#951 - Dan Doty

[0] Changed my life.

[1] Five, four, three, two, one.

[2] Yes, Dan Doty, yes, we're live.

[3] What's up, brother?

[4] How are you, man?

[5] Good to see you.

[6] Good to see you, too, man. So, for people who don't know, I met Dan way back in 2012, doesn't it?

[7] That seems like a long time ago now.

[8] It seems like at least half of my life, which is not even close to you.

[9] Why is that true?

[10] I mean, why is it like?

[11] Five years.

[12] It was five years ago.

[13] Four and a half years ago.

[14] Well, that was back when it was October of 2012, I thought there was.

[15] only two months left in the world because I thought the mine calendar was correct and it was oh my god December 21st 2012 was going to end the world okay and so yeah so you fucked off and went to Montana to uh going a boat ride with us yeah we took uh we took a canoe down the Missouri river that was fucking awesome man wasn't that wild it's one of my favorite trips ever it's cold really cold like not fun cold it was the kind of cold that it sucked but once you got moving it was fine yeah you know and i i i went learned about marino wool that was the important that was an important lesson like the first light marino wool like that people don't know if you're ever in a cold area it's so important that you have a base layer of marino wool because that shit gets wet and you stay warm even if you're sweating it you stay warm and it doesn't stick half as much as the synthetic version yeah at all it's weird like some people really like synthetics in some weird way have you used them or did you you have i have i smell terrible see i actually don't care i like them both but I just, you know, working with those guys for so long and first light, I got used to it.

[16] I like it.

[17] But I use synthetics for 10 years before that, and I mean, I didn't smell good, but I didn't really care.

[18] A lot of mountaineering people like some synthetics because they dry quicker.

[19] Yeah.

[20] But I feel like one of the best benefits of the wool is that when it is wet, it still retains your warmth.

[21] And I don't mind being a little moist.

[22] Well, the synthetics will keep you warm too when they're wet.

[23] Just it's a slightly different value.

[24] Like cotton will not, right?

[25] Right.

[26] Cotton won't at all.

[27] But a synthetic, like, Capuline that Patagonia uses or other things.

[28] They also will.

[29] They won't kill you.

[30] But, yeah, the Marino has some other better qualities.

[31] Yeah, it's just, well, the stink thing's huge.

[32] Because I fucking smell terrible.

[33] That was a fun trip, man. That was actually the first episode of that show that I fully kind of shot and directed myself.

[34] So that was kind of a big stage for me. It was fun.

[35] I just basically hung out with Callan.

[36] for a week.

[37] When you have, when you have Callan, when Callan has a, like, a captive audience, he's the funniest man alive.

[38] I will never forget a few scenes.

[39] I won't share them, but a few scenes from that campfire.

[40] Do you remember the ravine comer?

[41] Oh, I remember, yeah, of course I do.

[42] I remember him taking a shit literally 10 feet from our campfire, his ass sticking out.

[43] And we put a flag in it.

[44] I took pictures of it.

[45] I have that shit.

[46] We put an aluminum flag on it and stuck it in there.

[47] I've never touched another man's shit other than his.

[48] I tried to set up a hunt for myself last year in the breaks and it just ended up didn't happening, but it's one of my favorite places.

[49] Oh, it's so lonely out there, but so amazing.

[50] That area is so, it's such a perfect place to introduce Callan and I to the world of hunting because it's so wild.

[51] Well, it's multifaceted, too.

[52] You have a lot of history there.

[53] You have the, you know, it's one of those areas where it's a complete wilderness experience because you're on the water, right?

[54] We're not crossing roads.

[55] Like we got dropped off at the end of a road and floated to basically the next road down the river.

[56] Which is a big deal.

[57] We floated 40 miles down over the course of, what was it, six days?

[58] Are one of these bucks?

[59] Yeah, that one right there.

[60] That's the buck right there.

[61] Hey, buddy.

[62] Hey, fella.

[63] That's a different time.

[64] That was in Wisconsin.

[65] That was one where Wisconsin that video that you just put up.

[66] But when we did do that, man, that was where Lewis and Clark had made some stops on the expedition.

[67] Yeah.

[68] And that's one of the coolest things about doing it with Ronella because he knows so much about the history of the United States and the the settling of the United States and also the Nez Perce Indian stories that he would tell us.

[69] Oh, yeah.

[70] He could talk for years.

[71] Yeah.

[72] And that's when I heard the story about the real story, the original story about the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, The Revenant, like what really happened before they turned it into a movie.

[73] Okay.

[74] Yeah.

[75] He told me that story, the actual story about the guy that got left behind and.

[76] crawled back many, many miles.

[77] What's the guy's name?

[78] I don't remember the actual guy's name.

[79] But there's so much they made up in the movie.

[80] It's just kind of brutal.

[81] Yeah.

[82] It was a freaky movie.

[83] It was a freaky movie.

[84] Especially the grizzly bear attack was a real freaky thing.

[85] The real grizzly bear attacks, though, man, I bet the real grizzly just kind of swatted that dude once, and then just he fell down and then it left him alone.

[86] Why do you think that?

[87] Because that thing would have torn him to pieces.

[88] Yeah.

[89] It was a giant bear, too.

[90] Dude, I just, fuck bears, man. They scare the shit out of me. I wonder what the average length of time of a bear attack, like, how long is it last?

[91] Two seconds?

[92] 30 seconds.

[93] Well, that movie Grizzly, man, apparently the audio of him getting killed by the bear is like seven minutes long.

[94] I listen to that.

[95] It was terrible.

[96] No, it's not real.

[97] The one that you listen to online is not real.

[98] Oh, no shit.

[99] It's fake.

[100] Yeah.

[101] Yeah, the actual audio was never released.

[102] My life is a lie.

[103] Yeah.

[104] Somebody sent it to me, too, but then I looked into it.

[105] and Werner Herzog and the woman who owns the actual audio, they got rid of it.

[106] They destroyed it.

[107] They never listened to it.

[108] And Werner Herzog actually told her to destroy it in the documentary.

[109] So when you hear it online, it's just fake.

[110] And then once you know it's fake and you listen to it, you go, oh, this shit's fake.

[111] You can hear it?

[112] I'm not going to listen to it again.

[113] I mean, sure, yeah.

[114] I don't really want to.

[115] See you can find it, Grizzly Man Audio.

[116] You hear it and you go, oh, I'm not going to listen to it.

[117] Oh, yeah, this isn't real.

[118] That's one of my top five movies of all time, though.

[119] It's a great movie.

[120] It's an incredible movie.

[121] It's one of the funniest movies ever, as far as unintentional comedy.

[122] Oh, my God.

[123] It's funny.

[124] What was it, the sheriff?

[125] The sheriff goes, well, I thought he was retarded.

[126] Here.

[127] So here, you hear, like, screams and shit.

[128] Here.

[129] All the Fox.

[130] Audio bear attack.

[131] Here, how far.

[132] Oh.

[133] Why is it echoing?

[134] Hear the echo?

[135] Yeah.

[136] That was done in the room.

[137] All these voices...

[138] It's supposed to be.

[139] Man, it's supposed to be in the woods.

[140] That audio is unquestionably done in a room somewhere.

[141] Oh.

[142] Sierra, it's resonating.

[143] Yeah, no, of course.

[144] See, now you know.

[145] Those motherfuckers, they got us.

[146] Do you think they benefited from creating that?

[147] Probably.

[148] Yeah.

[149] Like some money?

[150] Yeah, somebody probably.

[151] Probably put up some YouTube ads and made some cash.

[152] All right.

[153] It's entirely possible.

[154] Or they just did it for fun.

[155] It's not like people are having a good time.

[156] Like, as the guy's yelling, it sounds like, you can almost kind of like hear in his yells, like, holy shit, someone's going to believe this.

[157] This is so ridiculous.

[158] Yeah.

[159] But it supposedly lasted seven minutes.

[160] Because the bear just started eating them.

[161] Wait, so what's that?

[162] Where's that stat?

[163] That's not from, like, the real audio lasts the actual audio.

[164] Because the bear's not trying.

[165] to kill him yeah it's just eating them yeah because bears apparently well i've seen bears kill moose in videos and they just start eating them they don't kill them right away they just hold them down wolves do too they just eat right away they start right at the back end and start just start eating you they don't they don't bother they don't have the decency like at least a mountain line kills you you know cats kill you bears and wolves they just eat you i guess they just don't need to they don't You need to incapacity.

[166] I mean, you're there.

[167] Well, I think it's also a thing with omnivores.

[168] Omnivores, I think, don't have that instinct to instantly kill.

[169] That's interesting.

[170] Yeah, but that doesn't make sense, though.

[171] My theory sucks because of wolves.

[172] Because wolves are carnivores.

[173] Yeah, right.

[174] Wolves are carnivores.

[175] Yeah, so maybe it's interesting.

[176] I don't know.

[177] I mean, they do that because they have to, right?

[178] Like, that's how they take down a running animal.

[179] It's how wolf kills.

[180] They snap at the legs, right?

[181] Yeah.

[182] And then they just, it's the easiest, softest part of the hand and just start eating on the back end.

[183] I was listening to a podcast today about wolves in Idaho where they were talking about how, when you go deep into the back country where people can't get to or where it's very difficult, really rocky terrain, the wolves are just running rampant out there.

[184] They just have so many wolves there.

[185] Ever seen one in the wild?

[186] No. You should put that on your list.

[187] I actually did see one in Alberta, I think.

[188] but it was at twilight and it was dog -sized and it ran across the road and it was a little too big to be a coyote sure in my mind but I thought I saw a wolf for like two seconds and it was a squirrel so take that with a great of thought I've seen a couple the most memorable we were we were in a valley in Alaska and it was dusk and you know just two massive mountain ranges on each side and I don't know it might have been yonis somebody yelled and somebody They spotted one across the river, and we went and looked at it, and it was, it was, man, my, my memory was found.

[189] It was either pure white, I think it was pure white, and it just, I swear to God, has shown.

[190] It just, like, emanated light, and it was the most, like, regal, beautiful, just, like, perfect, perfect.

[191] And it just sort of trotted along the river, disappeared back in the woods, and they're amazing.

[192] I was thinking about this morning, on a hike here, I was looking for mountain line tracks, but, you know, the sign that the trailhead says, It gives you warning about mountain lions.

[193] They're out here for sure.

[194] I never really...

[195] I don't know.

[196] The only thing that ever gives me pause in the woods is a grizzly because, you know, Steve and I, we got charged that once, and ever since that happened, my bear radar is more intense.

[197] It's just such a freaky animal.

[198] Yeah.

[199] When you see what a grizzly really is, essentially a thousand pound giant wild dog.

[200] Have you seen those in the wild dog?

[201] wild yourself yet?

[202] Grizzly?

[203] No, never seen a grizzly.

[204] Not in the wild.

[205] Yeah.

[206] I've seen them, you know, live in a sanctuary and I've seen a lot of, oh, no, I did see a grizzly.

[207] I saw a small grizzly in Alberta last year.

[208] Yeah.

[209] But it wasn't that big.

[210] It was like maybe six and a half, seven feet.

[211] From a stand?

[212] Were you pretty close?

[213] Yeah, it was very close.

[214] It was like 30 or 40 yards from us.

[215] Yeah.

[216] Yeah.

[217] But it took off pretty quick.

[218] But it wasn't a grizzly.

[219] Like, they had some trail cam photos of like, fucking.

[220] tankers.

[221] They were goddamn VW buses.

[222] This was like a juvenile.

[223] So it was probably like six and a half feet or something like that.

[224] So where I live in Bozeman, so it's literally a line right where we are.

[225] So south of us is the Gallatin range and the Madison range, just full of grizzlies.

[226] Yeah.

[227] But just north of town, there's the Bridger range and a couple other ranges too.

[228] And for whatever reason, that is an impasse to the population of bears.

[229] Why is that?

[230] Do they have any idea?

[231] I mean it might be just physicality and might be actually you know steve rinal would be the one that i've heard him talk about this he would know exactly but it's either a physical impasse or it's it's the human uh the proximity humans of the of the town and all this but the way that it relates is that you know if i'm going to go hiking with my little baby boy i choose to go north right just just because you know i don't think i would always thought that way and i carry bear spray usually and i carry a pistol i don't i probably will in the future just because that guy he was from bozeman that got attacked last year yeah yeah he got tore up man that was horrific oh yeah his scalp is hanging off his head while he's making the video it was a gnarly and he wasn't hunting he was just hiking he was scouting and um he used bear spray and it didn't work it was a sow with her cubs yeah so that's about i don't know 50 miles from where i live is where he got hit 60 miles something like that's so close yeah jesus yeah nothing to mess I think it's awesome that they exist.

[232] I really, I think it's so cool that they exist.

[233] I don't want them to not exist.

[234] But at the same time, I don't want to be near them.

[235] Yeah.

[236] You know, I don't want encounter them.

[237] So it's so, uh, conflicting.

[238] Yeah, I'm, I'm more sensitive to them now.

[239] I really have a deep, deep love for them.

[240] Sharks on the other hand, we could just kill them.

[241] Yeah, I just don't care, man. What's weird, people are getting like really touchy -feely about sharks, because they hear all about these sharks getting slaughtered for shark fin soup so like yeah the governor i think of new york caught a shark um fishing totally legal and not an endangered fish at all and he got so much hate because people who it's like we were talking before about science that so many people want to argue things online but they don't want to actually like look into like what are the studies that have been done how much do people actually know what is they are no people want to have an opinion they have this like narrow window of information and I'm just going to run with my opinion and say fuck you for killing that shark Oh yeah You know I don't think people have time necessary to go Investigate everything they have an opinion about No You know which is an issue No but they do have time to tweet about it Fuck yeah get mad at the governor Was it the governor or was it the mayor of New York That got in trouble for the shark Well you didn't get in trouble Because what he did was totally legal And they cooked it and Maco shark is delicious Oh a shark's sort of best I've ever had Yeah and Puerto Rico They served shark They serve shark everywhere.

[242] Like you go to a food stand, they fry shark, put it on a stick.

[243] It's a fish.

[244] I mean, it's an ocean.

[245] It's an ocean out.

[246] There it is.

[247] New York governor sparks anger after killing threatened shark.

[248] But it's not threatened.

[249] That's not true.

[250] Why does it say threatened shark?

[251] That's not a threatened animal.

[252] Thresher shark?

[253] Yeah, I don't think that's.

[254] But it said threatened, right?

[255] It said fresher.

[256] Did it say in the headline?

[257] Oh, threatened.

[258] Oh, yeah.

[259] Said threatened.

[260] I don't think that's true.

[261] I do not think that's a threatened.

[262] animal.

[263] I'd have to look at it.

[264] All three species of thresher shark is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature because of their declining populations.

[265] Fishing for them is regulated in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but it is not illegal.

[266] Oh, okay.

[267] Despite its legality, UN patrons of the ocean, Louis Pugue said the killing and subsequent photos were abhorrent, oh, it might be a twat, and worked against those trying to conserve dwindling shark numbers.

[268] Um, okay.

[269] Yeah.

[270] All right.

[271] Well, maybe he's right.

[272] I know that some of them are not.

[273] I don't know, man. I mean, you can't really control what kind of fish you catch when you go fishing.

[274] And if you catch a fish that's legal, I don't know what you do.

[275] The problem with catch and release, this is a dirty secret, ladies and gentlemen, because people do go catch and release fishing, and I've released fish before.

[276] A lot of them die.

[277] It's kind of weird.

[278] Oh, yeah.

[279] Is that a secret still you think?

[280] I mean, that's...

[281] For some folks.

[282] Okay.

[283] Yeah.

[284] Yeah, not for you.

[285] Oh, absolutely.

[286] I mean, think about it.

[287] I mean, it'd be like taking you and I and dunking us underwater for five minutes and putting us back.

[288] Or even worse, shoving a fucking barb through your face.

[289] Oh, yeah.

[290] And then drowning us.

[291] Because that's what we're doing to them.

[292] We're literally.

[293] Yeah.

[294] Well, I mean, some people use barbless hooks, which are better.

[295] And the inside of a mouth of a fish is very different than our mouth.

[296] I mean, there's best practices to harm the fish as little as possible.

[297] and I think, you know, that has something.

[298] Sure.

[299] Yeah, fly fishing with barbless hooks.

[300] Yeah, you can, most likely, you can, most of them are going to be fine.

[301] Yeah.

[302] But a lot of them, it's a weird practice.

[303] I just don't, I don't.

[304] To putting them back?

[305] Yeah.

[306] Yeah, well, it's just, yeah, I'm not a, I'm not a catch -and -release fisherman.

[307] I'm not even a huge fisherman.

[308] I love to eat it.

[309] I love to go to Alaska, catch a buttload of fish, come home and eat it for the rest of the year.

[310] I need to go halibah fishing.

[311] Yes, you do.

[312] You haven't done that yet?

[313] No, no, I love halel.

[314] I've gone fluke fishing.

[315] I've caught flounder before, which are little baby halibates, but, and they're delicious.

[316] But halibut is supposed to be, like, one of the most delicious fish to catch and then cook, like, right away.

[317] Oh, that's amazing.

[318] I mean, it's one of those real fleshy white fish, kind of like grouper, you know, grouper.

[319] And, yeah, like chunks of halibut, deep fried, like, like, well -coded and deep -fried.

[320] The thing about halibut, if you overcook it, though, it's like chewing on a sock.

[321] It just gets tough real fast, and maybe that's true of other white flesh fish like that, too.

[322] No, it's delicious.

[323] It's not the most exciting to catch.

[324] Well, they're giant doors.

[325] Yeah, exactly.

[326] Yeah, you're just like hauling up this heavy ass.

[327] They're so alien looking, too, with two eyes on one side of their head, and they flatten out at the bottom of the ocean.

[328] You know that their eye migrates, right?

[329] Really?

[330] They start swimming up and down, eyes on each side, and then start a part of their maturation process is they flip over.

[331] As they're getting older?

[332] Yeah, as they're getting older.

[333] And their eye literally slides onto the other side.

[334] Oh, but it stays there once it's on the other side.

[335] Yeah, it's not like, can't go back and forth.

[336] Yeah, it stays there on that side.

[337] How fucking weird.

[338] They're so weird looking.

[339] It looks wrong.

[340] Yeah.

[341] You see two eyes on one side of their head, their body's flattened out.

[342] But it's full of so much good meat.

[343] Oh, yeah.

[344] Oh, man. It's like as heavy.

[345] Like my aunt and uncle live on Kodiak on.

[346] We've been going up there since I was a kid.

[347] And I mean, it's, you know, that's as much meat as a deer, right?

[348] Yeah.

[349] Get to a 200 -pound halibut, which isn't the most common.

[350] They can be way bigger than that, too.

[351] You're supposed to release the really big ones, though, right?

[352] Don't they say that?

[353] I don't know.

[354] Maybe.

[355] Yeah, I'm not sure.

[356] A friend of mine caught one, and it was apparently enormous, and he was furious because the guide, they went fishing with a guide, the guide, the guide cut the line because it was so big.

[357] Do you think he just couldn't get it in the boat?

[358] No, no, no. He said, look, we got to let this go, because it's a big breeder.

[359] Oh.

[360] And that these big ones are responsible for keeping the populations healthy, and because this guy made a living off of fishing he's like it's our responsibility to cut this loose and the guy was like what are you talking about he's like this is like he didn't know that that was going to be an option yeah and so he's pulling up this thing where you know he described it as like the side of a wall oh yeah it's like the wall of a room it's like it's fucking huge i don't know if it's true with hal but but i know other fish you know sometimes the big ones don't eat that well like that's not as good so it might not have been it's not like he's going to get that mounted i doubt right like a 400 pound they say that's true with deer too like i've never eaten eating a really old deer, but they say old deer just do not taste that good.

[361] It can be.

[362] I know they can be worse for sure.

[363] Didn't you shoot an old dough?

[364] That was Mo. It was Moe.

[365] That's right.

[366] Yeah.

[367] And he said it was rough.

[368] He had to chew through it over a winter.

[369] My little brother shot me a deer and gave it to me for Christmas.

[370] And it was the first slightly off -tasting animal that I've tasted in, man, seven years.

[371] You know, and I've been eating a lot of animals, you know, over my course of time.

[372] You know, we're talking about mediator, which I weren't on for a long time.

[373] I don't anymore, but I ate a lot of animals, and they all tasted exceptionally good, and my brother shot this one.

[374] And I don't know what it was.

[375] It was cold.

[376] He killed it, and it got dark, and he had to track it in early the next morning.

[377] Did he got shot it?

[378] No. No. He hit it well.

[379] It died fairly close.

[380] But, yeah, no, it was pretty gnarly.

[381] And I even made sausage out of it.

[382] and tried to eat that, and that was hard to get down.

[383] Really?

[384] We have a couple pounds of it left still.

[385] It just wasn't good.

[386] Hmm.

[387] That's weird.

[388] Well, maybe it was a tarsal glands or something.

[389] Like, was it in the rut?

[390] No. It was muzzleloader season in December, in Minnesota.

[391] And I don't know what it was.

[392] I don't know what it was.

[393] I really don't.

[394] Yeah.

[395] Well, you hear stories, you know.

[396] I'll tell you what, man. That was one of the things that really got me into hunting, not just how cool that trip was and how amazing it was and how bizarre it is to be out there in total silence, no cell phone signal, you don't hear, what do we see, like, maybe three people the whole week we were out there?

[397] Yeah, two boats, maybe, I didn't remember seeing him.

[398] I remember we saw a dude's tent, and he had like a little wood stove, and I was like, Steve, we got a stove.

[399] What the fuck is this?

[400] This guy's got a stove inside of his tent, because he used to stay in warm in his tent.

[401] We were freezing our dicks off, and then we saw another guy who had a deer in his boat.

[402] He had shot up.

[403] Remember that guy?

[404] Yeah.

[405] That was a memorable meal, man. Yeah, that was going to say.

[406] The food was so good.

[407] Once we did shoot that deer and we ate it that night, it was like, good Lord, it's the best meat ever.

[408] And there's so much connected to it.

[409] You know, it's not just that it's like you went to a restaurant, you had a delicious meal.

[410] It's like, no, you like, you busted your ass for five days, humping over mountains, finally put a stalk on a deer, shot the deer, killed it, dragged it back to camp.

[411] cut it up, butchered it, and then we ate it, and then when Steve took that dough head and buried it underground, because, what is that Guthrie book?

[412] Big Sky.

[413] Right?

[414] It was in the book.

[415] Yeah.

[416] Yeah, I think that's the name of it.

[417] I think that's the name of the book.

[418] Okay.

[419] That sounds right.

[420] And in that book, he talks about cooking a deer head under the ground.

[421] So Steve wanted to try it.

[422] Yeah, we soaked a burlapsack in the river.

[423] It was incredible.

[424] It was really good.

[425] It was incredible.

[426] It was like some sort of exotic.

[427] smoked pork or something like that yeah yeah we ate everything man we ate the liver we ate the heart we we ate it all it was amazing do you still have a freezer full of meat right now I shot an elk nice in October so yeah and I had shot a deer in November but I ate that deer pretty quick yeah I had a dud of the season last year and so this year for the first time a long time I've been eating more you know local pork and beef and I'm just so sick of it man I can't wait I can't wait until this fall again and no when are you going back home back home from here yeah i'm going home um a week from two weeks from yesterday i have two commercial freezers in the back i could hook you up yeah yeah i won't turn it down i don't know how you get it back to you how could you get it back um let me think about it i could go buy cooler or something go buy a small yetty or something figure something out you get you some i have one of those yety hoppers at home i could give you that that makes me really proud that like you know i was there the first time you hunted now you're going to hook me up of meat.

[428] Hell yeah, man. That's awesome.

[429] That's good stuff.

[430] I live off it now.

[431] I don't buy meat anymore unless I go to a restaurant.

[432] It's very rare that I go to a store, like a butcher shop, and buy meat unless there's something I'm preparing.

[433] It's just not as good.

[434] It's just actually not as good.

[435] Well, I find that it's...

[436] It's different.

[437] It tastes like a soft, lazy animal.

[438] It's weird.

[439] Like when you eat a steak, like from a butcher shop, I mean, they taste good.

[440] They still taste good, but it tastes like this soft, almost sick thing.

[441] Like, there's a difference between grass -fed beef and that's one of the things that I noticed like way back in the day when I first started learning about grass -fed beef I'm like well what is the difference and people explain to you oh there's a difference in the fatty acids and what's what's healthier about it is these animals are not supposed to be eating grain and when they eat grain it's bad for their body and that's why they're so fat and the marbling is actually them being incredibly unhealthy I'm like huh okay so I'm going to try some grass -fed meat it was so expensive and then it was a small like they're smaller like the stakes are small and it's a darker meat I'm like And then I remember eating it thinking, wow, this tastes really different.

[442] Yeah.

[443] It does.

[444] Like a grass -fed steak tastes different than a grain -fed steak.

[445] They look different when you lay them out side by side.

[446] Oh, yeah.

[447] But then you take those and then you put an elk steak next to it.

[448] And you go, okay, that's the real meat, man. That's what you're supposed to be eating.

[449] You're supposed to be eating that deep, dark, red meat that you eat it and you just want to run through a fucking wall.

[450] It's like it's got energy in it.

[451] It makes your body feel different when you eat it.

[452] So what do you think that is?

[453] Is that a psychological thing?

[454] Do you think that it's actually biological in the meat?

[455] It is better.

[456] There's something in there more for you?

[457] How do you make sense of that for yourself?

[458] I have a terrible unscientific theory.

[459] My unscientific theory is things that run fast are better for you.

[460] That's why fish is really good for you because it's hard to catch.

[461] They swim fast.

[462] Deer are great.

[463] They run fast.

[464] Rabbits are great.

[465] They run fast.

[466] cows just sort of wander around.

[467] Yeah.

[468] You know, they're just meandering and slow.

[469] I like your theory, but it makes sense that we have more cows because it's just all right there.

[470] Corral those bitches.

[471] Well, you know, my buddy Adam lives in Australia, Adam Green Tree, and in Australia they have wild cows where cows at one time were domestic, but they broke loose and they've been for many, many generations living wild, and they're extremely dangerous.

[472] Yeah.

[473] especially the bulls like when you watch cowboys riding bowls and you're like wow this is crazy look like that's an animal yeah that's a fucking big scary animal but again a domestic animal that is not fighting off predators it's not i mean it's just it doesn't want you to fuck with it it's got these giant watermelon testicles and they're just full of piss and vinegar and we don't eat those for people don't know when you buy meat from a cow you're buying meat from a steer.

[474] And what a steer is, is a bull, they cut his balls off when he's young.

[475] So his testosterone stops, so his body's mushy and soft.

[476] Yeah.

[477] But these bulls that Adam sees out in the bush in Australia are super aggressive and very dangerous.

[478] And one of his friends was torn apart by one, Gord, like really badly.

[479] No, they lived.

[480] But they had a med vacuum to safety, it tore his guts open.

[481] And, you know, he was, I don't even think he was hunting it.

[482] I think he was just in the wrong place.

[483] wrong time they see you and they just fucking charge yeah it's the reason why they have those goddamn giant horns yeah what's the saying that uh you cut you cut a male animal's balls off and they stop thinking about ass and starts thinking about grass right so i mean it's it's literal yeah they stop trying to get laid and they just eat they just keep eating yeah and they just the lack of testosterone makes them soft and mushy whereas um cam haines shot a water buffalo in australia and he said that he had one piece of meat in his mouth for half an hour trying to chew it down while he was practicing archery.

[484] He goes, I'm not exaggerating.

[485] Chewed one piece of meat for a whole half hour.

[486] Just chew.

[487] What's it say about us, though, as humans, though, I mean, you could easily make an analogy there between cows and a wild animal and us.

[488] I mean, nobody's more domesticated than us.

[489] Like, these things we domesticate, I think we are, you know, we're the domesticator.

[490] somehow but I think we're even more domesticators right like we're like if you could eat one of the duck dynasty guys like oh man they would cook up good they'd be so soft and oh oh the mushy and you know there would be so much flavoring and marbling plus they probably eat a lot of sugar so there's probably like a lot of like sweetness to the meat yeah I'm not advocating this by the way it depends what your tooth is though if you're used to eating wild animals and you ate one of the duck dynasty guys would taste like shit that's true Right.

[491] That's true.

[492] But if you eat McDonald's.

[493] And ringdings.

[494] What's the ring thing?

[495] Like a one of those little hostess things, this little chocolate covered cream -filled jammies.

[496] I might have to get one of those.

[497] I haven't had one of those.

[498] They're disgusting.

[499] They look great.

[500] You're like, oh, it's going to enjoy this.

[501] And as soon as you eat it, you're like, what the fuck is wrong with me, man?

[502] I love just, I had some tacos.

[503] I got to town last night and had to go to the first talkery I saw.

[504] It was the best.

[505] We have legit Mexican food in L .A. Montana does not have Mexican food.

[506] Not really, right?

[507] Not such good Mexican food.

[508] Colorado has some really good Mexican food.

[509] It does.

[510] It does, yeah.

[511] The line of that, I think, stops at Colorado.

[512] Maybe Wyoming, I don't think, has it, but north into Montana, you're in dead zone.

[513] Where you are is amazing, though.

[514] It's worth it.

[515] You can take a trip for Mexican food.

[516] Because where you are, it's like, I feel like, I mean, I almost feel like I shouldn't say this on the podcast because I don't want anybody move into Bozeman.

[517] It's already on all of the list.

[518] It's everybody, I mean, it's the cat's out of the bag.

[519] It's not, you're not spilling the beans here.

[520] I know, but I mean, it really is a special place.

[521] It's the people are so nice.

[522] Yeah.

[523] They're not dumb either.

[524] It's not like uneducated.

[525] No, no, no. It's actually, that county has the highest percentage of PhDs in America.

[526] What?

[527] Bozeman.

[528] Really?

[529] Yeah, look it up.

[530] Fact.

[531] Wow.

[532] Yeah.

[533] It's a highly educated population.

[534] But it's also not like Boulder.

[535] where they're like, oh my God, save the butterfly.

[536] You know, they're more rational about their approach to nature.

[537] It's balanced.

[538] You can find some, you know, you can find good yoga.

[539] You can find your woo -woo stuff.

[540] But there's also a rancher right next to you.

[541] It's really interestingly like, diverse.

[542] Yeah.

[543] It is diverse some ways.

[544] Not with mostly white.

[545] Yeah.

[546] It's not diverse that way.

[547] Moving there from New York and that is my least favorite thing about, about Montana.

[548] Yeah.

[549] It's not a whole lot of flavor.

[550] No. No, no. But there's so many good things about it.

[551] And the landscape, like what you get to see when you're there, it's just stunning.

[552] And the access to the land is the huge, it's a huge thing, too.

[553] I mean, I'm in Bozeman from my house in, I don't know how many, in four different directions, three different directions, you can be at a trail in 15 minutes.

[554] Yeah.

[555] And it's just endless.

[556] You know, you can get on a trail right side of out.

[557] Man, I can't talk.

[558] Right outside of Bozeman.

[559] And you can go, if you wanted to for days, through the, you know.

[560] Yellowstone ecosystem south and just keep going and keep going and keep going.

[561] I mean, it connects you to, I mean, real big wilderness, the kind that you can, I mean, in Alaska you find it even bigger, but I think in the lower 48, yeah, it's unparalleled.

[562] Yeah, in the lower 48, it's about as wild as it gets.

[563] And that leads me to what I want to bring up to you today, because I saw this today where Trump is, is challenging some of the protection of certain national monuments and some public lands today was something that came out and like I told you fuckers I knew this was coming there were so many people that were telling me that Trump is going to protect our public lands because his son is a hunter and like listen man that guy worships money yeah there's money to be made in delisting these public look at this Trump order could roll back public land protections from three presidents this is going to have a shitstorm on his hands though man play play there so we could hear exactly what he says of America's natural resources.

[564] And I can tell you the group that's in here right now, they're really doing the job.

[565] Right, Lisa?

[566] They're doing a good job?

[567] We're going to take care of Alaska, too.

[568] Don't worry about it.

[569] And they protect the ability of the people to access and utilize the land which truly belongs to them and belongs to all of us.

[570] Secretary Ryan Zinke is doing an incredible job.

[571] and he never overlooks the details.

[572] He's a detailed person.

[573] Soon after he was confirmed, we had a snowstorm, big one.

[574] And he was out there on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, shoveling the snow all by himself.

[575] And he's a strong guy.

[576] He did a good job.

[577] What the fuck am I listening to?

[578] He did a very, very good job.

[579] He's so weird.

[580] The first 100 days, we've taken historic action to eliminate wasteful regulations.

[581] They're being eliminated like nobody's ever seen before.

[582] There's never been anything like it.

[583] Sometimes I look at some of the things I'm signing.

[584] I say maybe people won't like it, but I'm doing the right thing.

[585] What the hell?

[586] This is so weird that that's a president, like the way he communicates.

[587] Did you see when he just pinned a purple heart?

[588] Jesus.

[589] He just pinned a purple heart on a return vet.

[590] I got, lost his leg.

[591] It just happened the last couple of days.

[592] It's the most awkward and the weirdest.

[593] It is the weirdest single thing I've ever watched on the screen.

[594] His body language and what he does, it's bizarre.

[595] He's an odd guy.

[596] It's really bizarre.

[597] What does it say there in terms of like what the actual rollbacks mean and what the issue is?

[598] Here, let's go largely.

[599] In order which Trump signed the Interior Department could lead to the reshaping of 24 national monuments, including the Grand Canyon, Parishant National Monument, Grand Staircase, Escalante National Monument, and the Basin Range National Monument, as well as a host of Pacific Ocean Monuments, including the World War II Valor and the Pacific National Monument.

[600] Though Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke cast the move as a way to include local voices in the decision to designate monuments, the review of the Antiquities Act, which was first signed by President Teddy Roosevelt 1906, stands in stark relief to years of bipartisan work at conserving lands.

[601] Wow.

[602] The move comes after Western Republican lawmakers, including Utah, Senator Orrin Hatch, complained that Obama overused the law to overprotect land.

[603] How the fuck do you overprotect land?

[604] You kind of protect it, but don't overprotect it, boy.

[605] I don't know, man. It's just weird.

[606] I think the worry is going to be that this would be in the beginning of a larger pattern.

[607] Yeah, it's a slippery slope.

[608] slope.

[609] Well, I, what I wanted to mean, what you know about and what I think most people don't when you talk about this, the vast majority of the people in this country live in these communities and cities and towns and, you know, even small towns.

[610] They don't understand how much of this land that we live in is just this incredible, bizarre experiment in like the people having the actual American people owning.

[611] this incredible swath of public land.

[612] Yeah.

[613] I mean, it's wild.

[614] Like what you're talking about, like you can walk for days and days into that stuff.

[615] Yeah, I think they don't know that it exists necessarily.

[616] And I think even to me, more importantly, they don't understand the impact that that actually has on people and what it actually means to be able to be part of something like.

[617] It's a really deep, important thing.

[618] And I think that people just, you know, you get your postcard tourists and you say, oh, I love the National Force.

[619] the national parks and let's drive around and take pictures and that's great that's fine there's a big industry there it's very helpful to the economy and but there's something way deeper to that that brings a lot of people um and i would even say culturally something really deep there that we shouldn't be fucking with no we just shouldn't be messing with it well it's been there for a hundred years 110 years it's you know the conservation part of it yeah absolutely but the land itself has been there way longer and that's you know You know, sort of like the deep time part of that is what really interests me is because, you know, you step out into that in the right context and you're all of a sudden, you know, you're playing with something way bigger and more powerful and more impactful by just being part of a landscape that's, you know.

[620] But you're right.

[621] Yeah, the conservation thing is present and real.

[622] And I grew up in Minnesota and North Dakota.

[623] And my first wilderness trip was in the boundary waters of northern Minnesota.

[624] It's this million acre wilderness of lakes that are interconnected by trails.

[625] And you can go out for weeks at a time and canoe across a lake and then carry your boat to the next lake and there's campsites.

[626] And it's just paradise.

[627] It's where I fell in love with.

[628] The idea of wilderness, it's actually where I fell in love with the first lady that I fell in the same time.

[629] I was on a church trip.

[630] Oh, no. Yeah.

[631] And, but, you know, so what I, you know, what I'm saying as far as it's shaping people and its importance, I mean, that first trip into the wilderness changed my life.

[632] Like, and that's a, that's a pretty mild way of saying it.

[633] It, it shaped who I am all the way.

[634] Well, that gets us to what you're doing now because you, you stop working for 0 .0.

[635] And we talked about on the last podcast that you had done a lot of these wilderness therapy trips.

[636] Yeah.

[637] Where you take, like, troubled kids that have lost their way and their parents don't know what the fuck to do.

[638] And you would take them out into the woods and live with these kids for months.

[639] Yeah, for a long time.

[640] Yeah.

[641] Which is crazy to think about, like, that, but makes sense.

[642] Like, just the five days that I was out there, six days or whatever, when I first went to Montana with you guys, changed the way I thought about wilderness.

[643] Because I really had never been.

[644] I mean, I'd kind of been to, like, wooded air.

[645] Right.

[646] You know what I'm saying?

[647] But I mean, I went to Yellowstone when I was a kid, but I didn't really remember it.

[648] It's a different thing, man. And then we went to Alaska, right?

[649] And that was, to me, that's another level of women.

[650] I should listen to you on that trip.

[651] You were like, fuck that place.

[652] We shouldn't go to that place.

[653] Sure.

[654] It was uncomfortable, but.

[655] I'm glad we went, though, now.

[656] Yeah, in retrospect, right?

[657] I mean, and I'm glad you went just because of the level of how deep out we are.

[658] I mean, you know, the Missouri breaks in Montana.

[659] You're out there.

[660] in this spot in southeast Alaska we were really out there you can feel in the air but there's something different once when I fell yeah I fell off of this like six foot drop I slipped and just and luckily I just landed good but I was like man you could fuck yourself up up here yeah and not be able to get out of here like especially if you do a solo trip oh yeah no bueno no totally yeah I'm addicted to that that feeling yeah that sort of immense kind of intense kind of takes you over, you are so tiny, you are not, you know, you're not in charge anymore.

[661] It doesn't care about you.

[662] No. That's the thing, like, the thing about, like, Prince of Wales is this solitude, this sadness that's beautiful.

[663] It's really weird.

[664] It's a weird feeling that you get, where you just like it.

[665] There's no denying your lack of significance in this particular environment.

[666] It doesn't give a fuck about your credit cards.

[667] No. It doesn't care about your cell phone.

[668] It doesn't care who you know or where you live or what kind of car.

[669] It doesn't give a fuck.

[670] It's just tooth and fang and claw and rain and constant rain.

[671] Yeah.

[672] And beauty.

[673] Just unbelievable beauty with the, like when the sun does come out.

[674] Oh, yeah.

[675] I mean, you're just in hell and all of a sudden you're on the top of a ridge and the, and the sun peaks out and a rainbow pops up.

[676] And the like the technical or hyper vivid, just like crazy green.

[677] Yeah.

[678] It's, you know what?

[679] Sorry about that.

[680] I have cold.

[681] that place has a personality right but being in wilderness i've been in wilderness spots all over the globe it's what's so fascinating to me is how they all have a different vibe they all have a different life and it's it's it's like uh i mean sure it looks different but there's a like a felt sense or a feeling you get from place like the brooks range in alaska is the the northernmost range of mountains and it runs east and west and then above it is the arctic um the arctic plain and then the arctic ocean there is something about being up there and especially i think in the summer when when the sun doesn't really go down it is it is it feels like being on a different planet but man i don't know if i have the words to describe it but yeah man i mean and that's what i said i'm addicted to i'm i am and i you know i moved to montana for professional reasons but then also because it's where i wanted to live and so i get out hiking all the time you know i train i hike with that's kind of how i stay fit um but i come i need to figure this out because i come home from that feeling like i just like got started you know i missed the deep immersion of the woods like working when you were working for me either and constantly on those trips or yeah yeah anytime that i spent over i think there's something that happens after you know depending on how long like the longest i've stayed out at a time is 40 some days um but there's something that happens I don't know, a day, two days, three days, five days in where you really just kind of let go of the regular.

[682] You know, I think it's actually physiological, some of it, but whatever.

[683] It could be just psychological, too.

[684] But something shifts, you know, when you do a real expedition, when you do a real thing where you're not, your brain's not half stuck back in all the other stuff.

[685] So, yeah, I go hiking and I love it, you know, all the time and we get out in the woods, but it just doesn't really do it for me. I feel kind of unfulfilled.

[686] That's interesting.

[687] you just got so addicted to being out there completely disconnected that you when you go on the hike you know you could always just make it back to town a couple hours oh yeah it's just like a little I'm trying to think of like an analogy but it would be like a little taste yeah it would be like maybe like a five minute porn session versus a week long like love making session of your dreams right just like a little yeah a little teaser just not as fun do you do you plan on stay in Is that, is that, I think so.

[688] Yeah, I mean, we think about, we definitely won't move back east.

[689] We would either move somewhere out here or stay there.

[690] It gets cold as fog in the winter, though, right?

[691] It does.

[692] Yeah, not, not that cold, actually.

[693] No?

[694] Like, not compared to where I grew up.

[695] In Minnesota, it gets really cold for a long time.

[696] Yeah.

[697] And Montana, where we're at, used to do that, but, um, global warming.

[698] Something.

[699] Yeah.

[700] Something.

[701] It's different.

[702] This year was pretty mild.

[703] The year before was really, really mild.

[704] You know, like 35, average 10.

[705] Really?

[706] That's it?

[707] Yeah.

[708] It's not that bad.

[709] Oh, I thought it was like 35 below.

[710] No, you go northern Montana up in the high line area.

[711] It'll start to, you know, more of a deep freeze, a lot more wind.

[712] Bozeman's kind of a nice little protected.

[713] We should stop talking about Bozeman.

[714] So people, you're telling you, we're going to get people into it.

[715] It's, well, just another fact on that.

[716] It is the, I think, the third fastest growing county in the states right now.

[717] Wow.

[718] Well, it makes sense when I was there.

[719] We went there, took the family there.

[720] last summer i was like this place is magic so pretty i got a couple other spots though that i'm saving oh yeah don't tell anybody no i'm not gonna um when you were in the brooks range did you put uh like masks on to go to sleep those you know those sleeping masks they say that's the move a t -shirt yeah yeah i just use a t -shirt just cover your eyes yeah they say you have to because if you just try to like sleep you'll wake up a couple hours later and be all bewildered oh yeah no it's weird it's weird it's cool it's a very it's a perception changing thing to go up there and watch the sun literally just kind of like, you know, kiss the horizon and then just keep going.

[721] Yeah, I went to Anchorage a couple of years ago in the summer.

[722] We were there in July.

[723] Me and my friend Ari went fishing up there.

[724] We did some shows up there.

[725] And it was weird.

[726] It was like 2 o 'clock in the morning.

[727] It was a light out.

[728] We were like, what the fuck is this like?

[729] And the people are cool as shit.

[730] That's another place.

[731] There's something about like those people, like Alaska, even more extreme.

[732] Because something about those people that they deal with.

[733] nature in a way that everybody else just doesn't oh yeah well they have yeah all the time yeah weather weather's gnarly i mean you can't walk out your house for more than 10 miles before you have a you know giant massive in front of you yeah peak the ocean's right there yeah yeah yeah i mean anchorage is a it's a weird place too i love it yeah it's really interesting too because you think of it as like a bunch of like lumberjacks and fishermen and weirdos and like people trying to run from the law or something like that and you get there and there's like hunk -free quality there's a bunch of people with gay right signs and people beep in their horns as they drove by I'm like oh this is not what you think it is no craft breweries and yeah really good restaurants like oh okay this is it's not it's not like hicks I feel like it has a little bit of flavor the Pacific Northwest of Seattle and Portland but then then a big dose of weird too yeah a lot of weird a lot of extreme you I mean these are these are people that are they're this is where they're to live and die.

[734] And, you know, there's grizzly bears everywhere.

[735] A lot of Minnesotans and folks from where I grew up, there's a big connection.

[736] A lot of people move up to, have moved up to Alaska.

[737] So, like I said, I grew up going up there fairly regularly in the summer.

[738] Who did you say lives that you know that lives on Codiac Island?

[739] My dad's sister.

[740] Oh, her family.

[741] That's a scary place.

[742] Those bears are fucking giant.

[743] Yeah.

[744] Yeah, they are.

[745] Aren't they the biggest brown bears in the world?

[746] Uh, they might be, I think I've heard that the Kamchakka brown bears in Siberia, in Russia, across, I don't know if that is Siberia, but across the, the water there, um, they might be bigger.

[747] I could be totally wrong about that.

[748] I saw, um, this video of this guy, uh, the, you remember that show that was on?

[749] It was called The Hunt.

[750] It was, um, a show that it was interesting because, um, James Hatfield of Metallica was the narrator of, um, And people were so angry at him for narrating this thing that they were talking about boycotting Metallica when they played some music festival.

[751] I never watched it.

[752] I remember you talking about it.

[753] And then, yeah, I know what you're talking about.

[754] And it was about bear hunting, right?

[755] Yeah.

[756] It was about brown bear hunting, which is a really controversial form of hunting because you don't really eat those things.

[757] I mean, you kind of can, but they taste like shit.

[758] Well, the coastal ones, especially.

[759] They're just eating rotten fish all the time.

[760] Yeah, like animals taste like what they eat, which is really, I mean, makes sense, but it seems pretty counterintuitive.

[761] I dare Trump to try to take away some of those Alaskan wilderness areas, man. I mean, the real worry is that he's going to let people drill in them and they're going to destroy something.

[762] Yeah.

[763] And that's the real worry.

[764] The real worry is the reason why he's releasing or relaxing some of these regulations is that he wants to let industry get in there.

[765] And as soon as they start fracking and police.

[766] looting wells and rivers and it's just it's fucking dangerous man it's just not it's something that if they do fuck it up it could be fucked up for a hundred generations yeah do you ever live in new york city not in the city i used to live in new rachel which is uh right outside of the bronx i lived there for seven years or so and uh if there if there wasn't the existence of central park and i lived in brooklyn so prospect park if those two green places didn't exist while I lived there, I would have probably lost my mind or just moved, right?

[767] I feel like these big areas of wilderness we have, you know, as we will not be okay as humans.

[768] I mean, like individually, sure, is it going to, here's my worry.

[769] My worry is that, you know, the general American public or the general public doesn't have enough connection or real life experience to know why to care so much and right you know that's a big deal and it's um i don't know there's a lot of different angles you can take on that there's that there's so much but there's just something that uh i wouldn't i wouldn't uh i mean if it really gets intense i'm going to have to basically drop what i'm doing and do everything i can to to stop them from from harming these places i don't know what could be done my my real concern is not just this what's going on now but the future and then also When you really consider it overpopulation, I mean, there's seven and a half billion people on the planet now in the most recent census.

[770] Yeah.

[771] This is, that's a half a billion increase over the last, I don't know how many years, but it hasn't been that many.

[772] It was six billion just a few years ago.

[773] I remember that was a number that they bandied about like a decade or two ago.

[774] Yeah.

[775] Now it's seven and a half.

[776] Like what happens when it gets to be 30?

[777] Like where are we going to put these motherfuckers?

[778] What is the carrying capacity?

[779] There must be a number.

[780] Yeah.

[781] It's weird.

[782] We're like rats on a sinking chip.

[783] Yeah.

[784] We're just scrambling everywhere.

[785] We're everywhere.

[786] There's not another animal like us.

[787] When we're on every fucking patch of land you can find.

[788] Yeah.

[789] It's weird.

[790] But we're awesome.

[791] Except these wilderness spots, right?

[792] Look at this.

[793] Those are the current world population.

[794] Is that real?

[795] How do they know that?

[796] Births today.

[797] It's based off averages.

[798] Look at the births today.

[799] You could watch the numbers just roll in.

[800] Oh, my God.

[801] The difference between the births today and the deaths today.

[802] That's incredible.

[803] That's why it's moving so fast.

[804] People are dying slow as fuck.

[805] Population growth today, so the average, 139 ,000 people today.

[806] Wow.

[807] 44 million this year.

[808] Oh, my God.

[809] It's weird.

[810] But that's scary.

[811] And what's the U .S.?

[812] 400 million?

[813] I think we're 300 plus Mexicans.

[814] 326 it says See but that's They're not counting They're not counting all the people that snuck in I just don't think they know Like when they'd say Los Angeles When they say Los Angeles 20 million I'm like okay and What about the Mexicans?

[815] Like because there's a lot of fuck And I'm not anti -Mexican In any way shape or form ladies and gentlemen Don't I'm just looking at this pragmatically Yeah There's a fucking shitload of illegal aliens here Which I support also how many people are here that any given time that don't live here but are here on vacation or working here for like a week that's a good question yeah just added people for hundreds of thousands i would imagine i mean yeah probably yeah when you get on the 405 and you head to san diego and it takes you six hours and you go what is this like what have we done this mass of humans yeah there's so many of us but when you get here and you realize oh you guys don't have any weather that's what it is yeah but you could also you know go 30 miles outside the city and have that same weather couldn't you yeah pretty much not the people yeah but you know you don't get the same taco stands right yeah i get it i like i love cities man i miss it i miss living in new york i really do to you um i wouldn't trade it at this point you know i was younger and single in new york had a fun time and and moved to montana have a family now it's kind of perfect for for uh where i'm at my life so I don't really need anything else yeah that's the balance right it's like there is no really perfect place it's like there's places that are perfect for certain things like if you're a comedian Los Angeles is the best place see the Los Angeles or New York I prefer Los Angeles there's a lot of clubs there's a lot of comedians like most of the best comedians in the world live here it's a great place for us to network and we work together and stuff like that and if you if you want to be in that business this is probably the best place in the world to do it So that's one of the reasons it keeps me around here, plus the podcast and all that jazz.

[816] But for peace of mind, it's not the best place.

[817] No. Does that actually fuck with you?

[818] Yes.

[819] The numbers of humans is just, it's untenable.

[820] You're close to North Korea.

[821] Yeah, that's right.

[822] That's right.

[823] But if you know what, man, if they nuke California, where are you going to go?

[824] You know, I mean, the whole thing's going to be a mess.

[825] Yeah.

[826] You might be better off if it lands on your head.

[827] That's what I always say about asteroids Like you don't want to be that guy in the movie That like is like storing food in his basement And staying up all night to shoot vandals And because people are trying to steal your canned goods That doesn't sound fun Not like a healthy life No You don't want to live like that And then what happens?

[828] You die of old age Die of old age protecting your canned goods Yeah in fight or flight your entire life Fuck that Freaked out Fuck that Just let that rock land right on your fucking head boom i used to stress out a lot about where the perfect place to live was i just gave that up doesn't exist doesn't exist there's places you don't want to be caught dead like florida i like florida i like it i like it sarasota no my wife was uh raised on captiva island which is on the southwest coast okay like key west is pretty dope yeah down there it's pretty cool that's it's a good place you just want to drink and take naps or fish yeah yeah yeah there's some cool stuff down there But it's just, Florida's just so fucked up.

[829] It's, they've, they've done such damage to Florida with their Oxycontin regulations.

[830] You know, one time there were more OxyContin prescriptions in Florida than they were the entire country combined.

[831] Seriously?

[832] Yes.

[833] I didn't know that.

[834] It was insane.

[835] Is this recent as, like, recent in these late opioid struggles?

[836] Mm -hmm.

[837] Yeah, there was a documentary that, you know, called the OxyContin Express that was on Vanguard.

[838] Wow.

[839] And these people that went down there, they went undercover and saw how easy it is to buy opiates down there.

[840] They have these one -stop shops, these pain management centers where you'd go in and say, hey, doc, my back is killing me. The doc said, you need some pills.

[841] Go right next door.

[842] So he'd write your prescription.

[843] You go right next door.

[844] You get the pills.

[845] And then, boom, you're off to the races.

[846] And they didn't have a database, which meant that you could go to Dr. Jamie.

[847] and you say, Dr. Jamie, my back's killing me. Dr. Jamie gives you a prescription.

[848] You buy some opium pills or whatever the fuck they are.

[849] And then you come to me and you go, Dr. Joe, my back is killing me. I'm like, oh, you need a prescription.

[850] So were they just being sourced there and then sold elsewhere?

[851] They purposely made their regulations lax there so they could make more money.

[852] So people were buying them and then bringing them and selling them in Kentucky and up to Ohio.

[853] And that's why they call it the OxyContin Express, the highway that led from Florida.

[854] Florida to the rest of the country.

[855] That sounds evil.

[856] Yeah, it was sick.

[857] And, you know, a lot of people lost their lives.

[858] And a lot of people lost, like, who they were because of the addiction.

[859] Wow.

[860] Yeah, the numbers were insane.

[861] Like, Google the numbers.

[862] Like, what were the numbers of oxycontons or oxycodone?

[863] I still don't know what the difference is.

[864] And you've seen the reports lately showing that the life expectancy or the early death rate of middle -aged white men specifically lately has dropped for the first time.

[865] I don't know, dozens or...

[866] Because of pain pills?

[867] Yeah.

[868] Well, part of it.

[869] They're calling them deaths of despair.

[870] Ooh.

[871] How they're being written about is literally deaths of despair.

[872] It's, it's...

[873] Yeah.

[874] Jesus.

[875] No, it's heavy.

[876] It's real heavy.

[877] That's a heavy.

[878] There's been a spade of articles over the last three or four months just that's really diving into it.

[879] And it's guys.

[880] It's men.

[881] Here it is.

[882] Doctors in Florida prescribed 10 times more oxycodone pills than every other state in the country combined.

[883] Wow.

[884] And this is now, right?

[885] What is this article from?

[886] This was actually from 2011 on NPR, probably when it came out.

[887] Ah, there we go.

[888] I can get the updated one.

[889] Nah, it doesn't matter.

[890] It's just, it's a crazy place.

[891] Let's just put it that way.

[892] Despair is one of the scariest words.

[893] Right?

[894] Despair.

[895] Yeah.

[896] When you hear about someone like, despair and lonely, those are two like really.

[897] So that's the other word that they're using, is, is lonely?

[898] It has been, they're now measuring it and loneliness is is as or worse of a health issue in our country than smoking, heavily smoking.

[899] There's all this, there's this new loneliness is?

[900] Loneliness is, isn't overpopulation coincided with loneliness.

[901] Think about that.

[902] We're thrust further and further closer together and we don't know each other.

[903] And we're more and more disconnected and lonely.

[904] And it's literally, so there's a whole new, I don't know how new, but it's called.

[905] interpersonal neurobiology which is the science of our brain wiring and physiological wiring on how we're yeah this is one of the articles loneliness might be a bigger health risk than smoking or obesity whoa that's dark dude it's dark but you know with the in my life the experience I've had in my life I'm when I read that I'm like of course yeah it makes sense yeah we are a disconnected people.

[906] We are electronically digitally connected in a crazy way, but in a human way.

[907] And it's killing, it literally is, is harming.

[908] Awesome people are dying.

[909] And it's crazy.

[910] It's crazy stuff.

[911] That's so fascinating that like feelings have an effect on your health, like the feeling of loneliness, the feeling of despair.

[912] It's not like you could eat your vegetables, you can get your exercise in.

[913] And if you feel despair and you feel loneliness, your body is actually like being harmed by that.

[914] But there's a real, like, practical reason for that.

[915] And that's because we are, when we come out as babies, we are the most dependent individuals.

[916] So, like, our, you know what I mean?

[917] Like, on your parents, on your mother, we are completely socially dependent when we're born, completely.

[918] And so, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you ever heard of that?

[919] So it's like, you know, to be okay, you have to take care of breathing and water and your basic functions.

[920] But there's been studies recently by these neurobiologists that are showing, that these social needs are just as or even, like, come before some of these physical needs.

[921] There's, it's crazy, man. And there's literally, there's a book called Social by a guy named Matthew Lieberman.

[922] Like, you got to check it out.

[923] And so what they are finding is that there's, like, two parts of our operating brain.

[924] And this is, you know, going to be me pairing it down.

[925] But one is the analytical thinking, deciding thing.

[926] And the other is this social awareness.

[927] awareness brain, which is always, like always checking in on how am I in relation to others.

[928] And it's also the part of their brain that actually we can, you know, like the metacognitive part and the part that I can, they call it mind reading.

[929] But really, it's just, it's just by us sitting here, I can kind of get a sense of how you feel and what you're thinking, right?

[930] Just by the connection that we have and just it's part of who we are.

[931] So when our analytical brain is offline, this other one, the social one pops on immediately.

[932] So what they're theorizing is that that is like the fundamental need for humans in safety and survival is how are we relating to each other as a group?

[933] But it makes sense if you look, I mean, to me it makes sense in, you know, we are social animals.

[934] We forget that, I think, but you look at other species of monkeys or wolves or whatever.

[935] I mean, you know, there might be a period of time where, say, a wolf, we'll get kicked out of a pack for a while and he'll go do his thing, but eventually come back to a pack.

[936] It's not safe for us as humans and animals, social animals like these, to be isolated.

[937] It's not.

[938] And so there's all these parts of us that just, if we're not connected to other people in a very direct and true way, there's these sort of deep down emotional and physiological fears that come up, right?

[939] And they're real.

[940] And that's what the neurobiology is showing, which is really interesting.

[941] I mean, we can just think about that, but they're actually showing it now that if we're not really connected to each other, we're going to be freaked out.

[942] We're not going to be okay.

[943] And, you know, I really believe that this really drives a lot of the internal struggle we have.

[944] And we're really – and this is part of, you know, getting into it, that's part of my – what I'm trying to bring into the world and my platform now is just to, you know, stand up and say, hey, we need each other, and we can do it.

[945] but it's not, and for guys specifically, right?

[946] It's such a social stigma of ours to not be real or open or connected or vulnerable with guys.

[947] And it's cool to see the science coming out because I have all this anecdotal evidence of being out in the woods with kids or being in a man's group with guys or running a retreat or whatever this is of how powerful it is to like set down all of our differences and just be there with others.

[948] But now the science is really lighten it up.

[949] And yeah, man, loneliness.

[950] I mean, we can all think about it.

[951] Loneliness isn't fun.

[952] It's not, doesn't feel good.

[953] But the other, this is crazy too, that they're showing that emotional pain lights up the same centers of our brain.

[954] It's physical pain.

[955] And that one study showed that an insult to someone had much more painful and long -term effects than slamming somebody with a hammer, hitting their hand with a hammer.

[956] so like our emotional pain literally actually exists in the body like it is actual pain and the reason that it's so uncomfortable to feel our emotions which it is you know i mean i'll just say it is is that it actually hurts like actually hurts i mean and there's like people say things like you broke my heart or i'm dying of heartache or whatever but the science is catching up and showing us that this pain is actual it's real and we're not addressing it we're not even aware of it.

[957] It's really interesting.

[958] Whoa, that's deep.

[959] You know, it's interesting too because what you're saying about us being disconnected and how unhealthy it is and how unhealthy loneliness is, it sort of confirms these ideas that I've always had that the human race itself is not like a group of individuals, but a super organism, much like the human body is.

[960] Like the human body requires all the bacteria in your gut, all the skin flora, all the different things that compose the actual physical structure of the human body, whereas we think of it, I think there's some nutty number of how much bacteria, how many bacteria cells are in your body versus how many human cells.

[961] Right.

[962] Isn't that crazy?

[963] And it's far out numbers, the human cells.

[964] And it's just that we think of ourselves as, I'm Mike, and I put my shoes on and I go to work because I am Mike.

[965] But Mike, you're a system, you're a system of individual organisms that are collectively keeping this whole thing alive and when the imbalances off like when someone takes an antibiotic and it fucks up their gut flora like literally you've like nuked a part of your civilization right and you know to try to save something like if you had some sort of a surgery and you're worried about an infection which is kind of like an invading army coming in and taking over part of your leg that you haven't operated on like yeah it would be like slashing the tires of all of our transport system in the country like that's our gut that's like what delivers things in and out right yeah and even has an impact on your your health mentally oh in terms of like how you feel and your depression a lot of that is connected like legitimately connected to your diet and how that affects your gut flora and it affects the way your body produces serotonin and dopamine and it's bananas man oh yeah no i get it is scientists bust the myth that our bodies have more bacteria than human cells.

[966] Decades old assumption about microbiota revisited.

[967] Okay, what's the new data?

[968] It's down one to one instead of 10.

[969] Oh, so it's, you are as much.

[970] Okay, so they used to say it was 10 to 1, but now it's one to one.

[971] Okay.

[972] Wow, that's still crazy, man. It's still like your half bacteria.

[973] Yeah.

[974] I like that analogy, though, of the body as like a civilization or whatever.

[975] Yeah.

[976] Think about if you're one of your, I don't know, one important neuron.

[977] one cell, neural cell or something, decided just to go rogue and not be in connection with the rest of you, right?

[978] I mean, I don't, that wouldn't work so well, right?

[979] I don't know what happened.

[980] Your body would probably get rid of it and get it out of there, or, I don't know, maybe, so I'm just really reaching here, but it's some sort of rogue cell at that point, right?

[981] Like a cancerous cell or something.

[982] It would probably be attacked.

[983] So, yeah, I think that if you take that analogy, you know, our civilization here is we're hurting.

[984] Really hurting because we're really not You know, we are working together obviously In practical ways a lot of times You know, work and commerce And you know, the world is functioning But I think on a like a health and fulfillment level We're missing something pretty deeply Yeah, well also like let's talk about people That are disconnected from actual humans But connected to them in a cyber way Yeah Like how many people are like really lonely In terms of like physical touch And communication with friends and but they sit in front of their computer all day and they interact with people online.

[985] What shows you like some of the most unhealthy communities you'll ever encounter are like online message boards and forums where people are just anonymous and interacting with people without what we were talking about earlier.

[986] Like one of the reasons why I like to do podcast with a person in the room, I've only done one podcast ever through Skype.

[987] And that was with John Anthony West because he was living in New York and he's this really important Egyptologist and I really wanted to talk to them is the only way I could get them to do it was do it through Skype.

[988] So I did one.

[989] I prefer to sit there with people because I want to look at them.

[990] I want to feel their energy.

[991] I feel like you and I doing this conversation, you get to understand each other.

[992] Totally.

[993] No, I get it.

[994] And I think I can hear it in your podcast too.

[995] And I think that, you know, and again, I'm not going to keep hitting the biology part, but there's, to me, I think that it means I can sense that there's a, something else in me is getting, is triggered, right?

[996] If we were just talking on the, phone, there is something, and it might be this other part of your brain, but it's lit up right now, right?

[997] Because I can, I can spatially, you know, see and feel where you are.

[998] Right.

[999] We can, you know, have eye contact and all of that.

[1000] All of that.

[1001] Yeah.

[1002] And it's, it's that sense of connection.

[1003] It's that real, I think, and I think that is, you know, really apparent in your podcast is that you, yeah, you sit here and you really connect to somebody and just run with it.

[1004] And I think that's uh it's a big it's a big thing man i mean i mean i think of like um so part part of what i do is is i help um proliferate this idea of men's groups across the country where guys get together for exactly what we're talking about it's just like you know the the intent of them is to um get together to challenge and support each other's growth or personal growth you know And it's just a simple sort of protocol and a simple sort of design or sort of it's, there's a structure to it.

[1005] But the whole point is remedial in a sense.

[1006] It's that, you know, our culture in general, but guys, especially in our culture, don't have this, this unfettered place to really show up and actually connect with each other.

[1007] And it's a scary thing.

[1008] I mean, it's a, it's, you know, it's a, you know, it's a, it's a, you know, it's, it's, a. Until now and still now, but hopefully not too long, I really, like, that stigma of not being connected is, it's a big deal.

[1009] And I think that back to the cyber thing that you're saying, like, we can get that hit of serotonin by getting a like on Facebook or Instagram or whatever.

[1010] We can get that.

[1011] But that pale, I mean, I don't even want to make a comparison toward actually sitting down with somebody and actually feeling and experiencing them.

[1012] yeah it's you can't make it compares no it's not okay to me it's not i don't yeah it's just so different i'm in a tricky position because i rely on social media to let people know that i have a podcast coming out you know like right before the podcast i was like what's your twitter so i could tweet it yeah and then i also like to promote comedy dates and to let people know about cool shit that i find but the the interaction is so it's so weird like especially there's like a bunch of different kinds of interaction like Instagram is one of the weird ones because the cuntiest people all have blocked pages oh yeah it's like they're blocking don't look at me and they just say nasty shit to people but they have these blocked pages it's like but I think that that's it's so funny how that seems to be like it's so common but it makes sense it's like they're blocked off and they're attacking people and saying shitty things to people and I'm not even talking about to me I'm talking about like when I go to someone else's page and I read cunty things I always go to that I go let's see if that guy's blocked yep he's blocked how funny like it's super common it's like this weird thing that people are doing with each other which not real interaction and I feel like the people that are perpetrating it are extremely unhealthy which is why they're saying such nasty vicious shit in the first place it's really really odd they're lonely yeah no I mean or in some way or disconnected or disenfranchised or they feel in inferior yeah and so they lash out and they want other people to feel the way they feel and so one what I feel when you say that like one thing that's missing there is empathy yeah in that in that interact whatever that interaction is yeah is this removed story that you're making up some some like whatever you want the world you know you're projecting your shit out into the world you're not actually slowing down enough to you know you can sit here and give opinions or whatever all day long but you know the no but to what you said though it is a a weird position, but I think the way that things are going, so we are using these tools, the social media, to connect us and to get messages out.

[1013] But, you know, the way that the, like, the millennial generation is going is that what they value and what they want to spend their money on is meaningful experiences, which means, you know, generally speaking, alive in -person event.

[1014] And I think there is a wave of things going back to this.

[1015] So, you know, as a tool, we need that.

[1016] I mean, this is amazing, you know, this platform, this podcast you have that touching so many people or just Twitter, whatever it is.

[1017] But then it can be, you know, used for incredible good to bring people together, I think.

[1018] And then so what's missing in that social media interaction, I don't know, maybe it balances out.

[1019] Maybe it doesn't, I don't really know.

[1020] It's a message in a bottle.

[1021] You just got to make sure it's a good message.

[1022] You know, you're not going to, you're not, you have to like be cognizantly aware, I think, of how other people are going to receive it without actually getting that reception back from them.

[1023] you know it's and that's where it gets real weird and you have to like I think apply the same principles that you would in communicating with other people like without actually communicating without seeing them without getting the social cues without looking them in the eye and where we're a weird thing man this might not make sense but I'm going to bring it back to connect to the wilderness stuff what we're talking about in this sense of this sort of isolation and loneliness that we have and for me in my life where I learned to connect with others, where I really learned to sort of give it up, let go, be present with people, was in the wilderness.

[1024] It was doing that job out in the desert with kids, out there for eight to 20 days at a time with these kids where that was my job.

[1025] It was my job to simply be with them.

[1026] And in a way, to be with them in a way that was, you know, obviously we had a lot of boundaries and everything but to be really real just to be totally real and honest and straightforward call bullshit when we saw bullshit be empathetic and it was just like this crazy crash course in human connection and it happened to be out in the wilderness but so what I think I don't know this is this is it'll tie together but for me I started to feel way way way more human being out there in the wilderness like just being out there where it was quiet being out there where like you know if I sat on a rock I was sitting on a rock and the sun was on me and all of my senses were engaged you know very aware of my body we were in these groups where we were being practicing being very aware of what we felt and being able to feel and express that and it just felt like you know since then for me it all comes back to to being out in the wilderness but since then all the other things I've engaged in meditation the men's group stuff all the other person even psychedelics things like that all the things that that I've experienced all for me tie back to that thing and it it comes down to what I feel is like being totally as much as you can truly present yeah like just just here right and you can write a Twitter message from that place of being present right that's fine I mean there's there's nothing necessarily wrong or bad about that but but don't check the responses every three minutes for the next six hours like a fucking maniac yeah yeah it's a It's a matter of, I guess, rationing some of that social media stuff or rationing some of that online interaction with other people.

[1027] I feel like as time has gone on, I've gotten much more of my online interaction in like an educational form in terms of like interesting articles, science things, things that don't involve like social interaction or opinion as much as they involve really fascinating fact.

[1028] Yeah.

[1029] Like, um, something that I found today, they think that North America might have been settled by humans as much as 100 ,000 years early than they thought.

[1030] I saw that.

[1031] You see that?

[1032] Yeah, I did.

[1033] Yeah.

[1034] It's insane.

[1035] Like, that kind of shit freaks me out.

[1036] Yeah.

[1037] I love that kind of stuff because that, that kind of stuff is just pure curiosity and pure wonder and, and the imagination goes wild, thinking about what it must have been like to be one of these early humans.

[1038] Yeah.

[1039] surviving or trying to survive.

[1040] And if they didn't, we wouldn't be here.

[1041] And these, these mastodon fossils, they found them.

[1042] The bones were shattered and there's rocks nearby that do not seem like they were brought anywhere.

[1043] So it was 1992.

[1044] They were doing highway construction near San Diego.

[1045] And they found these odd looking bones.

[1046] And then they started doing these studies on them.

[1047] And then they found their mastodon bones.

[1048] And they didn't have the ability to do carbon testing and get a real accurate assessment back then but now they do and so now when they're checking these bones and the way these bones had been shattered they're pretty sure that they had been shattered purposely to get to the marrow wow yeah so that yeah that's a great example of a positive benefit yesterday i uh i meditated for about 80 minutes or so and then i and i sat up afterwards and i clicked on my phone and opened facebook and the first thing i clicked on was say uh was a video of a woman in slow motion who stuck her ass out the window of a bus and just shat this stream of shit and I just laughed I had to laugh to myself man I was just like in this zone you know I was in this beautiful place and then open and watch I was like oh my god it reminded me of Callan's one joke the shitting out of the car 80 miles an hour yeah YouTube video I think yeah I've definitely seen too many of those videos I've seen too many videos of people getting beat up too many videos of street fights too many videos of people like skateboard accidents where they fucking flip and fall in their head it's hard to not watch that though right very hard very hard it's very hard it's very hard I mean I feel like there's something to be learned in those videos like I almost want to show my kids hey don't try to do flips if you don't know what you're doing you're landing your fucking head but you know I mean understanding the consequences and having someone else do it so you can learn from them they've already done it so here learn this is what this is why you're doing you don't fuck with a tiger see look the guy got killed by the tiger now you know this is why you don't do this is why you don't do that like there's got to be some educational value in those yeah yeah I'm sure that seems like a reach a little bit of a little bit I mean we have some pretty strong instincts in us to that say don't fuck with a tiger I know but dumb kids man it's like it's almost like dumb kids are there as educational tools for the survivors it's like you're supposed to see that one kid poke the tiger and get mauled and you're like shit i can't believe he actually broke into the zoo now bobby's gone yeah you know like bobby like i mean that's the joseph campbell uh story of the hero that it goes all the way back to the one person who sacrificed their life yeah and got killed by the predator in front of the tribe and so that the tribe could survive and that they worship that person for doing that yeah yeah the hero goes off learns a lesson brings it back to the community and everybody's better for it yeah yeah Yeah, or you watch the hero get mauled when he's a martyr and then you escape while the hyenas are eating him.

[1049] One of the things we taught or we worked with kids out in the woods was we called it natural consequences, right?

[1050] Which just means that when you do something, something else happens.

[1051] There is a natural reaction.

[1052] And it was used a lot of times in opposition or instead of like a penalty system, right?

[1053] So if you do something bad, we could lay this punishment on top of you.

[1054] Like what kind of stuff?

[1055] I mean, well, so for example, if somebody was going to harm themselves or somebody else, you got tarped.

[1056] Tarped.

[1057] Yeah, we put out a tarp and your shoes and everything would be taken away from you, and you couldn't leave the tarp.

[1058] Like, that was where you had to stay because you couldn't hurt yourself or you couldn't hurt anybody else.

[1059] Wow.

[1060] So that was, you know, and some of that...

[1061] What'd you do with their shoes?

[1062] Aed them?

[1063] Where'd you put them?

[1064] It's in your tent or under your tarp.

[1065] And so they had to stay like under tarp?

[1066] Is that the idea or?

[1067] If it was raining, yeah, but no. I mean, otherwise it's just, it was just basically a timeout, you know, in essence.

[1068] You know, you got to stay here.

[1069] You can't interact with the group.

[1070] You're by yourself, whatever.

[1071] That's actually not the best example, but I'll just use it.

[1072] So if you swore you could, some programs would, you know, maybe, have a point system.

[1073] You get penalized.

[1074] For coins?

[1075] I mean, that wasn't...

[1076] It seems a little silly.

[1077] Yeah, it wasn't really upheld.

[1078] I'm reaching for a good example here.

[1079] What I'm trying to say is that if you do something shitty, generally you hurt others around you and things happen.

[1080] And so what we tried to show is that if kids would do something shitty to pay attention and that they would see the harm they're creating themselves by harming other people, rather than just like, you know, in society, just locking a kid up for, you know, breaking the law, it would be, you know, maybe if you break a window, you, in this other way, you would go and actually see and experience the shit that other people had to do to fix the window and do all that, you know, more of a reparative type of justice system rather than, like, a penalty.

[1081] Punitive.

[1082] Punitive.

[1083] Right.

[1084] Yeah, right.

[1085] So when you did take these kids, like, what was, like, the most extreme?

[1086] example if someone was like really disturbed because I would imagine there would be like a big sort of uh like there was a lot of variables like some people would be kind of fucked up and some people would be really fucked up it's probably a spectrum right absolutely generally speaking very few were I would say actually fucked up very very very very very few what was the case with most of them um they were kids in families and like communities that didn't know how to make space for them and deal with them.

[1087] They didn't have mentors.

[1088] They didn't have people to, they didn't have parents that gave them the right direction.

[1089] I don't know.

[1090] You know, like being a kid is, you're supposed to test boundaries, right?

[1091] It's like, that's the part of your development in your ontogeny.

[1092] It's like you are defining your personnel.

[1093] You're defining who you are and you need to test the boundaries.

[1094] And you know, some of the kids made only two, I probably worked with at least a thousand, maybe more kids altogether.

[1095] maybe that's a stretch a lot right for a lot for a long time and only one I went to bed and I worried I might get my head kicked in really just one one kid and um maybe one or two other kids that I walked away actually not enjoying being around them almost every other single one it was just like walked away what did you do about the one that you worried about getting your head kicked in you know just kind of just kind of sat with it there's really nothing you could do you know did it was it just like initially or through the entire experience that was through the whole thing oh jeez that was through the whole thing that was uncomfortable fuck that yeah what happened to him oh he's dead now no no i have no idea you know there's there's i mean there's laws and there's things you don't generally get to stay in touch oh right right this was actually at a a state program so this was a um in lieu of a jail sentence they came out so this kid was locked up wow what did he do i don't remember I don't know.

[1096] Probably stole a car or beat somebody up or I don't know.

[1097] He was just super aggressive?

[1098] He wasn't.

[1099] No. But he had that, he had the, I had the feeling that he had no empathy for others' pain, right?

[1100] He couldn't feel that.

[1101] That's the only time I'd ever got any interaction with any of those kids ever got, you know, that sent chills through me, you know.

[1102] That was like, and maybe, maybe I didn't feel in any practical sense that he was going to hurt me, but I had the sense that if he did, he wouldn't care, right?

[1103] Oh, wow.

[1104] Because there wasn't that connection, the same thing we're talking about in a sense.

[1105] Like, that's the thing, get dropped in a group of eight boys or young men, and it was so funny, like, you could, you know, we worked with therapists, with therapists coming, all this stuff.

[1106] But all, like, the fundamental thing I took away from that experience was that in order for these guys to grow up and sort of move on and get going in their lives, you know what they needed was just somebody like me to just to show up like it's really not complicated right yeah and and so just let them air things out and talk about better ways to do things and sort of get some perspective now you know we maybe talked about this last time but then they'd go home and not necessarily have that support anymore and be back in their old arena where you know their old friends and their old family dynamic and all that and it you know it's hard It's a hard way.

[1107] And so I left that whole experience just feeling very strongly that a we can as a community in society do just way better with some simple, simple changes.

[1108] We can do better at raising our boys.

[1109] We just can't because done it.

[1110] When you have someone that has no empathy, though, what can be done to instill empathy in someone who lacks it, if anything?

[1111] So I don't know, you know, if you go on that far end of the spectrum where there's nothing, I don't know, and I don't know if that's possible, but I do know that it's a muscle we can practice.

[1112] Empathy is something that we can get better at and that we can pay more attention to.

[1113] When you find a fucked up young kid without empathy, like how, what sort of motivation do they have to gain empathy if they feel like no one has shown it towards them or I don't know what.

[1114] So that's that's it, that's it, right?

[1115] So the motivation that you, I believe you could show is for them to.

[1116] if they could let you caring about them really in, if they could really feel cared about.

[1117] And what's incredibly sad but real is that I think some people, you know, grow up in a, their brains develop, they develop as humans where they don't have that.

[1118] And so the actual wiring, the actual state to receive that isn't there.

[1119] I think that that is possible to gain.

[1120] And, you know, there's been, what is that, a child called it, you know, have you heard of that book?

[1121] Yeah, yeah.

[1122] I mean, I think it's possible in the much, in the less extreme cases, I mean, in a sense that that's kind of a lot of what I do is help guys become more empathetic and the, not just for the benefit of others, right, for the benefit of themselves.

[1123] The reason why I wrote this up is a podcast on Radio Lab about Bernie Madoff.

[1124] And where this guy contacted Bernie Madoff, he sent him letters, and then finally Bernie Madoff called him, and they did this interview together where the way it works in prison, I guess, at least the prison where Bernie Madoff is, you get 15 minutes to talk on the phone, and then you have to wait 15 minutes before you could talk again, and then 15 minutes again.

[1125] And so this is how they did the interview, like 15 minutes on, 15 minutes off, and after a while he sort of gained his trust.

[1126] He went deep into how this whole deception started and how Bernie Madoff, if you don't know the whole story, Bernie Madoff is the guy who had this gigantic Ponzi scheme and stole billions of dollars from people.

[1127] And it's called Ponzi Supernova is the Radio Lab episode.

[1128] Wow.

[1129] And one of the things that was the most chilling was how little empathy he had towards the people that he ripped off, whose lives had been destroyed.

[1130] His son committed suicide.

[1131] people like literally went from having all this money to being so broke they were like dumpster diving and he didn't care he didn't give a fuck yeah i mean he he had no empathy and he's a monster i mean it's it's really interesting to see like this guy's reaction to Bernie made off's lack of empathy and realizing somewhere along the line like oh this guy does not care that was one of things that the investigators had said about him that it didn't seem to bother him at all that he had done this to these people.

[1132] What bothered him was that he had gotten caught, but it didn't bother him that these people had been devastated.

[1133] What bothered him was like that people had made money and weren't giving that money back.

[1134] He'd called one guy and told him the guy had made like $9 billion.

[1135] He was worth $9 billion, rather.

[1136] Seven billion of it had come from Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

[1137] And he told him he had to give that $7 billion.

[1138] billion dollars back the guy had a heart attack drowned in his pool.

[1139] Oh my God.

[1140] Which is kind of hilarious because you can't live with two billion.

[1141] Yeah.

[1142] I guess, well, maybe it's not liquid.

[1143] Maybe he couldn't give back the seven billion.

[1144] Maybe it was impossible.

[1145] It was tied up in real estate and holdings and this and that and the other thing.

[1146] Isn't it amazing that one person's reality could, I would love to step into his head for a second, to Bernie made up just to see what it felt like?

[1147] I think that would be very helpful to be able to step into that because just to see.

[1148] I can't picture it.

[1149] Yeah.

[1150] I just can't picture it.

[1151] Well, I also couldn't picture not being able to live with two billion dollars either.

[1152] Like, what, what is it?

[1153] It's that weirdness of the game, right?

[1154] It's like you score 100 points, you want to score a thousand points.

[1155] Score a thousand, you want to score a million.

[1156] Score a million.

[1157] You want to score a billion.

[1158] It's like you never stop.

[1159] And people never, they never achieve peace.

[1160] Like, that's what I always used to say about Bill Gates.

[1161] Like, why the fuck is Bill Gates still working?

[1162] Yeah.

[1163] Like, you hear about him being the Rich is, and now he's not.

[1164] I mean, he really did sort of find some sort of a balance.

[1165] And now almost all of his work is done towards humanitarian efforts.

[1166] He's, you know, he donates a lot of money, a lot of charities.

[1167] I mean, a lot of really good work, like post his Microsoft career, which is like really kind of unique that a guy sort of found his way, found his, kept a shitload of money.

[1168] Yeah.

[1169] Don't get him wrong.

[1170] Yeah.

[1171] You know, apparently he's got some stupid fucking house with a submarine.

[1172] in the Pacific Northwest where like if someone tries to break into his house you can fucking escape in a submarine I kayaked by his house once actually Did you?

[1173] Did they let you?

[1174] Does Secret Service fucking swarm you and ask you where you're going?

[1175] Yeah, nobody, I couldn't see anybody.

[1176] They're probably on the trees.

[1177] Are you allowed to just walk by his house?

[1178] How's that work?

[1179] Well, it was a private island.

[1180] At least the place that I was at I was just told by the guy I was with.

[1181] We were actually throwing crab pots out of a kayak and I was just told it was his like house.

[1182] I don't know if it was mean house.

[1183] It might have been one of his houses, but But we were, you know, I don't know, 50 yards off the shore and there was a private island.

[1184] A private island.

[1185] That's when you're bawling.

[1186] Yeah.

[1187] You got your own island.

[1188] You know what's an island?

[1189] Tyler Perry.

[1190] The guy that makes those shitty movies and TV shows, those awful shows.

[1191] Tyler Perry.

[1192] Yeah.

[1193] He has a private island?

[1194] He has a private island.

[1195] Where?

[1196] I don't know.

[1197] You can't know.

[1198] If you know.

[1199] I actually feel some sadness for Bernie made off.

[1200] Really?

[1201] Oh, yeah, man. I mean, that's, I don't know, he's as tortured as, you know, I think it's harder to feel empathy for him, but he's as tortured of a human as, I don't know, pick anybody.

[1202] Maybe.

[1203] Right?

[1204] Yeah.

[1205] Maybe, maybe not.

[1206] I, I'm projecting, I don't know, that's a fact, but I don't know.

[1207] If you're hurting that many people, are you kidding me?

[1208] Like, you aren't feeling, you don't feel all right, you know?

[1209] It's a, it's a weird line.

[1210] Like, when do you feel bad for someone?

[1211] Do you feel bad for Jeffrey Dahmer?

[1212] Like, how did he become?

[1213] that cannibal murderer guy how did that happen you know like what what causes someone to go from like you have a boy what causes someone to go from your cute little baby boy to being some monster yeah like how does that what is it about people yeah that makes it possible for someone to go even not to a monster but how about that young boy that you were working with that had no empathy that you worried about sleeping near like who what happens like the developmental process of a human being is way more fascinating to me as an adult with children than it was when I was a young man. When I was a young man and I was single and I didn't have any kids, I just thought people were fucked up and some people weren't.

[1214] Right.

[1215] The people that are fucked up, fuck them and death penalty and, like, kicked their ass.

[1216] See, I've been obsessed with this all my life.

[1217] Really?

[1218] It's been amazing.

[1219] Absolutely.

[1220] Like, what is this process of growing?

[1221] Have you ever heard of the novel Sidhartha?

[1222] No. By Herman Hess.

[1223] Hesse.

[1224] I'm not trying to say that, but it's a classic novel, an author from Germany.

[1225] And it chronicles the life of a young guy named Sidartha.

[1226] But the whole book, what it is, is it goes through his entire life from when he was born until he dies.

[1227] And in it are these like very specific stages of life.

[1228] So he's, you know, his like young wandering years and then he needs to work.

[1229] So he goes to a city and he learns from a traitor and then he needs to learn about love.

[1230] So he gets with a prostitute.

[1231] But all in these big stages.

[1232] And that book did something to me at an early age.

[1233] I just got obsessed with this process of maturing.

[1234] And there's a term for it called ontogeny, which is the process of an organism's growth over their lifespan.

[1235] It's just this natural sort of like a tree, an ontogeny of a tree is it is a, you know, a seed that drops and then it sprouts and then it roots and then it grows and then it dies.

[1236] And it is, yeah, it's been an obsession of mine.

[1237] and, you know, getting thrown into that work of working with kids.

[1238] And, yeah, it's, it's, I'm so fascinating by it.

[1239] And I don't have, obviously, any, you know, solid, here's how it goes.

[1240] But I've been looking into it for, you know, a long time.

[1241] And I just, I think that, oh, anyway, back to the book, the, I used to read that book out loud to these groups of kids.

[1242] I was working on.

[1243] I'd sit around the fire at night and I'd read a novel.

[1244] You'd be out there for days, so you'd have time to read a novel out loud.

[1245] and uh you know it's just something poetic not about just the words but about watching the life someone's life unfold as a whole story and watching them you know yeah i don't know grow up yeah it's just it's this weird fascination i have and and specifically because and it all come and keeps saying it comes back to that time in the woods but i only worked with males with boys and it wasn't i didn't choose to do that I felt like do a lot of girls do the same sort of therapy yeah yeah I think but they must go with women too is probably a problem with men going out there with girls they'll do mixed leadership groups like a male and a female for both boys and girls but yeah there's always a girl with the girls but yeah man I just got obsessed with this what what how do we grow up what does it look like was it feel like how come it's not happening because that's a big part of what I felt as I looked around is that I think that a lot of adult, physically adult men, walk around with parts of themselves that are still 13, 6, 2, 18.

[1246] Right.

[1247] You know, like there's this human maturation process, this human journey that we all have available to us, that I, you know, I think we're too busy a lot of times to let it actually flow and happen.

[1248] Well, I think that's true, that's true, but I also think that there's a maturation process that comes from overcoming obstacles that a lot of people just don't encounter.

[1249] They don't encounter difficulty so they don't learn about themselves.

[1250] That's part of it, but I think that a lot of times, even if they do encounter difficulty, they don't let themselves actually feel, they don't let themselves experience it, right?

[1251] Like, everybody has shitty things happen to them, but you can keep that shitty thing at a distance from you, right?

[1252] You can, like, kind of address it.

[1253] You can sort of, I don't know, act out against it, But unless you actually feel, I mean, think about, and this gets into things like trauma and resilience and how people are able to move on from hardship, right?

[1254] And a lot of the research, there's a psychiatrist called Bessel van der Koke, never heard of him?

[1255] No. Fascinating dude.

[1256] He started working with the VA in Boston and worked with returned vets from Vietnam and then did this whole lifetime of study about trauma and how it comes into humans and how you can move through it and how you can heal it and all this stuff.

[1257] And it just, it basically comes down to being able, like to be more resilient, to be able to get over things.

[1258] say death in the family or an attack or an assault or whatever, whatever that trauma could be, that if you don't allow the body and your system to actually go through feel and process what's going on, you lock it up.

[1259] You lock it up.

[1260] You like, it, and it doesn't, I mean, it's almost like it gets implanted in you somewhere.

[1261] And then it's just like this festers.

[1262] And it's, and the cool the science now is showing the very specifics of this.

[1263] It's not just, I mean, it's still theory, right?

[1264] But it's, um, so I feel like I got off what we were talking about there.

[1265] Um, but yeah, yeah, I feel like, like you said, being able to overcome things, of course, absolutely.

[1266] And part of that is just to me, um, again, speaking more from a male perspective here, but part of that and I think a lot of what our culture says is okay is, Let's horse our way through this, right?

[1267] Let's force a, let's push harder.

[1268] Let's, let's conquer our fears and our feelings.

[1269] Let's not address it.

[1270] Let's just push right, run through the wall, basically.

[1271] Or take antidepressants.

[1272] Well, right.

[1273] So that's the thing.

[1274] And there's this other whole way to get through hardship, which is by actually surrendering to it.

[1275] And letting your, this, like, brilliant system that we have as humans to process it and get through it.

[1276] Right.

[1277] And that's a way to wholeness and health in some ways.

[1278] I think they're both important.

[1279] I mean, like, yeah, you need to be able to, you know, ignore the pain and power your way up that mountain or save somebody that's getting hurt or whatever.

[1280] And then there's this other part I think that needs to be in balance, which is accepting what's happening and getting through.

[1281] Yeah.

[1282] Just a way to accept what's happening and let your body do what it needs to do.

[1283] Well, I also think there's an extreme lack of discipline.

[1284] that a lot of people have and that discipline a lot of it comes from overcoming difficult obstacles and understanding the work that's required to get things done making these little leaps and bounds making these improvements in your life getting better at things I think those things are really critical to the human mind yeah I think the mind has desires and one of the big desires is it has a desire for improvement and his desire to achieve goals and there's a lot of people that these goals are laid out by other people these goals are like graduating from third grade, graduating from fourth grade.

[1285] A lot of shit that you don't want to do.

[1286] So these goals are meaningless to you.

[1287] So you never feel like you've accomplished anything that you actually want to do.

[1288] And next thing you know it, you're a 35 -year -old man working for an insurance company.

[1289] You don't want to be there.

[1290] And you don't have any real part of you that you've nurtured.

[1291] You've just sort of plugged you into these other weird shapes and conform to them.

[1292] And then you just want to go fucking crazy.

[1293] And probably bitched about it all the way along the way.

[1294] Probably.

[1295] Yeah, you probably complained and you're annoying and you're a whiny little twat and you're out there just clogging up the freeway, beeping at people and giving them the finger.

[1296] I mean, that's a lot of humans that you run into.

[1297] That's a lot of, it's a lot of this life.

[1298] So, yeah, and that points directly to what, you know, I do and what I'm building is that, so you take eight of those guys and you set up a room and you say, all right, in this space right here, fuck all that.

[1299] We're going to be actually honest and say what we're feeling, but maybe can't even really access.

[1300] So, like, all that frustration, all that shit, whatever, it could be anything.

[1301] That's so hard for people to do, right?

[1302] Like, what kind of techniques do you employ to get someone, like, say if you've got some guy who's closed off and has been bullshitting his way through life?

[1303] And then all of a sudden, here he is, this 35 -year -old guy that's really troubled that's in a room with you.

[1304] How do you get that guy to open up?

[1305] Safety.

[1306] And leading by example.

[1307] And being vulnerable by example.

[1308] and when somebody said it's part of this connection like sitting down with somebody that if you after one of these last retreats one of the guys came up to me said safety is the new ayahuasca which is maybe a strange thing to say but he said he'd been all over the world doing drugs trying to find growth trying to find himself and we went him went to this retreat and all we did was sit down and say okay our intention all we're doing what we actually are doing here is just making this you're not going to be you're going to be supported you're not going to be laughed at like it's a safe space to do it and then you just you dive in and lead by example and that example like plugs others right into it like it's this amazing symbiotic thing that happens and people just sometimes break open sometimes crack slowly open but you know all of a sudden so maybe after 35 years of only being other people's program you get in touch with what you actually feel what you actually want and who you actually are it's just like this fucking it's like holy shit i think for a lot of people it's really difficult to try to do what you actually want to because you've spent so much time rewarding yourself with material items yeah for these little accomplishments that you've you've become in debt yeah and you really can't escape the system i mean that's totally real problem with people they have a car that they're leasing they have a house that they're renting or even worse that they bought and then they're stuck and then they don't know what the fuck they do they have to keep this insurance company job and it's just rotting them out from the inside totally yeah i mean there's like a whole society built on on uh trying to keep you not who you are right sense i think you know but so what we're finding which is really amazing is that if you stay on that surface level if you stay on that sort of um i don't know like so so trying to improve yourself It goes so far, but it's kind of like an iceberg thing, right?

[1309] So, like, if your goal is to make more money, right, and here's your goal, and you're going toward it and you, I don't know, listen to podcasts or you do all this stuff and you try to figure out how to do it, how do I do it, how do it?

[1310] Right.

[1311] And you keep hitting the wall.

[1312] You keep getting sort of thrown down.

[1313] And you don't really understand that underneath, meanwhile, is this massive sort of like pent -up shit.

[1314] And if you address that massive pent -up shit, then all of a sudden, getting to that goal is a whole different story.

[1315] It's a whole different story.

[1316] It's like always trimming the, like if you need to get rid of a tree in your yard, but all you do is every day you chop the leaves off, the leaves off.

[1317] But if you address the roots, the deeper stuff, and, you know, and again, there's a stigma against that, especially for dudes, right?

[1318] So there's a, like, guys don't want to go to therapy.

[1319] Guys don't want to get into woo -woo, hippie, spiritual shit.

[1320] Or they do, and they're annoying.

[1321] Sure, right.

[1322] They don't, yeah, exactly.

[1323] The ones that do want to get into it.

[1324] Right, exactly.

[1325] And, I mean, I don't know.

[1326] I don't know if I pull this off or not, but I feel fluent in, like, you know, bro culture and fluent in, you know, like, I've, I've gone down that spiritual route, too.

[1327] And, um, well, you recognize when the spiritual route is legitimate and when the spiritual route is like a ruse as well.

[1328] Like sometimes even the spiritual route is just something that someone has plugged themselves into to try to find some meaning.

[1329] Meanwhile, it's not authentic.

[1330] Exactly.

[1331] So how are you doing this if you don't mind me interrupting?

[1332] Like what you, when you're, so you're planning on taking guys like say, say if I'm that 35 year old guy that works an insurance company, for example, and I'm just fucked up and I just, I'm going crazy, man. I need to do something.

[1333] Hey, this seems interesting to me. Yeah.

[1334] Wilderness therapy.

[1335] What does it mean, Dan Doty?

[1336] What does that mean?

[1337] I get involved in this and how do you get me out of this rut, I'm in?

[1338] Yeah, so three things we're offering right now.

[1339] And the first is the wilderness route, which is like a six -day expedition.

[1340] And you can sign up, pay some money, and go out in the woods and change your life.

[1341] Like pretty, we'll climb mountains, we'll go fishing, and all along I'll set up this sense of safety in this community and this sense of brotherhood.

[1342] And how many guys do you go with?

[1343] you know 10 or 12 for that just you and these 10 people a couple of the leaders in myself a couple leaders right because you have to deal with interpersonal disputes and all the nonsense you're going to have to sure likely encounter right and so i'm i'm working with uh some guides to just take care of the logistical stuff so that i can manage the group the group stuff more that's one offering that's that's that's a that's a that's kind of our capstone offering we're doing weekend retreats and we've been doing these for the last six months and they've been just catching on fire about 30 guys at a time in a lodge been doing them in the berkshire so out in the woods a couple hours from new york city 30 guys there and uh just set up sort of an intense weekend experience of uh practicing the stuff and we'll hike and and do trail work and all that stuff but more importantly do with the self you know diving into yourself with in the presence of other guys which is um just you know i've done therapy i've been in therapy i'm not a therapist but um when it's been very helpful like i for if you work with a good therapist that really is really good i couldn't recommend it more but there's something about this these men's retreats which i totally understand sound unattractive to a lot of guys it sounds like a lot of butt fucking yeah of course of course that that is that is your that is the big first sort of response right oh the woods huh yeah tell me more oh i can be open in the woods yeah we what we're we We made one of our advertising videos for it, and it just starts out that a guy stands up and says, yeah, I heard about a men's retreat, and I thought, the first thing I thought was, this is going to be fucking awful.

[1344] And so I get it.

[1345] But I think we're getting further enough along where the guys that are going through this are literally coming back with the most positive feedback that I couldn't write the shit, like changing their lives and just like literally.

[1346] Because it's, you know, back to that thing, we're offering a place for them to accept a part of themselves that's been offline for a long time.

[1347] It's a big fucking deal.

[1348] It's a really big deal.

[1349] It's probably also a big fucking deal to just separate from the hive for a little bit and just be outside of cell phone range and be in the woods and just take a big deep breath of fresh air and look around at the wilderness and just realize that this is reality as well.

[1350] And you've been plugged into this civilization reality, this city, this urban environment, which is entirely unnatural and has only been a real thing for the past couple hundred years.

[1351] Like literally didn't exist for the gigantic swath of humanity that existed before that.

[1352] Yeah.

[1353] I think that it...

[1354] Swath, is that the right word there?

[1355] Not really.

[1356] I think it does a couple deep things.

[1357] It lights up this...

[1358] this neurobiology that of us has social animals.

[1359] I think it goes back to more of a tribal sense of living, too.

[1360] It's like all of a sudden you went from being isolated and lonely to having 30 dudes who would honestly fucking do anything for you in that moment.

[1361] And I got a buddy, a good buddy is a return special forces operator.

[1362] And he sits in my man's group in Bozeman with me and really struggled with coming home.

[1363] and then found our group and within a month his life was back on track like just killing it man just like kicking ass and you know i mean there is a connection between i wouldn't say the general military but the special forces you know you read books and hear about the the aspect of brotherhood and how they're there for each other you know this is definitely a very different venue but the i think the bond and connection that that is created out of it is and this is you know from from his mouth too is it's he went you know i don't know how many years several years in special forces living with in close connection to guys got thrown home was all of a sudden isolated and they came into our group and just had this this uh closeness again and it just bam just like back to back to killing it wow yeah yeah it's it's i mean i'm very aware i mean it's i've been scared to start speaking about this for years man i mean it's very, to me even, I look at advertising for similar men's programs and thing like that.

[1364] It's just so turned off.

[1365] Right.

[1366] It just seems weird.

[1367] It does think people need resets.

[1368] You need some sort of reset.

[1369] And we've talked about this before, about we've both experienced those resets through psychedelics.

[1370] Yeah.

[1371] Or through these hunting trips, you know, and these wilderness trips.

[1372] But I think people get caught up in the momentum of their daily existence and all the requirements of that daily existence.

[1373] And they become overwhelming.

[1374] You know, like we were talking about, like, your lease that you have on your car, your mortgage that you have in your house, and the credit card bills that keep coming in, your student loans you need to eventually get to, and blah, it's a fucking overwhelming grind.

[1375] Yeah.

[1376] And sometimes people need something that removes them entirely from it for a certain amount of time that allows you just the fresh air, the not just literal flesh air, but the metaphorical fresh air of allowing you to just separate from the, you.

[1377] There's all these weird influences and all this weird energy and momentum, the momentum of you, the life that you've created or that's been created for you that you're sort of trapped in.

[1378] Yeah.

[1379] Yeah, man. So that reset thing, I mean, I think a warning is that if you start getting a reset, I mean, from my own experience, I need it pretty regularly.

[1380] Yeah.

[1381] You know, so actually the biggest goal of this, of every man, the organization I founded, is to, our goal is to get a million guys in men's groups because that is the same, and it happened.

[1382] So this last retreat had 30 guys show up, about 20 of them wanted to immediately get into a weekly group to basically continually and regularly experience the same thing.

[1383] It's like a hit, you know.

[1384] Well, there's a thing, too, about men in this culture where there's a thing, too, about men in this culture where, There's not a lot of sympathy towards men that are struggling.

[1385] It seems like there's this thought that men are the patriarchy and we're dominating the world and we're almost like subhuman.

[1386] We're responsible for all these issues.

[1387] So men with issues like, oh, cry me a fucking river.

[1388] What about women with issues?

[1389] What about trans people with issues?

[1390] What about gay people with issues?

[1391] What about black?

[1392] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[1393] Like a regular white guy with issues, like your issues are bullshit.

[1394] But it doesn't matter.

[1395] You are.

[1396] You can't change the fact that you're a little.

[1397] white guy.

[1398] So if you're a white guy with problems, nobody gives a fuck.

[1399] Can't they see that it all connects, though?

[1400] No, they don't.

[1401] Can't they see that an unhappy white guy makes everybody else unhappy too?

[1402] What the fuck, man?

[1403] They don't because it's not convenient for their narrative.

[1404] The narratives that you're responsible for all the problems in the world, even though you're just Dan Doty from Bozeman, Montana.

[1405] No, I get it, but it's so, I mean, that's one of the most powerful, so the podcast that I'm launching is a self -improvement podcast for guys, but instead of going to experts and saying, hey, you know, what's the best morning routine that you can do?

[1406] Designing a routine or whatever.

[1407] I'm talking to regular guys and asking them to share, you know, more vulnerable than they would normally would because that's what happens in these scenarios is that we learn from each other just as simple human fucking beings.

[1408] We're just like, you know, like one guy might share that he's having trouble with his son, for example, or with his kid.

[1409] He doesn't know how to do it.

[1410] and you know like no matter I don't care like a bunch of other guys will say like holy shit I thought I was the only one feeling right you know and it's just all of a sudden you and it's back this isolation thing you think that you're we all think we're fucking special right we all think that we're so unique and the actual if we actually took the time to connect with one another we'd be like oh wow we have a lot like and just that just that is enough to uh drastically change somebody's day or what's motivating you to venture off because you were working for 0 .0's big production company to make you know meat eater and anthony bourdain's show and all these different shows what's motivating you to step away from that and start doing this this is what i've always wanted to do and this is what i've been what compels you i want to help guys yeah i just i and i and i just i and i know that i can you know even if it's just one guy whatever it is but working out there with these kids and seeing all this it just it just left me with the the deepest deepest um satisfaction fulfillment satisfaction but also a sense of purpose it's like and then i tell you what man i had i had a i had a son last year and when he came out and there was something inside me and said if you don't do if you don't do if you don't act on what you know you can bring fuck you fuck it like this is your kid like there is I don't know I'm also you know I was born a fairly sensitive I could feel I was born a sensitive kid right I could feel other people's pain and when I'm you know working with these kids and now these men I mean I don't know I want good for people right I want good for you I want good for my family and I want good for I don't know.

[1411] I feel connected and I want to do what I can.

[1412] No, it's a noble purpose.

[1413] I'm just curious about like what, I mean, you have a very promising career and a lucrative career with 0 .0.

[1414] So for you to leave that, it has to be like a really compelling sort of a pull.

[1415] Yeah, I mean, that job in that career was an amazing wild ride and in some ways felt like a, you know, a temporary sidebar from what I'm really meant to do.

[1416] You know, I've been writing for a long time.

[1417] Yeah, I think that whatever this thing is that I'm doing, it chose me somehow.

[1418] Or, I don't know, maybe that's, I don't know if that's true or not.

[1419] But I don't know.

[1420] How long can you ignore the thing inside you that screams at you that says, you have to do this?

[1421] You have to do this.

[1422] Or you want to do this.

[1423] Yeah, well, you shouldn't.

[1424] Yeah.

[1425] You definitely shouldn't.

[1426] Yeah.

[1427] I mean, it's obviously beneficial.

[1428] And it's obviously something you're compelled to do.

[1429] and it's obviously something that you feel like it's very fulfilling.

[1430] So why ignore it?

[1431] So when do you start this podcast?

[1432] It's out.

[1433] It's out.

[1434] It's out.

[1435] It's out.

[1436] It's called the Everyman podcast.

[1437] The Everyman podcast.

[1438] Yeah.

[1439] E -V -R -Y, M -A -N.

[1440] What about Chicks?

[1441] Oh, fuck off.

[1442] Fuck off, chicks.

[1443] You got your own, you got Oprah.

[1444] Okay.

[1445] I know, I mean, that's a good question.

[1446] I don't think it's, uh...

[1447] Why did you spell it that way?

[1448] Confusing the shit out of people.

[1449] Well, because the full one was like a lot of money.

[1450] Or wasn't available.

[1451] The website.

[1452] It was just a practicality thing.

[1453] Okay.

[1454] Yeah, E -E -E -E -R -Y -M -A -N was not available.

[1455] E -V -R -Y, folks, E -V -R -Y -M -A -N podcast.

[1456] How many episodes do you have out?

[1457] Two now, and then...

[1458] Yeah, two right now.

[1459] Are you doing them every week?

[1460] Like, how are you doing it?

[1461] I'm going to try.

[1462] I'll probably be every two weeks to start, and then I'm just got to get in the swing.

[1463] You're on iTunes, the whole deal, all that jazz.

[1464] Yeah.

[1465] Beautiful, man. Yeah.

[1466] All right.

[1467] Let's wrap it up.

[1468] So that's awesome.

[1469] It's awesome that it's out there.

[1470] It's awesome that people can get a hold of it.

[1471] I always love talking to you, brother.

[1472] So let's do this again.

[1473] Yeah, brother.

[1474] Thank you.

[1475] All right.

[1476] Dan Doty, ladies and gentlemen, every man podcast.

[1477] We'll be back tomorrow with Daddy S Russell.

[1478] See ya.