Joe Rogan Experience #1215 - Ben O'Brien

Joe Rogan 0:00 (sighs) (liquid sloshing) Three, two, one. Was, uh, was this beverage concocted by you? Were you the first one?

Ben O'Brien 0:11 Yes.

Joe Rogan 0:12 You, you created (smacks lips) rye brain.

Ben O'Brien 0:15 If you ask me, yes.

Joe Rogan 0:16 If you asked Dudley, what does he say?

Ben O'Brien 0:17 He would say maybe he was there.

Joe Rogan 0:18 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 0:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:20 Maybe he was there, but-

Ben O'Brien 0:21 He might've been there.

Joe Rogan 0:21 ... he was definitely there.

Ben O'Brien 0:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:23 But whose idea was it?

Ben O'Brien 0:24 It's hard to say with these things, Joe.

Joe Rogan 0:26 Cheers, sir.

Ben O'Brien 0:26 Cheers. (glasses clinking) Good to see you. You look good.

Joe Rogan 0:28 You look good, too.

Ben O'Brien 0:29 Yeah. Well-

Joe Rogan 0:29 I look even better with this shirt, right?

Ben O'Brien 0:30 Look at that shirt.

Joe Rogan 0:30 This is the new Ben O'Brien special.

Ben O'Brien 0:32 Get that shirt.

Joe Rogan 0:33 Can you get this from your website? What is this from-

Ben O'Brien 0:34 You can go to the, the-

Joe Rogan 0:35 The Hunting Collective?

Ben O'Brien 0:35 ... meateater, themeateater.com.

Joe Rogan 0:36 The meateater.com.

Ben O'Brien 0:37 You go to the store, and it's there.

Joe Rogan 0:39 Yeah, so what people... Uh, you know, I had Steve on, Steve Rinella, our good friend.

Ben O'Brien 0:44 Yes.

Joe Rogan 0:45 And w- we were talking about what they're doing, with- what Meateater's doing.

Ben O'Brien 0:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 0:49 But it's this very strange thing, where they've, they're... This giant multimedia corporation has stepped in.

Ben O'Brien 0:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:55 And they're throwing a ton of money at Meateater and all these different companies that are involved in the outdoors, all these outdoor activities.

Ben O'Brien 1:04 That is true.

Joe Rogan 1:05 And they're putting it all together into one super network-

Ben O'Brien 1:09 Juggernaut.

Joe Rogan 1:10 ... juggernaut of outdoor activities.

Ben O'Brien 1:11 It's true. It's true. Yeah, uh, it is, um, something I've never been a part of before, something like I've never seen before in the hunting industry.

Joe Rogan 1:19 It, has it ever existed before?

Ben O'Brien 1:21 I don't think so.

Joe Rogan 1:22 No, can't be.

Ben O'Brien 1:22 I don't think so. Can't be.

Joe Rogan 1:24 Can't be.

Ben O'Brien 1:24 So-

Joe Rogan 1:24 We would've known.

Ben O'Brien 1:25 Yeah. Uh, well, what better to try than something that's never been done?

Joe Rogan 1:28 Well, you had been doing your podcast for what, like a year now? How long you been doing it?

Ben O'Brien 1:31 It's been about 10 months.

Joe Rogan 1:32 About 10 months.

Ben O'Brien 1:32 About 10 months.

Joe Rogan 1:33 And, uh, and we were just saying that I, I tried to get you to do one five years ago.

Ben O'Brien 1:38 Five years ago.

Joe Rogan 1:39 Yeah. Ben and I met-

Ben O'Brien 1:40 What?

Joe Rogan 1:40 ... on a moose hunt in British Columbia.

Ben O'Brien 1:42 And I would say that it was, like, friendship at first.

Joe Rogan 1:45 Yeah, we had a great fucking time.

Ben O'Brien 1:46 We had a great fucking time.

Joe Rogan 1:47 Right from the jump. It was a good time.

Ben O'Brien 1:48 Shout out to Mike Hawkras-

Joe Rogan 1:49 Yeah, Mike Hawkras.

Ben O'Brien 1:50 ... out there in DC. Love you, buddy.

Joe Rogan 1:51 And, uh, and Sam Sohal-

Ben O'Brien 1:52 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:52 ... was with us as well. Now, we're-

Ben O'Brien 1:53 And we had, like... I would always describe that as, like, the most fun that I've ever had on a hunt.

Joe Rogan 1:58 It was a good time.

Ben O'Brien 1:58 Maybe ever. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 2:00 Well-

Ben O'Brien 2:00 We've done a lot of stuff since then.

Joe Rogan 2:01 ... we were laughing a lot. That's why. It was, like, a lot of fun and a lot of, you know-

Ben O'Brien 2:04 There was not a lot of hardship.

Joe Rogan 2:05 No.

Ben O'Brien 2:06 Like, we didn't sleep in tents.

Joe Rogan 2:07 Nope, we slept at Mike's house, which is great, and then, you know, it was a lot of hiking and stuff. And, you know, it wasn't-

Ben O'Brien 2:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:12 ... successful until, like, the very last-

Ben O'Brien 2:15 Last day.

Joe Rogan 2:16 ... couple of days. Last two days.

Ben O'Brien 2:16 And you shot a moose, and then the celebration was fantastic.

Joe Rogan 2:20 We had a good time.

Ben O'Brien 2:21 We had a great time.

Joe Rogan 2:21 We got super hammered.

Ben O'Brien 2:23 The last night, remember last night? What were we drinking? Like, some kinda spiced rum or some kind?

Joe Rogan 2:28 I don't know.

Ben O'Brien 2:28 It got, it got real.

Joe Rogan 2:30 It's w- when you're drunk and you're drunk in the middle of nowhere and there's wolves everywhere, it's a different kinda drunk.

Ben O'Brien 2:34 (laughs) But we, remember we... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:35 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 2:36 Remember, remember that we went and we shot your bull, right? And, but then-

Joe Rogan 2:41 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 2:41 ... we took the heart and the liver.

Joe Rogan 2:42 Yep.

Ben O'Brien 2:42 And we started drinking heavily.

Joe Rogan 2:43 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 2:43 And you were up there just cooking liver and onions, cooking up a-

Joe Rogan 2:46 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 2:47 ... giant moose heart. So we had, like, the fuel of organs of an animal you just killed.

Joe Rogan 2:51 Yeah. Like just killed.

Ben O'Brien 2:52 And then some ki- ... And some kind of, like, trash bag Canadian rum that was terrible.

Joe Rogan 2:56 Yeah, but it worked.

Ben O'Brien 2:56 And that's when we partied, dude.

Joe Rogan 2:58 But it worked.

Ben O'Brien 2:58 It worked real good.

Joe Rogan 3:00 I don't know what's good rum or bad rum at all to me. Like, I kinda get good whiskey now. I understand whiskey-

Ben O'Brien 3:06 Mm, yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:06 ... sort of, but-

Ben O'Brien 3:07 Being Irish, it's just like, it's all just goes in.

Joe Rogan 3:09 It's all, gets in there once it's-

Ben O'Brien 3:10 And then it just does what it does when it's in there.

Joe Rogan 3:12 Yeah, once the party's begun. Like, uh, here's what I don't get. Tequila. People say, "Oh, this is good tequila, this is bad..." Every tequila I ever drank-

Ben O'Brien 3:18 (farts)

Joe Rogan 3:18 ... I go like this. (exhales)

Ben O'Brien 3:20 What about that George Clooney tequila? What is that?

Joe Rogan 3:22 You like that?

Ben O'Brien 3:23 He's got his own tequila?

Joe Rogan 3:23 Yeah, doesn't he? Is it tequila-

Ben O'Brien 3:25 Wow.

Joe Rogan 3:25 ... Jamie? Jamie'll know.

Ben O'Brien 3:26 Listen.

Joe Rogan 3:26 Avion.

Ben O'Brien 3:27 I'll tell you what.

Joe Rogan 3:28 Oh, it sounds like a, like a fancy water. It's like-

Ben O'Brien 3:29 George Clooney tequila can suck a fat dick.

Joe Rogan 3:32 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 3:32 Because Ron White's got his own tequila, Numero Juan.

Joe Rogan 3:36 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 3:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:37 Sarcastic tequila.

Ben O'Brien 3:38 It's just, that's what he calls it Numero Juan Tequila.

Joe Rogan 3:40 Numero Juan Tequila? (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 3:41 I think that's what it's called, right? Number Juan, or is it Number Juan?

Joe Rogan 3:45 Uh...

Ben O'Brien 3:46 It's Number Juan?

Joe Rogan 3:47 Number Juan.

Ben O'Brien 3:47 Number Juan.

Joe Rogan 3:48 But, like, if George Clooney wasn't good enough-

Ben O'Brien 3:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:50 ... at everything else and all handsome-

Ben O'Brien 3:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:51 ... and wonderful, he made a tequila company. And, like, did it right. If you listen to the, the origin story of it, they did it right.

Ben O'Brien 3:57 Well, um, fuck his tequila company.

Joe Rogan 3:59 Like, it's... (laughs) There it is.

Ben O'Brien 3:59 There it is.

Joe Rogan 3:59 There's Numero Juan. Ron White.

Ben O'Brien 4:01 Numero Juan.

Joe Rogan 4:01 It's good shit, too. Ron's is good shit. But I think George Clooney's got enough money, so fuck him, you know?

Ben O'Brien 4:05 But I think he sold it for millions and billions of dollars.

Joe Rogan 4:08 Yeah. See, what happened is he got married and he realized, "Listen, I'm gonna have some money on the side in case this shit hits the rocks."

Ben O'Brien 4:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:15 (laughs) You know?

Ben O'Brien 4:15 What do I like to do when I'm, uh, a little bit bored and not feeling it? Tequila.

Joe Rogan 4:19 Yeah. Every man who, uh, has ever heard an awful divorce story, no- no matter how good it's going, s- every awful divorce started with "I do."

Ben O'Brien 4:30 It did.

Joe Rogan 4:30 They all started with "I do." They all started with, uh-

Ben O'Brien 4:32 And good intentions.

Joe Rogan 4:33 ... "I love you, you're amazing."

Ben O'Brien 4:34 And good intentions.

Joe Rogan 4:35 It's, it started with good times, man. It started with good times.

Ben O'Brien 4:36 I will say, again, and I won't say the name of the person 'cause, um, that would just be mean, but-

Joe Rogan 4:40 Sprout them out.

Ben O'Brien 4:40 N- no-

Joe Rogan 4:41 Fuck it.

Ben O'Brien 4:41 ... there was a feller that I... like, I knew in, um, my younger years that got married. And I was in the, the wedding party.

Joe Rogan 4:49 Yeah, that's a sound of doom.

Ben O'Brien 4:50 What you got there? What you got there?

Joe Rogan 4:51 That's weed.

Ben O'Brien 4:51 That's very dangerous.

Joe Rogan 4:52 It's dangerous for you.

Ben O'Brien 4:53 Uh, yeah, it is.

Joe Rogan 4:54 You're from the... You live in Montana, you can't handle this yet.

Ben O'Brien 4:56 No, no, no, it's not legal there.

Joe Rogan 4:58 They made it illegal medical. They made medical legal and then they voted it out.

Ben O'Brien 5:02 (laughs) Well.

Joe Rogan 5:03 Fucking savages. The way they made dispensaries-

Ben O'Brien 5:06 California, buddy.

Joe Rogan 5:06 They made medical legal and then they had dispensaries, and then they voted the dispensaries out. When I was in Bozeman last time I was there, they were, they were shutting down the doors of the dispensaries.

Ben O'Brien 5:14 You live in the golden land here.

Joe Rogan 5:16 Yeah, but you know what? (smacks lips) I hesitate to say this, but it's probably for the best.

Ben O'Brien 5:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:22 Just to keep people like me out of Bozeman.

Ben O'Brien 5:23 We're in a safe space. It's just me and you.

Joe Rogan 5:25 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 5:25 We're in the trushtree. We're in the nest.

Joe Rogan 5:27 Just, Bozeman is so special. It's such a cool little town. We shouldn't be talking about it. I shouldn't be telling people about how great it is.

Ben O'Brien 5:33 Let's not talk about it. It's a terrible place. Bears will eat you alive there.

Joe Rogan 5:35 They will eat you alive.

Ben O'Brien 5:35 In the streets. They're in the streets, Joe.

Joe Rogan 5:37 But the good thing is, the dumb people get eaten by bears.

Ben O'Brien 5:40 That's true.

Joe Rogan 5:41 Like, you, you... People will turn up missing. Like, some asshole steals lawnmowers.

Ben O'Brien 5:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:45 He'll just t- turn up missing. (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 5:48 What?

Joe Rogan 5:48 He'll just turn up missing.

Ben O'Brien 5:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:50 He'll be out there wandering through the forest-

Ben O'Brien 5:52 Like a bear just whacked him.

Joe Rogan 5:52 Yeah. Yeah, they get cocky and... You know, people that just make it to live to be 100 in LA, they get eaten when they're, like, 35.

Ben O'Brien 5:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:59 In Bozeman.

Ben O'Brien 6:00 (laughs) If they're, in the De-

Joe Rogan 6:00 Look at that, that's Bozeman.

Ben O'Brien 6:01 It's beautiful.

Joe Rogan 6:02 Jesus Christ-

Ben O'Brien 6:02 Nah, that's like-

Joe Rogan 6:03 ... it's a beautiful place.

Ben O'Brien 6:04 Yeah, but that's in the summer.

Joe Rogan 6:06 I don't give a fuck. I was there in the summer.

Ben O'Brien 6:07 In the winter it's like...

Joe Rogan 6:09 It's like that, but white.

Ben O'Brien 6:10 Yeah, you ever seen the show-

Joe Rogan 6:11 Cold.

Ben O'Brien 6:11 ... Game of Thrones?

Joe Rogan 6:12 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 6:12 In the winter it's, like, white walkers.

Joe Rogan 6:14 Right, winter's coming.

Ben O'Brien 6:15 And there's a large ice wall that-

Joe Rogan 6:17 When did you move?

Ben O'Brien 6:18 ... we just, my family just moved there. We just moved into our brand new home-

Joe Rogan 6:22 Hmm.

Ben O'Brien 6:22 ... uh, about three weeks ago there, Mr. Rogan.

Joe Rogan 6:25 But you were there before. Were you renting?

Ben O'Brien 6:27 Yeah, I was renting, living out of a, I lived out of a storage unit for a time.

Joe Rogan 6:30 Oh, I'd heard about this.

Ben O'Brien 6:30 Members, yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:31 There was a rumor.

Ben O'Brien 6:31 There was a rumor.

Joe Rogan 6:32 Yeah, that you (laughs) said that Wild Ben O'Brien-

Ben O'Brien 6:34 Wild Ben O'Brien lives in a storage unit.

Joe Rogan 6:36 ... was just like a fucking cot in a storage unit, and was like, "Fuck it."

Ben O'Brien 6:37 I did. It was a nice storage unit. Shout out to Airport North Storage. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:43 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 6:43 Amazing.

Joe Rogan 6:43 So did you sleep in there?

Ben O'Brien 6:44 Well, well-

Joe Rogan 6:45 Did you get a gym membership or something?

Ben O'Brien 6:47 Listen, Airport North Storage, it's time for me to tell the truth.

Joe Rogan 6:49 Oh my God, I can't believe you're coming clean with this.

Ben O'Brien 6:51 I'm coming clean. I did sleep in there, m- some nights. I slept in, in a storage unit, 'cause-

Joe Rogan 6:58 Are there laws against that?

Ben O'Brien 6:59 I don't, I probably, it's probably like in the contract when you sign not to do that.

Joe Rogan 7:03 Really?

Ben O'Brien 7:03 But I did it anyway.

Joe Rogan 7:04 What do you think will happen to you?

Ben O'Brien 7:05 They would probably be like, "Get out of the storage unit and get a hotel, you..."

Joe Rogan 7:10 Fucking loser.

Ben O'Brien 7:10 "... weirdo, you fucking loser." Um, but I just did that, you know, as a sacrifice for my family. We were building a house. I needed to be where my job was. And-

Joe Rogan 7:18 Plus you can camp out there.

Ben O'Brien 7:19 Yeah, you camp out there. It's beautiful, man.

Joe Rogan 7:21 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 7:21 It's beautiful. And, and Bozeman is so popular that time of year that it's hard to-

Joe Rogan 7:25 Oh, that's right. Yeah, there's a lot of-

Ben O'Brien 7:26 It's hard to find a place to stay for a short period of time.

Joe Rogan 7:29 Airbnbs and all that stuff.

Ben O'Brien 7:30 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:30 That ain't really going down.

Ben O'Brien 7:31 They have amazing Airbnb. They just figured out a way to like rent houses out and make money when no one's there. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:36 Like, "Oh, how..." No, I'm good. How did nobody ever figure that out before? It's kinda crazy.

Ben O'Brien 7:41 So there's a lot of these technology companies, right?

Joe Rogan 7:43 Yeah, like Uber.

Ben O'Brien 7:43 Why weren't we doing that before?

Joe Rogan 7:44 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 7:45 Uber's a great one.

Joe Rogan 7:46 Dude, I was coming home the other night-

Ben O'Brien 7:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:47 ... and there was five Lyfts behind me. So you know, Lyft is different because they have that weird thing on the dash, that little light on the dash.

Ben O'Brien 7:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

Joe Rogan 7:56 And it was like I was being chased by these purple robots.

Ben O'Brien 7:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:59 I was like, "What the fuck is this? This is strange."

Ben O'Brien 8:01 (sighs)

Guest (third participant) 8:01 I was gonna ask if you heard the storage, the big storage unit story from the other day as you guys were just talking about that.

Joe Rogan 8:05 No.

Ben O'Brien 8:05 This big storage unit story?

Guest (third participant) 8:07 Yeah. You remember like just the show that was on, the Storage Wars or whatever?

Joe Rogan 8:09 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben O'Brien 8:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guest (third participant) 8:10 The guy that was responsible for selling them to people sold one to a guy for $500. And inside was a safe that had $7.5 million in cash in it.

Joe Rogan 8:21 Look at that guy.

Ben O'Brien 8:22 Was this on the show?

Guest (third participant) 8:23 Once the guy sold it. No, it wasn't on the show, it just happened recently. So the guy that bought it-

Ben O'Brien 8:27 What?

Guest (third participant) 8:27 ... actually was contacted by lawyers from the people who owned it, and he made a deal with them.

Joe Rogan 8:33 What's the deal?

Ben O'Brien 8:33 What's the deal?

Guest (third participant) 8:34 He kept, he kept like a million or something like that, gave the rest back.

Ben O'Brien 8:36 Joe, would you wanna go into a business-

Joe Rogan 8:37 (clears throat)

Ben O'Brien 8:38 ... where we-

Joe Rogan 8:38 What, go into storage wars?

Ben O'Brien 8:39 Yeah.

Guest (third participant) 8:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:40 Look at that guy's face. Look at his face.

Ben O'Brien 8:41 What are the chan- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:41 He's like, "What the fuck?"

Ben O'Brien 8:43 His wife-

Joe Rogan 8:43 That's what he's saying. "I sold that fucking unit." (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 8:45 His lady is happy.

Guest (third participant) 8:46 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:46 Imagine how dumb you have to feel when you have a whole show-

Ben O'Brien 8:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:49 ... about people finding things in storage units. You sell a storage unit and it's got $7 million (laughs) in it. Seven and a half.

Ben O'Brien 8:55 Seven and a half million dollars.

Joe Rogan 8:57 Still though, the dude gets to keep a million? How does that work though? Isn't it his storage unit? How about he tells that guy-

Guest (third participant) 9:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:02 ... to fuck off-

Guest (third participant) 9:02 Well, you, I mean if-

Joe Rogan 9:03 ... and start to go to war?

Guest (third participant) 9:03 ... if someone lost $7 million-

Joe Rogan 9:06 (clicks tongue) Well, first of all.

Guest (third participant) 9:07 ... they're gonna come after you probably.

Joe Rogan 9:07 How dirty is that money?

Guest (third participant) 9:08 Exactly. So-

Joe Rogan 9:09 That money must be dirty as fuck.

Ben O'Brien 9:10 Where it's in a safe, in a...

Guest (third participant) 9:11 Yeah. Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 9:11 Was it just the safe only in the storage unit?

Guest (third participant) 9:13 I believe so, yeah.

Ben O'Brien 9:13 Oh, that's gotta be something bad.

Guest (third participant) 9:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:14 You're gonna get that handsome dude-

Ben O'Brien 9:16 Jamie.

Joe Rogan 9:16 ... that was in the beginning of Ozarks, that handsome-

Ben O'Brien 9:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:18 ... Mexican dude. He's just a straight up murderer. He's gonna come visit you.

Ben O'Brien 9:23 He'd be like, "Hello, man."

Joe Rogan 9:24 Yeah, that guy was my favorite. I was so sad when they... Spoiler alert. So sad when they killed him.

Ben O'Brien 9:29 Like the dude from Breaking Bad that comes around?

Joe Rogan 9:31 Yeah. Well, he-

Ben O'Brien 9:32 The, the twins.

Joe Rogan 9:32 But did you see Ozark? You ever see Ozark?

Ben O'Brien 9:34 I watched like the first couple episodes and then I kinda-

Joe Rogan 9:35 Well, I fucked it up for you.

Ben O'Brien 9:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:37 'Cause there's a pivotal moment that I just gave away.

Ben O'Brien 9:39 There's too many, there's so many shows though.

Joe Rogan 9:41 There are so many shows, but that's a damn good one.

Ben O'Brien 9:44 It is a good-

Joe Rogan 9:44 That is a damn good show.

Ben O'Brien 9:46 What's the guy, that's the guy who stars in that?

Joe Rogan 9:48 Jason Bateman?

Ben O'Brien 9:48 Bateman.

Joe Rogan 9:49 He's excellent. And the woman, Laura...

Guest (third participant) 9:52 Linney.

Joe Rogan 9:52 Linney?

Ben O'Brien 9:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:53 Linney. She's amazing.

Ben O'Brien 9:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:54 The family's amazing. The kid's amazing. It's a fucking show, man. It's a show. Woo!

Ben O'Brien 9:58 It's a show.

Joe Rogan 9:59 You get sucked in and that Netflix lets you watch them all, like a pig.

Ben O'Brien 10:02 Are you ready? Listen, let me ask you a question. I'm gonna-

Joe Rogan 10:04 Yes.

Ben O'Brien 10:05 I ask a lot of people this and I said this at a, um, Christmas party and I got, with a bunch of hunters and I got, you know, a couple of like the stink eye, like, "What's this guy talking about?"

Joe Rogan 10:12 Conservatives?

Guest (third participant) 10:13 Hmm.

Ben O'Brien 10:13 Eh, I don't know about that. I, maybe I'm just weird. Have you ever seen the sh- the movie The Greatest Showman?

Joe Rogan 10:19 Oh, is that the, um, the musical?

Ben O'Brien 10:21 It is.

Joe Rogan 10:22 I've been forced to watch segments of that with my wife and children.

Ben O'Brien 10:26 It is fantastic.

Joe Rogan 10:27 It's a very good movie.

Ben O'Brien 10:29 H- Hugh Jackman's an angel.

Joe Rogan 10:30 He's an angel.

Ben O'Brien 10:31 An Australian angel.

Joe Rogan 10:32 He is. He was sent down here to save us.

Ben O'Brien 10:34 Save us. You ever seen him dance and sing?

Joe Rogan 10:36 He's m- he's magical.

Ben O'Brien 10:37 I'm a hunter, I got a hunting podcast, but I am telling you-

Joe Rogan 10:40 You're a manly man. Look at that beard.

Ben O'Brien 10:42 Yeah, look at this thing. But I love that movie.

Joe Rogan 10:45 It's a great movie.

Ben O'Brien 10:46 I listen to it on the Pandora, The Greatest Showman channel, and I sing the tunes.

Joe Rogan 10:49 Listen, dude, my favorite comedy on TV is the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt-

Ben O'Brien 10:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:53 ... okay? So I can't be talking about manly things-

Ben O'Brien 10:55 Good for you.

Joe Rogan 10:55 ... or non-manly things. Hugh Jackman perfor- announces world tour-

Ben O'Brien 10:58 What? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:58 ... set to perform The Greatest Showman songs. He's gonna just sing the one man show.

Ben O'Brien 11:01 Look at him. Look at him.

Guest (third participant) 11:03 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 11:03 Look at him.

Joe Rogan 11:03 Wow. One man show.

Ben O'Brien 11:05 Joe.

Joe Rogan 11:05 Gorgeous man.

Ben O'Brien 11:06 He's just, I mean, it's unbelievable. Unbelievable. But yeah, and I get, I get-

Joe Rogan 11:10 We'd love to have him.

Ben O'Brien 11:11 ... I get made fun of for this. Like my, of course my son likes it, my wife likes it, but I enjoy... I, I get into like-

Joe Rogan 11:17 Wait a minute. Your son, how old is he?

Ben O'Brien 11:18 He's two.

Joe Rogan 11:18 He doesn't know any better?

Ben O'Brien 11:19 But he just likes the music. He's dancing around.

Joe Rogan 11:20 He's just happy that something's going on.

Ben O'Brien 11:21 Yeah. He's just like there's something on the TV.

Joe Rogan 11:23 Yeah, everybody's smiling. Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 11:23 He's not like a cri- yeah, he's not writing a critique after.

Joe Rogan 11:25 But if you put on Dora the Explorer and then you switched it over to that bullshit, he'd be like, "Who's this fucking guy dancing?"

Ben O'Brien 11:30 No, he would be-

Joe Rogan 11:30 Put Dora back on.

Ben O'Brien 11:31 Put Dora.

Joe Rogan 11:32 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 11:32 Listen, I think that I watch like, if you watch things like Game of Thrones, where they are burning children-

Joe Rogan 11:40 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 11:40 ... and like it's entertaining, but sometimes I need a break.

Joe Rogan 11:42 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 11:42 I like to watch a man dance around and sing.

Joe Rogan 11:45 Yeah, those-

Ben O'Brien 11:45 Or a woman, whatever, doesn't matter.

Joe Rogan 11:47 Those mo- those shows can get dark where you're like, "What am I doing to myself?" You know, like Narcos.

Ben O'Brien 11:52 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:53 And they would just go into a fucking nightclub and gun people down.

Ben O'Brien 11:55 Yes.

Joe Rogan 11:55 And you're just sitting there watching like women and children get smoked.

Ben O'Brien 11:59 Yes. And it's, it's... What's the other, the show with Anthony Hopkins on HBO? What's that? The, with the robots.

Joe Rogan 12:04 I haven't seen that one.

Ben O'Brien 12:04 Uh...

Joe Rogan 12:04 Oh, Westworld.

Ben O'Brien 12:05 Westworld.

Joe Rogan 12:05 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good.

Ben O'Brien 12:06 That's the same way.

Joe Rogan 12:07 Yeah, it's good.

Ben O'Brien 12:07 They're shooting kids on there. Well, the kid's a robot, we can just pop.

Joe Rogan 12:10 Yeah. Yeah, they shot one right in the face.

Ben O'Brien 12:11 It's dark.

Joe Rogan 12:11 You see like the metal-

Ben O'Brien 12:12 So every once in a while, you need to sprinkle a little bit of musical in your life, I believe.

Joe Rogan 12:16 Yeah. What, is that... Do you think, and here's the, come- coming from a person that's been on a bunch of life changing experiences, and I know you have-

Ben O'Brien 12:22 It's fair.

Joe Rogan 12:22 ... and I'd love, I wanna talk to you about some of them.

Ben O'Brien 12:24 Yes.

Joe Rogan 12:25 Especially the one in Nepal where you almost died and you saw children and wolves walking through-

Ben O'Brien 12:28 Babies. I saw that.

Joe Rogan 12:28 We, we talked about that on the...

Ben O'Brien 12:30 The last podcast.

Joe Rogan 12:31 But-

Ben O'Brien 12:31 But it's probably, it, it would be-

Joe Rogan 12:32 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 12:32 ... worth revisiting.

Joe Rogan 12:33 Um...... what do you think this is? Like, why, why are we so obsessed with life or death drama that's artificial?

Ben O'Brien 12:42 Well, you see it, like, in the, in the, in the show Westworld, they talk about, like, it being a game.

Joe Rogan 12:47 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 12:47 It being this game of excess. Like, what can't I do in my real life?

Joe Rogan 12:52 Right.

Ben O'Brien 12:52 And so when you watch TV and you watch murdering and you watch this, this evil thing come to life, you're just, you're, it's, it really is something that you can be transported. You can't do that in your regular life.

Joe Rogan 13:04 Well, for, for sure with Westworld, what you're getting is basically a real live version of that Red Dead Redemption.

Ben O'Brien 13:10 That's right.

Joe Rogan 13:10 So, when you, when you play that, we were talking about the other day how this guy got in trouble because they have all these things in the game that you can do to people.

Ben O'Brien 13:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:18 And this guy, like, tied this hooker up and threw her off a cliff and shit, and-

Ben O'Brien 13:22 That's dark.

Joe Rogan 13:23 ... you can, you could do whatever you want.

Ben O'Brien 13:23 It's dark.

Joe Rogan 13:23 But they were, they were filming this stuff and putting it on YouTube. And then YouTube would get mad and YouTube pulled them off, but then people were like, "Well, wait a minute, though. Why, how come you can just do it, like-

Ben O'Brien 13:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:35 ... why did you, why did you have that in the game?"

Ben O'Brien 13:37 But it, it... When my dad was my age, 30, 40 years ago, there would, they would never have ever-

Joe Rogan 13:45 No, there's nothing.

Ben O'Brien 13:46 ... done anything like Game of Thrones or Westworld.

Joe Rogan 13:49 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 13:49 Ever. Ever. In fact, there was a Westworld and it wasn't anywhere near like it is-

Joe Rogan 13:54 Yul Brynner.

Ben O'Brien 13:54 ... in the modern day.

Joe Rogan 13:55 V- good movie.

Ben O'Brien 13:56 Yeah. But, like, I think we've just stretched out the limits to which we're willing to explore, like, really terrible and evil things for entertainment.

Joe Rogan 14:04 We've definitely changed what we're willing to accept and where the bar is. In terms of quality, the bar is through the roof.

Ben O'Brien 14:12 Oh, through the roof.

Joe Rogan 14:12 Through the roof.

Ben O'Brien 14:13 It's immersive to the point where you can't even, like, you can't even explain what you're experiencing when you're watching these shows.

Joe Rogan 14:18 Yeah, so, like, if you go and you see some great comedy from the 1990s, like you see, watch a Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock special-

Ben O'Brien 14:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:26 ... from the '90s, that holds up 100%. And the-

Ben O'Brien 14:31 Seinfeld holds up.

Joe Rogan 14:32 Like, if that, but, what I'm saying is, like, if that was out today, it would be a 100% standup special.

Ben O'Brien 14:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:39 It would be, people would be like, "Oh, you see the new Chris Rock Bigger and Blacker? It's fucking amazing." But if you tried to put some bullshit-ass 1990s TV show on-

Ben O'Brien 14:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:49 ... on Netflix, if you try to, like, finagle some CSI: Miami type shit-

Ben O'Brien 14:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:57 You know what I mean?

Ben O'Brien 14:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:58 Some, some nonsense. I don't know if CSI: Miami, is that even a show? Is that a real show?

Ben O'Brien 15:03 Yeah, it's a show. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:03 There's a CSI: Miami?

Ben O'Brien 15:04 There is.

Joe Rogan 15:05 There's guests.

Ben O'Brien 15:05 There's several. There's many CSIs.

Joe Rogan 15:07 I guessed.

Ben O'Brien 15:07 But we've, like, we've-

Joe Rogan 15:08 Law & Order.

Ben O'Brien 15:09 We've expe- like, Law & Order. There's so many-

Joe Rogan 15:10 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 15:11 ... of those. But we've expanded our willingness-

Joe Rogan 15:12 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 15:12 ... to, like, explore things that are... I mean, Game of Thrones, for example, is one of the best shows ever created, in my opinion.

Joe Rogan 15:19 For sure.

Ben O'Brien 15:20 But it explores some unthinkable things.

Joe Rogan 15:24 Awful things.

Ben O'Brien 15:25 Awful things.

Joe Rogan 15:26 Well, it's, the whole show, s- spoiler alert, is, uh, around a brother and sister who fucked and had a whole family.

Ben O'Brien 15:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:32 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 15:33 So it explores these, like, these things that in, we would never even touch upon in our media.

Joe Rogan 15:38 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 15:38 In the '50s, '60s, even the '70s, we wouldn't be touching upon those things in the way that we do now.

Joe Rogan 15:42 No, not only that, but, p- here's the thing, Law & Order is not a bad show. Like, if you watch it, you'll be entertained.

Ben O'Brien 15:51 No. No, it's not a bad show.

Joe Rogan 15:51 So what happened? Why, why did we go, "Not good enough"? Like, what did, what was it? Was it that we-

Ben O'Brien 15:57 Man, that's a, that's a question.

Joe Rogan 15:58 Is that what we did? Did they go, "Not good enough"? Or, did, was it, like, like porn? Like, if you watch porn, okay? And you watch some porn from the 1980s and then you flip through, like, YouPorn, not that I would ever do that-

Ben O'Brien 16:12 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:12 But if you did do that and looked at all the different categories, you'd be like, "What the fuck happened?"

Ben O'Brien 16:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:16 Like, "Why are people... Why is gagging-

Ben O'Brien 16:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:18 ... something people are looking for?" (laughs) It's not a, it's not an accident.

Ben O'Brien 16:22 We've-

Joe Rogan 16:22 It's like a category.

Ben O'Brien 16:23 We've ar- we've expanded our ability to conceive of things-

Joe Rogan 16:26 Yes.

Ben O'Brien 16:27 ... in a media space where we can create, you can create dragons that, that breathe ice. You can create-

Joe Rogan 16:31 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 16:32 There's, there's things you can be transported, like, "Listen, this isn't real, so I can, I can do this."

Joe Rogan 16:38 Right.

Ben O'Brien 16:38 Or, "I can have this scene of, of rape or infidelity or, or incest-

Joe Rogan 16:43 Yes.

Ben O'Brien 16:43 ... that seems, is, it's appropriate to me only in this fantasy world." Man, sometimes I get down on that stuff. Like, you watch enough of it, you're just like, "I need a musical." Yeah. "I need to be inspired that life is grand."

Joe Rogan 16:56 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 16:56 And I d- that's how I feel about it, man. Sometimes it comes across in, like, "This dude watches musicals?" But I, I do for a little bit of a break sometimes, right?

Joe Rogan 17:05 Something's wrong with it. I, what I'm weirded out about is this natural human inclination towards progression, in everything, good or bad, is that things just keep ramping up.

Ben O'Brien 17:15 Well, but we're progressing with our storylines for, like, humanity in a weird way in media, but we're also, like, suppressing a lot of our, uh, we're trying to suppress through social justice a lot of the same things, right?

Joe Rogan 17:26 Well, some people are, but I think it's a small, very vocal minority. I think, in reality, there's, the vast majority of people who find out about said suppression are upset by it.

Ben O'Brien 17:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:36 And they're like, "What in the fuck are you talking about with this safe spaces and all this nonsense?" Most people that hear that stuff are going, "Oh, this is just nonsense by a few, like, really loud activist types."

Ben O'Brien 17:47 Yeah, like, um, even on my podcast with something, like, as serious as hunting is, 'cause you're killing stu- like, that's-

Joe Rogan 17:52 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 17:52 ... you're going out into the world and taking, plucking something that you didn't put there.

Joe Rogan 17:56 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 17:56 Like, you've taken it away. But, like, the, I think the, the core of what I think you do well and what I think others should try to do is, like, ask "Why?" Why are we willing to... Why is Game of Thrones the, the most watched show that's on?

Joe Rogan 18:11 Right.

Ben O'Brien 18:11 Why?

Joe Rogan 18:12 Why?

Ben O'Brien 18:12 Why? I, I can't answer that question, but it's a conversation.

Joe Rogan 18:15 Well, I think they get away with it because it's a, it's so fictitious, right? It's so obviously fiction.

Ben O'Brien 18:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:22 You're living in this fictional world, you have fictional White Walkers, you have dragons, you have people that can survive in fire. You, it's like, it's so crazy-

Ben O'Brien 18:31 Yeah, but, like, there's parallels to real life-

Joe Rogan 18:33 Right.

Ben O'Brien 18:33 ... and then these, these ridiculous fantasies.

Joe Rogan 18:36 Right.

Ben O'Brien 18:36 But then these parallels to real life that, that-... travel along the same path. And, like, you, you don't get to choose between the dragons and the incest.

Joe Rogan 18:44 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 18:44 They're both there at the same time.

Joe Rogan 18:46 I think it for- f- w- i- it fulfills a lot of, like, base needs, but it does so in this way that's obviously false.

Ben O'Brien 18:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:55 It's like, why are superheroes so huge to us? If you stop and think about the number of blockbusters that are superhero movies, that are comic book movies-

Ben O'Brien 19:04 They're coming out, like, once every couple of months now.

Joe Rogan 19:06 It's crazy. Y- t- that was a rare beast when I was a kid.

Ben O'Brien 19:10 Yes.

Joe Rogan 19:11 When I was a kid, if there was a Hulk movie, I would've jumped for joy.

Ben O'Brien 19:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:14 There was no goddamn Spider-Man movie when I was a kid. There was a TV show and it sucked, okay?

Ben O'Brien 19:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:20 It was a goddamn cartoon TV show. Spider-Man, Spider-Man.

Ben O'Brien 19:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:25 Does whatever a spider can.

Ben O'Brien 19:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:27 Spins a web, any size. Catches thieves, just like flies. Look out, shh, here comes the Spider-Man. It was terrible.

Ben O'Brien 19:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:35 And I used to get up early to watch it, 'cause I was a huge comic book nerd.

Ben O'Brien 19:39 You've watched the Lou Ferrigno Hulk, right?

Joe Rogan 19:41 Fuck yeah, I watched it.

Ben O'Brien 19:42 That was a little bit... I mean, like, you watched the Batman-

Joe Rogan 19:44 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 19:44 ... with Adam West.

Joe Rogan 19:45 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 19:46 You watch him now and you're like, "What is happening here?"

Joe Rogan 19:48 So they came out with Superman. He was, like, the first movies. That- what is this, a Spider-Man TV show? Mm-hmm. Wow. That's another TV show.

Ben O'Brien 19:55 What's that guy in the back, what's that guy in the background doing?

Joe Rogan 19:57 Who's that guy?

Ben O'Brien 19:57 He don't look, he don't look like he's doing anything good.

Joe Rogan 19:59 He's got a wooden stick. Nothing. He needs to know those shits are just for practice.

Ben O'Brien 20:02 He needs to know that Spider-Man can shoot webs out of his hands and that wooden stick's-

Joe Rogan 20:05 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 20:05 ... probably not gonna do much.

Joe Rogan 20:06 And then Spider-Man sort of changed his ability, right? Because-

Ben O'Brien 20:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:09 ... what he used to be able to do, like now he can just basically fly. I mean, he just f- h- hurls himself through the air and-

Ben O'Brien 20:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:14 ... sticks to buildings. You know? It used to be a little harder to swing around back then.

Ben O'Brien 20:17 He's like, "Let me drop my backpack full of textbooks."

Joe Rogan 20:19 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 20:19 And get to it.

Joe Rogan 20:20 But he's... That was, there was no Spider-Man movies when I was a kid. And there was a Superman movie, and the Superman movie beget the Batman movie. Batman movie came out.

Ben O'Brien 20:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:29 Michael Keaton. It was a big f-

Ben O'Brien 20:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:31 ... big success. People were shocked that Michael Keaton was Batman.

Ben O'Brien 20:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:35 But, but it worked.

Ben O'Brien 20:36 Wasn't that like Danny DeVito was the Penguin?

Joe Rogan 20:37 Yeah. Everybody got a shot at Batman. It was one of those things. If you were Batman, you must be the it guy.

Ben O'Brien 20:42 George Clooney was Batman.

Joe Rogan 20:43 George Clooney was Batman. Christian Bale was Batman.

Ben O'Brien 20:46 Arnold Schwarzenegger was Mr. Freeze, remember that?

Joe Rogan 20:47 That's right. But they got to Ben Affleck and they went, "Nah, player."

Ben O'Brien 20:51 They went, "Whoa."

Joe Rogan 20:53 Like, isn't that funny? Like, that's real. Like, the amount of people that will see you as Batman, it's whether or not they really believe it. They-

Ben O'Brien 21:01 But, like-

Joe Rogan 21:01 Like, Christian Bale, I believe that guy could be Batman.

Ben O'Brien 21:03 But Michael Keaton, for the longest time, was Batman.

Joe Rogan 21:07 Yes. But see, he started it off. See, the, the difference between Michael Keaton is, there was no one before him other than Bruce Wayne, and he was the first dark, real Batman.

Ben O'Brien 21:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:18 I forgot about Val Kilmer. I forgot about Val Kilmer. Goddammit. Val Kilmer was fucking Batman. And-

Ben O'Brien 21:25 What a talented human being Val Kilmer is.

Joe Rogan 21:27 (laughs) He's a beast. Dude, him as, uh-

Ben O'Brien 21:29 I love me some Val Kilmer.

Joe Rogan 21:30 ... Doc Holliday.

Ben O'Brien 21:31 Oh.

Joe Rogan 21:31 In that, uh, what's his, what's the name of that movie? Tombstone?

Ben O'Brien 21:34 Tombstone.

Joe Rogan 21:35 God damn, was he good in that movie.

Ben O'Brien 21:36 That's one of the best, that's one of the best-

Joe Rogan 21:38 He was spooky.

Ben O'Brien 21:38 ... Westerns ever.

Joe Rogan 21:39 He was believable. That was a, that was a straight-up murderer.

Ben O'Brien 21:41 Probably still the most quoted... But see, nobody will think back on Ben Affleck's career and be like, "He was Batman." 'Cause-

Joe Rogan 21:47 It's not just that. He's done some good movies.

Ben O'Brien 21:49 Yeah. But-

Joe Rogan 21:50 But he's also-

Ben O'Brien 21:51 He always has... There's nothing around his career that he f- he must feel like, "Oh, man, if, if this goes bad, it's gonna ruin me." He's done so many great things.

Joe Rogan 21:57 He's a very good actor. Don't get me wrong. But (sighs) what is it about him? That's it. Is he too handsome? No, because Val Kilmer's gorgeous. So he-

Ben O'Brien 22:08 They're all, all those folks-

Joe Rogan 22:09 ... was back then.

Ben O'Brien 22:09 ... were very handsome.

Joe Rogan 22:10 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 22:10 It was a-

Joe Rogan 22:11 Was it- It was a tough time. Is it Gigli? Yeah. Is it him and Jennifer Lopez?

Ben O'Brien 22:13 Is that t-

Joe Rogan 22:14 Is, is that it? That was a tough time. It was a tough time.

Ben O'Brien 22:16 Did you say Jiggly?

Joe Rogan 22:16 Jiggly? That was a tough time. What is it?

Ben O'Brien 22:17 Is it... I think it was Zhili.

Joe Rogan 22:19 Jiggly? She got mad at you at the UFC that one time, remember? Oh, that's right. That's when that, that's the end of it, the end of it. That's right. Yeah, she left... No, that was... Which one was that? The dancer, the dancer. That was the dancer. That was the dancer.

Ben O'Brien 23:59 Can I take a qu- could we take a, a quick... Now this is a, like a kind of a PSA, public service announcement.

Joe Rogan 24:04 Okay.

Ben O'Brien 24:04 Can we take a hard left at Jennifer Lopez-

Joe Rogan 24:06 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 24:06 ... and get ourselves over to Kanye West real quick?

Joe Rogan 24:08 Yeah, we can, but look at that. Alex Rodriguez. Okay, take a look at that man. Super athlete. Probably got a dick like a goddamn baseball bat, right?

Ben O'Brien 24:15 Anybody that has that many buttons-

Joe Rogan 24:17 Look at his hands.

Ben O'Brien 24:17 Look at those top buttons coming down.

Joe Rogan 24:18 The size of his fist. Look at the size of that guy's paw. You said two plus $200 million contracts. Yes.

Ben O'Brien 24:25 So he's, he's doing-

Joe Rogan 24:25 So he's got $400 million and a giant horn.

Ben O'Brien 24:27 But that, that (laughs) ...

Joe Rogan 24:29 (laughs) and he's a super athlete. Of course it's gonna work. It's gonna smash.

Ben O'Brien 24:33 Uh, let's talk-

Joe Rogan 24:33 He's gonna keep it together.

Ben O'Brien 24:34 Let's talk about hunting.

Joe Rogan 24:35 He knows, that guy knows how to keep it together, right? That guy knows. He knows how to play-

Ben O'Brien 24:39 Yes, he does know.

Joe Rogan 24:39 ... when the ball's coming his way, he smashes that fucking thing, right?

Ben O'Brien 24:42 You gotta think Jennifer Lopez is not tolerating any losers in her life at this point. That's all that's left.

Joe Rogan 24:46 She's had a few. She's had a few.

Ben O'Brien 24:47 But that's all that's left.

Joe Rogan 24:48 She keeps them around.

Ben O'Brien 24:48 Look at that guy.

Joe Rogan 24:49 Yeah. There you go. Super athlete. Big, giant, handsome.

Ben O'Brien 24:52 I'm a big sports fan.

Joe Rogan 24:52 Boom.

Ben O'Brien 24:52 I came up when he was just, he was, it was a god.

Joe Rogan 24:55 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 24:55 A baseball god.

Joe Rogan 24:56 They seem to get along together. See, that makes sense to me. Just like it made sense when Val Kilmer was Batman.

Ben O'Brien 25:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:01 That made sense to me.

Ben O'Brien 25:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:02 But when Ben Affleck-... was Ben Affleck ... I don't know how his relationship was with her. I don't know. Maybe it was great.

Ben O'Brien 25:07 It seems like it was, uh, tumultuous, but I'm not ... I- I'm just observing it.

Joe Rogan 25:10 The fuck do I know?

Ben O'Brien 25:11 Nobody knows.

Joe Rogan 25:12 Right?

Ben O'Brien 25:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:12 But there's, like, some people where y- you need to, like, have an online vote, should this person be Batman.

Ben O'Brien 25:18 (laughs) That ...

Joe Rogan 25:19 And the people will tell you. They will go-

Ben O'Brien 25:20 They would not have voted ... I do not believe they would've voted for Ben Affleck.

Joe Rogan 25:23 Right, right.

Ben O'Brien 25:23 I do not believe it.

Joe Rogan 25:24 Here's the problem. Like, The Rock, too big for Batman. Here's why. Because everybody would be like, "Oh, it's you, The Rock. You're wearing a fucking bat suit."

Ben O'Brien 25:32 Is that The Rock? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:33 And not everybody's 6'9". You can't just be-

Ben O'Brien 25:34 They would ... They could do that in the movie though. They can make it funny and be like-

Joe Rogan 25:36 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 25:37 "Are you-"

Joe Rogan 25:37 In the movie they can make it funny.

Ben O'Brien 25:38 Be like-

Joe Rogan 25:39 Yeah. Right.

Ben O'Brien 25:40 "Is this The Rock? Are you The Rock?"

Joe Rogan 25:41 But like, he could never be Superman.

Ben O'Brien 25:43 No.

Joe Rogan 25:43 He takes his fucking glasses off. You're like, "You're still a giant dude." (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 25:45 No. Well, the last time ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:47 That shit doesn't work. (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 25:48 But that's how it works though.

Joe Rogan 25:49 He has to be a regular-sized person.

Ben O'Brien 25:50 That's how it works.

Joe Rogan 25:51 No.

Ben O'Brien 25:51 The last guy that was a Superman was an ... Was an unknown. Henry, uh ...

Joe Rogan 25:55 Superman, they ran out. They ran out of the well. The well's dry.

Ben O'Brien 25:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:58 It's like if they tried to make another Hulk. People are gonna go, "That's enough. You've had eight Hulks."

Ben O'Brien 26:02 They're gonna keep making them, dude. They're gonna make 100 more Star Wars in the next five years.

Joe Rogan 26:06 Mm-hmm.

Ben O'Brien 26:06 And you're gonna have to sit through, like, Han Solo, the pre-pre-prequel.

Joe Rogan 26:10 Oh. Like, how can they do that? That doesn't make any sense because Harrison Ford was Han Solo when Han Solo was young.

Ben O'Brien 26:17 Yeah, but-

Joe Rogan 26:17 Like, you can't just do that.

Ben O'Brien 26:18 They just came out with a Han Solo movie.

Guest (third participant) 26:19 I think they decided to reel back on that, 'cause that last one didn't do as-

Joe Rogan 26:21 It was a flop.

Guest (third participant) 26:22 ... so hot yet.

Joe Rogan 26:22 They need to ask me.

Ben O'Brien 26:24 Yeah.

Guest (third participant) 26:24 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 26:24 They need to ask Joe.

Joe Rogan 26:25 Just ask me. I'm here for you. George Lucas ... George Lucas is-

Ben O'Brien 26:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:28 ... right now bathing in money.

Ben O'Brien 26:30 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:30 He's just lying back in a- a- a warm, wet money bath, just, "Oh."

Ben O'Brien 26:33 He just forgot to listen to the podcast.

Joe Rogan 26:35 He's just, "Oh." He just gets touched all day.

Guest (third participant) 26:38 The Rock is gonna be a superhero.

Joe Rogan 26:40 People just massage him. "What? Oh."

Guest (third participant) 26:40 He's gonna be coming out ... Or start shooting next year-

Ben O'Brien 26:42 What is that?

Guest (third participant) 26:42 ... called Black Adam.

Ben O'Brien 26:44 What is it?

Guest (third participant) 26:44 It's a DC-

Joe Rogan 26:45 Black Adam. Oh, they're making up ... They ran out of superheroes. They ran them out.

Ben O'Brien 26:47 Is that Superman in the background? That's Superman in the background.

Guest (third participant) 26:50 That's in the DC, uh-

Joe Rogan 26:50 That's in the DC Universe?

Ben O'Brien 26:51 There he is. Look, there he is right in the background.

Joe Rogan 26:52 They've run out of superheroes. They ran out.

Ben O'Brien 26:54 I mean, he looks good.

Joe Rogan 26:55 Yeah, but as long as they don't try to make him Superman. Like, you can't-

Ben O'Brien 26:57 Is he a bad guy, Jamie? Is he a bad guy or a good guy?

Guest (third participant) 26:59 I ... I honestly have never heard of this character, so I have no idea where he fits in the, the world.

Ben O'Brien 27:03 I remember when Netflix came out with Luke Cage, I was like, "Wow, that's an obscure one."

Joe Rogan 27:07 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 27:08 But the Black Panther was good.

Joe Rogan 27:09 Yeah. The Black Panther was good too.

Ben O'Brien 27:10 It's a great movie.

Joe Rogan 27:11 Yeah. It's amazing they took so long to make a Black Panther movie. Racist.

Ben O'Brien 27:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:16 Took so long and it was a giant smash hit. There you go, white people. Get it together. (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 27:20 No comment.

Guest (third participant) 27:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:23 Ben O'Brien in the conservative world has to be careful. This podcast could sink his ship.

Ben O'Brien 27:27 I'm pro-nuance.

Joe Rogan 27:30 Yeah. How'd you come up with this shirt? Pro-nuance that type of bullshit?

Ben O'Brien 27:33 I don't know. Listen, I think the way that I came up with it is 'cause in the ... In the hunting world, there is this ... Speaking of conservative, there's this like ... There's the conservative traditionalist, right?

Joe Rogan 27:42 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 27:42 And there's the more progressive folks that you have met and been around. You've been around both.

Joe Rogan 27:46 Mm-hmm.

Ben O'Brien 27:46 But ... Been around both that are more environmentalists, more public lands, more access, right?

Joe Rogan 27:51 Mm-hmm.

Ben O'Brien 27:52 Um, so there's kinda like two ... Of course, there's always two sides in politics, but there's, in this case, two distinct sides, right? And the line kinda gets drawn around, one, a little bit around guns, but also a little bit around the environment. So-

Joe Rogan 28:03 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 28:04 Part of the biggest issue in, in politics for a hunter or angler right now is like, "I really like guns. I like the Second Amendment, I dig what's going on there. I'd like to support that. But what I also like is healthy ecosystems and environment and i- ... And I like habitat for wild game to live and public lands and access." Well, it just so happens that a lot of the A+ rated politicians for the NRA are like F- or D+ rated in protecting wildlife and wild lands.

Joe Rogan 28:33 Mm.

Ben O'Brien 28:33 And a lot of that's around extraction and, and different things like that, but-

Joe Rogan 28:36 Extraction of minerals and oil and natural resources from those lands.

Ben O'Brien 28:39 From valuable lands, right.

Joe Rogan 28:40 Right. So they change-

Ben O'Brien 28:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:41 ... the, the way these lands are scheduled?

Ben O'Brien 28:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:44 Like what, what it's under?

Ben O'Brien 28:45 Yeah, I mean there was a lot of-

Joe Rogan 28:46 Like protections.

Ben O'Brien 28:46 Yeah, it was right around monuments of course. That was one-

Joe Rogan 28:48 Mm-hmm.

Ben O'Brien 28:48 ... big one. But it's, it's, it's just around like the general basis of, even as a hunter, but all Americans, but as a hunter, I'm faced with like, "I love wildlife. I love wild places, clean water, clean lands." I'm all for that. That's a huge part of what I believe in. But I also believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in my right to defend my family, I believe in my right to, to own firearms and to, and to do that. So I believe in those two things, but because our politics are the way they are, it doesn't leave room for those two beliefs when I'm at, uh, uh, at the voting booth.

Joe Rogan 29:18 Well-

Ben O'Brien 29:18 Sometimes.

Joe Rogan 29:19 The-

Ben O'Brien 29:19 Not all the time, but sometimes.

Joe Rogan 29:20 It doesn't ... It hardly leaves room for those beliefs in normal conversations with people, unless you absolutely know that the person's gonna be objective and-

Ben O'Brien 29:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:29 ... as your shirt says, pro-nuance. This ... The co- ... The idea that you, you shouldn't be able to defend your family is where it gets crazy.

Ben O'Brien 29:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:38 It doesn't get crazy that you wanna be able to defend your family. Like, why do these movies all have r- robberies and break-ins and bad guys? Why ... But why ...

Ben O'Brien 29:49 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 29:49 D- D- Those are real things.

Ben O'Brien 29:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:50 These are real things.

Ben O'Brien 29:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:51 So the idea that you should just be a sitting duck because there's so many crazy fucks out there that wanna shoot up schools and-

Ben O'Brien 29:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:59 ... and go on mass shootings that somehow-

Ben O'Brien 30:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:01 ... or another, you're being conflated with them. That you're be- being, uh, confused with them, or categorized with them. Like how, how is that? Th- These are different things.

Ben O'Brien 30:10 They are different things.

Joe Rogan 30:10 They are just both involve guns.

Ben O'Brien 30:12 They are different things.

Joe Rogan 30:13 It's like the insult that dr- drove all those people in Toronto. Remember that?

Ben O'Brien 30:18 Yep.

Joe Rogan 30:19 W- you know, what if that keeps happening? That's happened many times. We've seen people kill people with cars over the last few years. It's been like four or five-

Ben O'Brien 30:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:25 ... big events.

Ben O'Brien 30:26 I mean, are they mutually exclusive? Like, I want to be able to defend my family and own firearms and have that freedom. That's a big part of this country, but I also don't want people to die-

Joe Rogan 30:34 Exactly.

Ben O'Brien 30:35 ... in mass shootings. I don't want that. I want-

Joe Rogan 30:37 Of course.

Ben O'Brien 30:37 And on, on the other side of the coin, with ... When you ... When it comes to like environmental issues and, around hunting, public lands and things like of nature, I want coal miners to have jobs. I want e- people that work in the extraction industries to have an opportunity to work and live and, and do what they need to do. But I also wanna protect our ecosystems at all costs, 'cause you can't replace that shit.

Joe Rogan 30:58 Right. And, eh, there's gotta be other jobs out there, if the government put its resources instead to propping up old ways of doing business-

Ben O'Brien 31:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:08 ... that pollute the environment, versus new ways of doing business-

Ben O'Brien 31:12 But there, there-

Joe Rogan 31:12 ... like with subsidies and with-

Ben O'Brien 31:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:14 ... with government programs. This is entirely possible.

Ben O'Brien 31:15 Yeah, there are certainly reasonable and, and, uh-... healthy ways to mine copper or, or th- there are ways to do-

Joe Rogan 31:22 Is there? I don't know.

Ben O'Brien 31:22 There is.

Joe Rogan 31:23 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 31:23 I mean, there's responsible ways to do that. But at what c- you know, like, at what cost? You're still, you're still extracting.

Joe Rogan 31:31 Right.

Ben O'Brien 31:31 Like, you're still, uh-

Joe Rogan 31:32 You're doing something.

Ben O'Brien 31:33 ... doing... You're still changing the natural environment there.

Joe Rogan 31:36 Yeah, someone was trying to make th- that argument with fracking with me. I was talking to them about that. Is it Josh Fox's documentary? Um, what is, uh... He, he was on the podcast. The, um, something... Fracking Nation? What was his, uh... He made a... It was a very good documentary. And it was... He... When I g- had him on the podcast, it was interesting, because he seemed like he had been attacked a lot for it and even misunderstood, like, some of the questions I was asking.

Ben O'Brien 32:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:02 Like, maybe they were coming from me. And I was saying, "No, this is just, like..." What is it called? Fracking Nation? Gasland.

Ben O'Brien 32:06 What is it?

Joe Rogan 32:07 Gasland?

Ben O'Brien 32:08 Gasland, that's it.

Joe Rogan 32:09 Oh, yeah. I've seen it. Okay. Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 32:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:10 It's, um... It's disturbing.

Ben O'Brien 32:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:12 Like, you, you're, you're watching some aspects of it, like when they were lighting, lighting their water on fire, and then someone tried to say, "Oh, y- there's some places where you've always been able to light your water on fire."

Ben O'Brien 32:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:21 I was like, "Okay, wait a second."

Ben O'Brien 32:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:23 "Okay. Can we just establish-"

Ben O'Brien 32:24 That's a long American tradition of lighting your water on fire.

Joe Rogan 32:26 Yeah. Yeah. This was a real argument that someone said.

Ben O'Brien 32:28 Oh, boy.

Joe Rogan 32:28 Like, "That's not really from fracking." And I said, "Okay, these people said that there was no lighting the water on fire, then people started fracking, the water smelled like shit, they started lighting it on fire."

Ben O'Brien 32:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:38 Thou- you're saying those are not connected?

Ben O'Brien 32:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:40 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 32:42 Over the years, Joe, we've been able to light our water on fire for, for a number of reasons.

Joe Rogan 32:45 But, well, well, here's the thing.

Ben O'Brien 32:47 Fourth of July.

Joe Rogan 32:47 I would think, to be confident about that, and I'm not confident about it, but to be confident about what that guy said to me when he was saying that it's always been like that-

Ben O'Brien 32:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:54 ... you would have to have done massive research. You would have to have spent time there. You would have to have been working either directly or indirectly with the scientists that are collecting the data.

Ben O'Brien 33:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:07 You'd have to get it-

Ben O'Brien 33:08 Yep.

Joe Rogan 33:08 ... from them. You'd have to know. You'd have to see it. Yep. Of course, you would.

Ben O'Brien 33:11 Of course, you would.

Joe Rogan 33:11 Or you have to be a person who is not interested in the actual truth, they just have an idea that they wanna push through. And this is a weird thing with certain right-wing folks. There's a weird thing they wanna push through that business is good and environmentalists are all pussies and hippies and weirdos and losers. And these things don't jive in th- the world of someone who actually loves and appreciates the actual Earth.

Ben O'Brien 33:37 Of course, man, because-

Joe Rogan 33:39 It's weird.

Ben O'Brien 33:39 ... but there is no way that anyone could argue, right? There's, there's... In the hunting world, there's sort of, like, access and, and public land and all these things become a big deal, but there... You can define access in a ton of different ways.

Joe Rogan 33:53 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 33:53 To me, access... Well, to me, access could be I like wilderness, where the only way you can access it is on foot via the tr- via trailhead. Someone else might say, "Access to me is, uh, elderly folks or disabled folks being able to get on, into a car and drive through a road in public land or, or get into an ATV and drive." And so politics are, uh, being what they are, politicians take this term of access. It happened around national monuments. They take... One side said, "The President is stealing your land."

Joe Rogan 34:25 Mm-hmm.

Ben O'Brien 34:25 And the other side says, "The President is giving back your land." Somebody there... Either both sides are full of shit or one of them is.

Joe Rogan 34:33 I remember when this came up. Patagonia, which is a giant company in the outdoors-

Ben O'Brien 34:37 That's right.

Joe Rogan 34:37 ... had a big ad on the internet that said, "The President just stole your land."

Ben O'Brien 34:42 "The President just stole your land."

Joe Rogan 34:42 And then I heard Rinella talk about it and he said, this is... I th- I'm gonna paraphrase, but he basically said, "If you say that the President stole your land, you're not being careful with your words."

Ben O'Brien 34:51 Yes.

Joe Rogan 34:52 "And you're not being accurate."

Ben O'Brien 34:53 You're being inflammatory.

Joe Rogan 34:54 Yes.

Ben O'Brien 34:54 You're being absolutely inflammatory.

Joe Rogan 34:55 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 34:56 Because it's not... Again, that, that... You're... We're talking about Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monument. Bears Ears being, i- in Utah, being-

Joe Rogan 35:04 Explain to people what happened.

Ben O'Brien 35:06 Oh, boy.

Joe Rogan 35:06 If you would.

Ben O'Brien 35:07 Um, I'll, I'll do my best.

Joe Rogan 35:08 Please do. Thank you.

Ben O'Brien 35:09 Joe.

Joe Rogan 35:09 Thank you, Ben.

Ben O'Brien 35:10 So, so the Antiquities Act. Let's go back to the Antiquities Act.

Joe Rogan 35:14 Right.

Ben O'Brien 35:14 It's, it's to protect... The Antiquities Act is to protect, um, culturally or socially, mostly culturally significant pieces of, of land, uh, all the way to things like the Grand Canyon, right? And so spin it up to the end of... There's a lot that I just skipped over, but I'm gonna spin it up to the end of the Obama administration. President Obama used his executive power to protect large swaths, millions of acres around th- about, around Bears Ears National Monument, to protect not only the, the significant places for Native Americans and for, um, native tribesmen around Bears Ears, but many millions of acres around that. And so then it becomes... The problem I have and the why that, kind of that T-shirt exists, it becomes a political football thrown back and forth. It's not, at this point in time, what's best for Bears Ears, what's best for that national monument, what's best for, for it to be federally owned, what's best for the people, the jobs, the place. It becomes what's best for each side and their rhetoric. And so President Trump asked Secretary, former Secretary of Interior, R- Ryan Zinke, to review, uh, I think it was, like, 10 monuments to see if they should be reduced based on the protections that Obama had put, put into place. So he reviews these 10 monuments, he cuts out eight of them, and hones in on two places, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. They then say, "We're going to reduce the size of these monuments."

Joe Rogan 36:52 When you say cuts out eight of them, what do you mean by cuts out? Just ignore them?

Ben O'Brien 36:54 They review the other eight and say-

Joe Rogan 36:56 They're fine? Okay.

Ben O'Brien 36:56 ... "They're good to go." No change is necessary.

Joe Rogan 36:58 Okay.

Ben O'Brien 36:59 Some would say they did that as a, as a straw man, as eight straw men to knock them over and look at those other two. They said, "We will reduce the pre- the, the area that is de- designated as a national monument." And here, again, it comes to both sides. They would say because President Obama wielded his powers...... corruptly to protect ... to be a- as an environmentalist to protect lands that didn't need protection under the Antiquities Act, 'cause the An- Antiquities Act does say it should be the smallest acreage possible to protect. So, now you get into stuff that I'm not an expert in around l- ... y- ... legal jargon and going back to things that were written in the 1930s. (smacks lips) But we get to a point where one side's saying, "Here is the Republicans trying to shrink down these monuments so that they can then go ..." uh, the companies that are ... can then go and lease these places for mining, but they can't currently do under protections as a national monument. The other side is saying, "We're trying to protect culturally significant lands, and these millions of acres need protected. They need protected for lots of reasons." So, you end up with those two sides talking.

Joe Rogan 38:12 Now, it's easy to sort of make a hype- ... hyperbolic? Hyperbolic?

Ben O'Brien 38:19 Hyperbolic.

Joe Rogan 38:20 I always wanna say that wrong.

Ben O'Brien 38:22 Got that backwoods in there.

Joe Rogan 38:23 Hyperbolic, uh, argument one way or the other, right?

Ben O'Brien 38:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:27 I mean, you could kind of-

Ben O'Brien 38:27 Yes.

Joe Rogan 38:27 ... exaggerate your position one way or the other.

Ben O'Brien 38:30 And it's being done that way.

Joe Rogan 38:31 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 38:31 It's been done that way.

Joe Rogan 38:32 Are they drilling there now? Or doing-

Ben O'Brien 38:35 There was-

Joe Rogan 38:35 ... something?

Ben O'Brien 38:36 L- let's look that up, but there is some leases that were, that were approved for, for Bears Ears, I know for sure.

Joe Rogan 38:42 See, that's one of the things where people talk about the president doesn't have any real power. There's Congress, and there's Senate, and like-

Ben O'Brien 38:48 Yeah, th-

Joe Rogan 38:48 ... not really. They have some fucking real power.

Ben O'Brien 38:49 There's checks and balances, but there's-

Joe Rogan 38:51 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 38:51 ... executive orders that can come down.

Joe Rogan 38:52 Yeah. There's some real power.

Ben O'Brien 38:52 But yeah, the ... Listen, I'm not the expert on this. I, um, I'm sure I fumbled through some of the details on that, but, but to me, the bottom line is, something like that, why I like to, to, to live in the center is because something like that becomes ... It becomes a thing that ... It becomes a PR hit.

Joe Rogan 39:09 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 39:10 It becomes a b- ... a thing that people are throwing back. They're throwing Bears Ears back and forth because at the end of Obama's administration, he made the designation, and they rev- ... they repealed it, or reversed it, a year later.

Joe Rogan 39:22 Right.

Ben O'Brien 39:22 Or some amount of time around a year later.

Joe Rogan 39:24 So, it was only the way it was for a year.

Ben O'Brien 39:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:26 And everybody's making it look-

Ben O'Brien 39:27 And so-

Joe Rogan 39:27 ... like the government stole your land.

Ben O'Brien 39:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:29 They just brought it back to exactly where it was before, but they did open up the possibility, which is why Obama did it in the first place-

Ben O'Brien 39:35 Yes.

Joe Rogan 39:35 ... they opened up the possibility for drilling and natural-

Ben O'Brien 39:37 They did.

Joe Rogan 39:38 ... resource extraction.

Ben O'Brien 39:39 They did. They did.

Joe Rogan 39:39 And that just scares the shit out of people. You know, it's like-

Ben O'Brien 39:41 Yeah, so like, there's, there's this two ... There ... Uh, in these situations, there always seems to be spin on both sides, and being a part of these debates on a daily basis, and being a part of this inf- ... like, s- ... bringing in this information on a daily basis, it's tiresome.

Joe Rogan 39:57 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 39:58 You get tired.

Joe Rogan 39:59 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 39:59 You get tired of being, uh, pandered to by people.

Joe Rogan 40:02 Mm-hmm.

Ben O'Brien 40:02 You get tired of having to hear that this value system is right, or this value system is right, and there's no room to be anywhere close to the center around this stuff. So, you just get ... It's just tiresome.

Joe Rogan 40:12 You know, w- ... Public lands are the only place where I look at it and say, "No, you gotta leave that to the government. You gotta leave it to the federal government."

Ben O'Brien 40:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:22 "Don't, don't l- ... leave it to the states."

Ben O'Brien 40:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:23 It's the only place. I mean-

Ben O'Brien 40:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:25 ... when I, when I think about all the different things, like with, uh, like, legalization of marijuana, now they're gonna legalize psilocybin, apparently, in Oregon. They're talking about doing that.

Ben O'Brien 40:33 Really?

Joe Rogan 40:33 I'm like, "Yeah, leave it to the states." They should be able to vote that in.

Ben O'Brien 40:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:36 They should be able to vote in, like, all the crazy laws you have in weird states, and some states have state taxes, some states don't. It's all good.

Ben O'Brien 40:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:44 That's all good, but when it comes to, like, federal land, the problem is if these states get into debt, and this is what people need to understand, they can sell it off.

Ben O'Brien 40:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:51 So if the ... if Utah is in debt, let's just ... I'm just not picking on Utah, but if they just, for some reason, they wind up in debt, which states do all the time, and then they sell off a giant chunk of land-

Ben O'Brien 41:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:03 ... to some oil company, now you can't camp there anymore. You can't ... And by the way, that's your fucking land.

Ben O'Brien 41:10 Land.

Joe Rogan 41:10 And not just-

Ben O'Brien 41:10 You pay taxes on that land.

Joe Rogan 41:11 Not just Utah. That's your land. You live in Arizona, you live in Florida-

Ben O'Brien 41:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:16 ... that's your land. You live in Massachusetts, it's yours. The land in Utah is the whole fucking all of us, the collected human race living on North America.

Ben O'Brien 41:26 But listen to this. Listen to this shit. It, it ... This is, like, there's a guy named Senator Mike Lee, out of the great state of Utah, which you rightly put that a lot of these things, uh, revolve around Utah for some reason.

Joe Rogan 41:38 Do they what?

Ben O'Brien 41:39 They have a lot of ... The, the percentage of it, it's like something that 70% of their acreage is, is controlled by the federal government, that's why.

Joe Rogan 41:45 Plus Mormons.

Ben O'Brien 41:47 (laughs) Let me ... I'll take the first point, you take the second point.

Joe Rogan 41:50 Okay. Go ahead.

Ben O'Brien 41:52 That ... So, Senator Mike Lee comes out and says, right? This is like the perfect, the perfect way to spin this type of thing. (smacks lips) He starts ... He calls back to ... And Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah has also done this, uh, uh, call back to, like, the Sagebrush Rebellion and things like that. Calling back this ... Uh, s- ... saying that wilderness is akin to the European aristocracy because only a certain few can go there, 'cause you have to have two working legs that can get you up in the wilderness. Part of the basis of his speech he gave, and he's, he's given it several times, is that public land and wilderness specifically is k- ... is akin to the, uh, the European aristocracy because only certain folks can go there. If you would, uh, open up access, cut roads through it, then it would be for everyone. So, then it gets back to, like-

Joe Rogan 42:41 Hmm.

Ben O'Brien 42:41 ... the semantics and the spin-

Joe Rogan 42:43 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 42:44 ... and the things that politicians push forward to try to convince you-

Joe Rogan 42:47 Well, he's-

Ben O'Brien 42:47 ... and they're still for you.

Joe Rogan 42:48 He's right in a certain way. What he's right in is that if you put roads through, anybody could go through anytime they wanted on a car, if they had no legs, if-

Ben O'Brien 42:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:57 ... they can barely walk, if they w- are in a wheelchair normally, but they can drive a car. Yeah, they can go in, deep into the woods, and they can enjoy all, all of the wilderness that-

Ben O'Brien 43:06 They surely can.

Joe Rogan 43:07 ... they're passed off. That is true.

Ben O'Brien 43:08 That's true.

Joe Rogan 43:08 However, the ... I ... It's not like there's a lotta places that they can't also go to.

Ben O'Brien 43:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:15 There's ... They can go a lot of places where they can do that. You can go to Yellowstone.

Ben O'Brien 43:18 Yes.

Joe Rogan 43:18 Yellowstone's damn gorgeous. You just drive through that, and you see all the trees and the animals, and-

Ben O'Brien 43:23 Yellowstone is a wonderful proxy for going outside.

Joe Rogan 43:25 Yeah. It is.

Ben O'Brien 43:26 It's an introduction to what it is without-

Joe Rogan 43:27 Right.

Ben O'Brien 43:27 ... really being in it.

Joe Rogan 43:28 Yeah, it's like a zoo that's free range-

Ben O'Brien 43:31 Yeah.... is exactly what it is.

Joe Rogan 43:33 It is.

Ben O'Brien 43:33 I live right, I live an hour from there-

Joe Rogan 43:35 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 43:35 ... and I've taken my family there and it, it just feels, like it used to feel like, "Oh, man. This is an illicit place." As somebody who's gone into the wilderness and, and tackled these big challenges and hiked around in crazy places, this Yellowstone is like, "Nah, it makes me feel uncomfortable." Then I, somebody said to me, I feel like it was this guy named Cody Rich who has a podcast called The Rich Outdoorsman. He said to me, "It's like, it's like it's an ambassador for real wilderness."

Joe Rogan 44:00 Mm.

Ben O'Brien 44:00 "It's like a way to present to people that this thing exists without them having to actually strap on a pack, get some trekking poles, and hike miles up into the, into the wilderness."

Joe Rogan 44:10 This is part of the problem whenever you're talking about the wilderness, is so few people go to it.

Ben O'Brien 44:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:17 It's like if we were talking about the surface of Mars-

Ben O'Brien 44:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:20 ... with the people that create the rover. "Well, you know how the surface of Mars is. It gums up the wheels."

Ben O'Brien 44:25 Oh.

Joe Rogan 44:25 It's like-

Ben O'Brien 44:25 It's red. It's definitely red. I've s-

Joe Rogan 44:26 How many people are going to Mars? How many people are really going to the wilderness?

Ben O'Brien 44:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:31 I mean, it's-

Ben O'Brien 44:31 Not that many.

Joe Rogan 44:32 There's more people going to the wilderness than Mars.

Ben O'Brien 44:35 But I-

Joe Rogan 44:35 I'll give you that.

Ben O'Brien 44:35 ... I've always said like the, the public lands movement, and, and I am definitely part of it, um, I feel like I could probably represent the mindfulness things better, but like I- I'm definitely part of it. It, it's, it's scary in a little, in a lot of ways, 'cause people can say like, "Keep it public, man. Keep it public." That's just like apple pie and bald eagles and freedom. It's an idea that we all pay into a thing, we all own, and anybody-

Joe Rogan 44:58 Right.

Ben O'Brien 44:58 ... can go there.

Joe Rogan 44:59 Right.

Ben O'Brien 44:59 It's super easy to get on that train.

Joe Rogan 45:01 Mm-hmm.

Ben O'Brien 45:02 It is real easy to get on that train and lose your critical thought around what, what is the idea of wilderness. I mean, because when I think of my hunting now, like when we first went hunting like five or six years ago, you would've asked me this question, I would've given you a whole different answer.

Joe Rogan 45:16 What would you have said then?

Ben O'Brien 45:18 I, I don't know what I would've said then, but not this answer. I might've said like-

Joe Rogan 45:21 Well, you're a fairly youngish man.

Ben O'Brien 45:23 I'm only, yeah-

Joe Rogan 45:23 You're growing.

Ben O'Brien 45:24 I'm growing.

Joe Rogan 45:24 What are you? 31?

Ben O'Brien 45:25 33.

Joe Rogan 45:26 Oh, you beautiful person.

Ben O'Brien 45:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:27 Look at you.

Ben O'Brien 45:27 I love you too.

Joe Rogan 45:28 Perfect complexion.

Ben O'Brien 45:30 Look at you.

Joe Rogan 45:30 All your cells are firing correctly. No liver spots yet.

Ben O'Brien 45:34 This whiskey's really-

Joe Rogan 45:35 Good stuff.

Ben O'Brien 45:36 ... I am Irish.

Joe Rogan 45:37 Um, so what do you think you would've called it then?

Ben O'Brien 45:42 So what I probably would've said like when we first went hunting in, in BC together for moose, what I probably would've said, would've been around... It would've been less value based and more like, I do it 'cause my dad did it. I do it because it connects me to m- to my dad, like my dad, my family, my people. I do it 'cause humanity did it. We talk, we filmed a video, remember?

Joe Rogan 46:02 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 46:02 Sitting on the thing, we talked a lot about our humanity, right?

Joe Rogan 46:05 Mm-hmm.

Ben O'Brien 46:05 Like the drawing back through the history of time when the hunter was exalted in a tribe of people.

Joe Rogan 46:13 Well, it was the only way to get meat.

Ben O'Brien 46:14 It was the only way to get meat. So your skills-

Joe Rogan 46:17 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 46:17 ... that you acquired as a hunter made you important to the culture, the society, the everyday life. I would've probably called back to that. Not that I would say that's wrong now, but what I've come to find out over some other years of, of hunting in a lot of places is that I think my hunting is more about healthy ecosystems now than it is about anything else. I think all of my efforts should be around clean water, clean air, places that we can go and explore, and what that brings to our world. That brings more wildlife, that brings places for my son to go and experience these things. And so I've changed over just a very short time in the way that I do it.

Joe Rogan 47:00 Well, the more you experience the wilderness and then go back to the city and then go back to the wilderness, the more you realize how special it is out there. And the more, the more you realize when... Like today, um, I went, uh, flying in a helicopter over LA with my good friend Bill Burr, and, uh, as he was taking me up, I was looking at all this development. We were talking about all these apartment complexes that are, they're being developed and he's like, "Yeah." He goes, "You really see it when you're up here in the air, because you see where there was nothing and then like a couple weeks later it'll be flattened out."

Ben O'Brien 47:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:29 "And then a couple weeks later they start construction." And you realize like, oh, this is how it spreads, and that this is just something that people do. And if you don't put a st- put a line, you know, draw a line, we're gonna keep going. We're gonna make our way across the country. And I've heard that argument from people that don't go to the wilderness, like, "Look how much of the United... We don't overpopulate it. Look how much of the United States has no one living in it. Fly over and look down at all the places that don't have cities and don't have roads and don't have houses." Like yeah, yeah, yeah, for now.

Ben O'Brien 47:58 (laughs) For now.

Joe Rogan 47:58 Do you know that none of this shit was here 200 years ago? That's nothing.

Ben O'Brien 48:00 But we've plowed, we plowed ground to plant-

Joe Rogan 48:04 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 48:04 ... the corn so you could have the things you have.

Joe Rogan 48:06 Well, fly over in-

Ben O'Brien 48:07 There's no-

Joe Rogan 48:07 ... 1819.

Ben O'Brien 48:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:09 You know? Fly over 100, 200 years ago. Bitch, there was nothing here.

Ben O'Brien 48:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:13 There was zero here.

Ben O'Brien 48:14 Flying around with Wilbur Wright.

Joe Rogan 48:15 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 48:15 And Orville.

Joe Rogan 48:16 Come on, man.

Ben O'Brien 48:16 And see what you saw. But yeah, if you-

Joe Rogan 48:17 If you could get just go 300 years, you have nothing.

Ben O'Brien 48:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:20 You have zero things.

Ben O'Brien 48:21 Yeah. Well, that's... I think there's some, there's some perspective, and I think hunting has a lot going for it around the fact that as urbanization happens, you know, as jobs, even for me, like as jobs become more prevalent in urban places and people have to travel from wherever they're growing up to, to these urban places and live so removed from wilderness-

Joe Rogan 48:40 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 48:40 ... so removed from sustainability, um, I think for a long time, 'cause hunting peaked in 1982. There was like 17.5 million hunters around that year. Um-

Joe Rogan 48:51 Was that 'cause of Ronald Reagan?

Ben O'Brien 48:52 Yeah, so all re-

Joe Rogan 48:53 Since he was president?

Ben O'Brien 48:54 It was, it was all-

Joe Rogan 48:55 Reagan was president in '82, wasn't he?

Ben O'Brien 48:57 Listen, I'm-

Joe Rogan 48:57 I think.

Ben O'Brien 48:57 I wasn't even alive, so let's not, let's not get-

Joe Rogan 49:00 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 49:00 ... (laughs) into that shit, dude. I don't know. Um, but like post World War II there was-

Joe Rogan 49:05 Right.

Ben O'Brien 49:05 ... a rise in, in the modern hunter, modern sport hunter, however you would describe it.

Joe Rogan 49:09 Right.

Ben O'Brien 49:09 There's the, there's this rise in 1982 and then a precipitous fall, right, from there until 2016. There's around 11 million hunters in this country. It's-

Joe Rogan 49:19 It's a big drop.

Ben O'Brien 49:20 It's a big drop. And, and I will always say that like the three things that I think happened were urbanization, so people are getting removed from, they're getting moved away from having hunting in their lives on a daily basis. Not that they're anti-hunting in any way, they're just getting removed from-... from that thing-

Joe Rogan 49:38 Mm-hmm.

Ben O'Brien 49:38 ... like, getting your meat on your own. They're removed from that. And a lot of times, they're even removed from, like, gardening and other types of-

Joe Rogan 49:43 Sure.

Ben O'Brien 49:43 ... sustainable use things. The other thing is Disney. Like, m- Walt Disney's a nice man, but Bambi was not a good thing for our, our collective psyche around hunting.

Joe Rogan 49:54 Not just Bambi, but essentially all cartoons involving animals. The animals were your friends.

Ben O'Brien 49:59 Yes.

Joe Rogan 49:59 Even predators.

Ben O'Brien 50:00 Yes.

Joe Rogan 50:00 Like, Yogi was your friend.

Ben O'Brien 50:02 He was your friend. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:02 He wore a tie. He, he was a gentleman.

Ben O'Brien 50:04 It was a bear attack. Um-

Joe Rogan 50:05 He was a gentleman. He had a hat on.

Ben O'Brien 50:06 Yeah. He was... he had a picnic basket and things.

Joe Rogan 50:09 You wanted your picnic basket, but they wasn't gonna take it.

Ben O'Brien 50:10 Jamie, look up... There was a guy, there was a dude, um, recently who was c- caught poaching in Missouri, and the judge said that he had to, um, watch Bambi once a month during his entire sentence.

Joe Rogan 50:23 What?

Ben O'Brien 50:23 See if you can find that. That is real.

Joe Rogan 50:25 Which kind o... That judge just needs a reality show. He's like, "I know what to do, honey."

Ben O'Brien 50:28 I know what to do.

Joe Rogan 50:29 "We're gonna get him to watch the show."

Ben O'Brien 50:29 We'll make him watch Bambi.

Joe Rogan 50:30 We're gonna... We're gonna-

Ben O'Brien 50:30 He poached a deer. This is a guy who, like, the whole... Oh, there was, like, a whole family here too-

Joe Rogan 50:33 My goodness.

Ben O'Brien 50:34 ... were in, like, a poaching ring or something. I read this on the way over here.

Joe Rogan 50:38 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 50:38 Um-

Joe Rogan 50:39 Here it is. "Deer poacher sentenced to watch 'Bambi' every month during a year in Missouri jail."

Ben O'Brien 50:44 Yeah, this might be a judge that's, like, looking for a little publicity.

Joe Rogan 50:46 "Found to have illegally killed hundreds of deer."

Ben O'Brien 50:48 Whoa.

Joe Rogan 50:49 "Sometimes taking only their heads and leaving the rest to rot in fields." Keep... Eh, how about you keep that guy in jail for more than a year?

Ben O'Brien 50:56 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:56 There he is. Fuck.

Ben O'Brien 50:57 Look at him. David Berry Jr.-

Joe Rogan 50:58 Look at him. Fucking dork.

Ben O'Brien 51:01 ... has been ordered to watch-

Joe Rogan 51:03 You see, here's one thing, man. If that guy was killing 'em because he was poor and he was just eating deer and that's how he made his... You know, that's how he, he got food-

Ben O'Brien 51:10 But that's not the case here.

Joe Rogan 51:11 ... I don't care. That doesn't bother me.

Ben O'Brien 51:11 He chopped the heads off and just took the heads.

Joe Rogan 51:13 Fuck that guy. Just fuck, fuck anybody who does that anyway.

Ben O'Brien 51:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:16 Fuck anybody who just wants to shoot something as damn delicious and massive-

Ben O'Brien 51:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:21 ... as a deer. A deer could feed a family for months. Do you understand that?

Ben O'Brien 51:25 Of course it could. Of course it could.

Joe Rogan 51:26 You understand that, but I mean, the people listening or this asshole. Do you understand that? This asshole who shot this fucking thing?

Ben O'Brien 51:31 100 deer?

Joe Rogan 51:32 You cut his head off, you piece of shit?

Ben O'Brien 51:33 You fucking poacher.

Joe Rogan 51:34 The fuck... I've, um, I fucking look forward to eating deer and you shot it and you... Pfff.

Ben O'Brien 51:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:40 He's a snow... Poor guy.

Ben O'Brien 51:40 Anyway, back (laughs) back, like, Walt Disney, I think, like, that kind of treatment of animals has, has been something that's hurt hunting. And the third one is hunters have hurt themselves.

Joe Rogan 51:50 Like that guy.

Ben O'Brien 51:51 Like maybe... That's a poacher, not a hunter.

Joe Rogan 51:52 That guy's way worse.

Ben O'Brien 51:53 That's a poacher.

Joe Rogan 51:54 Okay.

Ben O'Brien 51:54 Not a hunter, though.

Joe Rogan 51:55 But he's a guy who's hunting illegally.

Ben O'Brien 51:56 Yes.

Joe Rogan 51:56 That's what poaching is. He's a hunter.

Ben O'Brien 51:58 Yeah. But, like, camping-

Joe Rogan 52:00 He's a hunter.

Ben O'Brien 52:00 Camping illegally is trespassing. It's, it's not the same thing. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:02 Yeah, but you're camping.

Ben O'Brien 52:03 But, yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:03 You're trespassing in camping. You're still camping.

Ben O'Brien 52:05 All right, all right, all right. Maybe.

Joe Rogan 52:06 Listen, he's a... I know you don't wanna call him a hunter, like, you know, like, someone who, who goes on stage at a company picnic is not a comedian.

Ben O'Brien 52:14 Yes. Yes.

Joe Rogan 52:14 It's the same thing. I get it. He's a hunter though.

Ben O'Brien 52:17 Yeah, I mean-

Joe Rogan 52:17 He's a piece of shit.

Ben O'Brien 52:17 ... he's still killing animals, yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:18 He's killed more than me.

Ben O'Brien 52:20 That's 100.

Joe Rogan 52:21 Yeah, I'm a hunter and he's killed more than me.

Ben O'Brien 52:23 He's an efficient poacher.

Joe Rogan 52:23 So he's a hunter.

Ben O'Brien 52:23 That's true.

Joe Rogan 52:24 He's a piece of shit.

Ben O'Brien 52:25 He is. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 52:25 But that's just like everything else, man. There's people that are good Uber drivers and there are some that'll try to pull you under a bridge-

Ben O'Brien 52:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:32 ... and fuck your mouth. Look, this... It's bad people out there.

Ben O'Brien 52:34 Well, that's, that's a good point to bring up. Like, is there, is there a time... Like, I always bring up with hunting, it's, it's like, "Oh, g... somebody killed a giraffe," or somebody...

Joe Rogan 52:42 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 52:42 A guy killed a family of baboons and made a ph- and did a photo.

Joe Rogan 52:45 I saw that.

Ben O'Brien 52:46 Did you see that?

Joe Rogan 52:46 Oof.

Ben O'Brien 52:47 Not good. Not good.

Joe Rogan 52:49 But it's, it's a fucking primate, bro.

Ben O'Brien 52:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:51 I mean, like-

Ben O'Brien 52:52 There's nothing good about that.

Joe Rogan 52:53 But the idea of putting that online-

Ben O'Brien 52:53 It's never gonna go well for you. It's never gonna go well for you.

Joe Rogan 52:56 Did h... Did he put it online?

Ben O'Brien 52:58 No, he didn't put it online, to his, I guess, the, the credit that would give the guy.

Joe Rogan 53:01 Who put it online?

Ben O'Brien 53:02 I... The Idaho Statesman or whatever the Idaho local paper was.

Joe Rogan 53:06 How'd they get the pictures?

Ben O'Brien 53:07 I don't know. Pr- probably from one of the folks. He sent an em- a mass email out to s- friends and colleagues and things of, like, recapping his-

Joe Rogan 53:13 Oh!

Ben O'Brien 53:14 ... recapping his hunt in Africa. Like, "Here's all the things I did." And he... I think th- and from w- my reading on the guy, the guy, um, and I got a lot of mutual friends with him, say he's a good guy. Like, he just screwed up. (laughs) Like, made a, made a bad choice here.

Joe Rogan 53:27 That's a tough sell.

Ben O'Brien 53:29 I would say so too.

Joe Rogan 53:30 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 53:30 But-

Joe Rogan 53:31 They should put him in a cell and make him watch-

Ben O'Brien 53:32 He-

Joe Rogan 53:33 ... some monkey movies.

Ben O'Brien 53:34 Yeah, I think he knew. Like, "If I put this, if I put this on..." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:38 Now you gotta watch King Kong-

Ben O'Brien 53:38 That's gonna spin up after this.

Joe Rogan 53:39 ... every month for a year. (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 53:42 (laughs) Plane of the Apes, you gotta watch-

Joe Rogan 53:43 Look, look-

Ben O'Brien 53:43 ... the Mark Wahlberg Plane of the Apes.

Joe Rogan 53:45 B- well, the reality of baboons, and I have, um, I've studied the work of Robert Sapolsky-

Ben O'Brien 53:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:52 ... who's, who's a, a guy who's been on the podcast before. And it's, it's i- really pretty amazing stuff, what they found out about baboons that he studied actually, because he actually studied a baboon tribe that the, um, alpha males died off. They were all eating out of a poison garbage patch. Uh, there was a garbage patch that had sick food in it and, um, uh, just bad food. And the alpha males who got to eat first, uh, always k- chased everybody else. They wound up dying off.

Ben O'Brien 54:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:19 And for more than one generation, I think it was several generations, they became, like, really peaceful and calm, and they weren't the vicious, violent baboons that are the norm.

Ben O'Brien 54:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:30 And that it was... It was really... If you Google it, uh, Sapolsky studies baboons and I... And Radiolab also had a podcast about it, which is where I first heard about it. And then I, I read what Sapolsky wrote about it. But it is unbelievably fascinating. It shows how you can have this insane, violent animal culture and then the, the cunts get removed.

Ben O'Brien 54:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:53 And when the cunts get removed, everybody chills the fuck out.

Ben O'Brien 54:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:56 It's really, really quite fascinating.

Ben O'Brien 54:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:59 But, um, baboons, for the most part... I mean, maybe he shot the nicest baboons ever. But for the most part, they're a bunch of baby-eating cunts.

Ben O'Brien 55:06 Well...

Joe Rogan 55:06 And they'll steal your fucking kid.

Ben O'Brien 55:07 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:07 That little two-year-old that you love so dearly? That little motherfucker will be on a, uh, a porch somewhere. And if there's baboons around, they'll snatch him and eat his head.

Ben O'Brien 55:14 Well, that's like... When I was in Africa, I hunted Africa one time in my life. And w- the... Our PH and our guide both said, and our tracker-

Joe Rogan 55:21 A PH is a professional hunter, so-

Ben O'Brien 55:23 Professional hunter. Right. The structure is like, there's a professional hunter, which is essentially your guide. And then there's trackers, which are n- usually native folks that, that help tracking the game and spotting the animals, things like that. But our, our PH, he was like, "If you see a baboon, shoot it." He's like, "We have are- we have lots of irrigation here to maintain this ranch and they rip it up and they're, you know, basically terrorists around, you know, coming around our camp, messing with our fires, messing with our food."... was like, "You see one, shoot one." And that was the instruction that I got. And I never, never did, but, you know, given that instruction from somebody like that, like, "Hey, this is a good thing for our landscape. Go and do it." Now, that's very far removed from stacking them up.

Joe Rogan 56:02 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 56:02 Like, stacking them up.

Joe Rogan 56:03 Very far. And, and s- with a big smile on your face holding a bow.

Ben O'Brien 56:08 Isn't it ... It doesn't-

Joe Rogan 56:09 Shot a baby ... Didn't he shoot a baby?

Ben O'Brien 56:10 There were some babies, like a whole family.

Joe Rogan 56:12 (Laughs)

Ben O'Brien 56:12 Dude, how ... You can't-

Joe Rogan 56:14 Ooh, they don't-

Ben O'Brien 56:14 ... k- k- ... You- if I would have came to you and I said like, "Listen, Joe, here's my plan. What I'm gonna do is go to Africa and hunt."

Joe Rogan 56:21 Ooh.

Ben O'Brien 56:21 "And then, you know, like, I'm gonna shoot some baboons." I mean, it's a good thing for this-

Joe Rogan 56:25 Totally. I'd be like, "Don't tell anybody."

Ben O'Brien 56:27 Yeah, you'd be like, "Don't, don't take ... Certainly don't take a photo of you posing with an entire family-"

Joe Rogan 56:31 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 56:31 "... of deceased primates."

Joe Rogan 56:33 I had a friend who was in Africa and he got attacked by a baboon. The boom- baboon tried to steal his food.

Ben O'Brien 56:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:39 I forget what the context of it was. It was, uh, it was quite a few years ago, but he said it was spooky. He said they don't seem like a, a monkey and they don't seem like a p- ... They seem like a dog monkey.

Ben O'Brien 56:51 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:51 Like it's, it's weird. Like a wild ... You ever see-

Ben O'Brien 56:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:53 ... when they open their mouth?

Ben O'Brien 56:55 Yes. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:55 It's like a dog mouth.

Ben O'Brien 56:57 (laughs) Like a dog mouth.

Joe Rogan 56:58 Right?

Ben O'Brien 56:58 Yeah, dog monkey.

Joe Rogan 56:58 They're like part ... It's like a dog fucked a monkey. Like if you really ... Like show a baboon. Let me see a b- baboon with its mouth open.

Ben O'Brien 57:05 Never thought of it that way, but I'll give it to you.

Joe Rogan 57:07 But they have a long, stretched out mouth like a wolf or something.

Ben O'Brien 57:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:10 It's not ... It's like a werewolf.

Ben O'Brien 57:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:12 It's not like a regular person. They're, they're real weird, man. They, they, they have all these characteristics that are of primates, but then they have this extra weirdness to them.

Ben O'Brien 57:22 And it's w- yeah, and there's wildness to them too.

Joe Rogan 57:23 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 57:23 But I ... Doesn't that come down to like the core of some of these-

Joe Rogan 57:26 Look at that.

Ben O'Brien 57:26 Oh my God. Like-

Joe Rogan 57:27 I mean, come on. Look at that. That's like a werewolf.

Ben O'Brien 57:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:29 That is a werewolf. That's like part ... Look at that face. That lion and that baboon.

Ben O'Brien 57:35 Look at those canines just like rolled back.

Joe Rogan 57:37 Yeah. But look at the, the sh- even the shape of the jaw, it's very dog-like.

Ben O'Brien 57:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:42 It's very elongated and, and, and dog-like. They're very str- ... It's a very strange animal. Look at that face, man. That is a-

Ben O'Brien 57:50 Wow.

Joe Rogan 57:50 ... crazy beast. And my friend said, uh ... I forget the story.

Ben O'Brien 57:55 (laughs) Yeah, I think that's what I said.

Joe Rogan 57:55 It was quite a long time ago, but he stole some food and snarled at him and, and snatched something from him.

Ben O'Brien 58:00 (Coughs)

Joe Rogan 58:01 But he said it was very scary. He said ... And, you know, it wasn't even that big. It was really like 60, 70 pounds-

Ben O'Brien 58:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:07 ... something like that he said, but it's big.

Ben O'Brien 58:08 Depending.

Joe Rogan 58:09 They'll fuck you up. They're not-

Ben O'Brien 58:10 Of course they will.

Joe Rogan 58:12 You know?

Ben O'Brien 58:12 It's, it's different if you're living around them. It, it's just these things are different. Like we, we were talking about it around the old Meater Incorporated offices the other day around how do you ... How do we as hunters who, who are around these animals all the time and shit, how do we ... When something happens, somebody gets mad about this guy killing all these, these baboons, what do we say?

Joe Rogan 58:31 (Sighs) .

Ben O'Brien 58:31 When there's a hunting scandal, what-

Joe Rogan 58:33 You gotta let that one go sometimes.

Ben O'Brien 58:34 Do I say ... Of course I let it go.

Joe Rogan 58:35 Well, m- most people don't even know about it.

Ben O'Brien 58:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:38 It, it hit the hunting world.

Ben O'Brien 58:39 But that one ... But that one was on like NBC, CNN.

Joe Rogan 58:42 Was it? Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 58:42 This one, this one went pretty big and there's, there's ... Invariably, these things happen where ...

Joe Rogan 58:48 How come that didn't go as big as Cecil? Stop and think about that. 'Cause to me it's more, it's more kind of fucked up.

Ben O'Brien 58:54 It's more egregious than ...

Joe Rogan 58:56 The Cecil thing was a n- ... It's a normal thing.

Ben O'Brien 58:58 But I think ... I just think we're desensitized to it.

Joe Rogan 59:00 Right.

Ben O'Brien 59:00 Cecil came at a time where there was more s- sensitivity to it. And it just hit a news cycle. Like Trump, the Trump news cycle probably dominates any other, any other thing that happens in the news.

Joe Rogan 59:11 But here's where my take on it is-

Ben O'Brien 59:12 Like it just doesn't get the time.

Joe Rogan 59:13 What, the reason why I say that Cecil's normal, I don't think that it's good. I don't think you should just go over there and shoot lions. But people been doing it forever.

Ben O'Brien 59:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:22 Like if you ask me, "How many people go over there to hunt baboons?" I'd be like, "Do they really? Is that like a normal thing?" Like does it ... It doesn't seem normal, right?

Ben O'Brien 59:30 Well-

Joe Rogan 59:30 Like even though I d- I don't ... I mean, I've had this conversation many times on this podcast. I don't think you should shoot things that you don't eat unless there's a need in terms of like some sort of an imbalance. Like just as a joke, imagine if eagles were like rats.

Ben O'Brien 59:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:48 They were everywhere. There's a reason why you can just kill rats. It's because you have to.

Ben O'Brien 59:52 Yes.

Joe Rogan 59:53 Okay, this is what overpopulation looks like. You, you put a trap in your fucking garage and you smash the head of this living creature and you're happy.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:01 Almost all things that are categorized as rodents-

Joe Rogan 1:00:03 Yes.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:03 ... you would do that to.

Joe Rogan 1:00:04 Well, not true, really, right? Like squirrels, they're cute, they're adorable.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:08 Yeah, but if there was ... They just don't get in your house. But if they were to get-

Joe Rogan 1:00:10 They don't get in your house.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:10 ... if there was-

Joe Rogan 1:00:11 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:11 ... half a dozen squirrels in your garage and you could set traps and get them out of there, then you would.

Joe Rogan 1:00:15 But it's a different thing. Like you would feel bad if you stomped one.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:18 Probably.

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 I wouldn't s- ... You'd stomp a rat.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:20 Probably.

Joe Rogan 1:00:20 Like people st- ... You if you saw a rat in your kid's room, you'd fucking stomp that thing to death.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:25 Well ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:25 You wouldn't even think twice, right? If you saw a squirrel in your kid's room, you'd probably throw a blanket over it.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:27 So why do we put, why do we put those types of val- ... Why do we apply those value systems to animals like that? What is-

Joe Rogan 1:00:33 Because they're overpopulated, and because traditionally, they have been carriers of plague.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:38 Well, the f- the real rea- ... The real story about the Black Plague is not just that the rats were carrying it, but in fact that the ticks and the f- ... Was it ticks or fleas that were on the rats were carrying the Black Plague? I want to say it's fleas.

Ben O'Brien 1:00:53 Could be.

Joe Rogan 1:00:53 And that this was how the Bubonic Plague got spread. It got spread actually, in fact, through the ticks-

Ben O'Brien 1:00:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:58 ... that were carried by the rats. Is that what it is? Fleas? Fleas. Um, thank you, Joe with the Google search. The, uh, the difference is that squirrels are not overpopulated and that raptors are killing them off like left and right and it's a, a primary source of food for a lot of these flying raptors.

Ben O'Brien 1:01:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:15 Like eagles and, and hawks and s- stuff like that. I'm sure a lot of other things eat them too.

Ben O'Brien 1:01:20 Of course.

Joe Rogan 1:01:20 But there's enough balance out there. But rats, rats lock into us. I mean, they lived without us for a long time.

Ben O'Brien 1:01:27 Of course.

Joe Rogan 1:01:27 But once they found us, they're like, "Oh, look at this shit."

Ben O'Brien 1:01:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:29 "These dumb motherfuckers have holes in their ground. You can live under their houses." You just ... They put garbage out every day.

Ben O'Brien 1:01:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:36 You just go jack their garbage, you got plenty of food. This is great.

Ben O'Brien 1:01:38 But we, we treat all types of animals very differently, right?

Joe Rogan 1:01:42 Yeah.

Ben O'Brien 1:01:43 And, and we apply our own-... specific feelings about these animals to them. Like, the- the bear with a name doesn't know that it has a name.

Joe Rogan 1:01:50 Right.

Ben O'Brien 1:01:51 The wolf with a name doesn't know it has a name. It- it- it's not aware that we've applied this special meaning to it. It doesn't know that.

Joe Rogan 1:02:00 Right.

Ben O'Brien 1:02:00 It's still ... It ... Our- our application of our feelings and our, like, engendering this- that ch- doesn't change the nature of the wolf or the bear. It will rip your face off. It will kill as many elk as it can. Like-

Joe Rogan 1:02:12 Well, there's a real problem in depicting them. The anthropomorphization of animals depicts them as your friends, and that's a hard thing to shake.

Ben O'Brien 1:02:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:20 It's not that they're bad. And this is where the real problem with someone going around shooting baboons and posing like he did a great thing is. It's- it's not that these animals are bad. They should be respected and understood-

Ben O'Brien 1:02:31 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:02:31 ... and appreciated. Now, if you are a part of a baboon cleanup crew, like if you're like-

Ben O'Brien 1:02:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:37 I was listening to, uh, Rinella's podcast today, and they were talking about kangaroos in Australia.

Ben O'Brien 1:02:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:44 And that there was a guy on the show that had killed somewhere near ... Was it like 7,000?

Ben O'Brien 1:02:48 Many thousands, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:50 Thousands.

Ben O'Brien 1:02:50 Like his dad's, there was a ... What was it? Like there was a flood? I'll probably mess this up. There was some sort of weather event that pushed all these kangaroos onto his dad's ranch-

Joe Rogan 1:02:57 Yes.

Ben O'Brien 1:02:57 And his dad was going out every day and just whacking ad nauseum.

Joe Rogan 1:03:00 Thousands of kangaroos.

Ben O'Brien 1:03:02 Kangaroos.

Joe Rogan 1:03:02 And that they have to do this because they don't have any natural predators and they s- they'll just devastate landscapes.

Ben O'Brien 1:03:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:07 And we've played videos. Let's see if we can find one real quick. What if we play we get kicked off YouTube?

Guest (fourth participant) 1:03:12 Maybe.

Joe Rogan 1:03:13 Probably, right? There's a video of like a swarm of-

Ben O'Brien 1:03:16 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:16 ... kangaroos in Australia. Dude, I have n- I had no idea.

Ben O'Brien 1:03:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:20 We were reading about it-

Ben O'Brien 1:03:21 You don't know.

Joe Rogan 1:03:21 About the overpopulation. I had no idea.

Ben O'Brien 1:03:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:23 It's- it's like-

Ben O'Brien 1:03:24 You don't know.

Joe Rogan 1:03:24 ... 100-pound locust.

Ben O'Brien 1:03:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:26 That's what it's like.

Ben O'Brien 1:03:26 I was reading, I can't remember the guy's name, but I was reading this paper-

Joe Rogan 1:03:29 Pull it up just-

Guest (fourth participant) 1:03:29 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 1:03:29 ... so I can see it.

Guest (fourth participant) 1:03:31 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 1:03:31 I was reading-

Joe Rogan 1:03:32 Don't put it up on the YouTube. I don't want the- the kids to get mad.

Ben O'Brien 1:03:34 Oh, there it is.

Joe Rogan 1:03:34 This is nothing. This ain't- this ain't shit in comparison. This is pr-

Ben O'Brien 1:03:38 Oh, are those kangaroos?

Joe Rogan 1:03:39 This is pretty cr- Yeah, these are all kangaroos. This is pretty crazy, but we were watching one when there was a swarm running across a field. Like, look at that, bro. That's rats. Come on, man. If you saw that many rats in a field, you would go, "I am gonna go get my gun and I'm gonna kill these fucking rats." Right? You wouldn't tolerate that. But these are cute.

Ben O'Brien 1:03:58 Well, it's like, is our ... Like, the- the endangered species guys come into play here in a weird way, because is our caring for animals dictated by the number of the animal that there is?

Joe Rogan 1:04:06 It isn't and it is. See, it's not for us, right? We're over here in, uh, the valley of Southern California.

Ben O'Brien 1:04:14 Very nice.

Joe Rogan 1:04:14 Sipping rye brains, have a good old time with me buddy Ben O'Brien, young Jamie. Have a w- wonderful. It's air conditioned, it's fantastic.

Ben O'Brien 1:04:21 Very nice. Very nice.

Joe Rogan 1:04:22 We live a good life here. If you're in Australia, you're killing those fucking things.

Ben O'Brien 1:04:25 Oh, let me tell you. Like, when I went ... Remy Warren, our- a mutual friend first took me to New Zealand. He took me to a sheep station. A giant ... It's basically a ranch, a big- big sheep ranch. We hunted fallow deer there. We ... There were deer everywhere. On the way out, we met a guy, and we call him the Rabbit Man or like ... He- he looked like a superhero. He was riding on like a, just a two-stroke bike-

Joe Rogan 1:04:49 (laughs)

Ben O'Brien 1:04:49 ... with like rabbit hide covers for the handles. (laughs) He had a helmet on. He looked like a superhero, like a leather jacket and a ... Like a 22. And he was riding around. His job was to ride around and shoot rabbits all night long every day, seven days a week. He had killed millions of rabbits.

Joe Rogan 1:05:05 Millions.

Ben O'Brien 1:05:06 Millions. And he- he would log ... Every night he'd come back and log the number of rabbits he killed. They weren't eating these rabbits. It was population control. These rabbits were- were digging under fences. These rabbits were destroying the landscape. They couldn't run sheep.