Joe Rogan Experience #2367 - Jesse Welles

Jesse Welles is a singer-songwriter. Look for his new album, "Devil's Den," on August 22. https://www.wellesmusic.com Get a free welcome kit with your first subscription of AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/joerogan Try ZipRecruiter FOR FREE at https://ziprecruiter.com/rogan

Joe RoganhostJesse Wellesguest

Aug 19, 20252h 26mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

150 min read · 30,014 words

0:00 – 1:23
Meeting Jesse Welles + roots in art (and not-so-musical) family
1. JRJoe Rogan
  (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.
2. JWJesse Welles
  The Joe Rogan Experience.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) Cheers, buddy.
4. JWJesse Welles
  Cheers to you.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Nice to meet you, man.
6. JWJesse Welles
  Good to meet you.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  I've enjoyed your songs. (laughs)
8. JWJesse Welles
  (laughs)
9. JRJoe Rogan
  How did you, uh ... Well, first of all, how long you been doing music?
10. JWJesse Welles
  Um, I think most of my life, you know. Um ...
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Did you grow up in a musical family or is it just something you picked up on your own?
12. JWJesse Welles
  No, I ... Everyone worked and made art when they weren't working.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, okay.
14. JWJesse Welles
  But, uh, no music really, but that, I, I like to, I like music.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Like what kind of art did your family do?
16. JWJesse Welles
  Like my mom would always paint. She put like murals on the, on the walls of the house and stuff. And my old man's a mechanic, um, and he would be tinkering around, m- making all sorts of fun stuff, usually with his welder and whatnot. So I, there, I felt like they were artistic folks.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
18. JWJesse Welles
  You know. Um, but they didn't, they didn't necessarily, uh, do music. You know, they're smarter than that.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  And so-
20. JWJesse Welles
  (laughs)
1:23 – 5:55
UnitedHealthcare killing, public reaction, and the health insurance "con"
1. JRJoe Rogan
  ... um, I only know of you from the videos that you put up on Instagram.
2. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  And specifically, I think it was the United Healthcare guy was the first one.
4. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Right? Which was really good, dude. It's s- the lyrics, you, and the timing of it all, you captured the moment. And that song, to me, was like, "Yeah, that's what the fuck is going on."
6. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  That's what's really going on.
8. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  They don't give a shit about you and they're just trying to make money.
10. JWJesse Welles
  Mm-hmm.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  And that's why when this guy got shot, there was this reaction from people.
12. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Which is very rare when someone gets assassinated, when people celebrate.
14. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  When someone's not, like a mass murderer or something.
16. JWJesse Welles
  It was, it was bizarre.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  It was bizarre.
18. JWJesse Welles
  It's s- it's, it's ... I mean, it must mean something is up if people are celebrating-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
20. JWJesse Welles
  ... somebody's death.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
22. JWJesse Welles
  Something is wrong.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  And all kind ... Across both sides of the aisle. It's not a political thing. It is a, a human thing.
24. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  That like these people, they take your fucking money, you pay them, and then when something comes up, you don't get covered.
26. JWJesse Welles
  Mm-hmm.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  And there doesn't seem to be any repercussions, and to fight it, you have to go to court, and you usually don't have the money to go to court.
28. JWJesse Welles
  No.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  And they have a lot of fucking money.
30. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
5:55 – 8:26
How Jesse writes topical songs: research, boiling down to punchlines
1. JRJoe Rogan
  So how do you approach something like that?
2. JWJesse Welles
  I-
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Do you sit down with a pad and pen or do you start writing? Like how do you, how ... Do you start singing?
4. JWJesse Welles
  Uh, step one is a- avoid the work.So I went-
5. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
6. JWJesse Welles
  ... I, I went f-
7. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
8. JWJesse Welles
  ... for, uh, you know, some long jogs. Uh, I wrote a song about Amazon instead.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
10. JWJesse Welles
  And put up, like, Amazon is Santa Claus, and I kept sitting there, and it kept getting... You know, the situation was snowballing with the United Healthcare thing, and I was like, "Okay, you gotta write." And at that point, it's, it's a research project, you know? Let's write, let's write 2,000 words so that we can have 300 to sing, and boil down the essence of the issue and make it rhyme and, uh, and put a jolly tune behind it. That's really, that's, that's kinda how that, that goes about.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  That sounds like super similar to standup comedy.
12. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah, I think-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  How you boil it down.
14. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
16. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah. Get every... A- and I, and you don't... It's just punchlines, so find the punchline of everything.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
18. JWJesse Welles
  Find the punchline of everything. I never had the attention span to tell too much of a story or anything like that, so I like, I, I like just keeping it in punchlines, so I always liked M- you know, Mitch Hedberg and S- and Steven Wright, um, were so good at, were so good at that, just come out and lay out a bunch of punchlines immediately.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
20. JWJesse Welles
  If one doesn't land, onto the next one.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Well they, uh, their whole... That was th- the daunting thing about their act, which is so impressive, is that all, it's all non sequiturs. So every subject is new.
22. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Every time they open their mouth, it's a new subject.
24. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Which is kind of crazy.
26. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  It's a crazy way to do comedy.
28. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah. (laughs)
29. JRJoe Rogan
  But when you're an absurdist, it's probably the best way, 'cause it's an absurd way to think.
30. JWJesse Welles
  Mm-hmm.
8:26 – 10:03
Playing the UnitedHealthcare song (full performance in-studio)
1. JRJoe Rogan
  He was awesome. He was awesome. Um, let's play that song. Jamie, can you find that one?
2. NANarrator
  Yeah.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  The UnitedHealthcare song? I wanna play it so people know what we're talking about so pe-
4. JWJesse Welles
  You paid for the building and the person and the chair. And you paid for it all, though you may be unaware. You paid for the paper. You paid for the phone. You paid for everything they need to deny you what you're owed. There ain't no "you" in "UnitedHealth." There ain't no "me" in the company. There ain't no "us" in the private trust. There's hardly humans in humanity. Now, the procedure that you're needing. Ain't the cost-effective route. And only 2% of people end up winning a dispute. So if you get sick, pray to God for health. 'Cause your doctor's gotta pray to UnitedHealth. Way back in '77. Mister Richard T. Berke started buying HMOs, putting federal grants to work. Made 50 billion buckaroos last year. The Warren Buffett of health, the Jeff Bezos of fear. Now CEOs come and go and one just wins. The ingredients you got bake the cake you get, but if you get sick, cross your fingers for luck. 'Cause old Richard T. Berke ain't giving a fuck. Commoditized health, monopolized fraud. Here's the doctors we own and the research we bought. They own the pharmacies and a lot of the meds. They should start buying graves to sell us when we're all dead. There ain't no "you" in UnitedHealth. There ain't no "me" in the company. There ain't no "us" in the private trust. There's hardly humans in humanity. There's hardly humans in humanity.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Fuck yeah, dude. That's a great song.
6. JWJesse Welles
  (laughs)
7. JRJoe Rogan
  That's a great song.
8. JWJesse Welles
  Fuck, yeah.
10:03 – 16:41
‘Sing the news’: Woody Guthrie lineage and the bard tradition
1. JRJoe Rogan
  And it's interesting to me how few people are doing what you're doing. I don't know of anyone else. I'm sure there probably is a few people out there that I missed, but I don't know of anybody else who takes things that are in the zeitgeist, these big stories that come up...
2. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and turns them into a catchy tune, and does it in a way where you're, uh, you laid out, you know, really the problem and the whole thing, like you said, in punchlines.
4. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah. I, you know, there, there's a lot, there's a lot of folks doing it right now, and, and more every day. But there was, I mean, there's a precedent for that kinda work, um, especially as far as, like, Woody, Woody Guthrie was really the... Uh, I was reading, I was reading a Woody Guthrie biography, um, and, uh, my, uh, my old man was in the hospital. He had just had a heart attack, and we didn't, we didn't know like what way it was gonna go or whatever. Anyway, I don't know, just seeing him all hooked up to that stuff a- and thinking, if he were, if, if he died, I, I've hardly, I've hardly had any time to even know him. He's hardly had any time to know anything. We don't get very long down here. And I'm reading this, this Woody Guthrie biography and I was just like, "Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do this. I'm," uh, you know, "I'm gonna sing the, sing the news."
5. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
6. JWJesse Welles
  Um, 'cause that, that's really what, what Woody was kinda, was kinda doing in his day. Uh, because there was, there's folk music around him, and he'd team up with Pete Seeger and he was on radio programs and he coulda played... He had the, he had the choice. He coulda played standards, he coulda played country-western music and stuff like that, but he liked making folks laugh and he liked telling it how it was. I like both those things.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  I saw Woody Guthrie live when I was a little kid, in San Francisco.
8. JWJesse Welles
  ... Ar- Arlo or Woody?
9. JRJoe Rogan
  I think Woody. Which one was alive back then? Was it Arlo? Yeah, Woody died. Okay, so it must've been Arlo. Yeah.
10. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  So it was 19... Let me guess the year. I was 11?
12. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  So, maybe... Yeah. 10 or 11.
14. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  No, it was San Francisco so it had to be... I, I lived there until I was 11, so it was probably around 9 or 10-
16. JWJesse Welles
  Mm-hmm.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  ... now that I think about it. But yeah, he performed live. God, I wish I could remember more of it.
18. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah. Ar- I mean, Arlo, Arlo played, Arlo played this kind of... He went a little more surreal with it, which is super groovy. But he carry- you know, he carried on the torch for his old man.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  So Woody died in what year? '67. '67.
20. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Um-
22. JWJesse Welles
  '67. He got the, he got a Huntington's disease and was laid up in a home for quite a while. He lost the ability to speak and then-
23. JRJoe Rogan
  What is a Huntington's disease?
24. JWJesse Welles
  It's some... A rare genetic disorder. I don't really know what it does other than, um... Yeah, look. He was, he was pretty young.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Breakdown of nerve cells in the brain. Ew.
26. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  His mother also suffered from the same illness.
28. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah. So-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  What causes that?
30. JWJesse Welles
  I...
16:41 – 23:38
From Cuckoo’s Nest to lobotomies: dark history of mental healthcare
1. JWJesse Welles
  Well, uh, the... Yeah, in an er- in an era of sanatoriums, you know?
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
3. JWJesse Welles
  And stuff where you-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Right, and then people glorify that as like, "We need more h- mental health institutions. That's why there's so many homeless people on the street." And like, have you ever been? (laughs)
5. JWJesse Welles
  (laughs)
6. JRJoe Rogan
  We definitely need more mental health.
7. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  We w- 100% those people need care.
9. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  But do they need the kind of care that they were getting before they were released on the street when they were giving people electroshock therapy-
11. JWJesse Welles
  Uh, that-
12. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and fucking cooking their brains?
13. JWJesse Welles
  Those, at, at least whatever's going on in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is essentially a prison.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. Well, they're all essentially-
15. JWJesse Welles
  A prison with electroshock therapy.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Uh-huh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and-
17. JWJesse Welles
  You know?
18. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and lobotomies.
19. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Until like '67-
21. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  ... they were just cooking people's brains with a wand.
23. JWJesse Welles
  God.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Getting in there and scrambling up your brain.
25. JWJesse Welles
  It's, it's just...
26. JRJoe Rogan
  D- Dude, they did lobotomies for decades.
27. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Decades. Until enough people had their loved ones turned into zombies that they were like, "Hey, maybe we should probably fucking stop that."
29. JWJesse Welles
  Di- Didn't they lobotomize, uh-
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Kennedy.
23:38 – 28:10
Modern ‘lobotomies’: benzos, addiction, and rebound anxiety
1. JWJesse Welles
  So what's the modern lobotomy? What are we doing right now that we're gonna read on Wiki or, you know, whatever?
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, there's probably quite a few of them.
3. JWJesse Welles
  You know, 15, you know, and then we go-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  There's probably quite a few of them.
5. JWJesse Welles
  ... holy cow.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  I'm sure gender transitions for children.
7. JWJesse Welles
  We were taking-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  I'm, I'm sure that's gonna be on that list.
9. JWJesse Welles
  Or taking, I don't know, like, like ben, like prescribing benzos and stuff.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, yeah. Oh, that's gonna be on that list for sure.
11. JWJesse Welles
  You know?
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Benzos is the craziest one.
13. JWJesse Welles
  That's just like a, like a chemical lobotomy or...
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, benzo doesn't give you a chemical lobotomy, but it does make you 100% hooked on it.
15. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah. Well, it's just the diffi- th- the stress you would undergo getting out of the addiction, you might never...You might never come, come back fully or get your life all the way back after an addiction like that, you know.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, I know several people that have had that problem, and it is a real struggle.
17. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, Jordan Peterson has publicly talked about it. It took him over a year to recover-
19. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  ... physically, just from being addicted.
21. JWJesse Welles
  And that's actually going to rehabs-
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Yep.
23. JWJesse Welles
  ... and stuff like that.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Or giving up the money.
25. JWJesse Welles
  There's a lot of folks, most folks they ain't, they ain't going-
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Right. They don't have the money.
27. JWJesse Welles
  ... nowhere.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
29. JWJesse Welles
  You know, they get off it and then drink themselves to death or-
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Or do cocaine or-
28:10 – 34:14
Psychedelic therapy as an alternative: ibogaine, ayahuasca, and ‘leaving the ruts’
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Uh, yeah. As long as they keep mushrooms illegal. There's a l- a lot of things that could be fixed in a, in a very natural way that people have been doing for thousands of years-
2. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that you can't do. At least in Texas, they opened up ibogaine again.
4. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  So, that's new. Where, you know, they're gonna do these... They've, they've done 'em so far, these trials with, uh, soldiers and just, it's super effective, man.
6. JWJesse Welles
  Mm-hmm.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Especially for getting off drugs.
8. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, really, really, really effective. Like 80% for one dose, in the 90s for two dose. People just quit pills, quit everything. Quit drinking. Whatever the-
10. JWJesse Welles
  It's amazing.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  ... whatever's fucking with you. Yeah.
12. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  There's natural tools out there to figure out, like people get in patterns, right? They get in these terrible behavior patterns, and they don't know why. They don't know how to get out of 'em. They keep falling into 'em 'cause they're like tightly grooved into the way you think.
14. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Unless you can leave for a moment the, the connection that you have to this existence where you're completely continually trapped by your patterns, unless you can leave and look at those patterns, you just, you're just fighting against so much gravity and so much momentum.
16. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  And, and then whatever your, the life that you've chosen, the pa- you know, you're around the same people. You're, there's so many things that make it very difficult to really change your life, outside of escaping f- briefly and getting a look at it from-
18. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  ... you know, some...
20. JWJesse Welles
  So, does like ibogaine like, like smooth out all the ruts or...
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Ibogaine, so I've never done it, so I can't really speak to this. But from the people that have done it, what they explain that it does, first of all, it actually stops physical addiction somehow. They don't totally understand how it's doing this, but it stops physica- physical addiction and sort of rewires the way your brain, and it, for lack of a better term, looks at addiction. It also is... It's not a drug that you could abuse recreationally. Apparently it's not a fun time. And it's a 24-hour experience. And this 24-hour experience is-
22. JWJesse Welles
  Is it psychedelic?
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes. And this 24-hour experience is essentially a review of your life.... and showing you, like, "You remember this happened-"
24. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  "... and these guys beat you up after school, and then that sent you down this road. And then this is why you think about this and this." And it, like, lays out why you're in all these different fucked up patterns in your life.
26. JWJesse Welles
  D- do you have a g- like, a spirit guide?
27. JRJoe Rogan
  I don't know.
28. JWJesse Welles
  Do you-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  I don't know. I mean, I think it's-
30. JWJesse Welles
  Like, like, like, a gain counsel?
34:14 – 46:01
Violence in American history: scalp bounties and the ‘battleship’ of civilization
1. JRJoe Rogan
  I don't know, man. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. There is such a thing as having too many options to choose from, like when you're scrolling on the TV trying to find something to watch or have you been to one of those ice cream shops where they have hundreds of different toppings to choose from? It's overwhelming. The same thing can happen when you're hiring and you get inundated with applications. Well, it's time to stop stressing and use ZipRecruiter instead. Their innovative resume database can help you find and connect with the best people for your role. Try it for free now at ziprecruiter.com/rogen. What makes ZipRecruiter's resume database so special is the advanced filtering feature. You can use it to hone in on exactly what you're looking for from the hundreds of thousands of resumes that are uploaded monthly to the site. And when you find a potential candidate, you can unlock their contact info instantly. Skip the candidate overload. Streamline your hiring with ZipRecruiter. See why four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Just go to this exclusive web address, ziprecruiter.com/rogen. Again, right now, try it for free. Again, that's ziprecruiter.com/rogen. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. (sighs) Chihuahua's bounty program fortune- offered fortune seekers 150 to 200 Mexican pesos for each Apache, depending on age and sex, men worth 50 pesos more than women and children, and children.
2. JWJesse Welles
  Yep.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. Today, that equates to about $8,200 per scalp.
4. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah. So-
5. JRJoe Rogan
  This is far more than most prospectors would ever make in the California gold fields. $8,000 per scalp. That's crazy.
6. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  How many people, just innocent people, that just happened to have dark hair got scalped?
8. JWJesse Welles
  And... Oh, they would... And, like, in, in McCarthy's book at least, which it, it follows the Glanton Gang, I'm pretty sure at times they kill some of their own gang.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  I'm sure.
10. JWJesse Welles
  Uh, just because they were, they were dark haired.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  The most prolific of these operatives was an Irish American named James Kercher, who led a massacre of more than 150 Apaches in 1846 and ultimately killed at least 320 Indians during his bounty hunting campaigns.
12. JWJesse Welles
  (sighs)
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Scalp trade, $8,200 for scalps. Can you imagine, like if you, if you have a lawless country, which is essentially what the Wild West was?
14. JWJesse Welles
  What that was, yeah.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  And then, you, you offer up $8,000 every time you kill a person.
16. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Ooh, you can get rid of people, people quick.
18. JWJesse Welles
  And you're gonna have the wildest of the wild are gonna go out there and tame that land, man.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, the craziest of the crazy.
20. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  And that's essentially-
22. JWJesse Welles
  Calls 'em, calls 'em out. The... (laughs)
23. JRJoe Rogan
  (sighs) Oof.
24. JWJesse Welles
  And-
25. JRJoe Rogan
  And that wasn't that long ago, man.
26. JWJesse Welles
  No.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  That's what's so crazy. You know, we're talking about 150 years?
28. JWJesse Welles
  (laughs)
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, what is it? But how long ago was it? Not that long ago.
30. NANarrator
  Uh.
46:01 – 51:07
Is violence innate? War, resources, and PSYOP narratives
1. JRJoe Rogan
  The problem is, they've never done it before.
2. JWJesse Welles
  I, that's, that's mind-boggling.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Mind-boggling.
4. JWJesse Welles
  Because it is in all... I think it's in a l- in, in a lot of us, deep down, to, I don't...
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, it has to be.
6. JWJesse Welles
  That, to not harm-
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Because it's the only way we survived. That's the only way we got to where we are today.
8. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  'Cause we existed before language, we existed before empathy, before we understood each other, before we could communicate.
10. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  So any being that you didn't know, from somewhere else, wanted what you had and they would try to take it by force. So the bigger, stronger ones survived, and that's why the best genetics kept going and going and going. I mean, it was just survival of the fittest. It exists in nature and it exists with humans. And that's the basis of our DNA, unfortunately. Like, that's how we started, right? And so, that, the way it manifests itself today is fucking drone warfare.
12. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  And bombs, and, you know, dropping bunker busters out of B2s. You know, that's what it is. Or B12s, is that what it is, the B12? What's the big one? B2. B2? Feels like it should be a bigger number, 'cause it looks like a spaceship.
14. JWJesse Welles
  (laughs)
15. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
16. JWJesse Welles
  You see how they flew it over Putin?
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, "Look at my dick."
18. JWJesse Welles
  (laughs)
19. JRJoe Rogan
  "My flying dick. Da, da, da, da, da."
20. JWJesse Welles
  (laughs)
21. JRJoe Rogan
  You see? Trump did that when Putin was in Alaska. They flew a, a bomber over his head. Like, "What are we doing? Why are we fly- why are we flying the radar-resistant bomber over Putin's head?"
22. JWJesse Welles
  That just, it sounds like a show of force.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Look at my dick.
24. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah. I, this is what these games... But, uh, like, is it, yeah, I, I just, I, I wonder, is it within humans to, to exist in, like in, in peace, without, without...
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, we certainly can-
26. JWJesse Welles
  Like, could it be done?
27. JRJoe Rogan
  ... in small groups, right? Like if you, me and Jamie, I've said this before, but, you know, about other guests, if we were on an island all together, we wouldn't lock each other up. We wouldn't, we'd just-
28. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  ... kind of, we'd just figure it out.
30. JWJesse Welles
  Work together.
51:07 – 1:00:51
The ‘Business Plot’, political corruption, and bot-driven chaos online
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Did you ever read, um, that, uh, War as a Racket: Smedley Butler?
2. JWJesse Welles
  Smedley Butler?
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Did you ever read it?
4. JWJesse Welles
  No.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  It's really good.
6. JWJesse Welles
  (laughs)
7. JRJoe Rogan
  It's not long.
8. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  It's really good. And it is essentially outlining what we're talking about, but it was in 1933.
10. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  And Smedley Butler, who, when he went to all these places and did all this work, he thought that he was doing good. He thought he was protecting people, even though-
12. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  But then at the end of his career, when it all, like, the fog of war had kind of faded and he rec- recognized the patterns, like, "Oh, each time..." Pull it up, Jimmy, just so we can get a look at it real quick.
14. JWJesse Welles
  Was Smedley the one where there was a coup and they had asked him to-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes. They asked him to take-
16. JWJesse Welles
  All right.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  They asked him to overthrow the fucking government of the United States of America.
18. JWJesse Welles
  There was a, a documentary I used to watch, uh, by Francis O'Conolly, I think is his name, but it's called Everything's a Rich Man's Trick, and he would always talk about Smedley D. Butler.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. He was a bad man, um, in a, in a good way. But this, this thing that he wrote, um... See if you can get a, just a... If you get, get, just go to the Wikipedia site, War as a Racket.
20. JWJesse Welles
  So this, I mean, this is before even World War II.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  There it is right there. It contains this summary. Make that a little larger, please. There it is, scroll up a little.
22. JWJesse Welles
  "Who makes the profits? Who pays the bills?"
23. JRJoe Rogan
  It says, "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives... A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to be to the majority of people."
24. JWJesse Welles
  "To the majority of people."
25. JRJoe Rogan
  "Only a small 'inside group' knows what it's all about. It's conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many... Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes. Butler confessed that during his decades of service to the United States Marine Corps... 'I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1909 to 1912, where I've learned...'" Where have I heard that name before? I don't know. Uh, "I brought light to the Mi- I brought light to the Dominic- Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I have given Al Capone..." Oh, "I might have given Al Capone a few hints." Kind of crazy.
26. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  'Cause they've been doing that forever. And if it wasn't for this one guy writing about it, this one very decorated man who g- pull up the thing about the coup, where they tried to enlist him, which is part of the reason why, I, I'm sure he wrote this.
28. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  He's like, he was like, "What the fuck is this?"
30. JWJesse Welles
  Right.
1:00:51 – 1:22:19
Mass-event mysteries: Vegas shooting theories and OKC bombing questions
1. NANarrator
  I think like Vegas.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  ... yeah.
3. JWJesse Welles
  Like, the Mandalay Bay thing? Like, there was a lot of theories behind-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  The Vegas one's weird. That's a weird one. That's a weird one.
5. JWJesse Welles
  That one's gonna... I... That's gonna bother me forever, uh, that... 'Cause that one actually happened while I was awake and paying attention, and, and, and it just... (laughs) Nothing, nothing lines up with it.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  You weren't there-
7. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  ... were you? Were you in Vegas at the time?
9. JWJesse Welles
  No.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  No.
11. JWJesse Welles
  No, I was sitting in Nashville.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
13. JWJesse Welles
  But I just meant I was, I was paying attention. (laughs)
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. That was a crazy one. Um, and there's multiple reports of more than one person shooting, and then there was like, how did he get 400 pounds of equipment into his room without anybody noticing it?
15. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  That seems crazy. Like, you've got... A rifle case is a very distinctive kinda case. Like, I'm assuming he's carrying, like, you know, some kinda Pelican box, so like-
17. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  ... something. Some snap down box. Like, that's a pretty big box, man. If you've got a bunch of those and you're bringing them in along with boxes of ammunition-
19. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  ... like, how much does that weigh? How strong are you? How... You know, like, if you had to carry 400 pounds of shit into a hotel room-
21. JWJesse Welles
  That dude wasn't-
22. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that would take a long time.
23. JWJesse Welles
  That dude wasn't doing all of it.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  That's what I'm saying.
25. JWJesse Welles
  And, I mean, didn't, like, the security guard witness go on Ellen to explain it?
26. NANarrator
  Yep.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Did they?
28. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah, see, c- what was that? Was his name Jesus?
29. NANarrator
  Yep.
30. JWJesse Welles
  Yeah, Campos?

Episode duration: 2:26:49

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Meeting Jesse Welles + roots in art (and not-so-musical) family

UnitedHealthcare killing, public reaction, and the health insurance "con"

How Jesse writes topical songs: research, boiling down to punchlines

Playing the UnitedHealthcare song (full performance in-studio)

‘Sing the news’: Woody Guthrie lineage and the bard tradition

From Cuckoo’s Nest to lobotomies: dark history of mental healthcare

Modern ‘lobotomies’: benzos, addiction, and rebound anxiety

Psychedelic therapy as an alternative: ibogaine, ayahuasca, and ‘leaving the ruts’

Violence in American history: scalp bounties and the ‘battleship’ of civilization

Is violence innate? War, resources, and PSYOP narratives

The ‘Business Plot’, political corruption, and bot-driven chaos online

Mass-event mysteries: Vegas shooting theories and OKC bombing questions

Get more out of YouTube videos.