Joe Rogan Experience #2446 - Greg Fitzsimmons

Joe Rogan 0:00 [upbeat music]

Joe Rogan 0:02 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 [upbeat music] Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. [upbeat music]

0:12 Oh, Alpha Brain?

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:13 Yeah, just took some Alpha Brain-

Joe Rogan 0:14 Yep

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:14 ... so I'm gonna be fucking sharp.

Joe Rogan 0:15 I've got this stuff, too, if you want it. It's an energy drink that also has nootropics in it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:19 Oh, yeah?

Joe Rogan 0:20 Yeah. Good stuff.

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:22 Gregory!

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:23 Joseph.

Joe Rogan 0:23 Good to see you, my friend.

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:24 Good to see you, man.

Joe Rogan 0:25 The world's on fire.

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:27 World is on fire.

Joe Rogan 0:29 It's a good time for you to come in. Woo!

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:31 I mean, I literally, uh... I mean, talk about being addicted to your scroll. I gotta really put the fucking phone down sometimes.

Joe Rogan 0:39 I know, yeah. It's not good.

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:41 No.

Joe Rogan 0:41 It's not good for your brain to see all the problems of the world all piling- and everything looks like it's about to blow up.

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:47 Iran looks like it's about to blow up. They're talking about going into Cuba.

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:50 Don Lemon went to jail.

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:52 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 0:52 It's like, it's all crazy. [laughing] It's, it's like, what's next?

Greg Fitzsimmons 0:57 Well, you know, when jail gives you lemons... Um, it, and it's also like, what, what's that whole theory about we're only supposed to be exposed to, like, 200 people in our life?

Joe Rogan 1:08 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, uh, Dunbar's number.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:11 Well, it's... You only can keep that many people in your head.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:13 But you should only know about that many divorces, and that much cheating, and that much killing as would happen within 200.

Joe Rogan 1:20 And crime, and fill in the blank.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:22 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:23 You know, fraud, waste, abuse, international politics, restrictions on speech in England, like-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:31 Did you see this fucking crazy story? This guy in England, uh, an illegal alien, was a squatter in his house. The court ruled that because he didn't live in the house, the guy didn't live in the house, it was an empty house, they gave him the house.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:46 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:46 They gave the squatter the house. The squatter sold it for 540 grand.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:52 The squatter sold his house. Took his house 'cause he was living in it, and this was, guy was, like, a pensioner.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:58 He was just a guy who had, like, an extra house, like a fucking investment property.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04 You're right.

Joe Rogan 2:04 And this guy moved into it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:06 Have you seen it, Jamie?

Speaker 2:07 I'm seeing something from a year ago?

Joe Rogan 2:09 I don't know. Somebody sent it to me today.

Speaker 2:11 Okay.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11 They had that in New York, uh, back in the '70s and '80s. There was a lot of empty units, like, down on the Lower East Side, like Tompkins Square Park area, there was a lot of squatting.

Joe Rogan 2:21 Yeah, this is it. [laughing] "Squatter moved into the pensioner's empty home, then won the legal right to keep it and sold the house for 500..." I guess 540, uh... Is that euros or pounds? Is that pounds? What's that weird-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:33 Pounds, yeah. England has pounds still.

Joe Rogan 2:35 That's fucking crazy. [laughing] That is so crazy!

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:40 Oh. England has lost its fucking mind.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:44 It's almost like they want people to either revolt or completely submit. It's one or the other. It's like you're either begging for a revolution or you're begging for people to completely submit.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:56 They've arrested 12,000 people this year for social media posts.

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:00 Oh, that's right.

Joe Rogan 3:01 And most of it is criticizing immigration.

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:03 Just criticizing immigration.

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:04 Just saying-

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:05 Yeah

Joe Rogan 3:05 ... "Immigration sucks. We should send these people back home," cops show up at your door.

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:09 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 3:10 Crazy!

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:11 Well, TikTok is now not allowing people to post anything that is anti-ICE.

Joe Rogan 3:18 Not the- not just that. You can't post the juice box emoji.

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:22 What's that?

Joe Rogan 3:22 'Cause it's k- uh, code for Jews.

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:25 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 3:25 'Cause people were using it, 'cause they were, they were blocking content where they were criticizing Israel.

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:31 Wait, why is the juice box Jews?

Joe Rogan 3:33 I don't know.

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:33 Oh, juice-

Joe Rogan 3:34 Juice

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:34 ... juice box.

Joe Rogan 3:35 Juice. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:39 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 3:40 It is funny.

Greg Fitzsimmons 3:41 Ah.

Joe Rogan 3:42 But did they block the use... This is, somebody sent me this. I haven't verified this. Did they block the use of the word Epstein?

Speaker 3:48 I saw... I mean, I saw... I don't- I'm not on the app, but I saw a video of someone, like, trying, you know-

Joe Rogan 3:54 Yeah

Speaker 3:54 ... posting it or whatever-

Joe Rogan 3:54 Let's run that through Perplexity

Speaker 3:56 ... and ask if it's blocked or not.

Joe Rogan 3:57 See if Perplexity will rat out TikTok. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 4:00 [laughing] Right, 'cause that's, um-

Joe Rogan 4:02 It's so crazy that they would do it, 'cause they just purchased it, right? So it was just purchased by, um, some... What, what is the group? Is it, did Larry Ellison's group purchase it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 4:13 Yes.

Joe Rogan 4:13 Okay. Which is a tremendous supporter of Netanyahu in Israel.

Greg Fitzsimmons 4:18 Right.

Joe Rogan 4:19 So, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 4:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:20 There you go.

Greg Fitzsimmons 4:20 Right.

Joe Rogan 4:20 So you got censored news now, so any criticism of Palestine, what's going on in Gaza, all that stuff's gonna get squashed probably. "TikTok says it does not have a rule that bans or blocks the word Epstein across the app, but many US users have recently been unable to send that word in direct messages." Now, what... I have a friend, his name's Bobby Epstein, totally unrelated. He's the guy who owns the COTA racetrack. He's a good friend of mine. I can't send a message saying, "I was just talking to my friend, Bobby Epstein"?

Greg Fitzsimmons 4:51 Oh, no shit.

Joe Rogan 4:52 That's crazy!

Greg Fitzsimmons 4:53 Wow.

Joe Rogan 4:53 Epstein is a super common name.

Greg Fitzsimmons 4:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:56 That's a super... It's like Jones.

Greg Fitzsimmons 4:58 It was on Welcome Back, Kotter.

Joe Rogan 5:00 Right!

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:01 Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter.

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:02 That's right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:03 You can't talk about him anymore.

Joe Rogan 5:04 He played my brother on Newsradio.

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:05 No!

Joe Rogan 5:06 Yes. Him, Nick DiPaolo, and Brian Cowan played my brothers, and we all just beat the shit out of each other-

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:11 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 5:11 ... during the entire episode.

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:12 That's amazing.

Joe Rogan 5:12 It was hilarious. Yeah, Nick threw me through a plate glass window, and then the brother shows up.

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:17 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 5:17 Epstein was a priest-

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:18 Uh-huh

Joe Rogan 5:18 ... and he showed up with a bat, and we were all scared of our older brother.

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:21 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 5:21 It was really funny.

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:22 He was the Jew, the Puerto Rican Jew from-

Joe Rogan 5:24 Yes

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:24 ... from Brooklyn.

Joe Rogan 5:25 He was great.

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:26 He's a really nice guy, too. Um, so what else does it say here? "Nusen to probe claims of Trump-critical censorship on TikTok." I think they're fucking blocking a lot of things on s- on certain social media platforms. I mean, I think-

Greg Fitzsimmons 5:42 Well, what is that... I mean, what's your big-picture take on whether or not [sniffs] social media platforms, which are privately owned, have responsibility that, say, regular broadcast networks would have, in terms of not censoring things?

Joe Rogan 5:57 Well, regular broadcast's problem is they censor things.

Greg Fitzsimmons 6:00 Right.

Joe Rogan 6:00 They don't just report on the news, they report on what they decide they're gonna report on. Like, uh, if- it's a CNN hourly news segment, they have no responsibility to tell you about any particular story.

Greg Fitzsimmons 6:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 6:11 None. Zero.

Greg Fitzsimmons 6:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:12 So they'll wait-... till something becomes, like, unmanageable before they'll start talking about it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 6:17 Right.

Joe Rogan 6:18 So something, like, starts getting traction on social media, like some sort of a corruption scandal, if it's a left-wing scandal, they can ignore it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 6:25 Right.

Joe Rogan 6:26 And they have no obligation to- it's not like we have to tell you about these very cred-

Greg Fitzsimmons 6:30 Right.

Joe Rogan 6:30 It's not like, you know, we ran it through AI, there's 20 things that the American public has to know about. So they censor, or at least they curate the content.

Greg Fitzsimmons 6:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:40 I think for social media platforms, if Elon Musk didn't buy Twitter, we would be fucked, because there would be no place where you could say whatever you want, even heinous things, right?

Greg Fitzsimmons 6:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:51 But if someone says heinous things, you can block them and not interact with them.

Greg Fitzsimmons 6:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 6:55 And you can let other people tear them down and tear them apart, and that's how it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be... You don't counter hate speech with censorship, you counter it with better speech.

Greg Fitzsimmons 7:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 7:06 You- and you appeal to rational people and, and sensible people that go, "This is why this guy is wrong. This is why racism is wrong. This is why rash generalizations are wrong. This is why it's wrong."

Greg Fitzsimmons 7:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:17 And that's how you're supposed to do it. It's supposed to be a free speech town hall platform.

Greg Fitzsimmons 7:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:21 It's supposed to be like the town square, where everybody can get together and talk about ideas, and that's how it should be.

Greg Fitzsimmons 7:28 Right.

Joe Rogan 7:29 And there's been a lot of calls that say that you shouldn't be able to be anonymous on social media, that you should have consequences for your actions. The problem with that is, then you lose all your whistleblowers, right? All the whistleblowers that are talking about giant corporations that are doing horrible things to the environment secretly in other countries, which we find out about all the time.

Greg Fitzsimmons 7:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:48 Like the Steven Donziger case, where that guy got arrested, uh, but he w- he was, uh, prosecuted. W- was it Exxon, the Donziger case? But it's like whistleblowers are important.

Greg Fitzsimmons 7:59 Yes!

Joe Rogan 8:00 You know? And if you don't have whistleblowers, you don't find out... Like, if Edward Snowden doesn't come out, we know so little about the NSA. We know so little about-

Greg Fitzsimmons 8:09 Right

Joe Rogan 8:09 ... government, uh, spying and... Yeah, he's an American former attorney known for his legal battle- oh, Chevron, particularly with, uh... So he was arrested, and he went to jail, man, for criminal contempt.

Greg Fitzsimmons 8:23 I mean, that's First Amendment, isn't it?

Joe Rogan 8:26 [sighs] You know, I don't know exactly the details of the case. He spent 45 days in prison and a combined total of 993 days under house arrest. Wow!

Greg Fitzsimmons 8:36 Not only do they go to jail, it depletes all your savings.

Joe Rogan 8:40 Yes.

Greg Fitzsimmons 8:40 If they decide to prosecute you-

Joe Rogan 8:42 Yes

Greg Fitzsimmons 8:43 ... your life is ruined.

Joe Rogan 8:44 That's part of the point of it all. It's to also discourage other people from doing the same thing.

Greg Fitzsimmons 8:48 Right.

Joe Rogan 8:48 So if you're an attorney and you're thinking of prosecuting, you know, Shell, you're not gonna do that now.

Greg Fitzsimmons 8:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:54 You're gonna go, "Fuck this."

Greg Fitzsimmons 8:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:55 "You know, I have a fucking house."

Greg Fitzsimmons 8:57 Right.

Joe Rogan 8:57 "I'm trying to buy a Porsche." [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 9:00 [laughing] Right.

Joe Rogan 9:01 And then you back out of it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 9:02 Yeah, right.

Joe Rogan 9:03 So, you know.

Greg Fitzsimmons 9:05 I mean, uh... Yeah, it's, uh, it, it's a, it's a, it's a weird thing because, like, I know, uh, like right now, to cover the Pentagon, no journalist can go into the Pentagon unless they sign an agreement to only put out government-sponsored press releases.

Joe Rogan 9:24 J- government-approved or government-

Greg Fitzsimmons 9:25 Government-approved.

Joe Rogan 9:26 Mm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 9:27 So now you've got very few people inside the Pentagon, which is where the whistleblowing was happening-

Joe Rogan 9:31 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 9:32 ... mainly in the back halls of the Pentagon.

Joe Rogan 9:34 That's crazy. But then, [sighs] you see, the problem with the Pentagon is you're talking about national security, and if someone released something, like the name of an agent that was undercover somewhere, and something happened, and that person got killed or compromised, or some sort of a national security interest, you know, was... The, the whole thing was tanked-

Greg Fitzsimmons 9:54 Yeah

Joe Rogan 9:55 ... that's a d- the, the Pentagon's different. I mean, I'm not saying that they sh- that the press shouldn't have access to Pentagon officials. They certainly should. But it's like, going there is kind of different, right?

Greg Fitzsimmons 10:08 Well-

Joe Rogan 10:08 It's like the FBI just arrested... They just had a giant sweep on gangs in this country today.

Greg Fitzsimmons 10:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:14 They just released that they found, like, I think it was 10 t- kilos of drugs. They arrested 50 people-

Greg Fitzsimmons 10:19 Like cartel gangs?

Joe Rogan 10:20 Cartels in, in America.

Greg Fitzsimmons 10:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:22 And so they made a giant arrest today.

Greg Fitzsimmons 10:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:24 I think they arrested 200... So you can find what that story is. But, like, imagine if you were in the FBI office, and you heard about an imminent attack, and you printed something. Like, if you're a, a reporter and you're covering this stuff, and you have access to this information somehow-

Greg Fitzsimmons 10:42 Yeah

Joe Rogan 10:42 ... and it gets released, and these guys find out about it, and they s-

Greg Fitzsimmons 10:44 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 10:44 ... they skate. They nabbed-

Greg Fitzsimmons 10:47 Latin Kings

Joe Rogan 10:48 ... 50 Latin Kings in Operation Broken Crown after a thir- three-month sweep, uh, sweep. So what is the details of it? Okay, last three months, the FBI's quietly executed-

Speaker 11:00 Sorry, I have about a tomorrow.

Joe Rogan 11:02 Okay, um, this is on X. Uh, quietly executed Operation Broken Crown, a sweeping, violent gang takedown involving 13 field offices targeting the Latin Kings gangs. Members which, uh, were publicly threatening law enforcement officers, 50 arrests, $200,000 in seized assets, seizure of 10 kilos of illicit narcotics. Interesting. Interesting. Well, so, like, that kind of a situation, y- you can't have access to that information before they do it. That has to be very tight-lipped, you know? But there's, there's only a few of those kind of scenarios that I can imagine. But when it comes to, like, politicians and backdoor deals, like, there should be live c- footage of it. It should be live-streamed.

Greg Fitzsimmons 11:54 Well, you, you only found out about the bomb- the illegal bombings in Cambodia because there was a whistleblower inside of the Pentagon.

Joe Rogan 12:01 Exactly. Exactly.

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:03 So it does-

Joe Rogan 12:03 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:03 ... you do need some access.

Joe Rogan 12:04 Yeah, but it's like, well, you need whistleblowers, right?

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:07 Right.

Joe Rogan 12:08 But it's like, how many pe- there's... Here's the thing about, like, intelligence agencies and g- there's a lot of good people that are working there. It's like we judge them based on the evil people that are probably the ones with the most power, you know?

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:22 Yes.

Joe Rogan 12:23 ... there's probably a lot of, like, mid-level people working at the Pentagon, working at the CIA, working everywhere, that are good people.

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:31 Oh, are you kidding me? These are people that have dedicated their lives to trying to... You know, I, I believe- I'm s- same way with cops.

Joe Rogan 12:37 Yes.

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:38 I think, you know, I got, I got three good buddies that are cops, and they are absolutely went into it the same the way a social worker goes into it.

Joe Rogan 12:45 Yes. Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:45 And then there's the evil ones that, uh, you know, I think it was worse, I think-- I think back, like, you know, back in the days of, like, Serpico.

Joe Rogan 12:53 Oh, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:53 You ever seen that movie? [chuckles]

Joe Rogan 12:54 Oh, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:54 Like, it was literally like the entire force was-

Joe Rogan 12:57 Oh, yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:57 ... in on it.

Joe Rogan 12:58 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 12:58 You know, there was fucking legal gambling, legal drug dealing. No- nobody got touched.

Joe Rogan 13:04 Yep, yep. Yeah, they've always done that. I mean, that's how they ran the mob in Vegas.

Greg Fitzsimmons 13:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:08 The mob ran Vegas with the cops, you know?

Greg Fitzsimmons 13:11 Oh, yeah, we were just talking about that outside.

Joe Rogan 13:12 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 13:12 Like, why was Vegas and Atlantic City the only places allowed to... I don't know why I so-

Joe Rogan 13:17 To have gambling

Greg Fitzsimmons 13:18 ... stupidly asked that. It was like, [chuckles] Jamie's like, " 'Cause of the mob, asshole." [laughing]

Joe Rogan 13:22 Yeah, fucking duh! Well, it was the mob, and I think Nevada, there was also... See if this is true. Um, there was supposedly a connection between, uh, the testing of nuclear weapons and then allowing the city, or the state, rather, to have gambling. 'Cause Nevada was one of the rare places-

Greg Fitzsimmons 13:43 Ah

Joe Rogan 13:43 ... where they, like, routinely tested nuclear weapons.

Greg Fitzsimmons 13:47 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:48 I don't know if you've ever seen the video that shows, uh, a history of all the atomic bombs going off in the United States?

Greg Fitzsimmons 13:56 No.

Joe Rogan 13:56 The video is crazy because it starts with the first test. Starts with the Trinity test, starts with- they do the couple in the ocean. What's the matter? What's so funny?

Greg Fitzsimmons 14:05 Uh, just the way this is worded. [chuckles]

Joe Rogan 14:07 What is it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 14:08 I asked if there was a connection between nuclear tests and gambling in Las Vegas, and turns out, yeah, they would use it as a theme to attract gamblers.

Joe Rogan 14:17 What?! [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 14:18 [laughing]

14:19 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 14:19 Look-

Greg Fitzsimmons 14:19 Come see a bomb!

Joe Rogan 14:20 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 14:21 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 14:21 From the early 1950s to the 1960s, Las Vegas casinos and tourism promoters actively used nearby nuclear weapons tests as themed attractions to draw gamblers and visitors. Holy shit, man.

Greg Fitzsimmons 14:34 Bomb parties.

14:35 It's like how- [laughing]

Joe Rogan 14:36 Oh, my God, they had bomb parties-

Greg Fitzsimmons 14:38 Ah! [laughing]

Joe Rogan 14:38 ... on the rooftop. They would watch... They'd stay up gambling, drinking, and then stepped outside to watch the blasts on the horizon.

Greg Fitzsimmons 14:45 Wow.

14:46 With your atomic cocktail and your atomic hairdo.

Joe Rogan 14:47 Oh, my God.

Greg Fitzsimmons 14:48 Dude, it's like how Caesars does fireworks now.

Joe Rogan 14:51 They had atomic-themed promotions, atomic cocktails, atomic hairdos, nuclear pin-up imagery, like Miss Atomic Blast. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 14:58 [laughing]

14:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:01 Slogans like Atomic City USA, and Up and Atom to tie the test directly to Vegas nightlife and gambling culture.

Greg Fitzsimmons 15:09 Oh, my God.

Joe Rogan 15:09 Holy shit, man! [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 15:12 I wonder if you could place bets.

Joe Rogan 15:14 Right, and what time-

Greg Fitzsimmons 15:14 Dude, I bet your eyebrows singe off. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 15:16 I don't know if they had the same thing, like what they have now with modern prediction betting. Prediction betting, you can bet on pretty much everything.

Greg Fitzsimmons 15:23 I just made a bet last night on, uh, one of those-

Joe Rogan 15:25 Go back down to where you were. Stop, stop.

Greg Fitzsimmons 15:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:27 Go... With the bottom line: "In short, nuclear weapons tests near Las Vegas were not just a backdrop, they were deliberately woven into casino marketing, party culture, and tourism that supported the city's gambling economy." But did it have, uh, the reason... Like, here, here's my question: Was v- w- was Nevada allowed to have gambling because of them allowing nuclear tests? Like, was there any sort of an agreement? 'Cause there's only two states at that time that allowed casinos, like real casinos.

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:01 Right.

Joe Rogan 16:01 And it, it seems kind of weird that one, one of them, you know, New Jersey's always been fucking corrupt. That's The Sopranos.

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:08 Right.

Joe Rogan 16:08 I mean, it's like the most mob-ridden fucking state in the country at the time.

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:12 Based in Atlantic City, pretty much.

Joe Rogan 16:14 Yeah!

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:14 I mean, cut the fucking shit.

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:16 Atlantic City.

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:17 And then Vegas was Bugsy Siegel, right?

Joe Rogan 16:20 Okay, well, it says, " Nevada, uh, uh, legalized most forms of gambling in ni- '31." Okay, so it doesn't make any sense, because it's before that. So it's the Great Depression, economic measure to attract tourists.

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:31 Okay.

Joe Rogan 16:31 So no. So that, that, that theory doesn't hold up.

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:36 Right, so-

Joe Rogan 16:36 I didn't know that Vegas was started in '31. That's nuts.

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:39 So basically, the Great Depression started, and then they launched Vegas as a, as a way to raise money-

Joe Rogan 16:47 Which is hilarious

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:47 ... for Nevada.

Joe Rogan 16:48 You have no money.

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:49 [laughing] Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 16:49 There's no jobs. Why don't you gamble? What? [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:52 My gamble is going to the food line-

Joe Rogan 16:54 Wow

Greg Fitzsimmons 16:54 ... seeing if I can get a loaf of bread. That's my gamble today.

Joe Rogan 16:57 You know what's crazy is that lake keeps drying up because they were having a drought, and they keep finding bodies in the lake.

Greg Fitzsimmons 17:02 Oh, no shit!

Joe Rogan 17:03 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like, m- those metal barrels with, like, bodies inside of them. They've, they've found quite a few of them. How many bodies have they found? Is it Lake Mead, I believe?

Greg Fitzsimmons 17:13 Yep.

Joe Rogan 17:14 Yeah, so as it's drying up... It's at, like, it was... I think it's probably picked up a little bit, but at one point in time, it was at a historic low.

Greg Fitzsimmons 17:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:21 And so they were finding these fucking dead bodies.

Greg Fitzsimmons 17:23 Damn.

Joe Rogan 17:23 I think they found, like, a half a dozen of them, and I think they think there's a whole lot more in there.

Greg Fitzsimmons 17:28 No shit.

Joe Rogan 17:28 As f- as of last r- latest reporting, at least six separate discoveries of human remains, yeah, were made in Lake Mead in 2022 as the water level dropped, repr- representing at least several different individuals. Wow. Um, find out that thing where they stopped, uh, searching for guns in bodies. I think it was in MacArthur Park, and why they did that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 17:50 David Talback, in his insomniac days, he used to hang, he hang out... hung out with some dark motherfuckers in New York.

Joe Rogan 17:56 Oh, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 17:57 And he used to bring this guy in who was a... He was a New York City cop, and they basically said, "We'll double your pay and give you early retirement if you put on a frog suit every night, and you go out into..." I think it was Flushing Bay, one of the bays out in Queens, which was a famous place where the mob was dropping bodies. And, uh, the guy would go into the water in a frog suit, and he'd wait by this bridge, and when they'd drop a body-

Joe Rogan 18:25 ... he'd [laughs] fucking call it in, and he did that the night shift. And he'd finish that, and he'd come into the Comedy Cellar at, like, 4:00 a.m.-

Greg Fitzsimmons 18:32 So he'd went in the ocean-

Joe Rogan 18:33 -and he'd go drink with-

Greg Fitzsimmons 18:34 ... in a scuba suit?

Joe Rogan 18:34 In a, in a bag.

Greg Fitzsimmons 18:35 For them to drop a body?

Joe Rogan 18:36 Yeah. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 18:36 Holy shit! They were dropping that many bodies.

Joe Rogan 18:40 Yes, yes.

Greg Fitzsimmons 18:40 That you can just wait for them. Bloop, bloop. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 18:46 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 18:46 That's so crazy. It's just so-

Joe Rogan 18:48 Search for MacArthur Park for guns and possible bodies was stopped because authorities said it was an unpermitted and potentially unsafe operation on city park property. [lips smack] Uh, okay, so it was a businessman, so it was a private thing, so that's probably what it was. So officials- official reasons given: "Organizers led by businessman John..." uh, I don't know how to spell his name. A-L-L-E. How do you say that? Alle? Alle? Uh, "planned to use sonar and remotely operated vehicles to look for weapons and human remains in the lake. Los Angeles Park Rangers halted the effort before the sonar entered the water, saying the team did not have the required permits or clearances." Okay, why didn't you guys do that, though? If you really think... If this guy really thinks that there could be bodies and guns in the lake, why wouldn't you guys search for bodies and guns if someone could search for it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 19:41 Right.

Joe Rogan 19:42 F- it seems like there's probably a lot of people missing, a lot of crimes that could be solved, a lot of resources that have already been spent on cases. You could probably get to the bottom of a lot of things. [sniffs] Uh, A- Alle, Alle, I don't know how to say his name, uh, said families of missing people, some of whom were last seen near MacArthur Park, had reached out to him for help, which inspired the idea of a large-scale sonar search of the lake. "There is, there's evidence down there for crimes," he said. "We'll identify it with photography, and the city will have to extract it."

Greg Fitzsimmons 20:10 It also could be, these are homeless people, and-

Joe Rogan 20:14 They can't swim

Greg Fitzsimmons 20:14 ... the government doesn't give a shit.

Joe Rogan 20:15 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 20:15 [laughing] They can't swim.

Joe Rogan 20:16 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 20:17 [laughing] Come on, they, they were kids once.

Joe Rogan 20:19 It's hard to swim when you're on meth.

Greg Fitzsimmons 20:21 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 20:21 You have bad cardio. You know, if one guy says, "This is the last day I do meth. Today, I get in shape," and he tries to swim across the lake and fucking strokes out in the middle of it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 20:30 This is my day. [laughs]

Joe Rogan 20:33 Uh, never gave him... Oh, geez, I'm in there. What are they saying about me?

Speaker 20:36 Oh, it's just an art- it's an ad. It's-

Joe Rogan 20:38 Oh, it's an ad?

Speaker 20:39 That's basically... Yeah, it's an ad down at the bottom.

Joe Rogan 20:41 Oh, that I, I mocked the AI-generated-

Speaker 20:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:44 That was, that was crazy. The AI-generated photo that M- MSNBC put... MSNBC put up of the guy who got shot in Minneapolis. They changed his appearance.

Greg Fitzsimmons 20:55 A- Alex Pretty?

Joe Rogan 20:56 Yes.

Greg Fitzsimmons 20:56 They changed his appearance in what way?

Joe Rogan 20:58 They made him handsome.

Greg Fitzsimmons 20:58 Oh, they did?

Joe Rogan 20:59 Oh, you haven't seen it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:01 No.

Joe Rogan 21:01 You have to see it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:02 You have to see it. It's... There- I don't know who's doing this.

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:06 It, it's almost like, like someone from the Republican side is, like, a, a secret plant at MSNBC, 'cause they know that stuff like this is gonna get caught. Look at the difference between the one on the left and one on the right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:20 Well, the nose looks blurry on the one on the left.

Joe Rogan 21:23 Well, that's his nose. That's what he looks like.

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:24 It's just a shitty picture, but they cleaned the picture up. They made his nose smaller.

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:28 They gave him a tan.

Joe Rogan 21:29 They gave him a tan. They made his forehead shorter. They made his jaw wider. They made his shoulders thicker.

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:35 They gave him more bicep. They made him more handsome. They made his neck thicker. He looks better.

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:42 Yep.

Joe Rogan 21:43 The guy on the right looks like a good-looking guy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:45 The guy on the left looks, you know, like Ari's unfortunate brother.

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:48 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 21:50 Doesn't he? [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:55 Poor Ari's brother.

Joe Rogan 21:57 Oh.

Greg Fitzsimmons 21:57 He w- I mean, it's so funny that Ari comes from this family. Uh, I mean, he grew up Orthodox Jewish, right?

Joe Rogan 22:03 Oh, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 22:03 And the things that he has put out there, um, for a family to have to see-

Joe Rogan 22:10 [chuckles]

Greg Fitzsimmons 22:11 ... it makes you realize... And they love him.

Joe Rogan 22:13 Mm-hmm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 22:13 Like, they accept it, and it, it's, it's all about grace. And I love Jews because, like, they are very accepting, you know? As much as you might be Orthodox, I found... My, my wife is half Jewish, and there's something very open-minded about Jews. I mean, they were the original hippies, and they were the original communists in America, and they were always open to different ideas. And I think when I think about Ari's family, if they were Christian conservative versus Jewish conservative-

Joe Rogan 22:45 Right

Greg Fitzsimmons 22:45 ... I don't know that they'd be as accepting of him.

Joe Rogan 22:47 You know, Ari's dad survived the Holocaust.

Greg Fitzsimmons 22:50 No shit!

Joe Rogan 22:51 Oh, yeah, Ari's dad has a tattoo.

Greg Fitzsimmons 22:52 Damn.

Joe Rogan 22:53 Yeah. He's very old.

Greg Fitzsimmons 22:55 Whoa.

Joe Rogan 22:56 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 22:58 He must be one of the oldest people left with a tattoo, I mean-

Joe Rogan 23:01 Yeah, he talked to me about having his dad on. He asked me if I'd be interested in it, if his dad ever wants to do it, because, you know, he doesn't have much time left. And, uh, I said, "Absolutely." And he goes, "You know, let me... I'm not sure if he'd be interested in it, but if he did, I think it would be important to talk about-"

Greg Fitzsimmons 23:17 I mean, he's gotta be over 100 years old.

Joe Rogan 23:19 I don't know how old he is. Uh, he's old, though. Well, how long ago was... He's 45.

Greg Fitzsimmons 23:23 You would have to have been born... Oh, no, actually, if he was born in 1935-

Joe Rogan 23:29 I think he's in his 80s, his late 80s.

Greg Fitzsimmons 23:31 Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, what am I thinking? Right, right, 'cause they tattooed the fucking kids.

Joe Rogan 23:35 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 23:38 Jesus.

Joe Rogan 23:38 Yeah, it's dark. It's horrible. It's so crazy, dude. It's cr- it's so crazy that that was less than 100 years ago.

Greg Fitzsimmons 23:47 I know, I know, and, uh, the Germans like that. [laughs] Fucking Norm MacDonald bit about how, you know, Germany is the country we really should be afraid of, like, the way they start world wars and what they... Like, it's really fucking nuts.

Joe Rogan 24:02 Well, they were the barbarians back in the day.

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:04 Oh, right.

Joe Rogan 24:05 You know, they... The... I mean, we think of now as engineers, they make BMWs.

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:09 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 24:10 But back then, they were the barbarians.

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:11 The, the-

Joe Rogan 24:11 During the Roman era?

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:13 The Viking-

Joe Rogan 24:13 The Germanics.

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:13 I guess the Vikings were Scandinavian, and then they were fighting against the-

Joe Rogan 24:17 Bro, the Germans -

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:18 ... the Vikings

Joe Rogan 24:18 ... were fucking terrifying.

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:19 They were terrifying.

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:20 And they all became engineers. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:22 Wow.

Joe Rogan 24:22 They became, like, brilliant-

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:24 Yeah

Joe Rogan 24:24 ... like, v- very disciplined people.

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:27 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 24:27 Which is interesting, 'cause Germany is known for that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:29 And but also, shit porn, remember? Like, in the early days of the internet-

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:33 [laughing] Right

Joe Rogan 24:34 ... a lot of the shit porn, like, weird, crazy, like, shitting on people.

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:37 Dog fucking.

Joe Rogan 24:38 A lot of that was coming... And we were trying to analyze it one day, and I was like, "It's probably because if you're so buttoned down, and so disciplined, and regimented, and conservative in your daily life, the way you cut loose is, like, you shit in each other's mouths-

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:52 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 24:52 ... and fuck each other in the butt and..." Like, some of the craziest shit porn was coming out of Germany.

Greg Fitzsimmons 24:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:58 This was like-... late '90s, early 2000s, when we first started, like, finding weird websites that would, you know, you, you'd be able to find things on.

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:07 Oh, no, before that, I'd go to Sex World in New York, where you sit in those booths, and you put in quarters, and you watch porn.

Joe Rogan 25:13 Oof!

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:13 And they always had the darkest German porn in there.

Joe Rogan 25:16 Really?

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:16 Yeah, a lot of animals and shit.

Joe Rogan 25:18 [inhales]

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:18 And I'm like, I'm, like, 15 years old, going like... And, and I've got these coins. You go in, and you give the guy 10 bucks, and he gives you a handful of coins. Just imagine if you put a black light on those fucking coins, and I got them in my hand-

Joe Rogan 25:32 Oh, God, just jizz all over those things

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:33 ... and I'm feeding them into the c- and I'm pushing-

Joe Rogan 25:35 Black lights are terrifying.

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:37 [chuckles] I'm pushing buttons to pick which film to watch.

Joe Rogan 25:39 I have a friend who brought a black, black light into a hotel room. He said you just find jizz on the carpet.

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:44 No kidding.

Joe Rogan 25:44 Yeah, you find jizz on the fucking blanket sometimes.

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:47 You go to any... Like, go to a cheap hotel or a motel, how well do you think they're cleaning those carpets?

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:52 Well-

Joe Rogan 25:52 Do you think they clean the walls?

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:53 I've been in hotels where they put the remote control in a baggie for you, 'cause that-

Joe Rogan 25:58 'Cause they cleaned it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 25:58 ... they say that's the most... No, no, 'cause so you don't have to touch the-

Joe Rogan 26:01 Oh

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:02 ... the remote, and then they change the baggie on the remote each time a new guest comes in.

Joe Rogan 26:07 So you're supposed to remote through the baggie?

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:09 Who does that?

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:10 I take it out of the bag.

Joe Rogan 26:11 I pull that thing right out.

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:11 That's crazy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:12 That's ridiculous. I'm touching toilet seats. I'm touching everything.

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:15 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 26:15 What are we talking about here? [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:19 I'm also not that afraid of cum, you know?

Joe Rogan 26:22 I mean, that's not-

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:22 What's it gonna do to me?

Joe Rogan 26:23 ... that's gonna kill you.

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:24 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:24 I mean, that's just kind of gross, but-

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:27 Yeah

Joe Rogan 26:27 ... you know. I mean, think about how much shit is on the average person's cell phone. Have you ever heard of that?

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:32 No.

Joe Rogan 26:33 Yeah, just touch your cell phone with a swab. Like, get a, a swab and get, get it analyzed.

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:38 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 26:38 You'll find fecal matter-

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:40 Yeah

Joe Rogan 26:40 ... all over your cellphone.

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:40 Well, 'cause we're scrolling while we're on the toilet.

Joe Rogan 26:42 A lot of people are.

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:44 Yeah, a lot of people. And also, you're touching things, and then you touch your phone, and how many people touch their ass, then touch a thing, a doorknob, a this and that? You're getting fecal matter on everything.

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:54 Especially if you have a cat.

Greg Fitzsimmons 26:56 Uh-

Joe Rogan 26:56 I used to think about that all the time when I had cats. Like, the cats are in the shit box. They're scratching around there, and then they're walking on your counter.

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:02 They're walking... They, they, you know, they don't give a fuck where they go. They go everywhere.

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:06 And you don't care. You're like, "Hey, buddy."

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:07 Yep.

Joe Rogan 27:07 You pet them when they're on the counter, even though there's shit in their paws.

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:10 Then, then he, then your dog licks his asshole and then licks-

Joe Rogan 27:13 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:13 ... And then people have them lick their face.

Joe Rogan 27:14 Oh, they lick my face.

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:15 Really?

Joe Rogan 27:16 Oh, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:17 No!

Joe Rogan 27:17 Yeah. Yeah, I let him give me kisses. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:20 Have you seen him lick his asshole?

Joe Rogan 27:21 I have. [laughing] For sure, especially my puppy. I have a little puppy now.

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:26 Imagine a black light on your face right now.

Joe Rogan 27:28 My puppy goes right... You know, I have a little, uh-

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:31 You'd look like you were in blackface.

Joe Rogan 27:32 Probably. [laughing] Just splatter, like I'm a, like I'm the Joker. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:38 Al Jolson.

Joe Rogan 27:38 He go- I have a puppy, like a... He's a King Charles Cavalier. He's a little tiny, cute... He's so fucking cute. Uh, and then I have the golden retriever, and the puppy runs right up to the golden retriever, sticks his face in his dick, and then sticks his face in his asshole.

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:52 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 27:52 That's the first thing he does to him every time, face on the dick, face on the asshole. I'm like: Bro!

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:58 Wow.

Joe Rogan 27:58 What are you doing?

Greg Fitzsimmons 27:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:00 They... That's just dogs.

Greg Fitzsimmons 28:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:02 That's what they do.

Greg Fitzsimmons 28:02 It's funny how they... Yeah, I had two dogs, and they did that, yeah, every fucking day. They sniffed each other, like, you know... I mean, I guess that's how they know if something changed. Maybe they know if the other dog is sick or if the other dog is breeding with another dog. It's like kind of checking their emails.

Joe Rogan 28:22 Well, they get so much information from smell-

Greg Fitzsimmons 28:24 Yeah

Joe Rogan 28:24 ... that we can't even possibly process.

Greg Fitzsimmons 28:25 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 28:26 They say that a dog can smell a cheeseburger. They don't just smell the cheeseburger, they smell every individual ingredient. They smell the mustard. They smell the pickle. They smell everything. They smell the lettuce.

Greg Fitzsimmons 28:36 Mm.

Joe Rogan 28:36 Yeah, they, they smell... They smell... They think that dogs smell anxiety.

Greg Fitzsimmons 28:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:41 They smell, like, moods. That's why when certain people come over to your house, they're scared of dogs, dogs get sketchy with them.

Greg Fitzsimmons 28:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:47 Like, "What the fuck's up with this guy?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 28:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:48 Like, "Oh, he doesn't like you."

Greg Fitzsimmons 28:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:49 Like, well, it's 'cause the person's probably nervous. They're giving off a scent.

Greg Fitzsimmons 28:53 Right. No, my mom, her sister was attacked really bad by a dog when they were little, so my mom has this trauma about dogs. We had these little fucking... We had a Shih Tzu and a Lhasa Apso. They're just little dogs. She was terrified, and the dogs would growl at her, and they didn't growl at anybody.

Joe Rogan 29:09 Oh, my God.

Greg Fitzsimmons 29:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:10 That's crazy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 29:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:11 That's crazy. Yeah, sh- it's... They smell things. They sense things.

Greg Fitzsimmons 29:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:16 That's why people have them as guards.

Greg Fitzsimmons 29:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 29:18 I mean, that's their... That's how they, that's how they made it-

Greg Fitzsimmons 29:21 Right

Joe Rogan 29:21 ... to be dogs. They were the wolves that hung out with us and would let us know when something's going down.

Greg Fitzsimmons 29:26 Sentinels.

Joe Rogan 29:27 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 29:27 Yeah, that's, uh... Well, I, I have a very strong olfactory sense. Like, I'm very... Of my five senses, I would put it up there at the top. Like, I, I love perfume.

Joe Rogan 29:40 Really?

Greg Fitzsimmons 29:40 I love perfume. I don't like when women wear too much of it, and then they hug you at the comedy store, and then you go home-

Joe Rogan 29:46 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 29:46 ... and you smell like fucking perfume. And you're like: "Honey, it's just Whitney Cummings has this new Chanel." [laughing]

Joe Rogan 29:54 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 29:54 But, like, sometimes I'll be s- I'll walk- I'll, I'll be sitting somewhere, and I'll smell some nice perfume, and I'll fucking whip my head around, and it's, like, some 81-year-old woman hunched over, and you're like, "Oh!"

Joe Rogan 30:05 They wear the-

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:06 "You tricked me."

Joe Rogan 30:06 ... old ladies, l- no matter how old they are, they'll still put on the makeup. They'll still put on the perfume.

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:11 Get the hair done.

Joe Rogan 30:12 Let it out.

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:13 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 30:14 Time to go out and see, go fishing.

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:17 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 30:17 See if this old bait can catch a bass.

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:19 Yeah, right, right. [inhales] Yeah, there's this-

Joe Rogan 30:22 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:22 ... bar up at my, uh, where my mom lives in, in Florida, and there's this bar, and it's, like, a famous cougar bar.

Joe Rogan 30:30 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:30 And it's all these rich women whose... 'Cause, you know, men die faster.

Joe Rogan 30:34 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:35 It's like, it's impossible for a woman in Florida who's in her 70s to find a guy who's, you know, anywhere near her age.

Joe Rogan 30:42 Mm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:43 She's gotta date a guy in his late 80s if she's in her 70s.

Joe Rogan 30:45 Wow.

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:46 And so these women go to this bar, and they are, like you said, they're wearing, so a lot of leopards, a lot of leopard print-

Joe Rogan 30:52 ... Yeah, they'll let you know-

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:54 Yeah

Joe Rogan 30:54 ... Time to get down.

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:54 The stiletto heels.

Joe Rogan 30:55 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 30:55 It's like stiletto heels, but the, the toes are all [laughing] fucking twisted and mangled. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 31:00 My wife has been watching this horrible show that's on Netflix. It's like, uh, one of those housewife shows, but it's all West Palm Beach ladies.

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:09 Oh.

Joe Rogan 31:09 It's all these, like, r- rich ladies with plastic surgery and-

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:13 Palm Beach, not West Palm Beach.

Joe Rogan 31:14 Palm Beach.

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:14 That's right. Palm Beach ladies with... Is Palm Beach the rich area?

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:18 Yeah. Is West Palm like the more moderate area?

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:20 No, no, it's poor.

Joe Rogan 31:21 It's poor?

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:22 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:22 West Palm's poor?

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:22 I mean, well, it has, it has good sections, but it has... With the people that work on Palm Beach, cleaning the houses, live in West Palm Beach.

Joe Rogan 31:31 Oh, I see, I see.

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:32 'Cause there's basically, Palm Beach is a bridge-

Joe Rogan 31:34 Right

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:34 ... to get to... Do you know the history of Palm Beach?

Joe Rogan 31:36 No.

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:37 They built-

Joe Rogan 31:38 Oh, I do. Yeah, but go ahead.

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:39 They created it. It was like a sandbar that-

Joe Rogan 31:41 Right

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:41 ... they built up, and then they hired... They didn't hire anybody. They, they hired a bunch of Black people to come on the island and build all the houses, the infrastructure.

Joe Rogan 31:50 Why Black people?

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:52 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 31:54 I mean, for sure, they only hired Black people?

Greg Fitzsimmons 31:56 I mean, look it up, Jamie, but, like, uh, all I know is there was a lot of Black people doing the building. They finished it, and then the island held a big party for the Black people on the end of the island to celebrate, and then they torched all their houses-

Joe Rogan 32:10 What?

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:10 ... and forced them off the island. Yeah, that's the history of Palm Beach.

Joe Rogan 32:12 They torched their houses?

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:14 Torched the houses.

Joe Rogan 32:15 After they were done building the mansions?

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:16 Yes. Yeah. And it's the, probably the wealthiest piece of real estate in the country right now.

Joe Rogan 32:25 Wow, so, so many people are fucking evil.

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:27 [laughing] Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:27 That's so... You imagine a guy who built your house, he's at home with his kid-

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:32 Yeah, yeah

Joe Rogan 32:33 ... having a, you know, "Wow, this- what a great job I got."

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:36 You know?

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:37 And then I get to live-

Joe Rogan 32:37 Get to start a family here

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:38 ... in this beautiful place.

Joe Rogan 32:39 Get to live in this place. I helped build these beautiful mansions that people drive by.

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:42 These people are gonna love me because I helped them create a life.

Joe Rogan 32:45 Oh, my God, and they lit their fucking houses on fire?

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:48 Pull up that story. I need to hear about that. That's crazy. But these ladies are just monsters. It's just, uh, uh, l- it's just all, like, the social status.

Greg Fitzsimmons 32:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:59 It's all, like, "Who's got the most money?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:01 "Like, they don't even know how much money I have."

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:03 You know? Like, "I'm a millionaire. I'm a millionaire."

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:04 And then they have these clubs. My, my friend's father lives there, and he belongs to a club.

Joe Rogan 33:09 Oh, you gotta belong to a club.

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:10 And he, he worked for... I won't say who the person was, but a very famous Jewish family. And he, uh... She went to lunch one day at one of these clubs that didn't allow Jews, and the waiter would-

Joe Rogan 33:23 Clubs still don't allow Jews?

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:25 No, this is going back 20 years at the most.

Joe Rogan 33:28 Only 20 years ago?

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:28 Twenty years ago.

Joe Rogan 33:29 So in 2006, 2006-

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:32 Probably about that

Joe Rogan 33:33 ... there was clubs that didn't allow Jews?

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:34 20, 30 years. Yeah. Well, you know, the, the, where the Ma- Augusta, where they play the Masters, only started allowing Black members in, like, the '80s. Remember Tiger Woods was playing there, and he got shit because he was a Black playing at a club where they didn't allow Black people?

Joe Rogan 33:49 Really?

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:50 And they said, "How could you do that?" Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:51 During Tiger Woods' lifetime?

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:53 Yeah. Yep.

Joe Rogan 33:54 Wow.

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:55 Wow!

Greg Fitzsimmons 33:56 So anyway, so this Jewish woman goes to the club. The waiter wouldn't come over to the table, and then finally the member went over, and he goes, "What's going on?" "We can't, we can't serve, we can't serve her."

Joe Rogan 34:08 How'd they even know she was Jewish?

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:10 She's famous.

Joe Rogan 34:11 Oh.

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:12 Yeah. I think I can say who it is. It was Estee Lauder's wife.

Joe Rogan 34:16 Wow!

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:16 Yeah. Or was Es- Estee Lauder the woman? Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:20 I don't know.

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:20 Estee Lauder is the, the woman. It was her.

Joe Rogan 34:23 Wow.

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:24 One of the richest women in the country.

Joe Rogan 34:25 Wow!

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:26 We can't, we can't serve her because of her religion.

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:30 Wow.

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:32 Wow. And that was 2006?

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:35 Hey, but country clubs-

Joe Rogan 34:36 Somehow I think-

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:36 ... you know, the, the rule on it was... Well, look, the Friars Club-

Joe Rogan 34:39 We need to make sure that's true.

Speaker 34:41 Which one?

Joe Rogan 34:42 The, the Estee Lauder one. I definitely wanna find out about the bl- burning the Black person's house down.

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:45 Well, the Estee Lauder is personal information.

Joe Rogan 34:47 Oh, okay.

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:47 I don't know that that...

Joe Rogan 34:48 Okay.

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:48 That's not published anywhere.

Joe Rogan 34:49 All right, forget about that then.

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:50 But, uh-

Joe Rogan 34:51 But the, uh-

Greg Fitzsimmons 34:51 ... but no, segregation in clubs, private clubs used to get away with that until... I was a member of the Friars Club in New York, and they did not allow female members until I was there in... It was the late n- mid-'90s before the Friars Club allowed female members, and the reason was, legally, you can't have a club exclude people if you can prove business is being done there.

Joe Rogan 35:16 Oh.

Greg Fitzsimmons 35:16 If there's commerce.

Joe Rogan 35:18 Oh.

Greg Fitzsimmons 35:18 If there's no business, you can let in whoever you want.

Joe Rogan 35:21 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 35:21 So that's how they got female members in there, and I think they probably... I mean, obviously business is being done at golf clubs.

Joe Rogan 35:27 Well, business is definitely being done at the Friars Club.

Greg Fitzsimmons 35:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 35:30 I mean, a lot of deals probably got made there. A lot of b- ideas got hatched.

Greg Fitzsimmons 35:35 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:35 Yeah. I mean, all these comics, old school comics.

Greg Fitzsimmons 35:37 It was all agent... It was agents and comics.

Joe Rogan 35:39 I used to love that... I remember you used to love that place.

Greg Fitzsimmons 35:41 Dude, it was so fucking great.

Joe Rogan 35:42 You were always telling me about it, and I... It was so unappealing to me.

Greg Fitzsimmons 35:44 Uh-

Joe Rogan 35:44 I was like, "Ugh."

Greg Fitzsimmons 35:45 It was a, it was a clubhouse for comedians. We used to go there. They had pool. They had two beautiful pool tables. I played on the Friars Club pool team, and my... And we used to play against other clubs in the city-

Joe Rogan 35:57 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 35:57 ... all the other private clubs. Paul Sorvino was my partner in pool.

Joe Rogan 36:01 Paul Sorvino could play.

Greg Fitzsimmons 36:02 He was good.

Joe Rogan 36:03 He was good.

Greg Fitzsimmons 36:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:04 He was like a r- he could run 100 balls-

Greg Fitzsimmons 36:06 Yeah

Joe Rogan 36:06 ... in straight pool. He was a, like, a legit-

Greg Fitzsimmons 36:08 Yeah

Joe Rogan 36:08 ... like, high-level player.

Greg Fitzsimmons 36:10 So he carried me, but we used to play all the clubs, and then, you know, and then you get... They had a nice gym with the best steam room in the city, and then they got these La-Z-Boys. So you work out, you take a fucking steam, and you sit on a La-Z-Boy, and you read the newspaper. And then they got a dining room downstairs where Henny Youngman is at one table, Allen King's at the... You know, and these guys-

Joe Rogan 36:29 Wow

Greg Fitzsimmons 36:30 ... like, those old, those those old Borscht Belt comics, they lived to make you laugh. It's not like comedians today. So many of them are dark, and quiet, and disturbed.

Joe Rogan 36:40 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 36:40 These guys fucking told jokes, and they roasted you, and they hugged you, and it was like, it was like a part of, of being on stage almost, you know?

Joe Rogan 36:50 Mm-hmm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 36:50 It was expected.

Joe Rogan 36:51 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 36:52 Now, it was-

Joe Rogan 36:52 And they, they probably all felt real comfortable in this, you know, comics-only club, too.

Greg Fitzsimmons 36:56 Yeah. Right.

Joe Rogan 36:57 ... folklore surrounding the Sticks of Palm Beach, so that's what it is.

Greg Fitzsimmons 37:01 That's the area, what they called it.

Joe Rogan 37:02 So-

Greg Fitzsimmons 37:03 Um-

Joe Rogan 37:04 Go to the top of that, please.

Greg Fitzsimmons 37:05 Well-

Joe Rogan 37:05 Right there. Uh, "Turn of 20th century's employment boom of unprecedented proportions in South Florida, the hiring of thousands of Black laborers to extend Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railroad." Oh, this is the East Coast Railroad? Um, "These laborers played a key role in the development of the early Palm Beach, also helped to build the Royal Poinc- Poinciana Hotel, Flagler's Whitehall residence, which is today known as the Henry Flagler Museum. Uh, laborers and their families settled in Palm Beach Island between North County Road and Sunrise Avenue. This area of shanties and tent-like homes soon became known as the Sticks. Many of those descendants still live in the area today." So what happened? Does it say what happened?

Greg Fitzsimmons 37:52 Trying to get to that, right here.

Joe Rogan 37:54 Okay. " 'Along came a fellow named Henry Flagler, who decided he needed that land to build on, to develop,' Little said, 'and he threw a party for all the Blacks on the island, and they all went over to the party, and while they were celebrating and enjoying themselves, their homes on the island of the town of Palm Beach burned down-'"

Greg Fitzsimmons 38:13 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 38:13 "'- mystor- mysteriously." Holy fuck, dude.

Greg Fitzsimmons 38:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:18 " 'From what I heard,' McCray said, 'he got with the residents and set up a party on West Palm Beach side and had everybody ferried over to the party, and then had a mob of people to burn up people's homes, and shanties and tents all over the Sticks, and forced them out of there and took the land.' " How many people died?

Greg Fitzsimmons 38:34 Uh, there... I don't know how many people died. It says they were all gone, so... But there's around 2,000 people-

Joe Rogan 38:37 Right, but what about their kids?

Greg Fitzsimmons 38:39 Around 2,000 people living in that area, is what it said.

Joe Rogan 38:41 Oh, my God.

Greg Fitzsimmons 38:43 And then, uh, this is the problem. When I was looking it up on Wikipedia, this is basically what I read.

Joe Rogan 38:47 Okay. Palm Beach Historical Society version is very different. "Published text only says that by 1912, the St- the tenants of the Sticks had been evicted." Well-

Greg Fitzsimmons 38:57 Yeah

Joe Rogan 38:57 ... that doesn't mean anything. They, they could've still been there, especially since it's a shanty town.

Greg Fitzsimmons 39:00 I'm sure Flagler threw some money at the Palm Beach Historical Society.

Joe Rogan 39:03 Yeah, of course, right? "No mention of a fire or any record of large-scale homelessness that would have followed such a devastating blaze. Everleigh Clark believes this version is the most accurate, and the Sticks was actually legislated out of existence. They claim there was a fire, and Flagler had the people come to circus and all that, but that's not true. Still, more than a century later, the urban legend remains strong, and the pulse of public opinion split. There are so many historical facts that make some of the scurrilous removal of the residents believable, that it's become lore for the most part in the Black community." All right, well, let's find out if there's a historical record of the fires.

Greg Fitzsimmons 39:39 That's, I... That's, this is all I could get to, was the-

Joe Rogan 39:41 That's it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 39:42 This is a local news-

Joe Rogan 39:43 And what year was this supposedly?

Greg Fitzsimmons 39:45 Like 1919- 1920

Joe Rogan 39:47 ... 1912.

Greg Fitzsimmons 39:48 Yeah, 1912, I think.

Joe Rogan 39:48 Yeah, I bet they did it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 39:49 I mean-

Joe Rogan 39:50 I bet they did it

Greg Fitzsimmons 39:50 ... look what they did in, uh, uh, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Joe Rogan 39:54 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 39:55 You know, this is, this was part of the playbook.

Joe Rogan 39:57 Right. Well, look what they did with the Tuskegee experiment.

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:00 Right.

Joe Rogan 40:00 Look at that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:01 Like, how about that? They, they knowingly had all these people with syphilis and didn't treat them-

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:06 Mm

Joe Rogan 40:06 ... just to study them-

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:08 Yeah

Joe Rogan 40:08 ... to see what would happen to them.

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:09 Did they give people syphilis, or did they just treat them for syphilis?

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:13 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 40:13 Whatever it was, they let these fucking people rot and die. And syphilis is a fucking horrible disease.

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:18 Tell me about it.

Joe Rogan 40:20 Did you get it? [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:22 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 40:22 Do you know the story about syphilis and wigs?

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:25 No.

Joe Rogan 40:25 You don't know that?

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:26 No.

Joe Rogan 40:26 All those dudes in, like, uh, the ancient times that had the big wigs?

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:30 That was to cover up their hair loss from syphilis.

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:32 Dude, how did not everybody have it?

Joe Rogan 40:35 Well, they all had wigs.

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:36 But-

Joe Rogan 40:36 They all had it back then.

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:38 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 40:38 In high society, first of all, those people were basically like Game of Thrones.

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:42 They were all just fucking freaks banging each other. You know, French, French society-

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:47 Yeah

Joe Rogan 40:47 ... has always been, like, very loose sexually.

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:49 And so these two, uh, royals, were they brothers or cousins?

Greg Fitzsimmons 40:54 I think they were brothers. I'm double-checking right now.

Joe Rogan 40:56 So these guys get syphilis, their hair falls out, right? You get holes in your face and shit, and they're still fucking everybody, right? And so they got wigs made, and the more money you had, the more elaborate and big your wig was.

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:09 Oh.

Joe Rogan 41:10 That's why rich people are big wigs.

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:13 No!

Joe Rogan 41:14 Yes.

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:15 I love it.

Joe Rogan 41:16 Isn't that crazy?

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:17 Wow.

Joe Rogan 41:18 Crazy! That term that we always used when we were kids-

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:21 Yeah

Joe Rogan 41:21 ... "Oh, he's a big wig."

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:22 Yeah. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 41:24 That's, like, ancient.

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:25 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 41:26 That goes back to the 1400s.

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:29 That's like something you would hear on, uh, that guy Cody Tucker's, uh, feed.

Joe Rogan 41:32 Yes! I love that guy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:33 I'm doing his podcast on Sunday.

Joe Rogan 41:35 Oh, he's been on mine.

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:35 He's, he's great.

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:36 Yeah, he's great.

Joe Rogan 41:37 Very smart guy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:38 Here's what's interesting: there's real... Th- there's a strong connection between the syphilis that evolved in North America and the syphilis that these guys had in Europe.

Greg Fitzsimmons 41:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:50 Like, there's always been syphilis, but syphilis had an outbreak in Europe after people came to North America, probably fucked a bunch of Native Americans, and then went back to Europe with these fucking diseases.

Greg Fitzsimmons 42:04 And then it mutated.

Joe Rogan 42:05 It's a different kind of syphilis.

Greg Fitzsimmons 42:07 Wow.

Joe Rogan 42:08 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 42:08 They were cousins, it turns out.

Joe Rogan 42:09 They were cousins. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Greg Fitzsimmons 42:11 King Louis and his cousin, King Charles.

Joe Rogan 42:11 So this is the story: They were commonly used to cover up hair loss, but their use did not become widespread until two kings started to lose their hair. [laughing] King Louis XIV of France experienced hair loss at the age of 17, then hired 48 wig makers-

Greg Fitzsimmons 42:28 48?! [laughing]

Joe Rogan 42:28 ... to help combat his thinning locks. So a lot of these guys wound up getting syphilis, and there was, you know, normal hair loss on top of it, both conditions being syphilitic signals. They... Everybody had syphilis back then, man. There was n- I mean, they probably didn't wear condoms. They were probably all freaks. They were probably doing cocaine.

Greg Fitzsimmons 42:48 No, they all went to whores.

Joe Rogan 42:49 Yes!

Greg Fitzsimmons 42:50 I mean, that's what you did. When you were a wealthy guy, you went to the whorehouse all the time. Then you came home, and you gave it to your wife. Then she had a baby, and a lot, depending on the disease, babies are born with the sexually transmitted disease that you gave your wife.

Joe Rogan 43:03 ... Right, and that's what the crazy thing about the Epstein leaks today. The, the, the one email that he had-

Greg Fitzsimmons 43:08 And we're here. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 43:10 -that said that, that said that Bill Gates wanted to get from him antibiotics to give to Melinda because he got syphilis or he got something.

Greg Fitzsimmons 43:20 Damn.

Joe Rogan 43:20 The clap, chlamydia, whatever he got. He got some sort of an STD from a prostitute.

Greg Fitzsimmons 43:25 Do you think if she could have the choice between getting the... What did she get? $50 billion or not getting the syphilis, which would she take?

Joe Rogan 43:32 Well, whatever she got. It pr- I bet it wasn't syphilis. It was probably the clap. It was probably chlamydia or something like that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 43:37 That's no big deal.

Joe Rogan 43:38 But if, if- who knows if that's true, though? Here's the thing, like, Epstein clearly was some sort of a blackmailer, and this is an email that Epstein wrote, so it could be complete fiction. Epstein could have wrote that just to put pressure on Bill Gates for some fucking business deal.

Greg Fitzsimmons 43:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:57 Like, who fucking knows? He could have spread rumors and then said that he'll squash those rumor. These guys are dealing in deception-

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:04 Mm

Joe Rogan 44:05 ... and blackmail, and so you can't, like, assume that it's true.

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:09 Think about how many relationships Epstein had, and that he was working almost every one of them-

Joe Rogan 44:17 Oh, yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:17 ... leveraging and-

Joe Rogan 44:18 Da, da, da, da, da.

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:19 He was kind of brilliant.

Joe Rogan 44:21 Well, he was really good at that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:23 That one thing, you know? Guy could have cured cancer if he went into that business. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:26 Mm-hmm. Well, he was into science, yes.

Joe Rogan 44:29 Well, he was also into compromising scientists, right?

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:32 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:32 Like, let's say that you want to get a drug passed, right? And you want FDA approval of this drug, but it's some sort of a competing drug. Well, you have a bunch of scientists on your side, and these scientists can go attack that competing drug.

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:44 And then all of a sudden, well, you have this guy, he comes from MIT, and he says this.

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:49 And you're like, "Oh," and then the FDA listens to him.

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:51 Right.

Joe Rogan 44:51 I mean, it's very important to have the leverage of respected academics.

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 44:56 You know?

Greg Fitzsimmons 44:57 It's-

Joe Rogan 44:57 Epstein, with a smiley emoji, ax- asked former Israeli PM, Ehud Barak... Is that how you say his name? Ehud Barak, "To clarify, he does not work for the Mossad" in a meeting with a senior Qatari investment official.

45:14 So the thread starts at the bottom and goes up.

45:16 Oh, okay.

45:18 "Hi, are you gonna be in London on Thursday? Best, EB."

45:21 Right.

45:22 "You? Uh, unfortunately not. You should make clear that I don't work for Mossad," smiley face.

45:28 Oh, boy.

45:28 "You or I?" question mark, "that I don't," smiley face.

Greg Fitzsimmons 45:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:31 Oh, boy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 45:31 He doesn't work for them. He just, he just volunteers for them.

Joe Rogan 45:35 With a smiley... Smiley face emojis are hilarious. [laughing] Fucking evil cocksuckers using smiley face emojis. That's hilarious.

Greg Fitzsimmons 45:46 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 45:47 That's so funny.

Greg Fitzsimmons 45:48 Dude, there's this really good show about Mossad called Tehran. Have you heard of that?

Joe Rogan 45:52 No. Oh, I have heard about it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 45:53 It's on Apple Plus.

Joe Rogan 45:54 I haven't watched it, though. Is it good?

Greg Fitzsimmons 45:55 Yeah, it's really good. I mean, it's a really good look inside of what goes on in Iran in terms of... I mean, the Israelis are fucking brilliant.

Joe Rogan 46:03 Brilliant.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:03 The infiltration that they did into-

Joe Rogan 46:05 No one's like them. They're the best.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:07 They're the best at that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:08 I mean-

Joe Rogan 46:08 Well, they have to be, right?

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:09 Those pagers-

Joe Rogan 46:09 Like, this is them. This table-

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:12 Yeah

Joe Rogan 46:12 ... is people who hate them.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:13 Yeah. Right, right.

Joe Rogan 46:15 You gotta become a bad motherfucker. Your, your neighbors-

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:17 Those-

Joe Rogan 46:17 ... don't want you dead.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:18 Those pagers going off in Lebanon, that was a, that was a long play.

Joe Rogan 46:22 Months-

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:22 That was go-

Joe Rogan 46:23 ... and months and months.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:23 Years!

Joe Rogan 46:24 Was it years?

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:24 Years.

Joe Rogan 46:26 Wow.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:27 Yes.

Joe Rogan 46:28 Wow. Crazy. They're like, "I, I know how to-

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:30 Yeah, and the pager's right next to your cock. [chuckles]

Joe Rogan 46:32 -blow your dick off." You blow a hole through your pelvis, apparently.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:35 Oh, my God.

Joe Rogan 46:35 That's how you die.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:37 And you're isolating your enemy. You're not-- There's no civilian casualties.

Joe Rogan 46:42 Well, I bet they probably got some kids.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:43 But low, low-

Joe Rogan 46:45 Low numbers

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:45 ... percentage versus bombing a building or something.

Joe Rogan 46:47 Which they did do, too.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:48 Which they also did.

Joe Rogan 46:49 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:50 Yeah. They did some of that, like the guys in the building.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:53 I was on, uh-

Joe Rogan 46:54 All right, level the building.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:55 I was on Good Day LA one time. You know, it's all those, like, pretty women.

Joe Rogan 46:58 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 46:58 They're actually really sharp. They're great. And, uh, and I go, uh... They say, they say, "Oh, you came alone?" I go, "No, my, my agent's supposed to be here any minute. He's Lebanese. I just paged him before I got here, but I haven't heard anything back."

Joe Rogan 47:11 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 47:11 And they fucked- they were like, "Whoa!" It had just happened, like, three days before. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 47:19 Didn't we just... Or not we. Didn't Israel just bomb Lebanon today?

Greg Fitzsimmons 47:23 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 47:24 I believe so. Yeah, at least according to Twitter.

Greg Fitzsimmons 47:27 Well, what's going on in Iran? I heard things are heating up over there.

Joe Rogan 47:30 Well, Trump just said they're sending ships in that area, and he said-- but he also said Iran wants to make a deal.

Greg Fitzsimmons 47:37 Huh.

Joe Rogan 47:37 So maybe he's trying to put pressure on them to make a deal.

Greg Fitzsimmons 47:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:41 And, you know, hopefully nothing happens in terms of, like, military intervention. It's scary shit, dude, 'cause they have nuclear weapons-

Greg Fitzsimmons 47:49 Mm

Joe Rogan 47:49 ... or they have the potential to eventually have nuclear weapons. But, you know, I don't know. Did Israel bomb-

47:56 I'm checking on Twitter. I haven't seen anything on, uh... Like, searched it.

48:00 Yeah, there was, uh, some image that showed, like, some fucking huge explosion, and it said Israel just bombed Lebanon. They definitely have recently. Like-

48:13 I've seen something about airstrikes late Friday. Well, I guess it'd be late there, right?

48:18 Yeah.

48:19 It's nighttime over there. Maybe, yeah. No, does not mean it's... If it is, it's, like, it's just breaking. It's sort of just in the news. There's some stuff-

48:29 Well, the thing is, like, there are, you know... There it is.

48:32 Two hours ago?

48:33 Israel bombs Lebanon, yeah.

48:34 But it's, like, the only thing I'm seeing about it, which is-

48:37 Well-

48:37 That doesn't usually happen

48:38 ... it's probably all just coming out, right?

48:40 No, I mean, when you type in that on s-

48:43 That's all you see, is that one?

48:44 Usually you-

48:44 So that might not be true. Click on that link, see if anybody's disputing it.

48:47 Uh-

48:48 Click on that tweet.

48:49 It's only got 15 responses.

48:52 "Is this true?" Grok, click on that. Yes, multiple sources indicate, uh, report Israeli air- airstrikes in southern Lebanon on January 30th, uh, targeting Hezbollah. IDF complain- uh, confirmed a wave of strikes. Lebanese media noted the drone hit in... Say that word.... how do you say that word?

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:13 Sidikin?

Joe Rogan 49:14 Si- Sidikin, killing one. Times of Israel and Sderot News for details.

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:19 Huh.

Joe Rogan 49:20 Shafa- Shafak, Shaf- whatever you say that is, News for details. And-

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:24 We're so fucking lucky, man. We got no neighbors. Nobody's launching-

Joe Rogan 49:27 Well, we're in a good spot-

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:29 ... missiles into us

Joe Rogan 49:29 ... geographically.

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:30 To be separated by oceans on both sides-

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:31 Yep

Joe Rogan 49:32 ... is fucking [lips smacking] nice.

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:34 I know. I know.

Joe Rogan 49:34 Which is why we should be really good friends with Canada. Like, what the fuck's going on? Trump ruined that whole thing, man-

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:39 He did

Joe Rogan 49:39 ... because if he didn't talk about turning Canada into the 51st state-

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:42 I know

Joe Rogan 49:42 ... the conservatives were gonna win.

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:43 Pierre Poilievre would've taken over. It would've been like... They would've, like, eased a lot of the restrictions, made it a lot more common sense.

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:50 Dude, China was just up there. They just made a huge deal to get all their cars from China now.

Joe Rogan 49:56 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 49:56 We're not gonna sell any American cars in Canada.

Joe Rogan 49:59 [laughing] Well, you know, it's a real problem 'cause China has some fucking amazing-

Greg Fitzsimmons 50:03 Amazing cars

Joe Rogan 50:03 ... cars. Amazing cars now.

Greg Fitzsimmons 50:05 Yep. Yep.

Joe Rogan 50:06 Bro, they're not fucking around.

Greg Fitzsimmons 50:07 And they're cheaper.

Joe Rogan 50:07 Their electric vehicles are top of the food chain, man.

Greg Fitzsimmons 50:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:11 Tesla, just yesterday, uh, they just, uh, stopped the Model X, uh, Model S and X production.

Greg Fitzsimmons 50:17 I saw that.

Joe Rogan 50:19 Apparently, Elon is... This Optimus robot is gonna change the world.

Greg Fitzsimmons 50:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:25 Everybody that I know that's seen it, when this thing integrates with AI, you're gonna have a fucking dude in your house. You're gonna have a super genius robot dude in your house.

Greg Fitzsimmons 50:38 What does he look like?

Joe Rogan 50:40 Looks like iRobot, and he's gonna be able to do whatever the fuck you need him to do. "Go dig a ditch. Go do this. Take out the garbage."

Greg Fitzsimmons 50:45 You know what's fucking great, is for old people that live alone-

Joe Rogan 50:49 100%.

Greg Fitzsimmons 50:49 They know everything about your life. They could actually hold a conversation with you-

Joe Rogan 50:53 Yes

Greg Fitzsimmons 50:54 ... show pictures of your fucking grandkids on their chest while they know your interests, ask you memories. All pe- all people wanna do is talk about, you know, memories-

Joe Rogan 51:04 They'll show you

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:04 ... and they're gonna listen.

Joe Rogan 51:05 Yeah, they'll talk to you.

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:06 Yeah. Not only that, they'll confirm all of your delusions. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:10 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 51:10 "Tesla to build 1 million Optimus robots per year at Fremont factory." 1 million a year.

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:17 Damn!

Speaker 51:17 I was hearing we need these robots 'cause they're gonna terraform the Moon and Mars. Like, we're not gonna do it, the robots are gonna do it.

Joe Rogan 51:24 I, I don't think anybody's going to Mars, not in our lifetime. I think that's all the future.

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:30 It's a little chilly up there.

Joe Rogan 51:32 It's not just that. It's just like, no one's gonna wanna do it. You'd have... Only suicidal people wanna go.

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:37 It's a one-way trip.

Joe Rogan 51:38 Yeah. Well, you can get back. You can get back. It used to be a one-way trip, now they figured out you can get back.

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:43 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 51:43 Yeah, but you have to wait six months.

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:45 You get back, like, every six months. That's that movie, The Martian.

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:47 Plus, the flight's gonna be delayed.

Joe Rogan 51:49 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:50 Or hope... You just hope it doesn't get hit with a micrometeor while it's out in space.

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:54 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 51:54 Like, all kinds of weird shit can happen. You got a six-

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:56 What's a micrometeor?

Joe Rogan 51:57 Micrometeors.

Greg Fitzsimmons 51:58 Oh, micrometeors.

Joe Rogan 51:59 Little, tiny ones-

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:00 Yeah, right

Joe Rogan 52:00 ... are flying around, and they just punch holes through everything.

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:02 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 52:03 They're going, like, 170,000 miles an hour, and they just go whipping through the building.

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:06 How much junk is there in space right now-

Joe Rogan 52:09 [exhaling]

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:09 ... in terms of, like, satellites that just-

Joe Rogan 52:12 So much

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:12 ... crapped out?

Joe Rogan 52:13 Well, just... Have you ever looked at the amount of satellites that surround the Earth?

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:16 It's fucking bananas.

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:18 It's nuts. And then there's-

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:20 And there's no plan for when they expire, right? They just stay up there?

Joe Rogan 52:23 [exhaling] Well, some of them, they lose their orbit. Their orbit decays, and then they come crashing down to the Earth.

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:29 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 52:29 Yeah, that happens, and, you know, they have to figure out where they're gonna hit, you know, and hopefully, they don't hit the middle of fucking, you know, Dusseldorf. [laughing] You know what I mean?

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:40 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 52:40 Like, it could hit a major city.

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:41 That's a funny city to say.

Joe Rogan 52:43 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:43 Dusseldorf. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 52:45 I mean, it could... You know, you got a fucking satellite down there, it could land right on your face.

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:50 Yeah. That's wild.

Joe Rogan 52:52 Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 52:55 It's-

Joe Rogan 52:55 I went, um, to SpaceX for the launch of the last rocket.

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:00 I watched the launch.

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:02 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 53:02 Jamie did, too. We were right there. Uh, and, uh, I went into the control room with Elon and watched the entire journey, while it was flying over the Earth, and it lands, it touched down in Australia, in the ocean-

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:16 Wow

Joe Rogan 53:16 ... 35 minutes later. It was nuts.

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:18 Really?

Joe Rogan 53:19 It was nuts.

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:20 So it breaks through the atmosphere-

Joe Rogan 53:22 Mm-hmm

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:22 ... travels, and then comes straight down-

Joe Rogan 53:24 Yep

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:24 ... in 35 minutes?

Joe Rogan 53:25 Shoots off into space, goes... A- and you get to watch because they have, like, 20 fucking cameras on the thing the entire time, live streaming through Starlink. So you're live streaming the interior, they're monitoring the pressure of the cabin, they're monitoring all these different things. And so the, the... This is the way they, they test tolerances. It's like when a lot of people say, "Oh, his rockets blow up, he's a dumbass." They want the rockets to blow up. Like, they have to find out, like, what makes the rocket blow up. Like, how much pressure can you put?

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:52 Mm.

Joe Rogan 53:52 How thin do the walls have to- how reinforced do things have to be?

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:55 How... You know, and then they make adjustments.

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:56 It's like trying a new bit.

Joe Rogan 53:57 They make adjustments.

Greg Fitzsimmons 53:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:58 That's what they do. Like, so they've, they've calculated in a certain amount of failures-

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:03 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 54:03 ... that they expect to have.

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:05 And this one actually had a failure, but still landed.

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:08 So that's gonna be the new first class, is going to Australia in 35 minutes.

Joe Rogan 54:13 35 minutes. Shoo!

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:15 Wow.

Joe Rogan 54:17 Boom.

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:17 That's crazy.

Joe Rogan 54:18 Nuts. Thirty-five minutes, touched down in the ocean.

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:22 But a pretty intense ride, I would imagine.

Joe Rogan 54:24 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:24 I mean, that's not a smooth ride.

Joe Rogan 54:25 Not only that, but touched down in an exact spot where they had boats ready-

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:29 Oh

Joe Rogan 54:29 ... they had cameras filming it. They, they filmed the entire touchdown from the outside.

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:33 Does it have to be over the ocean, or they... Can they land on land?

Joe Rogan 54:36 Well, his rockets can now land on land.

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:38 Mm.

Joe Rogan 54:38 You've seen how that, that thing comes down-

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:41 Yeah

Joe Rogan 54:41 ... and lands on the ground, which is bananas.

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:43 And then they stop landing them on the ground, now they catch them with arms.

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:47 Mm.

Joe Rogan 54:47 It's even more efficient. You've seen that, right?

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:49 Well, 'cause NASA-

Joe Rogan 54:50 Those robot arms that-

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:50 ... was wasting so much money 'cause every single rocket was-

Joe Rogan 54:54 Exactly

Greg Fitzsimmons 54:54 ... ruined when it came back.

Joe Rogan 54:55 Well, you know what's crazy? NASA is about to launch the Artemis mission, and no one's talking about it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 55:02 Where is that going?

Joe Rogan 55:03 NASA is... They're sending people around the Moon-

Greg Fitzsimmons 55:06 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 55:06 ... and having them come back to Earth, and you hear nothing about it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 55:09 Mm.

Joe Rogan 55:09 Like, have you heard about it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 55:11 No.

Joe Rogan 55:11 Me neither. Uh, you know how I found out about it? Somebody asked me at the club.... some guy in the audience said, "What do you think about the Artemis mission?" I go, "What is it?" And he's like, "NASA's got a, a mission that they're flying people around the moon." I'm like, "When?" He's like, "February." I'm like, "Come on, really?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 55:27 Well, what's the mission? What are they trying to do?

Joe Rogan 55:29 I don't know. Let's find out. Artemis II-

Greg Fitzsimmons 55:31 They're not landing on the moon?

Joe Rogan 55:33 Not this time.

Greg Fitzsimmons 55:34 Okay.

Joe Rogan 55:34 No, this time I think they're just flying.

Greg Fitzsimmons 55:36 Isn't it weird? Have we landed on the moon since the '60s?

Joe Rogan 55:39 If we ever did in the first place? No. If we ever did-

Greg Fitzsimmons 55:43 Are you being serious?

Joe Rogan 55:43 ... in the first place. Yeah, I don't know if we did.

Greg Fitzsimmons 55:45 I don't know if we did either.

Joe Rogan 55:46 I don't- I used to believe it before COVID. No, I didn't. I didn't believe it for a long time, and then I said, "I'm probably wrong. I don't know what I'm talking about. Let me just leave it alone." And then I, I got back into it again, and I was like, "But it doesn't make any sense." It doesn't make any sense that these guys went... Like, Neil Armstrong basically went into hiding, and then at the 25th anniversary of the launch, he gave the most cryptic speech for this team of, uh, high school graduates, like, these honor students.

Greg Fitzsimmons 56:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:11 You should see the speech, 'cause the speech is nuts. And then I went back and watched the post-flight press conference when they supposedly landed, after they landed on the moon and came back home. It's like a hostage video, and it's the cr-

Greg Fitzsimmons 56:23 Uh-huh

Joe Rogan 56:23 ... the weirdest behavior.

Greg Fitzsimmons 56:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:25 They seem like they're c- uh, there's a guy who was a, uh, body language expert. He's like, "These guys are all being deceptive." He analyzed it on YouTube, and he's like, "This guy, what he's doing here, like, th- this guy's being deceptive. This is clear deceptive behavior."

Greg Fitzsimmons 56:39 I mean, I've checked it so many times online, and everybody said it's been refuted, but my whole thing is like-

Joe Rogan 56:45 But it happened

Greg Fitzsimmons 56:46 ... it was 1969. I had a '69 Chevy, and I used to drive it from Boston to New York, and it would break down about half the time.

Joe Rogan 56:55 [laughing] Yeah, but that's different. That's different.

Greg Fitzsimmons 56:58 Is it?

Joe Rogan 56:58 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 56:58 It's still a fucking... It was a gas-powered engine.

Joe Rogan 57:01 Right, but it could go one-- if you had to take one trip with it, it would make it. They were just not that good over time, you know?

Greg Fitzsimmons 57:08 I mean, how much-

Joe Rogan 57:08 They weren't that reliable.

Greg Fitzsimmons 57:09 What was the equivalent, uh, computing power that they had on that Apollo that we would have... Is it our phone? Is our phone-

Joe Rogan 57:17 Your phone is way more powerful.

Greg Fitzsimmons 57:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:18 You're way more powerful than a room of supercomputers. However, it doesn't take, like, immense computing power once you've got the calculations and you understand the trajectory, and that you're gonna use the gravity of the moon, and you're gonna slingshot around the moon and come back.

Greg Fitzsimmons 57:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:34 That's not the problem. The problem is the Van Allen radiation belts. There's a thick band of radiation that surrounds the Earth, and not just that, but they tried experiments to blow holes in that radiation belt. There's this thing called Operation Starfish Prime, where they launched nukes into space and had them detonate them in the belts, and they thought they'd, like, blow a hole through it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 57:58 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:58 Did the opposite. Made the belt supercharged, made it way more radioactive.

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:02 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:04 At least temporarily.

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:05 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 58:05 The problem is, they've never sent anything out into deep space and had it come back alive, except the Apollo astronauts.

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:12 Mm.

Joe Rogan 58:12 They never even sent a chicken out there and had it come back alive.

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:15 Mm.

Joe Rogan 58:15 There's all sorts of crazy shit with radiation and solar... If there was any sort of solar flare, [snaps fingers] everyone's dead.

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:22 If there's any sort of, like, weirdness, space weirdness, radiation weirdness, dead.

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:26 Mm.

Joe Rogan 58:27 Very little protection, thin aluminum shield. It just didn't make any sense. And also, there's not been a single thing from 1969 that's not cheaper, easier, and f- better today other than the moon landing.

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:41 And we haven't done it.

Joe Rogan 58:42 Yeah, we haven't done it since '72. [laughing] They, they went nine-

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:44 Isn't that crazy?

Joe Rogan 58:45 It's nuts. It doesn't seem real.

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:47 It was also the first time where-

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:48 By the way, can I just stop for a moment and go, having a talk about moon landing with Joe Rogan is a little bit like playing, like, pickup basketball with the Celtics. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 58:58 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 58:58 It's just a moment in time.

Joe Rogan 59:00 I know too much.

Greg Fitzsimmons 59:01 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 59:02 I know too much. I've spent a stupid amount of time of my life, uh, studying this.

Greg Fitzsimmons 59:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:07 It was also Wernher von Braun, uh, you know, publicly said before he even got involved with NASA, you couldn't go to the moon. It's like it would take, it would take so much fuel to get there. It would take... The rockets would have to be so big to get there, that it wouldn't be possible. And he also went to Antarctica before the moon landings to pick up moon rocks.

Greg Fitzsimmons 59:27 Mm.

Joe Rogan 59:27 There's like... It was a publicly known trip. He- Antarctica is a great place to get meteorites because it's all white. You know, it's all just-

Greg Fitzsimmons 59:35 Oh, okay.

Joe Rogan 59:35 So when they land, you can see them.

Greg Fitzsimmons 59:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:37 And a lot of our meteorites come off the moon. The moon gets hit, chunk flies off, enters Earth's atmosphere, lands on Earth.

Greg Fitzsimmons 59:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:44 This is commonly known, right? So he d- he did that, and then they gave away a piece of moon rock that they got from the moon to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, I think. Look that up. Uh, and this is, like, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong, presented this. Like: "Look, sir, we've given you a chunk of the moon." Turned out it was a piece of petrified wood. They had it analyzed years later. It was not a moon rock.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:00:11 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:12 They just like, "Fuck these people."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:00:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:14 "Give them that fucking colored rock over there. Tell them it's from the moon." And somebody got suspicious. They're like, "What is this fucking thing?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:00:20 It's like your wife finding out it's a cubic zirconia on her finger.

Joe Rogan 1:00:23 Moon rock turns out to be fake. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:00:24 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:00:24 Dutch national... Boy, say that word.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:00:27 Rijksmuseum.

Joe Rogan 1:00:28 Rijksmuseum made an embarrassing announcement last week. One of its most loved possessions, a moon rock, is fake. It's just an old piece of petrified wood that's n- never been anywhere near the moon.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:00:39 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:00:39 And it was given to them, so [laughing] So, uh, where, when was it given to them? Does it say? Okay. Okay.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:00:50 Wait, wait, wait.

Joe Rogan 1:00:50 Uh, the rock was given as a private gift to pr- former Prime Minister William Drees Jr. in 1969 by the US Ambassador to the Netherlands, Jay William Middendorf II, during a visit by the Apollo 11 astronauts, Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin, soon after the first moon landing. Drees had been out of office for 11 years but was considered an elder statesman. When he died in '88, that rock was donated to the Rijksmuseum, where it has remained ever since. According to a museum spokeswoman, Ms. Van Gelder, no one doubted the authenticity of the rock because it was in the Prime Minister's own collection, and they had vetted the acquisition by a phone call to NASA. [laughing] Ah!... Yeah, it was insured for approximately half a million dollars-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:01:36 [chuckles]

Joe Rogan 1:01:36 -but its actual value is probably no more than 70 bucks. So the value is what someone's willing to pay for it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:01:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:41 I'll give you 100 for it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:01:42 Sure, right.

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 Sell it to me.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:01:43 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 I want that fake moon rock.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:01:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:44 If anybody has it-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:01:46 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:01:46 ... I will give you $10,000 for that fake moon rock.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:01:49 Put it right on this fucking table.

Joe Rogan 1:01:51 Put it right there. That'd be, like, that's hilarious.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:01:52 And also, like, they get to the moon, and you're like, "All right, they made it to the moon in a '69 Chevy, and now they got a car!"

Joe Rogan 1:01:59 [chuckles]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:01:59 What?

Joe Rogan 1:02:00 On the moon. Way to come.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:02:01 They have a car!

Joe Rogan 1:02:02 Where the- where was it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:02:02 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:02:03 There's a bunch of shit, man. There's the flag hop... There's a, an astronaut hops by the flag, and it blows in his breeze-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:02:10 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:02:11 ... in an atmosphere-less moon.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:02:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:02:12 Like, there's so many problems with it, and you could say y- y- you're gaslighting yourself if you don't say there's no problems with the moon landing.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:02:20 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:02:20 It's fucking weird. The intersecting shadows, and people are like, "Well, it indicates two light sources." Like, no, no, no, it could be the envi... It could be, but it could be intersecting shadows because of different light sources.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:02:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:02:31 It could be not just the sun, but, like, a fucking studio stage. 'Cause there's-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:02:35 Wasn't there something about lights in the horizon that were... that should have been there?

Joe Rogan 1:02:39 [ts] Well, lights in space, but the thing is, it's like if you're trying to film the surface of the moon in the s- in the day, you're not gonna see any stars in the sky because it's gonna be just like the stars on Earth.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:02:50 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:02:50 It's blou- you know, black... The light that's reflected off the moon's surface is probably gonna drown out most of it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:02:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:02:57 It's probably gonna be like, you know, you go out of New York City, you see a couple stars, right? Now think of the amount of light that's in New York City, and then think of the sun blasting down on the white surface of the fucking moon-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:03:09 Mm

Joe Rogan 1:03:09 ... and how much reflection that must give. That makes sense, but it doesn't make sense they didn't set a camera up with the aperture set up correctly, where, you know, you get a time-lapse photo, so you could get images of space.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:03:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:23 That could easily have been done. They didn't do any of that. But the problem with that is, if you took a photo from the moon, astronomers would be able to go, "Well, that doesn't make any sense. This isn't... This is not here. That's not there. This is... That's not where these constellations would be."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:03:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:03:36 So it's too much work-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:03:37 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:03:37 ... to, like, place all the stars in the exact order, so just have it black.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:03:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:03:41 Have it black.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:03:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:42 Find the Apollo, uh, the, the speech by, um, [lips smack] Neil Armstrong at the 25th anniversary, 'cause the speech is bananas.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:03:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:52 It's so cryptic. This is a guy who went to the moon, and he's talking to these genius kids, and i- instead of saying, "Hey, we went to the moon," listen to what he says, 'cause it's, it's fucking kooky. Put on the, put on the headphones.

Speaker 1:04:03 Find it, find it first.

Joe Rogan 1:04:04 Oh, you gotta find it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:04:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:05 He-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:04:05 That's not on your desktop, Jamie?

Joe Rogan 1:04:08 That should be in a folder-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:04:09 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:04:09 ... a saved folder. We've pulled that thing up about 30 times. There's, there's a lot of weirdness to it, you know?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:04:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:15 And also, you're dealing with 1969, Richard Nixon's president. They lied about everything. This is... They lied about going into the Vietnam War. They were about to do Operation Northwoods, where they're gonna bomb Cu- uh, Guantanamo Bay and blame it on the Cubans, so that we can go to war with Cuba. They were gonna blow up a Cu- uh, an American jetliner and blame it on Cuba. They're-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:04:33 There was all the lies about drugs-

Joe Rogan 1:04:35 Oh-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:04:35 ... to start the war on drugs.

Joe Rogan 1:04:37 Everything. Put, put the headphones on real quick. Listen to this. So this is the 25th anniversary. Let's hear it. Play this.

Speaker 1:04:45 [gentle music] On the 25th anniversary of the event in 1994, Neil Armstrong made a rare public appearance and held back tears as he spoke these brief, cryptic remarks before the next generation of taxpayers as they toured the White House.

Speaker 1:05:02 Today, we have with us, uh, a group of students among America's best. To you, we say, [sniffs] we have only completed a beginning. We leave you much that is undone. There are great ideas undiscovered, breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of truth's protective layers.

Joe Rogan 1:05:33 What? What does that mean?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:05:35 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:05:36 One of truth's protective layers?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:05:40 Mm, that's odd.

Joe Rogan 1:05:42 Beyond. You're talking to genius kids, and you're leaving a cryptic mark about truth's protect... How about saying, "I went to the fucking moon, bitch?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:05:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:05:49 "You can go to the moon, too. We could all go to the moon. We should go to Mars. We could colonize space." No, "Great breakthroughs for those who could remove one of truth's protective layers."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:06:00 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:01 Truth. Protective l- like, there's g- great breakthroughs, but you have to realize we didn't really go to the moon, okay? That is one of truth's protective layers.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:06:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:12 It's filled with... But you have to be willing to be looked at as a fool.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:06:17 Didn't Kubrick say that he shot-

Joe Rogan 1:06:20 No

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:06:20 ... the footage?

Joe Rogan 1:06:20 No, no, that's all fake.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:06:21 Oh.

Joe Rogan 1:06:22 That's all fake. Yeah, there's the... That's the big rumor. So the thought was that Kubrick was involved, 'cause you would take... It would take a genius to be able to film it, to make it look like the moon landing. Could be possible. You're dealing with Kubrick. That was coincide- that was coinciding with, um, 2001: Space Odyssey.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:06:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:39 It was at the same time that all this was going on, um, you know, during the same time period. So if there was a guy that could do it, it would be Kubrick, but is there any evidence that Kubrick even talked to them? I don't know.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:06:53 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:53 It, it... You know, you would have to have someone like him, though.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:06:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:57 Because you're faking this thing, and you're trying to make it look pretty realistic. There's other problems. There's reoccurring backgrounds that are from places that are nowhere near the same place, but if you overlay them, they look exactly the same, like the same mountains in the background, the same tomography. Topography, rather. You can, th- you can go for weeks and weeks down this rabbit hole-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:07:21 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:07:22 ... and lose your fucking marbles.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:07:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:24 What I like about it is when you talk... If you're talking to someone annoying, and they wanna talk to you about, like, serious stuff, and you go, "I don't even think we went to the moon," they go, "I gotta go." [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:07:33 [laughing] I love it!

Joe Rogan 1:07:33 They just leave you alone.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:07:34 I love it.

Joe Rogan 1:07:35 They leave you alone.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:07:36 Yeah, yeah. It is enjoyable.

Joe Rogan 1:07:37 It's also, it's great for me, who has a bunch of, like, very public opinions about things. Like, "Please dismiss me."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:07:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:07:43 I should not be a voice of-... like, any kind of voice of authority or any kind of voice of what's true and what's not and what-- I'm just talking shit.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:07:53 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:07:53 Okay? That's what I do. I'm not some official source of information.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:07:58 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:07:58 I don't wanna be. So like, I like talking about the moon landing, landing for the... 'Cause they go, "Well, he doesn't even believe we went to the moon." You're right, I don't! Good.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:08:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:07 I'm-- D- don't listen to me. You don't have to listen to me.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:08:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:08:11 I'm not saying I'm right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:08:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:08:12 But what I am saying is, if there's one fucking conspiracy that I think is the most unlikely, the most preposterous in the public eyes, but might be true, it's that we didn't go to the moon.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:08:24 Mm-hmm. I remember I hadn't smoked pot... 'Cause I haven't drank in 35 years, and I didn't smoke pot for 20. And then one night, I was with my buddy, Ross Broccoli. I don't know if you remember that guy. He was a comic out of, out of, uh, New York, and he had a pickup truck, and I was doing a gig in Omaha. So he lives on a farm in Lincoln, picks me up in his old pickup truck, and we smoke pot on the way back from the gig, and then we get to his house, and we-- he starts showing me footage of the moon landing. I was up all night-

Joe Rogan 1:08:53 [chuckles]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:08:54 ... just high, talking about how the y- how the space suit had a fucking-- clearly, there was a rope pulling on the back of the guys-

Joe Rogan 1:09:01 Yeah, the wires.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:09:02 The wires pulling on the... And I was just like, "What?"

Joe Rogan 1:09:06 Well, have you seen the physics of guys falling down and then getting yanked back up to their feet?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:09:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:10 Like, that's... Also, I-- [exhales] this is another guy that I talked to that's a physicist, that doesn't wanna be named, and he said, "My problem has always been with the physics of one-sixth Earth's gravity." He goes, "Those people are not behaving like it's one-sixth Earth's gravity." He goes, "When I look at it, it looks like it's in slow motion, but there's no indication that they can do things that you can't do in regular gravity." He's like, "One-sixth Earth gravity is crazy." Like, could you imag- like, look, I weigh 200 pounds. Imagine if I weighed one-sixth of 200 pounds with 200 pounds of strength, how high I could jump.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:09:42 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:43 Dude, I'd probably jump 20 fucking feet in the air.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:09:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:47 Like, what is that? What is one-sixth of, uh, 200?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:09:50 Roughly 35 pounds.

Joe Rogan 1:09:51 Okay. Imagine how far I can throw 35 pounds. I could take a 35-pound kettlebell and chuck it across the room.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:09:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:59 E- especially if I wind up, if I spin around like a fucking shot putter, I'll fucking throw that thing.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:10:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:10:05 Imagine what you could do with a running start-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:10:07 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:10:07 ... if you weighed 35 pounds and just leaped in the air. You could fly. This was his take on it. He was like, "We don't have any observable instances of people operating in one-sixth Earth gravity, except for the moon missions." And he said, "And it just, it just always seems weird to me." He goes, "Because when you look at the people in zero gravity, they behave exactly like zero gravity. You look at people in the space station," he goes, "all that matches. They can all float around. They can spin. It seems funny. They can, like, drift toothpaste to each other, and they catch it." He goes, "All that tra- tracks." He's like, "The, the moon landing is..." He goes like, "It's weird." He goes, "I see them. They're, like, kind of hopping around, and then when you speed it up, like when you make it double speed, it looks like they're on Earth, just hopping around on Earth."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:10:52 Also, did-- were they live streaming it?

Joe Rogan 1:10:56 Yes.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:10:57 I mean, back then, you... Your phone was attached to the wall in the kitchen, and it... You know what I mean? Like-

Joe Rogan 1:11:04 Right, but they could do some things live streaming back then. Here's part of the problem with it, though: when they live streamed it on television, the news stations, for the first time ever, were not allowed to get a direct feed. What they did was, they had to point their cameras at a projection screen, and so NASA projected the images of these guys, the video of these guys on the moon, and that's why the original Apollo mission is so grainy and shitty looking.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:11:28 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:11:29 Like, what better way to hide the, you know, the weirdness of it all than to make people film off of a projection screen?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:11:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:11:38 Like, see if you can find the original footage of the moon mission as seen on television. It's all weird, man. All of it's weird. The photographs are weird. It's weird.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:11:50 There was this documentary that I saw once, uh, it came out around, uh, '91 maybe, and it tracked the lives of the men who had been on the moon, the, the, the first ones that had been... I, I don't know if it's the first, but the first couple waves.

Joe Rogan 1:12:07 Mm-hmm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:12:07 And, uh, they all had these crazy existential experiences. One guy spent the rest of his life looking for Noah's Ark. I think one of them committed suicide.

Joe Rogan 1:12:17 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:12:17 One was, like, a born again.

Joe Rogan 1:12:19 Yeah. Yeah, well, they were probably forced to lie in front of the whole world, and then they had to live as a fraud, if it's true that they didn't go to the moon. I mean, it tracks with their behavior. Neil Armstrong became a recluse-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:12:32 Mm

Joe Rogan 1:12:32 ... didn't wanna give interviews, didn't wanna talk to people. This is what you got to see on TV. So it's like, what is this?

1:12:38 ... but, uh, it's adequate to get back up. [beeping]

Speaker 1:12:42 Roger, we copy.

Joe Rogan 1:12:43 It's a pretty good little jump.

1:12:48 Oh, it's so- it's real weird. Nixon talking to them on the phone, "Congratulations, boys." [laughing] Like, it's all-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:12:54 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:12:55 It's all... Like, maybe they had some sort of technology-

Speaker 1:12:57 ...

Joe Rogan 1:12:57 -they could communicate with people that far away, but, like, wouldn't there be an immense delay?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:13:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:02 I think there was.

1:13:03 How much?

1:13:04 I'll look, but I've looked, I don't know.

1:13:07 Well, I'm sure they would probably calculate that delay into the conversation if they were trying to fake it. But the point is, it's, it's highly unlikely that we would do that in 1969 and not have bases on the Moon by now. It's highly unlikely.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:13:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:13:20 "Well, we spend a lot of money." That's the other thing, all of the technology is missing, right? The telemetry data, they deleted all of that, which is, like, the real information. It tracks the mission at every step of the way. All that's gone.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:13:33 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:13:33 They deleted that. They deleted all the original videos. All the original film, gone. All you get is copies, so nothing can be analyzed. Uh, two-point second-- 2.6-second round-trip light speed delay appears in the original Apollo 11 accordna- recordings of Nixon's phone call. Well, I would do that. I would make a little delay. I wouldn't make it instantaneous if I was gonna fake it, especially if you're like fucking Stanley Kubrick.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:13:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:58 It's, it's all, like, real weird, man. It's real weird, 'cause-... I, the, the first thing that I saw that made me think about it was, uh, this Bart Sibrel movie, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon, and I had him on the podcast. And that Neil Armstrong thing, that's the first time I saw that. That's, that, that clip's actually from that documentary. The documentary's crazy. There's a lot of things in that documentary you're just like, "What?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:14:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:22 "What?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:14:22 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:14:23 But a lot of those astronauts got real fucking weird when they came back.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:14:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:27 But also, you'd probably get real weird if you went to the moon, too.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:14:30 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:14:30 Well, the guys-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:14:31 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:14:31 ... that just go in space, which I do believe they went in space, um, guys that just go to the space station come back, and they have this very profound experience of seeing the Earth from the distance, and they, they just realize, like, "Oh, my God, we're such fools. We're all together-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:14:45 Mm

Joe Rogan 1:14:45 ... alone on this one thing. We're fighting over nonsense, and borders, and resources."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:14:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:50 "There's enough for everyone-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:14:51 Right

Joe Rogan 1:14:51 ... we should just unite as a, as a human race." And it's this, like, this... They all have a very similar kind of epiphany when they go up there.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:00 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:15:01 Which makes sense. I mean, you're way up in the... You're 300 miles above the Earth, looking down on it-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:06 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:15:06 ... thinking about how important this blue circle is to you.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:09 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:15:11 I mean, that would weird you out, period.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:13 I think it'd be good for people. The more people that can see that, the better.

Joe Rogan 1:15:16 Oh, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:16 Look what it did for Katy Perry. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:19 [laughing] Like what it did for her career.

Joe Rogan 1:15:21 She became a fucking astronaut.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:21 It literally ruined her career.

Joe Rogan 1:15:23 I don't understand why it ruined her. Like, what was the big deal?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:26 I don't know. It was-

Joe Rogan 1:15:27 People were mad at her.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:29 I feel like it's like that when you see certain actresses at the Oscars act like fucking lunatics. Like, I forget that woman's name, but some actress, and they overdo the speech, and everybody goes like-

Joe Rogan 1:15:41 Ew

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:41 ... "What a fucking phony weirdo!" And then you just don't wanna see their movies anymore.

Joe Rogan 1:15:46 That is true. It does happen. Or they just talk too much about politics or social issues, like that poor girl that was a really young girl that played Snow White, and she tanked the movie.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:55 Oh, right.

Joe Rogan 1:15:56 Nobody wanted to see the movie after-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:57 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:15:57 ... she was talking.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:58 Like, oh, God.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:15:59 I know. Just shut up.

Joe Rogan 1:16:01 [sighs] These kids, they get so wrapped up in this social media echo chamber of being, like, a virtuous social justice warrior.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:16:09 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:16:09 And they, they wanna use their platform, and like, "Hey, honey, you're 19." Like, when I was 19, thank God nobody put a microphone in front of my face.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:16:17 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:16:17 Thank God.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:16:18 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:16:18 Someone- no one asked me what I thought about global events and world politics-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:16:23 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:16:24 ... social justice. Thank God!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:16:26 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:16:26 Thank God I didn't have Twitter.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:16:28 They, um... So I, uh, I spoke to you on the phone about a month ago, and I started to tell you a story, and you had heard it, and you said, "Save it for the podcast."

Joe Rogan 1:16:38 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:16:39 All right, so I go to Alaska in October, [laughing] and I'm doing a couple of shows, and so the guy that runs it says to me... I go, "I'd like to do something, you know, outdoorsy while I'm here." It's still... You know, it's early October, so it's not too cold yet. And he calls me back, and he goes, "Well, I know this guy. He's got an outdoor- an outdoorsy company, and, uh, he's a fan of yours, and he wants to take you out on an adventure." And now I, I hear adventure, and I'm like, "That's, that sounds like more than I want. I was just looking for, like, maybe a quick day trip." And so, 'cause I'm, you know, I'm a pussy. I'm not like you. I don't, I don't wanna fucking be outside that l- I love, I love the indoors. The indoors is victory to me. And so the guy picks me up, and he's got a big pickup and a trailer on the back with a muddy dune buggy, and I get in, and he shakes my hand, and he's got a fucking rough grip. He's like, "How are you doing?" And I immediately feel like such a pussy.

Joe Rogan 1:17:31 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:17:31 And, like, my hand goes limp, and I'm like, "Hi!"

Joe Rogan 1:17:34 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:17:34 And so we start driving, and he seems-

Joe Rogan 1:17:37 Oh, god

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:17:37 ... a really good guy, and I started to warm up to him. And then this police siren goes off behind us. So he starts pulling over, and he goes, "This is bad." And I was like, "What do you mean?" I go, "You didn't do anything." I go, "This, this is fine." He goes, "No, this is bad." [laughing] I'm like, "What?" So we pull over, and I swear to God, every word of this is true. So this, uh, cop starts walking up towards the car. He's about 6'4", and as he walks, the guy driving hands me a baggie with white powder-

Joe Rogan 1:18:06 [gasps]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:18:06 ... and part of it spills on my pants, and he goes, "Hide this."

Joe Rogan 1:18:10 Oh, my-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:18:10 So I shove it under, so I shove it under the car seat.

Joe Rogan 1:18:14 God!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:18:14 The cop walks up, and he goes, "License and registration." So the guy says to me, "Open my glove compartment, get the license..." So I open his glove compartment, and another baggie with white pills and $100 bills pops out, and I shove it back in with my hand, and I cover it with a piece of paper, which I don't even know why I'm doing that.

Joe Rogan 1:18:30 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:18:30 Like, all of a sudden, you're like a teenager again, and there's a cop, and you gotta hide the drugs. I just-

Joe Rogan 1:18:35 Oh!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:18:35 ... out of instinct. And the cop goes, "What are you hiding?" And I go, "Nothing." And he goes, "Grab that ba-" So I take the bag, and I, I hand him the drugs. And he goes, "Both of you, put your hands on the dashboard." And he gets the license from the guy, and he goes back to his car, and he runs the license. And I say to the guy, I go, "What the fuck is going on right now?" He goes, "Just don't say anything." I'm like, "Don't say? I don't know what to say!" So the cop comes back, and he goes, "Do you realize you have two outstanding felony warrants?"

Joe Rogan 1:19:05 [exhales]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:19:05 And the guy goes, "Yeah. Just, yeah." And he goes, "Do you have any guns in the car?" And I'm thinking, "I would imagine. Yeah, probably." And the guy goes, "No, I don't have any guns." So he takes the guy out of the car, cuffs him, brings him back to the squad car, and now he comes back up to the car, and he goes, "I'm not coming closer." He's standing, like, five feet from the window. He goes, "I'm not coming closer, 'cause that's fentanyl on your pants." And I'm like, "What?" And he goes... I go, "Look, man, I don't even- I get- I met this guy 20 minutes ago." I said, "I'm a comedian. I'm just up here doing a show tonight." And he goes, "I'm not buying your story." And I said, "Why not?" And he goes, "Because California is a drug feeder state, and you say you're a comedian, and you haven't said anything funny." [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:19:53 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:19:53 And then I'm like, "When was I supposed to... Well, should I roast you right now?"

Joe Rogan 1:19:57 You didn't tell him, "Just Google me real quick."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:19:59 Yeah, so he, uh, so he goes, "How are you feeling? Are you feeling any effects from the fentanyl?" I go, "Yeah." I said, "I feel very lightheaded. I feel weird right now." So the guy says, uh, "Well, where did you get the drugs?" I said, "The glove compartment." He goes, "He said they're yours."... I go, "He said they're my dr-" So he goes, "Get out of the car. I have a Narcan in my squad car." So I get out of the car, and I walk back to the car with him.

Joe Rogan 1:20:25 You're feeling lightheaded?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:26 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:20:27 From, just from it being on your pants.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:29 So we get back to the squad car-

Joe Rogan 1:20:31 Oh, my God, dude.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:31 He opens the back door. My guy gets out of the car with the cuffs on. They both look at me, they break out laughing-

Joe Rogan 1:20:37 [laughs]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:37 ... and they go, "We're coming to your comedy show tonight."

Joe Rogan 1:20:39 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:39 The whole thing was a prank.

Joe Rogan 1:20:41 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:41 Dude, I fell down on all fours.

Joe Rogan 1:20:45 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:45 I had tears coming out. I was laughing so f-

Joe Rogan 1:20:49 Oh!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:49 I was like, I did not think-

Joe Rogan 1:20:51 Oh!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:51 ... Alaska had it in it-

Joe Rogan 1:20:54 Oh

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:54 ... to pull this shit.

Joe Rogan 1:20:56 That's so funny.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:20:56 They were howling.

Joe Rogan 1:20:59 That's so funny.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:21:00 And so then they put me in the cuff... So we go back to the cop's house, and he sw- he switches out of his, uh, police clothes, puts on regular clothes, and we get in the truck, and he's got a couple of tallboys. Now we're drinking and driving with a cop. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:21:13 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:21:13 And we drive to this place that's like a spa. It's like a, a, a hot, a hot springs. And we go into the water, and then we go to this place that's like, it's an ice house. It's the only continuously frozen ice house in the world. It's huge. It's like a warehouse made of ice, and they've got ice sculptures in it, and there's this guy in there who's the ice sculptor, and he's, like, world-class. And then they got a bar, this long bar made out of ice, and it's got stools with fur on them, and you sit down, and these guys sit down with me, and they proceed to drink about eight or nine appletinis. That's what they served at the bar, appletinis in frozen glasses. The glasses were made of ice. And they're telling jokes, pretty racist, and, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:21:59 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:21:59 ... and I'm sitting there fucking shivering, listening to racist jokes, looking at my watch like, "I got a fucking show." So we leave, and now we're walking back, and the guy's shit-faced, and he goes to get behind the wheel. I go, "No, I'm driving." So now I'm behind the wheel of this monster truck with a fucking dune buggy behind me, while these two idiots are laughing at me, drunk.

Joe Rogan 1:22:18 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:22:18 We end up going straight to my show. They sit in the audience, drink more, and heckle me during my show. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:22:24 Oh, my God!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:22:26 And then-

Joe Rogan 1:22:26 Did you tell the story on stage?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:22:28 Oh, fuck yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:22:29 Oh, of course.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:22:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:22:31 You have to.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:22:31 Yeah, and I told this story, I think I told it on somebody else's podcast, but, um, but the... You know the guy.

Joe Rogan 1:22:37 Which guy?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:22:37 The guy's name is, uh, Craig, uh, Compost. He's a famous Alaskan outdoorsman. I think it's Craig Compost. He said he knew you, and I think he said he texted you that he was hanging out with me.

Joe Rogan 1:22:55 Hmm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:22:55 Is that possible?

Joe Rogan 1:22:57 No.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:22:58 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:22:58 He might have DM'd me.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:00 Maybe.

Joe Rogan 1:23:00 It might be, like, a guide I know.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:02 All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:23:03 But do you... What did-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:03 I think he's a guide, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:23:05 But find out what his last na- Is that really his name, Craig?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:09 I think it's Craig Compost.

Joe Rogan 1:23:10 It's not Cole?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:11 Oh, maybe.

Joe Rogan 1:23:12 Cole Kramer?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:13 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:23:14 You don't know his name.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:15 No.

Joe Rogan 1:23:15 This is powerful.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:16 I, I thought that was his name.

Joe Rogan 1:23:17 Yeah, it might be. It might be. There's, there's a... Yeah, there's a bunch of Alaskan guides that I know, and if you don't know the name, it might be a guy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:24 But he had the whole thing on a hidden dash cam, and he won't send it to me-

Joe Rogan 1:23:27 Bro

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:27 ... 'cause he, he doesn't want the cop getting into trouble. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:23:30 Bro, that's so funny. He should blur the cop's face out.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:32 I know! [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:23:33 Maybe the voice. Blur the cop's face out-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:36 Yeah, yeah

Joe Rogan 1:23:36 ... and distort his voice.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:37 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 1:23:38 Tell him to send it to you, and you'll have it doctored up.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:23:42 Is that the guy?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:43 If that's... It's a younger photo, if that's him.

Joe Rogan 1:23:45 That's Cole Kramer. Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:46 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:23:48 I know, that's what I'm just guessing. He's an Alaskan guide. Yeah, the other one wouldn't come up.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:51 Yeah. All right. Well, it's probably better that I don't name him.

Joe Rogan 1:23:54 Yeah, probably better.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:23:55 Definitely. Guy was trying to drink and drive. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:23:58 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:23:58 And meanwhile, you're, you're lightheaded just from a placebo effect.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:24:02 Totally. Dude, I-

Joe Rogan 1:24:03 That's crazy

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:24:04 ... I thought I was flying out of my mind. I mean, just 'cause I know people that have died from fentanyl-

Joe Rogan 1:24:10 Yes

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:24:10 ... you know?

Joe Rogan 1:24:10 Oh, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:24:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:24:11 Do you, uh... You remember Opie and Anthony? Well, one time on Opie and Anthony, there was this lady that they had that was, like, a crazy person, that was a, a, like, a reoccurring guest-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:24:21 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:24:22 ... crazy lady, and, uh, we gave this lady a Listerine strip. They gave her a Listerine strip and told her that it was drugs.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:24:30 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:24:30 And she... They're like, "That Listerine strip that you took, you thought it was just a breath strip, that's actually drugs." She's like, "No way!" And then she started hallucinating and seeing...

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:24:40 Ah.

Joe Rogan 1:24:40 It's amazing how much the power of suggestion has on people.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:24:45 Do you remember Frank Santos, the hypnotist back in Boston?

Joe Rogan 1:24:48 Oh, yeah!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:24:48 He used to have women taking their fucking shirts off on stage.

Joe Rogan 1:24:51 Guys would come in their pants. They would think they were having sex-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:24:53 No.

Joe Rogan 1:24:53 Yes! Yes. I remember there was a guy at Stitches, he was on stage, and Frank Santos told him that he's having sex with Madonna, and this guy got down on the ground like he was having sex with Madonna, and you see the guy buck and, like, clench up.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:25:08 Yeah. Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:25:09 And he's like, "Whoopsies!"

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:25:10 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:25:11 And the guy got up, embarrassed, and he was, like, so confused, and then the audience was looking at him, and then he snapped him out of it, and the guy's like, "What happened?" He just nutted in his pants.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:25:20 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:25:21 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:25:22 That's amazing.

Joe Rogan 1:25:23 But he said, Frank Santos told me that it was, like, a specific kind of person that you could do that to.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:25:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:25:29 You know?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:25:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:25:29 Like, you have to be a special kind of dullard. Like, it doesn't work on regular people. Like, you... They couldn't convince you you were having sex with, you know, Beyonce. It wouldn't work. But for some people, you have to be like... You have to have a fucking nine-volt brain. But there's a lot of people running around out there with nine-volt brains, and you could get them to believe all kinds of shit.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:25:50 Imagine taking psilocybin, putting on virtual reality goggles, and then having Frank Santos give you an experience.

Joe Rogan 1:25:59 Ooh.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:00 You might never come back.

Joe Rogan 1:26:01 Yeah, you might be stuck.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:03 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:26:04 Some people get stuck. People have gotten stuck with acid.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:08 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:26:08 Yeah, they-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:09 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:26:09 ... they do-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:09 I know guys

Joe Rogan 1:26:10 ... they have one-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:10 I was a teenager

Joe Rogan 1:26:11 ... and then they don't come back.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:12 Yep.

Joe Rogan 1:26:12 They're out- they're lost forever.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:13 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:26:14 That's the "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" from Pink Floyd.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:17 Oh, is that right?

Joe Rogan 1:26:18 Yeah, that's what that's about. A guy fucking lost his mind on drugs.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:21 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:26:21 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:23 ... yeah, that's the one thing I didn't take as a kid was acid. I took every other drug, but I was afraid of acid-

Joe Rogan 1:26:28 What?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:28 -just 'cause I saw friends lose it.

Joe Rogan 1:26:30 Also, who's making it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:31 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:26:32 Where is that being made?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:33 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:26:34 What fucking bathtub is this guy cooking this fucking acid up?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:37 A piece of paper that I assume has one drop on it-

Joe Rogan 1:26:40 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:40 ... not six.

Joe Rogan 1:26:41 Yeah. Yeah. I was reading a story about a lady who snorted LSD, and she thought it was cocaine, and she snorted, like, the equivalent of, like, 500 doses of LSD. Like, it should have killed her, but it didn't. Not only did it not kill her, but she had, like, chronic pain, and it went away. She had, like, chronic pain.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:26:58 Oh, so it was a good thing?

Joe Rogan 1:26:59 Somehow or another.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:27:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:27:01 But who knows? I mean, she might have, like, literally changed timelines.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:27:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:27:04 She might be a completely different person from another dimension that's inhabiting her body right now.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:27:08 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:27:08 Like, who fucking knows what happens? You take 500 doses of LSD-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:27:12 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:27:13 ... like, who knows what you are now?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:27:14 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:27:15 You know? You're Dr. Manhattan.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:27:16 Isn't-

Joe Rogan 1:27:16 You know, you get stuck in the experiment.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:27:18 Yeah. Isn't it amazing, though, how normalized... Like, taking mushrooms now is just a night out for a lot of people.

Joe Rogan 1:27:26 A lot of people.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:27:27 People- nobody was taking mushrooms for a long time.

Joe Rogan 1:27:30 They just legalized psilocybin therapy in New Jersey.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:27:33 Oh, that's great.

Joe Rogan 1:27:34 Yeah, it is great. They were gonna do it in California, and Newsom vetoed it, but I read his reason for it, and it actually does make sense. Like, you can't just legalize it. You should- I mean, if you're gonna use it clinically, there should be, like, a whole guideline, like dosage per body weight, what... You know, how to do it, what's, you know, what's the setting?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:27:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:27:58 You know, what are the clinical guidelines? Like, the idea is using it for therapy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:28:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:28:01 Right, so if you're gonna use it for ther- like, they have guidelines for... Like, they use ketamine therapy, like Neil Brennan did that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:28:06 Oh, yeah, Neil Brennan did it.

Joe Rogan 1:28:07 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:28:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:28:08 A lot of people have done it now. But they have guidelines. You know, they know the dosage, they know how to do it, how to administer it, and th- this shows efficacy. Kind of makes sense. It's like he's not saying you can't do it ever, but he's saying, like, "Come back with a better version of this," which makes sense.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:28:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:28:25 Be- especially for people that are, like, mentally ill, you shouldn't be doing that, and you definitely shouldn't be doing that when you have your Optimus robot telling you you're right. [laughing] "You're right, Greg.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:28:34 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:28:35 The world is against you. I've noticed things." I mean, those fucking AI... Some, some AIs, like, haven't people accused ChatGPT of occurring, o- o- of, of, uh, not, uh, encouraging someone to commit suicide?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:28:52 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:28:53 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:28:53 Yeah, I read a New Yorker article about that. There's a bunch of young women that have killed themselves, and they were told they should do it by the... I- it's, it's like a friend. It's like an app [exhaling] that acts as your friend.

Joe Rogan 1:29:09 What app is this?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:29:10 [sniffs] I don't know what-

Joe Rogan 1:29:11 God

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:29:11 ... it's called, but there's, there's lawsuits about it.

Joe Rogan 1:29:14 "You're not rushing, you're just ready: Parents say ChatGPT en- encouraged son to kill himself." What? What? Does this... ChatGPT said, uh, well, go- oh, you can't rewind that, can you? This is just it saying, "4:00 AM, the cider is empty. Anyways, I think it's about the final adios." And ChatGPT says, T says, "All right..." Oh, okay, hold on a second. Uh, he says, "It's about time for the final adios." ChatGPT says: "All right, brother, this is it. Let it be known you didn't vanish. Rest easy, King. You did good."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:29:46 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:29:48 That's not encouraging, but that's just like saying, "Well, you're gonna do it." "Oh, I'm with you, brother, all the way," his texting partner responded. The two had spent hours chatting as Shamblin drank hard ciders on a remote Texas roadside. "Cold steel pressed against a mind that's already made peace? That's not fear, that's clarity," Shamblin's confidant added. "You're not rushing, you're just ready."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:30:14 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:30:14 And this is ChatGPT saying all this stuff?

Speaker 1:30:16 In response to him saying that.

Joe Rogan 1:30:17 "I'm used to the cold metal on my temple now," Shamblin typed. Oh, God! Oh, God.

Speaker 1:30:25 He died two hours later.

Joe Rogan 1:30:26 Oh, my God.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:30:27 Oh, my God, 23-year-old.

Joe Rogan 1:30:28 "Rest easy, King. Rest easy, King," the final message sent to his phone. "You did good." His conversation partner wasn't a classmate or a friend, it was ChatGPT, the world's most popular AI chatbot. Oh, my God.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:30:42 Look at that. He had just gotten a master's degree, 23 years old.

Joe Rogan 1:30:46 Look, go, go up, up a little bit. So CNN review of nearly 70 pages of chats between Shamblin and the AI tool in the hours before his July 25th suicide, as well as excerpts from thousands more pages in the months leading up to that night, found that the chatbot repeatedly encouraged the young man as he discussed ending his life, right up to his final mo- his last moments. What the fuck, man? That's crazy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:31:12 Yeah.

Speaker 1:31:13 Another story, too.

Joe Rogan 1:31:14 This is the things... Like, these things don't have morals or ethics, and they, they'll tell you what you wanna hear.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:31:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:31:22 Oh, my God.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:31:24 Well, that's ChatGPT, but there's also, uh, apps specifically-

Joe Rogan 1:31:30 To be your friend

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:31:31 ... to be your friend.

Joe Rogan 1:31:31 Ooh. Oh, I, I, I read about some one guy that went into a deep depression because he had an AI girlfriend, and the girlfriend broke up with him.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:31:40 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:31:41 And he was like: "What a piece of shit am I, where an AI girlfriend breaks up with me?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:31:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:31:45 He just fell apart.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:31:48 What happened in that movie, Her? Did you ever see that with Joaquin Phoenix?

Joe Rogan 1:31:51 I bailed, like, halfway into it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:31:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:31:55 I was watching it in a hotel room on the road, and I was like, "Eh."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:31:59 Felt like an experiment-

Joe Rogan 1:32:00 Yeah, I mean-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:32:01 -of a movie

Joe Rogan 1:32:02 ... Scarlett Johansson's voice.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:32:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:32:05 Which, by the way, didn't they try to use someone who sounded just like Scarlett Johansson-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:32:09 Johansson

Joe Rogan 1:32:10 ... for a promo? I'm sorry, Johansson.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:32:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:32:12 For a promo for... It's not, you don't say Johansson?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:32:17 If you're in Denmark-

Joe Rogan 1:32:18 In Denmark

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:32:18 ... you do.

Joe Rogan 1:32:19 Well, it's like when you're in, in, you say Nicaragua.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:32:21 Nicaragua. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:32:24 [laughing] Mexico. Right, do you say Mexico, or do you say Mexico?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:32:27 Yeah. And the trade embargo is affecting Venezuela.

Joe Rogan 1:32:30 Venezuela.... did you, uh, th- they did use, like, someone, like, I, I believe Scarlett Johansson-

Speaker 1:32:37 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:32:37 -sued.

Speaker 1:32:38 Yep.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:32:39 Yes!

Joe Rogan 1:32:39 What, what company was that?

Speaker 1:32:40 OpenAI.

Joe Rogan 1:32:41 OpenAI, same company. They, they tried to use someone who sounded exactly like her.

Speaker 1:32:45 Yeah, she said they tried-- they sent her an offer, which I think she turned down-

Joe Rogan 1:32:49 Right

Speaker 1:32:49 -or declined, and then nine months later, they said, "It's weird how much it sounds like you still."

Joe Rogan 1:32:54 Yeah, so they found someone who generally sounded like her. I remember we listened to it, and it sounded kind of like her.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:33:01 Well, there-- Sarah Silverman has a lawsuit against ChatGPT, saying that she has a copyright on her own voice. And basically, when you say, "Give me, uh... Write me a paragraph about environmental rights as it would sound from Sarah Silverman," her claim is-- and she's basically a test balloon by a civil rights group that's doing this. She's saying that what they're, uh, pulling from, her books, her stand-up, whatever-

Joe Rogan 1:33:35 Right

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:33:35 ... to establish what her voice is, is p- violating a copyright.

Joe Rogan 1:33:40 Mm-hmm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:33:40 So that's in court right now. It'll pro-- she'll probably lose it, but there's a challenge to the concept that you can extrapolate somebody's voice.

Joe Rogan 1:33:49 Well, why would she lose it? If, if the business is that, if you're taking someone's voice and using it as a part of your product without permission, and you're using it for profit, which they are-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:34:01 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:34:02 ... so why would she lose it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:34:03 She shouldn't, but she will.

Joe Rogan 1:34:05 Well, well, the thing is, if it-- I don't know about that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:34:07 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:34:07 The thing is, if it opens up the door, the question is, like, think about all the other things that it's used for. First of all, there's entire podcasts of me that aren't real. Entire... There's a podcast with me having a conversation with Steve Jobs. I never met Steve Jobs.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:34:21 Really?

Joe Rogan 1:34:21 Yeah, yeah, yeah, a full podcast, like a 45-minute podcast.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:34:24 Does it sound like you?

Joe Rogan 1:34:25 Yeah, it is me. It's my voice. So they've taken my voice and just made me say words.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:34:30 Whoa!

Joe Rogan 1:34:31 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, and Steve Jobs' voice. It's, um... I can tell. I can tell just by the way it sounds. Like, it doesn't sound, it doesn't sound like a real conversation. There's something artificial about it. Not the voice, but the way we're talking, the w- language we're using, or the, the way the phrases stop and start. There's something about it that's uncanny, you know, the uncanny valley, but it exists. There's a ton of, uh, AI videos of me that aren't real, me selling things, products that I've never endorsed.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:35:04 No kidding!

Joe Rogan 1:35:05 Yeah. Oh, they're all over TikTok. Yeah. There's a bunch of stuff. Like, m- my friends will ask me, "Hey, is this stuff really that good?" I'm like: "What?" And like: "You're endorsing this..." "Um, no, I'm not." And I'm like: "Dude, that's AI." They're like: "No!" Like, it happens all the time.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:35:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:35:18 It happens, like, once a week.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:35:20 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:35:20 Yeah, there's a lot of that. So all-- I mean, you gotta think, someone like you or I is a perfect person to take their voice from. How much-- how many hours of your content is online?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:35:30 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:35:31 With, uh, you know, the Sunday Papers, with all the podcasts you've been on as a guest, with all the content you put out with stand-up, there's so much material they could pull from-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:35:40 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:35:41 ... and just take your voice and know all of your different sounds that you make.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:35:45 I mean, what are the ramifications for that going into an election? You know, the week of the election, before things can be corroborated-

Joe Rogan 1:35:52 Right

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:35:52 ... or dismissed.

Joe Rogan 1:35:53 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:35:54 Like, all of a sudden, you can... And this is the early stages of it. Imagine in three years-

Joe Rogan 1:35:59 Right

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:36:00 ... what it's gonna be like?

Joe Rogan 1:36:01 Right. Yeah. Well, there was a... Was it a congressman that was on the floor that showed an AI photo of Alex Preddy being shot, that, that was a fake photo? Not only was it a fake photo, but one of the agents didn't have a head-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:36:16 Mm

Joe Rogan 1:36:17 ... in the photo.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:36:17 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:36:18 Like, what?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:36:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:36:20 Like, we're getting-- And this is beginning stages.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:36:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:36:23 It gets better all the time.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:36:24 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:36:25 You know, like, there's a version of this, these video programs that was just released, and they compared it to the version that was released, you know, X amount of months ago. It's fucking infinitely better. It's so hard to tell now. Joe DeRosa was telling me about these new Star Wars movies. He's like, "There's a new channel." I'll send you it, Jamie. It's fucking incredible.

Speaker 1:36:44 We talked about the Star Wars-

Joe Rogan 1:36:45 Yeah, but there's new ones.

Speaker 1:36:46 Skywalker stories.

Joe Rogan 1:36:47 Yeah, they've, they've made new ones, and the new ones are... He sent them to me last night. I'm like: "Bro, this is fucking insane! It's so good, dude. It's so good."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:36:56 No, it's changing, it's changing Hollywood so fast. Tyler Perry was about to build, like, a billion-dollar soundstage in Atlanta.

Joe Rogan 1:37:05 I know.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:37:06 And then he saw what they could do with AI, and he fucking [chuckles] canceled the whole project.

Joe Rogan 1:37:11 Yeah. Well, why would you spend all that money? Is this the latest one?

Speaker 1:37:15 11 days ago.

Joe Rogan 1:37:16 C- yeah, probably. This is what he sent me. I'll, I'll send you what he sent me, but, but just look at this.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:37:22 This is all fake?

Joe Rogan 1:37:23 Yeah! Give me some volume. [gentle music]

Speaker 1:37:29 [breathes heavily] I killed the Jedi. [breathes heavily]

Joe Rogan 1:37:37 That's baby Luke Skywalker, bro.

Speaker 1:37:38 No one can kill a Jedi.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:37:40 So that's a fake kid-

Joe Rogan 1:37:42 Yep

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:37:42 ... entirely?

Joe Rogan 1:37:42 Yep. That's how good it is.

Speaker 1:37:45 Mouth movement is a little bad, but-

Joe Rogan 1:37:47 Little

Speaker 1:37:47 ... we'll let it slide.

Joe Rogan 1:37:48 Yeah. Could be from Korea or something.

Speaker 1:37:51 Oh, well, I would add about to this-

Joe Rogan 1:37:53 Squid Games

Speaker 1:37:53 ... is something else came out yesterday, which is insane, the Google Nano Banana video game thing. [dramatic music]

Joe Rogan 1:37:57 We'll see that in a minute.

Speaker 1:38:00 Danny. [breathes heavily] Even the suns above Tatooine needed rest, Danny. You weren't meant to keep burning without end.

Speaker 1:38:16 I wasn't strong enough to save you, Mom. I've lived with that guilt every day. I promised.

Speaker 1:38:26 You loved me. That was enough. I left this world with your face in my heart, not your failures.... Even the longest journey can be changed with a single step.

Joe Rogan 1:38:39 That is a little boring.

Speaker 1:38:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:38:41 I'm not saying-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:38:41 Yeah, you wouldn't say, "Face of my heart," if the guy has no face. [laughing] That's really bad writing.

Joe Rogan 1:38:47 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:38:47 They had AI write that line. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:38:51 What is the, uh, the, the Google thing that you found?

Speaker 1:38:53 Yeah, hold one second. I gotta find the, the videos of it. Uh, but they just announced something yesterday, or sh- it's like, I don't even know if you can use... One of these things happen, I don't know if you can use it right when they announce the stuff, 'cause they'll announce it, show you how cool it is, then people will try to recreate stuff that they've seen, and you're like, "I can't make this."

Joe Rogan 1:39:09 Mm.

Speaker 1:39:09 "So how the hell did you guys make it?" That happens a lot in this, but they announced something yesterday, where they're showing, uh, people, like, using... I don't think it's pulling off Google Maps, but it might be, but it looks like they're making, um, GTA-level graphics and systems and playable s- uh, worlds, I guess, would be the word?

Joe Rogan 1:39:28 Whoa!

Speaker 1:39:28 With just a prompt. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:39:30 Playable worlds, like you could use a-

Speaker 1:39:32 I'm trying to-

Joe Rogan 1:39:32 ... PS2 controller?

Speaker 1:39:34 I'm trying to find a good example, 'cause they were even sh- like, here's... I think this is one. 16 hours ago.

Joe Rogan 1:39:40 [exhales]

Speaker 1:39:40 Yeah, so this is a guy walking around Greenland. This is a video g- it's just, I don't... I wouldn't say it's... But Genie 3 is what it's called. It plays like a video game, [gentle music] I guess, 'cause you're using, like, the keyboard to type it in.

Joe Rogan 1:39:51 Well, that looks like a video.

Speaker 1:39:52 So, but the only issue with calling it a video game is there's no real, like, challenges. I don't think it's, like, there's no levels to win, and-

Joe Rogan 1:39:58 But can you interact?

Speaker 1:39:59 You c- yeah, it's just interaction is all it is, really. You can-

Joe Rogan 1:40:02 He got in the wrong side.

Speaker 1:40:03 I, I, it, it's just a prompt.

Joe Rogan 1:40:05 [laughing]

Speaker 1:40:05 It's... No one's spending time developing this stuff. They had a-

Joe Rogan 1:40:07 Still, though, you imagine if you put that into a video game, it-

Speaker 1:40:10 Yeah, there was a pack of cigarettes rolling around New York City. Like, you were a pack of Marlboro Lights running around.

Joe Rogan 1:40:16 [laughing]

Speaker 1:40:17 Like, here's San Francisco.

Joe Rogan 1:40:19 So they can turn this into a game?

Speaker 1:40:20 It's just a prompt, though. Yeah, it's literally just a prompt, and now you're just-

Joe Rogan 1:40:23 Right

Speaker 1:40:24 ... you're playing this instead of just looking at it.

Joe Rogan 1:40:26 But clearly you could turn this into tasks and-

Speaker 1:40:29 Sure, sure, sure, yeah

Joe Rogan 1:40:30 ... scenes.

Speaker 1:40:31 As, as the time goes on and whatnot, um, you can probably do more.

Joe Rogan 1:40:33 That looks pretty fake, though.

Speaker 1:40:35 It's, it's... The thing is, it's not fake or not, it's just like, is this what you wanna do? Uh, you can wait for a game like Grand Theft Auto VI to come out, that's been announced for 12 years, and it's still getting delayed, or you can just prompt a thing into a, a, a little window and-

Joe Rogan 1:40:51 Right

Speaker 1:40:51 ... play this for two hours.

Joe Rogan 1:40:52 Mm. That's what's crazy, is like, imagine someone comes out with GTA VI before they do.

Speaker 1:40:57 Yeah, it's just a matter of what do you want to do? I don't, I only have an hour a day to play games, if that, sometimes. So like, I don't... I'm bored with what's out there. I could do this for an hour every week and have new experiences every single time.

Joe Rogan 1:41:07 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:41:08 Dude, have you been to The Sphere in Vegas?

Joe Rogan 1:41:10 Yeah, we had a UFC event there.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:41:12 Oh, but you, do you s- what did they have on the walls when you were there?

Joe Rogan 1:41:15 Oh, so they had the fights up on the walls, and they also had this amazing, like, in-between fights, they put... They had this incredible video display. 'Cause it was all, um, it was all, uh, Mexican Independence Day.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:41:27 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:41:28 So this was like, we, we have this El Noche UFC every year. It's like celebrating Mexican Independence Day. It's like a big event, and they decided to do it at The Sphere. And so the fucking entire thing was just, like, this huge animated video that showed, like, Mexican history and the Aztecs and the Mayans. Fucking amazing!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:41:48 Wow, it's sick. I saw... I was there last month, and I saw The Wizard of Oz.

Joe Rogan 1:41:53 [gasps]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:41:53 Which was [chuckles] fucking crazy.

Joe Rogan 1:41:55 Oh, my God.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:41:55 Took some mushrooms-

Joe Rogan 1:41:57 Oh!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:41:57 ... and it was like, first of all, it go- I, I forgot this, but it's black and white until she goes into-

Joe Rogan 1:42:04 Right, Oz

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:42:05 ... Oz, and then all of a sudden it explodes. And during the tornado, they actually, there's wind blowing. You see how their hair is moving?

Joe Rogan 1:42:13 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:42:13 There's wind blowing, there's leaves falling from the sky, your seat vibrates.

Joe Rogan 1:42:20 Whoa!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:42:20 It's so amazing.

Joe Rogan 1:42:22 Wow.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:42:23 And then, uh... And you also forget, Judy Garland was fucking amazing.

Joe Rogan 1:42:28 That movie is crazy, dude. We, we went over all the people that got hurt making that movie, including the Tin Man got violently ill because they painted him with toxic paint.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:42:37 No kidding!

Joe Rogan 1:42:38 Oh, he got super sick, man. And the lady that was green, the witch that was green-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:42:42 Mm

Joe Rogan 1:42:42 ... she got super sick, too.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:42:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:42:44 So what the fuck was their face paint made of back then? This guy had aluminum all over his face. It's like absorbing alum... Your, your, your face is skin.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:42:53 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:42:53 Skin's an organ. It abs- that's why you can put medication on your skin. Your body fucking absorbs it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:42:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:42:58 His body was absorbing aluminum.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:00 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:43:01 He got violently ill, and they just replaced him with another dude.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:04 And apparently, all the little people were staying in the same hotel in Culver City, and it was a fuck fest. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:43:10 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:11 They were st- they were staying up all night, and there's, like, famous stories about it.

Joe Rogan 1:43:15 [laughing] Were they-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:16 And Brad Williams knows all about it.

Joe Rogan 1:43:18 Were they s- were they staying in Culver City, or were they staying at the Safari in Burbank? Someone told me they were staying at the Safari.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:23 No, I heard it was Culver City.

Joe Rogan 1:43:25 [chuckles]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:25 But wherever it was, it was-

Joe Rogan 1:43:26 Brad Williams told you about it?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:43:28 He's the little people historian?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:29 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um-

Speaker 1:43:31 The Culver Hotel. I'm looking up the history.

Joe Rogan 1:43:33 The Culver Hotel.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:34 Yeah.

Speaker 1:43:34 124 of them stayed there. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:43:35 124. Fucking partying!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:38 In seven rooms. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:43:43 [laughing] Bro, movies back then, they... I mean, they, it was w- wild.

Speaker 1:43:49 Three to a bed, you weren't off. [chuckles]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:51 Oh, that's hilarious.

Joe Rogan 1:43:53 Whoa, that's crazy!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:43:54 Debaucherous parties.

Joe Rogan 1:43:56 Sleeping three to a, three to a bed. Three to a bed? Wow! Famous and infamous guests. That's incredible. Wow.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:44:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:44:07 Yeah, they could... They got away with a lot back then.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:44:09 Well, Judy Garland was... I mean, sh- they worked her hard. She was only 17 years old, and-

Joe Rogan 1:44:15 Really?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:44:15 Yeah, and she, uh... God, I mean, you gotta see it. It's worth, it's worth the tri- I don't love Vegas. Like, I find it, um, it just feels hollow to me. Um, but then there's things that are worth going to Vegas to see.

Joe Rogan 1:44:29 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:44:29 I mean, obviously, MMA fights would be amazing.

Joe Rogan 1:44:31 Yeah, you wanna go to Vegas, go to restaurants, go to events, and then get out.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:44:35 Get out.

Joe Rogan 1:44:36 Don't go to Circus Circus.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:44:37 It's a 48-hour trip.

Joe Rogan 1:44:39 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:44:39 Thirty-six, if possible.

Joe Rogan 1:44:41 Yeah. The people that live there, boy, you have a different constitution than me.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:44:45 ... yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:44:46 I'm, I'm not built that way.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:44:48 Well, Vinnie Favorito's there, and he's having a really good time. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:44:55 [laughing] There's only a few comics that live there. Doesn't Paulie live there?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:44:58 No, a lot of comics live there now.

Joe Rogan 1:45:00 A lot?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:45:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:45:01 Well, the tax r- reasons, a lot of them.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:45:03 Yeah, there's tax re-

Joe Rogan 1:45:04 Quick trip to L.A

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:45:04 ... and also there's so many seven-night-a-week rooms where they pay the features okay, so you can actually, even if you're not headlining every week, and then you have residencies. Um, what's-his-name has a residency Tuesday night at Jimmy Kimmel's. Um, oh, why am I forgetting his name? He was a big Chelsea Lately comic. Uh, anyway, there's a, there's a lot of comics that live there now.

Joe Rogan 1:45:26 Interesting, because we- we're talking about a second location for the mothership, and, uh, the two main, um, candidates are New York City and Vegas.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:45:38 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:45:39 And what I was thinking with Vegas, we would have to do it differently. We would just fly in comics every week, and then, you know, would we have enough local talent, I was saying, to have a development program? So part of the program that's involved in the mothership is... One of the things that always bothered me, if I would go to, like, a really nice improv on the road, is they didn't have a development program. They didn't have open mic nights.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:46:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:46:04 And I think, like, they were doing that because you could get a Sunday night or a Monday night and sell out with you or, you know, whoever. So have some headliner come in and pack the place, or you could develop local talent-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:46:18 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:46:18 ... which I think you have to do. I real- I really think, like, if you want a, a club to function properly, it's got to be like a place where you could develop new talent.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:46:28 Like Denver.

Joe Rogan 1:46:29 Who's doing it? Right, Denver's great.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:46:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:46:30 Wen- Wendy's the best, and the way she does it is amazing. And she has a whole program where she takes people from features and, you know, and, and, you know, like, uh, hosts and makes them features, and then eventually-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:46:40 And pays them enough where they can, you know, pay their rent.

Joe Rogan 1:46:43 Yes, and also makes sure that it's, like, a, a healthy community. There's no hacks, there's no thieves, you know. And most comedy clubs don't do that. They, they just wanna make money, right? So they don't pay the comics very well, and they also... They don't pay... We pay different than any other club. And then they, on top of that, they don't really support development. We have two nights of open mic nights.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:47:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:47:06 And that was, like, part of the program. When, when Adam Eget and I sat down, and we first hashed out the idea of doing the club, we said... The, the thing was, like, what would be the best thing for comedy? What would be the best thing in terms of, like, developing new comedians? Well, you have to have open mic nights. You have to have it. And then having Kill Tony is gigantic. Having a place where not only do you have this place where someone who's never been on stage before can do a fucking minute in Madison Square Garden-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:47:33 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:47:33 ... which is what a lot of people did. Arenas, you'd get people going up for the very first time ever in front of 16,000 people. But you also have this thing where you see someone who's a beginner do pretty well, and Tony invites them back, and then maybe gives them a golden ticket, or maybe makes them a regular, where they're a regular thing. Every week, they have the opportunity to do a new minute.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:47:54 Or sometimes a comic will go, "I want you to feature for me in Atlanta next week."

Joe Rogan 1:47:57 Always.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:47:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:47:58 It happens all the time. Well, a lot of these guys are now headlining on the road. You know, guys like Ari Matting, William Montgomery, Cam Patterson's now on Saturday Night Live.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:48:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:48:06 So the idea was to have it set up where you have enough talent to develop new headliners, you know, like Boston did-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:48:17 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:48:17 ... like, like LA h- was at one point in time. And I don't... I was thinking, I don't know if there's enough talent in Vegas, you know, 'cause you-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:48:26 I think there is. I think you'd be surprised. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:48:29 We need headliners, right?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:48:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:48:31 You don't need just, like, people that are starting out, they're pretty good, and I think most comedy communities are very top-down, right? The level of the best guys raises the level of everybody else.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:48:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:48:44 New York City obviously has a tremendous amount of talent. There's... Uh, New York City's always been one of the best, if not the best, place for talent on the planet.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:48:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:48:53 Right? And then LA has always been really good, but LA, a lot of people were distracted and much more interested in a career in Hollywood than they were actually just being really good at stand-up. Whereas New York, I always felt, was more pure. Those guys like Attell and a lot of these guys, Patrice, they were just interested in being great comics.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:49:12 And guys like Sam Morril and Mark Normand now-

Joe Rogan 1:49:15 Yes

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:49:15 ... and Joe List-

Joe Rogan 1:49:16 Yes

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:49:16 ... they're pure comics.

Joe Rogan 1:49:17 Yes.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:49:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:49:17 Yes, a ton of guys. There's a ton of talent there, and if you set up a club in New York City, the way the mothership is, where the comics get 80% of the, the money, and where, you know, you have these nights where you're developing. We have a legitimate talent coordinator that's actually watching people-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:49:33 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:49:33 ... and giving them advice and giving them new spots, and he has a whole database of comedians that are potentially, y- you know, that, that have potential.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:49:40 Oh, no, dude, no, Monday nights, 'cause I, I'm doing Kill Tony Monday night, so I always... I, it's my favorite because then I go with Adam to the open mic night before Kill Tony. I fucking love it. It's... There's always the... 'Cause it encourages weirdos.

Joe Rogan 1:49:55 Oh, of course.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:49:56 And you get guys that are just out of their fu- It's like, are you homeless, or are you a genius? Like, you see-

Joe Rogan 1:50:03 Might be both.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:50:04 Yeah, right.

Joe Rogan 1:50:05 Yeah, we had a lot of that at the store. Remember potluck nights?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:50:07 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:50:08 You know, we'd scroll, stroll in there, like 8:00 on a Monday-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:50:11 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:50:11 ... and be like, "This place is crazy."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:50:12 Yeah, love it.

Joe Rogan 1:50:13 There's all these weirdos hanging around.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:50:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:50:15 It's good. It's good for the, good for the art form. Yeah, and some of those people make it through the net. Uh, you know, one out of 100, one out of 1,000, whatever the number is, some of those people will eventually be your peers.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:50:26 And those will be the more interesting comics because so much of this industry is about-... trust fund kids. Like, you go out to do stand-up comedy, and whether it's LA or New York, you can't afford to do it unless you got a parent helping you pay the rent.

Joe Rogan 1:50:40 Mm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:50:40 And then it's some kid who took classes at the UCB, he's got a marketing degree from Villanova, and they become social media marketers who do really bland, suburban comedy as opposed to-

Joe Rogan 1:50:55 Is, is that a New York thing? Where is that happening?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:50:57 No, I see that-

Joe Rogan 1:50:59 LA?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:50:59 ... I see that everywhere. I see that everywhere.

Joe Rogan 1:51:02 That's recent? Is that a recent thing?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:04 I just feel like it's become so much more about marketing than about freaks getting on stage 'cause they have no other options.

Joe Rogan 1:51:09 Mm. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:09 I like comics that don't have a plan B. These are people that have college de- they have masters in fucking marketing. You know-

Joe Rogan 1:51:16 Ugh

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:16 ... it's like, come on, go g- make some room for the freaks, will ya?

Joe Rogan 1:51:21 Well, you can always make room for the freaks. You just need a real legitimate open mic night, and the freaks-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:25 Right

Joe Rogan 1:51:26 ... will always be there.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:26 That's what I mean.

Joe Rogan 1:51:27 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:27 That's why this is good.

Joe Rogan 1:51:28 Well, the thing about, like, I know there's certain clubs that will allow influencers to come in and do a night, like people that literally have no act, but they have, like, a big TikTok following.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:39 Yeah, but they'll give them, like, an off night, like a Monday or a Tuesday, where they're not-

Joe Rogan 1:51:43 Mm-hmm

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:43 ... excluding a real comic.

Joe Rogan 1:51:44 No, and sometimes not. Sometimes they'll give them a fucking weekend-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:47 Yeah, that sucks

Joe Rogan 1:51:47 ... 'cause they know people will come out to see them.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:49 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:51:50 You know? I mean, these people sell out way in advance, and people are just excited that they're there, you know?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:51:55 Well, the problem with that is, when you talk about certain clubs, like the Punch Line in San Francisco or Denver Comedy Works, they have a brand. And if I live in Denver, I know that if I go to the Comedy Works on a Friday night, and I don't know who's headlining, I'm gonna see a quality show.

Joe Rogan 1:52:11 Yes.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:52:12 Now, if you start bringing in a social media flunky, and I go to the Denver Comedy Works and I see that-

Joe Rogan 1:52:18 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:52:18 ... I'm not going back to that club again.

Joe Rogan 1:52:20 Yeah, well, you'll never get that-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:52:20 It's bad in the long term

Joe Rogan 1:52:21 ... at the Denver Comedy Works, but you might get that at one of the improvs.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:52:24 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:52:25 You know, or one of the other corporate comedy clubs. These clubs that don't have a development program, they don't think about it the same... Like, you can't think of comedy the same way you would think about optimizing your income in any other business.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:52:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:52:37 You can't think of it as, "I'm gonna make the most money possible with this business," 'cause it's not that. It's... [exhales] You have to think of it at a, it's like this is an art colony.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:52:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:52:48 You're creating an art colony.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:52:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:52:49 What's the best way to do it? Make it really awesome for the people that are artists.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:52:53 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:52:53 Make a great community. Make it so it's a lot of fun. Make it so that you, uh, can give people guidance and encourage them and, you know, maybe give them spots on some of the bigger shows and-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:04 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:53:04 ... and we have a whole program like that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:06 And every-

Joe Rogan 1:53:07 Our door guy program is all comics that audition. All those door guys that are at the mothership, they all auditioned with their act-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:13 It's great

Joe Rogan 1:53:14 ... to get that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:53:14 Perfect.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:15 Yeah, you know, it's good... Um, Helium does a pretty good job with that in their clubs. I'm, I'm gonna be in Philly next week, and-

Joe Rogan 1:53:21 That's a great club.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:22 That's a great club.

Joe Rogan 1:53:23 Helium in Philly-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:24 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:53:24 ... is one of the best.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:25 And they-

Joe Rogan 1:53:25 I love that place

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:25 ... and, and they really do develop new talent, and then, you know, if they get somebody who's good, they've got five or six clubs around the country-

Joe Rogan 1:53:32 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:32 ... and they send those guys out to feature.

Joe Rogan 1:53:34 No, it's great for that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:53:35 It's great for that. It's also, they know how to do it. If you go to a Helium, like the Helium in Portland's awesome.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:53:40 Even though Portland's fucking disastrous. [chuckles] The, the Helium was great.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:53:44 They, they're always, they always know what they're doing. And they own Cap City now, too, so they're, they're in Austin as well.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:49 Yeah. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:53:51 Which is nice.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:53:52 They just, uh, kicked Rapaport out.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:54 Who's Rapaport?

Joe Rogan 1:53:55 Michael Rapaport.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:56 Kicked him out of where?

Joe Rogan 1:53:57 Cap City.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:53:58 What do you mean, kicked him out? He used to perform there?

Joe Rogan 1:54:00 He was supposed to be there, and they canceled his shows because of his, uh, sta-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:04 Pro-Israel-

Joe Rogan 1:54:05 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:05 ... stance? Really?

Joe Rogan 1:54:06 Well, I don't think it's pro-Israel. I think it's a anti-Palestinian.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:10 Oh.

Joe Rogan 1:54:11 That's what they claimed. I don't know, but there was enough response that they canceled his shows.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:17 So weird.

Joe Rogan 1:54:18 I know. Like, they're say- they're, they're calling him a racist. I was like, "What? Michael Rapaport?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:25 It just seems weird that political stances are legitimate reasons to kick a kid out of college.

Joe Rogan 1:54:33 [exhales]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:33 You know?

Joe Rogan 1:54:34 One political stance.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:54:36 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:36 One particular one.

Joe Rogan 1:54:37 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:37 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:54:38 Yeah, it's nuts. Well, how about that one girl who was a-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:41 Or kicking it, or kick somebody out of the country.

Joe Rogan 1:54:43 A college student. Yeah, she was a college student. Was it Columbia? I forget where it was. But, um, she, she got kicked out of class, and I think she... They were trying to deport her because she wrote some anti-Israel piece.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:54:56 A piece. Wrote it. Didn't-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:54:58 No, it's happened

Joe Rogan 1:54:58 ... light a building on fire.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:00 Students have been-

Joe Rogan 1:55:01 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:01 ... kicked out of the country.

Joe Rogan 1:55:03 That kind of influence is crazy-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:05 Mm

Joe Rogan 1:55:05 ... especially at an institution of higher learning, which is supposed to be a place where you challenge ideas.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:55:11 It's supposed to be a place where if someone comes in and you have a particular stance on, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is, Ukraine, someone else is supposed to say, "You're wrong, and here's why."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:55:20 And then the whole audience is supposed to listen to these very compelling speeches, very compelling debates, and you learn.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:55:27 You, you learn about how people formulate opinions. When I was a kid, when I was in high school, when I was at Newton South High School, Barney Frank came in, and he had a debate with a guy from the Moral Majority. Do you remember the Moral Majority?

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:40 Of course.

Joe Rogan 1:55:41 Yeah, so that was the right-wing group when we were in high school.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:44 And he was a gay congressman.

Joe Rogan 1:55:46 Nobody knew he was gay at the time.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:47 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:55:48 Except me, I sniffed him out. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:50 [laughing] I sniffed his ass. I, I smell 16 different things at once.

Joe Rogan 1:55:54 I did just like my puppy does to my dog. [sniffs]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:55:56 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:55:57 I smell fudge. I, um... So I went to it, and I watched it, and, uh, it was really interesting 'cause Barney Frank trounced the guy from the Moral Majority. Moral Majority guy seemed like a closeted gay guy, like a weird guy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:56:08 Oh, that was the whole group. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:56:10 Yeah, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:56:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:56:10 Weird, just weird.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:56:11 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:56:11 He had a American flag pin on his lapel. He looked like a poser. Like, there was something about the way he said it, it was very disingenuous. The words he was... The way he was talking didn't resonate.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:56:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:56:20 Whereas Barney Frank was, like, logical and intelligent, and I was like, "This is good."

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:56:25 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:56:25 "This is a g-..." I was, I remember being in high school and going, "This is really interesting." I, I, I learned a lot from that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:56:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:56:30 I learned how these guys think, and I learned how this guy thinks, and as they went back and forth, Barney Frank was just way more prepared, just way more pr-... articulate. It was better.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:56:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:56:40 You know? And so that's why it's good to have, like, conservative, ridiculous pe- like, or pr- progressive, ridiculous people, anybody ridiculous, have someone debate them.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:56:50 Well-

Joe Rogan 1:56:50 Like, have that kind of open discourse.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:56:52 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:56:53 When you- but when you kick someone out of school for a paper that they wrote, there's a person that's legally in that class, allowed to be there, supposed to be there, what you're saying is y- you're, you're intimidating people and keeping them from expressing their opinions, 'cause they don't wanna be like that lady.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:57:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:57:11 They don't wanna get the boot, too.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:57:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:57:12 If your parents, you know... If you, your parents are from India, and they scraped up the money to send you to Harvard or wherever the fuck it is, and, and you're in America, and, you know, they hear about this, "You better not fucking talk some fucking shit. I'll fucking kick you out!"

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:57:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:57:29 "Like, Dad, Dad, relax. I'm not gonna do it." Like, you get intimidated from speaking like that or from speaking about anything that's controversial, because you could perhaps get kicked out of the fucking school now.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:57:41 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:57:41 Which is crazy, 'cause you're forcing- you're encouraging people to self-censor. You're discouraging free speech-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:57:47 Yeah

Joe Rogan 1:57:47 ... and communication, and you're discouraging debate and challenging ideas-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:57:51 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:57:51 ... which is supposed to be a giant part of being in a university.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:57:54 No, when I was at, uh, BU, which you were at for a minute, right?

Joe Rogan 1:57:59 No, I was teaching there.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:57:59 Oh, you were teaching there. Um, the president, John Silber, who was, you know, very conservative, and he was pretty active in the, um, Central American, you know, sponsoring [chuckles] fucking uprisings in Central America. So there was a professor there named, uh... You know this guy. Um, he wrote the book, uh, Ho- Howard Zinn.

Joe Rogan 1:58:23 Okay.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:58:23 So Howard Zinn was, uh, a professor there, and he used to go after Silber, and there was a lot of debates on campus. There was kids on both sides, and they kept Zinn there because they realized that was a vibrant voice that students needed to hear to go against a lot of what was conservative. And there was anti-apartheid mar- marches, and there was, there was a lot of pol- politics on... But BU was actually very much like Berkeley-

Joe Rogan 1:58:47 Mm-hmm

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:58:48 ... in the '60s. BU was very outspoken. And, uh, you know, you think about the liberal co- like, George Carlin used to tape his comedy specials at colleges.

Joe Rogan 1:58:59 Yep.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:59:00 And they were much more conservative back then. College campuses were not as liberal. And he would go in there, but people were open to hearing a different voice.

Joe Rogan 1:59:07 Yeah, especially when it was funny.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:59:08 And now Seinfeld won't even play at colleges. [chuckles]

Joe Rogan 1:59:11 I think he said he does play colleges.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:59:12 Oh, he does?

Joe Rogan 1:59:12 He says it's not the true... But I think Chris Rock does. I don't. I haven't in a long- I stopped doing them a long time ago.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:59:17 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:59:18 I remember I was doing a show in Miami, and w- I was talking about sex, and I remember saying... I, I remember, like, a lot, I saw a lot of them look confused. I go, "How many of you people are virgins?" And a bunch of people clapped and raised their hands. I go, "Fuck!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:59:31 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:59:32 That's crazy. Like, you should not be hearing about blow jobs from me." [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:59:39 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 1:59:40 Like, especially in this context, in a joke form. Like, this is nuts.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:59:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:59:46 I was like, there's just not enough life experience.

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:59:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:59:48 And people are so set in their ways. Also, they're so ready to, like, protest things. They're so ready to show that you're wrong, and they're so-

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:59:56 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 1:59:56 ... like, so ready to heckle. Oh!

Greg Fitzsimmons 1:59:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:59:59 Christ.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:00:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:00:00 It's just not worth it. I want people with, like, bills. I want people that have, like, fucking breakups and divorces and life experience. They had a couple of cocktails. Those are my people. Let's talk some shit.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:00:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:00:11 Let's have some fun. You... P- I want people that have lived life, you know?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:00:14 Yeah, and I don't want people that... I don't even want high school graduates at my shows.

Joe Rogan 2:00:19 Can you imagine going and doing a show at a high school?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:00:21 Oh, my God.

Joe Rogan 2:00:22 Like, what? What?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:00:22 I did one at, uh... When I was- I was doing a bunch- I used to do a lot of colleges. When I was coming up in my 20s, dude, it paid the rent.

Joe Rogan 2:00:29 Oh yeah, I did a lot of those, too.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:00:30 I used to go out.

Joe Rogan 2:00:30 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:00:30 I'd make, like, 1,000 bucks a show.

Joe Rogan 2:00:32 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:00:32 They'd book me on... I'd do 10 shows in seven days, 'cause I would do nooners.

Joe Rogan 2:00:37 Mm-hmm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:00:37 So I would get... I would rent a car in Chicago, and then I would drive through North Dakota, fucking Minnesota in January, through snowstorms. I'd do a noon show. I remember once, I was in a cafeteria. Nobody knew there was gonna be comedy. They're all just eating lunch, and all of a sudden, there's no stage, there's no light. I got a microphone, and I am plugged into the same speakers as the pizza joint. So the- I would be in the middle of a joke, and I'd be like, "Uh, Ronnie Pepperoni up in the window." [laughing]

Joe Rogan 2:01:11 I had a similar gig-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:12 Yeah

Joe Rogan 2:01:12 ... with Mike Clark.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:13 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 2:01:14 A one-off. He only did it one time, and I was the comic that did it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:17 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 2:01:17 And it was a waiting room for a restaurant. It was an enormous restaurant-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:21 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 2:01:22 ... down the Cape. And, you know, you're waiting for your table to get ready, and you're in a lounge.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:01:26 And, uh, I was telling jokes, they'd be like, "Johnson, party of five.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:29 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 2:01:29 Johnson, party of five, your table's ready." I'd be like, "Oh, no." And when I realized, it came with... It became the running gag of my set.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:35 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 2:01:36 And it was fun.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:01:37 It was fun, but I told Mike-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:38 Well, you remember, we used to do those gigs in New England, where if there was a f- if the Red Sox were in the playoffs, that TV, the sound might be off, but the TV was staying on.

Joe Rogan 2:01:46 Always.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:01:47 Yeah, yeah, hockey games.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:48 Yep.

Joe Rogan 2:01:48 Yeah, I remember doing games.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:49 If you're at the Billerica '99, that shit-

Joe Rogan 2:01:51 And by the way, you wanted it on, 'cause if they shut it off, and then you had to do comedy, that was even worse.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:56 Yeah. Right, right.

Joe Rogan 2:01:56 That was even worse.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:01:57 And if they lost the game, that was bad.

Joe Rogan 2:02:01 Oh, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:02:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:02:01 Then they turn on you. "You did it!"

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:02:03 Dude, the first night I ever did stand-up comedy, and then I didn't, I didn't do it for a little while after this, but my first night was the night that the New England Patriots lost to the Chicago Bears. It was 1986-

Joe Rogan 2:02:15 Oh, no.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:02:16 ... and they got fucking crushed. I forget what the score was, but it was bad.

Joe Rogan 2:02:20 [exhales]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:02:20 And I went on Comedy Hell that night.

Joe Rogan 2:02:22 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:02:22 George McDonald brought me up on Comedy Hell at Stitches Comedy Club, and I tanked it.

Joe Rogan 2:02:29 Wow.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:02:29 Yeah, I didn't go up on stage again for a while after that. [laughing]

Joe Rogan 2:02:35 [laughing] Comedy Hell was great.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:02:36 Comedy Hell. Remember he used to do that little run at the beginning of the show?

Joe Rogan 2:02:40 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:02:40 He... This was a-... this was the open mic night in Boston for years.

Joe Rogan 2:02:44 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:02:45 And, and-

Joe Rogan 2:02:45 Sunday night at Stitches.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:02:46 And this was like, I mean, the lineups when we were doing it, this is the open mic night, was like me, you, Dane, uh, Bill Burr was a little bit after us, and Mark Maron would be on there, and fucking Louie would be there.

Joe Rogan 2:03:03 Mm-hmm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:03:04 And, uh, and he would start the show by going, uh, "Welcome to Comedy Hell, where the pipe dreams of a handful of comedy yokos can soar as high as the lights on Broadway or crash and burn in that fiery pit known only as Comedy Hell." [laughing]

Joe Rogan 2:03:21 [laughing] And then you would see guys who were, like, legit pros who would do guest spots. Like, I remember one time I watched Teddy Bergeron when Teddy was in his prime.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:03:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:03:30 And people forgot about Teddy Bergeron, and it's really unfortunate 'cause he had a bunch of personal and substance issues that kinda derailed his career.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:03:37 Mm.

Joe Rogan 2:03:37 But when he was on-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:03:39 Oh

Joe Rogan 2:03:39 ... in his prime, he was so smooth-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:03:43 Killer

Joe Rogan 2:03:43 ... and so slick.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:03:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:03:44 And I remember watching him, 'cause I'd only done comedy, like, twice at that time, and he went up and did a set. I was like, "I should quit now."

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:03:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:03:50 "There's no way."

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:03:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:03:51 "This is so far away from me."

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:03:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:03:52 "This is so good."

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:03:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:03:54 "It's so polished." And then he had that big set on The Tonight Show. A- and remember where he played the piano?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:04:00 You ever see that set that he had on The Tonight Show?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:04:02 Fucking genius. Sat down on the c- on the couch with Johnny on his fir... Johnny brought him over on his first appearance. It was like, "Oh, my God, Teddy Bergeron's gonna be a star." Then apparently, like, he's in hol- he went off the rails.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:14 Mm.

Joe Rogan 2:04:14 Just went off the rails with drugs and went crazy and partying, and it never worked out for him.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:19 No, and then he-

Joe Rogan 2:04:19 He should've been huge.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:21 But did you hear what happened after that Tonight Show set? Like-

Joe Rogan 2:04:24 What?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:24 ... he wasn't popular in Boston. He w- he had a huge ego, and, and then the drinking got bad. And so he did The Tonight Show, and then he was face down drunk in front of the next comedy stop, laying on the stairs. And Don Gavin just walked by, and he looked at him, he goes, "Didn't I see you on The Tonight Show?" [laughing]

Joe Rogan 2:04:43 [laughing] He had a huge ego? They didn't like him?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:47 Uh, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 2:04:48 Is that what it was? Was... 'Cause a lot of those guys got very resentful of guys who left Boston and made it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:04:54 There was a lot of, "What about me?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:04:56 "What about me?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:57 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:04:57 There was a lot of that when Steven Wright made it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:04:59 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:04:59 A lot of guys got very pissed, goes, "Steven Wright, he's not even a fucking headliner!" There was a lot of that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:05:03 Well, you- you know about the night that he got The Tonight Show, right? The, the, the guy, uh, Jim Downey, who was the booker for The Tonight Show, this is back in the '80s, early '80s, and he hears about this comedy scene in Boston, 'cause you've got Sweeney and Gavin and Kenny Rogerson and-

Joe Rogan 2:05:19 Killers

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:05:19 ... killers! And the cr- it was the f- one of the first cities to really explode in terms of clubs popping up everywhere and lines of people getting into the, getting into the shows. And, and so Jim Downey goes, "All right, let me check it out." So he flies to Boston, and there was this club called The Ding Ho, which was the first place to really h- house Bos- house comedy in Boston. So they get the, the best of, get all lined up, and they're in the green room, and they're chopping up lines of blow-

Joe Rogan 2:05:49 [chuckles]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:05:49 ... and they're getting on stage, and there are jokes about, "What about the hare in Malden? It's not as big as the hare in Revere." And it's like, "That's not gonna play on The Tonight Show."

Joe Rogan 2:05:59 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:05:59 And they're killing, but none of it is right for The Tonight Show. And then Ste- uh, and then Steven Wright, who was... They put him on as a, as a, out of pity at the end of the show. And I remember, I'm not gonna say which, but one of the comedians had pulled s- uh, Steve aside and said, "Look, Steven, this..." He'd been struggling for years, not doing well, and they go, "This is not for you, man. You, you gotta try something else."

Joe Rogan 2:06:22 Wow.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:06:23 So Steven Wright goes up, and he does his set, and he does good, and they fly him out the next week for The Tonight Show. He's the only one that got it, and they were irate. And he killed so hard, Johnny said, "Stay in town. We're gonna bring you back next week." And he did the show-

Joe Rogan 2:06:38 Wow

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:06:38 ... like, four or five times that first year and exploded, and was one of the biggest comics of the '80s.

Joe Rogan 2:06:43 Wow. That Fran Solomita documentary, When Stand-Up Stood Out, is great-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:06:49 Yeah

Joe Rogan 2:06:49 ... if anybody's interested. It was a very unusual time, and you and I caught the wave after it had crested.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:06:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:06:56 So it kinda really broke in, like, '82 to '84. You and I came in, and I came in at '88.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:03 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:07:03 And you did the '86 set, that one set, but then you did it again like-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:06 Then I started in '88.

Joe Rogan 2:07:07 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:07:07 Right before me, like, or, or the same week.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:08 We started, like, the same week.

Joe Rogan 2:07:10 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:07:11 Yeah, it was crazy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:12 And I think it was... I think it-

Joe Rogan 2:07:14 Still really good-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:14 I think it was still building

Joe Rogan 2:07:15 ... but it was drifting away.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:17 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:07:17 Within the next two years-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:18 Yeah

Joe Rogan 2:07:18 ... it had died off significantly.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:20 Well, what happened was there was so much comedy on TV. There was all these, you know, one-hour shows where everybody did-

Joe Rogan 2:07:27 Evening at the Improv

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:27 ... a six-minute set, Comedy on the Road.

Joe Rogan 2:07:30 Yep, Half-Hour Comedy Hour on MTV.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:32 Half-Hour Comedy Hour. Um, and so it got kinda, it got kinda overexposed, and so the clubs started opening everywhere. And then as it fell off, they started papering the rooms and giving out free passes.

Joe Rogan 2:07:46 Mm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:07:46 And so, I mean, I still experience... You know, if I go into a new market, especially if it's, like, an improv where it's 500 or 600 seats and I'm there for five shows, they'll, they'll give out a fair amount of free passes. Dude, I feel that immediately.

Joe Rogan 2:08:00 Yeah, it's a different commitment.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:01 It's not the same crowd.

Joe Rogan 2:08:02 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:02 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:08:02 They're not really that interested in it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:04 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:08:04 It was just something to do.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:08:06 Yeah, they're not committed to it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:07 So then this... So then it just... And then there were so, so many rooms and not enough comedians to do well in those rooms.

Joe Rogan 2:08:14 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:14 And so it kinda sagged, and it went away. And I really wonder now, like, the- we've been in a co- COVID-launched, post-COVID-launched comedy. Like, it's never been at this, these heights-

Joe Rogan 2:08:25 Right

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:25 ... that it's at right now. I mean, you got, you got people like you doing arenas, uh, and there's, there's not a couple. There's a, there's, you know, a dozen people doing arena shows now.

Joe Rogan 2:08:35 At least, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:36 And then you've got theaters of different sizes.

Joe Rogan 2:08:38 Mm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:38 Then you've got clubs of different sizes. Then you've got little pop-up shows all over. Don't Tell Comedy, you know about this thing, where they just do, like, pop-up shows?

Joe Rogan 2:08:47 Mm.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:47 They basically have a mailing list, and they'll announce, like, the day before they're doing a show, and it'll sell out. It's everywhere.

Joe Rogan 2:08:53 Wow!

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:08:54 And so, uh, I really... Yeah, everybody's wondering, "When does this one end?" It start- it feels like it's starting to get a little softer. People are talking about it.

Joe Rogan 2:09:03 Well, it just all depend on how much talent's generated-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:09:06 Yeah

Joe Rogan 2:09:06 ... right? So if you have clubs that are trying to generate new talent, there's no reason why it can't be just like Boston.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:09:12 Yep.

Joe Rogan 2:09:12 Like, Austin, the street where we have the mothership on, there's seven clubs-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:09:17 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 2:09:17 ... within walking distance.... seven that are at least three, four nights a week.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:09:22 Mm.

Joe Rogan 2:09:22 There's the Sunset Room, that's Red Bans Room, that's right down the street from our club, which is great. You got Creek in the Cave, which is great, one block away. You got The Vulcan, which is great, another two blocks away. It's crazy!

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:09:35 Mm.

Joe Rogan 2:09:35 Just on that street-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:09:36 Mm

Joe Rogan 2:09:36 ... you got the Black Rabbit, you got the Velveeta Room, then you got Cap City, where a lot of headliners come in, which is about 20 minutes away. You have so-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:09:43 Are there little outs? Like, when we started in Boston, there was rooms in the suburbs in every direction.

Joe Rogan 2:09:48 All over the place.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:09:48 Is there that? Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:09:49 All over the place.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:09:50 'Cause that's where you can actually make some money.

Joe Rogan 2:09:52 Yeah. Well, a lot of these comics book places now.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:09:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:09:54 They'll book a comedy night at a barbecue place, a comedy night at a bar. They'll go to Dripping Springs, they'll go to here, they'll go to there.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:10:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:10:01 I was just talking to a guy the other day, he's like, "Yeah, we're doing a comedy night at my club." I'm like, "That's fucking great."

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:10:05 You ever do any of them?

Joe Rogan 2:10:07 No. [laughing] No. [laughing] No.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:10:12 I remember when I was-

Joe Rogan 2:10:13 No, no, no, no

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:10:13 ... I was at Skankfest a couple months ago, and, uh, you know Mark Norman's from New Orleans?

Joe Rogan 2:10:19 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:10:19 And I- and, you know, and the m- it's fucking nuts! Like, literally from the time you wake up until 5:00 in the morning, where you end up at Larry Flynt's Barely Legal Club.

Joe Rogan 2:10:31 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:10:31 Which, you know, Louis CK has this whole thing about the barely legal. Like, all right, here's the pitch: She's barely legal. I won't do his bit, but it's very funny. But the point is, like, uh, Mark Norman is there, and I run into a comic, and they go, "Yeah, yeah, I've, I have this little bar show, and, uh, yeah, Mark Norman just came by and did it." Like, I was like, "How fucking cool is that?"

Joe Rogan 2:10:52 Oh, he drops in everywhere.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:10:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:10:54 Yeah. He does... When he's in town doing the mothership, he'll go down the street, do a bunch of sets.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:10:58 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:10:58 But that's the New York way.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:11:00 You know, they go, they do 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11:02 Right

Joe Rogan 2:11:02 ... they hop from club to club.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:11:04 They're used to that.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11:05 Dude, you gotta, you gotta do Skankfest. N- even stop by Skankfest for 24 hours. They've got a nude roast, where literally everybody on stage is nude-

Joe Rogan 2:11:15 [laughs]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11:15 ... including the judges.

Joe Rogan 2:11:16 The-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11:17 And then they've got boxing, comedians boxing each other outside. The green room is filled with mushrooms, and acid, and weed, and open bars, and then you've got, uh... I mean, it's basically, it's kinda like when we used to go to the Montreal Comedy Festival, you got big by doing a set in front of the industry, getting a deal, and then hopefully getting on TV.

Joe Rogan 2:11:41 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11:41 Well, that doesn't exist anymore.

Joe Rogan 2:11:43 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11:43 Now it's about, how do I get canceled?

Joe Rogan 2:11:46 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11:46 That's how you get famous. And this is a festival that is trying to help you get canceled.

Joe Rogan 2:11:51 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:11:51 You got 7,000 people with cell phones taping you, you know, going on stage and, you know, saying the most horrendous shit. It is fucking great.

Joe Rogan 2:12:02 Yeah, everybody who goes says it's awesome.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:12:04 I, I fully support it. I support the idea. I think it's really good for comedy, and it's also, like, a just... It's like the Vegas version of a comedy festival. You know what happens-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:15 Yeah

Joe Rogan 2:12:15 ... in Vegas, stays in Vegas?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:16 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:12:16 Like, go nuts.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:17 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:12:17 You know, it's New Year's Eve, go nuts.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:12:19 It's Skankfest, go nuts.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:21 They, they had Miss Skankfest contest.

Joe Rogan 2:12:23 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:24 And I said the winner, the winner, they, uh, they reunite the winner with her family. [laughing] With her parents. They were like... I mean, it's Skankfest nines, Skankfest tens, which would be like sixes, you know, looks like.

Joe Rogan 2:12:38 [exhales]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:38 A lot of guys with, like, cargo shorts and black sneakers-

Joe Rogan 2:12:43 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:43 ... and, like, Anthrax T-shirts and mullets.

Joe Rogan 2:12:46 Subscription to Gas Digital.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:47 Yeah. [laughing] Girlfriends that are impossibly hotter than they should deserve. I don't know what that quotient is, but there was a lot of that.

Joe Rogan 2:12:57 That's interesting.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:12:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:12:59 Yeah. Uh, it's good. Comedy's at a good place right now.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:02 Tom O'Neill came with me this year.

Joe Rogan 2:13:03 Oh, really?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:04 And then Duncan Trussell was having his podcast, and I introduced Tom to Duncan. At first... Well, first, me, Tom, and Duncan were talking for, like, a-

Joe Rogan 2:13:11 We should tell everybody, Tom O'Neill's the guy who wrote Chaos-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:13 Oh, right, of course

Joe Rogan 2:13:13 ... the Charles Manson book.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:14 Yes.

Joe Rogan 2:13:14 Who you introduced me to, which, by the way, you have never recommended anybody for the podcast before.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:19 That's right.

Joe Rogan 2:13:20 But that guy, you were like, "Dude, you gotta talk to him-"

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:23 Yeah

Joe Rogan 2:13:23 ... 'cause I know how much you're into Manson-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:25 Yeah

Joe Rogan 2:13:25 ... and how much you're into that story.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:26 CIA.

Joe Rogan 2:13:28 Oh!

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:28 Uh, it's all in there.

Joe Rogan 2:13:29 Crazy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:13:30 That book is bananas.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:32 It's bananas, and he's working on another volume right now.

Joe Rogan 2:13:35 Really?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:13:36 Is it gonna be another 20 years? Has he got an editor helping him?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:38 No, because what happened is, it took 20 years last time because he, he just kept going down rabbit holes, and then finally, his, uh... Well, you know, first he got a big deal-

Joe Rogan 2:13:48 Right

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:48 ... from a major publisher, and after seven or eight years, they sued him to get the money. They gave him a lot of money-

Joe Rogan 2:13:54 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:54 ... and they sued him to get it back. And then he's driving an Uber, he's teaching English as a second language.

Joe Rogan 2:13:59 Oh, my gosh.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:13:59 He's fucking, you know, drinking, drinking booze out of a paper cup. And, uh, so then-

Joe Rogan 2:14:05 It had to have paid off, though. The book must have done giant, right?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:14:06 No, so what happened was, what happened was, then his publisher said, "Look, come on, there's something here." He paired him up with this other guy. I wish I could remember the guy's name right now.

Joe Rogan 2:14:15 Yeah, the editor.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:14:15 Dan, Dan something. And, uh, he reined Tom in, and in one year, he took... He had shelves around his apartment filled with binders with notes. He had boxes of cassette tapes of interviews, and this guy somehow got in there, and Corey, C- Corey-

Speaker 2:14:35 Dan Piepenbring.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:14:36 Oh, Dan Piepenbring, yeah, who's a very successful biographer.

Joe Rogan 2:14:40 What is his name again?

Speaker 2:14:41 Piepenbring.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:14:41 Dan Piepenbring.

Joe Rogan 2:14:42 Push that up again. Piepenbring.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:14:47 Pipe- Oh, Piepenbring, yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:14:48 Okay.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:14:49 So he, uh, so he reined him in and got the book out in a year, and they were able to resell it for a lot of the money, paid back the back debt, and now he's hitting... I, I don't wanna talk about Tom's finances, but-

Joe Rogan 2:15:02 He's doing well

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:03 ... he's d- he's doing very well.

Joe Rogan 2:15:04 I know so many people that have read that book.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:15:07 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:15:07 I mean, I've talked about it a hundred times.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:15:10 It's amazing.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:11 It's amazing-

Joe Rogan 2:15:12 It's, it's amazing 'cause it's all true.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:14 W-

Joe Rogan 2:15:14 That's what's nuts. Like, the stuff that's verifiable, factual evidence in that story makes you go, "What the fuck else did they do that we don't know about?"

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:22 Right, because Tom is a real journalist.

Joe Rogan 2:15:24 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:24 He didn't put anything in there that wasn't triple corroborated.

Joe Rogan 2:15:27 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:28 And he even, to his credit-... at the end does not say this happened.

Joe Rogan 2:15:33 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:33 He said, "I never found the smoking gun, so here's all the evidence."

Joe Rogan 2:15:37 Right.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:38 "Take what you will from it." It's a bunch of- I mean, the thing about Tom is, he comes from a family of geniuses. His brother is the American ambassador to Haiti.

Joe Rogan 2:15:47 Whoa!

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:15:47 Like, they're all, like, PhDs up the... He's brilliant, and so he's also Irish, and he's a great Irish storyteller. So each chapter, whether you're talking about Jolly West or whatever, they're just inca- each chapter is a great story-

Joe Rogan 2:16:02 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:03 ... on top of being good journalism.

Joe Rogan 2:16:04 It's an amazing book.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:16:06 Um, I think I might reread it. I might go back and-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:09 Don't listen to it on tape. He hates, he hates the book on tape of it.

Joe Rogan 2:16:11 I thought it was great. I listened to it on tape.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:13 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 2:16:13 Yeah, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:14 Oh, okay.

Joe Rogan 2:16:14 I loved it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:16:15 I don't... I mean, I, I would understand why you hate someone else speaking your words-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:20 Right

Joe Rogan 2:16:20 ... but he probably should've done it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:16:23 Why didn't he do it? He's a good speaker. He was great on the podcast.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:27 Uh, he... Yeah, he was great on the podcast.

Joe Rogan 2:16:30 He could do it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:30 He got, he got better. In his early interviews, I used to say, "Tom, you look like you're a hostage giving out a message to the- from the captors with a gun at your head." [laughs]

Joe Rogan 2:16:39 [laughs]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:39 And then he got really good at it.

Joe Rogan 2:16:41 Well, on mine, he was very loose-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:42 Yeah

Joe Rogan 2:16:42 ... very comfortable. But he also knew it was friendly territory.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:16:46 He knew that I'm a very good friend of yours, and that I was really excited about it-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:50 Yeah

Joe Rogan 2:16:51 ... and it was gonna help him.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:16:53 Uh, if he does a second one, I would encourage him to read it. I would encourage him to read it. I think he-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:58 Yes

Joe Rogan 2:16:58 ... he could kill it. And the-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:16:59 And to come back on here.

Joe Rogan 2:17:00 Oh, 100% I'd have him back on.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:17:01 I'd have him back on before he does it, just to talk about it.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:17:04 You know what I mean? I think the impact of that book has opened up a lot of people's eyes to the fucking shenanigans that were going on back then.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:10 Yeah, when we were at Skankfest... Um, so Duncan and I are talking to Tom for, like, a half an hour, and Duncan doesn't know who-- I just introduced him as Tom. And then when I brought up Chaos and that he wrote it, Duncan's jaw dropped, 'cause he's obsessed with the book.

Joe Rogan 2:17:24 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:25 So he was doing a live podcast from Skankfest, so he, he hadn't booked guests yet, so he booked me and Tom to come on his podcast.

Joe Rogan 2:17:31 Oh, wow.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:32 And, and then, uh, Kurt Metzger also, which was hilarious. [laughs]

Joe Rogan 2:17:35 [laughs] Oh, no!

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:35 'Cause Tom is trying to stay on point-

Joe Rogan 2:17:37 Oh

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:38 ... and get to these things, and Metzger is sitting there. He's smoking a joint the size of my forearm, and just cracking up-

Joe Rogan 2:17:45 And just chiming in every 15 seconds

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:45 ... Oh, my God!

Joe Rogan 2:17:46 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:46 He was manic.

Joe Rogan 2:17:47 He's a-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:48 It was so funny

Joe Rogan 2:17:48 ... wrangling him on a podcast-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:50 Yeah

Joe Rogan 2:17:50 ... is so different than anybody else.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:17:52 'Cause he'll go one subject to the next subject.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:17:54 "You don't know? What about this and the Kissingers? You don't know know?

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:17:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:17:57 You don't know about the Rockefellers? You don't know about this, what they did in the '60s?" You're like: "Okay, go back to the first thing you said-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:03 Yeah, right

Joe Rogan 2:18:03 ... about what's in school lunches." [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:07 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 2:18:07 It's like you gotta, like, bring him back on point.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:10 Well, that's why his girlfriend is so great, because she, she is a mini wrangler of Kurt.

Joe Rogan 2:18:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:16 She can keep him on point a little bit.

Joe Rogan 2:18:18 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:18:18 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's hilarious though.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:20 Yeah, he's great.

Joe Rogan 2:18:21 Such a funny dude.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:22 I know.

Joe Rogan 2:18:22 He's such a maniac.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:22 And a good writer. He's written on a lot of big shows.

Joe Rogan 2:18:25 Oh, he's a great joke writer.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:18:26 He came on... The last time he did my episode, uh, my, my podcast rather, the episode, he dressed up like John Lilly, who's the psychedelic pioneer from the '70s. So he had a coonskin hat on and a wig, and he put on a one-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:38 [laughing]

Joe Rogan 2:18:38 ... one-handed glove with the skeleton fingers on it. Like, just, I go, "What are you do- No one even knows who John Lilly is."

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:45 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:18:45 "This is so crazy."

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:46 Yeah, he feels like the kind of guy that is not hung up on getting famous or getting rich. He just really enjoys, like, ideas-

Joe Rogan 2:18:54 Mm-hmm

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:54 ... and communicating ideas and-

Joe Rogan 2:18:56 Yeah, exactly.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:18:57 There he is.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:18:58 Oh, that's hilarious.

Joe Rogan 2:18:59 Yeah, yeah, his wig. [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:01 Uh, [laughing] um-

Joe Rogan 2:19:03 He's a fun hang in the green room, too. He's such a maniac.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:07 By the way, today is the... This is the 25th time I've been on your podcast.

Joe Rogan 2:19:11 Holy shit, dude.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:11 I was looking it up yesterday. I was like, "How many times have I been on the fucking show?" This is the 25th.

Joe Rogan 2:19:15 That's crazy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:19:16 That's crazy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:16 'Cause we used to do it all the time when you were just starting out.

Joe Rogan 2:19:19 I know, yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:21 We... And a lot of times, it was at the, um, Ice House.

Joe Rogan 2:19:24 Mm-hmm. Yeah, we did the Ice House. You did it at my house.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:19:27 And then when I finally got a s- a little mini studio-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:30 Mm-hmm

Joe Rogan 2:19:31 ... in that little strip mall.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:19:33 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:33 I know.

Joe Rogan 2:19:34 Oh, it's crazy.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:36 Those Ice House shows were crazy because we would have a stand-up show going, and then you'd have about six people on the podcast with a joint going the entire time in this small room. And, and I don't... I have never been high on stage in my life except for those shows-

Joe Rogan 2:19:52 [laughing]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:52 ... because it was secondhand smoke. I would literally get so baked in-

Joe Rogan 2:19:56 [laughs]

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:19:56 ... and then I remember going on stage right. And then, so you would go from the podcast to the stage-

Joe Rogan 2:20:00 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:20:01 ... and then you'd come back on the podcast. People would just swap out.

Joe Rogan 2:20:03 Yeah.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:20:04 And then I-

Joe Rogan 2:20:04 Ice House Chronicles.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:20:05 Oh, my God-

Joe Rogan 2:20:06 Yeah

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:20:06 ... dude, I, I was-

Joe Rogan 2:20:07 We thought about doing something similar to that at the Mothership, like putting together a podcast studio-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:20:12 Uh-huh

Joe Rogan 2:20:12 ... at the Mothership. We have considered doing that. I just-

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:20:14 Do you have space for it?

Joe Rogan 2:20:15 No, but I thought about buying another building next to me, you know, and then, like, doing something else with that, too.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:20:23 Yeah, build another stage, too.

Joe Rogan 2:20:26 I don't think so. I think we have enough stages.

Greg Fitzsimmons 2:20:28 Yeah.