#2468 - Luke Grimes

The Joe Rogan Experience

Show me my day Joe Rogan podcast my night all day

This is a real game

Yeah, I've been listening to the show for years

Well, I've been watching your show for years, yeah

Are we rolling Jamie?

All right, beautiful

I love your fucking show, it's great

Oh, thanks man, it's really awesome man

But, well, I haven't watched Marshalls yet, is it out now?

It is, when did it come out?

March 1st, so they just had the second episode there

I like the binge, man

Yeah, wait a little bit

Stay offline, I like to sit down and binge them

For sure

Yeah, but Yellowstone's fucking awesome

It's such a great show

Did you have any idea it was gonna be what it is?

No, I don't think anybody did

I thought it would find an audience for sure

I mean Taylor was really, you know, hot at the time

He'd been nominated for Oscars

And I was kind of like

Surprise, he was even writing a television show

He was just like so hot in the film

How the fuck does that guy even sleep?

I know, man

Where does he have the time?

Every time I look in the news or

There's a new show that he's doing, a new thing he's doing

He's like, how are you doing all this?

It's impressive, you know

It's insane

There's a lot of people I've worked with

But they do things that are impressive, but his is impossible

Right

You know, like someone would be like, could you direct a movie

as good as I'm forgiven?

I'm like, maybe

Maybe if I tried real hard, like could you write 10 television shows single handedly?

No, no way, not possible

He directed unforgiven?

No, I'm just saying like people that I look up to that I'm impressed by

It's like his is a different level

Right, his is like impossible

Who did direct unforgiven?

Clint Eastwood

That's the fucking greatest western movie of all time

It is

It's the best

It's like, you know what it was like to me?

It was like he was making up for all the silly westerns

And was like, let me show you what it was probably really like

Yeah

What was really like when a man was about to get shot?

What was really like when a dude was a stone cold killer?

Yeah

What was it really like the hardships of living back then?

Yeah, and it's interesting too, because he starts out kind of a loser

Yeah

Those first, you know, like the first three quarters of the movie he's this sort of timid guy who's lost his power

You know, and then he takes that one simple whiskey

And it's all over for everybody else

It's a crazy premise

It's such a good movie

It's such a good fucking movie, man

But yeah, Taylor is a real freak

There's not a lot of humans like him and it's his background story so interesting

You know, like he was just kind of scrambling around till he was almost like 40

Yeah, it's like a real life rocky

Yeah

Something like Rags to Rich's the whole thing

And no, man, it's just I just I guess that's why he has so much ambition

Because he knows what it's like to be poor

Right

You know, he knows it was like like barely make it

Right

Then all of a sudden he's got a kid on the way and he's like, oh shit, I got a buckle down

Yeah

And really get moving and he kept his foot on the gas

Absolutely

Do you guys keep in touch?

Yeah

Yeah, all the time

I love him, he's an awesome dude

I just worry about him

You know, you do so much

Don't have a fucking heart attack, man, don't go crazy

You know what's weird is he does he does like have a good time too

It's not like he doesn't hang out with his family or friends or you know

That's the craziest thing to me is like the guy has a really fun life

And is able to do all that

I guess like the moral of the story is don't play golf

Yeah

That'll take a while

No shit, man

Tell that to Jamie

If I can get out once a week, it's great

He's an addict, Jamie's an addict

He's got a simulator back there, he's always walking golf balls

Yeah, all my friends are trying to get me to play him like I'm not doing it, man

That's a six hour commitment

Oh man

The amount of time it takes to get good enough that it's not the worst thing ever

Right

It's too much time

Right

And my problem is I'm an addict

Like when I start doing things I just start like okay

I need to play in the PGA

I start going crazy, I'll start getting lessons and fuck that

Yeah

Don't do it, we need your show, man, we need you

It's I will

Well, I'm never doing it

We can do this

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

Try it, we can try it

Try it out

No, I know all my friends who play fucking love it

Ron White and Tony Hinchcliffe they go out every day

It's like it's too much, man, I can't do it

Yeah

Yeah, you can't play golf and do what Dale is doing, that's for damn sure

No way

No

But how the fuck is Trump doing it?

He's playing a lot of everything he's always playing golf

But that's sort of the criticism, right?

He's playing too much golf and not running the country enough

But don't they say that about every president?

Yeah

I think it's almost like a prerequisite to be president, you have to play golf

You know, don't they all do it?

I guess so

It's like one of those weird business men things

They make deals out there

They have a couple of cocktails, they talk a little shit

Right

Do a bump, not my thing

I just don't know

Something about being like a manicured lawn

I don't know

I'm gonna be out in the middle of nowhere

I'm sure I'd love it

I'm sure

Which is why I don't do it

But I play pool

And I'm addicted to pool

Like I play pool all the time

It's a real problem

When I lived in New York, I was playing like eight hours a day

Yeah

I was playing in tournament and so I was traveling around

I was like

I can't

I can't get another thing like that in my life

Are you done playing pool?

No, I play all the time

Okay

Yeah

But you could play pool for like a couple hours and stop

Maybe I'll try that

Yeah

Yeah

Yeah

Like real pool, like tournament pool

Like competitive, like real tournament pool, it's legit

But it's like

It's another thing

It'll get in your blood

And then you'll be thinking about it all the time

And watching videos

And taking lessons

I'm ready for something though

Yeah

Yeah, not golf

Pool sounds like

Well, you have music

And you have acting

Like you said

That's gotta be kind of hard to manage

Yeah, it's proving pretty difficult

And I have an 18-month-old

Oh, that's good

And you mix

Yeah, so no sleep

Yeah, we're getting there

You know, the music thing is sort of

It's kind of nice because there's not a lot of pressure on it

You know, for me, I have a day job

You know, I have this thing that supports my family

And the music I can do to like

My passion level

You know, and I wouldn't do it to the point where I'm like

Away from my family too much

So I like making the music

Touring is kind of hard

And it's also new for me

So learning how to do that at 40 was kind of interesting

You know, I feel like in my 20s

That would have been the most fun ever

Yeah

Sleeping on a bus with 12 dudes

And just going from city to city

And you know, drinking backstage

And playing country music

That would have been a blast

But I'm, you know, too old for

To do that the right way

Yeah

When you tour, do you go out

Or do you do like a weekend and then come back

When you're on a full blown tour

The way that it financially works the best

Is to just stay kind of going

So you're doing like three shows

Like Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Because you've got the bus rented

You've got all the equipment rented

You've got the guys, you know, on salary

So you just have to keep going

It's actually really hard to

For it to pencil out

When you're just doing a show here and there

Right

Yeah

That's stand-up comedy so much easier in that regard

I've only done one stand-up comedy tour tour

I did it with Charlie Murphy and John Hepron

We did this Bud Light Maxim tour

Back in 2007 and we did like

22 dates in a month

And so it was like

I'd wake up and I wouldn't know where I was

I'd look at the ceiling, I'm like

Where the fuck am I?

I don't, I would have to think

Columbus

You know, I'd have to like go through my head

And figure out where I am when I woke up

Was there ever like a period of

Stage fright when you started doing stand-up?

Oh yeah

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Yeah, yeah, the first day

I was more afraid

The first time I got on stage

Than I was the first time I fought

It was nuts

I was like, why am I so nervous?

I was thinking about chickening out

I was thinking about not doing it

I do that every time I play music today

I'm like, can I just call it all?

Do you still get stage fright right now?

Really bad

Well that's the thing man

I'd always played music

And when I was playing in bands and playing out

I was the drummer

But I always wrote songs and stuff

But I never thought

I had never had ambition around

Like I want to be the guy in front of the microphone

That was never the plan

And then to be able to make an album

Which I wanted to do

You have to go stand in front of the microphone

And that's the hard part for me

I love being in the studio

I love writing the songs

I love making the music recording the music

But there's something about

Knowing that all these people have shown up

And bought a ticket

To see you

And you're like

All the sudden this thing starts happening in me

Like they bought a ticket in poster syndrome

You're not good enough for them to have spent their money

And you know it's just this whole thing

And it's like

Dude, shut up

I know it's going to be okay

But it doesn't matter

Every time I still get a little bit of the

You know

I think everybody who's sane gets in poster syndrome

Yeah

Yeah

Everybody that I talk to that's sane

It's like the really cookie ones

I don't think Kanye has ever gotten in poster syndrome

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah

It's like

I'm better be

Also, he's a genius

But it's like the ones who were sane

It doesn't make any sense

Like none of it makes any sense

Yeah

Well I get it in drugs

And way more for the music than the acting

But it's

Again, I've been acting in film and TV for over 20 years now

When did you first get on stage to sing?

How old were you?

The very first show I played

I was

39

Oh my god

Yeah

Yeah

Like I had done karaoke before

Right

But you know

It kind of came about in the weirdest way

I literally was on set one day and get a call out of the blue

From this manager

This music manager

Matt Graham

He was a great manager

And a really good friend of mine

But he called and said

Hey

I know you don't know who I am

But I know that you're a musician

And you know

I love Yellowstone

I love you in that show

Is that something you would want to take seriously?

And I was like

Like what does that mean?

He's like

I bet I could get you a record deal

And I was like

No man

That's no

And I don't want to do that

And we talked for two years

And over the course of the two years

I really started to trust him

He sort of like

Explained to me

What you know

What would be required

And

Long story short

My father passed away

Somewhere in there

And sort of one of the last things

He sort of conveyed to me

It was like

If there's anything you want to do

Where you're here

Do it

And

It's something about that moment

And I was like

I'm just going to fucking do it

You know

I don't care

What's the worst thing that can happen?

I'm another actor

Who made a goofy album

Right

So what?

I got to do it, you know

So I did

And then immediately

It's like, well now you have to go tour it

Otherwise

You know

They're not going to put up the money

For you to make these things

If you don't go sell it

You know

So the tour is sort of to

Get the music out there

And get people buying it

And so yeah, first show

It was in Billings, Montana

For I think it was 1200 people

Whoa

This place called

I think it was pub station

What was that like

First time do it

Dude

I blacked out

Like not drinking

Like I just blacked out on nerves dude

Like it, you know

It started

My knees were shaking

My hands were shaking

And this is before I knew about like beta blockers

Or anything like that

And I

The show was over

And I was like

How was

That okay

How did that go

And everything was good

You know it was good

I was fine

The fourth show I ever played

With stage coach

Whoa

Yeah

That's nuts

It was crazy

I mean it was earlier in the day

It's not like I had you know

100,000 people out there

But still

That's a big stage

That's a big stage

And yeah

I so

But you know

Little by little it got

Somewhat better

I don't black out anymore

I kind of

I know where I'm at

I'm there

But it's still something

You know

I deal with

Oliver Anthony

The first show he ever played live

In front of people

Was like

20,000 people

It's so nuts

It's insane

Wasn't it like that

It was huge right

It was like

It was a gigantic crowd

I don't think I'm exaggerating

Because he got really famous

Before he ever went on tour

That one song

Richmond, north of Richmond

That song

Like

Instantly made him famous

He wrote a rocket

That rarely happens

Few people know that feeling

I can't imagine

But he was freaking out

I became friends with him

Like right when it was happening

Because he was like a little lost

And he said a bunch of people

I go

Let's talk

So we got on the phone

Like it was before

He had you know

He had gotten a ton of record deals

And all these different people were saying

You know

Hey, sign with me

We'll give you an X amount of money in advance

Don't sign nothing

And he was like

Hey, everybody's telling me

That I got an X strike

Why the iron's got to go

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

I go, dude, you got talent

You got real talent

You're always going to have talent

It's just a matter of putting in the work

And you're going to be huge

You don't need these people

These people are all vampires

They're all just trying to suck on your neck

Don't let them

Don't let them

And he's like, what the fuck is going on?

One song with him and a guitar just standing in a field.

That's all it took.

That's amazing.

I mean, it's how it should be, right?

I have the complete opposite story.

That story's not cool at all.

I'm like, I'm a successful actor,

and I got a record deal for no reason.

Yeah, but you had a record deal because you wanted to do it,

because you're interested in that too.

Like, you can do anything you want to do.

Just because you're a successful actor,

doesn't mean you can't do it.

Right, but I think a lot of the thing with music

is the story of the person.

So I knew going in, like, I don't have the best story.

I do come from nothing, and I did work my ass off

to become an actor and all that.

But my way into the music was a little wonky, but...

Well, sometimes that's good,

because it makes you work harder to prove to people

that you're legit, because you have this thing over your head

where they're like, fuck that pretty boy, motherfucker.

TV star, motherfucker, fuck that dude.

Fuck Casey Dutton, there he goes.

So the music's gonna have to be good enough.

Yeah, that's just sort of the thing.

That's all it is.

It's just, it'll force you to work harder,

but it's just, everybody's story's different.

That's what makes it fun.

If everybody had the same story, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, you're kind of the king of following your passion, right?

You've done that.

Yeah, I've been super lucky, you know?

I just lucky that there's a job for all these things I like,

you know?

There wasn't.

Well, there wasn't this one.

Yeah.

There was other people doing it already,

but it wasn't a job for the longest time.

It's kind of a fun story that me and my wife

always joke around about,

because like, one time she was taking the kit,

where was all supposed to go to Disneyland,

but I had to do this podcast.

I'm like, she was like, you don't have to do it.

I go, but I do.

I do it every week.

But it wasn't really making any money back then,

but it was like, I promise people would be out.

Like, I gotta do it.

Now she's like, thank God, you didn't listen to me.

It's just, I mean, I got lucky.

I got lucky.

I came in right at the right time.

There was only a few people doing it back then,

and I just did it for fun.

It just thought that would be fun to do.

Yeah.

And then all of a sudden it became a job.

Yeah.

And with the UFC stuff, too.

Yeah.

That too.

That was fun, too.

Did you think that would become what it became?

Yeah.

When I first started doing it, it was in 1997,

and it was in a high school auditorium in Dothin, Alabama,

and we had to take a propeller plane to get there.

And it was banned from cable,

so you could only watch it on Direct TV.

This was UFC 12.

And wow.

There was no one in the audience,

and no one was watching it.

And I was already on a TV show.

It was on News Radio.

And the people on News Radio, the actors and the producers,

they were like, what are you doing?

You're flying to go to cage fighting?

It was almost like I was doing porn.

You know what I'm saying?

Where it's fucking snuff films or something.

It's like, you're gonna ruin your life doing this.

I was like, I don't know what you guys are talking about.

This is what I've always wanted to say.

I've always wanted to see all the best martial artists

of different styles get together.

Nobody ever did it.

These guys are doing it.

I'm gonna go.

Yeah.

I remember renting the first few from Blockbuster.

Yeah.

It was like BloodSport back.

Oh yeah.

Oh, it changed my life.

I got UFC two was the first one.

The first one wasn't available.

You had to get two was the only one.

And it was on VHS tape.

And I had a buddy of mine who told me about it.

He's like, dude, you gotta see this thing, man.

He goes, they got these guys that fight in a cage.

And this one dude's just choking everybody.

And he's wearing a key.

I was like, really?

What is it?

And then I watched it.

I was like, holy shit.

Yeah.

I was hooked right away.

I was like, they fucking did it.

They actually did it.

Because when I was a kid,

everybody thought that if you did karate,

you thought karate was the best.

If you thought judo, you thought judo was the best.

And nobody really knew what was the most effective martial art.

Because nobody had ever put together

anything like the UFC.

So once it happened, I mean,

it was just such a huge part of my life.

I was like, I'm not going to not do this

just because it's bad for my acting career.

Like if my acting career goes away,

I don't, you know, whatever.

I'm only doing this for money anyway.

So I'll just figure it out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You were the only person in LA with that mentality, by the way.

I really served you well.

Well, I wasn't supposed to be in LA.

You know, I mean, I only came to LA for money.

And I would have moved back.

I was living in New York,

and I did a show called Hardball,

and that got canceled.

And the only reason why I stayed

is because I got a lease on an apartment.

I was fully ready to get out of there.

I was like, I got to get the fuck out of this place.

I hated it.

I hated being around actors.

I hated being around producers and casting agents.

I was like, these people are so fake.

I was used to being around fighters and comedians

and pool players.

Like the rawest, funniest outcast of society.

Like those were my people.

I was used to cracking jokes with friends,

and everybody was bustin' on each other,

and everybody had a great sense of humor.

Just silly weirdos.

And then all of a sudden, I'm around these people

that all had these predetermined things

that they thought they should say,

so they would say them.

And everybody had, it was all group think.

It was like, oh, this is fucking horrible.

Yeah, I always say that felt like,

when I lived in LA, I lived in LA for 16 years,

and I don't wanna complain about it.

I was obviously good to me, helped my life quite a bit,

but it always felt like everybody was trying

to become the same person,

but they don't know who that person is.

I'm like, can you just tell me who the person is?

So I can, you know what I mean?

There's like a memo that went out that I didn't get.

Yeah, so nobody got that memo.

They were all playing it by ear, you know?

And it was all dependent upon what the producers

and the casting agents wanted you to be.

So everybody was sort of adapt.

Whenever you got a place where everybody has the same politics,

that's not a good sign.

Like the something's gone wrong.

And everybody has these progressive left-wing politics,

regardless of whether or not any of their positions

make sense, they all just sort of spit it out.

Well, I think it's just that,

there is sort of a desperation that gets bred from,

I mean, these people left their families,

they moved away, they left everything they've ever known

and gave up a lot of comfort and security and love

to follow this dream.

Yeah.

And so that dream becomes more and more and more important.

You need it more and more because now you have nothing else.

Yeah.

You've given everything else up.

And so I think at that point,

you can sort of mold people into whatever.

Oh, for sure.

It ruins comics.

Yeah.

Because when comics start doing well,

one of the first, as soon as they start getting on television,

the first thing they start doing is tempering their material.

They tone it down a little bit, take the edge off,

don't say anything they can get you in trouble.

And generally those are the funniest things.

The funniest things are the things that could go

terribly wrong and get you in trouble.

So they do that, and then they become like an,

I always call it the velvet prison

because you get locked into that velvet prison.

You get on TV, you get money,

but also you become just one of everybody else.

Yeah, it's hard not to do.

I mean, that's where I'm at.

I still have a boss.

Yeah.

My checks are written by a very specific company

that I have to be careful sometimes.

I know.

You know, even doing this today,

I'm like, just a little bit.

I don't want to do that to you and sit here

and police myself the whole time,

but I gotta be like, just don't say this, are you?

Right.

Oh, yeah.

No, I'm firmly aware of it.

People come in here and I could see it in their face.

Please don't bring up anything clearly.

No transdog.

No.

For sure.

Tell Darryl about that today.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's, you know, a tricky situation.

And the, the thing about LA too is

everybody has to get picked for stuff.

Yeah.

It's not like even like music, like,

especially like look at all of your Anthony.

No music deal, no nothing.

Just put something on YouTube.

blows up. Yeah, that's a real in this day and age. That's a real thing. But in acting it's still you have to get chosen

You have to get cast for something and just that weird thing alone where you're going into this thing and these people have to

Approve you and most of the people that get involved in acting in the first place

A lot of large percentage of them

They did it because they didn't get enough attention when they were younger and this is like they

Make up for well

I'm pretty sure you know it's all the same kind of mindset like there's something about you that wants to be famous, right?

There's once you know unless you like someone who's just in love with the craft of acting

You know right which how could you be when you know? I made the decision that I wanted to be an actor when I was like five years old

I didn't know what the craft of acting was my thing though honestly was I

Loved movies so much. I think I just because I I I liked them more than my life

You know, I wanted to live in the movie. I didn't know what making them would actually be like

I didn't know what that career looked like I didn't know what acting was

But I would go to the movie theater and want to be in it and I'd also see the guy and I don't know whatever the skill set was

I was like whatever they're doing I think I can do that I think I have whatever that is and you know

Thank God I was at least somewhat right alright be waiting tables in LA right now. Well, it's an interesting thing right because

It's a craft that seems like you're just doing normal life

Right like you're you're pretending but you're you're

Acting in behaving in a way that people do act in behave like that's the key to it. It has to be believable

Yeah, so most people watch it go. I can do that

Yeah, this is normal life. They're acting like they're in normal life

Right, but what you don't realize is that there's like a dude with a beard with a microphone in your face

And 200 people standing around waiting for you to be done. So yeah, I can do their job again sip and coffee

Right at their block

Maybe you fuck up a line like oh

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a weird gig man. It's a weird gig and it's not when most people think it is

And you could tell that by like the masters the real masters, you know when you see like a Daniel De Lewis do it

You're like okay, whatever he's doing. I'm not doing that. That's yeah, that's a fucking totally different thing

Right this guy's in at some weird place where he becomes Gary Oldman becomes a different person every movie and you believe it

Yeah, that's the real craft of it, right? We're like I fucking know that's Gary Oldman, right?

But he's different and every now he's Dracula and I believe it. He's amazing both of those guys

Amazing you ever watch that show slow horses. I love it. It's fucking great show. Yeah, it's really good

It's a great show. I can't wait for the new season

I've hooked so many told me about it and I was a little skeptical at first

It's like all right, and you never see like a lead your your number one

Right, a total piece of shit

Yeah, except Tony's a Bruno. There you go. Yeah, yeah, that he was that was a weird show, right?

Like the guy was a murderer in a thief and you love him. He loved him. He was so good

Yeah, there's another guy

Candle Fanny man, you fucking believed him and there wasn't acting like that in television yet

No, that was like the first of its kind. Yeah, and even within that show

He was doing something that one else was doing right and that's hard to that's hard to keep up for

You know, you can if you do it for a film you're doing it for a couple months

You know at that at that level of intensity, but to do that for seven years for months and months at a time is impossible

Well, there was a danger in his eyes like a real danger like there's something about that dude

Like that dude's got or while he was alive. He had

Demons in his brain like you could tell right there was moments the these menacing moments where he was like threatening someone or doing something like

That's coming from a real place

That guy, you know, there's some guys who play tough guys in movies like I'm not buying it

But with that guy you like oh, okay, there's this guy could kill somebody

You don't want to piss him off in real life

He's also out of fucking control, you know, you ever see the list of the things that he consumed before he died

I have seen that it's bananas. Yeah, he was just off the rails crazy out of his fucking mind

But I've seen the Hunter S Thompson one. Oh, dude. We narrated it. We read it and then this guy

What was the dude? What's the guy's name that turned it into a song?

There's a there's a dance song like a electric music dance song

With me and my friend Greg Fitzsimmons were reading off Hunter S Thompson's like his daily routine with this beardy man

Yeah, shout out to beardy man. It's pretty dope play it fuck it

Can we we get in trouble

We can what would happen we lose it's the right revenue changes and stuff like that for sure

Yeah, don't play it. I'll listen to it after. Yeah, well, I'll send it to you, but it's

It's a banana's routine and you know at the end of his life

I'm a giant Hunter S Thompson fan as you can tell walking through all the artwork

But at the end of his life like he couldn't even talk like he did an appearance once on Conan O'Brien and

It to me was I want to satisfy his things like you could barely understand what he was saying

He's just mumbling and

When he was young he was so fucking smooth and articulate and interesting and fascinating and

And it just drugs just drugs and booze just cooked his brain

I'll have to do a deep dive on him. I've never read any of his stuff really. Oh, just read just start off with fear and loathing

Okay, fear and loathing in Las Vegas was a he got a assignment to cover. I think it was a motorcycle race

That was the job so I think it was for sports illustrator or something like that

He got a job to just cover a race and he goes down there and just

Brings every kind of fucking drug known to man drives through the desert and a convertible with his friend and just

writes this insane book

It's completely insane. It's nothing to do with this motorcycle race

It's just all about the chaos of being out of your fucking mind in Vegas and it's brilliant

It's so good. Check it out. Do you like Vegas?

I mean I'm there a lot for fights and when I go we go to a restaurant

I go play pool. I go to the fights. I don't do anything else

So it's like for me. It's like yeah, there's great restaurants, you know, the fights are awesome. I love doing that

so it's like but

There's something about it where I ever every time I go there

I'm like could I live here like I was actually talking to my friend Tony Angeliff about it this past weekend

We were just there for the fights and I was saying like what if I was because you know kill Tony's is gigantic

Show now. It's huge. He sells out arenas all over the country with it. It's on Netflix and I was saying like what if a

A Vegas casino offered you a fucking pile of money. Would you do you think you could ever live here and we're just sitting there

He's like, I don't know. I don't want to do it

I can do it because I think it's like sleeping next to a vampire

Like even if you know that the vampires in the other room

You're not going to bite your neck. It's like he's right there

You know, I don't think it's good for you. Vegas to me is like you know when you you have a big night out on a certain type of booze

And you get sick and then anytime you drink that booze after that that's Vegas

Right, it's my land in Vegas. I'm like, I just feel gross

Because I remember the last time I was there or the first time

Yeah, it's I think the people that live outside of Vegas like people live in Henderson and places like that

They love it because it's really nice out there. Like you go out to the outskirts of Vegas

There's beautiful neighborhoods and nice communities and like great stores and restaurants and stuff

It's nice, but you're still next to the death star, right?

It's like this big neon fucking vacuum just sucking people's money out of them. I've never been off the strip

Maybe I should try that out. Yeah. Yeah, there's a there's this great restaurants and great neighborhoods like

It's it's fine outside, but the reason why they're there is because of the death star like that's what brings everybody there

You know everybody's there to just lose all their money. Yeah, make really bad decisions

Yeah, like I eat my all my friends who gamble when I would go there with them. I go look at this place

Yeah, big it is. How do you think they got that money suckers like you?

This isn't like a fair exchange like they're giving you goods and you're giving them money

No, this is like they're giving you this like crazy

Proposition where you think you're gonna play blackjack and win a billion dollars like yeah

And if you win too much money, they kick you out. Did you ever gamble? Was that ever no no no no no not really

I mean, I've bet some money on fights of I've played blackjack a few times

But I've never lost any real money, but my friend Dana white. He's a fucking degenerate like a crazy degenerate

I went to visit him recently

So he was at Red Rocks Casino and

Couple my other buddies were there so we showed up and went into the blackjack room and he was there and when I got there

He was down six hundred thousand dollars when I got there and

Was a normal night for him and he wasn't even nervous. He was like, hey, what's up?

You take me like shaking my hand give me a hug all these other people are there and I got fucking massive anxiety

Yeah, I was like crazy

How are you and then so him and Jamie was there too and him and

Taylor Luan the football player he he coaches Taylor how to how to play blackjack and so they got together

He's tells them when to hit and when not to hit and they did it right next to us within five minutes Taylor was down

125,000 dollars. She was like, what are you doing man? Yeah, I know she nervous

Just think he got up and then they quit so he quit ahead

I think he won like a hundred grand they quit you know to move on the back of that because you can bet more per hand

That's what they're doing now. Yeah, it's like that the 500k per hand or something like that. Which one's backer at how do you play that?

I've tried to watch it. I don't really quite understand. It's apparently not hard

You bet you're betting on the dealer or the player

Is that the big long table with all the I don't understand it. It's not like it's not as long as like roulette

So Dana's on to that now or Taylor. I think that room. They've pushed him all to the back right

So you can gamble more

His mainlining the gamble now he told a story on I think it was

Was it flagrant it was flagrant where he talked about losing like six million dollars in one night

Yeah, what yeah, that's my theory about slap fight while they're doing slap fight. I think it's Dana's gambling money

That's what I think I think it's like it needs some source of revenue outside of the UFC

So it doesn't lose his UFC money. That's tough to watch man. I don't watch it. Yeah, I've watched a couple clips

Sorry Dana. I know yeah, but it's tough to watch

I don't like it. People getting brain damage over and over again. Yeah, it's not my thing. I don't get it

It's and it's all like the saddest people getting whacked in the head

It's not a good thing not good. Yeah

They call it fights, too

Okay, I mean I guess you should come up with another name. It's kind of insulting to an actual fight, right, but

That's my theory is that that's his gambling money because that fucking dude gambles because I asked him once I go

You like living here goes I love the action

He's a good friend of mine, but he's a different person than me. I'm not that's not me

Yeah, if I lived in Vegas, I'd live way outside of Vegas and even then I don't think I could do it

Because we've talked about you know, we have a comedy club in town the comedy mother ship

And we talked about doing another mother ship somewhere and the two

Most likely places that we would be able to do it are New York and Vegas

So we talked about doing one in Vegas, but I was like

Man, the only way it would work is I'd have to be there a lot like we'd have to be there a lot and we'd have to

You know, we'd have to make sure that it's run right that let's like run with the same vibe that we run in here

Where everybody's cool. There's no assholes. Everybody's real friendly and real supportive of new comedians and

Then I'd have to spend a lot of time there. I'm like, I don't want to do that. Right

Wouldn't New York be like returning to where you cut your teeth or something? Is that where you started?

Yeah, I mean I started in Boston, but I did spend a lot of time in New York

New York would be a better option really because there's a lot more talent there in in order to have a really good comedy club you can't

You can't just started like you can't just go like to Columbus, Ohio or Cincinnati or I guess Columbus

That's like a little bit of a scene, but you would have to have a real scene with like real headliners and a like

Top-level talent right and the way we were able to pull it off in Austin is everybody moved here during the pandemic

Like me and Tony moved brown white moved here first and then me and Tony moved here

And then once we started doing shows

We were talking all our friends in LA and LA would shut down during the pandemic and so everybody just kind of moved out here at least

Temporarily because comedians are junkies like they want to go on stage and and

It was taken away from them for a year and a half in LA couldn't perform in in LA for a year and a half

Made no fucking sense and out here. We were just doing shows like in November of 2020

I like it was indoor shows and supersprider shows and and so because of that I forgot about that word

Tom Segera moved here Christina Pazitsky moved here Tim Dylan moved here. It's just like out Shane Gillis moved here

It was like we had so many like national headliners. We could pull off a club. Yeah, but you have to have that kind of thing

Where it's not just the weekends, but you have to have like Tuesday shows Wednesday shows

It's has to be like a lot of people around that you could have a show with the infrastructure. Yeah, I randomly lived in

Austin during COVID. Oh really? My wife and I we got married in November of 2019

She's from Brazil and I'm from Ohio so we had no

There was nowhere where we were gonna live or it was gonna feel like home

But we you know, I'd lived in LA for 16 years. I was ready to get out

We wanted to start a family somewhere else and we didn't know where to go so we came here

And December of 2019 and we had the best two months ever and then everything shut down and we're stuck in an apartment

don't know anybody and

You know, it didn't really get a fair shake

We loved it while it was going and then yeah, I did about two months of lockdown

Couldn't do it anymore and then we bought an airstream and just started traveling around and then I had to be in Montana for work for Yellowstone

And we parked the airstream up there and never left. Oh, wow

Montana's fucking awesome. It's so great. It's so beautiful

A last time I was there was in the summer. Well actually last time I was there. I was hunting with Bourdain

Who went fes and hunting there that was pretty cool. Oh, yeah

Yeah, I was one of the last times I saw them but part. Oh, I forgot

I forgot where we were

And I'm pretty sure I flew into Boseman, but I think we're outside of Billings

Okay, I forget um, but

The in the summer there is insane. Yeah, perfect. It's so beautiful

Everything's green and you see the mountains and we heard wolves howling one one one night and you see elk herds

Just chilling on the side of a hill like god this place is magical and it doesn't get dark till like 11 at night

Right. Yeah, it's very confusing to know like when to eat dinner because you're just like it's light for so long

But then in the wintertime the you know, the exchanges it gets dark at 4.30 p.m. Right

But yeah, we love it man. It's the best thing that's ever happened for me

I've just sort of like all the LA stuff we were talking about

Mm-hmm. It's the opposite of that the opposite. There's I have no FOMO about anything anymore

You know, oh, that's great. I can just think and sleep and read and watch films and it's the best

Yeah, well your show made a lot of fucking people move out there though. That's true

Yeah, and they're not happy about it the valley that I live in

We had some people come visit us our friends California drove out and we went on a hike

and

We were in their car and that you know cali plates and we get off the hike and someone had written go back in the dust on their car

Like people are super weird about so I don't tell anyone like exactly where I'm at because they would get really mad at me

Dude that happened in 2012. I was hunting in Montana. We went to the Missouri breaks and

We

We were going to this restaurant and one of the guys in the restaurant had he had his car parked outside

And it was like a rental car and someone had wrote go back home

You know like Montana's for Montana's or something like that. They wrote it in the dirt

Right, which is dumb because if they have the plate they clearly aren't living there, you know, right? Yeah

They're going back. Yeah, but it's just retards. You're gonna get retards in every state

Like if you have a hundred people one of them's a fucking idiot sure, right? And if you got a town of you know

X amount of a hundred thousand people

You're gonna have a good amount of fucking dumb houses for sure. Those are the ones like this is our place

We own it. This is our dirt

Meanwhile someone moved there at some point exactly, you know

Yeah, somewhere along the line someone move there and all you did was stay exact you didn't do anything that cool

Exactly, you know, and exactly exactly and that one guy I can't go to bars there anymore because whatever that one idiot is

Is at the bar of course and he can't wait to start a fight with me

Just like can't wait to do it because like it's a win-win for him

You know, he gets to sue me or something. I don't know, you know, but it's a lose-lose for me

So well, it's just like his life is empty and it's like all of a sudden there's purpose and he's like you ruin Montana

Fuck off, right. Yeah, or my favorite is when they call people colonizers

That's my favorite like bro if you don't live in Ethiopia

Someone in your ancestor was a colonizer. Oh hundred percent period. Yeah, we don't have to come from somewhere

Also, isn't it like the most American thing ever is that I can choose where I want to live

Yeah, that should be celebrated. It should be yeah

The idea that we were here first those are the same idiots that hate when a band become successful

Because like oh, I knew them when they were underground now they sold out. Yeah

It's just a moron mentality. Yeah, it's gonna have that no matter where you go

But Montana's are like fiercely proud of being from Montana. Yeah, they'll always tell you what generation they are

Right

That's so silly. Yeah

And I'm not Montana, but my son will be

Yeah, you can say that he is right right. It's like an anchor baby

Yeah, he could go fly fishing and no one's gonna give him a hard dog. That's right. I was born here

Okay, yeah, you're good. You got a haul pass

Yeah, but like people that live in like that yellow stone place, you know that um yellow stone club

Yeah, that place like those are like fake montannans to montannans everybody who lives up there

And he was saying I don't want to fuck anybody would live up there like because it's awesome. Yeah, it's wrong with you

It's still Montana like let it go right they just had some problem with uh

sewage being dumped into the river or something like the yellow stone club. Oh god

Yeah, the locals were very angry and I don't know if that's locals like making some stuff up to sort of cause a problem

But they were saying that they were finding sewage from the Yellow Stone Club in the in the local river there. Whoa

Yeah, I have to look that up. Oh, whoa. Yeah, that's not good

That's the problem with rich people

Rich people like fuck everybody else. I haven't been to that place, but I heard it's awesome and the views

I mean, I've seen photographs of it. God the fucking views there insane. Yeah, I have multiple friends that live in Montana and

The thing about it is like everybody will tell you like when you're surrounded by those mountains and you look out at them every day

It like centers you and it humbles you

That's exactly right. It's like the most spectacular natural art you're ever gonna see

It's around you all the time and I drink my coffee every morning looking out the window and it looks like a painting and it never gets old

You know if they if we need to go to the grocery store. I'll do it because it's so fun to drive there

You know you get out you put some tunes on it's the best thing ever versus like living in LA to go anywhere was the worst thing ever right

Yeah, everything's a pleasure up there, man. It's really it's something

But if you if you if you need any sort of like fast pace or socialization or if you're like trying to meet a babe or something

There's no people do yeah, I get that there's a little of that in Austin. They're upset that the Californians moved here

Yeah, they were upset. There were a lot of people blamed me

And Elon sure they blamed us for moving here and ruined in Austin like

Sorry, we made it more awesome. I mean fucking pussy. Just shut your mouth

It's it's all the same thing. It's like people that want credit for being here first like fuck off

Now you have more restaurants way more comedy. There's like seven comedy clubs on my street now on the street where my club is

There's seven comedy clubs now. That's amazing

It's like one of the the big hubs of live comedy in the world now. Did it have it at all before it had a couple places

There was a place called cap city that actually went under before the pandemic

Or actually like right at the beginning of the pandemic when I got here it was for sale

And so I was looking at that place to buy it and but it didn't work out

And then there was another there's another place that's been around forever called the Velvita room

It's a real small room. I think it seats like a hundred or so

And then you know, I think there was maybe a couple other bars that maybe had comedy

And there was like a small scene of some comedians

But nothing like what it is now because not even not even comparable. I mean, there's like

17 18 world-class comics that live here now. Wow. It's crazy

And talk about stage fright. I think that is that would be the hardest art form

Just kidding. You have no help. There's nothing to hide behind right there's no music right there's like

It's just silence and you and a microphone. You can't just get into your tune and fucking just play close your eyes

Now there was a there was a film actually one time and I was attached to to play a stand-up comedian

And I I promised the director that if we got our funding and got the green light to go that I'd go do it

That I'd actually go out and like work up 15 minutes and just you know do it until I understood what it was like

And that movie fell through and I was very very happy

Because I didn't want to do it. It's hard. I bet man. It's it's

Confusing because the people are just talking you like why is that hard to do everybody talks

You know like everybody could tell a story everybody could and it seems easy to do until you do it

And then you're like oh this is but I was hooked right away because right I sucked the first night that I bombed

But I was like I got a couple of laughs on some things and I was like

I think I can figure this out

But I was like I said I was more scared than when I was fighting

I was more scared before like a big fight

It was weird. I was like why am I nervous? I didn't make any sense. My friend Whitney Cummings explained to me

She said people of this fear of public speaking because in tribal societies

Back in the day the only time you spoke in front of a large group of people was when you're being judged

Because they were going to kill you. Oh, interesting. Right. Yeah. Don't that make sense? Yeah. Yeah

So like if you're front of all the people they're all like

What did you do? You know, so you have to like guys. I didn't steal the tomatoes

Yeah, never thought about that. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, no place to hide man

I don't know that that sounds scary and especially if like it starts going bad like you start to bomb

Is there is there any way out of that or is it people have recovered? Yeah

The people have started off bombing and then pulled themselves out of it

I've done it a couple of times most of the time when I'm bombing I'm bombing forever

Like but going down

But the there's a good to that right the good is you have to reexamine your material and you

Every time in my career in the like the early days when I bombed I always got way better afterwards

Because I was like whatever the fuck that was. I don't want to experience that again

And I really focused and really really wrote like crazy and went over recordings and buttoned down and trimmed things

And change things around and

You need losses losses are very important. They're important in fighting. They're important in they're all important in

They're important in life like

One of my kids just had a breakup recently and I had a conversation with her

I go I know this sucks, but this is actually important like it has to happen

And I told her like about like first time a girl broke up with me when I was 17. I was devastating

Oh, it's good. I couldn't believe my life was over. I'm only 17

I can I'm never gonna recover. I'm like it's so important because you realize like

Has time passes you understand that this is just a moment in time and there's other people you're gonna me and lie

And it's just you have to develop some resiliency some emotional resiliency, right?

And so you have to experience that and you also have to realize that

You know people

They don't know what they're doing either like boys don't know what they're doing girls

Don't know what they're doing. They're kind of figuring out as they go along

The people break up and they make up and these are these lessons that you have to learn in life

And loss is important because it makes you understand like why this person gets sick of me

Why am I annoying why you know what you know am I selfish? Like what is it? What is wrong with me?

You know why you know why am I picking these people that are gonna break my heart?

Why don't I adjust?

Why don't I like maybe I should spend some time alone and figure out what the fuck is wrong with me or figure out who I am and those

Moments where you have to kind of go through things and figure them out. They're so important for you in life

And for a comic bombing can oftentimes be one of the best like

Motivating factors to take you to another level in your career. Mm-hmm or

Rec your confidence forever. Right. Just like fighting. Yeah. I was gonna say it happens to fighters. Oh, yeah

Some fighters lose and they're never the same again

And some fighters lose and then a new version of them emerges in the next fight

You're like whoa this dude dialed in who would be a good example of that Charles Oliveira. Oh, yeah

Yeah, he's the best example of it because for the longest time everybody thought he was a quitter

Like he would just break and now he's like want to scare his mother fuckers alive

Yeah, you know, let's bet this last weekend the fight with Max Holloway like good lord

Like Max Holloway was a two-to-one favorite in that fight and he got shut out

Yeah, like literally every round was a dominant performance by Oliveira. It was crazy

It's funny people complaining about that fight too. It's like the because it was on the ground right. Yeah, yeah my daughter complained about it

So the mean amount was so boring

You're a casual kids a casual a lot of slugfest. Don't they? Oh, yeah, they do they do they do. They do love a slugfest. Yeah, but

You know, that's that's the sport the sport is like sometimes it's gonna be exciting and sometimes it's just gonna be a ground battle

But for me was exciting because I was trying to figure out whether Max could get up

What he could do to prevent from getting taken down and whether or not

He could figure out a way to reverse the position and get on top and

You know when you're watching like a guy dominate a world champion like that. It's just

You're in marvel. You're like wow, this is crazy. I can't believe he's able to do this. This is nuts

I wish I would have started jujitsu when I was small

Because I tried like you know late 30s and I was like it was kind of like the golf thing where I was like

Well, first of all, it's way cooler than golf

But I was like the amount of time is gonna take me until this doesn't feel like being smothered

Yeah, it's gonna be a long time and I don't know if I have I should I don't know if I can start now

You know, I'm sure. Yeah, like it's well how long would it take for like a

grown person until it until you actually know what's going on intuitively and it doesn't feel like chaos

Well, there's there's layers of knowing intuitively like there's guys like even as a black belt

There's guys that I could roll with and I would just get humiliated

Yeah, cuz they're just so much better than I am like my friend Gordon Ryan that's his belt up there

Abu Dhabi chocolate. He's the greatest of all time like in these 30. Yeah, the greatest grappling that's ever lived

That looks like fun man. He's a fricking amazing, but he trains

365 days a year. He does not take breaks off

Christmas fuck you it's your birthday fuck you happy Easter fuck you

Yeah, he trains every day and he trains like twice a day three times a day

It's like that is the only way to be the greatest and

You know and he's obviously a lot bigger than me

But it's not the best example

But he does that to heavyweight black belts just humiliates them

They have no he brights down on a piece of paper what he's gonna do to them and hands it to the judges before the fight

So he's like I'm gonna try and go this guy like that's great. He's doing it to world champions

Amazing like guys who have been like multiple time world champions

Wow, and he's just predicting what he's gonna do

And then he passes on every submission until he can get him in that like he's having fun

But he's like he's playing with his food, you know, so this levels to stuff

So to be competent in rolling you can get there in a couple of years

Depending on how long for you train like Bourdain got really serious at 58

Wow at 58 that's when he started that's when he started yeah, oh

When I first met him he wasn't training at all

When I first met him

He came to the UFC his wife was really into the UFC and she was she had just started doing jiu-jitsu and

She was getting him into the sport and he really got interested in it

And then she took him to jiu-jitsu classes like fuck this is actually kind of fascinating

And he had never done any kind of athletic things in his whole life

And then like when he was 60 is a photo of him like in his 60s

And he's walking on the street with this he had gotten divorced and he was dating some new girl

And he's got the six pack and he looks shredded and when I when I first met him

He's like goy and he had a thumb ring and he was like, you know a chef and you know

It was into drinking and he just became a jiu-jitsu addict and he was training every fucking day

And sometimes twice a day we'd do a private lesson and then we'd take a class every day wow

Yeah, he got a and then he he told me he was taking his like when we were hunting in Montana

He we were on the ground in Montana

He wanted to like learn some stuff. So I was explaining him

Certainly like I'm like when you go for a darts. There's a way to get there's a thing called the Japanese necktie

And I was explaining to him on the dirt. I was like you guys all camoed out doing jiu-jitsu on the ground

But he was like he was so interested in it was he was like constantly asking questions

And he had guys that were in the crew that it also got interested in jiu-jitsu because of him

So like while he was there filming his show

He also went down and was training. He found a local jiu-jitsu gem and he went down there and trained

What was that he would train everywhere on the road? Yeah, he would go to like foreign countries and train

Like you didn't even speak the language and you know

He's just fucking famous guy from TV

And he's just rolling in there with like normal people and getting strangled

58 man, that's incredible. I have no excuse. I'm gonna start. Yeah, yeah

I want to put it in front of my kid for sure. Oh definitely. I mean as soon as he can do it

I want him to try you know it's if he likes it or not

But it's like I feel like it's one of those things

It's so good to connect with other people in that way from such a young age to give you confidence and then

If you if you love it if he has a passion for it

You don't have to worry about him becoming a drug addict or something because you can't be both like right

You know, there's a few things where like you can't be both you've got to really give that everything also

It becomes like a real source of confidence for kids if they know that they can fight like they can avoid fights

People won't want to fight them because they'll have a reputation. They can it's very good to know

It's also like you can get out of things just by knowing how to fight

Because you know like what people are doing what they're not doing you don't

Say anything stupid because you're trying to trick a person to thinking that you're a tough guy

It's a quiet confidence it comes with these guys and also if something does happen

Most people have zero idea of how to fight right zero

And they think they're just gonna swing and hit in the face and you see all this shit coming way before it happens

Like you see them moving the right foot back like oh god, yeah, here we go

Like it's it's like they're playing a game

But they don't even know the rules like they don't even know the skill they don't know anything

But they've seen it on TV and they think they're gonna be able to pull it off especially if they're drunk

Oh, yeah, there's a whole uh Instagram channel that's uh dedicated to fights on six street here have you seen this?

It's amazing dude. It's incredible. You can just watch it for hours. I've seen a bunch. Yeah

A lot of them taking place right in front of my club

fights on a street are so scary because guys fall and they hit their head

That's that's that's how people die

If people die where they get punched in the jaw and they go out and they just bang their head off the ground

Or there's a lot of people out there that'll when you're already out step on your head. Oh, yeah, we see that a lot

Yeah, that's it be I don't understand anyone who has the impulse to do that

Right, that's crazy to me like if you've won the fight already move on. Yeah, that's that's scary stuff

That's evil. There's a lot of some people that get red with rage

And we lose their mind and then they wind up a jail for the rest of their life and then just sit in a cell going what the fuck

One night drunk doing something stupid and now I'm here forever. Yeah, it's crazy and there's someone's dead

And someone's dead someone's parents are crying and someone's

Missing their father like fuck yeah, because he looked at my girlfriend. Yeah, that's crazy

I know people are retarded. Yeah, the best thing about fighting is it teaches you not to fight

Very few of my friends that know how to fight have ever been in street fights. It's almost never happens. Mm-hmm. It's just like

It's just such a stupid thing to do how many times in your life if you had to use it like practically in a real life

Never really never not since I was in like high school

I've been I've never been in a fight fight like an actual fights in high school. I avoid them. Yeah, I'm not like if I find

No, I can fuck you up and I could just get away. I'm like I just get away. I don't need to prove

Like right. What's the point? Also, here's the thing people always say oh if I could fight

I'd fuck people up a great and then they're gonna come back and kill you, you know

And then they're gonna run you over or shoot you or don't be stupid like it's it's pointless. It's pointless

You know, I've had situations where I thought I was gonna have to fuck somebody up and I didn't

But you have to have self-control you have to you know, you have to be able to know and also like most people

Like if they want to fight you all you have to do is kind of like put your hands up and move a little bit

Like they're not gonna be able to do anything. They'll be swinging and you just like come on

What are we doing here? Yeah, what are we doing? And it's it's the only time people get hurt is when you engage

Like you're both swinging at each other

If someone's swinging at you and they don't know what they're doing

They have almost no chance of hurting me

Like zero unless I'm asleep

Unless I'm really drunk. You're almost zero chance of hitting me right unless you really know what to do

If you're really not a fight most of those people are really not a fight aren't fighting people anyway

Yeah, and I'm not gonna provoke anybody. I'm not gonna start a fight

So it's like I mean, I know a few of my friends that have had to fuck people up

Gordon had to beat the fuck out of a homeless guy in Austin. Yeah, no way

Oh, yeah, some homeless guy he picked the wrong boy

And Gordon tried to get out of it, but the guy wouldn't he put him to sleep

Wow

Put him sleep and then call the cops the cops came and picked the guy up

Emiliates oh my kids are the wrong guy, but that shows you how fucking stupid people are because Gordon's a gorilla

He's this big giant 240 pound jack dude who's uh, you know

I don't know how many time jiu jitsu world champion and some fucking idiot

Right, you know probably high out of his mind. Yeah drugs are bad fight with them

I think he picked a fight with his girlfriend first

I think he fucked with his girlfriend and fuck with another guy and just a problem

This some guys are just nuts man. Yeah, and you know mental health issues and

But fights are stupid. They're they're so pointless

I mean organized fights. It's a different thing. I mean, that's

High-level problem solving with dire physical consequences

That's what I call it. That's what a real fight is like a like both agree. We're gonna make a certain weight

We're gonna meet in September 7th. Here it is. That's a different thing. It's a beautiful thing

It's like a chess match and you can't breathe, you know

Crazy. Yeah, it's a way to put it. Yeah, but in chess the pieces can only move a certain way right and jiu jitsu

It's nuts as there's like so many different variations and then you add in striking and wrestling and like oh my god

It's so car. I love it. I I'll never get tired of watching MMA

It's the most exciting thing ever for me. I like other sports like I've really grown to love football since I moved to Texas

And I can watch a good basketball game baseball's hard

But to me it's all just

Down time unless fights are on right it fights around. I'm not watching anything else like I've been at football games

Like at UT games with the UFC on my phone sitting there while watching the UFC

Man, I wish I have football in V. I went to a Christian school in Ohio and we didn't have a football team and I feel like if you don't like

Grow up around it in high school. You just don't understand like the nuance. I understand the rules and I get it

But I just I don't know I don't love it like people do and I wish I did I wish it did the stakes just I don't understand it

I don't understand

The team sport thing as much as I do like I love MMA. I love watching UFC because it's like the stakes are so high

Something about one-on-one who's the better person today, you know, that's you know, you can't there's no one to blame it on

Right, it's just one person. It's a different thing like I

Have grown to love it living here my wife is a big football fan and so she got me into it

And then I've gone to a bunch of UT games and they're fucking fun man and it's like

When someone scores a touchdown everybody wins like the whole team she like the whole audience like 80,000 people

Yeah, and there's something to that right because like when fighters fight and someone gets knocked out like people cheer and it's exciting

But like you know, you never know who's like if you're watching just engage you fight max hallway

I don't know who's for just engage you who's from max hallway you look out there like everybody's wearing UT colors, right?

Or they're wearing, you know, Oklahoma colors like it's like you've got your colors

Everybody you've got your outfits everybody's pumped they they cheer when this guy scores they boo and that guy scores

It's like more of a team everybody wins together. Yeah, whereas like with MMA, you know, you there's

There's it's like you're just watching an individual. You're appreciating an individual who's a rare human being

type of human being that become a becomes a guy could become an MMA world champion

That is a truly special human like the amount of dedication and draw and the amount of focus and discipline and the courage

That you have to have to get in your fucking underwear and stand there with a cup on with little tiny pads on your gloves in front of another

Savage like another train killer who's been training for 18 weeks for this one moment and they bolt the door shut to the cage

And then the referee goes fight are you ready?

Why are you ready? Let's go crazy and then the whole world is watching you surrounded by 20,000 people and

Lights and cheering and you you're trying to keep your shit together and you're getting kicked and

How do you sleep the night before that that would be my thing? I don't think I could I wouldn't be able to sleep

It's hard. I would go is get sick. I would get sick before tournaments because I wasn't sleeping right

I was training really hard and I didn't even take vitamins back then. I was a dumbass

But because I was young I stopped fighting when I was 22

But for a lot of these guys it is hard

It's really hard to just relax and then they grow to learn how to relax

And then then it's really scary and then it's really hard to beat them because you a lot of guys are terrified before they even get

Like Anderson Silva in his prime

He would win fights at the weigh-ins because they would just like look at him

And he would be standing there staring at you and you're like oh my god have to fight this guy tomorrow

Oh my what have I done? Why am I doing this with my life?

Imagine doing that stare down Mike Tyson back. Oh god. That'd be the most terrifying. Oh dude

It was it was there would be guys look they were gonna faint while the referee was giving them instructions

You know, I remember he fought Bruce Seldon and Bruce Seldon who was a beast man

He's a fucking tank of a man and he looked like he was gonna faint

During the stare down. I can't imagine. Yeah. Yeah, he was the scariest of all time. He was he was absolutely the scary

Of all time the scariest boxer that I've ever seen in my life and there was a period of time between like 1986 and like

Probably like around 1990 where he was just fucking running through everybody

It was so you would buy the pay-per-view knowing that the guy was gonna get knocked out and hoping that you get your money's worth

Because you a little pay-per-view is like whatever it was 50 bucks or something

You know like if it's like 30 seconds like ah

There's bullshit

People would get upset that the the pay-per-view is so quick

But they mean that's what you were that's what you're signing up for and those kind of guys

I mean when you got a guy that's got every box checked

Discipline focus training genetics everything all together mindset

Oh, right. He would beat guys like long before they ever got in there because they knew that they were they were fighting this demon

This guy that just was so much better than everybody else and you there's no way you could catch up to him

No, is it true about his wasn't it like

His trainer died and then it kind of he lost the whole yeah

Well his trainer was custom motto and custom motto was a legendary figure in boxer

He trained Floyd Patterson

Jose Torres he trained like a lot of like a legit world champions

and he was also a hypnotist and

He adopted what yeah, he was a hypnotist. Yeah, well, he was really into the mental side of fighting

he was more almost like

as much of a psychologist as he was a boxing trainer was all about

tempering their mind and getting them ready like he would tell Mike Tyson you don't exist only the task exists

Would say crazy shit to him and he adopted him when he was 13

so Mike was

13 and he

Came from Bedford style and Brooklyn's horrible neighborhood. So his whole life was like crime and violence and no love and

Terrible and then also in this man took him under his wing who was also a legendary figure in boxing legendary

like he was like he was the guru and

Oh, you know, he he basically it was like the perfect storm and then he was also

His manager was this guy Jim Jacobs and Jim Jacobs was not just a manager

He was an historian of boxing and he had this incredible library of all the great fighters

So he would watch film you know like fucking

Those right he like I have a projection screen and he would watch film of like Jack Johnson and Stanley Ketchle and you know

Sandy Sadler and all these great fighters from back in the day Roberto Durán

He would have to sit there and absorb all these amazing fights and when you can walk like that's one of the great things about today

Like especially with MMA

Like if you look at the fights from 1993 and the fights from

To 2026 the skill levels like magnitudes greater because all these guys have grown up watching all these fights now

Because from the time that MMA existed it was on television

You could watch it on YouTube after that

And it was like there was always fights that you could see so you could see what guys were doing

So you had an understanding of the level so kids would grow up imitating their favorite fighters

You know grow up you know imitating John Jones and imitating Kane Velasquez and all these guys and you

You you could absorb a lot just by seeing the elite level of these guys

And Mike Tyson was one of the only guys back then that had that ability interesting because he had this immense library of the greatest fights of all time

And so he would be training with one of the greatest trainers that ever lived

Was probably the greatest psychological trainer that ever lived also the guy was hypnotizing him at 13

Programming him to be this destruction machine and then he was watching fights

So he's watching all these guys jack johnson and all these like great old school champions and jack Dempsey and like and he just absorbed it all

Incredible and he would get into that ring with fucking no socks on and no robe and just like a throwback

He was like one he was like he absorbed the energy of those old great fighters the sugar ray robinson's and the hardcore old school guys who'd fight like once a week once every two weeks

Dude is that often they were doing oh they're fought so many times. I think before

Sugar ray robinson ever lost to fight. He was 90 and oh something crazy like that. Wow. Yeah

Just some 90 fucking crazy. Whoa. Just crazy. Yeah, that's wild does and you to be able to watch that kind of stuff when you're young you absorb it

You know sure. It's like kids that play instruments now. Sure. I mean you'll see an eight year old online

Who's better than any drummer in the 70s right? It's crazy. That's just how quick they can how quickly they can get better now

Oh, yeah, because they have access to everyone all the time. Mm-hmm. So cool. I would imagine that's like that with all sports now

But you know like you can like you could go back and want if you're a basketball player

You can go back and watch Jordan you watch Larry bird you can watch

You know LeBron Kobe watch all these great basketball players and see what they're doing whereas

If you were young, you know in the 60s or 70s like you only got to see the people you saw

Yeah, you were as good as the people you were around

Which is why it was so important to be a part of like a great program in high school in college

Because then you'd be around like and then you go to the states and see how these guys are doing all these guys are better than us

Like I remember that from wrestling like the only time when I was wrestling in high school the only time you get to see like really good guys

You'd go somewhere else like I was I went to school in Newton Newton South High School

And we had good wrestlers in our program and I thought they were good until I would go to the states and you go

Oh my god these fucking guys there these kids are going to camps every year

They were wrestling 365 days a year. They're like obsessed with it

And then if you go to like Iowa or somewhere like that like good lord

It's a fucking religion there. I mean they've been doing that since they were babies. They've been yeah, you know, it's like

You you

You absorb what you see and you your brain

Rises to the level of the competition that you see the last time I was really into a boxer was Loma

Oh, I love watching him. Oh, he's got a cool story too. It didn't his dad make him do ballet for a while

Ukrainian dance for two years pulled him out of boxing for two years that guy moves like it doesn't look real

Right like people shouldn't be able to move like that the matrix. They're beautiful

Yeah, he would do footwork that no one had even considered doing before

The movement the slipping to the side and the angles and the his ability to change direction was crazy

Because he would be here and then he'd be here and then you're swinging and he's here and he's hitting you

And he also was way smaller than everybody

He was way smaller than everybody like he was supposed to be a hundred twenty six pound fighter

And he went all the way up to the hundred and forty pound division. Are there like a lot of younger guys doing that

Sort of style now coming up or is it is that like a one-off? It's kind of a one-off

Usic does it, but Usic was trained by Loma Chanko's father. Oh, they were trained by the same guy

Okay, Usic is essentially like a heavyweight Loma Chanko. That's why he moves so much dangerous

That guy's a freak. He's a freak. He's a he's a pleasure to watch

Watching that guy. I mean, he's beating guys that are so much bigger than him

When when he beat Tyson Fury Tyson Fury was like 280 pounds

And he's like a cruiserweight

He was really a 200 pound guy that blew up to to compete against heavyweights

He's much smaller than those guys

But he was so fast and so and just his under his pattern recognition is understanding of boxing

It's just elite like so many levels above everybody else

Yeah, and he's 38. I get 38. You're supposed to be done. I suppose yeah

No, 3080s in his fucking prime

Amazing also clean life clean living like serious Christian like very very religious

You know doesn't doesn't party doesn't fuck around

You know and just trains with like rigid discipline. Yeah, that Soviet style discipline the Ukrainian discipline

Like those guys like their program over there like you see it like in Dimitri Beval and a lot of the other like Soviet style boxers

They have like a very comprehensive technical program that they put their fighters under

There's a style like be balls the the best example of that style

It's such a fucking difficult style because it's so movement-based

And a lot of like American fighters were kind of rigid in their footwork and moving forward

Just trying to land the big shots and like be balls just moving around you all the time popping you and like, oh

Yeah, sort of like the daggestanie guys and in a man

Same thing. Oh, yeah, you're not gonna beat those guys because it's all they do brother if eat and breathe it

They're in moitai now. There's this kid that I'm obsessed with. He's 22 years old his name is Asadula

Emangaz Aliyev, I don't want to fuck it up

Asadula Emangaz Aliyev he's a fucking freak man

He's 22 years old and he's destroying world champions in moitai just killing them

He's daggestanie. Yeah, oh wow. So the daggestanie is taking over striking. No good. Well those guys nuts, man

He's so fluid too. It's it's nuts to watch him man

Is like he like he moves like nobody else moves and he's real tall for the weight class

So you can't even get close to him. He's fucking you up from the outside and just this is the guy

That's this this guy is a fucking freak man

He's just doing things different than everybody else

Wow, and he's destroying people just destroying everyone everyone he fights

He's so unusual man

And again, he's from a hard part of the world man

You know you grow up in some fucking soft neighborhood and your dad takes you to karate classes

No chance you gotta fight this fucking dude. This guy's fighting for his dinner

He's just merking people

It's also he comes from a culture that like reveres combat sports

You know they have their their champions guys like islamakachev

Kabeb never come out off like their legends over there. Yeah, you know and everybody grows up wanting to be one of those guys

Where was fador from he's from russia is he oh yeah, he was the first watching him growing up man

It was the first so I used to watch him before auditions really

Yeah, there was just something about his like mindset whereas like his his he was so even keel

Yeah, it's no like yeah, it's like his heart rate didn't change or something even when he won

He'd just be like yeah walk off like that. Yeah, yeah, his expression never changed. Yeah, yeah

He was one of the all-time greats if not the all-time great

He was different than everybody else and he was a heavyweight that could submit you he could knock you out

He was fast. He wasn't big. I mean, he was like 5-11 very unassuming. Yeah, you wouldn't know he was the most dangerous guy

Belly fat little he didn't give a fuck what he looked like

He was all about how he could perform right, you know, and he was a part of

Like that era where MMA emerged and in Japan

It was so much bigger than it was in America during the pride days when Fedor was running shit

There was 90,000 people in those arenas. Yeah, they were doing like the Tokyo Superdome

They were doing these gigantic arenas and like everyone was a fan in the country

And then it all went away

Because the the Akusa was involved and there was a big scandal and you know and like

MMA was bigger in Japan than it was anywhere in the world

And it just kind of like fizzled out. Did you ever go to any of those in Japan? I went to a UFC once in Japan

We did one UFC in Japan and I went there. It was really cool

It was just I was just really happy

To be in Japan for a fight because I you know

I've been such a fan of Japanese martial artists and Jap Japanese martial arts period and like I have a

I mean I have me a multi-musashi time

But being in there in Japan was like it was interesting because they were so educated

Like they were really quiet while the fights are going on

But then when something would happen even something really technical like somebody passing the guard

They would go oh

And they would all clap like I was like whoa this is interesting. Yeah

Like it was like you could hear each corner yelling instructions

Like you didn't you didn't hear the crowd at all. Wow. There's 16,000 people in there. That's cool

It was wild. Yeah, it was a completely different kind of audience like very respectful

Very appreciative and very knowledgeable. It was it was cool. Do you think if you didn't do what you did? Would you rather watch

Like UFC in person or would you watch it at home?

Uh

In person's the best

You want to be there. You want to feel the cr- but I would want to be there where I sit like I'm super spoiled

Yeah, you got the best. Yeah, I'm like I'm like I could reach up and grab a cage is right there like I'm so spoiled

but um

You know if you're in the bleachers if you're in like the nose bleeds

You're probably better off watching it at home honestly because then you get the commentary

You get to see replays you get to see you know like close up if you got a big TV at home you get to see everything

I just sat close for the first time. I went to the patty gachi fight. Oh, did you? It was amazing

That was a good one. It was amazing, dude

But yeah, it's definitely different hearing the sound. Oh, yeah, it's like a hole when you hear like bone on bone

Well, my favorite was during the pandemic. We had fights at the UFC apex with no crowd

It was insane. It was so because we had world championship fights with no crowd

That's crazy. There was maybe like 50 hundred people in the room

Wow, it was like mostly just staff of the UFC the trainers of the fighters and some some of the other fighters in the audience

Some friends in the audience and that's it and the UFC apex has a smaller ring too a smaller cage

So it's like I think it's like I want to say it's 40% smaller. It's a lot smaller

Really? Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, it's small. How would that affect a fight a lot practically

as much as not as much distance to get away

You know, so a guy who likes to like move around a lot and get away from people like I saw frances and gone

Overseas deep in Miochi when frances won the title in the apex with no crowd

That's crazy and when frances hits things

It's like it's like hearing a baseball bat hitting a pumpkin

It's just lump

And you're right there. You hear them breathing. You hear the grunts when they get hit, you know

Right you hear the coaches yelling out hands up hands up move move move

You know hit them with the one one two they're yelling out instructions and it's like there's no one else there

It's silent. Wow. It's amazing. So that's the way. Oh, that's my favorite cool

But there's something about an amazing crowd, you know, like when you're watching a big world title fight

You know and like in Vegas or in the massive square guards an incredible place just who's the history of the place

You feel it when you're in massive square guard

but

My favorite is the apex how you feeling about this white house card. That's insane makes me a little nervous

So I don't know if it's the best idea. Yeah, it seems like it would war open some yeah some room for some

Yeah, it seems like it. Yeah

The card is not what they wanted it to be for sure. They wanted it to be like all world titles

But you know matchmakers have a very difficult task. It's very hard to find people

That aren't injured that are like like that are ready at this particular time because

The brutal aspect of this sport is that guys are always hurt. They're always training hurt

They're always getting hurt. They fight hurt

There's always no one very rarely is anyone going into the octagon 100% sure there's always something going on guys are

They're dealing with staff infections and camp and they're taking antibiotics and it fucks with your endurance and

Maybe they've got a muscle pole or a knife that's fucked up and

When Francis and Gano fought um serial gone he blew his ACL out so he had a wrap his leg up and he had one leg

And he beat him with one leg

Crazy guys have fought with broken hands, you know

Alex Pereira he's beating guys with a broken foot

He fights with a broken foot just stoic standing there knows his foot's broken doesn't give a fuck

He fought with a bad knees knee-needed surgery

Like it like there's a fight that he fought Yuri Pahaska where he's on top of Yuri that they stop the fight

And he does a forward roll to get off of him after he knocked him out because he couldn't stand on his left leg

I

Didn't know that did was that like a known thing while the fight was happening. No. Oh, no. He had surgery. Remember that fight

Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, he had surgery after the fight

Pahas really big in our house because Brazil. Oh, yeah

Those Brazilians man, they love each other. It's crazy. My wife. She doesn't she doesn't care about MMA that much

But if there's a Brazilian fight and she's all about it. Oh, yeah, yeah, very very proud people

Yeah, and it's also like Brazils were it all started

They were having MMA fights in Brazil in the 1930s really. Oh, yeah

Alio Gracie who's really the the founder of all this shit

He's the father of like the Gracie clan the Gracie family is like the greatest story in the history of martial arts

That one family has changed martial arts forever

And it really changed it because of Carlos Gracie and Alio Gracie and Carlson Gracie

There's these three Gracies who competed in these no rules fights

They didn't have time limits back then no gloves no nothing

And they were fighting in giant crowds in Brazil in the 1930s 1940s

And they were figuring things out that nobody had figured out before they figured out they took techniques from judo

Like judo was mostly about throws

But there was some submissions

And so they concentrated only on the submissions and they hunt and they created Brazilian jujitsu

Like jiu-jitsu which was a Japanese martial art right but Brazilian jiu-jitsu is far more technical than Japanese jiu-jitsu

And even Japanese guys now trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu

I was gonna say is there any are there purists that only do the Japanese style still and not really you can't really compete

Okay, I mean you

I mean you could because everybody kind of knows everything now because Brazilian jiu-jitsu has made its way into every other sport

But Brazilian jiu-jitsu has made its way into Russian Sambo and it was just another combat sport which is also elite

But Brazilian jiu-jitsu changed the game and the Gracie family changed everything forever

And you know and the the guy who fought in the UFC hoist he wasn't even the best guy in the family

He he told everybody my brother Hicks and kills me Hicks and was the man like Hicks and was above and beyond everyone back then

He was he was a guy who did yoga. He was meditating. He did this crazy thing with a stomach where you do this breathing

Where stomach would suck in he was like a real freak and he was undefeated like nobody could touch him

He would he would go and do these seminars

So he teaches seminar and

Teach it to all these black belts and then he would roll with all of them non-stop and just tap out everybody

Everybody world champions. They'll be like oh this is a bunch of hype and they go there

You don't get on board and they'll get leg locked

Like it was crazy. He was so much better than everybody else

And so they wanted hoist to win because Hicks and also was like pretty jacked and he was like really fit

And he was really in a fit. He was really into strength and conditioning and and like I said yoga

It was incredibly flexible like he could stand there and do the splits and like hold his leg up in there on a balanced bar

You see the one that wrote that book. Yeah, yeah, I read that. It's awesome. Yeah, and he had that documentary

It's a great documentary called choke

phenomenal documentary about his rise through

Japan valetudo and then he was the guy he was the guy they based the first pride event on okay

He was the champion of the first pride event

He was the guy that the whole thing was based on because he was huge in Japan

I mean, he was a superstar in Japan

But he was the champion of the family and they wanted hoist to do it because hoist was like smaller and he would show

That jujitsu was about technique. That makes sense and they the plan was if hoist ever got beat

Throw in Hicks and okay, then everybody's fucked

But Hicks and like his brother Horian started the UFC and

Horian and Hicks and had friction and Horian really couldn't control Hicks and

And so they were like let's put hoisin and if we need to call on Hicks and we'll call the boogie man

He was the boogie man. Remember the guy. I think it was UFC one you had the one glove the one box and yeah, our chimerson

Yeah, what was that about?

Well, I think he decided he wanted to be able to hold on to people and he wanted to punch him with his right hand

Weird tacky. Well, no one knew what the fuck they were doing back then everybody Jackson dude

Everybody had this idea of what fighting was and they didn't really know until they got taken down

There's very hard oh his left hand

So that's interesting

So I guess he wanted to pop on with the jab was that hoist just fuck up put it to that guy

Amazing, but hoist was doing something that nobody had seen before and that one event when he was doing that to people

It changed everything he changed my opinion of martial arts. I immediately started taking jujitsu

I was like oh my god you were taekwondo

I started in taekwondo and then I did kickboxing for a while

And then when as soon as I saw the UFC I immediately started taking jujitsu

Yeah, I was like oh god

I don't and then when I started taking it I was so cocky. I was like I'm out of fight

And then I took classes which is getting manhandled and mauled and tapped left and right. I was like oh my god

I'm a beginner. Yeah, this is so humiliating and I was like I gotta get good at this

Yeah, I couldn't believe how helpless I was I was running around

They can think it was a badass and I was just a fool. Yeah, I'll hold me real quick

Oh, so I'm gonna do that. I did it for you know, maybe a couple months

And I just I never made it past the hump. I should probably try again

But get a trainer get a guy who can do drills with you

That's really huge if you can get someone to do drills with you and like just go over like

Like on a one-on-one basis the the the finer aspects of it and just do drills and drills drills over and over again

And then slowly start working your way into group classes. Yeah, that's the key

I think the thing is with you know, if you if you go do a boxing class and boy tie class

You get to get some frustration out right because you're hitting something and it kind of feels good on your drive home

You feel like just beat the shit out of that bag, you know

Yeah, but then you do you roll with somebody who's really good and you go home and you're more frustrated

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But the first time you tap someone it's like

It's such a revelation. You're like, oh my god. I got an arm bar. Oh my god

I got to try and go like the first time you actually catch someone something and they tap

I'll never forget that feeling. I was like wow

And then you have to just trust the process

trust the process of showing up and and realizing it is a tall mountain decline

It's you're not going to get there quick. It is a it's a weird thing to do with your body

Your body doesn't know what to do with it. That's why drilling is so important when you're drilling

You're going over the motions without resistance. So your body sort of gets programmed how to shift switch

Switch your hips and how to catch the arm and how to pull your body back and secure it with your legs and all the different things

That you have to do where if you're doing just live sparring all the time you you're not going to learn because you're all panicking and tight

You got to be able to like train your body to move a certain way. So it becomes automatic

And is there a way to do it where you can stay

Like relatively injury-free while you're learning

Or is it's like that's just part of the it's kind of part of it. Yeah, I'm gonna say it's kind of part of it

Yeah, everybody just sort of assumes you're gonna eventually get hurt one way or another you're gonna

Fuck your knee up or fuck your ankle up or whatever right

But the best way is to find good training partners. Don't train with any wild people because some people just

Can't count things yeah, those are dangerous the really dangerous people are like blue belts were really strong

Who would just like really spaz out on you like sure kind of avoid those folks because they could blow your knee out accidentally

Yeah, you know, I've seen that a lot like I know people that are really good that won't roll with people that are spazes

They're like I'm not I definitely ran into a couple of the guys are like they just wanted to choke out case. He doesn't

Of course, like come on, man. I just started. Of course. I used to get that when I was on fear factor a lot of guys want to choke out the fear factor

Yeah

But you know, that's just part of the fun like you're dating like we used 58-year-old white belt nuts wow if that guy did it

Fucking kind of anybody can do it. What belt did he get to?

He might have got the purple

Uh, he definitely got the blue. I don't know if he got the purple, but he won tournaments

Wow, he competed in tournaments, you know

You know, I remember when he first started doing he's like I'd really like to compete in some age appropriate tournaments

I was trying to talk him out of it. I was like don't

Get hurt man. We need you out there

Yeah, he was obsessed

If you could do it like that just goes to show you a guy with no athletic experience

not a worker

Doesn't train didn't didn't do any working out wasn't a runner didn't lift weights nothing and then at 58 is like

All right, I'm gonna get good at this. That's amazing. Yeah, good for him, man

Well, he was a guy that had had substance abuse problems in his past and the thing about being an addict is

If you can focus whatever that thing is and get addicted to something really good

You you can

You can really excel sure for whatever weird reason also. There's a flip side

So people that are addicted to a sport or a thing and they get really good at a thing and then they become drug addicts

That same thing can kind of hijack your brain and then all you're doing is like chasing meth all day right

I've seen that happen too for sure. Yeah

Yeah, you should get back into it. It's a fun thing to do

It's good for your head too because it's the hardest thing you'll ever do

It's so hard because you're essentially what you're the game you're playing is

I kill you or you kill me, right?

So when a guy gets your back and gets your rhythm it can choke and you tap

You're essentially saying you just killed me. All right. Thank you for not killing me

I give up and then when you do it to him he's saying that to you. Yeah, so it's so hard

That the rest of your life is easy, right? Everything else becomes easy. Well, all the stress of fame

Success and Hollywood and the bullshit

It's nothing compared to some dude mounting you trying to get your you go you're trapped in an arm trying

Trying to get your hand down to protect yourself

It's way harder and that that makes the rest of your life easier if you can

Choose what's hard in your life. You'll be way better off

Find the thing that's way more difficult on your mind way more difficult on your body way more difficult on your spirit

Then this other thing that you do so it'll like make that other thing like easier to tolerate

Yeah, let's stay humble too. Yeah. Oh, yeah super humble. I'm not gonna think you're cool for being able to say some lines

Some people get well, that's the other thing right you get

Really intoxicated with everybody kissing your ass. Oh, yeah easy easy trap. We've all seen that. We've all seen actors

They're just like inflated. Oh for sure. Yeah, yeah

I'm a little blessed in the way that I've never thought I was very great at it

I enjoyed doing the things but I've not you know like never really

I'm never good enough for myself kind of hard on myself a little bit

But I've seen it for sure

If if you're waiting for someone else to validate you

Once they do you're screwed right because you're gonna believe it right. I mean

Yeah, well, there's a problem of being a star is that like all these people need you and the world their world of the show

Revolves around you. Yeah, so they're all like, you know kind of kissing your ass and reverent towards you

It's like it's it's a little weird. Yeah, yeah, and that's new for me too, you know

I'd never been anything that was like a massive hit before Yellowstone and now at this new show

Now it's a hit and I'm the number one on the call sheet, which is very new and so I'm like a

You know, I'm an asset to them in a different way

I'd be interesting navigating that they'll probably try to talk you out of doing

Yeah, I probably have to sign something that I won't, you know, I'm not a lot of like ski

There's a lot of things because of the insurance

Like if I get hurt and production has to shut down

It's a lot of money for them. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I don't know if that's one of them though

But it's like, yes, ski don't ask it's funny because horseback riding usually is and I

Have to do that for the show. That's the most dangerous. Yeah horseback riding scares a shit out of me

Dude, it's me too. It was not it didn't come natural

That's not like a thing that I'm naturally good at or had done before Yellowstone

My oldest daughter did it for a little bit in California and she fell a couple of times and one time she heard a wrist really bad

And I was like, please stop don't do this because she was doing those things where you'd like jump over stuff

Like oh, that's so dangerous

Because they stop just shy of that thing and you go flying right yeah her friend

She had a good friend that was really into it and they started doing it together and I was like

Please don't and she fell a couple times that she was okay

But one time she really heard a wrist and I was like, please stop because you wrist they can fix your neck

You get like Christopher Reeves, you know, oh, I think about Christopher Reeves every time I

Wish I didn't that was what he did right he was doing the jumping thing right wasn't I believe so yeah

Yeah, I just don't I don't yeah, I don't get it you read motorcycles. No, no, I don't even almost did

Almost as taking lessons

Me and a couple of the other guys that worked on the crew at Fear Vactor

We all took motorcycle lessons together. We're all talking about it

And so we took motorcycle safety courses, you know

You basically ride like it's kind of a dirt pike and they teach you how to you know shift and all this stuff

And I kind of got into it. I was like, oh, it's really fun and then

Three of my friends had motorcycle accidents like within a short time period

Um one of them wiped out fucked up his shoulder the other one got hit by a car broke his leg

And then the other one was actually someone saw someone it wasn't an actual motorcycle accident

He was there when some guy got rear-ended by a car that wasn't paying attention

Just plowed into him and sent him flying and fuck this guy up and I was like no now

No, no, no, I'm not doing that. I had a bike for a couple months in LA and

I went on a ride and you know, it's like one of those things you you have to have the bug

You're like either have or you don't I was trying to get the bug

I because I wanted that to be a part of my identity

I wanted to be a guy who rode motorcycles

So I wrote up the Pacific coast highway and I was kind of riding up through like oh high

And going around this corner, you know, this sort of like cliffside and that thing where if you stare at something

That's where you're gonna go and I just kind of was like zoned out and I almost ate shit right into the side of this cliff

And I was alone like if I would have done it it would have been forever until anyone figured out like what it happened to me

You know, and I kind of it was a really really close call and I got off the bike and I kind of sat there for a minute

And I was like yeah, I don't love it enough to die this way

You know, I mean I don't need this in my life, and I never never did it again. I have friends that have never had a problem

I have friends that ride bikes and have never had a problem. I think if I lived in Montana, I might do it

There's just not that much traffic

No, but my seven-year-old neighbor just hit a deer

Seven years old on his like you know, it's one of BMW like adventure bikes

And he was going 70 on the highway and hit a deer

Yeah, he's and he's fine dude. This guy's a tank, but how old was he 70

Killed the deer he had road rash everywhere. He was kind of like you know on a couch for a few. He's fine dude

He is a tank this guy

They make them different out there dude. He's my next door day. He's amazing

Shout-out Steve

Wow, he uh, he's got a range in his backyard to 500 yards. Oh wow and has every firearm

imaginable and things you didn't even know they made and so anytime I can just you know

Right over there on the side by side we grab a few and go down and shoot in the back. Oh, that's nice

That's cool. Yes. Yeah, you find people like that in Montana. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's the real deal

Wow, but 70 years old hitting a deer is crazy on a bike. Yeah, killed the deer and

he uh

About a month later. He was all right. He was back on the bike. Oh boy

Geez

I've seen some videos of guys hitting deer like you see like from their camera

Right, you see this thing leaping further. Oh, then

Yeah, deer's they they're everywhere out here man when I'm driving home. I drive slow

There's like a certain road deer in my house where they just pop out all the suicidal deer

Yeah, just pop out especially like around the rut

Yeah, the the the bucks are chasing the road and they're not chasing straight. They just they're out there like

Fucking yeah pussy hungry standing in the road staring at you. I love explaining to people how the rut works

Because it works just like humans. I'm like the only time they're dumb enough that you're gonna get one is when they're horny

Right, you know, but for them it's once a year which is way crazier than us. Can you imagine?

If it all came once bro if humans had a rut I would go on vacation during that time

I'm like I'm hiding. I'm not want to be anywhere near. It's probably like murders

Car accidents. Lock me in jail for that month or whatever

I get a bunker get a bunker locked down with Netflix for a month. Fuck that. There is no way man

That would be crazy imagine if the whole world had the rut at the same time

Oh my god, it's a good movie idea. It is a good movie idea, right? That's actually a great movie idea

It's called the rut. Yeah, like human beings evolve or maybe there's like genetic engineering because they decide the

There's overpopulation and the solution to it is only have people breed at a certain time

And also like keep people from being distracted all the time because like how many people are on dating apps and how many people are like you know

Going to bars and trying to find someone. It's like it's a huge waste of your time. Oh my god

My 20s and 30s were just blown. Yeah, it's all I thought about massive massive waste of your time

If there was like a solution to that the solution would be like where everyone's going to breed

Only during November

Maybe it's the best thing ever

Be great if there was like a switch you could flip you know like a little boy

You're like flip it and then go out and right and then out the rest of the year like you don't even care about girls

Like it's so productive man. Bucks just walk by a female doe and like, you know, fucking June

They don't give a shit about yeah, and they don't have their antler so they look the same right you know

I mean they lose their masculinity and right right right I get it back pretty quick those fucking things grow quick

It's like they fall off within a month or two they start growing nubs isn't it the fastest growing bone material on the yeah

I think elk is

We could because that's nuts. I mean like you look like a foreign and it four hundred inch elk

Like some of those antlers that are out there imagine that that grows in a couple of months

It's bone. It's crazy and they fight to the death with it crazy like we find elk that have been killed by other elk

Happens all the time. Have you hunted in Montana? Yeah, not uh not elk

A hundred mule deer in Montana and a phasant the time I went with Bourdain

Um never done elk until I moved up there. I started hunting white tail when I was like

10 like really young because we have big white tail in Ohio

And I thought hunting elk would be similar

And boy was I mistaken. Oh, it is

When do you bow hunting or rifle hunting? I've done both, but my first was a bow hunt

And we went out there we were camping out there. I mean I just made friends with this the contractor that built my house in Montana

He took me we went public land around Dylan Montana

And we went for a week and I had to tap out day four like I couldn't my my legs stop working

I didn't I was like I didn't know I had it was like this so the next year

I went I was like prepared for it, but I didn't know man. You really got to go for it. Oh, you got to get in shape

Yeah, I do a lot of shit before September

I do I have this crazy routine that I do on a air-dined bike

I do these tabatas on an air-dined bike where you sprint for 20 seconds

Oh, yeah, you rest for 10 you sprint for 20 seconds the worst and all I'm doing is thinking about getting over a hill

Get over a hill to get a shot. I mean, and then I do like

Box step-ups. I do all these different things with weighted vests and farmers carries with fucking heavy kettlebells

All I'm doing is just trying to condition my legs. Yeah, you have to like those mountains are brutal

There's no mountains here for me to practice on right, but in California I used to run hills with my dog

Yeah, and you're at elevation, which makes it even harder. Oh, yeah

And I weird thing people wouldn't expect like just you know makes it even worse

You get up in the morning. It's zero degrees

Middle of the day. It's 50 60 and you're hiking all days. It's like how do you dress for that? You have to dress to be cold

Yeah, like once you start walking you have to be cold

Yeah, like you got to get down to your base layer and walk cold

And then if you ever have to stop then you put it on in the other key

Marina wool. Hmm. That's the key because wool is different than cotton if your cotton gets wet

And then you you're sweaty and then you get cold. You're fucked right, but wool's not like that

Marina wool is the best because like if you have especially a base layer because when you're sweating

It kind of keeps you a little cool and then

If you get cold, it doesn't it doesn't feel cold. Yeah, because it's it's not synthetic. It's it's organic. It makes sense

Yeah, it's a weird fiber. Yeah, we used to walk to the deer stand kind of in half of our stuff

Keep the other half in a pack and then like once I got in the tree stand

I put everything I saw and so that you wouldn't you know the sweat wouldn't freeze to you. That's hard

Deer hunting in a tree stand is fucking hard. It's like a silent retreat and you're freezing

Yeah, you're freezing and you're sitting up there waiting for a deer to walk by and then you're so cold

When a deer walks by you go to pull your bow back. You're like oh Jesus. Yeah. Why am I so weak? Yeah

Like you can barely pull your bow back when you're up in the tree. Yeah, but nothing I mean no no challenge whatsoever compared to alkanic

That was Mike blew my mind how hard that was and the guy I went with you know he grew up in Montana. He's like a mountain goat

I just like couldn't keep up with this guy man

I'm like this isn't how do you do this just constant all day long

You can't just get out of your off your couch and go elk on the mountains. You can't do it. No, you got to get in shape

They're like my friend came hands. That's why he started running. He came a ultra runner

Yeah, he's doing like 250 miles. Yeah, right. Yeah, he does like these three day runs

He tried to get you into that. Have you done any of that?

He had no chance. I have one knee that sucks. I have one knee that I fucked up in martial arts

It's missing meniscus and I cracked it skiing too. I wiped out skiing got a fracture of the top of my tibia

So it's like it's if I started running it would get beat up real bad

Right, but I do there's plenty of conditioning you could do without running

You know, but it's that the pounding of running

It's not good for my knee

There's something so amazing though about getting to that first thing in the morning when sounds coming up in your glassing

And you're just like this is what I always wanted hunting to be like yeah, it's the real thing

It's like this is what it's supposed to feel like you're so far out there

You know, I didn't get to go the last couple years my wife was having

Our baby two years ago

So that wasn't allowed to be in the woods with no service and then last year I was shooting the show

But this year I'm gonna be able to go. I got a good spot

And even if I'm shooting the show

It's like it's right there. Well, they have phones now that have satellite service

I think you get is that does T-Mobile have that now we can get starlink

On your on your phone. I know they're doing that soon

And you know, you can text message with iPhones. You can I got that right

You know what the best thing is man

When we're in Utah last year the last two years. I've had a starlink mini

It is the shit

It's like the size of an iPad it is lay it down on the ground

You use the app and the starlink app will tell you which way to point it to and you get a high-speed internet

I have one for when we shoot it's incredible. We're in the middle of nowhere. It's so awesome the best it's so good

You get you can here it is T satellite. Yeah

That's the shit man

Yeah, so you can can you make phone calls or is it just internet it's phone calls too right

Texting and select satellite ready apps. Okay, just texting

Satellite service including texted 911 maybe delayed limited or unavailable

So you can just text and some satellite ready apps right now

So that's like everywhere

That's cool. Yeah, so eventually they'll have

It'll be like starlink would be connected to your phone and you'll be able to get high speed internet everywhere in the world

If we don't have World War 3 pro blow everybody up did but

There's the elk-tawning thing that the the thing that makes it all the more exciting is like

They're moving around you got to sneak up in on them you're playing the wind and then the sound they make

When they're screaming

And you hear like if you never knew what that was you would think there's demons in the woods. Yeah, demons are like t-rex

Right

Sound is so incredible. It's so incredible and it's so hard to do it's like that to me is

One of the things that I love like every year because everything goes away

It's so difficult. It's so difficult to get in shape for it

So difficult to manage your way into the mountains and and to be in shape to be able to do it day after day

And then to be able to pull off a shot, you know like you know like you have this brief moment the thing 65 yards away

And you draw back and yeah trying to settle your pin and you could have done all of that just to like

Mess it up. Yeah, one little tiny. Yeah, it happens all the time

But when you're successful. Oh my god. It's the greatest feeling of all time

And then when you're eating it and then you're you know, you're at home and you're on the barbecue grilling these elk sticks like

I can't wait to do this again. Yeah, it's so exciting. Yeah, and it's just but it's the being out there

It's like a vitamin. It's like a vitamin that you didn't know you needed. Yeah, it's like your whole body's like

Oh, this is so much better than regular life. You can't be mentally unwell. No, it's like impossible. Right. Yeah, it's amazing

He just feels so much better the air is better

You know, it's like and you're more focused. You're not distracted and you just you feel alive

Yeah, and then it's also the majesty of nature

He's just around these trees and mountains and he catching all these animals that are out there and you know

Eagles flying overhead

Like day three or like I think I'm just gonna move out here

Just gonna do this and then you go back to real life and you're like, oh yeah, I think that all the time

I think that all the time that I like to live in the mountains my wife is not down with it

But I'd love it. Yeah, I might get a place somewhere one day in the mountains just to retreat just to be able to just disconnect

Shut off for a while. I think that's probably a good idea. I love it

I wonder though now that I have a kid like we're gonna have to start thinking about you know school for him and stuff and I don't there's really not I don't know

I don't you know

Once we get there, we'll figure that out, but we're gonna probably have to get somewhere closer to some people

Doesn't bozeman have good schools?

What do you mean? What are you near?

I'm I'm about an hour south of Missoula. So I fly to Missoula to go. Missoula has good schools, right?

Yeah, but I'd have to move closer to Missoula and at that point, I'm like, why don't I just

You know to a city, I guess, you know, oh, I know

I think the move might be getting somewhere, you know a little more populated and then keeping like a cabinet

Montana like you were talking about, you know, and then taking him out there whenever we can that's probably the thing

Do you have a place in your house where you record? Do you have like a little recording studio or anything?

Yeah, like a just for me to record demos to send to people to actually record just to be like this is something I've been working on or you know

kind of a setup like one of these and a computer

Um, but yeah, I do a lot of writing up there. It's a great place to write songs. How do you write? Do you write on paper or do you just start strumming and singing different every time?

Sometimes I'll have like a it'll it'll be a melody

It'll be a guitar riff it could be like a lyrical idea some sort of hook, you know

It comes in a lot of different ways and then sometimes I'll

Finish something on my own sometimes I'll do a Nashville trip and sit with some other writers that I like and you know

We'll kind of like banging out together and that's the coolest part of the process man

There's something about

Making something out of absolutely nothing. It's like addicting, you know. Yeah, it's really cool

Yeah jokes are similar in the way I bet I've never really been a songwriter, but I'm guessing

So it's like creating something out in like out of your mind

Yeah, all of a sudden it's a thing and then you're performing it in front of people

And it's like I've heard you talk about this and and any good creative person talk about this

But like it comes to you. Yeah, you can't really take credit for a good idea

Yeah, exactly like I'll just be driving and be like whoa

That's where that come from like whatever that is give me more. Yeah, I love it, you know

I was talking to Michael Paul in about that yesterday. We were talking about consciousness

And we were talking about how it just seems like

You're not doing it. It's just coming out of the ether

You know, it's just like and you just have to show up and receive it

and if you show up enough

And you you know pay homage to the muse and sit there the ever-eared war of art Stephen press book

I got a box of copies. I'll give you a copy about there. He always get well I bought a box of copies

I bought a bunch of them and I used to hand them out to

comedians and artists when I was on the show

Little just listen to me. You got to read it. It's a really small book. It's easy

But it's one of the best books ever about creativity and it essentially just

He tells you if you treat it like there is a muse like there is a god

A goddess that will give you ideas as long as you pay respect to the muse

You have to show up on time every day sit there and do it and some days you get nothing

But you just got to keep showing up keep showing up and trusting that process and eventually like oh my god

This idea is so good. Yeah, that makes sense. Where did it come from?

Yeah, when I when I'm in a really good spot sort of mentally emotionally spiritually taking care of myself sleeping

I get more of those. Yeah, and I know there's this like mysticism around like people who like no

Antares Thompson or someone like that who just kind of spent a lot of time being fucked up and they still get it

That never worked out really well for me

I've tried it trust me. It's not great with with those guys. They're trying to get out of their own head

You know, they're just trying to get blasted so they could just like

Just release

themselves from their life

and then just

obliterate it just start writing. Yeah, and then the muse starts talking to them

Interesting. Yeah, but he made way or there's a lot of guys like oh, yeah, I had to be sort of a little messed up

Stephen King to do the thing. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, his book on writing is fantastic too. It's called on writing

Stephen King. Yeah, it's great. Really good. He was obliterated like most of his great work

Most of the great stuff out of his fucking mind on drugs and alcohol and and some of those guys like

Once they stop doing it. They lose the thing and I you know name names, but like him

There's some there's some artists. I love that they kind of got clean. Yep. You know like where'd the thing go? Yeah

Which is unfortunate, you know, yeah, it happens with comics, too

Doesn't some of them though to get better like David tell got way better when he quit drinking

It's interesting. It doesn't always it doesn't have to be that

But for a lot of them like that crutch the whatever it is that connects them to the creativity

Once they eliminate that part and try to keep try to stay alive essentially like

Stephen King was like killing himself

But his later work is just not comparable. What's your process like writing jokes like how does that start for you?

Like how do you? It it is a

It's there's some ideas that just come to me out of the middle of nowhere like I'll be just hanging out and and then I have an idea

Or I'm driving in my car and I have an idea and I just have to write it down

And then a lot of it is just sitting down with a computer who's sitting down and like what am I writing about?

I'm writing about immigration. Okay, let me fucking

And I write an essay form so I don't try to write like a stand-up comedy joke

Which I've tried before but that's never works

But what does work is if I lose myself and just

Ruminating on an idea and just explore it from every different angle and then I'll find one paragraph

I might write two thousand words and I'll find one paragraph. I'm like that's it

And I'll take that out and I'll put it in there and I try to introduce it on stage

And then I try to figure out how to segue into it

And then I try to figure out how to expand on it and then I'll take that one thing and then I'll stare at that one paragraph

And then go what else like what else was the other angle like what if I was not like that what

What how do I feel about if I was on the other side of that?

What if I'm the person that's going through this and what if I'm this and then I'll try to just try that

And it's it's like I always describe as like you're trying to

You're trying to build a mountain one layer of paint at a time

And it's a long and brute and then sometimes it's not some jokes just come to you in full form

Oh, wow like the way I wrote it is the way I say it and it's perfect

And the but that's you can't count on that either right

And again, it's not I don't think they're mine

You know, they're just coming from somewhere. Yeah, the key is just showing up

That's the key the key is like sitting in front of that fucking computer or some guys don't like a computer

They want a notepad they want pen and paper they like they like it better that way and I get it

But for me I can type like I don't have to look at the keys. I can touch type

So for me, I can write a word out as fast as I'm thinking it which is way better for me than writing down

Because I write slower than I type and so I want to be able to get it all out

I want to to me. It's like it doesn't but then I write it on paper eventually

But when I first write it, I want to write it down on a computer because I can capture it quicker. Yeah

And you can cut and paste and move things to another file and start fresh and like explore it again

This last album I did we try to a really different process than I'd done before usually you go into a studio

You know, there's a lot of money behind it. You got a big producer as you know, you're taking up their time

You have everything ready to go

But um

On this new one we did everything. There's only two songs. I'd had already written and eight out of the 10 songs

We wrote either the day over the night before in the studio because

I wanted to make something as personal as possible because you know the subject matter is stuff where I'm like

If this is gimmicky or or over thought it's not

Then I'm sort of trying to like

capitalize on grief or things I'm talking about so

I want to go in and just be it's open as possible and just get what we get and just try to you know tell the truth

Which is you know, it's the goal of country really right it used to be

And so yeah, we would um we would cut and then

In the night after we'd cut it we'd sit and try to write the song for the next day

If we didn't get it we'd show it up early next day and try to write the song for that day

It was an amazing process we called it the pressure cooker because it was just like you better get something

Because you're on the clock. Yeah, man. It was it was um

I don't I don't ever do that again

But what a like cathartic amazing process like there because usually you you'll write a song

You'll have a demo for it some something where you just sit down play guitar and your phone or something

So you'll remember the melody remember the chords

And you listen to it so much that you get sick of it before you've ever even cut it and with this there was never a demo

There was never it was straight from you know heartbrain

tape like it was it was pretty special

I think there's something to be said for pressure like that where force is you

If force is you to come up with something. Yeah, the pressure cooker man. We just we had to you know

It was it was it was amazing. Yeah, Julie forces your synapses to fire. Yeah, there's something to be said for that