Joe Rogan Experience #1559 - Steven Rinella

Narrator 0:02 (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

0:06 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?

Steven Rinella 0:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:17 (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.

Steven Rinella 0:47 Pecker bone, swizzle stick.

Joe Rogan 0:49 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 0:49 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.

Joe Rogan 1:02 The first deer I ever killed, you gave me one, and I was using it as a coffee stirrer for a while.

Steven Rinella 1:07 Oh, like, an a- no, it's not like, an actual bone bone in there.

Joe Rogan 1:10 It's ... Isn't there a bone bone in there?

Steven Rinella 1:12 No.

Joe Rogan 1:12 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.

Steven Rinella 1:18 Maybe a rac- maybe a raccoon or a bear or something. I'd have to look at it.

Joe Rogan 1:21 I don't know, but you gave me a dick bone, and I had it in my backpack for a long time.

Steven Rinella 1:24 Oh. Huh.

Joe Rogan 1:26 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 1:26 Yeah, so, he ha-

Joe Rogan 1:27 (laughs) How often do you give away dick bones that you don't even remember them?

Steven Rinella 1:30 (laughs) Well, I wi- I wish I had, I wish I had more to share.

Joe Rogan 1:33 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 1:34 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.

Joe Rogan 2:05 Right.

Steven Rinella 2:05 And I remember being like, "Man, these guys are serious about muskrats." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:10 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 2:10 I was like, "I hope I don't run into that dude in the marsh." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:14 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 2:14 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.

Joe Rogan 2:18 How many animals have that bone?

Steven Rinella 2:19 Man, I, you know-

Joe Rogan 2:21 Indicates.

Steven Rinella 2:21 I wish I knew. And I don't even know what, uh ... Yeah, that, that'd be-

Joe Rogan 2:26 It's not universal.

Steven Rinella 2:27 No, no, it'd be interesting to look up. I never ... Uh, until right now, I never gave it any thought to, like, what classification of things has, like, what classification of things has, like, a, an actual baculum, an actual pecker bone. Um, you know, all the-

Joe Rogan 2:44 Chimps have it, right?

Steven Rinella 2:44 All the weasels have it.

Joe Rogan 2:45 I think chimps have it.

Steven Rinella 2:46 We don't.

Joe Rogan 2:47 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 2:48 Weasels do. Uh-

Joe Rogan 2:51 Here it goes.

Steven Rinella 2:51 Oh!

Joe Rogan 2:52 It's absent in human, ungulates, uh, elephants ... What is that? Monotremes? Monotremus? What is that word?

Steven Rinella 2:59 Monotre- oh, the platypus.

Joe Rogan 3:01 Oh, okay.

Steven Rinella 3:01 An echidna.

Joe Rogan 3:03 Marsupials, lagomorphs, hyenas, binotorongs, sirenians?

Steven Rinella 3:11 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:12 And cetaceans, among others. Evidence suggests that the baculum was independently evolved nine times and lost in 10 separate lineages.

Steven Rinella 3:21 God, it just keeps coming up, man.

Joe Rogan 3:23 Yeah, it just-

Steven Rinella 3:24 It just keeps coming up.

Joe Rogan 3:26 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 3:26 The need to have one of those.

Joe Rogan 3:27 (laughs) The need to ... Yeah, a, a built-in hard-on.

Steven Rinella 3:32 Uh, that's a really nice one. I like that one. Um, there are some that are big enough. I don't know what they're off. There are some that are big enough to be used as a cane.

Joe Rogan 3:41 Really?

Steven Rinella 3:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:42 What animal is that?

Steven Rinella 3:43 I, I thought it was, like, certain walrus ones. People used to use them as canes.

Joe Rogan 3:47 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.

Steven Rinella 3:54 Oh, man.

Joe Rogan 3:54 Can you imagine carrying that between your legs?

Steven Rinella 3:57 I wish I had, uh ... I feel like I wanna challenge you on-

Joe Rogan 4:00 Look at this.

Steven Rinella 4:00 I feel like I wanna challenge you on that being fossilized.

Joe Rogan 4:03 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?

Steven Rinella 4:11 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-

Joe Rogan 4:19 You want to challenge it?

Steven Rinella 4:19 But I would need to scrape into it with a pocketknife-

Joe Rogan 4:21 Right.

Steven Rinella 4:21 ... and I don't wanna do that to your baculum.

Joe Rogan 4:23 That's okay. You can do that. Here. (knocking sound)

Steven Rinella 4:27 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)

Joe Rogan 4:32 The thing is-

Steven Rinella 4:32 I, I don't-

Narrator 4:33 Would they curve that to make that handle?

Joe Rogan 4:34 But, goddamn, dude, this is so heavy.

Steven Rinella 4:35 No, there are, there are ... That, that I don't know. They might, but there are some that have a hook in them.

Narrator 4:40 Woof.

Steven Rinella 4:41 It keeps, it keeps your mate from getting away.

Joe Rogan 4:43 Jamie, that'd be a hell of a pimp stick. You walking around with one of those?

Narrator 4:46 Lil, Lil Pimp should have one of those.

Joe Rogan 4:48 Lil Pimp. (laughs)

Narrator 4:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:50 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.

Steven Rinella 4:56 No, I didn't.

Joe Rogan 4:57 Um, yeah.

Narrator 4:58 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 4:59 Yeah, he did it the other day at a, at a rally and everybody was upset.

Narrator 5:02 Tim's a new character I was going for.

Joe Rogan 5:03 Yeah.

Narrator 5:03 That should, that should be his first piece.

Joe Rogan 5:04 This has gotta be fossilized, man. How else could it be that heavy? What kind of bone would be that heavy, Steve?

Steven Rinella 5:10 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 5:10 That's so heavy. Here, come on, man.

Steven Rinella 5:13 You want me to put a little-

Joe Rogan 5:14 Yeah, get in there.

Steven Rinella 5:15 You know what? I'm gonna give it a little scraper down here on the end.

Joe Rogan 5:18 Yeah, make it ... Scrape it. Tell me what's up.

Steven Rinella 5:23 God, that metal's ... It is.

Joe Rogan 5:24 It's fossilized. Yeah.

Steven Rinella 5:25 Well, uh, now I wanna say that, um, just like we were talking a minute ago about how bettors are betting, like, it's Trump-

Joe Rogan 5:32 Right.

Steven Rinella 5:32 ... it's Biden.

Joe Rogan 5:33 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 5:34 I'm like, back to it's fossilized.

Joe Rogan 5:37 (laughs) Go back and forth. But it's so heavy.

Steven Rinella 5:40 (laughs) I'm a, I'm a, I'm a flim-flopper.

Joe Rogan 5:41 When I picked it up-

Steven Rinella 5:42 My convictions are, my convictions are weakly held. But, no, poking it with your knife makes me think that it's a, um ... Poking it with your knife ... But this, this is way outside of my area of expertise. Poke it with your knife makes me a believer.

Joe Rogan 5:54 I think von Hippel is a biologist, right? He's a-

Steven Rinella 6:00 Man, you got a really good-

Joe Rogan 6:01 Prove it.

Steven Rinella 6:01 ... fact checker over here, man.

Joe Rogan 6:02 Oh, he's the best.

Steven Rinella 6:02 It's like having, it's like having Doug Duran around.

Joe Rogan 6:04 Yeah, it is very similar.

Steven Rinella 6:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:07 Doug's a very good fact checker.

Steven Rinella 6:09 It's all he does. He doesn't, he doesn't... He only... Like, when you're talking to him, he just looks at his phone.

Joe Rogan 6:15 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 6:15 'Cause he's like, no matter what you say, he's like, "Nuh-uh. Uh-uh. Uh-uh."

Joe Rogan 6:19 (laughs)

Narrator 6:21 See what his official title is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's re-... Biology, ecology.

Joe Rogan 6:26 Yeah.

Narrator 6:27 Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:27 Yeah. So there you go.

Narrator 6:28 There's another one that's a physicist.

Steven Rinella 6:30 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-

Joe Rogan 6:51 But not a, not an arrowhead, right?

Steven Rinella 6:53 No. No. 'Cause that's an artifact.

Joe Rogan 6:56 What are you sup- but that's weird that you're supposed to leave it there.

Steven Rinella 6:59 Dude-

Joe Rogan 7:00 Does anybody-

Steven Rinella 7:01 That's an interesting thing I'd like to talk about, because... (laughs) No.

Joe Rogan 7:04 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 7:04 No, I... They do. I remember... So, uh, let me, let me finish my thing about-

Joe Rogan 7:10 Okay.

Steven Rinella 7:10 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 7:43 Hmm.

Steven Rinella 7:43 Um, if it's just bone. The thing is, if that thing has cultural markings on it, then it becomes an artifact.

Joe Rogan 7:52 Wow.

Steven Rinella 7:52 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.

Joe Rogan 8:28 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?

Steven Rinella 8:44 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.

Joe Rogan 9:19 And this is in your book-

Steven Rinella 9:20 Yeah, it's that. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:21 ... American Buffalo.

Steven Rinella 9:21 Yeah, that I wrote, like-

Joe Rogan 9:22 Which is really good.

Steven Rinella 9:23 ... a million years ago.

Joe Rogan 9:23 I was... I listened to the audio version. So nice to hear your voice, that you, you got a chance to do it.

Steven Rinella 9:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:28 Because I know the first version of it, they hir- hired some actor to do it.

Steven Rinella 9:33 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.

Joe Rogan 10:37 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 10:37 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.

Joe Rogan 11:12 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 11:12 It was the mo- it was like, it was like watching, uh, it was like watching my wife have sex with another man.

Joe Rogan 11:19 Whoa.

Steven Rinella 11:20 It's like, to see, to, to hear... I'm like, "That is not what that book sounds like." You know?

Joe Rogan 11:26 Right.

Steven Rinella 11:26 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.

Joe Rogan 12:14 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.

Steven Rinella 12:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:37 Like w- woke culture and all that kinda shit. And they hired some-

Steven Rinella 12:40 What's, what's ... Can you give me another example?

Joe Rogan 12:42 Another example of-

Steven Rinella 12:43 Of the thought virus.

Joe Rogan 12:44 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.

Steven Rinella 12:50 Okay.

Joe Rogan 12:51 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-

Steven Rinella 13:03 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:03 ... 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.

Steven Rinella 13:12 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:13 And I was like, "This is so crazy." Like, you have a, such a distinct voice. Like, why would you-

Steven Rinella 13:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:18 What, what the fuck are they doing? Like, why would they do that?

Steven Rinella 13:21 Uh, it, uh, I, I think that it leads to a l- it leads to a lot of listener disappointment.

Joe Rogan 13:26 Yes.

Steven Rinella 13:26 At the time I did this, though, I wasn't ... I was just a writer.

Joe Rogan 13:29 Right.

Steven Rinella 13:29 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)

Joe Rogan 13:51 I've had to do that before.

Steven Rinella 13:52 For someone else to do your stand-up.

Joe Rogan 13:54 I had to do that before.

Steven Rinella 13:55 Oh.

Joe Rogan 13:55 Oh, not for someone else to do it, but for, for them to decide whether or not the things that I was saying were approvable.

Steven Rinella 14:01 Oh, I gotcha.

Joe Rogan 14:02 Yeah, I went up there battling-

Steven Rinella 14:03 And without, without the-

Joe Rogan 14:04 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 14:04 ... without all the delivery, I mean, like-

Joe Rogan 14:07 Right.

Steven Rinella 14:08 ... I w- I don't wanna, I'm not trying to conflate that, like, writing a book and, and stand-up, 'cause delivery is vastly more important in what you do, but you, you do get a sense of, like, the cadence of how something goes.

Joe Rogan 14:20 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 14:20 And it feels important to you. But it's kinda like a goofy way to think about it, 'cause people that ... Everyone that read it, everyone that reads it is on their own trip. They don't know your cadence, but somehow it's just offensive to hear them read it aloud.

Joe Rogan 14:32 Yeah. Well, especially-

Steven Rinella 14:32 I don't know if this makes any sense.

Joe Rogan 14:33 It does.

Steven Rinella 14:33 This is, like, peculiar. This is, like, particular to virtually nobody. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:37 No, I think it makes a lot of sense. I mean, particular n- particularly now because your podcast has become so popular and people are used to the way you talk. You have a very unique way of describing and discussing things. And I, I could imagine how offensive it would be if someone just sorta actored it.

Steven Rinella 14:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:54 You know?

Steven Rinella 14:54 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-

Joe Rogan 15:09 You were free.

Steven Rinella 15:11 I, I could j- I, I could spend a couple years just, like, focused on something, you know?

Joe Rogan 15:18 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 15:18 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)

Joe Rogan 15:34 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.

Steven Rinella 16:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:06 Almost always.

Steven Rinella 16:07 For sure, man. I'm watching right now on, on Netflix, I'm watching The Last Dance, um, the Jordan-

Joe Rogan 16:13 Oh.

Steven Rinella 16:13 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 17:02 Hm.

Steven Rinella 17:03 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?

Joe Rogan 17:28 No, it does. Yeah, it does.

Steven Rinella 17:30 I remember you telling me you have three jobs.

Joe Rogan 17:31 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 17:32 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:32 I do.

Steven Rinella 17:33 Do you jump from one to the other?

Joe Rogan 17:34 Uh, they connect.

Steven Rinella 17:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:36 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.

Steven Rinella 17:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 17:59 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-

Steven Rinella 18:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:29 I can just express myself.So, all th- they feed into each other.

Steven Rinella 18:33 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?

Joe Rogan 18:45 It's easier than ever.

Steven Rinella 18:46 Really?

Joe Rogan 18:47 Yeah. It's interesting. (laughs)

Steven Rinella 18:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:49 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-

Steven Rinella 19:08 Yeah, and you're being, you're being conservative with that number. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:11 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?

Steven Rinella 19:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:29 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.

Steven Rinella 19:46 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)

Joe Rogan 19:54 Well, it's-

Steven Rinella 19:55 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.

Joe Rogan 20:19 Yeah. It's way better. Well, it's-

Steven Rinella 20:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:21 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-"

Steven Rinella 20:30 People are like, "Ooh, tell me more." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:31 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.

Steven Rinella 21:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:24 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.

Steven Rinella 21:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:30 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-"

Steven Rinella 21:46 Oh, in litigation, like for-

Joe Rogan 21:47 Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Rinella 21:47 ... for free speech issues. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:49 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.

Steven Rinella 22:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:44 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-

Steven Rinella 22:59 Really?

Joe Rogan 22:59 ... for All. Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Rinella 22:59 Yeah, I'm not gonna argue about that, but ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:01 This is why I am, this is why I am. I think that it's not a bad idea to have a certain amount of money y- where you, you, you give it to people in times like this COVID pandemic.

Steven Rinella 23:14 Mm.

Joe Rogan 23:14 When you look at this pandemic, if people had a certain amount of money that came to them every month, and they didn't have to worry about food, and they didn't have to worry about housing, like, they were taken care of, y- you could see how it would be easier to get back on track. Like, the way people are today, where more than 30+% can't pay their rent, they're on the verge of eviction, and all the protections against eviction are about to run out.

Steven Rinella 23:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:38 Like, that-

Steven Rinella 23:38 I'm with you.

Joe Rogan 23:39 This is, this is a great example of where you do need big government. Th- this, this pandemic is the best example ever. Or at least some sort of organized charitable, uh, you know, c- some, some sort of charitable organization where they really know how to take care of people that run into hard times, especially hard times like this where it's through no fault of your own. The real argument against universal basic income is the same argument against a lot of, uh, a lot of people who use ag- against welfare that, like, you, you remove incentive. You give people free money and you remove their incentive, you remove their motivation, and then you develop a whole class of people that relies on this and they've com- become accustomed to it, and it's, uh, actually terrible for them, it's terrible for everybody else.

Steven Rinella 24:25 Yeah, uh-

Joe Rogan 24:26 I see that argument too.

Steven Rinella 24:27 That's what, when I look at that issue, uh, that's one of the things I think about is, you know, I don't even want to pretend that I don't view things through my own lens, but when I look at myself-... um, at pivotal points in my life and tryin' to get goin', um, the fact that I was intensely motivated by just trying to find a way to pay my rent and my cellphone bill.

Joe Rogan 24:58 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 24:59 Like, intensely motivated-

Joe Rogan 25:00 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 25:01 ... by that. And I do wonder, like, if you had alleviated me from that, the, the, the, what path I might've gone down. And I don't think of myself as being, like, a, a, weird or that different. So, uh, I wonder. But in terms of w- when you're talkin' about the, the censorship and woke culture is, there's this guy I work with, Byron, and he was kinda, I, I feel like I'm sorta capturing his sentiment. He was k- uh, pondering how, if you think about the, in the, in the, in the '60s, right, that it was like, the right, you know, the right, they were the squares, you know? They were the ones like, "Tsk, tsk, tsk." Like, the disapproving, you know, "What are they doing now?" And he was kind of, he was noticing that the, the how, (laughs) the, the left has sort of taken over this, like, air of disapproval.

Joe Rogan 25:53 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Steven Rinella 25:54 Like, "Oh, my goodness. How could that young man say that?" You know?

Joe Rogan 25:58 Yeah, it's a lack of tolerance-

Steven Rinella 26:00 And it's like they've switched. They've switched.

Joe Rogan 26:00 ... to alternative perspectives. Yeah.

Steven Rinella 26:02 Yeah. "He, someone should tell that-"

Joe Rogan 26:03 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 26:03 ... "young man to stop that nonsense."

Joe Rogan 26:05 You know what happened? Social media. That's what happened. People got the ability to complain where other people are gonna listen, where there's, there's just, there's so much signal out there. There's so much noise. So many people have the opportunity to complain about things, and they're also formulating their complaints in a way they hope will resonate with people that really have no dog in the fight.

Steven Rinella 26:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 26:27 So, they, they just want to say something that people go, "Oh, that guy's got a good point," click, "I'll give him a little heartbeat for that."

Steven Rinella 26:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:34 You know? (laughs) It's-

Steven Rinella 26:35 You, you know what I wanted to ask you about, man? I, I know that you, uh, you've said this for as long as I've known you, um, that you don't, like, s- you don't, you don't pay attention to social media comments. On, on a recent episode of yours I heard you put it that, that, uh, you post something and run away.

Joe Rogan 26:51 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 26:52 Um, but do you ever, like, late at night, like, sneak a peek?

Joe Rogan 26:56 No.

Steven Rinella 26:56 Like, do you break... So you really don't break your own rule?

Joe Rogan 26:58 No, never at night.

Steven Rinella 27:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:01 Imagine if you see something at night, then you're, "Fuck that guy," and then it rolls around in your head. (laughs)

Steven Rinella 27:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:06 That's terrible. No, at night I, I don't... If I d- watch anything on my phone at night, it's super innocuous. Like, I like watching pool. I like watching pool games.

Steven Rinella 27:15 Gotcha.

Joe Rogan 27:16 Uh, I, I like watching, like, maybe a science video or somethin' like that, something very uncontroversial and innocuous. I don't allow myself to get into conflict at night.

Steven Rinella 27:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:25 It, I think that's very bad for your sleep and bad for your head. If, if something bothers you, you know, even something that is, uh, even if I agree with them, like, even if someone says something like, "Oh, he was kind of a, a, you know, ignorant when he said that," or, "This is a stupid thing. This is a bad perspective," I'm, even if I agree with the person that's saying that, I don't wanna s- I don't wanna read that at night. I prob- I don't mind reading it in the morning and then thinking, going, "Yeah, good point."

Steven Rinella 27:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:50 "Yeah, I coulda handled that better," or, "Yeah, maybe I should've looked at it this way." You know, I'm not without fault, but I don't think it's good to read that shit at night. But reading that shit at any time, like, I'm my worst fucking critic. I hate everything I do.

Steven Rinella 28:03 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:04 So if, if, if someone is, like, just agreeing with the perspectives that I already have about things that I, I should've said differently or... And the, the other thing is, like, most of the things I'm criticized on, it's like thinking on the fly. Like, this, like, doin' this, like, I, I don't have any idea what I'm about to say, right? Like, you don't either. We're just talkin', so words pop into your head, ideas pop and you try to express 'em. It doesn't always work out, and sometimes you're tired, sometimes you're hungover, sometimes you're, you're not feelin' so good. Something, like, your brain doesn't always fire at the exact same way. Like, my car is remarkably consistent, right? You get in your car, as long as it's tuned up, it's, you hit the gas, it responds in a way that's, uh, very consistent.

Steven Rinella 28:43 Yeah, that's a good point, man.

Joe Rogan 28:44 My brain's not that consistent. My brain sometimes is like a six-cylinder, and sometimes it's like a fuckin' supercharged V8.

Steven Rinella 28:51 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:51 (laughs) It's, it varies a lot, you know? And it d- it d- and then also, sometimes subjects come up that, uh, I didn't anticipate. Like, th- occasionally I'll talk about something where I'm deeply studied on it, and, and, like, so- it'll come up and I'll go, "Oh, no, no, no. This is why that is," and I'm, I get very excited and I have a very clear idea of everything that's nuanced about that particular subject. But sometimes things come up and I'm like, "Oh, yeah, hmm," and I'm in the process of talking, I'm kinda workin' it out in my own head, and I'm not exactly sure how I think about it. And I have to kinda formulate opinions on the fly, or formulate a descriptive on the fly, or try to tell a story that maybe I haven't really worked out in my head and I'm tryin' to tell it, i- while I'm thinking about it, I'm also talking. Doesn't always work out that good.

Steven Rinella 29:38 Yeah. Uh, I could... There's a thing I'm thinkin' about that's very similar to this. Um, ah, nevermind.

Joe Rogan 29:48 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 29:49 (laughs) I was gonna tell you an example of a thing that someone said to me that struck me as really funny, and then I wanted to go and tell people what they said, but then I'm like, "Shit, I don't know if I can tell people that they said that."

Joe Rogan 29:59 Oh, it's a weird one?

Steven Rinella 30:00 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 30:00 I get it. Do you, are you enjoying doing podcasts? Is it...

Steven Rinella 30:05 Man, yeah. Uh, it has, it's my... So of all, of, of the things I do, okay? O- of the, the, the various things I do for, you know, a living, um, it's the thing I enjoy most actually doing it, right? Like, having a, a guest on, um, for, for inst- there's, there's this guest we have, uh, I, I bring him up 'cause I was thinkin' of him ear- this guy Jim, Jim Hefflefinger from Arizona. Um, I bring him up because we're talkin' about criticism. Um, I'll always read criticism that he sends.

Joe Rogan 30:46 Mm.

Steven Rinella 30:46 If he listens to something or, or-

Joe Rogan 30:47 Right.

Steven Rinella 30:47 ... and he's like, "That's just not right."... it, it's not coming from a mean place. It's coming from a place where he is trying to be additive to a conversation.

Joe Rogan 30:55 Right.

Steven Rinella 30:55 And he'll send me some things and be like, "Hey man, you might, um... This is a thing you should think about and, and maybe wanna clarify." Like, I will open that email every single time. And he gives me a lot of them.

Joe Rogan 31:03 Yeah, that's different. That's like a person, you know-

Steven Rinella 31:04 It's a, it's a beautiful relationship, you know?

Joe Rogan 31:06 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 31:06 And it's like... Uh, but, but all critic- criticism doesn't go that way, 'cause people like to... People want to see people bleed.

Joe Rogan 31:13 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 31:14 Right? But here's this guy that, like, doesn't wanna see people bleed. He just wants to advance the conversation. But having, you know, to, to ha- the time I had him on, I had... And we were having a conversation about biology, um, wildlife management. And I'm just like, the whole time, I'm like, thrilled by what I'm hearing.

Joe Rogan 31:31 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 31:32 Like, thrilled by the presentation, thrilled by what I'm hearing. It's great information. It's delivered well. Um, that, if you had a joy meter in your head, like of all the things that, like, you actually do, that to me is, is... That interaction to me is great.

Joe Rogan 31:49 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 31:49 Um-

Joe Rogan 31:49 'Cause you're getting something out.

Steven Rinella 31:50 ... In the moment.

Joe Rogan 31:51 You're learning. Yeah.

Steven Rinella 31:51 Yeah. Whereas writing, um... Yeah, it's almost trite to say, but like, like, I, I don't... I, I, I kinda hate the actual act of doing it.

Joe Rogan 32:02 Mm.

Steven Rinella 32:02 Not enjoyable. Like, actually doing it is not enjoyable.

Joe Rogan 32:05 Totally.

Steven Rinella 32:05 Everything that comes out of it, I love. Doing it is not enjoyable.

Joe Rogan 32:08 It's such a common thing to say. I mean-

Steven Rinella 32:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:10 ... so many writers find... I mean, Hunter S. Thompson, you know, famously hated writing.

Steven Rinella 32:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:14 Thought it was a torturous thing to do.

Steven Rinella 32:16 Didn't like doing it. I remember the writer, Ian Frazier saying to me that when he was young and wanted to be a writer, he imagined himself sitting at his typewriter, chuckling to himself.

Joe Rogan 32:24 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 32:25 Which is like, isn't the reality. Even like when I get, uh, you know, when we're working on an episode, a, a show episode, and I get a rough cut, I don't get a, um... When I open it, I open it with a sense of dread.

Joe Rogan 32:39 Mm.

Steven Rinella 32:40 Not with like, "Oh, boy, it's here." It's not... Like, that's not how I feel.

Joe Rogan 32:44 Mm-hmm.

Steven Rinella 32:44 I open it, and I'm like, "Ugh."

Joe Rogan 32:46 That's how I feel when I edit my stand-up specials. Even if I know they were killer, even if I know I killed, I know I was there, standing ovation, everybody cheered, everybody laughed. "Fuck."

Steven Rinella 32:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:57 Sit down, I'm like, "Jesus." And I have to go over it, you know, and try to find what's the best camera angle and how to... You know?

Steven Rinella 33:04 Yeah. But I, I, I do, I do like it a great deal. Um, it's funny that, that you're running... There's so... It, it changes conversation a little bit when you're talking to someone. Like, if I have someone really good on, I'll sometimes... Or someone that, that is laying a lot of stuff on me that I wish I retained, I'll have to go back and re-listen to it, 'cause it's kind of amazing. Um, I've always prided myself on, uh, being really good at remembering what people said. Um, like, if I'm fighting with my wife, and later we're fighting about the fight.

Joe Rogan 33:37 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 33:38 And she's like, "Well, you said..." I said, "No, no, no. No, that's not what I said. I said, 'Quote,' and you said, 'Quote.'" And I'll go to the grave with that, right?

Joe Rogan 33:46 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 33:46 Like, I'm very good at remembering-

Joe Rogan 33:49 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 33:49 ... what people said. And I'm shocked when I re-listen to a guest that I'm really excited to have on, and they're like, "It's an information-heavy episode."

Joe Rogan 33:56 Mm-hmm.

Steven Rinella 33:56 I'm shocked at all the stuff I missed. It makes me wonder, like, just the fact that there's a microphone and headphones, like, somehow I lose my ability to be a person who just, like, locks info up.

Joe Rogan 34:05 Well, it's also because you're in the process of not just listening to what they're saying, but you're steering the conversation. You're trying to figure out how to respond, when to step in, when to not step in. You have questions. You don't know when to ask them. "Should I hold up? Would I let this guy continue this thought? I, I have to stop here because there's something weird, but I don't wanna make this uncomfortable. I don't wanna miss anything, uh."

Steven Rinella 34:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:25 So there's all this shit going on with it. You're sort of managing the conversation. Like, it's not as simple as you just sitting there talking to somebody. You're talking to someone, and you know that other people are gonna listen.

Steven Rinella 34:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:36 And it, it doesn't seem like it's an art form, but it's definitely an art form. You get better at it, and you also develop a way of expressing yourself that's entertaining for people to hear. It's not just that you're talking. You're talking in a way where it smoothly and comfortably enters other peoples' brains.

Steven Rinella 34:55 Yes. Uh, one of the ways I've noticed that, and I even had that problem (clears throat) ... Excuse me. I even had that problem when we were having our little preamble chitchat here. Uh, the presence of a microphone, um, changes my thought patterns. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:16 Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. You get, you do get used to it, though.

Steven Rinella 35:20 Yeah, like, I'm like-

Joe Rogan 35:21 After 1,500 episodes.

Steven Rinella 35:22 ... I feel like, I feel way less inclined to say something really indefensible. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:25 Oh, yeah. Well, that's just the ka... Well, that's the problem with the early days of my podcast, is that we didn't have any thought that people were actually listening. Like, when I r- did the earliest versions of the podcast, like, you know, 10 years ago, nine years ago, we would just get barbecued, and, uh, we would just talk shit as if no one was in the room.

Steven Rinella 35:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:44 We would talk sh-... Like, when... If I sat down with Joey Diaz or Ari Shaffir or one of my comedian friends, we would just say the most ridiculous, preposterous shit, because that's how we talk to each other when there's no one around, 'cause that's the things that we find funny. Like, when you're talking to a comedian, like, regular things aren't as funny. It's like, we've seen... It's like if you're, if you're gonna show a, a booboo to a guy who's an ER doctor, you got a cut on your finger, you're like, "That's not impressive. I just saw a guy get shot in the head."

Steven Rinella 36:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:13 Like, he needs, he needs more.

Steven Rinella 36:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:14 I need more. I wanna see an amputation. Like, show me... You wanna freak me out?

Steven Rinella 36:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:18 You know, show, show me something that's r- like, a real injury. And that's how comedians are. It's like, th- there's an unfortunate aspect to those conversations. If you take those conversations and you edit them out of context and then show it to people, people, "Oh my God, these guys are horrible human beings." Like, no, we're comedians, and we're just talking shit.

Steven Rinella 36:37 Yeah, you'd have to- You'd have to preface... If you went around saying, "Wouldn't it be funny if someone thought?"

Joe Rogan 36:44 Right, but even then, they would cut that part out.

Steven Rinella 36:46 (laughs) No, that's what I'm saying. But that's, like, what a conversation is like-

Joe Rogan 36:49 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 36:49 ... when you're just goofing on stuff with your friends. But you, but you just leave out the part where you say, like, "Wouldn't it be funny if someone thought?"

Joe Rogan 36:53 Yeah.Right.

Steven Rinella 36:55 And you just say it as though it's coming from you.

Joe Rogan 36:57 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 36:57 But everyone, it's understood that you mean like, "Wouldn't it be funny if?"

Joe Rogan 37:00 Right. Yes. Exactly.

Steven Rinella 37:02 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:02 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.

Steven Rinella 37:22 Oh.

Joe Rogan 37:24 You remember Adam Curry?

Steven Rinella 37:24 I never put it together that that was the same person.

Joe Rogan 37:26 That's Adam Curry. Yeah. Beautiful, handsome man. He had those flowing locks.

Steven Rinella 37:29 Oh, yeah. No, I've known this, but I never like-

Joe Rogan 37:31 Yeah. He runs the No-

Steven Rinella 37:33 Never put it together it was the same person.

Joe Rogan 37:35 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.

Steven Rinella 37:42 He used to kind of wear like that Michael Jackson leather jacket.

Joe Rogan 37:44 Oh, yeah. Look at-

Steven Rinella 37:45 With the fold-over flaps.

Joe Rogan 37:46 Look at the handsome bastard. Look at that.

Steven Rinella 37:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:49 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 37:49 Oh.

Joe Rogan 37:50 Look at that hair. Woo.

Steven Rinella 37:51 That's the same dude.

Joe Rogan 37:52 Yeah, that's the same dude. Now show a picture of him today. Uh, up, right there. Bam. That's him today. Yeah.

Steven Rinella 37:59 Damn.

Joe Rogan 37:59 Yeah. He's the original. He's the OG. So he-

Steven Rinella 38:02 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.

Joe Rogan 38:09 Right. But you hadn't put him together, "Oh, that's the same guy."

Steven Rinella 38:11 Oh, no. That's, it's amazing.

Joe Rogan 38:12 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steven Rinella 38:12 Huh.

Joe Rogan 38:12 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.

Steven Rinella 38:22 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 38:22 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.

Steven Rinella 38:59 There's actually a censor standing right next to me right now. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 39:01 With a gun. (laughs)

Steven Rinella 39:03 Um-

Joe Rogan 39:04 It's, it's exactly the same. It's, it's such a skeleton crew. And it ... To have something, like we did an election show last night that seven million people saw. To have something that has a total skeleton crew doesn't make any sense that it could reach tho- those kind of numbers. So this, this new form of communication, it hasn't been figured out yet.

Steven Rinella 39:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:24 Like no one, no one exactly knows its potential. No one knows exactly what the influence o- of it is. There's a lot of mainstream media people that are really upset by it. It's also one of the reasons why I get so criticized. People get so mad. They don't like the fact that I have this much influence. They don't like the fact that so many people are paying attention. Th- that it doesn't seem right, you know? That this is a, this is not from the New York Times, this is not from NBC, this is not from whatever. It's ... But all of a sudden, all these people are watching it. Th- but this is a new thing. So n- people haven't figured this out yet, even though it's been around for 13-plus years. They're still going, "Wait, what the fuck is this?" Like four years ago, no one took podcasts seriously.

Steven Rinella 40:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:02 Four years ago, Howard Stern had an episode where he was mocking podcasts and saying, "Why don't you just yell out the window? No one's listening."

Steven Rinella 40:09 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:09 (laughs) He was like, "You're wasting your time. You're wasting your ..." And he was making fun of Adam Corolla for doing it and making fun of-

Steven Rinella 40:14 Oh, is that right?

Joe Rogan 40:15 Yeah, yeah. Making fun of people for doing it. And no, I think part of that was also he's a smart guy and he was also in the middle of his renegotiation with Sirius Satellite Radio and he was probably mocking comparisons to what he does with this huge organization, Sirius XM.

Steven Rinella 40:31 Yeah. Is he was like, he used to be-

Joe Rogan 40:32 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 40:32 ... like the lapdog of FM and then became-

Joe Rogan 40:34 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 40:34 ... like the lapdog of satellite.

Joe Rogan 40:35 Yeah. Yeah. But it's, um ... I don't remember what my ori- original point was. But no one-

Steven Rinella 40:40 Brand new. Brand new.

Joe Rogan 40:41 This is, this is a fucking really new thing.

Steven Rinella 40:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:44 I mean-

Steven Rinella 40:45 I've told, I think I tell you this every time I come on your show, but the first time I, I, like ever heard the word podcast, I'm not joking, I had never heard the word until Helen Cho-

Joe Rogan 40:57 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 40:57 ... told me about going on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Joe Rogan 41:03 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 41:03 And I was like, "A what?" I could, I could go and show you where I was sitting when I heard it.

Joe Rogan 41:08 I remember you telling me that.

Steven Rinella 41:08 And she's like, "You just need to go."

Joe Rogan 41:10 (laughs) She is right.

Steven Rinella 41:11 I was like, "It's a what? A what?"

Joe Rogan 41:13 Helen Cho.

Steven Rinella 41:13 What? That's, that'll never work. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:17 (laughs) Well, that was a lot of people's attitude. M- my, even like people that I was really close with. Like, there's a Comedy Store documentary that just came out, it was a five-part documentary.

Steven Rinella 41:27 Oh. Huh.

Joe Rogan 41:27 In one of the episodes, my friend Tom Segura was, uh, who was on like episode two or some shit, like he was, he was on early, early. He's been on a fucking 100-plus times. I have no idea how many times he's been on. But he was there, uh, in the early days and he, he's ... In the, the documentary, he was talking to, uh, Brian Redban and he was saying like, "What is he doing?" Like, "Why is he doing this?" And Redban was like, "I don't know. Some people are listening." And he's like, "And you go to the, the list and it's like 2,000 people. Like, 2,000 people were w- watching this? That's it?"

Steven Rinella 41:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:58 "And you're spending three hours doing this fucking stupid show for 2,000 people for no money? Like, why are you doing this?"

Steven Rinella 42:04 Yeah. But would you, w- do you imagine yourself being a visionary or do you imagine yourself being that, um, that, you know, it was lucky?

Joe Rogan 42:15 Lucky. Yeah.

Steven Rinella 42:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:17 No vision. No. I've expected it to be the way it was forever.

Steven Rinella 42:21 Like, some day they'll make a, if they make a movie, like The Social Network, not The Social Dilemma, but they make a movie like The Social Network which is about like Zuckerberg-

Joe Rogan 42:28 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 42:28 ... and those guys that come on Facebook. They'll ma- like when they do the story of you, um, I wonder if they'll do it that, right, that you had a vision.

Joe Rogan 42:39 Well, let me put that-

Steven Rinella 42:40 And we're gonna let cre- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:41 (laughs) Let me put that to bed right now. I thought it was gonna be the way it was back then forever.

Steven Rinella 42:46 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:47 No one paid attention, very small amount of people, but fun. It was a great way for ... Look, I loved doing morning radio. I used to love doing it. I hated getting up.

Steven Rinella 42:56 Oh, like the call-ins to promote your shows?

Joe Rogan 42:58 Yeah. Well, not call-ins. I'd go there. Like when I, if I, say if I was going to Phoenix. I-

Steven Rinella 43:02 You liked those things?

Joe Rogan 43:03 Loved it. It was fun.... I'd get up in the morning, smoke a joint, go in there with my friends, and we'd talk shit. And if it was a radio station-

Steven Rinella 43:09 And he'd be, like, the zany guy-

Joe Rogan 43:11 Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Rinella 43:11 ... and then you'd have his, like, his, his-

Joe Rogan 43:13 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steven Rinella 43:13 ... female counterpart-

Joe Rogan 43:15 Yep.

Steven Rinella 43:15 ... who put him in his place.

Joe Rogan 43:16 (laughs) Exactly.

Steven Rinella 43:17 And you had to go in there and-

Joe Rogan 43:19 Exactly.

Steven Rinella 43:19 ... do it at, at 7:00 in the morning. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:20 Yeah, exactly. I used to love it. I used to love it because I would go in as, like, with Ari or Joey or someone like that, and we would go and we'd have some fun. And we'd say, "Hey, we're gonna be at The Improv this weekend." And then th- they would say, "So, uh, you know, what's been going on? What are you into?" And then you have a story about this and about that. But that is fun. That's fun. And then you leave there and you have a good time with them. You know, like, eight out of 10 of 'em were a good time. D- two out of 10 were like, "This guy's gross." Like, "This, this show sucks." Like, th- there's... Some people were clunky. They just weren't-

Steven Rinella 43:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:49 They're not good at it. They're just-

Steven Rinella 43:50 Oh, dude, I'm, like, w- when I used to have to do that for books, it was... I just thought that was the worst thing that could possibly happen-

Joe Rogan 43:55 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 43:55 ... to a person.

Joe Rogan 43:56 But when you're high-

Steven Rinella 43:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:57 ... and it's early in the morning and you went to bed, like three hours ago and you just-

Steven Rinella 44:01 At le-

Joe Rogan 44:01 ... get up, like-

Steven Rinella 44:01 ... at least you're dealing comedy. To go and be-

Joe Rogan 44:03 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 44:03 ... like, "Well-"

Joe Rogan 44:04 Exactly.

Steven Rinella 44:04 ... "You know, if you go back to the Lewis and Clark expedition, you'll find..." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:07 Nothing was expected of me, right? I was just, like, this silly person who hosted Fear Factor or was on a sitcom and I would, uh, come in and I would be in town to tell jokes. And, like, that was what it was f- so I always thought, like, particularly when I did, uh, if I did, like, The Opie and Anthony Show in New York, that was a really fun one because those guys were on b- well, when I first started doing it, it was on the regular radio too, but they were on, uh, XM, and when they were on XM, you could swear. I was like, "This is amazing."

Steven Rinella 44:35 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:35 You could swear. You could just go on... And it was a hang, like you'd have, like, four or five comedians in the room and we'd all just be shitting on each other and laughing and, and you'd get out of there like, "God, that felt so good. It was so fun." Then you'd go get some breakfast, take a nap, and go do your shows. And-

Steven Rinella 44:49 Would you, uh... Did you used to do Stern ever?

Joe Rogan 44:51 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But that was a different thing because Stern was, like, at the helm. It was never a hang, you know? It was The Howard Stern Show. It was Howard Stern asking questions, you responding to those questions. And, you know, it was very historic, that show. Like, he was the, he's the first guy. He, like... If it wasn't for him, uh, h- there would be none of this. Like, there was guys before, you know, there was, like... I guess Imus was one of those guys. I, I was never an Imus guy. But he was the guy who's nationally known as the man who's, who had this, uh, outrageous radio show.

Steven Rinella 45:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:27 You know? So... And that sort of helped The Opie and Anthony Show come to fruition. And then that... I think The Opie and Anthony Show was the, in a lot of ways, the nexus. It was a, it was a lot of ways, it was the idea that led to podcasts. But when I was doing it, there was no thought in my head like, "This is gonna be just like The Opie and Anthony Show," or, "This is gonna be just like Howard Stern." The just y- just you wait, just you wait.

Steven Rinella 45:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:52 There was none of that.

Steven Rinella 45:53 I, uh-

Joe Rogan 45:53 I would just keep showing up, and then one day l- I was at the Chicago Theater. I did this gig at the Chicago Theater, it was 3,700 people, right? Sold out show. And I go... I had a story I was gonna tell. I go, "How many k- how many people listen to the podcast?" "Yeah." (screams)

Steven Rinella 46:08 Oh, is that right?

Joe Rogan 46:09 And I went, "Oh, shit."

Steven Rinella 46:11 I'm putting that into my movie, man.

Joe Rogan 46:13 And I remember thinking, "Oh."

Steven Rinella 46:13 It's gonna be called... My movie's gonna be called The Joe Rogan Experience. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:17 (laughs) But I remember very clearly being, "Oh, no." Like, uh, like, I... Like almost a sense of dread. Like, "Shit." Like, "This is, uh... This has gotten to a place where I didn't know where it was and it's already there."

Steven Rinella 46:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:31 'Cause I, I'd been just doing it... You know what? And I think by that time, we were doing it at the Icehouse. We had this little room off the, uh, the, The Comedy Club at the Icehouse. We'd show up there and do it there. And, uh, it was just bizarre. I was like, "What happened?" Like, 'cause you're just doing it like this, right? You don't have to just do-

Steven Rinella 46:46 Yeah, but you know, you know what you could say if you wanted to twist this and make it... I think the, a thing you could say in your own defense is... Maybe I'm wrong here, but maybe you knew something. Maybe you knew more than you thought because you probably weren't doing 10 goofy things.

Joe Rogan 47:03 How so? What do you mean?

Steven Rinella 47:04 Meaning, like, let's say I, um, s- went out and started 20 business, 20 goofy little businesses.

Joe Rogan 47:12 Right.

Steven Rinella 47:13 Right? And then at, at some point, like, "Holy shit," like-

Joe Rogan 47:17 One of 'em took off.

Steven Rinella 47:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:18 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 47:18 Turns out my business of selling old, um, ranch-worn leather gloves to people who, like, you know, wish they had that look, uh, took off and made a boatload of money. And then later I'm like, "Yeah, you know, I always knew." But people will be like-

Joe Rogan 47:34 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 47:34 ... "Dude, you were always in, like, you did all kinds of stupid... Everything, nothing ever worked out for you. Then all of a sudden, like, this thing takes off and you wanna now act like you, like, saw it coming?" So I, I think that probably in the, you know, probably in the back... I- it's good that you don't act this way, but probably in the back of your head, you probably recognize that you were on... Like, maybe you recognize that you were onto something-

Joe Rogan 47:52 Nope.

Steven Rinella 47:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:53 Definitely not. I'm telling-

Steven Rinella 47:54 Dude, I'm trying to, I'm trying to help you out here, man.

Joe Rogan 47:55 I'm telling... Don't help me out.

Steven Rinella 47:56 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:56 I'm telling you, it's not the case. It's just dumb luck. I, I s- I have a certain amount of brain damage. I don't know how much I have, but definitely have a little. And I think part of-

Steven Rinella 48:05 From get-

Joe Rogan 48:05 ... from getting hit in the head-

Steven Rinella 48:06 ... from, from pharmaceuticals, or not pharmaceuticals, but-

Joe Rogan 48:07 Just getting punched.

Steven Rinella 48:08 Gotcha. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:08 For sure. There's cer- there's a certain amount. Uh, it, it's, it's inevitable.

Steven Rinella 48:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:12 From the time I was 15 till I was 21, I got hit a lot. There's, there's must be some. And because of... I think there's a certain amount of not give a fuck that comes with that. (laughs)

Steven Rinella 48:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:24 And it, like, liter- like, like-

Steven Rinella 48:25 You think that was kicked into your head?

Joe Rogan 48:27 This is... I'm, I'm not joking.

Steven Rinella 48:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:29 Sam Kinison and, uh, Roseanne Barr are the perfect examples that I use. Both of them were normal people and then they get hit by cars. Sam Kinison got hit by a truck and his brother, who talks about it in his, uh, book called Brother Sam-

Steven Rinella 48:41 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 48:42 ... his brother Bill wrote a book about it. It's like, there was one Sam and then Sam got hit by a car and became a totally different person-

Steven Rinella 48:48 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 48:48 ... because of head trauma, and then became wild and impulsive and just, uh, became a maniac. That-

Steven Rinella 48:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:53 ... was the Sam Kinison that we all knew and loved. Same thing with Roseanne. One of the things, when I was defending Roseanne when she got in big trouble when she came on the podcast-... to talk about it. I wanted people to understand what I knew about Roseanne.

Steven Rinella 49:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:06 That Roseanne was in a mental health institute. She was in, she was institutionalized for nine months after her car accident. She was hit by a car walking across the street when she was 15 years old.

Steven Rinella 49:15 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 49:15 And just fucking wrecked. Like, massive brain trauma. Like, really never the same again. Couldn't count. She was great at mathematics, she was a really, an excellent student, and then hit by a car. And then, just wild and impulsive. And they locked her in a mental institution for nine months. She was crazy. She's like, like, certifiably crazy. Medicated on a whole bunch of different things. And my, my take was, like, to, to make her responsible for things she said when she's been rewarded her whole life for saying outrageous shit, and she's on Xanax, and she's smoking pot, and she's drunk, and you just, you just wanna label her as this awful, horrible person when America's loved her for her whole life for being the same, same way, for being wild and impulsive. But my point is that those two people were created that way from brain trauma.

Steven Rinella 50:01 Hmm. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:02 It made them wilder. There has ... There, there's no doubt I have some brain damage. (laughs) There's no doubt. And when, when people say, like, "Why aren't you worried about criticism?" Or, "Why don't you ..." I think there's some of that there. There's gotta be some of it where I, I, I, I've had enough trauma, just the right amount, just enough of these where it doesn't bother me that much.

Steven Rinella 50:26 God-

Joe Rogan 50:26 You know?

Steven Rinella 50:26 ... I'm gonna have you just full out-

Joe Rogan 50:27 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 50:29 ... wop me on the head.

Joe Rogan 50:31 You think about the things that hold people back-

Steven Rinella 50:32 Just the right amount.

Joe Rogan 50:33 The things that, things that hold people back. One of the big things that hold people back is fear, right?

Steven Rinella 50:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:38 They're worr- they're worried. They're worried about the repercussions, they're worried about, uh, other people's reactions, they're worried about how you'll be viewed, they're worried about all these things. I don't have a lot of that for whatever reason. I mean, I don't wanna hurt anybody's feelings. I'm a, I'm a, a genuinely nice person. But if someone doesn't like me, I'm like, "What the fuck am I gonna do?"

Steven Rinella 50:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:59 I just keep moving. I think what, what happened with me with podcasts is that all these people were telling me, "You're wasting your time." All these people were telling me not to do it, like, "Why, why are you wasting your time doing this?" And all I was thinking is, "Eh, I like doing it. I'm just gonna keep doing it." Like, I just didn't, it didn't ... Like, agents wanted, had nothing to do with it. Agents to this day that, that I have that could have gotten in on the podcast, could have gotten a piece, didn't want it.

Steven Rinella 51:26 Do they double back around now?

Joe Rogan 51:27 Oh, yeah.

Steven Rinella 51:28 (laughs) Imagine.

Joe Rogan 51:30 Oh, yeah, they def-

Steven Rinella 51:31 Imagine they do.

Joe Rogan 51:31 But they, they had a chance. Like, "I need help with ads." Like, "Ads? Like, what the fuck are you doing? You're wasting your time."

Steven Rinella 51:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:37 "Like, we're, we're here doing real things. We don't have time for this." Like, they didn't want to have anything to do with it. This is just ... But I didn't, I didn't have some fucking grand vision. I just know what I like to do. And when I like to do something, I go, "Oh, I like to do that. I'm just gonna keep doing that." Like, this is the same thing with martial arts, the same thing with bow hunting. Like, the amount of time that I spend practicing archery is fucking preposterous. It's ridiculous for a person who is as busy as I am. But that's what I like. I like doing that, so I do that. You know? Like, I take weeks off every year to, to go in the mountains and hunt, 'cause it's ... I like doing that.

Steven Rinella 52:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:11 I'm just gonna keep doing that. That's what I like doing.

Steven Rinella 52:13 You know when you ... Earlier w- we were reading up on baculums, and it was saying how baculums had been invented, um-

Joe Rogan 52:20 Multiple times.

Steven Rinella 52:20 ... multiple times, right? And all these dead-end lineages. And you look at something, um, you know, flight, right?

Joe Rogan 52:28 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 52:28 Someone could be excused for coming and, and seeing things, you know, a dragonfly and a bird, right? And imagining that there was a, uh, like, an event that, that spawned these things, right?

Joe Rogan 52:43 Mm-hmm.

Steven Rinella 52:43 But in fact, they arrived at this, like, same place. They arrived at the same sort of place with, like, winged flight through completely unrelated channels, you know? They just got there, like, on their own. What's funny about podcasting is pod- as podcasting, uh, takes itself more seriously, it's like you have this sort of convergent ... You know the term, like, divergent evolution and convergent evolution? Convergent evol- there's a convergent evolution with, like, news and podcasting. It, it started out as a r- maybe, like a, a somewhat of a revolt. You know, it was uncontrolled, it was irresponsible, it was goofy. It was, like, a response to. But as it's become, becoming, become formalized with scrutiny, with ideas of responsibility, with, with ideas of, like, making a, um, you know, usable, practical, respected product, there's kind of a convergent evolution of driving it, um, back into the, the thing that maybe it was a response against in the first place.

Joe Rogan 53:47 Exactly. That's where the brain damage comes in.

Steven Rinella 53:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:51 'Cause I ... 'Cause, 'cause I go, "Get the fuck outta here."

Steven Rinella 53:53 That's right, the kick in the head.

Joe Rogan 53:53 That's why I go, "Get the fuck outta here. I'm not doing that." When people say, like, "You can't have people like Alex Jones on the podcast. You can't get drunk on, on a podcast that 10 million people are gonna watch."

Steven Rinella 54:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:04 "You can't smoke pot all the time. You can't do ..." I'm like, "Yes, I can. I've done it the whole time. Like, why am I stopping now?" "Well, now it's a big business. Now you have this big deal. Now, you know, you're, you're ... they're writing articles about you in the New York Times. Like, now you have to stop." But that, that's the way it got there in the first place. The way it got there in the first place is people are tired of seeing these prepackaged p- ... Like, if you see ... Like, here's the best example. Uh, evening news. "Good evening. Hi, I'm Skip-"

Steven Rinella 54:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:31 Fuckface. You know, there's this guy with his fake voice-

Steven Rinella 54:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:35 ... doing this, like, super overproduced thing where they're talking about subjects. The banter in between stories on fake news is, or on news rather, news broadcasts, is the most fake communication known to man. Like, the woman will say something and the guy will go, "Well, that's certainly a crazy story. In other words ..." You know?

Steven Rinella 54:56 "We're gonna go to the bar outside."

Joe Rogan 54:58 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 54:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:58 And then they go to this and that, and they're like, uh, "I find that's a, it's a terrible thing, a terrible tragedy. Amazing, terrible." Like, you could see-

Steven Rinella 55:04 "Really inspiring."

Joe Rogan 55:05 They're, like ... Yeah. And then they go to this and that, and they're like, uh, "I find that's a," uh, "it's a terrible thing, a terrible tragedy. Amazing, terrible." Like, you could see they, like-

Steven Rinella 55:06 "Really inspiring."

Joe Rogan 55:06 They're d- they have these, like, weird little fake interactions. The, the, that is the opposite of podcast.... podcast is real. Like, if that was me and y- y- you played some video about some guy who decided he was gonna try to do a back flip over a Lamborghini and then landed on his head, and I was like... I, I would be like, "W- what... How the fuck does that happen?" Like, you have a baby. Like, you have kids. You have a baby. Like, "Look at my little baby." Like, a... And then your baby starts growing up and you're like, "God, I'm so proud of him. He's..." Look at the little drawing he made. And then it gets to the point where he's on YouTube doing back flips over Lamborghinis and landing on his head. Like, what went wrong?

Steven Rinella 55:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:41 Like, y- That's how a normal human being would talk, but you don't have that when you have a massively overproduced program, when you have all these people that have a vested interest in that being successful. So you have executives, you have producers, you have writers, you have all these people that have a piece of the pie. So you... Instead of having a, a, a Jamie and then a couple of their folks that are security guys out there, instead of that I have, uh, what? 100 people? Like, a normal show that reaches the amount of people that this, this show does, there would be a staff-

Steven Rinella 56:14 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 56:14 ... of 100 people. And those people would all-

Steven Rinella 56:17 Oh, absolutely, man.

Joe Rogan 56:18 ... have insurance.

Steven Rinella 56:18 And they'd have an enormous gate- uh, system of gatekeepers and legal.

Joe Rogan 56:21 Exactly.

Steven Rinella 56:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:22 So... And then the things that you were gonna talk about would be heavily vetted. You, you would have people come in with pieces of paper and they would talk about, "Okay, in the first segment you're gonna discuss the, the, um, whether Pennsylvania's vote is coming in. And let's be real clear that, you know, w- w- here's the, here's the information that you have to go over, and then..." There's none of that here. So y- y- w- whether we're... Whether I'm good or bad, whether I'm right or wrong, at least you know it's just me. This is the thing they were worried about when it goes to Spotify. Like, people were worried, "Oh my God. They're gonna have censors in the room. There's gonna be people telling them what to do." What people are worried about is it becoming overproduced, it becoming something other than what it is, 'cause they know that's the natural course of progression. Somebody gets ahold of something that's wild and untamed and they go, "We gotta harness that and make a lot of money off of it." But the way to make a lot of money off of podcasting is the opposite way, is to leave it wild. But how you gonna leave it wild, though, when all these people are paying attention to it and all these people are criticizing it? You know, as we talked about, there's like... If, uh, uh, a million people know about your show, or 100 million people know about your show, and just 1% of them are mad at you, 1% of 100 million is a million fucking people are mad at you. Even if 99% think you're awesome-

Steven Rinella 57:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:34 ... that one million could make a big dent in your head. You gotta pay attention to it.

Steven Rinella 57:40 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.

Joe Rogan 58:04 What's americium?

Steven Rinella 58:05 It's a radioactive substance.

Joe Rogan 58:07 Oh.

Steven Rinella 58:07 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.

Joe Rogan 58:21 Really?

Steven Rinella 58:22 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?

Joe Rogan 58:45 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 58:46 Okay?

Joe Rogan 58:48 Is this a novel?

Steven Rinella 58:49 No. It's a, it's a, it was a story-

Joe Rogan 58:50 It's a real-

Steven Rinella 58:50 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-

Joe Rogan 59:02 (laughs) How many did he have?

Steven Rinella 59:04 ... and barrels.

Joe Rogan 59:05 How many did he have?

Steven Rinella 59:06 I, uh, I, I, I read it a long time ago.

Joe Rogan 59:08 Wow.

Steven Rinella 59:09 Okay? Just doing his thing. Collecting smoke det-... Collect his- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:14 There he is. Oh my God, look at his face.

Steven Rinella 59:16 So-

Joe Rogan 59:16 Jesus Christ.

Steven Rinella 59:18 Yeah. Hauled away his yard.

Joe Rogan 59:19 Look at his face, like he's got radiation poisoning on his face.

Steven Rinella 59:23 People might regard you as the radioactive Boy Scout.

Joe Rogan 59:27 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 59:27 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.

Joe Rogan 59:39 There's, there's a little bit of that. Um-

Steven Rinella 59:40 And they would be like, "Dude, I understand, but you just can't put that many of those things in one spot."

Joe Rogan 59:47 (laughs) But what's the argument against it? The argument against it would be-

Steven Rinella 59:52 Tell me. I... You tell me. I, I don't hold that viewpoint. I'm just saying I, I like to, um... I like to imagine, um... My brother has emerged as someone who's, like, highly critical of my occupation and I like to hear him out about it.

Joe Rogan 1:00:07 Danny or Matt?

Steven Rinella 1:00:08 No, Matthew.

Joe Rogan 1:00:09 Why?

Steven Rinella 1:00:10 Um-

Joe Rogan 1:00:10 What's he critical of?

Steven Rinella 1:00:11 He, he is... Well, uh, give me the counterargument.

Joe Rogan 1:00:15 No, what's he critical of? You said-

Steven Rinella 1:00:17 Oh, why doesn't he like-

Joe Rogan 1:00:18 He's critical-

Steven Rinella 1:00:18 ... what I do for a living?

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 1:00:19 Because, um, he feels that me and other individuals and lots of people, uh, um, that by talking about and celebrating, um, uh, uh, uh, the act- an activity, uh, in my case hunting and fishing, um, that it creates... That my enthusiasms become infectious and it increases the number of people and diminishes the quality of the experience that, that people who've always hunted will have because of competition.

Joe Rogan 1:00:51 Mm.

Steven Rinella 1:00:52 Very valid argument, right? So I, I, I like to-

Joe Rogan 1:00:55 Uh... It's very-

Steven Rinella 1:00:55 Well, no. No. I, I like to hear him out on it.

Joe Rogan 1:00:57 Mm-hmm.

Steven Rinella 1:00:58 I like to hear him out on it 'cause he's smart.

Joe Rogan 1:00:59 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 1:01:00 You know, he's smart, so I like to hear him out on, like, what he's thinking. I'm only doing the same thing with you by, by... Uh, I don't hold your opinion. Um, I, I don't hold the opinion of someone, but I'm just saying, like, it is... Someone might say, "I get it, Joe. It was all fun."It wasn't supposed to happen, but they would say, like, "But here you are-"

Joe Rogan 1:01:21 Time to pull the plug. (laughs)

Steven Rinella 1:01:22 Like, "Here you are, you now have, um, a level of power that is, um-"

Joe Rogan 1:01:33 Uncontrollable?

Steven Rinella 1:01:34 "... that could be dangerous."

Joe Rogan 1:01:35 But what could be dangerous about it?

Steven Rinella 1:01:38 Picture that, picture that you, uh, picture that you said some- like, it's, it's over now and everybody was all worried about it happening during the election, but picture that you said, like, "Man, I think that, um, if you're in that county, you should go down to the polling place and do X."

Joe Rogan 1:01:58 Well, okay.

Steven Rinella 1:01:58 A lot of dudes, right?

Joe Rogan 1:02:00 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 1:02:00 So you, um, wield, like, a, a, a level of influence, and I think that you probably, uh, now and then bite your tongue.

Joe Rogan 1:02:12 Well, I definitely don't tell people how to vote.

Steven Rinella 1:02:14 No, no, I don't mean you-

Joe Rogan 1:02:15 I don't tell people what to do.

Steven Rinella 1:02:15 I don't mean how to vote, but I mean, like, the... I, I, I was just... I was doing a poor example-

Joe Rogan 1:02:19 Right.

Steven Rinella 1:02:19 ... of the, the-

Joe Rogan 1:02:19 But that's a good example because that would be-

Steven Rinella 1:02:21 Okay, let's say-

Joe Rogan 1:02:21 ... where it could get dangerous.

Steven Rinella 1:02:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:22 Like, what if I had an idea that was really not well thought out and, and not good for the general public, and I was-

Steven Rinella 1:02:29 And you threw it out because it was-

Joe Rogan 1:02:29 ... a proponent of this idea.

Steven Rinella 1:02:30 You threw it out because it was funny?

Joe Rogan 1:02:31 Yeah, yeah. And then I told people to go do it. I thought it'd be fun, a fun stunt. Let's see how many people we can get to, like-

Steven Rinella 1:02:36 Or you're just mu- you're just musing.

Joe Rogan 1:02:37 Yeah, yeah. I could see that. But, uh-

Steven Rinella 1:02:39 And that, that a- that alarms people, because people would do it.

Joe Rogan 1:02:42 Yeah, but I don't do that. Most of what I do is talk about ideas and talk shit, and talk about things that are happening already.

Steven Rinella 1:02:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:49 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 1:02:49 I implored people in Missoula County, Montana, to go vote for my sister-in-law, Juanita Vero, and she won by a landslide.

Joe Rogan 1:02:56 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 1:02:58 But I think she was gonna win anyway. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:03:00 Well, that's awesome. That's a good thing.

Steven Rinella 1:03:03 She's a county commissioner.

Joe Rogan 1:03:04 Well, there you go.

Steven Rinella 1:03:05 I got, I got tangled up in politics there for a minute.

Joe Rogan 1:03:07 There's a real problem with the gatekeepers. There's a real problem with these, uh, heavily produced television shows, heavily produced radio shows, and even now internet shows. There's a real problem with them, is that there's inauthentic voices. They don't resonate with people. I know that's not a real person. That's not a person that's unfiltered. That's a person that's getting scripts, they're wearing makeup, they have a team of people that are attending to them and telling them what to do and how to say it. And there's a lot of other people, again, behind the scenes, that are all, like, paying attention to everything you do, and they'll come in between takes and scenes. You know, there's a, there's an interview with, uh, Donald Trump with, uh, this woman from CBS, very contentious interview, and he wound up putting the whole interview online. Did you... Are you aware of that?

Steven Rinella 1:03:53 No.

Joe Rogan 1:03:54 This woman was, uh, criticizing him and asking him questions, and he was like, "You know, the way you talk to me, you would never talk to Joe Biden like this." And, um, 60 Minutes wound up using a very small percentage. Was it 60 Minutes, Jamie? Yeah, they wound up using a very small piece of it. But during the full one that Donald Trump put out, like, they interrupt the conversation, 'cause one of the producers is like, "The American flag is blowing in the background because of the air conditioning and it's kinda distracting." And he's like, "What? Huh?" And so the guy, like, stops everything 'cause he thinks that the flag is distracting. Like, no one can see the fucking flag. It doesn't matter. Like, what are you talking about? But this is what happens when you get a whole crew of people.

Steven Rinella 1:04:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:35 You get so many chefs in the kitchen, and some guy just decides that he's gonna stop the conversation between the fucking President of the United States, who's getting grilled by this lady, because he doesn't like the way a flag is moving. That, to me, symbolizes everything that's wrong with heavily produced and overly produced television. Or one of the things that's wrong, right? What's really wrong is they push the agenda, they push what you're gonna talk about when... You'll, they'll decide who your guests are. Uh, there, no one has any say on who my guests are. I choose all of them, I choose the day they come in, I choose w- what, uh, what we're gonna talk about. There's... The, the, the conversations are only what I'm interested in, things I'm interested in, so I don't have to fake anything. Like, I love talking to you. I was excited to talk to you today. I got excited. Woke up this morning, "All right, Steve Renell's gonna be here." There's no, like, "Oh, who, who do we have to talk to today?" That shit never happens.

Steven Rinella 1:05:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:24 That's why it resonates. All these f- shows where it's heavily produced and, uh, and, you know, you're just trying to get the biggest celebrities in and... Like, there's a really disturbing, uh, video from, of Howard Stern from, like, 2013 that somebody leaked, and it's him giving some speech in front of all of his employees talking about getting the show to become more popular. "This is what we have to do."

Steven Rinella 1:05:46 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:05:46 "And we have to get, you know, X amount of celeb- we need two A-list and two B-list a week." And I was like, "Wow."

Steven Rinella 1:05:52 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 1:05:52 Yeah, I was like, "Oh, damn." And they're there telling people to make fake Twitter profiles and tweet to celebrities and... When you watch this, it's like, "Gah."

Steven Rinella 1:06:01 Oh, that's too bad.

Joe Rogan 1:06:02 Yeah, exactly. That was my feeling too. It... As a person who was a gigantic fan of him growing up, it's like, I didn't, I never thought he thought like that. I never thought anybody would do that. This is one of the best things about podcasting, at least with s- the way some people do it, it's just authentic. It's just raw. So when people hear it, w- with stumbles and all, they know this is just two, two guys talking, this is just two girls talking. It's what, like, that, uh, that show... What is that called? Uh, Call or Daddy?

Steven Rinella 1:06:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:33 Yeah, that became real popular because it's obviously just these, way these chicks are talking. They just talk that way. They, and, and people are like, "Oh my God." Like, "This is how we talk when we're with our friends." And they, people, it resonates with them. You can't get that on The View. You can't get that on these heavily produced bullshit shows that are on television where you have a million producers and everybody cuts in between commercials and fixes people's hair and you're super self-aware.

Steven Rinella 1:06:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:06:58 That's what happens on those goddamn things. It's weird.

Steven Rinella 1:07:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:00 And then people come in with notes and the producer is like, "Maybe we can bring up this in this episode. I know you like to talk about this, but let's be aware that people think that and you think this, and this is a..." And they say, and we've, we've got sh- it shows that whenever you talk about this, people tune out. So we gotta stop talking about that. So they show, like, this, all this research and all these metrics and, like, they fuck it.And it gets all fucked up. You, what, what resonates with people is authentic, o- o- authentic conversations. And you don't get authenticity when you have overly produced things with 100 people's ideas all shoved into one person's mouth. You d- it doesn't work that way. Th- so the more these podcasts get bigger and bigger, the more they fall, they fall apart, because too many people get involved. You have, you have, t- too many people shift them and mold them and change them, and then they become just like everything else, all these other over-produced things. And, look, there's some over-produced things that are really good, you know, like The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. You could watch it to this day. You're like, "Wow, that's a fucking really good show." But it wouldn't work today. It wouldn't, because now d- it's like you have water in your ears.

Steven Rinella 1:08:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:06 And you don't know you have water in your ear, and then it comes out, and you're like, "Oh, that's what hearing is like. I can hear better." If someone put that water back in your ear, you'd be like, "What the fuck is that water doing in there? I know what it's like to have no water in my ear now."

Steven Rinella 1:08:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:17 That's a bad analogy. But you get what I'm saying.

Steven Rinella 1:08:19 I'm getting what you're saying.

Joe Rogan 1:08:20 S- people are, they're, they're accustomed to this thing now where you, you, you know that's just... There's no filter between you and that person. You're in the room. Like, that's how I feel when I listen to your show. Like, it's you and whoever's in there with you. That's it. There's no, like... One show that I really liked, uh... I've liked a lot of your shows, but one show that I really liked was the one where you're talking to the author whose book got turned into The Revenant, that movie.

Steven Rinella 1:08:45 Yeah. Yeah. Michael Punke.

Joe Rogan 1:08:46 That, that's a great one.

Steven Rinella 1:08:47 Spelled P-U-N-K-E.

Joe Rogan 1:08:48 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 1:08:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:49 That's a great one.

Steven Rinella 1:08:50 I can't remember... No, I think it's, I think he doesn't pronounce the E. Shit. I don't think it's Michael Punke.

Joe Rogan 1:08:55 Punke?

Steven Rinella 1:08:56 I think it's Punke.

Joe Rogan 1:08:56 Yeah.

Steven Rinella 1:08:57 Damn. Sorry, Michael.

Joe Rogan 1:08:59 But you, 'cause you have such a great knowledge of that subject. And, you know, he, he does as well, and you're, you're asking, "What is this?" and, "What is that?" and, "What was it like for you when they, instead of doing it on the planes, they decided to do it in a rain forest in the Pacific Northwest? Like, what the fuck was that like?" And you're t- talking to him like it's c- real clear. There's, this is just you and that guy, and, you know, Yiannis and whoever else is there. There's, there's no agenda. There's no filters.

Steven Rinella 1:09:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:26 There's no producers. So it's, it's intriguing to a person, 'cause it resonates. It gets in the head easy. It, it, it slides right in there.

Steven Rinella 1:09:34 That, that story, though, is a little bit, um... In some ways might have a little bit to do with, uh, a sense of responsibility or something, because I had taken so many swipes over the years at my dis- uh, uh, uh, swipes at the movie, The Revenant.

Joe Rogan 1:09:58 Right.

Steven Rinella 1:09:59 And voiced my dissatisfaction with that movie so much that... I believe it went like this. I believe the author then reached out, or a friend of the author reached out to say, um, "You know, he's really aware of your, uh, how much fun you guys have with the movie."

Joe Rogan 1:10:23 (laughs)

Steven Rinella 1:10:23 And I was like, "Duh. I should probably have the guy on."

Joe Rogan 1:10:26 (laughs) But it was because of historical inaccuracies, right?

Steven Rinella 1:10:30 N- it was no fault of his.

Joe Rogan 1:10:31 Right.

Steven Rinella 1:10:31 That's what I try to make clear.

Joe Rogan 1:10:32 Yes.

Steven Rinella 1:10:32 Like, he... I, I think what it is, I don't even think he listened. I think he heard that we're always hacking on him.

Joe Rogan 1:10:37 Oh.

Steven Rinella 1:10:37 He thought we were hacking on him.

Joe Rogan 1:10:39 On him.

Steven Rinella 1:10:39 And I was like, "I'm not hacking on him. We're hacking on the movie."

Joe Rogan 1:10:44 The fact that the interpretation is-

Steven Rinella 1:10:44 And then I wanted to get with him 'cause I wanted to get with him to be cool.

Joe Rogan 1:10:48 Isn't it always a problem when someone takes a movie that's based on a real historical event and they distort that historical event just for film? Just for... Like a, an example that I always use is, uh,