Joe Rogan Experience #1343 - Penn Jillette

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Here we go. (singing)…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      Here we go. (singing) Oh, and we're live. Hello, Penn.

   2. PJPenn Jillette0:04

      Okay. Tha- was that that quick and that easy?

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:05

      That's it. It's that easy. Yeah.

   4. PJPenn Jillette0:07

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:07

      Wonderful.

   6. PJPenn Jillette0:07

      We didn't say very much interesting before it started.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:09

      No. We were-

   8. PJPenn Jillette0:10

      You just starting, and then you just said, "S- shut the fuck up."

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      I said, "Hold that thought, please."

   10. PJPenn Jillette0:14

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:14

       This, uh, this concept of things getting better. You know, we were talking about war. War being too... 'Cause there's a World War II helmet that, um... Shane Against the Machine is the gentleman's name. He's made me another, uh, sculpture, and he started making sculptures out of, uh, these World War II helmets with, uh, a lamp underneath it and an actual real World War II bayonet as well. And you were saying war is a terrible idea.

   12. PJPenn Jillette0:37

       (laughs) Yeah. And it's going away.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       You think? Really?

   14. PJPenn Jillette0:39

       Real- yeah. Real- really fast. And you, you mentioned Pinker.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       Yeah.

   16. PJPenn Jillette0:42

       And that's... You know, everything I will say is redundant to Pinker. I mean, that, um, uh, The Better Angels of Our Nature is one of, I think, the most subversive books of our time. You know? People are... Th- there's such a, um... It's a fetish to suffer. It's a fetish to say how bad things are. People are getting really off on it. And when you start saying, you know... After you say, "One death by violence is too many." And, "We gotta clean up the environment." And da-da-da-da-da. Y- you say all that stuff and it's all true, but you can also take a breath and say things are getting better.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Yeah. I think we need to recognize that. And the, the problem is, there is, there is violence. There is horrible things. There are horrible things in the world. They, they still exist.

   18. PJPenn Jillette1:26

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:26

       And now they're magnified because of the fact that we have this ability to look at it on your phone anytime you want to.

   20. PJPenn Jillette1:31

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:31

       Look at it on your computer anytime you want to.

   22. PJPenn Jillette1:32

       You know, it's the same thing, it's the same thing... I think calories and information are identical. You know? For millions, billion-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:40

       Yeah.

   24. PJPenn Jillette1:40

       ... years, um, the biggest problem every living thing had was too few calories. And then for, uh, what? Maybe 75 years, a very small percentage of the animals in the world had this problem of too many calories. And there's nothing that prepares anybody for that.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:59

       Mm-hmm.

   26. PJPenn Jillette1:59

       But we now have more information in one issue of the New York Times than, um, a 17th century peasant would have had in their entire life. So we have this glut of information that we're dealing with about as well as we dealt with calories. (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:17

       I talk about this quite often, but the way I describe it is diet, in that most people have a poor diet and that most people's diet is not nutritious.

   28. PJPenn Jillette2:24

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:24

       And if you have a poor diet that's not nutritious, your body becomes unhealthy. Well, if you have a poor mental diet-

   30. PJPenn Jillette2:30

       Yeah.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. …

   1. PJPenn Jillette15:00

      I went, "I don't want to be part of that, um, of the suffering."

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      Yeah.

   3. PJPenn Jillette15:04

      Yeah. It was really strange how that changed, and it really felt to me, uh, I so want to... Uh, I used... You know. Hardcore atheist, as you know, and, um, I don't believe in a mind/body separation at all, and yet I seemed to believe that when I was 350 pounds that, um, none of that affected my emotion. And then I lost all this weight and found there were so many changes in me that seemed to be intellectual and emotional, and actually I had a lot of evidence were physical.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:45

      Well, there's a lot of people-

   5. PJPenn Jillette15:46

      And it really fucked me up on the mind/body separation thing.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:48

      Well, it should fuck you up-

   7. PJPenn Jillette15:49

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:49

      ... because a lot of, uh, people make these assumptions that, you know, you are not your body. And a lot of very intelligent people, they eschew working out and they don't want to exercise, and they find it, like, it's a vanity thing.

   9. PJPenn Jillette16:02

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:02

       I- it seems egotistical. They, they don't, they don't like it, and so they put it in this category of kind of knucklehead dumb things to do.

   11. PJPenn Jillette16:10

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:10

       But your body and your mind are all in the same house.

   13. PJPenn Jillette16:13

       Mm-hmm. It's all the same thing, yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:14

       Yeah. If your house is filled with shit, i- it doesn't help the way you think.

   15. PJPenn Jillette16:17

       And it was s- so amazing how... I, I, I mean, I completely believed that-

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:23

       Yeah.

   17. PJPenn Jillette16:23

       ... and yet I wasn't living that.

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:25

       Mm-hmm.

   19. PJPenn Jillette16:25

       I was, like, thinking that I was living this, you know, 2,000-year-old idea of little homunculus who's kind of living inside me, who's this pure pen, and then the body is just the vehicle it's driving around in.

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:37

       Well, if I could help-

   21. PJPenn Jillette16:38

       And that's just not true.

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:39

       ... help you with that...

   23. PJPenn Jillette16:40

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:40

       ... I think knowing you as long as I've known you, you're an intense thinker and you, your mind is something you... I mean, you cherish your thoughts and you, you e- embrace them, and you're, you're a very intelligent guy, and I think you just probably rejected the idea that there was anything outside of the mind that had any influence on you.

   25. PJPenn Jillette17:01

       Yeah, we also talked about this. I was also... You know, I was the biggest guy to ever go through my school. So, uh, my, my... A small high school in western Massachusetts, you know, so I was, I was 6'7" and they wanted me center of the basketball team, they wanted all this stuff. And those kinds of people in that kind of culture, you know, I wanted to listen to music, I wanted to read, and I set up this, "You guys who are physical, I don't like you, I'm on a different team."

   26. JRJoe Rogan17:28

       Yeah.

   27. PJPenn Jillette17:28

       You know.

   28. JRJoe Rogan17:29

       Yeah.

   29. PJPenn Jillette17:29

       And my dislike of competitions and teams became a team thing. (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan17:34

       Yes. Yes.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. And I told…

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      that way.

   2. PJPenn Jillette30:00

      Yeah. And I told my wife, through my haze of not knowing who I was, "Call Trey Parker." (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:09

      (laughs)

   4. PJPenn Jillette30:09

      And Trey came to Vegas and said, "I wanna sit with Ben high." And I go... (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:13

      So he flew in immediately while you were fucked up?

   6. PJPenn Jillette30:15

      Yeah. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:15

      Oh my god. How long did it take him to get to you?

   8. PJPenn Jillette30:18

      W- w- he was, he was planning on being there, like, uh, h- he came, like, a day early.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:22

      Oh, okay.

   10. PJPenn Jillette30:22

       Uh, so he got, he got there, like, I was still high and Trey said... I didn't remember anything and Trey said the next day, "I was right, you should be high." So... (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:32

       Well, there's different kinds of high.

   12. PJPenn Jillette30:34

       Yeah, and-

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:34

       Just like there's different kinds of music, you know?

   14. PJPenn Jillette30:35

       And, you know, I was very, I was very, uh, I was very close to Lou Reed.

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:39

       Mm-hmm.

   16. PJPenn Jillette30:39

       And he was a very good friend of mine and Lou said, "Speaking on behalf..."... of the, uh, people of Earth, which I often do, we don't wanna see you high, motherfucker. Don't do it." So Lou says no, Trey says-

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:53

       Mm-hmm.

   18. PJPenn Jillette30:53

       ... yes. What does Joe say?

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:54

       (smacks lips) Well, Joe... uh, this is interesting-

   20. PJPenn Jillette30:56

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan30:56

       ... 'cause I wanted to talk to you about this. 'Cause we had a conversation a long time ago about this, and you said... the, uh... and I'll, I remember this very clearly, I may paraphrase this, but you said, "I think we've learned all there is to know and I don't need to do it." Like-

   22. PJPenn Jillette31:09

       Uh, yes, I said that-

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:10

       Yeah.

   24. PJPenn Jillette31:10

       ... and I was wrong.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:12

       Yeah.

   26. PJPenn Jillette31:12

       Yeah. Just wrong.

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:13

       I think you should experience psychedelics.

   28. PJPenn Jillette31:15

       You know, uh-

   29. JRJoe Rogan31:15

       'Cause I think psychedelics are a totally different thing. They don't take you out-

   30. PJPenn Jillette31:19

       Well, we know Sam Harris.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm. …

   1. PJPenn Jillette45:00

      I drink 5%-

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:02

      Mm.

   3. PJPenn Jillette45:02

      ... of what ... Right? You know, I dr- I can drink eight cups of coffee and it makes a, a-

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:06

      Do you just like the taste?

   5. PJPenn Jillette45:06

      ... quarter cup. I don't like the taste, but I like the social stuff. I like having a hot, bitter thing in front of me.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:14

      Why don't you just have tea?

   7. PJPenn Jillette45:15

      I, I'd have tea too.

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:16

      Yeah.

   9. PJPenn Jillette45:16

      I-

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:16

       It's just a, a herbal-

   11. PJPenn Jillette45:18

       I, I-

   12. JRJoe Rogan45:18

       ... something to breathe.

   13. PJPenn Jillette45:18

       I nervously, I nervously drink.

   14. JRJoe Rogan45:20

       Hm.

   15. PJPenn Jillette45:20

       It's a habit, like, you know, like some people smoke. I like to have seltzer, I like to have, uh, uh, decaf coffee or decaf tea or something like that.

   16. JRJoe Rogan45:28

       Yeah, I like seltzer too. It d- it makes me feel like I'm doing something rather than drinking water.

   17. PJPenn Jillette45:32

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan45:32

       You know, like, I like sparkling water.

   19. PJPenn Jillette45:34

       It's water with entertainment.

   20. JRJoe Rogan45:35

       Yeah. I like sparkling water with a little lime. Oh, I got a drink here.

   21. PJPenn Jillette45:38

       (laughs) Exactly.

   22. JRJoe Rogan45:38

       I got a nice little drink.

   23. PJPenn Jillette45:40

       Or you know what? You take decaffeinated espresso and then you pour, uh, carbonated water on top of that, and then you've got bitter, bubbly... You're drinking a potion.

   24. JRJoe Rogan45:49

       You want that.

   25. PJPenn Jillette45:50

       You'll want a potion.

   26. JRJoe Rogan45:51

       Mm, a potion makes you feel like an adult.

   27. PJPenn Jillette45:53

       Yeah. (laughs) It makes you feel-

   28. JRJoe Rogan45:54

       Yeah.

   29. PJPenn Jillette45:54

       ... like a grownup, yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan45:54

       "This isn't Kool-Aid. This is an adult beverage."
5. 1:00:00 – 1:11:07

   Right. (laughs) …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      a real, uh, historian of Mexican cuisine, like where it comes from, the regions, the ingredients. Like, where's the best ingredients? Where's the best places to cook these things? How they do it? Why they did it this way? And I mean, speaks with incredible passion about this. They were deciding that he's a white guy, and he shouldn't, he shouldn't be able to do this, shouldn't be able to sell this, shouldn't be able to... Like, you fucking assholes. Like, this is the guy.

   2. PJPenn Jillette1:00:22

      Right. (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:22

      He's helping everyone recognize the beauty of this much-maligned food. When you, when people think about Mexican cuisine, he is one of the rare people in Western culture that talks about it like it's five-star cuisine. So many people talk about, "Oh, I love street tacos," and, "Fucking, I'm a, a, a big fan of quesadillas." No, this guy's talking about the very best Mexican cuisine in the world and trying to interpret that and sell it to people and trying to turn people on to how good this food is.

   4. PJPenn Jillette1:00:51

      And-

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

      And yet he was taking so much shit.

   6. PJPenn Jillette1:00:53

      When a person that wasn't born in that ac- the accident of birth, to be there-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:01:00

      Yes.

   8. PJPenn Jillette1:01:00

      ... falls in love with another culture, I don't see why that isn't more beautiful.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:01:04

      Yes.

   10. PJPenn Jillette1:01:04

       Yeah. That's, th- that's, that's, that's what I'm looking for.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:07

       Well, that's Steven Seagal.

   12. PJPenn Jillette1:01:08

       Yeah, yeah (laughs) .

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:08

       He moved to Japan and became a master. Before he became kind of silly, he was one of the very first guys to ever teach aikido in a dojo in Japan that wasn't Japanese. I think he actually was the first. I think he was the first American to ever run a dojo in Japan.

   14. PJPenn Jillette1:01:24

       So now...Okay. Getting me on psychedelics is very easy compared to getting me to really dig Steven Seagal. (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:31

       You don't have to dig him. I mean, I'm not sure I do. Although, I- I do appreciate his first movie, Above the Law. And I appreciate, uh, what he- th- look-

   16. PJPenn Jillette1:01:39

       He likes his prepositions.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:41

       He's a silly fella.

   18. PJPenn Jillette1:01:41

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:42

       A sil- silly fella, for sure.

   20. PJPenn Jillette1:01:43

       In his time.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:44

       But m- many of us are.

   22. PJPenn Jillette1:01:45

       Sure.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:01:45

       But what he, he did do is he learned aikido at a very, very high level, like undeniably. And he was teaching it in Japan, he spoke perfect Japanese. And he was a very rare guy, you know? Now, you know, he became a Hollywood guy in movies and who knows what the fuck else and became enormous, you know, physically.

   24. PJPenn Jillette1:02:05

       Hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:02:05

       He got fat and s- you know, he's kinda silly now.

   26. PJPenn Jillette1:02:07

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:02:08

       But at one point in time, that guy was as legit as it gets.

   28. PJPenn Jillette1:02:11

       Isn't that always true?

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:02:12

       Yeah, some per-

   30. PJPenn Jillette1:02:14

       You know what I wanna ... I'm gonna completely change the subject, is, if I may.

Episode duration: 1:48:05