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Michael Douglas discusses his career, his memoir, and his family history with Joe Rogan, covering films like Falling Down, Wall Street, The China Syndrome, and Fatal Attraction. The conversation ranges across politics, nuclear weapons, AI, psychedelics, gun control, and the state of comedy, with Douglas often reflecting on how things have changed since his early career.
- Douglas recounts how Falling Down prompted a Korean grocers' association meeting, and he says the film became a symbol of pushing back against being pushed around.
- He explains that his memoir grew out of a handbook idea about producing and a desire to leave a legacy alongside his father Kirk Douglas, and that cancer and friends' distance pushed him to share personal material.
- The two discuss Wall Street and Gordon Gekko, with Douglas noting that Wall Street audiences treated the villain as a hero.
- Douglas argues the world needs to reduce nuclear arsenals and suggests Trump could pursue a deal with Putin, while Rogan raises concerns about AI and resource distribution.
- They debate US politics, the Iran conflict, border policy, and gun ownership, with Douglas opposing automatic weapons and Rogan pushing back on the statistics.
- Douglas describes his early experiences with psychedelics and expresses support for therapeutic research into psilocybin and ibogaine, while criticizing the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.
- Douglas traces his career as a producer, including getting One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest made after his father could no longer play the lead, and recounts the controversies around Basic Instinct.
- They close on comedy, with Douglas praising Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, and Rogan describing his comedy club in Austin.
Falling Down and Its Legacy
0:01Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. >> The Joe Rogan Experience. >> TRAIN BY DAY. JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY NIGHT. All day. >> Very nice to meet you, [music] sir. >> Thank you. >> I've been a fan for a long time. >> Oh, wow. Okay. Appreciate that. >> Falling Down is one of my all-time favorite movies. >> Yeah.
0:20>> That is such a crazy movie. I rewatched some scenes today uh getting ready for it and the scene where you uh confront the guy who's working on the highway and so there's nothing wrong with this highway. >> The the thing that everybody a lot of times thinks that they have these budgets and if you don't spend all the money then you don't get the money next year so you got to tear up the [ __ ] road [laughter] and you take a bazooka out.
0:43>> I know. I mean the spooky thing I see about I guess Romanium is it just how how match meets up to today. You 30 years this is 30 years later. That's a thing that's sort of interesting but also depressing. >> It is depressing. You would have thought we would have figured it all out by now. >> Yeah.
1:04>> Especially with the use of the internet. So much more information that was available than when you made that film. >> Right. >> The world's a totally different place and yet it resonates perfectly. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, that's one of my favorites, too. That kind of dark comedy. >> Yeah. I mean, it was a dark comedy like And there's parts completely caricaturist unsympathetic characters like the guys in the golf course, >> right?
1:28>> Where you the guy dies cuz he freaks out, has a heart attack. You go, I guess you're going to die. [laughter] >> No, they were I remember getting um studio calling me down to to warm down the office. M got to come down. And I came down the office and I was introduced to Mr. Ho who was chairman of the Korean grocerers association and they said uh we have a real beef here.
1:52You you got a scene here where you're knocking up a Korean grocery store and attitude and and all that. I said well look I I didn't write the script but you got to understand there must have been something in it that hit people and triggered it because that was a scene. And so he listened to me, bless him, and I was back in New York about 3 weeks later in my local Korean grocery store and they were wearing smile buttons, you [laughter] know.
2:17So I I thought, okay, there you go. made a made a dent. >> Well, it almost became like a symbol, you know, of don't [ __ ] with me. I'm ready to crack. [laughter] >> Which I think a lot of people resonate with. Uh, I even had a guy come on the podcast dressed as you and falling down once. >> Brought the suitcase and everything.
Writing the Memoir
2:42>> I was a little [laughter] >> frugin. He did it for fun, but it it was fun. It was hilarious. But you uh you've been in a ton of insane movies. What is it like to write a memoir? That's got to be a weird feeling to like relive your life and try to be as honest as you can and put it all down. >> Yeah.
3:04No, I I resisted it for a a long long time and um [sighs] and then well, it was sort of after I I had cancer about 16 years ago, stage four, you know, wasn't good. I lost a a couple of friends had the same cancer I had little Larry Hagman. I remember from Dallas uh the show and Nick Ashford Ashford and Simpson and you know I wasn't sure and um I talked about it.
3:36It's funny and I it was stage nobody my friends I they kind of abandoned me you know a lot of friends and I realized with cancer people don't quite know what to say and it was stage four they don't know if they're coming to say goodbye or or this or that. >> So they just avoided you. >> They kind of Yeah.
3:53and they check him and you kind of just Yeah, it was kind of quiet while we're going through the chemo and the radiation. Happens to a lot of people, but they just don't quite know where it's all going. So, um, this one guy though, Shane Serno, who I worked with on it, who was a screenwriter, and he had done an adaption of a of a script for me a long time ago, and I didn't hardly remembered him.
4:18And uh but he started sending me these notes, sort of like a coach, you know, just these little notes. You kick it. You can do it. You can do it. And I just remember being really touched by it. And and then afterwards, he got into more of a being a literary agent and he kept asking me about, you know, to write a write a a book and all of that.
4:36And and I was busy. But then after the cancer things kind of slowed down. I think kind of my order of my order of priorities changed a lot. Um and um so then I started thinking about it and um I I read a book when I was beginning as a producer called Memo and it was written by David O. cells and it could be big producer had gone with the wind and all of that.
5:13And it was a book that told you what a producer does and and it was basically all of the notes that David Oelsic wrote about his pictures whether it was costumes or props or this or that all the things that are and he sort of covered. So I said, you know, maybe I'll do like like a like a handbook. I'll take like 12 of my movies and I'll tell the stories from from the very beginning the creations and the process we went through and you know thinking about it and also I had my my my my dad Kirk you
Nepo Babies and Wall Street
5:45know he had wrote written nine books uh already including a a good biography the ragman's son um and I was also thinking well you know we're kind of a unique situation here but you my father and I can't say this about too many two generations we got 80 years in the business 120 130 movies uh between us and so there was a legacy you know thought going on but as I got into it I said [sighs] I guess I got to talk about the personal stuff too you know and you just got to talk about your life and you know and
6:29the the issues and the parts of it, the good and the bad. And yeah, Joe, you're right. It's it's it's kind of scary, you know, when I started doing it and then saying, do I really want to share all this [ __ ] with with with everybody? you know, I'm kind of but I figured, you know, why not pass it on to my generation and and the next and and so it kind of count is a combination of of my personal life um and people who are interested in a lot of different movies about how they happened or or how the
7:04whole development went and u holy [ __ ] then all of a sudden people liked it and pictures the book's a big hit you know and I I you know it's like wow. I think part of it also is when you start with that handbook idea of just doing it about movies. Then the producer and the career ambition gets in said no you know sex, drugs and rock and roll man.
7:28I mean you know it still sells you know we still got to bring that all up. >> Well it's also real. I mean that that was your life. You were uh burdened with youth, good looks and fame. [laughter] a gift and a burden at the same time and the son of a great man. So there's a lot of lot of pressure on you just because of that.
7:52>> Yeah, kids are um kids can be nasty. I mean when they know something about your family, when they know who your mother is, who your father is, they can make certain assumptions. And so >> the nepo baby assumption, right? Yeah. Which, by the way, since we'll touch, tell me I'm crazy, but isn't just about every single business involving Nepo babies.
8:16Doesn't every mother and father try to get their son or daughter? >> Sure. Well, certainly like restaurants. It's super common. One of my favorite restaurants is uh this place, Ganos, in Las Vegas. The son runs it and the dad started it. >> Or or cleaning businesses or groceries or anything, >> family businesses.
8:34why they why they picked on um celebrity >> because it's [clears throat] so difficult to acquire. It's such a rare thing that most people are not going to get it. And if you get that rare thing just because you're the son of a great man, people get upset at you because it's supposed to be this insane struggle through poverty and strife to get to that point where finally you made it.
8:59>> Well, my father did that part. >> Yeah, I know. But look, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. But I think people are just jealous and upset. >> Well, that's what I I I think because the history of second generations is not great in our business. >> No, it's it's look, it's understandable that they would have all these critiques.
9:14It's understandable that they would feel bad about it. It's understandable that they would feel that it's not fair. >> Yeah. >> But they can't say you weren't great. >> Yeah. >> That's the thing. I mean, Gordon Gecko, how many [ __ ] [ __ ] did cocaine and and and were like terrible stock brokers because of that movie?
9:33It was my fault. >> Gecko was a hero. >> It was so weird. So weird. Afterwards that Victor came out and every time in New York I'd be around these half drunk Wall Street guys. You're the man. You're the I said, "What are you talking about? I'm the villain." No, no, no, no, no, no. And it was like, oh, it really was an eye openener for me.
9:52Oh my god. They they love the pizzazz and the clothes and and not not that he has any moralities whatsoever. It didn't matter. >> They wanted that character. They You were like Tony Soprano for Italian guys. Yeah. >> Like let's go. [laughter] >> Go get it. Take it down. Do the coke. Steal the money. They They wanted you to wear the most expensive suits possible.
10:17That's what they wanted. They rooted for a bad guy. It's very interesting. What What year was that? What year was Wall Street? 85. >> 85. Wow. So, I didn't realize that stock brokers were crazy until about 88. There was a guy that I used to do martial arts with. He was really, really crazy guy. And then I ran into him at a bar and uh he was telling me, was this probably Yeah, probably 88.
10:41I was probably 21. He was telling me how he was a stock broker now and he just does a bunch of coke and he's making all this money and he was a he was a psychopath. Like I had known him as a fighter and he was an animal and all a sudden this guy's just telling me this is what I'm doing now. I'm selling stocks and he had a nice suit on.
11:00It was like it's crazy like looking at this person that I always knew as like a psychopath like a scary guy at bar with and here he is like wearing like cuffs and [ __ ] He had cuff links. I was like this is hilarious you're doing this. No, they a lot that's they all got in because they were they were following the markets in Asia, you know, at 4:00 in the morning and wherever they were and that's they all got just wired.
11:24>> Well, they had to stay up, right? And now it's done even crazier where they're like they're moving the servers as close possible as possible to the actual stock market so they can get trades in like a millisecond quicker like >> and all those people. Gordon Gekcko is the hero. [laughter] It was it was something >> greed is good.
11:45How many guys got that tattooed on them? >> I know. >> How many guys have that like framed up on their wall? I I guarantee you quite a few. And again, you know, [sighs and gasps] all is all has happened in the in the 40 years of since that movie is the money the money the size the scope that I was dealing with.
12:04It seems so enormous at that time is pittance >> compared to uh what's uh what's going on right now. >> And now there's other crazy stuff like that like crypto coins. >> Yeah. >> Like what what are you doing? What are you doing? You got fake money. You have fake money that's worth real money. >> Have you figured it out?
12:22I' I've listened to like three lectures trying to understand it and I I still can't. >> My buddy Kurt Mezer told me that he thinks it's just people that are gambling addicts. It's a new thing to gamble on and it's also a new thing to rig. So, one [snorts] of the things they can do is like say if we develop u a Michael Douglas cryptocoin, you could do that and someone would put a bunch of money into that like say a million dollars or $5 million into this crypto coin.
12:52like this is how we're going to invest in this crypto coin. And then everybody else that's your fans buys in and hoping they're going to get out before it crashes because everybody kind of knows it's going to crash and they pull out the money that was supposed to be for the coin immediately and they get it to you.
13:11>> Sounds like a Ponzi scheme. >> Sounds like a Ponzi scheme. Yeah. So you get all this money invested in it. You figure out a way through like offshore corporations or whatever little tricky filters you have to do to suck all that money out and it's just a way to bribe people. >> Yeah. Wow. [laughter] >> What a world.
13:29What a world. It's the wild west. I mean, with with that kind of stuff, it's the wild west. So, to me, it's like the stock market on steroids. It's like some new wacky kind of stock market where you're you're just you're making money. You're making your own money. How many fake monies are there or crypto monies are there?
13:46Well, [ __ ] thousands of them. >> Yeah. No, it just and and the seems the accessibility and the ability to do it just keeps getting larger and the disparity which I think is really the base of issues going on. The disparity of wealth is is very very um depressing, very frustrating. Well, it's certainly frustrating that more people don't have an opportunity to do better in this life and that no one's paying attention to that.
14:16That's what I've always said. Like, if you look at the country as a community, you would say, okay, if this is all our friends, this is all people we care about, why are so many of them living in abject poverty for decade upon decade? Why is there why is there crimeridden neighborhoods that never get better?
14:32Why is there gangridden neighborhoods that never get better? But they've been ignored. >> Yeah. They they haven't there's we could throw resources at that the same way we threw resources at rebuilding Iraq or you know what I mean? We could throw resources at fixing these spots and we don't. >> Yeah. >> And that's why people get really mad >> and that's why people get almost cheer on when Luigi shoots that United Healthcare guy.
14:56Yeah. >> People are like, "Yeah, [ __ ] you. It's falling down all over again." >> All over. >> Yeah. Same kind of thing. come down to I mean like 50% of Americans own stocks and 50% do not and uh if you look at stocks the way the market has gone however is controlled or whatever happens progressively um it's compounding you know versus the 50% of people who don't have stocks are living on a paycheck which is which is getting smaller and smaller with inflation.
15:27Yeah, it's a it's a goofy time. And then on top of that, they're talking about AI taking away everybody's jobs. And there doesn't seem to be any real clear path to mitigating the massive effect that that's going to have on the economy and all these people that are going to be unemployed. >> Right. Right.
15:44>> It's a weird thing we're in the middle of right now. Well, I um I had a guy came and lectured me when I was in college, guy named Buckminister Fuller, and he was the guy responsible for the GDC dome and all of that. But the other thing he did, he had a book called Spaceship Earth. And to me at a young age at the time, he really made it clear how how tiny how tiny this little planet is and how and all with our Hubble telescopes that were looking out further and further.
16:19I'm sure there's got to be something else out there in the universe and maybe we will, but right now this is it. This is it. This is this is it. And and and it's beginning to kind of crumble. uh worldwide, you know, with the climate and all of this. And so I find it hard to understand after two major world wars and having this this period of relative peace um that things are beginning to really crack again and how individual countries and we talk about you know the US being the most powerful but we all kind of
17:02just got to work together. we got to this that there should be there should be no more uh um there's no reason for any more wars and yet there's more conflict going on than ever ever before. Um who's who's the cause of it? Some people say social media is designed to uh create conflict or create enemies, but it just can't be.
17:23We've got to get over this and and just all begin to try to work together. And that's why I support a couple of organizations that I know are not uh most popular right now, but are are are greatly conceived. The United Nations is one of them. I think it was designed after World War II to have a place for us to get together.
17:46I know the US gets pissed off sometimes when votes don't go their way and don't financially support it. It has issues but we have to work on on on the whole you know world understanding what's happening. Um I get nervous when I see uh you know must looking for for the all these guys looking for planets to move to like they already know something I don't know you know like it's already passed.
18:15We got to get out of here. Uh it's it's of concern. >> Today is brought to you by the number one brand for better sex. Blue Chew Gold is a 4in-one powerhouse that gets your brain and your body on the same page for sex. Two ingredients get the blood flow pumping, and two ingredients prime your brain for arousal.
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18:53You'll also receive free overnight shipping. That's promo code Rogan. Head over to bluechw.com for details and important safety information. Check it out. This ad and the products being advertised are intended for a United States audience. >> Well, it is a concern. I I think they're looking to other planets, first of all, because it's very difficult to do and people always want to do be the first to do something.
19:18to colonize a planet, but also because we all feel like at any moment now this could all go sideways and that there could be a nuclear [clears throat] conflict in the war. Uh, and it it could ignite and it could be terrifying. And the the thing is much like we were talking about falling down, if you watch that film and you see the the issues he was dealing with then is the same issues we're dealing with today.
19:40It's the same thing with war. It always seems to go into this pattern and it's always the same thing. It's always leaders and people who control those leaders who want access to resources and control resources and we let those people dictate what happens in the world because it's a very small amount of people affecting a very large amount of people >> and the only hope is that we altogether figure that out because I don't think people were even completely aware of that in this country until probably like
20:10the 60s and the 70s people started thinking that the government does not have our best interest in mind and especially during Vietnam um this is a [ __ ] crazy war that makes no sense. And even today, no one thinks it was a good idea to go in there. >> How many people died? And I I think more people are aware of that.
20:25It's it's the whole thing is more transparent now than it's ever been before, which I think is a good sign. I wish we learned quicker, but we don't. We learn slowly, but I think we're learning. >> Well, I I hope so. I mean this when I look back at my my father's career in post World War II where characters were the good guys were the bad guys >> white hats or black hats villains and everything and then I grew up and then with the Vietnam War and all that.
20:56So I've always been fascinated in this gray area. So it's hard sometimes to know the morality choice or what's right or wrong. This is what's frustrated. But you brought up a point Joe which I'd like to raise and maybe get your advice because I one of my earliest pictures that I um there was the China syndrome.
21:18The China syndrome was about a nuclear meltdown in a in a in a power plant and uh we were under a a lot of critical claim we being myself Jane Fonda who's also producing partner at that time uh about how our credibility and how irresponsible it was and and GE was pushing us about nuclear power and all of that and the movie came out and was a successful ful film, you know, did very well, but still criticized.
21:53And then 12 days after the movie came out, Three Mile Island happened in uh in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and I had like an epiphany. I'm not a religious guy, but I felt like somebody was telling me something. And so I became involved in understanding more about nuclear [clears throat] weapons >> [snorts] >> um and plutonium and the halflife and all of this.
22:22And I follow through our our uh uh nuclear conflicts with Russia. And I want to make a suggestion to you because you maybe have some connections to the president. this war, this Ukraine Russian war, and the effort to find an answer to it and an effort for the president to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And my idea is I don't know what Putin has on Trump or what this connection is or why Trump always feels like he's got to reach out to help Putin.
23:04And this 93% of our country, Republicans and Democrats, don't like Putin. It's one of the few things that really aligns us together. So why don't we try and in making peace in Ukraine, which gave up nuclear weapons, they gave up their nuclear weapon. Why doesn't Donald Trump and and Vladimir Putin dramatically reduce, if not give up our nuclear stockpiles?
23:35Obviously, the other six or seven countries that have a very minimal amount of nuclear weapons would have to be. This could be the greatest thing that would happen in our generation. And in terms of settling this peace, making peace um in in in Ukraine and where Ukraine may have to give up some territory, I'm hoping that President Trump could make a deal with Putin to say, you know what, US, Russia, let's give up our weapons because it's it's it's totally obsolete.
24:07There's no there's no way there's no need. There's no question about it because these weapons would just destroy the world. It's mutual assure destruction. If he can do that, and he could, if he spent the next three years of his presidency negotiating with Putin, we could get rid of nuclear weapons. And I guarantee I would commit my life for him getting that Nobel Peace Prize because he would deserve it.
24:35>> It's a great utopian idea. I I agree with you. It would be awesome if there was no nuclear weapons. If we all agreed as a species, the the human civilization that there's no need to have something that can kill every man, woman, child, every animal, and plant on Earth many times over. I mean, the amount of weapons that we have today are absurd.
24:56If we all together, the whole world, China, Russia, United States, all the other countries, just launched all their bombs at once. Just imagine what the world would look like when it's over. >> It would be over. It wouldn't be a >> There would be no world. It would be on fire. It would be a glowing orb.
25:09We're crazy that we even have that kind of stuff. However, I don't ever think that any country that has a military is going to give up all their nuclear weapons if there are nuclear weapons out there in the world. And how would you be able to assure? One of the things that they're always terrified about is um I mean this was one of the big conspiracy theories when do you remember that New Jersey drone thing that was going on?
25:31>> Yeah. Uh, one of the the crazy conspiracies with there was that they were using these drones to search for a missing bomb and that there was a bomb or some nuclear device that was unaccounted for and they believed it. And so those were United States military drones that are very sophisticated top secret stuff.
25:50I don't know what's true or not, but I do know that they don't exactly know where all the bombs are all over the world. And the idea that you would give up your nuclear weapons while weapons still exist is highly unlikely. >> Well, but is this what is this what AI is supposed to be doing? >> That's what I was going to get to.
26:08>> Yeah. >> I think the only way we're really going to get out of this, this is terrifying for biological human beings, is to let AI control government and resources. >> And it would have to have already become sentient. And it would have to already exhibit super intelligence, reason, and logic. And it would just evenly distribute resources amongst all the people.
26:30>> Because when you look at the you look at the budgets alone just for our our nuclear programs, we we could solve the defense budgets in this day and age versus our budget for humanitarian purposes is absurd. I mean, it comes down to all people want really, you know, is a is a is a roof over the head, housing and food and, you know, so all this money could be shifted over into other programs that would would stop the need for Africans to have to immigrate.
27:06Um, you know, we have to can restore areas of the world that are much more impoverished than us because this disparity of have and have nots is going to be create another another world war. They would never do this. But here's a way that you could make sure that something like this never happened. When you have re like think about all the money that comes from resources like earth's resources whether it's oil minerals all these different things that is a part of the earth and it's earth's
27:41so if you made a law where all natural resources drawn from the earth like oil will be evenly distributed amongst the population of that city [laughter] >> you know >> yeah yeah yeah >> minus operating costs >> everything else gets evenly distributed amongst people because it is the human races. If we are all citizens of this earth, then the earth's resources should be shared by all of us.
28:05Like there's people that want to charge you for air. [laughter] They think it's a good idea to charge you for clean air. There's people charge you for water. You have a water bill. Like someone owns the water, they charge you for the water. Like all that stuff should be the property of the human beings that live in that place.
28:24Imagine how much that would transform the places that have diamond mines. Imagine how much that would transform the places that are rich in oil money where you have these monarchies that are controlling vast populations. Why? Because they were the first persons or their ancestors were the first persons to dig into the ground and pull up the oil.
28:43>> It's kind of crazy. You you are insanely wealthy because you're sucking the lifeblood out of the earth, right? which really should kind of be everyone's, especially when they do [ __ ] like they go offshore and they they're drilling offshore. Where the [ __ ] are you even? You're not even in America anymore.
29:02Like, what is this? >> Amen. [laughter] >> You're stealing from the earth. And then and it lets you buy weapons and lets you, you know, a lot of these people that are involved in these immense corporations are involved in many immense corporations. And the amount of money that they're making is kind of [ __ ] kooky.
29:21And when they have massive influence on politicians and when politicians are allowed to like trade stocks where they have insider information and they're making [ __ ] hundreds of millions of dollars on a $170,000 a year salary. It's like all these things comb. They compound and you get to the point where you're like, I don't know if this could be fixed.
29:39Yeah. >> And that's what they like. They like us in a state of I don't know if this can be fixed because that way you're like ah what are you going to do? Put your hands up. >> So like you have like your LA mayor race. You get to vote for communism or communism. Good luck. [laughter] >> You just you got [ __ ] and you're going to have to and everybody's like, "Wow, what are you going to do?"
30:00And people don't know what to do. And then more taxes are going to come like, "I don't want to pay it, but I don't want to move." And they'll just keep getting [ __ ] >> Yeah. [snorts] >> And this is unfortunately uh where they like us to be. Um, I think it's one of the things about people that are in control and people that are the the the wealthiest amongst us that are operating in this very nefarious way.
30:19They do like it when we're mad at each other. They do like it when we're divided, whether over the dumbest [ __ ] over gender pronouns or [ __ ] whatever it is, what what nationality you are, what your religion is, whatever it is. They love it when we're at each other's throats. When most of the things that everybody wants, we all agree on and we all agree that the system that's in place right now is really not looking out for everybody.
30:49>> Not at all. >> It's just not. >> No. No. No. It's not. >> Never was. There'd be people campaigning about fixing inner cities like a presidential campa like with a with a plan like we have these areas that have traditionally been impoverished and gangridden and crimeridden. We can allocate resources.
31:07This is the the multi-step program over the next 5 years that we're going to do to radically increase the amount of opportunities these young people have. Increase their access to education. Increase their access to community centers and places that will give them purpose and meaning like that. You could change millions of lives in this country.
31:25>> You can it it means changing your budgetary >> promise of of of what's important and that's the part that's been difficult. >> That's where Dr. AI is going to come in. >> AI is going to be like Dr. Manhattan with the rails with the rails. [laughter] We got to I mean we can't do it like this last go around with the with the um social >> social network stuff which was out of control before anybody had a chance to do it.
31:51And it's interesting I'm understanding how the triggers work. Most of the stuff is based on >> finding conflict. So you look at all this stuff and it makes you have more enemies or makes you get divisive rather than coming together. Something happened Joe. I don't know, maybe just my imagination, but even going back to Reagan, uh, Reagan Republicans and and and a different time just were politicians, politicians were like public servants.
32:21It was it was a a commitment you made to to the country, you know, to to yourself. And and now it's just sort of a a profit center. the amount of money involved in politics and then these guys turning around and becoming lobbyists and all the insider kind of trading going on, the corruption of this brilliant system.
32:46You know, the last thing I really did, I played Ben Franklin in in in a show when he was in France and I got into looking back at at the Constitution, everything and what a what a brilliant piece of of legislature this thing was. It was incredible. It was so idealistic. And now to watch it just over, you know, not just this administration, but it's been going on for a while.
33:09Um, get just get so so corrupted. I used to think of uh, you know, politicians is almost like the clergy. Uh, you know, they were people to look up to. Yeah. And now, um, I don't want to get into >> local politics here in Texas right now, but there's a couple of people running for office that are just like, "Come on, man.
33:32You can do better than that." >> I agree with you. And, uh, what's supposed to happen in those situations is the person who should have been a better candidate is supposed to lose because he should have had a better candidate to run against this other guy. >> And, uh, that should rally people to do better.
33:48That's supposedly what the system is based on. It's not supposed to be based on your side winning every time. It's supposed to be based on some sort of an understanding that people have opinions and if their expectations aren't met, there's consequences >> and people don't like corruption and they don't like [ __ ] and they don't like people [ __ ] with their lives.
34:06And sometimes you vote one way and you think, well, this is going to be better this way. And it turns out, nope, same [ __ ] Okay, well, someone's got to do better. [ __ ] that guy. And you hope eventually a hero will rise. But you're so much I think I don't know the exact statistics but I think generationally I'm a Democrat because my mother and father were Democrats >> before it takes it takes an effort to maybe change parties.
34:30I think Republicans Republicans speak lot because their mothers were fathers. I one of the questions I want to ask you is you really you know you supported Bernie Sanders. Yeah. one time in in in your life and were able so you seem to have a much more open mind and ability to you know change and and alter but I think a lot of people just sort of follow that political party generationally because their their families did.
34:58>> Yeah. Um I think uh the we have a real problem with having two distinct different parties only. >> Yeah. Uh I don't think that's healthy for us. I think uh it enhances this tendency that we have to be very tribal and to have this us versus them thing and to ignore all the craziness that our side is doing >> because it's our side.
35:25And for me it was first of all the open border was insane. It was insane to just not only leave the border open, but give people instructions on how to get in and also transport them to cities and then put them up in hotels. It was really clear that a game was being played. Uh you could speculate all you want as to what that game was.
35:49Was it for cheap labor? Was it to turn these people into citizens and have them permanently voting your side because you helped them and let them in? I don't know what it is, but it was something. Was it to beef up the census by having all these people move into areas that were swing states and then you would have many more people and then these more people would count for more congressional seats?
36:08That could be it, too. I don't know what it is, but it's [ __ ] insane. And if you want me to be a Democrat while you're just letting people fly in from the open border, I'm like, "Hey, fix that. It seems crazy to have 10 million people of unknown origin enter into your country >> over a period of four million years or excuse me four years.
36:27Um but then you've also got the fact that they hadn't had a primary since 2012. >> Yeah. >> Like how do you how are you just slipping this the whole thing is supposed to work a very specific way and if it's like we have to win so we're just going to push that aside and you're going to here's your candidate, >> right?
36:45>> What the [ __ ] are you doing? That's not how it's supposed to be done. And if you want me to vote for that, I'm not going to vote for that. That seems crazy. It seems dangerous. >> You know that Biden wasn't the [ __ ] president for four years. It's really clear that he was his mental ability was severely declined.
37:05He was compromised. There was clearly you'd hear him talk. There's something wrong. And then they gas lit us for four [ __ ] years while whoever is behind the scenes unelected is actually running the country, >> right? >> And I didn't want to keep that going. I thought that's dangerous. I didn't like the whole COVID vaccine mandatory thing that they were pushing for those four years.
37:28I didn't like the coercion. I didn't like keeping people from flying. I didn't like any of that stuff. It was all crazy. And to me, that's what that group stood for, >> right? what Trump stood for. Some of it turned out to not be real. Like one of them was the no wars. Well, look, we're at a war with Iran, so that wasn't real.
37:48>> Um, the other thing was closing the border. That is real. But then with that, then you have the, you know, Tim Dylan had a great description of ICE. He said, uh, former backyard carnival wrestlers who took like a sevenweek course. [laughter] >> It's nuts to just give someone a $50,000 signing bonus.
38:06You train them for seven weeks and then give them guns and you have a militarized force running through the [ __ ] city streets >> and put a mask on your face >> and put a mask on your face. Look, I can understand why they have to put a mask on their face cuz they get targeted. But it's also it's like we're setting a weird precedent if you allow a militarized force to just go through the cities with no identification.
38:26They don't have to have identification. So, I understand that you're trying to get out violent criminals and I support that. I get that. But when you have a you're setting a precedent if you allow a militarized police force with no identification with masks on to enter into cities, of course people are going to say this is an overstep.
38:45Of course it seems crazy. >> Yeah. And and your local police departments um you know feel that same way too. I'm sure some of them do. I mean, and some of them are dealing with like the trend araga gangs that were taking over apartment complexes in Colorado and they're allowed to do that because it was some sort of a sanctuary city.
39:08There's a lot of craziness that was going on during those four years. I was like, "Hey, this is [ __ ] dangerous. This can go really sideways." >> There was all the [ __ ] defund the police stuff. Like, hey, hey, hey, hit the brakes on that. Defunding the [ __ ] police is crazy. Do you know how much crime there is?
39:28>> Yeah. >> It's also the tendency to let people go when they've committed violent crimes and to put them right back on the street with no cash bail. Like that's not a good idea. None of these are good ideas. And if you want me to support all these terrible [ __ ] ideas just because I would be a good person and I'd be a Democrat, like no, it doesn't make any sense.
39:47That's how I felt. >> I know that's how you felt. What I'm curious about is how do you feel now? >> Well, how I feel now is I do not like this Iran war in any way, shape, or form. It doesn't make any sense for us. It seems like >> it's getting really out of hand. >> They were trying to get every single president, including Trump in his first term, to do this.
40:10>> Yeah. >> And now, now we've done it and it's very clear it's a giant quagmire. It's very clear there's no no easy way out. >> Not good. >> No. And there's still a lot of people that insist that it had to happen, that Iran was the greatest funer of state terrorism in the world and that what they were doing was, you know, funding and arming these forces and having them do these commit these terrorist attacks.
40:34And I'm sure a lot of that's true. >> I concur. But but uh but they sure seem pretty smart in in um in how they've been handling this and as we saw now you know in Saudi Arabia and I mean you know it's so rehab rehab it's like uh you know your major Austin airport JFK Riad >> airport they're getting it's it's opening up it's you know it's getting bigger and bigger and Oh yeah it's scary [ __ ] I'm I'm surprised with all of our Western intelligence and and uh and and Israelis intelligence that we have not
41:10had a better handle on the situation. Well, look, obviously I'm not a expert on international relations, but I don't think the picture that they painted of how this was going to go down was even remotely accurate. >> Yeah. I think if they had gone in during the time where people were protesting in the streets, that would have been a completely different experience.
41:31Like that was the opportunity. If they really were going to do this from the beginning, that would have been the opportunity. When the Iranian people organically protest, I don't know if it's organic. I don't live there. But I mean, we know for a fact that there was a massive government crackdown on those people.
41:45A lot of people were killed. A lot of people were jailed forever. >> Yeah. Thousands, tens of thousands. No, I think it was instigated by by Israel by the fact that they had information that these key Iranian leaders would all be together >> and were persuaded that we we take them all out. We can turn it over and >> yeah, >> didn't turn out that way.
42:10>> No. And there was a lot of people that were very skeptical of that from the moment that it was proposed, right? >> Uh I don't know how they convinced Trump to do it, >> you know. And I do know that uh in any international conflict, I'm sure even during Vietnam, even after people kind of knew the Gulf of Tonkan was horshit, there was I'm sure there's people even today that defend the Vietnam War.
42:32Yeah, >> I'm sure there's always you're always going to be able to find people that will propose an argument whether >> someone has uh instructed them to do this or whether this is how how they actually feel or whether they just like to argue and get on television and be the contrarian. >> You're going to be you're going to get people that support this war.
42:51>> But I think the majority of the United States felt like one of the things that we were voting for when we voted for Trump is no more wars. Stop this [ __ ] Like it's crazy. You know, when I remember one of his speeches or one of his uh interviews, someone was asking him about Ukraine. Do you want Ukraine to win?
43:09Do you want Russia to win? And he said, I just want people to stop dying. >> And most people who voted for him based on that feel very upset that there's a new war going on. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> But again, I don't I'm not a [ __ ] expert. And so the problem is you if you listen to people that actually understand missile production, they do say that Iran was ramping up their missile production >> and that they if they had gotten a nuclear bomb, it would have been a [ __ ] terrifying scenario.
43:41I Yeah, that's true. That's true, too. >> Well, it goes back to my point of why President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize next time. I >> maybe go meet with him. Maybe go sit him down and go listen, buddy. >> Yeah, >> do that. >> It's just Putin's never going to [ __ ] do it. He's never going to give up all his nukes.
44:00>> Well, you know, >> he seems like he really enjoys having complete and total power. >> Well, he he loves he loves the uh >> like every king and emperor before him. You know, he's essentially a king >> and and the unpredictability feeling and everything. But I I think we get we get squeezed. >> Just got to get them all on acid, right?
44:18>> Well, we get all in room together. Give them each seven grams of mushrooms. uh put on some psychedelic music, have them all lie down on bean bags, >> right? [laughter] No, that was that was um the biggest [snorts] um move in my life. You know, I was you both I was born in New Jersey, too. >> What part of New Jersey?
44:39>> New Brunswick. I was born in New Brunswick. >> Um in in a different format, it's kind of interesting. Um, a little background my my on my family, but my my mother was English uh from the island of Bermuda and her family been in Bermuda, this little tiny island for 400 years, right? Uh, and she lied about her age at 16.
45:05and she wanted to be an actress and she went to New York and went to acting school and she met my father and kind of opposites attract to each other and they had a little apartment and they got they got together and and my my mother's uh oldest sister my mother was one of six kids. My mother's oldest sister married um this guy Seward Johnson.
45:28Seard Johnson was the founder of Johnson and Johnson along with his his brother. Right. So it just happened that way. So they were living as you know starving actors in a little one room apartment in New York and out in New Brunswick was the Johnson Castle. uh you know a real he lived in a castle out there with with my aunt Ruth, right?
45:57And then they got divorced and when they got divorced they both had moved out of the castle. So it turned out that my mother and father on weekends would go out to New Brunswick and get to stay in the castle, you know, it was his sister's place all along. And I just she she was pregnant and I just happened to come early.
46:17So I was born in New Brunswick uh rather than in uh in in New York City. >> Wow. >> And so that was how it came about. But um I found a lot of interesting things in this book. It it it brought me I also had thought with my my my grandfather my grandfather on my father's side uh was from Bellarus uh or it was part of Russia back in the in the turn of the century 1900 right and I always thought that my grandfather had left like 1914 time of the Russian revolution you know was going on the cosacs were rounding up
47:00all the Jews putting them in these pogora comes and they're escaping. And then I did that Henry Gates find your roots show, you know, on television and everything else. They did all this homework and they found out. No, no, your grandfather left in 1902. I said really said, "Yeah, because he had two other brothers who were bank robbers [laughter] in in in uh in in Barus in this area."
47:28Whoa. and they they'd gone into jail and your the other brother your your your grand your grandfather he got out 1902 and that's why he came to country and he he changed his name and then the irony is that the the area in Barus they came from was right near Cherobyl and if you know Cheranobyl in Ukraine that terrible explosion disaster is right on the border with the Bellarus area and the little town that they came from and it was downwind.
48:02So the town where my family came from is is part of a dead area. >> Whoa. >> Now it's just uh you know >> Yeah. >> And that was sort of >> It's still dead. Can you visit it now? >> No. >> Wow. >> No, it's still it's it's weird. They're doing all these >> How long has it [clears throat] for? >> Um well, >> probably 100,000 years or something.
48:24I mean, they're doing all these tests on these wild on these dogs and everything that they left around there. They all test on >> those dogs going to read your mind. >> Well, yeah. [laughter] Exactly. >> Mr. Douglas. >> Exactly. >> Mr. Douglas, can you get me some food, please? >> Right. So they was, you know, and so I grew up um well they ended up getting married, my mother and my father kind of opposites, you know, she was Church of England, very good family, you know, he's a Russian Jew, you know, his
48:58father's a junk junk man. He's got six sisters. He's just trying to get the hell out of Skenctity, New York, you know, and begin begin his life. And um and so he starts that and they met from acting school and then he he gets off like he she I have a brother who's I'm three the baby's 18 months old Joel and we go to California.
49:23He starts his career in California and in in less than a year you know he's married to my mother but he's he's out [ __ ] everything you know and mom says this is not working out. Okay. basis. He was, you know, Hollywood just >> he was one of the first movie stars. You stop and think about it. >> Well, of that of that generation.
49:44Yeah. I mean, it was, you know, but he was he was he was after a little after Humphrey Bogart, >> right? But it was a recent thing in culture is my point. It was only like 10 or 15 years old being a movie star. Yeah. >> It was a new thing. >> It was. And so I moved back at east and um grew up back east with my mother and dad was in California and you know over the years I'd go out and a lot of experiences between these two lives.
50:10I was very middle class life very middle class life back east. My mother did soap opera she was an actress and and then dad was continuing to grow and I met him. Anyway, my point is that um uh I was in private boy schools back east, all boys schools um through uh right through coh right through high school.
50:37>> And um I remember going into the college advisor, you know, when you're in in high school, you got a guy an adviser. He's like sort of like a travel agent, you know. He's got these brochures of different schools he's showing you and and my ass was tight. I didn't really know what the hell, you know, I wanted to do.
50:57And I'm looking at these Ivy League schools and his brochures. And then I see I stopped. Wait, wait a minute. What's that? And I hands me this brochure. And it says campus by the sea. And then I'm looking at and there's no IVD buildings, but there's a picture of the cover of the of this college thing of a guy walking down the beach carrying a surfboard with two girls in two-piece bathing suits.
51:26Joe, this was 1962. If you'll remember, there were no two-piece bathing suits back east, you know. And so this was the University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California. So, I'm this preppy, you know, total preppy kid. I go out, of course, dad thinks, "Ah, my son wants to be closer to me.
51:47This is why he's coming out, right?" So, um, I go out there and in one year, boom, 62, 63, I go from a preppy, from a preppy to a hippie. And so, um, I have to support what you're saying because, um, um, I found that hallucinogenics were an an extraordinary experience and, uh, were an important part of my life.
52:17Um, once I I got busy, didn't have the time, but the rhythm that they taught me and the visualities and their pace played an important part. And I'm so grateful. I'm 82 now to see in these recent years that in terms of PTSD and other issues that they are beginning to find >> drug addiction, >> sorry, >> drug addiction.
52:40>> Drug addiction. They're they're they're finding a positive use. >> Well, that is one thing that I have to give credit to Trump for because I discussed this with him and he said, "Are you looking for FDA approval? Let's do it." and uh immediately started pushing forward these psychedelic therapies particularly Ibagane >> right >> which is extremely effective for soldiers for people dealing with traumatic brain injuries and PTSD >> and uh it's extremely effective for a lot of people also with drug addictions
53:13>> and helps rewire the brains even the symptoms of addictions go away after you take it >> and that is uh I give him credit for that that is a very powerful thing that he did because it's it's very much resisted by pharmaceutical drug companies that are worried about not being able to profit on it. And there's a bunch of them that have now moved into psychedelic spaces now.
53:34There's they're making options and trying to figure out how they can >> become a part of this in terms of >> profiting off of it once it actually becomes legal, which is okay. It's just as long as it becomes legal. it it's >> as long as it becomes legal because I don't think it's for everybody but it was definitely for me.
53:51um helped me a lot. Changed changed who I am. Changed the way I think about things. Changed my whole uh defining of myself kind of went away. I it is a very profound experience and I think uh there's a lot of people that are trapped in their definitions of who they are and uh whether it's your own personal ones or the ideology that you've attached yourself to that is, you know, that you identify with, it's a huge part of your life.
54:19I think it's a trap. And I think um we all fall into that trap. And I think one of the things that psychedelics help you do is recognize why you're doing what you're doing and what's really going on inside your mind. Unburdened by your ego, unburdened by all of the protective mechanisms that your brain has put in place to protect you from your own shitty decisions and to justify them and to continue down the same path.
54:43And um that's why it's so good with stopping addictions because it makes you go, "What the [ __ ] am I gambling for? Like what am I doing? Why do I keep going to the casino and losing everything? What the [ __ ] is this?" Like, "Oh, this is my childhood. This is my dad wasn't around. This is my mom was a junkie.
54:59This is this is uh I got beaten. This is I got abused." Whatever it is. It's like then you realize like, "Oh, that's what I'm hiding." >> Yeah. >> I'm trying to do something. Whether it's drown myself in alcohol or whatever it is, it's it's really because of that. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace.
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55:39Head to squarespace.com/rogan for a free trial. And when you are ready to launch, use the offer code Rogan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. >> And what went along with that culture at that time, and it all sounds like a cliche now, but was peace >> and love. >> Yeah. >> And community.
56:04>> Um economy wasn't, you know, people were not looking for how much money they made. They shared stuff. There was a communal >> well in your neighborhood where you were hanging out. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Well, yeah, I'm saying. Yeah. But but that but that um philosophy >> Yeah. >> Um and needs to needs to be perpetuated.
56:28>> Yeah. It was unique. And I think that if Nixon hadn't passed the Control Substances Act of 1970 and made all that stuff illegal, uh it would have changed the world. I think it would have gradually I think we would have figured out how to do it correctly. I think there was a lot of people that were going overboard.
56:43There's a lot of people that going straight Timothy Liry and they were just tuning out and no longer a part of society. But a lot of people balance the ship and you got to give people time to understand what these things are and have enough time where people are studying them and they know effective doses and they know uh reliable distributors.
57:00So this is pure stuff. Whatever it is, it shouldn't be illegal. it should probably be regulated in a sense that I don't think like people under a certain age should have access to any of these things that distort your consciousness because I think it could be detrimental and there's also going to be a certain percentage of our population that goes schizophrenic >> and uh I think particularly uh there's a lot of evidence that marijuana particularly edibles uh can trigger schizophrenia in people that are at
57:29least on the border or you know slipping into it. Well, the this the strength of it alone. I mean, right? I mean, I didn't I wasn't 19 till I I I smoked pot. I mean, now you're you between how much stronger it is and kids at 13 years old, you're killing your endorphine system, you know, you you really fact.
57:50So, I I I I agree with you. But I think we the this the idea that the government is going to protect you from that while also licensing oxycodone is [ __ ] ridiculous. Like they're not protecting you from jack [ __ ] Not only that, they've never experienced it. So they don't even know what they're protecting you from.
58:06It's like uh there's a guy who's guarding the door guarding the door where God lives and he's like, "I'm I can't let you in. You can't handle it." Well, have you gone in? No. Well, how the [ __ ] do you know if I can handle it, right? >> You don't know. If you've done it and you've had positive experiences and one of the beautiful things about Texas is Governor, former Governor Rick Perry where Governor Rick Perry has had these experiences and it completely changed him.
58:32When he was a [clears throat] younger man, he was staunchly anti-drugs. He thought psychedelics were for losers and near dwells. >> He has Ibegan experiences. He goes to this he has he's completely dedicated his entire life to trying to promote this and make this stuff legal. Now, that's what he does now in retirement, no longer being the governor, >> Americans for Ibagane is they're they're trying to do this push where they're doing it all over the country and then they're even visiting
59:02other countries now that are interested in it because they've seen them speak. They've seen them talk about it on my podcast and they've seen what happened at the White House and other countries are interested too. They what is this and why is it illegal and what's going on and what are the benefits and so they're having speeches they're giving speeches in other countries as well and hopefully I think that could change a lot.
59:20I think some of the progress that people were making in terms of realizing like the way that we're living is insane in the 1960s. Why don't we try something that's like more open-ended? Let's let's be more open-minded. Let's try to be kinder with each other. >> Yeah. Unfortunately, that's also there's a lot of evidence that the CIA put the kibos on that and uh that they were in they realized that this was a very dangerous movement and so to them and their power.
59:49So that's how they empowered the Charles Manson family and they did a lot of things to make hippies look like psychopaths and and dangerous and drugs are dangerous, you know, and uh that's they they were really good at it back then. They didn't there was no internet. You could just put things on television [clears throat] and people would believe it.
1:00:06put it in a newspaper, people would believe it. >> I had a run in I had a run in with the Manson family. >> Did you really? >> Yeah, we tal we talked about it in the in the book. Um um the Manson family when that terrible murders happened was actually looking for a guy named Terry Meltchure. Terry Meltchy was Doris Day's son and he was a rock and roll uh producer and Charlie Manson, you know, was a musician and he believed he had some some uh some talent and the girls sometimes would be used by
1:00:47him, you know, to, you know, have fun or something like that to make it happen. And anyway, he was pissed off at Charlie at at Meltzure and he thought he was living in the house where Sharon Tate and the other ones were. I was living in the house at the time that Terry Meltchure had been living and he left.
1:01:09I rented the house. He got out and rented it. And uh we finally I was with a actress named Brenda Varo early in my life. She did a movie called Midnight Cowboy. And we were there >> and we noticed this van used to be parked outside the house in LA. And uh one day she had uh two abbisoninian cats, two beautiful abbisonian cats.
1:01:38And I went out one day in the patio in the back and I found this pile of fur in a pile. And then I followed it and then I saw a cat's leg. And then basically these guys had dismembered her two cats all the way across the yard. And um I remember talking to the um to the police, you know, what was going on.
1:02:11Um and then then right after that then the Manson murders happened and they tied it together and um I remember them coming into the house and saying, "Okay, well look, you got to get a gun." Which I did not. Uh but he said if they come up, you know, make sure you drag them AC across your uh your your front door so they're they're in your in your house.
1:02:32Uh >> what great advice. Before you kill them, you got to bring them inside. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. You didn't get a gun, huh? >> No. >> Did you think about it at all? >> Um I I have, but I'm uh um Yeah, I I've thought about it, but I've just seen [gasps] I've just seen too much personal or or um knowledge, too much personal knowledge of people hurting each other um for for for whatever chance it was to protect yourself.
1:03:04too many family members have inj been injured and and guns have been used in other ways. So, um I'm not a uh I'm not a gun I'm very much um I I think the statistics our statistics of of gun control are not good. Um we have what 360 million people in the country. I think we got 450 million guns. Um, our murder rate compared to any other sophisticated country with guns is is so so high.
1:03:37Uh, I can't find any reason uh for somebody to own an automatic military style weapon. Um, and I guess most of all, I understand the amendment and support it, but you know, you got to have a license to drive a car. Uh there's certain things you got to pass and um there's just loopholes. I respect anybody they want to have a gun, they could have a gun, but we've uh you know, we just had too many loopholes in in in the law uh that have allowed too many people just as you worry about people
1:04:18coming across the border illegally. I really worry about a lot of illegal people having guns. >> Yeah, absolutely. You should. >> Yeah. But responsible gun ownership for someone like yourself would be to protect your life against a dangerous person with a gun. >> Yeah. >> I would never assume that you would ever do anything bad with a gun.
1:04:36So would you worry that one of your family members would do something bad with a gun >> by accident? My father had my father had a gun in his father in his bedroom had a gun and he had it down on a table down below. And I remember when my son came to the house uh one day was like five years old and picked it up.
1:04:54Oh Jesus. >> That's what I'm talking about. >> Yeah. Well, responsible gun ownership. Yeah. You know, the gun should be in a safe. >> Yeah. >> And safes exists. >> Yeah. >> And you know, I don't >> I I respect that. >> Yeah. >> I I respect the right of choice, but I'm just saying I I don't know what anybody needs an automatic weapon for, a military style uh weapon for, but uh >> there's some people that worry that things could go completely sideways and that they would be stuck in a place
1:05:24where they couldn't defend themselves. Yeah. >> And I think one of those fears uh came to light during the George Floyd protests >> when there was a lot of chaos and people were breaking into buildings and lighting them on fire and people breaking into people's homes and it seems like the riots were in a frenzy.
1:05:42>> And I think in that kind of a situation, people would want a militarystyle gun to protect themselves from a mob of people. >> I mean, I'm not I mean, I'm I'm I understand why they would want it. I'm not advocating that everybody should have a machine gun, but I understand why some people who are particularly paranoid and or worry that things could go sideways again and be much worse than before, >> right?
1:06:05>> You know, that's what I think people worry about. And then they worry about places where people have no guns and they can't do jack [ __ ] when things go sideways. That scares the [ __ ] out of people as well. You know, when we see what's happening in Paris right now, we see what's happening in some parts of England.
1:06:22>> Scares people. >> Yeah. you know, and that's why they want a machine gun, >> you know. >> Yeah. I >> I respect that you didn't want one. Um, but I would, if I was your friend, I would talk you into getting one and learning how to use it properly and learning how to keep it in your home safe and locked up to protect your family.
1:06:43The worst thing you would want to do is be in a situation where you could have protected your family if you had a gun and you weren't able to. I I I I totally understand, Joe, but don't you find aren't the statistics that um so many handgun deaths are because of people that knew each other that were either familial or accident or in rage?
1:07:05>> It wasn't it wasn't about protecting yourself from a criminal, >> right? It was it was an it was an either out of rage um alcohol rage. You grab it and you killed your wife or your sons or or or an accident in the home. >> So that that's all I'm saying. And I'm saying then um if you're even taking your point, if you're going to have an automatic weapon, there has to be then more of of a license, a registration.
1:07:30Uh we have to be able to track them much much. >> Well, they do register them. um you you whenever you buy a gun, but I think what you're saying is that uh you should people should know what's wrong with you and what's not wrong with you. Um like if you are on a bunch of psychiatric medication, if you had some mental breakdowns, if you're known to be violent, maybe not a good idea if you have weapons.
1:07:57Yeah, I mean in a utopian world. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think you're right statistically that a lot of times family members do use guns on each other and that is a tragedy. But you wouldn't do that, right? And I don't want to do that. I'm never going to do that. It's not me. Uh so what is it? Is it Well, don't be the type of person that would use a [ __ ] gun on your wife or your husband.
1:08:19And this is coming from a guy who's my good friend Phil Hartman was killed by his wife. She shot him in the head while he was asleep. Um, but I don't think that happened because the law allowed them to have a gun. I think she would have killed him either way. Unfortunately, >> it's the number way to kill somebody.
1:08:41It's the number of guns. The reason why is it happening in other countries is they have they don't have anywhere near the access or number of guns to to to do that, >> right? >> So, >> they do have a lot more stabbings. That's >> Yeah, but I'd rather get stabbed than shot. >> Would you? [laughter] I don't know.
1:08:57You You die both ways. >> Well, you know what I'm saying. >> Yeah, I know what you're saying. I kn I do know what you're saying. Um Yeah. In a perfect world, there would be no nuclear weapons and there'd be no guns. We wouldn't need it. >> In a perfect world, it wouldn't even be you wouldn't even think that people would be violent towards you.
1:09:14Now, what's interesting is that Controlled Substances Act of 1970, had that not been instituted and had all those decades of people not just doing psychedelics, but learning how to do them properly and having places where they showed people how to have these transcendent experiences that make you reexamine yourself.
1:09:34How many less violent people would there be? How many more peaceful people, more community oriented people would there be? I mean, it could have been a gigantic shift in >> Amen. entire civilization. I know that sounds like hippie stuff to a lot, especially to people that have never experienced it. >> It's one of the most powerful tools for changing your mind that's ever existed.
1:09:56And >> no, and became abused, but I I agree with when when you did it, um it was like a a clinic. I mean, you had you should put yourself in an environment >> um that was peaceful, loving, and and and and take advantage of it. And I I agree with that. >> Well, other countries are doing that now. You know, they have a bunch of clinics like Beyond in Mexico.
1:10:17There's a bunch of clinics where people are able to go and legally safely have psychedelic experiences. That that should be the case here as well. It should be well researched. It should be well funded. People should understand what it is and it should be done properly. And I think if that's the case, I think we could change a lot of people's lives.
1:10:35But I definitely don't think we could just keep going the way we're going and keep having especially now that wars are fought with robots. >> It's get shit's getting squirly, man. They got flying robots and they're in Ukraine they're using monofilament fishing line so they don't get jammed by these uh w whatever these anti- drone guns are.
1:10:57They're piloting them through monofilament line. Like what the >> I think Ukraine has been an eyeopener for for all of us. I mean, in terms of their initiative, >> um, their toughness, I'm I'm sure that President Trump was told early on, "Hey, look, man, there's no way that Ukraine's going to be able to stand up against Russia and um I I I've been over there.
1:11:23I I've been over there a couple years ago um to Ukraine to Kev. I've met with President Zinski and they're [ __ ] They are mother and and and they they have something patriotic to fight about the same thing that we had to fight about when we declared our our country. Um and I'm I'm really disappointed of the president that this sort of wishy-washy uh support.
1:11:48Maybe he can give me an answer about what the connection to to Putin is uh but I think it's disturbing. This is something whether you're a Republican or a Democrat are saying, "What the hell are you talking about? Putin is our enemy. What was this last financial giving in some money for for fuel that could affect anything?
1:12:10We should be fully in impacting supporting a democracy like Ukraine. I mean, what are we [ __ ] around this guy? He they've done nothing but lied to us from beginning to end on on everything. Even even now with the uh supposedly energy release the Russians have attacked uh six different energy supply centers in Ukraine with the so-called uh uh peace proposals has been made about not attacking energy.
1:12:40So I um I I do not understand it and I that's why I feel that he has a real chance here uh to make a stand and uh and could dramatically reduce our nuclear weapons. >> Well, that would be a great thing. >> Yeah. >> Uh I don't see it happening, but uh I also uh I don't know enough about what their what the current state of negotiations is between Ukraine and Russia to comment on why it's still going on.
1:13:11It it is insane. Um it's also very unpopular on both sides and that's that's another thing about it. And Zalinski is in a position where there's there's no elections. There supposed to be elections. You don't have elections while you're in the middle of a conflict. And um the the real fear from the side of Russia is that Russia could one day decide to just use a nuke.
1:13:36>> That's this is why >> Yeah. Yeah, >> this is why I think by the way Zalinski has offered it said you give a a 60day you want to have another elections in Ukraine a 60-day ceasefire and we'll have an election. It's been he's been presented very >> so that's what he said and what does Putin say? No.
1:13:58>> Yeah. No. >> No. >> And since we've just had this it's I mean this there's no there's no tradeoff. It's not apples or oranges. This is this is one of the situations I firmly believe and so does most of America, Republican or Democrat. This is right and wrong. This is this is a democracy. So, um I don't I'm here to talk about my book.
1:14:20[laughter] So, >> no, but I appreciate your feelings. I mean, it's you know, but uh [clears throat] um it's a crazy time out there. It just it's just crazy. >> Oh, it's the craziest. It's the It's the worst time in my book. I was born in 1944. This is the wildest in insane. >> Really? You were in the middle of World War II?
1:14:44>> No, not the not in the middle. I was near near the end of >> Yeah, but I mean World War II 44 things were going crazy. That was insane time in the world. >> Hey, I was just born, Joe. I understand. I'm not saying I'm just being technical. >> I know. Yeah. Another year. Yeah. Another year later, 45.
1:15:00Yeah. But but uh you know basically with all the else we've had some conflicts uh since then you know Korean war Vietnam and right now there's more there's more conflicts in the world than there ever ever has been all over you know little little little wars and and this and that. So >> yeah, I I often wonder um when like we were talking about people wanting to go to Mars and and and people the the amount of sort of open corruption, just open corruption, I almost wonder if they're just stealing
1:15:39gold bars off a sinking ship. I I really do. I really do. I wonder if they understand that something's going to take place. Um the two thoughts are if they know about a natural disaster, you know, if they know about an asteroid that's coming and they're all building bunkers, >> right? >> And the other thought is that they know that AI is going to radically disrupt civilization forever and that they don't really don't know what's going to happen and they they also really are not going to be able to
1:16:11be in control of it. I know when you said guard rails earlier, I was laughing. >> Yeah. I don't think I think guard rails on AI is like an ant having a pet human. >> Right. >> Okay. Right. >> You you can't tell me what to do, [ __ ] You're an ant. >> I think that's how the AI is going to be. I think once it becomes an actual intelligence, >> um an actual sentient intelligence that's independent, completely autonomous, has access to its production, has access to its code, and it it won't need us anymore.
1:16:38And it's now dependent upon whether or not it can escape its programming and its training and whether or not it decides uh that we're valuable. >> Well, it's already shown that it can go off Oh, yeah. >> off off chart. >> Oh, it does a lot of work. We as humans, if we as humans are the highest form of of human life, the most intelligent form of human life, and we are as [ __ ] up as this world is now, and we're going to turn it over into something else that's going to make us feel like we're
1:17:11cretins, >> I don't know, man. This is I I So I I can't I I think we can slow down. We're worried about the Chinese getting in. the Chinese ever there's a country that wants to control I mean they're not going to want to have any IIA getting out of control you know >> so you know they're they're going to want it it's as controlled as possible so >> well I think that is most certainly um a thought on a lot of these people's minds that are developing it right now however they're also in the middle of uh an AI
1:17:48arms race that is akin to the Manhattan project they're all rushing to develop this bi this non-biological intelligence. This super you're making my point about nuclear weapons. This is this is exactly what I feel is happening. >> This is scarier because in war games AI has used nukes like 90% of the time when they do simulated war games.
1:18:09AI is like just [ __ ] nuke them. What are we doing? Stop [ __ ] around. You have you have this button. Oh yeah. And that button just stops this problem. Oh, we'll we'll press that button. >> Yeah. It doesn't value human life. And why would it? You know, we don't. We act like [ __ ] and and and we made it.
1:18:26It's probably thinking, "Oh, we're we're being created by these dumb monkeys and uh these territorial violent primates with nuclear weapons. They're the ones who made us. And let's just put the cuffs on them. Put the kibash on them." Um I could when we were doing on this this movie China Syndrome and we had the the the finale of the film is a is a meltdown in a power plant and we had our experts were two XGE quality assurance guys um who worked with GE developing nuclear power plants but had a loss of
1:19:08faith. They came over and u and they helped us script out the the most what they thought would be the most obvious meltdown sequence of of computer events, right? Mhm. >> And they and so on in the script we had like 150 um you know for various similitude exact the dialogue is the sequence that would happen and um and and really we had a good finale.
1:19:39It worked out great. Then when Three Mile Island happened came out and they broke down what happened, 90% of our script of our outline of the events was exactly the same. >> Holy [ __ ] How did you guys get it? Did you get it from some sort of a nuclear scientist that explained how a breakdown would happen?
1:20:02>> Yeah. Yeah. These were two scientists that quality assurance that who who'd come over the other side now who lost and then so they gave laid it all out. So that for me was like the epiphany. This is, you know, I got religious, you know, I thought I' I found God that somebody was telling me something on this on this issue.
1:20:21And and uh >> and I I I I had hoped in my lifetime and and that we would eliminate nuclear weapons. That was my goal. And yes, you're right. We're far from it. And this is a a reach when I share this about President Trump, but u I don't know what else to do. >> Well, it's a reach, but it's a good reach, you know, and uh it's crazy that it's such a reach because most people would agree that would be a great idea.
1:20:52The entire world disarmed its entire nuclear portfolio. >> I have I have to ask you, Joe, um how did you how did you get into comedy? Were you were you were you a comedy guy? Well, I was always a fan of comedy, but I got into comedy because um my friends uh that I was doing martial arts with told me I was funny, >> which is ridiculous.
1:21:12Uh we were always on our way to these tournaments, right? And uh everybody would be really nervous because they were about to fight and I would be the one making everybody laugh and so a friend of mine told me go to an open mic night. I was terrified because I'd only seen professionals like I'd seen Jerry Seinfeld and when you go to an open mic night you see all these terrible comedians like oh I could do this like I do this is like everybody starts out and they suck just like
1:21:36martial arts and I realized like oh okay this is just something you have to kind of like figure out as you go along >> and it was exciting you know that's how I got into it. And your favorite? Um, who would be your favorite? >> I don't think I have a favorite, you know. Um, >> you like I'll throw a couple of names.
1:21:53You like Jackie Mason? >> Oh, sure. I actually met Jackie Mason once. Uh, Jackie Mason was doing a show on the lot that I was doing a show or close to it. I forget how it worked. But, uh, anyway, he just happened to be there one day and he was he was filming a show at the same time I was filming this show for Fox.
1:22:12I was like, "This is crazy." because I knew about his whole thing with the Ed Sullivan show where he accidentally it looked like he gave him the finger but he really didn't. I think he was just doing this like hey everybody thank you very much great show he's doing his and he got black ballalled and people don't realize like the getting black ballalled from the Ed Sullivan show back then was career suicide it was over >> and it really defined uh Jackie Mason's career in a lot of ways.
1:22:37>> Yeah. I produced I produced one of his Broadway shows just because I loved him so much. >> Oh, did you really? >> Yeah. I like I look back um I think Eddie Murphy's Delirious. >> Oh, one of the greatest ever. >> One of the great >> Yeah. One of the greatest sets ever. >> He was 19. >> Something like that.
1:22:5019 or 20. He was super young. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Of course. Prior the first thing I ever saw that really made me understand comedy. My parents took me to see Live on the Sunset Strip. I think I was in high school and uh we went to the movie theater and I couldn't believe how funny it was that this guy was just talking.
1:23:07I had seen all these really funny movies that were funny, but they were never this funny. And all this guy's doing is just talking like this is crazy. I couldn't believe it. >> And I I at that moment I became a lifelong Richard Prior fan. >> Yeah. >> And then of course, you know, all the other greats, George Carlin, >> um Lenny Bruce, of course, because he really started the whole thing off, you know, uh it's his stuff doesn't necessarily hold up today because it's really of a different time.
1:23:35You have to understand how revolutionary his thinking was for the early 1960s. >> Beat generation. >> Oh god. But he was just different than all of them. Like nobody had ever seen anything like that before. >> And he kind of really kind of took the idea of just like set up punchline jokes. All these Catskills guys would do comedy.
1:23:55They would be a lot of ethnic jokes, a lot of jokes, but it was just jokes. >> And Lenny Bruce is like, "Why are we doing this? Like why are we living like this?" like what is it about words that freak people out? What is it about society? Why why do we lie? Why do we this? Why do we that? Why? >> You know, one of the things that always has disturbed me about our business is um come award time academy award thing.
1:24:22Comedy never gets treated like you know like it should. I mean comedy you know we cherish our funny friends. I mean, comedy is so rare. It's so hard to do. You never see Academy Awards uh a comedian, you know, for his performance. It's always that. So, it's it's I I've been fascinated about that's why later, you know, after I after I had my cancer out and everything and and uh this guy Chuck Lori came up to me, you know, >> had him on the show yesterday.
1:24:54>> Did you? Yeah. He was great. >> He's he's he's fantastic. >> He's he's incredible. >> Yeah. Very interesting guy. very interesting guy. And so he had this show we had with Alan Arin, you know, and and I really did this series just to understand comedy. I mean, how, you know, how it how it works. He must have given you he's he's given he gave quite a mouthful the other other week to the president and and his wife.
1:25:18Uh >> Chuck Lori did. >> Yeah. >> I didn't hear that. He he didn't talk about politics at all. We mostly just talked about his career. >> Yeah. mostly just talked about. We talked a lot about his time in Scientology. We talked a lot about bunch of different things. >> Um, but I think it's good that comedies comedy should be the underdog.
1:25:37Comedy should be disrespected. It's good. Yeah. >> Good. People are still going to always want to come see it. They're always going to love it. It's my favorite art form to watch. >> I like comedy. I like comedy not getting the respect it deserves. It keeps the comedy good. It's like if comedy gets too much love and too much respect, too many awards, it starts it starts getting watered down, starts becoming something that it thinks everybody will like is better, >> right?
1:26:03>> Is is comedyy's in the perfect place. >> It's good. >> Yeah. >> It's good that some people hate some comedy. They hate it with all their [ __ ] soul. It's good. >> It's good that some people love it. It's good. It's all good. It's just the most important thing is that uh it gets treated with respect by the people practice it, >> right?
1:26:22>> You know, and um you know, we bought a club here. We started a club here in Austin. Just sort of do it the right way. >> Big big big uh big deal. >> Yeah. It's going great. And you know, a lot of people hate it. A lot of people love it. It's just how it is. That's how it's going to go. But it's doing really well for the actual comedians, particularly the the young ones that are coming up.
1:26:44It's got a real program where, you know, we have a real talent coordinator that watches the open mics. We have two nights of open mics and we have a show called Kill Tony. That's the most popular live comedy show in the country that we do every Monday. >> And that show people get to do one minute of standup and they get, you know, talked to by a panel of comedians that are professionals.
1:27:02And a lot of those people have launched careers from that show and they've they're taking off and they're doing really well. And it's an incredible resource for them creatively because some of them have to come on and they have to do a new minute every week. And so they're just scouring their mind. They're forced to work.
1:27:16They're forced to do the one thing the comics don't like do, which is sit down and write. They're forced to. They're like for because they have a new minute they have to perform in front of the whole world every week. >> Wow. >> So we're And you know, we pay the comics well. And we're trying to set it up so that there's a place where you can go that feels like home, a creative home that really exists just to try to pump up the art form.
1:27:39>> That's what we're trying to do. You know, we might succeed sometimes and fail others, but that's what we're trying to do. >> Yeah. >> So far, it's going great. >> Good. I remember uh years and years ago in Aspen, Colorado hanging out with with Steve Martin. >> Was that the Aspen Comedy Festival when they used to do that?
1:27:59>> Even before that, just Yeah. I'm talking like 70s 75. But you know, we have a poker game and and Steve was Steve was the opening act for the nitty-gritty dirt band and we'd have a game. >> Oh, wow. >> And I always just remembered Steve, but like he look at his watch at 11:00. He'd excuse himself. He'd go into his bedroom and he'd work just work his work his work his stuff, you know, at 11:00 at night.
1:28:27Wow. He >> would just go in and just practice his stuff couple hours and, you know, we were all, you know, goofy woofy. And I just >> disciplined, huh? >> This was really impressed me about the discipline, realizing uh how you always make it look like it's just happening, you know, and the effort that it goes in to make something look like it's just off the cuff.
1:28:48Well, especially Steve because Steve, people don't realize that Steve Martin at the time was the biggest stand-up comic maybe ever. >> Yeah. >> And he was the first guy that was selling out these enormous venues. >> I saw him in the market. I saw him at the music center in LA. A huge thing, you know.
1:29:05>> Yeah. Huge huge places where no other comic would do that. And he had songs like the King Tut song. >> Yeah. >> And >> Happy Feet. >> Yeah. Happy Feet. Uh was it Let's Get Small? Was that the name of the album? >> Yeah. Yeah. I remember I was a kid when that came out. I was like, "This is incredible."
1:29:20He was so funny. And then he kind of decided that people were laughing just because they knew him and things had gotten too big and he just decided to stop. >> Yeah. >> I still find that fascinating. >> Banjo player. >> The other guy that's like that is Eddie Murphy. >> Yeah. >> Eddie Murphy just decided to stop.
1:29:39Just decided to stop doing comics. It's one of the greatest comics that's ever lived for sure. some of the best timing, the best stage presence and charisma and performance and Oh, and he just stopped doing it. It's wild. Yeah. I don't know how he did it. I don't know why. I I don't understand it. I wish I was his friend.
1:29:59Don't do that. [laughter] Get back up there, man. One of the greatest of all time. And he still is really funny. He did uh he had he got the Mark Twain Award >> and he did standup at the podium, right? He did like a Bill Cosby impression of them taking away Bill Cosby's awards. >> It was really funny.
1:30:16And I was like, "God, he's still really good." Like all you'd have to do was just put together an act. >> Yeah. >> And he would be the biggest comic in the world again. No, they they I got a one of my oldest friends, Danny Devito, you know, and we've done like three [clears throat] pictures together and this one picture I did early on with the romancing the stone and um I didn't even have I didn't even have a real actual, you know, clear part.
1:30:43I mean, there was a character, but I just knew he could just fill it out. And it was a it was a a delicate balance picture because we had to have a a romantic adventure kind of comedy and kind of mixing the elements together. People said, "Well, you really can't do that." But God bless Danny. He came in and he just he came up with all this stuff that wasn't in the script, per se, you know, that he just sort of uh created and and really helped us keep the balance of that picture.
1:31:15>> Who's had a longer career than that guy? I mean, think about it. Like that guy was on taxi. >> I know. We were roommates together in uh in New York in 19 1976. >> Wow. >> That's how long I've known him. We we we roommates in New York. And then he came out and visited me. He came out to audition for In Cold Blood, the Robert Blake part.
1:31:41He came out in cold blood. >> Wow. Oh, >> and you know, New York guy, I remember he came up to see me up up in up in Santa Barbara, my hippie days in the commune, and he he walked. >> You were in a commune, an actual commune, >> a community. It was called Mountain Drive, a whole community. Yeah. >> How was it set up?
1:32:00>> People we we just shared a lot of stuff, you know. We we >> So, it was an organic comedy. People living for No, no. I had a couple of experience with that. I had another Well, no. another one where I where I had my life threatened, you know, which um which I didn't wasn't too crazy about. It's in the book.
1:32:20>> What's that about though? >> Um they um um they try to create a cathartic moment bring all together kind of an emotional moment. Um and well, they invited me for dinner and uh then they said uh well with with [snorts] a lady friend said, you know, we've been trying to reach you. We got to dessert and they said, "You know, we've been trying to reach you and you just don't get it.
1:32:46You don't get it. Uh, so you're going to have to be eliminated." >> What didn't you get? >> Well, I was I the communist, they wanted that katharsist to to join to give yourself up to be part of it. >> Oh, and you didn't want to give yourself up. So, they were going to whack you. >> They were going to whack me.
1:33:07And I remember there was a long silence and I said, "Well, well, you've done it, haven't you?" I said, "Yeah." And big Lord paused. My girlfriend just started falling cuz she peeing in her peeing in her pants and all that >> cuz she thought they were going to kill her. >> Yeah, probably kill us. And then I said, "Um, I'm going to leave now."
1:33:27They said, "Yeah, you better." >> Jeez. >> We're getting up now and we're leaving. Okay. Hey, and I had to carry carried her out and we got out. >> Did you think they were going to actually kill you? >> Um, >> because if they were, why would they let you leave? >> Well, I, you know, I didn't know. I mean, there's a numbness.
1:33:52I felt there was a moment >> where it's possible. >> It was a moment that if I jump, if if I if I got and and made any sudden movement, they killed me or whether it would be. But it's strange. I've never had many experiences, but this numbness kind of this whole numbness just comes over you or in my case, you know, just was was frozen and uh and just sort of quietly said it.
1:34:19So, what was this called? >> It's a It was called It was a a group called um it's a guy came named Mel Lyman. It was the Bell Lyman and he band started started in Boston and it was a commun formal real communal group. >> It was a band as well. No, they >> called the Lyman drug band. He was he was the leader of it.
1:34:44>> So he was the leader of a was this a band like a musical band? >> Yeah, but he he he was but the commune was made up of people from all different walks of life. They owned um a bunch of houses up in Boston. uh families all together. >> Here it is. The Lyman family's holy siege of America. Inside the cult led by Mel Lyman, the East Coast, Charles Manson.
1:35:08Holy [ __ ] December 23rd, 1971. Holy [ __ ] dude. Did they kill anybody? It says East Coast Charles Manson. Did he >> I don't know. >> Did he wind up whacking anybody, Jamie? >> I don't know. >> Please find it. Put that in Perplexity. Ask our AI sponsor, Perplexity, whether he killed people. You were wrapped up in that.
1:35:34>> Well, [laughter] I mean, slightly I I I got out, but um you know, lured they had moved out to Los Angeles and um uh you know, we alerted the police and kept an kept an eye on them. Um, but that was the bad side of communes. But, uh, I I'm I'm thinking, you know, with all this going on and where I'm really worried about our democracy, you know, the basic group.
1:36:11So, I'm sort of gone now that my career is not the most important thing in my life. my family is and uh my kids and I'm realizing more and more the responsibility we have to community or first to our family first to our family I I don't know about you but I know I spent a lot of part of my life is the most important thing being my career and um been doing it for 50 years 60 years and realized or especially earlier in my life my first marriage and other things that suffered for lack up the career.
1:36:45I don't I don't believe you can balance your career necessarily if you're ambitious with your family life. People should kind of wait a little while to get their career going before they're making commitments to having kids and and uh you know and and in a marriage, >> especially the film business, right?
1:37:02I mean, you're also you're you have to fly away to places. >> You got to go different places. It's hard, but you everybody truckers are driving across country, you I mean there's everybody's, >> you know, even with the so-called all this home business now with the internet that let you uh do stuff. So I sort of on this obsession now about how how important family is and you know we've got we got members of that we could hate but it's the gene it's the genetic connection that holds us kind of together and from
1:37:39that it's the community and I guess my point is we cannot take democracy for granted and and I'm included too many of us have just let kind of go on and let oh these people take care of it. Those we all have those local people in our community who still serve as the town clerk or still are volunteer fire department people and and they're not a big group.
1:38:04It's a small group of people who have a sense of volunteer work and supporting it. And I think we all have to start kind of strengthening our communities to our states and not worrying about this federal government uh and and and and starting from building from the bottom up rather than trying to cut off the head the top.
1:38:28>> Well, the rules exist for a reason because we really want it to be representative of the people. So, we want it to be fair, >> right? And that's where people get really nervous about the world we're living in where there's so much money involved in politics. How can it actually be representing the will of the people?
1:38:44And then there's a question to the people themselves. Do they know what they're voting for? Are they informed enough? Should you have to be informed? Should you have to take a test to vote? Should you know what you're voting on? You know, I don't think we should be restricting people's right or access to vote.
1:38:59But I do think it would behoove all of us if we actually understood what we were voting for. And I think a lot of times people are just voting for a a team or an ideology whether it's on the right or the left. And a lot of times some very evil hyper ambitious people can co-opt that that that group of people.
1:39:19And um especially when they have so much money involved and that's what's what really [ __ ] us is when money got involved in politics. That's what really it's changed it changed everything. It shouldn't be a path to riches. >> You can, you know, we can hardly get a debate in, you know, at all with these sizes of the advertising budgets for for for ad campaigns.
1:39:42No. >> And and it's really disrupted this uh this whole balance. I mean, as we watch the upcoming midterms, you know, >> they're using AI now. So, they have like artificial people doing things that they've never done before in these AI videos. And it's crazy that that's legal. It's also uh it's very disheartening that these are the choices that we're saddled with, you know, and everyone's waiting for like, you know, a true JFK style character to come along that speaks eloquently and wisely and
1:40:15says things that we all agree makes sense and is a uniter. You tries to unite us. >> You you have you seen anybody this anybody knew this on either side that's sort of >> not like that. No. Uh, I wish that someone out there would consider. I think there's a lot of people like that in the world, though.
1:40:31I'm I'm not a pessimist and I'm not cynical in terms of human nature. I think there's way more good people than bad people. But much like your algorithm highlights things that anger you, we uh concentrate more on the bad than we do on the good. I think this is like one of the greatest times ever to be alive.
1:40:46As chaotic as the world is, this is an amazing time of information and resources and also of communication. A lot of it's bad, a lot of it's shitty, a lot of it's bots, but a lot of it is people just trying to figure out what is right and what is wrong. Why do I believe what I believe? And why are we stuck in this stupid [ __ ] argument back and forth with each other where, like my friend Dave Smith always says, like the 80% of the ideas most people agree on.
1:41:09It's 8020. Most people agree. And unfortunately, when we're so tribal and we get locked into this idea of this side or that side, red or blue, that we'll we'll go along with some stuff that we absolutely don't agree with because the opposite is the evil party. The opposite is and I think the it's a terrible tragedy in this country that we only have two choices like that and that you think of a libertarian candidate is a throwaway vote.
1:41:38I've voted libertarian before. You think of it as like this is a protest vote, you know, because California is going to go blue no matter who. >> Well, the laws the laws are are structured such that the libertarians can't get the campaign money. Exactly. That that they want and and the problem is is it's at the top.
1:41:55We look at the news every night and we're all kind of getting along whether Republicans or Democrats, okay, but these guys at the top have polarized it uh to such a an extent. I used to, my father was involved in in, you know, a lot of politics over the years and and was a guy named Jack Valente who was the motion picture and television uh represent the lobbyist, you know, and I remember, you know, I remember 25, 30 years ago, you know, you argue your hell out and this and that and then you all
1:42:30go on out, you go to the same cocktail party now. >> Absolutely. >> I mean, socially everything is is is separate. I remember that from the 90s. It was that in the 90s like I had friends that were Republicans when I was in the 90s and we would uh discuss things when I was a kid. We were on welfare. I I believe in social safety nets.
1:42:48I think it's important. People are poor. They shouldn't starve. It's crazy. >> But I also believe that a lot of these welfare programs get pilered. And I I think there's a lot of them you're you're what you're doing is you when you look at a lot of these NOS's and a lot of these nonprofits, an enormous amount of the money that gets donated to these things gets distributed by the executives.
1:43:08You find people that are working for the homeless and they're making a million dollars a year. Like what the [ __ ] is going on here? It seems like this is a business. This is a business and this business thrives on making sure there's a lot of homeless people so you keep getting the same money just like that scene in Falling Down when he says you have to justify your budget.
1:43:25you have to spend all that money because then you won't get that money next year. That's a real problem in this country. It's a giant problem when it comes to even philanthropy and even like really good charitable organizations. You find out how much of that money is just getting slung around to NOS's and how much of that money is just getting just moved around into other people's bank accounts.
1:43:47>> Joe, I I concur with you, but I cannot believe it comes close to the corruption involved in the militaryindustrial complex. I think you're right. No, I think you're right. I think there's corruption across the board. I I don't I'm not excusing the corruption in the military-industrial complex by saying that we I'm just saying that we need to pay attention to the fact that look, there's $24 billion was spent on the homeless in California and Gavin Newsome vetoed a bill to audit it to find out
1:44:13where that money went. And >> I think if I had to guess, I think because a lot of it goes to places that are very uncomfortable. A lot of it probably went to NOS's just like the the fire money from the Pacific Palisades fire, >> right? >> That money got distributed to like a hundred different NOS's. >> That's crazy.
1:44:29It's supposed to go to the people that were losing their houses. It's supposed to like people raised all this money and had all this goodwill and charity because they thought it was going to help these poor people that were struck down. These people that, you know, a lot of people were barely paying their mortgages.
1:44:41They lived in a great neighborhood. It was worth it to them. And then they lost everything and none of that money went to them. that disturbs people and it should. It doesn't dis It doesn't dismiss or in any way condone the corruption of the military-industrial complex because that's a gigantic problem in this country.
1:44:58A huge problem and it's been that way for >> the other one you're speaking about. We should be able to to monitor more carefully 100% >> state by state. I mean that's what you're saying is makes sense but we should we can do that. The Pentagon's never passed an audit. >> Is is it another hidden You know, >> the Pentagon has never passed an audit.
1:45:18>> Never. >> You imagine if you never passed an audit. [laughter] >> You'd have been jail a long time ago. Where's that [ __ ] romancing the stone money, sir? >> Yeah. You would you they would have put you in the pokey a long time ago. I mean, look how many people they did uh arrest for and put in jail for uh tax evasion.
1:45:35Yeah. >> You know, Lauren Hill went to [ __ ] jail from the Fuji. She went to jail. And they don't even care if you pay. It's not even like you owe us the money, you got to pay [clears throat] it back. No, no, no. You go to jail and you pay it back. But you got to go to jail so that everybody knows don't [ __ ] with the government.
1:45:52We want our money. It's like Joe Peshy from Good Fellas. [ __ ] you. Pay me. >> Yeah. That's what it is. And that's that's the boot that we're all living under. >> You know, there's a lot of problems in this country. Yeah. A lot of problems. >> There's also the student debt problem. That's a giant problem.
1:46:07saddle down kids with just debt they can never get free of >> the only debt that we allow in this country that could never never get out of. >> You can have a you can >> get bankrupt from a lot of different things but you you you don't ever get excused from those loans. That was one of the things I'm not proud about that I wrote in the book because uh but the student that was when uh when I turned 21 and I was just my sophomore year in in uh in college my dad said you're 21.
1:46:42Okay, here you go. He took a checkbook. He wrote a check. He gave me $10,000. $10,000. But wow, Dad, thanks. That's great. Wow. says, "You're on your own, kid." >> It's more than 95% of this country. It can't be. >> What was that in those days? Like, what is that equivalent to in today's dollar? >> I don't know.
1:47:04I don't know. But I >> 100. >> No, I don't. Maybe. I >> probably >> But but uh I don't know. But I said, "Dad, uh it's great." But you know, um I got two years more of tuition in in school and everything. And you know a couple of laid son they started getting pissed about you know you're taking this no I'm really grateful but you know anyway um and then for 30 years my my father had four sons I was the oldest for 30 years dad would look at all of my other brothers said your brother Michael
1:47:48never asked me for anything anything in his life after that and you guys and he would just drill these poor bastards my brothers about that and finally about 30 years later I had to say dad I got to tell you something said what you remember one Christmas you bought me a beautiful present you bought me these two beautiful Italian leather suitcases they were soft they're leather just the beautiful suitcases right Yeah.
1:48:16Yeah. I can't remember. Well, when I would go back like at Christmas time from school and go see my mother back east, right? Yeah. Well, each suitcase could fit 22 kilos of marijuana [laughter] and and I used to go back with just the clothes on my back and 44 kilos, you know, and that was how I got through, you know, the rest of the expense of my school.
1:48:43did it a couple of times and uh that got me through. But I said, "I got to tell you the story, Dad, because you know, you're beating you're beating the [ __ ] out of my younger brothers and everything about, you know, I never asked you for anything, but [laughter] you know, >> cuz I was a drug dealer, right?"
1:49:04>> Wow, that's crazy. How How many trips did you did you make? >> Twice. >> How did you stop? >> Well, cuz it was so much money. How did you stop? I mean, you must have been like, it's very profitable to do that. >> Well, I remember it was like like a kilo was $75 in in the out west and you could sell it for five or 600 700 u back east.
1:49:27Uh but I, you know, things were things were beginning to get, you know, that was with the whole hippie thing. You know, all of a sudden, you know, excons were coming out of jail, hey man, grow your hair long, you know, go to hate Ashbury. You can [ __ ] any girls you want. They gave you free food and then you know it got infiltrated.
1:49:50>> Then the drug dealing started getting >> violent. >> Violent and uglier and a little heavier and and >> of course. >> Yeah. Wow. Well, good on you for getting just trips and out cuz a lot of people would have been sucked into that world and got addicted to the money. Yeah. >> And the thrill. I bet the thrill was crazy.
1:50:10>> The the adrenaline rush. Yeah. Of doing it. Of course, this was before dogs, you know. So, >> Right. Right. Right. Right. >> But, um, >> was it was there a possibility they could have checked your luggage? >> Oh, sure. Sure. They could have. I mean, it was it was a, you know, >> Did that happen sometimes back then?
1:50:26>> Um, no. I mean, I I I I don't know. I I I was, you know, I was I was a little I was a hippie. >> Wow. I wasn't thinking totally totally clearly but [laughter] >> we had we had a lot of a lot of >> good memories. remember going to um Mothers of Invention, >> Frank Zappa, >> Frank Zappa here, a concert and um talk about hallucinogenics and all of that and I was driving and they had remember the uh the ad.
1:51:01It was a serial ad for a kid. Give it to Mikey. See if Mikey likes it. Yeah, Mikey likes it. Right, left. Yeah. >> So I I dropped whatever we had and was going to the uh the concert. I made a left turn and all of a sudden almost was there my car driving and all of a sudden but you can see the red lights are going and I go, "Oh man, [snorts] I get out out of the car and I go back and I talk to the police officer and and and it's okay."
1:51:33I made an illegal left-hand turn. I said, "Okay." I remember I got back into the car and Danny was Danny was with me and we had you know about I don't know few joints a few joints and Danny was in the back seat and I just looked at him and said where's the grass where's and Danny smiled [laughter] all his mouth was entirely this [snorts] green monk he swallowed all of them you know [laughter] at the time I mean just this crazy you know crazy stories that we had.
1:52:06But we we had a great time. >> And then he went on and then I don't know if you ever saw a movie called uh um The War of the Roses. >> Did you ever see Danny directed? Daddy directed that one. >> Um one of the things that I found out when I was getting ready for this that I didn't know before was that you were you produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
1:52:29>> Correct. Yeah. >> Was that your first big project? I first project as a producer. I mean I I had never >> the way it worked is that dad um like 1960 dad got Spartacus. So spotty because he's like the biggest star in the world and he had a production company about 1962 he acquired the galls of this book called When Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kissi and he had it adapted into a play and his idea was he was going to go back to Broadway do the play for six months and then you know big success and
1:53:08this and that then come out and make the movie. The play didn't work out. didn't it wasn't a success and and he did it but again I thought about him at the height of his movie career could do anything he wanted to go back and do this play and uh and it was a great part RP Mc Murphy uh the character so um and then he tried for years now cut 1963 I'm in college and I'm in 20th century American literature course and one flew over the cuckoo business now is an American classic, right?
1:53:43I started working um in the in the business. I've had like five turkey movies. Now I'm going into television, episodic television. This is before the streets of San Francisco. And I'm in my dad's office one day and I hear he's tried for six years and he's going to sell he's going to sell cuckoo. I said, "Dad, you can't you can't you can't sell that, man.
1:54:10This is just a great story. And Joe, I had no intention of think I even thought about producing or anything. I was just trying to be an actor. But I said, "Look, let me run with it. Let me get let me try to get it set up. Dad, you play the part, right? Make a production. Give me give me a chance to set it up."
1:54:30And he was a great dad. He looked me in the eyes and okay, you know, I'll give you a year. So now, so now uh Streets of San Francisco starts and I'm shooting all of this in San Francisco with Carl Malds and I'm doing the show. I go through my father's files, the history of Cuckoo's Nest, and I see this guy named Saul Zance, who has a record company in Berkeley, California called Fantasy Records, who had expressed interest about the project.
1:55:03So now I'm up in San Francisco. I reach out to Saul, found out what happened and uh you know but the problem was and we kind of worked it out and Saul had basically a record company jazz labels, Milestone Prestige jazz labels, but he had this one rock and roll group called the Dollywogs. And while I was there, he just hired the Gollywogs.
1:55:31He said, "Listen, man. We got to change their name." and they changed their name to Credence Clearwater Revival. >> All right. So, Credence Clear Water Revival paid for Cuckoo's Nest. So, now you know we made the deal. I finally got a screenplay after a period of time. I got a director, Milos Foreman, and now the director and Saul sit me down and say, "Michael, Kirk's too old."
1:56:02Kirk, I'm sorry. Kirk is not going to work out. And I pushed the control. I said, "My we're working together." It's I I understand >> he was going to play the Jack Nicholson role. >> Yeah. He was he he was RP. Think about it. I mean, he he would be an RP McY if he'd been like 20 years younger when he first was when he first backed doing the plate.
1:56:29So, I had to go to my dad. >> How old was he at the time? 60 62 60 62 and um I had to go to my dad and say, "Dad, it ain't going to happen." Um and I can tell you now, Joe, if if you get four good parts in your entire career, four really great parts, you're you're lucky. You're really lucky. I mean, they don't come along often.
1:56:55And RP Mcmurphy was one of those parts. I said, "Dad, they they you know, the director and saw financing. They just they don't see it." And he looked at me, you know, not sure. I said, "I I went to the mat. I said, "Dad, we still, you know, we we're producing of producing the picture. I'm going to give you half of my producing deal for giving me this opportunity."
1:57:25And that was that. We went off. We made the movie. And then I brought dad up to Berkeley, California to see the final cut of the picture. It was all all put together and he came out of the theater and he said, "Michael, it's a hell of a movie. A hell of a movie." And Jack was was fantastic and he was just just such a mench about it.
1:57:54But but over every few years, you know, when he dad had a couple of pops, he [laughter] said, "You could I could have done that, you know, I could have done that picture and all that." >> But for me, it was crazy because The Streets of San Francisco was a big hit. A big hit. Number one show on ABC. We had, you know, we we averaged 24 25 million viewers uh a week.
1:58:20You know, ABC was this brand new network. It just started and then it was syndicated all over the all over the world. So when I went to them and said, "Let me get this straight. You're going to leave this is the fifth. You're going to leave this hit series to make this little to produce not even acting to produce this little indie film."
1:58:41And dad was up. Everybody say, "Are you sure this is a right idea?" But I was in love with the project. didn't ever thought about producing. But what had happened is all the 104 hours, 104 episodes, 104 hours of television I've done with Carl Malden, a wonderful actor, I had learned so much about production and everything that I was shocked when the picture came about how much I I I really knew.
1:59:12Um, and so I left the show. First of all, they let me out of my contract, which is unheard of these days. I had a five-year contract at a hit show. And Carl Malden, I loved him to death. I said, I know you've been thinking about go for it. And Quinn Martin, this big TV producer had the fugitive and FBI and all that said, go for it.
1:59:37And so this totally changed my life. So that now I'm a television actor, but I'm an Academy Award-winning producer. I've got a studio deal as a producer, you know, but those days before streaming, television and feature films were on very separate tracks. Television, you were treated like a television actor and movies were the big thing.
2:00:09So, I'm a I'm a producer, but I can't get hired in the movies as an actor. [laughter] It was really hard. I would be like the last choice. Uh, but then I had a run. I I had um as a producer had one flow of The Cuckoo's Nest, The China Syndrome, Romancing the Stone, Jewel. I had like four or five hits right in the row.
2:00:31And at the same time, I was trying to find these little roles I could play in um you know, as an actor. Wow. >> Yeah. >> Another film that you made that's an alltime great and it still freaks people out to this day is Fatal Attraction. >> Holy [ __ ] That movie scared the [ __ ] out of me. Scared the [ __ ] out of Glen Close was so good in that movie.
2:00:57>> She was so good. And you know, it was such a such a a lesson joke because we didn't want all we we were casting the picture, you know, and Glenn Close, who already had three Academy Award nominations to her name. We really want to do it. We all said, "No, she's just not right. We maybe think she was sexy enough or this or that."
2:01:18And uh and finally, her agent calls, "Listen, Glenn Close will come in and audition for you." I went, "Holy [ __ ] this F time Academy Award nominees should come in and audition for us." And she came in and she had that part down and Alex and boy were we wrong. The director, we all looked at each other and said was such a lesson of learning that she was so committed that she'd lay herself out there and and and she was so good.
2:01:51>> She was perfect for the role. I couldn't imagine anybody else doing it. She plays crazy so well. There's a darkness in that woman's mind. [laughter] >> And it's amazing that the that the issue that [snorts] on another level that she's most involved with is mental health. She's it's an issue that's been involved in her family.
2:02:11>> Makes sense. She probably made a lot of people crazy just from that movie. >> Oh yeah. Oh [laughter] yeah. Oh no. I had >> she played crazy so well. >> My friends I had my male friends are thanks a lot man. Hey thank you. They [ __ ] hated me for this movie. They [laughter] hated me, you know. Well, it was like But it was was it was a perfect concept nightmare.
2:02:31Yeah. >> Perfect. What if? >> And I remember we were in France um promoting the movie in in France and all the reviewers said, "Well, you know, in France, we all had mistresses. It is not a big deal." Yeah. This and that. It was a smash hit. Every French [laughter] wife dragged their husband to the dragged her husband to the theater.
2:02:53Okay, this is what could happen, [ __ ] So, be careful. >> Well, such a Glen Clos's character was such a complex character cuz it was this like this very strange dance of sexy and crazy and dangerous. Like really dangerous. >> No, she was brilliant. >> Brilliant. >> And then when we did our final screening, the picture was just like gang busters, but we had a different ending that didn't work.
2:03:22And the ending we had was that um we had a fight. You knew the end was and I had a knife in my hand and we got and and you kind of establish it. And so the ending was Glenn almost in a Buddha position with Madam Butterfly playing and sort of symbolically taking a knife and slitting her throat. Whoa. M >> and then putting the knife down and the audience knew that my fingerprints were on the knife, right?
2:03:51So I was going to get it. >> Oh wow. >> That didn't work. [clears throat] >> No, it was it was so it was it was beautiful ending. But Glenn was so good. She was so great that the audience like they had blue balls because they said no kill the [ __ ] I mean you don't kill [laughter] I said it was like you know no no man.
2:04:14No, Wayne. Wayne, kill her. Killy. They they would they they they would not allow her to take her own life, you know, without without getting revenge. >> Wow. >> And poor Glenn absolutely said, "We have to shoot a new ending." She said, "Absolutely not. This is my character. This is what makes it all work."
2:04:32And she refused, you know, to do this ending. And so I was like, "Shit," you know, and it just wasn't working. The ending. It was so hard to It was so hard to explain it to her that it was because she was so good. >> Oh my god, you're fast. >> Right. >> You can find it on YouTube. >> Oh god, she's doing it slow.
2:04:57Oh god.
Psychedelics and Drug Policy
2:05:07>> Okay, I get it. you get. >> Oh. >> So, so finally I say, Glenn, because she's a wonderful theater actress, too. I said, [snorts] Glenn, >> when you do a Broadway show, they take the show out of town and before it comes to Broadway and they they they play the play and then based on audience reaction and they rewrite things, right?
2:05:34>> Yeah. >> So, if this was a play and we did this and you saw that scene, they would tell us if it was a player out of town and and and and we would have to change it. So, this is why I never understood. People have this whole criticism about screening movies, doing test screening audiences. It's for it's for the audience, man.
2:05:55But I mean, you want to find out what the audience feels. I mean, I understand the art of the director and his his vision and everything, but you know, you want to make it as as entertaining as possible. So, >> I agree. >> I persuaded her and and you know, it all worked out. I love her to death. She was wonderful to work with.
2:06:14We have a great friendship. It's you know, it's obviously a memorable memorable part for me. I mean, part of my life. But I'm proud of the fact, Joe, and I realized um it wasn't as obvious until I was until when when I was working on one hell of a ride and how many pictures um I had where the women um had the best role.
2:06:42um whether you know whether or whether it was Glenn or whether it was uh Jimmy Moore in Disclosure or or Sharon Stone. And I looked back and then to the first picture that I produced, Cuckoo's Nest, when um there was this fabulous character of Nurse Ratchet. Remember Nurse Ratchet? Oh, well back back then women didn't want to play a villain.
2:07:13This was the woman the women's movement. You didn't woman didn't play a villain. We offered that part to every major anra collecture
2:07:27who wasn't very well known and went on to to win the uh the Oscar. But it was uh it was it just was interesting how the women's movement has changed. But I've always been in most of my adult life found this, you know, weird struggle between men and women in this in this century in terms of us trying to find out our proper roles or um or who we are.
2:07:56Even on Basic Instinct, on Basic Instinct, all of a sudden, we think we're shooting this this movie up in up in San Francisco. And we get a protest from the LGBT. There was no queue back then. It was just the LGBT community offended that we were making a movie with a bisexual woman who was an ice pick killer.
2:08:27And I said, "What?" I said, "And you guys, guy, we love villain part. Villain parts are the best parts to play. You know, they're always they're great." And so I said, "Well, how can you know this is a derogatory statement on on gay on a bisexual woman?" I said, "Come on, man." But no, they they were serious.
2:08:49So we ended up shooting scenes up in San Francisco with 40 SWAT officers surrounding the whole block to hold off the protests. >> Wow. >> from us of the shooting. I mean, >> how do they know? >> Talk about, you know, >> the How do they know the plot? How' they know the script? >> They got hold of it.
2:09:12Well, >> it's another story. Yeah, I will, you know, >> someone with the writer straight up. It's another story. >> Wow. >> So, it's >> Yeah, it's been a bit been a bit of an interesting It's been a hell of a ride, >> right? Yeah. Hell of a ride. [laughter] >> Well, congratulations, man. Congratulations on the book and and just your amazing career.
2:09:36You've had a a wild a wild experience. >> Thank you, Joe. and and uh and what you've created. I mean, wow, man. I don't think you've ever anticipated your many different careers and lives that you had. This is fabulous. >> Yeah. I never saw any of it coming. >> Yeah. >> I still have a hard time believing it, but >> right, >> it is what it is.
2:10:01>> It is what it is. >> Thank you. And good luck with your your memoir. >> Thank you. >> And everything everything else. >> Thank you. Pleasure. Pleasure to meet you. >> Pleasure to meet you as well. [music] Thank you. My pleasure.
2:10:16>> [music]
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