#956 - Guy Ritchie

[0] Boom, yes.

[1] Boom, we're live.

[2] What's up, brother?

[3] How are you, man?

[4] How are you, Joe?

[5] You got a little pocket hanky there?

[6] A little pocket square.

[7] Well, I tell you why I wear a pocket square.

[8] Please.

[9] Because if you don't wear a pocket square, you have the appearance that you've been squeezed into a sports jacket or a suit for conventional reasons that your mom put you in there or you're off to church or something.

[10] Or you go into the office.

[11] Right.

[12] As soon as you put a pocket square.

[13] wearing there you own the jacket it's your idea not someone else's idea ooh dude you're thinking several steps ahead i like it we're gonna get into this aren't we jack we are gonna get into this well we're talking before the podcast about these press junkets and about how you entertain yourself by forcing yourself to use a certain word yeah the danger the the worst thing in the film business is press junkets and as you were saying they're rather ineffective and that's my suspicion too they're not they're also inefficient and ineffective because you sit in the chair someone comes in and they ask you a question why how how good an actor is david beckon when he's in underpants or whatever it is and you answer it in some facile fashion and on the fourth time you answer that question you're starting to swat flies that aren't there you're starting to go mad.

[14] So what happens is you have to play games with yourself.

[15] So you get someone on the side to throw different words at you like valetudinarian or varisimilitude.

[16] And then that keeps you occupied because you're thinking when someone asked me about Beckham in his underpants, I've somehow got a stick in a varisimilitude.

[17] And I'll say it's not easy.

[18] And your answer's become very creative.

[19] Well, to ask someone to be sincere and ask the same questions over and over and over again to them, like to have people keep filing in and a new person comes in and asks us to say, so tell us about this film and how did this get started and so who whose idea was it so um i saw a film john balman made excalibur in about 1980 and uh i was an impressionable young man of 10 and it was the first like knights in shining armor film that ever spoke to me i wasn't particularly interested in narrow Flynn uh or any incarnation that they did in the 50s uh in this genre but john bullman's one was rather good.

[20] It was very aggressive and no one spoke to one another.

[21] They all shouted at one another.

[22] So it took some time before you realise that that's why it was so intense.

[23] It's quite camp.

[24] So it had this sort of weird juxtaposition of being camp, yet simultaneously aggressive.

[25] And, you know, they had a budget of $25 and no visual effects and lots of very shiny 19th century armour.

[26] And it made a real impression on me. Because it was a voice.

[27] It was a creative voice.

[28] So it made an impression on me. And then somewhere in the attic of my mind, I relegated it until the point where I had enough creative ideas in my reservoir to bring it forward and make a film and then someone gave me money and Warner Brothers wanted to make it and yada, yada, yada.

[29] And then it was the challenge, I suppose, of trying to take a sojourn into this world, the fantasy, epic fantasy.

[30] medievally lord of the ringsy kind of a world and it's completely out of my wheelhouse so i find the challenge provocative and exciting as well that's it's a fascinating era like or a genre you know that fascinating world of the fantasy you know knights and swords and bows and arrows and that that realm for whatever reason has been like intoxicating to people for a long time yeah it's an archetype so you're interested in farm and you're interested in nurses um um you're interested in the superheroes, obviously.

[31] I mean, arguably Arthur was the first superhero because he's the guy that extracts the sword and it's Gallup and can do all sorts of wondrous things.

[32] And this myth is 1 ,200 years old, 1 ,400 years old.

[33] And it's as relevant to there as it was then.

[34] But because it's an archetype that somehow kids either dress up as farm and policemen, soldiers or knights.

[35] so we it's almost like we relived it it's like an outfit that we wore 12 hundred years ago so you feel familiar in it it's just it's fascinating that that one genre that one sort of archetype is just locked into the psyche of people yeah it's it's there isn't it the other thing about it which is quite fun is you can take these kind of mystical rides into metaphor so So you can symbolize things with 300 for elephants, which you can't do in some version of a realistic world.

[36] So it becomes you have broad poetic license to take liberties.

[37] Are you using CGI in this movie?

[38] A lot of it.

[39] Yeah, wow.

[40] What's that like?

[41] Boring but creative.

[42] It's three years to make this movie.

[43] I'm used to making movies that take three months to write three months.

[44] Three years.

[45] Three years.

[46] Three months to write from beginning to end.

[47] Something like Snatch was three months, six weeks to shoot, two months to edit.

[48] So Snatch was three months to do the whole thing or to write it?

[49] To write it and to shoot it.

[50] The whole thing, from the beginning to the way it was done.

[51] Beginning to the end of six months.

[52] Oh, wow.

[53] And then three months, say, for editing.

[54] So you're wrapped and packed in nine months, ten months.

[55] So this is a totally different kind of commitment as far as your mind and...

[56] Yeah.

[57] I really knew what I was getting into, I would have asked for double bubble on the salary because you thought I think it could be a year and a half.

[58] It's not.

[59] It's three years.

[60] Like when you play on a movie like this, a big epic movie, do you have an actual schedule of when you think it's going to begin and when it's going to end or do?

[61] You do, but, you know, the terrain of filmmaking has changed exponentially like everything, like with technology.

[62] So what was pertinent last year is not pertinent.

[63] and this year so release dates are a real dog so we had a release date which was projected a couple of years from when you start the movie so they go right here's a check make in a movie you're coming out in it was we were supposed to come out exactly a year ago but then what happens is if you're not a branded movie you get elbowed off that date you know star wars or something will come along and then you're not going to compete with star wars so you've got a move because you can't compete.

[64] So you've got a very crowded market with lots of brands.

[65] Now this isn't something that we used to suffer because everyone was equal.

[66] Going into the equation, you give yourself the advantage of having a movie star or something, but that doesn't exist anymore.

[67] What exists now is the brand is the big brother.

[68] So he comes muscling and bullies his way into a weekend.

[69] And that's why you can't really get new films breaking through because those weekends are already occupied.

[70] So trying to break through is a real struggle.

[71] We had to wait a year for a date.

[72] And the date that we're coming out on is one weekend after Guardians.

[73] Now, Guardians will be a vast hit.

[74] And it's very dangerous being within the parameters of a big movie.

[75] That's a really interesting thing that only movies have to go through these days, right?

[76] I mean, it's one of the rare things where people are getting out and going to see something that's been made together in a group.

[77] You know, that you're watching media.

[78] like it's not a live performance it's something that's been created and it's going to press play at 8 p .m. on Friday night and everybody's going to go to see it and you've got to get as many of those people together as you can it's one of the rare things like that yeah and it's becoming more polarized so it means more now so you're opening weekend everything's about they know what you're going to make by Thursday evening right right you're coming you're supposed to be coming out on Friday and everyone knows what you're going to make by Sunday night on a Thursday evening there's enough clever people out there's enough clever people out there tapping into clever little boxes, and the computer says, da -da -da -da -da, and they're seldom wrong.

[79] Now, that never used to be the case.

[80] You used to come out, and the films would get discovered, you used to have a little platform, you start small, go big, that sort of nonsense.

[81] Now you've just got to come out ball swinging.

[82] And if you don't come out ball swinging, people get very upset and they think that this is a failure, it hasn't lived up to expectations, even if it's a creative success, nobody likes it.

[83] Well, you know, there's a bit of that.

[84] you know there's there is an acceptance of a movie's good and movies find their own way usually in the end anyway but the financial aspect has become polarized it's too significant of a component in the equation because it should you know it's an art form right in the end of the day it's entertainment and an art form and somehow you want to unify reconcile that so because they're essentially different.

[85] Reconcile those, put it in a nice little package.

[86] So you put in a pill with a sweet wrapper around it and then you've got both.

[87] And then you should be happy.

[88] You should have the substance and you should have the flavour.

[89] But then now the focus is all on the flavour and not on the substance.

[90] And that's result -orientated.

[91] So your movie comes out and they go, what do you make?

[92] Right.

[93] It's like, slow down, son.

[94] What's the movie line?

[95] the question first of all should be what's the movie like rather than what did it make and it's just it's become too competitive and too comparative financially and i love a dollar bill and i like things that's successful but it has to be secondary to what's primary and primary is what's it like creatively well a film like not to shit on it but fast and the furious all i heard about was how much money it made that's all you hear it's like the big story the big fast of the furious opening box office hundreds of millions of dollars all you see is like it's going to make a billion dollars why do you give a fuck why does anybody who's watching that give a fuck you're not going to get any of that money why is it so appealing that this movie has made a billion dollars because it's comparative and it's competitive yeah but why to people in the audience because it's voyeuristic yeah so you can it's like spectator sport who's the winner right you don't do you really care about how they won you just care about the fact that they did win.

[96] Or like a Floyd Mayweather, you want to find out how much money he made.

[97] He made $200 million that fight.

[98] People get excited about it.

[99] It's an extra element.

[100] Yeah.

[101] There is a sort of vicarious life that people can have through sports stars, celebrities and success.

[102] If they feel somehow related to, or they went on the opening weekend, or they are invested in, then if it's successful, then somehow proliferity, um, successful.

[103] Yeah, that could be.

[104] That could It's weird, right?

[105] It does get weird, yeah.

[106] The business of movies is a very, very strange business because you're a creative business, but you're also a business enterprise.

[107] I mean, you're a financial business.

[108] And when it's a guy like you, like your movies have a certain flavor.

[109] You know, like you start off with lockstock and two smoking barrels.

[110] Like that movie has a flavor to it.

[111] And then your other films are like people want to go to see that kind of flavor from your films.

[112] Do you feel like pressure in that regard, like to live up to those expectations?

[113] or to conform to these ideas that people have of your movies?

[114] Yes and no. Yes and no. It depends what mood you catch me in.

[115] I like what I do, and I'm going to do it anyway.

[116] I just like it very much when people pay me to do it and give me the money to go and do it.

[117] So I don't mind the financial aspect of it.

[118] I don't mind films having to compete.

[119] What I'm after is a reconciliation.

[120] And as I say, the primary component should be on the quality of the work.

[121] That should be what's primary.

[122] But I don't grudge films being successful.

[123] I like them to be successful.

[124] I like the competitive element.

[125] But sometimes when you're talking with executives, you realize, mate, your priorities are on the wrong thing here.

[126] In the end, it is a creative medium and that is what has to be primary.

[127] Do they get in the way of a guy like you, though?

[128] I would imagine the guy like you, they give you a certain amount of leeway.

[129] They give you all the leeway.

[130] Oh, that's beautiful.

[131] Yeah.

[132] And my experience with studios, it'll be very positive.

[133] And they try to encourage your, hopefully what is your individual idiosyncrasies.

[134] They want you to put your imprint upon the work.

[135] And they've been nothing about encouraging in that sense.

[136] But, you know, people betray their agendas whilst, you know, you're in like conversation.

[137] Or they portray their priorities.

[138] So you want to trust a man because he's a man of substance and to a degree, independence.

[139] So he's not looking at.

[140] to me to find himself through me. So you're not asking me to tell me you who you are and that's the ongoing battle of life, right?

[141] We're all asking other people to tell us who we are.

[142] Right.

[143] And independence from that is a man that can be trusted.

[144] I don't want anything from you and thereby I can be kind to you because I don't need to manipulate you.

[145] You're no longer a crutch.

[146] Right.

[147] So it's got to be very difficult when you're in business with someone like that, especially like an executive, some slick character and a fine suit to find out exactly what his real motives really are.

[148] They're never in fine suits.

[149] Never?

[150] How do they dress?

[151] In appalling suits.

[152] Really?

[153] Yeah.

[154] I mean, business does never encourage fine suits.

[155] No pocket squares?

[156] Occasionally you find a token pocket square, but you can tell their heart's not in it.

[157] The wife stuck it in there because she saw someone on TV that had a bit of razzle -dazzle about them.

[158] And they thought, oh, I quite fancy my old man wearing one of them.

[159] And they sort of stick it in.

[160] The old man's been embarrassed about it and tries to squeeze it out of the way.

[161] Suits are a thing.

[162] The death of the suit.

[163] It was the death of the suit was the prosaic attitude toward, I'm going to work.

[164] And I've got to wear a suit.

[165] Yeah.

[166] I've got to put a tie on.

[167] And I don't want to stick out.

[168] That's how I feel.

[169] But that's what's happened.

[170] We've been brainwashed to not dress like gentlemen.

[171] But I see a guy like you, and I say, that's appealing.

[172] Like, look how you're just.

[173] dressed and you're in a conservative suit this is a nice like i'm sure you could wear any suit you wanted but you chose a cert that has a certain look to it yeah i have spent some time asking around with this joe but a bit like the same reason that we spent time asking around with the old pocket square it's i remember thinking how much i found the suit repugnant and i became angry that the suit had been robbed from us and so i had to create an alibi and so i had to create an alibi buy a way in to understand why it is that I'd like a suit.

[174] This was the magic of Ralph Lauren.

[175] The magic of Ralph Lauren, nice Jewish boy from New York called Lipschitz, created a waspy empire.

[176] There's a wonderful expression that, you know, think Yiddish, Dresh, British.

[177] And Ralph Ryan created this great empire and resold the waspy world back to the waspy world.

[178] Actually, not to the waspy world, because in England there was a sort of resentment.

[179] about Savile Row traditional tailoring because it'd been robbed from them.

[180] The offices had come along, the number crunchers had come along, and there was no creativity in the suit.

[181] A suit needs to be creative.

[182] The person that puts it on can't be putting it on because he's told to put it on.

[183] He's got to want to put it on.

[184] So what Ralph did is he fashioned up this sort of quasi -New England world and soul, he took on a trope, He took on a cliche, and he refashioned that cliche to give it a new sense of life, a new sense of breadth.

[185] He'd put black people in the suits where traditionally it was just a white man's suit.

[186] He made it feel new.

[187] He gave it a take.

[188] So what he did is he tipped his hat the old world, but also tipped his hat in the new world.

[189] And it allowed wasps to find their way back into the world with an eloquent narrative.

[190] It was clever.

[191] I'm getting fascinated by the way your brain works, because for you, it's important.

[192] that the person want to wear the suit.

[193] And I have a feeling that that's sort of, that's symbolic of how you feel about life itself.

[194] Like, the person has to want to be doing what they're doing.

[195] They have to want to wear that suit.

[196] It has to be an authentic gesture.

[197] Um, did you ever read a book called Extreme Ownership, written by a couple of Navy Seals?

[198] Uh, that's Jocco Willink, right?

[199] No. No, that's, uh, I think it is.

[200] Is it?

[201] Is it Jocco's book?

[202] Yeah.

[203] Yeah, I've had Jocco on the show a bunch of times.

[204] Important book.

[205] Well, I've had them on once before.

[206] What am I talking about a bunch of times?

[207] Right.

[208] About them once, but talk to a lot.

[209] Yes.

[210] Now, there's lots of books that I've picked up on this theme, but they were very eloquent about it.

[211] If you don't own something, you're not the boss.

[212] You have to take full responsibility for everything that you do.

[213] Why be subservient?

[214] You must be the master of your own kingdom.

[215] I feel you.

[216] Makes a lot of sense.

[217] You've got to own things.

[218] You can't just walk into things with your eyes half open.

[219] You'll walk into things.

[220] with your eyes fully open.

[221] You've got to know what you're getting into.

[222] You have to take possession of your life.

[223] Is this a thought process that you have to constantly reaffirm?

[224] Yes, it's exactly that.

[225] It's exactly that.

[226] You drift on this point.

[227] Right.

[228] And it is whatever form of meditation or mantra that you decide to espouse, there needs to be some period in your day where you remember that there's a world out there trying to tell you who you are and there's a world in here that's trying to tell you who you are now where do you want to put your eggs because the world outside is very noisy and very tempting and it has all the rasmataz as all the tints and all the glitter it's got all the toys but that's because you don't think you're enough in the first place if you don't think you're enough in the first place the whole idea of the world to sell you stuff is first of all they have to make you feel bad about yourself less than in some way.

[229] And I don't resent this system, by the way.

[230] It is the system.

[231] But what's the expression about don't hate, don't hate the player, hate the game.

[232] Don't hate the game.

[233] Love the game because you're in it, mate.

[234] So own the game, accept the rules and move on into the rules.

[235] So the world will try and tell you who you are and you have to tell yourself who you are.

[236] And there's this ongoing battle and somehow there needs to be a reconciliation between the two but in the end you've got to have all the eggs in your basket there's also an ongoing internal battle though isn't there there's the you that you want people to think you are and there's the you who you are and trying to figure out like how do i how do i figure out who i am like am do i have a correct assumption of how the people are perceiving me and how i actually am objectively or am i bullshitting the world with this suit and pocket square.

[237] Yeah, I would say, it's exactly the scenario that we're talking about, there's essentially only two worlds.

[238] There's the inner world of energy, and there's the outer world of energy.

[239] There's two identities, one's real, one's false.

[240] The external world is, I'm asking you to tell me who I am.

[241] That's what we're all playing at.

[242] And as soon as you start playing that game, we run into a sort of trouble, call it the ego, call it whatever you want to call it.

[243] But that's the dynamic that we're in.

[244] and somehow we have to give ourselves enough confidence to reassure ourselves that we are enough.

[245] However, I enter the game because I've got to move on in the world.

[246] I've got to crack on in the world.

[247] And I know there's loads of temptations that come along the way.

[248] So I will own the suit.

[249] I'm going to wear the suit, but I'm going to own the suit.

[250] Now, I don't mean by paying for it.

[251] I mean by owning it.

[252] It's now my suit.

[253] It's my idea to put on this suit.

[254] I have to personalise it in some way.

[255] I have to understand a narrative.

[256] allows me to own that suit.

[257] And thereby, I put on my suit of armor and I come out into the world.

[258] And guess what?

[259] I'm in a good time because I'm owning the suit.

[260] Now, this is a very rock -solid philosophy.

[261] Is this something you've ever written down?

[262] It's what the essence of narrative.

[263] I'm a storyteller.

[264] The essence of narrative is only about this dynamic.

[265] There is nothing else in a story other than this dynamic.

[266] So the struggle between other people's perceptions and your own wants and desires and who you truly are, your significant real self.

[267] That's it.

[268] That's all there is.

[269] You tell me a story that didn't, that we engaged in that's famous, that's not about this journey.

[270] I'll give you an example, the prodigal son.

[271] Parable, Christian, seems religious, doesn't really make much sense.

[272] Do you know the story?

[273] Sure, but why don't you lay it out?

[274] So there's a father.

[275] He has two sons, an older son, a younger son.

[276] And he says to them, who wants to spend their inheritance?

[277] The younger says, says, me, Dad, I'll go and spend it.

[278] And the younger son takes all the dough, and he runs off and sniffs Coke off strippers' tits for a number of years until he realizes this is getting pretty boring and I'm in a lot of trouble.

[279] He ends up feeding, throwing food to pigs.

[280] That's his job.

[281] And he can't even eat the food that he gives to the pigs.

[282] which point he says, Dad, will you take me back?

[283] Dad then goes to, they don't meet.

[284] This somehow happens, not through telephones, it just happens.

[285] At which point, Dad goes to the fatty calves, says, kill the fatty calf.

[286] Older son says, hold on, Dad, what's going on?

[287] I've stayed with you since the beginning.

[288] I've been loyal to you.

[289] And I hear the stories of my younger brother coming back, who's been sniffing coke off strippers tits for the last half, on those how many years.

[290] And you're prepared to kill the fatty calf.

[291] what's the SP, Dad?

[292] I want to know the story.

[293] He says, you're all right, son.

[294] Don't worry about that.

[295] You take a little step to the side.

[296] You'll always be with me. You're a good boy.

[297] At which point he goes out to meet the prodigal son.

[298] The wasteful son.

[299] The wasteful son returns.

[300] And he says, you were lost and they're found.

[301] That's the end of the story.

[302] It's quite hard to make sense of that in a literal sense.

[303] You go, oh, dad was a bit unfair.

[304] He should have been kind to the oldest son because he never ran off and did anything.

[305] thing.

[306] But the essence of the story is that you are the father.

[307] You are enough.

[308] Your older son is your intellect.

[309] He says, oh, don't do this, don't do that.

[310] He's trying to reconcile, make sense of a prosaic and material world.

[311] The younger son, being the wild, feral entity that he is, wants to go out and find out what it's all about.

[312] So in his recklessness, and sense of adventure, he finds that he can't escape himself.

[313] So he has to return to himself, and at which point he has to accept who he is, at which point the intellect is left out the equation pretty much, as the older brother, because he can't understand the significance of the journey of the wasteful brother.

[314] In the end, you have to leave yourself to understand the value of yourself.

[315] You have to lose stuff before you realize that all the stuff that you're losing is ephemeral and transitory.

[316] It's not yours.

[317] You're enough.

[318] You're always enough.

[319] But you've got to somehow prostitute yourself before you realize your own value.

[320] That is the essence of all stories.

[321] That's deep guy, Richie.

[322] Is that something you think about all the time?

[323] I mean, is this like a cemented philosophy?

[324] So, King Arthur, the story you just made.

[325] A man is a king has a son.

[326] the son the father runs into a bit of agro the son jumps into a little boat a little skillet and he's not skillet that's what you cook your chops on isn't it yeah um skiff a little skiff the skiff takes off down the river he gets found by prostitutes he's bought up in a brothel he understands the ways of the street he becomes a king on the street he works his way out at different ladders and then he pulls a sword from a stone at a certain point in his life a certain point of evolution and then from there he goes on to be the king there's a bit of a tussle all along the way lots of wrestling matches in the end he fights down his demons and he becomes the king so what's the significance of this narrative that every man in himself is aristocratic that he is his own king he takes a sojourn into the material world has to climb up all the different runs on the ladder and ultimately has to return to himself the significance of the extraction from the sword from the stone is the stone is the stone material world.

[327] The material world which seems all solid because it controls you whilst you're projecting your sense of identity upon it.

[328] The extraction of the stone is taking back your own authority, your own divinity, your own authority, your own identity, whatever it is that you've got to call it, your own power.

[329] You're no longer looking for a sense of self outside of yourself.

[330] And then you have to face the demons that you've created in your history by facing them and fighting them and owning them, you put them in the face of who you are, and that's a wrestling match.

[331] You'd have to take away all these crutches, and that's all that we struggle from in life is taking away our crutches.

[332] Oh, please tell me who I am.

[333] Oh, please give me a bit more money, so other people think I'm clever, oh, and then I'll have a nice car, and people think I'm clever.

[334] You've got to take away all these crutches and stand as the man that you are, and you're liberated from your whole thing.

[335] That is the story of King Arthur, but it's not just the story Rick King Arthur.

[336] It's the story of all narrative.

[337] Do you think that most people that are watching the film are going to get that, though?

[338] They're just going to get an entertaining story.

[339] They're just going to see a bunch of cool stuff, some drama play out.

[340] But this is fascinating that you're operating so many levels underneath it.

[341] But I'm a storyteller.

[342] It's my business.

[343] So if I'm in the business of story, I might as well understand story.

[344] And do you need to understand all that?

[345] I'm not sure if you do.

[346] It depends where you are on the ladder.

[347] So you can just go along.

[348] I have a nice bit of entertainment.

[349] Good guy, bad guy.

[350] Everything's literal.

[351] There's nothing wrong with literalism.

[352] It is what it is.

[353] It's the game.

[354] You can glean what you can glean when you're ready to glean what you're ready to glean.

[355] Are you a Joseph Campbell fan?

[356] I am a Joseph Campbell fan, yeah.

[357] Yeah, that, I mean, that's a reoccurring theme in his work.

[358] The hero's journey.

[359] Yes, the hero's journey.

[360] This underlying sort of narrative that just really guides all stories and all ancient tales and that there's something inherently human about them, important about these stories.

[361] and that they resonate with our wants and needs and goals and even also maybe the structure that we really truly need in our own life.

[362] Yeah, I mean, all the stories from whatever period, I'm sympathetic to this particular to Joseph Campbell's philosophy on this, but he's not the only one, right?

[363] Right.

[364] The weird thing about religion is religion has done to the spiritual significance of narrative what the businessman did to the suitor.

[365] he's literalized it he didn't realize that putting on a suit is putting on a suit of armor is putting on something that's rather spectacular it's just doing it for convention you're doing it for others you're not doing it for you and in our literal mind we look at a narrative and we see the narrative for what we believe it to be the exterior aspect of the narrative so we completely we see the world upside down we don't we're not actually interested in the essence of the narrative because we're so busy pandering after the approval of others so everything that we see every narrative that we listen to every film that you see you're not really interested in its soul you're interested in its body because that's what we correspond to it's fascinating that you're comparing it to suits because it resonates like when you think of a guy showing up for work or getting ready for and he doesn't want to go and he's putting on the suit and it's just dredging through it and putting it on and or you think about a guy who's crisply tucking in his collars and putting on his cufflinks and tightening up his tie and he feels empowered by the whole process of it it's very appealing like if you see it in a film too it's very exciting this is a man of purpose they did it in mean streets i don't know you remember harvey kitell getting dressed to go up on a friday getting dressed to go out on a friday night and it affected a whole generation of people the about the way they dress because he owned it.

[366] Yeah.

[367] I never really thought about that until this conversation.

[368] It's not because I just, I don't really, I wear suits occasionally, like very, very occasional.

[369] But you've been robbed.

[370] I've been robbed.

[371] You've been robbed.

[372] There are so many aspects of life.

[373] Food for a long time got robbed from us, and we've slowly managed to claw that back.

[374] That's true.

[375] But clothes, really?

[376] You're a 45 -year -old geezer and you're still dressing like an 18 -year -old?

[377] What casts is a lot about?

[378] Well, some people like to be comfortable, though.

[379] I get that, by the way.

[380] And they like that look.

[381] Comfortable?

[382] Your suit's comfortable?

[383] It's comfortable.

[384] Yeah.

[385] You can get poured into this, completely deconstructed on the inside.

[386] Made by a chap called Brunello, knows what he's doing.

[387] So these are all handmade?

[388] It won't be handmade.

[389] Tailored?

[390] No, I bought this off the shelf, and I had a couple of things tweaked.

[391] But it's as comfortable as a pair of pajamas.

[392] Really?

[393] Yeah.

[394] So, again, you have to broker it.

[395] a deal you can't put on things that are uncomfortable because guess what happens in the morning you're looking through your suits you go oh i like that one but i'm going to wear it a comfortable oh so they all have to be comfortable well otherwise you're not going to play the game are you i have a thing about ties though go on i'd kill someone with a tie on for sure you can kill someone 100 % if i get a hold of that tie you're dead joe this conversation needs to go on for longer than it's going to go on that's the thing about ties you're wearing a rope around your neck If someone just gets a deep grab...

[396] Joe, what are you thinking about?

[397] Twist.

[398] I'm not going to have a fight with anyone whilst I'm wearing a tie.

[399] I'm sure you're not.

[400] But it's, I mean, you would have to, in a deep disagreement, you'd have to wrestle that sucker loose and take it off to be safe.

[401] I'm not going to indulge this.

[402] You shouldn't.

[403] You shouldn't.

[404] It's my own personal problem.

[405] I just feel like someone with a tie on, all you have to do is grab that thing.

[406] And that's a wrap.

[407] Like, if you went into a jiu -jitsu match and you had a rope running neck, you're a jiu -jitsu practitioner, right?

[408] I am, yeah.

[409] So don't you've, I'm sure you've been college hoaked then.

[410] Yeah.

[411] Yeah, I've been fighting for 20 years, Joe.

[412] Yeah, more than 20 years.

[413] This thing around your neck.

[414] Like, really?

[415] By the way, my game is I'm all about the ghee.

[416] I mean, I play, yeah, I played a lot on the own ghee.

[417] But I've come back to the ghee.

[418] And the reason I've come back to the ghee is I'm quite tasty with the ghee.

[419] Quite tasty?

[420] Quite tasty with the ghee.

[421] I can, there's a couple of moves that I'd like to show you.

[422] It's a bit tricky on your, with your, with your, t -shirt, but I'm all about strangling man with his ghee, which somehow elegantly segues from the tie.

[423] I mean, I'm all about creating what I call the hangman's rope out of the bottom of your ghee and turning that into a thing.

[424] So you're one of those guys that pulls the body of the ghee and wraps up?

[425] I'm that guy.

[426] I'm out there.

[427] And I played this game for a long time, which is the wrapping around the wrist.

[428] Or, you know, the foal, so you get that little.

[429] dinosaur flippy thing there so your arm's out of action but then i discovered something joe if you slip that gie in through there so what he's doing for people just listening he's talking it like towards his on the inside the inside crux of his elbow and once it comes in on the inside you can't get that hand out again that's it basically the fight's over from there the fight's over from there because you from then on you own that arm hmm it's interesting we should have a little roll around at the after this joke how long you've been training now 20 years what belt 20 years black belt from henzoh oh that's legit man that's seriously legit do you think most people know that you've managed to keep that on the dL a little bit not so much not so much no well i think if you ask the average person in the street is guy richie a black belt and jihitsu they go no is he but does the average man in the street know what black belt and jihitsu is anyway i think they do now more than ever oh it's yeah probably more now well that's why when i see a guy that's experienced as you wearing a tie i go hmm maybe you're just super confident about no one being able to get to that tie joe i'm not what's going on well i'm a ridiculous person that's what's going on i mean you have your own ridiculous ideas about owning suits i have my ideas about getting choked to death wearing a tie like i said i'm not going to indulge it you're fishing i'm not fishing i'm honestly i do i really do have an issue with ties okay but it looks wonderful on you thank you very much I mean, for real, it's a very elegant appearance, the whole thing, from the top to the bottom.

[430] When did you start training?

[431] Under Who?

[432] Where were you?

[433] First of all, I did karate for 15 years.

[434] I did Shodokan karate, which I was obsessed with, got a second down in that.

[435] And then ACL went twice on the right leg.

[436] And I watched Choke.

[437] Can you remember Choke?

[438] Sure.

[439] And I watched Choke, and that was a revelation, because old man, what was his man, Julio?

[440] Elio.

[441] Elio.

[442] The old man earlier was on the mat, 84 in that video.

[443] I thought, well, I'm not getting any younger.

[444] And if I'm going to take up a martial art, I love fighting.

[445] So I'm very happy to talk about fighting for a long time, Joe.

[446] I fancied the idea that I'll be, because if I stayed with karate, I realized I would not be on the mat at 84.

[447] So, and back then there was no jiu -jitsu in London.

[448] There was judo, and they had what was called Nawaza, which is the ground game.

[449] and they're pretty tasty we got some good judo players so I went from crati to judo but I was only interested in the ground game and then Roger Gracie came to live in the UK about 20 years ago and Roger Gracie went on to become the world champion eight times and I started taking lessons with him and his dad Maricio then I ended up in New York for I think we lived in New York for a while with my ex -wife and I went to Hensos gym when it was above the methadone clinic.

[450] And I fell in love with Hensow.

[451] And I fell in love with Jiu -Jitsu in a sort of serious way.

[452] And I became obsessed with it for a number of years.

[453] Hensai gave me all my belts.

[454] I mean, I should have got a black belt.

[455] Well, I say I should have got a black belt.

[456] I became lazy to a degree.

[457] So I got a black belt when I should have got a black belt.

[458] And as you and I know, there are some tasty blue belts out there can have a lot of fun with me. But I sort of drifted a bit.

[459] I came in and out, sustained a few injuries.

[460] But if I was training hard, I think you train hard.

[461] You get blackout in five years, can't you?

[462] You've got to be obsessed.

[463] Yeah, but five years.

[464] There are kids that are.

[465] Yeah, you can.

[466] I mean, I was a brown belt for eight years.

[467] So you're talking to the wrong person.

[468] No, no, no, I'm the same as you.

[469] I was brown belt for eight years.

[470] I think it's, if you're a real fanatic, you could get it in five years.

[471] But it's super rare.

[472] Like, BJ Penn got it in three.

[473] Right.

[474] almost unheard of there's a few people that have done that yeah there's some guys in our gym in london in rogers place that they're there five days a week three hours a day they mean it and within six months they're a proper pain in the ass yeah yeah well once you become obsessed with the movements and you start studying the various positions and the possibilities it becomes a part of your life becomes a part of your almost like your your your operating system and as you see these guys reinforce that operating system you see their their game becoming more and more complex and to be able to chain attack after attack and being able to anticipate the defenses of those attacks and plan two and three steps ahead and you see all this play out.

[475] It's an amazing, I really, really enjoy watching someone go from being a beginning student to being a killer.

[476] It's a fascinating process because you're literally watching someone develop their comprehension of a language of fighting and that language of fighting is analogous to life.

[477] It helps them in every single aspect of their life because it's one of the most difficult things that a person will do in their day.

[478] I mean, you walk into a jih Tzu school, you park your car, you live in this normal realm of normal people with normal problems and bills and stresses and issues, but once you go into that thing, you put on that ghee or no gear or whatever you're doing, and you go into that class, once you engage in these sparring sessions, these sparring sessions with skilled practitioners, you're doing one of the most difficult things.

[479] Any person within a hundred mile radius of you that's not fighting for their life is doing.

[480] And by doing that on a regular basis and constantly reinforcing this language, it enhances all your possibilities and your potential possibilities as a person.

[481] Very eloquent.

[482] I mean, I couldn't agree with you more.

[483] One of the great things I found about Jiu -Jitsu is whenever I came to a city, we'd just tap into a computer where the next gym was.

[484] And we'd roll down there.

[485] I'm usually with two or three people.

[486] Ivan out there, he's also a black belt.

[487] I got a chap that I was with called Bobby the Tits who was an Olympic judo player You should see the chest on this geyser He is a beast That's why he's Bobby the Tits So across between Ivan are terrible And Bobby the Tits We used to hit these gyms And everyone There's a complete substructure there If you want to be looked after They'll give you a gaffe, hello mate How's it going And there's the brotherhood I suppose it's probably the same For people to go to church I don't know But there is a brotherhood that I found amongst fighters where everyone's like game and friendly, come around at the barbecue, and everyone's, there's a whole substructure there that everyone will look after everyone else.

[488] And I've never, in the 20 years of fighting in different gyms, have I lost my temper?

[489] Or have I had a reason to lose my temper?

[490] Right.

[491] Has anyone ever been a bully?

[492] You've had people a bit clumsy, got a bit carried away.

[493] But there's such a system of accountancy that you can't get away with being a bully because there's always a bigger bully.

[494] And you know, you're going to get found out.

[495] And I like that aspect of it.

[496] Everyone gets found out.

[497] Yeah, especially over time, right?

[498] I mean, if you're training consistently with really difficult training partners, your character is going to be tested.

[499] There's just no way around it.

[500] There's no way around it.

[501] And sometimes I end up training quite a lot at home, right?

[502] I've got five, six mates to come around there.

[503] It's not the same as going to a new gym with new players.

[504] Right.

[505] And you've got to get out there.

[506] I know a few rich guys that have got trainers.

[507] And they're not bad players, you know.

[508] The trainers are good.

[509] And the fighters are good.

[510] But because they don't get outside of their comfort zone and go to a feral gym, a gym on the street, it's very hard for them to really evolve.

[511] Right.

[512] You've got to keep putting yourself in an uncomfortable spot in uncomfortable gyms.

[513] And like, as you said, when you do that, though, you do see kind of the same thing over and over again, the same type of human.

[514] You know, you just see them in London or you see them in London or you see them.

[515] in New York or in Los Angeles.

[516] You see that same type of human.

[517] It's the great thing about a sport in general, but let's be specific because it's something that you and I can relate to, is there are no barriers in jiu -jitsu.

[518] No one's looking at you.

[519] If you're rich, you're poor, you're black, you're white.

[520] It's completely irrelevant.

[521] You come to the mat, and if you get on with the gaze you're fighting, you get on with the geese that you're fighting.

[522] Yeah.

[523] And there's a complete clarity of vision when you're fighting someone.

[524] It's just you're fighting them, and you rate them on their ability of how they fight.

[525] Yeah, and you carry, that social hierarchy like what what what's important in that school is that it is like who is proficient who's very good that is that is that's the that's the currency yeah the ultimate currency yeah right yeah it's yeah i had a name when i used to train out here or in new york that they used to call me hollywood because i was like the only celebrity kind of person that you come in and say oh all right hollywood you found it's a little roll around this that but that you know and a couple of people initially went oh you that giza and yeah that lasted all the 30 seconds Right.

[526] And then everything gets wiped.

[527] You have no currency on the mat other than your currency on the mat.

[528] Right.

[529] And there's a wonderful clarity in that.

[530] Yeah, for a guy like you or any big time celebrity, that's probably one of the only few places where you really, truly experience that.

[531] Like, there's no bullshit in that role.

[532] Like, when someone's going after you and you're going after them, it's 100%.

[533] It is what it is.

[534] There's all the bullshit veil of society has been removed.

[535] Yeah.

[536] I mean, I'll muddy the water a bit now.

[537] So, harking back to what we were talking about previously, I'm aware that you become less adventurous as your ego grows in Jiu -Jitsu, right?

[538] Particularly for the guy that doesn't tap.

[539] If you're the guy that doesn't tap, you don't ever want to be the guy that doesn't tap, and you hunker up and you become a boring fighter.

[540] And it's an issue.

[541] You know those guys, and there's a couple of guys that I can think of one in particular, that if you get the better of him and by and large he's better fighting than me but all of a sudden he realizes he's in trouble just before I'm about a tap and he goes oh stop there one sec guy if you just moved a little bit to the road it gives the instruction those guys are the worst that's their alibi to get out them losing face so what faces it they're losing is the crutch that they actually think that being a jiu jitsu player has an identity in itself and it doesn't you cannot use it as a crutch and it's the essence of all martial martial arts.

[542] Martial arts was about find yourself within that framework and be honest about it and you meet the opponent and is your man, Connor will tell you, you're finding it's about you fighting you in the ring.

[543] What your other part of the mind the other part of the mind that we were talking about wants to say is about your reputation in the gym and what people think of you.

[544] So again you're trying to find an identity from outside of yourself by not tapping.

[545] And you know that And by the way, I suffer it myself because I don't like to tap either.

[546] But it makes my game, it inhibits my game and it stops me being creative.

[547] Yeah, Marcelo Garcia has always been very adamant about that.

[548] You have to open up your game in the gym and it's the only way to really truly progress.

[549] And don't worry about being tapped and don't have that ego.

[550] And there's a great video of him and Damien Maya rolling.

[551] And they're rolling, they're putting almost no kinetic strength, no explosive energy, nothing athletic.

[552] They're just going through the movements and exchanging positions, and they're tapping each other, left and right and left and right with no ego.

[553] It's really interesting to watch because you see, like, Marcelo catch Damien, and they roll to a position, and Damien taps, and then they go through another position, and Marcelo does it, and it's just, it's really fascinating because what they're doing, they're truly flowing.

[554] There's no, like, real, oh, here we go right there.

[555] You can see them do it.

[556] But, like, when these guys do it, like, as they're doing it, they're obviously using strength, and they're countering with skill.

[557] but everything is very smooth and controlled.

[558] And you're looking at two of the very best black belts to ever do it.

[559] You're looking at Damien Maya, who right now is arguably the top contender in the UFC's Welterweight Division.

[560] He's going to be fighting Jorge Mons Vidal next weekend, actually, which is a really intense fight because Mazzvedal is a killer.

[561] And then Marcelo Garcia, who's probably one of the all -time great strangulation experts has ever walked the face of the planet.

[562] I mean, he's really revolutionized a lot of aspects of the guillotine, the rear naked choke.

[563] And I was in Brazil in Sao Paulo in 2003 when he burst onto the scene, when he choked out Shaolin.

[564] And to see these two guys rolling together is really, really interesting because this is really kind of how you have to do it.

[565] You just do it.

[566] You know, there's no one is saying, I can't tap, I can't, you know, I can't put myself in a bad position.

[567] They're exchanging positions.

[568] like right there when Damien gets underhooks and he goes for the deep half Marcel's just rolling with it they're just flowing yeah but you need two to tango didn't you can't have one with an ego and and who's not going to play the game and bunkers down and screws himself down it makes the whole thing very hard to do it's got to be you both got to be complicit yep yeah absolutely yeah it's very it's very interesting watching like two really really high level guys like this role or like you know Hodger Gracie and Brailleo Estima or something like that.

[569] England's got a great scene.

[570] Yeah, it does.

[571] There's so much top -level jiu -jitsu over in England right now.

[572] Yeah, it's got some good players, yeah.

[573] It used to be a time just a couple of decades ago where if you wanted to train, it was very difficult to find really proficient instruction and great training partners.

[574] It wasn't possible.

[575] I remember because I was first into it when we made Snatch, which is 18 years ago, and that's when Hodger first came to town, and before then it was just judo.

[576] just no other yeah well i mean you can certainly get something out of that but um it seems like the the level of uh i mean there's some people that have just a one rock solid attack like ronda rousey had that rock solid attack with the arm bar and she comes from that judo background that's a naughty arm bar oh it's nasty her arm bar to this day i believe is one of the best arm bars i've ever seen in mma not just because uh she was successful with it but would you watch her transitions You watch how she's able to adjust and change.

[577] The Katzangano fight is a perfect example of that.

[578] Katzengano just charges at her like a fucking bat out of hell, and they have this mad scramble, and Rhonda realizes a position that she doesn't even utilize, but she understands arm bar so well.

[579] She knows, well, I could just throw my hip over this way and kick back here, and I'll catch that arm bar.

[580] This is just overall understanding of the position is so high level.

[581] Yeah.

[582] When someone has a move like that, I used to fight a bit with Hickson.

[583] And Hickson used that thing where he ties his hands behind his back and you've got to try and do something to him.

[584] Right.

[585] And you can't do anything to him.

[586] The level of sophistication when it's like that, he was so technical, Hickson, that it was, what I understand about Jiu -Jitsu is really rather primitive.

[587] But I'm aware I'm primitive.

[588] and I'm aware that my understanding of jiu -jitsu is really quite primitive.

[589] And then when you see something like that arm bar, come sneaking out of nowhere, or it's a magnificent thing to behold, isn't it?

[590] Yeah.

[591] Yeah, and what you're saying is kind of interesting because someone listen to this and go, how is a black belt primitive?

[592] Like, you're not primitive.

[593] You're an expert.

[594] But I understand totally.

[595] I'm also primitive.

[596] I know what I know.

[597] Like I understand, like there's what.

[598] What Hickson's language is is a series of words that you've never heard before spoken perfectly in the right order with no pauses or ums or no filler and the way he flows with it.

[599] It's just he's got a level proficiency that very few other than Marcelo and Damien Mai can really appreciate the true beauty of it all.

[600] Because they just don't, like I won't see things coming.

[601] They're too complex.

[602] It's completely different language.

[603] Yeah, yeah.

[604] But you know enough.

[605] I read a good line somewhere the other day that someone had enough brains to know that they didn't have any brains.

[606] So you know enough to know that you're in treacherous and deep waters here.

[607] Otherwise, your average geez starts rolling around with one of these good guys, oh, you know, he's all right.

[608] But, oh, there's Joe or guy.

[609] They'll be the same.

[610] They've got the same color belt on it.

[611] Let's have a go with that.

[612] Yeah.

[613] Yeah, you just get man. handled now um you said you had your knee fixed you uh you blew would you blow out an ACL ACL I've done it twice yeah did you get um cadaver replacement or no hamstring and then patella hamstring first time patella second time and the hamstring blew out right yeah those things blow out a lot uh yeah eventually it gave in I had the first one done I was about 21 okay and the second one done was about 31 and it's held together but the old knee's a bit knackered do you know about stem cell yeah how are you feeling about stem cell great I was that close to shoulder surgery and I had some placental stem cells shot into my shoulder and it's amazing and where did you have that done Vegas really yeah there's a guy named dr roddy mcgee who's at the the tip of the spear when it comes to the technology that's involved today what was the issue with the shoulder a bunch of tears just stuff just years and years of abuse yeah my cartilage has gone on that shoulder and now my cartilage has gone on the knee and i didn't really know anything about stem cell about two weeks ago and now that's all i'm hearing about oh well i have a podcast i'll send you and it was with me and Dr. Rod and McGee that we did about a month ago.

[614] Fabulous.

[615] He's amazing.

[616] And again, he's well up to date with the latest technology.

[617] And he's also very conservative in his approach to it.

[618] But what he's saying is that they are able to regenerate cartilage and meniscus tissue.

[619] And this is the first time anything has ever come along that actually regenerates these tissue.

[620] They've been able to trim it and do things to it to mitigate pain.

[621] But now they can literally regenerate tissue.

[622] They're even injecting it into people's discs now.

[623] the disc's in their spine and they're showing that they can regrow disc tissue yeah but you you've just mailed my three issues disc issue and cartilage yeah that's all my issue is of course meniscus and cartilage and disc what do you got going on with your back everybody's got something yeah it's the traditional issue with those three see whatever that calls at the bottom of the bank i'm going to show you something else that you're going to need and you're going to get after we have this conversation i have a machine out back called the reverse hyper and it was created by this mad genius named Louis Simmons.

[624] And with the reverse hyper is a machine that decompresses your back and also strengthens it at the same time.

[625] It decompresses it on the down swing.

[626] And then on the upswing, it strengthens all those muscles around it.

[627] But it literally pulls the back apart.

[628] And the compressed discs, which is bad posture, load, degeneration.

[629] And you can look up on the screen.

[630] This guy's fucking crazy.

[631] He's one of the craziest people I've ever interviewed.

[632] hilarious, but he's an old -time power lifter, has been doing it forever.

[633] I mean, he's got fake shoulders, fake knees, everything's blown out.

[634] He has no biceps.

[635] His biceps are completely severed off of his arm.

[636] He, uh, what was he saying?

[637] Like he was, he had to, his friends were making a max out bench like five days after his shoulder replacement.

[638] He's a fucking maniac.

[639] But they were trying to fuse his discs.

[640] And so he came up with this machine.

[641] And you see as it swings down, when she's swinging down, it's pulling her back apart.

[642] Like go to the, the, the, here, go when it's going down it's pulling the back an active decompression and as she's swinging up she's strengthening all those muscles in the spine in a real weird way where you really can't get at them and was this is the issue because you can do the soup my superficially I'm strong there but the core underneath the superficial muscles yeah and when I had the MRI you could see all the fat in the surrounding muscle around the discs and you could see the fat in it and then as soon as you hit the superficial, you went, oh, that's fine.

[643] There's nothing wrong with the superficial.

[644] So it's a, I need a weight like this.

[645] Yeah, just buy one of those, man. Where you have to beast through your superficial muscles to get to your core muscles.

[646] Well, it's just, it forces that area of the body to work.

[647] Like, you're sustaining a load, and you can, you lift it up and you hold it in that position.

[648] And then as you let it go, it's decompressing.

[649] And in the decompress cycle, you're feeling your muscles relax.

[650] and you can actually feel it pulling.

[651] Like you feel in the lower back in a weird way.

[652] You feel it kind of pulling and separating, and then a couple of seconds later, you're strengthening it again.

[653] And then you're pulling and separated and you're strengthening it again.

[654] And then I have another thing out back that I bend over from the waist on, and it allows my lower back to just completely relax, and my upper body pulls down on my lower body, and it separates and decompresses the lower spine.

[655] I mean, it's been tremendous, a huge, huge asset.

[656] But there's a bunch of things they can do now.

[657] Have you heard of Regenicane?

[658] Do you know what that is?

[659] No. Regenicine is something that was developed in Germany that a lot of professional athletes like Kobe Bryant, Peyton Manning, they went over there.

[660] And it's a blood spinning procedure, similar to platelet -rich plasma.

[661] But they take the blood and as they're spinning it, they heat it up.

[662] And when they heat it up, the blood has a reaction to the extreme heat like it thinks you have a fever.

[663] So it produces this very intense anti -inflammatory response.

[664] Obviously, if you're a scientist or a doctor, I'm butchering this.

[665] And they take this yellow serum, which is this anti -inflammatory response, and they can inject it into all these areas that you have massive inflammation, like bulging discs, and it has an incredible effect.

[666] It had an incredible effect for Peyton Manning, allowed them to get back to football again.

[667] I had a bulging disc that was making my hands go numb, totally went away, through decompression and through this kind of stuff.

[668] Yeah, I heard this added 10 years to Kobe's career.

[669] Am I right?

[670] I'm thinking that.

[671] Yeah, that's what he thinks.

[672] So you know, I didn't, up until I'm 48, how many of you, Joe?

[673] 49, almost 50.

[674] So I didn't think about any of these things until this year.

[675] So I accepted an ACL, it's a bit of a nuisance.

[676] I accepted I got a bit of a creaky back.

[677] But in the last month, I went to my, something happened to my knee.

[678] And I went to the doctor, a little x -ray.

[679] And he went, well, I could operate for the 10th time.

[680] I've had an operation on that knee.

[681] But you're better off now waiting.

[682] Waiting for what?

[683] Until I give you a new one.

[684] I'm fucking hell.

[685] So he's talking about a replacement?

[686] So he's talking about replacement.

[687] Now, he's saying to just hold on, right?

[688] So he's saying in 15 years from now or whatever it is.

[689] But it all changed.

[690] And then a month after I went and had the shoulder X -rayed.

[691] And he looked at it and went, well, I could operate that.

[692] And I knew where we were going here.

[693] You're better off waiting until I give you a new one.

[694] I'm now that geyser where they're not talking about fixing.

[695] They're talking about giving me new ones.

[696] Now, I hadn't, so, you know, Ivan out there knows exactly what you're talking about.

[697] To me, there really wasn't a vessel to receive this information.

[698] Now, in the last month, I am ready to receive this information.

[699] So in the next three months, I will know of what you talk about.

[700] I immediately am going to connect you with Dr. Roddy McGee.

[701] As soon as we get off the phone or off the podcast here, I'm going to connect you with him.

[702] And he'll be able to keep you abreast of all the stuff.

[703] And it changes constantly.

[704] Like when I first went, I first got a shot in July of last year.

[705] And I was that close to surgery.

[706] I was trying to figure, okay, I was planning my time.

[707] I was saying, okay, if I get the surgery, I essentially can't use this arm for at least a few weeks.

[708] And it's going to be pretty weak for at least three months.

[709] And I was really accepting that.

[710] And he said, well, let's just give this a shot.

[711] And within a couple of weeks of getting this shot, I was like, God damn, this is.

[712] feels better than it's ever felt before.

[713] And so through a series of exercises, like a lot of rotator cuff strengthening exercises and bottoms up kettlebells, like where you have to stabilize the kettlebell.

[714] Those are fantastic for stabilization muscles.

[715] And then it also made me realize that if you're going to do something along the lines of Jiu -Jitsu, something that's very physically demanding, you have to strengthen your machine.

[716] You can't just keep going to Jiu -Jitsu, which is what I was doing for years.

[717] Yeah, me too.

[718] That was my exercise.

[719] I don't think that's adequate.

[720] I think you have to strengthen the machine.

[721] And I think yoga is also a really big important part of strengthening that machine because it's lengthening, it's decompressing the spine, and it's making you strong in these static positions, which is very similar to the load that's going to be pushed on those joints and on your back when you're doing jiu -jitsu.

[722] I tried yoga for a year.

[723] I tried every day because usually I can get into anything at some point or another.

[724] Just got to keep throwing enough hours at it.

[725] the one thing I couldn't get into couldn't do it maybe my approach was wrong I was doing a stung with my ex -wife and it was incredibly painful incredibly challenging but what I like about a fight is the competitive element of it yes I can but there's my enemy I can have a roll around with my enemy there's a tat there's a winner's a loser and for some reason that keeps me motivated the idea I mean in essence I imagine it's the what I was talking about in the end it's self against self with yoga.

[726] I just haven't made it that far to access that struggle and enjoy it.

[727] I feel like I'm always running on fumes with yoga.

[728] Yeah, well, you're going to run on fumes.

[729] But it's building a house one layer of paint at a time.

[730] I mean, it's not an easy thing to do.

[731] And I think that competitive element that you're talking about is an internal struggle.

[732] And that internal struggle is you and your breath, keeping your breath in calm and check and focusing entirely on your breath while managing the positions and then slowly but surely developing more proficiency in those positions more range of motion more dexterity keep going over and over again and then one day you get to a point for me it was like maybe a year and a half into doing it pretty regularly where i'm like okay now i can finally hold this position for 30 seconds whereas before i'd literally count to 10 and just try to to get to 10 and then I'd fall down and then I'd get back up and try again try to get to 10 try to get to 10 my feet would buckle my knee wouldn't be locked out and then I'd try again but once you develop a certain amount of proficiency then you can concentrate entirely on the breath and that's where the real struggle is and then keeping the mind on track not thinking about other bullshit not think about the just the struggle of life and all the different variables that you have to deal with on a daily basis thinking only of the breath the posture and the breath, very difficult to keep on track.

[733] So that, in therein, that's the competitive struggle.

[734] It's in your own mind.

[735] You see a consistency with the theme, though.

[736] The theme is this, that that's all there is.

[737] It's the outside world and the noise and what comes with that.

[738] And there's the internal self.

[739] But everything is, everything is subject to these rules.

[740] Yeah.

[741] And yoga, in this sense, is no difference.

[742] Jiu -Jitsu is no different.

[743] Narrative is no different.

[744] It's being aware of what the dynamic is.

[745] It's being aware of what's actually going on that I think is fundamental.

[746] Yes.

[747] Yes.

[748] And patent recognition, recognizing that it's the same for yoga is for the essence of a narrative.

[749] Absolutely.

[750] Yeah.

[751] And those things become a vehicle for developing your human potential, whether it's yoga or whether it's jiu -jitsu.

[752] And I think pattern recognition, they take place in both things.

[753] In yoga, you go, okay, I've been here before, I know where this is, I know, I know what to do, and you go right back into that thing of concentrating on controlling the breath, these big, long, deep breaths, and these big long exhales.

[754] And then the focus is entirely on the breath.

[755] And those patterns, they come up in jiu -jitsu as well.

[756] I mean, that ability to maintain breath.

[757] I mean, I'm sure you've recognized that in a person who just starts.

[758] Like, one of the things you see about someone who's just starting, even if they're athletic, they don't know what they're doing, they start hyperventilating.

[759] They don't know what to do.

[760] They start breathing weird, and the breath is like the first thing that you lose control over.

[761] And Hickson from that movie Choke, I mean, that was the big thing that separated Hickson from all the other jiu -jitsu players.

[762] It was his yoga.

[763] Yeah, his yoga, he made yoga sexy.

[764] Yeah, yeah.

[765] Well, he was the first guy to make it appealing at all to martial artist.

[766] I mean, that was what your wife did.

[767] That's what your mom does.

[768] It's what the housewives do.

[769] It's not something that a man does, especially not the top jiu -jitsu killer ever.

[770] It was a seminal, it was a seminal documentary that.

[771] Yeah.

[772] It changed a lot of people's lives.

[773] and it sort of turned Hickson into a rock star.

[774] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[775] I've had him in here.

[776] He's an amazing guy to talk to.

[777] I've talked to him several times, but having him in here and sitting down with him and talking to him about Jiu -Jitsu, it's like sitting down with Michelangelo and talking about art. I mean, you're talking about, there's masters, and then there's the master of the masters.

[778] And if you talk to any Jiu -Jitsu master, they all just go Hickson, is the number one.

[779] Like, there's no dispute.

[780] which is amazing there's there's very few like there's soccer players that are just elite and there's basketball players that are elite but when it comes to like who's the best in jujitsu there was always this one guy and while he was competitive and especially while he was young it was always hickson which is to me amazing that he was able to maintain and i think one of the things about him was his physicality and his mind and i think those two things in many ways were enhanced by yoga.

[781] I think he's got some disc issues now, though, doesn't he?

[782] He has quite a few.

[783] He has quite a few.

[784] Yeah, I think he has eight bulging discs, which is horrific.

[785] Maybe you should send him to your man. Oh, I'm going to, 100%.

[786] I mean, I've talked to Hickson about a bunch of things.

[787] Hickson, though, is a bit reluctant for certain kinds of treatment.

[788] You know, I mean, he's just going to eat mangoes and fucking meditate and shit.

[789] I don't know.

[790] I don't know what he's tried or what he's willing to try.

[791] but I would love to see him.

[792] I mean, I would love to see him rolling again.

[793] I mean, that would be amazing if they could regenerate disc tissue to the point where he would be healthy.

[794] I mean, that's the fear.

[795] Yeah.

[796] The fear for the first time for me is that I've never felt any version of age on the mat.

[797] But when people are starting to tell me, oh, we're not going to fix it, we're going to wait until we give you a new one.

[798] Okay.

[799] No, I don't know.

[800] It's the sound of this, mate.

[801] And when they're saying that about your knee, what is the issue?

[802] Is it a meniscus issue?

[803] It is a meniscus issue, but I've lost 75 % of the.

[804] meniscus of the cartilage oh i get confused between the difference cartilage and meniscus what is the different cartilage is what covers the outside of the bone meniscus is the padding essentially that's in between the two bones that keeps them from touching each other right okay so they have so it goes bone meniscus no bone cartilage cartilage yes right yeah yeah and the meniscus you can cut some of it out but when you didn't i've had that done um my left knee they they they they they They did a, you know, they're going arthroscopically and they trim some of the torn meniscus.

[805] Yeah.

[806] It's, it works, but it's less stable.

[807] There's less tissue in there.

[808] It's more subject to inflammation and swelling.

[809] It doesn't handle the load as well.

[810] But I got stem cell shot into there, and I've never had a problem since.

[811] It's amazing.

[812] I had a problem with it for, I mean, I tore it for the first time more than 20 years ago and had an operation, I think, in 95, somewhere.

[813] around there.

[814] And then I had another operation on it in 2001, 2002.

[815] And it's always been an issue since then.

[816] It's just one of those things that he gets sore.

[817] I just deal with it.

[818] Whether it's kickboxing or whether it's lifting weights or whether it's jujitsu, it gets sore.

[819] I just deal with it.

[820] You know, take glucosamine and chondroitin and a lot of fish oil and anti -inflammatories and changing my diet helped quite a bit.

[821] But there was always that thing until they shot the stem cells in there.

[822] And then literally within a few months, it's non -existent.

[823] Like, I don't think I have this knee that acts up anymore.

[824] Now I have a knee that never acts up.

[825] It just doesn't bother me anymore.

[826] This is very exciting stuff.

[827] It's very exciting stuff.

[828] And tell me how thin on the wedge are we in terms of this being new?

[829] Well, they've been doing it and experimenting with it for a couple of decades, apparently, according to Dr. McGee.

[830] But the understanding of the potentials and the possibilities and then the practical application is over the last 10 years has really come to the forefront.

[831] It's really become something very, very viable.

[832] It's not just theoretical anymore.

[833] Now they're actually seeing people regenerating tissue.

[834] They're seeing people where you have a tear in like your shoulder or something like that and they're going to probably going to have to get surgery.

[835] No, then they shoot it in there.

[836] And then next thing you know it, a couple months later, I mean, I still got some floating tissue that like pops and crunches and stuff in my shoulder.

[837] But when it comes to like the actual strength in my shoulder, I don't worry about it at all.

[838] Like, it doesn't bother me. I mean, there's, there's occasionally some light soreness, but as far as, like, the functional strength of the shoulder, it's like 100 %.

[839] It's crazy.

[840] So is this the thin end of the wage then?

[841] So is this going to, is this going to turn into one of those exponential, it is?

[842] Oh, for sure, for sure.

[843] They're already generating, they built this woman.

[844] This is very exciting.

[845] It's very exciting as it gets.

[846] They're regenerating tissue.

[847] They're regenerating body parts, they built this woman a bladder.

[848] She had a, they took skin cell, stem cells from her skin.

[849] And they, in a petri dish, they started this off and then built her a, she had bladder cancer, and they built her a bladder, and then put it in her body, and it's functional.

[850] It's amazing.

[851] I mean, this is all state of the art now, and when we're looking at like 10, 20, 30 years from now, I mean, you're looking at potentially regenerating all sorts of things, regenerating bone for people who have bone cancer, regenerating lungs and liver and spleen and heart.

[852] I mean, they're going to be able to make body parts.

[853] They've created an artificial heart that beats, like with stem cells.

[854] They've actually constructed a human heart.

[855] This is a subject you know something about.

[856] I'm fascinated by it.

[857] Fascinated by it.

[858] Because what they're able to do now is just, you know, you're just looking into the future.

[859] You get a window into this.

[860] and it seems like it's exponentially exploding.

[861] I mean, all over the world, there's people experimenting with this stuff and trying to figure out new ways to improve things.

[862] Just the fact I'm having the conversation, and this isn't the first conversation I've had in the last month, about this.

[863] It's part of the zeitguess, no?

[864] Oh, it is now.

[865] People are understanding it, and people know people that have had issues with it.

[866] You can't get it in America, but in Mexico, I know people that go over there and get it done intravenously.

[867] And, you know, boss rootin, you know.

[868] No, Boss Root, and the way he discreet, you know, Boss is this big character.

[869] He's like, and it was like I had energy coming off my fingertips, like, ah!

[870] Boss has had some pretty significant problems.

[871] He's got fused discs in his neck, and he had major atrophy in his arm because his disc was, you know, compressed, and it was pushing on the nerves.

[872] And so the nerves weren't getting, it wasn't, they weren't firing correctly.

[873] So his right arm, he calls baby arm, because his right arm is kind of shrunk.

[874] And so he's experimented with a lot of these things.

[875] He's kind of been ahead of the curve with this stuff.

[876] You should get Jason Statham in here.

[877] I would love to.

[878] You look like you fill out the same trees.

[879] I know he do, right?

[880] Yeah, it's very similar.

[881] He's got a couple of tweaks here and there.

[882] I met him.

[883] He's a nice guy.

[884] Oh, he's fabulous.

[885] He had a bunch of stuff going on with his body, too.

[886] I'm sure.

[887] He's a martial artist.

[888] By the way, he's in better condition now.

[889] He used to be an Olympic diver.

[890] He used to dive for England.

[891] You know, one of those whew -divers.

[892] Right.

[893] Fabulous athletes.

[894] And he takes care of himself I believe it He's a good nick But you know He's got tweaks Got the old knee That just never quite goes away That little thing And he does as much And by the way Get him on diet And he's off to the races You can't shut him up He's got to leave him there For three hours come back Going have a couple of beers Come back We're still banging on about it It's something that he cares Profoundly about I can tell you now If he was sitting here now There'll be a battle about you couldn't who was good to say what to who because you talk over one another um you should get him in here though he relate to a bit of this yeah no i'm sure do you watch a diet are you healthy eater not as healthy as i'd like to be i'll go up and down i play i oscillate with 30 pounds of extra nonsense 30 at the time yeah i'm now i'm weighing 190 now i should well about 192 actually today and I should be creeping around a good fight in the way about 178 so what is it is it a booze thing it's a booze thing it's not the booze the booze isn't the issue in terms of the calories itself the booze is the window to the calories itself the pizza pizza uh pizza I'm not a pizza man but I do love a pub a pub I do love a pub and I like a pack of crisps you don't really have pack of it you call them chips over here it's not quite the same thing they're not well no an English crisp is a heavyweight chip and they work particularly well in pub so it's two parts of Guinness and a couple of packs of crisps and you've belted in a thousand calories as complete nonsense in all of about 22 minutes right um the salt too is very appealing when you're drinking a cold beer yeah the whole thing just works enhances each other but it didn't take long before there's a heavy price tag that comes with that I train a lot I reckon I train weights three times a week and fighting, but another three times a week.

[895] I love training, but I like a pub.

[896] And it's trying to somehow reconcile that.

[897] And every now and then I behave myself to stay at the pub, stay off the booze for three months, and I can get myself down at 178.

[898] However, it's been five, six years since I've been there now.

[899] I just dropped eight pounds the other day, strictly.

[900] I was strict with myself off the booze.

[901] Because I'm off the booze, I don't look at food in the same way.

[902] The thing, the whole purpose of booze is to relax.

[903] The trouble is what also relaxes is the rules.

[904] Right.

[905] Right.

[906] Now, when you're, you're dealing with all these injuries, how are you able to train through all the stuff?

[907] If you've got a shoulder that they're thinking one day might need to be replaced, the knees that might need to be replaced.

[908] Yeah, just crack on.

[909] Crack on.

[910] Yeah.

[911] And I found that, and I'm sure you've had the same, through jiu -jitsu, whenever I get an injury, I find if you start mincing around with it and put it, paying too much attention to it.

[912] It can dogg on for longer.

[913] Nine out of ten of my injuries I just train through.

[914] And there's almost a bluffing game that you have with the injury.

[915] Who's in charge here?

[916] Me or the injury.

[917] And once the injury knows as though you mean it, it tends to moonwalk out the door.

[918] But there are more fundamental ones like the shoulder and the knee.

[919] The necks.

[920] Well, I say that, actually.

[921] The next has been giving me a bit of agro recently.

[922] So there are a few things that you need to take quite serious.

[923] Now, I can see you're onto this, Joe.

[924] I can see you're focused on this.

[925] this.

[926] Yeah.

[927] Yeah, I know a lot about this stuff.

[928] Yeah, but you're invested.

[929] Yes.

[930] Right.

[931] And you need to be invested if you mean it.

[932] It's ownership again.

[933] Your investment is ownership.

[934] Well, my good friend Eddie Bravo just had his disc replaced.

[935] He had it replaced with a titanium articulating lower back disc.

[936] So he had some pretty significant disc decompression or compression issues in deterioration.

[937] And it got to the point where his lower back was just constantly inflamed.

[938] You know, Eddie's world -class black belt.

[939] He just couldn't keep going anymore.

[940] Why didn't you send him to your man?

[941] Well, it was before they were actually shooting it into the disc.

[942] He had it done about a year ago.

[943] Right.

[944] About a year, about eight, nine months ago, something like that.

[945] So this does make me wonder whether you just hang on.

[946] Yeah.

[947] I would say with stem cells, with a lot of things hang on.

[948] With some things you can't hang on, like ACL tears.

[949] Once the tear, once the ligament is removed, there's nothing you can do.

[950] You have to have it replaced.

[951] It's a terrible thing.

[952] Yeah.

[953] The ACL, and it's such a common injury.

[954] But, you know, what's interesting is once you get it replaced, like for me, I had a Patelotendant graft on the left knee and then a cadaver graft on the right knee.

[955] Oh, right.

[956] You've had all sorts of things done there.

[957] Yeah, I've done it all.

[958] Right.

[959] But neither one of them bother me at all anymore.

[960] And they're stronger.

[961] Like, when they do a cadaver graft, they use the Achilles tendon, which is 150 plus percent stronger than your original ACL.

[962] So it actually makes it a stronger joint.

[963] Right.

[964] mine's not yeah well the patelot tendon graft is still stronger that when they use a patella tendon graft it is still strong and your patella tendon is a very huge tendon and you can like you can operate with a third of it missing which is essentially what they cut out when they I've known if my right leg which has had the two ACLs I've noticed it's atrified and there's very little I can do to beef up that quad that's probably because you're favoring your left side I am I am but then you know I isolate it and I beast the thing but I just can't engage it.

[965] I can't get a flat leg like a can on my left leg you get it completely flat.

[966] You mean extended it?

[967] So it bends?

[968] Yeah, so you can engage all your quads.

[969] Oh, yeah, you've got to get some stem cells in that bad boy.

[970] It's very exciting.

[971] It's very exciting.

[972] Yeah, it's the real deal.

[973] I mean, it's something special.

[974] It's 30 years I've been living with this.

[975] Yeah, they could fix you up.

[976] They can fix you up.

[977] But diet is huge.

[978] One of the things about diet is inflammation.

[979] And I never really wrapped that in my head.

[980] See, about three or four years ago, had a pretty significant back injury.

[981] And then just, like I was saying, my hands were numb.

[982] And it was because I was ignoring it, because I would pinch it in jujitsu.

[983] And then I would go, oh, I was still going to roll light.

[984] I'll just go in there and roll light.

[985] And then after a while, it was getting bad to the point my back was locking up, and my hands started going numb.

[986] And I'd get this pretty significant elbow pain.

[987] So I started really researching all the options and what's really going on.

[988] And one of the big ones that I found was diet, that when you have too many inflammation -causing foods in your diet, and you're eating too much sugar, and bread and booze and all these different things, that affects, it affects, like, how your body carries fat, but it also affects where your body holds on to inflammation.

[989] And joints in particular, all the injury spots were way sore when I had a shitty diet.

[990] So give me the evils, as Led Hamilton calls them, the three white devils, sugar, bread.

[991] What's the other one?

[992] Yeah, what is the other one?

[993] booze?

[994] No. It's kind of white.

[995] The foam on beer is white.

[996] What is it?

[997] You should know what the three white dallas are.

[998] Well, it's flour, pasta, sugar.

[999] I don't know.

[1000] What is the other one?

[1001] Dairy, I guess, maybe.

[1002] Dairy, there you go.

[1003] Yeah.

[1004] I like cheese, though.

[1005] So do you not drink?

[1006] Alcohol?

[1007] Yeah, I do.

[1008] I just try not to drink too much.

[1009] I mean, it's like all things in moderation, including moderation.

[1010] There you go.

[1011] Yeah.

[1012] I mean, I'm not a big drinker.

[1013] I don't like, I'm not drinking every night.

[1014] But if I go out, you know, and I have a drink or have a glass of wine with dinner or a couple glasses, I'm cool.

[1015] I think it's just a matter of just controlling yourself.

[1016] Yeah, that's really the thing.

[1017] So the three white devils, are you, do you subscribe to the three white devils?

[1018] I occasionally will allow myself to dance with the devil.

[1019] With all three of them?

[1020] Yeah, with a little bit of sugar, a little bit like last night I had some linguine with clams.

[1021] I don't know.

[1022] I go on an 80 -20, which means.

[1023] 80 % of my diet's very clean.

[1024] And then 20 % I'll fuck off, like whether it's Saturday or Friday or whatever.

[1025] How do you feel about raw milk?

[1026] I'm pastoral milk.

[1027] I love raw milk.

[1028] Very exciting.

[1029] I'm opening a little raw milk dairy.

[1030] Are you really?

[1031] I am.

[1032] I'm very interested in this whole thing.

[1033] More from a culinary point of view than I am from a nutritional point of view.

[1034] However, I suspect that there's a sweet spot here.

[1035] opening a brewery I love a beer you're opening a brewery opening a brewery yeah how much do you know about making beer yeah quite a lot actually have you been doing it on your own I've done all that sort of asking around underneath the stairs routine for years which is great fun I like any sort of form of caveman chemistry Francis Malman you know Francis Malman it's a big fan of that sort of thing I'm a bit of a caveman when it comes to anything to do with food so I do like a nice steak outside.

[1036] Right.

[1037] I take my, if I say so myself, I'm good on a barbecue.

[1038] And I've been, I've been doing that barbecuing for 20 years.

[1039] Good on a slow cook.

[1040] Take that all quite seriously.

[1041] But so, yeah, opening a brewery, beer.

[1042] And then when I'm at it, I'm opening a butchers, a baker's a candlestick makers, too.

[1043] It's going to a small hotel.

[1044] I've got a place in, in England, 1 ,500 acres, farm, got all that sort of nonsense going.

[1045] on.

[1046] So you're going to do farm to table the whole deal?

[1047] Make your own beer.

[1048] Yeah.

[1049] Raise your own animals.

[1050] Serve them.

[1051] Yeah, the whole thing.

[1052] Quite like gin.

[1053] I was just got into gin, actually.

[1054] Gin.

[1055] Yeah.

[1056] I mean, gin's traditionally an English drink, but I wasn't really into it until I came to America.

[1057] And I found since I've been here in the last, over the last week, it's been quite a few gin and tonics going on.

[1058] Yeah?

[1059] And gin apparently is the easiest of the spirits to make, so I might have a little swing on that, too.

[1060] I'm good friends with Maynard Keenan, the lead singer of Toole, and he went, essentially, for years, just went and developed his own vineyard.

[1061] Where is he?

[1062] Arizona.

[1063] Ah, right.

[1064] Yeah, and not in a place in Arizona that's known for growing wine.

[1065] So he had to manipulate the soil.

[1066] I bet he's having a lovely time.

[1067] Oh, he loves it.

[1068] Yeah, it's probably quite an expensive lovely time, though, wasn't it?

[1069] I'm sure.

[1070] He's making money with it now, but he's like a legitimate genius, and he's one of those guys that literally.

[1071] He cannot be stagnant.

[1072] It's not even an option.

[1073] I mean, his mind works a thousand miles an hour.

[1074] And when you're talking to him, you just kind of kind of jump on the train and hang on there with him as long as he can't jump off and go, whew.

[1075] But he's just a very, very, very intense guy.

[1076] And his particular brand of intellectual curiosity led him to start experimenting with wine.

[1077] His wine is absolutely fantastic.

[1078] And he's a legitimate wine expert.

[1079] Like you sit here and talk to him the same way you and I can talk about.

[1080] Buccecha or, you know, Hodger Gracie or Henzo, he can talk to you about wine.

[1081] And he's also a purple belt and jiu -tsu, too, so he can talk to him about that as well.

[1082] He's an intense guy.

[1083] I like the sound of this.

[1084] The wine business I do find interesting.

[1085] Actually, there's something happening with the whole craft movement in general that's very exciting that we are going back to local stuff and people, to a degree, it's ownership again.

[1086] Yes.

[1087] It's take ownership of your food.

[1088] to take ownership of everything to do with the important components of your life.

[1089] And it all got robbed from us.

[1090] Yeah.

[1091] You know, what happened in the 70s in the UK is all these breweries bought up all the pubs.

[1092] And they brought up all these small breweries.

[1093] And you used to have all these breweries with their own little crafty beer going on.

[1094] And then they homogenized it.

[1095] And then they sold it back to us.

[1096] And they gave it back to us without character.

[1097] And we just bought it because we were stupid.

[1098] Right.

[1099] Yeah.

[1100] And then what's happening is is we realized that.

[1101] that character is important, and local character is important, and ownership is important.

[1102] So there's this movement, and to a degree, things like Instagram may have a dark side, but also has a light side, is given a voice to the craft movement.

[1103] So I like a man that makes his own knives, and you followed any of that stuff?

[1104] Yes, I order handmade knives all the time.

[1105] It's what I use to cut my food, like they feel good.

[1106] It's a completely different experience.

[1107] I have exactly the same thing.

[1108] We order a lot of handmade knives.

[1109] And when you're cutting your food with a handmade knife, it's not what it used to be.

[1110] You realize a knife should be a thing.

[1111] And it got robbed from us.

[1112] Do you know what Steve Kramer is?

[1113] No, I'm sure if I do.

[1114] He's a guy who makes knives with meteorites.

[1115] Yes, I do know.

[1116] I've seen him.

[1117] There's a little thing on YouTube on it.

[1118] With Anthony Bourdain.

[1119] Yeah, I've seen it.

[1120] I've seen the thing, yeah, with Anthony Bordane.

[1121] He takes a chunk of iron.

[1122] It came from space.

[1123] It's fabulous.

[1124] Yeah, it's amazing.

[1125] Yeah, yeah.

[1126] Actually, I've got a feeling that might have been the genesis of my interest in knives with that anti -Bordane thing.

[1127] There's a guy, Ma Mousie Fire Arts.

[1128] Find that on Instagram, but he just made me this Damascus steel cutting knife and a hunting knife to go with it.

[1129] And it's just, I mean, I cut with it, but it's just I stare at it for minutes before I cut with it.

[1130] I look at the blade and the handles made out of a thousand -year -old bog wood, like wood that was like preserved from a bog, like bog maple.

[1131] It's amazing.

[1132] This is amazing.

[1133] But why is it so interesting?

[1134] But the fact is, it is interesting.

[1135] Like look at the pattern in the steel.

[1136] This is Damascus steel.

[1137] If you go to his Instagram, there's a picture of my knife in there.

[1138] You could see it.

[1139] This guy is, I mean, that's it right there.

[1140] The far right, those two.

[1141] Those are the two knives that he made for me. Oh, that's a sexy bit of kit.

[1142] Oh, fuck, yeah.

[1143] Look at those.

[1144] Ancient bog oak.

[1145] That's what it is.

[1146] Where's the bog from?

[1147] Is it an American bog?

[1148] I don't know.

[1149] I'd have to ask him.

[1150] I just took his word for it.

[1151] But look at that thing.

[1152] That's lovely.

[1153] I mean, that's what I used to cut up garlic.

[1154] Our sword, Scalibah, we made out of Damascus scale.

[1155] Ah, man, really?

[1156] Yeah.

[1157] I'm into a bit of Damascus.

[1158] So did you have a bladesmith fashion for your movie?

[1159] Yeah.

[1160] Wow.

[1161] So you had it specifically made for the movie.

[1162] Yeah.

[1163] Poor old Charlie Hunnam, who plays King Arthur, is, he's been waiting to receive this sword.

[1164] How much does it weigh?

[1165] I mean, this motherfucker had it get in shape for that thing, right?

[1166] Yeah, oh, he's in good nick.

[1167] Like, you ever do those, like, shield casts with a steel club?

[1168] Yeah.

[1169] You realize how difficult it is to manipulate even a 15 -pound club.

[1170] Yeah, a bit of hard work.

[1171] Very hard work.

[1172] Those guys, like, sword fighters must have had intense shoulder strength and core strength.

[1173] Yeah, but they dig these guys up.

[1174] In the UK, every now and then they stumble across a body that's a thousand, 500 years old.

[1175] And they realize the deformity in the shoulders from all of the...

[1176] the, whatever you call that when you pull a bow back.

[1177] Yeah.

[1178] And it used to be an English law that every Englishman had to practice for eight hours a week to pull back a bow.

[1179] So you've got all of these skeletons that are deformed from the enormous strength of the soldiers on the shoulders.

[1180] Deformed how so?

[1181] Like, what is the issue with it?

[1182] It was the sheer, you'll have to, Joe, you know a lot more about this than me, but they had become deformed through the, development of the muscle which in some way then change the the bone structure itself yeah wow we've got these massive great right arms there's I don't know if you know in the UK you know in this country you do this the finger which is the single finger right in the UK it's two fingers right but why is that's for bows and arrows right it comes from the English wars and the French wars and the English one were famous for their long bow It was a famous Battle of Adjancourt where there was a couple hundred of us and there was 10 ,000 of them and they had crossbows about then and we had this, the long bow.

[1183] The long bow was the machine gun in the bow and arrow world.

[1184] And because the Brits, that's what they did.

[1185] They were eight hours a week.

[1186] Every Englishman had to do that.

[1187] They were pretty lethal with these things.

[1188] Anyway, they annihilated the entire French army.

[1189] It was this kind of famous battle.

[1190] The French have conveniently forgotten.

[1191] um so what the french did thereafter if they ever call an englishman was they chopped off two of his fingers the two fingers that pulled back the bow so whenever as as history then um made eloquent is that whenever you saw a frenchman you used to wave the two fingers up at him and then since then it's now just become you know the old ubiquitous fuck -off sign have you seen the way the mongles did it the mongols they had these incredibly powerful recurve bows it would take 160 pounds to pull back and they use their thumb they would have a a thumb ring made out of bone have you seen that no i haven't i do like a mongol though they there's a fantastic audio documentary on the history of the mongols they're The Wrath of the Khan with Dan Carlin.

[1192] Do you ever listen to that?

[1193] Yeah.

[1194] It's amazing.

[1195] Yeah, Ivan out there is a bit of a fan of yours.

[1196] He keeps me up to date on different things that you're interested in because he's interested in the same things.

[1197] I didn't know about the knives.

[1198] And there's a couple of other things that I didn't know that you knew about.

[1199] But he's a big fan.

[1200] He got me onto this.

[1201] See those things right there?

[1202] I think he got onto this because you got him onto it.

[1203] Ah, well, I'm sure.

[1204] But once you hear Dan Carlin, I mean, it is absolutely addictive.

[1205] But this is the ring that they would put on their thumb and they would pull back like that.

[1206] and then they would wrap their index finger over the thing where the thumb nail is, and then pull it back that way and then release.

[1207] That's how they would release their arrows.

[1208] Well, it didn't get him very far, did it?

[1209] Well, it did for a long time until Genghis Khan died.

[1210] I mean, they killed 10 % of the population.

[1211] No, I mean, I was kidding.

[1212] Joke around.

[1213] They killed so many people that changed the carbon footprint of Earth.

[1214] There was a New York Times article about how many people died during Gingis Khan's reign that it was so significant, you could see it in the carbon data.

[1215] You're kidding?

[1216] No, no, I'm not kidding.

[1217] See if you could pull that article.

[1218] He killed between 50 and 70 million people during his lifetime were directly attributed to his army and his decisions.

[1219] 50 to 70 million people died.

[1220] The conservative estimate is somewhere around 30.

[1221] The liberal estimate is somewhere around 70.

[1222] Nobody really knows, but they think it's between, look at that.

[1223] Mongol invasion in 1 ,200 altered carbon dioxide.

[1224] They killed so many fucking people.

[1225] They changed the earth.

[1226] There was probably only a million people kicking around on the earth.

[1227] I don't know how many people there were.

[1228] I think there was a lot more than a million because they killed a million people in Jing China.

[1229] They killed people in numbers that we can't even.

[1230] In Jen, I think it was, Jen China, they showed up, and this was part of the Dan Carlin series, the quiz man Shaw, sent.

[1231] sent like an envoy, like a party, to go search this city in China, and as they pulled up, they thought what they saw in the distance was a snow -covered mountain.

[1232] As they got closer, they realized it was a stack of bones.

[1233] And the roads were so deteriorated from human bodies, just rotting human bodies, they had to abandon the roads because they couldn't get their cars through, their wheels rather through, because their wheels were getting bogged down.

[1234] Their horses were getting bogged down.

[1235] in the muck of deteriorating bodies.

[1236] That's how many people the Mongols killed.

[1237] What the fuck?

[1238] And was it just a desire for empire?

[1239] It's a real good question.

[1240] First of all, is the dehumanization of the enemy.

[1241] I mean, his idea was that everybody who doesn't live in a tent, anybody who doesn't live the way they do, these fools that live in cities, they weren't even human.

[1242] They were sheep.

[1243] Like, there was a certain disconnect between them and the other, which is imperative.

[1244] It's the most important thing in war.

[1245] You have to decide that that person is not you, right?

[1246] You have to decide that they're the other, whether it's the Vietnamese or the German, the Nazis, the Japanese, like, whatever it is, you have to decide that they are less than you.

[1247] And they had this thing about people that did not live like they did, that they were pussies, these weak people that lived in these cities with their walls.

[1248] And so they would just find these cities.

[1249] They'd stroll up and they would just figure out a way to start attacking them.

[1250] they would light bodies on fire and launch them with catapults onto the roofs of these buildings.

[1251] But what was the motivation?

[1252] It was just conquering, just conquering.

[1253] I mean, they just wanted to expand their empire and take over.

[1254] I mean, it's not, there's no noble pursuit in there.

[1255] There's no religious pursuit either.

[1256] I mean, it's a, it was.

[1257] Just expansion.

[1258] Yeah, well, they just wanted to own it all.

[1259] They felt like everyone they encountered was subject to their rule.

[1260] And they had to, they had to establish that.

[1261] It's a very, very intense series.

[1262] No, I remember.

[1263] I got into about five years ago, and I remember the bone thing.

[1264] I copied the bone thing in King Arthur.

[1265] I've got mountains of bones.

[1266] Oh, nice.

[1267] No, but I do remember some of that.

[1268] Funny how things drift.

[1269] You'd appreciate this.

[1270] This is a legitimate samurai sword from the 1500s.

[1271] Really?

[1272] Yeah, that's a real one.

[1273] Well, that's quite sexy time.

[1274] What's this shark skin going on up here?

[1275] I don't know.

[1276] I mean, I think that the case.

[1277] is probably a modern case.

[1278] But that blade itself, that is a blade from somewhere around 15 -11, they think.

[1279] How'd you get your hands on this?

[1280] It was a gift.

[1281] Really?

[1282] Who from?

[1283] My business associate, Aubrey Marcus.

[1284] Really?

[1285] A good buddy of mine, and we're in business, had On It together, and he gave me this.

[1286] That's quite a thing.

[1287] Yeah, it's quite a thing.

[1288] That's a real thing.

[1289] It's not one of these blades that once you take out, it's got to draw blood, is it?

[1290] No, no, no. It's a funny thing.

[1291] We got this, there's a military, unit in the UK called the Gerkers that come from Nepal.

[1292] There's been a tradition for a couple of hundred years.

[1293] And they have these funny little knives with hooks on.

[1294] Yeah, they're weird knives.

[1295] Weird knives.

[1296] And once they draw them, once they're out of their sheath, they're not allowed to put them back until there's got blood on them.

[1297] So they have to cut themselves?

[1298] So they're not going to kill anybody?

[1299] Jesus Christ.

[1300] That's like a weird excuse to cut yourself.

[1301] Yeah.

[1302] I mean, doesn't that that's like a pretty rigid requirement.

[1303] Don't draw it unless you're going to draw blood?

[1304] What can I tell you?

[1305] Yeah.

[1306] Being a soldier is tough stuff.

[1307] It is as tough as it gets, yeah.

[1308] Now, that's something about your film, I'm sure, is you're dealing with a different time and that life back then, although always precious, the finite aspect of life is more solidified.

[1309] It's more obvious.

[1310] It's something that you're dealing with on a daily basis as opposed to the way we live.

[1311] Yeah, I think there's all sorts of advantages to that.

[1312] If you're looking down the barrel of a gun, nothing soberes you up quite like looking down the barrel of a gun and we've managed to distract ourselves by the comfortable liberal lives that we lead and that the price for that is that we don't really accept the full accountancy of life so we do give ourselves crutches where you look down the barrel of a gun all your crutches are taken away so I suppose in different periods of time you didn't have to, you didn't have the indulgence of being able to worry about what people thought of you because there were more important things to worry about.

[1313] Yeah, yeah, there were more important things to worry about than social media.

[1314] You had to worry about arrows, swords, death, constant.

[1315] The thing is, even come back to the Mongols, so what was his desire for gain?

[1316] His desire for gain was, the more people appreciate and respect me than the more I'll be.

[1317] Is there anything else that kills people other than that motivation?

[1318] Not like that.

[1319] Well, not even like that.

[1320] I'm just talking about murder.

[1321] Right.

[1322] The whole genesis of murder is based on the principle that someone has more power than me, so I have to take that power away.

[1323] Or my comparative sense of self feels augmented if I can take their life away.

[1324] It all comes back to the same thing.

[1325] You're really asking someone to tell you who you are.

[1326] and if you paradoxically and ironically if you kill them that makes you more powerful than them although they can no longer bear witness or they did bear witness for a second but what does bear witness is the story in your mind that somehow you are now more powerful or you just fucking hate them you don't want them around anymore but why'd you hate them because they're threatening yes they're threatening to some way they're threatening in some way that somehow they can diminish your idea of who you are Or you find them repugnant, their actions, repugnant, dangerous to their society, something.

[1327] Then that's not murder then, is it?

[1328] Right.

[1329] It's just eliminating an enemy, right?

[1330] Or eliminating a threat.

[1331] Yeah.

[1332] If you could go back, I mean, I've often thought about this as technology evolves.

[1333] Like, will there be a, will there come a point in time where you can have a window to a certain era?

[1334] Like, will time machines ever be a thing where there's a time where you can actually go back and view the past?

[1335] like is there a period yeah is there a period that you're probably quite a lot because of Google Earth I'm one of those I like a good porn on Google Earth so where I live in Wiltsham I've got a house in English countryside next door to Stonehenge if you go on Google Earth where they plow the fields you can see where there have been burial sites for thousands of years yeah Stonehenge is about five and a half thousand years old but all around that area in these plow fields you can see they've still got burial bounds and burial mounds and whatnot and the whole earth is littered with pre -historical earthworks and burial sites and there are burial sites that we have this thing called on the survey which registers i mean but you'll have the same thing here which registers everything on the earth right so everything of any historical value there's a map and they tell you where the footpaths are and the roads are and everything it's highly detailed how how high the mountains are and the roads and whatnot.

[1336] And I'm a bit of anorak for that.

[1337] Do you know what the expression of anorak is?

[1338] No. It's like a geek.

[1339] Okay.

[1340] You know those guys that watch trains and planes and they usually wear those jackets called anorak.

[1341] So that's where the expression comes from.

[1342] So I'm a bit of an anorak for topography, the history of topography.

[1343] So you go on Google Earth, this was a bit of a wet dream as far as I was concerned because I can spend hours and hours pouring over landscape and around my house you can find these all these burial sites that no one knows existed and there's only since Google Earth has existed I'm confident and still I'm the only person that those these burial sites exist So how do you know their barrier sites?

[1344] Like what are you seeing if you're fighting on?

[1345] You can build up an understanding of patent recognition again you can see an established burial site which is seen as a pre -historical burial site site, Bronze Age or whatever it is, and then you step a mile to the right, and then you can find one under a ploughed field where they've got rid of the mounds, but you can still see the depressions, which is in exactly the same shape as the depressions, a mile to the right.

[1346] And then you can build up a whole pattern.

[1347] So, you know, this is the area where you get crop circles.

[1348] Yeah.

[1349] So, and then you can build up a whole picture, which is a much bigger picture.

[1350] and then you can start to predict where one burial site is going to be and it's a bit like finding treasure and you go, oh, 200 yards that direction, 200 yards that, and it should be about a bang.

[1351] There it is.

[1352] You can see half of these depressions and then it runs into a wood or whatever it is.

[1353] But this stuff that exists and you wouldn't have known before Google Earth came along.

[1354] How much work is being done on trying to study those things?

[1355] Well, the thing is, I'm sure quite a lot, but the thing is it's prehistoric.

[1356] So the really, the only thing that there's, there is arrowheads right right and burial mounts and every now and then they dig one up and then they find a boat buried with lots of gold in yeah and that happens every now and then um but there isn't much evidence that it was left behind so you know most of these things are just a mound of earth with a few bones in but it's kind of crazy because that's an area where people have been living for thousands of years it's not like people went away and then came back and now you're trying to like people have consistently lived in that area like and then the You see things like that horse, that stone horse in the countryside.

[1357] Yeah, the chalk horse.

[1358] Yeah, like...

[1359] There's one with a big man with a big willy, too, who's made out of chalk.

[1360] There's a horse.

[1361] He's a man at a chalk.

[1362] Look him up.

[1363] He's a man with the big white willie.

[1364] And all in that area, that you have these different emblems of what represented, tribes or whatever.

[1365] So we now live in the UK, which is the United Kingdom, but there is a little...

[1366] legacy there.

[1367] I mean, you'll have the same here.

[1368] There is a legacy there that you can you can trace back step by step for thousands of years and we get you know get my nut around the Romans right.

[1369] That was a couple of thousand years ago and the Romans been kicking around the UK a couple of thousand years and then they went and then then came the Saxons and then after the Saxons then the French came in and then the French basically took over the UK in 1066 And then you have the culture that we have now.

[1370] But you can see, you somehow you forget that your culture goes on for thousands of years.

[1371] And you accept really what we see as history is the last 6 ,000 years or 5 ,000 years.

[1372] But when you can have a connection to it and it goes back further than that, it's hard to get your nut around the Romans.

[1373] Never mind the Bronze Age.

[1374] Yeah.

[1375] What is that?

[1376] There's the guy with the Big Willie.

[1377] Holy shit.

[1378] What an odd...

[1379] And how old is that?

[1380] I don't know.

[1381] Did it say how old it is?

[1382] There's lots of that that goes on around those parts.

[1383] You imagine that guy running at you?

[1384] Fully erect with a giant club.

[1385] How strange.

[1386] And there's a bunch of these and do they understand the origins of these things?

[1387] Do they know where they came from?

[1388] I don't know is the answer to that.

[1389] These are later.

[1390] They look quite primitive though, didn't they?

[1391] Yeah.

[1392] I think these are later.

[1393] How strange.

[1394] But that whole area, is littered in this sort of paraphernalia, if you will.

[1395] Yeah, and they don't necessarily know who did it or why.

[1396] No, but what's exciting to someone like me is that you aren't going through any other conduit.

[1397] And I suppose it's what it is.

[1398] It's the mystery.

[1399] It's the mythology of all of this.

[1400] But it's your road into it as an individual.

[1401] You're not going through any history books.

[1402] Right.

[1403] You're seeing it.

[1404] It's like discovering treasure.

[1405] You can access it on your own, on Google Earth, and you're thinking, is anyone else doing this?

[1406] And why would they be doing it?

[1407] I started doing it because I wanted to see, I can't remember some aspect on some part of my land.

[1408] And before I know, oh, look, there's a burial site up there.

[1409] I'll have a little look.

[1410] And then before you know, break crumbs, lead of bakeries.

[1411] And you find yourself filling your boots with all the pastries in the world.

[1412] And there's something very exciting about that.

[1413] So in reference to what it was that you said earlier, If I could go back to any time, I'd like to go back for a minute.

[1414] I'm not sure if I'd like to go back for long.

[1415] I see that the period that we're living in is the most exciting period to live on this planet.

[1416] And not least so because of what we've been talking about, stem cells.

[1417] Is that could be the thing that allows you and I to age more gracefully and without so much pain?

[1418] we have enough wealth that we can live a comfortable life if you decide, if you choose to live a comfortable life.

[1419] We have medicine that we've never had before.

[1420] And this period in history, it is, we're still complaining.

[1421] We're still complaining.

[1422] But if we could just remember what we are comparatively, where the position we are in history comparatively, it's an end to all complaints.

[1423] Yeah, comparatively for sure.

[1424] It's interesting, too, when you're talking about this, the use of technology and how what you can do now with stem cells in comparison to the past, it's really exciting emerging time.

[1425] But similar, like, the use of Google Earth to discover these mounds and things.

[1426] Do you see what's going on in the Amazon now?

[1427] They're discovering evidence of civilizations that were just rumors and myths, like the gold city, the ancient gold city that there's that, what is that movie that they're doing?

[1428] The Lost City of Z. Yes.

[1429] They're finding these established irrigation paths and city grids in the Amazon jungle, thousands and thousands of years old, and they don't know the origins.

[1430] They don't know who was there.

[1431] They don't know why they're constructed, what the culture was like, but this was all at one point in time just mythological.

[1432] And now they're realizing, no, no, no, this is history.

[1433] And this is, they've been told and passed down in these fables.

[1434] And now we're understanding there's an actual, there's a concrete, a physical grid, rather, that you can go and you could see.

[1435] I know, these are real cities that did exist, and the jungle is sort of engulfed them.

[1436] It's taken over them.

[1437] It's amazing.

[1438] Yeah, it's a thing, Google Earth.

[1439] Oh, it's incredible.

[1440] I mean, it's allowing, and this is only step one.

[1441] I think Google Earth is going to give way to some sort of a magnetic resonance type thing where they're going to be able to look deep into the ground.

[1442] I think what we're seeing now is you're going to be able to, you're right now we're exploring the surface of the Earth.

[1443] And we're finding all these characteristics that, oh, this is a body, or this is a burial area.

[1444] This is a pathway that was probably irrigation.

[1445] But I think they're going to be able to come up with technology that allows you to do the same thing, but look deep into the ground.

[1446] And then I think you're going to be able to find all kinds of crazy shit.

[1447] The same way they can understand, like, the complete topography of the bottom of the ocean now.

[1448] And if you look at some of those maps that show the ocean and literally shows the depths at every stage, I think you're going to be able to be able to, to do that deep into the surface of the ground they're going to be able to discover all kinds of crazy stuff someone keeps opening that door what are you saying we got to get going this is why I don't allow people to come ruining the perfect goddamn conversation that's Ivan I know Ivan's great guy you guys you guys you guys I'm a big fan I'm a big fan I'm a big fan of him you got some other commitments I guess I do God damn it I'm selling a film I know Joe you're going to see it you like fuck yeah I'm gonna go see it I love all your movies man I'm a big fan I was really excited to have you in here so is it out this weekend not this weekend next weekend so that is Ivan do you want to stick your head back in here no Ivan's he's scared now you scared him off Ivan I think if it's not this weekend this next weekend is that made a 12th it's the weekend after Guardians of the galaxy yes so I believe that is made a 12th right excited about it yeah I love the film I like it well I tough out there though brother I bet it is tough you've got a crazy business when you decide and I'll just leave you with this when you decide like to commit to an idea i'm sure you have a gang of ideas bouncing around your head like what makes you just go all right this is the one let's run with it tell you it's changing and it changes by the year my next movie is aladdin oh really yeah like the magic lamp that's the one really yeah and in no small part because you know you get a weekend oh right so that plays a little bit of a factor in your motivation well it has to you don't want to spend three years on a movie and no one hear about it.

[1449] Aladdin, though, by you would be very fascinating.

[1450] I hope so.

[1451] I'll find it, you know, I like the idea of taking a sojourn into genres that I don't know anything about, really.

[1452] So was it kind of excited you, like, doing this King Arthur thing and this fantasy genre?

[1453] And this has sort of changed your expectations for possibly considering other...

[1454] Yeah, I mean, I sort of did English gangster films.

[1455] I went from that, and I did Sherlock Holmes.

[1456] Don't stop doing those, though.

[1457] Your English gangster films are some of my favorite films ever.

[1458] That could be TV.

[1459] It could be TV.

[1460] a lot of that now because that's where it's gone that sort of interesting like Netflix HBO type stuff that sort of stuff um and then man from uncle which is like a spy thing and they jumped into spy genre so and you go all right okay I can go from this genre to that genre and that's exciting and I've got five kids you got five kids five kids yeah wow which means I'm familiar with Disney right of course um so yeah all that world looks very attractive and challenging.

[1461] Guy Ritchie, you're a bad motherfucker.

[1462] Thank you, Joe.

[1463] I love having you in here.

[1464] Thank you.

[1465] It's been a great pleasure.

[1466] I've enjoyed it enormously.

[1467] Oh, let's do it again.

[1468] All right.

[1469] Next time you're selling something.

[1470] Come on in, baby.

[1471] Thank you now.

[1472] All right, folks.

[1473] That's it for the week.

[1474] We'll see you soon.

[1475] Much love.

[1476] Thanks, Joe.