EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,026 words- 0:02 – 3:47
Baculum banter: “dick bone” collections, coffee stirrers, and walrus canes
- NANarrator
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- NANarrator
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- NANarrator
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) You were just telling me about your friend who has a dick collection?
- SRSteven Rinella
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) I wish he was my friend still. It was, um ... When I was younger, I don't know how I h- I came into his orbit, but there was a fur buyer and taxidermist and muskrat trapper in Muskegon County, um, where I grew up in Michigan, and he had amassed a very impressive collection of baculums. And you brought this up because Frank von Hippel had given us this, uh, fossilized walrus, ancient walrus dick bone.
- SRSteven Rinella
Pecker bone, swizzle stick.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah. Uh, uh, a friend of mine, Clay Newcomb, he, uh, he, uh, he, he uses them for very ... Like, the bl- he, he saves the black bear ones and, and people use them as drink stirs and stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
The first deer I ever killed, you gave me one, and I was using it as a coffee stirrer for a while.
- SRSteven Rinella
Oh, like, an a- no, it's not like, an actual bone bone in there.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's ... Isn't there a bone bone in there?
- SRSteven Rinella
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you gave me one. You may- might not have given to me one from that. You gave me one from something else, like a hat.
- SRSteven Rinella
Maybe a rac- maybe a raccoon or a bear or something. I'd have to look at it.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't know, but you gave me a dick bone, and I had it in my backpack for a long time.
- SRSteven Rinella
Oh. Huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah, so, he ha-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) How often do you give away dick bones that you don't even remember them?
- SRSteven Rinella
(laughs) Well, I wi- I wish I had, I wish I had more to share.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
This guy, this Bob Farris guy, we used to laugh 'cause he looked like Bob Farris looked exactly like Bob Dylan. Um, and he's gotta be around still. I remember being over his house one day and him advising someone over the phone within earshot of me. I remember this guy was going out to set muskrat traps. And I remember, uh, Bob Farris advising him, uh, "If anybody fucks with you, shoot them." And, uh, I was young enough that I didn't, like, get that that was a humor thing. You know, the whatever, just, like, a thing you'd say to your buddy to have a laugh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SRSteven Rinella
And I remember being like, "Man, these guys are serious about muskrats." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
I was like, "I hope I don't run into that dude in the marsh." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
And now I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I could totally see saying that to somebody," and then we'd have a laugh and get off the phone.
- JRJoe Rogan
How many animals have that bone?
- SRSteven Rinella
Man, I, you know-
- 3:47 – 6:30
Is it really fossilized? Testing the heavy “ancient walrus baculum”
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's not small, that one right there. And it's interesting because, because of the fact that it's fossilized. It's so heavy.
- SRSteven Rinella
Oh, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Can you imagine carrying that between your legs?
- SRSteven Rinella
I wish I had, uh ... I feel like I wanna challenge you on-
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at this.
- SRSteven Rinella
I feel like I wanna challenge you on that being fossilized.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, he said it was fossilized. You don't think it is? You think by, by the appearance? Because it's too, so light? But doesn't it feel heavy as shit?
- SRSteven Rinella
Uh, yeah, I don't wanna, I don't wanna get in over my waders here, but I ... I want to, I want to challenge that. But I, I don't want-
- JRJoe Rogan
You want to challenge it?
- SRSteven Rinella
But I would need to scrape into it with a pocketknife-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SRSteven Rinella
... and I don't wanna do that to your baculum.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's okay. You can do that. Here. (knocking sound)
- SRSteven Rinella
But, see, even th- I ... Don't do it, because w- who am I to tell? I mean, you might scrape into it and ... (knocking sound)
- JRJoe Rogan
The thing is-
- SRSteven Rinella
I, I don't-
- NANarrator
Would they curve that to make that handle?
- JRJoe Rogan
But, goddamn, dude, this is so heavy.
- SRSteven Rinella
No, there are, there are ... That, that I don't know. They might, but there are some that have a hook in them.
- NANarrator
Woof.
- SRSteven Rinella
It keeps, it keeps your mate from getting away.
- JRJoe Rogan
Jamie, that'd be a hell of a pimp stick. You walking around with one of those?
- NANarrator
Lil, Lil Pimp should have one of those.
- JRJoe Rogan
Lil Pimp. (laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you hear that? The thing with Trump? He called Lil Pump. There's a rapper named Lil Pump, and he called him Little Pimp.
- SRSteven Rinella
No, I didn't.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, yeah.
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, he did it the other day at a, at a rally and everybody was upset.
- 6:30 – 8:28
Public land rules: bones vs fossils vs artifacts (and why arrowheads are different)
- SRSteven Rinella
Uh, when it comes to... The reason I have become interested in things being fossilized is, uh, you know if you're out on National Forest land, not, no- notice I'm not saying national parks, but if you're out on National Forest land, or BLM land, various land designations, uh, you know, if you find, like, an antler, a deer antler, you can keep it, right? Or if you find a chunk of bone, you can keep it. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
But not a, not an arrowhead, right?
- SRSteven Rinella
No. No. 'Cause that's an artifact.
- JRJoe Rogan
What are you sup- but that's weird that you're supposed to leave it there.
- SRSteven Rinella
Dude-
- JRJoe Rogan
Does anybody-
- SRSteven Rinella
That's an interesting thing I'd like to talk about, because... (laughs) No.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
No, I... They do. I remember... So, uh, let me, let me finish my thing about-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- SRSteven Rinella
... fossils real quick, just 'cause I- it'll, uh... The reason I started to think about it is if... Like, you're allowed to pick up a bone, okay? If you're just out on... Depends on the land designation. Let's say you're on a National Forest, and you find a piece of bone, you can keep it. If it's fossilized, you can't keep it. Okay? So you could find a, like I've found a few buffalo skulls that are old, but still bone. So here you have this thing that could be like 300 years old eroding out of a riverbed, and if it's not fossilized, you can have it and keep it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- SRSteven Rinella
Um, if it's just bone. The thing is, if that thing has cultural markings on it, then it becomes an artifact.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- SRSteven Rinella
So say you found a, a friend of mine... I don't know where they might've got it off... I don't know where they got it. Th- their dad had, like, the grandfather found it. They had a buffalo skull that had been axed open. And it was so clearly hit open with a tool to get the brain out, which would make it an artifact, and then you can't touch it. Or if it's fossilized, you can't touch it. Private land is totally different. But, um, yeah, it would be that, uh... So now when I, like, look at stuff, I'm always picking it up, I'm always, like, wishing I had a better sense, because I don't want to grab s-... I don't want to, like, find something to bring home and then be in violation because I brought home a fossilized thing.
- 8:28 – 9:28
Reporting finds and Steven’s bison-site story from *American Buffalo*
- JRJoe Rogan
Are you under any obligation to report it? Like say if you found a skull that had obviously been opened up by, like, uh, ancient Native Americans. Are you under any obligation, if you can't take it, to like, point archaeologists, like, you know, drop a pin, point archaeologists to the spot where you found it?
- SRSteven Rinella
I don't, I- I can't ima- No. I- I... I wanna... I- I'm virtually certain you're not under any obligation. I did one time find a bison skull on National Forest land and did a site report, where I cooperated with the forest, the administrative unit of that National Forest, because I had gone and, and did some work on it and it had a radiocarbon date. So I was able to supply them with a piece of information they didn't have, and so we cooperated and did a site report. And I had also kind of like called a little bit to make sure I wasn't in the wrong.
- JRJoe Rogan
And this is in your book-
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah, it's that. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... American Buffalo.
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah, that I wrote, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is really good.
- SRSteven Rinella
... a million years ago.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was... I listened to the audio version. So nice to hear your voice, that you, you got a chance to do it.
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah.
- 9:28 – 14:54
Audiobooks and ownership: why authors often don’t read their own work
- JRJoe Rogan
Because I know the first version of it, they hir- hired some actor to do it.
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah, and it was, it w- it was... It's kind of a funny thing about the, the book business, is... You know, audio, as you know, 'cause you've kind of like, in some ways, helped be at the vanguard of pioneering this, but, um, audio is more and more important. It's more and more valuable now. When I sold that... my first couple books, um, a publisher would, you know, buy your book, and they would buy l- they'd buy just kind of like all rights to it, right? And they would then go sell the audio off, for sometimes next to nothing. And someone would buy the audio rights for a certain specified amount of time. So my first couple books, um, my publisher buys my book, and then my publisher basically turns around, um... Publisher then, in- in this case Random House, turned around and sold the audio rights to I think Brilliance Audio, whatever it is. And they got it for 10 years. And at first I thought that they didn't invite me to read it because they didn't think I was, like, up to it, right? Uh, but I just wasn't invited to read my own book. They hired a soap opera actor of some sort to read it.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
I now think it's just an efficiency thing, like they have sort of a stable... This company was based in, in Michigan, my home state, just totally coincidentally, but happened to be based there. They have like a stable of talent that comes in, and they're clean, they do clean work, they do fast work. Um, and- and they produce an audiobook. Like working with an author, it might take four or five days to record an audiobook. But they can just get a guy that comes in, nails it, hammers it, whatever. I get the, I get the product and I turn it on, and he starts talking, and I couldn't get across the room fast enough to turn it off.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
It was the mo- it was like, it was like watching, uh, it was like watching my wife have sex with another man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- SRSteven Rinella
It's like, to see, to, to hear... I'm like, "That is not what that book sounds like." You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SRSteven Rinella
And, oh my god, I was a defensive... And then 10 years goes by, 'cause I wrote that book a decade ago. 10 years goes by, um, and we get the rights back. So then, now Random House has them back, and I got to go in and record my own thing. And I got to update some of the science and stuff, you know? It was, it was kind of like one of those little... It was one of those career, uh... Like a little career highlight for me. Like, like, somebody looking from the outside in wouldn't see, um, wouldn't, like, s- see it as anything. But to me it was like, it was richly symbolic that, that I had, whatever, got to, like, be in a position to be like, "I want to do it." I go in, record my book, it's how it wants to be, and that something could still kind of have life after-... a decade.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. My friend, God Saad, who is a, uh, he's a professor out of, uh, Montreal. He wrote a b- he's a evolutionary biologist, and he wrote a book on, uh, m- they call it The Parasitic Mind about, uh, b- rit- just very bi- uh, bi- uh, bizarre behaviors and the, the way people are, uh, the, like, weird thought viruses that people are falling into today.
- SRSteven Rinella
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like w- woke culture and all that kinda shit. And they hired some-
- SRSteven Rinella
What's, what's ... Can you give me another example?
- JRJoe Rogan
Another example of-
- SRSteven Rinella
Of the thought virus.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, n- uh, thought virus is probably not even ... I mean, he's used that term before, but it's basically, uh, like, woke thinking.
- SRSteven Rinella
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, uh, what, what's problematic about it. Now, it's not, not very objective and not rational. And, uh, they, people are expected to think and behave a certain way because the gatekeepers of, uh, social media-
- SRSteven Rinella
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and all these people are the ones that are forcing this on folks. Anyway, uh, he's got a very popular podcast, and yet they still hired somebody else to read his book.
- SRSteven Rinella
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And I was like, "This is so crazy." Like, you have a, such a distinct voice. Like, why would you-
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What, what the fuck are they doing? Like, why would they do that?
- SRSteven Rinella
Uh, it, uh, I, I think that it leads to a l- it leads to a lot of listener disappointment.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- SRSteven Rinella
At the time I did this, though, I wasn't ... I was just a writer.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SRSteven Rinella
So there wasn't that. And I, and, uh, maybe we're moving away from that. Um, when you're working on something, and I'm sure ... Oh, no, you'll know intimately well what I'm talking about, uh, imagine you're, um, imagine your stand-up if you had to, like, turn in a word doc. (laughs)
- 14:54 – 18:33
Craft and focus: family life, discipline, and why writing can feel miserable
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah, it is. And, um, that was ... So th- like, that book, I was at the height of my writing powers because I hadn't had, um ... I was just a writer. I wasn't married. I didn't have kids. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
You were free.
- SRSteven Rinella
I, I could j- I, I could spend a couple years just, like, focused on something, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
And so I do. I, like, the fact that that thing still, th- th- the fact that that book still works and people still read it, um, like, m- I'm happy about that, you know? 'Cause I look at it and be like, "Yeah, man." Like, I feel like, like, that was a reasonable book. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That's an interesting way of ... It's a very good book. I really enjoyed it. But it's a, it's a f- interesting way of talking about it, that you were at the height of your writing powers because you were free, 'cause you really could just concentrate on that. You know, I think about that a lot with, with anything, you know, like, uh, that's the case with, uh, standup comedians. It's the case with fighters, for sure. When fighters have families and then they start getting, uh, uh, distracted by a bunch of other businesses and other things that they're doing, it's almost always signifies a, a downslide in their skills.
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Almost always.
- SRSteven Rinella
For sure, man. I'm watching right now on, on Netflix, I'm watching The Last Dance, um, the Jordan-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- SRSteven Rinella
... documentary. And I'm not a basketball fan at all, and, and most of this stuff's new information to me, but in watching it and, like, that study of, um, focus and discipline. And I wonder, like, uh, i- in looking at him, I couldn't help but think, let's say there was an undecided election, you know? It was, like, a contested undecided election, and there's a global pandemic. That guy would still go on that field, or on the court, sorry, and probably be just as good as he always is. And I think that a decade ago, uh, whatever, like, at that point in life when you're just like, "I don't pr-" maybe more self-absorbed or something, I could be sitting right now in this current climate. Like, I'd be sitting right now just, like, singularly focused on this thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- SRSteven Rinella
Instead of, um, the school board is voting, like, whether or not kids are going back to school full time. And, and, like, I need to pay attention to that because I have kids. I need to pay attention, like, you know, I feel obligated to pay attention politically, and I have other mediums that I work in now. And it's ju- yeah, you just get, like, spread out, um, doing stuff. I feel like maybe that doesn't happen to you?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, it does. Yeah, it does.
- SRSteven Rinella
I remember you telling me you have three jobs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SRSteven Rinella
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I do.
- SRSteven Rinella
Do you jump from one to the other?
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, they connect.
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Fortunately. They help each other. The, the thing about, uh, well, you know, o- obviously I haven't been doing much standup during the pandemic. I only did one weekend. I did one weekend in Houston, and then I got real weirded out thinking, like, "What if I caught COVID and then I gave it to somebody," particularly if I gave it to a guest. But, um, standup comedy for sure helps podcasting. Podcasting for sure helps standup comedy.
- SRSteven Rinella
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
They ma- you get more comfortable doing each one of them because the fact that standup comedy's live and then podcasting is also live, right? You're, you're ... there's no net. There's no script. And you get more comfortable expressing yourself. In standup comedy, the fear of doing it in front of live audiences, you, you get accustomed to people paying attention to you and watching you. That makes UFC commentary easier 'cause when the cameras are on at UFC, I never think, "Oh, shit, all these people are watching now." I never think that 'cause people are always watching. I don't care 'cause it doesn't-
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I can just express myself.So, all th- they feed into each other.
- 18:33 – 37:02
Handling criticism and social media: “post and run away”
- SRSteven Rinella
What do you, uh ... 'Cause you get increasingly, at, at least from my perspective, increasingly you get scrutinized and over-scrutinized in the media. Is it hard to tune it out?
- JRJoe Rogan
It's easier than ever.
- SRSteven Rinella
Really?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's interesting. (laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Because it's so common, I can just shut it off. Yeah, no, it's, it's just, it's one of the things that happens. You get too big. If you get too big, you get too popular. Look, if there's 300 million people in this country and you have a 1% of them are critics, you got a million critics. You know? Like-
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah, and you're being, you're being conservative with that number. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Like, you, y- if you're, if you're really lucky you only have a million critics, you really us- have three million critics. Three million critics is k- it's a crazy number. That's a, that's such a nutty, nutty number. If there's 300 million people and 1% of them don't like you, you have three million people that don't like you?
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's insane. Like, if you really stopped and thought about that, that'll fuck with your head. If you have, uh, you know, people in the media, if you have 100,000 professional journalists that are focused on comedy, you know, what are, what are the numbers that are not gonna enjoy you? It's gonna be high. It's gonna be a few thousand.
- SRSteven Rinella
When I'm reading about you, um, and what you think and how you are, and I'm sitting there thinking like, "No he's not." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's-
- SRSteven Rinella
It makes me, it makes me question, like, it makes me question everything I read. I was saying to someone the other day that there's, there's one thing Americans like, th- there's, like, two stories Americans like, in this order. They like a story about what an asshole a celebrity is. And the second thing they like most, but not as much as that thing, is how great a celebrity is. But they would ... (laughs) They, they liked the first one better.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's way better. Well, it's-
- SRSteven Rinella
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It's more sellable, right? (clears throat) I mean that's why this "Ellen is mean" thing has gotten so much traction. "You know, Ellen's mean to her guests and she's mean-"
- SRSteven Rinella
People are like, "Ooh, tell me more." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly. It's exciting when you, you find how much, and you, you, when you find out Ellen has, like, f- a half a billion dollars, you're like, "Oh my God. Tell me more about how mean she is, like, I want, I need to know the dirt." That's a, i- i- it's just a common thing with people. When someone becomes successful, you're, you're gonna, you're gonna get scrutinized. And it's also, like, different perspectives. Like, for some people, the way I think and the way I, I talk is offensive to them. They don't, you know, they have a very clear-cut idea of the way people should think and behave, you know? It's particularly on the left, which is w- you know, it's become more and more weird because it would be much easier for people on the left to label me if I wasn't left wing. That's what's confusing. It's 'cause, like, I do support basically every left-wing position, other than Second Amendment, and, uh, increasingly the way they attack the First Amendment's weird.
- SRSteven Rinella
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, they, they seem to think that it's censorship is okay as long as you're censoring someone who disagrees with the way you think.
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is a new thing in the left. The, the, the, the, the acceptance of the First Amendment, I mean, like, w- I brought this up before, but the ACLU. The ACLU was founded by people that were literally supporting Nazis, like, supporting actual neo-Nazi groups and, and saying it, like, "No, we-"
- SRSteven Rinella
Oh, in litigation, like for-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah.
- SRSteven Rinella
... for free speech issues. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Th- this is important. Like, y- like, even though their views are abhorrent, you have to support these, th- you have to support their ability to express themselves, like, this is what the foundation of this country is about. Like, free expression is the only way you find out what's right and what's wrong. Shutting people down and stopping people from communicating is a, a silly, short-sighted approach to debating an issue. And this is more and more common than ever on the left. It's really, like, 'cause, because of deplatforming, because you, yet they have the ability with social media, because social media is not really protected by the First Amendment. Social media, you know, like, whether it's Twitter or YouTube or whatever, they're private companies and they can decide, "Hey, we don't want this guy on 'cause his views don't align with ours." And they have silenced people and, and s- just kicked people off their platforms that really aren't doing anything wrong. They just d- they're saying things that the people that own and run the social media companies don't agree with.
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's, that to me is the weirdest aspect of the left today. But other than that, like gay rights, women's rights, civil rights, women's right to choose, uh, I- I'm, I'm with all that. I'm with a- all of them. I'm with universal basic income. I'm with, uh, I'm with, uh, Medicare-
- SRSteven Rinella
Really?
- JRJoe Rogan
... for All. Yeah. Yeah.
- 37:02 – 57:40
Podcasting’s rise: Adam Curry, skeleton crews, and authenticity vs gatekeepers
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's, uh, it's a w- it's a weird medium podcasts are, because it's never really existed before. Right? This is a new thing. Like my friend Adam Curry is the original podcaster. He, he's the pod father. He was the first guy to ever have a podcast. And he was a, an MTV DJ host. He actually lives here in Austin.
- SRSteven Rinella
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
You remember Adam Curry?
- SRSteven Rinella
I never put it together that that was the same person.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's Adam Curry. Yeah. Beautiful, handsome man. He had those flowing locks.
- SRSteven Rinella
Oh, yeah. No, I've known this, but I never like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. He runs the No-
- SRSteven Rinella
Never put it together it was the same person.
- JRJoe Rogan
He runs the No Agenda podcast. He's actually one of the reasons I moved to Austin. He was singing Austin's praises. And I had been here many, many times.
- SRSteven Rinella
He used to kind of wear like that Michael Jackson leather jacket.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah. Look at-
- SRSteven Rinella
With the fold-over flaps.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at the handsome bastard. Look at that.
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at that hair. Woo.
- SRSteven Rinella
That's the same dude.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that's the same dude. Now show a picture of him today. Uh, up, right there. Bam. That's him today. Yeah.
- SRSteven Rinella
Damn.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. He's the original. He's the OG. So he-
- SRSteven Rinella
Oh, yeah. But I never, like ... You know what I'm s- I can't think of a parallel here. But no, like (laughs) I'm aware of these two ... Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. But you hadn't put him together, "Oh, that's the same guy."
- SRSteven Rinella
Oh, no. That's, it's amazing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- SRSteven Rinella
Huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's awesome. I love that guy. He's, um, he's got a great podcast called No Agenda. It's his podcast. And, um, he, he really had the very first one.
- SRSteven Rinella
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I, I don't think that was any earlier than 2000. Jamie, what was that, 2005 maybe? That sounds right. Somewhere around then. So his pod- his original podcast was four years before my first podcast, which was 2009. So ... 2007. 2007? Okay, so two years before mine. So you're talking about a guy, a, a, yeah, a thing rather, that's only been around for 13 years. Like, there w- there was never a thing where you could just put something out there, sit down, talk to people, and there's, there's no middle man. Like, people think like, because I, I have this deal with Spotify, that there's a bunch of people sitting over my shoulder. You come in here, you see what it's like, there's no one here. Like, it's a skeleton crew.
- SRSteven Rinella
There's actually a censor standing right next to me right now. (laughs)
- 57:40 – 1:30:50
Influence and responsibility: ‘radioactive boy scout’ analogy and Steven’s hunting dilemma
- SRSteven Rinella
I think a way that they might invite you to look at it... I'm not suggesting you do this, but I think a way they might invite you to look at it could be, uh, captured, um, by this article I read many, many years ago called The Radioactive Boy Scout. Um, and it was about a kid who was working on some project where he needed to find some, you know, americium or something for some Boy Scout project he was doing.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's americium?
- SRSteven Rinella
It's a radioactive substance.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- SRSteven Rinella
It's, uh, in, in smoke alarms. When you have a smoke detector, um, there's, like, a radioactive substance in there and, and smoke inhibits the ability of the substance to hit a sensor.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- SRSteven Rinella
So, he started buying up any and all smoke detectors that he could ever get his hands on, right? And then got into that he could find... I can't remember what it was. Like, in old types of clocks he was finding some radioactive substance and he got himself a Geiger counter. He would drive around with a Geiger counter on the front seat of his car past antique shops and shit, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SRSteven Rinella
Okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Is this a novel?
- SRSteven Rinella
No. It's a, it's a, it was a story-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a real-
- SRSteven Rinella
It was a story in Harper's Magazine called The Radioactive Boy Scout. He winds up accumulating so much of this shit in the shed that not only... Like, eventually when it all breaks, like, not only did they haul away the shed, they hauled away, like, his yard-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) How many did he have?
- SRSteven Rinella
... and barrels.
- JRJoe Rogan
How many did he have?
- SRSteven Rinella
I, uh, I, I, I read it a long time ago.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- SRSteven Rinella
Okay? Just doing his thing. Collecting smoke det-... Collect his- (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
There he is. Oh my God, look at his face.
- SRSteven Rinella
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus Christ.
- SRSteven Rinella
Yeah. Hauled away his yard.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at his face, like he's got radiation poisoning on his face.
- SRSteven Rinella
People might regard you as the radioactive Boy Scout.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SRSteven Rinella
Like, at a time you were just out getting some smoke detectors 'cause you wanted... (laughs) And then over time you, like, accumulated something where it m- it... People had to take notice.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's, there's a little bit of that. Um-
- SRSteven Rinella
And they would be like, "Dude, I understand, but you just can't put that many of those things in one spot."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) But what's the argument against it? The argument against it would be-
Episode duration: 3:05:37
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Transcript of episode surnFz_pZE4
