Joe Rogan Experience #2181 - Alan Graham

Alan Graham 0:00 (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)

Joe Rogan 0:12 All right. Hello, Alan.

Alan Graham 0:13 Hey, uh-

Joe Rogan 0:14 What's happening?

Alan Graham 0:14 Uh, well, I'm here on the Joe Rogan Experience, man. That's, uh, that's what's happening for Alan, so.

Joe Rogan 0:19 (laughs) Push this thing up, uh, get it, like, pretty close to your face. There we go.

Alan Graham 0:23 Yeah. Great. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:24 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.

Alan Graham 1:01 Well, I appreciate that much. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04 How did you get started on this journey? And when? How long have you been doing it?

Alan Graham 1:10 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-

Joe Rogan 2:18 Yeah.

Alan Graham 2:18 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 2:46 (laughs)

Alan Graham 2:46 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 ...

Joe Rogan 3:16 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?

Alan Graham 3:29 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.

Joe Rogan 4:09 What do you, what do you mean by that? Like, you had an intellectual relationship and then yet a different relationship?

Alan Graham 4:13 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.

Joe Rogan 5:15 Right.

Alan Graham 5:16 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.

Joe Rogan 7:51 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?

Alan Graham 8:20 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.

Joe Rogan 8:40 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 8:40 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-

Joe Rogan 8:56 Right.

Alan Graham 8:56 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 9:14 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 9:14 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.

Joe Rogan 9:38 Well, sort of. The transistor thing, like, first of all, we have schematics, we understand how they work.

Alan Graham 9:44 Yeah. Sure.

Joe Rogan 9:44 We can look at them with microscopes, you understand the process of putting them on these chips. It's like, this is, it's very scalable, and it's also... There's a, a real paper trail of when they were fir- Uh, do you know the whole s- the whole story of how transistors first appeared? It's very fascinating. It's, uh, one of the most, uh, you wanna talk about mysterious things, one of the more interesting things about the UFO folklore is that they believe that we have back engineered some of our advances from crashed crafts, and the transistor is one of them that sort of comes out of nowhere. Another one is fiber optics. They all sort of seem to come out sometime around 1947 after the Roswell crash.

Alan Graham 10:26 Yeah. Well, you know, and-

Joe Rogan 10:29 Just for a little kooky piece of trivia.

Alan Graham 10:32 Yeah, but I haven't ever seen a UFO, so, uh, you know, and I'm gonna believe, I'm gonna, you know... Yeah, maybe?

Joe Rogan 10:39 (laughs)

Alan Graham 10:40 You know, maybe that's, that's the-

Joe Rogan 10:42 Do you believe in that? Do you believe that, like, God has created other life forms in other places?

Alan Graham 10:47 I, I believe it's completely possible. And, uh, you know, I'm, I'm cut out of the doubting Thomas, if you're familiar with, uh-

Joe Rogan 10:55 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 10:56 ... the Apostle, uh, Thomas, I'm cut out of that cloth. Uh, um, there's a great, uh, image, uh, and it's a image in our sanctuary at the, in the village of, uh, Caravaggio, called The Incredulity of Thomas. And it's got, uh, Thomas sticking his finger into the wound of Jesus with, uh, what I believe are the Apostle Peter and Paul looking over, uh, the top.

Joe Rogan 11:22 There it is. Yeah.

Alan Graham 11:22 Yeah. And, um, I, I speak in that. I have a, I have a talk that I give called The Gospel Con Carne, which is the Gospel with meat. But that woundedness, that, that, uh, th- I mean, Thomas... You know, when the, when the boys came to him after the resurrection and said, "Jesus is alive," he basically said, "Bullshit. I'm not gonna believe it until I see the nail marks in his feet and stick my finger in his side." And this is the phenomenal, uh, depiction of that by Caravaggio. Uh, and Thomas, if you really look at it, look at his face, bro. Look at the grimaced, uh, uh, forehead, his eyeballs, uh, you can't see it very well on this screen, but his eyeballs can't even look at him putting his finger in that deal.... and then, uh, he's got the torn garments, like he's, uh, homeless. And then, y- you look at Christ, and, you know, Christ's face does... I mean, it... I don't know how you can paint that kind of compassion, and then his arm, uh, hand over the forearm of Thomas, guiding that finger in, in the most gentlest way, and the boys looking over the top of that deal. And look, these are all fishermen, people f-

Joe Rogan 12:43 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 12:43 ... from ... And I have no doubt in my mind that they're looking at that and going, "WTF?"

Joe Rogan 12:48 Yeah, for sure.

Alan Graham 12:49 I mean, in... 'Cause they were, they were just guys.

Joe Rogan 12:53 Right.

Alan Graham 12:53 Yeah. And, um, and but at that moment, he uttered, uh, you know, um, uh, that, that he believes, you know? "My Lord, my God," is what he said. And, um, and so, you know, there's, there's always the doubt and the... You know, whether there's aliens or not, I, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 13:18 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 13:18 But I would be an idiot to say, "I absolutely don't know."

Joe Rogan 13:23 Right.

Alan Graham 13:24 I mean, I absolutely know there's not.

Joe Rogan 13:26 Do you approach religion with that same line of thinking?

Alan Graham 13:29 I approach religion from a faith, um, level. I w- I was raised, uh, my, my mom, when she went into a mental hospital when I was four years old and spent a year there, subjected to the most powerful psychotropic drugs known to man, electric shock therapy, the whole deal.

Joe Rogan 13:50 Oof.

Alan Graham 13:50 My da- my da- my dad, uh, files for a divorce during that period of time, attempts to strip my mother of her maternal rights, uh, of her four boys. Uh, my mom wins all that because she had great parents. Uh, she gets out, and at some point in time, she converts to Roman Catholicism and drags me and my brothers to, to church and the whole deal. I w- I was four or five, so I don't have much memory of that, but I have a lot of memory of the love that my mother had for Christ and Mary, and, um, when, when, when you're in love with somebody that has profound behavioral health issues, like my mom had, and you see that Christ and his mother, Mary, uh, brought tremendous relief to my mom, uh, that has an impact on you. So I, I go into this with faith, complete faith, and I'm, I'm just released of trying to figure out, um, is it right or is it wrong? And I'm, I'm-

Joe Rogan 15:02 Right.

Alan Graham 15:02 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 15:13 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.

Alan Graham 15:37 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."

Joe Rogan 16:00 (laughs)

Alan Graham 16:00 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.

Joe Rogan 16:12 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.

Alan Graham 16:27 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.

Joe Rogan 16:45 Yeah. We've also made a lot of great advances.

Alan Graham 16:48 Com- tremendous-

Joe Rogan 16:49 You know?

Alan Graham 16:49 ... advances.

Joe Rogan 16:49 We have penicillin now.

Alan Graham 16:50 Thank God. Huh?

Joe Rogan 16:51 (laughs) I said we have penicillin now.

Alan Graham 16:53 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:53 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.

Alan Graham 17:03 Well, look, I just got back. Uh, I mean, last year I walked the Camino de Santiago. I'm going back in September.

Joe Rogan 17:09 What is that?

Alan Graham 17:10 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.

Joe Rogan 18:08 Oh, wow.

Alan Graham 18:08 It's one of the three great pilgrimage, pilgrimage to Rome, uh, pilgrimage to Mecca. Uh-

Joe Rogan 18:13 How long does it take?

Alan Graham 18:14 Well, if you try to do the whole 500, um-... of six weeks.

Joe Rogan 18:19 Wow.

Alan Graham 18:19 It can be done faster if you're, um, if you're in Joe Rogan's shape. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:24 (laughs)

Alan Graham 18:25 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.

Joe Rogan 18:33 Mm-hmm. Right.

Alan Graham 18:34 Power through it.

Joe Rogan 18:35 And just take in the experience.

Alan Graham 18:36 Yeah, and, um, you know, uh, although people from all walks of life walk this deal, it's a very Roman Catholic deal, because all the churches in all these small towns are Roman Catholic churches. And it goes back into medieval time when the, um, uh, um, you know, when the Crusades were going down and there was the battle between the Christians and the Sarracens and, you know, all that. It's just, it's, it's, it's a magnificent experience.

Joe Rogan 19:07 And when you do these things, what do you get out of that? Like, what does it do for you?

Alan Graham 19:11 Well, last year, the purpose was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Mobile Loaves & Fishes and, um ...

Joe Rogan 19:18 Congratulations on that, by the way.

Alan Graham 19:19 Yeah. Thank you, man. I appreciate it.

Joe Rogan 19:20 Very, very impressive.

Alan Graham 19:22 Um, it, um ... You know, for me, it's a, it's a s- ... You know, I'm going back in September and I have two of my kids, uh, eh, going with me, so it's gonna be this great spiritual opportunity to journey. And then along the way, uh, God brings into your life, uh, people from all walks of life. And y- you don't know, uh, the impact of people coming into your life. Like I ... You know, look, I believe I'm sitting in this chair right now, uh, because of how, uh, God has architected us over a few years, uh, coming together and n- now, now we're here. And s- and so, um, life is a Camino, which means the way, and, um, um, you know, you and I are on this journey and lots of things come into our world that just kinda come out of, you know, the e- ether.

Joe Rogan 20:32 Yeah.

Alan Graham 20:32 And, uh, appear. So why not create as many opportunities in our lives? M- many people want to architect how things are gonna go in their life and they gotta have it precise and planned and this.

Joe Rogan 20:43 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 20:44 And, uh, this is a very unplanned, uh ... I, I don't know where we'll be sleeping on any given night. I don't know who we're going to encounter at any given night. I don't know what restaurant we're gonna be in on any given, uh, night or where we're gonna eat a meal or, you know, who we're gonna meet. And so there's just a l- there's a lot of providence that's, that's in this journey, in, in this pilgrimage. It's cool. It's something that would blow a Joe Rogan away.

Joe Rogan 21:13 I'm sure. It is, it is always interest- it- interesting to me when those moments do have, when, you know, someone enters your life, you meet someone and you just go, "I j- I wanna know more about the way you think. I wanna know more about what you're doing." And, uh, the way I was introduced to you, we went, my wife and I went to, uh, a fundraiser. And you had this incredible demonstration of what you're doing and what your organization is all about. And then maybe more importantly, you came out and talked, and the way you talked was with no ego and with kindness and with sincerity. And immediately, I thought, "Uh, I wanna talk to that guy. I wanna find out what's going on with him." You know, there's people that you meet that are, like, extraordinarily peaceful and extraordinarily content, and that's how, that's how you seem to me. And when you were on that stage talking, I was saying to my wife, "Oh, we gotta get his information. I wanna get him on the podcast. I wanna talk to him. I just wanna find out what's going on with him." 'Cause yeah, I think you're a very unusual person 'cause a l- there's a lot of people out there that profess to be Christians, they profess to be whatever their denomination is, whatever their religion is, but they don't necessarily live it. Like you, you abandoned your, uh, beautiful house and moved into one of these tiny homes in this homeless community and then when we went and toured the community and got to see how you interact with everybody, it's, it's beautiful. It's really very extraordinary. And I don't think there's very many people that would do that, what you've done. You live with them, you, th- you feed them, they have all these activities, different things to do, different ways to make a living. There's always people that are extraordinary artists. Just really amazing, impressive art that some of these unfortunate souls ... You know, they have all this creative ability, but they just have nowhere to put it and nothing to do and no hope and no understanding of how to get out of this. And no one around them is getting out of it either and they're sort of trapped. And then you come along and you find great value in these people, you know? And they find incredible value in this community that you've created. And the community is constantly expanding, while we were there, we were there, you were showing us about this new area that you guys are developing, where you can expand it. It's really amazing stuff because it's an example of someone who's actually doing it. You know, you're actually living that life. You're, you're actually contributing in an inc- incredibly positive way to all those different human beings, the hundreds of different human beings that you encounter with this and how much you've shaped and changed their lives. It's very beautiful. It really is.

Alan Graham 24:14 Well, the, um, the interesting thing is that they've, uh ... How they have shaped my life and that's, uh...... that, that, that's where the miracle sits, and when, when you drive around Austin or you drive around LA, uh, you know, where you came from, and, uh, or any city in the United States, and, and you, you see this catastrophe that's unfolded on our streets, of all of our urban cities, it, it appears to be hopeless. It's just a mess. And what we wanna do is be able to bring people into our village and let them see that there is hope, unbelievable hope if we do this right, if we get our act together as a civil society and begin to do things for people, when we begin to learn... You know, and what, how I like to describe this is I say to people, you know, and, and people will, you know, they've got this stereotype of the men and women out there. They're dope addicts, they're alcoholics, they're mentally ill, they've chosen this, uh, they're lazy. Um, and I said, "Look, and, um, imagine being a 12-year-old little boy or girl. You're laying in bed at night, and you're in between, you're in that twilight area between being, uh, uh, asleep and awake. You're looking out the window at the starry, starry night, and you're dreaming about what you're gonna be when you grow up." I can tell you that my dreams at 12 were three things. One, uh, I wanted to be a rock star.

Joe Rogan 25:59 (laughs) Did you really?

Alan Graham 26:01 Sure.

Joe Rogan 26:02 Which, which-

Alan Graham 26:02 Play- played guitar. Had a Fender Mustang. Was in a band. Um, uh, you know, uh, remember playing the song Bad by Cream, I think. Uh, uh, you know?

Joe Rogan 26:16 (laughs)

Alan Graham 26:16 Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, uh, deal. Um, football, I played football. Was a, a, you know, moderately decent football player, uh, at one time. Thought I could play in the NFL. Uh, you've seen my DNA, you realize that, uh, that was never possible, but it was still a dream.

Joe Rogan 26:34 (laughs)

Alan Graham 26:35 Um, and then I wanted to be a jet fighter pilot.

Joe Rogan 26:38 Wow.

Alan Graham 26:38 You know? And, um, you know what's amazing is I'm, I'm, I'm 68 years old today, and if I'm driving and I've got AC/DC cranking in the car, guess who was on stage playing that guitar and singing that song? It's not Angus Young or Bon Scott or Brian Johnson, it's Alan Graham doing that. Or if I'm watching a great football game, you know, and I see, um, somebody throw a great pass or do a great block or a hit or something like that, I go back in time. Or if I see a F-22 screaming across the sky, I still dream today, and I tell people one of my favorite smells on the face of the planet is burning jet fuel. I love being on airports. I became a private pilot. I don't fly now, but many years ago. So the embers of that, those little boy and girl dreams are still inside of us. You had 'em, I don't know what they were, uh, at that time, and then somebody came in and poured fuel on top of those little boy, uh, Joe Rogan dreams that now have you, uh... 'Cause you couldn't be laying in bed at night going, "Hey man, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm dreaming of doing the Joe Rogan experience thing." That wasn't on the plate.

Joe Rogan 28:00 This thing was never on the plate.

Alan Graham 28:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:02 I don't know what happened with this thing.

Alan Graham 28:03 No, that's exactly... But, but somebody was fueling whatever your dreams were along the way until you got to the dream that the world needed you to be in.

Joe Rogan 28:16 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 28:17 And for these men and women who lost their family completely, uh, and nobody there, uh, to pour fuel on those embers that were burning, uh, that's really what we're doing. So when you come into our art house like you did and you see, uh, the artwork that's being produ- the Van Goghs that are being produced, uh, by men and women that are on the street, w- we as a society are missing out. And yeah, look, we got the crack addicts and the glue sniffers and the prostitutes and the convicted felons. All, all that comes with the package.

Joe Rogan 28:55 Yeah, um, how do you do, how do you do that to make it safe for the other people there? Like, if you do have the, you know, the bank robbers and all the, the people that are live a dangerous life and they find themself homeless and, how do you, do you screen those people out? Like, what do you do?

Alan Graham 29:15 Uh, we do very little, uh, screening. We wanna know who you are, uh, but, uh, it's a very low barrier entry to get into our, uh, deal. We, we demand civil obedience. I will tell you that over the course of my life, I have personally known, uh, thousands of dope addicts and alcoholics. Uh, most of them are just good people.

Joe Rogan 29:47 Isn't that crazy?

Alan Graham 29:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:49 I think that's the case with all people. I think most people are good people, but we are so, uh, we're so... We 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-

Alan Graham 30:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:41 ... 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.

Alan Graham 31:04 Working together, man.

Joe Rogan 31:05 Yeah. When, when someone doesn't, it's like, "What is... Look at this asshole-"

Alan Graham 31:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:08 "... 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.

Alan Graham 31:21 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.

Joe Rogan 31:45 When you say giving us a run for the money, like, what's the worst case scenario? (sniffs)

Alan Graham 31:48 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.

Joe Rogan 32:45 And it's probably similar numbers. (laughs)

Alan Graham 32:47 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.

Joe Rogan 32:54 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 32:55 We, we live a great life, uh.

Joe Rogan 32:57 Yeah, for the most part.

Alan Graham 32:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:58 It's just these threat things that people concentrate on-

Alan Graham 33:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:03 ... 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.

Alan Graham 33:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:14 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.

Alan Graham 33:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:40 And unfortunately, what that's doing is it's making us anxiety-ridden freaks.

Alan Graham 33:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:45 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...

Alan Graham 35:25 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-

Joe Rogan 35:51 Yes.

Alan Graham 35:51 ... on your street corner and u- up underneath that bridge that you pass every day. Can we pull over-

Joe Rogan 35:58 Right.

Alan Graham 35:58 ... and help them change that flat tire? That's, that's what this is all about.

Joe Rogan 36:03 (sighs)

Alan Graham 36:03 Because the government... We have to quit yelling at the mayor and the city council to go and fix this problem. This is what we do, okay? Uh, w- we need government to come alongside of us to do this. But look, this is a human issue, and the government is not coming into your bedroom tonight to tuck you in. You know, we need a human-to-human, heart-to-heart connection between people who are broken and battered and come from a trauma background that you and I... I mean, a battlefield...... uh, background that you and I can't even, uh, begin to un-

Joe Rogan 36:40 Right.

Alan Graham 36:40 ... understand. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:41 Yeah, that's, that's th- the main thing, right? People always want to use that term, "Pull, pull yourself up by your bootstraps." You can't even comprehend the starting block that most of these folks have to come from.

Alan Graham 36:53 Well, and nobody has, Joe.

Joe Rogan 36:55 Right.

Alan Graham 36:55 That nobody in history has ever pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, so-

Joe Rogan 36:59 It's nonsense.

Alan Graham 36:59 ... it's nonsense. And, uh-

Joe Rogan 37:01 It's, I mean, there are things that you should do in your life. You should have discipline. You should have work ethic. You should strive to your goals. You should be a good person, try to keep your body healthy. You should do all those things. But all this pretending that everybody's starting from the same spot, and the reason why you're successful and they're not is that you work harder, that's just foolish.

Alan Graham 37:21 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:21 That is ego and nonsense and a complete lack of perspective.

Alan Graham 37:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:26 And one of the things that I've always said is that I- I find it fascinating when you see a city, like Los Angeles is a great example of this. Because in Los Angeles, no one walks. Everyone's in their car, and you go from your car to your home, right? So you're constantly isolated until you choose not to be. And then, when you do go out and you find these people that are in these tents, that's like, you- they just- they're not in the community. They avoid them. They get away from them. We didn't... I- If you go back and you study the history of tribal human beings, we didn't ever live like that, right? We were all communal. Everyone lived together. We had tents, and then we shared fire, we shared food, and everybody had a role in the community, and everybody had a purpose. When we isolated in... We developed agriculture and then developed cities, and then developed walls, and then developed ways to block everybody out, and ways to hide from everyone- the rest of the world, and you're in this. And then- and now that we have cars, you get in that box and you drive past all those people. We've lost so much connection with human beings. And the proportion and size of the homeless drug addicts that are on the street in tents is a direct reflection of how sick the culture is and how sick the community is. And Los Angeles, which is one of the most morally deprived, twisted, ideologically imprisoned places I've ever been to, has the biggest, most insane homeless population.

Alan Graham 39:03 Well, did you see where, uh, Gavin Newsom issued an executive order today to clear all the camps in California?

Joe Rogan 39:09 What does that mean, though?

Alan Graham 39:10 Well, we don't know, but it comes out of that-

Joe Rogan 39:12 Well, it's 'cause he wants to be president, right? Yeah.

Alan Graham 39:14 Well, uh, you know, it's a political move for sure, but it's, uh, related to that Supreme Court ruling, the Grant pa- pass, uh, versus Johnson ruling that the Supreme Court just did. Uh, and, uh, so it's an interesting byproduct, uh, now of what we're, uh, what we're gonna witness.

Joe Rogan 39:31 Well, it's a byproduct of people's absolute frustration and fury over this.

Alan Graham 39:38 You know, what was interesting is, uh, I had a woman that worked for us, uh, a few years ago. And she was a PhD, English, classic, you know, very, very smart, learned person. And, um, uh, I asked one time, "Where- where did the word homeless come from?" And she went and researched it. And the first time that she could find it appeared back in, like, the 700s, uh, in a, in a, in a limerick from Ireland or something, an Irish limerick. And then it didn't reappear again until about the 15th, uh, 16th, 17th century type of thing. And it was, uh, not even hardly present. But, uh, when you get to the 1970s and '80s, um, the word became u- ubiquitous. And through a Google search, you can see that this word appears in every publication, on every news s- media staff. A million times every single day it just becomes... And why, in this window of time, basically the '70s, uh, you know, on, is that word so prevalent? Because we didn't, we didn't have this. When I moved from Austin, Texas, uh, I mean from Houston, Texas, the Houston area in 1976, there, there weren't people standing on our street corners begging. You- you- you had the, uh, you know, uh, the Otises from the, you know, Andy of Mayberry, the downtown chronic inebri- drunk downtown, but it wasn't ubiquitous-

Joe Rogan 41:18 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 41:18 ... on every single street corner. What- what the hell happened in the past 46, 7 years?

Joe Rogan 41:24 What do you think happened since you're in it?

Alan Graham 41:27 Well, uh, profound loss of family, culture of death, uh, within the c- you know, our community.

Joe Rogan 41:34 Culture of death?

Alan Graham 41:35 Culture of death. Just, uh, people not caring about other human beings. Uh, our individual rights, um, uh, superseding the rights of the community, uh, those kinds of things, our constitutional, individual rights. And I believe in our constitution. This isn't an anti-constitutional things. But, um, you know, recently, um, you know, on, on my Facebook, which is my only social media deal, uh, I'm a member of my high school thing. And, uh, uh, one of our assistant principals recently passed away, Coach York. And there were 500, 600 comments on Coach York. And 90% of 'em were from men who got into his office and ended up being paddled, you know, uh, during that period of time, and talking about how awesome Coach York was. And I couldn't tell you how many licks I got from Coach York during that...... period of time, 'cause I, I was a little turdball when I was in middle school and, and, uh-

Joe Rogan 42:48 And that's what they used to do to kids.

Alan Graham 42:49 That, that's what-

Joe Rogan 42:50 They used to paddle you.

Alan Graham 42:50 Yeah, used to paddle you.

Joe Rogan 42:51 I got paddled when I lived in Florida.

Alan Graham 42:53 Yeah. Well, you can't-

Joe Rogan 42:54 (laughs)

Alan Graham 42:54 ... you can't be paddled anymore. There's no discipline. You know?

Joe Rogan 42:57 Right. I don't know if that's a good thing, though, to, to tell people that the way to discipline someone is to hit them. I don't think that's correct. I think that's a lazy approach. I think there's other ways to instill discipline.

Alan Graham 43:08 Well, we have to learn how to discipline.

Joe Rogan 43:10 Yeah, you have to learn-

Alan Graham 43:11 Somehow, uh, because what-

Joe Rogan 43:11 ... how to discipline. The problem is they're just dealing with large numbers of people, and that's the fallback, is to scare them-

Alan Graham 43:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:16 ... and give them pain. It, uh, the problem is, you're encouraging people to hit other people, and then w- you, you encourage it as a form of punishment, and it's just not the way to go.

Alan Graham 43:27 Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm just, uh, you know, saying that there was a different time-

Joe Rogan 43:31 Yeah.

Alan Graham 43:32 ... and, um ...

Joe Rogan 43:33 People were disciplined out of fear.

Alan Graham 43:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:34 But I think there's other ways to discipline people, you know? I think there's different programs that, that you could, especially get rambunctious young boys involved in, and it would, uh, temper most of that.

Alan Graham 43:46 Well, it's like, uh, the outdoors, you know?

Joe Rogan 43:48 Yeah.

Alan Graham 43:49 Young guys don't get to go outdoors now. They don't get to shoot guns and bows and arrows, and I grew up hunting and fishing and, uh, you know, raised my family, uh, outdoors, hunting and, uh, uh, fishing, and, uh, a lot of energy got exerted, uh, in that process.

Joe Rogan 44:07 Sure.

Alan Graham 44:07 A lot of testosterone was released, uh, out there-

Joe Rogan 44:11 It-

Alan Graham 44:11 ... in the wilds, uh, as-

Joe Rogan 44:13 It's also a more natural activity than sitting in a classroom.

Alan Graham 44:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:17 Sitting in a classroom is the most confusing thing to a child. They do not want to do it. They don't understand why someone is telling them to sit still.

Alan Graham 44:25 Well, I hated it, so it didn't work out.

Joe Rogan 44:26 And, and you should.

Alan Graham 44:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:27 It's not good for anybody. I mean, I'm not telling kids listening to this, "Drop out of school," but I am telling you that it's designed for one thing. School is designed to get you accustomed doing things you don't want to do so that you become part of the workforce.

Alan Graham 44:40 Yep.

Joe Rogan 44:40 And that's what it is.

Alan Graham 44:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:41 It's not necessarily your friend. I mean, you ... Education is a wonderful thing, enlightening your mind, filling your mind up with new and exciting information, and exploring the world is fantastic.

Alan Graham 44:53 Yeah. Heavy emphasis on exploring-

Joe Rogan 44:55 Yes.

Alan Graham 44:55 ... experiential.

Joe Rogan 44:57 Yes.

Alan Graham 44:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:57 All that is fantastic. But what they're doing to kids is not.

Alan Graham 45:02 Yep.

Joe Rogan 45:02 They're making-

Alan Graham 45:03 Nope.

Joe Rogan 45:03 ... 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.

Alan Graham 45:13 Well, I'm a dropout, so-

Joe Rogan 45:15 There you go.

Alan Graham 45:15 ... there, there we go.

Joe Rogan 45:16 (laughs)

Alan Graham 45:16 So yeah, didn't work for me.

Joe Rogan 45:18 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.

Alan Graham 45:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:24 Had these terrible nightmares.

Alan Graham 45:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:25 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."

Alan Graham 45:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:31 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.

Alan Graham 45:49 Yeah. Well, we used to have, uh, uh, you know, PE. We don't do that.

Joe Rogan 45:53 Right.

Alan Graham 45:54 Just yeah, maybe more.

Joe Rogan 45:54 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.

Alan Graham 46:48 Yeah, still do.

Joe Rogan 46:49 Yeah.

Alan Graham 46:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:50 Every now and then, you get a really good teacher-

Alan Graham 46:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:53 ... you know? And this-

Alan Graham 46:55 Time, time being the same. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:56 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."

Alan Graham 47:19 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.

Joe Rogan 47:29 Yeah.

Alan Graham 47:29 We're just a puff of smoke in, in this, uh, infinite space, time, particularly time, uh, space. We're only-

Joe Rogan 47:38 Yeah.

Alan Graham 47:38 ... here, you and I are sitting on this, uh, uh, history of human time-

Joe Rogan 47:45 Right.

Alan Graham 47:45 ... and, and it's, it's not even measurable. We can't even see it. We'd have to have a microscope in order to be able to really look at it.

Joe Rogan 47:51 Yeah, and we are so trapped in our own life and what we're trying to achieve and what we're trying to do in our social circle and all the n- nonsense that we have going on in our life that we lose our perspective. And the- that's really unfortunate because even our perspective, just, just to think about how small we are in this life and how quick this life goes by, that in the universe, this planet is nothing, like, noth- nothing that you can see in the night sky is anything. There's just too much. It's so big. I think that's one of the reasons why, in a similar way, people who live by the ocean are very chilled out, you know? I think there's something about being by that ocean that makes you go, "Oh, what is this? What the fuck is this? This is all bullshit." (laughs) Like, how much water there is. Or the same thing about mountains-

Alan Graham 48:43 Well, and, and-

Joe Rogan 48:43 People that live in the mountains, they have a-

Alan Graham 48:45 ... and, and food.

Joe Rogan 48:46 ... and food? Oh, because there's plenty of food there.

Alan Graham 48:49 Abids.

Joe Rogan 48:49 Right. That's true too.

Alan Graham 48:50 That's, uh-

Joe Rogan 48:51 Yeah. And it's-

Alan Graham 48:51 ... it's where all the food is.

Joe Rogan 48:53 Right. Right. But there's something about the, uh, humbling of the environment. Like, mountains are another example of that. There's a humbling of the person by their environment. And I think one of the main problems that we have in civilized society is light pollution. And because of light pollution, we're not humbled by the night sky like our ancestors were. Our an- our ancestors, every night, uh, they got to view the most spectacular thing a human being ever gets to witness, the vastness of the cosmos right above their head every night. And now, we don't even see it.

Alan Graham 49:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:27 We, we, we sacrificed that so we could take our Toyota to 7-Eleven at 10:00 PM.

Alan Graham 49:31 Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can travel and look at those.

Joe Rogan 49:34 Yeah.

Alan Graham 49:34 We got little spots, uh...

Joe Rogan 49:36 Right.

Alan Graham 49:36 Yeah. But not much, man.

Joe Rogan 49:37 But you only get, like, a little dose.

Alan Graham 49:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:39 You're supposed to get vitamin D every day, you know? I think you're supposed to get vitamin space every day too.

Alan Graham 49:43 Yeah, yeah. No.

Joe Rogan 49:44 I think you are. I think the sun gives you vitamin D and it makes you healthier, and I think space makes you mentally healthier.

Alan Graham 49:50 Well, I like vitamin space, so let's, uh-

Joe Rogan 49:52 (laughs) Vitamin space is legit, man.

Alan Graham 49:54 ... go, I'm gonna go adopt that, yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:55 I went to, um, the observatory on the Big Island, in the, the Keck Observatory. Uh, I've gone, gone a few times since there, since then, but one time I caught it perfect. One time, we, me and my family, we went up there and it was, uh, no moon at all. The moon was hidden. So the sky was just... Everywhere you looked, there was just billions of stars and you could see the full Milky Way with the naked eye. And it felt like we were w- what we actually are. It felt like we were on an organic spaceship that's hurling through the vastness of the universe.

Alan Graham 50:33 And the satellites screaming across the-

Joe Rogan 50:35 I didn't see any of those.

Alan Graham 50:36 You didn't see any of those?

Joe Rogan 50:36 No, I didn't see any of those. I mean, maybe there was less of them back then. We're talking about, like, 2009, I guess.

Alan Graham 50:42 Huh.

Joe Rogan 50:43 2008, when this... Probably 2008 when, when this really rocked me. I just remember thinking watching it, like, knowing, you know what? I know for a fact. It's 2007. Uh, I remember thinking, "This is such a travesty that we don't have this view every night," and I think it would change the way people think. It would change the way people feel about just the mystery of life itself, just to be confronted by the stars. Just confronted by this inescapable greatness that's just mesmerizing and-

Alan Graham 51:21 And n- now we're living in The Truman Show?

Joe Rogan 51:23 Yeah, a little bit.

Alan Graham 51:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:24 I think it's spiritual too, I really do. I think there's a spiritual aspect of looking out into the universe that's undeniable, and I think it imparts something into people. I think it imparts this sense of humility and wonder that we're missing, and I think it's another one on the... One of the other reasons why we're so sick.

Alan Graham 51:40 I mean, you really mean it. We're, it's stripping us of that wonder because we don't get to look out-

Joe Rogan 51:45 Yes.

Alan Graham 51:45 ... and dream the way that we used to dream as we looked out there-

Joe Rogan 51:48 Yes.

Alan Graham 51:49 ... into the unknown. And, uh-

Joe Rogan 51:50 Yeah.

Alan Graham 51:51 You know, on the Camino, uh, you, you, you end up in this place, uh, beyond Santiago called Muxia and Finisterrae that was believed to be the end of the world, and it was just a coastline in Spain out overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Joe Rogan 52:14 So they thought that was it?

Alan Graham 52:15 That was it. And I've, I've stood in this place where for centuries people stood and knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that they were at the end of the world.

Joe Rogan 52:29 Whoa.

Alan Graham 52:31 You know? And the dreams that got us beyond that, somebody thinking in their- to themselves that, "No, there's gotta be more," because they're looking up-

Joe Rogan 52:43 Yeah.

Alan Graham 52:44 ... and they're seeing all of that vastness. Had to be looking across and being able to see a similar vastness that didn't end.

Joe Rogan 52:56 Well, it's just amazing, who had the courage to take that phose- first boat trip and hope they don't fall off the edge-

Alan Graham 53:03 (laughs) Well-

Joe Rogan 53:03 ... 'cause they did.

Alan Graham 53:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:04 And some of them believed that you would hit a wall and you would go off the edge. Wasn't there, like, ancient depictions-

Alan Graham 53:11 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:11 ... of what the Earth looked like-

Alan Graham 53:12 No, absolutely. No-

Joe Rogan 53:12 ... that would show a boat going over the edge?

Alan Graham 53:14 No, absolutely. That's what they believed, that w- wouldn't go out there and, uh... You know, it's amazing because, you know, we vilify Christopher Columbus now, you know, because we've, uh, you know-

Joe Rogan 53:25 Found out he wasn't such a good guy.

Alan Graham 53:27 Well, uh, he had his issues. Uh, like-

Joe Rogan 53:30 (laughs)

Alan Graham 53:30 You know, look, we are... Uh, we got... We all have to admit that we, we are a perverted species. So-

Joe Rogan 53:35 Have you ever read the accounts of the, uh, priest that traveled with Columbus?

Alan Graham 53:40 Uh, some of it, yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:41 Yeah. Th- that's rough stuff.

Alan Graham 53:43 No, it's rough.

Joe Rogan 53:44 Scary.

Alan Graham 53:44 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:45 Yeah, they were monsters.

Alan Graham 53:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:46 But-

Alan Graham 53:46 But in Spain, he's a hero because he-

Joe Rogan 53:49 Right.

Alan Graham 53:49 ... he connected the European continent to the American continent.

Joe Rogan 53:52 Right.

Alan Graham 53:53 So it's a whole different... Uh, and during September when you're there, uh, uh, is his, um, you know, holiday and feast and all that stuff. They go nuts.

Joe Rogan 54:05 Do they still have Columbus Day here or is it your colonizers now?

Alan Graham 54:08 No, I think they have Columbus Day, but I think he's g- he'd gotten so beat up that, uh-

Joe Rogan 54:12 Didn't they change it to, like, Indigenous Peoples' Day?

Alan Graham 54:14 Maybe they did. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 54:15 Did they? Jamie, find that out. Did they change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day? I think they might have, which is interesting 'cause if they knew the history of indigenous people, there's a lot of, a lot of bad stuff going on there too.

Alan Graham 54:28 Yeah. No. No.

Joe Rogan 54:28 A lot of, a lot of bad stuff.

Alan Graham 54:29 No. He-

Joe Rogan 54:29 A lot of bad stuff going on right here.

Alan Graham 54:31 No. Humans, uh-

Joe Rogan 54:32 Yes.

Alan Graham 54:33 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:34 That's the reality. There's never been-

Alan Graham 54:35 That's the reality, yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:36 ... one group of humans that lived in this perfect society, this utopian world where they were kind to all of... each other.

Alan Graham 54:42 No.

Joe Rogan 54:43 No. No. No, humans have always been barbarians and conquerors and-

Alan Graham 54:46 Yep.

Joe Rogan 54:47 And, yeah. It's just...... what does it say here?

Alan Graham 54:51 Uh, it depends where you live.

Joe Rogan 54:52 Some places, like Portland. (laughs) And Texas, it's still Columbus Day. "Where state workers have the second Monday of October off." Oh. But that's just when they... So the other places-

Alan Graham 55:03 Right.

Joe Rogan 55:03 ... they don't have that off?

Alan Graham 55:05 Uh, and this is.

Joe Rogan 55:05 So it's just holidays? "State holidays honoring Native Americans." Hmm.

Alan Graham 55:12 Yeah, it says, they call-

Joe Rogan 55:13 Do they still call it Columbus Day on your phone?

Alan Graham 55:15 It's... I couldn't get a right answer.

Joe Rogan 55:16 What day is it?

Alan Graham 55:17 Just depending on what state you live.

Joe Rogan 55:18 What day is Columbus Day?

Alan Graham 55:19 Oct- the second Monday in October.

Joe Rogan 55:21 Let's see if it says it on my phone still, if these colonizers. (laughs) "The second Monday in October," is that what you said?

Alan Graham 55:29 Mm-hmm. Yep.

Joe Rogan 55:30 Uh, nope. Yeah. Oh, it does.

Alan Graham 55:33 It says both on mine.

Joe Rogan 55:34 Yeah.

Alan Graham 55:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:34 The 14th, yeah, Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples' Day. Yeah.

Alan Graham 55:40 There we go.

Joe Rogan 55:40 Yeah. Um, but my point was, when we started this whole journey, that the, the health of a community is often measured by how they treat the downtrodden. And I think it's a great... Like, again, I think Los Angeles is a great example of a place that's really fucked up, and the, the evidence is these people in tents everywhere you look. And the fact that people could... just passing by, and they lived there for years, and it just expands. I mean, it was bad, it was bad in certain parts of Downtown LA. When I was filming Fear Factor there in 2003, we were f- we were filming, we'd filmed downtown because there was a lot of these warehouses that were abandoned, and we used them for stunts and different things that people had to do. And I took a wrong turn once, and I was down on Skid Row, and I was like, "Yo, this is crazy." Like, I, I, I couldn't believe the numbers of people that were just wandering around the street, cracked out, cardboard box houses. And that was the beginning of it. And that... The crazy thing about that is Skid Row is essentially an engineered environment. They took all the mentally ill people that they arrested from all other parts of Los Angeles, and they brought 'em to Skid Row, and they kept 'em there. They, they just put in, you know, food kitchens and some kind of a shelter, and they just like, "You fuckers stay here. We're keeping you out of Beverly Hills. We're keeping you out of Bel Air. Just stay right here." And it just stayed like that and grew. And there was a, was it the Cecil Hotel was the documentary on? Watched a documentary on the Cecil Hotel and which is in the middle of all that. It was this beautiful old hotel, and now that whole area is just chaos. And then now it's expanded, like, considerably. So, the fact that they have never done anything about that, it's, it's only grown. And in fact, more people are hired to work on it, and those people are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and not putting a dent in it. Just shows you how sick the culture is. It's an example. And I think what you're doing is an example of what can be accomplished with a healthy culture. You know, I know you have a, a lot of really important powerful people that are like, that've got your back and really love what you're doing, and because of that, you've managed to put together this enormous community. And now you have more land, and you're expanding and building more of it. And if this can be done more, like, this might be the solution. I mean, what I saw from your place is the best example of a possible solution to this, ever. 'Cause you could see those people when they were walking down the streets and waving to you and talking to you, people seemed happy. They seemed relieved. They seem like they've got some hope. We're looking at it here.

Alan Graham 58:28 We, uh-

Joe Rogan 58:30 We're looking at it here on the video.

Alan Graham 58:32 Look at that mugshot, man.

Joe Rogan 58:34 (laughs) That's you, buddy.

Alan Graham 58:35 Yeah. It, uh... We're a piece of the puzzle, Joe. Uh-

Joe Rogan 58:40 Yes, but it's a very good piece.

Alan Graham 58:41 ... I'm, I'm not a big fan of the word solution. You know, we're, we... People want to solve things, and, um, and, and I appreciate that. Uh, humanity's very difficult to solve. We've been dealing with these issues, uh, issues of poverty and issues of abandonment and issues of trauma since the advent of man. Hell, the Bible basically begins with, uh, you know, the Cain and Abel, uh, you know, experience. So, what we're witnessing today is really nothing extraordinarily new, but because of the urban environment that we live in, it's very, uh, congregated and we're so separated as a culture, uh, today, um, that it's, it's manifesting into this chaos. What we need to do is we need to open the door very wide to innovation. And I will tell you, from 1975 to 1995, 20 years, one simple generation, we eliminated, in the United States of America, one million, that's one with six zeros after it, single room occupancy units in the United States. Okay? Tonight, there'll be about 600,000 people living on the streets. In LA, it's 50, 60, whatever that number is. And-

Joe Rogan 59:59 What were those single occupancy units?

Alan Graham 1:00:01 Just simple, uh, places with a, with a bed and, you know, metaphorically, a microwave inside, maybe a shared bathroom down the hallway or...

Joe Rogan 1:00:12 And where were these places, like?

Alan Graham 1:00:13 In, in all of our cities.

Joe Rogan 1:00:15 What were they called?

Alan Graham 1:00:16 Uh, SROs, hotels and stuff like that.

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 And it was just for homeless people or people-

Alan Graham 1:00:21 No, it's, uh, for people-

Joe Rogan 1:00:22 ... that were down on their luck.

Alan Graham 1:00:22 ... 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."

Joe Rogan 1:00:49 So the only reason why these single occupancy-... places were eliminated was because they'd raised the standards?

Alan Graham 1:00:57 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-

Joe Rogan 1:01:07 Right.

Alan Graham 1:01:08 ... it's kind of a confluence of not in my backyard-

Joe Rogan 1:01:11 Right.

Alan Graham 1:01:11 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 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.

Alan Graham 1:01:52 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.

Joe Rogan 1:02:53 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?

Alan Graham 1:03:10 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-

Joe Rogan 1:03:58 That's the insane asylum?

Alan Graham 1:03:59 ... that's the insane asylum. That-

Joe Rogan 1:04:00 That's a pretty big asylum when you see how few people were there.

Alan Graham 1:04:03 Well, that building is still there.

Joe Rogan 1:04:06 Really?

Alan Graham 1:04:06 Right now.

Joe Rogan 1:04:07 What is it now?

Alan Graham 1:04:08 It's at 45th and Guadalupe.

Joe Rogan 1:04:10 But what is it now?

Alan Graham 1:04:11 It's the insa- it's the-

Joe Rogan 1:04:13 It still is in the insane asylum?

Alan Graham 1:04:14 ... it's the Austin State Hospital.

Joe Rogan 1:04:15 Oh.

Alan Graham 1:04:16 Okay? And so, we, the people of the State of Texas and the state of everywhere knew that we had to have a place for our neighbors that lived in our communities that had profound mental health issues. The problem is, is that we did a lot of ex- human experimentation during that period of time.

Joe Rogan 1:04:36 Right.

Alan Graham 1:04:37 Uh, by the time the '50s and '60s came around, we had invented these unbelievable drugs, Haldol, Thorazine, all these drugs that we could give people. Uh, electric shock therapy, which had been around for many decades prior to that. Lobotomies. The wh- the whole deal about Kennedy had to do with his sister having a lobotomy.

Joe Rogan 1:05:00 Right.

Alan Graham 1:05:01 And, uh, that there's gotta be a better way that we can bring people back into the community w- as opposed to being in these institutions. And so, I ask you and all of our listeners here, how many people do you know that are on psycho tri- they're battling depression, bipolar disorder? It's all around us.

Joe Rogan 1:05:18 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 1:05:19 And, um, um, they don't need to be institutionalized, but there are a few people in this world that need a different level of care than we're currently giving them. I have, we have half a dozen of them that live in the Village that we can't manage and we need a different level of care. By the time Ronald Reagan came around, we were completing, uh, what was really an honorable, uh, experiment that has gone, uh, partially awry.

Joe Rogan 1:05:50 Mm. Right. So, who else besides yourself has ... Do you know of other places like your place, that they've done it in other cities around the country where-

Alan Graham 1:06:03 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:03 ... they've done something similar?

Alan Graham 1:06:04 Yeah, there's replicators, uh, going on around the country. We-

Joe Rogan 1:06:07 I like how you said replicators.

Alan Graham 1:06:09 We call them replicators.

Joe Rogan 1:06:10 (laughs)

Alan Graham 1:06:10 Um, we have a replication operation at Mobile Loaves & Fishes. So three times a year, people fly in from all over the country, uh, sometimes from around the world, uh, to come and learn, uh, for two and a half days in an immersive, uh, two-and-a-half-day symposium-

Joe Rogan 1:06:27 Oh, interesting.

Alan Graham 1:06:27 ... uh, what we're doing. So we-

Joe Rogan 1:06:28 So you're teaching people how to do it other places?

Alan Graham 1:06:30 That's correct, and, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:06:31 How many of them exist in the country right now?

Alan Graham 1:06:33 Um, just gonna kind of pull a number. There's a couple of dozen happening around the US and more coming.

Joe Rogan 1:06:43 Is there a cohesive website where people can find these?

Alan Graham 1:06:46 No.

Joe Rogan 1:06:46 No?

Alan Graham 1:06:47 No. Uh, we'll probably have one someday. Uh, we argue, we debate, uh, wouldn't just call it argue, internally, you know, what is a replicator of the Community First! model? Uh-... there could be... Le- let's just hypothetically say that there are pillars associated with what we do, uh, you know. And, um, so how many pillars do you have to follow in order to actually be a, a real replicator? It's like a McDonald's deal. We... You know, we're not gonna be a McDonald's, because I can't get... We're not going to be able to manage people to do exactly, precisely what we do. And plus, how we do it in Austin, Texas is not necessarily how you're gonna do it in Minneapolis, Minnesota. But there are some characteristics of w- of what we do that we think are extremely important.

Joe Rogan 1:07:42 Mm-hmm. And so, these people that come to you, um, eh, th- how did they hear about you? How di- how did they hear that you were doing this and, like, have- have you had experiences with these people that explained their calling? Like, why they were brought to you to, to try to, uh, replicate this thing in their town?

Alan Graham 1:07:58 Well, there's, um, uh... I mean, there are people all over the US that are working in the homeless space, that have been in this space, that are dealing with these people, looking for ways, uh, to compassionately move the needle on this deal and witnessing that we're, we're not doing a very good job in our country of moving, uh, the needle. And then, we've been all over the news. Th- this show is gonna have a giant impact. We're gonna get slammed, uh, frankly, uh, in a positive way, uh, by people interested in, in what we're doing. But we've also... The Today Show, 60 Minutes, uh, there's just been so much, uh, New York Times, that we've, uh, that we've gotten to experience. They just hear about us, uh, and we're pretty... I mean, we're pretty well-known. Uh, still controversial, but well-known.

Joe Rogan 1:08:54 Well, it's a beautiful thing you're doing, man. It really is. And when you go there and you experience it, you go, "Wow, I'm so happy there's someone like Alan out here doing this." And so happy that all those people that work with you are also equally moved to do it. 'Cause it just feels like you're doing something really good. And sometimes you don't see a lot of that in life. You know? You don't see a lot of, like, real selfless sacrifice and, eh, done under the spirit of just trying to do good.

Alan Graham 1:09:25 I think, um, you know, through these symposiums and through the work, uh, there are a number of people, uh, out there in the US, you know, trying to figure things out. It's, um, the confluence of where I came from, out of the business community, uh, you know, m- may be kind of rare. People leaving, you know, one thing in order to jump into another thing but have had the experience of running, uh, operations the way that I, uh, ran those. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to really demonstrate to people that no matter what your leadership qualities are, no matter how well-spoken you might, uh, be able to articulate what's going on, there's a place for you to lead to make a difference in, uh, in, in your community. Because people will say, "I'm, I'm no Alan Graham." Well, thank God, number one, you're not. It doesn't take an Alan Graham to do this. Uh, but let me show you the pieces that it does take in order to make this happen and where you fit into that, that puzzle. That's what we try to do with our symposiums.

Joe Rogan 1:10:40 And what's interesting also, too, about the place that you have is you give these people an opportunity to learn things and to express themselves, and then these people wind up selling these things. Like, the artwork was truly extraordinary. Like, that- the person that's making those chess pieces, like, those are really intricate. Like, you look at something like that, like, that's very valuable. And a lot of the art is really incredible. And just think, like, how many people get affected and get moved by these pieces of art that would never experience it if these people didn't have an opportunity-

Alan Graham 1:11:14 Well-

Joe Rogan 1:11:14 ... to express themselves.

Alan Graham 1:11:15 ... uh, several years ago, my wife and I got really into Vincent van Gogh, and we've traveled around the world trying to see every publicly available van Gogh that we could possibly see. The van Gogh Museum in, um, in Amsterdam, uh, is, is incredible to learn that... You know, he, he started painting when he was 27 years old, committed suicide at 37.

Joe Rogan 1:11:51 Wow.

Alan Graham 1:11:52 During his lifetime of artwork, he sold one painting.

Joe Rogan 1:12:01 (laughs)

Alan Graham 1:12:02 He was an abject failure. And, um, uh, it's forensically believed that he was maybe schizoaffective, bipolar-schizoaffective. It's also rumored that he was possibly a drug addict. I forget the drug. He spent two years in an insane asylum in a little town in Arles, France, where he probably painted the most expensive art on the planet while he was in an insane asylum. And, um, uh, uh, a- and then it was post his death and because of his sister-in-law, his brother, uh, who died six months after van Gogh, who really exposed him, and he's con- cr- you know, considered one of the greatest artists of all, all-time history.... that's what I believe that we potentially have out there on the streets, are these Van Goghs. And y- you met Ute Dittmar, uh, a German woman who is gifted beyond all, uh, giftedness, and sold that chess set for 10,000 bucks, by the way.

Joe Rogan 1:13:22 Wow.

Alan Graham 1:13:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:23 It's worth it.

Alan Graham 1:13:24 Yeah, it was worth it. Handmade, one of a kind. There'll never be another one like it. Uh, hand-carved, uh, hand-glazed, absolutely, uh, stunningly, uh, beautiful. And, um, and, and I think it's up... And that's because we poured... We, collectively, we the people, us, not just Mobile Loaves and Fishes, decided that we're gonna pour fuel on those childhood embers of her dreams. And that's what she gets to do every single day is come in there and paint.

Joe Rogan 1:14:02 Do you have classes for these people there?

Alan Graham 1:14:04 No. They're the teachers.

Joe Rogan 1:14:07 Wow.

Alan Graham 1:14:07 That's the, uh... There's some level of that. It's a lot smaller than people, uh, think. Uh, you know, uh, I, I don't know how you were when you were little, but, uh, I, I, I was the stick figure guy, and I couldn't... I, I could only color outside the lines. It never worked, uh, for me. And so, uh, but then there are those people that you knew when they were growing up and they could draw all the faces and stuff like that. There's a natural talent that, uh, something in the brain, man, that they're able to get this creativity out onto a canvas that is beyond our, our comprehension. I don't know how they do it. My art is the village. That's my canvas, is that-

Joe Rogan 1:14:55 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 1:14:55 ... that village. It's a different kind of art, uh, but I'd love to be able to draw and paint something. I've, I've, I've tried. It looks like shit, so.

Joe Rogan 1:15:05 (laughs) It just takes more time.

Alan Graham 1:15:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:15:06 When I was a kid, I wanted to be a comic book illustrator, so I drew a lot.

Alan Graham 1:15:10 Yeah, so you may have that gift, and yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:13 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.

Alan Graham 1:15:48 Now, did you... When, when your kids were younger, would you draw caricatures or-

Joe Rogan 1:15:55 Yes.

Alan Graham 1:15:55 ... cartoon stuff?

Joe Rogan 1:15:56 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.

Alan Graham 1:16:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:03 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.

Alan Graham 1:16:45 Well, the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour thing, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:16:48 Right.

Alan Graham 1:16:48 ... is, uh, is pretty legit.

Joe Rogan 1:16:50 It's 100% legit.

Alan Graham 1:16:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:52 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.

Alan Graham 1:17:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:14 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.

Alan Graham 1:17:25 Well, think about what we've, um... How old are you now, uh?

Joe Rogan 1:17:29 56.

Alan Graham 1:17:30 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-

Joe Rogan 1:18:11 Everybody's favorite.

Alan Graham 1:18:12 Yeah, everybody's favorite.

Joe Rogan 1:18:14 (laughs)

Alan Graham 1:18:14 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.

Joe Rogan 1:18:51 Right.

Alan Graham 1:18:52 Um, you could be sitting in the middle of Rome-

Joe Rogan 1:18:55 Come on, man.

Alan Graham 1:18:56 Dra-... There it is, baby.

Joe Rogan 1:18:57 That's Elvis crying.

Alan Graham 1:18:57 Right there.

Joe Rogan 1:18:58 That's serious Elvis.

Alan Graham 1:18:58 Yeah. Velvet-

Joe Rogan 1:19:00 That's fat Elvis too.

Alan Graham 1:19:01 Velvet Elvis.

Joe Rogan 1:19:02 That's, that's Vegas Elvis.

Alan Graham 1:19:03 Yeah-And, um, uh, you'd be in the, in the plaza in Rome somewhere, drinking your, you know, $10 cappuccino and a rainstorm like today comes on, and there's 100 people out there with umbrellas and ponchos, selling 'em.

Joe Rogan 1:19:20 Yeah.

Alan Graham 1:19:20 And you're buying 'em. The rainstorm goes away, and the bottles of water and the artwork and the whirligig things come back out. What, what happened to that piece of who we are? One of my great friends, a guy, he's dead now, John Bravo, used to sell, uh, uh, you know, uh, s- stuff like the skulls and the longhorns and, uh, uh, stuffed animals and stuff and rugs and cow skins and cow skulls from a, from a van on a street corner, and built a, uh, multimillion dollar a year business, um, you know, that was here in Austin where you could go buy all kinds of stuff like that. Because he could do it on a street corner.

Joe Rogan 1:20:09 Mm.

Alan Graham 1:20:10 You know?

Joe Rogan 1:20:10 When did they make that illegal?

Alan Graham 1:20:13 It's, it's either illegal, or the occupational licensing requirements to do it have become so onerous and expensive that people that live in extreme po- poverty can't navigate, uh, that deal.

Joe Rogan 1:20:28 Mm.

Alan Graham 1:20:29 That's, that's the problem. Like, I think that if you're gonna sell a prepackaged food item, like a bottle of water or bag of chips or a Milky Way or something like that, you oughta be able to go buy a box of those from Sam's Club and go stand on the street corner and sell those things. Or walk up and down Congress Avenue and, uh, you know, Milky Way's two bucks. You know? Bottles of water. You know how much a bottle of water is when you buy it by the case? About 20 cents.

Joe Rogan 1:20:57 Right.

Alan Graham 1:20:58 You know? And how much do you pay for a bottle of water during SXSW? Well, five bucks.

Joe Rogan 1:21:03 Right.

Alan Graham 1:21:04 You'll pay $2 all day for a bottle of water. You would buy a bottle of water faster from a guy that's trying to sell it that bought it for $0.20 than you would just to give him the $0.20-

Joe Rogan 1:21:16 Right.

Alan Graham 1:21:16 ... without earning it.

Joe Rogan 1:21:18 Right.

Alan Graham 1:21:18 And they would rather earn the money. So, I wrote a pa- a, a, a little blog post many years ago called, uh, The Panhandler: The Greatest Yet Most Ineffective Entrepreneur I've Ever Met. They're great. They're willing to stand out there on a street corner in absolutely abysmal, shitty conditions, uh, being rejected over and over and over and over again, spit on, reviled, all for, uh, our nickels and dimes and, and dollars. 40, 50, 100 bucks a day. Crazy.

Joe Rogan 1:21:54 Yeah.

Alan Graham 1:21:55 We should, we should empower that. But our nanny state will have them, uh, "Oh, we can't have them on the street corners. They're gonna get hit by a car someday."

Joe Rogan 1:22:06 I think the fear is that you would encourage them to do that, and then you would also, it would get in everybody else's way.

Alan Graham 1:22:12 Well, that's, uh, that's the fear.

Joe Rogan 1:22:15 Yeah.

Alan Graham 1:22:15 But, um, I'd, I'd rather walk down, uh, 6th Street and see a guy with a guitar on the corner playing with a hat out-

Joe Rogan 1:22:22 Yeah.

Alan Graham 1:22:22 ... in front and throw money, uh, in that deal, thanking him for that deal. Or sell me a whirligig while I'm walking with my family to the restaurant that my kid's looking at and going, "Hey, Daddy, I, I want one of those. Get me, please."

Joe Rogan 1:22:39 Yeah.

Alan Graham 1:22:39 And you pull out a $5 bill. It's dignity, man. And then we never know where that might, uh, lead somebody.

Joe Rogan 1:22:47 There's that big homeless shelter that's, uh, off of 7th Street.

Alan Graham 1:22:51 Yeah, 7th and Nature's.

Joe Rogan 1:22:52 Yeah.

Alan Graham 1:22:52 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:22:53 But how do they do it there? 'Cause that seems like a crazy place to put a homeless shelter, right next door to everybody partying. 'Cause you go one block over, you're on 6th Street, and it's madness, it's chaos, drunks wandering down the streets.

Alan Graham 1:23:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:23:08 It's fun.

Alan Graham 1:23:10 Well, uh, that, that place came about in the 1990s, uh, when downtown Austin was just kind of a shithole. Uh, nothing going on. We were barely at the beginning of the revitalization of, uh, downtown Austin. So, the obvious place to have put that shelter was there on the eastern fringe of downtown. And then there was an explosion of people wanting to revitalize, move downtown, and then suddenly this thing became kind of the source and summit of the center of the town, reviled by everybody, uh, uh, moving down there. So, uh, it kinda came about, uh, naturally. It actually happened during my buddy's, uh, Kirk Watson's first term as, uh, a mayor. And he regrets it. He looks at that as a, uh, a mistake. But what do you do now?

Joe Rogan 1:24:09 Right.

Alan Graham 1:24:10 You know?

Joe Rogan 1:24:11 Do they even have the money to move it? And where would they move it, and why would they move it?

Alan Graham 1:24:14 Well, uh, what you have to say is that, um, you know, what neighborhood are you gonna move it into?

Joe Rogan 1:24:20 Right.

Alan Graham 1:24:21 Uh, and that, that becomes the issue. And I think we'd be better off, uh, you know, building more options like the Community First, uh, and pumping more money into that.

Joe Rogan 1:24:32 Yeah, no question.

Alan Graham 1:24:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:24:33 No question. Um, what would it take ... Um, how many people are being taken care of at that place on 7th Street?

Alan Graham 1:24:40 Uh, I'm gonna guess, uh, 100, 150 people. Not many. It's not the, uh, the ... There's a new organization, uh, oh, I can't remember the name right now, uh, forgive me for that, but, uh, that took it over about a year, year and a half ago or so, and they've done a marvelous job of ... You drive by it today, you can't even tell it's a shelter.

Joe Rogan 1:25:07 Hmm.

Alan Graham 1:25:09 So, um, it's actually being run extraordinarily well today.

Joe Rogan 1:25:13 You said that's about a year and a half ago?

Alan Graham 1:25:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:25:16 That makes sense.

Alan Graham 1:25:16 Urban Alchemy.

Joe Rogan 1:25:18 'Cause-

Alan Graham 1:25:18 Urban Alchemy is a, uh, organization out of, uh, California somewhere that, uh, came in and took that over.

Joe Rogan 1:25:25 That makes sense 'cause I have noticed a difference. Because when we used to do the Vulcan, which is down on 6th Street, it was, uh, like catty corner to that place and it was just madness over there.

Alan Graham 1:25:34 Yeah. Well, you still-

Joe Rogan 1:25:35 But that was a couple of years ago.

Alan Graham 1:25:36 Yeah. But if I walk down 6th Street today, it's still full of, uh, people hanging out down there because it's, uh, there's a large crowd. There's-

Joe Rogan 1:25:44 Mm-hmm.

Alan Graham 1:25:45 ... all the things, great-

Joe Rogan 1:25:46 Yeah.

Alan Graham 1:25:46 ... panhandling opportunities. And, uh, so until they really revitalize, uh, that area of 6th Street, uh, that will probably not change.

Joe Rogan 1:25:57 Right. Well, there's some work being done doing that. So we'll see.

Alan Graham 1:26:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:26:01 But yeah, I hope-

Alan Graham 1:26:02 Are you a fan of that revitalization? Uh...

Joe Rogan 1:26:05 Well, I own a place down there.

Alan Graham 1:26:06 I know you do, so.

Joe Rogan 1:26:07 So I'm definitely a fan. (laughs)

Alan Graham 1:26:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:26:09 I mean, I want it to be safer.

Alan Graham 1:26:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:26:11 And, but it's also f- I like the wildness of it. I like the fun.

Alan Graham 1:26:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:26:15 Like that, that street's fun.

Alan Graham 1:26:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:26:17 It's got a lot of energy to it. You're hearing live music from all over the place. There's people walking back and forth and great food trucks right there. It's fun.

Alan Graham 1:26:25 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:26:26 It's got a, a-

Alan Graham 1:26:27 Well, that's what attracts, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:26:28 Yeah.

Alan Graham 1:26:29 ... and, and so how do we make that a part of the character of the deal without, uh, uh, the extreme negative side effects that people experience sometimes?

Joe Rogan 1:26:41 The extreme negative side effects of ha- having the shelter there, you mean?

Alan Graham 1:26:43 Uh, well, homelessness-

Joe Rogan 1:26:44 Yeah.

Alan Graham 1:26:45 ... uh, in general. Uh-

Joe Rogan 1:26:46 They've made it better.

Alan Graham 1:26:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:26:47 Whatever they've done over the last year and a half, it has had a positive impact.

Alan Graham 1:26:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:26:51 You see less, less of it, less real problems. You, you're definitely gonna see, unfortunately, some people that are still like under the throws of drug addiction. There's a corner over by where Buffalo Billiards used to be. You know that, that spot there?

Alan Graham 1:27:05 Yeah. What kind of Red River-ish, uh...

Joe Rogan 1:27:07 Yeah. And, you know, I drove by it the other day and there's like 15 people just slumped over, some of them laying on the ground, some of them like barely able to stand up, just rocking back and forth with whatever drug they're on. It's like, "Oh." (sighs) It's such a heartbreak. And that's someone's kid, you know. That, that's what it is. When you have children of your own too, you look at people like that and you go, "Hey, that was someone's baby boy."

Alan Graham 1:27:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:27:33 And now here they are, like half-naked, scabs all over their body, slumped over, rocking back and forth in the breeze.

Alan Graham 1:27:41 Yeah. Yeah. Devastating.

Joe Rogan 1:27:43 And no one's doing anything.

Alan Graham 1:27:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:27:45 Just they're on their own, you know. And I, it's my feeling that in a healthy society, those people would be treated and cared for. They'd try to figure out a way to try to help those folks.

Alan Graham 1:27:55 But when they get out-

Joe Rogan 1:27:56 It'd be better for everybody.

Alan Graham 1:27:57 When they get out of that misery and come into a place like, uh, Community First! Village, uh, our statistical data that we've done over the past seven or eight years shows an 80% drop in drug use from the streets to the village, and about a 40 to 50% drop in alcohol use.

Joe Rogan 1:28:20 That's amazing.

Alan Graham 1:28:21 It, it is amazing. It's a, it's a harm reduction, uh, model. And, um, uh, because how, how are you gonna live in the misery of being on the streets other than anesthetizing yourself-

Joe Rogan 1:28:36 Right.

Alan Graham 1:28:37 ... uh, to the max? So it's hard to blame people. I mean, we're anesthetizing all of us, right? I mean, there's so... I mean, one of the greatest drug dealing places is all of our pharmacies where, you know, we're all going to buy our pharmaceuticals and-

Joe Rogan 1:28:53 Right.

Alan Graham 1:28:53 ... uh, you know. You know, and there's, look, there's some interesting things going on in the world that, that I want to see explored, especially around addiction. And that's like the use of, uh, psychedelics in mitigating, um, in, as