#1982 - John Hennessey

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, checking out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

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

[3] Mr. Hennessy.

[4] Mr. Rogan.

[5] Fun hanging with you today.

[6] It's been a blast.

[7] That fucking vehicle that you have built is the most ridiculous thing I've ever been inside of my life.

[8] I can't believe how fast it is.

[9] We only did the speed limit today, right?

[10] Yes.

[11] But we got there very quickly.

[12] We got there very quickly.

[13] Yes.

[14] 1817 horsepower.

[15] and 3 ,000 pounds, so you got some power to weight ratio to work with there.

[16] That's like 700 more horsepower than a Tesla plaid.

[17] Yeah, it's like taking a McLaren 765 LT and adding a thousand horsepower to it.

[18] Something nobody needs, but we've sold 36 of those, the Venom F5.

[19] What happened to you in your life that you needed to make these preposterous cars?

[20] Well, you know.

[21] Like what is going on?

[22] Yeah, there it is.

[23] That's the Venom F5.

[24] How did you get to be this guy?

[25] Like, how did this start out where you're making these 1 ,800 horsepower cars?

[26] It's probably kind of like, you know, the pool hall deal when we were younger.

[27] Like, I didn't have a good relationship with my old man. He was a car guy, but we didn't get along.

[28] And I don't know, maybe 60 years later, you know, I'm 60 now.

[29] I've got, you know, I still feel like I got a little chip on my shoulder or something to prove.

[30] Maybe it a little bit less now, but for sure.

[31] Isn't it interesting that you would never want that for your son?

[32] No. But, boy, is that a great motivating factor?

[33] for success.

[34] For sure.

[35] Yeah, I'd live up, you know, grow up in kind of an abusive situation and neglect and, you know, now of a sudden I've got all this motivation or have had all this motivation for the last, you know, 40 years of my business career.

[36] So it's been good.

[37] It's funny because you would never want that for your children.

[38] No, I mean, it's amazing how well it's worked out for people like you or for me. Yeah.

[39] I mean, you know, I don't think everybody out there that has some level of success has not necessarily been abused and motivated by negativity, but I can definitely see with our five kids, with the nurture mainly from my wife, hope they're going to turn out just fine and they'll be plenty of successful, but, you know, that's just, I don't know your story, but that's my, that's my road how I got here.

[40] It can lead you to be very ambitious and very successful, but it can also just fuck your life up.

[41] Oh, sure.

[42] And you can be very ambitious and very successful and also be, like, happy.

[43] Like, that's possible, too.

[44] That's possible, too.

[45] Yeah.

[46] You don't have to have a torture childhood.

[47] For sure.

[48] No, very, very blessed.

[49] I mean, you know, to have an opportunity to build toys for people, you know, whether it's a, you know, a 7 ,800 ,000 horsepower pickup truck or a VenmF5, you know, we're talking earlier.

[50] It's about first world problems, right?

[51] Yeah.

[52] Something nobody really needs.

[53] Nobody needs to go to comedy show or MMA, but they do it for entertainment.

[54] I tell people all the time we're more, are the stars up there?

[55] Yeah.

[56] Am I running the Rolls Roy?

[57] After the Rick Flare or gummy Bear, and they're going to really start flying.

[58] Yeah.

[59] Yeah.

[60] So, now feel very blessed.

[61] And we're definitely, you know, people come to us because they wouldn't entertain themselves with their vehicles.

[62] That's a great way of looking at it, too, because that's really what those kind of cars are.

[63] Like, when I try to describe my love of old muscle cars for people, because, you know, they kind of are not super reliable.

[64] They're not so great at handling.

[65] Sure.

[66] And, you know, so I turn them, I get them done into resto mods.

[67] Yeah.

[68] But still, they're, but when I drive them, the experience is entertaining.

[69] It's like a ride.

[70] Like, I'm not just in a corolla.

[71] I'm not just in some quiet Subaru.

[72] I'm going to ride.

[73] But does it take, like when you drive your land cruiser, you drive, you know, one of your older cars, does it take you back to that time either when you had that car, you aspired to have that car?

[74] You knew the guy or the girl that had that car kind of growing up and you wanted it back then, but you didn't know how you're going to get it?

[75] Oh, yeah, for sure, with my Chevelle, definitely.

[76] Because my Chevelle, I have a 1970s black with the white stripes, the Tuxedo Chevel.

[77] Sure.

[78] And when I was a kid.

[79] What's that?

[80] You got the Cal induction on the hood?

[81] Well, it actually is a 4 -54 under the hood, and Calvin, Casey, Calvin's Colvin, you know, Casey, he's the man. Big Vipy guy, yeah.

[82] I fucking love that, dude.

[83] Yeah, he hooked up the cowl so that it, when you get the ignition goes just like.

[84] Yeah, those vacuum hose is a good old and crack.

[85] Yeah.

[86] It's, when I was a kid, when I was about 16 years old, one of my friends picked me up, his friend had a 1970 Chival and we were going somewhere.

[87] And I just remember getting in the backseat of the car going, how is it possible that this kid.

[88] It owns this car.

[89] This is crazy.

[90] It was the best looking car I'd ever seen in my life.

[91] On those 70 series tires and guys used to back in the day, when I had a 69 old's 442 convertible.

[92] And if you didn't have the posy rear -in, you'd have the one tire friar.

[93] You know, if you do the burn out and you got like one stripe going about 400 feet down the road.

[94] Yeah.

[95] Those old cars suck to drive, though.

[96] Oh, my God.

[97] If you drive the old ones that don't have Resto Mod components, like roaster shop components, they're just terrible.

[98] Yeah.

[99] They're so bad.

[100] Yeah.

[101] Yeah, you know, I saw my wife for my 60th last year, my 60th birthday, she and the kids bought me a nice 69, old's 442.

[102] So it's nice enough to where I'll drive it, but not so nice that I don't want to drive it.

[103] And I just, man, when I drive that thing, it's the slowest, least powerful thing in the fleet.

[104] But I just kind of brings me back.

[105] I got this jam box.

[106] I put in the back seat, the turtle box.

[107] And I just turn on my ACDC and go out cruising around.

[108] You don't even bother just on a stereo.

[109] You know, if it dies at the stop sign or if it, you know, we'll probably put an LT4, an LSA in it, you know, we'll LS swap it at some point.

[110] Yeah.

[111] Do you think you'll do something to the chassis?

[112] It would probably need that, but, you know, I like a scary ride that kind of entertains me, you know, so maybe to some degree.

[113] I mean, we didn't want to have a balanced, safe car, but, you know, the old saying, Bob Lutz, who used to be the president of Chrysler back in the day when I first met him, he had a, he was working for BMW in Germany.

[114] He had a pretty fast motorcycle and he's out tooling around Germany and some dude just rips past him on the Autobahn and he pulls into the gas station and says his old guy and Bob goes up looking at his bike and it's like, is that a turbocharger on your bike?

[115] This dude, this is like the early 70s and the German guy says, yeah, yes young man, it has a turbocharger and Bob says, well, how much horsepower does that bike have?

[116] He says, well, probably 200 to the tire and Bob's like, what, 200 to the tire?

[117] He's like, isn't that too much horse?

[118] Bob is saying to this old German guy, isn't that too much horsepower?

[119] and the old guy looks at him and says, young man, there's no such thing as too much horsepower.

[120] Bob told me that story like 30 years ago.

[121] I was visiting up in Detroit.

[122] I think to some degree that's true.

[123] That's a good story.

[124] You want to have it balanced.

[125] You want to have it safe, you know.

[126] As long as you're not there for the end.

[127] As long as you're not in the ditch.

[128] As long as you're not there for the accident.

[129] Right.

[130] The thing about motorcycles, the consequences are so grave.

[131] Well, sure, yeah.

[132] I've had a few.

[133] I busted up my knee and spent a week in the hospital when I was in high school.

[134] And I guess now the term they use, and it's to some degree, donor cycle, so.

[135] Yeah.

[136] My boys, I like to ride.

[137] We ride KTM.

[138] We ride dirt bikes up in Colorado in the summertime, but I'm like on the road.

[139] You got to be careful because even back in the day, if you're riding, you know, they're distracted drivers.

[140] Now everybody's on their fucking phone.

[141] Nobody's paying attention to shit.

[142] So bad.

[143] You know, so.

[144] There's so many people that are just addicted to their phones and they can't put them down while they're driving.

[145] It's so wild to see.

[146] Yeah, I mean, every now and then I take a car service to the airport or something.

[147] And if you're not driving, you can just like look out the, window just next time you do that just look out the window more than half the people are fucking not even looking at the road they're on their phone yeah they're supposed to be driving or they're putting on their makeup one thing I love about apple car play is you don't have to take your hands off anything absolutely say hey Siri play yeah it'll play a song for you that is the like I do that shit with my daughter because my daughter's in it like Taylor Swift and I don't have Taylor Swift in my phone yeah but I could just while we're in the car you want to listen to something and she brings up a song so I just say hey Siri play and then bam like that It's playing it.

[148] I mean...

[149] Car play works really well.

[150] It's incredible.

[151] It reads your texts.

[152] It sends text for you.

[153] It's fucking amazing.

[154] Do you ever put car play in any of your old cars?

[155] They've like retrofit kits now for that kind of stuff.

[156] I have.

[157] But honestly, when I'm driving those old cars, I don't like to...

[158] Sometimes I don't even like to listen to music.

[159] Yeah, I'm the same way.

[160] I really just want to hear that engine.

[161] Sure.

[162] You know?

[163] I'll listen to the music sometimes, but it always gets annoying.

[164] I want to hear that engine.

[165] I want to hear that...

[166] Yeah.

[167] You want to fucking feel that V. Yeah.

[168] Spend the times a little bit.

[169] Not too much.

[170] Yeah, I just, there's something about cars that I guess it was because when I was a kid, it represented freedom, right?

[171] Because if you were in high school, if you didn't have a car, you had to ride the bus.

[172] Status.

[173] Yeah, status for sure.

[174] Chicks, for sure.

[175] Friends, maybe, you know.

[176] It was really more impressive for guys than it was for girls.

[177] Sure.

[178] The kinds of cars I like, girls are like, this fucking thing stinks.

[179] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[180] Smells like gas.

[181] I went to this, I went to this Jesuit high school up in Kansas City called Rockhurst, and I was a total.

[182] I was a little guy and total nobody.

[183] I was on the wrestling team and I think it was in the 98 pound weight class when I was a freshman.

[184] Anyway, I was a total nobody and then I bought a motorcycle from my dad when I was like a sophomore and I remember the first time I rolled into school I was late and there's like this quadrangle where I could like pull right up to the door and there's all these windows that are open and all these guys like rushed at the window to hear what this loud motorcycle was and all of a sudden I had status all of a sudden I was not a nobody.

[185] I was like who's the wild man in the motor little kid in the motorcycle.

[186] That is the thing right.

[187] If you're a kid showing up school and a motorcycle you're a wild man yeah yeah so same thing that kind of had my car crash and the guy that lived across the street from me had this old's 442 convertible it's kind of a crazy story like my old man was an insurance adjuster and he was going to buy this car from this body shop for like a couple hundred bucks and he told me it was going to be my first car blah blah blah and like a month goes by I'm like hey dad what when we get in that car and he just kind of ignored me and just kind of blew me off and the next thing I knew the neighbor across the street had that car wow so the tour trip I didn't get the car and now I got it now I got to drive a go home every day on my motorcycle and look at the neighbor across the street who had the car so when I had my motorcycle wrecked I had two bikes so 16 and I'm trying to fix my bike and the guy across the street work at this Ford factory up in Kansas City and he offered to help me with the bikes and I ended up making a deal with him and I sold him I trade him to two bikes and I paid him like 50 bucks a month for a year or something like that and I bought the car back with my own money that's awesome so I'm like if you old man that's awesome it was fun yeah what when you first got into cars, what were the cars?

[188] Were you always into American cars or were you into a lot of foreign cars?

[189] You know, me back in the back when, you know, muscle back in the, growing up in the 70s and 80s, I mean, it was all muscle cars.

[190] So, you know, you see the guy with the Cheval or the Camaro, the 70 and a half, Z 28.

[191] I'm 60.

[192] Okay.

[193] So yeah, so born 65.

[194] Yeah.

[195] So I just grew up around muscle cars and then fast forward, you know, went to college for a few years, dropped out, moved from Kansas City to Texas, and back then, like in the 80s, the German cars, or they had these rally cars over in Europe, and they called, there was the group B rally cars, and they call them the killer Bs because they got so fast back, like, in the mid to late 80s that the crowds would like bunch up in the road waiting for these, you know, rally cars blasting by at 120 or whatever, and they knew where the rally cars were because the helicopters were chasing them, you know, kind of spot in form or the TV camera.

[196] and then one time the cars got so fast that they would like hit the they got ahead of the helicopters and these group B rally cars like landing on people and killed a bunch of people so they called them the killer killer B so I was really kind of enamored with like the Audi Quadro they went to Pike's Peak and they raced at pike's peak and that's really kind of what got so I kind of you know shifted gears from uh American muscle to now kind of this higher tech German all -wheel drive turbocharged stuff and then kind of I started a small um environmental clean up like an asbestos abatement business back in the late 80s and made a little bit of money wasn't dating my wife, wasn't married yet.

[197] And so I read in Motor Trend magazine about this guy named C. Van Tune.

[198] He was actually the editor at Motor Trend back in the mid to late 90s.

[199] And he had bought an Eagle Talon, this is like 1990, put a roll cage in it, and he goes and enters the Pikespeake hill climb in Colorado Springs.

[200] And I read that.

[201] I'm like, oh man, my name's not Andretti or Unthra.

[202] I can't just show up to Indy, but maybe I could.

[203] do that.

[204] And so made a little bit of money on my asbestos business.

[205] I was reading the car magazines.

[206] And I'm like, I'm the kind of guy, whether it's then or now, I don't really want to do what everybody else has done.

[207] I'm a contrarian by nature.

[208] And, you know, if everybody else else has raced in Porsches or whatever.

[209] So I'm trying to find something that I can afford with this high tech that I can modify to race at Pike's Peak.

[210] And I read about a car that came out that year.

[211] It was the Mitsubishi 3 ,000 GT VR4.

[212] So it was all -wheel drive, twin turbo v6.

[213] Nice to see what that looks up?

[214] four -wheel sill, four -wheel stir, yeah.

[215] And, um, I had a Mitsubishi starry on it.

[216] Yeah, those were cool.

[217] Those are coming back.

[218] That's kind of rad -woodish.

[219] Yeah, it was as a Mitsubishi.

[220] 3 ,000, yeah, just type in Hennessy, 3 ,000 G -T, and you'll probably see something pop up up, beer four.

[221] Now what I'm thinking about it, I have the conquest.

[222] Yeah, the stealth.

[223] Oh, the conquest.

[224] Yeah.

[225] Oh, so you had one of those.

[226] Those things were sick.

[227] Yeah, those were cool.

[228] I loved those things when I first saw those things.

[229] So I took it and raced it, raced at Pike's Peak.

[230] and I didn't win anything but those things were the shit when they came out drove it drove it to pike's peak drove at home I did a couple races if you type type in uh yeah you know what's crazy does Mitsubishi there you go that motorton article there's Bonneville Mitsubishi doesn't make anything like that now you know Mitsubishi they I mean a good friend of mine Joe Jacuzzi is with GM now there was some really great folks at Mitsubishi and maybe they've just kind of gone to on other things but yeah the VR 200 so that car so I was I learned the first rule in car racing.

[231] Well, the first rule, if you want to make a small fortune in the car racing business, you start with a larger fortune.

[232] And so I'm going and I'm doing these races and I'm going to Pikes Peak and I do these open road races in Nevada where you go out on night.

[233] They still have it called the Silver State Classic.

[234] They take Highway 318, this is about in just south of Ely, so about four hours north of Vegas and they shut the whole highway down and they let these cars go out on a Sunday morning and go out and haul ass and so I did the first time I did it my average speed for 90 miles was 164 miles an hour I did I did 90 miles and 34 minutes in that car and uh you know I did the first time I did it need to have a roll cage which is pretty stupid but um after I did all this stuff so I'm engaged um planning a honeymoon we bought a house I like to say we bought furniture but my wife corrects me on that we just bought but you know we inherited furniture furniture from her family or I think all I brought to the marriage was a mattress in a box spring and a desk maybe and a Mac anyway so I did all that I'm doing all these races come home from the honeymoon and I look at the bank balance I'm like man I used to have some money in the bank before I got engaged and bought a race car and race all over the place and I thought you know I I really like doing this car thing maybe other people would pay me to modify their cars like carroll Shelby like a lois roof with porches Reeves Calloway.

[235] And so October of 1991, we opened up Hennessy Motorsports and I hired a mechanic and got a toolbox and off we went.

[236] And that kind of led into the JDM market.

[237] What kind of cars are you modifying back then?

[238] So yeah, dude, anything that would roll in the door.

[239] And I kind of had a little bit of notoriety from the Silver State race.

[240] So, you know, it was JDM, so it was Supras, 300 X Twin Turbo.

[241] You know, so Grand National Supra.

[242] So the Mark 4 Supra, you know, the cyclone, the Typhoon.

[243] Oh, the GMC pickup truck.

[244] Yeah, that had a little 3 .8 liters, single turbo V6.

[245] And so then a guy calls me up in early 93 and he said, hey, I've got one of the first Dodge Vipers coming.

[246] It was actually a model year 92, but they had some production delay so the car didn't come out to the spring of 93 and he said, hey, I'm going to, I bought a viper and I want to take it to the Silver State race and I want to if can you help me put like the safety equipment and help but pass tech and I said sure I said but I'll make you a deal if you let me modify and I think I can get another 100 horsepower on that viper and I'll do it for free I said I won't even charge you to do it I said the only thing I'll ask in return I'll take you out to the race we'll I'll support you well I'll bring my mechanic will look after your car after the race if you'll again my buddy Joe jacuzzi was with Mitsubishi the time said hey I'll take you around LA and I'll introduce you to the editor at Motor Trend and Hot Rod and Carcraft and road and track.

[247] And sure enough, we did all that and we, I initially did it with my 3000 GT, got some articles off of it and I'm like, when I was doing that back in the early 90s ago, this is before social media, this is before YouTube, no internet.

[248] And so that's the only, you know, the only way we knew about car stuff is we did car magazines, right?

[249] And so I'm doing all this for a couple weeks with Joe and going around.

[250] I'm thinking, man, I've been gone a long time.

[251] I did this race.

[252] I go to talk to all these media guys and just like just be patient when the magazine comes out if they like you and they like your car and they write something nice about it your phone will ring and sure enough phone started ring and so i did all that with the viper and then how'd you get a hundred more horse per hour you know the viper is a big um you know eight liter v10 and so back in those days the exhaust system sound like a uPS truck they still kind of sound weird it's two five cylinders basically is what it sounds like.

[253] So we freed up the exhaust, we did a cold air intake, we poured it and polished the head.

[254] So we got, we bumped it to at least 500 horsepower.

[255] Then we started doing cams and stroker motors and basically from 93 through for the next 10 years into the early 2000s, I would say we were on the covers of 30, 40 magazines, including all the major buffbooks.

[256] Isn't it crazy when you think about the progression of cars and power that if you go back to the original Viper.

[257] It wasn't really that fast.

[258] Now, compared to today.

[259] Horsepower was?

[260] The original was 400, and then they went to 450.

[261] So 400 is like, I mean, you get a regular Mustang GT.

[262] You're getting 460.

[263] Yeah, right off the fact of the floor.

[264] The new Dark Horse would be 500.

[265] And, I mean, you could take a, you know, Tesla, you know, Model 3 and beat a, beat an old viper.

[266] I mean, back of the day, but it was so twerky and it was just so outrageous.

[267] It was raw.

[268] It was raw.

[269] No anti -lock brakes.

[270] That's true.

[271] It was kind of scary.

[272] flat spot on a lot of tires.

[273] But, you know, pretty cool car for back in the day.

[274] And again, me being the contrarian, there are plenty of other guys out there, modifying corvettes and Mustangs and things like that.

[275] Of course.

[276] I'm the guy that wants to be different.

[277] So if you guys are modifying those vehicles, I'm going to modify the Viper.

[278] And so that just kind of built up our, so our business kind of grew from just a small tuning shop to a larger -scale tuning shop.

[279] And then we added it up, well, maybe a year ago.

[280] That's from 91 through about a year ago, we had modified about 15 ,000 vehicles.

[281] worldwide.

[282] Yeah.

[283] Wow.

[284] We did mail order for a while and some of that was mail order, but last year we built, we modified 564 vehicles last year.

[285] So when did you start getting to the shit you're doing now?

[286] Like, you know, you've made me a 1 ,000 horsepower TRX.

[287] Yeah.

[288] That car is so stupid.

[289] It is so stupid.

[290] But it's so, the problem is it?

[291] And the brakes are good?

[292] Because I always worry that you would end up into the back of the 18 wheeler.

[293] No, I drive it very responsible, believe it or not.

[294] I don't, I just love the fact that it has so much power.

[295] And it sounds great.

[296] Oh, it sounds amazing.

[297] It's very comfortable.

[298] And also, because it's high up, you get a great vantage point.

[299] You get to see accidents before they happen.

[300] If you're stuck in the highway and there's some wreck, you can just go through the grass and go on the feet of road.

[301] Yeah, you really could do that.

[302] The other thing is, like, when I'm driving, like, my older cars, like, I've got a Cadillac CTSV wagon manual, and I'm pulling out of a store and some lady at Christmas a couple years ago runs into me because she didn't see me. So I do like driving something bigger like that.

[303] Because if they run into you, it's not going to do that much, and they generally see you and want to not run into you.

[304] My land cruiser, well, the TRX has steel bumpers too.

[305] My land cruiser also has rock sliders on the side of it.

[306] And so because it's lifted, if someone's going to teebon me, they're going right into the rocks ladder.

[307] Yeah, it's going to be worse for them than it is for you, for sure.

[308] It's just, there's so many fucking bad drivers out there.

[309] Well, yeah, we could talk at length about that.

[310] But I think a lot of that boils down to, like, if you look at Europe, you look at Germany, getting a driver's license in Germany is a serious deal.

[311] It takes two years.

[312] It costs about $2 ,500.

[313] Getting your driver's license in Germany, there's Germans are so serious.

[314] And they're serious about their cars and about their driving and about the auto bond.

[315] But getting the driver's license in Germany is similar like getting a private pilot's license over here.

[316] Wow.

[317] Yeah.

[318] And so why don't we do that over here?

[319] Well, that would be a higher barrier for a lot of people.

[320] And so, you know, car companies want to sell cars, insurance companies want to sell insurance.

[321] Also, like maybe people don't need to learn how to drive that good.

[322] They just need to pay attention and don't go fast.

[323] Yeah, that's true.

[324] I mean, I don't know if it's speed, but it's just, it's paying attention.

[325] You know, I mean, our kids all just, you know, in the last 10 years all went through drivers out.

[326] And I think they got, you know, some decent training.

[327] But, you know, to your point, like lane discipline, like, you know, if you're the slowest guy out, they're getting the right line.

[328] Yeah.

[329] You know, if you're going a little bit faster, you go on the inside line.

[330] But just that, you know, that drives any serious driver crazy is when somebody's on the left lane going, 49 which is that doesn't bother me okay it does bother me but it doesn't bother me like not paying attention the not paying attention the distracted drivers right wild yeah well and I would put some I would put some of that on the OEMs I think the OEMs to some degree try to make the cars like nannies like whether it's autopilot or adaptive steering I think I had a friend of mine's dad when I was in high school I never forget he said hey kid you know if you want to stay alive don't use if you're driving at night don't use your cruise control I'm like well why not?

[331] Well, you set your cruise control, you got your tunes going to you a little tired, you fall asleep and you're up in the ditch, right?

[332] Yeah.

[333] So I think that, you know, I would almost say that to some degree that the nannies to try to protect drivers all of a sudden become, well, maybe I can crawl in the back seat and take a nap, you know?

[334] Here's a tip for anybody that might be driving and you're worried you're going to fall asleep.

[335] Get, uh, bring a wash cloth with you in ice cubes, like get a wet washcloth.

[336] Yeah.

[337] And then put ice cubes in that washcloth and just rub your face.

[338] Okay.

[339] It'll keep you away.

[340] the whole time.

[341] It's not painful.

[342] So I used to slap myself in the face.

[343] That's what I used to do.

[344] So you'd be out on a road trip and trying to drive through the night.

[345] I've done all that.

[346] It's because I was doing stand -up comedy at night and I was delivering newspapers in the morning.

[347] So I was always fucking tired.

[348] We've got a lot of things.

[349] You delivered newspapers?

[350] Fuck yeah, I did.

[351] I was 12, 12 years old, Kansas City Star.

[352] Nice.

[353] And, dude, I mean, I'm getting up at like, 3 .45, 4 a .m. delivering papers for 2 to and a half hours.

[354] And, dude, like, on a Sunday.

[355] Shoot it on your bike?

[356] No, I'm in the back of this paper truck, and this guy had the route, and then, you know, we would have to, like, roll the paper and put in this machine and crank this thing.

[357] It would tie a little knot with some string around it and we'd fucking toss it out the window where we're going by it, you know, like, dogs are barking at you and it's snowing and it's cold.

[358] And then I'd be the, you know, I would do some of that, but all of a sudden there'd be like an apartment complex.

[359] Well, here's your stack of papers, and I'm out, toss on people's doorsteps and, like, on like a juicy day, we might make, like, $3 .25.

[360] sense.

[361] And so what will we do?

[362] We've got to 7 -Eleven, and we blow half the cash on freaking, you know, nasty burritos and big gulbs and crap like that, you know?

[363] But that was just kind of what we did.

[364] But that's, I mean, that's what we had to do to make.

[365] See, you're doing papers while you're doing stand -up.

[366] Yeah, I was doing newspapers from the time, I guess I was probably like 17 or 18 when I first started it.

[367] Yeah.

[368] Maybe it was a little, yeah, somewhere in that range.

[369] And I did it for the Boston Herald.

[370] I did it for the Boston Globe and I did it for the New York Times.

[371] Nice.

[372] And so I had, at one point down, I had a huge route and I even got a van.

[373] I had like a cargo van.

[374] So you had your own deal.

[375] You weren't working for somebody else.

[376] I was working for a dispatch.

[377] Okay.

[378] So you would get a job working for the globe.

[379] Okay.

[380] And you'd go to the dispatch and they'd give you a route.

[381] So they give you a map and all the houses that are on it, all the addresses.

[382] And then they would give you stacks of newspapers.

[383] And you had to fold.

[384] them while you're driving.

[385] So you're driving, you pull up in front of the house.

[386] I had a stack of papers right next to me. And I would just go like this, grab it, zap, zap, and I had these plastic bags that were hanging from my rear rear rear.

[387] Yeah, yeah.

[388] So I'd go, whoa, wham, and then chuck it out the window.

[389] Yeah, we, I think we started going to the plastic.

[390] So I did it from I was probably 12 to maybe 14, and then I, one of my relatives was in a hospital in South Kansas City, St. Joe's, and I found out that they did not have a paper route in the hospital, and I was able to kind of get that.

[391] I was able to get that franchise.

[392] I was making like back in the day, maybe 80 bucks a week, which is pretty good money back then.

[393] Yeah, I was doing so many newspapers that I actually was, that was the primary money that I was making.

[394] Yeah.

[395] So this was when I wasn't really making much money teaching.

[396] And you were a teacher too?

[397] I used to teach martial arts.

[398] Okay.

[399] Yeah.

[400] Yeah.

[401] So I was, I actually used to teach at Boston University.

[402] Okay.

[403] It was actually a pass fail A. So it counted towards your GPA.

[404] Okay.

[405] So I would tell everybody if you just try right get an a and it's a real a so just try just show up and try i like your i like your story when those guys were following you and fucking with you and you're like hey you want to come up to the oh that was hilarious that was so dumb they like get your ass whip come on it was hilarious because they just kept saying that i needed to give them money and then i said and they're where you go and i'm like i'm going to go teach class yeah you want to come up and watch yeah right you want to come beat that and like they're standing there in front of the jhan kim taekwendo institute and they're looking at me they're like you're teaching you're teaching you're I go, yeah.

[406] Uh -huh.

[407] Yeah, I'm a black belt.

[408] I'm teaching class.

[409] I'll fucking kill you, man. Leave me alone.

[410] Don't let me kill you.

[411] It was so funny.

[412] It was like the least nervous I've ever been, like, as a young man. It was like the whole reason why I got into fighting at all was because I was terrified of being bullied.

[413] Yeah.

[414] And so to have this moment happen while I'm walking on the street and these two guys start fuck with me and I'm not rattled at all.

[415] Yeah.

[416] And then I get to that door.

[417] And I tell them I saw the video I just laughed my ass off That was awesome So when you were doing So you started off in MMA Or you start off in Jiu -Jitsu I started off in Taekwondo Yeah well I started off in karate First I went to Esposito's A karate academy which was in Newton Massachusetts where I lived But it was hard to get there I didn't have a car And it was like you had to take buses It was a grind to get there But Boston was pretty easy I just had to walk to the T which was like I had to walk a mile and a half or something like that.

[418] Right.

[419] And then I would get to the T, which was the train, that would take me right into Kenmore Square, which is right where the school was.

[420] So it was easy to get that.

[421] From the time you started, the time you felt like you had some skills or a little bit of confidence, how long did that take?

[422] Six months?

[423] Well, I was obsessed.

[424] I mean, when I started, when I was 15, I was there every day.

[425] Okay.

[426] I mean every day.

[427] I didn't take any days off.

[428] Right.

[429] I was obsessed.

[430] And I became a blackbell in two years.

[431] No shit.

[432] Yeah, I was teaching like almost right away.

[433] Like right after, I think when I got my blue belt, I started teaching private lessons.

[434] Like for the new beginners, I teach them form and stances and how to get your hips into things.

[435] And I was just teaching them like basics.

[436] And that helped me a lot because there's something about teaching that like really sort of accelerates your own learning curve.

[437] Interesting.

[438] And so I was obsessed with it, and I was, I was competing already.

[439] I started competing, like, right away when I was white belt.

[440] You're what, 16, 15?

[441] 15, okay.

[442] All right.

[443] And so, you know, they would take you to these tournaments.

[444] Like, so all you had to do is, like, be at the school, and everybody would sort of carpool.

[445] And then when I was a kid, it was like, they would kind of take care of me. Yeah.

[446] And bring me to these places.

[447] Right.

[448] And you're in this fucking gymnasium, and there's this other dude across from you, and you're about to try to kick each other on.

[449] conscious.

[450] Right.

[451] This is wild.

[452] Yeah.

[453] And I became obsessed with it because it was so insane.

[454] Yeah.

[455] It was like to go from like regular life.

[456] Right.

[457] You know, just being a kid, I like to draw.

[458] I was an artist.

[459] Yeah.

[460] So all of a sudden I'm like traveling around the country.

[461] Right.

[462] Fighting.

[463] Yeah.

[464] It was so nerve -wracking and so hard to do.

[465] It was so challenging.

[466] It was such a freak out to do it.

[467] And I became so obsessed with it.

[468] Did you have an instructor that like really like invested into you?

[469] Yes.

[470] Yeah.

[471] I had several.

[472] but this guy Michael O'Malley in particular and this guy Jayhung Kim who is the he's the head instructor of the institute and he was like a very famous Taekwanao instructor like I got very very lucky when I went to that place in 19 whatever 80 whatever it was 81 or 82 when I first went there it was one of the best schools in the world okay just I had fortunately walked wow in that door just just just just just I just I didn't have walked into a bad karate school.

[473] I would have known the difference.

[474] I was 15.

[475] What the fuck would I know?

[476] But I happened to go, I walked up, I was actually leaving a baseball game.

[477] And I was going, told the story.

[478] I'm sorry, if people have heard it before.

[479] But I was going home and there's a long line to get to the T. Because everybody was leaving Fenway Park.

[480] Yeah.

[481] And so we walked by the school.

[482] And I said, let's go and see what the fuck's going on up here.

[483] And we walked up the stairs.

[484] And as I was walking up the stairs, I kept hearing this sound.

[485] Like, womp!

[486] Whop!

[487] Whop!

[488] And it was this guy John.

[489] Lee who became a mentor of mine okay and he was a national champion at the time and he was training for the World Cup and I think he was 27 or 28 years old so he was in his absolute prime and I got to see this guy kicked the bag and I couldn't believe it it was the force that he was generated well that's you that's you now like I mean I've seen videos I haven't seen you train in person I learned it I'm like it's like you know one whack of your your leg and you got some broken ribs yeah I But I learned it from that guy.

[490] I mean, I learned it from, I mean, he most certainly helped me many, many, many times.

[491] But watching him, I learned it from it.

[492] I mean, I learned it that was possible.

[493] Like, I never known that a person could do that, like the amount of force.

[494] I was like, that is insane.

[495] So you were doing that and you were doing, toss newspapers around the same time.

[496] Yes.

[497] So newspapers was your income source, but fighting was your passion and cost some money for travel or whatever.

[498] It was a good way, once I got out of high school, it was a good way to generate some money.

[499] while I was doing this crazy thing where I was trying to make the Olympic team for Taekwondo.

[500] Really?

[501] Okay.

[502] Yeah, so I was competing.

[503] I won the Massachusetts State Championship like four years in a row.

[504] Okay.

[505] I was competing in the nationals, and I never, I couldn't win the nationals.

[506] I got close a couple of times, and I got in the finals of the U .S. Cup with this guy, Karim Jabar, who was the national champion.

[507] It was a very disputed, close decision that I thought I could have got.

[508] So I was at that level.

[509] I was like right close.

[510] But unfortunately, then I started kickboxing.

[511] And when I started kickboxing, immediately I realized how helpless I was against someone who had really good hands.

[512] I was getting fucked up kickboxing.

[513] Okay.

[514] And then I kind of lost my faith in Taekwondo because I realized how limited it was because they don't punch to the face.

[515] Okay.

[516] So you get like, you get the most amazing leg dexterity.

[517] Right.

[518] Because you're learning how to, primarily learning how to kick.

[519] They have some of the best kicks.

[520] But you're so limited in your ability to defend.

[521] your face from punches because when punches and kicks are thrown together to your face it makes things so much more complex right and when i was learning that i was like i lost like some of my faith in daiquando wow so i had a few kickboxing fights and then i was doing stand -up at the same time and i knew i had to pick one of the other where did stand -up kick where did stand -up come come into that whole program how were you when you started with that well i was thinking about it when i was like 19 or 20 okay and um you wrote your own stuff yeah okay yeah just like it was horrible Right, yeah.

[522] But you're the kind of guy that, like, you don't, you don't put your balls out there and you won't mind getting punished for something you want to try.

[523] Well, I was just curious.

[524] Like, I'd seen, this is what it was.

[525] I have a very good friend to this day.

[526] He's a name's Steve Graham.

[527] It's a good buddy of mine.

[528] And Steve, when I was 15, when I met him, he was an ophthalmologist.

[529] And, like, he'd been on the U .S. ski team, like a fucking wild man. Just done a lot of stuff.

[530] And, like, super, super duper smart.

[531] Right.

[532] And, you know, he was, like, in his 30s, and I was, like, 15.

[533] And we used to train together all the time.

[534] And when we would go and fight in tournaments, I was the guy who made everybody laugh.

[535] Because everybody would be nervous.

[536] We would be all scared because we're going to go fight.

[537] Yeah.

[538] Or when we're about to spar.

[539] Everyone would be super nervous.

[540] The sparring was scary.

[541] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[542] And I was the guy who, like, cracked.

[543] You could cut up and crack jokes.

[544] Because I realized that there was, like, tension in the room, and then I could get attention from cracking that tension.

[545] All right.

[546] I could get attention from, like, making everybody laugh.

[547] And so I would do, like, impressions of guys we knew having sex and, like, just stupid shit.

[548] And it was so dumb.

[549] But Steve is the one who told me. Steve and this other guy, Ed Schorter, was a friend of mine, too.

[550] And he just said, you really should be.

[551] You should do stand -up.

[552] Like, you could do it.

[553] I'm like, dude, you think I'm funny because you know me. I'm like, other people are going to think I'm an asshole.

[554] Like, my sense of humor is so fucked up.

[555] But so then I went to an open mic night.

[556] And when you go to Open Mic Night, one of the things that's good about Open Mic Night's is, like, if you compare yourself to, like, Bill Burr or Dave Chappelle, it's like, it'll blow your, you can't imagine ever reaching that level.

[557] Yeah, right.

[558] But if you go to an Open Mic Night, you realize, oh, these people are terrible.

[559] Yeah.

[560] So I might have sucked that bad.

[561] Everybody's terrible when they first start.

[562] That's funny.

[563] Me included, I was terrible.

[564] And so when you're around these terrible comedians, you realize, like, oh, okay, this is like, this is how it works.

[565] And then when I was at open mic night, the first time, a couple of, like, real top -level pros stop buying did sets, like this guy, Teddy Bergeron, who did the Tonight Show back in the day, and he was like, he had some substance abuse problems, but I'm telling you, in 1988, there was, no one was better.

[566] There was people that are at that level, but no one was.

[567] He was so smooth and so polished, and his material was so interesting and funny.

[568] And I remember I had done my stupid little set.

[569] I barely got a few laughs, right?

[570] And then I was like, maybe I could do this.

[571] Maybe I could do this.

[572] And then I went out and watched that guy.

[573] I was like, I should just quit now.

[574] He went up and just, it was so polished.

[575] It was so, it was, he was in such, like, ease on stage.

[576] But he's done it a thousand times.

[577] Oh, a thousand times.

[578] So this was, and he was in his prime.

[579] Right, right.

[580] He had one of the best sets I've ever seen on a Tonight Show.

[581] Wow.

[582] He was incredible.

[583] But then he went off the rails.

[584] He went off the rails and, you know, he just had some problems.

[585] So did you, like, learn how to deal with hecklers early on?

[586] Oh, yeah, you always got to learn how to deal with hecklers.

[587] Yeah, you're going to learn.

[588] Well, you know, you're going to have some moments where you fall apart.

[589] You're going to have some moments where it works out great.

[590] Yeah.

[591] It's like, it's a long, bloody process.

[592] Right.

[593] I compare it to like trying to build a mountain, one layer of paint at a time.

[594] Oh, shit.

[595] It takes so long.

[596] It takes so long.

[597] It's so brutal.

[598] But it was, to me, it was a way that I could, like, exist in the world that wasn't a regular.

[599] I was whatever it is it's ADD or whatever the fuck I got yeah I just couldn't sit still and I couldn't be involved in anything that didn't freak me out I like I only wanted to be involved in things that scared me so you're the original fear factor then you're they cashed you for a reason in that deal they cast me against one a couple of the producers didn't want to cast me because I was making fun of it right I went in and um when I did the audition for it that they wanted to be scary like fear is not a factor for you They were interviewing like sportscaster type dudes too And I went in there And you know I thought like this is I was I had a deal with NBC And I think it was to do a sitcom Pretty sure it was And so I went in to talk to them They said we have this thing Yeah I was like what are you doing And they're like well we want to present it to you So I go there and like they're sick of dogs We're gonna put you in a cage with a bunch of centipedes Well it was it originally a show in Holland Okay It was called Now or Neverland Okay I think that was what it was called.

[600] And so this company bought it, and then they put it on TV in America, and they needed a host, and then, you know, they came to me. Yeah.

[601] And I was making so much fun, because I was high.

[602] I showed up high.

[603] I was like, I'm going to have this meeting with all these Hollywood people.

[604] I always get weirded out by those meetings.

[605] I like, I like to show up high.

[606] Uh -huh.

[607] Just to feel them out, you know?

[608] Good.

[609] And I was, I was just making fun of it.

[610] Like, you're going to stick dogs on people on TV.

[611] That is funny.

[612] So stupid.

[613] I was like, I was like, how long before this gets canceled?

[614] I was, like, making all these jokes about, like, how ridiculous it is.

[615] You're going to sit dogs on.

[616] So you were doing the stand -up in Boston, and then what made you think to move to, like, did you go on the road up in the Northeast?

[617] I moved to New York.

[618] I moved to New York first, and that was in the very early 90s.

[619] Okay.

[620] I met a manager, who's still my manager, to this day, when I was an open micer in Boston, and then he moved me out to New York.

[621] Okay.

[622] So I lived in New York for a few years, then I got a development deal to do a sitcom, and then I came out to Hollywood.

[623] Okay.

[624] Yeah, but the whole time.

[625] I'm playing pool.

[626] Yeah.

[627] You and I played pool before.

[628] You play good pool, you play good pool.

[629] I'm rusty, but you're...

[630] Yeah, but you know what you're doing.

[631] Good motivator for me. You know what you're doing.

[632] Like, I watch you hit the ball.

[633] You know what you're doing.

[634] It was fun.

[635] Yeah.

[636] Kind of bring back so few memories.

[637] You know how to play pool.

[638] Like, some people just play pool.

[639] They're just knocking balls around.

[640] But I'm watching you get out.

[641] And I'm like, okay, you know how not play pool.

[642] It's complicated.

[643] We'll say.

[644] You got a tough table, man. Yeah.

[645] Yeah.

[646] Yeah, those tight pockets.

[647] Yeah.

[648] A little snooker table.

[649] Yeah, exactly right.

[650] So when I moved to L .A., like, I fucking hated it, but I could go to Hard Times.

[651] Yeah.

[652] And that was to me, like there was two places that were Mecca in L .A. Okay.

[653] No, no, no. Comedy store was the Mecca for stand -up.

[654] But Hard Times was the Mecca for pool.

[655] Oh, really?

[656] Oh, yeah.

[657] That's where Keith McCready came from.

[658] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[659] Hard Times was this place in Bellflower.

[660] Okay.

[661] And you'd go down there, and I would compete in the Sunday tournament.

[662] I mean, I never, it came close to winning it.

[663] But I would get in it all the time and get my nutshot in.

[664] But you could play Rodolfo Luat.

[665] You could play Ephra and Reyes.

[666] Really?

[667] You could play Max Eberley.

[668] How cool.

[669] You could play John Mora.

[670] You could play just stone cold killers in an open tournament.

[671] You could play Ephron Reyes.

[672] Wow.

[673] Like, it's just a random draw.

[674] Yeah.

[675] So you go in there and there's a field of, I don't know how many players before it fills up.

[676] It fills up every weekend.

[677] Right.

[678] And we would go there on Sunday.

[679] You get there early.

[680] I played Oscar, or I paid his dad of Nesto, Ernesto Dominguez.

[681] Okay.

[682] Killer.

[683] This is like killer, Moro Pius.

[684] These guys were killers.

[685] And you would go there and watch literally the best pool in the world.

[686] Wow.

[687] All in Bellflower, California.

[688] And there was a lot of gambling matches.

[689] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[690] Sure.

[691] It was awesome.

[692] I love that place.

[693] Yeah.

[694] So that was like one of things that saved me. Okay.

[695] That and going to, there's a few other places that I went, House of Billiards in Sherman Oaks.

[696] It was a great place.

[697] Okay.

[698] Play pool there.

[699] Hollywood billiards in Hollywood.

[700] I played there.

[701] Yeah.

[702] Unfortunately, that went under.

[703] Yeah.

[704] So, like, that kept me going.

[705] Right.

[706] Were you still doing MMA then?

[707] Well, I was doing martial arts.

[708] Yeah, I was doing Jiu -Jitsu.

[709] Oh, that's right, martial arts.

[710] Yeah.

[711] Got it got it.

[712] Yeah, that was when I really got into Jitsu.

[713] I got into Jitsu.

[714] I got into Jitsu in, like, 96.

[715] Right.

[716] Yeah.

[717] Wow.

[718] Yeah, I was actually at the same gym that Vitor Belfort when he was making his debut in the U .S .A. I was training at his gym.

[719] Okay.

[720] Because it was Carlson Gracie's Academy, which was in Hollywood and I was learning from his coaches.

[721] Okay.

[722] It was crazy, like to watch Vitor before.

[723] How did you connect with UFC and Dana White?

[724] Back then, so when Vitor was making his debut, right?

[725] Campbell McLaren.

[726] So, like, late 90s?

[727] 97, okay.

[728] So Campbell McLaren, who was one of the producers of the UFC, it was a good friend of my manager.

[729] Okay.

[730] And they were just having a conversation and he said, hey, you know, just, he was, you know, randomly talking to him about I got to hire a new guy to do interviews we need someone to do interviews and uh my manager said joe is obsessed like he watches them all like he's really obsessed with it yeah maybe he would do it and so they get us on the phone i'm like fuck yeah i'll do it and like you got to take a propeller plane until like doth in alabama i'm in let's go and so cool next thing you know i'm on these fucking puddle jumper planes flying to these weird, because it was totally illegal in low states.

[731] Yeah, this was like 97.

[732] Yeah, they had that like those I think, what, Dana water from, Dana bought it from the guys that did the, the, the, the whole thing in the bar where they beat the crap out of each in the park a lot.

[733] This was, this was before Dana owned it.

[734] This was Bob Meyerowitz.

[735] Oh, really?

[736] Yes, I worked for SEG, which was the original company.

[737] So it was long before the Fortita brothers came along with Dana and all that.

[738] Okay.

[739] That's how I got back into it.

[740] I quit.

[741] I did it for about a year and a half, maybe two years I did backstage interview.

[742] And then there was an event in Japan.

[743] I'm like, I'm not going to Japan.

[744] I don't have any time.

[745] It was literally it was costing me money.

[746] Like, I loved doing it.

[747] Right.

[748] But I could make more money doing a comedy club at the weekend that I could go.

[749] They weren't making any money.

[750] So how are they going to pay you any money, right?

[751] There was no money to be made.

[752] There was no money for the fighters.

[753] I mean, it wasn't a bad.

[754] I wasn't getting screwed.

[755] It was just that's all it was.

[756] Like, we would go to these like half -filled high school auditoriums.

[757] Right.

[758] There was no one.

[759] Because a lot of states were banning it and stuff like that back then?

[760] Yeah, it was very hard to get saying.

[761] That's why we had to go to, like, Doth in Alabama.

[762] Right.

[763] It's like, it got banned in New York, actually.

[764] My first event was supposed to be in New York, but they banned it in New York right before they did the event, and they moved the event very quickly, like, overnight to Doth and Alabama.

[765] Were the boxing promoters trying to shut it down?

[766] Yes, 100%.

[767] Okay.

[768] 100%.

[769] And there was also, like, there was a lot of, there's so much shenanigans that goes on.

[770] There's unions.

[771] Right.

[772] You know, there's, if you're not paying them, they're not going to let you play.

[773] That's how the UFC stayed out of New York State forever.

[774] Okay.

[775] New York, the UFC just got in New York legally.

[776] God, how many years ago was it?

[777] It wasn't that long.

[778] Wow.

[779] Like, crazy recent.

[780] Yeah, crazy recent.

[781] What doesn't make any sense.

[782] It was in every other state it was legal.

[783] 2015, 16, wasn't that?

[784] Somewhere around that, right?

[785] Wow.

[786] Let's see what the actual...

[787] I mean, I never thought about the politics of it until we were just chatting bed and line.

[788] Well, back then, it was like, it was scary.

[789] Like, what is this?

[790] No one knew what it was.

[791] You didn't have all these years and years of guys like Hoy's Gracie and George St. Pierre and Camaro Usman, we didn't have anything to draw from, 2016, which is so crazy.

[792] New York, the last date to approve it.

[793] New York.

[794] That's crazy.

[795] Because they're dirty.

[796] Politics.

[797] Yeah, the guy who was holding it back, I believe he got arrested for corruption.

[798] See if that's true.

[799] Wow.

[800] There was a senator that he got busted for some shenanigans, but he was part of the problem, holding it back.

[801] But in the beginning, I could see why they would hold it back.

[802] Like you're watching these guys headbutt each other Right They can kick in the nuts All the blood and everything And crazy Remember they used to see the foot stomping and all that Well foot stomping still legal Oh they could see that?

[803] Yeah okay But what you would see back then was like Nut shots You were allowed to punch people in the nuts Oh brutal I'm just straight up street fight There's a fight with Keith Hackney and Joe Sahn And Keith Hackney is on top of Joe Sond And Joe Sond is like cranking on his neck And Keith Hackney's just punched him in the nuts He's wearing a cup He's wearing a cop He's worked up, yeah, but even so, whatever, you're still getting punched than nuts.

[804] Even if you have a cup on, it hurts like hell.

[805] Yeah, yeah.

[806] So, like, back in those days, I kind of understand why someone who didn't understand what was going on would think this should be illegal.

[807] Yeah.

[808] I totally get it.

[809] Right.

[810] And it was like, they had to develop rules, so they'd develop weight classes, and then they developed rules.

[811] But I was kind of already on the way out by then.

[812] And so in 98 -ish, 99, I quit.

[813] Okay.

[814] And then the UFC got purchased by Zufa.

[815] Okay.

[816] And that was in like 2001.

[817] And I went to one of their first events.

[818] Okay.

[819] Vladimir Matt Yushenko fought Tito Ortiz, and it was right after September 11th.

[820] Okay.

[821] And Tito Ortiz, they used to have these elaborate walk -ins with like lights and fire and shit.

[822] And Tito Ortiz is walking into the Octagon with an American flag.

[823] And the place goes wild.

[824] Wow.

[825] Just wild.

[826] That's cool.

[827] Because it was like right after September 11th.

[828] sure it was like holy shit people needed a break from all of that yeah and in during that fight the pay -per -view went out and like the people didn't get to see the last rounds of the main event it was a huge disaster the ufc had to give back who knows how much money because it was like their big event in Vegas and the pay -per -view fucked up so dana did dana bought it yet at this point it was the zufa the zufa which was the fatita brothers and dana okay they're the organization They bought it.

[829] So the Fatida brothers bought it, and then Dana was running it, and this was the very early stages.

[830] And this was, you know, there was no, there was no TV to speak of that was showing the UFC.

[831] They had to get to this deal on Spike TV to put it on television.

[832] Right, right, right.

[833] That was like years in.

[834] So this is like 2005.

[835] Okay.

[836] So we're like four years later, these guys are hemorrhaging money, trying to make this thing happen.

[837] Yeah.

[838] And when, when that was going on, nobody took it seriously.

[839] Like, Everybody thought it was just like...

[840] Isn't that when they came up with the idea of Ultimate Fighter?

[841] Is that kind of maybe what turned the corner forms?

[842] They paid for everything.

[843] They paid to put the show on.

[844] They, I think they even bought out the ads.

[845] And they took care of the whole thing.

[846] They put it on television.

[847] It was like a Hail Mary, and it was a fucking touchdown.

[848] Wow.

[849] And Stefan Bonner, rest in peace, he just died.

[850] And Forrest Griffin had the most insane fight in the finals of the Ultimate Fighter.

[851] Wow.

[852] And people were just calling friends up.

[853] You gotta watch this.

[854] This is insane because the viewership skyrockets during the fight.

[855] Yeah, sure.

[856] Because it's so wild.

[857] Right.

[858] And that fight made the UFC.

[859] That fight made the sport.

[860] Because then people are like, what is this?

[861] Okay.

[862] Then they put on another event.

[863] Yeah.

[864] And the other event got fucking huge.

[865] And then Chuck Liddell came out to the scene.

[866] Yes.

[867] And when Chuck Liddle was the champion, Chuck Lidl was so fucking terrifying.

[868] Yeah.

[869] He was this do or die berserker.

[870] He would just come at you, just swinging bombs, take one on the chin, knock dudes out.

[871] His fights were wild.

[872] He didn't give a shit.

[873] He was the real reason why the UFC became uber popular because you would watch the ultimate fighter.

[874] It was a wild fight, a great fight, but then you need a destroyer.

[875] Right.

[876] You need a destroyer.

[877] And that destroyer was Chuck Liddell.

[878] And for the run where he was at the top, where Chuck Ladell was just murking people.

[879] So he was kind of like the Michael Jordan in that.

[880] He basically took the sport to another.

[881] level?

[882] Well, you know, he was, he was an exceptional champion.

[883] Okay.

[884] But I wouldn't say he was the Michael Jordan.

[885] He was just, he had a, he had the most fan -friendly style you could ever imagine.

[886] He would just come after dudes and smash people.

[887] Like, he was never trying to win decisions.

[888] Chuck Liddell was trying to send you into the dream world.

[889] Okay.

[890] And that became the U .S. He was, he was very entertaining.

[891] He was, he was Maximus the, uh, yeah, yeah, he was, when he would win, he would throw his arms back like this.

[892] It was crazy.

[893] See if you get a video of Chuck Liddell knocking someone out and then celebrating.

[894] Because it was like this iconic primal rage celebration.

[895] You can only fight like that for so long.

[896] Here's the reality of physical damage on the body and the kind of sparring that you have to do to fight like that.

[897] But when he did it, my God, it was glorious.

[898] His fights when he knocked out Tito Ortiz, like, oh my God, he was a monster.

[899] He was a monster.

[900] He was just smashing people.

[901] And he was a really good wrestler too So good luck taking him down Wow Yeah So this is I mean this is Chuck With the fucking Mohawk I mean look at this Fucking savage dude Oh my god Look at this Look at this Look at this Look at them Oh they're not showing the cell Look at the celebration Bro I'm telling you When Chuck Ladele was in his prime He was one of the most terrifying fucking human beings That's ever walked the face of the earth Wow You can't do this for that long There's only so many years A man can do this for like this but my god Chuck Ledot was so fucking entertaining he was a destroyer man he would just come at you me look at this shit he's so terrifying looking tattooing his head mohawk built like a brick shit house just throwing fucking hammers who's the who's the destroyer who's the up -and -coming destroyer today oh did you see that babaloo knockout should back that up again this one this one was insane oh with a leg dude he would do that to everybody He was just smashing people.

[902] Wow.

[903] Yeah, he didn't know what defense is.

[904] He's pure offense all the time.

[905] Well, he had defense, but he didn't.

[906] He just fucking threw caution to the wind, man. Wow.

[907] The guy just came after people, and he was so mean.

[908] But that also made the UFC because that guy being at, that was the figurehead.

[909] That was the big guy.

[910] He was the face of the company because he was the guy that, like, if you, the casual fan, when you talk to him, like, have you seen the Chuck LaDelle fight.

[911] Right.

[912] You're going to see the Chuck Ladell fight.

[913] fight.

[914] Yeah.

[915] So that like that that that also took the sport to the next level.

[916] So from throwing newspapers to stand up to pool to New York then Hollywood UFC interviews when what what motivated for podcasts you were so far ahead of your time on that?

[917] Well I wasn't really there was other people that were doing at the same time that they like Adam Kroll already had a podcast Mark Marin already had a podcast there's quite a few people that were already doing maybe your style just just stuck in group well it's just um I think I got into it because of radio really doing like Opian Anthony show mostly okay you do radio for a while then oh yeah everybody did and when you would do radio in the morning like you the Opian Anthony show in particular you'd go there and you would hang out with comics so it was all just us shooting the shit having a great time and when I would leave there I'd go God that's so fun I love doing that I wish I could do that all the time okay all right and Anthony Coomia who was Anthony from Opian Anthony built a studio in his basement of his house in Long Island.

[918] And he used to do a show called Live from the Compound.

[919] Okay.

[920] And he had like a green screen behind him.

[921] He played karaoke with a machine gun.

[922] He was always hammered.

[923] It was hilarious, but he would just stream it on the internet.

[924] And I was like, that looks like so much fun.

[925] Maybe I should start doing something like that.

[926] Yeah.

[927] And so then I went to Tom Green's house and Tom Green, he had this crazy setup.

[928] I might have went to Tom Green's house before Anthony had his thing in the same time.

[929] Yeah.

[930] But Tom Green had, like, the Tom Green show that he was doing from his house.

[931] Right.

[932] So he's doing, like, a talk show, and he set up his whole house, like a television studio that's on the Internet.

[933] So we had all these cables running to a server, excuse me, a server room.

[934] And so I thought, like, wow, maybe I should do something like that.

[935] Like, I got to, like, there's something to doing something on the Internet.

[936] Like, maybe a lot of people aren't going to see it, but it would be fun.

[937] Yeah, sounds like your motivator was for fun, not trying to grow some big audience or make a bunch of money.

[938] at least to start with, I mean...

[939] Even, like, I do it the exact same way now as I've always done it.

[940] Yeah.

[941] Just do it all myself.

[942] Yeah.

[943] In terms of, like, who I want to have on.

[944] Right.

[945] I decide what day they're coming on and how to do it.

[946] Yeah.

[947] And I only talk to people that I'm interested in talking to.

[948] I mean, the depth of what, like, you could have like your own Rogan Encyclopedia books, all these people that come on that a lot of people never heard of and have all these interesting facts and opinions and...

[949] Well, you definitely...

[950] Learn some stuff.

[951] Yeah.

[952] You know, you definitely...

[953] I mean, I mean, you could talk to some, I've had this, like, unexpected education where I get to talk to all these fascinating people and pick their brain.

[954] Yeah.

[955] And, you know, it's like, you don't really get a chance to talk to people just like this.

[956] Like, just you and me look at each other eye to eye, no phones, no people around, just for a conversation.

[957] That's it.

[958] That's all we're trying to do.

[959] And to be able to do this, like, all the time, it just, it's a real pleasure.

[960] It's like very, it's very fortunate.

[961] It's really good for you.

[962] It's your own personal curiosity on different things that you like or that you're interested in, whereas it seems like, you know, you flip on TV, the people are getting interviewed, it's all part of some sort of a, it's all by design to some degree.

[963] You know, you got the right PR firm, the right publicist.

[964] There's also with those things, the problem is, you know, just like with Fear Factor.

[965] Like, you have to hire somebody.

[966] You have to hire a host.

[967] You know, so if it's Fox News or if it's CNN, they have to hire hosts.

[968] Right.

[969] And sometimes those people are annoying, you know, and sometimes they're not annoying when you have to hire hosts.

[970] fire them and then become annoying as they get more popular in famous and then you got to fire them so like when you do this you you have to prep much you get on the internet you guys do a little bit of research for you or you just fucking roll in and just start talking start thinking and talking well i do have a guy my friend matt staggs who uh does some research for me on something so send me some briefings or some videos or some stuff i should watch right and then you know with people that have books i like to especially if it's something like complicated i like to listen to the book on audio so i'll listen in the sauna listen when i'm driving right and you know and get a sense of what they're doing um but and then there's some subjects that i don't have like with you it's like we're gonna talk cars you know yeah yeah i just have i'm just curious well it's just been very fascinating for me i mean we've known each other for a couple ever since you got to texas two and a half years ago something like um just you know the more i get to know you like you ruined me with that fucking raptor well yeah yeah that's what we do right keep them coming back right that thing would ruin me i was like this is crazy yeah what have you done yeah have you by the way Have you experienced the Raptor R yet?

[971] I have not.

[972] It looks amazing.

[973] I'm a Ford fan.

[974] We're working on a thousand horsepower packets for Velas Raptor 1 ,000, so it would compete with the mammoth.

[975] Well, I'll keep you post on that.

[976] You know what I really miss about the Raptor, the visibility.

[977] You can see out of the side mirrors way better.

[978] The TRX is rough.

[979] The TRX is rough.

[980] The Ford's got the aluminum body and chassis.

[981] I mean, I think both trucks were a hoot.

[982] Oh, no, I love the TRX.

[983] It's just the visibility.

[984] That's the only issue I have with it.

[985] It's an amazing truck.

[986] Yeah.

[987] I fucking love it.

[988] I love what Dodge did, and I really love what you did, too, what Dodge did.

[989] Like the extra power and the - They gave us a good platform and the brake upgrade package that you put on it.

[990] Yeah.

[991] It's a big difference.

[992] Big difference.

[993] It's fucking magical.

[994] I love that thing.

[995] But the visibility from the Raptor was way better.

[996] Yeah.

[997] Like design with the F -150, where they have it.

[998] There it is.

[999] There it is.

[1000] Look at that.

[1001] And so that's got the Supercharged 5 .2.

[1002] two -liter v8 that's in the GT500 and we should have our prototype up and running soon I'll like the name better too yeah I have a problem with the name mammoth okay I love the truck but I got a problem what tell me because it used to be a Tyrannosaurus rex and changed it into a lesser animal well I guess yeah I guess the T -rex could eat it could eat a yeah you can't have that a willy mammoth I never thought about that way I wish we talked yes guess what next time we're doing a branding exercise you'll be you'll be the you'll be the the consultant that I could never afford to hire.

[1003] You can't, well, I'll just do it for free, but you can't have, like, a, like, a dinosaur.

[1004] Yeah.

[1005] Like, the whole reason why it's a TRX is because it kills the raptor.

[1006] Right.

[1007] Of a little bitch -ass velociraptor raptors, fucking with the Tyrannosaurus Rex, it's over.

[1008] Yeah.

[1009] Yeah.

[1010] Yeah.

[1011] So, like, something that, like, people kill with sticks.

[1012] Yeah, so, so what?

[1013] So what?

[1014] People let them out with sticks.

[1015] Yeah, pretty much.

[1016] Yeah.

[1017] That's funny.

[1018] And then probably the asteroid did it, but, yeah.

[1019] But, yeah.

[1020] So, but other than that, I love it.

[1021] I I told you, I saw one in Vegas.

[1022] It was orange.

[1023] Like a matte orange.

[1024] It was like, oh, that looks sick.

[1025] The ignition orange, yeah.

[1026] I never thought I wanted to drive an orange car in my life until I saw that.

[1027] They're hard to get, but we can get them.

[1028] They got yellow now, too.

[1029] Do they have yellow?

[1030] Yeah, yeah, called Rampage Yellow.

[1031] Yeah.

[1032] My friend Tony has a yellow C8 Corvette.

[1033] Uh -huh.

[1034] Tony Hinchcliffe?

[1035] Yeah.

[1036] He's on Tony.

[1037] Sure.

[1038] He has one with yellow with black stripes.

[1039] It's fucking awesome.

[1040] Yeah.

[1041] I was like, I never thought I'd like a yellow car.

[1042] Yeah, we actually just came out with a 700 horsepower supercharge package for the C8s.

[1043] We've only been working on it for almost three years, but just finished it up a few months ago.

[1044] How much better is the handling on the ZO6 with the wider body and the wider tires?

[1045] Yeah, I mean, the ZO6 is lighter.

[1046] It's got arrow, carbon brakes, carbon wheels are options.

[1047] I've only driven, so our chief development driver was with GM for 38 years.

[1048] His name's John Heinrich.

[1049] We call him Heinrich.

[1050] He's our chief engineer and development driver for the Venom F5.

[1051] And so he just got his new ZO6, C806 with the ZO7 package.

[1052] So you've got the cup tube, Michelin tires, and the car.

[1053] and splitter and rear wing and I just drove it on the road but I think if you took him to kota both bone stock I'm guessing your 10 12 seconds a lap difference I mean just massive now if you drag race some of course the zero six is going to win by you know in the quarter mile would probably win by five or six car links but the problem with the zero six now is they've been having supply chain issues I've got an early one on order but I think the car's been out for nine months and there's only about there's less than a hundred with the zero seven package on on the road so cool car um you know i hope to get mine and a lot of bang for the buck i think that that would i almost liken the new c8 corvette almost in any four the zero six to kind of like the four five eight Ferrari is kind of where it was do you think it's possible to make a car like a corvette with entirely american parts in american labor entirely look american oEMs can do whatever they want to do and um i think what what Chevrolet's magic has been with the Corvette is to deliver that much value and that nice of a car in the volumes that they do at the price point that they do.

[1054] Yeah, it's crazy.

[1055] When you think about how much that car costs and the capability of it, just the bone stock stingray.

[1056] Yeah, I mean, like the, like, I'm sure the, so, you know, zero -six is out now, likely the next iteration that comes from Chevy's, the ZR -1, probably 850 horsepower, twin turbo.

[1057] So it's like a twin -tober version of the 5 .5 -Liter dual overhead cam motor in this current zero -six.

[1058] That car is going to be 150, 170, So that car will be as faster, faster than a McLaren or Ferrari that cost two or three times the money.

[1059] So their trick is they know how to deliver great value.

[1060] Now, we've got a neat niche where we can build our own car from the ground up.

[1061] It's all carbon fiber.

[1062] It's all completely bespoke.

[1063] It's American design and American build.

[1064] But that car is two to three million bucks a pop.

[1065] GM are the masters of being able to scale it in masses so average people are somewhat average working folks can afford to buy them.

[1066] Yeah, when you're in that car, you're like, what is this cost?

[1067] Yeah, this car's ridiculous.

[1068] Well, the sticker on them, like my friend, Hein Rockets, I think he paid $160.

[1069] You know, you try to find one on the street that you can buy.

[1070] You mean a zero -six.

[1071] Zero -six.

[1072] I was talking about the Venom.

[1073] Oh, I'm sorry, yeah, yeah.

[1074] You're getting that thing, you're like, how much does this cost?

[1075] Yeah, yeah, it's it.

[1076] But look, the Venom F5, what's cool about that is I'm 60.

[1077] Maybe I'm around another 25 years.

[1078] Maybe I'm not.

[1079] I don't know.

[1080] But I think I would like to see, you know, I'd like, to have ultimately when we're all done with production I love for each one of my five kids to have one if I'm able to do that anyway I'd love to see you know our grandkids sell it at you know barrett jacks or arm auctions at some point down the road for you know four or five X you know maybe like a McLaren F1 like it'd be 20 million dollars someday I respect that you can drive that on the street sure respect that you can drive it but you really should drive that only on track I mean it's like yeah yeah we even like when we're like we you know driving if you still have your tessa platt I drove mine up here you know, the performance that the thing's capable of, you should not use on the street.

[1081] You know, sometimes there might be a place where, you know, you could go out and just have fun with yourself or your buddy, but, yeah, same thing.

[1082] I mean, the F5, you know, go, you know, forget about zero to 60.

[1083] Zero to 60 is a metric from 60 years ago.

[1084] Let's talk about zero to 200.

[1085] It'll go to 200 miles an hour in 10 seconds.

[1086] A hair under 10 seconds.

[1087] It's as fast as, or maybe a tiny bit faster from zero to 200 miles north as compared to a modern Formula One car.

[1088] Jesus.

[1089] Yeah, power to weight ratio -wise.

[1090] But it's built in America.

[1091] You know, our guys just 100 miles down the road build them from you here.

[1092] And I think they'll be very collectible someday.

[1093] So we'll see.

[1094] How many are you going to make?

[1095] So we built 24 Venetamafive coupes.

[1096] Those are all sold out.

[1097] We're now producing the Roadster and the Revolution.

[1098] The Roadster, open top, go out sunny day, have fun.

[1099] The Revolution is more track -focused.

[1100] Now it's like our GT -3RS.

[1101] It's a track -focused car.

[1102] but it's still road legal, has AC and all the comforts that you have Apple car play.

[1103] Are we even more track focus than that car?

[1104] No, that is the track focus version.

[1105] Yeah, no. If we, no. I'm like, how?

[1106] Yeah, and so we're doing 24 of those.

[1107] So we're going to build all in about nine, less than 100 cars, so 99 cars.

[1108] I think right now we're, like I said, 36, 37 orders.

[1109] And anyway, the cars.

[1110] How long does it take you to build one of those?

[1111] 12 to 15 months.

[1112] And is it, is, how much of it is, carbon fiber like 100 % 100 % yeah I mean all the all the body work all the chassis all carbon everything there's there's there's some aluminum and some steel substructure but everything's carbon wow yeah so it is that's the roads for that one that one that particular the blue car belongs to a guy named dave leninger you want to talk about a wild man let me see that what the side image looks like what it looks like with the roaster wow that's pretty yeah Linder found a remax real estate way back when anyway that's his car that's my head of design Nathan Malinick, but, you know, this is one of these deals to where if I knew today, or if I knew back then what I knew today, I don't know if I would have done it.

[1113] Maybe I'm a little bit like you walking into the dojo.

[1114] You ever see those gifts where - How pretty that is?

[1115] You ever see the gifts where the guys have the telephone pole and their buses somebody in the balls with it?

[1116] You know, I think that, like, I didn't know what I was biting off when I went down this road, but when I started in 2013, it was just kind of an idea and a sketch, and then I got interest in it, and then we built the design model.

[1117] Shell helped us build a design model and we unveiled it at Steam in Vegas in 2017 and then I had orders and I'm like now I've got orders I've got to design but I've got to engineer this thing.

[1118] Dude that thing looks so good.

[1119] It's such a beautiful car.

[1120] That roadster one, that blue one?

[1121] Oh my god that's so beautiful.

[1122] Well in the sound what did you think of the sound?

[1123] It's incredible.

[1124] It's out here ripping down the road.

[1125] It's very raw.

[1126] Yeah it's very raw so it's that 6 .6 liter twin turbo V8, pushrod V8 we've nicknamed the engine Fury.

[1127] So ask me why we named the engine Fury.

[1128] Why?

[1129] No journalist has ever asked me this question in an automotive world.

[1130] So we named it Fury because the car is designed to compete against Europeans, the best from Europe.

[1131] So Bugatti, Asson Martin, Ferrari, Gordon Murray.

[1132] And so one time, like, we're developing the engine.

[1133] And I think we had our target was 1 ,600 horsepower.

[1134] We managed to get a little over 1 ,800.

[1135] And I'm watching reruns on TV with my wife.

[1136] My wife's asleep.

[1137] It was a Brad Pitt movie, Fury.

[1138] So, Those scrappy tank guys, they're over in Germany, and their tanks all busted down.

[1139] And then here comes two or three hundred Germans, and they basically fought them to the death, you know, like scrappy Americans that they were.

[1140] So I thought, I'm going to fucking name my engine, Fury.

[1141] Because it's designed to go over and fucking beat the Germans.

[1142] Scrappy American.

[1143] We'll see.

[1144] We haven't done it yet.

[1145] We're working on it.

[1146] I love it.

[1147] Yeah.

[1148] So is that a card that you could enter into races?

[1149] Like, would you consider racing that thing?

[1150] So we've had customers ask us, would we be interested in building a dedicated race car?

[1151] And it's something we haven't made a decision on, but the answer, I lean towards, you know, generally, you want to build a faster car?

[1152] Well, hell yeah, if somebody wants to buy it, I'll build it.

[1153] But then the question becomes we have to kind of go two directions.

[1154] Do we want to just build a fun, like something taking the circuit of the Americas that our customer can do out and have fun with?

[1155] Or do you want to conform to a race series?

[1156] All of a sudden, if you're in a race series, if you're in LaMaw, you know, a small, something, a world endurance championship, you have to conform to all kinds of rules.

[1157] I'm not a big rule guy.

[1158] I'd rather just kind of build my car.

[1159] Do you want kick ass?

[1160] But I think there is probably some demand to have a dedicated track car where you've got a full road cage, all the safety equipment, the halon fire extinguishing system, and everything else that you would expect.

[1161] But right now, I mean, we're, like I said, we're building, you know, the coupes are sold out.

[1162] We're completing the remaining run of those.

[1163] Yeah, there's a revolution right there.

[1164] Yeah, that belongs to a guy.

[1165] We actually went to the same Jesuit high school back.

[1166] back in the late 70s.

[1167] He was a senior and I was a freshman and we never knew each other but when he ordered the car, I found out that he was from Kansas City and went to Rockhurst and he has his own private test track just up outside of Kansas City.

[1168] Yeah, you're just driving through the country and you see this fence with like, you know, privacy and on the other side of it's this gentleman's 3 .4 mile private racetrack that we get to test at.

[1169] That's when you know you're really balling.

[1170] He's balling pretty good.

[1171] You get your own racetrack?

[1172] He's done a ride, oil and gas guy and smart guy and been a really, really great client, so.

[1173] I used to think that when I would watch Top Gear, watch the Stig roll around the track.

[1174] I'm like, they have their own track.

[1175] Well, yeah, so Top Gear tests on an old runway, southwest of Lennon, and it's called Dunsfold.

[1176] So they ran it, so they have their own.

[1177] But they did, I've been there before.

[1178] I was actually, I brought Stephen Tyler over there like 10 years ago to be interviewed by Jeremy Clarkson and those guys.

[1179] So he was a client.

[1180] We built a Venham GT for him.

[1181] And so we're hanging out.

[1182] And I got to see him go out and do his little celebrity lap around the truck.

[1183] You know, if you're ever over there and you want to do a celebrity, the star and the reasonably priced car, I'd connect you with those guys.

[1184] Oh, they're great.

[1185] Yeah, it's fun.

[1186] And so I think they're, but now you got Chris Harris and you got the, you know, Clarkson and Hammond and May. They moved on to Amazon.

[1187] Are they still doing it?

[1188] They are.

[1189] Yeah, I was in London a couple weeks ago, and I saw Richard Hammond.

[1190] What's the Amazon show called again?

[1191] The Grand Tour.

[1192] Right.

[1193] The Grand Tour.

[1194] And so Clarkson started, Clarkson's kind of a wild bombastic guy.

[1195] He started a show about farming.

[1196] He's got a farm out in the country.

[1197] And I think that's really kind of taken off.

[1198] So I think that's his new gig.

[1199] But I think they still, I think they do still do a season a year.

[1200] And good entertainment, good proper.

[1201] Yeah, they're fun.

[1202] Proper car stuff.

[1203] He's a fun dude.

[1204] Yeah.

[1205] What did he punch a producer?

[1206] They pulled the show.

[1207] Well, I know a little bit about that.

[1208] I was so we had a Velas Raptor truck that we were up in Canada with these guys so this has been back into 2014 and so like I'm working with the producers and they're like you know when you're around the talent you know don't talk to them don't spend time around them I'm like I'm around famous people more than these guys these guys a lot more famous I mean I don't care that they're a big deal so anyway so the producers kind of being a dick and so we show up with these guys and then we're like provide the vehicle and they're going to go cross country through Canada and through the mountains and do all this crazy shit.

[1209] And then they're going to go up on the mountain.

[1210] They're going to rescue Richard Hammond, who's at the top of the mountain.

[1211] He's got one of these brightling watches where you pull out the little cord, and it tells a satellite that you're stranded.

[1212] So it gives your coordinates to get rescued.

[1213] Anyway, so now the producers are saying, well, you know, you can't go up on the mountain while they're filming.

[1214] I'm like, okay, but listen to this.

[1215] I'm going to go watch football.

[1216] It's the playoffs.

[1217] I'm going to go watch football.

[1218] And if something breaks and you need us to help you, we're not coming.

[1219] They're like, oh, then they change their tune.

[1220] like okay we'll come with this and finally it all it all turns out fine well that producer i won't say his name but that producer that was being a massive dick and maybe he was just doing his job like two weeks later there's somewhere else and they're in england and jeremy you know jeremy gets a little bit of a temper and these guys work long hours and maybe they hadn't eaten and the producer guy was fucking with him like and jeremy fucking whacked the guy and i'm like i wanted to fucking punch that guy a couple times too but i can't do that and i don't want to get arrested in Canada, anyway.

[1221] Yeah, so they canceled the show.

[1222] And didn't Jeremy and him make up, but they're still, like...

[1223] You know, I'm sure that's all, you know, water under the bridge.

[1224] But Jeremy, so Jeremy, Richard Hammond, and James May, were all very tired.

[1225] I've spent time around them.

[1226] And then the other guy that's behind the scenes, but just so talented, his name is Andy Wilman.

[1227] He was the producer when they were on BBC.

[1228] Now he's the producer.

[1229] But when Stephen Tyler was being interviewed, you're like this from your comedy part of your brain.

[1230] When Stephen was, being interviewed by Jeremy, I noticed that the interview went on for like twice as long as it probably should have.

[1231] And I don't, I get claustrophobic, so I don't like being in tight crowds, so I'm kind of hanging towards the back of the crowd that they're filming all this live and then they aired it later, but they're filming in front of a live audience.

[1232] And here, this guy that looks like he's a homeless dude wearing a t -shirt, look like he hadn't showed in about a week.

[1233] He's standing there making notes.

[1234] And I realized I was Andy Wilman, the producer of the show.

[1235] And so what Jeremy's doing, he's asking, he's telling all these jokes and asking these questions, and Andy is using the live audiences as focus group.

[1236] Oh, they laughed at this.

[1237] Oh, I don't, I don't think this is as funny.

[1238] And that's how they edit it before it gets transmitted to the rest of the UK and the world.

[1239] Interesting.

[1240] I thought that is so clever.

[1241] That is so smart.

[1242] And I don't know if that, you know, comedians or entertainers kind of, but you know, you would think to some degree you want to improve your crap, but he's got a quick turnaround time.

[1243] So like, he's got another show.

[1244] He's got to do the following week.

[1245] So he's just like, Jeremy is doing all this stuff.

[1246] And sometimes they laugh and sometimes they but this guy was definitely paying attention that show uh top gear did Tesla dirty you know yeah they did oh they did they did all kinds of crooked shit but they did Tesla I mean they pretended the car ran out of batteries oh yeah no car didn't so they had like they're pushing the car and you know they I think they had a lawsuit about that correct they probably did but that goes back like we were talking about earlier like it just seems like that was dirty it seems like everybody has an agenda so what was the agenda behind that was that just the well they wanted to create a an entertaining storyline.

[1247] They do.

[1248] They'll throw your ass into the bus and a heartbeat.

[1249] That was what it is.

[1250] Oh, Tesla attempted to sue the BBC for libel in March of 2011.

[1251] The courts ruled in favor of the BBC saying that no viewer of the show would be likely to reasonably compare the Roaster's performance on the show with its performance in the real world.

[1252] That doesn't make any sense.

[1253] Yeah, no. They got, they got, well, they got railroaded.

[1254] British court sides with British corporation that's owned by the British government against American company.

[1255] Oops.

[1256] Yeah, they got railroaded.

[1257] Yeah, they did.

[1258] The idea that watching this thing break down wouldn't influence you to not get one, like these people are testing it and it breaks down.

[1259] Look, those guys good or bad.

[1260] We should just say what happened while we're saying it.

[1261] Yeah.

[1262] Because their car didn't really break down.

[1263] Right.

[1264] They faked it.

[1265] No, they faked it.

[1266] And they did it just to sort of make a point about what could happen with electric cars, but it's a fake point.

[1267] It was manufactured deal, like to your point.

[1268] But like, you know, they just want eyeballs.

[1269] You know, so the more controversial.

[1270] You know, the, when, you know, one time with Jeremy was driving this truck and they were like, what would happen if we ran into a brick wall?

[1271] He ended up going to the hospital and getting, you know, broken ribs and whatever else.

[1272] Just, you know, shoot the video of this guy.

[1273] So they'll do anything.

[1274] They were, they were into a brick wall.

[1275] Jeremy Clarkson?

[1276] He did?

[1277] Yeah, it's on YouTube.

[1278] And he got to the hospital?

[1279] Yeah, they got a video camera.

[1280] They got a GoPro inside.

[1281] And he, it does, I mean.

[1282] He went to the hospital?

[1283] Yeah, he went to the hospital from that.

[1284] Why would you do that?

[1285] They did.

[1286] And they, because of, for attention, dude.

[1287] These guys were the masters of jumping the shark, season after season after season.

[1288] You heard about the deal when they went to Argentina?

[1289] What deal?

[1290] Well, let's go one step at a time.

[1291] Let me see the truck slamming into the wall before we get to Argentina.

[1292] Yeah.

[1293] Because I just can't believe the day would just drive a - Clarkson, top gear, crash, truck crash.

[1294] No, each guy had to do it, and they're all wearing their safety equipment.

[1295] It might have been 20 miles an hour.

[1296] I mean, just run as fast as you can into that wood wall over there.

[1297] there and it's going to fucking hurt, you know.

[1298] So.

[1299] Yeah, I would think you could legitimately, you could die.

[1300] Oh, yeah.

[1301] Oh, it's one of these trucks?

[1302] Yeah.

[1303] Oh, boy.

[1304] Yeah, look at this.

[1305] He's going pretty good.

[1306] Bro, he's going very fast.

[1307] That is so crazy.

[1308] So do you think these guys give a fuck about hurting Elon and his company just to try?

[1309] They want views.

[1310] Oh, my God.

[1311] I mean, oh shit.

[1312] He's lucky he has teeth.

[1313] He's lucky he has a neck.

[1314] Yeah.

[1315] His neck's got to be fucked up from that.

[1316] Yeah, we did a thing with them at Grand Tour in Detroit about five years ago, and maybe he's got a good chiropractor.

[1317] It looks like he healed up, but man, that's pretty gnarly.

[1318] That seems like it could cause prone to damage, and so they would do stuff like that.

[1319] Well, and that even happened recently.

[1320] Clip disc.

[1321] Caust slip discs.

[1322] Worst injury he suffered on the show.

[1323] Another one of their guys and the current crew, I forget his name, maybe Pato O 'Rourke, but anyway, he had a bad car crash.

[1324] They canceled the whole season.

[1325] Really?

[1326] Is that bad?

[1327] Yeah, and again, And nobody really knows the details.

[1328] They're not showing anything, but I hear it was pretty painful.

[1329] Yeah, so.

[1330] Well, you watch that image.

[1331] He reaches for his neck, like, immediately.

[1332] And you see how his head violent snaps.

[1333] Yeah, I don't know how it doesn't break your neck.

[1334] So just, like, stuff like that.

[1335] Like, when we were in Canada with the crew, we're hanging out with the crew.

[1336] And, like, so they went down to Canada.

[1337] They went in Argentina, excuse me. The gummy bears kicking in, I suppose.

[1338] They're in Argentina.

[1339] and so one of the cars they made they wrote on the car they're doing this cross -country thing they're kind of poking fun at the argentinans when they lost the falcon war back in the 80s to the brits and and the story was that these these guys were getting chased out of the country like people were going to like looking for them if they found them they were going to freaking you know beat their ass pretty hard or worse and so um talking to the crew and um you know the the presenters were able to get to Buenos Aires and we're able to get out of the country but the crew is still there and people are like they're calling the embassy they're like hey you know what can we do the fucking locals are trying to get us and so I guess the present this is again this is from the crew when we were in Canada with our Velocraptor is that you know the presenters got out the crew were stuck fearing for their lives like hiding out in places trying to make it to the airport to get home and then so when When the whole shit hit the fan, the presenters in England felt bad for him, so they bought them all first class tickets or business class from Air Argentina back to the UK.

[1340] But then the question becomes, kind of given the pattern of wanting to further jump the shark, and look, if I climb a mountain, I want to climb the next mountain, so I get that to some degree.

[1341] But did these guys actually, like, try to stir up the locals by putting shit on their car to fuck with them?

[1342] Of course they did.

[1343] Yeah, just for notoriety So, I mean, I mean, yeah, that's the show.

[1344] I would think so.

[1345] I mean, 100%.

[1346] Why else did you do it?

[1347] Yeah.

[1348] I don't know if they knew it was going to go as far, but, man, they, but it's kind of a shitty deal where they, they skated out of there.

[1349] And their crew is literally, you know, afraid they were going to get fucking beat to death.

[1350] Imagine if they did.

[1351] Yeah.

[1352] And I'm hearing this from the crew, and this auto had gone down like 30 days before.

[1353] Jesus.

[1354] Yeah.

[1355] It's kind of interesting, but, you know.

[1356] Well, it's a wild show, but it's a fun show.

[1357] It's a fun show.

[1358] It's a fun show.

[1359] They're irreverent and they fuck with everybody.

[1360] And, yeah, have they gone too far a few times?

[1361] Sure.

[1362] But I think they're, you know, just trying to entertain.

[1363] Well, he does entertain.

[1364] And when Jeremy Clarkson reviews cars, it's like when he's really enthusiastic about it, like he's reviews and Ferraris.

[1365] That guy's word was like, you know, it would either make you or break you.

[1366] Yeah.

[1367] And that was, you know, probably from 05 to 20.

[1368] Farrow hit about a 10 -year period.

[1369] Now you've got Chris Harris, who's friends with our mutual friend, Matt Farrah in California.

[1370] Yeah, I've had Chris on the podcast before.

[1371] Okay, cool.

[1372] He's great.

[1373] He's probably one of my favorites, for sure.

[1374] We had dinner with him in London a couple weeks ago and just could be any finer.

[1375] Yeah, him and Matt are two my favorites for reviewing cars.

[1376] Yeah.

[1377] Smoky tires awesome.

[1378] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1379] It's just car entertainment, you know, has sort of come a long way.

[1380] Right.

[1381] There wasn't really that much back in the day.

[1382] Right.

[1383] There was not really a show.

[1384] Once Top Gear came around, then people realized how entertaining it is just to like, see cars and hang out with cars.

[1385] I think really one of the best of it is Jay Leno.

[1386] Like, Jay Leno's garage is fantastic.

[1387] It is great.

[1388] It's very good.

[1389] Yeah, yeah.

[1390] He loves cars so much that it's like, it's so contagious.

[1391] I don't know anybody that knows more about cars from A to Z, from steam cars, to hypercars, to race cars, everything in between Jay Leno is literally a walking automotive encyclopedia.

[1392] Yeah, I don't understand the steam cars.

[1393] Like, go out of there with that.

[1394] Well, yeah.

[1395] He's got ones that he drives around.

[1396] Yeah.

[1397] that aren't even supposed to have rubber tires.

[1398] So he had to put rubber on these steel wheels so that it's legal to drive around.

[1399] Well, they ever tell you on, so on a steam car, you're heating up this boiler and the boiler's got water in it and that turns into steam and that's what makes it go.

[1400] But when you run low on water, if you're not careful, it'll explode.

[1401] So you have to turn off the heat.

[1402] And so this came up because I was in Jays one time and I saw one of his steam cars and he's talking about it.

[1403] I'm like, what's the garden hose in the back seat for?

[1404] It's like, well, you know, I'm over at, driving through Burbank and, you know, his start running out of water.

[1405] So he's able to shut it down so the engine doesn't explode.

[1406] And he goes up and knocks on some little old lady's front door and says, you know, ma 'am, can I, can I hook my spigot up to your, you know, my hose up to your spigot?

[1407] I would put some water in my steam car.

[1408] Imagine Jane Leno showing up at your house.

[1409] Oh, yeah.

[1410] Wanting to borrow water.

[1411] Right, yeah.

[1412] Yeah.

[1413] Yeah, he's got an insane collection.

[1414] I can't even believe how big it is.

[1415] when I was there, I thought it was just one of these buildings.

[1416] Yeah.

[1417] Oh, it's the whole block.

[1418] He has 11 buildings like that.

[1419] They're all kind of daisy chained together.

[1420] Yeah, it's incredible.

[1421] And motorcycles too.

[1422] Yeah.

[1423] Yeah.

[1424] We did.

[1425] Jay's been a customer gosh, almost 30 years.

[1426] We, we, we, we, we did, he had a one of the, he had the first black Gen 1 Viper.

[1427] And so he wanted to do an exhaust, an intake, and a 373 rear end gear.

[1428] And so we're scheduled to go out there.

[1429] And, and I just talked to him like on the phone one time and I only dealt with him I didn't deal with any assistance or handlers and so I just dealt with him on the phone the one time and then I my wife had our first shot we had a miscarriage and so I couldn't go so I just had somebody call out there to his office say John can't make it didn't give me any reason and do like two days later flowers in a card showed up to our house and to this day I did not know how Jay knew that we had a miscarriage or even knew my home address but somehow he found out and said flowers we've been friends ever since that's awesome yeah that's a special dude for sure super passionate super influential you know another thing i learned from jay that's cool so whether it's a 2 .7 million old venom of five revolution or one of our you know velociraptor mammoth trucks whenever i'm out in public with one of our vehicles or if i'm at like a cars and copy car show jay taught me that what i said what got you into cars jay he said well when he was 12 years old there was like maybe a 55 jag parked out in front of a store and he was admiring it and the guy came up to the car and and says, hey, kid, you like the car?

[1430] And he says, yeah.

[1431] And the owner said, would you like to sit in it?

[1432] And so I've seen Jay at a bunch of car shows.

[1433] So if you're somewhere south of 12 years old, you know, and you ask him nicely, you know, he'll let you sit in his car.

[1434] So we do the same thing.

[1435] And so when they kind of start queuing up and I get the 14 -year -old, I'm like, no, no, no, we'll have to stop.

[1436] Yeah, he goes to those cars and coffees.

[1437] Oh, yeah, no, he takes all kinds of shirt.

[1438] You know, I mean, so when Jay was doing tonight show, that's when I met him, and, you know, we did several projects for him.

[1439] he had it come out to the show but he was always so busy like I would just like see him in passing and he's so like high functioning ADHD dyslexic which my son Cole is too just like his brain just moves in a million miles a minute so like a Sam hey Jay how you doing blah blah blah in and out in and out getting his next car and go but then when he retired from the tonight show a whole different Jay just like you can have a conversation with him he wasn't thinking about all the shit he had to do and we And he's so much better at that show because it's so much what he's actually interested in instead of just the job of hosting the Tonight Show.

[1440] And the mistake that I made growing up is like, you know, he would do comedy on, you know, in the Tonight Show.

[1441] We always thought he was funny.

[1442] We would watch it.

[1443] But then years later, maybe 10 years ago, I got to hear him do stand -up.

[1444] And I'm like, it's so much more edgy.

[1445] You know, my wife will only handle so much, like, if you get it as like a certain level of crude, she won't go.

[1446] So I have to go by myself.

[1447] So he's like right there on the edge of certain ones.

[1448] Jay Leno's on the edge, really?

[1449] Oh, dude, I thought so.

[1450] So Shell had a big launch for a new oil product about 10 years ago when we were there.

[1451] And he's like a fucking machine gun, dude.

[1452] Like you get about, so in that 45 minutes set, you get at least an hour and a half with the material.

[1453] It is just coming fucking rapid fire.

[1454] That's interesting.

[1455] I got to go see him live then because I haven't seen him live in a long time.

[1456] I don't know like where he's working out or if he just just does big shows I don't know because he used to do Comedy Magic Club every Sunday I see it I see his stuff pops up you know on my you know social media feeds like when he's around in the area so he does he does shows I mean yeah but it would to your point reach out to him or I'll get him his number and you reach out to him and have him come do the mothership yeah for sure yeah he used to be really respected as like an edgy comic when he first started yeah he in the 1970s like when he would do like I guess it was the early 80s or late 70s we'd do letterman I used to watch him a letterman he'd wear like a black leather jacket what years was that this would have been mid probably mid 80s 84 85 and and they used to do a little gag called Jay what's your beef yeah what's my beef kind of a grumpy old man program but yeah I always I always thought Jay was pretty good you know it was a big I love Carson when Carson was on back in the day too so you just kind of go from one of the next, but I'm like, you know, some of the current stuff, you've got Gutfeld who's finding funniest shit, but the other guys that just...

[1457] It's a hard gig, man, because you have, there's so many restrictions.

[1458] Like, first of all, you're talking to someone very quickly.

[1459] Yeah.

[1460] If you're going to talk to them about something complex, something that's a difficult to grasp...

[1461] It's why the long -form podcast works, right?

[1462] 100%.

[1463] Because if you're just talking to someone and you're talking to them for five minutes, and then you're going to commercial, it's like you can only get so into the subject.

[1464] Yeah.

[1465] And some subjects deserve more attention.

[1466] They deserve time, and you really can't do it on those shows.

[1467] And then also you're censored, right?

[1468] So you can't say certain words.

[1469] You can't speak your mind.

[1470] You'll have a producer in your ear telling you what to do.

[1471] And then on top of that, you have these commercials.

[1472] You have to wait for the commercial.

[1473] Then you've got to build momentum back up when you're back.

[1474] All right, we're back.

[1475] You know, like, why are we back?

[1476] Like, what is this?

[1477] It's the worst way to have conversations.

[1478] And that's essentially what those things are.

[1479] What those things are is just it's like short attention span, quick sound bite conversations that are not satisfying.

[1480] That's the problem.

[1481] To get a satisfying conversation, you need to talk to someone for a long time.

[1482] Okay.

[1483] And so they're crippled.

[1484] It's like they're handicapped by the system that they exist in.

[1485] Okay.

[1486] There's nothing you can do to fix it.

[1487] But it just is, was it that much different from when Carson and Lena were doing it?

[1488] I mean, yes, because today's a lot worse.

[1489] Well, there's podcast now.

[1490] Oh, so they have competition.

[1491] No. There was nothing else to watch back then.

[1492] Now people see it.

[1493] This is what it is.

[1494] It's like they see the difference.

[1495] Because if all the only conversations you see with people having on television are on things like the Tonight Show, then that seems normal.

[1496] Yeah.

[1497] But as soon as you can have long form, full, unscensored conversations.

[1498] Deep dive and pack at all.

[1499] Yeah.

[1500] Okay.

[1501] That's when it becomes awkward because then you're like, why are they doing it like this?

[1502] Interesting.

[1503] This is an uncomfortable way to watch people talk.

[1504] And also, like, someone's sitting there and you're sitting next to him in this weird way and you're facing a crowd.

[1505] You've got a live audience.

[1506] It's all weird.

[1507] There's so much weirdness to it.

[1508] That's funny.

[1509] It's just not a good way to have a good conversation.

[1510] Right.

[1511] You know, and all was really was an advertisement for whatever the fuck that person was selling.

[1512] Okay.

[1513] So if the person, a sitcom, a new record.

[1514] Yeah.

[1515] New movie.

[1516] Yeah, that's really what it is.

[1517] Yeah.

[1518] It's not, you know, and Jay Leno didn't get a chance to pick the guests.

[1519] Like, he wasn't, like, up to him, you know.

[1520] Well, he did tell me, this is, we work with him on a project a couple years ago.

[1521] We're just sitting in a truck bullshit.

[1522] And, you know, I kind of asked him, I said, so since you don't do the tonight show, do you miss any of that at all?

[1523] He's like, no, not really.

[1524] He's like, I wasn't really big on going to movies.

[1525] So, you know, somebody's coming on the show.

[1526] I'd go watch the movie just so I knew what to talk about.

[1527] He's like, I'm really not into celebrities and I don't go to the movies that much.

[1528] I do my car thing, you know?

[1529] Well, for Jay Leno and for all of those comedians.

[1530] that lived back then, the Tonight Show was the Holy Grail.

[1531] Oh, for sure.

[1532] It was...

[1533] If you're a young comedian, you get on there, that's...

[1534] That's it.

[1535] The host of the Letterman show, the host of, like, some late -night show, that was the Holy Grail.

[1536] Right.

[1537] So they all wanted that.

[1538] And so when, you know, you get it and you realize, like, oh, is that's really what I wanted?

[1539] It just was, it was a thing that it seemed like no one could get.

[1540] Right.

[1541] And back then, if you got it, it was a big deal.

[1542] Sure.

[1543] And if you were the host of the Tonight Show, it was a big deal.

[1544] Right.

[1545] And nowadays, it's like, it's just a...

[1546] another show.

[1547] Right.

[1548] You know, it's just another thing that's on television.

[1549] They got to compete with you.

[1550] Well, they're not even competing.

[1551] It's like they're competing with Netflix, really.

[1552] Okay.

[1553] Yeah.

[1554] Yeah.

[1555] Yeah.

[1556] Good point.

[1557] But if they, for conversations, yeah, they're competing while Bill Maher is a podcast now.

[1558] Right.

[1559] There's a lot of great podcasters.

[1560] If you want just free entertainment in your ears, you could, there's so much.

[1561] There's so many different true crime shows and so many different stand -up comedians have podcasts and so many scientists and right.

[1562] Fuck, man. I mean, you could just be.

[1563] entertained forever so breaking into that is hard right and you when you're on a television show like you're kind of depending upon people flipping through the channels or people that are accustomed to watching it at 11 p .m. let's turn on the late night show right you know huh it's kind of a trap though that is it's a trap I had no idea they don't grow it's like they're very they're like the the viewership of those things just keeps dwindling so we're like the young comedians where do they so you didn't you didn't make you didn't get your big break by going on Lenno or going on a Carson or something like that.

[1564] But like you found the right manager.

[1565] It's like for a young comedian that's trying to get going, how does that, how do they get discovered today?

[1566] The YouTube.

[1567] Okay.

[1568] YouTube, internet, social media.

[1569] Someone could be funny and have one clip about one subject that resonates with people.

[1570] And they throw it up on their Instagram and it gets reposted and shared.

[1571] Yeah.

[1572] They put it up on Twitter.

[1573] It's on YouTube.

[1574] And then bam, all of a sudden they're famous.

[1575] Right.

[1576] It happens all the time now.

[1577] Wow.

[1578] this is a great time for people to get their stuff out there like probably the greatest time ever so if you got talent you can't keep it down yeah it's how I mean you know at least people know about it I mean there's definitely some people to get better breaks and other people that definitely happens but at the end of the day really it's about me like becoming undeniable and if you can just put your stuff out there and enough people love it yeah so that's where they get their big break today well you know back in my day I got on um the MTV half hour comedy hour that was like the first television show that I did where I got attention from it, and then I got a development deal.

[1579] So that was like the pathway back then.

[1580] It was like you would do a stand -up comedy TV show, and then you'd try to get a sitcom.

[1581] And everybody just wanted a sitcom, or they wanted to host the Tonight Show, or host the Jimmy Kimmel Show or whatever.

[1582] Get your own show.

[1583] But there wasn't a lot of those.

[1584] Did you ever do it?

[1585] I mean, you did Fear Factor, but do you ever host like a show, like, were you interviewing people or?

[1586] I did.

[1587] I guest hosted once later with Greg Kinnear.

[1588] He was out of town.

[1589] Yeah, okay.

[1590] guest host it.

[1591] It was fun.

[1592] I enjoyed it.

[1593] But it's, uh, it's still very limited.

[1594] It's just not, it's not the same thing.

[1595] Yeah.

[1596] It's like doing this is like the perfect version of conversations for me. Yeah.

[1597] Some people like it more restricted and they want to be wearing a suit.

[1598] They want the lights and they want the crowd and they feel like it's more of a show and sure.

[1599] I get it.

[1600] There's all kinds of different things that people like.

[1601] But for me, this is the most fun to do it.

[1602] Yeah.

[1603] How's a gummy bear treating?

[1604] Yeah.

[1605] It's a little faded.

[1606] I'm buzzing pretty.

[1607] I'm buzzing pretty Good.

[1608] You look a little faded fellow, doesn't he?

[1609] I can smell it.

[1610] I can smell you went to the darklands.

[1611] I brought my son.

[1612] He can drive me home.

[1613] Good.

[1614] No autopilot for me tonight.

[1615] Yeah, none of that.

[1616] That's funny.

[1617] That's Rick Flair.

[1618] Woo!

[1619] Woo!

[1620] Woo!

[1621] Woo!

[1622] Woo!

[1623] Texas's got to get a shit together with weed.

[1624] It's weird that some weed is legal.

[1625] I think it will.

[1626] I think it will.

[1627] Like, Delta 9 is legal.

[1628] Fairly weed.

[1629] I've got a quick wheat story for you.

[1630] So this ties into cold plunge.

[1631] So So I got diagnosed as ADHD back in the late 90s.

[1632] I've been married for a while and we're having trouble.

[1633] My counselor gives me this book and says, answer these 100 questions.

[1634] And if you're more than 80 of them, then you're ADHD, I was 98 out of 100.

[1635] So I started taking Ritalin, okay?

[1636] And I've been taking Ritalin, you know, for almost 25 years.

[1637] So fast forward to a couple months ago, I go to my doctor to the clinic to go get my prescription refill because it's a controlled substance, like Adderall or opioids or whatever else.

[1638] And look, for me, it just wakes me up in the morning.

[1639] I don't drink coffee and kind of helps me stay focused on the stuff I've got to do and better follow through and focus.

[1640] And so I go in and the nurse says, well, we have a new policy at the clinic in order to get a refill for riddlin or any other controlled substance.

[1641] We have to drug test you.

[1642] And I said, okay, all right, whatever.

[1643] Once a year.

[1644] And so I started filling out some paperwork.

[1645] I'm like, she's like, okay, well, tell me you know when you want to go pee in the up.

[1646] And I said, you've got a drug pass to me now?

[1647] I said, I'm 60 years old.

[1648] I've never been drug tested in my life.

[1649] And it just pissed me off.

[1650] I'm like, I'm paying money to be here.

[1651] I just want my riddling.

[1652] So I stopped taking it.

[1653] And so, like, for 30 days, I'm kind of like, oh, man, I got a little less energy, a little less focus.

[1654] Well, then I've been watching you and other friends cold plunging.

[1655] Are you allowed to just get off a riddle in like that?

[1656] You're not supposed to cold turkey.

[1657] You're not supposed to cold turkey it, but I did.

[1658] Were you on a fairly low dose?

[1659] Yeah, it was 20 milligrams in the morning, 10 in the afternoon.

[1660] I normally didn't take the afternoon.

[1661] But here's what I found that for the 30 days following, it wasn't that hard of a real transition.

[1662] I was just a little more lethargic and needed to get to the gym more.

[1663] But what I learned was is that my level of aggression with my kids, my wife, my employees was ratcheted down by probably 20%.

[1664] From the cold?

[1665] Well, from the Ritalin.

[1666] So this would be stopped taking Ritalin.

[1667] And my resting heart rate was lower.

[1668] And so I thought, what can I do?

[1669] So Ritalin was just jacking you up.

[1670] It was jacking me up.

[1671] But it had been jacking me up for 25 years.

[1672] And then friction I would have it with employees.

[1673] I would want to get into tussles on just stupid shit.

[1674] And so this recent revelation is the clinic wanting to drug test me so I could get my riddling refill, me not taking the Ritalin, I believe my wife and kids at least tell me this, a few employees, that I'm just, you know, I don't have to take gummy bears to calm down at times, right?

[1675] I'll take a gummy bear sometimes to go to sleep.

[1676] But then I thought, okay, well, what can help kind of replace, kind of give me that kick in the ass in the morning?

[1677] So kind of wake me up and get me going.

[1678] And I'll go do an early workout, a boxing workout a couple times a week.

[1679] But I'm like, I need something else.

[1680] I've been seeing you and other people doing the cold plunge program.

[1681] And that's like, and I had done it a few times before I got off the riddling, but I thought, like, okay, the last time I did that, that gave me like this boost of focus, like this mental focus and more calm through the day.

[1682] So I bought a coal plunge tank And I got it about three weeks ago And coal plunge maybe five days a week in the morning And I don't know Maybe it's just because it's a combination of It's something that I really don't want to do And it's really hard to do And when I say that to myself I'm like, that's the very reason I need to go do it And then secondarily just like It shocks my system And all of a sudden it just wakes me up So I'm like, you know So if you're listening out there And you're on riddling, your kid's on riddling You know, I'm not the doctor I'm not telling you what to do but I am saying that I got off of Ridland and now I can kind of backfill that boost energy in the morning by doing a coal plunge.

[1683] That's interesting that you were on it for 25 years and you're able to get off of it in 30 days.

[1684] What did that transition feel like?

[1685] Because I would imagine that you'd kind of become dependent on the feeling that you get from that.

[1686] I never, so I would run out from time to time.

[1687] I never felt dependent on it, but I did feel lower energy.

[1688] Especially the last, probably the last 10 years.

[1689] As I've gotten older, I'm like, okay.

[1690] You know, I've never really been a morning person.

[1691] I used to, like, up until maybe 10 years ago, wouldn't go to bed until two or three in the morning, and then I'd wake up at, you know, seven, eight the next day.

[1692] But anyway, so Ritalin just kind of gets me going, helps me focus, stay on task.

[1693] But it probably starts wearing off kind of by mid -afternoon, but I just didn't.

[1694] The thing about that kind of stuff to me is if you can function as good as you're functioning without it, I wonder, because we think of medications as being necessary.

[1695] Yeah.

[1696] We think of things like that as being necessary.

[1697] Like, this is what you need.

[1698] It'll straighten you out.

[1699] Is it, you know, I mean, is what we're missing, like, at least with some people, is what they're missing, physical activity and stressors, things like cold and heat, and things like a morning workout, like, how many people are just going to a pill and not doing those other things to see if, like, maybe there's a more healthy way to approach this?

[1700] Yeah, I mean, just how much, you know, how much time, like, do I waste just glancing at my phone?

[1701] Who texted me?

[1702] What's on the news?

[1703] what about pull cues, whatever, you know.

[1704] And so one of the things I noticed when we first installed it, maybe it was the first or second time that I'd cold plunge at home.

[1705] Like, I always kind of had this euphoria.

[1706] I don't know if it's kind of a little bit of a dump of endorphins or dopamine or what, but just kind of me being happy.

[1707] I did one time wonder, where's my phone, what's going on?

[1708] And my counselor tells me that just by looking at our phone, sometimes that gives us a tiny little dopamine hit.

[1709] Yeah, it does.

[1710] Look at the phone.

[1711] It's also just an addiction.

[1712] and you're just looking for new information constantly.

[1713] You're always looking for some new picture, no new video, new thing to, like, stimulate you.

[1714] So that's why I found the coal plunge kind of just for a period of time.

[1715] I'm like, it was calm.

[1716] It was like zen.

[1717] It's like me being up in the mountains, looking at the trees and just kind of being a peaceful moment without having to, you know, take a Rick Flur, gummy bear.

[1718] What definitely makes you so happy when you get out of it.

[1719] Yeah.

[1720] And you get out of it like, woo.

[1721] I'm happy just because I'm not freezing my balls off anymore.

[1722] Yeah, it's that.

[1723] But it's really just your, you're, the ruckusker.

[1724] of endorphins.

[1725] You feel so happy to ignore up and after a whole our family's doing it.

[1726] My wife did it.

[1727] My daughter comes over and does it.

[1728] Son's real athletic.

[1729] He's got two scoped knees and so he thought he tweaked his knee playing pickleball the other day and he did it and said no more pain.

[1730] So, I mean, you and as an athlete, I mean, and still probably training pretty hard, do you find like when your body's getting a little worn or your joints, a little sore?

[1731] Does that, does a cold plunge help you too?

[1732] I do it every day, so I don't know.

[1733] Okay.

[1734] I mean, I still have joint pain.

[1735] I still have like some stuff, but that's just what's of the territory.

[1736] Yeah, it is what it is.

[1737] You just get accustomed to being in some sort of pain most of the time.

[1738] Right.

[1739] You know, especially jujitsu.

[1740] Jiu -Jitsu training.

[1741] Like, you're always hurt.

[1742] There's always something going on.

[1743] What are you still carrying to this day that you got hurt doing back in the day?

[1744] Oh, I've had a bunch of surgeries.

[1745] I've had my knees reconstructed.

[1746] Both my knees reconstructed.

[1747] Okay.

[1748] A lot of it is joint stuff and back stuff.

[1749] Like everybody that I know that does Jiu -Jitsu has some sort of a back issue or neck issue.

[1750] So does weed or, you know hallucinogens or those does that help any with is it more for your mind stimulation or relaxation or does it help with any of your injuries i think it's for everything i think well i don't know if it helps with injuries it definitely reduces inflammation but there's a good argument that maybe inflammation is good for some injuries oh really yeah because it's how the the body's healing from it okay like there's uh unless it unless it's your arteries the what's that unless you've got inflammation your arteries yeah that's not good um but inflammation from injuries like so there's like two schools of thought and one school of thought is you should ice things immediately and calm down the inflammation and the other school of thought is really what you need is um heat and motion and uh you need to kind of like let the body do its normal process and there's a reason why it's inflamed following an injury it's sending a lot of blood to that area is trying to fix it i don't know i'm not smart enough i've heard from very smart people both things you should do i've heard you should ice things and i've heard you should never ice things.

[1751] I don't know what to say about that, but I do know that it does inhibit your growth and gains if you do it post -lifting.

[1752] So like if you lift weights and then you jump into the cold right afterwards, the reduction of inflammation actually equals less growth.

[1753] So you get less what they call hypertrophy.

[1754] Did you talk about some guy that was doing cold plunges before his morning workout?

[1755] That's what I do.

[1756] And that was boosting testosterone?

[1757] Yes, we read about that.

[1758] There was a guy that he got he had some sort of a test that showed that he might have cancer okay and they wanted to put him on certain medications and he said I wanted to try doing a ketogenic diet and doing the cold plunge every day and so this guy shifted his diet and went to doing a cold plunge every day before his workouts and his testosterone rocketed wow all of his problems went away and you started feeling way healthier.

[1759] But I think sometimes people need like a little bit of a wake -up call just to kind of straighten up your diet.

[1760] Yeah.

[1761] And maybe it doesn't need to be keto, but maybe the benefit wasn't really from him doing keto, which may have been a benefit, but it also might have been when you're doing keto, you're not eating any bullshit.

[1762] Like you can't eat potato chips.

[1763] Right.

[1764] You can't like drink soda.

[1765] Yeah.

[1766] You only get a certain amount of carbs per day.

[1767] Right.

[1768] So you're trying to get your body into the state where it's just burning fat.

[1769] And just by doing that, you're a limit.

[1770] dominating bullshit and that's probably what's fucking with people more than anything it's just bad food do you cook your own food you have somebody yeah yeah I cook my own food yeah I cook a lot what um well gummy bear moment gummy bears are your friends but sometimes they fuck you leave you searching for your thoughts yeah no I love cooking I really do I love cooking meat you know especially like game meat like wild game yeah I see your Instagram with some of the elk stuff looks like man I'll be right over I love it I love cooking rib eyes too Right.

[1771] Because I like to eat, I eat mostly meat, so I try to eat a lot of fat, because I'm not getting much else.

[1772] Do you take, so like when you go to, you know, go on the road for a fighter or doing stand -up, you bring like a cooler?

[1773] You bring your, bring your, some of your stuff with you stuff with you stuff with you.

[1774] Okay.

[1775] Do you much, do much with intermittent fasting?

[1776] Yeah, I do that all the time.

[1777] Generally, I do at least 14 hours.

[1778] Okay.

[1779] So I generally like to work out in the morning fasted, you know.

[1780] Okay.

[1781] But it depends.

[1782] Like sometimes, like, if I have a show late at night, like last night, my show was pretty late.

[1783] And I was home until, like, 2 .30 in the morning.

[1784] Okay.

[1785] So then I had some food at night, because I was just exhausted and tired, so that I ate, then I went to sleep, and I woke up later.

[1786] So when I woke up, I just ate and then got my shit done.

[1787] Because I'm like, listen, the fasting's out the window.

[1788] I got tanked last night.

[1789] I was just like, get something in and, you know, get the sweat going, and let's get rockin.

[1790] And then kind of get your body body But I do, there are a cold plunge before anything.

[1791] Okay.

[1792] For any of my workouts.

[1793] I'm going to try that out.

[1794] I'm so accustomed to it now.

[1795] It still sucks.

[1796] Like, I still hate it.

[1797] I still think about checking you out.

[1798] But it's necessary.

[1799] Well, it is really good for you.

[1800] And I feel so great when I get out of it.

[1801] And more importantly, it's made my body much more resilient to cold.

[1802] Like, I warm up really quickly.

[1803] Yeah.

[1804] Like, once I'm out, like, I do the three minutes.

[1805] And I remember the first time I did, I was fucking cold for so long.

[1806] It's like, oh, you fucker.

[1807] Oh, you fucker.

[1808] fucking bitch, you dummy, what's wrong with you?

[1809] Why are you doing this?

[1810] Now I get out and I'm like, whoo, like my body's completely adapted to it.

[1811] So I can start working out right away.

[1812] How cold?

[1813] What temperature do you find out?

[1814] Oh, you go that low.

[1815] Yeah, I do 34 for three minutes every morning.

[1816] Wow.

[1817] Do you have a chill or do you have ice or?

[1818] I have a Morosco Cold Plunge at home at Morosco Forge.

[1819] And here we have one called a Blue Cube.

[1820] Okay.

[1821] And they're both very, very good.

[1822] I want to see that.

[1823] The Blue Cube.

[1824] I've got one from Renew.

[1825] I'll show you the Blue Cube.

[1826] Okay, okay.

[1827] It's out here.

[1828] The blue cube we have with the studio, and the blue cube, they're upgrading to this fucking insane one they have now that's like a river.

[1829] Okay.

[1830] So you don't get a thermal layer over your body.

[1831] So when you sit in the cold layer.

[1832] Exactly.

[1833] So it just keeps sucking.

[1834] Okay.

[1835] Never stop sucking.

[1836] Oh, that's going to super chill your ass.

[1837] Yeah, because when you get in the moroscow, it's amazing.

[1838] And look, it ain't easy.

[1839] Three minutes is a grind.

[1840] At that temperature?

[1841] Oh, my gosh.

[1842] But after a minute and a half or so, it gets more relaxed.

[1843] Okay.

[1844] And that's because you develop a thermal layer because when you get out, you know how your body gets like super red?

[1845] Yeah, yeah, yeah, right?

[1846] That's what that is.

[1847] Okay.

[1848] That's your body is forcing blood to try to warm up your skin that's in contact with this cold.

[1849] It's trying to prevent you from hypothermia.

[1850] It's giving you some insulation.

[1851] Yes, yes.

[1852] Okay.

[1853] And so this blue cube one doesn't allow that.

[1854] Because it's like constantly flowing through.

[1855] It's constantly flowing.

[1856] So it's torturous.

[1857] Wow.

[1858] I'm a wuss.

[1859] I'm only down to 55 degrees.

[1860] Oh, that's ridiculous.

[1861] I know.

[1862] I shower in that.

[1863] That's how really.

[1864] You've got ice keeps coming out of your shower.

[1865] I like cold showers too.

[1866] In the winter, it's the greatest.

[1867] Yeah.

[1868] I love it.

[1869] I love it in the winter.

[1870] Oh, in the winter it feels so good.

[1871] I love doing it right after the sauna.

[1872] Yeah.

[1873] Right into the cold shower.

[1874] That's what's going to ask you.

[1875] So what rotation, where does the dry sauna come in with the cold plunge in the workout?

[1876] It depends entirely on what kind of workout I'm doing.

[1877] All right.

[1878] Like what I really generally like to do is I like to work out by doing cold plunge first always.

[1879] And then I will have like whatever workout.

[1880] And am I doing hard cardio?

[1881] Like if I'm doing bag workout or something?

[1882] like that, then I go right into the sauna afterwards.

[1883] Okay.

[1884] So my heart rate is jacked.

[1885] So when my heart rate, like, when, you know, my resting, my heart rate after rounds, like I'll do like 10 rounds on the bag, and it's still beating fast when I go in.

[1886] So, and then because of the heat, like, it's a static form of cardio.

[1887] So when you go in, you're extending your workout.

[1888] Exactly.

[1889] I'm extending my workout just sitting there and listening to a book.

[1890] Okay.

[1891] So I'll just put air.

[1892] If you want to do that, though, get AirPod ones, the original.

[1893] So don't slide out or?

[1894] No, the original ones don't overreact.

[1895] heat.

[1896] Oh, really?

[1897] The other ones die out.

[1898] Okay.

[1899] Every fucking, I've tried a bunch of different companies, bunch of different airports.

[1900] They all die except the original, regular AirParts.

[1901] Whichever when they sell, they'll sell like a Gen 2, but it's not the new ones.

[1902] Yeah.

[1903] It's the old ones.

[1904] Yeah.

[1905] The ones in the little tiny case.

[1906] Yes.

[1907] Sure.

[1908] Those ones don't die.

[1909] Okay.

[1910] Because they have less shit in them.

[1911] Interesting.

[1912] Like the other ones have noise canceling and all that.

[1913] They die quick.

[1914] The pros, they eat a lot.

[1915] Yeah.

[1916] And it's always the left one because I'm sitting with my left side to the heater.

[1917] Okay.

[1918] So it made me conscious of like switching sides.

[1919] So cold plunge, workout, if you got your heart rate up, definitely go straight into the dry sauna.

[1920] Yeah.

[1921] And then do you ever rotate back?

[1922] Sometimes even when I lift weights, I'll go into the sauna.

[1923] It depends on how much time I have, but what I really like is a sauna at night.

[1924] Okay.

[1925] I really like that when I come home from the club.

[1926] It relaxes you for bed, but it also, it centers my mind.

[1927] And it gives me an opportunity to have just a little bit more adversity at the end of the day, go through 20 minutes of this fucking 189 degree sauna and steam and just and listening to something.

[1928] Generally, I'm listening to a book.

[1929] Okay.

[1930] And I'm just in there, just thinking about shit.

[1931] Yeah.

[1932] It's like it's good alone time.

[1933] I need alone time.

[1934] Like, it's very important.

[1935] When's your alone time that you're not listening to the book?

[1936] You're not thinking about, you know, learning.

[1937] When I'm working out.

[1938] When I'm working out.

[1939] Okay.

[1940] Yeah, when I'm working out, it's just a lone time.

[1941] Yeah.

[1942] You know, like if I'm hitting the bag, either I listen to music or sometimes I don't listen to anything.

[1943] I just want to hear the thumps.

[1944] I just want to hear the womp womp.

[1945] You ever been in a fast go -cart?

[1946] Not a fast one.

[1947] We were in Thailand.

[1948] Okay.

[1949] I think it was in Thailand with my family.

[1950] Yeah.

[1951] We went to this place.

[1952] They rent go -carts.

[1953] We were whipping around.

[1954] They were fun as shit.

[1955] We were racing each other.

[1956] It was a really good time.

[1957] Yeah, but like a really fast, like a track -focused go -kart, like for me, like that's, something that will take my mind off of everything because maybe a bit a little bit like boxing or something in that if I'm not focused at what I'm doing I'm either going to fucking lose or get fucking hurt or both yeah and so and so anyway I just well that's why skiing fast and go carts or what take my mind off of but without getting hurt you could do that with pool that's what I like to some degree and that's what I like about archery as well archery it's like when you're drawn back a little bit of zen yeah it's there's there's a thing that's happening where it's so difficult to do that all you you're thinking about is that thing, and it's very mind cleansing.

[1958] Yeah, yeah.

[1959] Fred Bear said that, something about a troubled man and a bow.

[1960] Right, right.

[1961] Fred Bear was like one of the original pioneers of bow hunting in this country.

[1962] But pool, to me, is like one of the ultimate ones, because you could do it at any time you want.

[1963] Anytime you have time, I can just go out there and set some drills up or just run some balls and it just freeze my mind.

[1964] Because you know, you're a good pool player.

[1965] When you're making a long shot, especially a shot on that table, and you know you have to get Pinpoint position on the next ball.

[1966] There's, like, so much going on.

[1967] Did you ever play any street pool growing up?

[1968] Yeah, I did.

[1969] Yeah, I did.

[1970] I never really played one pocket, but I played a lot of street pool.

[1971] I played a little bit of one pocket.

[1972] It's just kind of, it's like a chess match.

[1973] It's boring and shit.

[1974] I like action, you know, so.

[1975] I get it.

[1976] It's hard to do.

[1977] I get, it's a great gambling game.

[1978] Those guys who, that are really, the Tony Cho hands in the world.

[1979] Grady Matthews.

[1980] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1981] Those, I mean, you know.

[1982] Their chess, their chess is what they are.

[1983] It's an intellectual game.

[1984] Yeah.

[1985] Effron Reyes is amazing out.

[1986] Yeah, yeah.

[1987] But it's not my thing.

[1988] I like rotation.

[1989] Right, right.

[1990] I like breaking.

[1991] Yeah, yeah, sure.

[1992] I like running out.

[1993] All right, man, well, I'm your pool table day.

[1994] Just let me know.

[1995] We're going to do this.

[1996] Hour and a half drive up from the factory.

[1997] We had a good time.

[1998] Yeah, it was fun.

[1999] For sure.

[2000] Didn't have enough time.

[2001] That's all good.

[2002] That's the thing.

[2003] It's like you just get warmed up when you play for like an hour or two.

[2004] Yeah, yeah.

[2005] Well, listen, brother, I appreciate you coming here and I love your cars, man. And I appreciate you making wild shit.

[2006] Likewise, man. I just love that you do that.

[2007] You just make wild shit.

[2008] you know like whenever i look at your uh your website he's like he's got a thousand horsepower camaro like what the fuck are you doing an exorcist like jesus christ man like everything is just so bonkers over the top all of it the gt 500 not fast enough yeah what does it only have 700 horsepower we built a thousand horse power yeah exactly but from the factory 700 from the factory we built a thousand horsepower uh gt 500 for jim farley the CEO and he his son went out and around Monterey, California last August and had a blast with it.

[2009] The fucking videos that you guys have of people sitting in the car and you see the acceleration.

[2010] Oh my God.

[2011] Yeah.

[2012] I love that you're out there, brother.

[2013] Appreciate you very much.

[2014] Appreciate you.

[2015] And thank you for being here.

[2016] It was a lot of fun.

[2017] All right.

[2018] Goodbye.