Joe Rogan Experience #1152 - John Joseph

John Joseph 0:00 Must be from New York.

Joe Rogan 0:01 Yeah. Well, you can definitely tell that. Four, three, two (claps hands) , and we're live Jon Joseph.

John Joseph 0:08 What's happening?

Joe Rogan 0:09 What's up, brother? How are you, man?

John Joseph 0:10 Yo. This is like-

Joe Rogan 0:11 I'm excited.

John Joseph 0:11 Yeah, man.

Joe Rogan 0:12 And, uh, I'm excited too for, uh, I think it could set a nice precedent because there's so much fucking toxic energy between vegans and non-vegans. Even if we're just joking around, people get so fucking angry, and it's not necessary.

John Joseph 0:27 Absolutely. I mean, where's the humor? Where's the comedy?

Joe Rogan 0:31 Yeah.

John Joseph 0:31 I mean, the other thing is I don't sit around call ... Like, I'm not defined by what the fuck I eat. Like, like this dude said, "How come you don't call yourself a vegan?" I'm like, "'Cause I do a lot more shit than just eat plant-based food." It's part of what I do.

Joe Rogan 0:46 But don't you call yourself a vegan? I mean, you are a vegan, right?

John Joseph 0:48 Uh, I practice that, uh, lifestyle for sure, but I don't call myself a vegan. Um, uh-

Joe Rogan 0:55 That's interesting.

John Joseph 0:55 ... I would say, uh, uh, people say, uh, "You know, how do you l-" ... I, I don't like to put any type of material-

Joe Rogan 1:03 Labels.

John Joseph 1:04 ... label on myself. And if somebody says, you know, to me and pushes the issue, I'm like, "I'm more of a Hare Krishna Bhakti yoga person than I am a vegan." You know, even though I don't wear animal products, I don't use animal products, I, I eat a plant-based diet 100%. Um, but, uh, to call myself that just puts me in some, you know, some shelf, "Oh, it's just another vegan." Or whatever the fuck. You know, it's just-

Joe Rogan 1:33 Well, you know, it seems to me, it's like people are always searching for an identity, and if they have an identity that, uh, "No. I'm a, I'm a carnivore. I'm on the carnivore diet."

John Joseph 1:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:42 Which is all the latest trend.

John Joseph 1:43 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:43 And then people get really hopped up on that and that's all they wanna do is talk carnivore diet. So the, the, the difference between what's happening right now with this carnivore diet and vegans seems very similar to me in that they're very into the identity of their food.

John Joseph 1:57 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:58 Not, not their food choices, but certainly into the fact that this is how they identify. They talk about it all the time.

John Joseph 2:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:03 And I just think there's f- there's pitfalls in that. There's like traps that people fall into where they lock their identity into a group.

John Joseph 2:11 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 2:11 And this is what happens with vegans, it happens to hunters, it happens with, uh, R- Republicans, happens with Democrats. It just becomes a group thing. And then you automatically oppose people of the other group and you, you have like, you have conflict with them. You have hate with them.

John Joseph 2:27 Do we need more walls?

Joe Rogan 2:28 We don't need more walls.

John Joseph 2:28 We don't. And I, and I'll tell you what really got it for me, uh, and, and I started doing this in '81 before anybody. I came out of incarceration, I came out of abusive foster homes. My father was a professional fighter. Uh, tried to murder my mom, beat her continuously. I didn't even find out, I, I w- you know, that I wa- I was conceived out of a rape from him on my mom. So getting locked up, hitting the streets, and then meeting the Bad Brains in 1980 and seeing them and who they were surrounded by, it was a lot of, uh, you know, people who were into very metaphysical stuff, I g- So I got into the yoga, and I know you've been doing yoga now too. So one of the first tenets of the yoga practice, which slams all of this sh- all this label shit, is aham brahmasmi, that I'm actually s- My identity is the spirit soul. It ... Beyond anything in the material world, any label you wanna put on yourself. So that's really where I come from with the whole thing. And I think, uh, the toxicity level that is existing now just because of what people fucking, you know, choose to eat. I mean, I have my issues with, uh, certain things that are being done because e- because of the condition of the planet and we're not being good custodians of this planet that we're in charge for kids and future generations, what's being done now. There's industries that are destroying the planet, uh, like, you know, some of it is irreparable, uh, damage being done. But I really try to keep it metaphysical, uh, with everything I do and who I help. I mean, I'm working on a documentary right now here at 30 to Life with hardcore fucking ex-cons that just did 20, 25 years, 30 years. If I go in there trying to preach some v- some vegan shit to them, I'm, I'm coming at them like a fucking-

Joe Rogan 4:24 Yeah.

John Joseph 4:24 ... like, "Yo dude, this is where I've been. I, I've been where you are. People helped me and I'm, I'm here to help you." I ... We didn't start out, you know ... We don't even say, you know, we, we said, you know, "Put ... We're gonna put you on a plant-based diet." What are you gonna do? Tell them, "Don't wear leather fucking shoes. Don't do this, don't do ..." You know, uh, uh, and the whole thing, even when Jay-Z and Beyonce, it's never enough. Okay. They went and d- you know, they said "vegan", right? "Okay, we, we're practicing a vegan diet. We're doing a 30-day vegan d-" So what do the vegans do? Attack them. "Oh, but he, they're wearing fucking leather." And it, it's ... You have to be able to fan the spark, so if you see some goodness in someone, you have to be able to fan that spark, not throw water on it, and that's the problem that's being done is people are so judgmental because they've built this walls, the walls between them that, um, it's just fault finding, and I was telling the guys, I trained them this morning, we're doing this 30 to Life with Kip Andersen and, uh, we're at the Amity Foundation where these guys got paroled and I said, "Look, there's two types of mentality in the world. There's the bee mentality that's looking for the sweet and the good in people, and then there's the flies and they're looking for the shit." I said, "When you see shit on a sidewalk and a dog takes a shit, or in New York (laughs) a, a, you know, a human takes a shit-

Joe Rogan 5:48 (laughs)

John Joseph 5:48 ... within a matter of fucking 20 seconds, there's flies on that motherfucker." So I try to roll with the PMA, which I learned from Bad Brains, positive mental attitude.Which, um, Napoleon Hill ... H.R. copped it from Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich and all those books on self-help. And it was like he told me, "No matter what circumstances you may be in ..." And I was in the Navy at the time, in Norfolk, fucking smuggling, fucking up, catching cases, came out of ... Took- took Navy over going back to jail, and I was fucking up. I didn't know what to do. Fucked out of my mind, hanging out with Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye and all those guys in the DC hardcore scene and New York punk scene, and, you know, hanging with John Belushi on Fear that night. We were the ones that wrecked the set of Saturday Night Live. And just, you know, the cl- just doing crazy shit. And he was ... Just told me, "You know, whatever you may be going through in life, if you keep a positive mental attitude, you could get through anything." So, how am I going to criticize people just 'cause, uh, you- you eat meat or do whatever? It's like, you know ... And some of these people are hardcore Christians, and it's like you're supposed to say, "Hey." What? You know, "Hate the sin, not the sinner," or whatever the fuck that whole philosophy deals with. I mean, my point is I'm- I'm trying to knock down the walls between people and unify people, so ...

Joe Rogan 7:11 I think what you do good is you- you're a very positive role model in terms of hard work, in terms of your- your- your mental fortitude and how you approach things, and I think people need that. And I think one of the things that's going on right now with social media, and one of the reasons why people will attack Jay-Z for wearing leather shoes, even though they're v- they're, they're looking to stand out. They're looking to be virtuous. They're looking to be the person that's more virtuous than the person we're pointing a finger at, man. Fuck them. And there's al- always a lot of, "Fuck people who aren't this," or, "Fuck people who aren't that." Should never say, "Fuck people," 'cause people-

John Joseph 7:44 Right.

Joe Rogan 7:45 ... are ... They're just like you. They're human beings and everybody's on a different path. Tell me why you believe the way you believe. Tell me why you think the way you think. And I'll tell you why I think the way I think, and I bet we'll find common ground. And that's what human beings need to do more with each other. The problem with social media is it gives us- them this unusual platform to get people to pay attention to their ideas when maybe their ideas aren't even that good. Or maybe their ideas are very obvious. You know, like you're gonna point at someone, "Hey man, you know, you shouldn't say this word. Hey man, you shouldn't do this thing." Because th- we've decided that that's a bad thing. We've decided that that's, like, culturally unacceptable anymore, and now everyone's gonna attack for that very reason. Instead of describing how they feel, what makes them feel when they say something, what makes them feel when they do things, where, what's going on in their head so we can all relate on common ground, people just wanna attack. And i- it's- it's a big po- problem with what's going ... Social media is way too young. It's a new thing, and people are using it in these really fucked up ways. They don't exactly know what they're doing while they're doing it. They're not even aware of the effect of their printed word, what it's gonna have. That's why you have so many trolls and so many mean people and so many people just trying to get a rise out of someone. They're not even aware of the- this process they're setting in motion. They just know they could push a button and watch something happen. They're just going, "Woo, woo!"

John Joseph 9:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:00 You know what I mean? This is, this is a lotta what's going on today.

John Joseph 9:02 I mean, a- and some of this stuff is- is destroying people's lives.

Joe Rogan 9:06 Yeah.

John Joseph 9:06 What they're fucking doing. They don't, they don't realize that, um, you know, it- it's, it's a shame because, uh, like, when I was growing up, we didn't have social media. There was no motherfucking internet. There was no none of th- You know, I remember I had the first pager. It was fucking, you know, gigantic.

Joe Rogan 9:24 Yeah.

John Joseph 9:25 So, like, we didn't even have no internet. Everything was, you know, word of mouth and if you wanted to catch shows, if you wanted to do this. If you had a beef with somebody, you didn't go on fucking social media and talk a bunch of bullshit. You fucking walked up to the person and you said, "Hey, here I am and what the fuck? Let's- let's deal with this. Let's talk about it, talk it out." But now you got people buying followers and doing other-

Joe Rogan 9:49 Yeah.

John Joseph 9:49 It's just that it's ... You know, it's just the most toxic environment in a lotta ways and it's a shame, 'cause it could be used. And that's why I never post negative shit. I try to use the platform, you know, make light of shit, not have a stick up your ass. There's too many people that do even the plant-based vegan thing and everything's so fucking serious. I'm like, "You might reach more people if you lightened up." You know, like, like-

Joe Rogan 10:16 Yeah.

John Joseph 10:16 ... stripes. Lighten up, Francis.

Joe Rogan 10:18 (laughs)

John Joseph 10:18 You know, fucking ...

Joe Rogan 10:19 Yeah, I've heard-

John Joseph 10:20 "If you t- if you say you eat meat, I'll kill you."

Joe Rogan 10:23 (laughs) Well, you did write a book called Meat is for Pussies.

John Joseph 10:26 Well, I'll tell you how that came about.

Joe Rogan 10:28 (laughs)

John Joseph 10:28 And- and- and actually, I got attacked ... I'm gonna tell you something else. You wanna talk about destroying people. I got attacked more by the vegan feminists for that book, fucking tried to destroy me.

Joe Rogan 10:38 'Cause you wrote "pussies"?

John Joseph 10:38 They wrote everybody-

Joe Rogan 10:39 (clears throat)

John Joseph 10:39 ... 'cause I wrote "puss-" ... Now, first of all ... And then she, uh, she went on a blog and called me a misogynistic ... I say, "Yeah, I like massages." Uh, (laughs) no, but-

Joe Rogan 10:48 (laughs)

John Joseph 10:48 You know, called me a misogynistic scumbag and a fucking piece of shit and all this, so I just had ... I just wrote, uh, "Hey, any of you ladies that bought this book for the, for their fellas and it helped them, please fucking holler at this fucking woman and tell her something." They shut her fucking blog down. And then she called me a maniac and I said, "Listen-

Joe Rogan 11:06 She called you a maniac because you sent-

John Joseph 11:07 Yeah, she called ... Yeah, sh-

Joe Rogan 11:07 ... people on her the way she sent people on you.

John Joseph 11:09 But dig this. And then I said, "We have a f- We have a saying on the streets in New York back in the day, 'Don't start none and there won't be none.'"

Joe Rogan 11:15 Yeah.

John Joseph 11:15 So I said, you know ... But the thing was, I'm gonna tell you how that book title came about, 'cause it was a woman, actually Karen Rinaldi from, uh, Harper Collins Wave, w- and what happened was, uh, I was training at Crunch. Aaron, uh, Dr- uh, Drago Zdanowski is my trainer, and he's got me through all my fucking Ironmans, everything. I was a fucking broken up person, injuries, all this shit. So I'm work- I was working at Crunch sh- and training with him, and then another person, a friend of mine ... All the five points guys used to be there. You would see them all. They had a ring on the second floor. So, this guy was doing pad work and I'm telling him, "Hey, you know, listen, man, you got a fight coming up, man. Get on the chlorophyll, get on the wheatgrass, get on ... You know, eat as much recovery foods as you can that's gonna fight inflammation." So, some fucking mameluke with fucking 1980s tiger stripe pants, fucking-

Joe Rogan 12:07 (laughs)

John Joseph 12:07 "Yeah, fucking ..." You know, like, he, he, he just took everything out of context and then he's like, "Yeah, fucking, uh, people that don't eat meat are fucking pussies." And I'm like, uh, "Yo, you got like 50 pounds on me, but if you wanna put some headgear and- and- and get in the ring, I'll- I'll oblige you." He's like, "What?" I said, "I don't eat meat, bro."And then, the funny shit with the whole book title was, it was gonna be called The Go Green Road to Health, Fitness, and Longevity-

Joe Rogan 12:36 (laughs)

John Joseph 12:36 And my business partner, Todd Irwin, goes, "Motherfucker, who are you? Dr. Oz?"

Joe Rogan 12:41 (laughs)

John Joseph 12:41 "Nobody wants to hear that book from you. You're John 'Bloodclot' Joseph Singer from the Cro-Mags. They want-" And then I-

Joe Rogan 12:48 "Meat Is for Pussies."

John Joseph 12:49 They... A- a- and then I said, "Yeah." I said, "Yeah, this motherfucker was like, you know, saying fucking people that don't eat meat are pussies." I'm like, "Motherfucker, that dude ain't s- probably ain't seen his dick in fucking 10 years." He was overweight and all this shit. I was like, "That motherfucker's the pussy." And he's like, "Yo, you know what? Throw it back in their face." And I was like, "I don't know, man. That's, you know, that's, you know, a pretty fuckable statement." He said, "Do it, do it." So we released-

Joe Rogan 13:14 (laughs)

John Joseph 13:15 So right away, the fucking emails and the toxicity-

Joe Rogan 13:17 That's hilarious it started that way.

John Joseph 13:19 ... of the vegans. Yo, that's how it started. And then we be- uh, our agent, Dan... Uh, we got hooked up with, um, this guy, uh, Dan from ICM. He's like, met my business partner in the Hamptons. He's like, "Yo, that book is fucking dope, man. I think we could get a deal." Within a week, he had four offers.

Joe Rogan 13:38 So you wrote it first?

John Joseph 13:39 Yeah, I wrote it first and he put it out.

Joe Rogan 13:41 Ah.

John Joseph 13:41 So-

Joe Rogan 13:41 What was the thought process behind writing it? You just had a lotta shit in your head, you just wanted to get it out?

John Joseph 13:45 Yeah. W- well, I studied writing under Robert McKee, so I wrote my memoir first.

Joe Rogan 13:49 Interesting.

John Joseph 13:50 Yeah, story, I- I fucking... That guy's like my guru for writing. I- I took, I took the story seminar twice.

Joe Rogan 13:55 Great guru.

John Joseph 13:55 He's fucking amazing. I mean, Brian Cox's portrayal of him in-

Joe Rogan 13:59 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 13:59 ... in fucking, in, uh, Adaptation.

Joe Rogan 14:02 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 14:02 Fucking brilliant. Spot on. So, and, you know, I- I actually became friends with, uh, Robert, with Mr. McKee. I would... He smokes like crazy.

Joe Rogan 14:11 Really?

John Joseph 14:12 Yeah, he smoked cigarettes like a fucking chimney.

Joe Rogan 14:13 A lotta writers do, man.

John Joseph 14:14 Yeah, but not during the class. So when he had the breaks, he would fucking do like two, three cigarettes. I said, "You know, my friend has an organic green tea extract company and the polyphenols in that is gonna counteract all your fucking smoking shit that you're doing." So I gave him five bottles and then every time he would call m- he would have his people call, "Yo, you know that guy, fucking McGowan? Get him to bring me some more of that green tea shit." And...

Joe Rogan 14:39 Did he quit s- smoking?

John Joseph 14:41 I don't know. I haven't seen him in a while.

Joe Rogan 14:42 The problem is, it gives them a charge.

John Joseph 14:43 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:43 It gives them a, you know, a nootropic charge.

John Joseph 14:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:46 It fires up your brain.

John Joseph 14:47 Yeah, it's, uh-

Joe Rogan 14:48 You ever smoke a cigarette?

John Joseph 14:49 Man, I smoke like crazy. I used to smoke Kools in- in- in lockup and shit. Like, you know, 'cause that's what they give you in Spofford and, and, uh, and when I went upstate, it was Kools. Like if you-

Joe Rogan 15:00 Why'd you quit?

John Joseph 15:01 I quit 'cause I started boxing in lockup and they would have us run this fucking hill called Suicide Hill, and I would be fucking puking. And I was like, "I gotta quit fucking smoking." So I quit smoking bec- they used to do smoker fights in the lockup. So if you had a beef with somebody, you went into this rec room was about-

Joe Rogan 15:19 Explain smokers to people that don't know what that means.

John Joseph 15:21 Smoker fights means you just have a beef with somebody and you can just throw on the gloves and- and go at it. And as long as it's like reasonably within 20 pounds (laughs) of a weight difference-

Joe Rogan 15:32 Yeah.

John Joseph 15:32 ... like, y- you know... Although, i- in lockup I saw people, much bigger people, uh, fighting much smaller people. (laughs) And some of them guys... I mean, I w- I was not good. I got... I would fight the Black dudes and they would just beat the shit out of me.

Joe Rogan 15:47 (laughs)

John Joseph 15:47 But I would just keep coming back. You know, I'm Irish, I don't quit, man. I was... A- and then, you know, I learned more of the- the sweet science and, you know, went into the Navy and- and, uh-

Joe Rogan 15:58 So you quit smoking just for boxing, just to get your adrenaline...

John Joseph 15:59 Yeah, I quit, I quit smoking, uh, yeah, for that, for that reason. But when I was locked up, I didn't quit al- almost to the end because toward the end of your, uh, sentence, they allow you to go home because y- they want to reintegrate you back with your family or whatever. And I never grew up with my mom, so they would send us home. So we would take the carton of cigarettes and open it up very carefully, open up the cellophane carefully, slide the cellophane down and put joints inside the cigarette pack, slide it back up, glue it, close the carton of cigarettes, and that's how we would get the weed back from the visits.

Joe Rogan 16:34 (laughs)

John Joseph 16:34 'Cause I wasn't smoking weed coming back out of nobody's ass. That was not happening.

Joe Rogan 16:38 (laughs)

John Joseph 16:38 I'm like, "No, thank you." So, uh, that... You know, so that was the process and, um, you know, so that's why, that's why I quit. But that's... The book came... Uh, I- I had a lot of shit, uh, a lot of demons inside of me from what happened to me. Me and my two brothers, uh, were s- you know, pretty severely abused in all kinds of ways in this foster home. Physically, mentally, sexually abused by the older kids in the home. It was fucked up and I never told anybody, but that was always something, n- no matter how much... I lived as a monk for two years, a Hare Krishna monk. Nothing, uh, cured that fucking anger that was inside of me that I had toward these people for what they did to me and the secret of like, "Yo..." It's fucked up to say like, "Yo, yo, you're this dude from the streets, you had knife fights with Puerto Ricans." I- I got shot with a .22 in Forest Park selling angel dust, I got stabbed. And then to try to say, "Yo, this motherfucker molested me," is... It took a lot out of me to- to... And nobody knew it, 'cause I never talked about it. And I took McKee's class and that was the turning point, because I went up to him and I was writing a script at the time based on what happened to me in the foster home. The kids, uh, in the screenplay, we based, uh, what- what happened to me, uh, in- in- in my younger, uh, period of my life. And, um, I never told anybody what happened. I would just avoid that. But then when I wrote the b- I started writing the book and I was taking his class... And between, uh, you know, parts of his thing when you went on a break, you could walk up to Robert McKee and say-... ask him, uh, questions. So I said, "Mr. McKee, as far as the protagonist who was abused, uh, as a kid..." And he stopped me right there and he said, "Listen, stop right there." He said, "McGowan, everybody uses it. It's a cliche, you know, abuse of children, uh, f- to develop empathy for characters we could otherwise not give a fuck about. It's not what happens to somebody, it's what they do as a result of it." And that's the fucking light came on. And, I mean, for years I would sit there, and it took me seven years to write The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon. And I would get to that part of the story and I would lose my shit and break down crying, like, fucking uncontrollably, um, because of what happened to me and my brothers. So I just skipped over that part and I would never address it. But then, you know, he gave me the strength in a lot of ways to be able to say, "Hey, man, you gotta t-" He wrote in my book. So I have his book, and he wrote to me. He goes, "John, always write the truth." And that's when I knew that that needed to come out in a book to cleanse myself. I'd been two years on crack. Uh, '88, '88, uh, uh, to '90, crack, pills, you know, uh, doing whatever. Uh, getting shot at with fucking AR-15s, robbing dealers. I had, uh, TOS, or na- it was KOS at the time, kill on sight. I was, I was a fucking maniac because I just didn't care. I- I- I actually kind of wished subconsciously that somebody would put a fucking bullet in me. When you're doing crack-

Joe Rogan 19:55 That happens to a lot of people. A lot of people who get molested-

John Joseph 19:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:56 ... they, they almost act out to the point where they want someone else to do it for them because they don't wanna live.

John Joseph 20:01 Yeah, I was definitely, in a lot of ways, that's- that's what I was doing. But when I took, uh, his... When... That seminar helped me so much 'cause it's really like, he's really like a fucking, uh, a guru and a teacher, man. The man is amazing. If you ever get a chance to take the Robert McKee Story Seminar, it's a three-day seminar. I took it twice, then he does workshops. But the story seminar, I just walked out of there after the third day, it's 10 hours a day and you're just like, you're fucking, you're- you're, like, speechless. Like, "What the fuck did I just experience?" It's incredible. And- and that gave me, uh, the power to- to go and tell my story the right way. And the amount of emails of people that I received that were like, "Yo, that shit was done to me. Thank you for having the courage to tell the story." And, um, you know, I just kept writing after that. So even the Meatus for Pussies, uh, book was... You know, if you read it, it's tongue-in-cheek. I'm not calling... There's a lot of dudes that eat meat that could kick the shit out of me, I'm not saying... What I'm saying is if you continue to lead a sedentary lifestyle and you eat this fucked up food that's out there, that they're putting out there, that they're knowingly putting out there to fucking poison you because they're tied in with the pharmaceutical companies, it's a racket. It's, it, it's not a conspiracy, it's been proven that this is what they're doing. You will become a pussy dependent on the pharmaceutical companies to keep you alive. If you, if that's what you want, then this book is not for you, put it back.

Joe Rogan 21:29 So you got into Hare Krishnas and you got into this whole consciousness trip from the Bad Brains, which is crazy. Like, think about that. Like, people would assume, like, you think of the hardcore scene, you're thinking of drugs and violence and tattoos and-

John Joseph 21:44 Nah, man.

Joe Rogan 21:44 ... chaos. And you were getting into... Uh, th- so tell me about that. How'd you get into Hare Krishnas?

John Joseph 21:49 I'm gonna tell you. So, um, initially, my first in- my first interaction with Rastafarians, it was 1980. So I went to... My ship was going to Jamaica. So when you go to s-

Joe Rogan 22:01 Oh, shit.

John Joseph 22:02 When you go... Yo, yo, take this.

Joe Rogan 22:03 (laughs)

John Joseph 22:03 So you go to any port and they take you down on the mess deck and they show everyone, "You go here, you go there." They're like, they show you these films. So when we were getting ready to go to Jamaica, they're like, "If you're gonna use..." And it's these, like, military films from, like, the '60s. "If you're gonna use, uh, you know, have sex with a prostitute, make sure you use a prophylactic." And then (laughs) the next photo was a fucking Rastafarian with smoke coming out of every fucking orifice.

Joe Rogan 22:30 (laughs)

John Joseph 22:31 And they're like, "And under no circumstances should you talk to these people. They're just gonna try to sell you drugs." So who the fuck do you think-

Joe Rogan 22:40 (laughs)

John Joseph 22:40 ... was the first people I went, when I got off the ship? 'Cause I didn't hang out with, like, any of the dudes on my ship. I got the fuck away from... I was the only punk rocker. I was wearing Sex Pistols Destroy fucking T-shirts. They're looking at me like... I was already into punk rock since the '70s. So I get off the ship and I meet this, like, 20-something-year-old fucking dread- dread dude. And he's like, "Yeah, man, what you need?" I said, "Listen, uh, you know, I'm fucking smuggling some weed back. I- I- I wanna, I wanna get take..." 'Cause this other sailor told me, "Yo, you go in there and you get them to take you to the carving shops." And they carve out the fucking statue and they pack the lambsbread in there and then-

Joe Rogan 23:19 Ah.

John Joseph 23:19 ... seal up the statue. And then I had a hookup with the, uh, the officer, the guy who did the watch and counted, so say every fifth person, you got searched. So I was always avoiding that 'cause I would hit the dude off with some weed or whatever the fuck it was. So when I went to Jamaica, t- I asked this kid... As soon as I got off the boat, like, there was no hotels in Montego Bay, nothing. It was just you took the ship, the ship anchored out in the bay, and you took a boat in and landed at the dock. And it was just like some fucking ancient, like, crazy shit, like, that you would see back in the 1800s.

Joe Rogan 23:57 Sailor port.

John Joseph 23:58 Yeah, sailor port. And then this dude was eating his carton of fucking shit. I'm like, "Yo." I'm- I'm, like, french fries and burgers at the time. And I'm like, "Yo, what the fuck are you eating? What is that shit?" He's like, "Yo, man. This callaloo and ackee." And he's like, "Man, you eat this, you'll live to be 150 taras." I was like, "Really?" I said, "Let me check that shit out."Took one forkful and I just was like, "This is fucking-" (laughs) "... disgusting. That shit tastes like dirt, dude." (laughs) What was it? It was callaloo. I- What is callaloo? Callaloo is a green, it's like one of the most nutritious, it-it- Like a collard green? Yeah. It's like collard green, it's like... They have a, they have greens down there that don't really grow anywhere else. So I think it's like a combination of kale and, and collard greens. And then ackee is like this fruit and it looks like... It's yellow, it looks like a egg almost. But if you eat ackee when it's not ripe, you'll die. You, you get poison. It's this type of thing, like when the fruit opens up, the... It's like a red fruit. If you eat it when it's not open, you will die. Really? Yeah. Ackee, ackee will poison you. And then, and then he was eating seaweed and beans and... Anyway, so I went up into the hills, he took me... Now I don't know if you like reggae, but- I do. I fucking love reggae. So do you know where Peter Tosh, um, wanted Dread or Alive? Do you know where that came from? No. Okay, I'm gonna tell you. (laughs) So back in, I think it was '78, this cop... They hate the Rastafarians in Jamaica by the way, 'cause it's a big Christian... The Christians invaded that place and just fucking turned everybody into dogmatic, fucking thinking people. You know, the Judo... You know, the... What, what the white man does everywhere across the planet. "You gotta be my religion. Fuck everybody else. This is what's up." So they did that there. So, um, what they call the Jamaicans... What the Rastas call the Jamaicans who don't grow knots, they call them bald heads, man. Y- you know, like Bob Marley, crazy bald head. So what they did with these guys, uh, uh, a cop tried to kill a Rastafarian and the Rastafarian killed the cop. So they put a bounty on every single Rastafarian, wanted dead or alive. You could kill a Rasta and drag him to the precinct and collect a reward. So all the Rastas fled up into the hills and it was called the Green Bay Killings. They just started killing all these Rastafarians. It... And it... And so this guy brought me up into the hills and I met these Rastas, and the Nyabinghi, the drummers and all that shit. And the guy had the actual... 'Cause it was only like two, maybe three years prior to me going there in 1980. And I got to meet, like, these cats that survived that shit. And they had the news clippings and all this shit. So that was like my first experience with the whole Rasta thing, and then I met the Bad Brains one night at... First, Ian MacKaye and all them cats came down with Teen Idols and Untouchables. That was Henry's whole crew first. I know Henry's been on here. I'm, I'm pretty good friends with him. He's coming on next week. Tell him I said what's up- I will do that. I, I fucking love him, man. I do too. He's, he's a fucking great human being. He's a beast. And yeah, he, he... Like, when I split the Navy, he let me stay at his house and I was eating his food. And then after a week of him going to work and coming home and his food's gone, he's like, "All right, John, you gotta get the fuck out." (laughs) "Go somewhere, not here." But, uh, they played, and then a week later, uh, I used to go during the middle of the day, uh, in my car in the Navy and, and go to Happy Hour. Uh, and I'm walking in and the owner comes out. He's like, "You gotta see this fucking band! You gotta see this band!" I'm like, "All right. Uh, cool. I'm going in." He's like, "No, you don't understand! They're fucking Black, man, and they're f- they're incredible!" So I go upstairs and Bad Brains are sound checking and I'm just like, "What the fuck is this?" (laughs) And if you haven't seen the Bad Brains, I'll tell you the best video to watch. 1982, CBGBs, they got the whole set up there, and if you wanna have your shit blown away, just watch that. So that's what, uh... I actually sold their, their manager acid. I was selling acid at the time. (laughs) So their manager, I sold him acid, but I got to talk with HR and he started telling me about this PMA shit. And, and I told him, "Yeah, man, I fucking got outta jail and went into the Navy 'cause I caught another case. They offered me military." Here we go. There's them right there. Yeah. Fucking amazing, dude.

Narrator 28:29 (cheering)

John Joseph 28:30 Will this get us taken off YouTube, you think?

Joe Rogan 28:32 Uh, maybe when it's

Narrator 28:32 Play a little bit.

John Joseph 28:33 Yeah. Play a little bit, see what happens. Look at him go. Uh, that's the singer. He's a fucking maniac. He does a back flip perfectly on the end of this one song at the movies and lands it perfectly. That's at CBs in '82. Wow, '82. I wasn't there. I was their roadie. I was in high school. Yeah. So I was actually living as a Hare Krishna monk at the time in Hawaii when, when this- So how did the Hare Krishna thing happen? Well, I'm gonna tell you. Okay. So what happened was, um, they had... So I talked with HR, he said, "Yeah, mon." It was really funny 'cause they were all from DC but they talk with patois accent. "Yeah, mon. Jah gonna arrange, mon. We're gonna run into (laughs) into each other again," you know? So, uh, I beat someone down on my ship pretty bad and I got caught for a drug case in Norfolk. So I knew that they was trying to persecute me and, uh, you know, send me to fucking prison. And I was like, "Really not gonna have that." So my ship pulled out and we were going to like Shellback to South America and, um, I had this... They... I was under ar- you know, basically under arrest 'cause the fight... It was a civilian case for the drugs I sold to an undercover cop outside of a club called King's Head Inn in Norfolk on Hampton Boulevard. It was... They had did punk shows. So I sold him, um, you know, LSD and he was a undercover cop. So I got arrested for that, and then that was pending. Meanwhile, I go on my ship, we go out to sea, this one redneck kept fucking with me and he was like, "Fuck you, New York faggot." And like just... I'm like, "Dude, chill. Like, you don't know me. Like, I'm not fucking with you. Just let it go, man." And he just wouldn't let it go. So, uh, I, I trapped him in the, in the paint locker, I was a boatswain's mate, and, uh, I beat him with a fucking paint can.... in the-- in the soft tissues till he shit his pants. Then they arrested me. So they had, uh, they had me on the fucking ship's arrest and all this shit. And, um, I got this bad infection. They had to medevac me off the ship back to Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico. And they forgot to say that, you know, I'm supposed to be handcuffed to the fucking bed. And then, uh, they cut. They didn't send those orders 'cause this was pre-computer, so the paperwork got fucked up. They gave me my, my ID and, and then they sent me back to Norfolk, and then, uh, I was just doing all my shit and hanging-

Joe Rogan 31:03 So they just didn't know that you were supposed to be incarcerated?

John Joseph 31:04 Yeah. They didn't know that I'm supposed to be awaiting court, probably court-martial or whatever the fuck, and then the civilian case too. So then, uh, the d- I d- I was in Nimitz Hall, which is TPU, Transient Personnel Union, waiting for my ship to come back, and they were gonna deal with it then. So I was there for like, I don't know, like a month and a half, and, and they were like, "Yo, your ship..." The dude I was cool with, he warned me. He goes, "Yo. Your ship is, is fucking docking today." And I was like, "Fuck." I was like, "I gotta get the fuck outta here." So I just packed up a couple of things, and I got on the bus that used to go through the base and then roll out Hampton Boulevard, and it... As I'm fucking... They had already pulled in. And as I'm pulling out the gate in the seat, the fucking master at arms of my ship, the police are right there walking across the street to fucking Nimitz Hall to get me. And I just shrunk, uh, shrunk down in the seat. But if they would've looked up-

Joe Rogan 32:06 (laughs)

John Joseph 32:06 ... that was it. I wouldn't be here telling you this story-

Joe Rogan 32:08 (laughs)

John Joseph 32:08 ...' 'cause my life would have taken a much different, uh, trajectory. So what happened was I went up and I hitchhiked with this band, The Undead, from New York, this punk band. Bobby Steele was in the-

Joe Rogan 32:20 So were you AWOL at the time?

John Joseph 32:21 Yeah, Bobby Steele was a m- original Misfits. So they, they played the 9:30 and they gave me a ride back to New York. And I get out the van and right there on Avenue A, 171 was motherfucking HR In the doorway where they recorded and lived. He's like, "Rastafari." I'm like, "Fuck." And what happened was they were playing a show a couple of days later and there's a big Puerto Rican gang that was right there that didn't want them hanging out, so they went in there one night and they... I mean, they, they killed people. I'm not gonna say the name of the, of the fucking gang because for whatever... You know, I b- I'm not trying to out 'em like that, but they were, had the largest heroin/cocaine spot in America. The feds busted their hou- ha- they busted them, knocked down their building, the whole shit. Alphabet City was out of fucking control. So nobody... The Beastie Boys were there that night, nobody would fight these dudes back. And I was on a fucking Quaalude, which is a gorilla biscuit. You think you got crazy strength. And, uh, I said to Jay Dub Lee, who was the engineer there, shit, I was like, "Yo. Let's get these motherfuckers, man." And he's like, "Dude, they kill people. Don't fuck with them. They will kill you." And I was like, "Yo, come on, you fucking dudes. You're punk rock. You're supposed to be fucking tough. Let's fucking get these guys." So they s- calmed me down, but when I got outside, the dude tried to stab me, so I blocked the knife and I hit him with a elbow and bop, bop, bop, knocked him down, smashed his head off the curb. Next thing I know, four of his homies come charging at me, "Yo, you white motherfucker," trying to stab me, and I used to wear a chain belt. And you can ask Henry, we all used to wear these chain belts with a quick release, a bike chain, to fight people. 'Cause in DC it would be the Marines would fucking s- or the rednecks would beat up the punk rockers. So I got in a chain fight with these motherfuckers-

Joe Rogan 34:08 (laughs)

John Joseph 34:09 ... and I ended up... So I, I go to run back into 171 'cause I lost a chain and one of the Beastie Boys slams the, tries to slam the door on me to keep me out on the street. "These motherfuckers wanna kill me." I pushed my way in, I got stabbed in the shoulder, and then they put out a KOS on me. They were like, "We're gonna kill that motherfucker." Nobody would hang out with me except for this one sh- crazy Russian street fighter kid named James Contra. That's the only dude. So then I said, I couldn't go down to Alphabet City at all. They were waiting there with fucking guns and bats and like, "We're gonna kill that dude." But because the Bad Brains were black, they kinda squashed it over s- but I went up there to face 'em and they surrounded me like... Fuck, a dude was like ready to fucking off me and Doc and Darryl, Doc's the guitar player, Darryl's the bass player, came running out, "Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. Chill, chill." And they were like... You know, he was just, you know, standing up like, "Y'all came in there trying to stab everybody. You would've done the same shit." And the one dude's name was Crazy Eddie and, uh, he got... I think he got murdered now, but he did mad time and he just looked at me and it was that moment of the standoff where I didn't know what the fuck he was gonna do, but he just goes, "Out of all the white motherfuckers over here, you're the only one with heart. We ain't never gonna fuck with y'all again. Just don't hang out outside the storefront." 'Cause there was gigs at 171A. That's where Bad Brains played, Beastie Boys. And then the Bad Brains let me move in, and then they recorded that first album, which MCA from the Bad Brains, greatest hardcore punk album of all time, the Raw cassette, the lightning bolt sm- I was there for the whole recording.

Narrator 35:52 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 35:53 And, uh, then they got me a job, and this is where the Hare Krishna thing comes in. I alwa- I always come full circle. But, uh, so this punk band named The Dots who put out the first Bad Brains single, Jimmy Quit was in the band, and he put out a single called Stay Close to Me and Pay to Come. And Vinnie worked at this health food store, so they started giving us food and that's when I started changing over to the diet 'cause Bad Brains were like, "You..." HR would be like, "You don't eat the fuckery, you don't eat the Babylon food. You got to eat Ital. Ital is vital. Lotal can be fatal."... took me to the health-

Joe Rogan 36:30 What is Ital?

John Joseph 36:32 It means pure f- pure plant-based food. No, no oil, no fucking salt. It's like-

Joe Rogan 36:37 No oil?

John Joseph 36:37 Yeah, dude, it's the strict... It's like the Forks Over-

Joe Rogan 36:39 What about, like, avocado oil?

John Joseph 36:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:41 Coconut oil?

John Joseph 36:41 No, no. Like, if you take coconut and you, and you fucking shred it down-

Joe Rogan 36:46 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 36:46 ... so fine that the oil comes out of it, that's fine. But they don't do processed oils.

Joe Rogan 36:51 Okay. Right. Right.

John Joseph 36:51 That's a different thing. When you process the oil, if you have health problems, like what they proved in Forks Over Knives, then it becomes to- uh, toxic oil, uh, to the body. And if you have any kind of heart conditions and stuff like that, you should r- really avoid it. So anyway, what they did was they got me... They were smart, 'cause they wanted me to give them free food, the Bad Brains, (laughs) so they got me in the health food store. And the dude was like this hippie yogi dude hooked up with Satchidananda Swami. It was called Prana Foods. And he's like, "Well, uh, you're gonna do karma yoga when you first come in here. In other words, you're not gonna get any money. You're gonna... Y- you know, you can eat and it's karma yoga, it's good for your karma." So then I told everybody in the motherfucking neighborhood, I was like, "Yo, I'm working at this health food store. Come over and get some food." So, Bad Brains would come and load up groceries. I worked the juice bars, giving out fucking sandwiches to the entire neighborhood. (laughs) And the dude is sitting there watching me. And after the end of the day, he goes, "Excuse me, did, did any of those people pay for that food?" I go, "Nah, man. That's that karma yoga shit you were talking to me about."

Joe Rogan 37:54 (laughs)

John Joseph 37:54 He's like, "You're on salary as of tomorrow. Do not give away (laughs) any more food."

Joe Rogan 37:59 (laughs) .

John Joseph 37:59 So then I was like... I worked there for a little while, and Vinnie took me to the Hare Krishna Temple on 55th Street. So I kept trying to defeat this dude philosophically. I was like, "Yo, bud." And he knew the whole philosophy of the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita is where all the yoga, uh, the, uh, all the yoga sutras and all of that comes out of the Bhagavad Gita. And Prabhupada put out the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, which was the original Bhagavad Gita from India. And, uh, I kept trying to defeat it.

Joe Rogan 38:29 Do you read it? Do you read the Bhagavad Gita?

John Joseph 38:30 I... All the time. Every day. I read Bhagavad Gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam.

Joe Rogan 38:34 What do you think soma is?

John Joseph 38:35 Who?

Joe Rogan 38:36 Soma.

John Joseph 38:37 What's... The soma? Soma ras. Soma ras, that is a drink that they drink on the heavenly planets.

Joe Rogan 38:44 Yeah.

John Joseph 38:44 It's a, it's a, it's a beverage on the heavenly planets that they get intoxic- intoxicated from.

Joe Rogan 38:48 Yeah. The big question is, like, what's in it? There was-

John Joseph 38:50 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 38:51 No one knows. They think it's-

John Joseph 38:52 There's elements... You know, when people say, "You think there's life on other planets?" I'm like, "What are you, a fucking Mameluke? Of course there's life on other... You think you're the only fucking life in the universe? Come on, man."

Joe Rogan 39:02 Well, that's one of the things in the Bhagavad Gita is, uh, flying crafts and soma is one of them. And th- the-

John Joseph 39:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:08 The so- soma's one of the interesting things, rather. And soma, they... It's some sort of a psychedelic concoction, but nobody knows exactly what it is.

John Joseph 39:15 Where?

Joe Rogan 39:15 They think it might be a combination of several things. They think for sure psilocybin's in it, but they think it might also be hashish, that hashish might be in it.

John Joseph 39:23 Yeah, I mean, it... There's other... There's elements in the, in the upper planetary system that... Brahmaloka and all these different planets in this, in the solar sys- The Vedic astrology is much different than, uh, the Western astrology. So they talk about planets way above Earth, you know, that-

Joe Rogan 39:42 What are they... When you... They're teaching you the Bhagavad Gita though, what do they describe soma as? Like what do they think it is?

John Joseph 39:47 Uh, uh, so, uh, uh, they called it soma ras, and it... That was a beverage that's drunk in the heavenly planets. It's not available on the Earth planet. Is, is, uh, the demigods drink soma ras. Demigods on, on other planets.

Joe Rogan 40:00 That's the only time people drink it? I mean, I thought it was part of a ritualistic-

John Joseph 40:02 Yeah, I mean, you have Shiva. Shi- the Shivites smoked the ganja and stuff like that.

Joe Rogan 40:06 Right.

John Joseph 40:06 And I don't know... Uh, you know, they put the ashes of the crematorium on their bodies and stuff like that.

Joe Rogan 40:11 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 40:11 But they... Uh, you know, the, the thing about, uh, there's four principles in the Hare Krishna when you live as a brahmacari monk, which I did. And it's no intoxication at all. No ill- no eating of meat, fish, eggs, none of that. Um, no gambling and no illicit sex. So I was actually a f- uh, uh, 100% brahmacari celibate monk.

Joe Rogan 40:32 For how long?

John Joseph 40:32 For two years. And I trained martial arts in Hawaii in the hills with this one Black dude who was fucking fierce. And he was a brahmacari too, so we would train. And completely celibate. I was getting up 2:00 every single day in the morning. I was in bed by 8:00. And training and working and just, you know, trying to heal my, uh, my soul. But that came because when I first was going to the temple, I wrote... I would write down my questions. "I know I'm gonna get these motherfuckers tomorrow." 'Cause I was reading Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti, Ram Dass. Like I studied... I s- uh, uh, you know, I saw all those guys. Uh, I went to see, uh, Krishnamurti speak and meditate. I was g- I was just eating it up. Like once that light came on, uh, metaphysically for the meditation and the yoga and everything, I just went full fucking bore into it.

Joe Rogan 41:26 So it started from the health food store.

John Joseph 41:28 Yeah. Because I worked-

Joe Rogan 41:29 So the health food store got you in there.

John Joseph 41:30 Vinnie, Vinnie Signorelli, who's now the drummer for The Unsane, he still plays drums. He was in, uh, The Dots. He was in Turbo Hydramatics, a bunch of bands in New York. And he just started hitting me with questions. "What do you think this is? What do you think..." I was like, "I don't know, man." And then after giving me this book, he gave me this book called The Science of Self-Realization. And I read it and I was like, "Dude, this yoga master, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada." I was like, "I gotta find out more. Where is this guy?" And he said, "Oh, he left the planet in '77, but you could go to the temple and see the whole process." I was like, "Yo, I wanna go." And I went and they had this ceremony, and it's called Greeting of the Deities. And then the song that gets played, George Harrison plays bass on it. And I was like, "Yo." It was from the, uh, Brahma Samhita. And I was... I just was attracted to it. Everything I'd known in my life was pain and violence and just fucking cra- I, I, I mean, you know, I saw-

Joe Rogan 42:29 So it was a pathway to some sort of an escape from the pa- the trappings of your past. It was a pathway to enlightenment.

John Joseph 42:37 Pa-

Joe Rogan 42:37 It was a pathway to peace.

John Joseph 42:39 Absolutely. Peace, but...Some of the most fierce warriors, and what I loved about Bhagavad Gita, is spoken on a battlefield between Krishna and Arjuna. Arjuna was a Kshatriya, Krishna's ... This line, this, this, uh, Sampradaya comes from the warrior class. And if you read any books on martial arts, they're gonna tell you that martial arts originated in India. The original martial arts school were all in India and at one point, Shankarcharya chased all the Buddhists out of India and they fled across the Himalayas into China. So, this is actual history that you ... And you can see, uh, where the martial arts spread out across, across the planet, but you know, a- a lot of it, uh, a lot of things that are around today originated, uh, in India. So to me, that really ... I was always in, you know, I was s- a street fighter. I messed around, uh, even, you know, with some ... Going to martial arts schools, always on the outskirts, though. I even went and, and trained with, uh, Ron Van Clief when he had his school in New York, but-

Joe Rogan 43:43 No shit?

John Joseph 43:44 Yeah, but he would, he would always be training police forces and I was the only white dude in the class and it was all Blacks and Puerto Ricans, and when (laughs) it came time to spar, they beat the shit outta me.

Joe Rogan 43:54 (laughs)

John Joseph 43:54 I was getting fucking wrecked by the, by the black belts. But I have a, you know, I always-

Joe Rogan 43:59 There was no light sparring back then.

John Joseph 44:00 No.

Joe Rogan 44:01 No, nobody did sparred light back then.

John Joseph 44:02 Yo, there were schools, Victor Vega, Ron Van Clief, Ron Takanashi, this dude, Doc, uh, uh, uh, this other dude named Rodan who ran his school, University of Streets, they would run from into the dojo, like, 20 dudes and just all out fucking brawl.

Joe Rogan 44:19 Yeah.

John Joseph 44:20 Like, even Brian Callan, his teacher, and all these guys, they trained under Master Choy, and he ... Sum Nim Choy, and he encouraged you to fight.

Joe Rogan 44:30 Yeah.

John Joseph 44:30 You are training to fight. Like, and-

Joe Rogan 44:33 It was very common back then.

John Joseph 44:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:34 That was a big part of it, because you had to develop people that could actually perform in competition and one of the best ways to do that was to have challenge matches.

John Joseph 44:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:42 So, like, when you're talking about smokers.

John Joseph 44:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:44 They, they used to have, allow that in LA up until real recently. Over the last 10 years or so, they, they banned smokers. But you used to be able to get your experience in actual fights on a smoker.

John Joseph 44:55 Why?

Joe Rogan 44:55 And that was a little bit more, uh, prepared than the dojo storming days.

John Joseph 45:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:00 But the dojo storming days, that's how a lot of people got good, is that, like, you have the real fights. You would go in there, some guy would come from another school and you knew you were gonna hit each other as hard as you could. It wasn't-

John Joseph 45:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:09 ... it wasn't, it wasn't really sparring.

John Joseph 45:11 Well, I'll tell you, a lot of that spun into gang bonds too.

Joe Rogan 45:14 Sure.

John Joseph 45:14 Because a lot of the people that were the martial arts teachers ... This one dude, JR, he's famous, he was in The New York Times, he was one of the biggest heroin traffickers on the Lower East Side here. He was one of the first guys to get busted under the RICO statute. He did the full 25, uh, and he trained all of the dudes that sold for him and all his street soldiers were all trained in martial arts. So, a lot of these guys were doing shady shit behind the scenes-

Joe Rogan 45:40 Mm. Yeah.

John Joseph 45:40 ... because that's what Alphabet City and the Lower East Side and that's what New York was about. I'm actually good friends with, uh, Tai Mok.

Joe Rogan 45:48 Oh, no shit.

John Joseph 45:49 Yeah. Tai Mok-

Joe Rogan 45:50 From The Last Dragon?

John Joseph 45:51 Ta- Tai Mok's father is a Hare Krishna, his name is Cosmo.

Joe Rogan 45:54 I met him in, uh, LA, like, fucking 20 years ago, he came to a show. I was like, "That's The Last Dragon."

John Joseph 45:59 Yeah. Well, you know, he ... I won't say names, but he outed somebody that tried to do some shit to him and, and they blackballed him in Hollywood and the guy said, "You're never gonna make another motherfucking movie." And he hasn't.

Joe Rogan 46:14 Oh, man.

John Joseph 46:14 He got fucking ... Dude. And he's such a-

Joe Rogan 46:16 You know that happened to Hulk Hogan? Somebody tried to fuck Hulk Hogan.

John Joseph 46:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:20 Can you imagine?

John Joseph 46:21 (laughs) Fuck yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:21 You been around Hulk Hogan?

John Joseph 46:22 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:23 That's a giant human being.

John Joseph 46:24 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:24 And some guy was like, "I'm gonna suck your dick." And he's like, "No, brother." (laughs)

John Joseph 46:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:29 Like, (laughs) like, for real. (laughs)

John Joseph 46:31 Step up to the Slim Spits.

Joe Rogan 46:32 But this is the, this is like this Terry Crews thing-

John Joseph 46:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:34 ... that a lot of people made fun of Terry Crews 'cause how does this big stud of an athlete ... Who cares if who grabs your dick? Just swat that guy in the head. But he's saying, no, this is like a, this is a system- systemic problem when you have people that are in power and they control your destiny.

John Joseph 46:49 And that's what they-

Joe Rogan 46:49 And there's a lot of that. A lot of that.

John Joseph 46:51 Fucking, they'll ruin you, man.

Joe Rogan 46:52 Yep.

John Joseph 46:52 Like-

Joe Rogan 46:52 And they did, a lot of people.

John Joseph 46:53 Listen, like, the whole, like, it's a, you know, the whole Me Too shit ... First of all, my mother was raped twice. So, if some dude is pushing his, uh, weight around, uh, on a w- on a female, I think that shit's fucked up. And then they're gonna turn around and fucking ... But fuck these people. I say fucking get 'em the fuck outta there. And I'm gonna tell you a story because, um, Julia Phillips and Michael Phillips, they, you know, they fucking produced one of my favorite movies of all time, which was Taxi Driver and, uh, Close Encounters. They did all those movies. She wrote a book called You'll Never Do Lunch in This Town Again, in the '80s. She had The Cro-Mags come and play in a movie at The Ritz. They flew us off the Motörhead tour, picked us up in limos. She wanted the shit to be lip synced. I said, "Nah, if you want The Cro-Mags, it's a fucking real show and we're gonna fucking lay it down." We had like a thousand of our fans there.

Joe Rogan 47:50 Ankle tape, everything.

John Joseph 47:51 Fucking, dude, just crazy shit.

Joe Rogan 47:53 (laughs)

John Joseph 47:53 And two people broke their necks during the shooting. So the movie's called-

Joe Rogan 47:57 That sounds normal. (laughs)

John Joseph 47:57 It's called The Beat. Yeah. But the thing was she was one of the first people to put out and expose these fucking scumbags for doing that shit, uh, to, to people in Hollywood and exposed a lot of that in a book, the, uh, You'll Never Do Lunch in This Town Again. And when the book came out, she was on the set for Interview with a Vampire and they came and pulled her off the set and she was fucking blackballed from fucking Hollywood. She never made any more fucking movies and then even-

Joe Rogan 48:24 This is all pre-internet, this is what this was.

John Joseph 48:26 Yeah, this is pre-internet.

Joe Rogan 48:27 They could get away with things like that back then.

John Joseph 48:28 Yeah, and she just fucking put up the middle finger to all of them, like, "Fuck you." She, she passed away of cancer, but she was like a real fucking punk rocker, man. She fucking took on the system, the boys club in Hollywood. And, uh, you know, even the shit ... I don't know how legit the Corey Feldman ...... you know, stuff is. I, I know him and whatever, but like he's saying-

Joe Rogan 48:50 It's a problem that you don't... Yeah, it's like one of those things where I don't know what to do here.

John Joseph 48:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:54 It seems there's like-

John Joseph 48:55 You know-

Joe Rogan 48:55 ... some shenanigans.

John Joseph 48:56 But I know that it's, I know-

Joe Rogan 48:57 Something happened.

John Joseph 48:58 Yeah. I know it, I know it goes on. Something happened.

Joe Rogan 49:01 And it's not just him. I mean, the, the list is a mile long, and for everybody that comes forth, there's a million people that are sitting back going, "I don't wanna say anything-

John Joseph 49:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:08 ... because I don't wanna take that shame on." You know?

John Joseph 49:10 Well, that's what happened with me, you know? It was the same thing.

Joe Rogan 49:12 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Joseph 49:12 Like, uh, you know, you have this rep in whatever the fuck, but that's all false ego-

Joe Rogan 49:17 Right.

John Joseph 49:17 ... even all of that stuff, like-

Joe Rogan 49:19 Yeah.

John Joseph 49:19 A- a- and then the person that I was with at the time said, "You know, this story is gonna help a lot of people y- by you coming forward and, and saying what happened to you and how you're dealing with it now." And that's wha- that's what I... E- even th- I got this new book, The PMA Effect, coming out and-

Joe Rogan 49:36 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 49:36 ... the whole shit is about healing people and help- I, I mean, I've helped thousands of people kick drugs, kick, uh, suicidal thoughts. Uh, and, and you know, it's not that I'm like, "I'm turning him into a vegan." It's like, "Dude, I'm gonna show you the system that worked for me." That's all I can do, is tell you... I'm like the fucking mailman, you know? I, I'm just delivering the fucking mail to you. I didn't come up with it, but I'm showing you the yoga, the plant-based diet, the meditation, the training, constant fucking training.

Joe Rogan 50:09 Well, through all the things you're doing, you're committed and you're, you're disciplined and that's attractive to people, right? People look to, for people that are doing things that they wish they were doing.

John Joseph 50:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:19 So they see someone... I mean, that's the whole cult of personality, right? They see you, they see you, you got this powerful personality and you're positive, you're doing things, and people gravitate to that and they wanna be a part of that. I mean, that's, that's-

John Joseph 50:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:32 ... that's what happens with people.

John Joseph 50:33 But, but, but the first thing that I s- and I said it, 'cause Vice did a whole 18-minute special on me. If you, if you just Google, uh, uh, a fucking, uh, vegan Ironman, this shit comes up. They did a 18-minute documentary. And one of the things I said first off is, "Don't say you can't do it." You could do any fucking thing you apply yourself to. You just haven't tried. You could do what I'm doing. And I'm gonna tell you, I go to races, these Ironmans all over the fucking world, and these guys show me pictures. One guy was fucking... He lost 100 fucking pounds, dude. He was so depressed. He was on meds for depression. So everything that I'm doing is coming out of service. It's, it's service to help people. It's not... I come at them right from the same fucking platform. I'm like... And even the Vedas, what does it say? "Triṇād api sunetra naityāntra vaśeṣu nāmaṇi darśanāya ca dhāniyā sadā hariḥ." You should think of yourself lower than the straw in the street, more tolerant than a tree, always ready to offer respects to others. In that state of mind one can constantly chant the holy names of Hare Krishna. So that's the philosophy. So where does the false ego in thinking I'm better than you 'cause I eat a motherfucking vegetable and you eat a fucking piece of meat or whatever? It's, it's not about that. It's about trying to help people and have compassion to people, and that's something that's really getting lost in this world, is compassion. Everybody wants to kick people when they're down and, and w- I just don't understand where this fucking sickness came from. I- And I think a lot of it has to do with reality TV and this whole microwave, insta-fame fucking culture that exists now. It's like what you said, they think that if, if they put down somebody that's gonna make... They're gonna gain power from it. It's like... It's, it's just crazy.

Joe Rogan 52:20 Yeah.

John Joseph 52:20 I don't come from that. I come from like, "Yo, man, let's help one another to make this world a better place." How are we gonna save the oceans? How are we gonna save... You know, and you know, i- my thing is this. Look, they just f- said that the, the fucking commercial meat and dairy industries are now the most toxic, uh... They're the most toxic, uh, companies on the fucking planet. They just surpassed fossil fuel with the destruction they're doing to the planet. So I'm like, "Eat a little less meat."

Joe Rogan 52:52 Where is this coming from?

John Joseph 52:53 It just, I just... It's, it's, it was just all on, uh... Where did I read it? It was on, uh, one of the main sites, like, uh, that-

Joe Rogan 53:01 So is this by, uh, from methane gas? Is it from runoff?

John Joseph 53:05 Fossil, fossil fuels, runoff. Look, here's the, here's the thing. So before that Gulf oil spill ever happened, there was a fucking dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey. Why? All the fucking runoff of-

Joe Rogan 53:19 From farms.

John Joseph 53:19 ... the caFOs and the farms with the fucking toxic pesticides, the fucking... All the shit that these guys are spraying, Roundup and everything else.

Joe Rogan 53:28 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 53:28 And, and the nitrogen that's in the fucking shit when these lagoons that have 100,000 fucking gallons of pig shit. You know, it all d- was draining into the, into the Mississippi and then draining into the Gulf. So if you look at what's going on in North Carolina right now, 'cause I was just there, motherfuckers can't even swim in the fucking rivers anymore. And it's happening in Europe too. They just had to cancel the swim on, uh, the Ironman in, in Hamburg because of the green algae and all the shit that's happening now because of all the runoff that's happening with the farms and everything. It's just... We're, we're making this planet a fucking toxic wasteland, and-

Joe Rogan 54:07 Well, what we've done with farms and it's gotten... We, we, we developed cities. We have giant groups of people that aren't growing anything, and then we've given people incentive to make as much profit as possible. And when they're trying to make as much profit as possible without ethics or morals and consideration or, or the impact on the environment, they set off a process in motion that we are many, many decades into right now. So to try to correct it now, we're just seeing the effects. And then on top of that, there's all these ag-gag laws.

John Joseph 54:36 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:36 And the ag-gag laws are devastating because when you see... Like, one of the reasons I became a hunter is because I was watching these films of factory farming.And I was like, "I'm not, I'm not participating in this. I have to figure out what I'm gonna do. I'm either gonna become a vegetarian or I'm gonna become a hunter." I decided to become a hunter and that's how I get my meat. But when you see those videos, those are the videos that expose people to the realities and the horrors of factory farming. And those are illegal in most places.

John Joseph 55:04 Yeah. You go to prison now. It's a-

Joe Rogan 55:06 You go to prison-

John Joseph 55:07 ... federal-

Joe Rogan 55:07 ... for showing horrible-

John Joseph 55:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:09 ... immoral acts that are done to these animals and the way they're treated and the way they're contained. And we were talking yesterday about, um, this video of a pig farm that there's this, there's this pig farm where these pigs are smashed into this place where they can't move at all. They're all in these cages.

John Joseph 55:24 Crates.

Joe Rogan 55:24 And then it's ... There's a runoff from where they shit and piss and there's a giant lake outside of pig shit and pig piss. And no one who lives anywhere near that can avoid that smell. You drive anywhere near that area, it's a horrific toxic smell. So it's already gotten to this almost, like, i- incorrectible position. Like that, that, that business is a toxic business. But it's not a regular f- ... like a Joel Salatin farm. You, you know who that guy is?

John Joseph 55:50 No.

Joe Rogan 55:50 You ever heard of him? He runs this farm called Polyface Farms and what, what he does is he has all these animals live like normal animals. Like the pigs, they're not in these cages. He has them roam free and they set s- they set up these enormous portable fences. So they ta- take the pigs, they roam in this one area like pigs naturally do, and then they move the fence to a different area and they transport th- uh, they did s- m- you know, move the pigs over with it. So the pigs are never contained. The chickens run free and then they go back into the chicken house at night. And then they try not to have mono crops. Like when you have mon- when you have a thousand acres of soybeans, that shit ain't normal.

John Joseph 56:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:28 That's not how plants are supposed to be. And then you have to throw pesticides on 'em. And then when you're rolling 'em up, you have to grind everything up with these gigantic machines and everything gets caught up in there. Mice and rabbits and everything that might be in the, in the neighborhood-

John Joseph 56:40 Right.

Joe Rogan 56:40 ... while these machines are rolling over. All of that is unnatural and it's not how s- human beings are supposed to grow food. It's not how s- food is supposed to be ... It's not how these plants or animals are supposed to be interacting with the environment. But what we're doing with these things is making an incredible amounts of profit and these people are addicted to this profit. These corporations are addicted to these profit. They have this constant growth mentality where every year, every quarter has to have more. There, there's a never-ending growth cycle.

John Joseph 57:08 And they make, and they make the laws.

Joe Rogan 57:09 And the only way ... Right.

John Joseph 57:09 That's the other thing.

Joe Rogan 57:10 Well, they have massive amounts of money so they bribe politicians and they use all of these, uh, these lobbyists and what they do is they get these laws passed where it's illegal to film them doing immoral shit. And so then you don't see this. You just go to the store and you buy a cheeseburger or you go to Jack in the Box, you go wherever you go and you buy these things. You get corn, you know, or you get corn syrup in your soda and you don't think twice about what, what has to happen for that corn to become syrup and how much environmental damage has to take place.

John Joseph 57:43 Right.

Joe Rogan 57:44 I mean, this is ... The, the world we're living in right now is just waking up to what has been in motion for many, many decades.

John Joseph 57:52 Right.

Joe Rogan 57:52 I think what's really important though is that we're honest about health and that we're honest about the consequences of our actions in terms of, like, our purchasing power, what we're doing with food. We gotta be honest about all of it. And one of the problems that happens with hunters or carnivores or even vegans or, or vegetarians is people only wanna look at things that support their position.

John Joseph 58:15 Right.

Joe Rogan 58:15 And with vegans there's a lot of people out there that only wanna look at things that support vegan positions in terms of health. And this becomes a real problem 'cause they start, they start using studies that are very shaky. They start adding things to, to documentaries that aren't necessarily true or proven and it becomes propaganda. And it becomes propaganda both ways. I see it-

John Joseph 58:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:36 ... with this carnivore diet now. There's a lot of people that with this carnivore diet that are like, "This is the only way to go. You know, just eat all meat."

John Joseph 58:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:43 And I'm like, man, I don't know about all that. I don't see any blood work. I see blood work only ... I talked to, um, uh, Sean ... What is his last name? Sean the, the doctor. Goddammit. The fuck... He's the, the main carnivore guy. How can I not remember-

John Joseph 59:00 That's ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:01 ... his name? What does ... How, how is that slip in my, my-

Narrator 59:04 Sean Baker.

Joe Rogan 59:05 Sean Baker.

John Joseph 59:05 Sean Baker.

Joe Rogan 59:05 Sean Baker. He released his blood work. It's not good.

John Joseph 59:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:08 His blood work's not good. His testosterone's low. There's also all sorts of-

John Joseph 59:11 A- a- a- and I just-

Joe Rogan 59:11 ... issues.

John Joseph 59:11 ... wanna say, uh, who are the hos- l- let's just look at it this way. Who are the hospitals filled with that are having procedures for bypass? Who are the procedures being done for people removing their limbs for diabetes? It's not the people that's ... It's the people that are eating this toxic diet that Americans, the, the standard American diet and what people have become accustomed to eating, rolling up and ... Even these carnivore people. Let- let's just, uh, take that for instance. Um, if you do all meat, sure, your body ... Let m- that motherfucker might've been on a Dorito diet. We don't know what the fuck-

Joe Rogan 59:50 Right. Right.

John Joseph 59:50 ... he was eating prior, prior to that. So then you put ... The body's a perfect machine. So at the f- at the beginning of when you're doing all meat, the body's becoming accustomed to that. But you know the analogy that I use is that's like getting off heroin and getting on methadone because the methadone ... "Yo, I kicked dope but I'm on fucking meth now."

Joe Rogan 1:00:10 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 1:00:11 Because the methadone down the road is gonna take even a longer toll and I've seen people that are doing methadone for 20, 30 years and that's why I love the analogy because the long-term studies of those diets do not exist right now.

Joe Rogan 1:00:27 No, there's no long-term studies for the carnivore diet.

John Joseph 1:00:29 But if you look at the blue zones around the planet of the people who are the most centenarians and the people that live the longest, they have three things in common.Okay? And there's, there's blue zones in Japan, Costa Rica, Greece-

Joe Rogan 1:00:43 Iran.

John Joseph 1:00:43 ... United States. Well, the top five-

Joe Rogan 1:00:46 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 1:00:46 ... uh, with the most. And then, and then California, and it's the Adventists, the Seventh-Day Adventists. So the three things that they have most in common with the people that live the longest, number one, they have a meditation spiritual practice. They do something every day for PMA, for positive mental attitude. Whatever their higher power is, they do that every day. Number two, they move their bodies. They're working, they work in the farm, they're exercising. Number three, they eat primarily a plant-based diet. They may have a piece of fish in Japan or whatever, or a piece of meat once in a while, but primarily, the Seventh-Day ... The Adventist study was actually the best one because it was all from different people with different ethnic backgrounds and the one thing that they had in common, the Seventh-Day Adventists don't eat meat.

Joe Rogan 1:01:37 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 1:01:37 And, uh, that's my point with the whole thing and, you know, w- when it comes down to diet is I just see what, what worked for me and I try to relay that to people. And not, not be like, "My way's the only way," and this and that, because people, people are doing other sh- people are doing other things, uh, in their way. There's raw foodists, there's all these different people. And the problem is with the false ego in the human being, everybody wants to think-

Joe Rogan 1:02:06 They have the right one.

John Joseph 1:02:06 ... that the glass is full, don't try to tell me shit, I know it all.

Joe Rogan 1:02:10 Here's an issue with centenarians. Uh, centurions, how do you say it?

John Joseph 1:02:13 Centurions.

Joe Rogan 1:02:15 Centenarians?

Narrator 1:02:15 Centenarians?

Joe Rogan 1:02:15 Centenarians.

John Joseph 1:02:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:16 I think it's centenarians, yeah. Um, people that live to be 100 years. Uh, one ... This is one thing we have to take into consideration, you're talking about people that lived already to be 100 years. So when they were 50 was 50 years ago, all right? We're talking about 1967. Nobody knew shit about diet back then. This is a fact.

John Joseph 1:02:33 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:02:33 Okay. So the people that did live that long and they were living ... This, it's almost, uh, an accident in some ways or inconsequential. Like what, what is going on today with people's diet and how long will people live today? There's far more information-

John Joseph 1:02:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:48 ... in terms of, like, nutrition and what you should do-

John Joseph 1:02:51 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 1:02:51 ... and shouldn't do for your body. So what I'm concerned with is, like, what optimizes people today? I wanna see blood work.

John Joseph 1:02:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:58 I wanna see, like, what is going on with your blood lipids.

John Joseph 1:03:00 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 1:03:01 What is going on with your nutrient levels, what is going on with that. And in, in that case, we don't have ... We have just a few studies from a few people or a few tests from a few people that have done this carnivore diet. We have some people that have done the vegan diet and have n- had real hard problems with that diet.

John Joseph 1:03:16 Yeah, but let's just ... Let me just say one thing, 'cause to throw the word vegan on something, that does not make it a healthy diet.

Joe Rogan 1:03:22 It's true. Yeah.

John Joseph 1:03:22 I know vegans that are fucking 100 pounds overweight, they eat nothing but fried tofu.

Joe Rogan 1:03:26 Yeah. Vegan pizza, yeah.

John Joseph 1:03:27 If you say, "An organic whole food plant-based diet," that's what I roll with.

Joe Rogan 1:03:32 Right.

John Joseph 1:03:32 I don't, I don't fucking say I ...

Joe Rogan 1:03:34 It's a good point.

John Joseph 1:03:34 Vegan diet could mean anything, but when you say whole food, foods in their original source, organic-

Joe Rogan 1:03:40 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 1:03:40 ... no pesticides, whole food plant-based diet, that's what I roll with.

Joe Rogan 1:03:44 Right.

John Joseph 1:03:44 So that's why I don't go around-

Joe Rogan 1:03:45 Nutrient dense.

John Joseph 1:03:46 Nutrient dense.

Joe Rogan 1:03:47 Mineral dense. And this is one of the things-

John Joseph 1:03:48 Mineral, mineral dense.

Joe Rogan 1:03:49 ... that's important with people that live a long time. One of the things that you get from a lot of plants, especially, like, rich green leafy plants-

John Joseph 1:03:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:03:56 ... you get a lot of minerals.

John Joseph 1:03:57 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 1:03:58 And, and more importantly, if these things are raised in an organic environment, you're getting soil that's not depleted.

John Joseph 1:04:04 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:04 And this is a big problem with mono c- monocrops.

John Joseph 1:04:06 Did you see this, the article that just came out today that 40 years ago an orange was 10 times more nu- more nutritious? I think it was, uh, I think it might have been CNN online or something, they posted an article that said the fruits and vegetables from 40 years ago were 10 times more nutritious than the, than the way they're being grown today. Because like you said, rows and rows and rows.

Joe Rogan 1:04:33 It makes sense.

John Joseph 1:04:33 How do they extract the nutrients properly from the soil?

Joe Rogan 1:04:38 Yeah, they don't.

John Joseph 1:04:38 It's impossible.

Joe Rogan 1:04:39 Well, you know, they have to actually add nutrients to the soil. Most of the time they're just adding nitrogen and a few other different minerals, but-

John Joseph 1:04:46 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:46 ... there's mineral depletion.

John Joseph 1:04:47 Or pi- or pig shit. Like, what-

Joe Rogan 1:04:49 Yeah.

John Joseph 1:04:49 ... what they do is to get ... How do they get rid of that pig shit?

Joe Rogan 1:04:53 Yeah.

John Joseph 1:04:54 They're spraying it on the fucking crops.

Joe Rogan 1:04:56 Yeah.

John Joseph 1:04:56 And, and, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:04:57 Well, you're s- you're supposed to rotate crops.

John Joseph 1:05:00 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:05:00 You know what I mean? That's ... Yeah.

John Joseph 1:05:00 Crop rotation, what you plant next to each other-

Joe Rogan 1:05:04 Right. Compost.

John Joseph 1:05:04 ... that are extr- I'm not a farmer, composting, but I have a friend that is an organic farmer, uh, and his na- his name is Keith. And, uh, he farms up, uh, up in, like, New Hampshire-

Joe Rogan 1:05:16 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 1:05:16 ... and he knows all about crop rotation. E- Keith Leonforte.

Joe Rogan 1:05:20 If you have a small farm-

John Joseph 1:05:21 He's a Hare Krishna dude.

Joe Rogan 1:05:22 ... you can do it.

John Joseph 1:05:23 That's what he does.

Joe Rogan 1:05:23 Yeah.

John Joseph 1:05:23 He has a small farm.

Joe Rogan 1:05:25 Small farms are legit.

John Joseph 1:05:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:26 Like, you can have a small farm and be in symbiosis. Like, you, you can, you could be in harmony with the land. But man, you're start- you're growing, you know, fucking 1,000 acres of corn for cattle feed, there's ... You might as well be making oil.

John Joseph 1:05:41 Well-

Joe Rogan 1:05:42 I mean, you're, you're doing something that's kind of crazy to that environment.

John Joseph 1:05:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:45 It's not natural.

John Joseph 1:05:46 And, and, and listen, you know, I saw Ted Nugent play with fucking AC/DC and Black Sabbath in '76 at, at Madison Square Garden. I went to all them shows. But, you know, when he came on and the shit that he was talking, I was just like the fucking GMO crops, okay? 80% of the GMO crop is being fed to animals for fucking slaughter. The, the ... What he called the stupid vegans are not the ones that are eating that shit. That most of the crops that are genetically modified, because you have these corporations, McDonald's, every one of these corporations, they want every fucking piece of meat to taste the same, they want every fucking french fry potato to be the same. So the only way they can control it is the control of the genetic markers. So that's why they're using all of the f- all the ... A majority of the genetically modified grains and Monsanto-... uh, you know, who just got bought out by Bayer, a- and they're changing the name because Monsanto has such a big rep. I don't ... A rep, rep, if you don't know it, Bayer just bought them.

Joe Rogan 1:06:51 Yeah, I know.

John Joseph 1:06:51 Now-

Joe Rogan 1:06:52 It's kind of hilarious.

John Joseph 1:06:52 ... do you know the history of Bayer?

Joe Rogan 1:06:53 Pharmaceutical company.

John Joseph 1:06:54 No, but-

Joe Rogan 1:06:55 They make aspirin. (laughs)

John Joseph 1:06:55 ... IG Farben. No, prior to that, they made the Zyklon gas that went into the Nazi death chambers.

Joe Rogan 1:07:02 Well, that's ... You know what's funny? That, that Ny- Zyklon gas was created by Fritz Haber. Fritz Haber is also the guy who created the process of extracting nitrogen from the air.

John Joseph 1:07:12 Really?

Joe Rogan 1:07:13 So, he's the guy. The reason why we can grow the kind of crops that we have today is because of Fritz Haber.

John Joseph 1:07:17 Pff.

Joe Rogan 1:07:17 They say that 50% of the nitren (sic) - the nitrogen in most people's DNA comes from The Haber Method. He also created Zyklon A. Zyklon A is an-

John Joseph 1:07:26 It was Zyklon B gas-

Joe Rogan 1:07:28 It has ... Right.

John Joseph 1:07:28 ... which the Nazis used.

Joe Rogan 1:07:29 Well, he created Zyklon A, and they added the smell to it so that you could smell this toxic gas-

John Joseph 1:07:34 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:07:34 ... so you would know it when it was coming, so you could get out of the way.

John Joseph 1:07:36 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:07:37 The Nazis switched it to Zyklon B. Fritz Haber was actually a Jew-

John Joseph 1:07:41 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:07:42 ... and they took his invention and cut out the smell portion of it so that they could gas Jews with it.

John Joseph 1:07:47 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:07:48 It's dark shit.

John Joseph 1:07:49 See, I, I, I said Joe's a smart motherfucker. I'm learning some shit here today.

Joe Rogan 1:07:52 (laughs)

John Joseph 1:07:52 (laughs) Right?

Joe Rogan 1:07:54 It's stuck in my head. It's dark shit, you know?

John Joseph 1:07:55 But, but, but-

Joe Rogan 1:07:56 The, The Haber Method-

John Joseph 1:07:56 You know-

Joe Rogan 1:07:57 ... saved a lot of people and killed a lot of people.

John Joseph 1:08:00 And that's-

Joe Rogan 1:08:00 They wanted to try that guy for crimes against humanity while he was winning the Nobel Prize for Science, at the same time.

John Joseph 1:08:05 That's insane.

Joe Rogan 1:08:05 'Cause he was also the first people ... He was one of the, the, uh, first people that implemented a gassing program, where they used it to gas the Allied troops in World War I. That was Haber.

John Joseph 1:08:15 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:08:15 Haber was a big part of that.

John Joseph 1:08:17 I didn't ... I did not know that.

Joe Rogan 1:08:18 Yeah, it's crazy shit.

John Joseph 1:08:19 That's deep.

Joe Rogan 1:08:19 So, that is how we get nitrogen.

John Joseph 1:08:22 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:08:22 We get nitrogen from The Haber Method, when they're pouring nitrogen into the plant, into the soil so they can grow plants.

John Joseph 1:08:28 Sh- ... That's-

Joe Rogan 1:08:29 That's a big part of it. When you say genetically modified, too, a big part of that is, like, we want to think about, oh, like labs and science and all this jazz. But almost everything we eat is genetically modified, including all of our grains, like especially all of our fruits and vegetables. What you're saying about tomatoes or, um, uh, cr- uh, orange being different than it was 10 years ago, fucking everything's different, man.

John Joseph 1:08:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:50 'Cause they want these things to be durable so they can throw them in a bus or a truck, rather, and travel across the country and sell them somewhere else.

John Joseph 1:08:56 Well, well, well, here, here's the thing, and I know what they do. They take the, the, the, the, the DNA of a flounder and inject it into tomatoes so it can resist the frost.

Joe Rogan 1:09:05 How the fuck did they do that?

John Joseph 1:09:06 I don't fucking know, man.

Joe Rogan 1:09:06 Is that real?

John Joseph 1:09:07 It's ... That's real.

Joe Rogan 1:09:08 So, if you eat a tomato, does it have flounder in it?

John Joseph 1:09:10 Yeah. Now, vegans, if you're eating GMO shit, maybe you're not eating vegan food. You could be eating a fish tomato. Did you ever think about that?

Joe Rogan 1:09:16 Well, one thing is if you eat plants, plants absorb ... Like, they found salmon DNA in some plants because plants absorb the stuff-

John Joseph 1:09:27 Everything.

Joe Rogan 1:09:27 ... fish that people use for fertilizer.

John Joseph 1:09:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:30 You know, so you're getting some of that animal, but it's a natural cycle that you're getting it through. I mean, animals eat animals, plants eat animals, animals even eat plants. I mean, there's fucking crazy plants in South America. It looks like a, like a vase, and these rats, they get attracted to the sweet smell around the edges, and it's slick, and they fall into the hole, and the plant closes in on them-

John Joseph 1:09:51 That's crazy.

Joe Rogan 1:09:51 ... and swallows them and eats them.

John Joseph 1:09:53 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:09:53 Yeah.

John Joseph 1:09:54 Well, well, th- th- ... You know, the other thing is this. You have chemical companies making your food. Their job is not to feed the world. Their job-

Joe Rogan 1:10:03 Their job is not to keep you healthy.

John Joseph 1:10:04 Their job is to sell fucking pesticides.

Joe Rogan 1:10:07 Yeah.

John Joseph 1:10:07 Let's, let's be fucking straight up about it. So, yeah, they created ... What was the other, uh, cross, uh, genetic ... There's a, there's a, uh, a vegetable. I think it was bro- ... Uh, was it cauliflower or broccoli? They, they mixed two things and came out with. Uh, it's a different process, what, what they're doing now.

Joe Rogan 1:10:27 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 1:10:28 And really what they do ... When they can take Roundup and pesticides and put it in the fucking seed-

Joe Rogan 1:10:34 Right.

John Joseph 1:10:35 ... is what they're doing now. And-

Joe Rogan 1:10:37 So, the pla- plant, from the growth cycle, is resistant to these bugs.

John Joseph 1:10:41 Right. And, and-

Joe Rogan 1:10:42 Yeah.

John Joseph 1:10:42 ... all the people that are having the gut issues, I don't know if you listen ... You know, I know you had Rich Roll on twice.

Joe Rogan 1:10:47 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 1:10:47 He's my fuckin' boy, he's a homie.

Joe Rogan 1:10:49 He's a great dude.

John Joseph 1:10:50 He ... Dude, he's fuckin' ... Everyone asks me, like, "What's that motherfucker like in real ... What's he like in real life?" I'm like, "That's the most genuine fucking dude." You know, you ever have anything going on, uh ... He just wrote the forward to my new book, uh, The PMA Effect. I mean, he's such a fucking ... He's a solid cat.

Joe Rogan 1:11:07 Very solid.

John Joseph 1:11:08 But, um, where was I going with that? You took me down a fucking-

Joe Rogan 1:11:10 Uh, plants, glyphosate.

John Joseph 1:11:11 Yeah, so he just had-

Joe Rogan 1:11:12 Yeah.

John Joseph 1:11:12 ... Dr. Zach Bush come on, who's a doctor. This is clinical research. This is not speculation, this is not fucking vegan propaganda. This is fucking science. And he proved that glyphosate and what's happening now with the gut health effect.

Joe Rogan 1:11:27 Mm-hmm.

John Joseph 1:11:27 Gut health is such a huge issue.

Joe Rogan 1:11:28 Yeah.

John Joseph 1:11:29 Everything ... The bad fucking disease (snaps fingers) , it starts in the gut. And the glyphosate is eating through the stomach wall and causing leaky gut and all these other, uh, uh, physical, uh, diseases from happening. Now, the other thing is you have to realize what these pesticides are. They're neurotoxins, and then the ones that they're putting inside the seed, when the bug eats the leaf, it fucking dies. So, you're eating these fruits and vegetables that are completely fucking toxic. And-

Joe Rogan 1:11:58 Well, here's what happens. When they created it, one of the things, one of the reasons why they were able to implement it, they said, "It doesn't kill people, it kills plants and it kills bacteria." So, everybody's like, "Oh, fine."

John Joseph 1:12:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:07 "No problem. It only kills plants and bacteria. That's totally safe."