Joe Rogan Experience #1076 - Phil Demers

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Nice. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      Nice.

   2. PDPhil Demers0:00

      Legit, legit.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      Nice.

   4. PDPhil Demers0:01

      I don't sit on wallets. I don't, I don't play with wallets. Fuck no.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      Well, I started, sorry. You ready? Yeah, yeah. Oh. (laughs)

   6. PDPhil Demers0:06

      Oh, whoops.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:07

      Now you're ready. (laughs) Get ready. I wasn't sure you got up to move cameras around. Phil show me his f- y- you have a, it's a mini fanny pack. It's very small.

   8. PDPhil Demers0:16

      It's, uh-

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      It's like you can carry cash-

   10. PDPhil Demers0:18

       I have everything I need.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:19

       ... and a small phone.

   12. PDPhil Demers0:20

       I-

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:20

       You can't carry a modern phone. That's like pre-modern phones.

   14. PDPhil Demers0:22

       Uh, the 6 fits in there.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       The 6 Plus would-

   16. PDPhil Demers0:25

       Uh-

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       ... be a problem.

   18. PDPhil Demers0:26

       Maybe.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       Bang against your dick.

   20. PDPhil Demers0:28

       (laughs) I gotta tighten her up.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       So what's going on, man? So for everybody who hasn't seen you on the podcast before, let's give them a brief synopsis. You were a trainer at one time at Marineland and-

   22. PDPhil Demers0:40

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       ... you, uh, you're known as the Walrus Whisperer. That's your handle on, uh, Twitter.

   24. PDPhil Demers0:45

       Which I didn't select, by the way.

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       You didn't?

   26. PDPhil Demers0:47

       No.

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       How'd you get it?

   28. PDPhil Demers0:48

       I was on a TV show called Wipeout!, and it was grassroots as hell in Canada.

   29. JRJoe Rogan0:53

       Mm-hmm.

   30. PDPhil Demers0:54

       So basically what they do is they fly you out to Argentina. They, they, they sort of, uh, you rent the, the course. So, and then they, instead of it being, you know, Wipeout whatever country, this time it's Canada. So it was really grassrootsy. And so they told us, "If you guys can, like, help advertise. So get on your Twitters, get on your this, get on your that." They called me Walrus Whisperer. It just made sense to put it. Otherwise-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. PDPhil Demers15:00

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      Right.

   3. PDPhil Demers15:00

      So I was having a show with her. Basically the way that shows work-

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:02

      How does she... Does she throw you with her tail, or?

   5. PDPhil Demers15:03

      No, on the end of her rostrum, right on the end of her nose. She dunks you. It's called a rocket ride. You get on-

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:07

      Uh-huh.

   7. PDPhil Demers15:07

      You get on the front of the whale, as such at the top of the water, and then she starts to pump her tail. And then sh- you dive down with her. She'll follow you everywhere she, everywhere you go.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      Right.

   9. PDPhil Demers15:15

      And then, uh, it's like flying a plane, man. It's amazing. And then you just arc up, and then she just takes you to the moon. And she's screaming underwater. When she's having a good time, or rather when she's expressing herself that she's gonna toss you. This particular time when I, when I was, when I probably shouldn't have gone in the water...

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:28

       Why?

   11. PDPhil Demers15:29

       Well, she was pissed. I could see it in her eyes.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:31

       How could you tell that she's pissed?

   13. PDPhil Demers15:32

       You know the animals, like, uh... I mean, that's the, the whole basis of being a trainer is to get to know the animals, know their behavior, know everything about them. You spend a lot of time with them.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:39

       What are the indications?

   15. PDPhil Demers15:41

       So in this case I was... So the way those, the shows work... Uh, I mean they don't, they don't exist anymore. But back in the day was, you work the animal initially just to get a sense of, of their demeanor. So you got them jump in, you got them run around, you get a gauge. You know, you get a good sense of how they are. On that particular day, uh, she just wasn't responding real quick. Her eyes were a little big, big. She wasn't focused on me, she's looking elsewhere. She's sort of drifting off a bit. I just didn't really have her attention. But I think, I don't know what, maybe I had my dad in the crowd or something. I wanted to jump off her. So I look at the senior trainer at the time. She's like, "I don't know, dude, like, you're gonna jump in?" I'm like, "Fuck it, I'm jumping in." I go to jump in. I get to the edge of the pool. She's standing directly above or below me. I dive over her. She, she lunges at me and she snaps. And I see it from below me, like I see under her, that she's jumped up and snapped at me. So now I've... (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:28

       Snapped at you, like tried to bite you?

   17. PDPhil Demers16:29

       Yeah, she tried to grab me. So now I'm-

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:31

       But I feel like if she really wanted to bite you, she would just bite you.

   19. PDPhil Demers16:34

       Oh, yeah, well, so, so now I'm-

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:36

       So it was a warning bite or was it a bite bite?

   21. PDPhil Demers16:40

       Pro- definitely a warning bite, otherwise I wouldn't be here today.

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:43

       Right, she... If you... That's what I'm saying, like it's not-

   23. PDPhil Demers16:45

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:45

       ... she would miss.

   25. PDPhil Demers16:46

       No, she's not gonna miss. So, and, and so what happens, so it gets further. So now I'm in the water and I'm now at the top of the water and s- and staring down at her. She's now inverted upside down and she's swimming, and she's circling the pool, circling the pool.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:56

       Upside down?

   27. PDPhil Demers16:57

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:57

       Huh.

   29. PDPhil Demers16:58

       When they get frustrated they start doing these things. She's upside down and she's swimming in circles. And I'm looking at her going, "Holy shit, if I t- if I take off out of the pool, that's gonna trigger some response out of her that I don't necessarily want to know." So I'm staying calm.

   30. JRJoe Rogan17:09

       Why, why would that happen?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Is it Russians that…

   1. PDPhil Demers30:00

      Well, they would pay some Russians to- to capture the- the whales.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:03

      Is it Russians that they always use?

   3. PDPhil Demers30:04

      Yeah. Oh, yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      Goddamn Russians.

   5. PDPhil Demers30:05

      Oh, man, I'm not gonna-

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:06

      Cheat in the Olympics, they're stealing whales.

   7. PDPhil Demers30:08

      So they bring the whales in wild. Those wi- those- those whales have a, uh, for instance, uh, uh, you know, they sire a calf. That calf is now deemed, uh, uh, captive born. And now it can be shipped to the States. And so what, so what Marineland-

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:20

      Ah.

   9. PDPhil Demers30:20

      ... was doing was just breeding like crazy and then sending them to SeaWorld. I mean, that's how we got the- the killer whale to begin with. How we got ʻAkekō, you know, big trade with belugas, and-And so that's what we're trying to put an end to because all these loopholes. You know, Marineland really capitalized on this, but they went a long time lobbying the government for years. I mean, they've been around for, for 50 plus years. They've had, they've, they've done all the right moves a businessman would do if he wants to keep an, a thriving business without too many hands sort of keeping them from doing anything.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:47

       It's just so disturbing that we're willing to just accept this because we don't know what they're saying. You know? We know that they have a really complex language. We can't decipher it though because it's so alien in terms of like the sounds that they make. It's not something you put into a box, but it's not like any other animal. Between dolphins and killer whales and whales in general, they, they make sounds in, with a range of complexity that's just unrivaled in nature outside of humans.

   11. PDPhil Demers31:14

       And their auditory system is so complex.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:15

       Yeah.

   13. PDPhil Demers31:15

       When you put them in a, when you put them in a concrete pool, just imagine what-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:18

       The echoes.

   15. PDPhil Demers31:19

       I mean, I, I put my ears under the water and it's loud.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:21

       Yeah.

   17. PDPhil Demers31:21

       The filters are going, you got different sounds. I mean ...

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:23

       Right.

   19. PDPhil Demers31:24

       Water being pushed in from this pipe and that pipe.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:26

       People screaming. Fat music.

   21. PDPhil Demers31:26

       People screaming, music louder, louder, louder.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:29

       Chewing popcorn in the audience.

   23. PDPhil Demers31:30

       Yep. Burgers.

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:31

       Yeah. Fuckin', yeah. Goddamn. It's, uh, I mean, I, I look at 'em almost like they're kind of ... I mean, they're definitely not human, but they're a kind of people. They're like a water people. It's weird.

   25. PDPhil Demers31:44

       It, if you, if you put yourself in the mindset of looking at an animal and, and try to change your perception of them a little bit rather than, than sort of disassociating, and you look at 'em, you, you start ... You can actually see that they're like ... It's like they're people, man. Like, that's, that's just a different meat suit.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:57

       Yeah.

   27. PDPhil Demers31:57

       Like, and, and when you, when you deal with killer whales and stuff, I mean, fuck.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:01

       Well, they evolved in a different environment, but they evolved to be incredibly social, uh, highly dynamic populations. They, they live in these very intimate groups. They stay together for life.

   29. PDPhil Demers32:13

       A male killer whale will never leave its mother's side over its lifetime. It'll stay w- within about a body's length its entire life.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       Wow.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Right. …

   1. PDPhil Demers45:00

      decipherable, you know?

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:01

      Right.

   3. PDPhil Demers45:01

      You know when a dog's pissed? Because they growl.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:03

      Right.

   5. PDPhil Demers45:03

      A growl is different than a bark. Uh, barks are d- you know, they-

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:05

      Right.

   7. PDPhil Demers45:06

      But barks aren't necessarily words. And if they are, maybe they're fuck you. I don't know, but ...

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:09

      I was listening to this thing about monkeys. Um, I think it was Steven Pinker's book, where they were talking about, um ... It was an audio book. They were talking about how monkeys have differentiated the sound that they make if there is a tiger versus the sound that they make if there's an eagle.

   9. PDPhil Demers45:27

      Uh, anytime I'm walking around and I hear a squirrel in a tree making a certain sound, I know there's a cat in the vicinity.

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:32

       But they-

   11. PDPhil Demers45:32

       That's probably one of mine.

   12. JRJoe Rogan45:33

       But they have a language, like a very crude language. But what they've done is taken the sound of an eagle and they play it near monkeys, and the monkeys look up.

   13. PDPhil Demers45:41

       Of course, yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan45:41

       And they play the sound of a monkey trying to alert the fact that there's a tiger in the area, and the monkeys run up trees.

   15. PDPhil Demers45:48

       Yeah, and they start looking down. Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan45:49

       Yeah. It's really interesting 'cause like, they have a few sounds that they can repeat. And they know for a fact that these monkeys know what they're talking about. And monkeys even play jokes-

   17. PDPhil Demers45:58

       That's a language, man.

   18. JRJoe Rogan45:59

       ... on each other. They play jokes on each other. Like if one monkey wanted a banana, he would say, "Hey man, there's a fucking eagle here." And the, the monkey would run up the tree and he would get the banana. Like, they would ... They lie to each other, which is pretty fascinating.

   19. PDPhil Demers46:12

       Makes doing fucked up things to them that much worse, right?

   20. JRJoe Rogan46:14

       (laughs) Yeah, it's fucked up.

   21. PDPhil Demers46:16

       Fucked up.

   22. JRJoe Rogan46:16

       You mean monkeys ... I mean, we know that they're intelligent, but they got a little tiny, little tiny brain, little tiny ass head, little tiny brain. You know, but fucking-

   23. PDPhil Demers46:24

       It's all they need.

   24. JRJoe Rogan46:25

       Orcas' brain, those ... They're giant. These are huge, enormous brains. Dolphins' brains are hu- Dolphin brains are way bigger than ours.

   25. PDPhil Demers46:32

       You wanna hear a fucked up story?

   26. JRJoe Rogan46:33

       Sure.

   27. PDPhil Demers46:33

       I sure do. I had to dig up a dead killer whale to extract a portion of its brain that we'd missed during a necropsy.

   28. JRJoe Rogan46:39

       You had to dig it up?

   29. PDPhil Demers46:40

       Yeah. It was, uh-

   30. JRJoe Rogan46:41

       In the ground?
5. 1:00:00 – 1:03:01

   Inciting violence? …

   1. PDPhil Demers1:00:00

      gonna give- I don't wanna, like, give him any attention. But PETA had tweeted something, and so he quoted that tweet and said, "It's time to burn this place." He's a comedian, very funny. I click retweet. I got the police, uh, cyber crimes unit on my front door the next day because the lawyer sent them because I, uh, I- I, uh, I incited-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

      Inciting violence?

   3. PDPhil Demers1:00:18

      ... violence for the followers, so now Marineland was worried that the- the- the buildings were gonna be burnt down.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

      (sighs)

   5. PDPhil Demers1:00:25

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

      Well, I would never say to do that.

   7. PDPhil Demers1:00:28

      Me neither.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:29

      Fuck, man.

   9. PDPhil Demers1:00:30

      Or I would never tell anyone to fly a drone over it either. Opportunity for million view YouTube hits too.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

       Yeah, don't do it. Don't do that.

   11. PDPhil Demers1:00:38

       (sighs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:39

       Man, it's just ... You know that they're on the wrong side of history, and not just Marineland, but all these places. All these places, like, there's gonna come a ti- a time in the future where people look back at this kinda captivity of these hyper-intelligent social animals stolen from their families. It's a terrible, terrible statement...... about human beings.

   13. PDPhil Demers1:01:07

       The thing I love about, I guess what you would call, um, uh, my campaign is that I have support from hunters, I have support from vegans. I am across the spectrum.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:17

       Yeah.

   15. PDPhil Demers1:01:18

       At one point I had a far right, uh, person who's perceived as a far right, uh, uh, uh, internet personality tweet my documentary. And then Rosie O'Donnell tweets it, and she's as left as it gets.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:28

       (laughs)

   17. PDPhil Demers1:01:28

       So I'm looking at this thing-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:29

       Rosie O'Don- yeah, yeah. Wow.

   19. PDPhil Demers1:01:31

       Oh, dude, I got a Rosie story. It's kind of a heartbreaker actually, but when I went to New York, and again, Joe, thank you so much for ... When you, when you spoil me with those UFC tickets, dude, the ... It's always the most timely thing and so appreciated because it's exa- it's al- it's just like this trip. It's exactly what I need at the time to sorta keep myself sane.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:49

       Yeah, a little break, have some fun.

   21. PDPhil Demers1:01:51

       And so, I was going to New York City, remember, I was sending you a message, I'm like, "Dude."

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:54

       Yeah.

   23. PDPhil Demers1:01:54

       And you're like, "Bro, enjoy." I'm like, "Ugh." And so, uh, so Rosie sees the documentary and someone says to me, "Hey, Rosie just tweeted your documentary." I'm like, "Oh, cool." So I go to her Twitter and then yeah, sure as shit. So I follow her, she follows me back. She started sending me messages like, "Dude, like-"

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:09

       Wow.

   25. PDPhil Demers1:02:09

       "... this is really powerful, like I, I really ..." Like, and then she goes to elaborate, like, "I, I wanna know more about you. I, I wanna call you tomorrow." (laughs) I'm like, "Okay, cool." Sure as shit the next day, the phone rings, I'm talking to Rosie. I'm like, "This is crazy." And I, I'm, again, I'm 40, I know who Rosie is. I don't know if these days if kids know who Rosie is. Anyway, Rosie O'Donnell was like, I don't know, she was a heavy in my day at least. She was like a, you know, powerhouse. And she's expressing all this interest, like, "You know, I, I, I've, I've done documentaries. I, I've, I've released them on HBO. You know, I've done all these things. I, I'm gonna ... I'm going to LA tomorrow and I'm gonna call you back on Friday, but I'm meeting with this Emmy Award producing, uh, producer and we're gonna get this thing out there." And then she starts to say, and this is where I, my heart starts to ache is that, you know, you always sort of hope that there's gonna be a hero that, that ... I mean, especially in the last five years it's gonna be like, "You know what? Enough's enough. Let's f- let's do this." And especially in the case of with my walrus, she starts saying, "I think we can get the walrus. Like we can get some pressure, get a TV network pressure, so let's get that walrus." And I'm just like-

Episode duration: 1:17:55