Joe Rogan Experience #2181 - Alan Graham

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast.…

   1. AGAlan Graham0:00

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays)

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      All right. Hello, Alan.

   3. AGAlan Graham0:13

      Hey, uh-

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      What's happening?

   5. AGAlan Graham0:14

      Uh, well, I'm here on the Joe Rogan Experience, man. That's, uh, that's what's happening for Alan, so.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      (laughs) Push this thing up, uh, get it, like, pretty close to your face. There we go.

   7. AGAlan Graham0:23

      Yeah. Great. Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      Um, thanks for doing this, man. Um, I'm- I was very curious to meet you and I'd, uh, heard so much about you from, uh, John Paul DeJorio and, you know, what you're doing. And we've always wondered, like, there's always been these questions, like, how do you put a dent in the homeless situation? Like, what can be done? And what I see from you is probably the best example, the best possible example I've ever seen. And going to your place, going to see this community that you've established, and how you, you give these people hope and, and a purpose. It's really pretty amazing stuff.

   9. AGAlan Graham1:01

      Well, I appreciate that much. Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:04

       How did you get started on this journey? And when? How long have you been doing it?

   11. AGAlan Graham1:10

       Well, Joe, the, uh, the organization's 26 years old. So founded it in, uh, 1998. It was just a simple idea to start going out on the streets and feeding people out with a catering truck, what many of our friends would call a roach coach. And, uh, I, I got this idea, uh, built on a conversation that my wife and I had with a girlfriend of ours who was telling us about a ministry in Corpus Christi, Texas where on cold winter nights multiple churches would come together and pool their resources to take out to the men and women that were on the streets in the winter in, uh, in Corpus. And at that moment, the image of this catering truck came out of my psych- subconscious mind into my conscious brain, um, as a distribution mechanism from those of us that have abundance to those that lack. And, uh, uh, that was pretty, pretty simple. And as a serial real estate entrepreneur, um, I thought that that idea was a brilliant idea. Of course, every idea that you come up with is a brilliant idea-

   12. JRJoe Rogan2:18

       Yeah.

   13. AGAlan Graham2:18

       ... when you're a serial entrepreneur. And, um, um, it just blew up in a, in a positive way. But it really began a couple of years prior to that on a spiritual retreat, uh, that I went to at my church, uh, that I was invited to. And, um, had I known that a bunch of guys were gonna get together and hold hands and kind of do that bromance, hugging it out, I, I, I'd have never gone.

   14. JRJoe Rogan2:46

       (laughs)

   15. AGAlan Graham2:46

       But I end up in this re- retreat for 30 hours of, uh, of handholding and bromance, hugging it out, and had a, had a pretty powerful experience that, uh, really just led me, uh, to going, "God, what do you want me to do?" I mean, I wasn't asking for anything big. It's just, you know, what are the little things that I can go out there and do? And it was through that and a series of things that, uh, led to the founding, and then, uh, ultimately the founding of the community. So ...

   16. JRJoe Rogan3:16

       So it was essentially this one retreat, you get this vision of just wanting to do something. And this is, uh, wh- why, why did you concentrate on homeless people? Like, what was it about that?

   17. AGAlan Graham3:29

       Um, y- you know, o- out of the retreat, the idea was fundamentally to ... What can I do at church, you know? I can become a lector. My wife can go do the nursery. Uh, you know, we get our kids involved in the, in, in, in the thing. Uh, the intellectual relationship that I had with, uh, Jesus, 'cause there was an intellectual side to this, d- during that retreat just kind of dropped a floor into the depths of the cave of my heart. And so there was a different relationship that I was experiencing with, with Christ.

   18. JRJoe Rogan4:09

       What do you, what do you mean by that? Like, you had an intellectual relationship and then yet a different relationship?

   19. AGAlan Graham4:13

       Well, well, well, look. There, there are elements of the Christian faith, uh, that would, y- you know, first begin with, you know, the, um, uh, you know, that the angel of the Lord came to a s- poor Jewish 14-year-old little girl and impregnated her with the power of the Holy Spirit. That's a weird, uh, thought that you gotta buy into. From that, uh, the Son of God is going to be born a virgin birth. Y- he's gonna be on this Earth for a period of time, and then he's gonna end up being executed. Uh, and he's gonna rise from the dead, descend into hell, um, then ascend into heaven. Uh, but prior to that, he hangs out for another 40 days, uh, with his brothers. These are incredulous things to believe.

   20. JRJoe Rogan5:15

       Right.

   21. AGAlan Graham5:16

       And so at some point in time you have to end up in this intellectual space where you're just kind of going, "Okay. I'm gonna believe that m- my faith is going to drive me there." So, um, when my wife, uh, prior to 1996, s- started taking our children back to mass on Sunday and I wasn't part of that, I, I began to look at that as the train was leaving the station. And, uh, my father had left us when I was young and, uh, divorced my mentally ill, uh, mother and left me and my three brothers, you know, uh, almost stuck with a, uh, a mentally ill, uh, beautiful mom, uh, but struggling, uh, mom.... and I begin to look at, uh, Tricia, uh, who we will celebrate 40 years this year, kind of gets me emotional thinking about it, um, as taking our children and leaving the house, the train leaving the station, and I'm sitting back, fixing to get ready to go into the office to do some work on a Sunday, 'cause, you know, we're both kind of, uh, serial workaholic types. And, uh, I decided to jump back on that train and begin to really explore, uh, my Catholic faith. And through that process, I, I just got enamored with the church. And when I talk about the church, I'm talking about the whole thing, uh, the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Church, the Protestant, uh, Church, the schisms, the heresy, the wars, the reformations. And, and I got enamored with maybe one of the greatest novels ever written in mankind. What a train wreck this whole deal is. Yet, at the center of that deal remains, uh, this Jesus of Nazareth. And, uh, so, uh, uh, that was very intellectual, uh, for me. And, um, and, and I was buying into it. My faith was buying into it. I was believing in it. I wanted to believe into it, but I had no factual things to take me there. This retreat, uh, took that intellectual stuff and dropped it a floor, right, right into the depths of my, my heart. And that's where the change, uh, really began to occur. It became more of a heart relationship with Christ as opposed to a, uh, intellectual thing.

   22. JRJoe Rogan7:51

       So when, when you talk about these specific concepts that are hard for people to wrap their heads around, like the resurrection, and like (sighs) the virgin birth, all, all of these things, like wh- how do you... What do you do with that in your mind when you say you have an intellectual relationship with it? When you come across something that seems impossible, what... How do you, how do you manage that in your mind? Like, what, how do you approach it?

   23. AGAlan Graham8:20

       Well, uh, uh, you know, look, uh, I think there are just some things in the world that you just have to be willing, uh, to accept the immensity of, uh, of the unknown, uh, basically. And, and, and you and I live in a universe of the unknown.

   24. JRJoe Rogan8:40

       Mm-hmm.

   25. AGAlan Graham8:40

       Uh, we would all agree, and I think science would agree, that there are, there are things that we know, but it, it's, it's probably extraordinarily limited. Obviously, much more than we knew 5 or 600 years ago, but-

   26. JRJoe Rogan8:56

       Right.

   27. AGAlan Graham8:56

       ... but, but today, um, we're not even, uh... You know, I was talking to somebody today about transistors, you know? And if you go back to the Apollo days, and your little radio that you could dial in, you could open it up and you could see the little transistors that are in there.

   28. JRJoe Rogan9:14

       Mm-hmm.

   29. AGAlan Graham9:14

       Well, now we're putting a, a million of them on the very edge of a f- the size of a fingernail, um, you know? And you and I can't comprehend that, but I believe it, but I can't see it. And, and, and I know people do, uh, see that. So you and I live in a world basically where we're having to accept things, for the most part, that we, that we can't.

   30. JRJoe Rogan9:38

       Well, sort of. The transistor thing, like, first of all, we have schematics, we understand how they work.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. AGAlan Graham15:00

      is it right or is it wrong? And I'm, I'm-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:02

      Right.

   3. AGAlan Graham15:02

      ... released of having to prove to people. I, uh, you know, I don't get into apologetic arguments with people. This is just who I am and how I express who I am.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:13

      That is one of the more fascinating things about people that are very religious, is that whether or not you think they're correct or not, it obviously has a profound effect on them, and then this relief of release like you're, you're discussing is obviously h- hugely beneficial to people and to communities, and it motivates people to do beautiful things, like what you've done.

   5. AGAlan Graham15:37

      Yeah. No. That's, uh ... You know, look if, uh, if, if God is the creator, he's created all this. So what I tell people all the time, you know, that want to get into a different argument about this or that or the other, I just go, "Look, man. Uh, y- you know, God created all this. He's gonna have to sort all the bullshit out. I, I'm not the sorter-outer."

   6. JRJoe Rogan16:00

      (laughs)

   7. AGAlan Graham16:00

      Um, uh, but this is how I'm going to live, uh, my life to the best that I possibly can, which is simple. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. So that's what we're gonna do. Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:12

      Yeah, and it's a beautiful way to live. It really is. And it's, uh, interesting that some people would dismiss it, and even dismiss the beauty of it because they're opposed to the idea of it being attached to religion.

   9. AGAlan Graham16:27

      Well, if you look at what we, uh, humans have done in the name of religion, or even non-religion, over the course of our entire history here on Earth, uh, we, we've screwed the pooch.

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:45

       Yeah. We've also made a lot of great advances.

   11. AGAlan Graham16:48

       Com- tremendous-

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:49

       You know?

   13. AGAlan Graham16:49

       ... advances.

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:49

       We have penicillin now.

   15. AGAlan Graham16:50

       Thank God. Huh?

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:51

       (laughs) I said we have penicillin now.

   17. AGAlan Graham16:53

       Oh, yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:53

       You know, you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah. We have, um, ruined a lot of things, but you would not want to be alive 5,000 years ago. It would have been fucking barbaric, I think.

   19. AGAlan Graham17:03

       Well, look, I just got back. Uh, I mean, last year I walked the Camino de Santiago. I'm going back in September.

   20. JRJoe Rogan17:09

       What is that?

   21. AGAlan Graham17:10

       That's a, um, a pilgrimage. Uh, today, in a funny way, is, um, and almost providential, is the feast of Saint James the Apostle and, um, it is believed that the bones of Saint James the Apostle are buried, uh, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. For over 1,000 years, there have been these pilgrimages, and a half a million people will do that pilgrimage this year, um, walking, uh, along a 500-mile journey, which I did last year, and I'm going back in September to do another 300 miles, uh, along one of the most medieval journeys on the planet, going from one little small medieval Spanish town, uh, another until you get to Santiago, where the bones of the apostle are buried. Uh, and so it's a, it's a pilgrimage.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:08

       Oh, wow.

   23. AGAlan Graham18:08

       It's one of the three great pilgrimage, pilgrimage to Rome, uh, pilgrimage to Mecca. Uh-

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:13

       How long does it take?

   25. AGAlan Graham18:14

       Well, if you try to do the whole 500, um-... of six weeks.

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:19

       Wow.

   27. AGAlan Graham18:19

       It can be done faster if you're, um, if you're in Joe Rogan's shape. (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:24

       (laughs)

   29. AGAlan Graham18:25

       Yeah. If you're in Alan Graham's shape, we're gonna, we're gonna take a little time. But you really wanna saunter through the deal as opposed to, you know, power.

   30. JRJoe Rogan18:33

       Mm-hmm. Right.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      gravitate so much to, uh, elevated thret- threat levels that we, we concentrate on the bad people all the time. It's like the news, right? The news doesn't show you all the news. It shows you what's scary. There's a lot of beautiful things that are happening all the time that the news never highlights. The news just gets you freaked out about global warming, nuclear war, economic collapse. Is that really Biden or is that a guy in a Biden suit? Whatever it is, it's just more crazy things that get you freaked out, but...... the majority of your inter- your interactions with other people, the majority of your experiences with people are pretty positive-

   2. AGAlan Graham30:41

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:41

      ... for the most part, even considering all this stress that everybody's under, all the time. Bills that can't be paid, relationships that suck, jobs that you got fired from, all these different things. Hopes and dreams that are crushed, flat tire, bad transmission, fuck. Most people are good. Most people. That's why you can go on the highway and everybody, for the most part, is doing what they're supposed to do.

   4. AGAlan Graham31:04

      Working together, man.

   5. JRJoe Rogan31:05

      Yeah. When, when someone doesn't, it's like, "What is... Look at this asshole-"

   6. AGAlan Graham31:08

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:08

      "... fucking dr- driving like an asshole." But for the most part, the vast majority of people are letting you into the lane. They're all pretty much adhering close to the speed limit.

   8. AGAlan Graham31:21

      Well, here, here are the numbers. 400 formerly chronically homeless men and women living in our community. Average time on the streets is nine years. At any given time, 15 to 20 are giving us a run for the money. 380 to 85 are just fine.

   9. JRJoe Rogan31:45

      When you say giving us a run for the money, like, what's the worst case scenario? (sniffs)

   10. AGAlan Graham31:48

       Well, um, you know, they're bringing, um, you know, d- Most everything that happens negatively out there is gonna be related to dope and alcohol. Uh, so, uh, you may have the onsite dope dealer that we gotta manage and figure out how to either tone that down or get them out of there, uh, that kind of thing. The really aggressive meth or crack cocaine addicts are gonna be stealing you- somebody's bicycle or a debit card to go buy, you know, something. Or sometimes we have, uh, the confluence of a profound mental health issue and drugs coming at the same time, and they, they'll get destructive on their property. Uh, those kind of things. It's the, the reality of the whole world that we live in, uh, in a microcosm there, uh, at the Community First! Village.

   11. JRJoe Rogan32:45

       And it's probably similar numbers. (laughs)

   12. AGAlan Graham32:47

       Well, it's, uh, th- that, that, that's right. You, you... Look, we go everywhere every day, all the time, and we're safe.

   13. JRJoe Rogan32:54

       Mm-hmm.

   14. AGAlan Graham32:55

       We, we live a great life, uh.

   15. JRJoe Rogan32:57

       Yeah, for the most part.

   16. AGAlan Graham32:58

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan32:58

       It's just these threat things that people concentrate on-

   18. AGAlan Graham33:03

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan33:03

       ... that f- You know, that we're engineered to try to stay alive. That's what, what our DNA's all about. Like, if you wanna procreate, if you wanna carry on your genetics, you wanna keep y- your loved ones alive, you gotta stay alive.

   20. AGAlan Graham33:14

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan33:14

       And so there's this fear, this constant fear, and it's crippling, you know? And because it's projected, it's projected both by the mainstream media and it's projected by social media algorithms. The things that you interact with the most, the things that freak you out the most or anger you the most are oftentimes the ones you see the most, because you interact with those and it's designed to keep you hooked.

   22. AGAlan Graham33:39

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan33:40

       And unfortunately, what that's doing is it's making us anxiety-ridden freaks.

   24. AGAlan Graham33:44

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan33:45

       And we're losing our understanding of humanity. You know, it's... And it's also extremely polarizing. I don't... We, we had a conversation about this at your place. You know, this, the, the m- the news today, it's like so... It's so polarizing. It's us versus them inside our country for, like, the first time in my life. I've ne- When I was a kid, when I was in high school, my parents were very liberal and they never talked disparagingly about conservative people or Republicans. They just thought they were wrong. That's all it was. Like, they had conservative friends. They would sit at the dinner table and have conversations about stuff, and maybe they'd argue. But it was always fine. It was just two human beings disagreeing on things. Now it's like everybody's a Nazi or everybody's a communist. It's like wh- (laughs) it's just one side is absolutely sure that they're right and the other side is absolutely sure that they're right, and it's just accentuated by everything we see. So when you can see someone like yourself in a microcosm put this together and make a real community of some of the most disparaged members of our society, the people that no- You, you look when they're trying to get money at the stoplight, you look away, you drive past them in their tents. "Jesus Christ, what's that guy doing in there?" You don't even think about them. The same type of person that might see someone with a flat tire and pull over, like, "Hey, buddy, you all right? Can I help you? Because you're me, I'm you." We're at the same sort of stratus in society. We're acceptable members of society with cars and homes and n- normal people with jobs, you know? "So I'll, I'll help you." But that guy over there, like...

   26. AGAlan Graham35:25

       Well, this is what we have to... You know, when you look at the purpose of Mobile Loaves & Fishes, our vision statement, the thing that drives our organization is that we empower communities into a lifestyle of service with the homeless, not to and for, with the homeless. This, metaphorically, is the same thing as pulling over and helping the guy change the flat tire. There's a guy-

   27. JRJoe Rogan35:51

       Yes.

   28. AGAlan Graham35:51

       ... on your street corner and u- up underneath that bridge that you pass every day. Can we pull over-

   29. JRJoe Rogan35:58

       Right.

   30. AGAlan Graham35:58

       ... and help them change that flat tire? That's, that's what this is all about.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yep. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      what they're doing to kids is not.

   2. AGAlan Graham45:02

      Yep.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:02

      They're making-

   4. AGAlan Graham45:03

      Nope.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:03

      ... kids sit down all day. They don't want to. They're making them pay attention to some shit that's boring from some unenthusiastic, uninspired teacher who's underpaid, and it's a mess.

   6. AGAlan Graham45:13

      Well, I'm a dropout, so-

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:15

      There you go.

   8. AGAlan Graham45:15

      ... there, there we go.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:16

      (laughs)

   10. AGAlan Graham45:16

       So yeah, didn't work for me.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:18

       I didn't drop out, but I did have nightmares after I graduated high school that I wa- I was gonna have to go back.

   12. AGAlan Graham45:23

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:24

       Had these terrible nightmares.

   14. AGAlan Graham45:25

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan45:25

       Like, "Oh my God," like, "It was something fucked up, and I didn't get all my credits. I gotta go back and do high school over again."

   16. AGAlan Graham45:30

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan45:31

       Uh. Yeah, the, the, the reality of the way we educate people is that it's just not well thought out, and it doesn't, it's not aligned with human nature. It's not in, aligned with the requirements that a young, healthy body has for activity.

   18. AGAlan Graham45:49

       Yeah. Well, we used to have, uh, uh, you know, PE. We don't do that.

   19. JRJoe Rogan45:53

       Right.

   20. AGAlan Graham45:54

       Just yeah, maybe more.

   21. JRJoe Rogan45:54

       It's also the things that they're learning, they're not even necessarily absorbing correctly 'cause they're not enthusiastic about it. When you show someone something that's really interesting, they absorb it. They get into it. They, it, it, it be, it resonates with them. They want to, they want to be involved in it, which is why I'm sure you could think back, like, I had a great science teacher when I was in eighth grade. I think about that guy all the time. He was great. He, he put in my mind the, the concept of infinity, you know? He put in my mind. He would tell the whole class, like, "Just one night, go outside and look up and realize that there's no end," because you really wanna make your brain hurt? Try to figure out what that means, like, there's no end to that. Try to figure, try to think about how far that goes back, and don't let that thought go. Uh, I thought about that almost every day of my life from a guy that I met when I was 13 years old.

   22. AGAlan Graham46:48

       Yeah, still do.

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:49

       Yeah.

   24. AGAlan Graham46:50

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:50

       Every now and then, you get a really good teacher-

   26. AGAlan Graham46:53

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan46:53

       ... you know? And this-

   28. AGAlan Graham46:55

       Time, time being the same. Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan46:56

       He was also a guy who, uh, fought in Vietnam, and I think that, you know, he had this, this perspective that he was trying to relay to us, like, "You, this is not a long t- You don't have a long time here." Like, "You gotta figure out what you like and get after it. This is not what you think it is, and you're gonna lose people along the way."

   30. AGAlan Graham47:19

       Yeah, there's a great, uh, kind of a poem out there called, uh, Prophets of a Future Not Our Own, uh, about how insignificant we actually are.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Just simple, uh, places…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      single occupancy units?

   2. AGAlan Graham1:00:01

      Just simple, uh, places with a, with a bed and, you know, metaphorically, a microwave inside, maybe a shared bathroom down the hallway or...

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:12

      And where were these places, like?

   4. AGAlan Graham1:00:13

      In, in all of our cities.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

      What were they called?

   6. AGAlan Graham1:00:16

      Uh, SROs, hotels and stuff like that.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:19

      And it was just for homeless people or people-

   8. AGAlan Graham1:00:21

      No, it's, uh, for people-

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:22

      ... that were down on their luck.

   10. AGAlan Graham1:00:22

       ... that lived in poverty, and then, uh, over that period of time, since the 1970s up till now, there's been this creeping affluence dictated by the government as to what housing quality standards should be for people. As opposed to, "I'm gonna help you get up off the streets. Here's a sustenance to get you off the streets. You choose where you're gonna live with that sustenance."

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:49

       So the only reason why these single occupancy-... places were eliminated was because they'd raised the standards?

   12. AGAlan Graham1:00:57

       W- uh, raised the standards, but these places were also f- uh, in neighborhoods where people didn't want those people in their neighborhoods. So-

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:07

       Right.

   14. AGAlan Graham1:01:08

       ... it's kind of a confluence of not in my backyard-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:11

       Right.

   16. AGAlan Graham1:01:11

       ... uh, plus this elevation of, uh, of these housing quality standards that makes a place like Community First! Village, which you have seen firsthand, uh, not a- not approved by the United States, uh, government Housing and, uh, Urban Development. Yeah, we have to change this. We have to, we have to open the door to vast innovation to get people, uh, out of this into places that they can afford.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:43

       And there was also, during the Reagan administration, they changed the standards for, uh, mental health institutes, and I believe they've let a lot of people out on the street.

   18. AGAlan Graham1:01:52

       Well, let's, uh ... y- we gotta look at the facts. And what, what I would do, there's a great podcast that came out recently through, uh, uh, NPR called Lost Patients, P-A-T-I-E-N-T-S, that goes through the historical background of that entire debacle, and it really begins with JFK and, and the effort ... And, and the exclamation point was put on during the Reagan administration. People wanna blame Ronald Reagan, but it wasn't Reagan. It was lots of people, all of us, we, the people, frankly, um, that were trying to get people out of the state mental hospitals that didn't need to be there, and the vast majority of them didn't need to be there, and reacclimate them back into the community. What we're seeing out on the streets right now are the small percentage of people who probably need to be institutionalized or managed in a phenomenally different way than what- how we're managing them now.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:02:53

       So, they had a problem with people that were just using the mental health institutions to stay there? Or was it just, uh, s- a matter of, like, they had diagnosed people with, you know, manageable illnesses but wanted to keep them there? Like, how did ... What was the issue?

   20. AGAlan Graham1:03:10

       Well, um, you know, it's, it's, it's complicated, so I'm gonna just kind of do a, a, a superficial ... In 1887, there's a map of, uh, the City of Austin. It's an oblique map that goes from the Colorado River, uh, north, uh, through North Austin, and it's kind of a topographical map. You can buy these maps, uh, today. And on that map are three prominent features. This is 1887. There's the capital, there's the University of Texas Tower, and, uh, and there's the insane asylum. If you can zoom in on that-

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:03:58

       That's the insane asylum?

   22. AGAlan Graham1:03:59

       ... that's the insane asylum. That-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:04:00

       That's a pretty big asylum when you see how few people were there.

   24. AGAlan Graham1:04:03

       Well, that building is still there.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:04:06

       Really?

   26. AGAlan Graham1:04:06

       Right now.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:04:07

       What is it now?

   28. AGAlan Graham1:04:08

       It's at 45th and Guadalupe.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:04:10

       But what is it now?

   30. AGAlan Graham1:04:11

       It's the insa- it's the-
6. 1:15:00 – 1:29:29

   (laughs) It just takes…

   1. AGAlan Graham1:15:00

      love to be able to draw and paint something. I've, I've, I've tried. It looks like shit, so.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:05

      (laughs) It just takes more time.

   3. AGAlan Graham1:15:06

      (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:06

      When I was a kid, I wanted to be a comic book illustrator, so I drew a lot.

   5. AGAlan Graham1:15:10

      Yeah, so you may have that gift, and yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:13

      Well, I think it's just an interest, and then with focus and time and dedication, you get better at it. If you're truly engaged in it, enthusiastic about it, obsessed with it, you'll get better at it. I don't think... I mean, I think there's certain people that definitely have a very unique perspective, and that, whatever that is, that gift allows their art to be completely unique and different. Just something, it re- it just, it just sparks. It has a different feeling when you look at it. But I think that really comes from whatever that person is. I think the, the skill of learning how to do it is... That's a learned skill that you could learn.

   7. AGAlan Graham1:15:48

      Now, did you... When, when your kids were younger, would you draw caricatures or-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:15:55

      Yes.

   9. AGAlan Graham1:15:55

      ... cartoon stuff?

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:15:56

       I have... One of my daughters is an incredible artist. She's incredible. She's really, really talented. Like, more talented than I was when I was her age.

   11. AGAlan Graham1:16:03

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:16:03

       She's, she's incredible. Um, I think maybe some of that comes from genetics. I don't know. I don't know how that works. I'm not sure. You know, there's so- there's some people that are children of great singers, and they have incredible voices. And you wonder, like, is that the genetic makeup? Is that just, like... You have this capacity for sound that I don't have? Like, you can, you can make beautiful songs that I can't do? Or is it, is it a learned thing in your genes from some person, you know, your, your parent, one of your parents, that has this thing inside of them, and it somehow or another gets into you? And you're like, "Oh, I know how to do that. I know how to do that. That's in me. That's in me." I think there's a little of that too.

   13. AGAlan Graham1:16:45

       Well, the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour thing, uh-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:16:48

       Right.

   15. AGAlan Graham1:16:48

       ... is, uh, is pretty legit.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:16:50

       It's 100% legit.

   17. AGAlan Graham1:16:52

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:16:52

       Yeah. Time spent learning something is 100% legit. The more focus, the more dedication, the more you're, like, all in on something, the better you're gonna get at that. And that's the difference between someone who's truly great at something and someone who's just kind of mediocre. It's how much time you spend on it, how much time you... How much focus, how much energy do you have to apply to it.

   19. AGAlan Graham1:17:13

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:17:14

       And this thing about your village is that there's a lot of these people that do have this energy and do have these... They just didn't have a path for it, and it just was banging around inside of their head.

   21. AGAlan Graham1:17:25

       Well, think about what we've, um... How old are you now, uh?

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:17:29

       56.

   23. AGAlan Graham1:17:30

       56, so I'm, I'm 68. Uh, and I grew up in the, the Houston area. Born in Houston, moved out of there in middle school to, to Alvin, Texas. When I moved, uh, from Alvin to Austin in 1976, there were no panhandlers on our street corners, anywhere, in any city. You might have had the chronic inebriate downtown LA or Houston, you know, or Austin. But you had men and women selling bottles of water, newspapers, flowers, cow skulls, calfskins, and I'm sure your favorite, velvet Elvis art. And-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:18:11

       Everybody's favorite.

   25. AGAlan Graham1:18:12

       Yeah, everybody's favorite.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:18:14

       (laughs)

   27. AGAlan Graham1:18:14

       We need, uh, Jamie velvet- Elvis art on screen somehow. Um, and, uh, we've outlawed all that, that entrepreneurial spirit of people, that quest of people to go out and be purposeful. And instead, the only remaining bastion of entrepreneurialism remaining in the United States for poor people is the First Amendment free speech right to stand on a street corner and beg. And you can't go to any country in the world, Joe, and, and not be accosted by somebody that is selling you something.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:18:51

       Right.

   29. AGAlan Graham1:18:52

       Um, you could be sitting in the middle of Rome-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:18:55

       Come on, man.

Episode duration: 1:45:34