Joe Rogan Experience #2130 - Coleman Hughes

Narrator 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music)

Joe Rogan 0:12 Hey, what up?

Coleman Hughes 0:13 All right.

Joe Rogan 0:13 What's up, Coleman? Good to see you.

Coleman Hughes 0:14 I'm good, man. Good to see you again.

Joe Rogan 0:15 What's crackin'?

Coleman Hughes 0:16 Well, I'm good, you know.

Joe Rogan 0:18 You great. You got a new book.

Coleman Hughes 0:19 Got a new book, End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America.

Joe Rogan 0:25 Yeah, I saw you on The View.

Coleman Hughes 0:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:26 (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 0:27 Yeah, so that, that's been overwhelming my past couple days.

Joe Rogan 0:30 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 0:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:31 Is that annoying?

Coleman Hughes 0:32 No.

Joe Rogan 0:32 No?

Coleman Hughes 0:33 No, no, I mean, it's just, when I was on there, I, I, I really had no idea how it was gonna land with the audience, so I just went in there, did my thing. Uh, I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know who Sunny Hostin was. I actually still really don't know. So I wasn't expecting, necessarily, for her to kind of try to ambush me in that way and, and, uh, attack my character in that way, and I responded to it in the moment, as I do, and I didn't expect it to go as viral as it did, but, uh, I think it pro- arguably went more viral than anything I've ever done. It's hard for me to totally tell, but I've just got people messaging me almost nonstop for, like, four days afterwards.

Joe Rogan 1:13 Well, it is the show that people love to hate. (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 1:15 Yes, that's true. That's true.

Joe Rogan 1:17 They, they get so much hate-watching-

Coleman Hughes 1:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:20 ... and hate, hate-watching viral clips of them saying ridiculous things. I mean-

Coleman Hughes 1:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:24 ... it is, it is a, uh, a rabies-infested henhouse. (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 1:29 And, and at the same time, it seemed like the most interesting part was their audience seemed to be on my side.

Joe Rogan 1:34 Yes. Yes.

Coleman Hughes 1:35 And that's their audience.

Joe Rogan 1:36 Yes. Well, their audience is not really their audience. Their audience is a, a, a group of people they bring in-

Coleman Hughes 1:41 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:41 ... to watch television shows.

Coleman Hughes 1:42 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:43 You know, I don't know if you've ever seen, uh, audiences before for TV shows-

Coleman Hughes 1:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:48 ... but they're, a lot of them are paid.

Coleman Hughes 1:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:49 They're paid to be there.

Coleman Hughes 1:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:51 So, because they have to guarantee that there's gonna be people there, so there's services that you hire, and when a show gets really, really popular, um, you know, like Letterman or something like that, o- obviously it has its own fan base.

Coleman Hughes 2:03 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:03 Those people will try to get tickets before anybody else does, and, and in that case, they probably don't need to use a service anymore. They just get actual fans. But arguably, like, m- the fans, the real fans of The View that are like, "Oh, these ladies are on point," most of those people can't leave the house. Like, they're probably-

Coleman Hughes 2:22 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:23 ... immobile. (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 2:23 Right, right, right, because, uh, their, their mom's taking their kids to school, and, and that's-

Joe Rogan 2:27 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 2:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:28 It's a very strange show, but, uh, it's fun to watch. It's just fun to watch them.

Coleman Hughes 2:33 It's good entertainment.

Joe Rogan 2:35 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 2:35 Undoubtedly.

Joe Rogan 2:36 Well, they're just, you know, it's interesting because I think Sunny's very intelligent-

Coleman Hughes 2:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:39 ... but she's ideologically captured.

Coleman Hughes 2:41 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:42 You know, it's sort of, uh... But I think the, the other ones are, there's a couple of the other ones I won't, don't have to name any names who are just v- very dull-minded.

Coleman Hughes 2:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:49 But I think Sunny's not one of them. I think she's-

Coleman Hughes 2:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:51 ... smart, but captured and-

Coleman Hughes 2:53 Sure. I think, I think she came into it with an agenda.

Joe Rogan 2:55 Of course.

Coleman Hughes 2:56 You know.

Joe Rogan 2:56 They do everything with an agenda.

Coleman Hughes 2:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:58 You know.

Coleman Hughes 2:58 Um, she, she came into it, it seems, want, uh, uh, really wanting to paint me as someone that has been co-opted by the right wing.

Joe Rogan 3:06 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 3:07 And I don't know how much research she had done into me. She claimed to have read my book twice, which is almost certainly not true.

Joe Rogan 3:14 Yeah, I, I, that doesn't-

Coleman Hughes 3:16 Because she was totally mis-summarizing what was-

Joe Rogan 3:18 When did the book come out?

Coleman Hughes 3:19 February.

Joe Rogan 3:21 The odds are very low.

Coleman Hughes 3:22 Very low, right? Because-

Joe Rogan 3:23 Yeah, it's very low.

Coleman Hughes 3:24 ... think of how many guests they have on their show, how much time she has.

Joe Rogan 3:26 How many things they have to do, family, obligations.

Coleman Hughes 3:29 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:29 Two bo- what is it, about 250 pages?

Coleman Hughes 3:31 Uh, something like that, yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:32 I don't think so.

Coleman Hughes 3:33 Yeah. A- and-

Joe Rogan 3:34 But, I mean, I might be wrong. I mean, do you have an audiobook-

Coleman Hughes 3:36 It's possible.

Joe Rogan 3:37 ... available?

Coleman Hughes 3:37 I do, yeah. I read it myself.

Joe Rogan 3:38 Maybe she did it at double speed.

Coleman Hughes 3:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:41 Twice.

Coleman Hughes 3:41 So I sounded like Ben Shapiro the whole time.

Joe Rogan 3:45 (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 3:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:46 Ugh.

Coleman Hughes 3:46 Have you ever listened to Ben Shapiro on, like, 1.5 times?

Joe Rogan 3:48 No. That's gotta be ridiculous.

Coleman Hughes 3:50 I have. Yeah, it's insane.

Joe Rogan 3:51 Oh, Ben Shapiro should debate Destiny.

Coleman Hughes 3:53 Oh, my God. Oh, no, they did.

Joe Rogan 3:54 Get the two of them together. (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 3:55 They, they did debate.

Joe Rogan 3:56 Did they really?

Coleman Hughes 3:57 Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. They did, um-

Joe Rogan 3:59 About what?

Coleman Hughes 3:59 Who hosted them? Was it Lex? Was it Lex?

Joe Rogan 4:02 Was it?

Coleman Hughes 4:02 Uh, I could be getting that wrong, but it cou- I think Lex hosted a debate, like, two months ago.

Joe Rogan 4:06 Well, he had a debate a couple of months ago, but it was a Palestine, Israel debate, you know.

Coleman Hughes 4:10 No, no, that was separate. I also saw that.

Joe Rogan 4:12 Oh, they did.

Coleman Hughes 4:13 That was, like, of the four-hour... Yeah, there you go.

Joe Rogan 4:15 (laughs) That guy debates everybody.

Coleman Hughes 4:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:17 It's so rid- he's so ridiculous. He does-

Coleman Hughes 4:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:19 ... a Wikipedia search and then just, he starts going after things like he's an expert.

Coleman Hughes 4:23 Yeah. Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:24 It's just, it, it's a, it was a fun time.

Coleman Hughes 4:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:27 It's a really fun time.

Coleman Hughes 4:28 Yeah, entertaining.

Joe Rogan 4:28 T- fun time for watching people flail.

Coleman Hughes 4:31 Yeah. For sure.

Joe Rogan 4:32 Yeah. But the, the, I think the problem with that show is that show has this very specific ideological bubble in which they operate in.

Coleman Hughes 4:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 4:42 You know, and they always bring on a token conservative woman. They yell over her and silence her.

Coleman Hughes 4:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 4:46 And, you know, they did that-

Coleman Hughes 4:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:47 ... with Meghan McCain, and they did that with the... What was that other blonde woman from Survivor? Do you remember her, Jamie? She was always yelling. I mean, it's just a, it's, it's a bizarre show.

Coleman Hughes 4:59 So we had eight minutes, and America's approach, approach to race, pretty big topic, pretty important topic.

Joe Rogan 5:08 I think the way you-

Coleman Hughes 5:08 So-

Joe Rogan 5:09 G- g- just before you start.

Coleman Hughes 5:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:10 I think the way you described it is brilliant and the way we should all look at it.

Coleman Hughes 5:14 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 5:15 Of course you're gonna see race.

Coleman Hughes 5:17 Yes.

Joe Rogan 5:17 The, the idea of being colorblind is ridiculous.

Coleman Hughes 5:19 Right.

Joe Rogan 5:19 But treat everybody that they're just human beings.

Coleman Hughes 5:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:21 Everybody's just individuals.

Coleman Hughes 5:23 That's right.

Joe Rogan 5:23 That's, that's what we should all hope for.

Coleman Hughes 5:25 That's right. Yeah. There, there's been this common phrase, uh, "I don't see race," that's equated with colorblindness, and-

Joe Rogan 5:31 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 5:31 ... point of my book is I want to say, get rid of that. Of course we see race, certainly in America, in the West. You could argue about whether children really see race, but past a certain point, we see race. Point is not to pretend you don't see it. It's to say, you know, "You're a white guy. I'm a Black and Hispanic guy. We notice that. We're not gonna pretend it's not there. But whenever it matters, I'm gonna try to treat you like an individual based on your personal qualities, and we're gonna ask the government to do the same." Get race out of public policy. If you want to help disadvantaged people, do that on the basis of class.

Joe Rogan 6:06 100%. And understand that when you see these incentives that are put into corporations, these are methods of control, and that's what's going on when you see things like DEI ini- it's not, uh, you're not really making the world a better place.

Coleman Hughes 6:22 Right.

Joe Rogan 6:22 You're just allowing these financial institutions to enact control over corporations.

Coleman Hughes 6:29 Right.

Joe Rogan 6:29 And it's a really shifty, weird way they're doing it, by making it seem like they're trying to make the world a better, more equal place. And then there's some people who are good intentioned, but, um, have very narrow, narrow perspective and a very limited amount of information that they're operating under, that will try to pretend that these things are overall good, are net positive.

Coleman Hughes 6:52 Right. And, uh, S- Sonny Hostin may be one of those people. But, you know, so we had eight minutes to deal with this topic on one of the biggest platforms in the country, and especially an audience that isn't my typical audience. I- if anything, the Views audience is really who needs to hear my message the most. And Sonny decided to take up a few minutes of that precious eight minutes and attack me as a, someone who's been co-opted by the right and someone who's a charlatan.

Joe Rogan 7:19 Hmm.

Coleman Hughes 7:20 And, uh-

Joe Rogan 7:21 Did, did she use the term charlatan?

Coleman Hughes 7:22 She did, and it's funny, it's funny 'cause I di- actually didn't notice it in real time. It kind of went in one ear and out the other. But, uh-

Joe Rogan 7:29 How did she say it? Do you remember? What did-

Coleman Hughes 7:30 Uh, she said something like, uh, you know, a l- a lot of, uh, a lot of people in the black community, uh, implicitly herself included, think that you've been co-opted by the right and that you're a charlatan.

Joe Rogan 7:41 Oh, wow.

Coleman Hughes 7:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:42 Hmm.

Coleman Hughes 7:43 And I explained to her, uh, I've only voted twice, both for democrats, uh, Hillary and Biden. Uh, very open to voting for republicans. So I'm an, I'm a political independent.

Joe Rogan 7:53 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 7:53 And I'm t- only young enough to have voted twice. Uh, I am, I'm an analyst at CNN and I write for the Free Press, which is Bari Weiss's-

Joe Rogan 8:00 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 8:00 And I'm independent in all of those endeavors, and I patiently explained that and then basically asked her to go back to the topic that we're here to discuss.

Joe Rogan 8:09 Yeah, well it's, it's a dumb way of addressing a thing, and to immediately say that someone's been co-opted with no evidence whatsoever. There's nothing about anything that you say that seems right wing, you know? You're just-

Coleman Hughes 8:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:23 ... objectively looking at these subjects and giving a very intelligent and measured opinion of them that does not... And just because some people who happen to vote republican may agree with you-

Coleman Hughes 8:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:37 ... like, that, that's a ridiculous statement, that you're co-opted. I, I think you're probably one of the m- least co-opted people I've ever talked to.

Coleman Hughes 8:44 Mm.

Joe Rogan 8:44 You're very open-minded.

Coleman Hughes 8:46 Yeah. Thanks.

Joe Rogan 8:46 And you're very, you're very objective.

Coleman Hughes 8:48 I try to be.

Joe Rogan 8:49 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 8:49 I try to be. Um, but, uh, y- you know, I- I would argue even if I were co-optive, co-opted, hypothetically, that doesn't make my argument here right now wrong.

Joe Rogan 9:00 Right.

Coleman Hughes 9:01 Right? Because people that are co-opted sometimes say true things.

Joe Rogan 9:04 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 9:05 So even if I were, I would say it's still ad a- uh, it's an ad hominem attack. It's to the person rather than to the argument.

Joe Rogan 9:11 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 9:11 So let's get onto the issue.

Joe Rogan 9:13 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 9:13 And I think people, the, part of the reason it went viral is because, what people have told me is, you very rarely see someone who gets a character attack on a big TV platform calmly expose it as evidence-free and then just move back to the topic.

Joe Rogan 9:28 Yeah, well that was beautiful that you did that. And that's how everybody should approach these things.

Coleman Hughes 9:32 Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 9:32 And the problem is, that's not what people want to do. What they want to do is engage in argument and try to win.

Coleman Hughes 9:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:39 And it's not really about having an open mind and listening to what this person has to say and trying to figure out whether or not it resonates with you. Instead, they're just trying to win, and trying to win in this weird soundbite-y way. You know, those platforms, whether it's, uh, the View or any of the, number of these panel platforms are so inherently flawed just in the s- just the way it's formatted. You only have a small amount of time, you have all these people talking, and, you know, it's just a, it, they, they can't compete with internet shows, because internet shows are free.

Coleman Hughes 10:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:21 It's l- it's just, uh, and I don't mean free like you don't have to pay for it. I mean free like they're free to talk about anything. There's not a producer in your ear.

Coleman Hughes 10:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:28 There's not someone saying, "We have to cut to commercial." There's not, um, a, you know, executive meetings before talking about an agenda-

Coleman Hughes 10:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:36 ... that you would like to, like this, "We have to hammer him on this."

Coleman Hughes 10:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:39 "And this is, this is really important with the election coming up, and this and that."

Coleman Hughes 10:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:42 And I'm like, god, the el- th- the whole election coming up thing freaks me out, 'cause I think everybody's in this weird, like, pre-battle anxiety stage. You know? And they, everything is life or death-

Coleman Hughes 10:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:57 ... and this goddamn phrase that gets tossed around every five minutes, it's just a threat to democracy. Everything is a threat to democracy, except things that actually probably are a threat to democracy.

Coleman Hughes 11:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:10 You see people talking about the threats to democracy and they ignore intelligence communities censoring social media.

Coleman Hughes 11:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:19 Which should be terrifying to people.

Coleman Hughes 11:21 Right.

Joe Rogan 11:21 It should be terrifying to people because this could happen on the left, on the right, it could happen for a number of reasons. It could happen for reasons that would be terrible for your life.

Coleman Hughes 11:32 Yeah. Uh, RFK was on CNN, I, I think yesterday. And he said something that I, I think I've said before in, privately and, and I feel, which is that I think America would survive four more years of Trump or four more years of Biden.

Joe Rogan 11:45 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 11:45 Truthfully, I think America and the republic is strong enough to survive either. Uh, neither one of them is a very good option, in my view. I think we're given two very bad options. But I also think, don't move to Canada, I think we're gonna be okay.

Joe Rogan 12:00 Don't move to Canada. Canada's even worse.

Coleman Hughes 12:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:02 Canada's a mess.

Coleman Hughes 12:04 Um, but people don't like that opinion because they...I think they enjoy, we enjoy the existential stakes-

Joe Rogan 12:11 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 12:11 ... of, of, of politics, even if it might not be there every time.

Joe Rogan 12:15 Yeah, I agree.

Coleman Hughes 12:16 Now, I disagreed... Back in 2015, 2016, when I was hearing how Trump was speaking on, uh, uh, uh, you know, Mu- Muslims on the registry, all this kind of stuff, I was one of the people that was worried he would be a fascist, truthfully. But then what happened is we had four years of governance from him where he basically governed like a typical Republican, and in some ways even, uh, had some policies that were to the left of what Republicans would do. For instance, on, on criminal justice reform, he was very progressive. He made, um, uh, funding for Black colleges and universities permanent, which if Obama had done either of those things, he would have been criticized as playing left-wing identity politics.

Joe Rogan 12:57 Right.

Coleman Hughes 12:58 And so, uh, I, I, I slowly realized that there is a pretty big distance between what Trump says and what he does. I don't understand that fact about him, but it... I think it is a fact about him. And so that's why I, I don't feel alarmist the way I did when I voted for Hillary in, uh, in, in 2016, really voted against Trump. Uh, now that being said, Trump is a wild guy and is difficult to predict. I don't think he's someone you want behind the wheel, uh, in a, in a crisis time. Uh, and then on the other hand, we have Biden who, who has clear evidence of, of cognitive decline, um, vying for the, what's supposed to be the most important and challenging job in the world, certainly in the country, and people essentially claiming that it doesn't matter that he has obvious cognitive decline.

Joe Rogan 13:49 Which is hilarious.

Coleman Hughes 13:50 I mean-

Joe Rogan 13:50 Not only that, but gaslighting you.

Coleman Hughes 13:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:52 Saying that that's his superpower. Did you see that article?

Coleman Hughes 13:54 No, I didn't.

Joe Rogan 13:55 That Biden's age is his superpower. Seth MacFarlane retweeted it. "I, I agree. I couldn't have stated this any better myself." Like, what are you talking about?

Coleman Hughes 14:03 No, it doesn't-

Joe Rogan 14:03 What are you talking about?

Coleman Hughes 14:03 It doesn't make... One way I, I, I've thought about it is, uh, there's so much BS in politics. One of the great things about the market is that it's honest. Because if you lie, you lose money. So if you look at when, when lots of money is on the line, who do people want leading their organizations? Look at the NBA, look at the MLB. Who do people get as head coaches? Usually people in their 50s is the median age.

Joe Rogan 14:26 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 14:26 Because you've been around long enough that you've made a lot of dumb mistakes that 20-year-olds and 30-year-olds make, and you've learned those things that you can only learn with age. But, y- you know, in your 50s, you're still... You, you've still got the vast majority of your cognitive power there and your energy, if you're healthy, that is.

Joe Rogan 14:45 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 14:45 So that's really the sweet spot. We, we want a president somewhere in our 50s.

Joe Rogan 14:49 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 14:50 We, we don't want a, we don't want a Biden.

Joe Rogan 14:51 No, we want someone with life experience and hopefully someone that doesn't exist solely in politics, like someone who hasn't become... their roots haven't, like, been deeply entrenched in the system.

Coleman Hughes 15:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:05 Someone who can maybe have some sort of an outsider's perspective, that can look at the problems with the, the current situation and the way things are structured-

Coleman Hughes 15:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:13 ... the way money is allocated, and the way funding is done, the way bills are passed, and... which is a, a giant issue, like when they sandwich these 2,000-page bills with a bunch of stuff-

Coleman Hughes 15:24 Yeah, it makes no sense to me.

Joe Rogan 15:25 ... that has n- nothing to do with... It should be illegal. It shouldn't be legal to have a bill about what's, you know, for a popular topic, the border issue, the border crisis-

Coleman Hughes 15:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:34 ... and in, in embed in that funding for Ukraine. Like, what...

Coleman Hughes 15:38 Yeah, it doesn't make any sense-

Joe Rogan 15:39 It has nothing to do with it.

Coleman Hughes 15:40 ... to couple those issues. Yeah, I mean, a f- few months ago. So basically, you've had the Biden administration ignoring the border issue for several years, because they want it to signal sort of how non-Trump they were, right? And the border is Trump's issue. So Biden comes in, he says, "We're gonna undo everything Trump did with the border," even though a lot of those policies are actually widely supported and, and, uh, and, and smart. So they undo everything. The migrant crisis goes to hell in the past two or three years, even now infiltrating cities like Chicago, New York, everywhere. And then you have, uh, Biden finally gets serious about the border a couple months ago with the, with the border bill. And Trump gives the signal essentially that it's, that it's not a good bill, even though it really... i- it was a pretty decent bill. And certainly in an emergency, you want to start, stop the bleeding. Then Trump signals, uh, that the bill isn't good enough and, and Republicans kill it essentially. So I think both sides have tried to spin this, right? The, the Democrat spin has been, "Look, the Republicans sh- destroyed that bill. They don't even care about immigration. The whole thing's their fault." Of course, what's wrong with that is the reason it's this bad is because Democrats have been ignoring the issue fully for two, three years.

Joe Rogan 17:01 Why do you think that is? Like, does anybody have anything to gain by letting migrants into the country? You know, Tim Dillon, uh, says that he thinks that it's cheap labor and that they want to bring more cheap labor into the country and that it's very difficult to get people to do certain jobs.

Coleman Hughes 17:19 That's why libertarians partly like, um, illegal immigration. That would be more of a Koch brothers policy though.

Joe Rogan 17:26 Mm.

Coleman Hughes 17:26 I mean, that, that's why they... That's why Bernie Sanders called, called open borders are Koch brothers policies because cheap labor.

Joe Rogan 17:32 Interesting. Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 17:33 But that wouldn't apply necessarily to Biden. Like, okay, so someone like Biden, I understand you, you might argue, okay, are they letting people in because those are gonna be the Democrat voters? Uh, those are gonna increase the Democrat voters base. I don't know. Does Biden care about that? I don't think so. Biden's not going to be around in 10 years.

Joe Rogan 17:52 Well, I don't think Biden's making decisions.

Coleman Hughes 17:54 You don't think he is?

Joe Rogan 17:55 No. I, I-

Coleman Hughes 17:56 You think it's his circle at this point?

Joe Rogan 17:58 Yeah, I think he's so far gone. And this is what I said when he was running. I was saying, you're gonna leave it up to his cabinet. He's not able to form s- listen, when you see him at debates or at press conferences, he's at his very best, and he's probably medicated. They probably juice him up with a bunch of different things and get him hyped. "Let's go," roll him out there-

Coleman Hughes 18:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 18:23 ... and then he... even then, he can't...... form sentences.

Coleman Hughes 18:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:27 He, he loses track of what he's talking about. It's... That's him at his very best. What is he like when he's tired?

Coleman Hughes 18:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 18:35 What is he like when he's not primed?

Coleman Hughes 18:37 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:37 You know, it's... I d- I do not think that he even has the interest in doing that. I think he wanted to be president, he got to be president, and he has all these people around him. And just even by the way he talks about things, uh, he's so out of touch with the way he's describing things and talking about bills that they pass and talking about important issues. I just think he's completely out of it.

Coleman Hughes 19:00 For sure.

Joe Rogan 19:00 And I think it's a really... It's, it's very unfair. And if that was my father, I would be terrified.

Coleman Hughes 19:08 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 19:08 I'd be sad. I'd be like, "What are you doing to him?" You know? Like, he should be relaxing somewhere.

Coleman Hughes 19:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:14 He... You know, he's embarrassing himself. It's not fair. He's... Uh, uh, uh, uh, to take a person that's in cognitive decline like that and just parade him out there and use him as a figurehead, it's just crazy.

Coleman Hughes 19:26 And if, if you look at the difference between him now and him in 2020-

Joe Rogan 19:30 It's wild.

Coleman Hughes 19:30 ... he, he didn't look great in 2020, but he looked like he could handle himself.

Joe Rogan 19:33 Right.

Coleman Hughes 19:35 It's huge difference now. And, and just extrapolate that three more years.

Joe Rogan 19:39 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 19:39 Right? How, how is he gonna be dealing with Putin and Iran and Israel-

Joe Rogan 19:44 He's not.

Coleman Hughes 19:44 ... sitting ag- i- in three years?

Joe Rogan 19:46 He's not. He's not doing it now. It's, it's-

Coleman Hughes 19:48 Oh.

Joe Rogan 19:48 ... someone else forming the policies. You know, the, they have-

Coleman Hughes 19:51 (coughs)

Joe Rogan 19:51 ... the White House press secretary who got busted for using his Twitter account. You saw that, right?

Coleman Hughes 19:55 Oh, no. I didn't see that.

Joe Rogan 19:56 The... (laughs) She, (laughs) she accidentally used her account and she tweeted, "When I was running for president, I ad-..." and like-

Coleman Hughes 20:03 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:03 ... she e- and then deleted it, but everybody caught it, obviously. Um...

Coleman Hughes 20:06 And, and obviously, there's the, the Kamala liability.

Joe Rogan 20:09 Oh, yeah. That's-

Coleman Hughes 20:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:10 ... that's a, that's a hilarious one. The Kamala fans are my favorite.

Coleman Hughes 20:14 Are the... Who are they? I've never met one.

Joe Rogan 20:15 Yeah, I got a guy, I got a guy. I don't wanna say his name.

Coleman Hughes 20:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:18 I want... trying to be respectful, but he's a comedian that's out-

Coleman Hughes 20:21 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 20:21 ... of his fucking mind.

Coleman Hughes 20:22 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 20:22 He's one of them blue no matter who.

Coleman Hughes 20:24 Okay.

Joe Rogan 20:24 He, you know, he's operated a... Just he's got this, like, cognitive dissonance that's very bizarre. But...

Coleman Hughes 20:32 Yeah. Uh, my, my dad was in econ club with Kamala in college.

Joe Rogan 20:36 Really?

Coleman Hughes 20:37 Yeah. There's a photo of them at... There was only eight kids in the club, so it's a... This tiny photo of my dad and Kamala Harris and six other people-

Joe Rogan 20:44 Wow.

Coleman Hughes 20:45 ... when they were, like, uh, 22 or something at, at Howard University.

Joe Rogan 20:48 What's his perspective?

Coleman Hughes 20:49 He doesn't re- remember her at all.

Joe Rogan 20:51 Interesting. And now she-

Coleman Hughes 20:52 Unless (laughs) -

Joe Rogan 20:53 ... is Vice President of the United States.

Coleman Hughes 20:54 Yeah, she didn't make an impression.

Joe Rogan 20:55 One heartbeat away-

Coleman Hughes 20:56 She didn't make an impression.

Joe Rogan 20:57 ... with a, a dying man-

Coleman Hughes 20:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:59 ... at the helm.

Coleman Hughes 21:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:00 You know? I mean, she could sneak up behind him at any moment and end it.

Coleman Hughes 21:03 (coughs) Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:04 (laughs) It could be at any, at any moment.

Coleman Hughes 21:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:06 At any moment. It's crazy. And it's, uh, it's so American. It really is. We're just, like, a, a goofy-ass country.

Coleman Hughes 21:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:15 We're, we're amazing and it's, it's pretty cool, but it's also... We crawl so far up the ass at anybody that wants to be in a position of leadership-

Coleman Hughes 21:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:26 ... that no one who should be in a position of leadership wants that. And most of these people that could be e- effective in a position of leadership, because they've led things before, whether it's businesses or what have you, they just don't wanna have anything to do with it. It's just a horrible attack on your character.

Coleman Hughes 21:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:43 They, they don't play fair. They lie. They'll get people to say things that aren't true. They'll, they'll concoct stories. They'll put things out there with the aid of the intelligence community, like the, the Russia collusion agenda.

Coleman Hughes 21:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:56 Like that thing, with... And then, then they get all the media that's on the left on board, and then they just repeat this mantra over and over, "Russia collusion, Russia collusion, Ru-"

Coleman Hughes 22:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:06 ... uh, you know.

Coleman Hughes 22:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:07 And then they'll pretend that they didn't say that he never won the election.

Coleman Hughes 22:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 22:11 They'll pretend. They pretend that they didn't question the election. They'll pretend that Hillary Clinton didn't do multiple speeches where she said that-

Coleman Hughes 22:20 Not legitimately, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:20 ... the election was stolen, it was... He's not a legitimate president.

Coleman Hughes 22:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:23 Russia stole the election, with no evidence.

Coleman Hughes 22:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:25 But when he questions the election, it's a threat to democracy.

Coleman Hughes 22:28 Right.

Joe Rogan 22:29 It's just so convenient. And there's just... We live in this bizarre news cycle where there's... Information is coming at you so fast, you kinda forget about what the thing you were mad about two days ago that could affect the rest of the country for decades.

Coleman Hughes 22:43 Right.

Joe Rogan 22:43 And you're just onto the next, onto the next.

Coleman Hughes 22:44 I think, in particular in America, we, uh, we're very hard on our politicians. A- and that's actually... The, the idea of the country from the start is there's no kings here.

Joe Rogan 22:54 Right.

Coleman Hughes 22:54 Right? And y- you go to other places in the world, people worship or pretend to worship their politicians. You can sorta see why someone would wanna be in that position. When you see the, the, the crowds of people fainting over Hitler speeches and all that stuff, well, you could see why someone would want to have crowds fainting over them. In America, you get some admiration, but you... It kinda just looks like you get your life ruined.

Joe Rogan 23:17 Well, uh, for at least half the country is gonna hate you.

Coleman Hughes 23:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:20 Even a, a, a president that's popular, like Obama, during his administration, at least half of the country hated him.

Coleman Hughes 23:27 Totally.

Joe Rogan 23:28 And that's a horrible place to be. That's a horrible feeling to be that person and know that there's all these people that think you're a Muslim plant-

Coleman Hughes 23:36 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:36 ... you were born in Kenya, you're, you-

Coleman Hughes 23:38 Or you, you wear a tan suit and now it's on the news cycle how much of an idiot you are-

Joe Rogan 23:42 Where?

Coleman Hughes 23:42 ... for wearing a tan suit.

Joe Rogan 23:42 A tan suit?

Coleman Hughes 23:43 I mean...

Joe Rogan 23:44 It's a nice suit.

Coleman Hughes 23:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:45 What is wrong with the color tan? Why does a suit have to be dark blue or black or whatever it is that everybody thinks it has to be? That's so bizarre. 'Cause he could wear a tan shirt somewhere and give a speech, like if he's, you know-

Coleman Hughes 23:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 23:59 ... at his home or something like that, and he just addresses the press in a casual manner, that's fine.

Coleman Hughes 24:04 Right.

Joe Rogan 24:04 But when you're being serious, I want you to put on your serious outfit.

Coleman Hughes 24:08 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:08 Your serious outfit can't be tan.

Coleman Hughes 24:10 Right.

Joe Rogan 24:11 (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 24:11 And people ask me all the time-

Joe Rogan 24:13 (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 24:13 ... why I don't get into politics, or people expect me to get into politics, 'cause-

Joe Rogan 24:17 Please, don't. (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 24:17 They see me on The View... Well, thank you. You get it.

Joe Rogan 24:19 Don't do it.

Coleman Hughes 24:20 You get it.

Joe Rogan 24:20 No.

Coleman Hughes 24:21 Um, they see me on something like The View and they say, "Wow, I like this guy. He, he keeps his cool under pressure. He stands for what I believe in. Why, why don't you run for office, man?" I'm like, "Are, are you crazy?"

Joe Rogan 24:32 (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 24:33 ... are you absolutely insan- Why would I do that to myself-

Joe Rogan 24:36 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 24:36 ... for such a, a, a, a ... You know, I, I, I even, uh, doubt how much change you could even have, frankly. Which is why I, uh, as, as, as, as much as I admire someone like, uh, RFK for his charisma, in the sense that he's the only candidate that if he talks for five minutes off the cuff, I find it really compelling.

Joe Rogan 24:56 I think he's very honest. I think he's hon- Whether you agree with him or disagree with him, I think he's very honest, and he's also very well read in everything that he talks about.

Coleman Hughes 25:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:06 And there's a lot of things that are very uncomfortable to discuss that he discusses openly and willingly. And y- y- when you look at that man's background, and this is a thing that people ch- choose to ignore when they want to talk about him as a conspiracy theorist. This is the big one. They always bring up conspiracy theorists. That guy stopped the polluting of the Hudson River. I mean, he was a very effective environmental attorney that was dedicated to making sure that corporations couldn't just wantonly pollute things because i- it was more profitable for them to not pay attention to where their waste goes.

Coleman Hughes 25:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 25:43 He p- held them to task, and he's one of the primary reasons why the Hudson River's clean.

Coleman Hughes 25:48 Right, so-

Joe Rogan 25:48 That guy.

Coleman Hughes 25:49 I've heard that. I, I, I never looked into it but if, if true, it's very impressive. Um, but beyond that, just in terms of charisma and speaking, nobody holds a candle to RFK, I think, who, who is neither Biden nor Trump, right?

Joe Rogan 26:02 Right.

Coleman Hughes 26:03 If you just say, "Give a 10-minute speech off the cuff," RFK is gonna give a way more charismatic, way more interesting speech than either of them. Agreed?

Joe Rogan 26:10 Agreed.

Coleman Hughes 26:11 So, m- my, my f- Wha- That's what I feel when I listen to him. At the same time, when I look throughout history, I ... Somehow, uh, I, I have a blanket skepticism of how much, uh, change politicians can actually accomplish, even good ones, in a, in a, in a system like America's, where the president has intentionally very limited power over domestic policy. They can actually make a lot of change in foreign policy 'cause they have kind of unilateral decision-making ability. But ... And then secondly, I, I always check myself because I, I think the charismatic politicians are always the ones that are able to lead people into really dark corners.

Joe Rogan 26:53 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 26:53 It's always the ones with charisma that are able to use that charisma power to-

Joe Rogan 26:58 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 26:59 ... to get people to support things they never ordina- ordinarily would support, so it's like-

Joe Rogan 27:02 Well, it's the old adage that no one who wants to be president should be allowed to be president.

Coleman Hughes 27:06 Right, right. And Hitler had charisma. Not from my perspective or your perspective, but as a historical fact, if we were Germans living at that time, we would experience those Hitler speeches that look silly to us as charisma.

Joe Rogan 27:20 Have you seen the Hitler speeches with AI translation into English?

Coleman Hughes 27:23 No.

Joe Rogan 27:24 It's in-

Coleman Hughes 27:24 I've seen subtitles but ... Oh, but they, but they put the voice into English?

Joe Rogan 27:27 Yeah. They changed the voice.

Coleman Hughes 27:28 Oh, wow.

Joe Rogan 27:29 Which is a, a new technology that they're actually employing with podcasts. Spotify now has the ability to take this podcast with you and me.

Coleman Hughes 27:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:36 And just for f- I think it's like 30 seconds of your voice and my voice, they can have us speak fluent German, Spanish, and French right now.

Coleman Hughes 27:45 Mm-hmm. Mm.

Joe Rogan 27:45 And they're gonna expand it to a bunch of different languages and just put pod- podcasts out in different languages for different countries. Like it's-

Coleman Hughes 27:52 That's awesome.

Joe Rogan 27:53 Yeah, it's fascinating. But they ... So they did it with Hitler. You should watch it. We- we'll play it for you.

Coleman Hughes 27:57 Mm, mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:57 Can we play it or will we get in trouble?

Narrator 27:59 I have no idea.

Coleman Hughes 27:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:59 Let's find out. Let's find out. 'Cause YouTube is s- The, the, the jump ... I should just say this. From s- just staying entirely on Spotify to now we're everywhere.

Coleman Hughes 28:09 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 28:10 Dealing with YouTube-

Coleman Hughes 28:11 Ah.

Joe Rogan 28:11 ... is so bizarre. Like, people can claim copyright for things that are 100% not theirs.

Coleman Hughes 28:18 Interesting.

Joe Rogan 28:18 But if they claim it, then they, uh, uh, they can monetize your show. They take all the money from your show, so then you have to remove it, and then you have to fight it.

Coleman Hughes 28:27 Right.

Joe Rogan 28:28 And you have to figure out like ... If you play two seconds of a song ... Is it two seconds?

Narrator 28:33 Mm, it's not two seconds.

Coleman Hughes 28:33 How many seconds?

Narrator 28:34 It's like over six or something like that. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 28:37 Okay. Six seconds-

Coleman Hughes 28:38 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:38 ... of a song, they claim t- they can monetize your entire podcast.

Coleman Hughes 28:41 Damn.

Joe Rogan 28:42 It's f- fucking bizarre.

Coleman Hughes 28:44 That's crazy.

Joe Rogan 28:44 But it's dumb. It's dumb. There's things that you should be able to talk about. If there's a popular song, you know, like Wet-Ass Pussy, like-

Coleman Hughes 28:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:52 ... "Look at the moral decline of America."

Coleman Hughes 28:54 Right.

Joe Rogan 28:54 "Listen to this."

Coleman Hughes 28:54 Right.

Joe Rogan 28:54 "I don't cook, I don't clean, I got this wet-ass pussy."

Coleman Hughes 28:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:58 It's like you should be able to play that-

Coleman Hughes 29:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:00 ... and just go, "What the fuck are we doing? This is wild."

Coleman Hughes 29:03 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 29:03 And entertaining and fun, and a great song. But ... So this is Hitler, and this is also AI-enhanced, uh, colorized too, which is interesting. But this is ... So when we would hear Hitler speak ... You know, I was like, "We're going to crush the enemies and kill the Jews!" That's all I thought it was.

Coleman Hughes 29:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:20 Right?

Coleman Hughes 29:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:21 A lot of it is-

Narrator 29:22 I'm gonna start with the eight seconds-

Joe Rogan 29:23 Yeah.

Narrator 29:23 ... of the original so you can-

Joe Rogan 29:24 Yeah, give me the original. Yeah.

Narrator 29:26 (German) (German)

Joe Rogan 29:30 Okay, stop right there.

Narrator 29:34 You-

Joe Rogan 29:34 Pause, pause. I hear that-

Narrator 29:36 My work-

29:37 I Ta-

29:38 For correctness!

Coleman Hughes 29:38 I, I hear ... Hold on.

Narrator 29:39 Pause. Pause, Shine.

Joe Rogan 29:39 Oh, sorry. I hear that and I get terrified.

Coleman Hughes 29:41 Oh, yeah, because all of German sounds terrifying.

Joe Rogan 29:44 Well, y- it's ... (imitates German)

Coleman Hughes 29:44 Yeah, to the, to the English ear, yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:44 It's like ... You should be able to play that and just go, "What the fuck are we doing? This is wild."

Coleman Hughes 29:44 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 29:44 And entertaining and fun, and a great song. But ... So this is Hitler, and this is also AI-enhanced, uh, colorized too, which is interesting. But this is ... So when we would hear Hitler speak ... You know, I was like, "We're going to crush the enemies and kill the Jews!" That's all I thought it was.

Coleman Hughes 29:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:45 Right?

Coleman Hughes 29:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:45 A lot of it is-

Narrator 29:45 I'm gonna start with the eight seconds-

Joe Rogan 29:45 Yeah.

Narrator 29:45 ... of the original so you can-

Joe Rogan 29:46 Yeah, give me the original. Yeah.

Narrator 29:46 (German)

Joe Rogan 29:46 Okay, stop right there. Pause, pause. I hear that ... I, I hear-

Narrator 29:46 (German)

Coleman Hughes 29:46 I think it is.

Narrator 29:46 Pause. Pause, Shine.

Joe Rogan 29:46 Hold on. Oh, sorry. I hear that and I get terrified.

Coleman Hughes 29:46 Oh, yeah, because all of German sounds terrifying.

Joe Rogan 29:46 Well, y- It's ... (imitates German)

Coleman Hughes 29:46 Yeah, to, to the, to the English ear, yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:47 It's such a ... (imitates German)

Coleman Hughes 29:48 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:48 It's such a, uh, aggressive language.

Coleman Hughes 29:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:50 You know? And when you hear Hitler yelling it, it's so aggressive.

Coleman Hughes 29:53 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:54 And then when, you know, you hear what he's actually saying, you're like, "Oh, this is like, a regular politician."

Narrator 30:02 My work for correctness. Now, whether you believe that I have been diligent, that I have worked, that I have advocated for you in these years, that I have been decent. I have spent my time in service of my people. Now cast your vote. If yes, then stand up for me as I have stood up for you.

Coleman Hughes 30:26 That's incredibly creepy.

Joe Rogan 30:28 Bizarre, right?

Coleman Hughes 30:29 Oh, my god.

Joe Rogan 30:30 Very bizarre.

Coleman Hughes 30:31 Wow.

Joe Rogan 30:32 Because we have these misconceptions, these preconceived notions.

Coleman Hughes 30:35 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 30:35 Because obviously, all the evil things he actually wound up doing.

Coleman Hughes 30:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:38 Which are real. It's not-

Coleman Hughes 30:39 But also just the cultural filter of-... the way German sounds-

Joe Rogan 30:43 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 30:43 ... to the American ear, it's a harsh language.

Joe Rogan 30:45 Yes. Well, there's many languages like that. We just don't have, uh, a w- we don't have a cultural context-

Coleman Hughes 30:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:52 ... to put that, especially the sounds.

Coleman Hughes 30:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:54 The s- (laughs) have you heard, um, German Arabic?

Coleman Hughes 30:59 No, what's that?

Joe Rogan 30:59 Okay. W- this is Muslims speaking with ... they're German, so they have a German accent and-

Coleman Hughes 31:09 Oh, okay.

Joe Rogan 31:10 ... they're speaking in Arabic.

Coleman Hughes 31:12 Okay.

Joe Rogan 31:12 And it's very strange, 'cause it's like you're hearing both things.

Coleman Hughes 31:17 Right.

Joe Rogan 31:17 You know? And then, there's also people that are Muslims that are speaking in Germany.

Coleman Hughes 31:25 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 31:25 And they're, they're, they're, you know, talking about i- Islamic issues in, in German.

Coleman Hughes 31:29 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 31:29 It's strange-

Coleman Hughes 31:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:30 ... 'cause you're looking at this Islamic cleric speaking German. You're like, "Yo, (laughs) this is wild."

Coleman Hughes 31:35 Wow.

Joe Rogan 31:36 There's something about those l- Japanese is another one, when someone is, like, very aggressive sp- spe-

Coleman Hughes 31:41 I find Japanese beautiful.

Joe Rogan 31:42 It's beautiful.

Coleman Hughes 31:43 But I, I grew up watching a lot of anime, and I think that-

Joe Rogan 31:46 Ah!

Coleman Hughes 31:46 ... that influences it.

Joe Rogan 31:47 Well, I was influenced heavily-

Coleman Hughes 31:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:49 ... by, uh, Japanese culture-

Coleman Hughes 31:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:50 ... as a kid, obviously with martial arts and-

Coleman Hughes 31:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 31:52 ... but also by, uh, Miyamoto Musashi, who, when I was a, a young man, like, that book, The Book of Five Rings, was, like, essentially my guidebook for life.

Coleman Hughes 32:02 What is that about?

Joe Rogan 32:03 It, it's a book of strategy by this man, Miyamoto Musashi.

Coleman Hughes 32:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:07 And Miyamoto Musashi was a ronin who killed 60 men in one-on-one combat.

Coleman Hughes 32:13 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:13 And he was, like, arguably the most famous. He's, uh, i- he's ... my whole right sleeve is Miyamoto Musashi.

Coleman Hughes 32:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:20 And he wrote this book, The Book of Five Rings, and it was essentially calling for a balanced life to perfect your craft, no matter what it is. But he was essentially saying that for someone to be a great warrior, you also have to be a great poet. You have to be able to do calligraphy. You have to be able to do art.

Coleman Hughes 32:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:41 You, you have to have a bal- ... you can't just be this, like, angry, emotional killing machine.

Coleman Hughes 32:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:48 You will not see everything. You, you, you must be balanced. And this is a guy that's speaking from intense actual experience sword-fighting people-

Coleman Hughes 32:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:00 ... which is probably the most intimate way to kill a man.

Coleman Hughes 33:02 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:02 And he got so good at it, sometimes he would show up with wooden swords and kill people with wooden swords-

Coleman Hughes 33:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:08 ... 'cause he just didn't feel like their technique was good enough for him to justify using an actual sword, so he'd beat them to death with oars. So, they would come at him with a sword, and he would have, like, an oar-

Coleman Hughes 33:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:19 ... from a boat, and he would just fuck them up with an oar. (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 33:23 Jesus Christ.

Joe Rogan 33:24 He was a fascinating guy, but-

Coleman Hughes 33:25 So, I can see how you kind of reflect that. I mean, you're, you're like this, uh, you're this big guy and y- you do mixed martial arts, but you also do yoga and you, you know, you, and, and you pay attention to the world. And so, uh, uh, that kind of makes sense that that's where you come from.

Joe Rogan 33:40 That ... yeah, that was my guidebook, because, uh, when I was a young man and I was fighting-

Coleman Hughes 33:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:45 ... I was trying to figure out how to control my emotions and m- my anxiety and what's the most effective way-

Coleman Hughes 33:52 (coughs)

Joe Rogan 33:52 ... to approach something that's absolutely terrifying.

Coleman Hughes 33:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:55 Like, how can you approach it? Because you have to be scared, 'cause if you're not scared, you lose your edge. You have to have a n- an edge.

Coleman Hughes 34:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:02 Like, every time that I ever competed where I was, like, overconfident, I fought terribly.

Coleman Hughes 34:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:07 Even if I won, I was very, very ashamed of my performance. You have to be scared-

Coleman Hughes 34:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:12 ... and it's something that no one wants to be.

Coleman Hughes 34:14 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:14 No one wants to be scared. It's a t- uh, it's an awful feeling. Before you're competing, you're like, "Why am I even fucking doing this?"

Coleman Hughes 34:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:20 Like, "Why am I risking my literal life for no money to do this thing that's fucking insane?" Like, I'm gonna go out there and kick someone in the face, and they're gonna try to kick me in the face. And if I get hit, I'm going unconscious-

Coleman Hughes 34:32 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:32 ... I'm going to the hospital. So, I read a bunch of psychology books, I read a bunch of self-help books, I read a lot of Anthony Robbins stuff. I l- I read a lot of different things trying to figure out what's the best way to manage the mind. But, uh, the thing that I really gravitated towards was this one book-

Coleman Hughes 34:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:52 ... because of the history of this man and the, the way that he speaks. And he has this quote that I use all the time. And if you've heard it before, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna say it again. "Once you know the way broadly, you can see it in all things."

Coleman Hughes 35:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 35:05 And this was, uh, what I applied, what the, the ... I think you can apply it to many disciplines in life. But it's understanding that to get g- great at something, to, to really understand something, it requires this intensive observation of what the thing is, what your flaws are, what your strengths are, and approach it in this very balanced way. And if you can do that, if you could really know the way, you could apply that to everything you do, whether it's learning how to play guitar or chess or anything-

Coleman Hughes 35:37 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 35:38 ... or, or, uh, calligraphy or writing books, whatever it is.

Coleman Hughes 35:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:43 You, uh, you can a- you can apply that to all things.

Coleman Hughes 35:45 So, what you said about being scared, uh, uh, and, and how that's useful, you need to feel that-

Joe Rogan 35:49 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 35:49 ... in order to perform at the highest level, always makes me think of the Christopher Nolan Batman where he has to, uh, uh ... the second, the Bane Batman where he ha- he has to take off the, the rope in order to have the adrenaline to jump far enough-

Joe Rogan 36:02 Hmm.

Coleman Hughes 36:02 ... to get out of the cave. Do you remember that scene?

Joe Rogan 36:04 (smacks lips) I do not.

Coleman Hughes 36:05 Oh, yeah. It's a ... I mean, it's a, it's a brilliant scene and a brilliant message, because Bane beats Batman, puts him at the d- in ... at the bottom of this deep pit. And he, he's trying to get out so he can go back to Gotham and save everyone from the atomic bomb that's gonna go off there. And he keeps jumping and jumping. And there's, uh, there's one jump he has to make that he keeps failing. And the prisoners have a way of doing it, where they tie a rope around your waist so that when you inevitably fall, as everyone always does ... They've been trying to get out of this prison for years. Some people have been stuck here their whole life. But there's a legend of a child that did it. A child.

Joe Rogan 36:42 Mm-hmm.

Coleman Hughes 36:42 No one, no one's been able to figure out how they replicate it, so they try it with the rope all the time.And then one of the elder statesmen of the scene says, "Well, I heard the way that the child did it is that they didn't use the rope."

Joe Rogan 36:54 Mm.

Coleman Hughes 36:55 And you have to fear death in order for your body to give you the necessary fuel and material to, to, to land the jump.

Joe Rogan 37:03 Yeah, there's a reason why you get scared.

Coleman Hughes 37:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:05 You need to be scared. There's, there's a reason. You know, Cus D'Amato, who was Mike Tyson's trainer, famously said that fear is like a fire. You can cook food with it, or if you let it run amok, it'll burn your house down.

Coleman Hughes 37:18 Yeah. Yeah. And I say, uh, not to bring it back to The View, but I do sometimes feel that about live television. I feel that when I know it's live, and I know I'm not getting a, a second chance-

Joe Rogan 37:32 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 37:32 ... and I'm not getting a, "Can you cut that out?" And millions of people are gonna see this, my brain goes into a different mode of, of aliveness.

Joe Rogan 37:41 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 37:42 Knowing what the stakes are.

Joe Rogan 37:43 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 37:44 And I think it probably causes me to perform better than normal.

Joe Rogan 37:47 Yeah, that's standup comedy too.

Coleman Hughes 37:49 I imagine.

Joe Rogan 37:50 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 37:51 I imagine.

Joe Rogan 37:51 Yeah, it's, there's a lot of things like that.

Coleman Hughes 37:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:54 You have to be scared.

Coleman Hughes 37:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:56 I get nervous every time I go on stage. I've been doing comedy forever.

Coleman Hughes 37:59 Still?

Joe Rogan 37:59 Yeah. I have to. I've done it when I don't get nervous. I don't do as well.

Coleman Hughes 38:03 Hm.

Joe Rogan 38:04 I need to get nervous.

Coleman Hughes 38:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:05 I get myself nervous. I pace, I move around-

Coleman Hughes 38:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:07 ... I stretch. I go over my notes, I think abou- I ra- ramp my brain up. I think you have to. I think you have to with anything that's very difficult to do. I don't think, I mean, I think maybe there's some people-

Coleman Hughes 38:17 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:17 ... that are just on the certain spectrum of consciousness that are, are, uh, able to just like, go zen and, and go into a thing.

Coleman Hughes 38:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 38:25 And maybe there's different things that don't get you scared that maybe being scared would be detrimental to those things, 'cause you'd make quicker judgments instead of measured and calculated. 'Cause when you're w- the thing about being scared, it's generally things that are operating in a time constraint. So you have this time constraint that's happening that also gives you a certain amount of anxiety. There's a beginning and an end of every round, for instance, you know?

Coleman Hughes 38:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 38:49 And, you know, e- each round is, in kickboxing where I was doing it was three minutes. In MMA it's five minutes. And so you have this time constraint, you have that. You have how many rounds you're gonna have to do, that's in the back of your head. You have all these things that keep you from being zen.

Coleman Hughes 39:02 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:03 There's all these things that like, well, and the live aspect of it, and everyone's watching, that's another thing, that's another element.

Coleman Hughes 39:09 What about archery and shooting? Those are probably the opposite, right?

Joe Rogan 39:12 Well, archery's, bow hunting is very much that. Bow hunting-

Coleman Hughes 39:17 In, in a sense you wanna be s-

Joe Rogan 39:18 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 39:18 ... anxious a little bit?

Joe Rogan 39:19 Yeah, you're going to be-

Coleman Hughes 39:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:21 ... no matter what. You will, you will be anxious. But you must be able to perform at your best and handle that anxiety. And there's a bunch of different methods that people use to avoid, uh, open loop thought processes. So an open loop thought process is like swinging a bat. You really can't stop the bat once you're swinging it. You're swinging with all your might and it's just this open loop, right?

Coleman Hughes 39:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:46 A closed loop process is something where you're in control of it every step of the way. Like for instance, me opening up this thing. I can stop right there.

Coleman Hughes 39:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:54 I don't just go, "Uh."

Coleman Hughes 39:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:55 I can't, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's not like, uh, a thing that I can't control.

Coleman Hughes 40:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:00 You can control it. And so when you're in a, uh, a shooting situation with it, like with archery, you have to think entirely about the process of shooting. You can't just go now-

Coleman Hughes 40:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:13 ... 'cause you'll be filled with anxiety, you'll move your arm-

Coleman Hughes 40:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:15 ... you'll twitch. There's a lot... You have to be able to stay rock steady with something that's not very steady. The beautiful thing about archery is the perfection of doing something that's almost impossible to perfect. So when you can have these brief moments where that arrow does launch and goes right into that target, right where the X is-

Coleman Hughes 40:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:35 (sighs) There's this immense sense of elation, accomplishment. But now when you're dealing with an animal-

Coleman Hughes 40:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:42 ... then you have all these other consequences, like you don't want to wound the animal. You wanna be able to hit it and kill it very quickly with one shot.

Coleman Hughes 40:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:48 And you have to have practiced thousands and thousands of arrows. And then there's this one moment. It's not like fighting where you have multiple opportunities to hit a guy.

Coleman Hughes 40:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:57 You can move, you can step to the side, you could... This is the one moment that the fight is actually happened, but there's a lot of moments in the fight. When you release that arrow, that is one moment.

Coleman Hughes 41:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:06 So you might have worked 11 months, three weeks, and six days for this one moment, and you've been planning this elk hunt for the whole year. You've gotten in shape for it, you practiced all these arrows. But when that elk steps out from between those trees at 60 yards and you're at full draw, you have to center that pin right where its vitals are, and you have to release a perfect arrow.

Coleman Hughes 41:32 Yeah, I mean-

Joe Rogan 41:32 It's very, very hard to do.

Coleman Hughes 41:33 I've only gone shooting, I think, twice or maybe three times, and just that moment right before...

Joe Rogan 41:41 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 41:42 ... your body flinches-

Joe Rogan 41:43 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 41:43 ... in this way.

Joe Rogan 41:43 Yes. Yes.

Coleman Hughes 41:43 And so how does one get past that?

Joe Rogan 41:47 You have to train. Training is very important, and you have to train with purpose. Like my friend-

Coleman Hughes 41:51 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:51 ... Tim Kennedy, when he shoots on a range, he puts dummy rounds in his gun.

Coleman Hughes 41:56 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 41:56 So he'll have like 10 rounds that are real and then one dummy round and then six rounds that are real. And he never knows where the dummy round is. So-

Coleman Hughes 42:03 What's the point of that?

Joe Rogan 42:04 So when you're squeezing the trigger, you want to have like a completely flat squeezing of the trigger. You don't wanna do this.

Coleman Hughes 42:11 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:11 You don't wanna yank in anticipation of the recoil.

Coleman Hughes 42:14 Right.

Joe Rogan 42:14 And that's part of the problem with guns.

Coleman Hughes 42:16 (coughs)

Joe Rogan 42:16 You, you flinch in anticipation of the recoil.

Coleman Hughes 42:19 Right.

Joe Rogan 42:19 And when that bullet goes out of that gun, that flinch left or right, over the course of 100 yards-

Coleman Hughes 42:26 Huge. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:26 ... could be a foot, two feet off the mark. Who knows?

Coleman Hughes 42:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:29 Depending on how much you flinch. Um, and so that is a practice that some people employ to learn to be able to stay so steady no matter what, where you're never anticipating the recoil.

Coleman Hughes 42:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:41 All you're thinking about is the process of squeezing off-

Coleman Hughes 42:43 So, so there's no recoil with a dummy round?

Joe Rogan 42:45 Exactly.

Coleman Hughes 42:46 Got it.

Joe Rogan 42:46 It doesn't go off.

Coleman Hughes 42:47 So you can see the evidence of your own-

Joe Rogan 42:48 Exactly. You pull the trigger-

Coleman Hughes 42:49 Got it.

Joe Rogan 42:49 ... but nothing happens.

Coleman Hughes 42:50 Got it.

Joe Rogan 42:50 'Cause there's no real round.

Coleman Hughes 42:52 Right.

Joe Rogan 42:52 It's just a-... rubber or whatever the fuck it is.

Coleman Hughes 42:54 I don't know if this is Hollywood, but I saw the movie The Killer, David Fincher's latest-

Joe Rogan 42:57 Mm-hmm.

Coleman Hughes 42:58 ... movie. And I think he had some kind of heart rate monitor-

Joe Rogan 43:01 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 43:01 ... where he wouldn't shoot until his heart rate was below 60 or something like that.

Joe Rogan 43:04 Mm-hmm.

Coleman Hughes 43:05 I don't know to what extent that's Hollywood or, or actually important.

Joe Rogan 43:08 It's important. Yeah. And the best, uh, snipers can c- most certainly control their heart rate. Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 43:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:15 Y- there's strategies that you learn, breathing strategies to lower your heart rate, o- o- and control your heart rate. And there's also, um, uh, strategies of, um, mental management-

Coleman Hughes 43:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:26 ... of not allowing this... There's this, like, tornado of anxiety that can come on and you have to, like, see the winds blowing and go... (exhales)

Coleman Hughes 43:36 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:37 You have to calm it down. You have to... You can't get caught up in it, in your mind. And I've seen people do it in many different things in life.

Coleman Hughes 43:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:45 And it's... You can apply it to many different things. It's this, this overwhelming fear of fucking up. Instead of thinking about what you're actually doing, you're thinking about the possibility of fucking up, which-

Coleman Hughes 43:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 43:56 ... leads you to fuck up, because that's what you're concentrating on.

Coleman Hughes 43:59 Right.

Joe Rogan 43:59 In the game of pool, if you think you're going to miss a shot, you most certainly miss that shot.

Coleman Hughes 44:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:04 Almost always.

Coleman Hughes 44:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:06 You might get lucky. You make it. Just like, "I thought I was gonna miss." But in, in your head you're like, "I hope I don't miss. I hope I don't miss." You're gonna miss. But if you just only concentrate on the process, you can execute even under pressure. You can execute a perfect line.

Coleman Hughes 44:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:19 And it's, it's a mental management thing. And the only people that know how to do that are people that have actually done difficult things under pressure. And when you do difficult things under pressure, you realize like, wow, there's so many factors that you can probably m- mitigate in some way, through a strategy of control, of meditation, of thought, of understanding what these thoughts are when they, when they start to occur.

Coleman Hughes 44:44 Yeah, I think a lot of anxiety management is deeply focusing on the task at hand, right? Because if, if you're... You know, it, it's not necessarily that the anxiety comes up and you're amazing at swatting it down. It could be that you are so deeply focused on the thing itself that there's no room for anxiety.

Joe Rogan 45:02 Mm-hmm.

Coleman Hughes 45:02 And that's very lucky if you have that level of focus and attention on whatever it is that you're passionate about. It's like you're so upset... Like, like, s- someone like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, the way you hear them talking about winning, you can understand why they didn't feel any anxiety when the buzzer-beater is coming up, there's two seconds they have to make the shot. It's because they're so obsessed with winning that there's no room for anxiety.

Joe Rogan 45:27 Right.

Coleman Hughes 45:27 Right? It's like, it's like, it's, it's life or death to them.

Joe Rogan 45:29 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 45:30 And there's no room for anxiety in those situations.

Joe Rogan 45:33 Yeah. You have to be... I mean, to, to perform at that level too, you have to be really insane. You know, I would say that greatness and that, uh, like, real brilliance comes out of almost like a mental illness.

Coleman Hughes 45:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 45:49 It really-

Coleman Hughes 45:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:49 ... almost does. Because in order to be just so much better than all the other high performers-

Coleman Hughes 45:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 45:54 Because David Goggins has the best quote.

Coleman Hughes 45:56 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:56 He says, "You want to be uncommon amongst uncommon people."

Coleman Hughes 46:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:01 That's him. But, you know, do you want to do what he does? (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 46:03 No.

Joe Rogan 46:04 Like, but he... That's what he-

Coleman Hughes 46:05 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:05 That's how he's uncommon amongst uncommon people.

Coleman Hughes 46:07 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:07 He's a fucking complete psycho.

Coleman Hughes 46:09 Totally, yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:10 But that is how you become David Goggins.

Coleman Hughes 46:12 That's right.

Joe Rogan 46:12 You, you don't become David Goggins by being this mild-mannered person who contemplates and, you know, sits with his coffee and stares out the window and watches the birds.

Coleman Hughes 46:21 No.

Joe Rogan 46:21 And that's not... That's not... That's not how you get the job done.

Coleman Hughes 46:24 No, not at all. Not at all.

Joe Rogan 46:25 And that's not how you become Michael Jordan either.

Coleman Hughes 46:26 No.

Joe Rogan 46:27 You, you have to be obs- I heard that if you beat Michael Jordan at pool, he wouldn't talk to you for weeks.

Coleman Hughes 46:31 Yeah. That-

Joe Rogan 46:32 (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 46:32 That's, that's a maladjusted person. In any other scenario-

Joe Rogan 46:36 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 46:36 ... that's a guy you can't really be friends with, because-

Joe Rogan 46:38 Right.

Coleman Hughes 46:38 But combine that with enormous natural talent and work ethic.

Joe Rogan 46:43 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 46:43 A little bit of good luck, that's Michael Jordan. I mean, the-

Joe Rogan 46:46 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 46:46 ... the top... Uh, chess is the one that I follow. That's my hobby. And the top chess players are absolute maniacs.

Joe Rogan 46:52 Maniacs.

Coleman Hughes 46:53 These people... Like, when they, they, they, they actually... When you try to talk to them about their mistakes... You- you've had Hikaru on. Have- have you not?

Joe Rogan 47:01 No, I have not.

Coleman Hughes 47:01 Oh, you d- I don't know why I thought that.

Joe Rogan 47:02 I would, though.

Coleman Hughes 47:03 So, Hikaru, the best player in America, um, absolute legend. You know, if, if Magnus Carlsen died in his crib, Hikaru... It- it's very possible Hikaru would be world champ for a very long time.

Joe Rogan 47:14 Wow.

Coleman Hughes 47:15 Um-

Joe Rogan 47:15 But what does... What separates him from Magnus Carlsen?

Coleman Hughes 47:19 Just, uh, a l- uh, Magnus, I, I think Hikaru once put it, "Magnus is a little bit better than Hikaru at everything."

Joe Rogan 47:27 Hmm.

Coleman Hughes 47:28 A little bit better at openings, a little bit better at calculation, a little bit better at endgames. You put it all together, and he's, he's just the GOAT. He c- he can't be beat.

Joe Rogan 47:37 What was your take?

Coleman Hughes 47:38 To the point where he got so bored, he got so bored of winning the world championship that he said, "I- I don't want to do it anymore."

Joe Rogan 47:44 Wow.

Coleman Hughes 47:45 Yeah. He's still... So he's technically no longer world champion because he's so bored of winning.

Joe Rogan 47:49 (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 47:51 And it's actually understandable. I don't even think anyone's mad at him, because these world championship chess matche- ch- chess matches, 14 games, they can go six, six hours a game. They can actually go o- over six hours a game. Brutal, a- absolutely bru- Like, if you thought taking the SAT and trying really hard made you mentally exhausted, it's nothing compared to how these guys feel after a six-hour chess game. And doing that 14 days in a row, spending six months prior to that working with chess engines to find one new idea in an opening 50 moves in, it's, it's absolutely grueling. And he, he does it every time and he wins every time, but he says, "I- I can't... This is not fun for me anymore. So I'm gonna play all the other chess, uh, tournaments that you just kind of show up and do your best," and he crushes most of those as well. "But I'm not doing this grueling... I can't live my life like this anymore."

Joe Rogan 48:41 That's interesting because that is Jon Jones too.

Coleman Hughes 48:45 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 48:45 Jon Jones, when he was dominating the light heavyweight division, he got to a point where the way analysts would describe it is that he was playing with his food.

Coleman Hughes 48:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:52 And that he wasn't afraid of losing to these guys.

Coleman Hughes 48:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:56 He, he ju- And he barely trained for some of them. Like, he had a, uh, a famous fight with Alexander Gustafsson, and it was the first fight where Jon had ever been taken down, and he got pushed deep into the rounds, and Jon rallied in the fourth and fifth rounds and won the fight. It was a crazy fight. They had a rematch, and Jon prepared-

Coleman Hughes 49:14 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 49:14 ... and just dominated him and annihilated him.

Coleman Hughes 49:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:17 Same guy.

Coleman Hughes 49:17 Yep.

Joe Rogan 49:17 I mean, just ran right through him. The guy was still in his prime. Jon was still in his prime. There was not, like, a bunch of things that had happened that deteriorated him. Nope.It was a couple of years later and Jon (snaps fingers) ran through him.

Coleman Hughes 49:30 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 49:31 And that's the real Jon Jones. It's just that Jon Jones that was fighting all these other guys-

Coleman Hughes 49:35 He wasn't challenged.

Joe Rogan 49:36 (sighs) He was... He's the GOAT.

Coleman Hughes 49:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:37 And he knew he was the GOAT.

Coleman Hughes 49:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:39 And so, he didn't... The... I talked to his coaches. He literally didn't train for the Gustafsson fight. But yet, still pulled it off in the fourth and fifth rounds, just out of sheer greatness and tough- toughness, and grit and experience.

Coleman Hughes 49:52 Yep.

Joe Rogan 49:52 Pulled it off and he wasn't in condition. He wasn't prepared, but still good enough to beat the very best challenger he ever faced in the toughest fight of his career, in the last rounds.

Coleman Hughes 50:02 Yeah. And the thing with these kind of guys... I don't know about fighting, pr- probably the same, but with the chess guys, you try to bring up a mistake, a famous mistake that they made, and it's, it's almost like you're talking about a family member who died tragically.

Joe Rogan 50:15 Right, right.

Coleman Hughes 50:16 So it, it means that much to them-

Joe Rogan 50:17 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 50:17 ... that they made a mistake 12 years ago on move 24 of some game-

Joe Rogan 50:21 Yes, yes.

Coleman Hughes 50:21 ... that threw the match. It... I mean, th- that's how hard these guys take it.

Joe Rogan 50:24 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 50:24 Which is, again, in, in you or me, that's just a maladjusted guy. That's like a guy with a problem that needs to go to therapy.

Joe Rogan 50:31 Mm-hmm.

Coleman Hughes 50:32 In a top performer, that's what makes him a top performer and separates him from the otherwise very good professionals.

Joe Rogan 50:38 100%. There's a guy who's, uh, arguably the greatest pool player of all time, at least one of the greatest pool player of all time's name's Earl Strickland.

Coleman Hughes 50:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:45 He's this American guy. He won the US Open five times. There's only one other guys won the US Open five times, a guy named Shane van Boening, who's a, another genius player. But Earl, like... He, he would play with this insane intensity. If he missed a ball, he was, like, confused.

Coleman Hughes 51:03 Mm.

Joe Rogan 51:04 Like, "How is it possible that I can miss?" There was a, a million dollar challenge. Now, this is statistically so impossible to do under intense competition that they were willing to gamble and get an insurance policy that would give someone a million dollars if they could run 10 racks in a row of nine-ball. Now, what... The way nine-ball works is you have nine balls and you, you, you shape them where the bottom balls are missing, whi- which would make 15, which is a full racks, right? So it's this, like, triangle sort of a rack. And then, you break the balls and the one ball is in the front and the nine balls in the center. Now, the balls scatter randomly and you have to run them in order.

Coleman Hughes 51:50 Okay.

Joe Rogan 51:51 So every-

Coleman Hughes 51:52 Oh, wow.

Joe Rogan 51:52 ... single rack-

Coleman Hughes 51:53 That's-

Joe Rogan 51:53 ... you have to have a shot on the one-

Coleman Hughes 51:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:55 ... or the lowest numbered ball. And then, you have to have balls that aren't clustered together, or you have to figure out how to break up those clusters and still get a shot.

Coleman Hughes 52:03 Does that mean you have to... You ha- you have to break it strategically?

Joe Rogan 52:06 You kind of can, but back then, they didn't.

Coleman Hughes 52:09 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:09 Guys are much better now because there's a thing called the magic rack.

Coleman Hughes 52:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:12 And what the magic rack is, it's a clear piece of plastic that the balls set in, where the balls are always touching, always, in the exact same spots, because they're literally sitting in a pattern.

Coleman Hughes 52:23 Mm.

Joe Rogan 52:23 And so, then these guys are breaking the balls more softly, which causes... They do what's called a cut break, which causes the one ball to go drift into the side pocket. And the best guys can do it, like, nine-

Coleman Hughes 52:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:36 ... out of 10 times.

Coleman Hughes 52:36 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:36 And then the two ball bounces up table and they know exactly where all the balls are gonna be, and you see similar patterns over and over again.

Coleman Hughes 52:41 I know, it's funny.

Joe Rogan 52:42 What Earl Strickland was doing was smashing the balls, and they'd scatter around, and he ran 10 racks in a row for a million dollars.

Coleman Hughes 52:51 And he did it?

Joe Rogan 52:51 And he did it.

Coleman Hughes 52:52 Amazing.

Joe Rogan 52:52 Because it was so... Everyone's like, "It's never been done in a tournament before." The first tournament where they get this insurance policy, Earl does it.

Coleman Hughes 52:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:59 Not only did he run 10, the... It was a race to 11. He broke and ran the 11th too, and he made a combination on the nine for the million dollars, which is just fucking insane, and not a short combination either-

Coleman Hughes 53:11 Mm.

Joe Rogan 53:11 ... like, a distance from the pocket.

Coleman Hughes 53:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:14 So to be that guy, you have to be out of your fucking mind. (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 53:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:19 There's no other way. You have to be-

Coleman Hughes 53:20 Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 53:20 ... completely obsessed with the game.

Coleman Hughes 53:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:23 You have to be completely obsessed with all the details.

Coleman Hughes 53:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:26 And he does commentary on pool matches. It's fascinating to listen to him do commentary 'cause he talks about different English you gotta use with this shot and differe-

Coleman Hughes 53:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:34 ... different things you have to avoid. And nine times out of 10, the player does something different than he would have done and you see him get fucked. Like, "Yep, that was what I was talking about."

Coleman Hughes 53:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:43 He just... He sees it coming. Sees, sees the whole bo- table in a different way than a person who's a novice sees the table.

Coleman Hughes 53:51 Only things I've ever been that obsessed with, I think, in my life are, are music, um... I'm a trombone player.

Joe Rogan 53:58 Oh, really?

Coleman Hughes 53:58 And that, that was actually my career before I started writing. Uh, I, I still am, actually, a professional trombone player, but I'm-

Joe Rogan 54:03 You talk like a jazz guy. (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 54:03 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I am a jazz guy.

Joe Rogan 54:05 (laughs)

Coleman Hughes 54:06 Joe, I had a... I've ha-... My life path is that... I graduated high school, I was considered one of the top professional jazz trombonists in the country, went to Julliard, which is the m- the most selective school for that, and that was my whole career. Like, that was... I, I had n-... This whole other career I've had was a pivot from all of that.

Joe Rogan 54:28 And how did it start?

Coleman Hughes 54:29 Basically... W- so I was at Julliard, I was a freshman at Julliard, um, in New York City, gigging as a jazz trombone player, and my mom died at, at... when I was 18, and, of cancer, and it just shattered everything for me, sent me down, uh, uh, into a grief and depression. And I had always been interested in philosophy and writing as well, kind of as a side thing, and I was always a very good student in school, but my passion was music. But something about the experience of my mom dying led me to reflect on what I wanted out of life, and I dropped out of Julliard and applied to Columbia. And, and so I, I realized I could still do music. Nobody learns music in school. Um, so being in New York City, I could still play as much music as I wanted to, but I could also get a liberal arts degree and feed that side of myself.

Joe Rogan 55:24 Hmm.

Coleman Hughes 55:24 And it was... Had my mom not died, I- I probably just would have stayed at Julliard. I might have had a whole different life.

Joe Rogan 55:29 Wow, that's fascinating.

Coleman Hughes 55:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:30 Is this you?

Narrator 55:31 (instrumental music)

Coleman Hughes 55:37 (instrumental music) Yeah, that's me with a big afro.

Joe Rogan 55:38 That's amazing.

Coleman Hughes 55:40 That's in high school though, I think, yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:41 When I was, uh, when I was eight years old, I lived in San Francisco and our teacher took us to see Dizzy Gillespie.

Coleman Hughes 55:46 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:47 And-

Coleman Hughes 55:47 Amazing.

Joe Rogan 55:47 ... it was wild. And for folks who don't know, yeah, Dizzy Gillespie, his cheeks puff out like a frog's-

Coleman Hughes 55:53 Yep.

Joe Rogan 55:53 ... which is the, uh, that's not, I mean, you tell me, that's not how they teach you how to do it.

Coleman Hughes 55:57 Absolutely not.

Joe Rogan 55:58 And what he was able to do with his cheeks was, I guess, just years and years of stretching his skin 'cause he had done it for so long.

Coleman Hughes 56:05 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:05 Like, look at, look at that.

Coleman Hughes 56:06 I mean, it's, it's-

Joe Rogan 56:06 Look at that.

Coleman Hughes 56:07 ... that's a full pressure extension of the cheeks. No trumpet player would teach you to play like that, but he was one of the greats, uh, of, of early jazz trumpet playing and he made it work and t-... I don't know that, you know, I've never heard that he had any health issues from playing that way, you know. A lot of trumpet players, they get older and, you know, Freddie Hubbard, who's one of the greatest jazz trumpet players, famously had a growth on his lip that kind of inhibited him in his last decade.

Joe Rogan 56:33 From the pressure of the-

Coleman Hughes 56:35 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:35 ... you know, mouthpiece.

Coleman Hughes 56:35 From, from the, from pressing it against his lips.

Joe Rogan 56:38 Oh.

Coleman Hughes 56:38 And he had a growth, uh, uh, I don't know if it was cancerous or not, but it really-

Joe Rogan 56:41 Oh, wow.

Coleman Hughes 56:42 ... messed him up.

Joe Rogan 56:42 So it just becomes so irritated that a growth developed there.

Coleman Hughes 56:45 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:45 That makes sense.

Coleman Hughes 56:46 Yeah. But, yeah, that's not healthy, but it worked for Dizzy. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:51 Mm-hmm.

Coleman Hughes 56:51 And that's the thing, all the rules can be broken if you're good enough.

Joe Rogan 56:54 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 56:55 Right?

Joe Rogan 56:55 Yeah, all the rules. I mean, and also, he just figured out his way to do it.

Coleman Hughes 56:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:00 You know, he just figured out a way to do it that's, like, not a way that you would ever teach.

Coleman Hughes 57:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:04 There's a lot of that, though.

Coleman Hughes 57:06 There's Slide Hampton, uh, one of the great jazz trombone players of all time, played left-handed, which he's the only person I've ever heard of, great or, or, or not, who plays left-handed. In other words, the slide arm is always the right arm.

Joe Rogan 57:20 Mm-hmm.

Coleman Hughes 57:20 But somebody gave it to him wrong, and that's how he played it. And I've heard, I've heard of guitar-

Joe Rogan 57:25 So he plays it upside down?

Coleman Hughes 57:26 Uh, he plays it left side right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:29 Wow.

Coleman Hughes 57:29 In other words, every trombone player is crafted-

Joe Rogan 57:31 Where is it?

Coleman Hughes 57:31 Sorry, every trombone is meant to be played with the right hand, but somebody set it up, must have set it up wrong when they gave it to him. And I've heard stories of, um, of-

Joe Rogan 57:41 So even left-handed people would do it the-

Coleman Hughes 57:43 Oh, 100% of left-handed trombone players play with their right hand, 100%.

Joe Rogan 57:47 Oh.

Coleman Hughes 57:48 Yeah. Um, but I've heard, uh, and, and Slide is one of the greats. There's a, actually a great video of him playing at Dizzy Gillespie's birthday party, which is a, a, a famous video. But he, um, I've heard, I heard of this with guitar players where somebody gave it-

Joe Rogan 58:04 Hendrix.

Coleman Hughes 58:05 Yeah, it was, is, he-

Joe Rogan 58:05 Hendrix.

Coleman Hughes 58:05 I didn't know that. I didn't realize that.

Joe Rogan 58:06 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 58:07 He played it left-handed or-

Joe Rogan 58:08 Yeah, he played it, like, how did-

Coleman Hughes 58:10 Rather this way.

Joe Rogan 58:11 Jamie, you know.

Coleman Hughes 58:12 Right arm on the neck?

Narrator 58:13 Uh, yeah, Hendrix was left. I was gonna say... I was thinking of Kurt Cobain, I think he played it upside down maybe.

Joe Rogan 58:18 Right, didn't he? Something like that.

Narrator 58:19 No, 'cause you'd have to restring the guitar.

Coleman Hughes 58:21 Yeah, you'd ha- Oh.

Narrator 58:22 Because you always want the low E string to be the top-

Joe Rogan 58:24 Oh.

Narrator 58:24 ... I guess, closest to you.

Coleman Hughes 58:25 Right.

Narrator 58:26 And then some people wouldn't restring it 'cause they weren't told to or however it... Yeah, they just-

Coleman Hughes 58:29 Right.

Narrator 58:29 ... started playing the other way.

Joe Rogan 58:30 What was Hendrix's deal?

Narrator 58:32 Um, let me look it up. I, I think he was just lefty. Let's see.

Joe Rogan 58:35 I feel like he was playing a right-handed guitar, though. I feel like he played a right-handed guitar lefty.

Narrator 58:41 But I actually think it says Hendrix also played his guitar upside down.

Joe Rogan 58:43 Yeah.

Narrator 58:45 Why he played it upside down?

Joe Rogan 58:46 Hmm.

Narrator 58:47 Um...

Joe Rogan 58:48 So- But he also self-taught, which is, to me, the most fascinating.

Narrator 58:52 'Cause he couldn't find a left-handed guitar, which they probably didn't make as many back in-

Joe Rogan 58:55 Yeah, they probably didn't.

Coleman Hughes 58:56 So he took it-

Joe Rogan 58:56 Especially if they don't have any money.

Coleman Hughes 58:57 You're saying he took a normal guitar and put it to the right?

Joe Rogan 58:59 Flipped it, just flipped it around.

Coleman Hughes 59:00 So the, so the, so the low string was high and the high string was low?

Joe Rogan 59:03 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 59:03 And then he, so he must have-

Joe Rogan 59:04 Taught himself.

Coleman Hughes 59:05 ... had all his own fingerings for-

Joe Rogan 59:07 I mean, his sound was so-

Coleman Hughes 59:08 That's incredible.

Joe Rogan 59:09 ... different than anyone before him.

Coleman Hughes 59:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:12 There's, there's leaps in music, but the leaps that Hendrix took, they're so different than everybody else. Like, you, you get, really, it's so hard because, uh, I mean, I listen to his music today constantly and I love it, but I don't live in 1967.

Coleman Hughes 59:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:27 It's not, it's a different world.

Coleman Hughes 59:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:28 And I feel like if you were alive then and you heard Voodoo Child, you'd be like, "What the-"

Coleman Hughes 59:35 Oh, yeah, for sure.

Joe Rogan 59:36 "... fuck."

Coleman Hughes 59:37 For sure.

Joe Rogan 59:37 Standing next to a mountain, I chop it down with the edge of my hand and then you hear that music and you're like, "Oh my..." And by the way, not a great singing voice.

Coleman Hughes 59:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:45 And nobody gave a fuck.

Coleman Hughes 59:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:47 Nobody gave a fuck about his singing voice.

Coleman Hughes 59:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:50 It was, his music was so powerful, the sound... I wish we could play it right now, the, just the beginning of Voodoo Child, that riff. You have to understand there's nothing like that in music before him.

Coleman Hughes 1:00:05 Yep.

Joe Rogan 1:00:06 There's not... There's a lot of that-

Coleman Hughes 1:00:06 And you can never-

Joe Rogan 1:00:07 ... now.

Coleman Hughes 1:00:08 With, with... Yeah, well, because of it, right?

Joe Rogan 1:00:10 Because of it.

Coleman Hughes 1:00:10 Yeah, and that's-

Joe Rogan 1:00:10 Like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Coleman Hughes 1:00:11 ... and that's what happens-

Joe Rogan 1:00:12 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 1:00:12 ... is that you can never really go back with the ears of those people and hear it as they heard it because now-

Joe Rogan 1:00:16 Exactly.

Coleman Hughes 1:00:16 ... you've taken for granted that this way of playing has seeped into the culture.

Joe Rogan 1:00:20 Exactly.

Coleman Hughes 1:00:20 You know?

Joe Rogan 1:00:20 This is what I always tell people that disparage Lenny Bruce.

Coleman Hughes 1:00:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:23 They go, "Oh, he wasn't that funny." Here, give me some of that. Dude, I could run over a fucking-

Coleman Hughes 1:00:54 That's still pretty awesome.

Joe Rogan 1:00:55 ... mountain if I hear that.

Coleman Hughes 1:00:56 That's still pretty fucking awesome.

Joe Rogan 1:00:57 Oh, it's amazing.

Coleman Hughes 1:00:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:59 I could run over a fucking mountain with that in my ears.

Coleman Hughes 1:01:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:03 That's a drug. That song is a drug. That song has, like, a physical power it imparts on you.

Coleman Hughes 1:01:09 For sure.

Joe Rogan 1:01:09 Like, I get goosebumps just hearing it.

Coleman Hughes 1:01:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:12 But, but that guy, we have to understand, there was nothing like that. There was nothing like that.

Coleman Hughes 1:01:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:01:19 You had fucking... << Love, love me do >> You had, like, Buddy Holly and shit.

Coleman Hughes 1:01:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:01:24 And you had, you had gr- great music, but you didn't have anybody who played guitar like that.

Coleman Hughes 1:01:30 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:01:30 And this guy was blowing away, people like Eric Clapton famously saw him going, and was like, "What am I doing?"Like, it's Eric Clapton-

Coleman Hughes 1:01:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:38 ... one of the greatest guitarists of all time. He's like, "Oh my God, I fucking suck."

Coleman Hughes 1:01:41 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:42 "I fucking suck."

Coleman Hughes 1:01:43 Awesome.

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 This guy's changing everything. He's just a different thing. Like, a, a guy who comes along who's so beyond what's being currently expressed-

Coleman Hughes 1:01:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:52 ... that everybody has to, like, move towards him.

Coleman Hughes 1:01:56 Yeah, so I, uh, every Monday night, I, I play trombone at the Comedy Cellar. We have a band, uh, at the Olive Tree Café, the, the restaurant.

Joe Rogan 1:02:04 Oh, wow.

Coleman Hughes 1:02:04 We play on Monday nights, and we got two guitar players. One of them is this guy, Nick Casmarino, that's just absolutely im- impossible to describe, just ab- absolute killer. Um, they're all great singers. Uh, Nick and Colin and Mike and me and my friend Dan are, are, are the horn section basically. And we play, like, nine to midnight every week. We have such a good time there, and the comics are always coming in, hanging out. Uh, it's a, it's a... And we play every genre, like, truly multi-genre, and it's, it's just an amazing experience.

Joe Rogan 1:02:37 Wow, that's awesome-

Coleman Hughes 1:02:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:38 ... man. I'm glad you still enjoy that too.

Coleman Hughes 1:02:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:40 It's... And then now, it's like a pure thing, right? You just do it just for the pure art of it.

Coleman Hughes 1:02:43 That's right, and that, that was, that was really what I realized when I was 18, taking every jazz trombone gig that gave my wa- uh, came my way and paid me $50 and a slice of pizza. I was like, "This is my passion in life. I love this, but this is going to drive me into insanity if I have to take every single gig for my whole life and s- eke out an existence."

Joe Rogan 1:03:04 Yes.

Coleman Hughes 1:03:04 So, maybe I should get a degree and just see, you know, see where sh- shit goes. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:03:09 That's how a lot of comics feel in the beginning of their career as well.

Coleman Hughes 1:03:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:12 The, the comedy thing is, uh, very hard in the beginning. It's, it's a real gauntlet that you have to, you have to traverse. You have to go-

Coleman Hughes 1:03:19 For sure.

Joe Rogan 1:03:19 ... you have to go through a lot of shit in order to become...

Coleman Hughes 1:03:22 I did a couple open mics.

Joe Rogan 1:03:23 Did you?

Coleman Hughes 1:03:23 'Cause I've always loved comedy, and, uh, I had some friends in it, so early, "Oh, go do it." I did two or three open mics, had a good time. Didn't bomb, didn't do great. Did, uh, did okay.

Joe Rogan 1:03:32 Right.

Coleman Hughes 1:03:32 Uh, and then-

Joe Rogan 1:03:33 But the bug didn't bite you.

Coleman Hughes 1:03:34 The bug didn't bite me.

Joe Rogan 1:03:35 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 1:03:35 That's exactly right, and I kn- and the thing is, I knew what the bug meant because I have it for music.

Joe Rogan 1:03:40 Mm. Yes.

Coleman Hughes 1:03:40 And so I, I knew what it's like to be like, "I suck at this, but I love it so much that I'm gonna keep doing it until I don't suck."

Joe Rogan 1:03:47 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 1:03:47 Because with, with trombone and trumpet, there's no such thing as being good when you start.

Joe Rogan 1:03:51 Right.

Coleman Hughes 1:03:52 Like, there's some people that, like, the first time they sing in church, everyone is like, "This kid can sing."

Joe Rogan 1:03:56 Right, right.

Coleman Hughes 1:03:57 There's no such thing as that for trombone or trumpet, for brass instruments. Everyone eats shit the first time they play, and so if you just love it so much that you're okay and you have a family that's forgiving enough to hear you be terrible, which I lu- luckily did, that's how you get good at those things.

Joe Rogan 1:04:13 Yeah.

Coleman Hughes 1:04:14 And I didn't have that for comedy, even though I love comedy as a consumer.

Joe Rogan 1:04:17 Well, I love music as a consumer.

Coleman Hughes 1:04:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:19 And I don't have that for music.

Coleman Hughes 1:04:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:21 But, but I worry I would. Gary Clark was in here, and he gave me his guitar.

Coleman Hughes 1:04:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:25 And he forced me to do an E chord, so he put my fingers in the right place.

Coleman Hughes 1:04:28 Feels pretty good, right?

Joe Rogan 1:04:29 Like, ooh-

Coleman Hughes 1:04:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:29 ... does this feel good. It does feel good.

Coleman Hughes 1:04:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:31 I started getting scared.

Coleman Hughes 1:04:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:33 I started getting scared.

Coleman Hughes 1:04:33 Like, this could take me over.

Joe Rogan 1:04:35 Yeah, I'm worried. I'm, uh... That's why when I play golf, there's a lot of things I won't do 'cause I get-

Coleman Hughes 1:04:39 You think you're gonna get into golf too much.

Joe Rogan 1:04:41 Oh, yeah-

Coleman Hughes 1:04:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:42 ... I'm terrified. All my friends like Jamie and-

Coleman Hughes 1:04:44 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:45 ... Tony and Ron White, they're obsessed. I have so many friend... My friends who play golf are all obsessed with golf.

Coleman Hughes 1:04:50 So, what is it that's so addicting about golf in particular?

Joe Rogan 1:04:53 Jamie?

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:04:54 Yes, all right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:55 (laughs) Look at him smile. Look at him smile.

Coleman Hughes 1:04:56 It's the same thing you're... I've played many times, but...

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:04:59 It's like the same thing you were saying earlier with, uh, with pool. Uh, like, the same description. Just the, or, uh, sorry, with archery, I meant.

Coleman Hughes 1:05:05 Yes.

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:05:06 Uh, with archery. The, the, the, the consequences obviously are less. Uh, you're not gonna miss and hurt something.

Coleman Hughes 1:05:13 Well, there's-

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:05:13 You could actually hurt a person.

Coleman Hughes 1:05:14 ... tar- target archery, though, is very intensive too.

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:05:16 But when you were describing when it all goes right-

Coleman Hughes 1:05:18 Mm-hmm.

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:05:18 ... which is so rare. I heard something Samuel L. Jackson said recently where, like, in golf, you shoot, I don't know, if you're bad, it's 100 shots around, if you're really good, 75. Um, most of those still though, you don't ever really do the intention of what you're trying to do.

Coleman Hughes 1:05:33 Which is made-

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:05:33 So it's like-

Coleman Hughes 1:05:33 ... going in the hole right from where you are.

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:05:35 ... or, like, right where you were aiming or anything. So, it's like-

Coleman Hughes 1:05:37 Right.

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:05:37 ... it's a bunch of mistakes, and then it's, like, how good are you at overcoming those mistakes, clearing your head every time, fighting against nature, also having fun with your friends, being out in nature, getting away from everything for four or five hours, having a couple beers.

Coleman Hughes 1:05:52 Clearing your head. That's a big one.

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:05:53 But it's, like, clearing your head-

Coleman Hughes 1:05:54 Yeah.

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:05:54 ... 'cause you can't think of all the, bunch of other stuff, or it will ruin y- your whole day because you can't have fun out there.

Coleman Hughes 1:06:00 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:06:00 Do you remember that Kevin Costner movie where he plays this badass pitcher? It might've been A League of Her Own.

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:06:08 No, he, that... There's another movie- Where he's, like, a retired pitcher.

Joe Rogan 1:06:10 What, what is the movie?

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:06:11 Uh...

Joe Rogan 1:06:11 Well, he, no, so he has this thing where everybody's like... He wasn't retired. He was pitching in the movie.

Guest (secondary, brief) 1:06:16 For the Love of the Game.

Joe Rogan 1:06:17 For the Love of the Game, that's it. And so he has this moment, like, when he's on the mound, where he goes, "Clear the mechanism," and everything just fades out, and he just looks at the strike zone. And the, uh, you don't hear the crowd anymore. It's a really cool scene.

Coleman Hughes 1:06:35 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:35 Here, we'll play the scene, but we won't do it for everybody else.

Narrator 1:06:37 ... hit it, baby. You got it. You're a world champion. You can always tell when, uh... Yo, Chappell! Yo, Chappell! You suck! You stink on end! You couldn't pitch a tent! Clear the mechanism.

Coleman Hughes 1:07:15 Nice.

Narrator 1:07:23 Hello, Mike.

1:07:24 Pike, walk!

Coleman Hughes 1:07:32 Nice.

Joe Rogan 1:07:32 Yeah, my friend Colton uses that when he goes bow hunting.

Coleman Hughes 1:07:35 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:07:36 He says, "Clear the mechanism."

Coleman Hughes 1:07:37 That's what it feels like to put on Bose headphones and...

Joe Rogan 1:07:40 Yeah, just... (whooshing noise)

Coleman Hughes 1:07:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:41 Just, just force your mind in this state of hyperfocus.

Coleman Hughes 1:07:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:07:46 I wanted to ask you this.

Coleman Hughes 1:07:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:07:47 What was your take on Magnus Carlsen and that young man who apparently, uh-

Coleman Hughes 1:07:53 Hans?

Joe Rogan 1:07:54 ... has... Yes.

Coleman Hughes 1:07:55 Hans Niemann.

Joe Rogan 1:07:56 Yeah. Uh-

Coleman Hughes 1:07:57 Uh, what a character.

Joe Rogan 1:07:58 ... so explain, explain the story for people.

Coleman Hughes 1:07:59 All right. So ba- basically what happened is there's this grandmaster named Hans Niemann, who's a young guy, probably, uh, early early 20s. Magnus is probably more, like, 31 or s- so, like, now. Um, uh, and, uh, what happened is Hans Niemann, uh, he beat Magnus Carlsen at a tournament in a game, not in a match necessarily. Uh, you might need to check that, but he beat him in the first game of, of, of the tournament, which happens, right? Like, even, it's kinda like how the best tennis player in the world can lose a game to a lesser player, but probably isn't gonna lose the match. That happens pretty frequently in chess, not, not uncommon. But it is m- the most uncommon with Magnus. Magnus suspected Hans of cheating. Why did he suspect Hans of cheating? Magnus is not the type to assume someone is cheating just because he lost a game. He's never done that in his entire career. Reason he did it in the case of Hans is because there had long been rumors circulating in the chess world that Hans Niemann was a cheater. Now, there's ways you can cheat in chess in, in an over-the-board game if we're playing with a physical set in front of us. Uh, the way, one way people do it is they'll have a friend, generally, that is looking at the game either here or out in the hall, running it through an engine and giving you a little signal like a, like cheating in a, like a baseball coach would. Um, there are also rumors that i- in principle, it's possible to cheat with a device, and I think that's, that's happened in, in some way, that someone can transmit to you, be looking at the game and transmit you a signal, "Here's the right move with a certain number of buzzes," if I have a buzzer in my pocket. Uh, in principle, it's possible to have a buzzer in the orifices of your body, you know, in your butt, essentially. And this is part of-

Joe Rogan 1:09:49 That's-

Coleman Hughes 1:09:49 ... why it went viral is because there was a theory that they have pretty strict security at these places, so where would he have put the device, you know? They're not gonna, they're not doing an anal cavity check. So that's, that was part of the reason people were talking about it so much, 'cause that's just hilarious to contemplate. But the real, the real situation of it was that Magnus made some strong implied comments that Hans had cheated in, in the game, then everyone started looking into Hans, and the rumors that had long existed in the chess world about this guy became public, and there were serious competing investigations of how is it this, that this guy rose so quickly, for example. It's very uncommon in the chess world for someone to raise in rating that quickly in the professional world, right? There's, like, a, there's a normal rate at which people get better, and there's a kind of impossible rate at which people got better. And people debated. He had defenders, he had attackers, both of them had some good points, um, about his rise in over-the-board play. Then there's the online cheating, which is a totally different story 'cause chess.com has one of the, really the state-of-the-art cheating detection mechanism. Uh, uh, and people cheat all the time on chess.com, which is crazy because there's no reason for it, right? Like, someone like me, I pay whatever I pay every month on chess.com. I'm a random amateur player, I like playing when I'm on the subway, I like playing my friend occasionally. You don't get any money for winning. Most of us have, uh, anonymous usernames. You don't get bragging rights for winning. And yet there's a certain percentage of people, like me, on chess.com that just cheat for no reason. They're just sitting at home in their mother's basement cheating to get a number on a screen that means nothing and wins them no money.

Joe Rogan 1:11:30 Yeah, but it's, to me, them-

Coleman Hughes 1:11:31 It's a, it's a-

Joe Rogan 1:11:31 ... it makes complete sense.

Coleman Hughes 1:11:33 Really? Why?

Joe Rogan 1:11:33 Because of video games, 'cause in video games people would use bots when you'd play online, so an aiming bot would make it so that you would almost never miss. So you would play a guy, and, like say in Quake, there's a, there's a, there's a gun called the railgun. The railgun is very difficult to hit someone with, but it imparts the most damage-

Coleman Hughes 1:11:51 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:11:52 ... but it doesn't have a scatter of damage. Where, like, like, a rocket, you could shoot a rocket next to a guy and fuck him up.

Coleman Hughes 1:11:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:11:58 You could hurt him, but it won't hurt him as much as a railgun, which would kill him almost instantly unless he has a specific amount of armor. And there's some guys who would never miss. They just hit you with that railgun every time your, your head poked out. It would be impossible for them to know exactly where you were gonna be-

Coleman Hughes 1:12:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:12:11 ... for the amount of time unless it was dumb luck-

Coleman Hughes 1:12:14 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:12:14 ... but you can't