Andrew Callaghan: Channel 5, Gonzo, QAnon, O-Block, Politics & Alex Jones

00:00:00.000 | there's two people in the back,

00:00:01.160 | two of her homegirls wearing like shiesty masks.

00:00:03.280 | And I'm like, what are we doing?

00:00:04.920 | Where are we going?

00:00:05.920 | And she goes, we're gonna go film the riot.

00:00:07.680 | We're going to Lake Street.

00:00:09.280 | And so we drive down there.

00:00:11.200 | Kmart is burning.

00:00:12.720 | Target is burning.

00:00:14.560 | Everything is on fire.

00:00:15.880 | She has the Sony A7.

00:00:19.720 | She gives me a microphone and she's like,

00:00:21.440 | go talk to that guy.

00:00:22.880 | And that was a guy with a Molotov cocktail in his hand

00:00:26.000 | who had just burned Kmart down.

00:00:28.480 | And so I go, what should I ask him?

00:00:29.840 | She goes, what's on your mind?

00:00:32.360 | So I walk up to him and I'm like, what's on your mind?

00:00:34.760 | The following is a conversation with Andrew Callaghan,

00:00:39.440 | host of Channel 5 on YouTube,

00:00:41.840 | where he does Gazelle style interviews

00:00:44.080 | with fascinating humans at the edges of society.

00:00:47.080 | The so-called vagrants, vagabonds, runaways, outlaws,

00:00:50.680 | from QAnon adherents to fish heads,

00:00:53.520 | to O'Block residents, and much more.

00:00:57.000 | He created the documentary that I highly recommend

00:01:00.480 | called "This Place Rules" on the undercurrents

00:01:03.880 | that led to the January 6th Capitol riots.

00:01:08.040 | This is the "Live Streaming" podcast.

00:01:09.960 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:11.920 | in the description.

00:01:13.240 | And now, dear friends, here's Andrew Callaghan.

00:01:17.000 | - I tried to color match you though.

00:01:19.760 | Got the black and white going.

00:01:21.240 | I went to Walmart before this and got the Wrangler shirt

00:01:23.200 | with the Texas Longhorns tee.

00:01:25.360 | - Is that where you shop, Walmart?

00:01:26.840 | - Generally, yeah.

00:01:27.840 | - I'm a Target man myself.

00:01:29.240 | - There's no way you get those suits from Target.

00:01:30.760 | - So you're saying it's a nice way to compliment a suit.

00:01:33.000 | - I think you go men's warehouse, if not further.

00:01:35.640 | - I think you would be wrong.

00:01:37.480 | - You go further.

00:01:38.440 | - No, the other direction.

00:01:39.720 | - You got that from Target?

00:01:40.760 | - Not Target.

00:01:41.600 | I was joking about Target.

00:01:42.560 | I like Walmart better.

00:01:43.560 | It just felt like a funny thing to say.

00:01:44.960 | - No, it was funny.

00:01:46.240 | - The most expensive thing I own is this watch,

00:01:48.120 | and it was given to me as a gift.

00:01:49.760 | - Yeah.

00:01:50.600 | When I was on tour, I had these $2,700 Cartier glasses

00:01:54.400 | that I got for a lot of money.

00:01:56.720 | $2,700.

00:01:57.560 | - Like sunglasses?

00:01:59.560 | - Yeah, but they were really embarrassing.

00:02:01.520 | But I was on tour, so I just felt like I could do anything

00:02:03.640 | as far as fashion choices.

00:02:05.120 | But looking back at pictures from myself in that era,

00:02:07.520 | I'm like, God.

00:02:08.480 | - So that was the symbol of the fame got to your head.

00:02:11.640 | - I think so, yeah.

00:02:12.480 | I think fame getting to your head.

00:02:13.840 | If you spend more than 100 bucks on sunglasses,

00:02:16.280 | you've officially gone off the deep end.

00:02:17.440 | - You've crossed the line.

00:02:18.360 | - Totally.

00:02:19.200 | - And that's where you go back to Walmart to humble yourself.

00:02:21.360 | I really love Walmart.

00:02:22.520 | In fact, I moved to Austin because I was at Walmart

00:02:26.040 | and a lady said that I look handsome in a suit.

00:02:30.160 | And I was like, that's it.

00:02:31.320 | I love this place.

00:02:32.240 | She just said it for no reason whatsoever.

00:02:34.000 | This older lady just kind of looked at me

00:02:35.920 | and with this genuine sweetness,

00:02:38.800 | just said, "Oh, you look handsome."

00:02:40.680 | - She's not wrong, man.

00:02:42.440 | - Thank you.

00:02:43.280 | - That's part of your whole swag though.

00:02:44.760 | - Yeah, the suit thing.

00:02:45.720 | Yep.

00:02:46.560 | Anyway, what was the first, if you remember,

00:02:50.640 | first recorded interview you did?

00:02:54.040 | - Well, like my first grade teacher, Mrs. Claudia,

00:02:56.760 | this is back in the day, like I was telling you,

00:02:59.600 | we just asked her about her life in Columbia

00:03:01.360 | and stuff like that.

00:03:02.400 | But I didn't really get into actual journalism

00:03:05.000 | until my ninth grade year.

00:03:06.880 | I had no idea I had an interest in it.

00:03:08.160 | Before then, I wanted to be a rapper.

00:03:10.280 | It's all about hip hop and meditation

00:03:12.280 | and picking psilocybin mushrooms in public parks

00:03:15.280 | and stuff like that.

00:03:16.120 | That's what I was into.

00:03:16.960 | - That's a lot.

00:03:17.800 | Psilocybin, meditation, rap, public parks.

00:03:20.880 | - Yeah, I was making like conscious rap music.

00:03:23.080 | I was to the point where I had like four dream catchers

00:03:25.240 | hanging above my bed, Alex Gray painting on the wall,

00:03:28.920 | tapestry on the ceiling,

00:03:31.000 | just scribbling rhymes down all the time.

00:03:33.360 | - So you said somewhere that you sucked at school.

00:03:36.520 | - Okay, well, let's step back a little bit.

00:03:38.400 | So I had this amazing journalism course in ninth grade.

00:03:41.360 | I went to an alternative high school

00:03:42.840 | and the teacher was named Calvin Shaw.

00:03:44.920 | And he was just like,

00:03:46.680 | I ended up taking his class all four years.

00:03:48.720 | And he used to let me actually leave school.

00:03:52.680 | I didn't like going to school.

00:03:53.760 | So he'd let me basically go around Seattle

00:03:55.880 | and do different interviews with people

00:03:57.720 | as long as I could come back by the end of the day

00:03:59.960 | and write a story for his class.

00:04:02.000 | And he'd mark me as present.

00:04:03.880 | So the first article that I wrote

00:04:05.280 | was about the Silk Road and the deep web.

00:04:07.520 | 'Cause you know, as a ninth grader,

00:04:11.360 | when I discovered the hidden wiki,

00:04:12.960 | I thought that I was like really tapping

00:04:15.160 | into like the most secret society,

00:04:17.240 | elite level black market in the world.

00:04:19.240 | And so if you remember, they had that hidden wiki link

00:04:21.120 | it was like hire a hit man.

00:04:23.200 | And so I messaged them and I was like,

00:04:25.160 | all right, I wanna get someone killed in my school.

00:04:27.240 | Like how much is it gonna cost me?

00:04:29.040 | And I published my interview with the hidden wiki hit man

00:04:31.960 | who was probably a fed or something, but who knows.

00:04:34.200 | And that my first article was called like,

00:04:35.960 | inside the deep web, a conversation with a hit man.

00:04:38.960 | - That's nice.

00:04:40.480 | I mean, you're fearless even then.

00:04:43.080 | - I mean, I was hiding behind a Tor browser.

00:04:45.320 | So there's not much fear to be had.

00:04:46.720 | - Oh, so it was anonymous.

00:04:47.880 | - It was anonymous, but I did publish it under my name.

00:04:50.280 | So you're right, I could have been in danger.

00:04:53.180 | - I also saw that you said you took too many shrooms

00:04:56.440 | when you were young and that led you to have

00:04:59.320 | hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, HPPD.

00:05:03.880 | Can you explain what this is?

00:05:05.320 | - Well, that condition is classified

00:05:07.740 | by persistent visual snow, floaters, morphing objects.

00:05:12.020 | Like I see them right now, I see them all the time.

00:05:14.640 | - The snow's in the room.

00:05:15.820 | - The snow is definitely in the room, it's all over you.

00:05:18.240 | And basically, it wasn't that I took too many shrooms.

00:05:23.160 | I think that it was, I took,

00:05:25.000 | I took about an eighth of seni-essence mushrooms,

00:05:28.920 | which are the ones that come from the earth

00:05:30.280 | instead of cow shit.

00:05:31.720 | And I took an eighth of those at my friend Toby's house.

00:05:34.960 | And, which is a normal amount, but I was in eighth grade.

00:05:37.940 | So I woke up the next morning with these extreme,

00:05:40.880 | you know, visual distortions.

00:05:42.600 | And I thought that it would go away.

00:05:44.560 | I tried to make it go away, but there was,

00:05:46.780 | there's really no cure for HPPD.

00:05:48.200 | It's a lifelong condition.

00:05:49.160 | So it's just a matter of dealing with it

00:05:51.280 | and realizing that it is only visual.

00:05:53.280 | So when people ask me, "Hey, I have HPPD.

00:05:55.520 | "How do I cope with it?"

00:05:56.840 | I say, "Remember that every other sense that you have,

00:05:59.420 | "what you can hear, what you can taste,

00:06:01.500 | "you know, your feet on the ground,

00:06:02.920 | "you're still on earth, you're still here."

00:06:05.040 | - Well, you said it's only visual.

00:06:07.080 | And yes, gratitude for being alive at all is great.

00:06:10.720 | But you said that this led you

00:06:12.200 | into some dark psychological places

00:06:14.140 | like depersonalization disorder.

00:06:16.400 | - Yeah.

00:06:17.220 | Depersonalization is the feeling that you are not real,

00:06:21.640 | but that reality still exists.

00:06:23.440 | Derealization is the idea that reality itself

00:06:27.260 | is an illusion created by your mind

00:06:29.100 | and that you're the only person alive.

00:06:30.920 | And that everything that your brain is projecting

00:06:33.040 | to your visual cortex is a lie

00:06:35.200 | and that you're the only living human being.

00:06:37.400 | - Both are pretty intense.

00:06:39.600 | - HPPD creates both of those things.

00:06:41.880 | And so when I've talked to people who have the condition,

00:06:44.900 | it's really either or.

00:06:46.120 | But more than 70% of people with HPPD

00:06:49.120 | fall into either category.

00:06:50.760 | They're both coping mechanisms for the,

00:06:53.520 | I don't know what really happens.

00:06:54.820 | I talked to a researcher once named Dr. Abraham.

00:06:57.580 | He lives in upstate New York.

00:06:59.040 | He's the leading scientist when it comes to HPPD research.

00:07:02.880 | He's the only one who actually seems to care

00:07:04.480 | about finding a cure.

00:07:06.000 | And the only known treatment right now

00:07:07.920 | is alcohol and benzodiaphines.

00:07:10.160 | - That's not good.

00:07:11.000 | - Right, so alcoholism,

00:07:13.360 | something that came into my life pretty early.

00:07:15.400 | Alcohol abuse as a result of that experience

00:07:17.640 | because that helps with the visual symptoms,

00:07:19.720 | makes some of the static go away.

00:07:22.120 | Never tried benzos though.

00:07:23.480 | - So can you explain to me where in that spectrum you are?

00:07:26.820 | So do you sometimes have a sense that you're not real?

00:07:32.060 | - Sometimes.

00:07:32.900 | - And something else is not real?

00:07:33.880 | Like the reality's not real?

00:07:35.320 | - Yeah, I experience it all the time.

00:07:37.120 | But like I said, my job helps with that

00:07:40.640 | because I get to feel like,

00:07:42.200 | when you seek out extremes to a certain extent

00:07:44.560 | and you put yourself on the front lines of intense events,

00:07:47.200 | whether it be politically or socially,

00:07:49.240 | or just dive into deep fringe subcultures,

00:07:52.160 | you get this feeling that you're real.

00:07:54.120 | And being filmed is also confirmation,

00:07:56.320 | if you can look at the MP4 file,

00:07:58.020 | that you're in fact living here on Earth.

00:08:00.400 | - Confirming that you were in it with reality

00:08:03.860 | by watching yourself on video.

00:08:05.400 | - Exactly.

00:08:06.400 | - So is that basically the engine

00:08:08.280 | behind all the extreme interviews you've done?

00:08:11.880 | - Well, I got HPPD around the same time

00:08:14.160 | that I began this journalism course in ninth grade.

00:08:16.920 | So I sort of always used journalism

00:08:18.520 | as a therapeutic mechanism to deal with

00:08:20.680 | some of these symptoms, especially depersonalization.

00:08:23.640 | There's some pretty good illustrations

00:08:25.000 | of what it feels like.

00:08:26.680 | Kind of feels like you're trapped behind your eyes,

00:08:29.360 | or that you're just this nebulous soul

00:08:31.480 | that's trapped in a flesh suit

00:08:32.800 | that you're not really a part of.

00:08:34.280 | You're sort of puppeteering a flesh and bone skin suit.

00:08:38.120 | - Trapped, or just the ability to step outside of yourself?

00:08:41.960 | - You feel like your soul is not something

00:08:43.760 | that is connected to your body.

00:08:44.960 | It's something living in your head.

00:08:46.760 | It's really hard to explain to people

00:08:48.080 | who haven't gone through derealization or depersonalization,

00:08:51.200 | but if you go on support groups,

00:08:52.320 | they always say, "How do I break free from behind my eyes?"

00:08:54.600 | Like, just dark stuff like that.

00:08:56.200 | - Oh, so you're trapped.

00:08:57.680 | I mean, there's a higher state of being through meditation

00:09:00.320 | that you can kind of step outside of yourself,

00:09:02.720 | but this is not that.

00:09:04.160 | - Unfortunately, it was kind of the meditative path,

00:09:06.760 | or the Eastern path that I took,

00:09:10.000 | and kind of fused that with psychedelic culture in Seattle

00:09:12.440 | that took me down the psychedelic use rabbit hole

00:09:15.360 | in the first place.

00:09:16.400 | So I'd say it all started with Siddhartha.

00:09:19.440 | - Siddhartha, that's a good book.

00:09:21.320 | Have you done shrooms since then?

00:09:22.760 | - No, I don't really do psychedelic drugs,

00:09:25.040 | but a lot of people think that I'm against them,

00:09:27.320 | which I'm not, it just doesn't work for me.

00:09:28.920 | If it works for you, I'm sure that can be really fun,

00:09:30.800 | especially, I know there's lots of therapeutic uses

00:09:34.000 | for acid and ketamine and psilocybin,

00:09:36.960 | but I personally abstain from those kind of,

00:09:40.400 | anything psychotropic, I try to stay away from.

00:09:42.520 | - Drinking a bit?

00:09:44.400 | - Well, yeah, I mean, I didn't drink at all

00:09:45.800 | before I had the HPPD stuff,

00:09:47.480 | and I would have drank later in life,

00:09:49.120 | but definitely like 14, 15, every day after school,

00:09:52.680 | I'd drink a 40 ounce of Mickey's.

00:09:54.800 | It's like a, it kind of looks like Old English,

00:09:56.720 | but the bottle's green,

00:09:57.640 | and it has a hornet on the side of it.

00:09:59.440 | Just kind of became a ritual,

00:10:00.660 | just to deal with the anxiety of that situation.

00:10:03.960 | - And it made the snow go away?

00:10:05.920 | - Yeah, alcohol really works to suppress HPPD symptoms.

00:10:09.140 | - So you said you hated classes in school,

00:10:11.600 | except that journalism class.

00:10:12.960 | - Okay, we need to clear this up,

00:10:14.080 | because on my Wikipedia page, for some reason,

00:10:16.160 | for Andrew Callahan Early Life, it says,

00:10:18.440 | "Andrew hated every single class except for one."

00:10:21.680 | So I've had a bunch of teachers who are super cool,

00:10:23.520 | like this guy Tim, my astronomy professor at ninth grade,

00:10:26.440 | Mrs. Zanetti, my creative writing teacher in sixth grade,

00:10:29.440 | and this really cool dude at my college in New Orleans

00:10:31.920 | named Charles Cannon, who taught me a class

00:10:33.640 | called New Orleans Mythology.

00:10:35.320 | My three favorite classes, besides my journalism class,

00:10:37.960 | and they all hit me up, and they're like,

00:10:40.500 | "Hey man, saw you said you hated every class.

00:10:43.740 | "Sorry I couldn't be everything that you wanted me to be."

00:10:46.300 | And so I just want to say, shout out to all those teachers,

00:10:48.500 | I didn't hate every class.

00:10:50.220 | The point that I was making is that

00:10:52.340 | being forced into the institution of school so young,

00:10:55.460 | and having to take common core classes like biology,

00:10:59.140 | dissecting frogs, history of the Han Dynasty,

00:11:02.780 | stuff like that that I didn't want to learn,

00:11:04.840 | but I had to learn multiple times.

00:11:06.900 | I mean, I learned about the dynastic cycle in ancient China

00:11:10.460 | three separate times at three different schools,

00:11:12.740 | and I was like, who is writing this curriculum,

00:11:15.140 | and why is it so important that I understand this process?

00:11:18.640 | The part that makes school difficult,

00:11:19.900 | especially in college, is that you have people

00:11:21.700 | just going to school just to get the degree,

00:11:23.980 | who don't really know exactly what they're interested in,

00:11:26.860 | and they don't even have time to figure that out,

00:11:28.500 | 'cause they're in a business program,

00:11:30.060 | or a communications program with no specific interest.

00:11:33.420 | - Well I think if you want to do school right,

00:11:35.700 | take on every single subject that you're forced into,

00:11:38.620 | it's like the David Foster Wallace,

00:11:41.020 | just be unboreable by it.

00:11:43.180 | Just really go in as if ancient Chinese dynasties

00:11:46.800 | are the most interesting thing you could possibly learn.

00:11:49.540 | - And it is somewhat interesting,

00:11:50.740 | the Silk Road, and the Great Wall,

00:11:52.540 | and terracotta soldiers and stuff.

00:11:54.500 | But I'm just saying, when I got to college,

00:11:57.500 | I signed up for journalism school, right?

00:11:59.060 | And I didn't get to take a media class

00:12:00.660 | until the second semester,

00:12:01.820 | and I had to take everything prior to that,

00:12:04.660 | and I'd already spent so much time,

00:12:07.380 | I just think the excruciating boredom of schooling

00:12:09.380 | left a bad taste in my mouth.

00:12:10.580 | But there was individual classes that I liked a lot.

00:12:12.660 | - Yeah, there should be some choice,

00:12:14.420 | or maybe a lot of choice, even at the level of high school,

00:12:18.100 | for what kind of classes you pursue.

00:12:20.140 | - Yeah, for sure.

00:12:21.580 | - And you're also saying so,

00:12:23.020 | Wikipedia's not always perfectly right.

00:12:25.020 | - No, but it's just interesting,

00:12:26.800 | because I've said so much in podcasts,

00:12:29.460 | but that's what they isolated.

00:12:31.420 | And I've gotten that question before,

00:12:32.580 | which I understand, it's the first thing

00:12:34.020 | on my Wikipedia page,

00:12:34.940 | but it makes me sound like a super hater.

00:12:37.260 | Have you ever seen this Instagram page

00:12:38.620 | called Depths of Wikipedia?

00:12:40.180 | - Oh, it's great.

00:12:41.020 | - Oh, it's so good, dude.

00:12:42.380 | - You said you loved journalism.

00:12:43.660 | What did you love about journalism?

00:12:45.340 | - I mean-- - What hooked you?

00:12:46.700 | - On a basic level, everybody wants media coverage, right?

00:12:50.300 | Everyone likes to be on camera

00:12:51.420 | and get exposure for whatever they're doing.

00:12:53.180 | And so being a journalist and being almost like a portal

00:12:56.460 | for exposure for people,

00:12:57.780 | allows you to be on the front row of everything

00:13:00.100 | that you want to be a part of.

00:13:02.100 | You get to be in the front row for history as it's unfolding,

00:13:06.060 | because everyone wants to be covered.

00:13:07.580 | So being a journalist gives you a ticket

00:13:09.940 | to everywhere that you want to go in life.

00:13:12.020 | And so it allows you to step into different realities almost

00:13:15.460 | and then go back to yours.

00:13:16.780 | And it just keeps life interesting.

00:13:18.140 | - Buy the ticket, take the ride.

00:13:19.660 | Hunter S. Thompson, is he up there

00:13:21.300 | as one of the influences?

00:13:22.780 | Who are your influences?

00:13:23.900 | - I think the early Daily Show was so good.

00:13:27.500 | Sacha Baron Cohen, huge influence.

00:13:29.260 | I mean, that was like, the Ali G Show especially.

00:13:31.900 | I think Louis Theroux's broadcasts on BBC were great.

00:13:34.540 | I was really into Hunter S. Thompson too,

00:13:37.140 | but not really until college.

00:13:39.080 | You know, I really like a particular Hunter S. Thompson book

00:13:42.220 | called "The Great Shark Hunt",

00:13:44.260 | where he covers the Ruben Salazar murder by LAPD

00:13:46.620 | or LA Sheriff's Department in Boyle Heights in the '70s.

00:13:51.060 | And his relationship with his lawyer, Oscar Acosta,

00:13:54.060 | and that whole saga is great.

00:13:56.740 | Fear and loathing, I like,

00:13:58.440 | but not as much as his straightforward reporting.

00:14:00.300 | 'Cause there's the Gonzo side of Hunter,

00:14:02.020 | where he's like saying he's taking drugs and seeing shit.

00:14:05.580 | And there's the other side of him,

00:14:06.740 | which is like an actual reporter

00:14:08.780 | interested in telling a story that has news value.

00:14:11.940 | So it's two different lanes for him.

00:14:14.460 | - There is something about you that makes people wanna say

00:14:19.460 | you're the Hunter S. Thompson of this generation.

00:14:21.860 | And I don't think they mean the drugs.

00:14:25.540 | I think they mean some kind of non-standard

00:14:29.940 | willingness to explore the extremes of humanity.

00:14:33.820 | And like almost a celebration of the extremes of humanity.

00:14:37.960 | - Yeah, well, that's a very kind comparison.

00:14:40.100 | I'll get there one day, maybe.

00:14:41.460 | I just went to Aspen on a little

00:14:43.040 | Hunter S. Thompson recon trip

00:14:45.100 | to go check out the Woody Creek Tavern,

00:14:46.980 | which is the spot that he,

00:14:48.020 | it was like his bar near his cabin.

00:14:49.980 | And it was pretty cool to see.

00:14:51.500 | Unfortunately, it's kind of turned into not a dive bar now,

00:14:54.820 | but it's a sit-down sort of country restaurant.

00:14:57.260 | But it was cool.

00:14:58.100 | I expected to see a bunch of gnarly Hunter S. Thompson types

00:15:00.980 | doing speeds.

00:15:03.500 | (laughing)

00:15:05.260 | - Just doing drugs.

00:15:06.100 | I mean, drugs and alcohol is all part of it somehow.

00:15:08.740 | - Yeah.

00:15:09.560 | - And so it opens a gateway

00:15:11.340 | to a deeper understanding of humanity.

00:15:13.060 | - But I will say, though, as someone now

00:15:15.140 | who doesn't party like I did when I was younger,

00:15:17.740 | it's not as important as I thought it was, you know?

00:15:20.900 | - Yeah, I'm conflicted on this.

00:15:22.620 | I'm good friends with a lot of people

00:15:24.260 | that say alcohol is really bad for you.

00:15:27.260 | And I believe that too.

00:15:28.980 | But there's something that I just, as an introvert,

00:15:33.260 | as a person who has a lot of anxiety,

00:15:36.100 | for me, alcohol has opened doors

00:15:38.960 | of just opening myself up to the world more.

00:15:42.900 | - Oh, I'm actually a fan of alcohol, moderate drinking.

00:15:45.780 | But I'm saying my life before,

00:15:48.420 | I would say 2019, 2018 especially,

00:15:50.940 | there was the chaos on camera,

00:15:52.380 | but then there was my private life,

00:15:53.520 | which was chaotic partying all the time.

00:15:55.900 | - Oh, I see.

00:15:56.740 | - I convinced myself, much like Hunter did,

00:15:59.100 | that that was the secret sauce in the core,

00:16:01.620 | the spiritual, in my spiritual core,

00:16:03.540 | that gave me the creativity.

00:16:05.060 | But then I cut out a lot of that stuff,

00:16:07.180 | and I'm just as creative.

00:16:08.980 | And it's interesting that a lot of,

00:16:10.280 | I think one of the hardest parts about addiction

00:16:13.180 | is that if you're a functioning,

00:16:15.020 | highly creative addict of any kind,

00:16:17.380 | your brain and the addictive part of your brain

00:16:19.940 | convinces yourself that it's all part of the cross purpose,

00:16:22.340 | and that it has this symbiotic,

00:16:23.980 | you know, inspirational thing going on.

00:16:26.200 | It's not true.

00:16:27.980 | It can be, but it's typically not.

00:16:30.340 | - Yeah, it's not a requirement.

00:16:32.940 | - Right.

00:16:33.780 | - You can sometimes channel,

00:16:34.600 | you can sometimes leverage all those things

00:16:37.100 | for your creativity,

00:16:38.140 | but the creative engine, it lives outside of that.

00:16:40.500 | - Like, have you read Hunter's daily routine

00:16:43.420 | in the year up to his death?

00:16:45.140 | It was like 15 grapefruits and eight ball of Coke,

00:16:47.600 | and just a certain amount of shotgun shells

00:16:50.460 | for him to fire into the sky every morning.

00:16:53.260 | There's no way,

00:16:54.100 | he didn't do anything creative in those final years.

00:16:56.900 | - Yeah.

00:16:57.740 | - But, so the creativity goes away,

00:16:59.260 | and gradually you just become like a party animal,

00:17:01.420 | like Andy Dick.

00:17:02.300 | - A caricature of yourself.

00:17:03.740 | - Yeah.

00:17:04.580 | - I mean, that's why life is interesting.

00:17:05.620 | You make all kinds of choices,

00:17:06.780 | and sometimes you can have,

00:17:10.260 | create works of genius in a short amount of time

00:17:13.220 | based on drugs and no drugs.

00:17:14.940 | Einstein had that miracle year

00:17:17.140 | where he published several incredible papers

00:17:19.780 | in one year, 1905.

00:17:21.100 | - Did he do drugs before that?

00:17:22.860 | - Lots of Coke, and--

00:17:24.260 | - (laughs) I was like, I believed you for a second.

00:17:27.240 | I'm like, did Einstein have blow?

00:17:29.020 | I don't think he did.

00:17:29.860 | - How do you think he gets that hair?

00:17:30.940 | Come on.

00:17:31.760 | - It's true.

00:17:32.600 | - I'm just asking questions.

00:17:33.540 | - High confidence hair.

00:17:34.580 | - Look into it.

00:17:35.420 | - Yeah.

00:17:36.240 | - You know what I mean?

00:17:37.080 | - Yeah, well, no, he's a well put together,

00:17:40.060 | sexy young man.

00:17:41.180 | The hair came later.

00:17:42.400 | - Yeah, was Albert Einstein attractive as a teenager?

00:17:44.500 | No, that's not teenager.

00:17:45.340 | Was he attractive as a young man?

00:17:47.140 | - Sexually attractive?

00:17:48.180 | - I don't, I mean--

00:17:49.020 | - I'm turned on by Einstein at all ages.

00:17:51.040 | I don't discriminate.

00:17:51.940 | But are you more turned on by the work that he did

00:17:54.100 | or his physical being?

00:17:55.220 | - No, sometimes I fantasize what it would be like

00:17:58.420 | to be in the arms of Einstein.

00:18:00.500 | I could even get that out.

00:18:01.740 | - Yeah, in the arms of Einstein.

00:18:03.940 | - Yeah, just I wanna feel safe.

00:18:05.940 | - It's a good idea for a rom-com.

00:18:07.480 | (laughs)

00:18:08.700 | - To be a little more serious, like general relativity,

00:18:11.140 | that space-time can be unified and curved by gravity

00:18:17.740 | is an incredibly wild and difficult idea to come up with.

00:18:22.340 | Like it's a really, really difficult thing to imagine

00:18:25.620 | given how well Newtonian classical mechanics physics

00:18:29.100 | works for predicting how stuff happens on Earth.

00:18:32.260 | To think like that gravity can morph space-time,

00:18:37.260 | both space and time,

00:18:45.020 | and it permeates the entire universe.

00:18:48.100 | It's a field.

00:18:49.300 | It's a really wild idea to come up as one human on Earth

00:18:52.100 | to intuit that is really, really, really difficult.

00:18:54.460 | And it's really sad to me

00:18:56.940 | that he didn't get a Nobel Prize for that.

00:18:58.940 | - Was there people saying he was crazy when he was around?

00:19:02.140 | Or was he universally recognized as like an OG of his?

00:19:05.100 | - No, I think once the papers came out,

00:19:07.260 | he was widely recognized as a true genius.

00:19:10.740 | But before that, he wasn't recognized.

00:19:12.620 | He had a really difficult--

00:19:14.780 | - So back now, where does a black hole go?

00:19:16.640 | Like after something gets sucked into it?

00:19:18.580 | - You mean is it a portal to another place,

00:19:20.300 | that kind of thing?

00:19:21.140 | - Yeah.

00:19:21.960 | - No, well, we don't know.

00:19:23.260 | It could be.

00:19:24.100 | It could be that the universe is kind of like Swiss cheese

00:19:26.620 | full of black holes.

00:19:27.780 | There's something called Hawking radiation

00:19:29.700 | where because of quantum mechanics,

00:19:32.380 | the information leaks out of a black hole.

00:19:34.260 | So it is possible to escape a black hole.

00:19:36.540 | There's a lot of interesting questions there.

00:19:38.100 | - I hope we get to the bottom of that.

00:19:39.620 | - And there's a supermassive black hole

00:19:41.060 | at the center of our galaxy,

00:19:42.980 | which doesn't seem to scare physicists,

00:19:44.840 | but it terrifies me.

00:19:45.940 | - Oh yeah, for sure.

00:19:46.980 | Astronomy can be terrifying.

00:19:48.500 | - Yeah, we're all like orbiting.

00:19:51.060 | I mean, we're not just orbiting the sun,

00:19:52.420 | but the sun is part of the solar system,

00:19:53.980 | is part of the galaxy,

00:19:55.060 | and it's all orbiting a gigantic black hole.

00:19:58.060 | - Have you ever spoke to someone who's been to outer space?

00:20:00.180 | - Jeff Bezos.

00:20:01.880 | He flew his own rocket.

00:20:03.220 | - Wow.

00:20:04.500 | That's pretty cool.

00:20:05.380 | - Astronaut that's been to deep space, no.

00:20:08.320 | Well, maybe I've spoken to an alien

00:20:09.740 | that just hasn't admitted it.

00:20:11.780 | - I wanna do a research paper,

00:20:13.820 | like a report about space madness.

00:20:16.020 | You know, it's supposed to be this like

00:20:17.620 | torturous feeling that you get

00:20:18.940 | when you look away from Earth and into the abyss

00:20:21.180 | after you've exited Earth's orbit or whatever.

00:20:23.740 | Because there's one specific psychiatrist

00:20:27.540 | who knows how to deal with space madness,

00:20:29.900 | and I wanna figure out how,

00:20:31.700 | interview people with it.

00:20:33.260 | - Is this a real thing?

00:20:34.100 | Like, is there a Wikipedia article on it?

00:20:35.660 | - Yes, look up space madness treatment.

00:20:37.660 | - Now I don't trust Wikipedia after what you told me, so.

00:20:39.980 | - I know, they think I hate classes.

00:20:41.340 | - I thought you meant more about

00:20:42.860 | the fact that you're isolated out in space,

00:20:44.780 | that we need social connection and it's difficult.

00:20:47.700 | - Yeah, I think it's just a feeling

00:20:48.660 | of extreme insignificance that you might get sometimes

00:20:51.300 | when you look at the night sky,

00:20:52.380 | but it's that times 1,000.

00:20:54.020 | It's like an existential void that's created

00:20:55.980 | after looking into the abyss

00:20:57.620 | and then realizing how small Earth is in the grand scheme.

00:21:00.980 | You just start to really have a strange new perception

00:21:04.660 | about the pointlessness of existence.

00:21:07.620 | - I don't need to go to space for that.

00:21:09.100 | - I mean, only a handful of people have been to space,

00:21:10.980 | but I'm sure they're all pretty well off,

00:21:12.220 | so the psychiatrist has to be in the multi-millions.

00:21:14.940 | - Well, technically, we're all in space

00:21:16.340 | 'cause Earth is in space, but so,

00:21:19.120 | I wonder if you have to go to space

00:21:21.480 | to talk to the psychiatrist.

00:21:22.900 | - Yeah, probably so.

00:21:24.740 | - Well, technically, we're all in space,

00:21:26.580 | so he can't, that's a boundary he can't have.

00:21:29.820 | - But not everyone believes that,

00:21:31.060 | as you've seen from my work, probably.

00:21:33.280 | - You're right, and those are important people

00:21:35.540 | that are asking important questions.

00:21:37.020 | - Yeah.

00:21:38.420 | - You hitchhiked across US for 70 days when you were 19.

00:21:42.780 | - Right.

00:21:43.620 | - Tell the story of that.

00:21:44.440 | - Well, this sort of connects to what I was talking about

00:21:45.980 | with the boredom of school and these common core classes.

00:21:48.780 | So, after my first year of school,

00:21:51.380 | where I lived in the dorms,

00:21:52.460 | like an old school dormitory building

00:21:54.540 | at a school in New Orleans called Loyola University,

00:21:57.180 | I wanted to just do something.

00:21:59.580 | I felt so bored.

00:22:00.540 | I was working for the school newspaper

00:22:03.020 | for that whole first year, it was called The Maroon,

00:22:05.840 | and I didn't have the ability to write my own stories.

00:22:08.880 | Like, I had to defer to an older editor,

00:22:11.200 | and they would give me stories to write about,

00:22:13.000 | and they were all about on-campus happenings,

00:22:16.060 | like the Pope visits New Orleans,

00:22:17.840 | or glass recycling to be restored in the French Quarter,

00:22:20.800 | or hoverboards banned on campus due to safety concerns.

00:22:24.180 | And it just kind of felt like,

00:22:25.320 | all right, I kind of wanted to be a gonzo reporter.

00:22:28.660 | I'm not sure if working my way up

00:22:30.120 | through the traditional newsroom hierarchy

00:22:32.240 | is gonna get me to that point.

00:22:33.800 | So I started reading a bunch of old hobo literature,

00:22:36.620 | you know, like post-World War II vagabonding stuff,

00:22:39.900 | and there was this book called "Vagabonding in America"

00:22:42.040 | by an old hobo named Ed Byrne.

00:22:44.600 | And I read this, and it just basically,

00:22:46.340 | obviously some of it was outdated.

00:22:47.740 | They had stuff in there like the hobo code,

00:22:49.440 | like, oh, this moniker on the side of a fence

00:22:51.880 | means this person has free soup or something like that.

00:22:54.220 | They didn't have stuff like that.

00:22:56.280 | But what it did tell me-- - That's great.

00:22:57.800 | - It told me about train stop towns,

00:22:59.440 | like Dunsmuir and places in Montana

00:23:01.900 | where there was a friendly attitude toward drifters,

00:23:05.180 | and that still persists from the '60s and '70s to this day,

00:23:09.160 | even though, in my opinion,

00:23:11.440 | movies like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"

00:23:13.120 | have ruined hitchhiking culture in America

00:23:15.040 | because now everyone thinks we're gonna, you know,

00:23:16.600 | decapitate them if they pick you up.

00:23:18.420 | So after my final day of courses at Loyola,

00:23:22.020 | I literally left all of my belongings inside my dorm

00:23:25.500 | and took the streetcar to the Greyhound station,

00:23:28.180 | got a one-way ticket to Baton Rouge,

00:23:30.200 | and I was like, I'm gonna hitchhike

00:23:31.680 | across the whole country back to Seattle with no money.

00:23:35.420 | And that was the plan, and it worked out.

00:23:37.760 | - I love it.

00:23:38.600 | I traveled across the United States before

00:23:41.000 | in a similar kind of plan, 'cause you went--

00:23:43.140 | - Were you on the Silver Dog?

00:23:44.700 | (laughs)

00:23:46.680 | It's the Greyhound bus.

00:23:47.960 | - Greyhound is pretty nice.

00:23:49.120 | - That's a step above hitchhiking.

00:23:50.560 | - That's way better than hitchhiking, so I don't--

00:23:52.200 | - Hitchhiking, Greyhound, Amtrak, airlines.

00:23:54.080 | - Amtrak, no, that's the leadest.

00:23:56.000 | - What's in between Greyhound and Amtrak?

00:23:57.480 | (laughs)

00:23:58.640 | A car, that's what it is.

00:24:00.040 | - Yeah, it's a car, yeah, a shitty car.

00:24:02.760 | - Okay, cool.

00:24:04.280 | - I lived in a shitty car.

00:24:05.840 | - You lived in a car?

00:24:06.880 | - Yeah, when I was driving across the United States.

00:24:10.560 | - Solo?

00:24:11.800 | - With a friend, I'm solo, and I would eat cold soup.

00:24:16.800 | - I love cold soup.

00:24:20.560 | What I like is the cold chickpeas in a can.

00:24:23.680 | Get the water out and just dump 'em in your mouth.

00:24:27.560 | Those are good, beef jerky.

00:24:28.640 | Kind bars, kind bars are really good for the road.

00:24:31.560 | - Yeah, I mean, all of that is great,

00:24:33.520 | but too much of it is not great.

00:24:35.680 | Like, too much cold soup, not great.

00:24:38.720 | Too much beef jerky.

00:24:40.680 | - So what was the route you took?

00:24:41.680 | Was it Chicago across, or was it Philadelphia across?

00:24:44.280 | - Philadelphia across.

00:24:45.520 | - To LA, or where?

00:24:46.440 | - San Diego's where we ended up,

00:24:49.120 | but it was a zigzagging, went up to Chicago,

00:24:51.560 | and then all the way down to Texas.

00:24:53.320 | - So you went Philly, through Appalachia,

00:24:55.920 | up to the Midwest.

00:24:57.080 | - Yep.

00:24:57.920 | - Through the Southwest, down to San Diego?

00:25:00.600 | - No, no, no, I went straight down to Texas,

00:25:02.480 | all the way down to the Midwest, so like.

00:25:04.960 | - But did you cut from Texas West

00:25:06.520 | through New Mexico and Arizona to get to San Diego?

00:25:08.240 | - Yeah.

00:25:09.080 | - That is the best road trip place.

00:25:11.120 | Interstate 40, like Albuquerque, Flagstaff,

00:25:14.160 | Vegas, Kingman, the Mojave Desert, Yuma, doesn't get better.

00:25:19.160 | - Yeah, I mean, and you're a kid, so you don't care,

00:25:21.080 | and you were throwing caution to the wind,

00:25:22.720 | and I met some crazy, crazy people.

00:25:24.960 | - It gives me some sanity, like,

00:25:26.480 | whenever I'm feeling kind of out of control,

00:25:28.000 | or, you know, like, bummed out,

00:25:30.040 | I just remember that the road is still out there.

00:25:32.320 | The open road never goes anywhere,

00:25:33.720 | and it's kind of like a, I see like an invisible door

00:25:36.620 | in the corner of the room all the time

00:25:38.040 | that makes me more comfortable,

00:25:39.040 | 'cause I'm like, hey, at the end of the day,

00:25:40.880 | if I'm bummed out, I can go hit the road,

00:25:42.320 | and I'm sure there's gonna be a fun time ahead.

00:25:44.520 | - Yeah, get that Greyhound ticket, and go.

00:25:46.760 | - I would say Silver Dog, half,

00:25:48.480 | because sometimes I gotta ride the dog

00:25:50.960 | when no one will pick me up.

00:25:53.620 | There's some places in the country

00:25:54.920 | where no one's gonna pick you up.

00:25:56.960 | Kansas, Missouri, they're not gonna do it.

00:25:58.720 | - Maybe you're not charming enough.

00:25:59.880 | You thought about that?

00:26:00.720 | - I was 19, fresh, clean-shaven.

00:26:04.360 | I was pretty charming, I'd say.

00:26:05.880 | But the older you get, the harder it is to hitchhike,

00:26:08.240 | because they think you're like an escaped convict,

00:26:10.260 | or some type of like psycho wanderer.

00:26:12.680 | And some of these people are like what we call Punishers.

00:26:15.120 | It's people who never stop talking.

00:26:16.840 | And so they see someone hitchhiking,

00:26:18.280 | and they're like, yes, I'm gonna talk at this person.

00:26:20.920 | And you can tell, their eyes are wide.

00:26:22.240 | They're like, what's up?

00:26:23.080 | And you're like, oh, shit.

00:26:24.000 | So it's six hours of just like, oh, cool, nice.

00:26:26.720 | - That's rough.

00:26:27.560 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:26:28.380 | - You're right, you're right.

00:26:29.720 | I like people that are comfortable in silence.

00:26:33.520 | - Yeah, but then that also raises the question,

00:26:35.680 | are they about to kill me?

00:26:36.800 | You know what I mean?

00:26:37.640 | - I think that's a you problem, not a--

00:26:39.920 | - You know what's funny is almost everybody

00:26:41.200 | who picked me up when I was hitchhiking

00:26:42.720 | was like a day laborer.

00:26:45.120 | It was almost all Mexican day laborers who picked me up.

00:26:47.560 | - Oh, interesting.

00:26:48.380 | - 'Cause I think that in some places down there,

00:26:50.880 | that's a typical thing to do, hitchhike to work.

00:26:53.600 | A lot of people don't have cars,

00:26:54.560 | but they still have to get to their jobs.

00:26:55.840 | So a lot of people ask me, hey, where should I drop you off?

00:26:57.720 | Where's your job at?

00:26:58.720 | And I'm like, my job is to explore.

00:27:00.400 | And they were down with it.

00:27:01.600 | - See, like for me, it was really easy

00:27:03.520 | because you just say like,

00:27:04.920 | I'm traveling across the United States.

00:27:06.900 | And I think people love that idea and they wanna help.

00:27:10.960 | They romanticize it 'cause they also have

00:27:12.800 | that invisible door.

00:27:14.000 | Everybody has that invisible door.

00:27:15.360 | I just wanna go.

00:27:16.280 | - So you know what I'm talking about.

00:27:17.500 | - Yeah, I mean, I don't think--

00:27:18.340 | - It can anchor you a bit just to remind you

00:27:20.280 | that every pattern that I've fallen into is voluntary

00:27:23.580 | and it's for my own stability and mental health.

00:27:26.000 | - Well, that's why I'm like renting everything

00:27:27.720 | and I'm making sure that tomorrow I could just go.

00:27:29.960 | I gave away everything I owned twice in my life.

00:27:32.080 | Just very like, I'm ready to go tonight.

00:27:36.680 | Let's go.

00:27:37.640 | - What's the hardest item you've had to part with

00:27:39.760 | in this experience?

00:27:40.600 | - There's nothing.

00:27:41.600 | - You've never had a material object

00:27:42.880 | that was really hard to let go of?

00:27:44.080 | - No.

00:27:45.280 | - So you'd give that watch to somebody if it meant--

00:27:47.160 | - No, this, you're right.

00:27:49.120 | You're right.

00:27:49.960 | That's probably the only,

00:27:50.780 | I've never had to let go of that though.

00:27:52.800 | That's the only thing I own.

00:27:54.680 | This means a lot to me, but everything else.

00:27:57.600 | But then again, 'cause okay,

00:28:00.080 | this watch is given to me by Rogan,

00:28:02.880 | who's become a close friend.

00:28:04.280 | But whenever I romanticize the notion

00:28:06.120 | that this watch means a lot to me,

00:28:07.500 | he's like, "Don't worry about it.

00:28:08.340 | "I'll just get you the same one again."

00:28:09.640 | - Yeah.

00:28:10.480 | (laughing)

00:28:11.300 | - I was like, "God damn it."

00:28:12.140 | - It's a pretty sick-ass gift though.

00:28:14.640 | - Yeah, it's pretty sick.

00:28:15.920 | I'm not usually a gift guy,

00:28:16.840 | but when somebody you look up to

00:28:20.880 | kind of gives you a thing,

00:28:22.740 | it's a nice little symbol of that relationship.

00:28:26.180 | So it's nice.

00:28:27.340 | But other than that, no.

00:28:28.720 | But even this, whatever.

00:28:30.600 | The relationship is what matters.

00:28:31.940 | The human is what matters, not the--

00:28:33.480 | - I agree 100%.

00:28:34.520 | - You had something like this?

00:28:36.200 | - Not really.

00:28:37.040 | I mean, there was a hard drive that I lost

00:28:39.000 | that had all of my childhood pictures on it

00:28:41.240 | and stuff like that that I think about all the time

00:28:43.440 | because I left it on a train.

00:28:45.140 | And certain memories, you think about it,

00:28:47.580 | you just get pissed off.

00:28:48.560 | I just think to myself, "Someone has that somewhere."

00:28:51.240 | I have dreams about reuniting with the hard drive.

00:28:53.680 | - You and Hunter Biden have a similar kind of dream.

00:28:56.100 | (laughing)

00:28:57.040 | - I don't think he wants to reunite with that one.

00:28:58.800 | - Okay.

00:28:59.640 | - Dude, it's crazy.

00:29:00.480 | All he did was smoke crack, right?

00:29:04.480 | Or was there more stuff going on?

00:29:06.240 | - I think there's prostitutes involved.

00:29:08.080 | - Oh, okay, whatever.

00:29:09.440 | - I think you gotta look into it.

00:29:10.720 | - I think I have to look into it too.

00:29:11.860 | (laughing)

00:29:12.680 | - I don't know.

00:29:13.900 | (laughing)

00:29:15.980 | - Was Kerouac, Jack Kerouac, somebody that was

00:29:19.780 | an inspiration at all in this road trip?

00:29:22.060 | Did you even know who that is?

00:29:23.220 | The B generation?

00:29:24.060 | - No, I didn't know who it was.

00:29:24.960 | And then after I did the, ultimately I wrote a book

00:29:27.620 | about my hitchhiking experience years later.

00:29:29.860 | And everyone was like, "Have you read 'On the Road'?"

00:29:32.620 | And then, "On the Road," I probably heard the title

00:29:35.500 | of that book every day at least 10 times for two years.

00:29:38.340 | And I'm sure Kerouac is a great guy.

00:29:41.380 | (laughing)

00:29:42.220 | I mean, I just don't, I'm not too familiar

00:29:44.700 | with the B generation.

00:29:45.860 | - It's a great book.

00:29:46.700 | It's a, you read it or no?

00:29:48.740 | - I refuse to read it.

00:29:49.660 | People even have gifted it to me, being like,

00:29:50.980 | "Hey man, you're gonna love this one."

00:29:52.860 | And I'm like, "Is that 'On the Road'?"

00:29:54.700 | If I, honestly, people have given me a book

00:29:57.260 | with wrapping paper on it, and they're like,

00:29:58.660 | "This is right up your alley."

00:29:59.660 | I was like, "That's fucking 'On the Road,' isn't it?"

00:30:01.380 | (laughing)

00:30:02.300 | - Give you a different cover?

00:30:03.300 | - Yeah, no, I'm like, "Anything but that."

00:30:04.880 | But I'm sure it's a great book.

00:30:05.940 | It's just the comparison thing drives me crazy.

00:30:08.240 | - Mm-hmm.

00:30:09.380 | - Respect, big respect to Kerouac.

00:30:11.100 | Would never speak down on the whole,

00:30:13.500 | anyone in the B generation.

00:30:15.140 | - What are some interesting moments you remember

00:30:16.820 | from that, those 70 days?

00:30:19.200 | - Man, there was so much.

00:30:20.180 | I mean, getting mistaken for a gay prostitute

00:30:22.580 | on my first hitchhiking ride in Louisiana was pretty funny.

00:30:26.300 | - Where did you come from and where did you go?

00:30:27.980 | - Well, I mean, the journey began in Baton Rouge,

00:30:31.260 | and the first destination was Houston,

00:30:32.940 | which is about four and a half hours west

00:30:35.020 | on Interstate 10.

00:30:37.020 | So I'm in Crowley, Louisiana, I'm on the side of the road,

00:30:40.340 | and I guess this was a cruising truck stop

00:30:43.700 | that was known for being a place where male lot lizards

00:30:47.660 | would go to procure clients.

00:30:49.780 | And I was there.

00:30:50.640 | - Lot lizards are-

00:30:51.820 | - It's a derogatory term in trucker culture

00:30:53.740 | for a prostitute who hangs out at the Love's

00:30:55.660 | or Pilot Flying J, large interstate truck stops.

00:31:00.300 | Now, trucker culture, as it once was,

00:31:02.820 | is pretty much finished because of the live stream cameras

00:31:06.080 | they have inside of the trucks now,

00:31:07.900 | so you can't snort Sudafed or pick up anybody.

00:31:10.860 | Can't even pick up a hitchhiker or you get fired.

00:31:12.860 | - Killed all the romance.

00:31:14.200 | - Yeah, definitely.

00:31:15.540 | The old school outlaw trucker lifestyle,

00:31:17.300 | unless you're an owner-operator who's not even in a union,

00:31:20.060 | which is like a real cowboy way to haul loads,

00:31:23.260 | you can't do that.

00:31:24.100 | - You were mistaken for a lot lizard.

00:31:25.540 | - Mistaken for a lot lizard by a small man from Honduras

00:31:29.900 | with a spiky leather jacket covered in studs.

00:31:33.480 | - Nice.

00:31:34.320 | - I don't speak any English, but you know,

00:31:36.060 | I thought he was just, you know, a nice guy.

00:31:38.820 | And then he pulled over at a...

00:31:41.080 | There's private theaters in the South

00:31:43.940 | where they have confessional booths set up

00:31:46.660 | and they have three channels and people go in there and,

00:31:50.200 | you know...

00:31:51.040 | - It's porn?

00:31:51.860 | - Yeah, people go in there and, you know,

00:31:53.620 | please themselves.

00:31:54.460 | - That's right.

00:31:55.280 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:31:56.120 | So, I thought he was taking me to one of those.

00:31:58.080 | I was like, all right, cool, man, yeah, like, you know,

00:32:00.000 | this guy wants to go jerk off,

00:32:01.080 | I'm just gonna wait in the car, it's all good,

00:32:02.300 | I don't discriminate.

00:32:03.320 | But then I was like, he buys a booth for me

00:32:07.040 | and I'm like, okay, you know,

00:32:08.760 | not really in the mood to watch porn with this random guy.

00:32:11.420 | So, he gets in the same booth as me

00:32:13.720 | and he starts jerking off right next to me.

00:32:15.680 | And I'm like, oh man, like, I don't think this is chill.

00:32:19.400 | I'm like, dude, can you stop?

00:32:21.920 | He stopped jacking off and he's like, what do you mean?

00:32:24.000 | Like, I thought this is what you wanna do,

00:32:25.680 | like, I have money for you, like, what's up?

00:32:27.440 | And I was like, oh no, I'm just a regular guy.

00:32:29.880 | And he was super cool about it.

00:32:31.640 | He started laughing, he was like, oh, my bad, man.

00:32:34.080 | I thought you were, you know, selling something.

00:32:35.880 | I said, no, and he said, oh, it's all good.

00:32:37.480 | And he gave me a ride all the way to Houston.

00:32:39.560 | - That's great.

00:32:40.400 | - Yeah, we talked about anything except that

00:32:42.160 | for the rest of the car ride.

00:32:43.400 | - That's great, I was just rolled with it.

00:32:44.800 | Oh, sorry about that.

00:32:46.640 | - I mean, I had about a foot and a half on this guy,

00:32:49.080 | so I wasn't too scared.

00:32:50.440 | I also had like a knife in my pocket,

00:32:52.180 | but I didn't wanna stab him,

00:32:53.560 | especially not at a place like that.

00:32:54.920 | - And you were still, that didn't like,

00:32:57.000 | leave a bad taste in your mouth?

00:32:58.840 | - Well, I figured that can't happen again.

00:33:00.920 | It can't keep happening.

00:33:02.040 | So I was like, all right,

00:33:02.880 | if I got this out of the way the first ride,

00:33:04.960 | the following rides are gonna be spectacular.

00:33:06.760 | - Yeah, I mean, who among us

00:33:09.760 | have not been mistaken for a lot lizard?

00:33:12.320 | - It's a fact, you heard it here first.

00:33:14.640 | - What else?

00:33:15.480 | What, there's some interesting, beautiful people

00:33:18.440 | that you've met along the way.

00:33:19.680 | - Well, I used the app Couchsurfing

00:33:21.840 | to find places to stay. - Nice, I remember Couchsurfing.

00:33:23.720 | - Now you can only submit

00:33:24.800 | like five Couchsurfing requests a day,

00:33:27.000 | unless you're a premium member,

00:33:28.180 | which means you also host people.

00:33:29.880 | - Couchsurfing's still around?

00:33:31.000 | - Yeah, yeah, totally.

00:33:32.360 | But it's evolved obviously into a different thing.

00:33:34.440 | - Airbnb is a kind of competitor to that, right?

00:33:36.840 | - Couchsurfing is free though.

00:33:38.620 | - Right.

00:33:39.460 | - So Couchsurfing, they call it like the CS community.

00:33:41.440 | So basically there'd be these like Couchsurfing super hosts

00:33:44.520 | in different cities.

00:33:45.340 | Like there was one in Santa Fe,

00:33:46.520 | this firefighter dude who had like 15 other Couchsurfers

00:33:49.080 | there chilling.

00:33:49.920 | - Nice.

00:33:50.740 | - So I would do it everywhere.

00:33:51.580 | A lot of them were Catholics, you know?

00:33:55.480 | So it was their way of giving back.

00:33:58.000 | A lot of them were nudists.

00:34:00.120 | And so I didn't realize that there's a small little section

00:34:03.480 | at the bottom of someone's Couchsurfing profile

00:34:05.400 | that says clothing optional.

00:34:06.960 | - Yes.

00:34:07.800 | - And that means if you go there,

00:34:08.760 | I thought it meant like it's cool

00:34:09.800 | if you walk to the bathroom in your underwear.

00:34:11.940 | No, if you go there, everyone's gonna be butt naked.

00:34:14.880 | So I made that mistake a few times.

00:34:16.920 | Not that I'm anti-nudist, but I didn't wanna, you know,

00:34:19.880 | I wasn't ready to take that leap of faith.

00:34:22.480 | And yeah, it was just great.

00:34:23.680 | Couchsurfing hosts were amazing.

00:34:25.760 | But that was just great.

00:34:26.720 | It was this constant thing where I felt like,

00:34:28.460 | wow, people are so welcoming.

00:34:29.800 | I'm not having to pay them a dollar for this experience.

00:34:31.960 | - Yeah, I love Couchsurfing.

00:34:33.360 | For like, again, for me being an introvert,

00:34:36.040 | just crashing on a person's couch,

00:34:38.360 | being essentially forced into a great conversation is great.

00:34:43.360 | - Yeah.

00:34:44.200 | The one thing that gets exhausting about hitchhiking

00:34:45.760 | is constantly thanking people, you know,

00:34:48.160 | being in like sort of constant superficial gratitude

00:34:51.400 | everywhere all the time.

00:34:52.400 | Like, oh, thanks for letting me sleep on your couch.

00:34:54.520 | Thanks for the food.

00:34:55.440 | - Yeah.

00:34:56.280 | - Part of the reason I wanted to live in an RV

00:34:57.920 | later in life is to avoid having to constantly live

00:35:00.240 | in this like, thanks so much type of frequency,

00:35:03.520 | 'cause it's exhausting to constantly, hey man, thanks.

00:35:06.000 | - I think the shallowness of that interaction is exhausting,

00:35:08.480 | not just the thanks.

00:35:10.600 | - Yeah, it was a true favor.

00:35:11.720 | Of course, I love giving people gratitude for that.

00:35:14.560 | But just this thing where everyone who picks you up,

00:35:16.900 | you know, you get eight rides a day,

00:35:18.560 | you're like thanking eight people a day,

00:35:20.200 | like they're, you know, the second coming of Jesus.

00:35:22.280 | You start to feel a little bit debased.

00:35:23.680 | - What'd you learn about people from that journey?

00:35:26.560 | That's your first time really kind of going into it.

00:35:29.360 | - That the American public is just so kind overall.

00:35:33.140 | I mean, they're so like embracing, depending on who you are.

00:35:37.000 | And specifically though, the Christian family people

00:35:40.460 | of the US who drive in minivans and have that fish sticker

00:35:43.680 | on the back where it's like Jesus fish,

00:35:45.720 | and then they have the family sticker,

00:35:47.640 | you know, where each member of the family

00:35:48.880 | is a stick figure.

00:35:51.600 | Those people never picked me up

00:35:54.680 | and would flip me off with their whole family.

00:35:57.080 | Sometimes they would throw full Dr. Peppers at me

00:36:00.320 | as a family while I stood on the side of the road.

00:36:02.400 | - As a family, together.

00:36:03.400 | - They'd yell shit like, "Go to hell, hippie,"

00:36:06.040 | when I was on the side of the road.

00:36:07.840 | And so it's weird that the most charitable

00:36:11.760 | Christian American family values people

00:36:14.560 | never gave me any charity or even conversation.

00:36:18.400 | They were antagonizing me and saw me as like a hippie

00:36:21.040 | leftover from the '60s who needed to go to work,

00:36:24.120 | go to Vietnam.

00:36:25.020 | I don't get it.

00:36:26.400 | But the people who really extended a hand to me

00:36:29.760 | is people on the margins.

00:36:31.840 | People working on seasonal visas,

00:36:34.440 | people whose cars have less than a quarter tank left,

00:36:38.360 | people struggling with addiction who saw me struggling,

00:36:40.880 | or at least they thought that I was

00:36:42.200 | 'cause they assumed I was hitchhiking,

00:36:43.360 | not out of adventure, but 'cause I had no car,

00:36:45.480 | and were willing to sacrifice their day almost sometimes

00:36:50.480 | to take me exactly where I needed to go.

00:36:52.700 | - That's beautiful, man.

00:36:53.720 | I've had similar kind of experience,

00:36:55.680 | that people who are struggling the most

00:36:56.920 | are the ones who are willing to help you

00:36:58.200 | when you're struggling.

00:36:59.120 | - Yeah.

00:37:00.240 | - There's people in religious contexts

00:37:02.240 | and other kind of communities that just judge others

00:37:06.600 | because they've kind of constructed a value system

00:37:09.200 | where they're better than others

00:37:10.600 | because of that value system.

00:37:12.680 | And that actually has a cascade that forces you

00:37:17.480 | to actually be kind of a dick.

00:37:19.480 | - Yeah, I never thought about it that way.

00:37:20.600 | It's so true.

00:37:21.440 | Do you think about morality and religion a lot?

00:37:24.200 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:37:26.160 | I've been to certain parts of the world

00:37:27.800 | where religion is really a big part of life.

00:37:30.040 | I'm just always skeptical about tribes of people

00:37:36.220 | that believe a thing and believe they're better than others

00:37:40.800 | because they believe that thing.

00:37:42.400 | That could be nations, that could be religions.

00:37:44.720 | - Yeah.

00:37:45.560 | - I mean, in Ukraine and in Russia,

00:37:47.600 | I've seen a lot of hate towards the other.

00:37:50.440 | - Yeah.

00:37:51.280 | - And that hate, I'm always very skeptical of

00:37:54.240 | 'cause it could be used by powerful people

00:37:56.800 | to direct that hate just so the powerful people

00:38:01.080 | can maintain power and get money, that kind of stuff.

00:38:04.400 | - It's a scary thing to see how easy it is

00:38:06.320 | for high up political people to mobilize the hate

00:38:09.400 | of just the average working person

00:38:11.880 | and can almost convince them

00:38:13.480 | to sabotage their own countrymen

00:38:15.320 | who they share more in common with

00:38:16.800 | than the politician they look up to

00:38:18.720 | just to advance the agenda of one party.

00:38:21.280 | That's what we're seeing now.

00:38:22.480 | - Are there some places in America

00:38:23.920 | that are better than others?

00:38:25.200 | Can you speak negatively of like aforementioned Joe Rogan

00:38:30.200 | talk shit about Connecticut and that stuff?

00:38:34.800 | Can you pick a region in the United States

00:38:36.240 | you can talk shit about?

00:38:37.080 | - To talk shit about?

00:38:37.920 | Oh, for sure.

00:38:38.740 | I mean.

00:38:40.080 | - Or from that experience, let's just narrow it down to that.

00:38:42.960 | - Oh, Colorado.

00:38:44.480 | - Oh, jeez.

00:38:45.320 | - Really?

00:38:46.140 | - I know so many people that love Colorado.

00:38:47.680 | - Dude, Dallas, Denver.

00:38:49.600 | I used to think Phoenix sucks, but I love Phoenix now.

00:38:51.880 | The way they build these cities

00:38:53.080 | to just be so circular and massive, it's just like, stop it.

00:38:55.600 | - You don't like circles?

00:38:56.680 | - I like grids, man.

00:38:58.240 | - Oh, you're a grid guy.

00:38:59.120 | - Manhattan, New Orleans, San Francisco.

00:39:02.160 | - What is it about grids that bring out the worst in people?

00:39:04.440 | (laughing)

00:39:05.800 | Circles is where everyone just, there's a--

00:39:07.640 | - Everyone's just vibing out loose and goosey,

00:39:09.520 | but the grid gets people locked in and hateful.

00:39:12.440 | I don't know, man, but--

00:39:13.520 | - I've never heard anyone talk shit about Colorado,

00:39:15.480 | I have to say.

00:39:16.320 | It's kind of refreshing, 'cause it provides

00:39:18.480 | a necessary balance for the Colorado Wikipedia page.

00:39:21.440 | - Yeah, oh, Oregon too, I got problems with Oregon.

00:39:23.600 | - Oregon. - Yeah.

00:39:24.560 | Well, here's the issue.

00:39:25.440 | You have, and I don't like just calling people racist,

00:39:27.960 | 'cause it's kind of like a two-dimensional insult,

00:39:29.660 | but you have the most racist state,

00:39:32.160 | but the most psychotic anarchist city in the middle of it.

00:39:35.840 | What is going on up there?

00:39:37.520 | How did this happen?

00:39:38.580 | The yin and the yang is so extreme

00:39:40.680 | that there must be something in the willamette.

00:39:43.160 | - What do you have against anarchism?

00:39:45.000 | - I have nothing, I used to be an anarchist.

00:39:46.840 | When I was in eighth grade, I had this friend named Mads

00:39:48.720 | who was part of a group called Seattle Solidarity,

00:39:50.760 | which is like an Antifa precursor.

00:39:53.000 | So I grew up going to Black Block protests,

00:39:55.640 | and I mean, there was a particular shooting,

00:39:59.560 | the murder of John Williams,

00:40:00.980 | who was a Native American woodcarver in downtown Seattle.

00:40:03.680 | He got killed by a Seattle police officer named Ian Burke.

00:40:07.320 | John Williams was carving a pipe from a woodblock

00:40:11.760 | with a pocket knife.

00:40:12.960 | He was deaf in one ear.

00:40:14.980 | The officer pulls a gun on him and says, "Put it down."

00:40:17.480 | He doesn't hear him, he shoots him six seconds later.

00:40:19.800 | So that police-involved shooting

00:40:22.000 | is what instantly turned me into a very critical

00:40:26.320 | of law enforcement kind of person when I was super young.

00:40:28.560 | And so as someone who used to see this guy who got murdered,

00:40:32.000 | who was a 55-year-old man,

00:40:33.480 | I used to see him around Pike Place where my mom lived.

00:40:35.440 | It's a public market in downtown.

00:40:37.600 | That, to me, put me into the anarchist political sphere,

00:40:41.800 | just channeling the anger of that experience.

00:40:45.020 | And the officer got no charges, by the way.

00:40:47.020 | You can look up the video, it's horrific.

00:40:48.880 | You know, and it didn't get reported.

00:40:50.620 | The officer, I'm pretty sure, is still active duty.

00:40:52.980 | And so it's like, situations like that early in life

00:40:57.260 | channeled me toward political extremism,

00:41:00.100 | but I grew up to realize how incompatible

00:41:03.580 | that anarchistic worldview is with reality

00:41:07.920 | and with American society.

00:41:09.820 | Can only exist in a small little chamber.

00:41:12.440 | You know, you can't apply that

00:41:13.920 | to the industrial heartland of the country.

00:41:15.600 | - And I think also anarchism,

00:41:17.480 | so I've gotten to know Michael Malice,

00:41:19.680 | who's written quite a bit about anarchism.

00:41:22.120 | And it also exists as a body of literature

00:41:24.240 | about different philosophical notions

00:41:26.100 | that kind of resist the state,

00:41:28.960 | the ever-expanding state in different kinds of ways.

00:41:31.040 | And it's always nice to have extreme thought experiments

00:41:35.560 | to understand what kind of society we want to build,

00:41:39.100 | but implementing it may not necessarily be a good idea.

00:41:42.680 | - Yeah, I mean, Emma Goldman, I'm a huge fan of her writing.

00:41:46.400 | Also the prison abolitionists that are associated

00:41:48.780 | with the anarchist movement, Angela Davis,

00:41:51.040 | Ruth Wilson Gilmore, all that stuff, influential.

00:41:53.720 | I still adhere to a lot of those principles

00:41:56.120 | when talking about stuff like radical prison reform

00:41:58.640 | and stuff like that.

00:42:00.000 | But just, I drifted more toward having a more open mind

00:42:04.520 | as I got older.

00:42:05.920 | - Extremism implemented in almost all of its forms

00:42:09.980 | is probably going to cause a lot of suffering.

00:42:12.300 | - Yeah.

00:42:13.220 | - You worked as a doorman on the,

00:42:15.120 | I could say legendary Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

00:42:19.060 | - That's right.

00:42:20.540 | - Where you saw what you described as,

00:42:22.420 | this might be another Wikipedia quote, by the way.

00:42:24.700 | This is where I do my research, it's Wikipedia.

00:42:26.540 | - Does it say hellish scenes?

00:42:28.100 | - Hellish scenes in quotes.

00:42:29.420 | - Wikipedia is damn right about that.

00:42:30.940 | - All right, thank you.

00:42:33.720 | That's a win, that's one in the win column.

00:42:36.320 | So yeah, tell the story of that.

00:42:39.100 | What's it like to work on Bourbon Street?

00:42:40.500 | What kind of stuff did you see?

00:42:41.340 | - I mean, I was a host at a fine dining restaurant

00:42:45.020 | on the corner of Bourbon and Iberville.

00:42:46.780 | So that's the first street if you go from Canal Street

00:42:49.220 | onto the corridor.

00:42:50.060 | So this is across from a daiquiri spot.

00:42:53.140 | It's the middle of the tourist corridor of New Orleans.

00:42:56.100 | And the spot was kind of like, kind of a tourist trap.

00:42:59.420 | It was called Bourbon House.

00:43:00.640 | The food was good.

00:43:01.740 | Chef Eric, I don't want you to see this and think,

00:43:04.180 | you don't make good andouille sausages,

00:43:05.780 | but it was overpriced.

00:43:08.040 | And so we had to maintain this fine dining facade

00:43:12.420 | on a street where almost everyone is throwing up,

00:43:14.700 | fighting, or is half naked.

00:43:15.860 | So there was this policy.

00:43:16.900 | We had these giant glass windows next to the tables.

00:43:20.140 | So if you're eating at a Bourbon House,

00:43:22.380 | you can look out onto Bourbon Street

00:43:23.820 | and you can see as you're dining,

00:43:25.500 | a full panoramic view of all these partiers

00:43:27.700 | throwing beads, boobs, all that.

00:43:30.460 | We had this policy where if we're serving someone,

00:43:33.420 | we can't look onto Bourbon Street

00:43:36.340 | if something crazy is happening.

00:43:37.780 | So if there's a fight or something like that,

00:43:39.620 | we can't look, right?

00:43:40.900 | So there is a dude, I remember, I'm fucking serving a table.

00:43:43.580 | There's a dude in a Batman mask, butt naked,

00:43:47.160 | with 12 pairs of beads, just jerking it.

00:43:49.940 | Back to jerking it.

00:43:51.220 | He's jerking it, right?

00:43:52.500 | And every single person at the restaurant's looking out there

00:43:55.680 | like, look, they're taking pictures.

00:43:57.260 | And the manager, Steven, looks at me,

00:43:58.620 | he's like, "Keep your fucking eyes on the table."

00:44:00.660 | So I'm serving these people and I'm like,

00:44:02.500 | "You want to eat, you like red beans and rice?

00:44:04.340 | "Or would you like some Creole fucking da-da-da?"

00:44:06.860 | And there's just this dude and ultimately the manager

00:44:10.060 | went out and escorted him further down Bourbon Street.

00:44:13.260 | But I would get off work at around midnight every night

00:44:16.060 | and that was when Bourbon Street is at its most chaotic.

00:44:19.620 | And so I lived in the French Quarter as well.

00:44:22.020 | So I lived about 12 blocks down Bourbon

00:44:25.460 | in a small Creole cottage in a cute little like orange,

00:44:29.300 | old school New Orleans, one story spot.

00:44:31.500 | I lived in the attic above these gay meth dealers

00:44:35.780 | named Frankie and Johnny.

00:44:36.860 | Oh, wow.

00:44:37.700 | And so I would get off work

00:44:39.860 | and I would basically have to walk through

00:44:42.600 | like this battlefield.

00:44:43.700 | I mean, it was a battlefield.

00:44:45.200 | Getting home was out of like the "Warriors" movie.

00:44:48.220 | It was almost impossible.

00:44:49.060 | The best of humanity on display.

00:44:50.700 | Yeah, it was like Kensington, Philadelphia,

00:44:52.840 | but just alcohol.

00:44:54.020 | You know what I mean?

00:44:54.860 | Just all alcohol.

00:44:55.740 | But it's a lot of, well, a lot of visitors, right?

00:44:57.860 | From outside.

00:44:58.700 | Almost all visitors.

00:44:59.780 | Yeah.

00:45:00.620 | And that kind of would set the flow for the weekend.

00:45:02.220 | For example, if the Raiders were playing the Saints,

00:45:04.540 | Raider Nation, and they do not play around.

00:45:07.720 | If it's the Patriots, that's a whole different crowd.

00:45:10.060 | They think they're better than everybody else.

00:45:11.580 | Yeah, well, they technically are better

00:45:13.140 | than everybody else, but yeah.

00:45:14.380 | But people from Massachusetts aren't like

00:45:16.340 | the cream of the crop in terms of like American superiority.

00:45:19.060 | Strong words, yeah.

00:45:20.300 | No offense, but I mean.

00:45:21.660 | No, I'm sure they won't take that as an offense.

00:45:24.460 | They are good at fighting though, I'll tell you that.

00:45:26.100 | All right, great.

00:45:27.020 | New England has hands compared to some places.

00:45:29.500 | Which places are those, Colorado?

00:45:31.220 | Colorado has no hands.

00:45:32.740 | Yeah.

00:45:33.580 | (laughing)

00:45:34.860 | The West Coast, not too much hands.

00:45:37.020 | That's why you feel safe talking shit about Colorado.

00:45:39.500 | But if you get to the corn-fed parts of East Colorado,

00:45:42.140 | I mean, these guys got hands bigger than my head.

00:45:44.180 | Don't beat the shit out of me.

00:45:45.060 | But anyways, I'd walk back to my house on Bourbon Street,

00:45:48.860 | and I would be sifting through this battlefield,

00:45:50.940 | and I had a friend at the time who was like,

00:45:52.220 | "Yo, we should do a taxicab confessions type spinoff

00:45:56.060 | where we ask people to confess a deep dark secret."

00:45:58.780 | And we posted the next day.

00:46:00.340 | And so, we tried that,

00:46:01.740 | and it went viral on Instagram instantly.

00:46:05.220 | It was mostly incest stories.

00:46:07.180 | You know, people admitting to incest.

00:46:08.780 | I know it's a common Southern stereotype,

00:46:11.060 | but there's some truth to it.

00:46:13.060 | There was some murder confessions.

00:46:15.180 | That was pretty crazy.

00:46:16.900 | We never really posted any of those, but.

00:46:18.780 | How'd you get people to confess?

00:46:20.500 | Pretty easy.

00:46:21.340 | And New Orleans has a homicide solve rate of like 22%.

00:46:24.220 | So, I mean, most of the time, they'll just tell you.

00:46:28.220 | I remember I was walking down Bourbon,

00:46:30.340 | and I asked this kid, I was like,

00:46:31.580 | "What's your deepest darkest secret?"

00:46:32.820 | And he told me, he's like,

00:46:33.700 | "I just smoked a dude in the Magnolia,"

00:46:35.660 | it's a project housed in the Third Ward,

00:46:37.900 | project development, and they said,

00:46:39.460 | "I just smoked a dude in the Magnolia Playground

00:46:41.420 | for touching my sister, molesting his sister."

00:46:43.500 | And I was like, "What?"

00:46:44.740 | And he's like, "Yeah, look it up."

00:46:45.940 | And I was like, "All right, hold on."

00:46:47.580 | And it was like, "Man found dead in Central City Playground,

00:46:50.460 | like appeared to be homeless, shot execution style."

00:46:53.700 | So, I told the kid, I was like,

00:46:55.020 | "Why'd you tell me that?"

00:46:56.140 | He's like, "Man, put that shit out there,

00:46:57.540 | like I'm trying to go viral, like tag me too."

00:46:59.500 | I was like, "Dude, I don't think you understand

00:47:01.780 | that even if you're a juvenile," he was probably 15,

00:47:03.700 | "You can get juvenile life in Louisiana for a homicide,

00:47:06.580 | even if it's, you know, justified."

00:47:08.980 | So, I just deleted the footage in front of him.

00:47:11.540 | I was like, "I'm gonna delete this footage.

00:47:13.180 | See that trash button?

00:47:14.340 | I'm hitting it right now.

00:47:15.660 | Don't tell anyone that again."

00:47:17.260 | And he was like, "All right, I appreciate it."

00:47:18.580 | And he walked off, but it's the little moments like that

00:47:21.420 | that I always remember.

00:47:22.380 | - Anything for the 'gram, I guess.

00:47:24.100 | - Yeah, after a while though, it became sort of repetitive.

00:47:27.660 | You know, 'cause there's only so many things

00:47:28.940 | that people can confess to that go viral, you know?

00:47:32.740 | - Oh, so you were trying to see like what?

00:47:34.860 | - Well, I mean, there's the incest one.

00:47:37.060 | Some people would just say like, "I eat ass."

00:47:39.440 | That was like everyone said that.

00:47:41.460 | Or like, "I cheated on someone."

00:47:43.380 | - I've seen a surprising number of people on your channel

00:47:46.140 | say, "Mention eating ass."

00:47:48.660 | - Yeah.

00:47:49.500 | (laughing)

00:47:52.020 | The way, how seriously you said that

00:47:54.900 | will live in my head for the rest of my life.

00:47:56.620 | - That's good.

00:47:57.460 | I want to live in your head saying

00:48:02.020 | that a lot of people mention eating ass.

00:48:04.020 | - Yeah, a lot of people do mention that.

00:48:06.380 | Also, that's kind of where I developed this magnetism

00:48:09.380 | for freestyle rapping.

00:48:11.340 | You know, everywhere I go, people rap.

00:48:14.280 | Not sure why.

00:48:15.860 | I mean, as a former rapper myself in middle school

00:48:18.420 | and for the first year of high school,

00:48:20.700 | I think that maybe like it takes one to know one.

00:48:23.180 | But everywhere I go, people start rapping.

00:48:25.660 | If you and me went outside of this podcast studio

00:48:27.660 | and walked around for five minutes, I could find somebody.

00:48:29.740 | - It's rapping.

00:48:30.580 | - I can tell who raps or who can rap,

00:48:32.740 | who has eight bars in their head that they're ready to go.

00:48:34.900 | - I think you're also, there's something about you

00:48:36.380 | that gives them, creates the safe space

00:48:40.380 | to perform their art.

00:48:42.740 | - Yeah.

00:48:43.900 | The "Quarter Confessions" series

00:48:45.220 | was the first time you saw the suit.

00:48:47.120 | - That's when the suit came out.

00:48:48.500 | - Yeah, it was kind of like a Ron Burgundy,

00:48:50.180 | Eric Andre-inspired.

00:48:51.980 | - Where'd you get that suit?

00:48:53.120 | - Goodwill.

00:48:54.140 | - Goodwill.

00:48:54.980 | - Yeah, always.

00:48:56.420 | - Wow.

00:48:57.260 | I was playing checkers, you were playing chess.

00:48:59.140 | Good job.

00:48:59.980 | - I mean, Goodwill has a surprising amount

00:49:02.080 | of identical gray suits for sale.

00:49:03.960 | - Yeah, I've actually gotten suits

00:49:04.980 | at thrift stores before.

00:49:06.700 | They're great.

00:49:07.540 | - Yeah, a lot of people donate suits.

00:49:08.620 | I was going for oversized suits,

00:49:10.140 | which are the cheapest ones there, so.

00:49:11.620 | - Yeah.

00:49:12.460 | - It's 12 bucks, 12 to $25 every time for the outfit.

00:49:16.900 | - If I wanted to look super sophisticated,

00:49:18.740 | like I'm from another era, I would go to a thrift store.

00:49:22.980 | - Yeah.

00:49:23.820 | - 'Cause they're usually like this,

00:49:25.160 | there's like the patterns they have.

00:49:28.060 | It's just like a more sophisticated suit,

00:49:30.060 | which is what you kind of picked out.

00:49:31.880 | It made you look ridiculous, but in the best kind of way.

00:49:34.240 | - The tough part about "Quarter Confessions" for me

00:49:36.300 | is that everybody that was featured, for the most part,

00:49:40.300 | would more or less regret being a part of the show.

00:49:43.380 | - Yeah.

00:49:44.220 | - And that, over time, just gave me a bad feeling

00:49:47.060 | where I was like, you know what?

00:49:48.540 | I kind of feel like I am doing an ambush interview,

00:49:51.740 | especially 'cause I'm presenting as so agreeable,

00:49:54.980 | yet the intention is to make something funny.

00:49:57.140 | - Yeah.

00:49:57.980 | - And I get that that's what people do in the satire sphere.

00:50:00.540 | I'm sure Ali G and Bruno and Borat did the same thing.

00:50:04.740 | And I don't think it's unethical,

00:50:06.300 | 'cause that's all for the purposes of comedy.

00:50:07.940 | It is what it is.

00:50:08.940 | But for me, I wanted to do something different.

00:50:12.540 | - Yeah, because there's an intimacy to confessing a thing.

00:50:15.780 | - Right.

00:50:16.620 | - And then you just don't really realize

00:50:18.780 | the implications of that.

00:50:19.980 | - And the atmosphere at Bourbon Street is like,

00:50:21.540 | anything goes, it's a free-spirited place.

00:50:23.820 | But if you transport that energy digitally

00:50:26.900 | to a different place, like Colorado,

00:50:29.780 | they might look at it and be like, oh man.

00:50:32.180 | - Different place and time, like five years later.

00:50:34.680 | - Right.

00:50:35.520 | - That same person has a family and stuff like this,

00:50:37.100 | and all of a sudden they're talking about eating ass.

00:50:39.700 | - Right, exactly.

00:50:40.900 | Kids have to think about that.

00:50:42.020 | Or imagine if there's a video of your grandma

00:50:43.940 | or grandpa out there when he was a kid

00:50:45.340 | talking about eating ass.

00:50:46.740 | That's a horrible experience.

00:50:48.860 | To discover that about your respected elder later in life,

00:50:51.980 | it's tough.

00:50:52.900 | - I don't even know where to go with that.

00:50:54.140 | But literally the opening question was,

00:50:57.180 | tell me your deepest, darkest secret?

00:50:59.140 | - Yeah.

00:50:59.980 | - You just come up to somebody like that?

00:51:01.540 | - Yeah.

00:51:02.380 | - How often do you get a no?

00:51:04.500 | How often, what's the yes to no ratio?

00:51:06.540 | - Well, the weird thing is,

00:51:07.500 | we don't really extract answers from people.

00:51:10.940 | What makes a good interview is when they're ready to talk.

00:51:13.300 | The more you have to talk

00:51:14.580 | and try to get an answer out of them,

00:51:16.940 | it's just not a good vibe.

00:51:18.840 | So we kind of look for people

00:51:20.060 | who appear to be already ready to talk.

00:51:22.420 | Open body language, they seem confident and verbose,

00:51:25.820 | and we approach them first.

00:51:27.120 | - There's a look.

00:51:28.220 | - We wouldn't approach a shy person and be like,

00:51:29.820 | come on, tell me.

00:51:30.820 | No.

00:51:31.660 | - What about a person with pain in their eyes?

00:51:33.480 | - Oh yeah, we're interviewing them.

00:51:35.020 | - Yeah, so they're ready to talk,

00:51:36.300 | they're just not like...

00:51:38.060 | - Yeah.

00:51:38.900 | - There's different ways to be ready.

00:51:41.020 | - Right.

00:51:42.420 | - I see homeless people a lot

00:51:43.720 | and they always look fascinating.

00:51:45.300 | And the ones I've talked to are always fascinating.

00:51:47.500 | - Yeah, we just did a video in the Vegas tunnels,

00:51:50.620 | like trying to, obviously it got taken down by Fox,

00:51:52.780 | but whatever.

00:51:53.880 | - I was gonna make a joke that I didn't see it.

00:51:55.780 | (laughing)

00:51:57.180 | - We tried to help a lot of them by getting them IDs.

00:52:00.820 | And when I made the documentary,

00:52:02.620 | I had this idea that if I,

00:52:03.800 | it's a big roadblock for them is getting identification.

00:52:06.700 | Without IDs, you can't check into a homeless shelter,

00:52:08.860 | you can't do day labor,

00:52:10.400 | you can't qualify for housing, nothing.

00:52:12.920 | So when we interviewed them,

00:52:14.260 | they'd basically tell us if I had my ID,

00:52:16.540 | I wouldn't be here.

00:52:17.940 | And so we said, okay, we're gonna really help this time.

00:52:20.460 | We're not just gonna talk to them about their struggles,

00:52:22.420 | we're gonna actively go out and get them IDs to the DMV.

00:52:25.540 | So we did that and nothing really changed in their life.

00:52:31.980 | And we sat down with a recovery specialist

00:52:34.060 | who works directly with them day in and day out.

00:52:36.120 | And he explained to me

00:52:36.960 | that he's been trying to do the same thing

00:52:38.880 | I tried to do in a one week period for the past 10 years.

00:52:43.260 | And that they have deeper underlying traumas and pain

00:52:46.720 | that need to be dealt with

00:52:48.840 | far before they even take the steps to enter society

00:52:52.080 | as a housed person.

00:52:53.640 | (exhaling)

00:52:54.480 | - That's a heavy truth right there.

00:52:56.200 | - Breaking that shame cycle has to come first

00:52:58.240 | because you gotta think, right?

00:53:00.360 | Like I'm from a generation that romanticizes vagrancy

00:53:04.240 | and homelessness to a certain extent,

00:53:05.800 | if it's called van life,

00:53:07.280 | or if it is done in a way that's sort of like Rolling Stone,

00:53:11.200 | Willie Nelson hit the road.

00:53:12.560 | People who are above 50,

00:53:16.040 | they feel really embarrassed

00:53:17.320 | to be in the spiral of homelessness.

00:53:19.160 | They feel like failures.

00:53:20.140 | A lot of them have kids who they weren't there for.

00:53:22.240 | That's not the kind of pain that can be dealt with

00:53:24.560 | by giving someone a tiny home.

00:53:26.760 | It's a good step forward,

00:53:28.360 | but for someone to really make a change,

00:53:31.920 | they have to want to change.

00:53:33.640 | And so it's how do you help someone

00:53:36.360 | and guide themselves in the right direction?

00:53:39.160 | And if you're too paternalistic

00:53:40.500 | and you use shame as a method to get them to clean up,

00:53:43.680 | they're gonna end up right where they started.

00:53:45.440 | - Yeah.

00:53:46.280 | - That's a tough truth to accept

00:53:47.120 | 'cause a lot of people want a quick fix to things.

00:53:49.480 | And I don't blame people who go out

00:53:51.240 | and give bologna sandwiches out to the homeless.

00:53:53.440 | - And each case is probably its own little puzzle.

00:53:57.040 | Each person is so complex.

00:53:58.600 | Now, imagine drug abuse, what that does to the brain.

00:54:01.120 | - Yeah.

00:54:01.960 | - Trauma, childhood trauma.

00:54:03.160 | There's so much to unpack.

00:54:04.900 | And then just the belief that they're the undesirables,

00:54:09.460 | that they don't deserve to be a part of society

00:54:12.040 | because they failed a fundamental obligation

00:54:14.120 | like taking care of their kids.

00:54:15.840 | - If we could take a small tangent to,

00:54:17.720 | you mentioned this Vegas video, which is fascinating.

00:54:20.360 | It was taken down recently by YouTube

00:54:25.040 | or YouTube took it down based on--

00:54:27.280 | - Yeah, it was illegal.

00:54:28.440 | - Fox 5, I guess.

00:54:31.280 | - So the documentary was an hour and 45 minutes.

00:54:33.920 | We used 10 seconds of a news clip

00:54:35.960 | that was publicly broadcast by Fox 5 Vegas.

00:54:39.360 | And according to the Copyright Act of 1976,

00:54:42.360 | you're allowed to use any publicly broadcast news clip

00:54:46.120 | in a transformative capacity in any documentary film

00:54:48.600 | or research paper or broadcast or anything.

00:54:52.400 | They, specifically this corporation called Gray Media

00:54:55.360 | that controls the TV stations in almost every small town,

00:54:58.940 | they had lawyers hit up YouTube

00:55:01.640 | and YouTube complied with an illegal copyright strike

00:55:04.880 | to get our video immediately removed.

00:55:07.200 | And I'm a YouTube partner,

00:55:08.120 | I'm in the YouTube partner program.

00:55:09.520 | So to think that I wasn't forewarned is,

00:55:11.480 | it's a bit strange,

00:55:13.200 | but it also smells like corruption to me

00:55:15.360 | to a certain extent.

00:55:16.280 | - Yeah, you shouldn't have that amount of power.

00:55:17.880 | At the very least, they should have the power

00:55:21.040 | to just like silence that five second clip maybe.

00:55:24.920 | - Yeah, but I'm taking them to court

00:55:26.640 | because I have the means to be able to do so.

00:55:29.760 | I'm a larger creator, I have an audience,

00:55:31.760 | I have the financial backing to do it.

00:55:33.880 | I can't imagine how many people out there

00:55:35.520 | are smaller creators with like not as much consumer

00:55:39.040 | of a fan base they can mobilize

00:55:41.200 | against someone like Fox 5 or the money to go to court.

00:55:44.200 | So I want to take them all the way there

00:55:46.120 | to set precedent for future cases

00:55:48.200 | so that these giant mainstream media conglomerates

00:55:52.040 | can't copyright strike documentary filmmakers at will.

00:55:56.720 | It doesn't make sense.

00:55:57.640 | - Oh, thank you for doing that.

00:55:58.720 | That's really, really, really important

00:56:00.240 | and that's really powerful.

00:56:01.320 | And it might hopefully empower YouTube

00:56:04.480 | to also put pressure on people to not,

00:56:08.320 | and YouTube is in a difficult position

00:56:10.600 | because there's so much content out there.

00:56:12.200 | There's so many claims, it's hard to investigate,

00:56:14.120 | but YouTube should be in a place

00:56:16.720 | where they push back against this kind of stuff

00:56:19.280 | as a first line of defense,

00:56:20.680 | especially to protect small creators.

00:56:22.720 | So what you're doing is really, really important.

00:56:24.280 | - Appreciate it, man.

00:56:25.120 | - And it sucks that it was taken down.

00:56:26.960 | Do you have any hope?

00:56:29.080 | - Well, I talked to my YouTube partner today

00:56:31.240 | and he said that the Fox 5 lawyers have two weeks

00:56:33.440 | to comply with my counter appeal.

00:56:35.240 | But you know, I spent 20 grand on human voiceovers

00:56:39.440 | in five different languages.

00:56:40.640 | I invested probably in total like 70K into this video.

00:56:44.400 | So even if it gets reinstated,

00:56:46.120 | the steam's gonna have been taken out of its trajectory.

00:56:48.320 | - But also it's just like a really important video

00:56:50.360 | that's good for the world.

00:56:51.320 | - Yeah, like why the hell would Fox 5

00:56:54.120 | have a vested interest in having the video taken down?

00:56:57.200 | - I just hate it when people do that to videos

00:56:59.880 | or to creators that are doing good in the world.

00:57:01.760 | - Yeah, it's not an expose on the mayor of Las Vegas.

00:57:04.560 | It's an attempt to show the civilian public

00:57:06.480 | how to get involved in a local nonprofit

00:57:08.360 | and potentially intervene in the lives of the tunnel people.

00:57:10.440 | - Well, fuck Fox 5, the other Channel 5, as you said.

00:57:13.440 | - Yeah.

00:57:14.680 | - Well, thank you for pushing back and highlighting it.

00:57:17.680 | Hopefully it gets brought back up.

00:57:19.000 | But yeah, defending other creators

00:57:21.480 | so that other creators can take risks

00:57:23.240 | and don't get taken down for stupid reasons.

00:57:26.760 | - Yeah.

00:57:27.600 | - So "Court of Confessions" was written?

00:57:30.560 | - No, it was all real life, reality TV documentary.

00:57:34.940 | But it caught the attention of a larger company

00:57:37.680 | called Doing Things Media.

00:57:39.320 | - Yes.

00:57:40.160 | - And they contacted me pretty much like a week

00:57:42.240 | after I graduated from college in the May of 2019.

00:57:45.680 | And they said, "Hey, how would you like to produce a show?"

00:57:50.400 | I was like, "What do you mean?"

00:57:51.280 | They were like, "We'll get you an RV.

00:57:54.000 | "We'll pay you 45K a year.

00:57:55.900 | "We'll pay for gas, for food, for two hotels a week.

00:58:00.800 | "Go out there, make content,

00:58:03.380 | "and we'll be in the background just powering it all."

00:58:06.480 | - And that was the birth of All Gas No Breaks.

00:58:09.440 | - Yes.

00:58:10.320 | I mean, All Gas No Breaks was named after a book

00:58:13.400 | that I wrote called "All Gas No Breaks,

00:58:15.000 | "A Hitchhiker's Diary," which chronicled

00:58:17.000 | the 70-day journey that we were just talking about.

00:58:19.200 | - It's a tough book to find, by the way.

00:58:20.600 | - Oh yeah, there's only a few copies left.

00:58:22.160 | I'm thinking about doing a reprint

00:58:23.640 | at some point down the line,

00:58:24.780 | but I sold off the last 100 copies

00:58:26.640 | like a month and a half ago.

00:58:28.180 | Yeah.

00:58:29.020 | - Until then, you guys should go read

00:58:30.000 | "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac.

00:58:31.180 | - Yeah.

00:58:32.020 | - You should read it.

00:58:32.840 | - I don't know if you've read it before.

00:58:33.680 | - If you can't get my book, get "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac.

00:58:35.640 | - It's great.

00:58:36.480 | - It's the best.

00:58:37.320 | - When's your birthday, I'll send you.

00:58:38.760 | - April 23rd.

00:58:39.600 | - Okay.

00:58:40.440 | - I'm a Taurus.

00:58:41.260 | Come and see it.

00:58:42.100 | - Typical Taurus, yeah.

00:58:42.940 | - Yeah, I'm a typical Taurus man.

00:58:45.240 | I'm a Scorpio moon, so write that down.

00:58:47.560 | - What's the time when you were born?

00:58:48.800 | - 11.30.

00:58:49.640 | - 11.30 at night?

00:58:50.720 | Or, of course.

00:58:53.120 | - Yeah, typical.

00:58:54.480 | This guy knew it.

00:58:55.600 | That's the real science.

00:58:56.680 | - Yeah.

00:58:57.520 | - Anyways, so the idea of All Gas No Breaks as a show

00:59:00.880 | was to combine the, I guess, road dog ethos

00:59:05.120 | of the All Gas No Breaks book with the presentation

00:59:07.920 | and editing style of Quarter Confessions.

00:59:09.920 | So it was to take Quarter Confessions on the road

00:59:12.520 | that was pretty much like a simulated hitchhiking experience

00:59:16.280 | but with the editing and punchy effects

00:59:19.000 | of Quarter Confessions, which is like,

00:59:20.800 | I wear a suit, we do the fast zoom-ins,

00:59:23.400 | little effects, stuff like that.

00:59:25.520 | It was, man, those were the best years.

00:59:28.520 | It was just so fun.

00:59:29.780 | I mean, imagine, you're fresh out of college.

00:59:31.960 | You were just a doorman interviewing people

00:59:34.200 | about making out with their cousin and stuff,

00:59:37.480 | and then, boom, this company that you've never even heard of

00:59:41.080 | is willing to buy you an RV and give you 45K a year,

00:59:44.000 | which to me, at the time, was more money

00:59:46.040 | than I could possibly imagine.

00:59:47.860 | So I called my dad.

00:59:49.360 | I was like, "Dad, I need you to find me an RV,"

00:59:51.040 | 'cause he's the only guy I know who knows about cars.

00:59:52.880 | Even he doesn't know much about cars.

00:59:54.520 | So he's like, "All right, I'm on it."

00:59:55.680 | So the RV was 20,000, and the first event

00:59:59.000 | that we were called to cover was the Burning Man Festival.

01:00:02.640 | And that was tough because Burning Man

01:00:05.040 | is not too keen on filming.

01:00:06.840 | It's supposed to be a non-commercialized escape

01:00:10.520 | from reality.

01:00:12.480 | I mean, they have a gift economy set up.

01:00:13.940 | It's based upon mutual participation and non-exploitation.

01:00:18.800 | And so the idea of making a Burning Man video

01:00:20.780 | was tough at first because burners, oftentimes,

01:00:24.800 | and this is not all of them,

01:00:26.360 | but are pretty well off in general.

01:00:29.320 | A lot of them have tech jobs,

01:00:30.840 | are pretty high up in Silicon Valley.

01:00:32.760 | And Burning Man is where they go to take the edge off

01:00:36.880 | and basically become their burner persona.

01:00:39.040 | On the playa, they become reborn.

01:00:40.760 | And they take ketamine, and they wear Kaleidoscope glasses

01:00:44.200 | and steampunk hats, and they snort MDMA,

01:00:47.040 | and they run around the sand.

01:00:48.480 | Listen to tech. - Do you snort MDMA?

01:00:50.240 | That's one.

01:00:51.080 | I need to go to MDMA. - Yes, you can.

01:00:52.240 | - I thought it's a pill.

01:00:53.160 | I didn't know.

01:00:53.980 | - It's better to take it in a pill or water,

01:00:56.100 | but you can snort MDMA.

01:00:57.960 | - I definitely need to take MDMA.

01:00:59.360 | I'm already full of love, but that,

01:01:01.080 | I'd probably go on another level.

01:01:02.540 | - Yeah, don't snort it

01:01:03.380 | 'cause it'll only last you 90 minutes.

01:01:05.920 | - Let me write that down.

01:01:07.000 | - So anyways, we didn't know what to do

01:01:08.200 | because we'd try to film.

01:01:09.320 | - Don't snort.

01:01:10.320 | - The initial idea for "All Gas, No Brakes"

01:01:12.360 | was to, instead of asking people,

01:01:15.360 | "What's your deepest, darkest secret?"

01:01:16.880 | It was, "What's the craziest trip you've been on?"

01:01:20.240 | So the idea was to not satirize drunk people,

01:01:22.760 | but satirize people who are fried on acid.

01:01:25.400 | And so we went to Boulder real quick,

01:01:28.000 | did a test interview with some lady

01:01:29.680 | who talked about seeing ancestral aliens

01:01:32.800 | during a peyote retreat.

01:01:34.360 | And so it's pretty easy to extract trip reports

01:01:37.760 | from hippies and, you know, gutter punks

01:01:39.800 | and stuff like that, or oogles.

01:01:41.320 | So we go to Burning Man.

01:01:43.460 | We start asking people, like, you know,

01:01:45.520 | "What's your craziest trip story?"

01:01:46.920 | And they didn't have the same type

01:01:48.320 | of free-flowing storytelling style

01:01:50.640 | that, like, an on-the-street crust punk

01:01:52.960 | in New Orleans might have, where they're like,

01:01:54.260 | "I don't give a fuck, I'll tell you whatever."

01:01:56.000 | These people were very bottled up

01:01:57.480 | about what they were willing to disclose.

01:02:00.320 | So we went on Burning Man Radio,

01:02:02.120 | and we did a broadcast, and we said,

01:02:03.560 | "Hey, we're psychedelic journalists."

01:02:06.680 | It was me and my friend CL at the time.

01:02:08.040 | I said, "We're psychedelic journalists.

01:02:10.280 | "We're parked on 10 and I,"

01:02:11.740 | which is a cross street in Black Rock City.

01:02:13.560 | And we said, "We have a 1998 Catalina Coachman Sport.

01:02:17.660 | "It's an RV.

01:02:18.940 | "We've set up a podcast studio.

01:02:20.380 | "We're doing a show about psychedelic voyages."

01:02:23.720 | - Yeah.

01:02:24.560 | - So lo and behold, two hours later,

01:02:27.640 | we had 10 people lined up at the RV.

01:02:29.840 | - Nice.

01:02:30.680 | - Willing to talk.

01:02:31.500 | So that vetted people in advance for us.

01:02:34.040 | And so we did a couple interviews, and that was that.

01:02:37.160 | - Well, what were some of the stories

01:02:38.600 | from the trip reports?

01:02:40.280 | - There was this lady named Razma

01:02:42.760 | who said that she was known in several circles

01:02:45.480 | in Berkeley for being multi-orgasmic

01:02:47.880 | and could create multiple repeated climaxes

01:02:52.680 | using only her mind by squinting her eyes

01:02:55.800 | and squeezing her eyes together so much

01:02:57.520 | that the pleasure spiral just went crazy.

01:03:01.640 | - I feel like I talked to several people

01:03:03.760 | like that at Berkeley.

01:03:04.880 | - Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

01:03:06.920 | - Not that, well, yeah, that lady.

01:03:08.520 | I think she did.

01:03:09.360 | She manifests herself in many forms, yeah.

01:03:11.240 | - Right, but still, it was on the cruder end.

01:03:13.560 | There was one guy named Kimbo Slice was his burner name.

01:03:17.320 | He talked about taking a shit

01:03:19.240 | after taking a quarter of mushrooms

01:03:22.420 | and how he was like seeing his childhood

01:03:24.160 | and visualizing his past life, you know,

01:03:26.320 | as the turds were flowing into the toilet

01:03:28.600 | and just talks about the psychedelic union

01:03:31.000 | between pooing and taking shrimps.

01:03:34.360 | - So he was very visual with his words.

01:03:36.320 | - Yeah, so there was stuff like that.

01:03:37.600 | I interviewed Alex Gray, which was super cool,

01:03:39.680 | about his first trip in San Francisco

01:03:41.680 | when he was in 1971, shortly after the Summer of Love.

01:03:46.280 | I got to do some pretty cool interviews,

01:03:48.000 | but still it was a semi-ambush style.

01:03:51.600 | I wouldn't say that we were doing journalism yet.

01:03:55.000 | It was still comedic video work, you know?

01:03:57.880 | - Was there a narrative that tied it together?

01:04:00.660 | It's like really just a trip, comedic almost with the--

01:04:03.780 | - Interview, and then I go, "Burning man,"

01:04:05.900 | and then it's on to the next one.

01:04:07.140 | So I guess that could give a loose structure,

01:04:09.080 | but it's just like a punchy and slapstick thing.

01:04:11.480 | Everything was going good

01:04:14.520 | until we interviewed this guy named DJ Softbaby.

01:04:17.720 | He was wearing a golden leotard

01:04:20.320 | with, once again, kaleidoscope glasses,

01:04:23.840 | shirtless, dancing, you know, dancing.

01:04:26.840 | He was eating chowder out of a plastic bowl,

01:04:31.040 | and he was like, "This chowder's so fucking good.

01:04:32.820 | "This is the best chowder I've ever had in my life."

01:04:35.400 | And he starts putting the chowder on his face,

01:04:37.360 | and he's like, "I want the chowder all over me, yeah!"

01:04:40.560 | And so we just go, "Hey man,

01:04:41.800 | "can you just do a dance for us real quick,

01:04:43.240 | "just for some B-roll?"

01:04:44.960 | He does a dance.

01:04:45.920 | We post it on Instagram the next morning.

01:04:48.280 | Doing Things Media's CEO calls me, "Reed,"

01:04:50.280 | he says, "All of our pages are down."

01:04:52.120 | And he's like, "That guy you filmed dancing last night

01:04:55.520 | "on drugs, putting chowder on his face,

01:04:58.080 | "that guy's at the top of MIT."

01:05:00.520 | - Top of MIT.

01:05:01.640 | I don't understand what that means.

01:05:02.480 | - He went to MIT. - That's like saying,

01:05:04.840 | you know, "My brother's a rocket scientist,"

01:05:06.760 | and he's like, "Head of NASA," or whatever.

01:05:09.720 | - Well, I mean, the guy knows people in Boston.

01:05:12.840 | - Okay.

01:05:13.680 | - You know, not in the whitey-bulger sense,

01:05:14.960 | but in the reverse sense.

01:05:16.840 | - I have trouble believing that DJ Softbaby--

01:05:19.280 | - Oh, DJ Softbaby was major.

01:05:21.040 | It could have been Harvard, it could have been,

01:05:23.080 | but it wasn't UMass.

01:05:25.560 | - I don't think there's anybody that's, quote,

01:05:27.760 | at the head of MIT who's putting,

01:05:29.640 | what was it, all over his face?

01:05:32.480 | - Chowder. - Chowder.

01:05:33.640 | - Well, then you haven't been to Burning Man yet.

01:05:35.280 | - Okay, I've not been to Burning Man.

01:05:38.400 | I'm gonna have to consult my colleagues at MIT

01:05:41.920 | if they know DJ Softbaby.

01:05:43.440 | - So whoever he-- - It probably was Harvard.

01:05:45.600 | Let's put it on them.

01:05:46.560 | - Okay, the top of Harvard.

01:05:48.720 | So he made some calls, you know, to the tops,

01:05:52.680 | to the heads of big tech,

01:05:54.240 | got all the "Doing Things" media pages taken down.

01:05:56.680 | At the time, that was like vast network of pages.

01:05:59.560 | And we ended up having to take,

01:06:01.360 | obviously the video came down,

01:06:03.360 | and he held the entire network of Instagram pages hostage.

01:06:07.320 | And so that was, he made us agree

01:06:09.560 | to never post that video again,

01:06:11.040 | and then somehow got all of our pages reinstated.

01:06:13.400 | So that was my first brush with powerful people on drugs,

01:06:18.320 | and that was probably my last brush

01:06:19.600 | with powerful people on drugs.

01:06:20.960 | - So what did you transition into from there?

01:06:23.280 | - I think after Burning Man, we went to the South,

01:06:26.920 | went to Talladega Race Weekend,

01:06:28.640 | went to a Donald Trump Jr. book signing,

01:06:31.040 | went to a Juggalo-adjacent fetish mansion

01:06:34.360 | in central Florida called the Sausage Castle.

01:06:36.640 | - A Juggalo-adjacent sausage, okay,

01:06:40.480 | can you run that by me again?

01:06:42.440 | - A Juggalo-adjacent fetish mansion in central Florida.

01:06:46.640 | - Fetish mansion in central Florida, Juggalo-adjacent.

01:06:50.300 | I mean, every single one of those words,

01:06:51.760 | I feel like needs a book or something.

01:06:53.520 | - Right.

01:06:54.560 | - So Juggalo, by the way, who are the Juggalos?

01:06:57.080 | Is this ICP? - Just ICP fans.

01:06:58.840 | - ICP fans, okay.

01:06:59.680 | - But I say adjacent because it's not a Juggalo mansion,

01:07:02.320 | but there's a lot of Juggalos who kick it at the mansion,

01:07:04.160 | and it's Juggalo-friendly.

01:07:05.760 | - Oh, okay, Juggalo-friendly.

01:07:07.360 | - Yeah, 'cause they get made fun of in a lot of places.

01:07:09.760 | - Oh, so it's not, okay, got it.

01:07:11.160 | - And Juggalos say outrageous shit,

01:07:13.000 | you know, and they embarrass themselves,

01:07:14.240 | and they fight a lot, so they're on the FBI's gang list,

01:07:16.960 | which, if you ask me-

01:07:18.280 | - ICP or the- - The Juggalos.

01:07:20.600 | - The Juggalos, who is the head of the Juggalos?

01:07:24.000 | - It would be Violent J and Shaggy Too Dope.

01:07:26.280 | But there's associated acts, like Twizdid,

01:07:28.560 | and there's a whole rabbit hole.

01:07:29.680 | Honestly, Tech N9ne is sort of a part of that.

01:07:31.840 | - Tech N9ne, I don't know who that is.

01:07:33.200 | Should I know who that is?

01:07:34.240 | - He's actually one of the top-selling touring rappers,

01:07:36.280 | despite having sort of not that many streams.

01:07:38.440 | Tech N9ne is like, he's got a huge cult following in Missouri.

01:07:41.440 | This is like, the Juggalos started in Warren, Michigan.

01:07:47.240 | - We should also say ICP, Insane Clown Posse.

01:07:50.000 | So this is a thing, this is a movement.

01:07:51.640 | - Oh yeah, if you went to Seattle right now

01:07:55.680 | and punched a cop, and they booked you in county jail,

01:07:58.960 | you may end up running with the Juggalos.

01:08:00.800 | - Running with the Juggalos.

01:08:02.760 | - They are of presence in Pacific Northwest prison system,

01:08:05.640 | from what I've heard.

01:08:06.520 | - Can you tell a Juggalo from like a distance?

01:08:09.440 | - Well, they say, "Whoop, whoop."

01:08:10.880 | So if you see a Juggalo, they'll say that.

01:08:12.880 | Also like--

01:08:13.720 | - I'll try to, I'll try to look out for that.

01:08:16.600 | - They're kind of, it's called the Dark Carnivals,

01:08:19.600 | the mythology they abide by.

01:08:21.200 | - What do they define themselves?

01:08:22.640 | What's the ideology of a Juggalo?

01:08:23.480 | - A family, a family.

01:08:24.720 | - No, I understand, but what's the ideology?

01:08:26.360 | What's like the philosophical foundation of the--

01:08:28.360 | - They're anti-racist.

01:08:30.200 | They like to drink Faygo,

01:08:31.760 | and also just like cheap liquor and stuff like that.

01:08:35.800 | They're into drugs.

01:08:38.840 | - Yeah.

01:08:39.680 | - A lot of circles, if you pull out a crack pipe,

01:08:41.200 | people will be like,

01:08:42.040 | "I don't wanna drink with you anymore."

01:08:43.440 | If you're at a Juggalo party

01:08:44.640 | and someone's smoking Twiz or something,

01:08:46.240 | it's relatively accepted.

01:08:49.960 | - And what's Twiz?

01:08:50.800 | - Meth.

01:08:51.640 | - Meth, right, right.

01:08:52.920 | Lots of tattoos?

01:08:54.200 | - Yeah.

01:08:55.040 | The Hatchet Man is the most common one.

01:08:56.560 | So it's a psychopathic records logo.

01:08:59.560 | It's a cartoon of a clown wheeling a hatchet.

01:09:02.480 | It's actually a pretty sick logo.

01:09:03.840 | - I vaguely remember enjoying some of the ICP music.

01:09:08.560 | - It's good.

01:09:09.400 | - Yeah, it's pretty good.

01:09:10.240 | It's funny.

01:09:11.060 | It's edgy.

01:09:11.900 | - Well, they get satirized a lot,

01:09:13.200 | but I got love for the clowns.

01:09:14.840 | And also, so when All Gas No Brakes transitioned away

01:09:17.760 | from rich elite drug parties and into like the South,

01:09:22.000 | that's when the fun really started to happen.

01:09:24.440 | Living in your RV in Alabama and Florida

01:09:26.600 | and stuff is the best.

01:09:27.680 | - Why?

01:09:28.680 | What is it about Alabama?

01:09:29.520 | - People are just so friendly down there,

01:09:30.560 | and it's warm year round,

01:09:32.160 | and people are non-judgmental.

01:09:34.360 | It's just great.

01:09:35.200 | The South gets hated on a lot,

01:09:37.160 | especially in the coastal states.

01:09:39.440 | Mississippi and Alabama are kind of like the butts

01:09:41.620 | of a lot of jokes and stuff,

01:09:42.800 | but those are great states.

01:09:44.240 | - No, I love it.

01:09:45.060 | New Mexico, Albuquerque, all those.

01:09:46.700 | - Oh yeah, the ABQs, it's great.

01:09:48.560 | - ABQ, what's that?

01:09:49.600 | - Albuquerque.

01:09:50.440 | It's what Jesse Pinkman called it, is the ABQ.

01:09:53.160 | - Oh, shit.

01:09:54.280 | The depth of references you bring to the table is intense.

01:09:57.960 | - It's okay.

01:09:58.800 | - I met a lady in Albuquerque

01:10:00.720 | when I was traveling across the United States,

01:10:02.320 | and she said, "Take me with you."

01:10:03.880 | Said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't."

01:10:06.120 | But I didn't think about that lady.

01:10:08.120 | - Think you made the right call.

01:10:09.640 | - I don't know.

01:10:11.080 | On the Road, by Jack Kerouac.

01:10:13.900 | - Best book I've ever read in my life.

01:10:15.800 | - There's a moment when he meets a nice girl on a bus,

01:10:21.340 | and they have a love affair.

01:10:23.800 | It was good.

01:10:24.640 | - On the bus, or they?

01:10:25.720 | - No, no, they went to California.

01:10:27.880 | Well, yeah, and there was a love affair on the bus,

01:10:29.760 | but it wasn't sexual.

01:10:30.600 | It was just romantic.

01:10:32.240 | - It was in the air.

01:10:33.320 | - It was in the air,

01:10:34.200 | which there is something in the air on a bus,

01:10:37.560 | like a Greyhound, Megabus, that type of situation.

01:10:40.160 | There's something.

01:10:41.000 | - Certainly something in the air.

01:10:42.280 | - There's a romance.

01:10:43.120 | There is, man, when you travel across.

01:10:45.120 | 'Cause it's like strangers getting together,

01:10:47.100 | and you're feeling each other out.

01:10:49.720 | But you're in it, you each have a story,

01:10:52.120 | 'cause you wouldn't be taking a bus unless you had a story.

01:10:54.920 | Especially if you're traveling cross-country,

01:10:56.800 | there's something.

01:10:57.640 | - You ever taken the dollar bus from Philly to New York,

01:10:59.440 | the Chinatown bus?

01:11:00.280 | - Yeah, I have, yeah.

01:11:01.280 | - That's a great bus.

01:11:02.240 | The people on that.

01:11:03.080 | - It's not a fucking dollar, though.

01:11:04.400 | - It was, there's some that are five bucks.

01:11:07.000 | - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:11:08.280 | If you book it way ahead of time.

01:11:10.060 | It's like $20.

01:11:12.480 | I was like, this is a fucking lie, calling it $1.

01:11:14.840 | - I got on the show.

01:11:15.660 | - I don't know why I'm swearing.

01:11:16.500 | The anger came out, I apologize.

01:11:17.800 | - Hey, swearing's okay sometimes.

01:11:18.960 | When I got on, last time I was on the Chinatown bus,

01:11:20.760 | there was like a rooster walking down the aisle.

01:11:23.000 | - Actual rooster?

01:11:23.840 | - Yep, chilling, it was awesome.

01:11:25.280 | - Well, there's a nice part of your film with the rooster.

01:11:27.640 | I forgot about that.

01:11:28.920 | - Yeah, that felt almost fake.

01:11:32.520 | - Yeah.

01:11:33.360 | - Did you plant the rooster?

01:11:34.180 | - No, the rooster, there's a place in Ybor City,

01:11:36.160 | in Tampa, where roosters walk around all the time,

01:11:39.200 | and we had a rooster parked there,

01:11:41.120 | right by the main drag for,

01:11:43.200 | what did I say, we had a rooster parked?

01:11:45.160 | We had the RV parked in Ybor City for a long time,

01:11:47.720 | and the rooster laid eggs in the undercarriage.

01:11:50.460 | - Nice.

01:11:51.300 | - Back to the All Gas No Brakes thing, though.

01:11:52.360 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:11:53.200 | - So it was lots, it was really fun making it,

01:11:55.200 | and then we started All Gas No Brakes in September of 2019.

01:11:58.880 | Six months later, the country shuts down,

01:12:01.160 | and everything just hits the fan.

01:12:02.560 | I was actually here in Austin when it shut down.

01:12:05.680 | I was on 6th Street, I remember the,

01:12:08.080 | I don't just hang out on 6th Street all the time,

01:12:09.800 | but I was just here.

01:12:10.640 | - Yeah, you do, come on, let's be honest.

01:12:12.800 | - I do like 6th Street.

01:12:14.400 | I like East Austin better, but I like 6th Street too.

01:12:16.200 | So anyways, the NBA shuts down, everything's shutting down,

01:12:19.960 | so I went down to the Dirty 6 and I asked this doorman,

01:12:22.320 | I was like, "Are you guys ever gonna shut down?"

01:12:23.920 | He was like, "Fuck no, bro, the Dirty 6 never closes."

01:12:28.160 | And I was like, "All right, we'll see about that.

01:12:30.400 | "Next day, plywood."

01:12:32.400 | And then I was like, "All right."

01:12:34.640 | I thought my career was over when COVID hit.

01:12:36.960 | I was like, "What are we gonna do?

01:12:39.300 | "Nothing's happening anymore, there's no more parties

01:12:41.200 | "or Talladega races or Burning Man's to go to."

01:12:44.720 | So I went back to Seattle in the RV

01:12:46.280 | and I just spent four months just depressed,

01:12:49.200 | living in the RV, trying to figure out what would happen.

01:12:51.600 | - But all gas, no breaks, went on still.

01:12:56.000 | - This was the craziest thing about that period of time

01:12:58.440 | is that when COVID hit, I'm sure you remember,

01:13:01.760 | everything turned political overnight.

01:13:05.360 | In Seattle, if you went to a house party,

01:13:08.880 | you can get canceled because people were like,

01:13:11.380 | "Oh, you're a super spreader."

01:13:12.920 | So if you wanted to socialize,

01:13:14.960 | even with a group of four or more,

01:13:16.260 | you had to do so with your phones damn near turned off.

01:13:19.640 | And a lot of people were doing

01:13:20.960 | hyper-social policing at that time.

01:13:23.400 | Beyond that, in the South and in more conservative places,

01:13:27.200 | they were doing the opposite.

01:13:28.920 | They were trying to prove that they could hang out

01:13:31.920 | 500 deep with no mask

01:13:34.280 | to make a statement against the establishment.

01:13:36.760 | So you had this polarization that led to more division.

01:13:40.960 | And that's when the anti-vax protest started.

01:13:43.560 | And I went to Sacramento and the passion was unreal.

01:13:46.900 | This is about two months after the COVID lockdowns began.

01:13:50.680 | And that was my first political video was at the Sacramento,

01:13:53.200 | the California State Capitol in Sacramento,

01:13:55.260 | documenting the, they called it the Freedom Rally,

01:13:57.720 | but that's typically like anti-vax stuff.

01:14:00.420 | And it was real intensity.

01:14:03.560 | And that video was my most successful to date at that time.

01:14:08.560 | And so I was like, "Okay, am I a political reporter now?

01:14:12.680 | "Am I covering politics?

01:14:13.880 | "Like, what's going on?"

01:14:15.520 | - What were the interviews that made up that video?

01:14:18.500 | What kind of, what style of questions were you asking?

01:14:21.320 | - I don't know if you remember,

01:14:22.560 | but I was actually scared when the pandemic started.

01:14:25.320 | I thought that this is something that might kill us all

01:14:28.360 | based upon what I was consuming.

01:14:30.320 | And so I'd ask people,

01:14:31.920 | "What do you think about this lockdown?"

01:14:34.640 | And I've had people say, "I'm immune compromised.

01:14:37.620 | "If I get exposed to COVID, I have a 95% fatality rate.

01:14:40.600 | "But guess what?

01:14:41.580 | "I'd rather be free and dead than alive, living in fear."

01:14:45.540 | And I was like, "Wow."

01:14:47.300 | So it was just stuff along those lines.

01:14:48.780 | You had some San Diego surfers there

01:14:50.540 | complaining about the beaches being shut down

01:14:52.980 | when such awesome waves were coming.

01:14:54.840 | - Yeah, it's interesting how that really brought out

01:14:58.020 | the worst in people.

01:15:02.160 | - Oh yeah.

01:15:03.100 | - I'm not sure why that is.

01:15:05.540 | Fear maybe, paranoia.

01:15:07.440 | I don't know, it really divided people.

01:15:10.780 | Like along the lines, as you mentioned,

01:15:13.340 | like triple mask yourself or fight for your country.

01:15:17.740 | - Yeah, right, exactly.

01:15:19.580 | Why are those the two options?

01:15:21.080 | That is literally what it was.

01:15:23.460 | - Yeah, it's wild.

01:15:25.140 | - And both groups think they're fighting

01:15:26.700 | for the survival of something.

01:15:28.300 | And so that's where you really run into problems

01:15:30.400 | when you have two polarized groups

01:15:32.140 | who both think that their cause is for the common good.

01:15:35.180 | Mutual understanding is impossible at that juncture.

01:15:38.140 | And so after three months of almost everybody

01:15:43.140 | being locked down, George Floyd happens.

01:15:46.800 | And I remember I saw the third precinct burning

01:15:53.060 | on my phone in Minneapolis.

01:15:55.500 | And everyone says, "Andrew, you have to go cover this."

01:16:00.100 | And I'm somebody, like I said,

01:16:03.380 | police violence has been close to my heart

01:16:05.540 | since I was a kid.

01:16:07.000 | And my first thought is, I can't do that.

01:16:10.520 | I'm a comedic reporter.

01:16:11.900 | I can't go to Minneapolis and cover this.

01:16:14.420 | It'll be the end of my career.

01:16:16.740 | And I had a friend named Lacey who I went to college with.

01:16:20.340 | And she told me, she was like,

01:16:21.340 | "Bro, this is your chance for you to do something serious.

01:16:24.420 | "You can actually create a meaningful piece of reporting

01:16:26.660 | "like you always wanted to before quarter confessions.

01:16:29.060 | "And you can turn All Gas No Brakes into a news source."

01:16:32.780 | So I called Reed, who is the CEO of the company

01:16:35.780 | that owned All Gas No Brakes.

01:16:37.660 | And I was like, "Look, man, I wanna go to Minneapolis."

01:16:39.660 | I was in Orlando at the time.

01:16:40.740 | I was actually at the Sausage Castle.

01:16:42.780 | And he said--

01:16:44.620 | - Sorry, the Sausage Castle?

01:16:46.540 | - Yeah, the Juggalo Mansion.

01:16:48.060 | - Oh, right, that's called the Sausage Castle.

01:16:49.820 | - So I'm watching Minneapolis unfold

01:16:51.940 | on Lake Street where it was burning.

01:16:55.220 | And I got to the Orlando airport

01:16:58.360 | and I booked a flight without,

01:17:00.020 | I booked it on my own card.

01:17:01.180 | I didn't consult my boss or anything.

01:17:03.220 | And I was sitting in my seat on the flight.

01:17:06.860 | And he straight up told me, he's like,

01:17:08.780 | "If you fuck this up and this destroys the brand,

01:17:11.640 | "we're getting a different host.

01:17:14.420 | "This, if you mess this up and you turn our show

01:17:19.420 | "away from a party show about drinking and drugs

01:17:22.240 | "and all that stuff, and you make this a social justice show,

01:17:25.240 | "you're done."

01:17:26.940 | But I was like, I just turned my phone off.

01:17:30.460 | I got to the Minneapolis airport

01:17:32.160 | on the second night of the riots.

01:17:33.860 | And when I got to the airport,

01:17:36.260 | there was National Guardsmen in the airport.

01:17:38.140 | And it was like a call of duty mission,

01:17:40.700 | the one in the airport.

01:17:42.180 | And on the speaker, they say,

01:17:44.280 | "If you're arriving here right now,

01:17:46.340 | "you are not permitted to go

01:17:47.820 | "anywhere outside of the airport.

01:17:49.500 | "National Guardsmen will escort you

01:17:51.180 | "to your Uber or to your car.

01:17:52.980 | "They're gonna take a picture of your ID.

01:17:54.720 | "They're gonna figure out where you're going.

01:17:56.380 | "You are not permitted to go outside tonight."

01:17:59.060 | And so Lacey picks me up.

01:18:01.040 | There's two people in the back,

01:18:02.200 | two of her homegirls wearing like shiesty masks.

01:18:04.300 | And I'm like, "What are we doing?

01:18:06.100 | "Where are we going?"

01:18:06.940 | And she goes, "We're gonna go film the riot.

01:18:08.660 | "We're going to Lake Street."

01:18:10.300 | And so we drive down there.

01:18:12.220 | Kmart is burning.

01:18:13.740 | Target is burning.

01:18:15.580 | Everything is on fire.

01:18:16.920 | She has the Sony A7.

01:18:20.780 | She gives me a microphone and she's like,

01:18:22.380 | "Go talk to that guy."

01:18:23.900 | And that was a guy with a Molotov cocktail in his hand

01:18:27.020 | who had just burned Kmart down.

01:18:29.500 | And so I go, "What should I ask him?"

01:18:30.860 | She goes, "What's on your mind?"

01:18:33.420 | So I walk up to him and I'm like, "What's on your mind?"

01:18:35.580 | He said something like,

01:18:36.840 | "Everything that was happening here was supposed to happen.

01:18:39.660 | "This is how we feel.

01:18:40.980 | "Is it right?

01:18:41.860 | "No.

01:18:42.700 | "Is this gonna benefit the community?

01:18:44.100 | "No, but this is how we feel."

01:18:45.900 | - This is how we feel.

01:18:46.980 | That's pretty powerful.

01:18:48.460 | That's, through a lot of the documenting that you do,

01:18:53.280 | this is how we feel is like screaming through that.

01:18:57.220 | - Yeah, and I noticed that aside

01:18:58.540 | from a group called Unicorn Riot,

01:19:00.060 | there was no one else actually interviewing the protesters.

01:19:03.240 | The local news was on the bridge, 15, not 15,

01:19:06.580 | but five blocks away,

01:19:07.940 | filming just the scene itself, just the fire.

01:19:12.420 | But I saw some crazy things off camera too.

01:19:15.100 | I saw, so there was kind of two groups there.

01:19:18.240 | There was like the anarchists, more mobilized protesters.

01:19:21.900 | And then there was just mostly

01:19:24.680 | African-American community members who were just pissed,

01:19:27.260 | who had nothing to do with the organized resistance.

01:19:28.820 | And they were all kind of joining forces to riot.

01:19:31.580 | And there was this anarchist kid

01:19:34.580 | who ran up to White Castle with like a Molotov cocktail.

01:19:38.140 | And he was about to throw it at White Castle.

01:19:40.820 | And this black dude ran up to him and grabbed his arm.

01:19:42.540 | And he's like, "Nah, we fuck with White Castle."

01:19:45.540 | And I was like, "What?"

01:19:46.740 | And so you see, if you go on Lake Street,

01:19:48.920 | every business is burned.

01:19:50.580 | White Castle remains.

01:19:52.380 | I also saw all these dudes rip this ATM out of a bank

01:19:56.460 | and hit it with sledgehammers.

01:19:58.120 | They were a group of friends

01:19:59.180 | hitting it with sledgehammers, right?

01:20:00.780 | They're hitting it with sledgehammers, boom.

01:20:02.460 | All of a sudden, money starts spraying out of the ATM,

01:20:06.180 | like I've never seen some shit like this,

01:20:07.580 | like pouring out of it.

01:20:08.780 | And then these group of friends

01:20:09.940 | who were just united in getting it open

01:20:12.700 | start fighting each other for the money

01:20:14.260 | as it's flying out of it.

01:20:15.820 | And so there was just, it was like a,

01:20:17.660 | like "Joker" from the "Batman's Army" type vibes.

01:20:21.900 | But I got shot in the ass by the National Guard.

01:20:24.140 | It was no good.

01:20:25.140 | - Like a what, a rubber bullet?

01:20:26.500 | - Yeah, not shot. - What did that feel like?

01:20:29.160 | - Honestly, it hurt.

01:20:30.320 | - I'm not sure what I was expecting

01:20:33.520 | as an answer to that question.

01:20:35.120 | I liked it, it was good.

01:20:36.680 | - Yeah, and then after that, I posted the video

01:20:39.400 | and it was very well received.

01:20:40.840 | And that was the pivotal point where I realized

01:20:43.680 | that everything was gonna change.

01:20:45.400 | - I mean, there was still kind of a comedic element

01:20:48.320 | to the way you do conversations, to the way you edit.

01:20:52.080 | So did you see yourself as a,

01:20:54.480 | potentially like a Jon Stewart type of character?

01:20:57.180 | - At first, but you know, I just think human beings

01:20:59.620 | are just funny in general.

01:21:00.740 | - Yeah, the absurdity of it.

01:21:02.180 | - Cool thing about Jon Stewart is like,

01:21:04.940 | I generally like to say that anybody who works

01:21:06.700 | for corporate media, whether it be Comedy Central

01:21:09.380 | or anything owned by Time Warner, Fox, MSNBC,

01:21:12.860 | they can't say what they want.

01:21:14.820 | Because in order to climb up in those organizations,

01:21:17.100 | you have to appease the narrative of the company

01:21:19.260 | that you're working for to rise in the ranks.

01:21:21.500 | Jon Stewart, I feel like has so much clout

01:21:25.080 | in the media world that I'm pretty sure

01:21:27.080 | he can say whatever he wants.

01:21:28.840 | Like, I actually don't think that Jon Stewart

01:21:30.760 | is controlled by anybody.

01:21:32.120 | I really don't.

01:21:32.960 | I think that he can go on the show and talk about whatever.

01:21:36.240 | - I do think that certain people have broken the brains of,

01:21:40.480 | COVID broke the brains of a lot of really great people

01:21:43.480 | I admire.

01:21:44.400 | Trump broke the brains of a lot of people I admire.

01:21:47.360 | Like to where Trump derangement syndrome became a thing.

01:21:51.040 | Like you can't see the world quite as clearly because of it.

01:21:54.760 | And I think Jon Stewart is quite a genius

01:21:59.760 | at like stepping away, even though the world needed him

01:22:04.120 | in that time, stepping away during that moment of Trump

01:22:08.200 | and coming back now, sort of being able to reflect,

01:22:11.840 | being sort of the elder statesman.

01:22:13.760 | - My favorite Jon Stewart moment that illustrates

01:22:15.840 | that perfectly is whenever he went on the Colbert Show.

01:22:19.600 | And he was just joking around with Stephen Colbert,

01:22:22.640 | who I think is a full-blown propagandist,

01:22:25.320 | about the Wuhan lab leak theory.

01:22:28.400 | He was just goofing around and he was like,

01:22:30.040 | "It's called the coronavirus lab and they had it before.

01:22:33.760 | "And now what do we have?"

01:22:35.160 | And it was like, you could see in Stephen Colbert

01:22:38.960 | that he was like gun to his head type shit,

01:22:41.440 | where he's like, "Jon, Jon, stop joking about that."

01:22:44.380 | And that made me realize like, oh,

01:22:46.680 | everything that Jon Stewart did,

01:22:48.360 | especially for the 9/11 first responders,

01:22:50.880 | he's a true American.

01:22:52.520 | And not in the sense of like the different political parties

01:22:56.640 | want you to believe as an American,

01:22:58.400 | not a do your part and social distance American,

01:23:01.920 | not a wave your Trump flag

01:23:04.880 | in the back of your pickup truck American,

01:23:06.440 | just a guy who genuinely stands up for what's right.

01:23:09.320 | - There's a degree to which you can be in those positions

01:23:13.480 | easily captured by groupthink, though,

01:23:15.600 | even when you're not controlled by bosses and money

01:23:19.760 | and all that kind of stuff.

01:23:20.960 | I think Jon Stewart has been mostly resistant,

01:23:23.160 | but it's hard, his position is difficult.

01:23:25.160 | - I think he's done the best job, though.

01:23:26.560 | If someone in that, obviously,

01:23:28.560 | Democrat-connected corporate media economy,

01:23:32.040 | he seems to be the freest talker.

01:23:34.800 | - Yeah.

01:23:35.840 | So this is when you first became famous.

01:23:38.220 | - I'm not even sure what fame means.

01:23:40.400 | I mean, I just see myself as me.

01:23:42.040 | - When did you get the shades?

01:23:43.380 | - Oh, that was on tour.

01:23:44.680 | That was, that's a whole, the shades, that's dark time.

01:23:48.560 | But this, I didn't make--

01:23:52.280 | - This is a meme, really?

01:23:53.480 | I don't even know if that's a symbol of fame or whatever.

01:23:54.740 | - I didn't make journalism to become famous.

01:23:58.160 | I made it to give people a platform to share their stories.

01:24:01.480 | It just so happens that people liked it enough

01:24:04.260 | to where I became sort of famous.

01:24:05.920 | But if I could go back and not be the on-camera guy

01:24:10.680 | and just platform the stories, I would.

01:24:13.760 | But the reality is, people need a face

01:24:15.280 | to attach to stuff they like,

01:24:16.600 | and so that's just how it is.

01:24:17.540 | But yeah, I would say right around Minneapolis protests,

01:24:20.320 | Portland protests, Proud Boys rally time,

01:24:22.680 | when I was really in there,

01:24:24.020 | is when I started to be acclaimed

01:24:25.360 | as more than just like a ambush meme lord.

01:24:28.560 | - Did that have an effect on you, the fame?

01:24:30.720 | - Not at that point.

01:24:33.000 | - Not at that point.

01:24:33.840 | So you were still able to have a lightness to you?

01:24:36.800 | - Well, the country was basically closed.

01:24:39.320 | - Yeah.

01:24:40.160 | - So it wasn't like there was a street to walk down

01:24:42.520 | where people were like, "There's that guy!"

01:24:44.480 | So getting famous during COVID made it

01:24:47.480 | so when the country reopened,

01:24:49.040 | it was as if my life really changed,

01:24:52.360 | 'cause I was like, "Oh, all these fans I made during COVID

01:24:54.400 | "are seeing me out at the bar.

01:24:55.880 | "This is cool."

01:24:57.200 | - Yeah.

01:24:58.040 | - At first, fame is the best thing ever,

01:24:59.760 | because you can go anywhere in the country,

01:25:01.960 | and these spaces that you normally feel a bit insecure in,

01:25:04.600 | like a local dive bar, a cool restaurant, a coffee shop,

01:25:07.480 | where you'd just be another guy,

01:25:08.780 | all of a sudden they're like,

01:25:09.620 | "Oh my God, I'm a big fan."

01:25:10.840 | They give you free stuff.

01:25:12.480 | You get this sense of acceptance

01:25:13.760 | that you never would have gotten before.

01:25:16.160 | But there's also--

01:25:17.640 | - The dark side.

01:25:18.840 | - Well, it's all love, man.

01:25:20.500 | Just to speak to the first part you're saying,

01:25:24.120 | it's just so much love that people have and they share it.

01:25:26.320 | - It's amazing.

01:25:27.160 | I'm sure you know what it's like.

01:25:27.980 | - Yeah, it's beautiful.

01:25:28.820 | - The only downside of fame, really,

01:25:30.720 | is that you can't really be anonymous again,

01:25:33.200 | and you have to seek out more strange environments

01:25:35.680 | to be anonymous in.

01:25:36.800 | Like right now, I live in the desert, basically,

01:25:39.460 | and I wanna live in the middle of nowhere

01:25:40.960 | in the Mojave Desert.

01:25:42.120 | Not because I'm scared of people,

01:25:43.400 | but 'cause I just wanna be like curious me again.

01:25:46.320 | When people don't know and I can ask questions

01:25:48.240 | to people that I'm interested in without them going,

01:25:50.520 | "I remember, I see you here or I see you there."

01:25:53.000 | That's the main thing.

01:25:53.920 | That's what I loved about hitchhiking.

01:25:55.520 | - Yeah, just to have anonymity.

01:25:57.000 | - Yeah, it's the best.

01:25:58.240 | But both are great.

01:25:59.520 | Complaining about fame is just the lamest shit.

01:26:01.800 | - Yeah, we should go to furry conventions that you covered.

01:26:04.440 | Wear an outfit.

01:26:06.600 | - I love furries, I should do that.

01:26:08.280 | - Yeah, we should go together.

01:26:09.440 | I go all the time.

01:26:10.280 | We should go together.

01:26:11.160 | - What's your favorite outfit?

01:26:12.000 | - Have you ever been to a furry convention?

01:26:12.820 | - No, I have not.

01:26:14.280 | - I think you might like it more than you think.

01:26:16.640 | - Listen, maybe I'm just afraid to face who I really am.

01:26:23.080 | - Yeah, your fursona, the true Lex will come out

01:26:25.480 | when you're in a $3,600 lizard suit.

01:26:29.680 | - Lizard, is that what they go with?

01:26:30.960 | - Well, scalies are the lizard furries.

01:26:34.720 | And there's a big division in the community

01:26:36.380 | where they think scalies are kind of douchebag.

01:26:39.200 | The scalie suits are more expensive.

01:26:40.680 | They're about seven grand, whereas a fur suit is 3,600.

01:26:43.960 | So, and they're also taller.

01:26:45.880 | So when the scalies pull up to the fur fest,

01:26:47.840 | it's like, ah, fuck the reptiles.

01:26:49.840 | - Fuck the reptiles, I can get behind that.

01:26:51.680 | I'm more like a teddy bear type of guy.

01:26:54.600 | - Yeah.

01:26:55.440 | - I think bears, what's, maybe squirrels, I don't know.

01:26:58.240 | - Ooh, squirrels are so cool.

01:27:00.000 | - Giant squirrels, yeah.

01:27:00.840 | - I wanna put a GoPro on one

01:27:01.920 | and just see what the hell they do.

01:27:03.620 | - You were talking about that conversation

01:27:07.160 | with the guy at the head of Doing Things Media.

01:27:10.000 | How did that end up?

01:27:11.160 | - Well, I mean, I wanna clear up a few things.

01:27:14.240 | Reed, the CEO of Doing Things,

01:27:16.400 | I actually think he's a good guy.

01:27:18.060 | I think that he was just trying to run a business.

01:27:20.360 | He saw what was working for his brand,

01:27:22.600 | which is very college-centric, very festival-centric.

01:27:25.400 | And he was right to think that journalism,

01:27:28.080 | and especially coverage of sensitive topics like COVID

01:27:30.800 | or police brutality would definitely not work on merch.

01:27:35.440 | You know, you're not gonna sell a picture

01:27:36.760 | of me interviewing someone at a riot

01:27:38.920 | like you would me interviewing a furry

01:27:40.400 | or a drunk dude in Alabama.

01:27:41.720 | It doesn't work the same.

01:27:43.160 | So it was a lot harder to monetize,

01:27:46.000 | not just 'cause of YouTube censorship,

01:27:47.540 | but also just because of the sensitive nature of the content.

01:27:51.160 | So Reed was looking out for himself as a businessman.

01:27:55.160 | There was a different partner,

01:27:56.720 | well, I'm not gonna say his name,

01:27:58.240 | that was more connected in Hollywood.

01:28:00.040 | I think he's responsible for the collapse of the show.

01:28:03.520 | - What was the collapse like?

01:28:04.720 | What happened?

01:28:05.600 | - So right as the country's reopening,

01:28:09.360 | I get a DM from Eric Wareheim of Tim and Eric.

01:28:12.160 | And I'm covering something called the UFO Mega Conference

01:28:15.360 | in Laughlin, Nevada, which is a beautiful river town.

01:28:19.520 | And he DMs me, he says, "Let's make a show."

01:28:23.360 | And I'm like, "Oh shit, is this real?"

01:28:24.720 | You know, I grew up such a big fan

01:28:26.080 | of Nathan For You and The Eric Andre Show,

01:28:28.360 | and those are produced by their company, absolutely.

01:28:30.680 | So I was like, "Hell yeah, let's do it."

01:28:34.760 | Three days later, I get a call that says,

01:28:36.600 | "Jonah Hill wants to hop on board."

01:28:38.720 | And I can't believe this, you know,

01:28:40.000 | I'm still in the RV and I'm in Laughlin, Nevada.

01:28:42.440 | So I'm like, "Jonah Hill, super bad,

01:28:44.080 | "are you shitting me right now?"

01:28:45.200 | So I was excited.

01:28:46.760 | And, oh, and Moneyball, Jonah Hill's a great actor.

01:28:50.120 | - Oh, he's great, he's great all around.

01:28:51.600 | - Yeah.

01:28:52.440 | - Doesn't get the credit he deserves.

01:28:53.440 | Well, I mean, he's got the credit by now,

01:28:54.760 | but still deserves more.

01:28:56.200 | - So basically, just within a week,

01:28:57.720 | I assembled this super team of Tim and Eric.

01:29:00.840 | - Super bad team?

01:29:01.760 | - Yeah, pretty much, of Tim and Eric.

01:29:03.640 | - I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

01:29:04.480 | - No, that was good, and Jonah Hill.

01:29:06.240 | And yeah, we just pitched it around.

01:29:08.640 | Every single TV network rejected it.

01:29:10.600 | I don't know why.

01:29:12.680 | And they mainly did that because

01:29:15.160 | I was in this weird situation

01:29:16.760 | where I had signed a contract with Doing Things Media

01:29:19.720 | that I didn't realize was called a 360 deal.

01:29:22.640 | That's what they use in like the rap world.

01:29:24.640 | Basically means that I can't do anything outside of them

01:29:29.320 | without them getting 100% of the money.

01:29:31.400 | So if I was to go work at Sbarro or Quiznos

01:29:34.720 | while I was working for All Gas, No Brakes,

01:29:36.960 | they would get my 500 bucks a week from the sandwich spot.

01:29:40.960 | I was unable to earn any outside income.

01:29:43.200 | I didn't read the fine print 'cause I was 21.

01:29:48.560 | And like I told you, 45K a year RV, sounds sick.

01:29:52.520 | And basically, the TV networks were like,

01:29:55.640 | why would we buy a show if the digital brand's

01:29:58.800 | gonna be running at the same time?

01:30:00.200 | 'Cause they didn't wanna stop doing All Gas, No Brakes

01:30:02.320 | to make a TV show.

01:30:03.240 | They wanted All Gas, No Brakes to continue as a web show

01:30:06.280 | while All Gas, No Brakes as a future TV show

01:30:09.160 | at Showtime or Hulu or somewhere like that

01:30:11.080 | was also concurrently running,

01:30:13.240 | which is impossible for one man to do.

01:30:15.720 | And so every TV network said, okay, we're not doing that.

01:30:17.760 | We want an exclusive rights contract with this guy.

01:30:20.200 | Next, oh yeah, this is crazy to think about

01:30:24.800 | 'cause it all happened so fast.

01:30:26.680 | So Jonah Hill says, A24 Films wants to do a movie

01:30:30.880 | instead of a show.

01:30:32.040 | And they're gonna let you keep the digital brand running.

01:30:34.560 | So this meant that I could keep doing my Instagram stuff

01:30:37.480 | with doing things media/All Gas, No Brakes

01:30:40.120 | while making an A24 movie with Jonah Hill and Tim and Eric.

01:30:43.680 | So it was just like, I was excited.

01:30:45.880 | It sounded perfect.

01:30:47.520 | So they said, okay, what do you wanna make a movie about?

01:30:50.840 | And I told them, okay, here's what's gonna happen in 2020.

01:30:55.640 | If Trump wins, there's gonna be riots across the country.

01:30:58.840 | The major cities are gonna burn down.

01:31:02.120 | If Trump loses, the militias and his loyal supporters

01:31:07.120 | are going to try to have a coup in DC.

01:31:10.000 | That's what I said.

01:31:11.120 | And I said, so I'm gonna follow the lead up

01:31:13.480 | to whoever wins the election

01:31:15.200 | and I'm gonna document what happens after.

01:31:18.080 | So they said, okay.

01:31:19.480 | And so I was to begin filming in late October,

01:31:22.240 | during the campaign trail, maybe mid-October

01:31:24.680 | up until November, and then in the following months

01:31:27.920 | to see what would happen.

01:31:29.160 | This meant that I couldn't film anything

01:31:33.280 | for All Gas, No Brakes, the digital show,

01:31:35.800 | because I had to dedicate 100% of my time

01:31:37.960 | to making this perfect movie.

01:31:39.320 | - Yes.

01:31:40.160 | - Still, one of the partners at Doing Things Media

01:31:43.840 | was demanding that I not only produce the movie,

01:31:46.160 | but also more content for the show.

01:31:47.760 | And I told them, there's only so many hours in a day, man,

01:31:50.120 | that's gonna be impossible.

01:31:52.000 | And I said, if you want it to be possible,

01:31:54.760 | I can make it work,

01:31:55.920 | but I wanna have half of the monetization from the show,

01:31:59.000 | 50% profit split, which I thought is fair.

01:32:02.000 | If you want me to do double work

01:32:03.560 | when I was getting almost nothing before,

01:32:05.680 | split me in on the profits.

01:32:07.240 | They fired us immediately.

01:32:10.000 | Me and my two childhood friends

01:32:11.760 | who I hired to work on the show with me

01:32:13.240 | were all out of a job.

01:32:14.560 | As we were filming for the now HBO project,

01:32:17.840 | we got our fire notices.

01:32:20.640 | - The guts on that person to,

01:32:24.880 | 'cause you should be owning probably close to 100% of it.

01:32:28.160 | - I think so too, but they didn't see it that way

01:32:30.200 | 'cause they figured we made the initial investment,

01:32:32.480 | we discovered him is how they looked at it.

01:32:35.680 | So it wasn't Reed, but it was the other partner

01:32:38.320 | who wasn't Reed who said, we have tons of,

01:32:41.520 | verbatim he said this,

01:32:43.560 | I have tons of connections in the comedy world.

01:32:46.120 | We can replace Andrew overnight.

01:32:48.600 | I'm not sure why he made that miscalculation.

01:32:51.200 | I wish he would have thought about it twice.

01:32:53.040 | I wish it didn't have to end like that, but it did.

01:32:56.200 | - Why do people do that?

01:32:57.240 | Like what's the benefit of acting like that?

01:32:59.160 | 'Cause you can part amicably without the drama.

01:33:04.080 | - I think all betrayal in anything like that

01:33:06.640 | is motivated by self-interest,

01:33:08.360 | whether that be economic success,

01:33:10.280 | social stability, whatever it is.

01:33:12.600 | They figured that because I was being such a burden

01:33:15.440 | in asking for the profit,

01:33:16.920 | that they could just release me

01:33:18.360 | and find someone equally talented

01:33:20.280 | and not split them in so they can make more money.

01:33:23.720 | - Oh, I see.

01:33:25.040 | Well, that's a stupid way to think.

01:33:27.800 | - People think like that, man.

01:33:28.880 | People who are, the word I use is like sidekick syndrome.

01:33:33.680 | Like when people are kind of a part of the production,

01:33:35.760 | but they're not integral,

01:33:37.040 | they start thinking that the front man doesn't matter

01:33:39.600 | or something and that the brains of the operation

01:33:41.640 | are actually the people on the periphery.

01:33:43.840 | And so they start to believe

01:33:45.080 | that they can just shift things around

01:33:46.920 | and the audience won't care.

01:33:49.120 | Not realizing that I was actually the one

01:33:50.920 | who created the show and that the lore of the show

01:33:54.040 | is connected to my rise outside of their jurisdiction,

01:33:57.420 | if that makes sense.

01:33:58.260 | Like the people who watch "All Gas No Brakes"

01:34:00.320 | watched "Quarter Confessions" and read the book.

01:34:02.960 | And so, you know.

01:34:05.280 | - Well, this happens also not just financially,

01:34:07.200 | but just with people that are part of a team

01:34:12.200 | but they don't really contribute creatively to the team

01:34:14.560 | and they force their opinion or pressure,

01:34:18.880 | whether it comes from editors or all that kind of stuff

01:34:23.880 | or from sponsors or there's pressure they create

01:34:27.240 | when the creator alone should be celebrated

01:34:30.760 | and have all the power 'cause they're the ones

01:34:32.600 | that are creating the thing.

01:34:33.920 | - In a way, I have sympathy because I can't relate to that

01:34:37.640 | 'cause I've always been the front man of my own projects

01:34:40.440 | by design.

01:34:41.480 | So I'm not sure what it's like to be someone's owner

01:34:46.200 | from a content perspective.

01:34:47.720 | I don't understand the challenges they face.

01:34:49.600 | Maybe there was something that I didn't understand.

01:34:51.340 | I don't know.

01:34:52.180 | - True.

01:34:53.000 | Well, oftentimes if you own a thing like this,

01:34:55.360 | like this company, you do think about brand.

01:34:58.740 | - Right.

01:34:59.580 | - And then maybe you have a big picture idea

01:35:01.000 | what brand means and that can be at tension

01:35:05.600 | with the creative project, right?

01:35:09.000 | - Yeah.

01:35:10.520 | - But ultimately freedom for the creators

01:35:14.800 | is the best kind of brand.

01:35:16.080 | - Yeah.

01:35:16.920 | I remember all three of us who worked on All Gas, No Brakes

01:35:19.240 | got fired at the same time.

01:35:21.000 | And we were in the RV that Tim and Eric's company

01:35:24.000 | bought for us, which was a bigger RV

01:35:26.240 | in the parking lot of a Walmart in South Philly.

01:35:30.440 | And the propane had just ran out

01:35:32.080 | and it was 15 degrees outside.

01:35:34.160 | So the RV was getting really cold really fast.

01:35:36.960 | And I just looked at my phone and it was like,

01:35:38.880 | "You're fired."

01:35:39.800 | And I was just like, "God help me."

01:35:42.280 | But I've had a couple moments like that

01:35:44.520 | and God does help me.

01:35:45.960 | - And they were always in the parking lot of Walmart, right?

01:35:49.200 | - Well, yeah.

01:35:50.040 | Although-

01:35:51.200 | - I know that Walmart, by the way.

01:35:52.640 | - The one in South Philly is great.

01:35:53.760 | - Yeah, it's great.

01:35:54.680 | - But technically now you can't park an RV there.

01:35:57.400 | - Well, you're not a man who follows the rules.

01:36:00.160 | - Well, the thing is those Walmart, Cracker Barrel

01:36:02.640 | and Big Five are supposed to technically

01:36:04.400 | all let RV campers park overnight.

01:36:07.140 | But if there's like a crime problem

01:36:08.760 | in the city where they're at,

01:36:09.800 | they can lobby.

01:36:11.000 | Individual Walmarts can lobby with the corporate

01:36:13.160 | to take that away.

01:36:14.160 | So like all the Portland Walmarts,

01:36:15.640 | you can't sleep there anymore.

01:36:17.080 | Any city with like significant homelessness

01:36:18.960 | and like petty property crime,

01:36:20.520 | the Walmarts are a no-go.

01:36:21.760 | - Fascinating.

01:36:23.780 | So that was a low point.

01:36:25.460 | - Yeah.

01:36:26.300 | - And, but from there, from the ashes,

01:36:30.720 | the Phoenix rose.

01:36:32.120 | - Over time, yeah.

01:36:33.320 | - Channel 5 was born.

01:36:34.960 | - Channel 5 was born in the March of 2021.

01:36:38.640 | - After we finished filming for the HBO project.

01:36:42.280 | - Oh, really?

01:36:43.120 | So you went all in on the HBO project?

01:36:44.720 | - Yeah, I mean, we filmed the HBO project

01:36:46.400 | from November, 2020 up until April, 2021, damn near.

01:36:51.240 | We were just like, you know, picking up the pieces,

01:36:52.960 | going back for individual interviews, stuff like that.

01:36:55.840 | - So let's go to that project.

01:36:57.840 | It turned out to be a movie called "This Place Rules."

01:37:00.400 | - It was supposed to be called "America Shits Itself."

01:37:02.640 | - Oh, yeah.

01:37:03.480 | Maybe you can tell the story of the film.

01:37:04.960 | You have, what's his name?

01:37:06.640 | I don't know if it's down, "Joker Gang" and "Gum Gang,"

01:37:08.800 | is that correct?

01:37:09.640 | - Yeah, the opening scene.

01:37:10.460 | - The opening scene of two characters just talking shit

01:37:14.720 | and then getting into a fight.

01:37:15.880 | And that, I think it was really brilliant

01:37:18.400 | how you presented that as almost like a microcosm

01:37:21.860 | of like the division between the extremes of the left

01:37:26.480 | and the extremes of the right.

01:37:27.680 | - That's exactly what it was.

01:37:28.560 | I'm glad you picked up on it.

01:37:29.840 | - Yeah, and then what I really liked is that the joke,

01:37:33.000 | again, "Joker Gang" was kind of,

01:37:37.120 | a little bit of a spoiler alert, I apologize,

01:37:39.680 | but at the end of the film was a kind of a voice of wisdom.

01:37:44.400 | - Yeah, I just realized--

01:37:45.240 | - He seems the most sane.

01:37:47.520 | - He was the voice of wisdom.

01:37:49.240 | He like cut through it.

01:37:50.460 | - Yeah.

01:37:51.300 | - I also just realized that a lot of people

01:37:52.600 | are gonna stream the movie after watching this podcast,

01:37:55.020 | which is cool.

01:37:55.860 | - Yeah, where do they stream it?

01:37:57.440 | On HBO Max, right?

01:37:58.280 | - Oh, yeah, HBO Max.

01:37:59.120 | I never got a chance to promote the movie.

01:38:00.280 | - It's such a pain in the ass, man.

01:38:02.080 | I wish we could all just pay on it on YouTube or something.

01:38:04.560 | - Yeah.

01:38:05.400 | - And HBO gets the profits or whatever,

01:38:06.880 | but it's such a, I had to subscribe for every single thing.

01:38:10.680 | But yes, if you wanna watch it,

01:38:12.240 | I recommend it extremely highly.

01:38:14.120 | Sign up to HBO, whatever the hell.

01:38:16.340 | - On the positive note, HBO is great to work with.

01:38:19.120 | Like, they're the most professional,

01:38:21.360 | respectful company I've ever worked with, pretty much.

01:38:24.320 | - Yeah, HBO has created some of the greatest TV ever.

01:38:27.280 | - But even in the background, they get shit done.

01:38:29.600 | There's no wait time.

01:38:31.720 | They have some of the best heavy hitters on their team.

01:38:33.460 | For trailers, for posters,

01:38:35.480 | all the promotional apparatus they have is super solid.

01:38:38.200 | - Did you get good notes from people there?

01:38:40.320 | Like how to?

01:38:41.160 | - A little bit, man, but you know.

01:38:42.920 | - It's a truly original documentary,

01:38:45.480 | meaning I just haven't seen anything like it.

01:38:49.040 | It's even like, so there's a humor and a lightness

01:38:52.520 | at the right kinds of moments.

01:38:54.180 | Like I said, there's like a rooster in your,

01:38:58.400 | that's like, okay, that's like a non sequitur thing

01:39:01.120 | as part of a storytelling.

01:39:02.360 | It kind of intensifies and reveals the absurdity

01:39:05.600 | of the division and how once like January 6th happens,

01:39:10.020 | like everybody goes on to the next thing.

01:39:12.100 | - Yeah.

01:39:12.940 | - It's like, what happened to us?

01:39:13.960 | It was almost like a delirium

01:39:15.240 | that everybody was participating in some weird,

01:39:18.040 | just like, well, like people say, mind virus.

01:39:20.700 | Like all of a sudden we just got captured

01:39:22.720 | and people just like yelling at each other,

01:39:24.080 | doing the most ridiculous shit.

01:39:26.040 | And I mean, really January 6th,

01:39:30.320 | the way you present it especially

01:39:32.480 | just reveals the circus of it all.

01:39:34.820 | - I mean, it really broke the fourth wall,

01:39:36.800 | or that's how I would describe it.

01:39:38.180 | Because if you were at January 6th and the lead up,

01:39:41.760 | it felt like it was the beginning

01:39:43.160 | to a series of similar riots,

01:39:46.120 | but it just popped off so much that that was it.

01:39:49.040 | You haven't seen anything like it since.

01:39:50.440 | It was supposed to be a second one on January 20th.

01:39:52.480 | It was the actual inauguration, that never happened.

01:39:55.460 | It was a crazy time to be alive and around.

01:39:58.440 | And especially the relationship that I developed

01:40:00.080 | with Enrique Tarrio, who's the former chairman

01:40:02.920 | of the Proud Boys.

01:40:03.880 | He's now facing 23 years in prison.

01:40:06.800 | It's like a trip, 'cause I went to his house in Miami,

01:40:09.760 | maybe two weeks after January 6th and talking to him,

01:40:13.200 | it seemed like he didn't think anything was gonna happen.

01:40:15.080 | He was just like, yeah, man, that was crazy.

01:40:17.180 | I'm glad I wasn't there.

01:40:18.600 | They're dumb for doing that.

01:40:20.960 | He even told me he doesn't think the election was stolen,

01:40:24.520 | which is just a mind fuck.

01:40:25.520 | It's like, why'd you get everyone so hyped up?

01:40:29.080 | It's just weird to think about how so many people's lives

01:40:31.800 | are drastically altered forever

01:40:33.360 | because of that just bizarre moment in time

01:40:36.220 | that we'll always live on.

01:40:37.520 | - Yeah, what did you, QAnon, as part of that story,

01:40:41.100 | what'd you learn about QAnon from that?

01:40:44.100 | - Just an all-encompassing worldview.

01:40:47.520 | That family that I talked to, I call them the QAnon family,

01:40:50.640 | but it's called the Spencer family.

01:40:52.440 | You know, they were non-political up until the stop,

01:40:55.520 | the steel movement began in September of 2020.

01:40:59.080 | And within four months,

01:41:00.720 | their entire life revolved around the mythology

01:41:02.840 | and lore of Q.

01:41:04.480 | And I've never seen, in my life,

01:41:06.720 | a PSYOP just devour people's minds in such an intense way

01:41:10.280 | in such a rapid period of time.

01:41:12.480 | - And I love how the kids in the movie

01:41:14.440 | are also the voices of wisdom.

01:41:16.600 | The Spencer family, it's the kid who goes

01:41:19.720 | through the full journey of believing that whatever,

01:41:23.960 | Hillary Clinton is a lizard,

01:41:25.720 | and just believing all the worst versions

01:41:29.360 | of the conspiracy theories,

01:41:30.280 | and then kind of waking up was like, what was the point?

01:41:33.640 | - Yeah, it was heartbreaking to see his disappointment

01:41:36.160 | in his dad for even following QAnon so militantly.

01:41:41.160 | 'Cause he was like, I felt like they let my dad down.

01:41:43.640 | I felt like they let our family down.

01:41:46.000 | Because January 6th was supposed to be the day,

01:41:49.160 | according to QAnon, that the storm happens,

01:41:51.400 | and that the military is supposed to mobilize

01:41:53.760 | and arrest the members of the deep state,

01:41:55.640 | Clinton, Soros, all that.

01:41:57.160 | Trump was supposed to go into a helicopter,

01:41:59.520 | you know what I mean?

01:42:00.360 | And take control of the country back from the swamp.

01:42:03.160 | And it didn't happen.

01:42:04.440 | In fact, the next day, he was almost denouncing it.

01:42:06.920 | Now he doesn't, but then he did.

01:42:09.240 | And it was really, I think it hurt people's pride a lot.

01:42:13.240 | My friend Forgiato Blow, he's a Trump rapper,

01:42:16.440 | he describes it that way.

01:42:17.680 | He says a lot of people's pride got hurt by January 6th.

01:42:20.560 | - Trump rapper.

01:42:21.560 | - Oh yeah, dude.

01:42:22.920 | Honestly, there's some pretty dope Trump rap out there.

01:42:26.240 | I'm serious.

01:42:27.080 | - Magga rap.

01:42:29.000 | - Yeah, you would think, oh yeah, Magga,

01:42:31.640 | there's no rappers there.

01:42:32.720 | But there's rappers, and they do a pretty good job.

01:42:34.680 | - They're good?

01:42:35.720 | - Delivering the messaging they want to deliver, yeah.

01:42:37.800 | I mean, they think of stuff, and I'm like, that's clever.

01:42:40.640 | - Oh, they have some political depth to 'em.

01:42:43.320 | - Yeah.

01:42:44.160 | - Wow.

01:42:45.160 | I mean, is there something more you could say

01:42:46.440 | about how QAnon works?

01:42:47.880 | Like, who's behind it?

01:42:49.480 | What's your sense of who's behind the whole thing?

01:42:51.520 | - You know, I don't want this to sound rude or anything.

01:42:56.520 | I just don't care about QAnon.

01:43:03.220 | You know what I mean?

01:43:04.880 | I've put so much thought into it,

01:43:08.080 | and I just can't seem to care about it.

01:43:11.320 | - Was it almost a disappointment?

01:43:14.440 | To me, it was like a thing that just captured

01:43:19.160 | a very large number of people's minds,

01:43:21.320 | and then it just kind of faded.

01:43:22.840 | - I guess that's why.

01:43:23.720 | It just seems like it's gone.

01:43:26.160 | And the ideas of QAnon have just bled

01:43:28.840 | into mainstream, standard, conservative thinking.

01:43:31.440 | - But there has to be a kind of retrospective.

01:43:33.840 | That's a problem I have with COVID.

01:43:36.760 | You know, a lot of stuff happened.

01:43:38.040 | Everybody freaked out.

01:43:39.040 | There's a lot of big drama around it,

01:43:40.560 | and now everyone's like, oh, okay, forgot.

01:43:42.600 | - Yeah.

01:43:43.440 | - Just like, wait, what are the lessons learned?

01:43:45.400 | Has anyone learned any lessons?

01:43:46.840 | - Yeah.

01:43:47.680 | - Like, what?

01:43:48.520 | - Exactly.

01:43:49.360 | What I'm saying is I don't want QAnon adherents

01:43:51.360 | to see this and think I don't care about them.

01:43:53.240 | - Yeah.

01:43:54.080 | - But as far as who is behind it, the damage is done.

01:43:57.520 | - Yeah, but what are the mechanisms that made it work?

01:43:59.760 | I mean, that's a really--

01:44:00.600 | - What do you think?

01:44:01.440 | Have you kind of thought about that?

01:44:02.260 | - I kind of think that these viral ideas can be driven by,

01:44:07.120 | and your film kind of shows this,

01:44:08.840 | by just a handful of people.

01:44:10.440 | And they're not malevolent.

01:44:11.880 | They just want to clout.

01:44:13.960 | - Yeah.

01:44:14.800 | - And there's something sexy.

01:44:15.900 | There's something really sticky about conspiracy theories.

01:44:19.200 | Like, especially extreme ones.

01:44:21.720 | You just kind of like, some of them can have this momentum

01:44:25.320 | that capture the minds of a lot of people,

01:44:27.000 | and you just go with it.

01:44:28.200 | - Yeah.

01:44:29.040 | - And like, when I hear some conspiracy theories,

01:44:30.420 | like, there's something, like a small part of me

01:44:33.960 | that kind of like, yeah.

01:44:36.480 | Like, excited.

01:44:37.320 | - It's possible, you know, that QAnon is a psyop

01:44:41.320 | to distract people away from actually uncovering

01:44:43.760 | what the deep state is,

01:44:44.640 | and who is truly running things behind the scenes.

01:44:47.680 | Because the deep state is just the 1%.

01:44:52.080 | It's that you get people so close

01:44:54.240 | to any type of class consciousness,

01:44:56.200 | and then you totally divert everything

01:44:59.080 | into like, lizard humans who live on the moon,

01:45:02.440 | and that Hillary Clinton is eating babies on camera.

01:45:06.080 | And QAnon did just that.

01:45:08.320 | They want to convince you that,

01:45:10.120 | one, there's no conservative deep state,

01:45:11.760 | which is even more hilarious.

01:45:12.760 | That Trump isn't connected to a huge,

01:45:14.760 | rich corporate apparatus of propagandists.

01:45:16.940 | And two, that the democratic establishment

01:45:20.060 | is the only deep state.

01:45:21.840 | And that some middle-of-the-road conservatives,

01:45:24.720 | that there's no grifters or manipulators

01:45:26.840 | outside of that three-headed snake.

01:45:31.240 | You know?

01:45:32.080 | - There's grifters everywhere.

01:45:33.840 | - Everywhere.

01:45:34.680 | Everyone wants to make money, dude.

01:45:35.880 | This is the world that we're in.

01:45:36.880 | It's in collapse.

01:45:37.720 | Everybody wants to make money,

01:45:38.840 | and engagement is the rule of law.

01:45:40.600 | So anything, that's why these news organizations

01:45:43.320 | follow retention incentives.

01:45:45.400 | They want to make money by selling ads,

01:45:47.820 | so they try to create fear and constant division

01:45:51.220 | to enrich the corporate media establishment.

01:45:54.300 | And you have people who are almost realizing,

01:45:56.300 | hey, it seems like Fox and CNN

01:45:58.260 | might be owned by the same people,

01:45:59.940 | and are tactically using these machines

01:46:01.860 | to keep us divided perfectly 50/50

01:46:04.460 | to ensure that the power structure never gets disrupted.

01:46:07.420 | And then you get these people,

01:46:09.440 | you know who's gonna save us?

01:46:10.920 | Donald Trump.

01:46:12.500 | That's the guy?

01:46:13.580 | How is that the guy?

01:46:15.720 | It's not the guy.

01:46:17.000 | I don't have TDS.

01:46:18.800 | I'm not an orange man basher

01:46:20.200 | who thinks about the guy all the time,

01:46:21.440 | but I don't think he's the guy.

01:46:23.000 | - You were shirtless,

01:46:26.480 | lifting weights while whiskey or some alcohol

01:46:32.200 | was poured into your mouth by Alex Jones in this movie,

01:46:34.880 | and then you did the same to him.

01:46:36.240 | - That's true.

01:46:37.080 | - This feels like an interrogation.

01:46:40.480 | So Alex was a part of this film.

01:46:43.920 | He was throughout the narrative,

01:46:45.900 | and you had a great interview with him.

01:46:48.000 | What did you learn about interacting with Alex Jones

01:46:53.660 | from making this film?

01:46:54.500 | - For one, is that he's the exact same off-camera

01:46:57.500 | as he is on-camera.

01:46:58.760 | It's not an act.

01:47:00.340 | He told me that all real Americans die before 58.

01:47:03.860 | He mentioned Sean Connery and a few others.

01:47:06.060 | - How old is he?

01:47:09.740 | - Getting up there.

01:47:11.100 | I think early 50s.

01:47:13.100 | I just found it fascinating how nice his studio is.

01:47:17.500 | The guy's got an MSNBC-level setup.

01:47:20.500 | I actually had a great time with him.

01:47:22.300 | It's bizarre because having him in that movie

01:47:28.220 | created so many problems for me.

01:47:31.220 | And when I interviewed him,

01:47:33.400 | I didn't necessarily portray him in the best light.

01:47:35.700 | We joked around a bit,

01:47:36.540 | but it wasn't an Alex Jones hit piece necessarily.

01:47:38.780 | But I like to think that I was a bit critical of him

01:47:40.700 | in the film, especially the ways

01:47:42.140 | that he antagonized his supporters to storm the Capitol

01:47:45.460 | or to follow that trajectory.

01:47:47.620 | He told me when I met with him, he was like,

01:47:51.660 | "I know you think that having me in this movie

01:47:53.900 | "is a good idea, but you're gonna have

01:47:56.340 | "some serious backlash because of that."

01:47:58.340 | At the time, I was like, "Man, it's fine.

01:48:00.360 | "It's all good.

01:48:01.200 | "We're just hanging out, drinking whiskey,

01:48:02.260 | "doing bench presses, drinking Jameson.

01:48:03.940 | "It's all good."

01:48:04.780 | First of all, I had to campaign to get him in the film

01:48:09.480 | because the studios were like,

01:48:11.660 | there was a bizarre time around, I think it was 2018,

01:48:15.860 | where deplatforming was the big thing

01:48:18.220 | that people were encouraging.

01:48:19.220 | It said, "Giving a platform to problematic ideologies

01:48:22.620 | "will in turn expand their reach.

01:48:24.660 | "And so even extending your platform

01:48:27.060 | "to someone who's problematic is helping them."

01:48:30.240 | AKA destroying humanity, whatever it was.

01:48:33.940 | So that was the whole thing.

01:48:35.580 | And when I did this media training

01:48:38.420 | that was mandated by HBO,

01:48:41.880 | it was all training and how to defend

01:48:44.700 | from that exact question.

01:48:46.640 | They said, "When we put you on NPR,

01:48:49.060 | "and we put you on CNN, they're gonna ask you

01:48:52.220 | "about platforming problematic ideologies.

01:48:55.220 | "And you're gonna have to say stuff like,

01:48:56.780 | "sunlight is the best disinfectant.

01:48:58.980 | "I believe that extremism only goes away

01:49:01.780 | "when you shine a light on it

01:49:02.980 | "because leaving it in the dark

01:49:04.140 | "will only allow it to grow."

01:49:05.780 | They gave me like 15 pointers.

01:49:08.380 | I didn't use any of those pointers

01:49:11.060 | because I'm not the kind of person

01:49:12.860 | who wants to be media trained.

01:49:14.180 | I like to speak freely.

01:49:15.680 | But in the promotional run for the film,

01:49:18.180 | when I went on CNN, this was a crazy experience.

01:49:21.000 | So I went on CNN, and thankfully my friend was with me.

01:49:25.860 | And so I'm on CNN and--

01:49:27.660 | - By the way, your friend is chilling in sunglasses

01:49:29.980 | laying in the couch right now.

01:49:31.380 | - That's Larry Su.

01:49:32.220 | - It's like the, it's a mix of like the dude

01:49:37.260 | from "The Big Lebowski" and the Brad Pitt role

01:49:41.820 | in "True Romance."

01:49:43.660 | - Yeah.

01:49:44.500 | - You know that reference?

01:49:45.320 | - No, but I mean, I'm sure it describes Larry Su.

01:49:47.060 | He kinda looks like Brad Pitt.

01:49:48.260 | - Jack Kerouac.

01:49:49.960 | Yeah, it's, yeah.

01:49:51.220 | - So HBO had a press tour set up for me.

01:49:53.500 | And the main ones were CNN and NPR.

01:49:55.700 | And so they said, "You're gonna go on CNN

01:49:58.060 | "on the Don Lemon morning show.

01:50:00.300 | "And he's gonna ask you about your life,

01:50:02.560 | "what led up to the movie, what we can expect."

01:50:05.220 | So I get in the studio.

01:50:06.060 | It's about seven o'clock in the morning in New York

01:50:07.780 | at a show the night before at Times Square.

01:50:09.620 | So I'm like groggy-eyed, whatever, they put the lav on me.

01:50:12.780 | Boom, I'm live on CNN, Sunday morning.

01:50:16.180 | And he goes, "How would you describe Enrique Atario's

01:50:19.140 | "mental state in the lead up to the Capitol insurrection?"

01:50:22.180 | And I'm looking around, I'm like, is this guy serious?

01:50:25.700 | Like am I sandwiched in the January 6th hit piece right now?

01:50:28.660 | I thought it was about me.

01:50:29.940 | And so I told him, it's not about Enrique Atario,

01:50:32.740 | it's about how companies like Fox, MSNBC,

01:50:35.660 | and even your station, CNN, use the 24-hour news cycle

01:50:39.860 | to enrage people, to generate ad revenue,

01:50:42.260 | and pit Americans against each other during times like that.

01:50:44.660 | And he said, "There's nothing fake about CNN."

01:50:47.140 | I said, "I didn't say you were fake news.

01:50:49.280 | "I'm not saying you're lying, but you're directly

01:50:51.340 | "antagonizing and stirring people up

01:50:53.560 | "against half the country because you need money

01:50:56.940 | "to support a dying platform."

01:50:58.380 | - You said that.

01:50:59.300 | - Pretty much.

01:51:00.140 | - Nice.

01:51:01.580 | Great.

01:51:04.420 | - My mom was watching it, she was texting me,

01:51:05.860 | she's like, "What are you doing?"

01:51:06.700 | And I was like, "I don't know."

01:51:07.740 | And so he goes, "Why'd you extend the platform

01:51:09.860 | "to Alex Jones?"

01:51:11.380 | And I go, "I don't know, I just wanted to drink

01:51:13.340 | "some Jameson and lift some weights with him."

01:51:15.220 | You know, I'm just, at this point,

01:51:16.340 | I don't support that kind of media, I don't support CNN.

01:51:19.420 | So I just, I didn't give them much information about Alex.

01:51:23.940 | But it was very awkward,

01:51:24.820 | they'd never posted the segment online.

01:51:27.340 | When I got off of that interview,

01:51:29.300 | I had a handler that A24 assigned to me.

01:51:32.700 | So I had someone with me,

01:51:33.980 | and you could tell she was flustered,

01:51:35.540 | like she was furious about what I just did.

01:51:38.380 | And so she goes, "I just got an email

01:51:39.940 | "from Time Warner C-Suite."

01:51:41.780 | And I go, "What's Time Warner C-Suite?"

01:51:43.140 | She says, "I don't know if you know this,

01:51:45.060 | "but the same people who own CNN own HBO,

01:51:50.060 | "and it's Time Warner."

01:51:53.300 | And so they canceled my press tour.

01:51:55.620 | So my press tour was finished.

01:51:57.120 | All the late night shows that I was supposed to go on,

01:52:02.340 | I was supposed to go on the late night shows.

01:52:05.220 | And that was off the table,

01:52:06.980 | 'cause they were worried that I was a loose cannon, I think.

01:52:10.140 | And then the only remaining appearance I had left

01:52:13.940 | was NPR in Boston.

01:52:15.460 | And that was supposed to be a premiere.

01:52:17.940 | So it wasn't supposed to be an interrogation,

01:52:19.780 | it wasn't supposed to be anything like that.

01:52:21.540 | Supposed to be a premiere in front of a live audience

01:52:23.540 | where they watched a film,

01:52:24.540 | and I show up after for a Q&A.

01:52:26.380 | So I'm like, "All right, whatever, it's kind of weird,

01:52:27.820 | "they only have this one press opportunity left."

01:52:29.900 | I kind of felt bad that I ruined the entire press tour

01:52:32.620 | by confronting Don Lemon.

01:52:33.940 | But at this point, I wanted to just do this final one,

01:52:36.320 | especially 'cause it was a viewing.

01:52:38.100 | And I was like, "Cool."

01:52:39.500 | I sat in the audience, I watched people laugh to the film,

01:52:42.100 | it was awesome.

01:52:43.180 | So I go backstage and there's an NPR journalist

01:52:45.380 | waiting for me.

01:52:46.280 | And nothing against people who wear masks,

01:52:48.460 | but she had two N95s on.

01:52:49.900 | And two N95s is over the line.

01:52:54.740 | So I go, "Hey, great to meet you."

01:52:56.600 | She doesn't shake my hand.

01:52:58.300 | And I go, "Why not?"

01:52:59.140 | She goes, "You've been around some people

01:53:00.980 | "who I don't want their germs."

01:53:02.540 | - Yeah, cool.

01:53:04.740 | - And I'm like, "Okay, okay, this is weird.

01:53:06.820 | "I thought this is a sort of like fun premiere for my movie."

01:53:10.900 | We sit down.

01:53:11.760 | The first thing she asks me is,

01:53:15.020 | "How do you think the Sandy Hook families

01:53:17.180 | "would feel about you platforming

01:53:19.740 | "one of the most despicable Americans in history,

01:53:22.580 | "Alex Jones, in front of a live audience?"

01:53:27.060 | NPR never published this.

01:53:29.140 | The only recordings of it are by a fan named Rob in Boston

01:53:33.820 | who put it on YouTube, it's vertical phone footage.

01:53:36.620 | And I literally am like,

01:53:37.800 | "Well, the Sandy Hook family's lawyer, Mark Bankston,

01:53:40.840 | "who represented them in court in Connecticut,

01:53:42.620 | "told me specifically that Leonard Posner,

01:53:45.760 | "the father of Noah Posner, who died at Sandy Hook,

01:53:48.080 | "was a huge fan of the film."

01:53:50.300 | And so I said that to her.

01:53:51.800 | And that kind of just like silenced that conversation.

01:53:54.460 | But the rest of the whole conversation

01:53:55.980 | was just about exploitation

01:53:57.780 | and why are you platforming mentally ill people

01:54:00.620 | and giving a platform to conspiracies like QAnon?

01:54:03.540 | Don't you feel like you're a part of their spread?

01:54:06.260 | Some would call you a misinformation reporter.

01:54:08.580 | All this crazy stuff.

01:54:11.340 | And yeah, next day hit the fan.

01:54:13.820 | - Fuck all those people.

01:54:15.320 | That film, just in case you don't get a chance to see it

01:54:18.180 | and you should, you're critical of Alex Jones

01:54:21.900 | in the most artful way.

01:54:25.020 | Like it was the correct way to be critical.

01:54:27.860 | It showed him to be more interested in the grift of it.

01:54:32.860 | And you didn't do it in like a pointing fingers

01:54:38.380 | and like saying in the kind of NPR way

01:54:41.700 | that you just mentioned.

01:54:43.140 | It's more like a human way.

01:54:45.020 | Like this is tragedies happen all over the world

01:54:48.460 | and there's grifters that roll in

01:54:49.740 | and then take advantage of it in interesting ways.

01:54:51.860 | And then human beings get swept up on either side of it.

01:54:55.100 | And it's revealing the humor, the absurdity of it all.

01:54:58.180 | And it was done masterfully.

01:54:59.900 | It was done, like for people who criticize you

01:55:02.260 | for platforming Alex Jones or whatever,

01:55:04.660 | the film from a political perspective

01:55:07.340 | is probably leans very much left, like heavily left.

01:55:11.700 | But does it without that exhausting energy of like judging,

01:55:18.580 | just this kind of, yeah, two masks kind of judging.

01:55:23.580 | - Yeah, and it was just, when all that was happening,

01:55:29.180 | when I was under fire from the mainstream press

01:55:31.460 | for platforming Alex Jones,

01:55:33.340 | I thought back to what he said to me.

01:55:35.780 | And doesn't mean I agree with everything he says,

01:55:37.500 | but he told me you're gonna be in trouble

01:55:39.740 | with these people if you put me in your video.

01:55:42.860 | And it wasn't too bad of trouble,

01:55:44.260 | but definitely I do think sometimes

01:55:46.940 | what the film would have been like without him.

01:55:50.340 | And I think that it was worth it

01:55:51.380 | because his scene is so funny to me

01:55:53.460 | and it brings me back to a different time in my life.

01:55:55.380 | And I'm happy that that scene's out there.

01:55:57.220 | - I think it was really well done.

01:55:58.940 | - Thanks, man.

01:55:59.900 | - The layering of it all, the entertainment,

01:56:02.740 | plus sort of not considering from his perspective,

01:56:05.460 | the consequences of like rallying people up in this way,

01:56:08.620 | that it's not just, I mean,

01:56:10.180 | you really highlight this in the interview.

01:56:13.020 | He keeps saying it's info wars,

01:56:15.780 | but then there's always kind of a sense

01:56:17.180 | that info wars can turn to actual like civil war.

01:56:20.100 | But maybe not, maybe it's all just a circus,

01:56:24.220 | like we play for each other.

01:56:25.780 | - If you look at the speech he did on January 5th,

01:56:28.740 | he said, "Tomorrow, millions of patriotic Americans

01:56:32.540 | "will take our country back."

01:56:33.980 | So he eggs people on and then when it gets hot,

01:56:37.180 | he steps away.

01:56:38.020 | - Yeah, but like you said, the thing he told you,

01:56:41.660 | he turned out to be right.

01:56:43.180 | - Oh yeah.

01:56:44.020 | - And the frogs are becoming gay.

01:56:46.460 | - They've always been gay.

01:56:47.860 | - Well--

01:56:50.380 | - Saying frogs are straight is even crazier.

01:56:52.220 | - I've read stories where you kiss one

01:56:53.660 | and it becomes a prince.

01:56:55.140 | - Yeah, that shit's true.

01:56:56.780 | - A hundred percent.

01:56:57.780 | You think Alex believes what he says

01:57:01.100 | in terms of everything he says on info wars?

01:57:04.100 | Like how much of it is real?

01:57:05.460 | - He's right about like big tech censorship.

01:57:08.620 | I mean, I think if he's right about anything,

01:57:09.980 | it would probably be the heads of big tech

01:57:12.180 | colluding together across company lines

01:57:14.300 | to de-platform certain people.

01:57:15.860 | He's right about that.

01:57:17.340 | I think most of the things that he says

01:57:19.860 | follow the question everything narrative

01:57:21.740 | and then everything is kind of like a conspiracy

01:57:24.500 | or like a plot or a false flag.

01:57:26.780 | I think that he's built up a following for so long

01:57:29.380 | that wants him to do that, you know?

01:57:32.220 | So I think he'll question things

01:57:33.780 | that he probably thinks are relatively straightforward

01:57:36.540 | because that's the shtick of the show.

01:57:38.380 | I mean, the info war is fighting misinformation

01:57:41.020 | and people want to see him be that guy.

01:57:43.260 | So to a certain extent,

01:57:44.820 | if you're a creator who supports your family,

01:57:47.140 | you do follow economic incentives

01:57:49.900 | and people want you to be the character

01:57:51.980 | and so you're gonna naturally gravitate toward being it.

01:57:54.420 | - Do you feel that pressure yourself?

01:57:56.140 | - I did years ago, not anymore.

01:57:58.980 | I feel like now I can speak freely

01:58:00.500 | and really say what I wanna say in my new life.

01:58:03.820 | But when I was younger, yeah,

01:58:05.580 | I feel like I had to be this sort of awkward,

01:58:08.380 | sort of amicable, aloof guy

01:58:11.060 | who just didn't think anything about anything

01:58:13.100 | and just was here to listen.

01:58:14.260 | But now I feel more confident adding some narrative

01:58:16.340 | and voiceover and things like that.

01:58:18.460 | - So for some people, especially who publish on YouTube,

01:58:22.020 | the YouTube algorithm,

01:58:23.100 | they can become a slave to the YouTube algorithm.

01:58:25.140 | - Yeah, I mean, for sure.

01:58:26.340 | 'Cause, and I definitely feel that sometimes.

01:58:29.220 | I know what works for me,

01:58:30.540 | but I like to think that my audience appreciates

01:58:32.940 | when I try new things.

01:58:34.820 | So I'm not totally enslaved to it, I mean.

01:58:37.780 | - Yeah, I try not to pay attention to views or any of that.

01:58:40.340 | - Well, you get some high views,

01:58:42.020 | so I'll report that for you.

01:58:43.780 | - So I wrote a Chrome extension

01:58:46.260 | that hides all the views on anything I create.

01:58:48.700 | - So you took it to that level.

01:58:50.640 | - Yeah, just 'cause it's a drug, man.

01:58:52.700 | And I'm also a number guy,

01:58:54.220 | meaning you give me, if I do 30 push-ups today,

01:58:58.020 | tomorrow I'm gonna try to do 35,

01:58:59.380 | just enjoying the number go up.

01:59:02.020 | That's why I like video games.

01:59:03.840 | RPGs, like where you're improving your skill tree,

01:59:07.500 | you're getting an extra point.

01:59:09.540 | And there's some aspect of YouTube and other platforms,

01:59:12.820 | anything, any other platform, you're like,

01:59:14.700 | "Ooh, I got more today than I got yesterday."

01:59:17.140 | That's really, really dangerous to me

01:59:18.720 | because it can influence how much I enjoy a thing.

01:59:22.340 | If nobody gives a shit about it based on the numbers,

01:59:28.140 | you're like, "Oh, maybe that wasn't such a great experience.

01:59:30.860 | "I thought it was a great experience, but maybe it wasn't."

01:59:33.420 | - Yeah, honestly, I do actually feel that way sometimes.

01:59:37.580 | I'll put out something that I care about a lot,

01:59:39.820 | but if it doesn't get as many views, I'm like,

01:59:41.660 | "All right, it must have not been as good

01:59:43.220 | "as my high-review videos," or whatever.

01:59:46.180 | - Yeah, that's just not true, though.

01:59:49.300 | - Yeah.

01:59:50.140 | - And it might mean, on YouTube,

01:59:53.140 | that your thumbnail sucks or something like this,

01:59:54.980 | or whatever, however the algorithm works,

01:59:57.820 | but that's the thing I'm battling against

02:00:00.980 | to make sure I ignore all of that.

02:00:04.180 | It's actually something Joe Rogan

02:00:06.780 | has been extremely good at.

02:00:07.900 | He gives zero shits.

02:00:09.300 | - Yeah, I think it's easier to do

02:00:11.660 | when you're really successful.

02:00:12.620 | - Well, he was doing that when he wasn't successful.

02:00:14.340 | - Really? - But anything.

02:00:15.460 | He just follows the stuff he enjoys doing

02:00:17.940 | and legitimately enjoys it.

02:00:19.420 | He happens to be really good at it,

02:00:21.200 | but he gets good because he's doing the things

02:00:23.020 | he really enjoys and full-on passionate about,

02:00:27.100 | and that's why he'll have ridiculous guests

02:00:29.900 | and just shit he enjoys doing.

02:00:33.380 | - Yeah, it's pretty cool.

02:00:34.220 | Maybe I'll one day try to do that.

02:00:35.980 | For now, I'm too attached to the gratification

02:00:38.340 | of getting a million views in a day and stuff like that.

02:00:40.940 | I'm not gonna lie to you and say

02:00:42.060 | that I've beat that or something.

02:00:43.660 | - Well, it's a worthy enemy to be fighting,

02:00:46.580 | 'cause it's a drug, and it's one

02:00:48.660 | that should be resisted for a creator,

02:00:52.220 | 'cause I feel like it can do negative stuff

02:00:54.140 | to your mind as a creator.

02:00:55.620 | - Oh, yeah, for sure.

02:00:56.780 | Anybody that controls you is not good.

02:01:00.140 | A lot of people are controlled by their audience.

02:01:02.220 | They don't have to have a puppet master

02:01:03.980 | on a corporate level.

02:01:05.540 | Audience incentive is a different type of,

02:01:07.980 | I don't wanna say slavery, but--

02:01:11.220 | - Yeah, it is, and that's why variety's good,

02:01:13.780 | and you're doing that, always expanding.

02:01:17.020 | Well, let me just zoom out on this.

02:01:19.580 | You made a film.

02:01:20.660 | - Yeah.

02:01:21.860 | - That's pretty cool.

02:01:22.980 | - Yeah, it was a great experience, man.

02:01:24.380 | I mean, it was awesome working with Tim and Eric,

02:01:26.620 | awesome working with Jonah Hill.

02:01:28.700 | I feel the same about HBO and A24.

02:01:30.460 | Everybody that I worked on the film with,

02:01:31.800 | I have a lot of love for, and I appreciate the experience.

02:01:34.580 | It's my first movie.

02:01:35.540 | It's a big deal.

02:01:36.580 | - It was a good one.

02:01:37.420 | - In my head, it's like I finally got to make the transition

02:01:39.740 | from YouTuber to filmmaker,

02:01:42.460 | and that was always this psychic barrier

02:01:44.780 | that I felt like I had to jump over.

02:01:46.580 | - There's a, I mean, just the way it's shot,

02:01:49.220 | the humor that goes throughout it,

02:01:52.300 | just the narration that you're doing

02:01:54.460 | in a shitty director's chair, that's really well done.

02:01:59.460 | Whose idea was that?

02:02:01.460 | - It was actually Tim and Eric's idea.

02:02:02.820 | There was a really great editor named Clay

02:02:04.700 | who works for Absolutely,

02:02:05.640 | and they did all the editing pretty much in the office,

02:02:08.660 | and so it was Clay's idea to add a retrospective

02:02:11.220 | director's chair narrative arc to the whole film.

02:02:13.860 | - Yeah, just starting with the absurd fight

02:02:16.300 | and then going, oh, that's a good way to start a movie.

02:02:19.540 | Just really, really well done.

02:02:20.620 | - Thanks, man.

02:02:21.460 | - What about Jonah Hill?

02:02:24.260 | - Like-- - Great guy.

02:02:25.660 | - He believed in this.

02:02:27.060 | - He did.

02:02:28.500 | - So was that, what's that like?

02:02:30.540 | What do you think is behind him believing

02:02:32.060 | in such a wild project?

02:02:33.580 | - I think that Jonah Hill has a good eye

02:02:35.140 | for what's cool amongst the younger folks.

02:02:37.740 | Like, he's into skateboarding stuff.

02:02:39.100 | That's why he did that film Mid-90s,

02:02:41.060 | and I think he probably saw a similar thing

02:02:43.540 | in what was going on with All Gas, No Brakes,

02:02:45.880 | and was like, shit, this could be big.

02:02:48.580 | And so not only did he actually fund the film,

02:02:52.140 | he also gave me his agent.

02:02:53.980 | And I forgot to mention that it was Jonah Hill's lawyers

02:02:56.100 | that he gave me for free that got me out of my contract

02:02:58.900 | eventually with Doing Things Media,

02:03:00.340 | or freed me up to speak about what happened.

02:03:02.940 | - So he was also a part of you kinda gaining your freedom.

02:03:06.340 | - Yeah, in a weird way.

02:03:07.220 | Like, even though him and I don't talk that much,

02:03:08.900 | just 'cause he's doing his own thing,

02:03:10.640 | Jonah Hill is like a huge factor in my current success

02:03:14.500 | and just like everything that I've been able to accomplish.

02:03:17.300 | - Just on your own politics, is it fair to say

02:03:19.400 | that your politics leans left?

02:03:23.960 | - I'm not really sure sometimes, you know?

02:03:26.360 | I like to think that I am socially left.

02:03:29.120 | Like, I think people should be able to dress and act

02:03:32.280 | however they want.

02:03:33.200 | I don't believe in restricting people's social freedoms.

02:03:35.900 | Economics-wise, it doesn't seem like

02:03:40.680 | leftist economic policy works very well

02:03:43.560 | on a city funding level.

02:03:45.840 | Like, if you see what's going on in California,

02:03:47.440 | it seems like the city leadership

02:03:50.240 | is mishandling the funds in California too.

02:03:53.000 | So I don't know about that, but I don't know.

02:03:54.800 | I don't really see myself as left or right.

02:03:57.640 | I just never have.

02:03:58.680 | - Well, if you just like objectively zoom out

02:04:01.360 | and don't have an insane standard of the extremes,

02:04:05.800 | it feels like a lot of your work leans left.

02:04:08.560 | - I tend to lean toward like the empathetic perspective,

02:04:13.720 | which I do think is more on the left and the right.

02:04:16.960 | But I also, I'm not into like super like PC stuff.

02:04:23.120 | You know, I don't believe in limiting free speech either.

02:04:25.640 | I don't believe that, I believe in a free internet,

02:04:28.800 | which I think is more embraced now by conservatives.

02:04:31.480 | - But it does seem that, maybe you can correct me,

02:04:36.480 | but I get the sense sometimes that the left

02:04:39.360 | attack their own very intensely.

02:04:42.040 | - It does happen.

02:04:43.360 | - But every community has terms of exile.

02:04:45.520 | I mean, look, imagine, think about what happens

02:04:47.160 | in the conservative realm.

02:04:48.560 | You know, like when Black Rifle Coffee Company

02:04:50.360 | like denounced Kyle Rittenhouse,

02:04:52.560 | they lost a lot of money too.

02:04:54.320 | Like it's not, the right attacks its own too.

02:04:56.720 | I mean, think about Bud Light and stuff.

02:04:58.840 | Like they--

02:05:00.000 | - Terms of exile, I like this.

02:05:00.840 | - I mean, you know, like every community

02:05:02.560 | has terms of exile.

02:05:04.920 | You just gotta know who you're engaging with

02:05:07.880 | and you gotta make that decision carefully.

02:05:10.080 | - It'd be nice if there's an actual writeup

02:05:11.920 | of the things you're not allowed to say for each thing.

02:05:14.240 | - Yeah.

02:05:15.080 | - I wonder whose list would be longer.

02:05:16.400 | It just does feel like the left's list is a little longer.

02:05:19.200 | - If you're a conservative and you have a t-shirt

02:05:20.840 | with like a demon on it, like say goodbye.

02:05:23.160 | You know what I mean?

02:05:24.880 | You know, there's certain stuff

02:05:26.640 | that they freak the hell out about.

02:05:28.520 | - And conservatives are really concerned about pedophiles.

02:05:35.560 | - Yeah, I mean, I don't like pedophiles either,

02:05:37.320 | but I don't think about it all the time.

02:05:39.080 | - Which one of the things you do in the film

02:05:40.400 | is kind of confront one of the QAnon folks

02:05:43.920 | where his concern is that everybody's a pedophile

02:05:47.280 | and you show it to him.

02:05:48.600 | - Well, he calls himself a pedophile hunter

02:05:50.480 | and makes videos exposing

02:05:52.120 | Democratic elite pedophile cabals

02:05:54.040 | and is himself a convicted child molester.

02:05:56.760 | There's an old thing that people say

02:05:57.960 | that every accusation is a confession to a certain extent.

02:06:02.960 | So like, it's bizarre that some people's whole life

02:06:06.440 | after a big mistake will revolve around

02:06:08.920 | trying to seem like the good guy

02:06:10.280 | instead of taking accountability for themselves.

02:06:13.200 | - Yeah.

02:06:14.040 | - It's a common thing you see all the time,

02:06:15.520 | like neighborhood watch people.

02:06:17.480 | You know what I mean?

02:06:18.320 | Like, what made you that?

02:06:19.640 | You know, like, what did you do, bro,

02:06:21.280 | that you feel like you have to get karmic retribution

02:06:23.280 | by doing the reverse?

02:06:24.440 | I don't get it.

02:06:25.280 | - Yeah.

02:06:26.120 | Do you think to the degree you have bias

02:06:28.240 | that affects your journalism?

02:06:30.080 | - No, but I mean, with the migrant situation, I don't know.

02:06:35.080 | - What was that covering that like?

02:06:37.320 | - I just got a lot of hate from conservatives

02:06:39.240 | for like letting the migrants tell their stories

02:06:41.240 | about their journey and stuff.

02:06:42.740 | - Well, what did you learn from just going to the border?

02:06:46.800 | - I mean, just the sheer desperation

02:06:48.360 | that the citizens of the world are in.

02:06:50.920 | I mean, there's people who truly believe

02:06:53.640 | that America is the only hope for their success

02:06:57.120 | and to feed their family.

02:06:58.160 | And I think a lot of them are kind of getting catfished.

02:07:01.600 | - Meaning America has its problems too?

02:07:03.440 | - It has severe problems.

02:07:05.240 | There's extreme poverty here.

02:07:07.240 | - But in America, like if you just compare it

02:07:09.240 | to other nations, the level of corruption is much lower

02:07:11.640 | to where the opportunity for a person to succeed,

02:07:16.160 | to rise is higher.

02:07:18.200 | - I wish success on everybody who comes here.

02:07:20.360 | But my thing is the expectation that they have

02:07:22.960 | and the sort of American dream propaganda

02:07:25.060 | they've been installed with isn't necessarily a reflection

02:07:28.600 | of contemporary American reality.

02:07:30.200 | So I'm talking to people who speak no English and say,

02:07:32.440 | "I'm here for a better life."

02:07:33.900 | I go, "Where are you gonna go?"

02:07:35.000 | They say, "I have no idea."

02:07:37.300 | And I'm like, "Man, that's tough."

02:07:39.580 | And you almost think how bad are things elsewhere

02:07:43.860 | for someone to abandon their family,

02:07:45.940 | make this journey across multiple continents

02:07:47.860 | and end up here with no plan.

02:07:50.020 | And it just made me realize how sheltered I am

02:07:53.180 | to a certain extent as an American.

02:07:54.940 | And walking back what I said a little bit,

02:07:57.980 | 'cause I was just trying to make a point,

02:07:59.500 | but what I think of as bad poverty,

02:08:01.660 | like let's say West Baltimore or Ninth Ward, New Orleans,

02:08:04.660 | is nothing compared to what's going on

02:08:06.620 | in almost half of the world, if not more.

02:08:09.740 | And so it just made me zoom out a little bit.

02:08:11.660 | Sometimes you forget about third world poverty

02:08:14.100 | when you live here for so long.

02:08:15.340 | And you get programmed to believe the worst things

02:08:17.620 | that are out there is like Kensington, Philadelphia,

02:08:20.660 | or Tenderloin, San Francisco.

02:08:22.580 | But those are just microcosms

02:08:24.060 | of more or less functioning cities.

02:08:26.620 | Despite what they might lead you to believe,

02:08:28.820 | Philadelphia is a great place.

02:08:30.140 | So is San Francisco.

02:08:31.940 | But there's places where everywhere is really run down.

02:08:36.700 | - Yeah, and like people focus on,

02:08:40.940 | in major cities in the United States,

02:08:42.380 | like homelessness, somehow that's a sign

02:08:45.440 | of a fallen empire, but that's a problem.

02:08:49.020 | There's definitely, it reveals some mismanagement

02:08:53.500 | of cities and government.

02:08:54.540 | - I mean, homelessness in Seattle and San Francisco

02:08:56.700 | is for sure a result of the housing crisis,

02:08:59.420 | especially post COVID and all the gentrification

02:09:01.900 | that preceded it.

02:09:03.180 | And it's unfortunate now that the conservative media

02:09:08.180 | is saying like, look at Biden's America,

02:09:11.060 | as if Biden created homeless people.

02:09:13.900 | And it's just disappointing because once again,

02:09:17.020 | you're seeing the media use real issues

02:09:20.900 | that should concern every US citizen

02:09:22.900 | and causing people to point fingers

02:09:26.100 | at a different political party as responsible

02:09:28.020 | for the suffering of others.

02:09:30.620 | - Do you think January 6th can happen again?

02:09:33.140 | - No, I don't think so.

02:09:35.660 | - So all the lessons were learned?

02:09:37.620 | - Yeah, for sure.

02:09:38.580 | I mean, people got really screwed over.

02:09:41.500 | I mean.

02:09:42.380 | - Don't you have a sense that there's a greater

02:09:44.740 | and greater growing questioning of the electoral process

02:09:49.300 | and all this kind of stuff?

02:09:50.140 | - I think that Americans overall are very comfortable

02:09:52.820 | with our standard of living.

02:09:53.980 | I think people like going to Sonic

02:09:56.420 | and waiting in their car and getting milkshakes.

02:09:58.180 | And people like going to the AMC theaters

02:10:00.080 | and they like going ice skating and mini golfing

02:10:02.300 | and going to the bar after work.

02:10:04.020 | I don't think that anyone wants a collapse

02:10:06.580 | of the basic structure of the country.

02:10:08.180 | Even the most politically divided

02:10:10.060 | don't want to see 7/11 go away.

02:10:12.420 | We are so comfortable.

02:10:14.080 | If you look at other countries, even Europe,

02:10:15.940 | look at how they protest.

02:10:17.740 | And look at the Arab Spring.

02:10:19.380 | Those guys were talking like January Sixers

02:10:21.540 | and they actually took control of the government.

02:10:23.780 | You know, and so think about even if the MAGA crowd

02:10:28.460 | took over the Capitol building,

02:10:29.980 | it's just a building.

02:10:31.080 | I don't know, I just think that Americans,

02:10:34.180 | when they talk about Civil War stuff,

02:10:36.380 | it's just so, we're so far from that.

02:10:39.140 | Even if the rhetoric is as divided as it was in 2020,

02:10:42.980 | it won't happen again.

02:10:44.080 | - For it to really happen,

02:10:46.480 | it has to be, there has to be a level of desperation.

02:10:49.460 | - There has to be a level of economic desperation

02:10:51.780 | that's causing people to starve

02:10:53.140 | or some basic resource going away, water,

02:10:56.580 | something like that.

02:10:59.140 | - Who do you think wins, Trump or Biden?

02:11:02.020 | - In the Civil War?

02:11:03.500 | Well, you know, with the guns.

02:11:05.220 | - In a game of Mario Kart.

02:11:07.460 | In the election in 2024.

02:11:10.180 | - Oh man, I have no idea, man.

02:11:12.100 | I don't even know if I'm gonna vote.

02:11:13.800 | - It's weird that this is our choice.

02:11:15.860 | - I know, I wish people were more focused

02:11:17.740 | on like city politics.

02:11:19.180 | Like I'd rather vote like yes or no for a bike lane

02:11:21.980 | in my neighborhood than I would for the president.

02:11:24.220 | - So local politics to you is where it is.

02:11:25.900 | - I think the future-- - And you feel it, yeah.

02:11:27.020 | - Oh, I mean, you can, your vote actually matters.

02:11:29.300 | Let's say you have a community of 500 people

02:11:31.340 | and you live in Henderson, Nevada.

02:11:33.100 | You can influence whether or not there's a bike lane

02:11:35.620 | or if this is gonna be a playground or an AM/PM.

02:11:39.500 | You get to choose.

02:11:40.420 | And you can influence 100 people to choose

02:11:42.140 | and boom, this is your community.

02:11:45.020 | You can't influence the result of an election.

02:11:47.740 | - Still, those at the presidential level,

02:11:50.460 | it sets the tone of the country.

02:11:53.060 | And so Trump running again and Biden running again,

02:11:57.240 | it just feels like there's going to be a lot

02:11:59.980 | of questioning of election results.

02:12:02.940 | - I just can't believe those are our guys.

02:12:04.940 | - Yeah.

02:12:05.780 | - I mean, what is, that's really our guys.

02:12:08.580 | Like that's where we're at.

02:12:09.580 | All these smart people we have in this country,

02:12:11.420 | they have a great history.

02:12:12.740 | - We got Joker Gang versus Gum Gang.

02:12:16.540 | Where'd you find Joker Gang?

02:12:18.940 | - Well-- - Is he a legit juggler

02:12:21.740 | or is he just-- - No, no, no, no.

02:12:22.940 | Joker Gang is like a Miami Cuban guy.

02:12:26.020 | - Oh.

02:12:26.860 | - Is Joker 305, Rawest Chico alive?

02:12:29.740 | So me and, I had been following him

02:12:32.220 | for a long time on Instagram 'cause he used to post videos

02:12:36.700 | of himself popping Percocets and smoking blunts

02:12:38.900 | on the toilet freestyling.

02:12:40.140 | And so I had followed him for a while.

02:12:41.820 | And then I finally got this platform and I said,

02:12:44.340 | "Oh my God, I bet you now that we have a million followers,

02:12:46.540 | "Joker Gang will sit down with us."

02:12:48.220 | And lo and behold, the clout did its thing

02:12:49.880 | and there I was, face to face with the man.

02:12:52.520 | - There was a controversy a year ago

02:12:55.900 | where a woman came forward and said

02:12:57.740 | that you were pushy with her.

02:13:00.020 | You respected the no, you got the consent,

02:13:02.420 | but you were pushy about it.

02:13:04.260 | Looking back, can you tell the story of that?

02:13:06.860 | What are the lessons you learned from it?

02:13:08.860 | - Yeah, I mean, I've yet to speak on this

02:13:10.780 | for a lot of reasons.

02:13:12.140 | Mostly 'cause it was a hard time

02:13:14.020 | and it's a sensitive subject.

02:13:15.760 | And I've wanted to prioritize the reporting.

02:13:18.020 | But I think that now I'm ready and able to do so.

02:13:22.520 | Everything sort of started on December 30th, 2022.

02:13:26.520 | And that was the release date of the HBO project.

02:13:29.500 | Like I told you,

02:13:30.340 | we didn't know when the movie was gonna come out.

02:13:32.840 | We weren't told that it was gonna come out on that date

02:13:35.040 | until early November.

02:13:36.600 | And so it was like, "Oh my God, here we go.

02:13:38.160 | "We got a movie coming out."

02:13:39.400 | HBO had, I didn't even know it was gonna be them.

02:13:42.120 | So every day for those 50 days

02:13:47.080 | to where I received word and to the movie announcement

02:13:49.740 | or to the movie release was like,

02:13:51.900 | I was like a kid waiting for Christmas morning.

02:13:54.020 | You know what I mean?

02:13:54.860 | It was like every day I just,

02:13:57.020 | I saw the movie release date

02:13:59.060 | as the first day of like the rest of my life.

02:14:01.960 | And so I remember the week of the movie release,

02:14:06.140 | it was like every day I was like,

02:14:07.140 | "Oh my God, six days, five days, four days."

02:14:09.540 | And when it became two days,

02:14:11.460 | like I was so excited.

02:14:13.300 | And so like, honestly, anxiety riddled

02:14:16.140 | because it was such a massive platform

02:14:17.960 | that I went out to the desert by myself

02:14:19.800 | out in the Mojave, got a hotel and just kind of sat there.

02:14:23.080 | And then movie release day comes.

02:14:26.460 | It was supposed to come out

02:14:27.300 | at 8 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

02:14:30.880 | I remember it was like 12 hours left, 10 hours left.

02:14:33.600 | And then eight minutes before the movie at 7.52,

02:14:37.140 | or I guess it was sent at 10.52 East Coast time,

02:14:40.840 | I got a text message requesting a portion

02:14:44.760 | of my fat HBO check to contribute

02:14:47.220 | toward apparently years of therapy bills

02:14:50.380 | that this person had accrued after she says

02:14:53.100 | that she felt that I pressured her

02:14:54.460 | into giving consent years prior.

02:14:56.980 | And I was confused, not only because of the timing,

02:15:00.180 | but because this is someone that I hadn't seen in years

02:15:02.580 | or spoken to in years.

02:15:03.660 | And I presume that I was on good terms with.

02:15:06.060 | So I didn't respond to the text message.

02:15:10.180 | And then when I didn't respond about seven days later,

02:15:13.980 | this person made some TikTok videos

02:15:16.260 | and with the help of some friends launched

02:15:18.400 | an online campaign that got picked up

02:15:20.040 | by the press pretty quickly.

02:15:21.620 | - So what did you feel like when you got that text?

02:15:24.380 | - Well, it's tough because on one hand,

02:15:28.500 | I'm not opposed to restitution being part

02:15:30.420 | of a private accountability process for real abuse.

02:15:34.440 | You know, like if you've hurt someone

02:15:36.380 | to an extent that it took them out of work or something,

02:15:38.340 | like I think they're entitled to some money.

02:15:41.840 | But unfortunately, as I later learned,

02:15:44.000 | this person had legal counsel and this was an attempt

02:15:47.360 | to basically create evidence by extracting a confession

02:15:51.220 | from me to use as precedent for a civil lawsuit

02:15:54.000 | to the tune of a couple million dollars.

02:15:56.640 | - It's dark.

02:15:57.520 | - Yeah.

02:15:59.960 | - How did you meet this person?

02:16:01.760 | - Well, I met them when I was 22.

02:16:03.440 | And like I told you, I was living in an RV,

02:16:06.040 | making the show called "All Gas, No Brakes."

02:16:08.520 | And I would travel between cities like every other day

02:16:11.640 | and so I would basically pick a new city

02:16:14.280 | and I got in this like pretty bad habit

02:16:16.560 | of what I would say is essentially treating Instagram

02:16:19.400 | like a dating app.

02:16:21.080 | You know, I would go to a new place, I'd post my location,

02:16:24.480 | I'd surf the DMs and I would look for like fans

02:16:26.800 | to meet up with.

02:16:27.640 | It wasn't always girls, it was just people to party with

02:16:29.520 | 'cause I was also partying every night,

02:16:31.200 | but a lot of times ended up being girls and stuff.

02:16:35.000 | And so that's kind of how this situation was.

02:16:37.240 | I didn't have sex with this person.

02:16:41.380 | Had a consensual encounter that they reached out to me

02:16:44.560 | about two weeks after saying,

02:16:46.200 | "Hey, I don't want you to take this the wrong way."

02:16:48.040 | But looking back, I felt a lot more pressure to agree

02:16:51.120 | than I realized in the moment.

02:16:52.640 | I don't think this is any fault of yours.

02:16:55.040 | I just think that you came on a bit too strong

02:16:57.280 | and I didn't want to let you down, so I gave in.

02:17:01.160 | And it was that language made me feel horrible,

02:17:04.920 | mainly because if this person had told me,

02:17:07.640 | "Hey, I don't wanna hook up,"

02:17:08.920 | I would have said, "Yeah, of course not.

02:17:10.840 | "I don't wanna hook up with someone

02:17:12.080 | "who doesn't wanna hook up with me."

02:17:13.960 | And I think that as fame increased during that time,

02:17:18.060 | I think I was just kind of oblivious

02:17:19.460 | to how people were seeing me,

02:17:22.440 | especially those who had a digital relationship with me

02:17:25.060 | prior to me knowing them.

02:17:26.180 | And I don't think that I handled that the right way.

02:17:29.220 | - Well, thank you for taking accountability.

02:17:32.460 | But just to clarify, you got consent.

02:17:36.100 | - Yeah, I was the initiatory party

02:17:39.020 | in an interaction with a fan who felt it.

02:17:43.560 | She had to say yes because of, I'm not sure why.

02:17:48.040 | I don't know why, but like I said,

02:17:50.160 | this person also disclosed to me

02:17:51.480 | they had a history of childhood trauma

02:17:53.360 | and were actively being treated for PTSD

02:17:56.040 | and that they felt things moved too fast for them,

02:17:58.680 | given their situation.

02:17:59.840 | And so I told her, I said, "Hey, if you wanna reach out,

02:18:02.400 | "if you wanna talk on the phone, I'm always here for you.

02:18:04.200 | "I'm sorry to hear that.

02:18:05.060 | "Let me know if we can talk further."

02:18:07.560 | About six months after that, I was at Sturgis Bike Week.

02:18:12.120 | And I remember this day, this was the hardest day.

02:18:14.980 | I was just chilling and I got a text from my friend

02:18:17.140 | and it said, "Hey man, you're getting canceled right now."

02:18:19.500 | And I was like, "What do you mean?

02:18:20.340 | "Like, did someone find an old tweet or something?

02:18:21.920 | "What are you talking about?"

02:18:23.420 | And I opened my phone and it was this Instagram story of me.

02:18:26.760 | It was like the ugliest picture of me you can find.

02:18:28.780 | It was like my face open that was like screenshotted.

02:18:31.780 | And it said, I remember this specifically

02:18:34.700 | 'cause I just couldn't believe it.

02:18:35.700 | It said, "The ugly loser who hosts All Gas, No Brakes

02:18:39.060 | "is a piece of shit.

02:18:40.360 | "He knowingly abused my friend and got away with it.

02:18:43.440 | "If you follow him, I'm gonna message you and ask you why."

02:18:46.880 | So this person who I don't know,

02:18:48.320 | I didn't even know who the accusation was coming from.

02:18:53.080 | They text, they emailed every production company

02:18:55.400 | that I was working with, DM'd hundreds,

02:18:57.720 | if not thousands of people.

02:18:59.500 | Like just saying that like I was this piece of shit.

02:19:03.080 | And I didn't even know who this person was.

02:19:06.180 | So I was frantically calling and texting like every person

02:19:09.500 | that I'd seen intimately for the past year

02:19:11.180 | and being like, "Hey, are we on good terms?

02:19:12.640 | "Is everything okay?"

02:19:13.780 | And then I figured out that the person

02:19:17.820 | was coming from Florida and I knew who it was.

02:19:19.860 | And so thankfully I reached out to the original person

02:19:22.980 | who I had the communication with.

02:19:24.620 | And I said, "Hey, like, I think this might've been you.

02:19:27.160 | "This might've been your friend who posted this.

02:19:29.060 | "Are we good?

02:19:30.000 | "Like, I'm sorry."

02:19:31.340 | I apologized again.

02:19:32.640 | I was like, "Listen, I feel bad that you feel this way.

02:19:34.980 | "I wanna do anything that I can to help you.

02:19:38.380 | "Again, I apologize."

02:19:40.460 | And she said, "Apology accepted.

02:19:42.220 | "I'm sorry.

02:19:43.060 | "My friend asked if she could post on my behalf.

02:19:47.160 | "And I'm sorry, I was going through a lot mentally

02:19:48.940 | "and I saw your fame increasing.

02:19:50.380 | "And so I agreed to let her speak on my behalf."

02:19:53.360 | And we made amends in private.

02:19:56.820 | I said, "Okay, I'm here for you, let me know."

02:19:58.540 | And she said, "Apologies enough.

02:19:59.920 | "Thank you for taking the time to speak with me."

02:20:02.260 | And that was two years prior to this text message

02:20:04.380 | being sent to my phone eight minutes before the movie.

02:20:07.760 | So naturally, I wanted to go on my platforms

02:20:12.620 | and talk about what was happening.

02:20:14.460 | But I also didn't wanna mess up the rollout of the movie.

02:20:17.480 | And so the PR firm was like,

02:20:22.480 | "We got this, we'll handle this for you."

02:20:24.580 | And that was, I guess, by way of a TMZ thing

02:20:27.740 | that said, "Andrew Callahan is devastated."

02:20:29.960 | I'm not sure why they thought that

02:20:31.920 | that was gonna make people be in my favor,

02:20:34.720 | but it was just a picture of me on NBC

02:20:37.560 | that said, "Andrew Callahan devastated by allegations."

02:20:40.920 | That was their plan, I guess,

02:20:42.340 | to show that I was remorseful or something.

02:20:45.160 | - How much of this do you think lawyers

02:20:47.120 | kinda pushing this when money and fame are involved?

02:20:52.120 | - Well, I wish I could say the lawyer,

02:20:55.760 | but I just can't, that was involved in this.

02:20:58.640 | But I will tell you that I try to lean away from resentment

02:21:03.640 | and toward accountability completely.

02:21:06.520 | What was my role in the situation?

02:21:08.280 | How can I never make someone feel like that again?

02:21:10.640 | What can I do?

02:21:11.480 | What changes can I make to make sure that,

02:21:13.800 | one, I never treat someone this way,

02:21:15.820 | and two, to never be in that position again?

02:21:18.480 | - Well, again, thank you for taking accountability.

02:21:21.600 | - And the main reason I talk about that

02:21:22.980 | is because it wasn't just that person.

02:21:24.480 | There was multiple people who made videos

02:21:27.520 | reporting similar behavior.

02:21:29.440 | And so it's obvious

02:21:30.640 | that that was a pattern of behavior of mine.

02:21:32.840 | And so I made the apology video

02:21:35.080 | to announce that I was taking some time away

02:21:37.640 | because I just needed time away.

02:21:39.880 | I mean, my entire support system collapsed.

02:21:42.700 | My friends at the time disappeared.

02:21:45.320 | I was getting obituaries texted to my phone

02:21:48.360 | that were like, "Hey, it's been nice knowing you.

02:21:50.160 | "It was great to see you grow.

02:21:51.880 | "Good luck," like I was dead.

02:21:55.660 | And yeah, it got dropped from my agency.

02:21:58.080 | No one gave me tough love.

02:21:59.760 | No one called me to ask me if I was all right.

02:22:02.060 | It was just only, everyone disappeared in a week.

02:22:05.720 | - Again, thank you for taking accountability,

02:22:09.440 | but I just hate how many cowards there are out there.

02:22:12.040 | Like, when people hit low points,

02:22:16.280 | it's when you should help,

02:22:21.080 | when you should stand with them

02:22:22.800 | if you know their character.

02:22:25.040 | - Yeah, and it was hard to separate

02:22:29.120 | the initial situation that I knew was more or less a setup

02:22:33.780 | and the possibly genuine other accounts.

02:22:37.960 | And so it was like, all right, you know what?

02:22:41.100 | At this point in my life,

02:22:43.240 | I wanna be on the right side of history.

02:22:44.800 | I don't wanna be the anti-cancel culture mouthpiece.

02:22:47.960 | I don't have the mental strength to fight this,

02:22:50.760 | especially because I was envisioning

02:22:53.280 | the HBO drop to be this like,

02:22:55.440 | the world opens up to me moment,

02:22:57.360 | and it was just the reverse.

02:22:58.760 | But it wasn't so much the media reporting on it

02:23:02.440 | that hurt me, it was just little stuff,

02:23:04.680 | like a childhood friend that you love

02:23:09.160 | seeing they unfollowed you on Instagram,

02:23:11.680 | or just like seeing someone on the street

02:23:13.960 | that you grew up with and like waving at them

02:23:15.400 | and they don't do anything back.

02:23:17.640 | And you're just like, oh my God, man,

02:23:20.420 | like, this is my new life.

02:23:23.000 | But what are you supposed to do?

02:23:24.320 | Thankfully, I like, somehow two weeks after,

02:23:27.560 | I met an amazing partner who I'm still with to this day.

02:23:31.400 | And I was able to conquer my two biggest fears,

02:23:34.440 | which is monogamy and dogs.

02:23:37.220 | I was terrified of dogs and terrified of having a girlfriend.

02:23:39.840 | Now I have a girlfriend who I love and two dogs.

02:23:42.280 | So--

02:23:45.760 | - What was the lowest point?

02:23:48.440 | - Well, right after this happened,

02:23:51.480 | I entered like a recovery programs.

02:23:55.040 | Started with AA, but then I found a more specialized program

02:23:58.140 | that dealt with the issues that I was dealing with.

02:24:00.800 | Say the hardest point was,

02:24:03.080 | logically deducing that the lives of my loved ones

02:24:11.600 | would be better off if I was gone, you know what I mean?

02:24:14.640 | And thinking that my mom and my friends,

02:24:18.520 | that their life would be better

02:24:19.500 | if I took myself out of the picture.

02:24:22.160 | And for one, I just figured, you know,

02:24:26.320 | their friend's canceled.

02:24:27.640 | You know, her son is a disgrace.

02:24:28.920 | You know, my family's gonna think they raised me wrong.

02:24:31.320 | And my friends, I'm a social pariah now.

02:24:33.680 | I'm a burden, I'm better off dead.

02:24:36.080 | And the hard part was, you know,

02:24:38.080 | I would read stories and books written by parents

02:24:42.320 | who lost their kids to suicide.

02:24:44.680 | And they reported feeling a lot of anger after the suicide.

02:24:49.580 | So I tried to think of what's the way I can do it

02:24:52.600 | to get the least amount of anger

02:24:54.220 | on behalf of the people who would grieve.

02:24:57.400 | 'Cause the hanging someone will discover you.

02:25:00.640 | So I figured that drinking myself to death

02:25:02.400 | would be the way to do it.

02:25:03.700 | And I wasn't able to.

02:25:06.820 | Yeah, that was just a dark place.

02:25:09.240 | You know, I remember hating the people who loved me

02:25:11.040 | because I knew they would grieve and that made me mad.

02:25:16.040 | That makes sense.

02:25:17.560 | Like I was ready to go.

02:25:18.600 | I had no will to live.

02:25:20.240 | But their grief was like,

02:25:23.360 | I didn't wanna cause that 'cause I didn't wanna hurt them.

02:25:27.000 | So I was like, I hated the people who loved me

02:25:30.080 | 'cause they were stopping me from taking my own life.

02:25:32.720 | You know, and it's weird to think that like

02:25:37.540 | when I was going through that,

02:25:39.040 | if you walk by me in the street,

02:25:41.480 | I'll look like a normal guy.

02:25:42.880 | And so now when I walk around and I see people,

02:25:46.720 | I think to myself,

02:25:48.320 | you have no idea what that person is going through.

02:25:50.840 | It's crazy that so many people are suffering

02:25:56.040 | in like complete silence and they don't wear it on them.

02:26:01.040 | - Many of the people you talk to are probably that.

02:26:06.280 | Many people you've interviewed before all this and after

02:26:09.680 | are probably going through some shit.

02:26:11.760 | - I also thought if I could write down

02:26:13.680 | what I just told you on a piece of paper

02:26:16.480 | and I was to do it and then they found the note,

02:26:20.200 | they would take it more seriously

02:26:22.480 | 'cause they would know that I wasn't lying.

02:26:24.040 | - Yeah.

02:26:25.320 | - But then, you know, if you do it,

02:26:29.120 | it reduces the lifespan of your parents by 15 years.

02:26:32.360 | So I looked at it like I was taking time away from them.

02:26:36.720 | - Well, thank you for the most part

02:26:40.160 | leaning towards accountability.

02:26:41.720 | It's the right path to take.

02:26:44.720 | What advice would you give to young men

02:26:46.680 | that look up to you on how they can be good men,

02:26:51.800 | especially in regard to women?

02:26:53.480 | - If you have any kind of platform,

02:26:55.680 | whether it doesn't have to be famous on Instagram,

02:26:58.560 | it could be like if you're a pillar of your community

02:27:00.240 | in the culinary world or whatever it is,

02:27:02.240 | just be hyper aware of that

02:27:05.160 | and remember that you are inheriting a power dynamic

02:27:08.320 | that can create situations where there might be

02:27:12.360 | some pressure that you don't even realize is there,

02:27:15.120 | but it's definitely there

02:27:17.120 | and you just have to be aware of that.

02:27:18.480 | And two, when meeting new partners,

02:27:22.880 | having hookups and stuff like that,

02:27:24.600 | just try to have a trauma-informed conversation

02:27:27.160 | about their past.

02:27:28.440 | Really know the experiences and the backstory

02:27:34.120 | of what a new partner has gone through

02:27:36.200 | in that world of intimacy,

02:27:37.740 | whatever they're comfortable to share, obviously.

02:27:41.920 | But I would advise against one-night stands.

02:27:45.080 | I would advise against hooking up with someone

02:27:47.320 | that you're meeting for the first time.

02:27:50.560 | Have those conversations prior

02:27:52.360 | because even though it might sound like a vibe killer,

02:27:54.720 | it's not, and if you think that that conversation

02:27:57.360 | is a vibe killer, you probably shouldn't be

02:27:59.040 | in that situation in the first place,

02:28:01.000 | especially now, how hyper-sexualized things are

02:28:03.760 | and how common that type of violence is.

02:28:06.280 | You need to be able to have those conversations

02:28:08.040 | and stop and say, "Hey, tell me a little bit

02:28:09.480 | "about your past.

02:28:10.320 | "Are there any triggers that make you uncomfortable?

02:28:12.200 | "Let me know how I can be the best partner to you."

02:28:14.480 | And I'm sure that college-age people

02:28:16.440 | are not having those conversations,

02:28:18.240 | but I'm sure that it would go a long way.

02:28:20.280 | - So especially when you're young, college-aged,

02:28:24.840 | you don't have enough experience

02:28:26.000 | to be able to read a person

02:28:27.120 | without having that conversation.

02:28:28.800 | 'Cause a lot of times you can see the trauma

02:28:30.400 | without explicitly talking about it,

02:28:32.480 | but that takes experience and knowledge

02:28:34.400 | and seeing the world.

02:28:35.460 | When you're young and you really don't know shit,

02:28:38.640 | making things a bit more explicit is probably better.

02:28:41.800 | - Yeah, and also, as men, we're trained to believe

02:28:44.840 | that it's our duty to be the initiatory party

02:28:47.760 | in any type of sexual encounter.

02:28:50.080 | Like, oh, man chases woman, you know what I mean?

02:28:53.240 | You have to be the one to make the move,

02:28:54.960 | and/or she's playing hard to get

02:28:56.480 | if she's resistant to your first compliment or something.

02:29:00.080 | I think that that's not always how it has to be,

02:29:04.440 | and that extra caution needs to be placed

02:29:06.440 | if you're taking the initiatory role in an interaction,

02:29:08.640 | especially if someone has a traumatic background.

02:29:11.060 | They might agree to do something with you

02:29:13.360 | because they're scared,

02:29:14.300 | and you might not realize that's what's going on.

02:29:16.160 | But because you don't see yourself as a predatory person,

02:29:19.160 | you don't see yourself as someone

02:29:20.160 | who would ever consciously make someone uncomfortable

02:29:22.840 | or cross a boundary,

02:29:24.080 | but people have histories that you might not understand.

02:29:26.840 | And for me, as someone who doesn't have much,

02:29:30.320 | honestly, like childhood trauma or anything like that,

02:29:32.800 | it's been an interesting year for me

02:29:34.320 | working in therapy and elsewhere,

02:29:36.080 | understanding how that affects the mind.

02:29:39.600 | And also, I understand that hurt people hurt people,

02:29:42.580 | and that someone with a traumatic background

02:29:45.120 | isn't going to have sympathy

02:29:47.200 | for applying that traumatic pain to someone else,

02:29:49.680 | even if that person isn't the cause

02:29:51.200 | of what put them in that spot.

02:29:53.240 | - If we can go back to Channel 5,

02:29:54.960 | can you tell the origin story of that?

02:29:56.640 | - Yeah, I mean, Channel 5,

02:29:58.080 | during the "All Gas, No Brakes" days,

02:30:00.960 | we used to tell people that we were called Channel 5

02:30:03.280 | if we wanted them to stop antagonizing us

02:30:05.360 | while we were filming,

02:30:07.040 | 'cause every town has a Channel 5.

02:30:09.240 | So when people were like, "What's this for?"

02:30:10.560 | If they were being super rude

02:30:11.680 | and trying to get in the camera and be hella obnoxious,

02:30:13.720 | we would just say, "Oh, we're Channel 5."

02:30:15.640 | And they would be like, "Oh, my grandma's gonna see that,"

02:30:17.400 | and they would leave us alone.

02:30:18.640 | So Channel 5 was a diversion tactic

02:30:20.740 | during "All Gas, No Brakes."

02:30:22.600 | And it just so happened that we were in Miami Beach one time,

02:30:25.200 | and this kid came up drinking liquor,

02:30:27.840 | trying to yell about whatever they yell about in Miami Beach,

02:30:31.480 | like titties or whatever.

02:30:32.440 | And we're like, "Bro, this is Channel 5.

02:30:35.000 | "Be careful what you say."

02:30:36.440 | And he was like, "For real?"

02:30:37.760 | And he just walked off.

02:30:39.460 | And I said to my friend at the time,

02:30:41.040 | I was like, "That sounded pretty good, right, Channel 5?"

02:30:43.200 | And he goes, "That does sound pretty good."

02:30:44.800 | He's like, "That's gotta be trademarked, though."

02:30:46.720 | No, it's not trademarked.

02:30:50.520 | It's crazy, right?

02:30:51.740 | There's a Channel 5 in every city.

02:30:53.240 | Channel 5 KTLA, Channel 5 Seattle, Como News.

02:30:56.720 | Dude, Channel 5 itself, we own it.

02:31:02.920 | 'Cause no one's thought of something that simple,

02:31:05.160 | 'cause you'd think you'd have to specify.

02:31:06.560 | We own Channel 5.com, Channel 5.news.

02:31:08.880 | Dude, we own it.

02:31:10.260 | It's awesome.

02:31:12.120 | - So it was the same kind of spirit as the previous thing.

02:31:16.240 | What was the first one you did under the Channel 5 flag?

02:31:20.200 | - Miami Beach Spring Break.

02:31:21.840 | - I think I've seen that.

02:31:24.160 | And it's gonna be a callback.

02:31:25.240 | I think somebody mentioning eating ass there, too.

02:31:30.240 | - That would be the place.

02:31:32.600 | I believe that was--

02:31:33.440 | - There's only about five places in the US

02:31:35.320 | where people yell about eating ass all the time.

02:31:38.000 | Bourbon Street, South Beach, Miami,

02:31:40.360 | Sixth Street in Austin, Broadway in Nashville.

02:31:43.320 | And I'm just gonna go ahead and say Times Square.

02:31:45.420 | You might not think it, but--

02:31:46.880 | - Times Square, really?

02:31:47.880 | - Yeah, they yell about ass there.

02:31:49.840 | - Times Square.

02:31:51.400 | - I would say Beale Street in Memphis, but it's not good.

02:31:55.080 | - Oh, yeah.

02:31:56.680 | - I mean, Beale Street is like,

02:31:58.080 | the median age is too high on Beale Street

02:32:00.160 | for anyone to yell about ass.

02:32:02.600 | - Oh, this is a fascinating portrait of America

02:32:05.520 | through that specific lens.

02:32:07.760 | So Miami Beach.

02:32:09.280 | And then how would you describe your style of interviewing?

02:32:14.280 | Just now that you've collected so many.

02:32:16.800 | If you had a style, how would you describe your style?

02:32:20.200 | - I guess before, especially it used to be like deadpan.

02:32:23.320 | Now I would describe it as more directed,

02:32:26.160 | but still relatively affable,

02:32:28.400 | agreeable, deadpan interview style.

02:32:31.520 | - Yeah, there's a, like in the face of absurdity.

02:32:35.120 | - Yeah.

02:32:35.960 | - It was just like there with a microphone.

02:32:37.760 | There's a comic aspect to it.

02:32:40.020 | And that's intentional.

02:32:42.560 | - Yeah, I used to look at the camera

02:32:44.200 | like Jim from "The Office" back in the day.

02:32:46.460 | I don't do that anymore.

02:32:47.660 | - What about the editing?

02:32:50.160 | Like, how do you think about the editing?

02:32:52.000 | - I still do most of it, but Susan helps a lot too.

02:32:55.080 | It's my associate.

02:32:56.960 | Yeah, the editing style.

02:32:58.120 | Like I said, we pioneered this editing style

02:33:00.600 | that honestly was inspired a bit by like Vic Berger,

02:33:04.040 | but we took it to real life.

02:33:05.640 | Crash zooms, kind of chopping up vocals a bit

02:33:08.980 | to add comedic timing where it didn't necessarily exist.

02:33:11.960 | Like you might add two seconds of awkward silence

02:33:14.840 | that are built with room tone,

02:33:16.080 | or you might make everything really fast

02:33:17.800 | by cutting silence and switching frames.

02:33:20.480 | I mean, switching camera angles.

02:33:22.200 | But now we try to be pretty straightforward

02:33:24.440 | 'cause we wanna be taken more seriously.

02:33:29.160 | - Yeah, sure, what's crash zoom, by the way?

02:33:31.800 | - A crash zoom is when it's artificial zoom

02:33:34.920 | that you might add in Adobe Premiere

02:33:36.680 | where the camera zooms in on someone's face.

02:33:39.560 | - Where the resolution is not there.

02:33:41.320 | - The resolution is not there,

02:33:42.520 | unless you have like a Blackmagic cinema camera.

02:33:45.160 | - Which you don't.

02:33:46.080 | - We don't use those.

02:33:46.920 | The file size is too big.

02:33:48.800 | - That's the only constraint?

02:33:49.960 | - Yeah, 100%.

02:33:52.000 | - And you also do voiceover storytelling.

02:33:54.900 | - I think the first time I really did that

02:33:56.400 | was in the San Francisco streets video

02:33:58.240 | because there's so much content

02:33:59.640 | about San Francisco homelessness, tenderloin shoplifting,

02:34:03.560 | but there's not that much context in those videos

02:34:05.880 | about the history of San Francisco,

02:34:07.680 | the housing crisis, nimbyism,

02:34:10.400 | random zoning stuff that sounds boring

02:34:12.360 | but has a major role in the current situation

02:34:14.840 | on the streets there,

02:34:15.880 | as to why the tenderloin is neglected by police

02:34:18.800 | and by the city council and the other neighborhoods

02:34:21.000 | like Knob Hill and North Beach are so nice.

02:34:23.760 | So I added that purposely to the San Francisco video

02:34:26.440 | and then also to the Philadelphia streets video

02:34:29.040 | to accentuate the reporting

02:34:30.840 | and add some historical analysis.

02:34:32.960 | - What's your goal with some of these videos

02:34:34.480 | like the Philadelphia streets one?

02:34:36.120 | Is it to reveal the full spectrum of humanity

02:34:38.680 | or is it also to tell a story

02:34:40.640 | that's almost political about the state?

02:34:43.240 | - Number one is always humanization.

02:34:45.040 | That's the primary goal,

02:34:46.280 | is to take people in circumstances

02:34:47.880 | where they're often news items

02:34:49.560 | and remind the public that these are people

02:34:51.760 | with lives and concerns and dreams just like you.

02:34:54.600 | But secondly, we also wanna start introducing

02:34:57.200 | more solution oriented journalism.

02:34:59.960 | So not just, oh my God,

02:35:01.520 | I'm becoming aware of how horrible this is

02:35:03.400 | but what can you actually do to help?

02:35:05.640 | And as you could see with the Vegas tunnels video,

02:35:07.520 | people are responding pretty positively to it.

02:35:09.640 | Like here's how you can maybe help a homeless neighbor,

02:35:12.560 | help get them an ID, help them qualify for housing

02:35:14.960 | or get a job at the scrapyard.

02:35:16.520 | There's always ways to help

02:35:17.920 | but so much of the YouTube world is oversaturated

02:35:21.000 | by just like endless videos of people suffering

02:35:24.200 | and the comments are always like, wow, so horrible

02:35:26.160 | but what does that really do for somebody?

02:35:28.160 | - You've interviewed many rappers.

02:35:32.000 | - Yes.

02:35:33.280 | - Educate me.

02:35:34.480 | - There's a lot to it.

02:35:35.320 | - Yeah.

02:35:36.160 | Can you explain this drill rap situation?

02:35:39.200 | What is drill rap?

02:35:40.880 | - It's an evolving situation.

02:35:42.080 | Drill began in 2010.

02:35:44.680 | Some people say it was Chief Keef in Chicago.

02:35:46.760 | I think it was King Louie in Chicago

02:35:48.600 | but I think all of it was very influenced

02:35:50.160 | by Waka Flocka Flame

02:35:51.400 | who dropped an album called Flocka Valley in 2010

02:35:54.000 | that was like hyper-violent, adrenaline-boosting,

02:35:57.440 | rap music made by people who were actually in the streets.

02:36:02.440 | So in the '90s, like if you had 50 Cent,

02:36:05.320 | you had rappers rapping about like whatever gangster shit,

02:36:08.000 | selling crack and beating people up

02:36:10.520 | but they weren't actually doing it.

02:36:12.800 | Drill has a true crime component

02:36:14.720 | to where drill fans want to know

02:36:16.320 | that the person rapping about catching bodies

02:36:18.640 | does in fact kill people.

02:36:21.160 | So drill is, it's pretty horrifying.

02:36:25.560 | It sounds great but it started in Chicago.

02:36:28.160 | Then it spread to England

02:36:29.480 | and now it's bounced back to New York,

02:36:31.560 | like the Bronx and Brooklyn specifically

02:36:35.040 | and spread from New York to the rest of the country.

02:36:37.000 | So now there's probably a drill rapper every 10 square miles.

02:36:40.760 | - So these are, as opposed to pretending to be a gangster

02:36:45.640 | and killing people, you get some credibility

02:36:49.760 | by actually doing it.

02:36:51.640 | - Yes, and the fans are typically not in the communities

02:36:55.720 | that are affected by poverty.

02:36:57.220 | So they're kind of like superheroes to white kids.

02:36:59.720 | - It's dark.

02:37:02.120 | - And not just white kids

02:37:03.040 | but just anyone who's not in the hood.

02:37:04.680 | It's not necessarily a race thing.

02:37:06.760 | There's white drill rappers too.

02:37:08.360 | Slim Jesus was a big one.

02:37:10.680 | He's out of the picture now

02:37:11.920 | but there's white drill rappers.

02:37:14.240 | - Slim Jesus.

02:37:15.360 | You made a video on O-Block.

02:37:18.120 | - Yeah.

02:37:18.960 | - What is O-Block, the place, the culture, the people?

02:37:22.120 | - O-Block is a housing project in South Chicago

02:37:25.480 | in the Englewood area where Michelle Obama grew up.

02:37:29.280 | It's also where Chief Keef was born and raised.

02:37:31.560 | I don't know if he was born there but he was raised there.

02:37:33.320 | And he is the forefather of modern drill music as we know it.

02:37:37.440 | So these are the projects where drill began.

02:37:40.020 | It's also the first place where you had that intersection

02:37:43.440 | of drill music and true crime

02:37:44.920 | because O-Block has a lot of rappers

02:37:47.560 | and then nearby is an area called St. Lawrence,

02:37:50.300 | aka Tookaville, which has a lot of rappers as well.

02:37:54.320 | And so these two rival drill gangs basically

02:37:58.880 | have a lot of history and it connects to music at large.

02:38:04.080 | - So you've interviewed people there.

02:38:06.440 | Was there any concern for your safety?

02:38:10.600 | - No, I mean, I think that O-Block has calmed down a lot.

02:38:15.440 | For one, it has security

02:38:16.560 | so you can't even really get in and out.

02:38:18.240 | But two, I think that O-Block's trying to rebrand itself

02:38:22.400 | a lot because it could be

02:38:24.200 | 'cause Lil Durk's avoiding a RICO charge.

02:38:26.120 | Could be for a variety of reasons.

02:38:27.420 | I know you don't know exactly what that means but.

02:38:29.780 | - Lil Durk?

02:38:32.360 | - Rapper Lil Durk is affiliated with O-Block

02:38:36.880 | and a lot of people have been murdered

02:38:38.560 | in retribution for killings that Lil Durk

02:38:42.480 | may or may not have influenced the ordering of.

02:38:45.220 | But anyways. - And Lil Durk

02:38:47.280 | documented the killings via rap music probably.

02:38:51.200 | - Okay, I know you don't know about drill

02:38:53.280 | but Lil Durk was associated with a rapper named King Von

02:38:56.760 | and King Von perhaps paid for the assassination

02:39:00.400 | of a rapper named FBG Duck

02:39:02.040 | who got killed in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood.

02:39:04.680 | It's possible.

02:39:05.520 | The O-Block Six are drill-associated,

02:39:08.880 | not rappers but just shooters,

02:39:10.640 | and they perhaps operated on King Von's behalf

02:39:13.720 | when he killed FBG Duck.

02:39:15.600 | King Von was Lil Durk's artist.

02:39:17.840 | King Von's now dead.

02:39:19.200 | So there's definitely a concern

02:39:21.280 | that some of the fed charges will fall on dirt.

02:39:23.920 | Not sure if that's true

02:39:24.800 | but it's rumors in the hip hop community.

02:39:27.120 | So O-Block right now, and when I filmed the video,

02:39:29.740 | is trying to go through a major image rehab.

02:39:32.560 | If you go on any Instagram of anyone in O-Block,

02:39:35.160 | they've all converted to Islam

02:39:36.680 | and so they post pictures of themselves

02:39:38.560 | praying in the morning and have captions like,

02:39:41.200 | "Put the guns down, let's pray."

02:39:44.280 | So I think when I went there,

02:39:45.880 | they saw it as a good opportunity to do a positive rebrand.

02:39:49.320 | And so I interviewed a rapper named Boss Top

02:39:51.560 | who was there all the way back in 2011

02:39:54.060 | when Chief Keef was coming up.

02:39:55.560 | And so he basically ensured my safe protection.

02:39:58.440 | But he didn't even need to.

02:39:59.840 | They're all very friendly

02:40:00.680 | and they know exactly what's up with YouTube stuff.

02:40:03.360 | - I like how 2011 is the old days, like the ancient.

02:40:06.720 | - Oh yeah.

02:40:07.560 | - The founding fathers.

02:40:09.340 | - I was in eighth grade.

02:40:10.340 | (laughing)

02:40:12.600 | - Oh man, time flies when you're having fun.

02:40:17.960 | - It sure does.

02:40:19.040 | - Lil Durk.

02:40:20.320 | Where's Lil Durk now?

02:40:21.480 | - Atlanta.

02:40:22.320 | - So you left Chicago, not safe.

02:40:25.460 | - Yeah, I mean, every rapper has to leave their hometown.

02:40:27.560 | It's what I did.

02:40:28.400 | - It's a journey.

02:40:29.220 | (laughing)

02:40:31.480 | - Seattle would've taken me out, bro.

02:40:34.600 | - How's your, I mean, you do interview a lot of people.

02:40:37.040 | I mean, that's like a top comment,

02:40:38.520 | but it speaks to the reality of the fact

02:40:40.500 | that you always find somebody rapping.

02:40:42.400 | Or you, yeah, you create the space for people to rap.

02:40:46.520 | What's that about?

02:40:47.560 | - I don't know, man.

02:40:48.400 | - But they're usually really good.

02:40:50.060 | - You think so?

02:40:51.540 | - I appreciate it.

02:40:52.380 | - Well, hell yeah, man.

02:40:53.200 | I mean, rappers--

02:40:54.740 | - In their own way.

02:40:55.580 | - Since I touched a microphone,

02:40:57.500 | rappers have gravitated toward me.

02:40:59.940 | I think there's something happening.

02:41:00.780 | - You're a rapper whisperer?

02:41:02.220 | - I think there's something happening

02:41:03.380 | on a deeper cosmic spiritual level

02:41:05.740 | that lets the mind of rappers know

02:41:07.220 | that they have a safe place in front of our camera crew.

02:41:11.600 | - You have an interview with Crip Mac?

02:41:13.480 | - I do, free Crip Mac.

02:41:14.740 | (laughing)

02:41:15.780 | He's a GO right now.

02:41:16.780 | - Oh, he is?

02:41:17.620 | - Yeah.

02:41:18.440 | - Is that a hashtag?

02:41:19.500 | - Yeah, for sure.

02:41:20.700 | - What, that's an intense interview.

02:41:23.020 | People should go watch it.

02:41:23.860 | People should go watch all your interviews,

02:41:26.220 | but that one is pretty intense.

02:41:27.620 | - Thanks.

02:41:28.460 | - I was a little afraid for your life.

02:41:31.540 | - Oh, Crip Mac's the safest guy in the world.

02:41:34.140 | - He's a sweetheart?

02:41:34.980 | - Oh, definitely, dude.

02:41:35.820 | - Yeah, that's fun.

02:41:36.780 | - I feel like more safe around Crip Mac

02:41:38.700 | than I do with any given pedestrian.

02:41:40.940 | - Yeah, he was loud and flavorful, I should say.

02:41:44.400 | So who's he?

02:41:46.060 | What's his story?

02:41:47.300 | - Well, his name's Trevor.

02:41:49.000 | He grew up in Ontario, California in the Inland Empire,

02:41:52.300 | moved to Texas with his mom after his dad left.

02:41:55.060 | His mom started dating a cop from Houston named Mr. Gary.

02:41:58.920 | His mom found Mr. Gary getting anally penetrated

02:42:03.860 | by a coworker, and so she booked Crip Mac

02:42:08.020 | a one-way Greyhound ticket to L.A. where he joined the Crips.

02:42:11.500 | - That's a good story.

02:42:14.540 | (laughing)

02:42:17.940 | - You know, it's true.

02:42:21.180 | - Oh, you jumped right to Mr. Gary.

02:42:22.840 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah.

02:42:25.220 | I'm just saying that he's a classic case

02:42:28.500 | of somebody without a father figure who found camaraderie

02:42:30.820 | and a sense of belonging and purpose in a street gang,

02:42:34.740 | which in L.A. is like a rule of law in most of the city.

02:42:37.720 | - I forget in what context, earlier,

02:42:40.380 | talking about martial arts and fighting,

02:42:42.180 | and he's gotta work on his punching form.

02:42:44.820 | - Yeah, I think so.

02:42:46.340 | He gets into a lot of fights in jail, though,

02:42:48.060 | and from what I've heard, he wins about half of them.

02:42:51.300 | - All right, what'd he go to jail for now?

02:42:52.820 | - Firearm possession, it was a probation violation.

02:42:55.800 | - Oh.

02:42:56.640 | - It's too bad.

02:42:58.660 | - All right, so Philly, you went to the border,

02:43:03.660 | occupied Seattle protests, you went to Ukraine.

02:43:08.660 | - Yeah.

02:43:11.180 | - What are some interesting things

02:43:12.300 | that stand out to you from memory,

02:43:14.180 | just as I ask the question?

02:43:16.140 | Some interesting--

02:43:16.980 | - Well, I mean, I was in jail at the border for a while.

02:43:19.740 | That was horrible.

02:43:20.900 | - What was that like?

02:43:21.780 | Was that your first time?

02:43:22.780 | - Yeah, well, you know, I didn't know

02:43:23.980 | that I couldn't hop my own border as an American.

02:43:26.980 | I'm thinking, this is my country,

02:43:28.520 | I can get in any way that I want, wrong.

02:43:32.420 | You can only enter the U.S.

02:43:33.460 | through an official port of entry,

02:43:34.560 | which I learned the hard way,

02:43:35.820 | 'cause I got arrested by Border Patrol

02:43:37.420 | and held as a detainee at a migrant center for a few days.

02:43:41.420 | - What was that like?

02:43:44.460 | - Horrible.

02:43:45.900 | - Which aspect?

02:43:46.780 | - I mean, well, for one, I don't know,

02:43:49.020 | it was just, to be in a place like that,

02:43:51.860 | and I probably sound like such a wimp right now,

02:43:53.620 | 'cause I know someone's watching this

02:43:54.920 | who's done some hard time,

02:43:56.540 | but we thought we were gonna do

02:43:59.200 | at least six months in jail,

02:44:00.520 | 'cause the guards freaked us out and were like,

02:44:02.880 | you're being charged with a federal crime,

02:44:04.860 | you know what you boys did is serious,

02:44:06.480 | we're waiting on word from San Antonio

02:44:08.040 | about whether or not we're gonna extradite you.

02:44:10.120 | So we're just sitting in these cells alone,

02:44:12.640 | most of the time in solitary, with no pillows, just a--

02:44:16.080 | - No pillows.

02:44:17.040 | - No pillows, no mat, nothing,

02:44:18.560 | just a space blanket, and I was sleeping on my shoes,

02:44:21.600 | stinking up the place, it was no good.

02:44:24.280 | - Yeah, you mentioned the UFO convention.

02:44:26.900 | - Yeah.

02:44:27.740 | - What have you learned from those guys, the ufologists?

02:44:32.620 | - I really wanna know what you think about that,

02:44:34.100 | that's the one question that I wanna reverse on you,

02:44:36.320 | because you've talked to so many people,

02:44:38.780 | do you think that aliens have actually visited Earth?

02:44:42.280 | - Yeah.

02:44:43.120 | - When? - So.

02:44:44.060 | - When, exact dates?

02:44:46.340 | I do, I think there's alien civilizations everywhere.

02:44:50.980 | I talk to a lot of people that have doubts about it,

02:44:54.180 | I just think, I even suspect there's

02:44:57.900 | an intelligent alien civilization in our galaxy,

02:45:00.960 | and I just can't imagine them not having visited us.

02:45:04.920 | So I lean on that.

02:45:07.320 | What that actually looks like, I don't know.

02:45:09.520 | The stuff we're seeing in terms of UFO sightings,

02:45:13.580 | I think that's much more likely,

02:45:15.540 | to the degree it's real,

02:45:18.900 | it's much more likely government projects,

02:45:21.460 | so military, Lockheed Martin, this kind of stuff.

02:45:24.300 | - So you think that they have knowledge of it?

02:45:27.040 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:45:28.380 | - One thing I think about with aliens is scale.

02:45:30.960 | So we have this idea that an alien would be a gray alien,

02:45:34.820 | or almost humanoid lookalike that would visit us

02:45:37.420 | in human form, arms, legs, head,

02:45:40.260 | but who's to say that they're not able to shrink down

02:45:42.260 | to microscopic size with the same neural capacity?

02:45:45.300 | - Yeah, or just have a very difficult to perceive form.

02:45:49.060 | But I mean, they would go small, not big.

02:45:51.980 | - No, I think that would take a humanoid-like form

02:45:54.380 | just to be able to communicate with humans.

02:45:56.180 | I think that the big challenge with aliens

02:45:58.340 | is to be able to find a common language.

02:46:00.460 | So if you come to another planet,

02:46:02.420 | and you suspect that there's some kind of complexity

02:46:04.540 | going on, but it looks nothing like humans,

02:46:07.540 | you have to find a common language.

02:46:09.740 | And I think aliens would try to take physical form

02:46:13.140 | that's similar, that us dumb humans would understand.

02:46:16.100 | - Language is really interesting, too.

02:46:17.460 | I have this series that I'm gonna announce

02:46:19.500 | for the first time on here,

02:46:20.740 | but I'm really interested in endangered languages

02:46:23.220 | in the US.

02:46:24.260 | There's like 150 languages in the US

02:46:26.260 | with less than a thousand speakers.

02:46:27.820 | - Wow.

02:46:28.660 | - And I wanna like help spearhead efforts

02:46:30.180 | to preserve some of these.

02:46:31.140 | Like for example, Hawaiian sign language,

02:46:33.980 | 15 of those people left.

02:46:35.580 | - Holy shit.

02:46:36.420 | - Because when Hawaii got annexed,

02:46:37.980 | the ASL community tried to make it

02:46:40.740 | so the deaf native Hawaiians wouldn't be able

02:46:42.780 | to speak their native sign language.

02:46:45.380 | And so they would do it under the desks

02:46:47.260 | at like schools for the deaf and blind,

02:46:49.180 | and they would get like their mouth washed out with soap

02:46:51.460 | and stuff if they so much as did the Hawaiian hand signs.

02:46:55.500 | Also the Gullah Geechee language

02:46:57.500 | in the South Carolina Sea Islands,

02:46:59.220 | Hilton Head Island and stuff,

02:47:00.420 | that's like a, it's almost a Creole language

02:47:02.740 | that's been in the US for hundreds of years

02:47:04.860 | existing in isolation.

02:47:06.500 | That's being threatened by golf course developments.

02:47:09.700 | I don't know how into language you are,

02:47:11.460 | but I've been getting super nerded out about it.

02:47:14.260 | - Actually, I'm interviewing somebody tomorrow

02:47:15.980 | who's an expert in human language.

02:47:17.740 | He's from MIT.

02:47:18.860 | Studying the syntax of a lot of languages,

02:47:22.980 | including in the Amazon jungle,

02:47:25.580 | the peoples that live in the Amazon jungle region.

02:47:29.540 | Yeah, it's fascinating.

02:47:30.860 | Human language is fascinating.

02:47:31.980 | And also the barriers it creates.

02:47:34.020 | And also how the games are played

02:47:36.060 | to what you're speaking by governments.

02:47:38.380 | This is part of the story of Russia and Ukraine,

02:47:41.740 | is a battle over language.

02:47:44.940 | The Ukrainian language is a symbol of independence,

02:47:49.940 | which is why they were trying to make it

02:47:53.420 | the primary language of the nation.

02:47:55.540 | So sometimes the language represents

02:47:59.020 | the culture and the peoples.

02:48:00.620 | - Yeah.

02:48:01.460 | - And it's intricately tied to the culture of the people.

02:48:04.660 | - I've been trying to learn Navajo.

02:48:06.300 | - Which languages do you know?

02:48:08.380 | - Spanish and English.

02:48:09.900 | - Spanish well?

02:48:12.700 | - Si.

02:48:13.820 | (laughs)

02:48:14.860 | - I don't know Spanish that well, so that passes me.

02:48:17.780 | You're fluent, basically.

02:48:19.380 | Oh, it doesn't.

02:48:20.220 | Hola.

02:48:22.780 | - That was good.

02:48:23.900 | That was real Cancun spring break.

02:48:25.660 | - Well, I actually speak fluent Spanish

02:48:27.340 | according to Spotify 'cause there's,

02:48:29.420 | every episode is translated, overdubbed by AI in Spanish.

02:48:34.020 | - Oh my God.

02:48:34.860 | - Yeah, there's a very--

02:48:35.700 | - Do you have a Spanish robot assigned to you?

02:48:36.540 | - I have a Spanish robot.

02:48:38.580 | I sound incredibly intelligent and intellectual in Spanish.

02:48:42.660 | - Say hello to Friedman.

02:48:44.420 | - Exactly.

02:48:45.260 | From everything you've done, all the people you've seen,

02:48:51.260 | do you think most people are good underneath it all?

02:48:56.260 | - Yeah.

02:48:57.220 | - So the ones that do all the extreme shit.

02:49:00.940 | - Okay, I'll put it like this.

02:49:02.380 | Most people think they're doing the best thing for the world.

02:49:05.940 | I don't think anyone,

02:49:07.740 | except for maybe a small fraction of sociopaths,

02:49:10.380 | wakes up every day and says,

02:49:11.660 | "I'm gonna fuck somebody's life up today."

02:49:13.660 | I think the far majority of people

02:49:15.100 | are fighting for what they think is right

02:49:17.100 | and do want to see America succeed

02:49:19.140 | and want us to be in a happy place

02:49:20.780 | where no one is subjugated.

02:49:22.340 | I just think people have drastically different ideas

02:49:24.980 | of what means will get us there.

02:49:27.100 | And unfortunately, that's leading to a lot

02:49:29.300 | of misunderstandings between cultures.

02:49:32.180 | And yeah, I think that most people are good.

02:49:35.060 | I've been through some things that leads me to believe

02:49:36.860 | that a lot of people, though,

02:49:37.780 | are primarily motivated by self-interest.

02:49:41.500 | And that in a fight or flight situation,

02:49:44.140 | most people will choose flight.

02:49:45.780 | So I don't know if people are courageous as a whole,

02:49:49.220 | but I think generally good.

02:49:51.420 | But the energy to stand up for what's right,

02:49:53.380 | not sure about that.

02:49:54.780 | - They have the capacity, though, to do good.

02:49:57.580 | - I think human beings are inherently selfish as well.

02:50:00.240 | But I don't think that selfish is inherently bad.

02:50:04.780 | I think humans are primarily motivated by self-interest,

02:50:09.180 | but generally have positive intentions.

02:50:12.900 | - I do hope more humans rise to the occasion

02:50:16.980 | and have courage.

02:50:18.660 | Courage of their convictions, courage to have integrity.

02:50:21.460 | But yeah, I think that most people are good,

02:50:25.140 | and they want to do good,

02:50:26.600 | and they have the capacity to do a lot of good.

02:50:28.900 | That's why I have hope for this whole thing

02:50:32.940 | we've got going on.

02:50:34.300 | How do you heal the misunderstandings

02:50:35.780 | between people, you think?

02:50:36.780 | Listening, it's the only option we have.

02:50:39.520 | No forced education, no forced meetings or mediations

02:50:44.300 | between political opponents.

02:50:46.260 | Just listen to more people, and really listen.

02:50:49.180 | Try to get rid of whatever preconceived notions

02:50:51.220 | you might have about how you should feel

02:50:52.900 | about someone you are supposed to disagree with,

02:50:55.060 | and just keep your ears and your heart open

02:50:56.660 | to people that you don't know, and your life will change.

02:50:59.460 | - Keep your heart open.

02:51:01.700 | - A lot of people are scared to listen.

02:51:04.820 | - Well, Andrew, I'm a big fan, and thank you

02:51:07.580 | for being one of the best listeners in the world.

02:51:10.700 | - Amen.

02:51:11.540 | - And showing the full spectrum of humanity to us

02:51:14.740 | so we can listen as well and learn.

02:51:17.380 | And just thank you for doing everything you're doing.

02:51:20.300 | Keep doing it.

02:51:21.140 | - Hey man, thanks so much for having me on.

02:51:22.220 | You're a great man.

02:51:23.300 | - Thank you, brother.

02:51:24.140 | - I appreciate it.

02:51:25.540 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

02:51:27.340 | with Andrew Kalkin.

02:51:28.740 | To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors

02:51:31.180 | in the description.

02:51:32.660 | And now, let me leave you with some words

02:51:34.540 | from Hunter S. Thompson.

02:51:37.020 | The edge, there is no honest way to explain it

02:51:40.620 | because the only people who really know where it is

02:51:43.900 | are the ones who have gone over.

02:51:46.060 | Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.

02:51:50.580 | (upbeat music)

02:51:53.180 | (upbeat music)

02:51:55.780 | you

02:51:57.840 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Andrew Callaghan: Channel 5, Gonzo, QAnon, O-Block, Politics & Alex Jones | Lex Fridman Podcast #425

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