The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #2369 - Ed Calderon
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,029 words- 0:00 – 1:00
Art Bell nostalgia and setting the tone for high-strangeness talk
- JRJoe Rogan
(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) Art Bell was the best. Driving home from The Comedy Store at, like, 1:00 in the morning and hearing some dude who claimed he was a time traveler. (laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
R- Remember when he, uh ... th- there was a dude that claimed to work at Area 51 and then it cut out, the, the, the- ... radio show cut out?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that was a good one.
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Art was the man.
- ECEd Calderon
He would get ... Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that's why we put that photo up there, 'cause he was, you know, the ... A lot of the subjects that we covered, he was the original guy talking about these things on the radio.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. And then all -- the, the fact that he just kept the op- the open lines. If you're-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... a time traveler tr- (laughs) if you're a time traveler, just ca- call in and tell what ... Tell us what's going to happen in the future.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, people that were kidnapped by Bigfoot. Like, no matter what, Art was like, "Interesting, tell me more."
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
Like he was open to just-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
... talking to anyone, it was great.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he never called bullshit. (laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
No. Uh-uh, no.
- 1:00 – 5:07
Aztec death whistle: the “pandemic” joke and the real history behind it
- JRJoe Rogan
So, uh, the last time I saw you, you gave me an Aztec death whistle and, uh, Bryan Callen blew it on the air and it cau- it caused the ca- the pandemic.
- ECEd Calderon
He was very good at it out of nowhere.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
He'd just, like, grab it and wooo.
- JRJoe Rogan
We have another one.
- ECEd Calderon
Oh, no. Don't.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at this one.
- ECEd Calderon
Probably that's ... Luke Caverns gave us this one.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
That's a good one, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
That is a beautiful one. Uh, probably let's not repeat it again.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm not blowing it. (knocks on wood) I don't know if it's true or not true, but it's an odd coincidence.
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
It definitely, it definitely was. I got... I got a lot of messages about it, like, "Hey, this was kinda coincidentally at the start of this pandemic." Like I ... don't, don't, don't put this on me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Listen, man-
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... people have been blowing them whistles all over the world.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a bunch of those whistles out there. There's no way.
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
There's no way, you know. The only thing is I don't think anybody ever blew one on a podcast that was seen by millions of people.
- ECEd Calderon
I mean, you were directly responsible for those to become this viral popular thing. No ... Like, a few people knew about them, but they became this international thing now. Like, everybody talks about death whistles now because of it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, well, I don't know. They are weird. The sound is creepy.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know?
- ECEd Calderon
Definitely weird.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
Ghostly.
- 5:07 – 9:52
Mexico’s deep timeline: Teotihuacan, “Aztecs as newcomers,” and conquest realities
- JRJoe Rogan
The history of Mexico is so strange. I mean, it's so long and storied and there's so many chapters of it that are very confusing, because, like, where did the Mayans go? Like, the, the ... When they found the Aztec pyramids people weren't even living in them when the, the ... People-
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... eventually wound up living in them. It ... They found them.
- ECEd Calderon
Teo- Teotihuacan, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... the, the ... Which they called, uh, it's basically the City of the Gods, is what the Aztecs called them because they didn't ... It was abandoned when they went through.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is nuts.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, they were, uh ... The Aztecs, in essence, were violent immigrants coming from the north into, into the south, which is pretty interesting foresight, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. (laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
Um, but, uh, yeah, the, the city was abandoned completely, um, and when they passed through it was the City of the Gods. Uh, they called it Pyramid of the Sun and the Moon, but realistically nobody knows what those pyramids are for. Uh-... a- and, uh, when they made it, their way into the Valley of Mexico, um, there were already a bunch of tribes already there, um, and peoples, older peoples. Um, so, uh, Mexico has an ancient history. Uh, people that wanna assume that the Aztecs are ancient history don't know (laughs) anything about history. They're pretty new on the, on the scene, as far as history, when it co- when it comes to Mexico.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is really crazy.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's really crazy that m- most modern people don't even, I mean, especially in America, don't even understand that the reason why everybody speaks Spanish is 'cause of the Spaniards.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not that m- the Mexican native language was Spanish.
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs) No.
- JRJoe Rogan
No. It was the language they assumed once they were conquered.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And there's a bunch of lost languages.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. Um, something interesting happened w- with them and, uh, and Hernán Cortés and the Conquista and the Spanish are all perfect villains in history, I, I guess. People, it's, it's, it's perfect, man. If you kind of look at it from the outside perspective-
- JRJoe Rogan
Colonial invasion, yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. But when you g- but when you kind of look at it, I mean, they were, they were just getting off their own conquest. Uh, they were conquested by the Moors. Uh, so they were getting free from that. So they were already mixed in there. There were, there were brown people on that boat.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ECEd Calderon
It's not blonde haired, white people coming on that boat.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ECEd Calderon
There was already brown people on that boat, coming. Um, Hernán Cortés is very much painted as a villain in this, this story. Um, but when you kind of look at the way that the conquest took place in Mexico versus other parts of the world, um, there was a lot of brutality. There was a lot of ignorance, a lot of, uh, religious nonsense on both sides, because the Aztecs also did a lot of horrible things. Um, but in the end, uh, I think Mexico went the round, th- the route of Mestizaje, we decided to mix. Like, the Spanish decided to take wives among the natives, they decided to give honorary titles to the people that helped fight the Aztecs, to help with the conquest of what wasn't Mexico, it was just this valley at that time, and gave birth to this culture. Uh, this mixed culture, um, that very much hates parts of itself, which is a weird part of Mexican culture, because you ask anybody in Mexico, a lot of people, and I- I went to Mexican school so I got a lot of this education of how the evil Spanish came and, and wiped out all of the natives, you know, or most of the natives, when in reality, you know, a lot of, a lot of us in Mexico have mixed blood. Most of us have mixed blood. Th- there's a lot of Spanish blood in us. So, we were very, very much taught to hate ourselves, in a way.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ECEd Calderon
Um, and I think that, that has something to do with a lot of the psychology and the culture in Mexico, that there's a whole part of our history and ourselves that we hate, but it's essential. Like we, we, we say like, w- the president of Mexico, the past president and the current president are, are all about bl- uh, sending the, the, the, the King of Spain letters to, for, to have him apologize for the-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
... Conquista. And it's funny, like some of the bloggers from Spain will respond like, "You're, you're, you're asking that in Spanish."
- 9:52 – 12:18
Mayan presence today and the engineering shock of sites like Chichén Itzá
- JRJoe Rogan
They look Mayan. Yeah. They look very different. It's interesting. You know, I went to, uh, uh, Chichen Itza and first of all, you just ... to, I mean, I know that the pyramids of Egypt dwarf even that, but when you go there, you're like, "What happened?"
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, "How did you guys do this?"
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, "H- how were you building these immense stone structures in the jungle way before Europeans ever settled into America?" Like, way before there was anything like this anywhere else.
- ECEd Calderon
A lot of strong backs, a lot of work ethic, you know, there's no doubt.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's no doubt.
- ECEd Calderon
There's no build out.
- JRJoe Rogan
There was a lot of that, but there was also a lot of, like, incredibly sophisticated engineering.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, this isn't just like a one time project, you got it right the first time. Like, how were you guys so good at ... Like, when you look at the, the Chichen Itza pyramids, where you can't walk up them anymore, unfortunately, but when I was-
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, you'll, you'll get lynched.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you get in big trouble. But when I was there, back in the day, you could climb up them. This is like, I guess early 2000 and you were, you were allowed to walk up that. But they'll fuck you up now. There have just been videos of people doing things and then the locals-
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, they'll get, they'll get lynched in the bottom if you manage to climb that thing right now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, people are like, "Fuck."
- ECEd Calderon
There's a wa- there's a watch guy all the way on the top and a bunch of dogs always on ... That's a weird thing about all the pyramids.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
I don't know why dogs like hanging out up there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, really?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. Like the, the one in, in, uh, in, in the Sun Pyramid in, in Mexico, there's always dogs on top of it and this one, there's also always dogs on top. I- every now and then-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like feral dogs or domestic dogs?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, it's wild, just wild dogs just hanging out by there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus.
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
But I mean, when you see these things, like, g- give us some of the images of ... When you see, uh, some of these p- there's some dogs. When you see some of these pyramids like that, like, that's so different. I mean, that is so sophisticated. It's so bizarre.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
We had a really good guide there when, uh, I went, and the guide was showing us this one area where they would take s- whatever psychedelic plants, they had like some ceremonial room where they would take psychedelic plants and, um, he was telling me that it's not totally understood what they were doing or why they were doing it, but it is widely accepted that some of what they were into had to do with psychedelic rituals and he thinks that had a lot to do with-... why they were able to make these kind of insanely complex structures.
- 12:18 – 21:18
Pain, blood, and transcendence: bloodletting rituals and human sacrifice mechanics
- ECEd Calderon
And, and, and a, a weird thing that I've also kind of like realized after just talking to people and going down there and, and kind of s- seeing some of the artifacts, a lot of the psychedelics that they actually took were self-harm and mutilation, bloodletting type thi- types of activities. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. A lot of the Aztec priests, um, you see the pictures of, of them, uh, pulling a cord with thorns through their private parts-
- JRJoe Rogan
(sucks in breath) (blowing sounds)
- ECEd Calderon
... um, trying to, trying to, uh, in, uh, trying to invoke in them these, uh, I don't know, visions? Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
So just being in such extreme pain and such a bizarre state of mind that you transcend?
- ECEd Calderon
Yes, and, yeah, which is, which, which matched up perfectly with some of the Catholic worldviews when they-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ECEd Calderon
... when they arrived. Uh, when, when you, when you look at a lot of the cultures, specifically in Mexico, you see that w- they met e- they met kind of like a, a perfect culture. Like, they matched in a lot of ways.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm, when the Catholics arrived.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. Uh, the Mexicans were venerating a mother goddess, um, at a, uh, at a grotto, uh, area in Mexico. That's where the, uh, the, this-
- JRJoe Rogan
What is this, Jerry?
- ECEd Calderon
... basilica is. Yeah, these are some of those rituals. Oh, yeah, there (laughs) .
- JRJoe Rogan
What's going on with that?
- GUGuest
I mean, they're calling these, uh-
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, bloodletting.
- GUGuest
... su- something, yeah, but they're spine, boss. Porky spine? Some spine.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, yeah. The-
- GUGuest
And it's coming out of that area and there's a receptacle.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, that's wrapped around his dick?
- GUGuest
Yeah, it looks like it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- GUGuest
It's pretty close to that area.
- ECEd Calderon
A lot, a lot of people wanna go take-
- GUGuest
Blood's coming out of that.
- ECEd Calderon
A lot of people wanna go take ayahuasca down there, but I don't see a lot of this probably coming back or maybe, I don't know. But that, that was a l- that's a big part of what they also did, you know? A lot of, uh-
- GUGuest
Close his mouth.
- ECEd Calderon
... bloodletting, pain, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
A lot of human sacrifice too.
- ECEd Calderon
Yes.
- 21:18 – 23:08
Violence as spectacle—then and now: from ancient terror to modern brutality
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, and pe- pe- people keep denying that that actually happened, but it's, we, we, like, I, I think it's the same phenomenon again in the US where n- all, all of Native Americans were, like, peaceful and it was like a utopia-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ECEd Calderon
... before, before they came in and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... but ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's one that really f- bothers people when they want this binary sort of analysis of North America. You know, the white people are bad and evil, which for sure they were, and they came over here and there's these good people that were just living off the land in harmony, like eh.
- ECEd Calderon
Eh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Not really. In fact, they were killing each other.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Not only that, that was their favorite thing to do. Where we are right now, the Comanches, all those motherfuckers did was eat meat. They didn't have any artwork. They didn't have anything other than bows and arrows. That's all they made. They made tipis, they made bows and arrows, and they fucked everybody up. And their favorite thing was to go to nearby tribes and kill everybody.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That was their fun time.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They loved to r- And they would torture people in the most horrific ways. In Empire of the Summer Moon, which is an amazing book on the Comanche, from right in this spot, and they would take people that they captured, they would cut their arms and legs off while they're alive. So, they would hold them down, immediately hack their arms and legs off, and then throw them on a bonfire to watch them wiggle. Fucking yo. Like, you gotta be-
- ECEd Calderon
It's-
- JRJoe Rogan
... that's dark.
- ECEd Calderon
It, it's ... Yeah, that's, that's blood lust. I don't know-
- JRJoe Rogan
(blows raspberries)
- ECEd Calderon
... what that is. I mean, if you, let's say, let's say they did that in front of the enemy-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... the enemy that they just conquered.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. When they were-
- ECEd Calderon
It would make sense-
- JRJoe Rogan
... they would keep one guy alive to watch and then let him go.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Go tell everybody."
- ECEd Calderon
Psychological-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... impre- operations
- JRJoe Rogan
So, everybody else gets butchered. One guy, they let go. "You go tell everybody."
- 23:08 – 27:54
Cartel violence in “safe” regions and the normalization of horror in daily life
- ECEd Calderon
And also, like, if you think about it, some of the horrors that are still happening down South-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... which is, we-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- ECEd Calderon
... you sent me this message last night of these, um, six or seven, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
I'll send it to Jamey-
- ECEd Calderon
Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
... because it's, uh, pretty crazy how often this stuff happens down in Mexico and how little of it we ever hear about it. We, we don't really hear too much about these, uh, insane mass murders that take place down there.
- ECEd Calderon
Th- there was a, there was a beheading in, in, in, uh, down, down in Mexico, and it was, um, it's a, it's, it's a safe or not, a historically safe part of Mexico-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... um, that, where this type of stuff doesn't happen that much. But, uh, things are changing, uh, rapidly down there. Uh, it's evolving quickly. Um, the, and, and, and the, the, the, the culture that we have, um, down there, um, I, the, I don't, I don't know. Like, I, I, I do believe that there's some sort of genetic memory.
- JRJoe Rogan
I bet there is.
- ECEd Calderon
Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
It makes sense. I think there's genetic memory. Six severed heads found at the side of the road, the chilling message in one of Mexico's safest regions. And what, uh, part of Mexico is this?
- ECEd Calderon
I think this is, uh, Puebla region, if I'm not mistaken.... Puebla and Tlaxcala. Yeah, Puebla and Tlaxcala. And Puebla, I mean, it's a beautiful place. If you go to Puebla, go... Visit Puebla, guys.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
It's beautiful but this is the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Just don't be there at the wrong time. (laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
Just don't work for the cartels, I guess.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
Um, s- th- the, the act... So this is an interesting thing that I, I heard long ago from somebody. Um, I, I, uh... One of the first jobs I did was cut, cut, cut somebody off a bridge and one of the older guys that was with me, I was, like, horrified by what, what... by, by this kid, you know, 16, 17-year-old kid, um, told me, "Oh, they're being kind." Then I'm like, "What's kind about leaving somebody hanging from a fucking bridge naked?" His family is gonna get something to bury at least. So it dawned on me that that was an act of kindness. So having somebody beheaded is even-
- JRJoe Rogan
So normal.
- ECEd Calderon
It's even crueler-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... because now-
- JRJoe Rogan
Because they have no body.
- ECEd Calderon
... they have no body to bury.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
And there's a lot of coffins with just a head or not even that in Mexico buried in the ground. I mean, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
But just think of how insane it has to be to where hanging someone from a bridge is an act of kindness because at least you can find the body.
- 27:54 – 35:20
How cartels gained power: heroin roots, the drug war, and politics captured by force
- ECEd Calderon
I think the '70s. '70s and '80s is when they... we start seeing the formation of the first, uh, large organizations and federations that are working to produce and/or to traffic substances through Mexico up into the United States.
- JRJoe Rogan
Was it originally cocaine?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, marijuana, uh, I think originally heroin actually was at the start or the initiation of a lot of this stuff. I think-
- JRJoe Rogan
And where were they getting the heroin?
- ECEd Calderon
They were, they were planting, um, they were planting poppy, uh, in the Sierra for the war effort, apparently, for the Americans because they were... they did... they were running on a shortage of morphine so they needed a place to plant it. And that's one of the places where they kind of started like, "Oh, they can grow this here." And people started getting ideas-
- JRJoe Rogan
So this is the Vietnam War?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. Around... Yeah. This is the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's, uh-
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, uh, Vietnam, World War II era, uh, th- that, that's when you start seeing the initiation of, like, people planting certain things and-
- JRJoe Rogan
So '40s, '50s, '60s? Somewhere around that time?
- ECEd Calderon
'50s. I'd say the '50s, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. Well, it's like Vietnam itself is connected to heroin.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because that w- that's the dirty secret about why we were interested in that whole area of Vietnam and... Th- that was a trafficking area.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And-
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, the Golden Triangle.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. And coincidentally, a lot of people got insanely rich somehow or another connected to that, but we had to be over there to stop communism or something.
- ECEd Calderon
And, and it's an interesting point you bring up of Vietnam because it has something to do or elements of it remind you of Mexico. Um, it is... Mexico has been a place that has been ruled over by a single party for 80 years. Uh, if, if that. Um, the PRI, and then it went through its, uh, democratic pe- period and now we have other parties coming into play. And now you have a ruling party all over Mexico called MORENA who is... You know, this is the party of the Abrazos No Balazos. That's how they started. You know, hugs not bullets against the cartels policy-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... which allowed them to grow. And also-
- JRJoe Rogan
Super effective. Hugs not bullets. (laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, but this is coming off a, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mexico has liberals too, I guess? (laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
Yes, we do. Me- Mexico is three, Mexico is three things. Southern Mexico, that's, that's rural Mexico. Central Mexico, that's where all the, uh, all the, all the woke comes from. The capital of Mexico, that's where all the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mexico City.
- ECEd Calderon
That's where all the general pronouns get issued into law, that's where the violence, uh, against women specifically and, uh, feminicide is now a new thing cataloged under the law. You, you can kill a dude, you're fine, but if you kill a woman, that's feminicide which is way worse. Um, so it's... That's where a lot of that polit- a lot, uh, a lot of that policy comes from. And then Northern Mexico where I'm from, that's where, I guess-... I don't know, conservative. Uh, that's where all the factories are, that's where all the people, the, the hard work, hardworking people, and the, the people that kind of like, uh, go the other side of the politics that are woke. That used to be the case, but now morena's all, ruling all over the country. And a lot of the policies they're bringing with them are, you know, to the left. Um, Mexico was very tired from the drug war that it had been going on for 20 years, that I was a part of for, for 12 of those years. Um, they saw Felipe Calderon bring the military into this fight to fight the cartels, and just kicking a giant beehive. He had, realistically, he really didn't have a clue what, what he was about to kind of kick off. Um, he had the idea that if you just put the military out, you know, which are not corrupted, well, he thought they were not corrupted, um, and you militarized a lot of the policing going on around it, you can eliminate all these cartel members. Like, oh, just this guy's gone, this guy's gone, and we're gonna just now secure this area in control. But it's been just basically gremlins, you know. One gremlin will turn (laughs) into four or five. You cut one head off and it's a hydra. It's just bunch of heads come out now. So Mexico has been going through that for, for a while, and then this president comes in, Andres Lopez Obrador, uh, with this plan of like, "We'll just leave them alone and they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll stop... Violence will stop because we'll stop fighting them."
- JRJoe Rogan
How'd that work?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, he has one of the most violent presidencies in history. Uh, his main cri-... He criticizes Calderon who started this drug war over his handling of it. He out, he outmatches him from deaths during his administration. Um, what we saw in his administration was the politi- politicalization. And they were already in politics, but they, now they're really overt about it. Now cartels are like, they have their own candidates running for office. Um, the mayor of a city and the police chief of a city, they're all cartel members. In the police force, they're all ca- cartel members in parts of Mexico.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- 35:20 – 46:10
El Mayo Zambada captured: alleged betrayal, state-level ties, and Sinaloa ignites
- ECEd Calderon
And, and it, it is a clear sign that whatever division people had in their heads about the cartels or this organization here and they're, they don't, they're not openly at least involved in any of this political stuff, and n- n- no. All that shit's gone. Um, something happened r-... Something happened last year. Um, the arrest of one of the biggest cartel heads in history from Mexico, El Mayo Zambada. He was arrested in Texas. He flew into a private air... They flew him into a private airfield under pretty s- interesting, uh, circumstances and then handed, hand- he handed himself over to authorities. He was arrested there, I mean. Um, that kicked off a lot of violence in Mexico.
- JRJoe Rogan
Why was he willing to fly in?
- ECEd Calderon
So there's different stories around it. He's told his own story. He's actually talked about this many times openly, uh, with his drivers and stuff like that who are driving around, so he just speaks about it. He's, he's older now. Um, he was a ghost. This is El Mayo Zambada was the legitimate leader of the Sinaloa cartel. The US would say that it was, uh, El Chapo Guzman. Not really. Uh, the Sinaloa cartel was a federation, and a lot of the bigger, um, older parts of that cartel were kind of headed up by this figure, El Mayo Zambada, who in 50 years, was never arrested, never grabbed, never caught. You would hear about them pi- about him vaguely in certain circles, but everybody knew-... that guy's the head of the Sinaloa cartel, or the, he's the b- the bigger guy in that organization, which is a federation of groups. Uh, last time I was here, it was after the Culeacanazo, the incident where they rescued Ovidio, one of El Chapo's, uh, sons. Two years ago, they finally caught up to him, right? The army did this operation, same thing happened. All the cartels burned the city, blocked roads and stuff like that. A lot of, uh, special operations soldiers died in his arrest, a few of them. Um, and he was finally arrested and extradited to the United States. Conversation probably happened with his, with, within the United States with Ovidio when he was finally in US custody. And El Chapo Guzman is in a hole, and he's not gonna get out of that hole. Um, his sons probably figured out that if they don't want to get into a hole too, they probably need to cut a deal. And I think, and the theory is, that that deal probably included handing over the head (laughs) of the Sinaloa cartel, Mayo Zambada. Um...
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) Stopped by US law enforcement for more than two decades, he was taken into custody after arriving in a private plane at a Texas airport with Guzman's son, Joaquin Guzman-Lopez. Guzman-Lopez has pleaded not guilty to federal (laughs) not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in Chicago. His brother, Ovidio Guzman-Lopez, pleaded guilty last month. Zambada said that he was kidnapped in Mexico and hauled to the US by Guzman-Lopez, whose lawyer denies those claims.
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs) So, this is the, the, the, the shady stuff that happened. Uh, El Mayo gets, gets brought into a meeting in, in Sinaloa by, by, uh, by Joaquin, who is ... He is not one of the, he, he's not really into the drug ... He's not one of the powerful brothers of the, the Chapo Guzman brothers that are in the drug trade. He's kind of like wanting out, basically. So, at some point he cuts a deal and in this deal he said, "I'm gonna get this guy on a plane, and I'm (laughs) gonna fly him over, you know, and we're gonna make a deal." That's the story. Uh, he has him, he has El Mayo come into a meeting between the governor of Sinaloa, which is known publicly. People know this. The governor of Sinaloa was going to be in the meeting with El Mayo Zambada, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, who is a member of MORENA, the current ruling party all over the country. Also, no investigation. Also, he's still in power, which is shady as fuck. Between him and a man named Gwen who was, uh ... I think he was the director of the university there. They had some sort of political dispute and El May was being brought in to ... I don't know, negotiate or like influence that, which tells you a lot about how the cartels and politics and universities are tied, right? At that meeting, Nemesio Gwen who is, um, uh ... Gwen who is the- the friend of El Mayo, the, the guy who's the director of the university gets killed. They shoot him. Um, there's a video published of a gas station shootout where he- supposedly this man who was the director of the university gets killed. But it's fucking made up by the state prosecutor, you know. They're try- they're trying to make this shit go away. Uh, meanwhile all this stuff- stuff starts unraveling. Oh, they abducted El Mayo at that meeting, and that's why they killed this guy. Um, we don't know, or there- at least I don't know if there's any specific confirmation that the governor of Sinaloa was there. Um, but he said he went to the US, he was in the US. He wasn't there, but there's no travel logs of him being in the US. It's a sh- it's a shit show.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- ECEd Calderon
They somehow overtake his bodyguards, uh, El Mayo's bodyguards. They're gone, nobody knows where they went. Probably dead somewhere. Uh, got El Mayo on a plane and flew him into Texas. Um, Homeland Security was apparently involved. FBI says that they, they may have been involved. Um, but I was ta- when ... Last time I was here, I was talking about at some point we're gonna see either a direct US intervention or military action in Mexico that's gonna kick off things. And I think that was it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
After that happened, um, El Chapo Guzman's sons cut deals. 17 members of the Guzman family were secretly flown to Tijuana and crossed the border with suitcases and were put into FBI vans and shh ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Suitcases?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, uh, they've- they've moved- they- they've- they- they rescued their family members, and they took them out of the country so they're in the US somewhere. Um ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Under some kind of protective custody?
- ECEd Calderon
Of course, yeah. Of course. Um ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Geez.
- ECEd Calderon
And if you want to talk about people that know everything, like all the ins and outs, um, El Mayo Zambada is one- it's- he- he's the guy. He knows-
- JRJoe Rogan
And where- where is he being detained?
- ECEd Calderon
I think he's in New York, and I think he just declared himself guilty and he's probably gonna cut a deal. He's- he's older, he's- he's, uh, he's diabetic. He's- he's on- he's- he- he's, he's not gonna spend life in prison. Um, El Chapo Guzman went, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is wild when you think about how long he was running shit, and how many people died, and how many drugs got-
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, he learned his trade craft from, uh ... He learned his trade craft in LA.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- ECEd Calderon
Uh ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Here it is. It's August 25th, so it's soon. A Brooklyn federal judge on Monday scheduled an August 25th change of plea hearing for Zambada, long-time leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. The development comes two weeks after federal prosecutors said they wouldn't seek the death penalty against him.
- ECEd Calderon
There's a deal there?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
Um, and, and, and I don't think so-
- JRJoe Rogan
They're gonna put him in the same prison as Glenn Maxwell (laughs) .
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs) I don't- I don't see him jogging, but yeah, probably.
- JRJoe Rogan
Doing yoga. (laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
That's just (Spanish) -
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 46:10 – 59:27
Sinaloa war footage and cartel capability: luxury targets, heavy weapons, and chaos economics
- ECEd Calderon
Oh, a lot of them have, uh, severe hearing loss and, and a l- I we- I recently went to Jalisco with a friend of mine who's a, he has a YouTube channel called The Connect, uh, Johnny Mitchell. Um, he talks to drug dealers and, like, people in the, in that life. Uh, there's a friend of mine in, in Mexico and he's, uh, he ha- he's basically the Mexican Sean Ryan, um, Agave423 is his, uh, handle, and he interviews, like, cartel members and people from that life.
- JRJoe Rogan
Woof.
- ECEd Calderon
Um, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do they wear masks or something?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, we talked to a kid that was six months out of working with the, what is currently, I think, priority number one, should be priority number one for the US, uh, the new generation cartel, this militarized cartel out of Jalisco that has been, with this war going on between the Sinaloa factions, I mean, it's Christmas for them. Um, so, um, when, when, uh, when we went down there, he introduced us to this kid who was freshly off, basically the, he, he was involved in tank warfare on the borders between Jalisco and Zacatecas against Los Mayos, who you see there firing at those houses.
- JRJoe Rogan
Tanks?
- ECEd Calderon
They, they're making their own tanks. If you get your truck stolen up here and probably gets driven to Mexico, they're gonna make a tank out of it probably. (laughs) Uh, they're making these, uh, these artisanally made tanks basically, uh, mostly what they are are-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like that?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. That, that's a pretty old one. The, the, I think that's from the Zeta period. That's cool though, that looks like a fucking Mad Max vehicle. But what they do is they make these, these tanks, um, and his job was to be in the back of one of these with a .50 cal rifle.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs) Is, that, this, so what they do is you'll, you'll get through, you'll get into a dirt road and they'll put their trucks like this, with their backs turned. And I was like, "Why don't you just ram them with the front?" "Uh, the engine will go out. You have to ram them with the back of the truck." So they'll just go into, like, this destruction derby in the hills and shoot at each other until there's a clear winner is what they did, they di- they do basically.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- ECEd Calderon
And their main weapons are .50 caliber rifles. So they'll be in the back of the truck and they're like, "Now, now, now." And they'll just, somebody's on the radio inside the cabin trying to call out what's going on and they'll pop out and start... (gun firing noises)
- JRJoe Rogan
How come no one's figured out ear protection?
- ECEd Calderon
I, they put bullets in their ears. I've seen, I've seen that. They put, like, plastic things in their ears but realistically, they don't get shit and they're expendable. That's why they don't give a, that's why there's no ear protection.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, but you can get, like, a pair of Walker's Game Ears on Amazon. It's not that expensive.
- ECEd Calderon
No, none of that is down there.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs) Um, uh, this kid walked us through how he was all the way from his recruitment-... through his training, through this tank warfare thing that they sent him on, uh, and now into his life where he's like, the, the ... why, why I laughed about your question about hearing protection is I was of, the guy, the first person that showed him what tinnitus was (laughs) and what hearing loss was, because he kept like, "What'd you say?" It's like, "Hey, dude. Do you have hearing loss?" He's like, "No, like, I, I just, you know, like..." Like, "Dude, you, you, you have severe hearing loss from what you went through." (laughs) This is-
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... probably. Um, um-
- NANarrator
These are tanks going after each other?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. That's a, the, this is ... You'll see this in, in, in different, uh ... I mean, they're fighting over drug routes, basically and, and, and territory. And-
- NANarrator
Jesus Christ, they're so close to each other.
- ECEd Calderon
It's, it's, it's-
- NANarrator
Like, 50 caliber at, like, s- 10-foot distance.
- ECEd Calderon
And, um, the, the dr- dr- drones are now involved in this as well-
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
... uh, because why not?
- NANarrator
Of course.
- 59:27 – 1:22:39
CJNG’s militarized pipeline: homemade tanks, drones, and TikTok recruiting to training camps
- ECEd Calderon
Um, 100, over 100,000 according to official numbers in Mexico as far as missing.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, just gone.
- NANarrator
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
And that's another aspect of this, this, this war that, uh, people don't kind of like realize. Uh, the numbers are skewed, you know, because there's no, there's no confirmed dead person for a number of the amount of people murdered if there's no body. And Mexico has become very good at getting rid of bodies, the cultures in Mexico. Um, I was in Coahuila, uh, working with a, with a, with a tactical group out there. Um, they, they sh- they, uh, they, they showed me. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm always learning from p- people. Different regions have different ways of getting rid, rid of bodies, you know? Uh, some just burn 'em, just throw fuel, fuel on 'em to see if they can burn. In this part of the country, Coahuila, which is on the east side of the, uh, the country, they will heat up fuel drums with diesel inside of them and diesel's, diesel can get really hot without igniting, and that's where they put the bodies inside, basically boil them down to their essential essence.
- NANarrator
Oh.
- ECEd Calderon
And there's nothing to find is what they tell me with that process.
- NANarrator
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
Um, you go to my hometown of Tijuana, that's where we had a-
- NANarrator
Boiling cauldrons of diesel to dispose bodies.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- NANarrator
Bro.
- ECEd Calderon
And then you, you go to Tijuana where I'm from, and then you got the, the phenomenon of a, uh, phenomenon of a pozolero who would get rid of people with caustic soda, just a mixture of chemicals that you could buy and, uh, find at an, uh, a hardware store and they would make people into pink slurry and they'd just dump the pink slurry in a hole and just cover it up.So, the numbers that we see as far as dead and- dead and missing, there's- there's- it's- it's not a real number. Th- that has to be bigger. Um, you know, it's- it- it is a- it is a place where you'll go into some towns and there's just a bunch of old men and females because all the- all the men were gone, you know?
- GUGuest
(exhales)
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, or you'll see, um... You'll see, like, these abandoned graves in some places. This- there was- I talked to a lady who's a part of some of these, uh... There's these organizations all over the country right now that are grassroots organizations that are basically just dedicated to finding clandestine body disposal places. They're looking for their family members, basically. Uh...
- GUGuest
How do you say that word?
- ECEd Calderon
Isaguirre? Yeah, yeah, that's, uh- that's, uh- that's, uh, ri- that's the- the one I told you that was- pe- people were trying to make it seem like this was, like, an- an extermination camp.
- GUGuest
How do you say the word?
- ECEd Calderon
Isaguirre.
- GUGuest
Isaguirre. "A high concentrations of ash suggests the presence of clandestine crematoriums."
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. It- it- it- it- bodies were disposed of there, not at the volume of an Auschwitz-level thing, um, but yeah, there were- there were definitely people getting burned there.
- GUGuest
So, they're just killing people all the time?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. I mean, body disposal to a level where there's nothing left is- is something you do in a place where you're worried about the government catching you. But this is gual- this is Guadalajara, it's one of these, 'cause it's New Generation Cartel tor- territory, they're not worried about bo- bodies being found. Um, there's no for- the forensic services in some of these places (laughs) are like... You know, "Here- here's some bu- spent casings from this murder." "Oh, thank you." Just throw them in this hill of jus- this- this giant hill of casings that they have in this (laughs) evidence locker, right? Um, they're overwhelmed. Uh, there's no, like, ******, numbers.
- GUGuest
Also, you can't solve any crimes. You're dead.
- ECEd Calderon
90% of all murders...
- GUGuest
Imagine your job, if you do it well, you're dead.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, exactly. (laughs)
- GUGuest
But you're not gonna do it well. (laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
No, 90% of all murders in Mexico are never solved.
- GUGuest
90?
Episode duration: 3:01:20
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