EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,009 words- 0:00 – 1:13
Oz’s pre-podcast marathon habit and ultra-running origin story
- OPOz Pearlman
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- NANarrator
The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music)
- JRJoe Rogan
Are we up? Are we?
- OPOz Pearlman
Surreal.
- JRJoe Rogan
Dude, you've only been here for 20 minutes, you already freaked me out.
- OPOz Pearlman
(laughs) Joe, Joe's freaked out.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) And I'm freaked out by the fact that you're the first guy that's ever come here that ran a marathon-
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... before you got here.
- OPOz Pearlman
You know, wanted to clear my mind.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- OPOz Pearlman
It's a big day.
- JRJoe Rogan
How long did it take you to run it?
- OPOz Pearlman
You gotta check online, I don't know, I think it was, like, three hours 25 minutes, 3:30, something like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow, that's a good time for a-
- OPOz Pearlman
Went kind of southeast.
- JRJoe Rogan
... casual-
- OPOz Pearlman
Thunderstorming in Austin, Texas, and then, uh, looped around, went back, got some work done. I always do phone calls while I'm running.
- JRJoe Rogan
How often do you run? Twen- you said you ran 27 miles this morning?
- OPOz Pearlman
I think so. I, I don't know. I just, I, I turned around, I got it done, I need to get ready for this shower, but yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that a normal thing for you to do?
- OPOz Pearlman
Very normal.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's crazy.
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a lot of distance, man.
- OPOz Pearlman
You know, I, there was, like, a sweet spot pre-having as many kids and more family constraints and, and work and now life is busy, but where I do 20 miles every day.
- JRJoe Rogan
Br- that's crazy.
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah.
- 1:13 – 4:32
Spartathlon: 153 miles, brutal cutoffs, and the mental game of finishing
- OPOz Pearlman
153 miles.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. How lo- how long did it take you to do that?
- OPOz Pearlman
Ugh. 33 hours. Spartathlon in Greece. Epic. Epic.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's in Greece?
- OPOz Pearlman
Oh, it's crazy, man. You run from Athens to Sparta. This race is amazing. You ever see the movie 300 with Gerard Butler?
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- OPOz Pearlman
So that's the story. Uh, a couple of crazy dudes in the '80s decided that they're gonna recreate where he ran, Pheidippides, to deliver the message. 'Cause in that movie, you remember, 300 Spartans defended against the Persian masses, and they frame it as the difference between us having civilization and not. Had those 300 guys not died while they assembled an army and he delivered that message to King Leonidas... So when you finish this race, if you finish, it's one of the hardest races in the world. Like, there's bad water. You know Goggins.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- OPOz Pearlman
Mutual buddy of ours. But, uh, there's races they say are the hardest, this one kicked my butt. First year I wasn't-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is it because of the elevation? What is it?
- OPOz Pearlman
It's 'cause Europe does not believe in ice, so there's nothing cold for the first 50 miles.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- OPOz Pearlman
You're hot and then the, the cutoffs are much stricter. So at 50 miles you have to be done, you gotta fact check this, but nine or 10 hours. So you have to finish 153 miles in under 36 hours. You need to be running at all times.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- OPOz Pearlman
You can't walk for two hours and start throwing up, which I, I was puking for eight hours straight the first time I did it. Still, excuses, this is me just bitching, I should've finished that year. I wasn't mentally tough. But 100%, that year, I just didn't have it mentally, and the next year I came back ready to die. I was like, "I'm gonna finish this race."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah. There was a guy in the middle of the night, I won't kid you, who looked at me, and he says to me-
- JRJoe Rogan
There it is.
- OPOz Pearlman
There it is. He goes to me with, like, crazy eyes, and I've already given up in my mind.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- OPOz Pearlman
You know, i- i- you know, you know, like, they call it DNFing, Did Not Finish-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- OPOz Pearlman
... in ultras? I already wrote the speech of, like, "I'm gonna tell my friends I learned from this." You know, all that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- OPOz Pearlman
... all that stuff of, like, I already gave up in my mind. And I saw this guy at mile, I don't know, 72, middle of the night, who looks at me with these crazy eyes. I'll never forget his looks, crazy eyes. Like that but 100 times more. And he goes, "You're gonna give up?" He goes, "If you can't run, you walk. You can't walk, you crawl. You never, ever..." And I was like, "Yo, man, this guy needs to chill out right now, 'cause I've already quit in my mind." But I channeled that guy when I came back the next year, and it was that. It was, "I'm going to the hospital, and you're not putting an IV, I'm gonna finish this race." And I came back the next year mentally like, "There's no way I'm not finishing."
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you do anything different in preparation?
- OPOz Pearlman
Listen, it, it, that-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, is all mental?
- OPOz Pearlman
... that game, it's all mental. Anyone who tells you otherwise, physical is meaningless at that point. Physical is meaningless in most points, to be honest. There were guys who I saw when I quit, it was, you know, 2:00 AM, who were slower than me, they were older than me. Every objective measure I should've beat them, but they mentally finished. The next morning, I got a, a night's sleep, woke up, watched them eat lunch, and saw them finish. I was like, I was crying. I, I couldn't believe the emotions of this guy finished who was two hours behind me when I quit. And I learned that day it's mental, 100%. The mindset is when you get there, you know if you're finishing at the start.
- JRJoe Rogan
So did it haunt you that you didn't finish?
- 4:32 – 7:35
The ‘sealed future’ envelope and setting up a long-running mystery
- OPOz Pearlman
But hold on. I gotta pause, 'cause I walked in here and I told you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- OPOz Pearlman
... before we start, I have something for you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- OPOz Pearlman
Right? People always say, "Can I read minds?" I can't read minds. I read people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- OPOz Pearlman
This envelope, if they can't see it and they're listening, your logo, sealed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- OPOz Pearlman
This is your future.
- JRJoe Rogan
My future?
- OPOz Pearlman
This is your future. I'm not psychic, I'm not supernatural, but I assure you, I want you to hold this from now until the end of the episode.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- OPOz Pearlman
That's when we open it.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't even know if I wanna know my future.
- OPOz Pearlman
No, no, this is all good stuff. Live to 120.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- OPOz Pearlman
Joe's gonna be a two-term president. You know, you know, it's all... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Shut the fuck up. That's not good. I don't want that job.
- OPOz Pearlman
Uh, you take it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- OPOz Pearlman
... before we even start.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- OPOz Pearlman
And at the end we open it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Got it.
- OPOz Pearlman
So nobody skips this episode.
- JRJoe Rogan
Got it.
- OPOz Pearlman
You buckle up for the ending.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm, I'm here. People will just fast-forward.
- OPOz Pearlman
They'll fast-forward? They'll miss-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 7:35 – 12:48
Running legends, Goggins stories, and Oz’s surprising marathon speed
- JRJoe Rogan
You know Goggins takes all of his haters' comments-
- OPOz Pearlman
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and he records them, and then plays it back to him while he runs.
- OPOz Pearlman
Oh, I know David well.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- OPOz Pearlman
I've known David going on like 15 years, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- OPOz Pearlman
Before Goggins became Goggins. I've seen the whole come up. It's been-
- JRJoe Rogan
How'd you meet him?
- OPOz Pearlman
So we trained for ultra-marathons together.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- OPOz Pearlman
He used to live in New York City.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- OPOz Pearlman
And we'd go out there and, you know, he's shirtless. And this is before... Now, man, he can't go anywhere. He's just... It's like next level.
- JRJoe Rogan
He still runs on the street?
- OPOz Pearlman
He runs, but man, he's, he's like that's such a fame that's, you know, we've talked about. But it's, he's, he's, I mean he's inspired countless millions.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, for sure.
- OPOz Pearlman
But you see-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- OPOz Pearlman
... I don't know what your version is, but like if somebody sees me, I just get like a, "Oh, hey, love what you do." That's it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- OPOz Pearlman
You know, maybe a selfie. That's it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- OPOz Pearlman
Occasionally some drunk asshole's like, "Read my mind right now."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- OPOz Pearlman
And I'm like, "All right, all right, all right, buddy. I'll do it. I'll do it."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- OPOz Pearlman
You know, I don't wanna leave somebody behind.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- OPOz Pearlman
But his is someone comes up and you have to, "You changed my life." Like, "I didn't kill myself or my brother."
- 12:48 – 16:34
From Wall Street tech to magic obsession: how Oz became a mentalist
- JRJoe Rogan
So you were a stockbroker?
- OPOz Pearlman
I wasn't technically a stockbroker. I worked on Wall Street, but I did-
- JRJoe Rogan
What'd you do on Wall Street?
- OPOz Pearlman
... tech. So I, I went to school for electrical engineering, and then worked like, I don't know, the tech guys who supported the ibankers.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. And then, how did you get involved in this mentalist thing?
- OPOz Pearlman
This mentalist thing, right. What a weird thing. So when I was a teenager, I started doing magic tricks. So I saw a guy on a cruise ship, and I, I'd never seen really a magician. I'd never re- I wasn't into it, didn't know about it, didn't have a kid's party magician when I was a kid. And I was obsessed. Literally, I was on a cruise, I followed this guy around the cruise ship. It was a little bit stalker-esque, and there's not that many places to hide if you're a grown man. So I was finding this guy everywhere to just see more tricks. And I got back home, and I bought every book I could at Borders. I went to the library. I was obsessive.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- OPOz Pearlman
I'm kind of those types of people who, I don't do anything 80%, 90%. Given the running today, it's like 120%.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- OPOz Pearlman
And that was the thing for about, I don't know, 20 years is more I was doing magic. I was always doing magic on the side. I paid for college doing magic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- OPOz Pearlman
Had to run a couple businesses, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What did you do, like do shows?
- OPOz Pearlman
So I graduate high school when I was 16. Um, I like skipped a grade, all this, and then my folks got divorced, long story, and, uh, they moved back to Israel. I was born in Israel, so they separately moved back to Israel. So I was a bit of a, I, I guess, I don't know, an adult. Like I had nobody supporting me. So when I went to college, I turned 17, I had to, I had to pay all the bills.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah. (laughs) So I, I had, I was doing magic at restaurants. I've been doing magic at restaurants for like 30 years. And that's where I learned how to read people, just how to go up to a table of people who are like, "Who's this twerp?" Like, "Who's this nerdy kid with braces?" Like, "What are you doing here? Get outta here."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- OPOz Pearlman
And how do you win them over quickly?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- OPOz Pearlman
And that's honestly the biggest skill, is how do you in sales read people effectively?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- OPOz Pearlman
Right? That, that's what I'm selling.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- OPOz Pearlman
I'm selling the thought of reading your mind.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, did you learn the techniques from books? Did you take classes? Like what did-
- OPOz Pearlman
No classes. Books and videos. Did magic. And so mentalism is kind of a field. Uh, y- like you had David Blaine in here, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- OPOz Pearlman
Legend.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- OPOz Pearlman
Man, growing up, like icon. So magic tricks are different, because magic is there's sleight of hand, right? So you're deceiving your eye by making you look at the wrong place at the right time when I do a move. And I can practice that move over and over and over until I get it perfect, so that when I perform it for you, it works, right?
- 16:34 – 27:09
Joe’s PIN code demonstration: ‘I don’t read minds, I read people’
- OPOz Pearlman
Watch, watch. Let's try something fun.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- OPOz Pearlman
Okay? How about this? If I were to ask you, how long you been married?
- JRJoe Rogan
16 years.
- OPOz Pearlman
Okay, nailed that question. Well, well played.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thank you.
- OPOz Pearlman
You got hit. Your sister's happy, your wife's happy. If I asked you, would your wife know your Social Security number?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- OPOz Pearlman
She doesn't know it?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- OPOz Pearlman
So is there any way in the world I could know your Social Security number?
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't think so.
- OPOz Pearlman
Right? You say, "I'm a stalker." Who knows, yeah. Also-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you could've got the information-
- OPOz Pearlman
Maybe.
- JRJoe Rogan
... online.
- OPOz Pearlman
Agreed, agreed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- OPOz Pearlman
I'm skeptical, you're skeptical.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, especially someone famous.
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- OPOz Pearlman
Fully. Plus, you can't change that, so I'm not gonna do that to you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is it data dumps? Yeah.
- OPOz Pearlman
You know, if I told you right now to make up a random number, I'd say, "Get out your calculator." I'd love that, and you add it up and you do a random number. You know, I'm, screw calculator, I want it to be spontaneous. Would your wife know your ATM PIN code? No?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- OPOz Pearlman
Lie to me. Do not tell me your real ATM PIN code.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- OPOz Pearlman
Obviously, unless you want to. (laughs) Make up a fake four-digit number off the top of your head. What feels to you utterly spontaneous.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- 27:09 – 38:05
How Oz designs effects: clarity, credibility, and ‘engineering memories’
- JRJoe Rogan
So these techniques that you use...
- OPOz Pearlman
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
I- are these ones that you've invented or are these ones that-
- OPOz Pearlman
A lot of them.
- JRJoe Rogan
A lot of them.
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. And how did you invent them? How did they come to you?
- OPOz Pearlman
You know what? I think, uh, m- my favorite form of entertainment by far is standup comedy. Like straight up, I'm a fanboy of comedians. Like not the people that do what I do, because that's, I just love watching how you can take any premise, and stuff that's not funny, right? The people that really go, you know, you just... Like Andrew Schulz, the, you, Life, did you watch his?
- JRJoe Rogan
I haven't seen it yet. No.
- OPOz Pearlman
You haven't seen it?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- OPOz Pearlman
So how do you take infertility, right, and just, it's not really a very funny subject, and make an inc- it was incredible. One of the best specials.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, he's amazing. He's amazing.
- OPOz Pearlman
He's so good. He's so good. And so I like the fact that how you invent that. So I design with an end in sight. I say, "What do I want people to remember about what I do?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- OPOz Pearlman
Because I'm not really in the business of fooling you, honestly, and like entertaining you. All of those are side effects. What do I think I do for a living? I create memorable moments, which is very definable because if you go see a movie, let's say you see a popcorn flick. You walk out of the movie theater 10 minutes later, "Wh- wh- what happened in the movie?" "I don't know. I don't know. It was fun. I don't know." That, to me, is 100% like the death of my show. You leave and you will remember things, hopefully for years to come. And that's because I can rework your memory. That's really a lot of the techniques I do. People think that your memory is infallible, that what you see is some sort of blueprint, like a video.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- OPOz Pearlman
And it's not. It, it, it has to do with how you feel in the moment, the emotions, the things you can position, the same way hypnosis works. So I can kind of engineer memories in a certain way, the way people remember things, the way they think, and create those moments that people talk about hopefully for years. And that's what's been, you know, I guess, that's what's been the driver of my business and what's helped, helped lead to my success.
- JRJoe Rogan
Engineering memories.
- OPOz Pearlman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And when you first started getting into mentalism, is that the word you used for it?
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah, men- yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mentalism.
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're a mentalist, but do you call it mentalism?
- OPOz Pearlman
(laughs) I guess so. Yeah, mentalism.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you know that or is it something that-
- OPOz Pearlman
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
... no.
- OPOz Pearlman
I learned it. I lear- you know what? I learned certain things and I observed them, and I didn't understand why they happened. Do you ever have that? You ever have a moment in a set where you say something that you didn't think was funny, but got a huge laugh?
- 38:05 – 43:55
ESPN stunt with Joe Burrow: two years of planning for one viral moment
- OPOz Pearlman
And for TV, for TV it's the same, same exact thing, but I always like to do new stuff. So I've done a lot of TV appearances, and I always structure it based on who's watching. So rather than it being about me, and me saying, "Oh, look what I can do, and look how cool this is," right? You do a card trick... Again, I'm not saying that's not amazing, but the card trick's about you, typically. If I'm on ESPN, and I've, you know, done hundreds of millions of views doing stuff for football players, you're watching this, you're a football fan, you're like, "Who cares about this guy?" I'm gonna do stuff about football players and about what interests you if you're a fan. I don't know if you've ever seen, I did a ch- a clip with Joe Burrow from the Bengals where I said, "Joe, I ever spoken to you a word in my life?" He goes, "No." (laughs) Like I, honestly, the funny thing about that is I wasn't even supposed to use him in the show. They told me he's shy, he doesn't wanna e- like, don't use him in the show. And they said, "If you can avoid him." And I got in there, I tried to rile up the gang, you know, kind of peer pressure. And I'm like, "Should we get Joe in here?" And they're like, "Yeah, get him up." Haven't spoken a word to this guy in my life. There's no access. I mean, I went in with ESPN. Shout out to Adam Schefter, who I love, who set all these wheels in motion. But Joe stands up, doesn't know me from anyone, and I say, "Every wide receiver and tight end in the room, stand up." And I go, "What if I could tell you who you're gonna throw that ball to? What's that worth?" Right? That's the Holy Grail if you're in football. I go, "Catch the ball, quarterback." I go, "Look at everyone in this room, and now look at me." And I wrote on a huge, huge thing, showed the camera, "Throw it to anybody you want." Throws it, got the first one right. I go, "Let's do it again." (laughs) I go, "Throw it to anyone you want." He goes, "Anyone?" I go, "Anyone." Throws it, got the second one right. Everyone's freaking out. I go, "One last play. One la- Two is luck." And I write, "Fakes to Ja'Marr." You can watch the clip. It, it's most viral thing I've ever done. And he fakes it to Ja'Marr, turns around, throws it to another guy. Nailed it exactly. Just, and you just see his face. And so I was thinking about how I would do that for two years, two years of thinking of every single way that could work, not work, go wrong. Everything about it was, you know, he thought I went in the room, and it's so simple. Uh, that was two years of me thinking about it during every run.
- JRJoe Rogan
So for two years, you knew you were gonna do this, or-
- OPOz Pearlman
Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
... you knew that you were-
- OPOz Pearlman
... I, I, I started with the end. You asked me the same way I don't know how you, like, form a set. But you asked me, how do I design? I was designing with the story people would tell. And so people that don't know who I am, don't know anything, go, "Yo, we saw this guy. Did you see this guy on ESPN? He just told Joe Burrow to throw the ball to any people." Throws it, gets it right. Throws it... Like, the story is I told the quarterback anybody he would throw the ball to.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it was any quarterback. It wasn't Joe Burrow in your head.
- OPOz Pearlman
Well, uh, well, I didn't know who it would be.
- JRJoe Rogan
But he said you could do it for two years.
- OPOz Pearlman
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
So for two years, you thought you were gonna be on ESPN, and with a quarterback?
- OPOz Pearlman
Well, no. So I had... He was the second season. So when I first started it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh-huh.
- OPOz Pearlman
... I, I start brainstorming. I'm like, I can't control what thoughts come in. I'm constantly thinking about what I'm gonna do. And I, I just do notes apps. I write stuff down in the shower. Like, when I run is when I come up with stuff, and in the shower. Sometimes on airplanes, but I sleep on planes. But that's when it hits me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- OPOz Pearlman
Like, where are your, where are your bursts? You must have, like, where are you getting material?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mostly late at night-
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... when I write. Yeah, but sometimes driving.
- OPOz Pearlman
Driving?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- OPOz Pearlman
You don't do phone calls or anything?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, driving or... I mean, uh, (sighs) phone calls, I'm usually concentrated on talking to people.
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Th- they're, they're not the times where ideas come to me. A lot of times, it's driving with no music on.
- OPOz Pearlman
Wow, yeah. I- I'm never in the car by myself-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- OPOz Pearlman
... ever.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, really?
- OPOz Pearlman
Mm-mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
(smacks lips) Family, but, yeah.
- 43:55 – 1:13:22
Jail weekend and the ‘impromptu’ survival value of card-trick skills
- OPOz Pearlman
Now, it could be a regular deck of cards, in which case you're learning sleights, but also there's gimmicks. Right? There's tricks you can buy at stores. Which, when I was a kid, I'm like, "Oh," teenager, I'm like, "Get me the next gimmick." But then to get better, you start being able to do stuff impromptu. Right? That's when you kinda hit another level where I don't need stuff. I can do stuff with anything. You know, I could do stuff, it's like a (laughs) it was a, a good story for my book that I'm writing right now, but it's like where, where, uh, I- I just n- needed anything around. I was like, I end up in jail for a weekend. This is a long story. But like, in jail, one weekend, stupid weekend, but I walk in there by myself, and I, I should've been out that day. But anyway, I got stuck all weekend, and I watched them with cards, and it was like I had trained my whole life for this moment, where I walked up, record scratch, to like 40 dudes, and I go, "Can I see those cards?" And it was like everyone looked at me like, "What's this guy about to do?" And I just did card tricks for the next eight hours.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- OPOz Pearlman
When I went to take a shower, I'm like, "Am I," I'm like thinking of the show Oz, I'm like, "Oh, my God. Right now, I take a..." I had protection. I went to the shower, Mecosta County Jail, in, in Michigan, and literally I had people being like, "Go take a shower. We got you, bro."
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, what did you go to jail for?
- OPOz Pearlman
Ugh. So stupid. So we had ... This is so dumb. This almost derailed my whole career. Drunken idiots, I go up to visit a buddy in college, and we steal from a Papa John's, gu- don't ask me why, a broken phone at a college Papa John's. Just being idiots. I paid for the pizza! But there was a broken phone on the counter. And you know, this is like me sleight of hand style. I'm like, "I'm stealing this thing." Just gone. And it was in my jacket. (laughs) And then I told my buddies, "You guys gotta get something too." So they go in the bathroom, which doubles up as the employee locker room, and they take three dirty shirts, dirty shirts from a laundry bin. And we bring them back to my buddy's house, like idiots. We wear them, and we at the party, I barely remember this, I was like blackout drunk, are like, "Papa John's. Who wants a pizza? Who wants a pizza?" I end up going to sleep, uh, on- on his futon, right, at like 2:00 AM, and at 4:00 AM someone comes in and they're like, "Yo, the cops are here." I'm like, "Dude, it's not my house. What do you want from me?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you guys post the videos of the
- OPOz Pearlman
No! This is pre-social media, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
... talking about Papa John's?
- OPOz Pearlman
No, no. Somebody ratted us out. Somebody's roommate, I found this out way later-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- OPOz Pearlman
... called and goes, "Yo, bro, there's a bunch of dudes here with a broken phone from Papa John's." I didn't know any of this. But somebody comes in, they're like, "Yo, the cops are here." And are like, "They're here for you." And I'm like, "Here for me? What do you mean they're here for me? I don't live here." And cops come in the room, and I'm wearing, like, aggressively small underwear at this point.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- OPOz Pearlman
This is like tidy whities. This couldn't have been more of like a bad perp walk. And I, they go, "Yo, you're under arrest." And I'm like, "For what?" And they're like, "For stealing from Papa John's." And what am I gonna say? I'm wearing the shirt. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, my God.
- OPOz Pearlman
This is on a Friday night.
- JRJoe Rogan
How old were you?
- OPOz Pearlman
I was 20 years old. And I was just about to get an internship-
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales)
- OPOz Pearlman
... for Merrill Lynch. And while this story is hilarious now, and it's like a funny chapter in my book, it was like, God help me, did I avoid everything. Be- and then when I went to jail, yo, scariest, one of the scariest days of my life, 'cause it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
How- how'd you get out of everything?
- OPOz Pearlman
So I got outta everything 'cause I had a clean record. I was a pretty upstanding citizen. And, um, you know, not to get in the weeds, there's something called Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, I wonder if they still have it, where I was expunged from my record, didn't have to report it to like the Wall Street firm, and they also said they were charging me, they put us in like a drunk tank, me and two buddies. And they said they're charging us with felony larceny. And I'm- I- I've seen some s- like Law & Order, I'm like, "Felony?" What, it's like ... What did we steal, like 20 bucks worth of stuff? They go, "But you stole things they don't sell. Had you stolen $999 of pizza, it would've been a misdemeanor." And I know they're lying to me. I'm not a mentalist then, and I'm inebriated, but I can read the room. Didn't say a word. Knew this was BS. And then they separate us when we went to general population.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh-huh.
- OPOz Pearlman
And it's not like the movies.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- OPOz Pearlman
You know, it's- it's like, it was- it was wild. It was wild when I went in there. And I just knew, this is my cheat code. It was like everything in life had prepared me for this moment. And the jail was also, again, I- I didn't know this, but it was very segregated. Like, the white dudes are here, the Black dudes are here. And I didn't know what ... What do you do when you go in? Like, what do you do? I'm five foot nothing. I'm like a buck 40, dripping wet. What do I do? Who- how do you make friends right now? And- and I see the Black guys playing spades, and I just walk up and it's like, "You make your move." And I'm like, "Let me see those cards." And it was just- it's- it's like a moment I have ... And I didn't stop for hours. And I didn't repeat a trick. Like, I know tricks encyclopedically. I just go all day. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- OPOz Pearlman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What an experience.
- OPOz Pearlman
It was crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's wild.
Episode duration: 2:37:40
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Transcript of episode mYvGKBCM3Ps
