no, no, serious quote.

[2717] They would say, no, no, we want you to play Nickelback.

[2718] We want you to, yes, yes, these were the two.

[2719] We want you to play, it was Nickelback and Skinner.

[2720] And I said, I have news for you.

[2721] When Leonard Skinner goes to the Bahamas on vacation, they listen to Bob.

[2722] So was the show music?

[2723] Is the sound of vacation.

[2724] Was the show music?

[2725] To rock and rollers.

[2726] Oh, I was playing background music throughout my talking.

[2727] Like right now, I would be having music congruent in the backgrounds to what we would be discussing.

[2728] What I'm trying to get at is, how did this show get established?

[2729] Did you have test shows that you did where they said, I like what you're doing?

[2730] Did they just let you wing it live?

[2731] Did they hit the switch at 6 a .m. Monday morning and say, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome David, leave Roth and let you just go wild.

[2732] Yeah, and I'd have an intro from a Wilson Pickett tune, or I'd loop the musical intro from Cool and the Gang, or I'd loop the musical intro from some array.

[2733] Maybe in nights, something or other.

[2734] And no, no, no, no, this is classic rock.

[2735] We want to stay in the classic rock mode.

[2736] We want to stay a classic rock type guest in the approach.

[2737] So that was because Stern on terrestrial radio before he went over to XM Serious was a on a classic rock station.

[2738] Yes.

[2739] So they wanted you to do the same thing in the morning.

[2740] Yeah.

[2741] But what if you had just talked?

[2742] Would they have been okay with that?

[2743] Or did they want you to play music?

[2744] Was that established before you start?

[2745] Are doing it?

[2746] Even just talking.

[2747] I'm not...

[2748] Didn't even like that?

[2749] Hold on.

[2750] There are as many people, you either love or author, you hate them.

[2751] I'm speaking to a third person.

[2752] Right.

[2753] All right.

[2754] You're either entertained or you really have no taste for me. You follow?

[2755] Like sushi.

[2756] But isn't what's important, though, in that business, the ratings?

[2757] That's what's so confusing to me. I don't understand if the ratings were going up.

[2758] But I was not controlled.

[2759] My subject matter was not controllable.

[2760] What was the problem with the subject matter?

[2761] Exactly what we're talking about here.

[2762] And I was not afraid to upset people.

[2763] How did you upset people?

[2764] Like what kind of subject matter was upsetting?

[2765] Well, for example, 9 -11, okay, the buildings down there, trade center, world trade.

[2766] What the EPA director?

[2767] or Christy, I think of Whitman, perhaps, I might be wrong with the name, I mean, error, at the time was declaring, this is 15 summers ago, that it was okay to breathe down there.

[2768] And I maintained under no circumstances, was it okay to breathe down there, having been involved in some version of health care training and so forth.

[2769] First time I got walked into the hospital, I was eight years old.

[2770] I remember my father's saying, Sybil, it's time he sees what his father really does for a living.

[2771] And he showed me everything in that hospital.

[2772] It was a Massachusetts general when he was a resident.

[2773] And I went on record, and they got calls from the mayor's office, shut up.

[2774] Because I was saying, it is under no circumstances.

[2775] Is it safe to breathe down at that site?

[2776] Everything was incinerated.

[2777] It's airborne.

[2778] Our health care workers are in danger.

[2779] If you're not masked up and clothed up and eyed up, et cetera, we are endangering our responder.

[2780] Oh, they didn't want to hear that shit.

[2781] And the EPA director, whatever, was online saying, no, no, it's breathable, it's safe, and everything.

[2782] Well, today, I was right.

[2783] You were dead right.

[2784] Bad choice of word, but maybe it's right.

[2785] And I was threatened with getting fired and the mayor's office called and you're going to cause a big problem and big trouble, et cetera, like that.

[2786] And I refused to back down.

[2787] A lot of the people that lived in that area.

[2788] Fuck y 'all.

[2789] That stayed in that area after.

[2790] Exactly.

[2791] They got very, very sick.

[2792] I called it right away.

[2793] So this was something that you were calling on the air?

[2794] Yes.

[2795] And what did they say to you?

[2796] Shut up.

[2797] Knock it off.

[2798] They really said that to you?

[2799] They're causing big time problems.

[2800] They said knock it off.

[2801] Don't tell the truth about the...

[2802] It wasn't considered truth.

[2803] This is just your opinion.

[2804] opinion.

[2805] You're here for entertainment.

[2806] You're here to play some music.

[2807] You're here to talk.

[2808] Keep them light and lively local news.

[2809] It sounds like they owe you an apology.

[2810] Well, I took your approach, which is, it was what I was doing then, and you can tell I'm still irate, is much closer to what you're doing here.

[2811] And I would bring people on who were extreme right wing an extreme left wing and extreme everything yeah and you guys decide i would have uh Jesus I had uh well on the lighter side of things I would have uh Jesus we had an actual pimp call really yeah we had actual prostitutes I would feel like you want to have the pimp in studio call in see what he's dressed like he's not coming anywhere near us but etc. I wouldn't hesitate to engage with law enforcement.

[2812] I put out the call having been EMT and say David Hasselhoff got busted.

[2813] I know that you're in my listening voice down in Palm Beach, Florida.

[2814] If you're a law enforcement, give us a call.

[2815] Tell us what happened.

[2816] Cop called in.

[2817] Yeah, yeah, he was in the last thing.

[2818] Here's what happened.

[2819] Wait a minute.

[2820] I'm in running you to follow.

[2821] Although even having that connection was, well, no, this is drum circle.

[2822] This is rock and roll, man. This is like, you know.

[2823] Drum circle?

[2824] You follow peace.

[2825] I'd make the joke, which is it.

[2826] It's peace, love, and heavy weapons.

[2827] What do you think is protecting the drum circle?

[2828] Yeah.

[2829] And then, of course, my friends or teachers and what in law enforcement, make total fun of our showbiz community.

[2830] Yeah, of course.

[2831] Yeah.

[2832] It's frivolous.

[2833] Oh, you bunch of sissies.

[2834] Yeah, very funny.

[2835] That ain't working.

[2836] So as...

[2837] That's why they call it play.

[2838] Time went on.

[2839] Tensions built, right?

[2840] On that radio show.

[2841] Built instantly.

[2842] Instantly.

[2843] Yeah.

[2844] And in reading commercials, of course.

[2845] I would have fun with that.

[2846] But what else?

[2847] What else was a source of major contention?

[2848] We would talk about...

[2849] Oh, I would go along.

[2850] Okay.

[2851] kids, when they go to school, there's a big problem with Bling.

[2852] The kids who can afford Bling are getting nice tennis shoes and swatch watches and interesting clothes.

[2853] And the kids who have no money are dressed like I am right now.

[2854] And there's a problem with that.

[2855] If they're both in the same classroom, there occurs a division.

[2856] I said, why don't we take the martial arts approach?

[2857] And up until, I don't know, maybe eight years old, everybody wear a ghee.

[2858] So nobody has bling.

[2859] And everybody shave your head.

[2860] So you're not wearing an $80 haircut.

[2861] Yeah, I know about that too.

[2862] There are kids out there with $120 haircuts in Beverly Hills.

[2863] I can tell the difference.

[2864] I'm in showbiz.

[2865] So if you tell the kids this is the way of it, everybody kind of looks the same.

[2866] same.

[2867] You're saying this on the radio?

[2868] Is that what you're doing?

[2869] Oh, yeah.

[2870] So you're telling people to shave their heads and wear a ghee?

[2871] Yeah.

[2872] How about just do whatever the fuck you want to do?

[2873] Well, because then there's competition, because doing whatever you want to do is informed by your parents.

[2874] And your parents may be putting bling on you.

[2875] You may be wearing diamonds to grade school.

[2876] You may be wearing $120 there cutting some brand new new ballots where my kid can barely afford some slaps.

[2877] My kid might be wearing camo because that's all I can wear because I can't afford to wash a fucking thing so it doesn't show the dirt like I wore when I was a kid and the bling kid is liable to think they're somehow superior my kid.

[2878] So is this an actual conversation or are you just being poetic now?

[2879] Did you have this actual conversation on the air?

[2880] I talked just like this but I was way rougher.

[2881] I respect you Joe.

[2882] And this show when you were doing it then after the show was over they would pull you aside like how to work?

[2883] You're pissing parents off.

[2884] We're getting calls this and you know you can't say that about people's children, they can't deal with these kinds of subjects.

[2885] The show was obviously live, so they couldn't control you while you were actually on the air.

[2886] It was great.

[2887] It was wonderful.

[2888] Then I suggested, you know, there's combat issues.

[2889] I would go deep.

[2890] I would, well, for example, what do you think about my kid's idea?

[2891] I don't like it.

[2892] I don't think anybody should be able to tell people they have to shave their head or wear a ghee.

[2893] No, no, no. It's not telling people.

[2894] I understand what you're saying.

[2895] I understand what you're saying, but I think there's benefit and disparity in that.

[2896] It makes kids want to work harder to achieve things.

[2897] It makes other kids appreciate that they're fortunate.

[2898] They have things that other kids don't.

[2899] There's a balance.

[2900] I think what's more important than anything is compassion.

[2901] And there's always going to be people that have more, and there's always going to be people that have less.

[2902] The real problem is when that becomes everything, when that becomes your defining characteristic, when that becomes your personality, when that becomes the thing that everyone's aspiring to.

[2903] I agree.

[2904] I guess what this harkens back to is the specific episode of the Little Rascals when the rich kid next door has a very expensive soapbox racer made of metal that's painted red.

[2905] And Darla mistakenly falls in love with him because of his possessions.

[2906] And Spanky, Buck, and Alfalfa have to build their shitty little soapbox racer out of spare parts.

[2907] I kind of vaguely remember that episode.

[2908] Now that you're saying that, I mean, but why do we, so there's competition, though.

[2909] There's competition.

[2910] But they won.

[2911] Well, that was by accident because if you remember, Buckwheat tries to hit the stick to do the brakes and it breaks off.

[2912] And Spanky says to him, hit the brakes, and he goes, breaks is gone.

[2913] We freewheeling.

[2914] And they just happen to win.

[2915] Yeah, but they won.

[2916] But it's, the whole idea is the overcoming adversity, the ingenuity, the whole creativity.

[2917] The whole idea is, fuck you and your little friend, your little fire engine.

[2918] Fuck you and your little store -bought fire engine.

[2919] Get your mind right.

[2920] Yeah.

[2921] Get it together, Darla.

[2922] It's all about spirit, drive, personality, whimsicalness, and sense of humor here.

[2923] Yes.

[2924] Okay.

[2925] So do I really think all little kids should shave their heads?

[2926] No. Do I think all little kids should be in geese?

[2927] I had a ball in karate class and then in judo class and then in taquino class and everybody was even everybody was the same and in the times when my pop was just getting started in medicine and we didn't have money in the house I was equal to the kids from La Cagnada when I was in my geek and now that I am a millionaire several times over when I was in Kendo class than the kid who has nothing I'm no better than him my ghee looks way older it's a distinction it's got a lot of miles on it and you got a ways to go kid that's the subtext there's no belt there we're wearing the same thing yeah well I think there's definitely a benefit in kids learning martial arts for sure and learning martial arts in the same uniform there's a real benefit in that too because you realize it's not about the uniform It's not about what you look like.

[2928] It's about getting things done.

[2929] Then as you learn and grow and become more accomplished, then you receive these belts.

[2930] And so then you have goal attainment.

[2931] And goal attainment is an amazing thing for kids.

[2932] An amazing thing for adults.

[2933] There's a real benefit in knowing that you put in the hard work and now there's something that signifies it.

[2934] Oh, my God, I have a blue belt.

[2935] And they tie that blue belt around your waist and you're not a white belt anymore.

[2936] And you feel proud.

[2937] You put that thing on and you feel like, I have done work, and that it elevates your perspective in terms of the way you look at yourself and you look at your abilities, it gives you more confidence.

[2938] And it also gives you this goal, one day I want to be a black belt.

[2939] And you just think about it, like one day I'm going to attain a rank of proficiency where I'm going to be someone who's actually, to whatever level, mastered a very specific style of martial art that's incredibly difficult to learn.

[2940] And that's good for everybody.

[2941] To add now to the arts that we do for a living, McCartney can't get through an interview without telling you about his six years in the Red Light District in Germany.

[2942] He wears it like a general's badge.

[2943] Can you dig it?

[2944] He's proud of it.

[2945] Alex Van Eland and I, same thing.

[2946] We put in five years compared to year three.

[2947] The average is two and a half maybe.

[2948] Just constantly jamming, doing multiple shows constantly.

[2949] Isn't that, there's, it's detailed in the book, The Outliers, right?

[2950] Is it the Outliers?

[2951] I think it is.

[2952] There's a book.

[2953] Outliers.

[2954] Yeah, that they talk about how when the Beatles emerged, people don't realize they had so many hours of playing.

[2955] It's one of the reasons why they're so good.

[2956] They were playing so often, constantly.

[2957] It is really hardcore training, and that's when you build who you are.

[2958] That's where you develop your ingredients.

[2959] When I was coming up in music, that was the regular because there were bands at every club, every bar had to have a live band.

[2960] To afford the speakers and the turntable and the music, you had to have a live band.

[2961] And you would tear off the left -hand side of the billboard chart and learn it.

[2962] Alex and I went through a list just recently that we found of 120 songs.

[2963] that we could play at the drop of a hat by everybody you could imagine from smoke on the water to get down tonight that's where we learn to sing get down a night get down a night we didn't have a keyboard so you better sing you better sing a cover off that fucking ball that's why Mike Anthony was so unique his bass playing that we could find bass players but nobody sounds like that that's Garfunkel Simon's good, but Simon and Garfunkel.

[2964] Where do you think you built that?

[2965] Thousands and thousands of vocal training hours.

[2966] So that when Mike and I sing, you recognize it like Hendrix's guitar.

[2967] You may never have heard the song before.

[2968] And you go, that's Hendricks, signature sound, like Rod Stewart's voice.

[2969] You may never have heard the song before.

[2970] You go, that's Rod.

[2971] Yeah, it is.

[2972] And in our backgrounds, like Motown.

[2973] That only comes from thousands of hours.

[2974] Where do you learn to have the temetry to stick with that?

[2975] I learned it at the dojo.

[2976] I learned it in my first singing lessons.

[2977] You dig it?

[2978] My first singing coach?

[2979] Jesus, that was also my first real experience with tattoos.

[2980] We started off talking about tattoos.

[2981] My first singing coach had two tattoos.

[2982] He had a number right here.

[2983] and he had another number right there and he would say at least once a year this is my camp number and this is the number why I was still alive he played piano and he sang in Auschwitz he was there for three years Kurt Blumenthal and he used to tell me Mr. Roth sing as if your life depended on it.

[2984] Can you imagine a gig where one bad review literally put you up the chimneys and that was another expression he would use?

[2985] It's in the music.

[2986] It's in my voice.

[2987] It's in every Van Halen song you hear.

[2988] Mr. Van Halen taught it to his sons.

[2989] Jan Van Halen and I were very good friends.

[2990] And he would tell his sons about when the bombing would start and they would all move into the, the subway tunnels, and he would play saxophone for everybody hiding during World War II.

[2991] Every time I sing, I sing as if my life depended on it.

[2992] Does that make sense?

[2993] It does.

[2994] I think there's a good way to wrap this up.

[2995] That's a perfect way to wrap it up.

[2996] Dave, it's always a pleasure, my friend.

[2997] More than ever, Joe.

[2998] It is.

[2999] More than ever.

[3000] Thank you very much.

[3001] Hey.

[3002] Bye, everybody.