Joe Rogan Experience #1271 - Billy Corben

Billy Corben is a documentary producer and director, best known for his films “Cocaine Cowboys ” & “Cocaine Cowboys 2″ and also “Broke” & “The U” for ESPN’s 30 for 30 series. His latest film "Screwball" releases in theaters on March 29, and VOD will be available on April 5.

Joe RoganhostBilly Corbenguest

Mar 26, 20192h 8mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

150 min read · 30,002 words

0:01 – 3:17
Why 'Screwball' uses child actors to reenact the Biogenesis scandal
1. JRJoe Rogan
  5, 4, 3, 2... Hello, Billy. We're live.
2. BCBilly Corben
  Yo, Joe.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  What's going on buddy?
4. BCBilly Corben
  How you doing?
5. JRJoe Rogan
  I watched your new documentary this morning in the gym. Loved it. It was fucking great.
6. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs)
7. JRJoe Rogan
  It's crazy. I love your use of little kids. I, I don't wanna give away too much of it, uh, but it's about the steroid scandal involving baseball and Alex Rodriguez, but what, what was the choice to use little kids to play Arod and all the other key principles involved in the scandal, like to, to play, use little actors?
8. BCBilly Corben
  What kids?
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, come on, fella.
10. BCBilly Corben
  You're just, (laughs) you're just high, dude.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh.
12. BCBilly Corben
  No. (laughs)
13. JRJoe Rogan
  I was pretty sober.
14. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs) It's the gym, yeah. Um, so you, you now know the story because you've seen the doc, and if people remember the Biogenesis steroid scandal. If not, the movie, I think, recaps it pretty, pretty well. But the thing that struck me is that, like, all these guys acted like children.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
16. BCBilly Corben
  They really did.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
18. BCBilly Corben
  And, and to boot, so, you know, we've done some, some sports docs in the past. We did, you know, some of the ESPN 30 for 30s, like the U, and, um, when you do a sports doc, I mean, uh, I don't wanna say it's, it's easy 'cause it's, you know, making documentaries i- is a challenge, but sports docs are pretty, like, paint by numbers. It's like you interview some players, you interview some coaches, some journalists. They mention a bunch of games, and you show a bunch of game footage. You know? Like, it's a pretty straightforward process. Uh-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
20. BCBilly Corben
  ... with this one, it's not about baseball. It's, it's baseball adjacent, I guess-
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
22. BCBilly Corben
  ... but, like, it's about shit that went down in nightclubs, in shady clinics with fake doctors, hotel rooms, bars, locker rooms. So you got a bunch of guy- talking heads in your documentary, but then you got, you got nothing to cut to. You got no B-roll. So I'm like, "We're gonna need to shoot recrees, you know, recreations here."
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
24. BCBilly Corben
  Which is, which is, to me, I, (sighs) I don't know. It's like when you're doing nonfiction filmmaking, it's fake shit when y- when you film recreations. So it's like, I'm like, "How do we do this in a creative way that, that's consistent with the tone of the movie?" Which was always called Screwball, meaning it was always like a farce, you know, like a Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard, Cohen brothers-esque-
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm. Yeah.
26. BCBilly Corben
  ... sort of Florida fuckery farce.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
28. BCBilly Corben
  And so we just wanted to keep in that, in that mode, so I'm watching the characters. So we got Tony Bosch, uh, who was the fake doctor, and Porter Fisher, who was the whistleblower who stole the medical records and, and started this whole thing. They were then stolen from him and then sold to, not the highest bidder, but any bidder and every bidder, they were sold to. And they're talking, and I'm noticing that they had, like, a very similar storytelling style. Like, for example, guy will be like, "So I walk into his office, and I say, 'I want my money.'" And he says, "I don't have your money." And I said, "Well, you better get my money." And he said, "What are you gonna do about it?" And I said, "I'm gonna break your neck." And I'm like, "Oh, shit." They, they're so vivid and in the moment and, and, and talking dialogue, so we could Drunk History this, right? We could-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
30. BCBilly Corben
  ... we could edit together the doc and then have the actors lip syncing the actual interview dialogue, and all the actors will be eight years old.
3:17 – 6:51
Earlier experiments with the “kids as framing device” idea (Scientology pageant & viral clips)
1. BCBilly Corben
  And, and I, I don't know. Like I- I've always wanted to do it. Like, way back, uh, Spike Jonze, 1997, Biggie video, Sky's the Limit. Biggie had just been murdered. He was faced with this challenge of producing a posthumous video, and so Spike Jonze was like, "Okay, we'll just do a straight up classic Bad Boy Records circa '97 music video, cars, Versace wardrobe, girls, mansion, hot tub, but they'll all be eight years old." You got baby Biggie-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
3. BCBilly Corben
  ... Baby Puffy, baby Bus-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
5. BCBilly Corben
  ... Baby Busta Rhymes, baby Lil' Kim.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  I've seen it, yeah.
7. BCBilly Corben
  Yeah, it's brilliant.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
9. BCBilly Corben
  And so I was like, "What a great div-..." That was always kicking around since, since '97, and then I saw this off-Broadway musical about 10, 10-ish years ago called A Very Merry Unarau- (laughs) Let me try that one more time. A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
11. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs) I- don't ask me to say it again. I can't say it again.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Jesus.
13. BCBilly Corben
  Um, so it's this, it's this wild musical, like, very Bowie-esque score written by a couple of Yalees. Li- it's like, it's a, it's a Christmas pageant performed by elementary school kids, but instead of the story of Jesus, it's the story of L. Ron Hubbard.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
15. BCBilly Corben
  All with like, in like, a school play with like, you know, papier-mache, like, sets and, and, and construction paper costumes and props. And I wanted to... I got together with one of the composers. I said, "Listen, I'd like to get the rights to your musical and make a Scientology documentary using the kids in the musical as a framing device." 'Cause in those days, no one was making... Now everybody makes Scientology documentaries. In those days, nobody was doing it, particularly because, like, the church is so litigious. And so they had kinda left this musical alone, so I thought, like, "That might be a cool buffer." Like, "Maybe if I make a documentary that's a little light, you know, and it's, like, this children's musical, but we intercut it with real, uh, real documentary investigation, interviews, and, um, that maybe we'll kinda get away with it." Nobody (laughs) wanted to make that movie, dude.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
17. BCBilly Corben
  I mean, nobody. I mean, doors were closing before I even knocked out, like, got to them, um, and I kind of filed, again, filed that idea away in the back of my head. And then, um, a couple years ago, there was that funny viral video of like, it was like a Scarface school play. I don't know if it was, like, a bunch of little kids doing Scarface as, like, an elementary school play.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
19. BCBilly Corben
  And I was like...This is such a, it's such a great device and, and the problem is you need to find something that it works for. Like, like Cocaine Cowbabies would not have been appropriate.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Right. (laughs)
21. BCBilly Corben
  For example, a bunch of eight-year-old kids running around. Um, it's not Bugsy Malone, you know. So, um, it just, like, it just, like, kinda the stars aligned. We just, like, I was, like, "This is, this is gonna work here, I think, with this."
22. JRJoe Rogan
  It works.
23. BCBilly Corben
  "Thank you."
24. JRJoe Rogan
  It works great, and it's such a crazy story. And the fact ... Well, I don't wanna give too much of it away because I really want people to watch it because, I mean, I've, I've talked about Cocaine Cowboys probably 100 times on this podcast. It's one of my all-time favorite podcasts.
25. BCBilly Corben
  Thank you.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, excuse me, all-time favorite documentaries. But this is, this is a story that almost writes itself. It's so bonkers.
27. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs)
28. JRJoe Rogan
  The, and the fact that it all could've been avoided if one guy just paid another guy, or just didn't try to rip him off. Like-
29. BCBilly Corben
  For, like, four grand.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. Like, nothing.
6:51 – 9:40
Miami as the engine of “Florida fuckery”: scams, reinvention, and cocaine culture
1. BCBilly Corben
  Well, like, that's, everybody remembers it as, like, the A-Rod or A-Roid scandal, you know.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
3. BCBilly Corben
  And, and the truth of the matter is that Alex Rodriguez was collateral damage-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
5. BCBilly Corben
  ... in this whole thing.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
7. BCBilly Corben
  It was not about him. Don't tell Alex that, but it's not about him, you know. It's, it, it was really the highest, the career of the highest-paid baseball player of all time effectively ended over a $4,000 debt-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
9. BCBilly Corben
  ... between this cocaine-addicted fake doctor and his fake-tan-addicted steroid patient.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
11. BCBilly Corben
  And it's like, that's why I said, it's like a Florida Fuckery story, straight up. It's just like this-
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
13. BCBilly Corben
  ... classic, only-in-Miami absurd farce. And if that's-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, that's what you specialize in.
15. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs) That's sort of our style.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  You really do specialize-
17. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs) Yeah.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  You specialize in Florida fuckery. I go to your Twitter feed all the time-
19. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs)
20. JRJoe Rogan
  ... for current Florida fuckery.
21. BCBilly Corben
  It's just, it's, yeah, it's distilled. It's just, like, it's pure. It's 100% pure.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  There's so much good stuff.
23. BCBilly Corben
  Uncut Florida fuckery.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
25. BCBilly Corben
  It's just, it's ... And that's what this story is to me 'cause, like, Miami is just ... Well, they say the great thing about Miami is it's so close to the United States, but, like-
26. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
27. BCBilly Corben
  It's, it's also, like, it's America's Casablanca.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
29. BCBilly Corben
  Like, just people kinda flee to Miami from, like, all over the country and all over the world, usually leaving some kind of criminality in their wake.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
9:40 – 11:41
Banking, real-estate games, and the Great Recession lessons from Florida
1. JRJoe Rogan
  And correct me if I'm wrong 'cause I've said this before, but isn't there more banks per capita in Miami than anywhere else?
2. BCBilly Corben
  Well, there certainly, there certainly was, um, before the, you know, the, the, uh, the Great Recession when a lot of them started shutting down, but most of them have rebounded. Uh, one of the clever things some of the real estate developers did was they opened their own bank, literally their own bank. They had a bank where the entire board of the bank were all real estate developers, and over 90% of the loans the bank made was insider loans-
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, God.
4. BCBilly Corben
  ... just to the board. And then, of course, they went belly up in the Great Recession, and what happened? We bailed them out.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, Jesus.
6. BCBilly Corben
  So, it was all their own shit. It's crazy.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  So, we bailed out real estate salesmen.
8. BCBilly Corben
  Real estate sale- ... who loaned themselves money that is, wound up being backed ultimately by us, by the taxpayers.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Fuck.
10. BCBilly Corben
  Yeah, I mean, that's the old ... Remember the, uh, I mean, you hear that line all the time now that, like, you know, um, the, we, people used to rob the bank from the outside in. Now it's-
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
12. BCBilly Corben
  Now it's from the inside out, but no- none could be truer than, than, than that story, and that's a Miami story. And when the Great Recession happened, the FDIC had to open an office in Florida because we had more bank closures than any other state, uh, in the union.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
14. BCBilly Corben
  'Cause we were like ... You could go down there, I mean, you could buy a fucking mortgage for your dog at a drive-through in Miami in the, in, like, the, the late '90s, early aughts. And, um, I remember interviewing a guy, um, u- we were doing, working on a project called Ponzi State, uh, about the state of Florida as, like, a, a case study in the Great Recession years ago. We never finished it, unfortunately. But we're interviewing this guy and he says, um, you know, "We were ..." And this is pre, like, Big Short. Like, this is before anybody sort of knew a lot about this, and he said, "We were down here in Miami setting fires, and Wall Street was trying to read our smoke signals." That's why I say, like, the Miami of today is the America of tomorrow.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  (sighs) It is such a ... It, every time I go there, I always go, "I forgot how fucking crazy this place is."
16. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs)
17. JRJoe Rogan
  It, you really should have to have a passport.... it, it's-
18. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs)
11:41 – 19:00
Miami behavior and nightlife: phones, selfishness, and the “my ammy” joke
1. JRJoe Rogan
  But I love it. I really do love it. It's a crazy place to do standup. You know, I, I, I, I did this joke, because I was doing a Netflix special. And I was doing it a couple months after I did this gig in Miami, and so I was using those Yondr bags. You know what those are? Where people have to put their cellphone-
2. BCBilly Corben
  Yes.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  ... into this magnetic bag.
4. BCBilly Corben
  Right.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  You keep the phone, but you hold the b- phone in the ... If you want to use it, you just have to step outside, they open up the bag, and they give you your phone. In every other city, it made for a better show, because people just sat down and watched the show. In Miami, it made for ... Literally 40% of the crowd, at any given time, was getting up and going to the back and y- using their phone and coming back in.
6. BCBilly Corben
  Wow.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  They were just constantly moving around and-
8. BCBilly Corben
  You presume it was to use their phone. They might have been powdering their noses.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  They might have been.
10. BCBilly Corben
  Yeah.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  But it was ... They, you know, th- there was ... Because I had done gigs before that, where they didn't have the Yondr bags and this wasn't the problem. But in Miami, just everybody needed to use their phones, so they just kept getting up and coming back and it was just chaos.
12. BCBilly Corben
  Well, it's also a selfish town. Like, it's, it's basically-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Coke town.
14. BCBilly Corben
  ... a town of assholes.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
16. BCBilly Corben
  I mean, really. And s- and so like I, I always say that ... I mean, it, it reflects in everything that we do, in the way that we behave, certainly in the way that we drive. Like, believe it or not, like, people are so much more chill and calm here-
17. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
18. BCBilly Corben
  ... in traffic in LA. I swear to God. And LA was famous for, like, road rage, like-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
20. BCBilly Corben
  LA, like, m- uh, created, invented road rage. But, like, Miami, it's such a crazy, angry, weird place, 'cause it's like w- when push comes to shove, we're in Miami. Chill the fuck out. Like-
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
22. BCBilly Corben
  ... it's, it's all good. It's a beautiful place. Like ... And it's a shared experience. Traffic sucks for all of us. Just chill out and use your turn signal, for crying out loud, and just ... But that's why they ... I say that's why they call it Miami. It's not-
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, right.
24. BCBilly Corben
  ... our ammy or your ammy. It's my fucking ammy.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
26. BCBilly Corben
  And stay out of my fucking ammy. It's just, I don't know.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  But you seem to love it. You seem to thrive.
28. BCBilly Corben
  Yeah, I can't really function anywhere else. Uh-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
30. BCBilly Corben
  It doesn't make any sense.
19:00 – 23:40
Medicare fraud and pill mills: how the ‘medical hustle’ works in Florida
1. BCBilly Corben
  So, and that's why I said, the Miami of today is the America of tomorrow. If you wanna know what challenges we'll face as a nation or calamities will befall us in the years to come, you need only look at, at Miami. TD Altman called it the canary in the coal mine, the bellwether. And so, you know, when, when, when the election was playing out, the cycle in 2016, I was like, you know, all my friends are just like, "This can't, this Trump thing can't happen." And I was like, "Hang on." I was like-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  (sighs)
3. BCBilly Corben
  ... Florida elected, and in fact reelected, Rick Scott to be governor. He is the biggest Medicare fraudster in the history of the United States. Everybody knows it. Everybody's aware of it. It's very well publicized. We've, we reelected him. Okay? We've, we, we elected him twice-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
5. BCBilly Corben
  ... as the top fucking executive in our state. Like, what makes you think-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
7. BCBilly Corben
  ... that the United States of America wouldn't do that? And I know it's fair to say, like, you know, if you're gonna be the governor of a state, you should know a little something about the largest industry in the state. Like, if you're gonna be the governor of Michigan, you should have some familiarity with the automobile industry and manufacturing. And in Florida, if you're gonna be the governor, arguably you should know something about our biggest industry, which is Medicare fraud basically. (laughs) I mean, you could argue that-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Really?
9. BCBilly Corben
  ... he's the most qualified man for the job. Oh, yeah, we got like... Medicare fraud is, has, is one of the largest industries, has been for decades. I mean, we have billions and billions of dollars in fraud that just comes out.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  How do they run it?
11. BCBilly Corben
  So they run it... So you'll go into like Little Havana or Hialeah, for example, in a municipality in, in Miami-Dade, and there'll be a little abuelita sitting behind a desk half asleep. And she'll be surrounded in this tiny little one room office by little mailboxes. You know, like PO boxes.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
13. BCBilly Corben
  And a mailman comes in every day and just puts checks in the boxes. And they're like... In some cases they've stolen, um, uh, social security numbers and, and cre- you know, uh, uh, stolen identities basically. And some cases they're just old people who aren't aware that their mail is being forwarded to this location. And they've just got... They... I think Miami for a while, we had more Medicare, uh, payments for HIV and AIDS medication than every other part of the country combined. And it's all just old people. So it's like you would have to assume that 100% of our elderly population suffered from HIV.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
15. BCBilly Corben
  Had HIV or were HIV positive. I mean, it's fucking impossible. You had female patients getting penis pumps that were paid for by-
16. JRJoe Rogan
  What? (laughs)
17. BCBilly Corben
  I didn't even know that Medicare covered that. I gotta look into that. But, uh... (laughs)
18. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
19. BCBilly Corben
  But I didn't know that was a thing.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, they had a-
21. BCBilly Corben
  Thanks, Obama. But... (laughs)
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Did you watch the OxyContin Express? Did you see that documentary?
23. BCBilly Corben
  I haven't seen it, no.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Where that's all about how they would have the pain c- management centers and they were connected to the pharmacies. You'd go to the doctor, "Hey, my back hurts." He'd go, "Well, you need this. Go right next door." And you just go right... All they would prescribe was oxys and they-
25. BCBilly Corben
  So sometimes it wasn't even next door. Sometimes it was like, "Go to that window."
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, right next door.
27. BCBilly Corben
  And they'd say, "Show, show the doctor your X-ray."
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
29. BCBilly Corben
  You'd have to get your X-ray done somewhere else 'cause they weren't doing it. So-
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
23:40 – 26:19
Robert Kraft sting, ‘human trafficking’ rhetoric, and police power abuses
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Well sort of, they got Kraft for getting a hand job. That was Florida too.
2. BCBilly Corben
  So stupid.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  It's crazy.
4. BCBilly Corben
  It's so stupid.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  It's cool. Well, we were talking-
6. BCBilly Corben
  Yeah.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  ... about it, like, how does he not have a guy who can get him jerked off? Like, there's probably a lot of gals out there that would like to make some money. You don't, you don't have to go to a massage parlor.
8. BCBilly Corben
  The biggest bummer of it is now my massage parlor's closed down.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
10. BCBilly Corben
  That's the problem. I, where do I go now-
11. JRJoe Rogan
  That's a good question.
12. BCBilly Corben
  ... is the problem? Where do broke guys go? (laughs)
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. Well, the fact that they were filming you too, like, it's so... The whole thing is so strange.
14. BCBilly Corben
  And, and if there was human trafficking going on there-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
16. BCBilly Corben
  ... what were the, what were the cops chilling there for, like, six months in some-
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Right, right, right.
18. BCBilly Corben
  ... ongoing investigations. Like, can you save these poor victims-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
20. BCBilly Corben
  ... if you... But human trafficking has become, like, this keyword.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
22. BCBilly Corben
  It's like this new sort of, like, fearmongering kind of a term to get everybody all up in arms. And now, they're kind of backtracking on that. They're like, "Well, maybe it wasn't exactly-"
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, really?
24. BCBilly Corben
  "... human trafficking." Maybe it was just more of-
25. JRJoe Rogan
  That was the whole reason-
26. BCBilly Corben
  ... a prostitution operation.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  ... why he was a horrible person, because he was contributing to these people that were essentially being sold for sex slavery.
28. BCBilly Corben
  Turns out that might've been a bit overblown. No-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Well-
30. BCBilly Corben
  ... pun intended.
26:19 – 33:34
Decriminalization debate: prostitution, prohibition, and (all) drugs
1. JRJoe Rogan
  I just... Uh, look, I, I have all daughters. I'm n- I'm not... I don't want anybody's daughter to be a prostitute, but I'm also-
2. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs)
3. JRJoe Rogan
  ... 100% in favor of people being able to do whatever the fuck they want. And if someone's in a weird stage in their life where they'd rather jerk guys off than work at Denny's, like, who is anybody to stop them from doing that? The only problem is the social stigma that's attached to it. The actual act itself is it's beneficial. The, the person gets something out of it, you know? I mean, there, there's, it's p- some people have a really hard time getting someone to have sex with them, you know? It's... I don't see it that... It's just a crazy thing that we regulate something that... I mean, George Carlin had a great bit about it that it's the only thing where it's illegal to, to make someone pay for it, but it's fine if it's free. Like, it literally doesn't make sense. There's nothing wrong with sex, but there's something wrong with people paying for it.
4. BCBilly Corben
  And it's fine if you pay for it and then videotape it-
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
6. BCBilly Corben
  ... for distribution 'cause then-
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Sure.
8. BCBilly Corben
  ... that's porn.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
10. BCBilly Corben
  I- I don't really under- first of all, it's a contract between two consenting adults. If we, if we're talking about small government deregulation, let's allow two consenting adults to engage in a contractual relationship.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
12. BCBilly Corben
  Offer, acceptance, consideration. As with anything else, the stigma, as you mentioned, a lot of that is part and parcel of the prohibition.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
14. BCBilly Corben
  The legality of it is what brings the seediness. It's what brings-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
16. BCBilly Corben
  ... the danger.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
18. BCBilly Corben
  The- the... Because it's forced underground, uh, you, you introduce all of these elements that don't have to be there.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Exactly.
20. BCBilly Corben
  They could take place in clean environments. They could take-
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
22. BCBilly Corben
  ... place... Instead of in the black market and underground, it could take place in a, uh, where you can protect all the participants-
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
24. BCBilly Corben
  ... involved. And it- it- it's... But it's been true of liquor. It's been true of marijuana. It's been true of, uh, prostitution, which they call, for a reason, the oldest profession.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
26. BCBilly Corben
  Um, uh, th- the second we introduce the prohibition, it creates a level of, of danger and a threat to society that wouldn't exist if you're like, "Well, wait. What if you just let me smoke this?"
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
28. BCBilly Corben
  "What if you just let me drink this because I'm an adult making a responsible decision for myself? What if you just let me engage in sexual activity with this person who is perfectly willing to do it in exchange for some remuneration?"
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
30. BCBilly Corben
  What the f-... Why should anybody give a shit about that?
33:34 – 37:51
Weed stories: first time getting high, modern potency, and ‘hate tastes great’ Chick-fil-A riff
1. BCBilly Corben
  I finally tried pot.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah?
3. BCBilly Corben
  I finally tried it.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Finally? When happened?
5. BCBilly Corben
  Yeah. I never, I never tr- I never tried it before. But no, I was, I was actually, um ... Years ago, I was in Colorado, 4/20, backstage at a Snoop concert.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, jeez, you have to try it.
7. BCBilly Corben
  I didn't have to because I was secondhand stoned, dude.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh.
9. BCBilly Corben
  It's like, it's like fucking-
10. JRJoe Rogan
  So that's how you tried it.
11. BCBilly Corben
  It's like, it's like when I, (laughs) when I go to church with Coco. I mean, I-
12. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
13. BCBilly Corben
  You just get, you're just hot boxed, you know?
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Right, right, right.
15. BCBilly Corben
  Like, I literally was in the-
16. JRJoe Rogan
  People's ... Church with Coco, for people who don't understand what we're saying, Church of What's Happening Now! podcast with Joey Diaz.
17. BCBilly Corben
  Yeah. That's right. I didn't, I didn't-
18. JRJoe Rogan
  You're abbreviating.
19. BCBilly Corben
  Right. I di- I didn't mean that I actually went-
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
21. BCBilly Corben
  ... to, like, a Santeria church.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Right, right, right. (laughs)
23. BCBilly Corben
  And sacrificed a chicken. Although, we have done that in Miami. When he's out in Miami, all bets are off-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
25. BCBilly Corben
  ... when Joey's down. But, like, uh, like, I'm in the middle of a story on his podcast (laughs) , and I fucking forgot the, to set the end-
26. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
27. BCBilly Corben
  ... of the story. I literally, like, I told it, and I, like, ended it. And then only the next day (laughs) did I go, "I never told them the end of that story."
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
29. BCBilly Corben
  "I fucking forgot it." But, so someone says, "Uh, Snoop, Snoop wants to meet you. He's in his dressing room," backstage at this concert. So, I go, "Fuck yeah, I'm gonna go meet Snoop. Are you kidding?" So, I open the door to this backstage area. Dude, I can't see my hand in front of me.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Ugh. (laughs)
37:51 – 50:12
Prosperity preachers, religion as community vs. hustle, and cult psychology (Mormonism/Scientology)
1. BCBilly Corben
  Okay. If you really wanna celebrate the baby Jesus, though-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
3. BCBilly Corben
  ... just hear me out. I watch a lot of TBN because I'm a lunatic and I like, I, I always wondered like if the Jews were on television all the time, if we were on television going like, "Send us money," what would they say about us?
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
5. BCBilly Corben
  But for some reason, I don't know why, Jesus needs a lot of money because they're always on TV telling you to send your money to Jesus, right? So I'm thinking, if you really want to do something for Jesus, Chick-fil-A, open on Sunday and donate all of your revenue to Jesus-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
7. BCBilly Corben
  ... to churches.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
9. BCBilly Corben
  And all the af- Think of the money, just the after church crowd alone.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
11. BCBilly Corben
  Everybody would flock, no pun intended, right to the Chick-fil-A and stock up and they'd have all their m- They could even have people volunteer to work those days and donate all your money to Jesus because he apparently needs... I don't know what he needs with it, but he needs a lot of money.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, I don't know if the Chick-fil-A guys, the people who own it, are of the same ilk as the Trinity Broadcast Network folks.
13. BCBilly Corben
  Mm-hmm.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Because those TBN folks, (stutters) I don't think you're being mean by saying they're shysters. You know, they're-
15. BCBilly Corben
  No, straight up.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. They're just-
17. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs)
18. JRJoe Rogan
  They're just stealing money from people. I think that Chick-fil-A guy is like a legitimately religious person who really truly believes that he's saving the world from gay folk marrying each other. Yeah, it's not-
19. BCBilly Corben
  MAGA, bro. MAGA.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  It's... MAGA. Well, it's- MAGA, bro. It's not logical, but they make a goddamn good chicken sandwich.
21. BCBilly Corben
  They make a goddamn good... Hate tastes great.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  It's quite, quite tasty.
23. BCBilly Corben
  Man, I'm telling you.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Again, I think it's-
25. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs)
26. JRJoe Rogan
  ... more ignorance than hate, but I feel you.
27. BCBilly Corben
  Does it rhyme?
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
29. BCBilly Corben
  Just does ignorance taste great?
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Hate tastes great. Right.
50:12 – 59:42
Failure as fuel: reviews, empathy, and why bombing makes comics better
1. BCBilly Corben
  Listen, I, I always say that I ... First of all, I don't believe anybody that says, any artist or anybody out, out in the world creating something and putting it out there for people to react to it, I don't believe anyone who says they don't read their reviews, so their own reviews. I read all of the reviews, and I, I read the bad ones twice.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
3. BCBilly Corben
  'Cause that's where you learn the most. They could be right, they could be wrong, but-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
5. BCBilly Corben
  ... I, I feel like, uh, you just ... It's where you fuck up that, like, you, you learn the most-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
7. BCBilly Corben
  ... from it. And, and I think, I feel like as a white man in America, all the time I have to keep myself in check, the way you were describing earlier about how, like, you know, what if you just come to realize that maybe the world isn't exactly the way you perceive it.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
9. BCBilly Corben
  And that maybe there's a lot of other people who have very different experiences from the ones that you have. And so maybe the reality of the world is, is different for those people.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Sure.
11. BCBilly Corben
  And you can be a more enlightened person by being more empathetic and trying to understand those perspectives, trying to walk, you know, a mile in their shoes. And I just feel like, uh, I've learned so much more from the mistakes that I've made and the failures that I've had, certainly than any of the successes. I, I have, in my home, I have no ... I have movie posters, but they're, like, art. They're other people's movies. You know, I have none of my own movie posters at home. That's, that's, that's at the office. That's not what home is for, you know?
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
13. BCBilly Corben
  Except I had one for a while. I had one poster of one of my movies that I hung in the bathroom over the toilet-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
15. BCBilly Corben
  ... 'cause it was the l- my least favorite, and I just wanted to be reminded every, like, that that was the time I took a shit, you know? Like, for, for-
16. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
17. BCBilly Corben
  ... the whole world to see. And I hung it over ... It stayed there for a number of years. It's not there anymore, but, like, I just, I just, I wanted to remind myself of it, you know?
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, you're a smart guy. You take motivation in failures. I mean, that's what failures are really good for. When you fail at something, there's, there is a benefit to that in that you, you go, "God, that sucked. I don't ever wanna suck again."
19. BCBilly Corben
  (laughs)
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, "Let me figure out a way to not suck."
21. BCBilly Corben
  Exactly. (laughs)
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Look, I always say that with about comics. Like, when, when we bomb, that is, it's a terrible feeling, but it's the best opportunity for growth. Because you realize like, "Hey, I, I obviously didn't do a good job. I need to figure out what the fuck I did wrong and batten down the hatches and get this ship right, 'cause I can't experience that again."
23. BCBilly Corben
  I became a comedy fan in no small part 'cause I have been to shows where I've seen some of the biggest, funniest guys bomb. And I'm like, "Jesus, short of being a soldier or a cop or, like, a stuntman, this is one of the most dangerous (laughs) , self-destructive-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
25. BCBilly Corben
  ... jobs. Like, it's, it requires such bravery and such, uh, str- uh, strength of soul and thickness of skin that, like, I went to fucking Vegas. This is, like, 2000, um, and saw Carlin.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, wow.
27. BCBilly Corben
  Big, beautiful room. Sat ph- like, front row. It was weird 'cause, like, the stage was like a wall. Like, I was sitting against, like, the fucking stage. And I had to look up and, like, Carlin's shoe would, like, pass, like, right in front of my eyeball.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Wow.
29. BCBilly Corben
  Like, just above my, my eye line. And he was doing material for one of his last specials, and it was the one ... I think it might, might have been the second-to-last. He had that whole bit about, like, he doesn't believe in God, but, like, he believes in, like, shit that he can see and he's afraid of, like the sun or Joe Pesci.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
59:42 – 1:16:49
Inside the Biogenesis chaos: MLB investigations, A-Rod fallout, and ‘WWE’ storylines
1. BCBilly Corben
  And, and Alex was paying everybody. So was MLB. I mean, everyone was running amok in Miami-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
3. BCBilly Corben
  ... like, just b- hiring private investigators, running people down. Alex Rodriguez actually ... This isn't in the documentary, but, um, when these convicted felons stole the stolen (laughs) documents from Porter Fisher, who had stolen the documents from Tony Bosh, they set him up in this whole-... it's so-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Ugh.
5. BCBilly Corben
  It's so absurd. It's a fucking tanning salon heist-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
7. BCBilly Corben
  ... where they're like, "Hey, why don't you go in and try this new spray tan color?"
8. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
9. BCBilly Corben
  "It's Trumpian Orange."
10. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
11. BCBilly Corben
  "Go s- go try it on." And while he's in the fucking spray tan machine-
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Ugh.
13. BCBilly Corben
  ... they w- open his car and steal these documents, which ha- have these client lists of all these famous-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
15. BCBilly Corben
  ... baseball players, including the highest paid baseball player in the world, A-Rod. And so, they steal it and then they turn around and sell these stolen documents to Major League Baseball for cash. So MLB has this ragtag band of misfits, these, this internal FBI, like their own internal investigations division that they created after the BALCO, uh, steroid scandal. They're running amok. They are seducing nurses, former nurses from Tony Bosch's clinics. They are literally in diners with convicted felons, handing over bags of cash from some MLB slush fund. I don't imagine they were gonna 1099 the guy. And I don't know where this cash came from, 125 grand. And what they did was is that the felon who was doing it had a buddy at a neighboring table at this diner with his cellphone recording, video recording this transaction. And then he turned around and went to A-Rod's camp and said, "I'll sell you a video of me selling known stolen documents." Everybody knew these documents were stolen. So MLB is buying these stolen records, stolen evidence in the State of Florida Department of Health investigation, for cash from a felon. At some point, he gets like freaked out and nervous and he deletes this video off the hard drive. He winds up selling A-Rod a blank hard drive for six figures, okay? And A-Rod sends this hard drive, A-Rod's people send this hard drive around the world to like data recovery services-
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, geez.
17. BCBilly Corben
  ... to try to get this video back. So n- unfortunately, the felon didn't get his second six-figure payment because that was s- that was, the first six figures were against-
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
19. BCBilly Corben
  ... the recovery of the da- but he got like two, 300 grand-
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh.
21. BCBilly Corben
  ... to sell A-Rod a blank-
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh.
23. BCBilly Corben
  ... hard drive.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
25. BCBilly Corben
  And A-Rod's dropping money on private investigators who are like having car chases through South Miami, um, it was just totally crazy. And, and (laughs) it's like, I always say like, you come down to the swamp and roll around, you're gonna get some mud on you.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
27. BCBilly Corben
  So when MLB came down to, to Miami, one of the guy, Jerome Hill, the, the former Baltimore cop turned, uh, Florida Department of Health investigator, he, he says unequivocally that Major League Baseball's investigators broke the law in the State of Florida and should have been prosecuted for it and held accountable for it and never-
28. JRJoe Rogan
  (exhales)
29. BCBilly Corben
  ... and never were. I mean, it's good to be a multi-billion dollar monopoly, yes.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, how old was A-Rod when the scandal broke?

Episode duration: 2:08:49

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Why 'Screwball' uses child actors to reenact the Biogenesis scandal

Earlier experiments with the “kids as framing device” idea (Scientology pageant & viral clips)

Miami as the engine of “Florida fuckery”: scams, reinvention, and cocaine culture

Banking, real-estate games, and the Great Recession lessons from Florida

Miami behavior and nightlife: phones, selfishness, and the “my ammy” joke

Medicare fraud and pill mills: how the ‘medical hustle’ works in Florida

Robert Kraft sting, ‘human trafficking’ rhetoric, and police power abuses

Decriminalization debate: prostitution, prohibition, and (all) drugs

Weed stories: first time getting high, modern potency, and ‘hate tastes great’ Chick-fil-A riff

Prosperity preachers, religion as community vs. hustle, and cult psychology (Mormonism/Scientology)

Failure as fuel: reviews, empathy, and why bombing makes comics better

Inside the Biogenesis chaos: MLB investigations, A-Rod fallout, and ‘WWE’ storylines

Get more out of YouTube videos.