EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,097 words- 0:00 – 2:30
Podcast origin story: “Live from the Compound” and building a personal playground
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs) I don't think that would pan out. I had a similar idea. (slaps table)
- JRJoe Rogan
Anthony Cumia, we're live, sir.
- ACAnthony Cumia
I love it. Joe Rogan.
- JRJoe Rogan
If it was not for you-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh my God.
- JRJoe Rogan
... this, this would not exist. That is a fact.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Which is insane.
- JRJoe Rogan
That is 100% actual fact. I was watching you doing Live from the Compound. Me and Brian Redband were sitting in my fucking living room, and we were watching you.
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You were fucking playing karaoke. You were singing karaoke with a machine gun in front of a green screen.
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I was like, "This guy, this guy just set up his own studio. Like, he already has Opie and Anthony Show." At the time, you guys were on Sirius XM.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you just decided to do this thing in your basement, just for a goof.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, it was like a hobby.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like, guys who don't have kids, married g- uh, who are not married, don't have kids, don't have anybody telling them what to do, and they also have disposable income, then you get to see what guys really wanna do.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
They wanna sing karaoke with a machine gun in front of a green screen. (laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, it was cra- crazy gun guy karaoke, so I could do that. If, if I was married, I would have a wife that would lose her mind at my living room. Like, my living room table that you're supposed to have a candle on and little tchotchkes and stuff, is a wide screen, uh, computer monitor and, uh, a gaming system right next to the table. I have a gaming computer that's just unbelievable, and I sit there and just play video games.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, the table itself is a gaming monitor?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, the whole tab- well the, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is it one of those touchscreen ones?
- ACAnthony Cumia
No, it's, it's a giant wide monitor. It's like, uh, like 40 inches wide.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, that's the table?
- ACAnthony Cumia
No, it's on the table.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, on the table.
- ACAnthony Cumia
The t- yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was confused.
- ACAnthony Cumia
The table's this big, heavy metal thing, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- 2:30 – 4:07
Marriage, misery, and why suffering can fuel great radio and comedy
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh. You know the Thoreau quote that I say way too many times in this podcast, but I love the quote? "Most men live lives of silent desperation."
- ACAnthony Cumia
Wow.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
It, that is true.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's 100% true.
- ACAnthony Cumia
It was, uh, I was married for a time and it was, uh, it was a nightmare. It was a living hell for me. The only thing that got me through as many years as I was married, 'cause I was married nine years, and I don't remember one happy year out of those nine.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
But I had gotten into radio pretty early on in that marriage. Um, and that was my life. So, I dedicated myself. No matter how miserable anything else in my life was, I was doing radio. So, I, I, I thought it was awesome.
- JRJoe Rogan
I have a theory about that. I really do. I think that y- a person needs a certain amount of suffering in their life, and if you look at some of the all-time great comics, or, or even all-time great radio personalities, like Howard Stern, right?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Howard Stern during his heyday when he was the fucking man, was miserable at home.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right? And he would talk about it. He would hide in his basement, and he would-
- ACAnthony Cumia
I love those stories, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you realize, like here's this guy. He's the, you know, the biggest radio personality ever. He's, he's huge. And yet, he's gotta hide.
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And, and he's just talking about masturbating and hiding from his wife and he can't get any sex, and you're like, it didn't matter if he was huge. It didn't matter if he was famous. Didn't matter how rich he was. Didn't matter.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's just hiding in the basement. And that angst came out on the radio. Like, you related to him. You understood it.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah. Yeah, I, I, I get that. Um, and I, it worked for me, 'cause there was a lot of misery.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 4:07 – 9:45
Opie & Anthony’s early chaos: the April Fools mayor prank and getting fired
- ACAnthony Cumia
Like, when I started, uh, doing really well, we moved back to New York from, from Boston after we got fired, uh, Opie and myself, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
You guys got fired for saying that the mayor died? Is that what happened?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah. Yeah, it was an April Fools' gag, and, uh, because we always thought the, (clears throat) the radio April Fools' jokes were so stupid and hokey and, uh, yeah. We changed the format to all Elvis.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
And it's like, after 10 minutes, they say, "April Fools'." Uh, so we're like, "Let's just go balls out and say the mayor's dead and have a news guy come on and report it and everything." And then, it was supposed to subsequently get more outrageous as the, uh, the, the show went on. So by the end of it, there was a, a Taiwan male hooker in the car with him, and they crashed 'cause she was getting a blowjob or something. Like, it was gonna get really ridiculous, but they stopped it early on and never allowed us to even mention it, so people really thought he died. Although it's kinda stupid. You go to the ONA Show for your news, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
But, but back then, the internet wasn't what it is now.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You got- was the inter- the inter- was it even a- it was barely a thing.
- ACAnthony Cumia
It was barely a thing, uh, 'cause that was 90, '97.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Around there. '98. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
What, what year did y- you get on? You were probably early at that point, right?
- ACAnthony Cumia
I was on, pft, really early, like the '80s, I was on bulletin board servers.
- JRJoe Rogan
Bulletin boards? Wow.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Uh, and, uh, used to play trivia games with a 300 baud modem, uh, with people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ACAnthony Cumia
And I thought it was amazing, uh, even then. And then in, in the, uh, uh, when we were up in Boston, I bought a digital camera that was just this giant thing, and I had a laptop, another giant thing. And, uh, I would take pictures of what was going on in the studio and then post them that night on a website that I figured out. I used the, uh, code the HTML myself and make a website just to post pictures and links.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.Wow.
- ACAnthony Cumia
And people thought it was amazing, like you're seeing what we talked about that day. Uh, it wasn't instant, but it was pretty cool. And then I started doing videos. I, I was able to put video, like maybe eight-second clips of nude girls if they were in the studio and pop that up, and people loved it. Uh, and then I got a bill from the, the company for bandwidth, and I didn't know bandwidth. It was a $12,000 bill for a month.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
'Cause I... There was no, there was no compression or anything.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
I'm pumping video out to thousands of people uncompressed and, uh, apparently, um, they had that happen a couple of times, so they told me, uh, "Just don't do it again." They didn't make me pay, which was pretty cool.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ACAnthony Cumia
But at that point, I had to learn about, you know, coding and, uh, uh, compression and things like that. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But, so you just kept doing it and just, just put them in some sort of a compressed format?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What did you, uh, what'd you use? Do you remember back then?
- 9:45 – 11:23
Early internet tinkering to modern gaming: bandwidth bills, codecs, and massive downloads
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah. It, it's insane to think of the technology end of it 'cause, uh, you got thumb drives with more memory than entire computers had-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... just, uh, a few years ago. Uh, and, and I remember, I guess it was Bill Gates or something said, "You'll, you'll never need anything more powerful than a 486."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
Back years ago and it's like, what, a couple of megs of memory and, uh, just crazy. The, the demand for, for, uh, computer power got way out of hand.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I mean-
- ACAnthony Cumia
And especially with games and stuff 'cause-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... I'm a huge gaming guy. Now you download a game like, uh, Red Dead Redemption 2 or, uh, Call of Duty, um, and it's 75 to 100 gigs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Those games, yeah. And it's like, that would've, that would've been 100 computers. (laughs) Like, and, and to think of those floppy disks you used to get games on.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
It would've been a pallet stacked up like six feet high of those disks to load it, um, on a computer, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, like the old Doom game.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You'd be able to load that with a-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, you just-
- JRJoe Rogan
... floppy disk.
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs) Make those sounds and hopefully it would work and, uh, yeah, now you just download them. I haven't been to a, a gaming store in years 'cause with a Origin or Steam, you just download the game right off of your, uh, offline and it's great.
- JRJoe Rogan
So if you wanna get Red Dead Redemption 2, you just download it?
- ACAnthony Cumia
You just download it. Like, I don't know who goes to GameStop or anything anymore, it's, um...
- JRJoe Rogan
People still do, though. I mean, there's one in the mall. I've seen people walk in.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've seen it. I, I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that Xbox?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Maybe it's the used games. Yeah, Xbox and, uh, PlayStation.
- JRJoe Rogan
But at Xbox you could download too, right?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
And PlayStation.
- JRJoe Rogan
All of those things.
- 11:23 – 13:00
Digital fragility fears: losing humanity’s knowledge in a grid-down event
- JRJoe Rogan
I was having a conversation with Jordan Peterson about this yesterday off-air. I was saying, "I'm really..." I get concerned because I feel like all of our information, like, the vast majority of it is now digital.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, we have some things that are written down on paper, but even paper is so... It's so easy to break and burn and fuck up. I mean, we lost most of... Human beings lost most of the information about Egypt when they burned the Library of Alexandria.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Who knows? I mean, there could've been all sorts of schematics and some diagrams, detailed diagrams how they built some of the things they built.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Lost it all. You know, that easily could happen to us and then we'd be starting from scratch again.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, the, uh... When, when it takes...... some form of electricity to, to get to all this information.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
You're really dependent on that there's going to be power, that type of power, uh, forever.
- JRJoe Rogan
And even if th- we figure out how to reboot electricity, let's say if some day in the future, what if we have a massive coronal mass ejection, and it fucking nukes the entire, the, the whole grid, and all the satellites go down, and we have to start from scratch.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it's a decade, two decades before people start rebuilding computers again that actually work. Well, they're gonna have to decipher all this information. They're gonna have to figure out those codex. They're gonna have to figure out-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... yeah. They're gonna get drivers to make all this stuff work. I mean, they're gonna miss a lot of it.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah. All the info is literally ones and zeros.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
And has to be decoded and, and put back together again.
- JRJoe Rogan
And some important stuff, if it's on a drive somewhere, it could just get nuked.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's gone. And that's it.
- ACAnthony Cumia
And then gone forever.
- JRJoe Rogan
All the things that people figured out, gone.
- 13:00 – 14:41
Social media cynicism and bans: Twitter enforcement, research-only accounts, and uneven rules
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs) Ah, don't you wish that would happen at some point? (laughs) I don't know. I'm so cynical, man. I really am.
- JRJoe Rogan
You, you are lately more so.
- ACAnthony Cumia
I, I, I think over the course of the past few years, I've just gotten more cynical, and, uh, I think social media, uh, had a, a big effect on me. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you engage too much.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
I did. I'm off social media now. I have been for, for maybe, uh, months at least. You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Was it, was it a personal choice?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Well, uh, Twitter kicked me off-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
... quite a few times.
- JRJoe Rogan
What'd they kick you off for?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Uh, just dumb shit too. It wasn't even, um ... It, it wasn't even that bad. Like, w- the last one, it was, uh, I was defending Jimmy Norton. Some girl was on just bashing Jimmy. And, uh, and I was like, "L- look at you." I go, "I don't even know what you are, first of all. You're either, uh, a masculine girl or a feminine guy, and your hair looks like it was dyed with period blood."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
'Cause she has a ... And boom.
- JRJoe Rogan
That was it?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Gone. They fucking permanently suspended me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ACAnthony Cumia
That was, that was it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Period blood was-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Period blood.
- JRJoe Rogan
You can't make fun of menstrual cycles.
- ACAnthony Cumia
You can't make fun of that, you can't make fun of somebody's, uh, looks-
- JRJoe Rogan
Gender.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... if their sexuality.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAnthony Cumia
I kinda called 'em a, a fem-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... uh, or, or a butch, whatever it was.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whichever, whichever case, which side of the spectrum-
- 14:41 – 17:37
Platform policing and political theater: Farrakhan, Laura Loomer, and what ‘public square’ means
- JRJoe Rogan
You know what's interesting to me? Louis Farrakhan is still on Twitter.
- ACAnthony Cumia
It, it's, it's amazing.
- JRJoe Rogan
You ever r- you ever read some of the shit he says-
- ACAnthony Cumia
It's-
- JRJoe Rogan
... about evil Jews?
- ACAnthony Cumia
... crazy antisemitic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Unbelievable.
- ACAnthony Cumia
(clears throat) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Unbelievable. And for whatever reason, they're scared to kick him off.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, they won't kick him off. I guess, uh, Laura Loomer is a, a Jewish kinda independent reporter girl. And, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Slash nutcase.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Slash nutcase. Whatever.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah. Whatever you wanna-
- JRJoe Rogan
She chained herself to Twitter.
- ACAnthony Cumia
She chained herself to Twitter yesterday.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's all you needed to know.
- ACAnthony Cumia
It's hilarious. I just watched it, uh, on Periscope as it was going on. And she's got a bullhorn, and she's just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... yelling, uh, at Twitter. This is where you lose me. When you get a boo, a b- bullhorn. Like ... Yeah. (laughs) You know what's funny? It's kinda left-wing tactics she was using.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
'Cause, uh, conservatives, the right, Republicans, whatever you wanna call it, are pretty mellow when it comes to- they don't demonstrate really.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ACAnthony Cumia
They like to just get in there and, and do their shit, whatever it is. Uh, but liberals really like getting out there and marching and yelling and bullhorns and, uh, stuff like that. So it was weird, like, to see that on the other end.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Uh, but she, she's just screaming and, uh, I guess, I guess they, they unhooked her and, uh, and arrested her, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
... it was pretty funny.
- JRJoe Rogan
What did they fi- what did they kick her off of Twitter for?
- ACAnthony Cumia
They kicked her off for talking about, uh, Islam and talking about how, uh, Twitter was celebrating, uh, Women's Day, whatever, whatever that was, uh, on a certain day, by, uh, focusing ... Like, the picture was one of those, uh, Islamic women that got elected to office up in, uh, what was it? Minnesota or somewhere or ... So she said how hypocritical that was because, you know, Islam is for female genital mutilation and, uh, against women's rights and they kill gay people and ... And that's all she posted, and she got kicked off for the hate speech against Islam.
- 17:37 – 35:52
Trump’s Twitter era and the Russia investigation: personality exposure, media narratives, and legality debates
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, what's really odd is this is while Manafort m- may have perjured himself.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mueller's going after Trump's deeper ties. Cohen is now saying that Trump was in c- cahoots with Putin. He was gonna give him the $50 million penthouse tower in Moscow.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, all that. But like, no, no, no. That girl got kicked off Twitter.
- ACAnthony Cumia
She got kicked off (laughs) Twitter.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
It sounds ridiculous because I, I got, like I said, I got kicked off. And, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm a little bummed about it. Uh, but ...Uh, it's w- 'cause it's odd. It's not just a private company anymore that can do what they want. I, I'm not for government regulation, so I don't know how you fix this, but Twitter is now a thing where the president's on it, world leaders are discussing things on it, emergency management, FEMA, and, and the weather services, they put out alerts in case of, uh, danger or, or some kinda event that's gonna happen. And because of your political ideology or calling a girl period blood hair, uh, you, you're not privy to alerts and safety information that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's cl- it's clear that it's not everyone's ... doesn't have to follow the same rules. We've already established that with Farrakhan.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
We, we've also established that with Trump. Sam Harris has been on a ... He was at least, I think he's abandoned it, but he w- it was on a quest to get Jack to try to hold up his terms of service agreement and, and kick Trump off of Twitter.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's like, "Look what he's doing. He's threatening nuclear war."
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, do you understand? Like, this is the craziest use of Twitter ever.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I think Jack's position was that it is m- i- it's more beneficial to have him on and it's really ... We are getting to see his personality in a way we've never seen any president's personality.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh, absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, the, the, the most ridiculous petty shit that he does-
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... like attacking Michelle Wolf, uh, because of her White House Correspondents Dinner thing.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Calling people losers.
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, making fun of, uh, the girl on, um ... Joe Scarborough, the girl he married-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah. I mean that-
- JRJoe Rogan
... saying that she had fucked up plastic surgery-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Mika.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and she was bleeding.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah. (laughs)
- 35:52 – 41:17
New York sensibility: tabloid headline comedy, harsh city life, and how place shapes performers
- ACAnthony Cumia
Uh, one was, uh, God, the one I thought was just so douchey, when Fred Astaire died, it said, "Astairway to Heaven." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh. (laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
And it's like, who fucking...
- JRJoe Rogan
But that's New York.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Someone must have gotten hit for that.
- JRJoe Rogan
That is the one thing that I do love about New York, and Boston too.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a harshness to the comedy.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause like, the people are fucking cold. It's cold.
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
The wintertime is cold, and you're like, "Fuck you!"
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And that, that... Growing up there, man, it fucking... It flavored me. It flavored Burr.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a million guys like that, that like... That Patrice, that fucking comedy.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
A lot of it came out of that part of the world, 'cause that part of the world's different.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Isn't that weird? It's, it's cold. I, I...
- JRJoe Rogan
Fucking cold.
- ACAnthony Cumia
And, and you think that just makes people angry? (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(Laughs) Yeah, cold and a lot of people. I think-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... cold and very few people makes people, like, more down homey and compassionate, and they stay together.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Montana.
- JRJoe Rogan
Except for a few serial killers randomly-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... scattered, scattered out into the woods.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But other than that, you get like, people that work together and help each other 'cause they realize they're in this together.
- 41:17 – 44:56
Giuliani, broken-brain politics, and the mafia myth: from ‘America’s mayor’ to mob takedowns
- ACAnthony Cumia
That is, uh... He, uh, he had a lot to do with the, the, the, um, getting rid of organized crime-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... in New York City.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Like the mafia-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... the Five Families, all that shit was still running pretty rampant, uh, throughout the '70s and '80s. Uh, as a kid, me and my brother used to laugh our asses off. We'd open the newspaper and it was like, "Johnny the Horse Bugliotti-"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
"... was found dead in s-" Uh, we would laugh-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
... our asses off at the names.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Like, uh, just those, those mob names. It's, it's hilarious. And that scene in Goodfellas at the beginning when they're just going through and, you know, the nose, and killer, and this guy-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
And they all had, have those fucking names-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, what names.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... that are hilarious. And, uh, yeah, Giuliani was a big part of that. I'm surprised they didn't kill him. Like, he was...... absolutely responsible. He kept going after them and kept putting them away, uh, with the, you know, the new RICO statutes that they had.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
And, uh, locked up a lot of mobsters, man. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you know, another problem with the mobsters is they start ratting on each other.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And as soon as you start ratting on each other, all your mystique is gone.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Your whole, your whole legend is gone. This, this-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
The whole thing is that you guys have omertà. You keep your fucking mouth shut, you do your time like a man-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and then you get out and you're a hero, and th- this whole thing keeps going. This thing of ours keeps going.
- ACAnthony Cumia
This thing of ours.
- JRJoe Rogan
But those fucking pussies didn't wanna go to jail. (laughs)
- 44:56 – 49:43
Russians as the new ‘scary’: street encounters, UFC toughness, and terrifying skyscraper stunts
- ACAnthony Cumia
... i- in the worst way. Yeah, they're scary, scary motherfuckers. I had a, uh, an experience, um, out... It was, uh, Broadway, I guess? Uh, and they have those pedal cabs that go around, and they were all Russian dudes, big f- fucking legs on them, and they pedal around. And I was looking for a cab, a real cab, to take me downtown. I wasn't gonna ride 15 blocks in a, a tricycle-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
... uh, y- with Yuri pedaling in front of me. So, uh, this guy passed by once and said, "You need cab?" I was like, "No, I'm good. Thanks." He comes around again, I'm still waiting for a cab. And he goes, "Cab?" And I was like, "I'm not gonna have you pedal me 15 fucking blocks. No! Move!" And, and you could yell at a cab driver in New York. They'll yell out your window and stuff. They rarely will get out of their car. They know, you know, you got the medallion right there. You could p- just call the number and say you were being harassed by a cab driver. So they won't do anything. This guy gets off his fucking bike, "You have a fucking problem?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
"You have fucking problem?" What? And, and I was just like, "Oh shit, it's going down."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
Like, I, I... This guy means business. And of course I'm like, "Nope. No. All good. All good. I, I... Thank you. I don't need a, a cab." "You right, motherfuck."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
And that was it, but you don't fuck with Russians.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, they're not regular white people.
- ACAnthony Cumia
No, they're not. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
They're not. They're hard people.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, we, you, you see that in the UFC.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Y- right.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a lot of badass Russians fighting in UFC now.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Well, obviously we, we saw that, uh, recently.
- JRJoe Rogan
Khabib Nurmagomedov. Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
That-
- JRJoe Rogan
When he was on top of Conor, punching him in the face, saying, "Let's talk now."
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Let's talk."
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Let's talk." Boom! "Let's talk. Come on, we talk." Boom!
- ACAnthony Cumia
Just twisted.
- JRJoe Rogan
Horrific.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 49:43 – 55:12
VR as fear machine and future platform: walk-the-plank, headsets, workouts, and VR porn
- JRJoe Rogan
We have that HTC Vibe in the back room here.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, there's one game. We have to download that game. We haven't gotten that game. When you go to the hardware store and you buy a two by four and you lay it down on the floor, and then the game is you put the VR goggles on and you're walking on this two by four over-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh my God.
- JRJoe Rogan
... like in between two skyscrapers.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
So as you're doing it and, like, you hear sounds.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh my God. That's awesome.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at this. This is, this is the, the actual game.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh my God.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you step out.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And here's the two by four. So this two by four is real. Like you have an actual two by four.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you're really walking on this.
- ACAnthony Cumia
So you're feeling it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, and you walk the plank.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh my God. Oh my God.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you look down and you're like, "Oh, Jesus."
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is that thing floating in front of you?
- ACAnthony Cumia
I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's that supposed to be, Jamie?
- NANarrator
I've never done it. I don't know.
- ACAnthony Cumia
It's, uh... (laughs) Yeah, the, uh... First of all, watching it on a screen does VR no justice.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- ACAnthony Cumia
You can't really.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ACAnthony Cumia
You are in a space. It's so cool-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 55:12 – 1:01:26
Alien vs. modern blockbusters: practical effects, believable heroines, and Disney smoothing the edges
- JRJoe Rogan
That's one of the greatest movies. That-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Goes Down is one of my favorites, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That movie's also one of my f- favorite examples. (coughs) When people talk about pushing diversity in movies.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thi- this movie w- had a female lead who's a female superstar, who, uh, spoiler alert, winds up winning in the end.
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Killing the alien.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But you don't n- even notice.
- ACAnthony Cumia
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
It never feels like it's crammed down your throat.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whereas the last Star Wars ...
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was like, "Get the fuck outta here, Laura Dern. You're not running the empire."
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, "Get outta here!"
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah!
- JRJoe Rogan
You're like, "What is this?" Like, she's the head general and then Carrie Fisher's the other head general, and they're telling these men to shut up, and this all makes sense to you?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Isn't that fucking amazing?
- JRJoe Rogan
This is preposterous.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Dude, uh, uh, they had a, a ... I- it, that was 1979. And they had-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... um, more of an idea of how to present that than, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
First of all, Sigourney Weaver's just a fucking badass.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Badass.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's believable.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Movies-
- 1:01:26 – 1:08:33
Kids, violence, and learning reality: horror movies, Bonnie & Clyde trauma, and hunting ethics
- JRJoe Rogan
And I got yelled at because I watched it with my kids.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh, sh- (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I- I, uh, 'cause, uh, my 10-year-old can handle shit, my eight-year-old cannot.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, I, I watched it. I'm like, "You think you can handle it?" And they're like, "Yeah, I can handle it." I go, "Okay. Let's see what happ- people are gonna die."
- ACAnthony Cumia
All right. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And the first time the dude got the tongue through the forehead, like, "What-"
- ACAnthony Cumia
What the fuck?
- JRJoe Rogan
"... the fuck are we watching, Daddy?"
- ACAnthony Cumia
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It was nightmares.
- ACAnthony Cumia
They'll remember that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
I, my dad, uh, my mom and my dad took, uh, me, my brother, and my sister when I was seven years old-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
... to go see Bonnie and Clyde with, uh, Warren Beatty and, uh, what's her name there? Um, I can't remember who played Bonnie.
- JRJoe Rogan
Faye Dunaway?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Faye Dunaway. Very good.
- JRJoe Rogan
Was it?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yes. And, uh, now, it's, it's famous for being one of the most, uh, graphic machine gunnings at the end of the movie. I mean, they were pulling up, they got ambushed by law, and, uh, they just get shot up. Uh, the whole movie, though, as a seven-year-old kid, I liked these people. They were funny. They'd rob banks and stuff, but, you know, they, they'd make jokes, and they were cool, and you got to know them as a person. So as a seven-year-old, I was like, "Oh, these, these people are cool." So then the end of the movie comes, and, and they're out there, and you hear the birds go fff, fly away. And Clyde looks at Bonnie, uh, with the one lens missing from his, his glasses, and it's really quiet. And then all hell breaks loose. It's just five guys shooting Thompsons at both of them, and they're being riddled with, with bullet holes. And the scene goes on, and they're falling down and against the car. The car is just full... Yeah. There it is.
- JRJoe Rogan
(coughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
It's, it's so brutal.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh. It's crazy, too, seeing the girl get it.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's something ruthless about seeing a girl get shot 100 times.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at her.
- ACAnthony Cumia
It was-
- 1:08:33 – 1:09:40
Violence everywhere online: desensitization, ‘Faces of Death,’ and why games become scapegoats
- ACAnthony Cumia
And, uh, like, uh, I remember when I was a kid, the, the big thing was like Faces of Death.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
"You wanna go get Faces of Death, man? Well, watch it. It's crazy. Guys, they beat up a monkey and cut his head off and eat the brains and everything." I'm like, "Yeah, that's kinda fake. And you can tell the staged things," and I think the only real stuff was, uh, like news footage of airline disasters and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... accidents and stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there was one that was real where these, uh, these guys, uh, somewhere in the Middle East tied this guy's arms to one car and his legs to another one-
- ACAnthony Cumia
Oh, God.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and they pulled him apart.
- ACAnthony Cumia
(sighs) I cannot-
- JRJoe Rogan
(clears throat) Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... like watch that shit. It's, it's terrible.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAnthony Cumia
And now in stunning HD you can see ... You know, snuff films years ago was kind of an urban myth, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ACAnthony Cumia
It was a thing. Now they're readily available to anybody-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... in a matter of seconds. And, uh, I don't know what kind of effect that has on, on people and, and maybe society, but, uh ... And there's really nothing you could do. Pandora's like out, so, uh, I think it's affecting people though.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, it's definitely affecting people.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Desensitizing and-
- 1:09:40 – 1:25:31
Open-world games as the ‘last frontier’: Red Dead chaos, GTA work, and the hidden labor of game design
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, that's the argument about video games as well, right?
- ACAnthony Cumia
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That we're seeing so much violence and committing violence in video games.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, uh, Jamie, what was that video game where, uh, the guy got in trouble 'cause he made a video of him, uh, b- torturing some-
- ACAnthony Cumia
He was in Red Dead Redemption.
- JRJoe Rogan
... women's rights.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Red Dead 2. (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, that's right. He pu- he punched a, um- (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAnthony Cumia
... a woman in the face that was, uh, protesting for, um, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Women's rights.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... women's rights to vote.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Suffrage. And, uh, (laughs) and he got in trouble because he posted it and it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAnthony Cumia
... it was like a violent thing against women. But-
- JRJoe Rogan
But it's a thing you can do in the games.
- ACAnthony Cumia
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, they made it in the game so you could that on purpose.
- ACAnthony Cumia
And once it became viral, people started going up to her in the game and doing even more terrible th- ... There's one where a guy ropes her, hog ties her, throws her on the back of the horse, uh, rides her to a swamp, and throws her to an alligator, which then eats her in, in the swamp.
Episode duration: 3:37:21
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