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Danny Jones Podcast
#325 - 5 Performance Drugs Big Pharma Doesn't Want You Using | Chris Bell
03:03:50
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Kristen Bell, and if you know my husband Dax, then you also know he loves shopping for a car. Selling a car, not so much.
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B
We're really doing this, huh?
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A
Thankfully, Carvana makes it easy. Answer a few questions, put in your van or license, and done. We sold ours in minutes this morning, and they'll come pick it up and pay us this afternoon.
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B
Bye bye, Truckee.
- [00:21]
A
Of course, we kept the favorite.
- [00:24]
B
Hello, other Truckee.
- [00:26]
A
Sell your car with Carvana today. Terms and conditions apply.
- [00:31]
B
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- [01:07]
A
Were you a Ringsider?
- [01:08]
B
I was a Ringsider.
- [01:09]
A
It's amazing.
- [01:10]
B
Yeah, I have a. A good buddy of mine, my friend Mark, who is a huge wrestling fan. He actually used to be a wrestler when he was younger and was trying out for the wwe. And he brought me to Wrestlemania and in New Orleans a few years ago. And then, like, whenever he gets, like, dope ringside tickets to anything in Tampa, he'll. Sometimes he'll invite me, and that's where I got that chair.
- [01:32]
A
He's down here in Tampa?
- [01:33]
B
Yeah, he's in. He's in actually St. Pete.
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A
What was he. Did he have a gimmick or anything?
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B
Oh, my God.
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A
What the.
- [01:40]
B
Yeah, he did. He had a. He had his, like, his whole name and he had, like, a whole gimmick. I forget the name of his wrestler now. He was from. He's actually. He's from Ohio, I think. So he was based up there, and then he came down here and then he actually started a. A company called Hostomania, which, like, was a web hosting company. And they got Hulk to be the face of it. And then they asked me to make like, a. Like a marketing campaign for Hostomania. So me and my buddy were trying to come up with an idea for this commercial to sell this web hosting company that was Hulk Hogan themed.
- [02:18]
A
Yeah.
- [02:18]
B
So we came up with the idea to put. This was right when Miley Cyrus came out with her Wrecking Ball video. She's like, I came in, she's riding the thing. So we're like, we're going to have Hulk Coming in like a wrecking ball and smashing John Claude Van Dam, because he was the face of, I think, Godaddy at the time. Okay, so. And Hulk's like, yeah, brother, that's. That's cool. But I think I got to do it in my birthday suit. I'm like, really? I'm like, okay. So he. So he ended up doing it in just his. This little speedo right there. And we put him on a wrecking ball. We built a wrecking ball, went into a production studio, and we put on top of a crane, and we had him, like, swing across the stage on a wrecking ball and smash this dude. And it went on, I think, like, TMZ picked it up, and it got, like, millions of views overnight. It was wild.
- [03:04]
A
Yeah. We have a long history with wrestling, my brothers and I. So I don't know if you know, but, you know, my older brother Mad Dog in Bigger, Stronger, Faster, he was a wrestler. And. And I don't know if you talked about it with Mark, but he was a wrestler also. It was really interesting.
- [03:18]
B
Mark was a wrestler? Yes. No, he didn't mention that.
- [03:20]
A
Yeah, so. And his nemesis was John Cena. So what happened was Mark wanted to be. Mark moved out to California. He sort of followed me. I went to USC film school. I was trying to make it as a, you know, filmmaker, and. But we always loved wrestling, so Mark wanted to get into wrestling. And I said, hey, you know, we know all these people from Gold's Gym and stuff. And I said, I know this guy. He was actually Latimer in the program. The movie. The Program. It was the big Jack guy that was, like, putting his head through the. Through the car. Remember, he threw the girl around.
- [03:51]
B
He's seen the program, but it's not ringing the bell, right?
- [03:53]
A
It was the big giant Jack guy putting 315 up over his head, okay? And that shit was all legit. He really was putting that weight over his head. So his name's Andrew Bernarski, and he invited us to go down to this wrestling school and check it out. So we go down, we check it out. It's awesome. You know, Mark's like, hey, I want to sign up. I want to do this. So. So Mark starts wrestling, and then a couple months later, we were working at this company where we moved fitness equipment. And it's just the oddest coincidence. We had a friend that worked there, a girl that worked in the office. Her name was K.C. and she said, hey, you know, you guys gotta meet my friend John. He's, like, really Buff and he's awesome. He's just like, you guys, you'd get along great. We're like, whatever. Cause we always hear, oh, this guy's jacked, like you. And then the guy comes in, he's not jacked at all or something. You know, that's what you think we are usually. Right. But this guy comes in and his arms are just gigantic. He's like, looks like a cartoon character. And it's John Cena before he was John Cena. He's 22 years old. And Mark and I were like, what the hell is this guy all about? You know, we started talking to him, we become really good friends with them, and we're like, hey, well, Mark's in this wrestling school and you would be awesome at it. Like, you're just. Your personality, like, the way you look, like you'd be awesome at wrestling. And he's like, yeah, I'd love to try it, but I just. I don't really know how to get into it. I'm like, no, that's what I'm telling you. We. We know how to get you into it. And so we brought John into his first ever wrestling class. He basically. My older brother, Mad Dog was like one of his first trainers, along with this other guy, Tom Howard. Mark was like his nemesis. And I would write all the story lines, you know, for the. For the wrestlers for this company called upw. Yeah, so there's. There's. I think probably you can probably find matches online and Mark wrestling Cena and stuff like that. It was just kind of fun. Like, we pointed him in the right direction and then he just took the ball and ran with it because he was. Within four months, he was signed to the wwe. You know, like, they came in, they saw him like, we want that guy. I mean, like, we. You know, you could just tell he's like one of those people. There's certain people in your life where you meet and you could just tell.
- [05:55]
B
Yeah.
- [05:55]
A
And then a couple years later, John actually brought me into wwe. I didn't last very long. I was a writer, and at the time they were going through writers like crazy, and I was. I was just one of them. So I got to see how it all works backstage and got to hang out with everybody. But the cool thing was that I got fired. I didn't get fired. It's just like, they give you like a six month contract and then it ends. And like, hey, you know what? Didn't really work out. Whatever the reason it really didn't work out was more Just the fact that they had kind of head writers, and they just listened to the head writers, and they wouldn't listen to you at all if you weren't a head writer. So it's like you just didn't stand a chance, you know? So that's the way I look at it. I didn't take it, you know, hard, harsh or anything that I got fired or whatever. My contract ended. But what was really cool is that I went off and I made bigger, stronger, faster. And after I made bigger, stronger, faster, I got invited to WrestleMania. I got invited to be backstage at WrestleMania, like, in Houston. I think the Undertaker wrestled Shawn Michaels on that card. It was just cool. It's like, after, like, afterwards, everybody was like, hey, man, you made it. You know? And then the real kicker was that was in the bar the night of, before WrestleMania, and the guy who was the executive producer, Kevin Dunn, he came up to me and said, hey, I guess they fired the wrong guy, huh? And that was just, like, really cool to hear. And then, like, also, Vince McMahon had called me on the phone, like, after I made the movie. Vince McMahon called me. The Rock called me.
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B
Really?
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A
Yeah. So it was really cool because it was like, these are guys that I idolize, I look up to. So Vince called me and said, you know what? I. I actually. I honestly thought that he was calling me to tell me he was going to file a lawsuit because we used a bunch of footage in the movie. But instead, what he told me is you said everything I've always wanted to say about steroids, and you said it so wonderfully and such a. A unique and fun way, and I just wanted to tell you, you just did a. You made a great movie, and I thought that was, you know, great. And then, you know, the Rock also called me and said, hey, brother, I know you told me you were going to make this movie, but I had no idea it was going to turn out like this. And, you know, he did a great job. And then also Cena, he had told me, because we were buddies, he told me, like, hey, man, if you ever make a movie, I'll be there the first night it comes out. And he was there the first night it came out in. Yeah, in Los Angeles. He flew to Los Angeles on purpose just to come see the movie, which was cool.
- [08:25]
B
That's fucking incredible, bro. That was a. It was a really good movie, too. Oh, thank you. I mean, like, everything about it, it's like, my favorite style of documentary. It almost reminded me of, like, a. One of the early, like, Vice Style documentaries because it's kind of like you're walking around kind of like trolling people a little bit. Like, the way it was edited, like. Yeah, there was some hilarious moments in there. I think you're making fun of your brother. You were saying something like, you know, he started out wrestling in front. In front of 200, 000 people. Now tonight, he's wrestling in front of 50 people. Yeah, behind a.
- [08:57]
A
He was wrestling a.
- [08:58]
B
Right.
- [08:59]
A
Yeah, he was throwing the. In the crowd. I don't. Are we allowed to say that anymore?
- [09:03]
B
Yeah, we're allowed to say.
- [09:04]
A
So he. It was, you know, a midget wrestler, and he picked him up and threw him, you know, in the crowd and.
- [09:09]
B
Yeah.
- [09:10]
A
You know, and you get paid like 50 bucks. And that's the truth of wrestling is, like, there are very few John Cena's. Even my brother Mark, who looks fantastic. He's jacked and shredded, and he was in pretty good shape back then as well. Yeah, even when he was thicker, he was like.
- [09:25]
B
He was like puffy.
- [09:26]
A
And even when he was. Before he got on the juice, when he was natural, he looked really good, too. And the thing is that at the time, a guy that was like, barely 6ft tall, you know, 210 pounds, wasn't what they were looking for. They were looking for. They wanted to see John Cena. They wanted to see, like, you know, somebody who's like, super jacked. And Mark just didn't have that. That look, I guess. And he was really good at wrestling, really good at cutting the promos and doing all that stuff. But he. He gave it up for powerlifting, which I. As soon as he gave it up for powerlifting, I'm like, what are you doing, man? There's no money in powerlifting. You'll never make it in powerlifting. And he's made, you know, probably more money in. In powerlifting than he would have ever made if he'd gone into wrestling, you know?
- [10:09]
B
Right.
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A
Because he turned it into a business.
- [10:11]
B
Yeah. It's really crazy, the lifestyle that some of these pro wrestlers had in the. In the 80s and like the early 90s, you know, it was such a different world, and wrestling was like, on a completely different level, like wwe, wwf than it is now. You know, like, and just from the stories I've heard from some of these guys, because I've spent a lot of time around Hulk, not like a lot of time around Hulk and Jimmy Hart and like, this. There's this other dude, Bushwacker Luke, who lives down the street.
- [10:38]
A
Yeah, I know. The Bushwackers.
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B
He had a gym right down the street in Clearwater. I used to go to that gym every single day.
- [10:42]
A
Uncles used to call us the Bushwhackers. So we would come to. You know, we come to Thanksgiving and, like, you know, my uncle be like, ah, the Bushwackers are here. And we're like. We're, like, the worst. Yeah. Why are we the Bushwackers?
- [10:54]
B
Whoa, Magd.
- [10:55]
A
Yeah.
- [10:55]
B
Yeah. Those guys are hilarious. And I've spent. I've spent. You know, I kind of, like, spent a lot of time working with those guys and, like, spent, you know, filming, like, commercials and little ads and stuff with them and, like, around all Hulk's little companies that he was doing over the last, you know, probably like 15 recently. Probably, like, probably 15 years, 10 years ago, maybe six years ago. And he also had, like, a little restaurant bar down the street. But, like, I was never a fan of it. I just, like, heard the stories and spent a lot of time around these guys and all this stuff until my friend Marco telling you about brought me to WrestleMania in New Orleans. And that experience made me a wrestling fan. Like, it was, like, the opposite for me. You know what I mean?
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A
Who was the main event at that one?
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B
Oh, God, it was. I want to say it was John Cena and somebody else. It was definitely John Cena. Somebody else. But I remember, like. I remember walking down the steps of the stadium to, like, the floor where we were sitting, and. Because I went to the bathroom and I was coming down, and then all of a sudden, all the lights cut out in the whole arena. I'm like, what the happened? And all of a sudden, it was like, gong.
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A
Oh, the Undertaker.
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B
I was like, whoa, dude. That was insane, dude. It just, like, rattles every fiber of your being. And everyone in there, like, all the energies, and it's. It's like. It's palpable, the energy in there, and. And, like, it's such an incredible show. Cairo and everything.
- [12:17]
A
They say that wrestling's fake, you know, And I don't know, Like, I've seen, like, Dana White talk about it in interviews. I love Dana White. I think he's incredible. And Mark and I have had the chance to, like, sit down.
- [12:29]
B
He's.
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A
He's just a great guy, but he. He's not for the theatrics of, like, the guys coming out and stuff. And I always said, like, man, one of these days, the. They sort of should go that way, because it's so. It's so interesting. It makes it so Much more fun when these guys have these big entrances and, you know, it's, it just, it feels gigantic. And they used to do it back in Pride, so I always hope, like, maybe one day they'll, they'll start sneaking that stuff in there now that they're sort of all one company, you know, like wwe. Because wwe, even right now, I don't think that necessarily the product is better than it's been, but I, but the way it looks is incredible right now. Like, the things that they're doing, you know, visually are really cool.
- [13:08]
B
It's unbelievable. I was just watching a clip on Instagram yesterday of the Undertaker coming out on a Harley with ape hangers, with Limp Bizkit playing in the middle of the stage and like Pyro going off everywhere. Like, that's just like, that's such a high level of production and entertainment and money they put into that.
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A
Yeah. And then the, the entrances. Like the other day on wrestling, they did a promo where it was like Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins and it was whoever the, all the top guys are right now was Cena was involved, right? And everybody got their own entrance. And so like this promo is like 20 minutes because it's like, oh, now Cody Rhodes has to come out. Like his music comes on, he does the whole pyro gets up on the ropes. And then I think it was Randy Orton he comes out, he. This whole thing. So the whole promo took forever just because everybody got their own, right, you know, full entrance. But it's kind of, I mean, I think that's what the fans come to see.
- [14:06]
B
Yeah, it is. And they all, they all know, they, they all know it's not real. They're there for the entertain. It's theater today.
- [14:13]
A
That's fun.
- [14:13]
B
You know what I mean? Yeah, it's super fun. Those people are, are there for the thrill of it, the entertainment, the camaraderie of everyone getting together, picking their team, picking their wrestler. It's. I like going to, going to that event in New Orleans was.
- [14:27]
A
Yeah, we had a completely different experience. So we grew up in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and Poughkeepsie, N.O York was the sort of satellite, like it was the home base of the WWE for television. So every month they would tape four hours of wrestling in the Mid Hudson Civic center in Poughkeepsie. And those four hours would be split up for the next four weeks. Every Saturday morning, the Saturday morning. You know, wrestling used to be on Saturday morning at like 10 o' clock in the morning, right. And you know, every show, like we, we saw it get taped. Like we were there. So like when Hillbilly Jim came out of the crowd to save the Hulkster, like we were little kids and we were there, you know. And Mark's like four years younger than me, so he's like a little rascal. And my older brother and I are like, we're like a year and a half apart. And it was just so much fun for us to sort of grow up kind of as a part of the WWE even, you know.
- [15:23]
B
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- [16:51]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [16:52]
B
You know, not, not just the performance enhancing drugs but like the drugs you got to take to can get rid of that dislocated hip or your knee or all the crazy injuries those guys would have.
- [17:00]
A
Speaking of that, I worked at WWE as a writer in like 2003, 2004 and I'm not going to mention any names, but I was backstage several times watching people chew up handfuls of Vicodin. It was like, it was no big deal.
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B
Just like, what were the other ones? And what was the one in Wolf of Wall street that he was eating?
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A
It's like Vicodin's Percocets.
- [17:22]
B
No. What were they called? Quaaludes.
- [17:25]
A
They didn't have Quaaludes then. I think Quaaludes have been illegal for a certain amount of time since like the 80s or something. But, yeah, everybody always talks about, man, do you ever. You. Everybody says you missed out if you haven't tried lewd, right?
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B
Yeah, I heard a lot of stories.
- [17:38]
A
No idea what they. What that would feel like, but, yeah, I mean, I. I just used to see it all the time. You know, our older brother, Mad Dog, who passed away, unfortunately, he would be a. He was a wwe, like, jobber, where he'd come in, he was enhancement talent. He'd come in and get beat up on TV and whatever. And he used to tell me, like, well, the main reason they hire me all the time is like, A, I usually make people look really good, and B, I always have pills and I'm like, what's that mean? He's like, I just bring the pills, you know, backstage. And back then it was a free for all. They don't. They don't play any of those games now, you know that. That's all sort of like gone. But it used to be crazy. Used to just be a free for all and not like it was encouraged, but it just wasn't. It wasn't stopped. And it was some of the top guys, you know, that were involved in it.
- [18:28]
B
Yeah, it's kind of crazy. Even today, there's such a stigma around it, you know. Like, look at Logan Paul since he joined the wwe.
- [18:34]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [18:35]
B
The transformation with that guy is unbelievable.
- [18:38]
A
You know, Logan Paul, I think a lot of people will come down on him. I. I don't care about his crypto scams or anything like that. He is the best wrestler in the history of wrestling, really. He's the.
- [18:50]
B
Oh, oh. Like real wrestling, the.
- [18:52]
A
The best. Like, you go back and watch his first match against, like, Rey Mysterio, I think it was. It's incredible. Like, it's incredible. Like, I have. No, I've. I've worked with a lot of wrestlers because we used to run a wrestling school. And I've seen people come and go and seen people come in and see people do some amazing things. What Logan Paul can do in the ring athletically is. It's insane. It's like, no, there's nobody like him. So people can talk about him all they want, but he's going to end up being the face of the WWE in the future, I think.
- [19:22]
B
Really?
- [19:22]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [19:22]
B
I haven't watched any of his matches. I saw some, like, the flying flips and stuff that he's doing. Like, I saw a video, him practicing, like, jumping off of something and, like, practicing doing these flips onto a mat.
- [19:31]
A
Yeah. I think you'll see Logan Paul, you know, basically shoot through the roof as far as WWE goes.
- [19:37]
B
Interesting.
- [19:38]
A
As long as he keeps everything else clean. I know he's got a lot of other scandals and things going on.
- [19:43]
B
Yeah, there's. Yeah, he seems like he can't escape all the scandals, man. Yeah, the crypto stuff and all the. All the other things that.
- [19:50]
A
I think when you get that big, it's probably hard to.
- [19:52]
B
It's hard to say no to people.
- [19:54]
A
Yeah, he's probably got too many bad people around them.
- [19:56]
B
Yeah. Yeah. That's the problem. You get too many leeches. Leeches and too many, you know, motivated people. People that are motivated just to make money, and they don't give a f about the longevity of your career or your legacy. But, I mean, that's like. That's kind of like one of, like, the first things you got to figure out if you're at that level of fame, Right?
- [20:13]
A
Yeah.
- [20:14]
B
Because that's the one thing that could kneecap your career.
- [20:16]
A
There's not a whole lot of people that figure it out. You know, most of the people end up, like, most stories end tragically. You know, it's.
- [20:22]
B
Yeah, well, that's the thing. Like, you know, people get greedy. It's like you achieve. You can get somewhere, you know, achieve a goal or get to, like, a certain level where you're, like, you're comfortable, you're happy. You don't have to worry about how much money you have to pay to go off. If you're going out to dinner with a bunch of people, you could pay the bill enough to worry about how much it costs. And then, like, you know, people think about, oh, now, now I got to start 16 businesses so I can monetize this from every possible angle. You know what I mean? Because. Because eventually it's not going to be here anymore. So I got to make sure I, you know, create a good retirement and all this stuff. And then that's when you start letting in people who are just in it for themselves or just in it for the short term gain, which it never ends up. Well.
- [21:04]
A
Yeah, and it's crazy now because you can get famous off of almost anything. You know, if you look at back when Mark and I were growing up, we, we didn't have social media. We, I never filmed. I must have worked out 10, 000 times without ever filming one thing, you know, and so we used to go into the gym, put heavy weights on, work really hard, outwork everybody around us. And it wasn't for the gram. It was like, for us, it was like, for me, like, I want to do this.
- [21:30]
B
You guys weren't in there with a tripod like filming yourselves.
- [21:32]
A
Yeah. Even now it's kind of surprising because Mark does do a lot of social media stuff.
- [21:36]
B
Yeah.
- [21:37]
A
But for the most part he's not filming all the time. You know, he's, he's got a guy that will come in and film with him now. But even during the times when he was getting all his stuff like online, it wasn't like he was constantly filming, you know, or you know, and he also, he, he always had his own gym. So it was never in the way of anybody or anything. But I just think now that people go to the gym literally just for the workout, you know, for the, for the, to get the workout.
- [22:05]
B
Yeah.
- [22:06]
A
On tape so that they can do, you know, a social media post. And that's not going to help you get jacked and tan. You know, you got, you got, you got to put in the work to do that, you know, and that's the thing is like steroids are at an all time high in my opinion. You go on the Internet and just everybody's juiced up, you know, from 20 years old on up, you know, 18 years old on up. And it's, it's just sad to see that, that it's gone that way and that people aren't really putting in that kind of work anymore.
- [22:35]
B
Yeah. Well, not only that, but it's sad to see when kids that young are doing it and they're trying to, they're trying to do it the cheap way and they're trying to do it, you know, because when you're, when you're 20 years old, no one's going to prescribe you steroids. So they're buying it behind the gym from some guy who works out at the gym. Right. They're buying it probably for somebody who just cooked it up in a bathtub or something. They don't know what it is. They've never gotten their blood work done. They don't know anything about their metabol or their, you know, any of their levels, their hormone levels or their lipid levels or any of this stuff. They're just haphazardly doing this, and then, you know, eventually it's like for some reason, they may have to stop or they run out or they move, and then your body's doing all kinds of crazy trying to, like, rebalance itself, and, you know, who knows what could happen?
- [23:16]
A
Yeah, they have no idea what's going on. And, you know, that's the thing is I encourage everybody who's over the age of 18, men or women, you know, I think everybody should go get their blood work done. I think that there's a lot of people out there that are struggling with low testosterone. We drink out of a lot of, like, plastic bottles. You know, like, I'm guilty of it, too. It's like, I think we all are. There's so many things that will lower our testosterone, and both men and women are walking around with low testosterone with all these symptoms of depression. One of the best ways to beat depression is have a good testosterone level, you know, So I always argue that, like, I always say the world needs a shot of testosterone. You know, it seems like we've gotten a little weak and wimpy and a lot of the. The things we do. And I think that relates back to our testosterone levels have dropped 50 in the last 50 years. So I think people. They don't need it. If. If they go and get checked and they don't need it, that's great. But I also say, like, if you're even if your levels are like 600, 700, why not have it be like a thousand, which is optimal? You know, why not have it be in that 900 to a thousand, which is optimal? And so there's, you know, there's a. A debate to where, like, I just think it can help so many people. I've seen it personally help hundreds of thousands of people, like, in, you know, just through what I do, you know. And, yeah, when, you know, when I made my film, I had no idea the impact it would have on the world. I think you don't know, you know, what impact you'll ever have on the world. But I've talked to so many people that are, you know, pretty, like, high up in what they do. For example, like, I work now. I work with a compounding pharmacy now in Houston called Empower Pharmacy. My boss saw bigger, stronger, faster and said, like, I need to. Like, I need to work with you. Like, we need to do stuff together because, like, you. Like, your film changed my life. The reason I have this compounding pharmacy is because I watched your movie, and. And when I watched your movie, I was like, that's what I need. And this guy's message is, right, like, steroids aren't the bad guy. The bad guy is, like, using these things, you know, without any sort of indication that you need them, you know?
- [25:32]
B
Right.
- [25:33]
A
And I think that's, like, sort of my message is like, don't make testosterone the bad guy. Use it if you need it. If you don't use it, if you don't need it, then don't use it.
- [25:41]
B
That's the problem with any drug. The biggest thing is education.
- [25:44]
A
Yeah.
- [25:44]
B
You got to have the education around it. People need to be able to understand it, and you can't just blackball it. So people are forced to buy it on the black or gray market, you know?
- [25:52]
A
Yeah, it's a huge problem when people are buying it behind the gym.
- [25:55]
B
Like you said. Yeah.
- [25:56]
A
I have a guy that came to me and said. He. He said to me, he's like, if you're not home brewing, you're doing it wrong. And I'm like, what do you mean? So I was like, what do you mean, home brewing? And this guy, like, no offense, but he looked like he came straight out of, like, a trailer park. And I said, what do you mean, like, home brewing? He's like, I. I just make my own.
- [26:16]
B
Yeah.
- [26:17]
A
I'm like, you make your own. And he starts telling me, like, how he makes his own testosterone, like, you know, in his sink. And it's like, that's not the way to do it, dude.
- [26:25]
B
Right.
- [26:25]
A
You know, but I guess it is a lot cheaper. And then I told my brother about it. My brother's like, oh, that's. That's great. I used to get stuff like that all the time when I was powerlifting. I had a bunch of guys that would make their own. And I'm like, yeah, I don't. I don't know about that. You know?
- [26:38]
B
Yeah, I got some friends who buy their. From guys at the gym, and they. You know, they never got their blood work done, and they. They're. They seem to be doing fine. I mean, they're huge.
- [26:48]
A
Yeah, steroids work. You know, that thing is, they. They work, but at some point, you're gonna hit a. You're gonna sort of hit a limit, you know, and then, like, how big do you want to get? You know? I think I used to think it was really cool. Even the name of the movies. Bigger, Stronger, Faster. I said, I think it was, like, really cool to be really big. Now I'm like, how do I get smaller? How do I get leaner? I want to get skinnier.
- [27:08]
B
Right, Right. It wouldn't be functional. Right?
- [27:10]
A
Yeah.
- [27:10]
B
Be able to do, like, I, I, like, I've. I've worked out my whole life. I've been going to the gym. At least since I've been in high school. I've been. I've gone to the gym. Like, I never been one to want to get really bulky or jacked, but, like, I grew up skateboarding and surfing and doing stuff like that. So I always wanted to be, like, be able to swim fast and be agile. I never wanted to be so freaking jacked that I couldn't move, you know?
- [27:33]
A
Yeah.
- [27:35]
B
So.
- [27:37]
A
I think genetics has a huge hand to play in that as well, you know?
- [27:41]
B
Yeah, definitely. But, like, I think it's, you know, it's changed. Like, the culture has changed. Like, I think the. You guys talked about this in the Bigger, Stronger, Faster documentary, but you were talking to somebody, I think it was like a lawyer or a doctor or something like that. And he was showing you the GI Joes. Here's the original GI Joe. Then look at the next one. He's got serratus muscles, he's got a six pack. And here's the new GI Joe. And it just talks about, you know, how, like, Arnold was big in the 90s or whatever and that, and then there were Stallone and then that kind of like the evolution of culture and movies in Hollywood kind of like played a role in. In pushing that mainstream. And, you know, now it's kind of like we're on the back side of that now. We're on more of a dip, I feel like. And it's not a super popular thing to be jacked out of your gills anymore. You know what I mean?
- [28:31]
A
Realize it's not attractive.
- [28:33]
B
Yeah. Like the other guy, the documentary with the freaking biceps like this. He's like, you think any girls walk up to me? Damn, that guy's hot?
- [28:39]
A
Yeah.
- [28:40]
B
No, their freaking boyfriends are face palming them and coming up to me saying, bro, how did you do that exactly?
- [28:46]
A
You attract dudes, you attract guys, you know, and that's the thing. It's like, even with. Even with the movie, after I made Bigger, Stronger, Faster, that's all that would come up to me. Like, I don't think I've ever. I maybe had, like, one girl come up and say, like, hey, good job on that movie. It's all dudes. It's like they come up and they're like, hey, man. And they're like, you know, you'll be out somewhere and they'll just corner you forever and want to talk to you about your, you know, your movie. And you're like, yeah, I don't really care that much. Like, get away. You know, but it's just, it's just funny how it is like such a guy thing, you know that.
- [29:19]
B
Hey guys, if you're not already subscribed, please hammer the subscribe button below and hit the like button on the video back to the show. And also, like, testosterone is such a weird thing. It's such like a weird hormone. Well, you know, you know, like, like.
- [29:34]
A
It'S like the biggest provider of testosterone and the entire, the, the biggest customer for testosterone the entire United States is Planned Parenthood. And it's for gender transformation.
- [29:47]
B
Is it really?
- [29:47]
A
Absolutely. Yeah.
- [29:49]
B
Like, that's the number one.
- [29:51]
A
They're the number one, like, user of testosterone.
- [29:54]
B
Really? Yeah.
- [29:56]
A
Shows you how out of control and.
- [29:57]
B
It goes, it goes to Planned Parenthood.
- [29:59]
A
Yeah, it's Planned Parenthood. I don't know why, I guess that's where I, I guess they give it out or they, or they dispense it in some, some way. But I remember like, one of the really interesting things is Joe Biden was a guy who said there's something simply un American about this. And he pounded his fist on the table.
- [30:15]
B
Yeah.
- [30:16]
A
But back before that, even in 1990, he's the one that was a senator that pushed so hard against the advice of the DEA and the center for Human. What is it? Health and Human Services. Yeah. He went against their recommendations and the American Medical association, all three of those recommended that they don't make steroids a Schedule 3 drug. They don't make them illegal. They don't put testosterone in this, you know, class where nobody can get it. And he came out and said, no, you know, we're going to go against that. And then Biden wanted it to be scheduled and Biden got it scheduled. Yeah, and he got it scheduled and that sort of like was his claim to fame. But then just recently, you know, before he went out of office, his administration was pushing hard to now legalize testosterone for these gender affirming care. Oh, my patients.
- [31:10]
B
God. So guys playing baseball can't use it, but kids, minors who want to change their sex.
- [31:15]
A
Yeah. And I'm not sure like the, the ages or anything like that. You know, you hear a lot of crazy things like, oh, 15 year olds are getting it. I don't know if that's true or not, but I've, I've heard the stories and like, who knows what's true?
- [31:28]
B
I'm sure it gets blown out of proportion. You know, on, on in the media, like the mainstream media, people like to use that as like a, like a rallying cry to their team, you know, like, oh, we got to fix all the, all the trans. All the trans. But you know, sometimes the truth is in the middle. You never really know where what's.
- [31:43]
A
Yeah. And to be honest, if that's making people happy, I don't care what it's being used for. I just don't want it to be illegal for me. I don't want to be hard for me.
- [31:51]
B
It shouldn't be legal for kids though, for people.
- [31:54]
A
Not for. No, not for children. There's definitely.
- [31:56]
B
Yeah, that's, that's.
- [31:57]
A
You definitely need a age limit and a parental consent and probably like some sort of psychological evaluation, I think as well. You know, I think a lot of people get into that and they don't know what they're getting into and. Yeah, so, yeah, definitely not for kids.
- [32:09]
B
A lot of people, a lot of smart people think that like when these people are going through this, these psychological issues where they think they're a different gender, they're like a man and woman's body. Roman in a man's body. People have said that they're just mentally ill. Gays.
- [32:24]
A
Yeah.
- [32:24]
B
Or just like gay people who are, you know, going through depression or going through any kind of thing and they're just confused. They're young. I mean, that's being, being like that when you're, when you're young is normal. I think a lot of you need the proper guidance.
- [32:36]
A
Yeah. I think a lot of times time would be the, the key factor. You need time, you know, like you feel like that. Are you gonna feel like that in five years from now? Probably not, you know.
- [32:45]
B
Right, right. Just the same thing with getting, you know, your face tattooed. Like you're not gonna let 5 year old Johnny get his face tatt, get a spider man tattoo on his face just because he thinks spider man's cool. He's gonna regret that when he's 12.
- [32:57]
A
Kids would ask for that, you know. Right, exactly.
- [33:00]
B
Yeah, exactly. But so also Bruce Jenner is an interesting one because Bruce was taking steroids right. When he was in the Olympics, so I heard.
- [33:13]
A
I have a friend, his name's Tom File. He's amazing. He's hilarious. He's this jacked Power lifter. And he's, like, 60 years old now. He's still squatting like 600 pounds. He's a. He's just one of the most maniacal people I ever met. He used to work the front desk at Gold's Gym, and he used to train Bruce when it was Bruce.
- [33:31]
B
Really?
- [33:31]
A
Yeah. And I think that Bruce was on the Juice. That rhymes. That sounds cool. He used to train Bruce. Nobody else would train Bruce. He has not confirmed to me whether or not he was on steroids, but basically, like, when you hang out at Gold's Gym in Venice, you're on steroids. I don't care who you are. I worked out at Gold's Gym, Venice, for probably about 22 years straight, and I've met everybody that's come through those doors. And most of the people that come through those doors are gonna end up taking something, no matter who they are. You know, it's just that's. That's the environment that that place gives off. You know, really kind of in a weird way, when I shot bigger, stronger, faster, they let me shoot in there. And then I was so excited that I made the movie and it got in the Sundance Film Festival and, like, hey, this is going to be, you know, a bit, you know, on Netflix and all these things. And so I got all excited, and I went in with a poster, and I was like, can we put this poster up in here? Because I have all these posters of, like, all the famous people that have been through Gold, and I'm like, I'm finally going to get my poster on the wall, Gold's Gym. And they were like, hell, no. You said in your movie that, you know, people come to Gold's Gym and take steroids. I'm like, where did I say that in the movie? I've never. I never actually, like. I never said it. I never even equated it. I just said, you know, like, the movie was about steroids, and Gold's Gym is in it because I work out at Gold's Gym, but.
- [34:53]
B
Right.
- [34:54]
A
I never said anything derogatory about Gold's Gym and people going there using steroids, but now I will, because people go there and use steroids. But, you know, it's. It's. No, it's just interesting that, like, they wouldn't hang my poster on the wall. So they have the posters on the wall of all the guys that have used steroids, worked out at Gold's Gym and their posters on the wall.
- [35:16]
B
What's so funny?
- [35:17]
A
My poster is not supposed to be there.
- [35:18]
B
Yeah, that's so, so silly. I can't believe they would do something like that. But, like, as far as, like, Bruce. So do you. What do you make of. Of. Is there any connection between people who would. If. If allegedly. If Bruce was using steroids or doing something to him, like, all of a sudden going trans, is there any sort of pattern there with people?
- [35:37]
A
I don't think so. I don't know. I know I've heard people say, like, oh, he shot up so much steroids that it turned to estrogen and it turned him into a woman. I just think he would have to.
- [35:46]
B
Be doing a ton, though.
- [35:47]
A
Yeah. I mean, I don't think he would be taking that much testosterone, especially for, like, what. You know, what he was doing it. But if you look at his comeback story, there's a great documentary about Bruce Jenner on Netflix, and it's amazing to see, like, what he did, like, where he came from. He was like. And so I don't think somebody can come from. Like, I think he was 10th, you know, maybe 10th place the year before, and then he just shot up to, like, first place. So I don't think you do that naturally. You know, I. I don't know. I mean, maybe you do, maybe you don't. You know, I know that, like, certain people, like, when I grew up, I was a huge Yankees fan. And Reggie Jackson, we would go see Reggie Jackson play, and he'd always be cranking home runs, and he owned a Gold's Gym. And I'm always like, where there's smoke, there's fire. Like, we don't know that he used steroids, but you gotta think, like, well, Brady Jackson owned a Gold's Gym. You know, Ric Flair owned a bunch of Gold's Gyms. And, like.
- [36:41]
B
Did he really?
- [36:42]
A
Yeah. Who are these guys that, you know, they're. I just think that, like, where there's smoke, there's fire there. There's no reason to think that they wouldn't, you know, wouldn't do it. You look at a lot of people. Like, for example, I've. I've done an interview with Lance Armstrong. He was awesome to talk to, but Lance Armstrong's not a very big guy.
- [37:02]
B
Right.
- [37:02]
A
You know, like, he doesn't look like. And I've done an interview with Floyd Landis, who was, you know, the subsequent winner of the Tour de France after. After Armstrong. And. And he doesn't look, you know, he's 145 pounds. So it's like, not always, like, the person that looks like they take Steroids right?
- [37:19]
B
It's not yet. The goal is not always just to get super jacked, right? Like, like NBA players, right? Like, I'm sure LeBron James is on a whole bunch of shit.
- [37:28]
A
Well, he has to.
- [37:28]
B
I mean, but he's not super jazz. I mean, he's muscular. Yeah, he's muscular, he's muscular, but he, more than anything, he needs. And he needs to be able to fucking play full court basketball for two and a half hours.
- [37:38]
A
I would say that anybody at that level, if they're not on it, they're kind of stupid because the NBA actually has like a therapeutic use exemption where you can use testosterone up to a certain amount. I think your levels can't.
- [37:51]
B
Do they really?
- [37:52]
A
Yeah, I think it's like a low key thing. I know they don't, they don't really.
- [37:56]
B
I thought was the big thing with the basketball players.
- [38:00]
A
I don't know if they're using epo, but why wouldn't they, right? You know, if they're not testing for it, you know, who cares? I mean, I, I don't think anyone's looking at the NBA's drug testing close enough to monitor. I could be wrong. But I know people that have played in the NFL, you know, I know people that went to Balco when Balco was in session and they never got tested, you know, so they, they've told me, you know, oh yeah, like I, I used to go to Belco and I'm like, well, how many times you get tested during the year? Like, none, you know, like never got tested. And so I, I've just heard so many stories. I don't think I also went to usc. And when I went to usc, we had a great football team. And these, a lot of these guys that are like offensive linemen, defensive linemen, they're just huge guys. And I would talk to them about steroids and they'd have no clue. I talked to the second stringers, third stringers, they'd know everything about steroids. So I think it's like there's these in the NFL, NBA, wherever. You're gonna have like all these freaks, right, that aren't taking anything, which is surprising and shocking. And then you're gonna have some people that take stuff that it makes them better, it makes them good enough to be on that starting team, you know? And so, I don't know, it's just so hard to tell because I used to be one of those people where I used to think everybody was on something. But I've met so many people that when I talk to them. I get a sense that they don't know enough about it. Like, I mean, if they're taking it, they're taking it maybe through some sort of coach because they just don't know anything about it. And maybe they're playing stupid.
- [39:33]
B
Right.
- [39:33]
A
But I don't think people don't care.
- [39:35]
B
I know how people do it all the time and don't know about it. Like, I don't know if they send it to me and I jam it in my ass.
- [39:39]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it could be, you know.
- [39:41]
B
Yeah.
- [39:42]
A
But I also just think there's. I think there is a good amount of natural people out there, but it's dwindling, you know, I think it's getting smaller and smaller as we, you know, as we move through time. But it's like, you know, my brother had a gym in Sacramento, and we'd have all sorts of people come through there and train with us. And I couldn't tell you how many guys would say they're natural. And it's like, what are you gonna do? Can confront them to their face and be like, no, you're not. Show me your blood work. You know?
- [40:08]
B
Yeah.
- [40:08]
A
And it's just. It's not even. It's At a point, it's like, not even worth it, right. To. To worry about. It's like, I always tell people, just worry about yourself.
- [40:15]
B
Yeah, you know, Totally. And there's, you know, for things like the NFL, I don't. Like, I don't know what the optimal steroids or human growth hormone with the optimal, like, stack would be for an NFL player or an NBA. NBA player. But I would imagine, at least for NFL players, dudes who are getting the beat out of them every single week, that they would at least need testosterone and like, some sort of growth hormone just to be able to. Just to be able to heal their body every week. Right. Maybe some peptides to turn around in seven days is. Is a lot to ask when you're really crushing your body like that.
- [40:56]
A
There's some peptides that can help, like BPC157,500.
- [41:00]
B
Is that considered a steroid or is that just a peptide?
- [41:02]
A
They're peptides. I have tried, honestly, like, I have a really bad shoulder. I tore my rotator cuff, I tore my tricep, and it just never healed right. And so I've tried gallons of BPC157 in my shoulder. I've tried literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of stem cells. Luckily, I make documentaries, and I've gotten them comped from some different people. And so I've made it. I've had probably a hundred thousand dollars worth of stem cells in my shoulder with no, not one positive effect really, like I've had.
- [41:38]
B
I have a good friend who also paid tons of money for stem cells and he's sitting in his back and he said he never felt any sort of.
- [41:44]
A
Yeah, I felt zero benefit. I felt 0 benefit from BPC157. Maybe the injuries too intense. But I have other people that say they've injected it in their knee or something and all the pain went away.
- [41:58]
B
Yeah, I've injected a BPC in my, in my hand before when I like up a tendon in my thumb and it helped a lot. Yeah, but that's the only place, so.
- [42:05]
A
I don't, I don't doubt it. It just like it's. It's not something that worked for me so well.
- [42:10]
B
There's a difference. The stem cells, though, the. The interesting thing about the stem cells is there's like the, the general, like general population stem cells. And then there's the ones that you can get that are actually like, you can get from like a. Your own wife's placenta.
- [42:23]
A
Yeah.
- [42:23]
B
That are like. Or I guess that would. Would that work for the dude though, if it was from. Oh, no, no, I'm sorry. It's the cord blood from. If you have a baby, you can, you can get the bank the cord blood or the umbilical cord. And if you use those stem cells, those match your DNA and those apparently are like a hundred percent effective. But like the general mill stem cells, like the general population stem cells aren't necessarily.
- [42:46]
A
I use two different kinds. One time I went to Mexico and went to a place called Eterna Health. And like I said, they had all these other treatments that I got. It was, it was great. But the stem cells did not work in my knee and in my shoulder. Then I went to another place in Austin where they're not allowed to use the same kind of stem cells they use in Mexico. But I was told that the ones that in Austin are actually from like, I think like you said, like a placenta or something. Whereas like the ones in Mexico were like, they drew them from me and then they spun them up and they injected them back into me.
- [43:23]
B
Yes.
- [43:23]
A
And then the one in Austin, they just went, you know, boom, right into me. And the ones that went right into me in Austin, those seem to work for my knee, but they didn't. They didn't do anything for my shoulder. So it's weird, right? Because like, I feel like they helped, but I don't feel like they helped. I. They don't help enough for me to. I couldn't recommend it to you.
- [43:43]
B
Right. There's probably a little bit of placebo effect.
- [43:45]
A
Yeah. I wouldn't tell you like, oh, man, go get stem cells. It's gonna be great, you know? Yeah. You'd probably kill me if you spent the money and went down there.
- [43:51]
B
Right, Right. Yeah. There's got to be some level of placebo effect to it. But that's interesting. It worked on your knee and not your shoulder. Maybe your shoulder is just completely wrecked.
- [43:59]
A
That could be it, you know?
- [44:00]
B
Yeah. I had a dude in here, I was telling your brother about this, but I, I had a dude in here who was a coach for. I think it was University of Florida Gators. It was a. Or not like the head coach, but he's like one of the coaches. You know, they have a whole team of coaches. And he was telling me all of the, like the receivers and the running backs are jacked on Adderall.
- [44:22]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [44:22]
B
And I was like blown away. I'm like, what?
- [44:25]
A
What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker? It's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at 95, including prescription lenses, plus scratch resistant, smudge resistant and anti reflective coatings and UV protection and free adjustments for life. To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses or contact lenses, or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com that's warbyparker.com Adderall is a huge drug everywhere. I mean, I think that's, you know, it's everywhere.
- [44:59]
B
Yeah. And like if you watch the videos, like some of the slow mo videos, even the guys in the NFL running like, like Antonio Brown or who's the other gu. Derrick Henry.
- [45:08]
A
Yeah.
- [45:09]
B
The videos through his helmet. Their freaking eyes are like saucers.
- [45:12]
A
When I said in Bigger, stronger, faster, we show like, okay, well if this is cheating, why isn't this cheating? And we show all these other industries right, where they use beta blockers in like for musicians. Well, you're in an audition, that's a competition, you know, like, what's a beta blocker? A beta blocker calms you down. So people will use them in, in thing like even in like golf. I think they're banned because they calm you down so much that you don't like have jitters, you know.
- [45:37]
B
Yeah.
- [45:37]
A
And so people use beta blockers for stuff like that, but they'll use it for, like, to, like, if they have an audition for the cello, they'll go in and they'll use beta blockers. So they're not all just shaking, just.
- [45:49]
B
To quell the anxiety at the moment.
- [45:50]
A
Yeah. And so it's like a performance enhancing drug. You know, we showed that all the fighter pilots have to have Adderall with them. They have to have it with them.
- [45:59]
B
What's it called? There's one specific we learned about recently called Provigil or something. Yeah, Provigil, Same thing.
- [46:05]
A
Modafinil is a pretty safe drug from what I know. I know Dave Asprey recommends it highly. He talks about it a lot and he says it's fairly safe compared to all the other ones. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not promoting it in any way. I'm just saying I know that he uses it and he's a high functioning guy.
- [46:22]
B
And it's basically a watered down Adderall.
- [46:24]
A
Is it? Yeah, yeah. I, I, I've had, I've taken Adderall. Adderall's crazy. Like, I've gotten, I hate Adderall. I can't stand it. Yeah, I got pretty spun up on it for a while. Like, I don't know. I, you know, I used to live in la and I went through this whole period of time where I had a double hip replacement surgery. And for a while I was just searching for anything that could help me feel better. And so I would go to these doctors that would prescribe you anything and I would get anything. They'd be like, oh, how about this? Okay, great. How about this? How about this? And so I was taking, like, Xanax and Adderall. It's like, you take one pill to go up, one pill to go.
- [47:02]
B
Yeah.
- [47:03]
A
And it gave me a great education on drugs and what they can do and how they can help people. But I am so far from that guy, you know, because I was a mess when I was doing that, you know, And I think that, Yeah, I think that people that mess with stuff like Adderall, I sort of feel bad because it'll suck you in pretty quick.
- [47:24]
B
Yep. You gotta be careful.
- [47:26]
A
And I think people really need to be careful with that one.
- [47:28]
B
Especially I, I keep a couple, I got some from a friend and I keep a couple, like, on, like, with me, because every once in a while I'll need one. Like the other day I needed one because I didn't sleep at all because we went out to, I went out to a Metallica Concert. We were up all freaking night. And then.
- [47:42]
A
It's my favorite band.
- [47:43]
B
Is it really?
- [47:44]
A
Oh, yeah, it's awesome.
- [47:45]
B
Oh, my God. I just had the craziest weekend hanging out Metallica and you got to hang out with them. I was hanging out with Kurt all weekend.
- [47:51]
A
It's amazing.
- [47:52]
B
Yeah. And anyways, so I didn't sleep that night. And then my kid woke up at like freaking 5 o' clock in the morning. And the next day I had to work, so I was like, it. I took a. A quarter of a 20 milligram adderall, 5 milligrams. And it's just like. I mean, I take it in the past, when I was younger, I used to take it a couple times a week just to get work done. And it just sucks the soul out of me. It just turns me into a robotic machine that can just complete tasks.
- [48:17]
A
But it helped you get through the day.
- [48:18]
B
It helps you get through the day. Yeah. But then the next day, I feel like, again, because, like, you're robbing from. You're robbing the dopamine from tomorrow for today.
- [48:25]
A
I think there. There is no drug on the planet that doesn't, like, it gives and it sucks. You know what I mean? Like, gives a little and then it, like, sucks a little. And that's what I look a little bit differently towards. Like, something like testosterone, because testosterone is a hormone, and it's a hormone that we need, and it's hormone that helps us, like, you know, perform better. And I don't see that many drawbacks to it. Whereas, like, with a lot of these other pharmaceuticals, I see, like, they have a great upside, but they also have a. A great downside. Even things like. We were talking about Kratom before.
- [48:56]
B
Yeah.
- [48:57]
A
I think I was kind of the catalyst for why Kratom exploded in this country. When I made the movie A Leaf of Faith. I was on Joe Rogan's podcast talking about Kratom.
- [49:08]
B
Yeah. You were on Rogan's podcast, what, like three times?
- [49:10]
A
Think Four.
- [49:11]
B
Four times.
- [49:12]
A
And I was a huge proponent of Kratom.
- [49:14]
B
I told. I was. By the way, quick side note, I was telling your brother I was laughing my ass off when he was talking about his kale salads. You're like, what the. Yeah. Yeah, I have a T bone.
- [49:23]
A
Yeah.
- [49:23]
B
That was so funny. He's like, what? I feel great with my kale shakes.
- [49:26]
A
Yeah. You know, so it's funny.
- [49:28]
B
The evolution.
- [49:29]
A
Yeah. And so Rogan was instrumental in actually keeping Kratom legal. This is pretty insane, but really. Yeah. So When I was making the movie, I. I had become friendly with Joe from the ufc, from, from being on his podcast. And then he invited us to go to, like, a ufc, and so I, like, went to this ufc and I saw him there and I chatted with him and whatever, and, and I told him, like, hey, man, they're gonna like, ban Kratom, like, like, literally in a couple days. Can you mention this on your podcast? And he's like, oh, yeah, sure. Why don't you come in? Like, come in on this date. I'm like, come in. You want me to be on your podcast again? He goes, yeah, just. He's like, we'll just do like an emergency podcast and we'll talk about the Kratom problem. If I can help, that's great. And so I went in there and I talked about it and I, I basically told everything I know. I mean, this is a natural plant, and this is before they've made all these Kratom extracts and all these really high potency Kratom products. This was just like, simple, like leaf kratom, you know, a ground up leaf. If anybody doesn't know what Kratom is, it's an out. It's basically a plant from Southeast Asia that's in the same family as the coffee family. And it is a mild opioid that will make you feel really good. But if you take a lot of it over a long period of time, it will become addictive, just like anything else. Habit forming. It's hard to get off of if you're taking a lot of it. But we've always saw that, like, hey, if you keep it under like, 10 grams a day, you'll never have a problem. Like, it's, it's not going to be. I mean, I shouldn't say never, but for the most part, if you keep it under a certain amount a day, you're not going to have a problem. And what the problem is, people start making, you know, all these concoctions where they're taking 50 milligrams of kratom, 100 milligrams, right? Becomes very addictive. Right? But back to what I was saying with, with Joe is that I went on the podcast and I said, listen, the DEA is going to schedule this as a drug unless we can get like, 25, 000. I think it was 10. No, 10,000. If we can get 10,000 signatures, you know, not even signatures. Like, you had to like, write like a short email to the, to the dea, right? If you write a short email to the DEA saying they should keep Kratom legal. You know, say something like, hey, Kratom, help my brother's back problem. Kratom, help me, you know, get through school. Kratom, help me with it. Tell them. Tell them why in an honest way. It helped you.
- [51:59]
B
Yeah.
- [51:59]
A
Or even tell them why you don't think it should be legal. I don't care what you tell them, just tell them something. Because if they get more than 10, 000 comments, they have to read them all. And if they have to read them all, most likely they'll just back down because they're not going to want to read them all. And so the next day we went and checked the website and there was like 28, 000 people that sent emails. Yeah. Into the, into the DEA to say, hey, we, you know, we should keep Kratom legal. We should keep looking at it. The problem with Kratom is the same problem we have with weed in this country is like, you know, kratom used to be this wholesome plant that was, you know, did so, so much good for so many people. But then they start making extracts, they start making concentrates. They are now making. Taking alkaloids of Kratom and separating them out and making really super concentrated forms of Kratom, which I'm not against. What I'm against is that they sell them in smoke shops and they don't tell people how addictive they can be.
- [53:01]
B
Right.
- [53:01]
A
They don't. They're not educating people on them. There might be a reason for me to do another documentary that would follow up A Leaf of Faith, which is my documentary on Kratom, to sort of really just educate people about it so that we don't get ourselves into another opioid epidemic. Because I do believe that this new product, it's called seven oh, or seven hydroxymetragynine, it's an alkaloid of Kratom, I believe.
- [53:25]
B
Seven hydroxy metrogynine.
- [53:27]
A
Yes. You can buy any smoke shop. You walk into a smoke shop or even gas stations now, you'll see tons of it everywhere. And the problem is people are spending. You know, it's expensive. It's like for, on average, for five tablets, it's like 35 bucks. So it's like seven bucks a tablet. People are taking five tablets at once. You know, they're taking it all at once and they're.
- [53:50]
B
What's the effect?
- [53:51]
A
It'll get you high like an oxycontin.
- [53:53]
B
Okay.
- [53:54]
A
But. But if you take it in like a lower dose Just a normal dose. It'll kill pain like crazy. So that's where I'm coming in saying, like, we're not supposed to take the whole damn package.
- [54:05]
B
Right.
- [54:06]
A
But, like, I can't control that. And so in order to control and. And the companies that are coming out, they're coming out, and they're called Opia or they're called Pressed, or they're called, you know, blues. They have these names that sound like drugs. And when I have names that sound like drugs, it can turn people off. You know, it's sort of telling you, like, hey, man, you're buying a drug.
- [54:27]
B
Yeah.
- [54:27]
A
And if we want to make this a potent painkiller that can really help people, there needs to be some sort of process or some sort of, you know, way to do that. So I'm actually talking to some people about possibly doing another documentary about Kratom because I do think it can really help the. A lot of people, but it needs to be. There needs to be education on it.
- [54:49]
B
Right.
- [54:50]
A
The same thing. Also, like, on the flip side of Kratom is ibogaine.
- [54:55]
B
Yeah.
- [54:55]
A
And I'm also talking to some people about doing a documentary about ibogaine, because if people don't know what ibogaine is, it'll flip an opioid addiction in, like, 48 hours. It's one of the most insane drugs I've ever dealt with. It will reset all your neurotransmitters in your body. It'll kill pain in your body. For me, I did a ibogaine trip. You can actually watch it on YouTube. It's called Ibogainez. So I. It's I, B O G A I N Z. I love it. And it's just a little short film I put together about my experience. It's gotten ripped off of YouTube, like, several times. So it's been on there and off there and on, and it's bad. It's back on there anyway, but. So I just made this short film about my experience with ibogaine. And the reason I did ibogaine was simply because I have such bad chronic pain. Like I said, I was going through a period of time where I was doing whatever I could to try to get out of chronic pain. After I did ibogaine the day after. This is stupid, right? I went from not being able to walk, like, barely able to walk every day. I'd wake up and I'd literally be in tears walking around, and I'd be just walking around doing my daily stuff. And this is going to sound Like. Like a. But I'd be crying going, like, I need help. Like, I need help. I. I can't do this anymore, you know, Like, I'm done, and if this doesn't help, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Like, I'm done, you know? And I was like. Don't want to even say, but I was, like, suicidal, you know, to a point where I was like, this pain is so bad, there's nothing I can do to heal this or fix this. So I called a friend. He lives in Boston. His name is Jim. And Jim is like, he. He's amazing. He's got this thick Boston accent. He's like an old school bodybuilder from Boston. And ibogaine saved his life. So he came out to visit me. It was the day before the world shut down for the pandemic. So it was March 16th of 2020. He flew out, like, last minute, administered ibogaine to me. I went on a trip that lasted, I want to say, like, three or four days, where I was, like, in the clouds. Like, I don't know where I went.
- [57:07]
B
That long?
- [57:08]
A
Yeah. My soul, like, left my body.
- [57:10]
B
How do you take it?
- [57:11]
A
It's just a pill.
- [57:12]
B
Just a pill? And it lasts that long?
- [57:15]
A
Yeah, it was a series of pills. So what it was, was I took like 250 milligrams, I think, every. Like, every hour, maybe for five or six hours. So. And what happened was I dosed it at a really, really high level because my pain was so bad. And I kept, like, asking for more. I don't know why, because I was in the. In the middle of the trip, and I ended up taking about 2 grams of it, which is a lot. Like, if you go to a clinic in Mexico, they'll probably give you one gram. But I think because I got two grams, I blasted off to the moon. It was so in the beginning of it, it was the most horrific, like, horrible. You see every tragedy in your life, every bad thing that's happened in your life, and you just keep turning the page, and then something's worse comes up. And then something worse comes up. And it's like you're reliving all these past memories, but then all of a sudden, like, I got through all these, like, bad memories of, like, being picked on in school.
- [58:17]
B
Yeah.
- [58:18]
A
You know, like. Like you'd remember the. The most unique, like, weird things. And then all of a sudden, like, I saw, like, a flashbulb go off, and I'm like, oh, there goes all my depression and Another flashbulb goes off and goes, there goes all the anxiety. And another flashbulb goes off and goes, there goes all the pain. Hey, you're free. You're free to go. And then I saw my older brother who passed away, and I was telling your producer Steve, before, it's not like I felt like I saw and talked to my brother. I talked to my brother. Like, it was real. It was so real. I can't describe how. It's hard to describe how close it was to, like, a real interaction. Like, I. I feel it was real, you know, Like, I feel like my brother came to me and said, hey, I know I up and I did a lot of drugs and I did a lot of crazy things in my life, but I'm here where I am because this is where I'm supposed to be, and none of this is your fault. And, like, that was so profound and crazy. It was like, literally the most profound thing that ever happened to me. It was like, wait, what just happened? Like, all this stuff that I was holding on to for years just left my body, you know? And then the day after I did ibogaine, I walked into the gym and I put four. Like, you know, I was always a power lifter. So I put 405 on the bar and go, let me just, like, I. I just started working out. I was like, okay, let me do one plate. Okay, two plates, three plates, four plates. I go. I go up to four plates the day after I did ibogaine. And I do, you know, a set of 10 with 405 going from like, I can't walk to like, let me lift 405 for 10 reps to me was just like, the most insane thing that I've ever, like, ever happened to me. And I'm like, this drug needs to be explored. This needs to be looked at. This needs to be something that people can have access to, because I don't know what the happened, you know, Like, I still don't know.
- [60:19]
B
That's and wild, bro.
- [60:20]
A
You know, Marco, he says, be careful because, like, for six months afterwards, I was telling everybody. I was like, ibogaine preacher. Like, everybody needs this, you know? And then you. You sort of mature and you learn, like, hey, just chill. Because, like, what is it going to be like in six months? And that's where my brother comes in. He's really wise with all that stuff. And he said, give it some time before you tell everybody, right? And so I just started, like, you know, I calmed down a little bit. Like, telling people about it and then, of course, the pain came back. You know, it came back again.
- [60:55]
B
How long did it take?
- [60:57]
A
About six months.
- [60:58]
B
Wow.
- [60:59]
A
But if we could find something. There's something in there. If you could find something that can kill pain for six months and he only had to do it once. Why can't you figure out a way to make that molecule into something where you don't have to have that. You don't have to maybe go through that trip again? Like, maybe there's something. There's something there. Put it that way. And big pharma is not looking into it. You know, nobody's looking into it.
- [61:23]
B
Oh, they're looking into it. They're looking how to subvert it.
- [61:25]
A
Yeah.
- [61:26]
B
How to shut it down.
- [61:27]
A
How to keep it shut down. And there's a guy I'm helping. I've been helping and working with a little bit. His name's Brian Hubbard. He's amazing. He's like. He was on Rogan before.
- [61:36]
B
Okay.
- [61:37]
A
I think he might be the longest speaker on Joe Rogan with it. With Rogan not talking.
- [61:42]
B
Really?
- [61:43]
A
Oh, yeah. He Talked for, like, 25 minutes straight about ibogaine and how. Amazing.
- [61:47]
B
Yeah, I remember that one.
- [61:49]
A
Yeah. That. That guy is gonna. I. So right now in Texas, where I live, ibogaine is up to be legalized for, you know, clinical trials. So we might get some clinical trials soon. If we get clinical trials, it'll be, you know, available for people to use. But I think we need to expand it. Right now, it's like, they're really focusing on veterans with ptsd and they're focusing on addicts more. More on veterans.
- [62:18]
B
Yeah.
- [62:18]
A
I think people with addicts, unfortunately, I think people throw them away. Yeah. Who cares about the addicts? Like, let's help the. The veterans.
- [62:25]
B
You know, there's this dude, Dana Beal. I think that's his name, Dana Beale. Who is this? He's this hardcore psychedelic guy from the psychedelic renaissance. Old school guy who is allegedly piloting. He's flying ibogaine from Africa to the Ukraine to give ibogaine to the Ukraine soldiers.
- [62:46]
A
Wow.
- [62:47]
B
To help them, like, to treat their. Not only, like, battle fatigue and the ptsd, to, like, help them process that and, like, get back out in the battlefield, which is wild. So he's giving them ibogaine, and then I think the Russian soldiers are getting some form of, like, meth.
- [63:04]
A
Wow.
- [63:05]
B
Yeah. It's insane, but, like, that's super. That's super helpful. And I know the government is definitely spending a lot of money studying this, especially there is this lab Chemistry lab. I think it is up in North Carolina that DARPA gave a 20 million dollar grant to, to figure out how to take the trip out of psychedelics, specific, certain psychedelics. So they could basically give soldiers this, the psychedelics and have the benefit of the psychedelic for, for, you know, PTSD recovery, things like this, but without having the like hallucination.
- [63:45]
A
Yeah, you know, they actually did it and it's really interesting. So I talked to this guy, I want to say his name's Dr. Olson. David. I think his name's Dr. David Olson. He's in.
- [63:56]
B
Yeah, Nichols. David Nichols.
- [63:59]
A
I think it's Olson.
- [64:00]
B
Okay.
- [64:00]
A
And he's in. So there's Nolan Williams, he's at Stanford, he's doing a lot of the ibogaine studies. But this other guy at UC Davis, because I used to live in Davis, that's kind of where Mark lives in that area. And so when I was there, I talked to this guy who basically was able to synthesize ibogaine. It's called like tabernathologue. And tabernathologue is available on, you know, like the research chemical sites where you can buy, you know, all the peptides. Yeah, you can get this stuff called tabernapholog. And it's like tabernathologue, it's like $700 a gram, but it's ibogaine without, without the high. They've basically said that they can take what happens with an ibogaine trip and put it into a pill, but you can buy it as a research chemical. It's just that, like, not for human consumption. Yeah, well, I. Here's the thing. Like, my girlfriend doesn't like me doing any of this stuff and experimenting and messing around. So I try to stay, you know, true to that. I would love to order it and try it, but if I order it and try it, I'm gonna get in trouble. So I need somebody else to try it for me to see. Hey, man, what happens, you know, because I, I understand, I understand like not, you know, hey, don't try this, don't try that. Because I've in the past, to be honest, I had been very reckless with, you know, different substances. And I think that being reckless, though has brought me back around to like now being a lot more responsible with stuff.
- [65:35]
B
Sure.
- [65:35]
A
You know, because I'm like, whoa, man, that was wild. You know, like I've. When I experimented with psilocybin mushrooms, I really experimented. I've gone up to. I've talked to my friend Kyle Kingsbury. He told Me, like, oh, yeah. I've taken up to, like, 20 grams of mushrooms, so my stupid ass. Like, I'm gonna try that, you know.
- [65:53]
B
For the first time.
- [65:54]
A
No, not the first time, but for, like, maybe the fifth time. It wasn't. I wasn't that far in enough to do it, and I didn't have anybody, like, trip sitting me, you know? And, like, you know, it's just this dumb, right? But I had one of the most amazing experiences ever. I felt like we. I thought. I thought we were being invaded. First of all, I thought we were in a simulation. I would, like, look at the wall and I'd see a crack in the wall and go. And I. And for some reason, I thought I had to, like, go talk to, like, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk about it. Like, they must know. They know about this. I got to get to them. They have to, you know, and then I. I, like, everything around me would just crack and fall and, like. Like, it was wild. And then I eventually went. I got my blanket and my pillow, and I walked outside to my car, and I started packing things in my car because I thought that the Russians were dropping a bomb on us. I don't know why. It was, like, cloudy out that day, and it was dark out, and I thought, like, you know, and Joe Rogan said, oh, before you even know it, before the sky even becomes dark, you're gonna be dead. And I'm like, oh, like, they're caught, you know?
- [66:58]
B
Yeah.
- [66:58]
A
And this is all on a mushroom trip, you know, this is just like, that's what happens when you're a little bit reckless. Yeah, it was fun, but, like, you know, it. What did I get out of it? Probably nothing.
- [67:10]
B
Yeah, that's why it's good to, you know, have somebody, if you're gonna go that hard, like, to, you know, be in a safe environment, have somebody, like, who knows what they're doing. Because, I mean, like, no one's ever died from psychedelics. The only thing that kills people when they're doing these kinds of drugs is, like, being around a large body of water and not knowing how to swim when you're zonked on.
- [67:27]
A
Yeah. And. And like I said, like, I went and got stuff and walked out. It's like, you don't know. Like, you know, you're not paying attention. So it's like, yeah, you should be paying attention, you know?
- [67:35]
B
Yeah.
- [67:36]
A
So I definitely don't recommend that, but I've. I've walked that path, and I think it's good to be honest about that, you know.
- [67:42]
B
Yeah, totally. I gotta take a leak real quick. I made the mistake of breaking the seal before he started, and I'm. We'll be right back. Metallica is your favorite band.
- [67:49]
A
Oh, dude, I love Metallica. I can't believe you got to hang out with. You know, I worked. So we. We've had just a crazy, storied life. And I. I worked at Woodstock. I think it was like, Woodstock. Like, they redid it in, like, 94. I think they did it again in 99. And so we worked as, like, security guards for Woodstock.
- [68:10]
B
Really?
- [68:10]
A
And Metallica played at Woodstock. And, like, my brother's Mad Dog, his claim to fame was like. He was like. He fell asleep because he was like. We were doing security. He fell asleep, and he got blasted with, like, Super Soakers. And he woke up. I was like, who the did that? He's all. You know, Mad Dog was huge. He was all pissed. And he's, like, looking around. He looks. And it's the tour bus, and it's Metallica out the windows of their. Of their bus, shooting my brother with super circles.
- [68:37]
B
Oh, my God. Like, oh, hey, let's talk 1999.
- [68:40]
A
1994, I think.
- [68:41]
B
Oh, 1994.
- [68:42]
A
Yeah. And they were like, look, this guy fell asleep blasting him.
- [68:46]
B
Holy, bro.
- [68:47]
A
So that was. That was the closest we've ever got to Metallica.
- [68:50]
B
Find a video of woodstock94. I gotta see. I was watching a video of the 1999 one the other day, and it was totally insane, the amount of people that were there.
- [69:01]
A
I always used to work security for all these concerts. So you see where, like, the people are sliding in the mud.
- [69:07]
B
Find a photo, like, the crowd, like, a big, wide.
- [69:09]
A
See that guy in the mud?
- [69:11]
B
Yeah.
- [69:12]
A
The funny thing about the mud that people didn't know is a lot of the mud came from people knocking over outhouses.
- [69:18]
B
No.
- [69:19]
A
Yeah. So people were, like, sliding down the hill in the mud, and it was like, poop. But they didn't know it, bro.
- [69:26]
B
Oh, my God. Is that Limp Bizkit on the top left? Is that Fred Durst?
- [69:31]
A
I think I might even still have my shirt from it. Like, I had a shirt. It said Peace Patrol on the back.
- [69:36]
B
Look at that, bro.
- [69:40]
A
Yeah. So we grew up in, like, Poughkeepsie, New York, and this was in upstate New York. Woodstock's not very far.
- [69:46]
B
That's it. How many people are there?
- [69:47]
A
99 or 94. 94.
- [69:50]
B
Not 99. Yeah.
- [69:52]
A
Sock. 94. Metallica. I think it was. I think I want to say it was Like Nine Inch Nails, Metallica and Aerosmith, like, all in a row. It was pretty dope.
- [70:01]
B
Yeah. I. I got to. I met Kirk not too long ago because I guess he's bizarrely a fan of this podcast, which is.
- [70:09]
A
I don't find that to be bizarre at all.
- [70:11]
B
It was my mind that.
- [70:12]
A
That guy, of all people, I find. I think he would be a huge f. This.
- [70:15]
B
He's really into, you know, a lot of, like, the esoteric stuff and a lot of, like, you know, some of like the, you know, more of the fringe podcast that I've done. And he was like, dude, he is.
- [70:24]
A
I think he's the best guitarist in the world.
- [70:26]
B
I. I think he's. Yeah.
- [70:28]
A
Beyond so many other people. I think he never gets, like, the credit, really.
- [70:32]
B
I'll tell you what, dude, I've never met anybody who is that emotionally connected to their craft, especially after doing it at the highest level possible for over 40 years.
- [70:44]
A
And he's so, like, low key.
- [70:46]
B
Yeah.
- [70:46]
A
Like, he's never causing a problem.
- [70:48]
B
Right?
- [70:48]
A
He's never, you know, the. The asshole.
- [70:50]
B
Right?
- [70:50]
A
No, it's like there's that one scene in the movie where they. It's amazing. There's a scene in. I want to say it's in the Making of the Black Album. Yeah, it's in the Making of the Black Album. But I forget what the documentary is called, but maybe a Day in the Life of Metallica or something. Day and a half in life. So anyway, they. He. He gets all flustered and he gets all pissed and he's like, I can't. I can't do this, man. It's not like, coming through. And they're, like, trying to record the Unforgiven. They're trying to record the soul. And he does it a couple more times and he, like, throws his guitar down. He's like, I'm. I'm coming back tomorrow. And then he comes back in the next day and he just goes, I'm. I'm so ready. Let's just go. And he just jams that, like, first take of that, like, solo for the Unforgiveness.
- [71:36]
B
Wow.
- [71:36]
A
He just jams it in one take and then sort of goes, okay, cool, we're good. And he couldn't get it like, the day before. He just couldn't. He couldn't crack it.
- [71:44]
B
Right.
- [71:45]
A
I never thought they made music that way. I thought, like, they had it maybe written out. I don't know what I thought.
- [71:49]
B
Right.
- [71:50]
A
Just seeing that process was really cool.
- [71:52]
B
Yeah. What really shocked me the most about him was just like, after all these years, like touring and creating all these out forever, touring across the country, being in front of, you know, stadiums full of, you know, hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people. The fact that even today, like, I think he's in his 60s now.
- [72:10]
A
Yeah.
- [72:10]
B
He still has that insane creative spark where he's like connected to the muse or whatever it is where he's like, super motivated to create new, come up with new.
- [72:22]
A
How do you even care Put.
- [72:23]
B
He's still trying to push the envelope as far as he possibly can. He's trying to, he's thinking about, you know, doing all these other kinds of projects and he's so interested in all kinds of stuff. When typically people at that level, you know, who have reached that insane level of success, they, they kind of lose that spark. You know what I mean? They get comfortable and they just kind of like settle into success and comfort.
- [72:45]
A
I think Metallica, I think a lot of people have like written them off too. If you, like, listen to their last album, it's amazing.
- [72:51]
B
Oh my God, it's incredible. It really is.
- [72:53]
A
I think that people have gotten the people have written them off and like, ah, I listen to the old stuff, I'm like, no, the new stuff is really good.
- [73:00]
B
Yeah. And this, that concert I was telling you about, there was two shows. They did, they did a show on Friday and a show on Saturday and that's, I've never been to a Metallica show before that.
- [73:09]
A
Oh, really?
- [73:09]
B
No, never? Yeah, I mean, I remember getting the Black Album when it first came out. It was like one of my, the first CDs. I was like one of the first three CDs I ever owned. And like going to that concert at Raymond James stadium, there was 90,000 people there and it was kind of like how I was explaining to the, the WWE WrestleMania. It was similar, but it was just like on another level because there was 90, 000 people all shoulder to shoulder. And the music is like the, the heavy metal is blasting, the pyrotechnics is going off. There was the, there's the light show that's happening at the same time and everybody, it's like, it's like every atom of every human being in that entire stadium is resonating at this frequency and you can feel it. And like, bro, if, if I was from 2, 000 years ago and I took a time machine to that concert, that Metallica concert. Those dudes are gods. Yeah, I, I, those dudes are gods.
- [74:04]
A
Yeah. It's wild, right? How they Just command and James Hetfield's so cool. Like, we went to. I went to the. The most recent San Francisco Orchestra thing that they did in San Francisco and where they played with the orchestra, and it was just so well done. You ever seen that?
- [74:23]
B
I haven't seen that.
- [74:23]
A
Oh, you got to see it.
- [74:24]
B
Yeah.
- [74:24]
A
They play with it.
- [74:25]
B
Pull it up.
- [74:26]
A
They play with the orchestra, and it's just so. It's just so well constructed, the way that they flow with this, you know, they're playing with. How long ago is this whole nerdy San Francisco Orchestra that. This is a couple years ago. Like, maybe five years ago. A friend of mine like, just got tickets to it. He's like.
- [74:43]
B
It's also amazing they've been to stay together. They've stayed, you know, as a. Like a solid crew for so long.
- [74:49]
A
Yeah. Like, if you look at no leaf clover, that. That's what. Like, see that? San Francisco Symphony S M2 full concert. That's. It says, when it comes to being the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way that's so deep, you know, like, you think you're going, hey, go to the light. Go to the light. It's just a freight train coming to run you over. So, like, you feel like I'm going towards the light and then.
- [75:11]
B
Wow.
- [75:12]
A
So that's like, one of my favorite lines, you know?
- [75:15]
B
Yeah, man.
- [75:17]
A
Yeah. Metallica's dope.
- [75:18]
B
Yeah, Metallica is the.
- [75:20]
A
You know, I've been a fan of Metallica since I was a kid, and so I remember going to the. And justice for all concert where they had, like, the giant lady justice, and it, like, blows up on this. You know, it's a giant statue, like lady justice, and it, like, falls apart, and like, the whole stage starts coming apart and you think it's real. Oh, the stage blows up. Like, the.
- [75:40]
B
What year are we talking that you're going to these shows?
- [75:43]
A
Came out? 90. Yeah. Like, I. I want to say even maybe.
- [75:46]
B
Yeah, that was like, late 80s.
- [75:47]
A
I thought justice and justice for all might have been 88. Yeah. So I was. I was a kid, you know, going to that also. My brother went to all that stuff, so he was like, the one that led us into all that stuff.
- [75:59]
B
You want to talk about, like, wrestling being a different thing in the 80s, this Metallica and, like, metal in concerts was like, a whole different beast in the 80s, I bet.
- [76:07]
A
Yeah. And like I said, we worked all the concerts, so, like, we were. My brothers and I were always like, you know, we were always Big dudes, like, compared to most other people. And so I'm short, but I was jacked, you know, and I was strong. So we always got hired to work concerts. And so we'd work all these concerts and they'd be like Iron Maiden concerts, Beastie Boys, you know, I've worked like, name it. Limp Bizkit, like Kid Rock, like, work all these concerts. And usually we were put in the spot where you're in between the audience and the band, right? So like, there's like usually like a little gap there. So, you know, in case, you know, people get crushed up against the wall and you gotta pull em over the wall. Other times people are fighting, you got to pull them over the wall. Other times people are trying to get on stage, you gotta, you know, get off stage. But you know what's crazy? The craziest concert I ever worked by far was in Vermont. And it was a Grateful Dead concert. And. Yeah, and it was supposed to be like 25000 people outside, peaceful, you know, little Grateful Dead concert. 250000 people showed up and just rushed the gates. And we just basically took our jackets off and went in and hung out. Like, I don't. I didn't.
- [77:18]
B
There was nothing you could have done.
- [77:19]
A
No, I mean, what are you gonna do? You're getting. You're making like, you know, 10 bucks an hour. So you're like, I'm not fighting this whole crowd that at first we were running and grabbing these guys off the. You know, they're trying to climb a fence.
- [77:32]
B
Yeah.
- [77:33]
A
And so you'd run and you're like, okay, cool, I got one. And then. Cool, I got one.
- [77:36]
B
Yeah.
- [77:37]
A
And then one of my friends climbed the fence after a guy went to grab him and ripped his like, arms up like. Like just blood. And we're. That's when they're like, hey, man, it's not worth it, right? I mean, what am I gonna do? I. These people want to get in, let them in. Yeah, I don't care.
- [77:51]
B
Yeah. Jesus, man.
- [77:53]
A
So it's like when crowd control becomes impossible, you know?
- [77:56]
B
Right. Yeah. I mean, imagine like the. The. Have you seen the. The video of the crowd that was in Moscow when they played in Moscow? No Metallica type in Metallica. Moscow. It is the most out of control, like, insane crowd I've ever seen at a rock show. Look at that. Look at some of those photos, bro. Look at that one on the bottom right. Metallica's biggest concert, 1991, Moscow. Look at that.
- [78:27]
A
Yeah, it's the weirdest thing, too, because, like, I think it's a very American thing. Like, we don't really listen to other people's music. You know, there's nobody that comes over here.
- [78:36]
B
There's a lot of. There's a lot of. Of European death metal bands and heavy metal bands.
- [78:41]
A
Yeah. What I'm saying, though, is, like, we don't really listen to it. Like, they do like that. That's.
- [78:45]
B
You know, that is another level. I don't think I've ever seen anything. I've never seen a crowd like that.
- [78:52]
A
I wonder how many people that is. Did they say.
- [78:55]
B
Yeah. Is there an estimate on how many people were there in Moscow?
- [79:00]
A
You can ask trump. It'll be 2 million. Right.
- [79:04]
B
The Moscow Metallica Show.
- [79:05]
A
3 million people there.
- [79:07]
B
Metallica. Moscow paled in comparison to the inauguration. 1.6 million people. The Monsters of Rock festival.
- [79:18]
A
Oh, yeah, I remember they did a Monsters of Rock in, I think, Soviet.
- [79:23]
B
Oh, yeah. Wait, wait. No, no, no. What year? 91. That was after the fall of the Soviet Union. Right. Is after the wall came down.
- [79:28]
A
Down.
- [79:28]
B
When did the Wall come down? 90 or 91.
- [79:31]
A
Well, they also did a concert with Guns N Roses where there was a riot. Remember that? Yeah, there was a Monsters of Rock. It was in New Jersey, I believe.
- [79:40]
B
Oh, really?
- [79:40]
A
And Axl Rose came out and the microphones didn't sound right or something, and he.
- [79:46]
B
Oh, yeah, I remember that.
- [79:48]
A
Yeah, he was just like. He just left, and when he left, it caused, like, a riot, and then Metallica, I guess, like, made up for it kind of. But, yeah, they hated Guns N' Roses. After that, there was a big, big battle of the bands, you know, and those were, like, my two favorite bands, you know.
- [80:07]
B
Guns and Roses.
- [80:08]
A
Oh, yeah, Back in the day.
- [80:09]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [80:10]
A
Guns N Roses.
- [80:11]
B
Yeah. Yeah, That's. It's crazy, man. It's crazy how. How those dudes have managed to keep it going for so long and. And still put on these crazy shows, selling out arenas all across the freaking world.
- [80:25]
A
Yeah. Everybody else falls apart, you know?
- [80:27]
B
Yeah, they do. And then, you know, like, the, like, the amount of, like, discipline it takes to keep the. Your core group of guys together and, like, manage those relationships for so long, for decades, you know? I mean, rock stars aren't, like, the most stable people in. In history. You know what I mean? Like, to be able to do that and manage that is. Is. Is pretty insane.
- [80:51]
A
It's interesting to see that, like I said, like you said, the growth, like, how.
- [80:55]
B
Yeah.
- [80:55]
A
You know, how far they've come. They've been through, like, addiction. You know, I. When I went to that concert in. In San Francisco, it was the last day before James Hetfield went to rehab. And I felt so bad, man. I was like, man, he. I didn't know. He, like, he played his heart out. I'm like, I didn't know he was struggling like that. Like, there's something about addiction with me that, like. Like, if somebody's an addict, it's like, I have such a empathy for that because I've been through it. You know, I've been to. And I've been through, like, every way of getting. Getting over it, too. You know, I've been to. I've been to one of the. When I. So I'll tell you my quick story of, like, when I was addicted, I was an alcoholic and I was a drug addict because I had a double hip replacement surgery. It got botched where they messed up one side, and it never really took. But they didn't know why I was in pain. For two years, they didn't know that.
- [81:46]
B
That.
- [81:47]
A
For two years, they didn'T know that they messed up. For two years. They just kept feeding me pills. The doctors. And so I was addicted to opioids. But along with the opioids, I was also drinking, you know, and that causes, like, big problems, you know, where you just wake up and you don't even know where you are and, you know, just all sorts of huge problems like that. So I had to go to rehab. I went to rehab in Malibu. So I was made. I made a documentary about how to get sober from pills and. And booze. And I relapsed on pills and booze. And I ended up, you know, it was in the middle of making a movie, you know, so I had, like, people invested money into this movie. I was making it. Everybody was happy with the progress. And then I relapsed. And when I relapsed, I was so scared to tell the producers what happened. And, like, hey, man, like, listen, I kind of messed up. And if you go back and watch my movie Prescription Thugs, it's all in there. I basically just said, let's just put it in the movie because it's. It shows how hard addiction is. It shows how, like, even though I know I'm doing wrong, like, I. I can't stop it. Like, it's a monster. And, you know, I was able to basically get better, but the way that I got better was really interesting because I went to a rehab in Malibu because I was. Because I was making a movie. I had interviewed this guy, Richard Tate. And Richard Tate's still to this day, one of my good buddies, he owned Cliffside Malibu. It's like one of these hoity toity, like, high end, you know, celebrity places where all these celebrities go. Lindsay Lohan and stuff like that.
- [83:25]
B
Celebrity rehab.
- [83:26]
A
Yeah, kind of like that. Right. And so it's really expensive usually. But he let me go for free because I was making a movie and he knew I was still filming it and he's like, let's see what happens. You come to my rehab, I'll fix you up. So I go to his rehab and I'm there for 11 days. And after 11 days, he's like, hey, we have a problem. We need more space. And since you're not paying, I need to move you somewhere else. And I freaked out because my brother had died in a sober living facility and they wanted to move me to a sober living facility. So he said, well, instead of moving you to a sober living facility, I'm going to move you into a different place that is like a. What do you call it? Sober living. Right, so it's like a sober living where you. No, not a sober living. It's a. Sorry, I. I didn't want to move into the sober living, so I ended up moving into a rehab that was like state run. Like a state run rehab where people like go to jail. You know what I mean? Like, if. If it's either go to rehab or go to jail, it's like one of those rehabs, right? And so I went to that rehab for 22 days. And when I was in that rehab, it was like being in like some sort of boot camp. You had to like make your bed every morning. You had to, you know, all these. The. The Malibu one was fluffy. And so for 11 days I had like a fluff rehab. And then I had 22 days that felt like hell because I was just, you know, it's probably better. Yeah, no, it was amazing. It kind of like all worked out for the best because, like, I saw the best rehab in the country. The worst rehab in the country. I wouldn't say the worst, because they did a good job of setting me straight. You know, I didn't want any drugs after that. I didn't want any alcohol after that. I just wanted to go home. And then the last 30 days I spent in a sober living facility that's owned by Cliffside Malibu that was like right on the beach in Malibu. And it's beautiful. And it was like, you know, you couldn't really get any any better than that. And so when I. When I walked out of rehab, like, I just knew I wasn't going to go back to that again. Like, I knew that that wasn't, you know, wasn't for me. But I got to see all the ways in which it worked. And I also got to see all sorts of different addicts and, like, what their addiction is from. And every single one of those addictions, they spring from some sort of pain. You know, somebody's in pain. Whether it's mental pain, physical pain, it doesn't matter. They're in some sort of pain. And it. It launches this addiction. And all they're looking for is to get love, you know, to get compassion, to get empathy. And for some reason, they're not getting that in their life. And they have these bad habits. And so it's like, I don't know, I've just always been so empathetic towards those people and always felt like, I, you know, I can help. I can help those people, and I want to help those people.
- [86:11]
B
Right?
- [86:12]
A
And I've had so many people hit me up after my films and say, like, hey, man, you. You know, you saved my life. Or they'll hit me up on Instagram and say, like, how do I get sober? And I'll tell people, like. Like, there's a lot of different ways to get sober. But the one thing I think people need to remember is, like, don't discount the fact that AA is out there. AA's been around forever, and AA is free. So if you're at the depths of depression and addiction, you can walk into an AA room and they will accept you. They will help you. It's not the best way. You know, it's definitely like. It's. There's a lot of stuff that you got to believe in to.
- [86:51]
B
Yeah. Isn't there some crazy story behind aa?
- [86:54]
A
Well, the AA started with lsd.
- [86:56]
B
Oh, really?
- [86:57]
A
They start. Yeah, it started with, like, a group of people getting together and using a little bit of lsd. And LSD seems to really be a. A way out for addiction. But since it's. So when was this demonized? In the 60s, I want to say.
- [87:13]
B
Okay, that's what AA started.
- [87:15]
A
So I think it started in, like, 1934.
- [87:17]
B
Oh, okay.
- [87:18]
A
But if you go back and read the A, I just tell people this. The best place to start is pick up the aa. Big Blue. It's a. It's. It's called the Big Book of aa. It's just this big, blue book. And you read through that book and it was written in the 30s. And when you read through that book, it'll tell you everything about why you're an addict. And you're going, how do they know? This is like 1934. It's literally like prophesizing things.
- [87:41]
B
Yeah.
- [87:42]
A
Because addicts have not changed since then. And that's one thing that remains constant is like, the addict is always the same. The behavior is always the same.
- [87:50]
B
Yeah.
- [87:51]
A
You can tell the behavior. People become very manipulative. People will get their own way. People learn how to lie for what they need to get. And when you're helping those people, you gotta, like, learn how to shut those things down, you know? And sometimes you got to be a little bit. A little bit mean, you know, But I'm telling you, like, it's. It's so rewarding to help people, you know? And that's why I make the documentaries I make and do what I do. And I'm working on some future projects that I want to really do. And I really think that I have a lot more in the tank to tell, you know?
- [88:29]
B
Yeah. It also makes a lot of sense the way you're explaining your ibogaine experience. You know how it kind of like, it exposes all of the deepest, darkest in your life. Right. It like pulls the band aids off all the scabs and it like exposes. It's like a mirror where you have to really confront. Want your deepest issues from a different perspective. Right. Come from like outside your typical perspective. It gets you off, like the normal vibration of you're just your daily humdrum life that you get used to. And you know, that is a super beneficial way. I can understand, I can see why that would be a super beneficial way to kicking some addictions. You know what I mean? Like, you know, there's a lot. I know there's lots of different types of therapies. There's like ibogaine. I know MDMA is one of them, but.
- [89:13]
A
Yeah. Yep.
- [89:14]
B
Know just from my personal experience with just like edible marijuana, I eat a marijuana gummy and I get blasted. I. I start, I end up in like the fetal position in the corner, seeing all, like the worst parts of my life. And I see like the worst case scenario in every part of my life. And I can find the direct path to the worst case scenario. And I'm like, oh my God, this is crazy. Like, everything's caving in on me. And, you know, at the end of it, I always come out with like some sort of revelatory aha moment or I've taken something useful out of that experience that can like, help me in my everyday life. You know what I mean?
- [89:56]
A
Yeah.
- [89:56]
B
So, you know, I can see why something like that would be a super effective tool for kicking things, like some of these addictions.
- [90:04]
A
Marijuana opioid addictions and stuff. Yeah. Marijuana gummies are interesting because it's kind of the same thing with like Kratom. Like I said, they, they. In Texas, where I live, it's illegal. Like THC is illegal. For whatever reason, it's illegal. So I bought these like, Delta 9, you know, gummies. They just seem like any normal everyday gummy.
- [90:25]
B
Yeah.
- [90:25]
A
And I ate one and I was like out of it for three days straight. I mean, really? Yeah. I mean, and then I looked at it and it has like. I wanna. I don't know how to compare Delta 9 to like, whatever, but I think Delta 9 is so cheap that it says it has milligrams of Delta 9 in it. And I'm like, this is insane. How is this legal? How do they. Yeah, you can't sell thc, but you can sell this. And it's. It's so powerful. So, like, I can't even take them anymore because I'm like, that's just way. You know.
- [90:53]
B
Yeah.
- [90:54]
A
Way too potent and. Yeah. I mean, they, they don't give you the greatest feeling. They give you like, you know, they'll make you happy for a little bit, but then you kind of. Same thing. You see your. Your darkest.
- [91:07]
B
Yeah. But I think that. I think that shit's beneficial. I think, you know, I don't think it's designed to just make you feel good and happy. It's a. It's not supposed to be an escape. Like, I think I get. I get the most out of like the darkest trips or the darkest experiences. You know what I mean?
- [91:21]
A
Yeah.
- [91:22]
B
Like, you know, like one of the recent ones was just. I was. I took one and it was like showing me. It was telling me that I need to spend more times with my kids and less time on.
- [91:32]
A
Yeah.
- [91:33]
B
And it's like, wow, that's great.
- [91:34]
A
Great.
- [91:34]
B
That's not the devil. Yeah, that's. That's something. That's good.
- [91:37]
A
No, I think so. Yeah. Like, I think, I think that like there's. With all drugs and all things, like, there's good and bad to them. You know, the bad for me of that gummy is more like it just made me a zombie for three days. And I don't.
- [91:50]
B
Right.
- [91:50]
A
I. You know, it's like. And so then I've. I've taken like half of it and it's made me a zombie for a day. And I'm like, maybe I need to take like an eighth of it, you know, I mean, but it's crazy because you get this whole big bag of like 20 gummies. It's like, I'm gonna take an eighth of it every day.
- [92:04]
B
Yeah, I love that. There's this company called Via that's actually sponsored the show before, but they send you. They send me this giant kit of all these different types of gummies that are beneficial for everything. There's like, they have. And there's THC or CBD ones. They have ones for sleep. They have ones for, like, creativity. They have ones for, like, called the love gummies that like, get you. Get you all horned up. Up. Yeah, they get you a little bit high and horny at the same time. Phenomenal. Highly recommend them. Oh, my God, they work. They're amazing. And they're not. They're not overly potent to where you're gonna like, blast off to the moon, you know, So I really like those ones. But like, yeah, you can get some of these gummies like the Death Star or like some of these crazy gummies you can find from, you know, underground people that will just be like, Jesus Christ, you'll be.
- [92:52]
A
I used to be into the, like, you know, like I said, I used to be into that. That kind of stuff for a while. And then I got to a point where, you know, like, I. I've been sober from alcohol and pills, like prescription painkillers for like 11 years.
- [93:09]
B
So. Since that movie. That movie last time.
- [93:11]
A
Yeah.
- [93:15]
B
If you used Babbel, you would. Babble's conversation based techniques teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you. You actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language.
- [93:27]
A
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- [93:29]
B
Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babel today. Get up to 55% off your Babel subscription right now at babbel.com Spotify spelled B A B-B-E-L.com Spotify rules and restrictions may apply for.
- [93:43]
A
For pain. Yeah, and. But. But I've done every psychedelic since then, so. But I.
- [93:47]
B
Well, the psychedelics are different, though.
- [93:48]
A
Yeah, I look at it as different as. Well, you know, it's like, I definitely look at it, it as. As being a different thing. They're, you know, non addictive and they're not, you know, and I've taken Kratom Some people will say, actually, even when I was in rehab, after I got out of rehab, I was supposed to go speak at an AA meeting, and they didn't want me to speak because at the time I was taking Kratom and I had been talking about it. I talked about it on Joe Rogan, and they're like, oh, you know, we don't. I'm like, you don't think I'm sober? I'm like, I take Kratom for pain.
- [94:16]
B
Yeah.
- [94:16]
A
And I think people have such a hard time deciphering the fact that, like, you're in physical pain and. And they don't care, though. They just. They just go crate them bad, you know.
- [94:27]
B
Right.
- [94:27]
A
And I think we need to stop putting substances in these bat good or bad categories.
- [94:32]
B
Crazy.
- [94:33]
A
Because they just are, you know, Kratom.
- [94:35]
B
Is no more dangerous than caffeine. Like, when's the last. I don't know if you're a coffee drinker, but I don't remember the last time I went a day without drinking a cup of coffee.
- [94:42]
A
Yeah, it's been maybe two days in.
- [94:44]
B
The last five years. I haven't drank a cup of coffee as, like. Like, I had Hamilton Morrison here recently. He was like a chemist. Yeah, he was. He was explaining that to me. He's like. He was like, I don't think Kratom is any different than caffeine. He's like, if you enjoy Kratom and you want to have a couple cups of Kratom or pills of Kratom every day, it's like, there's no, you know, there's no studies or scientific papers that show it's any more dangerous than caffeine. It doesn't kill anymore. Doesn't kill people. It's just like, you know, if it's useful to you, then take it. The. The difference is the stigma that's attached to it or, you know, the different types of pharmaceutical companies that have been known to demonize certain drugs because it's not good business.
- [95:19]
A
Yeah. I would say that the only thing with Kratom that I just warn people about, because I've been through it, is it can be addictive. And getting also can caffeine. Yeah. And get. And getting off of it just, like, is not fun. So I had to. You know, when I was told you I was taking. At one point I got to taking these extracts, and I would take several extracts a day, and when I was coming off of them, I was just using capsules to come off. And so I would take, like, one Day, I would take five capsules twice a day. Then I'd take three capsules twice a day. You know, then I take. And I would. I would taper down. And my girlfriend helped me taper down off of it. I told her, like, hey, this is what's going on. I'm trying to get off of this. I was. Because I just wanted to, like, reset my body and be off everything. And I. I must have went through a good five or six days that were really, really rough days. And so I just want to tell people, like, yeah, you might go through some tough days. Get yourself some magnesium, get yourself a bunch of vitamin C. Okay. You know, and then the bigger problem with coming off of daily Kratom use, I. I think if you're not using it daily, I don't think you're going to develop a problem.
- [96:26]
B
I drink these every day.
- [96:27]
A
I don't think you can develop a problem with those being such a low dose.
- [96:31]
B
And this is an extract.
- [96:33]
A
Yeah, I know. White rabbit. They're great.
- [96:34]
B
Yeah, they're delicious.
- [96:36]
A
Yeah, they taste really good.
- [96:37]
B
Mitrogina Speciosa extract.
- [96:40]
A
Yeah. I've actually talked to that company a couple times. I should probably do something.
- [96:44]
B
I drink. I drink one of those every day except for the weekends.
- [96:48]
A
Did Mark send you some of those new brews? Those are good too.
- [96:51]
B
And he sent me the Mind Bullet gummy, too.
- [96:53]
A
The gummies new brews are a little bit weird at first. They're like, I'm. At first I was like, I don't like this. And then after a while, I just got. I really like the taste of them and I like what they do, you know, I feel good.
- [97:03]
B
I notice. I know you can drink like more than one of these white rabbits. And it's supposed to be like. It even says on here, it says, drink one of them and it's like a lightning bolt of energy. Drink two of them. You're on the couc couch.
- [97:12]
A
Yeah.
- [97:12]
B
I never drink two in a day. I only drink one because it's like a. It's like a mild stimulant, but it's also, like calming. Right. So it's not like I'm like super jittery, like if I drink a Red Bull. But I noticed sometimes I notice myself, like, if it's a Saturday and I haven't drank one in a day, I'll be like, man, I could go for.
- [97:29]
A
A white rabbit right now. Yeah.
- [97:31]
B
Then I'm like, just because I knew that popped into my head, I should go maybe two extra days without drinking one.
- [97:35]
A
Well, and. And that's what I'm saying is, like, if you do that, you're. You're gonna be fine. The problem is when people, they'll take Kratom capsules, they'll drink two of those.
- [97:45]
B
Yeah.
- [97:45]
A
You know, and then. And then it's like, piling up, and it's like, I just want to be sure that we're not telling people to take something that can hurt them. Because, like, if you're not taking Kratom right now, don't. Don't get in. If you don't need it, don't get into it. But if you're in pain or you need, like, even if you just want a little bit of bounce of. Of energy, it is great. Take it once in a while. Use it once in a while, but use it, like, responsibly. People. People tend to take that and say, well, you said I could use it every day, you know.
- [98:14]
B
Right.
- [98:14]
A
And we didn't, you know.
- [98:15]
B
Yeah. What. What did. What did the Mayo Clinic say about Kratom? To say something about them being dangerous. Are you aware of that?
- [98:22]
A
No. Like, recently?
- [98:23]
B
Yeah, I don't know. I heard the Mayo Clinic was saying the Kratom was dangerous.
- [98:26]
A
There's all sorts of things saying it's dangerous. Like, there's all sorts of people trying to ban it.
- [98:31]
B
It.
- [98:31]
A
You know, it happens all the time. But I think the reason that they are trying to ban it is because. What is this unsafe and ineffective?
- [98:39]
B
Who's this from? Oh, this is a Mayo Clinic website. Yeah.
- [98:42]
A
Yeah. You just can't believe that when you say. When it says it's ineffective.
- [98:47]
B
Users swear by Kratom for lifting mood and boosting energy. But there are many safety issues to question about whether Kratom works.
- [98:54]
A
See where at the top it says unsafe and ineffective.
- [98:56]
B
Right.
- [98:57]
A
It's the same thing they did with steroids. They would say, oh, they don't work.
- [99:00]
B
Right. Oh, look. My. What does that say? Kratom is an herbal extract that comes from the leaves, an evergreen tree called the. Okay. Mitra gyne especiosa. That's what it says on the can. So that's just. That's just like the scientific name for Kratom. So why are they saying it's unsafe?
- [99:15]
A
Side effects, Weight loss.
- [99:17]
B
Kratom is known for side effects including weight loss, dry mouth, nausea and vomiting, constipation, liver damage, muscle pain, high blood pressure. Okay, so one tenth of the pharmaceutical products they. They advertise on every single football game on tv.
- [99:29]
A
Yeah, basically. Yeah. It's if you look at this list, Occasional pregnancy. See at the bottom it says, Kratom products have been linked to a small number of deaths. Well, when I did my movie, I went and I scoped out every single death. There was like 44 at the time. There was one guy.
- [99:47]
B
44 kratom deaths. Oh, no. Steroid deaths.
- [99:49]
A
No, it's. This is, this is the Kratom movie. So my movie, A Leaf of Faith, which is about Kratom.
- [99:53]
B
Got it.
- [99:55]
A
Which is actually available on YouTube if anybody wants to see it. I think you can probably find it easiest on YouTube. But in a Leaf of Faith, I went through and I. And I looked and I actually had a medical researcher that I was working with. We went through all the debts and we sort of vetted them all and said, like, okay, let's see, this guy had 10 drugs in his system, this guy, you know, and we vetted them all. And there was one guy who was a 28 year old police officer from New York State who died officially from ingesting Kratom. But you know why? He was dry scooping it and he choked on it and died. That's what he died from. And so it's like when you look at that and you go, well, okay, that, that's a Kratom death. It counts. But that's like somebody falling down the stairs and dying and saying that your house killed him.
- [100:42]
B
Right? Yeah.
- [100:43]
A
Holy.
- [100:43]
B
I had one guy on this podcast once, remember? I forget the dude's name. He was dry scooping Kratom right before we started the show. He was. Not only that, he had, I think he had capsules. He had a Kratom drink like, like his own custom Kratom drink that he mixed together himself. And right before we hit record, he's like, hold on. Dry scoop. Two giant scoops of Kratom. Like, holy. Don't. We don't need to cut that out. There was nobody. We don't want to sell him out, but let's. He was.
- [101:09]
A
I just want to see it.
- [101:10]
B
Yeah, no, he did it right before we started.
- [101:13]
A
Okay.
- [101:15]
B
But yeah, like, that's a lot, bro. I would be. I don't know what would happen.
- [101:20]
A
Well, God bless that guy because the Kratom is what they call hydrophobic. So, you know, you can't mix it in water. It's like cinnamon. When you try to mix cinnamon. Starbucks, you ever notice, like, it won't mix. Things are either fat soluble or they're water.
- [101:33]
B
Maybe it was tea he was drinking or something, but he had some sort of Kratom drink.
- [101:36]
A
He. You can mix it up enough to make it kind of mix in, but it's always sludgy. It's always. It's always gross.
- [101:42]
B
Right.
- [101:44]
A
There are a couple companies. Like, I have a friend that has a company called Happy Hippo. And I know Happy Hippo is like. I don't know how well it works, but they've made some micronized Kratom that you can dissolve. They also make Kratom. What do you call it? Like, pouches? Yeah, they make Kratom pouches that are pretty good, but I think they. If they were a little stronger, they'd be better. Yeah, but it's just another cool idea, you know?
- [102:06]
B
Yeah.
- [102:07]
A
Put a little Kratom in a pouch and, you know. But yeah, I think that the delivery methods definitely for Kratom need to be improved because Kratom itself is just, like. It's hard to take. That's why, you know, people take it in capsules because it's. It doesn't mix in water.
- [102:23]
B
Right? Yeah. I just love the energy drinks, man. Just tastes delicious.
- [102:27]
A
Yeah, you got to do a lot to get to that, you know, to get to that point to make it taste delicious. Yeah, they did a really good job, though.
- [102:33]
B
They did a phenomenal job, dude. Because before I had a white rabbit, I had never had crap Kratom.
- [102:37]
A
Yeah.
- [102:38]
B
Like, that was my first Kratom ever was that thing, and I was just like. I remember I was doing. I literally had it right before a podcast, and I was like, what is happening to me? Why. Why do I feel so, like, calm but, like, focused right now? This is crazy.
- [102:53]
A
So I. I made an energy drink, actually. I made a Kratom energy drink that I was selling for, like, a little while, and it just kind of. Kind of. It's a. There's a lot to that business. It's really difficult, right, to, like, get in that business and then, you know, scale it up. So we made a drink called Full Bore. That's a great. It's a great drink. They actually sell it here in Florida still, I think. But my. A friend of mine owns the company, and he saw, you know, I was basically, like, just a small part of it. But, yeah, there's a lot to. To make that happen. It's. There's a lot that goes into it.
- [103:24]
B
Really? Yeah, yeah. There's so many different Kratom products, man. It's crazy, especially when you're getting into, like, all, like, the different types of pills and stuff they sell at the gas stations. It's like, you know, it's a tough. It's a minefield if you want to navigate it and, like, you know, figure it out.
- [103:39]
A
Yeah. And that's the one thing, like, when I made the film A Leaf of Faith, I would. I said, like, hey, I'm. I'm not gonna sell Kratom. I don't care about it. You know, and looking back at it, I probably should have, because it could have made a fortune off of doing it. But I think things work out for a reason. I think, like, the. I don't. I don't think it's good to be a proponent or advocate of something and be so heavily involved in it.
- [104:03]
B
I agree.
- [104:03]
A
You know, so it's like, totally. I'm trying to. And I'm also trying to, like, be honest is like, when I made that movie, we didn't have any research on addiction for Kratom. Like, I went on Reddit and I would look up all these people that say they were addicted to Kratom and I'd contact each one of them and I couldn't get one person to talk to me about addiction. Now I think it's a different story. So I think it warrants, like, doing some sort of update because, like, nowadays there's so many people saying that they're addictive. There's got to be people that'll talk. And I want to get their stories. I want to know, like, what, you know, what the deal is, what's going on. Is it addictive? Is it not addictive? Is it good? Is it bad? Like, let's, let's talk it out, you know.
- [104:42]
B
Yeah, well, I mean, it's like, I think this was stated on your. On the bigger, stronger, faster documentary. But, like, drugs aren't good or bad. Right?
- [104:51]
A
They just are.
- [104:52]
B
There's a, There's a risk and a reward. All drugs are. Is a risk reward measurement.
- [104:57]
A
It.
- [104:57]
B
Some have more risk, others, other, other. Others have a high reward with less risk. It's just, it's all about, you know, what's best for you and your body and, like, what helps you get through the day better without risking too much or falling down the, the slippery slope.
- [105:13]
A
When you look at it, like, in our country, it's, you know, praise to be skinny. So like, Ozempic is this gigantic drug.
- [105:20]
B
Oh, God, that's so crazy.
- [105:22]
A
Is a monster drug drug.
- [105:23]
B
And isn't it funny how you can tell who's on Oz epic? Oh, yeah, you can just, like, see them. You're like, oh, that's Oz epic.
- [105:29]
A
The trade off is because they look like a melted candle.
- [105:32]
B
They look like a melted candle. Yeah.
- [105:33]
A
The trade off is that you don't enjoy anything anymore, you know, so while like, so micro. So I actually think the GLP1 drugs are great, but I think they're great and so does Mark too. We've talked about this a lot. We think they're great in microdose doses. I think the, the doses that people use to go from being fat to being skinny, it's just, it's like, it's too much and it's too much of a change and there's not enough of a. There's not enough of yourself in it. But if you use it in smaller doses, like 1 milligram a week, say.
- [106:06]
B
Right.
- [106:06]
A
And you. And you. Instead of 2.4. Right. You use like half the dose, even less. Even like a quarter of the dose. When you use it in smaller doses, I feel like, like you have to put in some work also. And I feel like it's just a. You don't get any of the side effects. You know what I mean? There's. There's better. I think there's. I think when, as we learn more about these GLP1 drugs, we'll see people micro dosing them more often than using them in the full sense. And they're way cheaper that way too.
- [106:34]
B
Yeah. It's just crazy to see drugs like this, like, come on the scene and just explode and change everything.
- [106:39]
A
And if you look at it, they, you know, big Pharma charges like $1,600 a month to. For, you know, something like Ozempic or Manjaro.
- [106:48]
B
Is that really what it costs?
- [106:50]
A
It's. It's anywhere between like 900 and $1,600 a month. And the compounding pharmacy, like in Power Pharmacy, for example, you can get that for like 100 bucks a month. So it's like you got to go to a doctor and tell your doctor, like, instead of ask your doctor if this drug's right for you, ask your doctor if they can use a compounding pharma. So. Because almost any drug that's approved by the FDA can be compounded. Like, they can make anything. So if you want your drugs cheaper and you're more knowledgeable. I like, I used to be so against pharmaceuticals. Like, I made a movie called Prescription Thugs.
- [107:24]
B
Yeah.
- [107:24]
A
But as I understand pharmaceuticals more and understand like how they can be used for good when they're used moderately and for the right things. Like, I don't think anybody, like when I just came here in the Uber. I had a guy told me his mother was on 37 medications before she died. I don't think that's cool. I don't think that's the way to use medicine. No, but when you use medicine in the right way, like if somebody micro dosed a GLP, one drug to lose 50 or 60 pounds and that's going to really improve their health, I think it's worth it. Right. So like you said, what's the risk and the reward?
- [107:59]
B
Yeah. You know, I also learned that recently that UV light kills cholesterol or lowers your cholesterol.
- [108:07]
A
Really?
- [108:07]
B
Yeah, like the more, the more exposure your skin has to UV light, like during the day, like UVB light. I think specifically it actually legitimately lowers cholesterol.
- [108:16]
A
I mean, did you learn that from Jack Cruz?
- [108:18]
B
Yeah, I did.
- [108:19]
A
Yeah.
- [108:20]
B
Yeah.
- [108:20]
A
He's incredible, huh?
- [108:21]
B
Yeah, he's something. Yeah, he's definitely a super, super sharp dude.
- [108:26]
A
He's a little abrasive.
- [108:28]
B
Seems a little bit. Well, he's from New York.
- [108:30]
A
Yeah.
- [108:30]
B
So I think it comes with the territory. And I think also there's something to do with being a. I think something comes with people who are high level surgeons that are like doing crazy brain surgery or heart surgery on people where your whole entire career you are at. You are like the boss in the operating room and all these people are answering to you, taking orders from you. And this is life or death situation. I think there's a psychological thing that happens to people where it's just like you have to be abrasive and there's like no room for. Or like trying to be nice, you know?
- [109:03]
A
Yeah. When he was pushing Cali means on like the vaccine stuff.
- [109:07]
B
Yeah.
- [109:08]
A
It was just like hard to watch. It was like, oh, man, he's.
- [109:10]
B
It was hard to watch. He wasn't. He was like, you know, you were here.
- [109:13]
A
Yeah, I was here.
- [109:14]
B
It was, it was rough. It was rough. You know, I think. And I think also.
- [109:18]
A
You know what though, he changed my mind a lot on what it means to be in charge of something that big for this country. And when I thought about it, like, I think Cali means. I think he means well, no pun intended. I think his, you know, his sister has a lot of great. I think they both have a lot of great things to say. But when you think about like they're the highest, like now his sister is like the highest person in the land.
- [109:41]
B
Yeah. What is she at the head of?
- [109:43]
A
She's never treated a patient really.
- [109:45]
B
Right.
- [109:45]
A
I mean, I guess she has in her, like in the residency. But, like, she never even made it through that. And it's like, maybe we should have somebody that's a little bit more.
- [109:53]
B
Yeah.
- [109:54]
A
Invested.
- [109:56]
B
Yeah. Politics is a dirty game, man. That's the problem with it. And, you know, I understand Jack's perspective.
- [110:02]
A
But then do you want Jack Cruz in charge of that?
- [110:04]
B
I understand, like, I understand he doesn't want to be a part of it. That's why I moved El Salvador.
- [110:08]
A
Yeah.
- [110:08]
B
You know, I mean, that's, that's, that's the, like, the dichotomy there is. You have, like. I understand Jack's perspective is he cares about patience, right? Like, his number one priority is his patience and people. But, like, that's not how. That's not how Hollywood. Same thing. That's not how Washington works, Right?
- [110:26]
A
Yeah.
- [110:27]
B
Politics, like, you kind of. To get done, you gotta play the politics game. Unfortunately, that's how it is, you know.
- [110:34]
A
And I think all these people going crazy about seed oils. I'll tell you right now, seed oils are not the problem with America.
- [110:40]
B
Right.
- [110:40]
A
They're not even a problem.
- [110:41]
B
Right.
- [110:42]
A
Like, to. To make it a problem is stupid. Stupid. And so all these people like seed oils. Ah, seed oils. It's like, that's not what's killing America. Right?
- [110:49]
B
Food dies.
- [110:50]
A
Okay, let's get rid of all the seed oils. People are still gonna be fat.
- [110:52]
B
I just saw. I just saw this thing on Instagram the other day how, like, RFK met with the CEO of Starbucks to, like, get rid of dyes in the drinks and get rid of, like, the high fructose stuff. And it's like, come on, man. Is Starbucks really the bane of all the health problems in the United States?
- [111:08]
A
Yeah, I think. I don't think there are ways to make things healthier. And there are ways. Ways to make things better. And like, that. Again, it goes to, like, education, you know, educating people on certain things. Like educating people that red meat isn't so bad for you, and educating people on, you know, different diets and different ways of eating. You know, it's just. I think that we need more education in those areas rather than, you know, just trying to ban things. Like, banning things doesn't make anything better usually.
- [111:37]
B
Right? And then, like, then there's like, how. What's the right way to educate somebody on this stuff? You know, like, there was a. A Stan surgeon. I forget what kind of sur. I think he was maybe a heart surgeon. And this came from this guy's, like, really good friends with Andrew Huberman. And I think this was on the the podcast with Andrew Huberman or no, I'm sorry, this was on a podcast with Jack RFK Jr. And Rick Rubin where he was saying this dude said that this high level heart surgeon from Stanford. I believe I might be getting that wrong. He might not be from Stanford, but anyways, he said that out of all of the medical literature and medical textbooks that are available today in all the universities, he said that more than 50% of it is wrong or outdated. I've heard that from new research that's come out and prove that. It's like, it's not correct, which is crazy.
- [112:34]
A
John Ionitis, who is from Stanford, he's a professor from Stanford. And he basically says, if it was up to me, I would take all of the nutritional research that has been done in this country and I would throw it in the garbage. Yeah, because he's like, that's how much value it has. You know, I think that might be a little bit overboard. I think we, we do know certain things. But like, at the same time, like, even if you look at what my brother Mark is doing, he's telling people like, hey, man, maybe it's okay to eat sugar. Oh, in the sugar diet in the form of fruit.
- [113:10]
B
Shoot.
- [113:10]
A
Did you guys discuss that?
- [113:12]
B
We didn't. Yeah, I don't think we talked about that when he was in here, but I just saw that. I saw my friend Nick Norwitz.
- [113:18]
A
Yeah, I know Nick. Harvard's great.
- [113:19]
B
Yeah, yeah, he's awesome. He, he made a video about it and he was like, it's not as bad as people think it is.
- [113:24]
A
He's like, well, I recently, I, like, I recently, I just went through some, you know, just some health issues with pain again. And because I was going through all this pain, I wasn't lifting. I wasn't really eating great weight. I wasn't eating bad. I was doing like a. Still doing like a carnivore diet. But I would, I would just eat way too many calories. And so I, My weight got up to about 234 pounds. And normally I weigh about 190. Today I think I weighed 204, 203, something like that. But the way I lost all that weight was fruit and fruit smoothies every day. Like just. Yeah, yeah, just with sugar. And so, so what is the. I went on Mark's podcast and talked about it and everybody hates you for it. Like, you're like, listen, don't hate me. I'm just delivering a message. Eventually I'm going to start losing muscle. But I'm also on Testosterone. I'm also lifting, you know, so it's like I just wanted to drop a bunch of weight fast. So I basically did that every day. And then three or four times a week at night I would have a meal of maybe like rice and chicken and that was it. And so it was like, and I would, I would actually drink, drink three or four fruit smoothies in a day. I'd make them myself at home. I just buy a bunch of different juices and a bunch of frozen fruit and I blend them up. Cool. Drink a smoothie down, go about my day. I don't know enough about it like Mark does. Mark's like the sort of expert on it.
- [114:47]
B
The idea behind the sugar diet is it's supposed to be, supposed to be dropping weight when you're doing it right.
- [114:52]
A
So you're doing, you're basically like fasting, but you're getting glucose in, so you're not really fasting. And I don't know, I, I don't even really could tell you like exactly like how and why it, it works. But what you're doing is like your body can't store car, your body, it's really hard for your body to store carbohydrates as fat. So although, and Mark and I have been guilty of this, we even launched a war on carbs a long time ago. We would always tell people, don't eat carbs. You know, you don't need carbs. And, and I, I still don't think that you need them. But this way works also, is what I'm saying.
- [115:33]
B
Yeah.
- [115:34]
A
You know, so the way basically I, I, I think the way that it works is you're still just lowering your calories. Like if you're just eating fruit and fruit smoothies, it's like it doesn't have that many, doesn't have that much calories in it.
- [115:46]
B
Right.
- [115:47]
A
I'm not dumping sugar in there or anything else.
- [115:49]
B
Yeah, I mean, I, I just started last week. I just decided that I'm gonna go, go back to like hardcore low carb diet. Like, like almost keto. And it is just, thing about it is it's so hard. It's so difficult. Especially when you have three kids and your wife doesn't give a about any diet you're doing. She just like, there's stuff everywhere. There's pasta here, there's chips over here. There's like, why did you know, jellies laying around my house.
- [116:13]
A
It's like, you know, I helped like, I helped like Sean Baker sort of spearhead the carnivore movement in the beginning, you know, like, I. What happened was like, like, so I saw Sean Baker on Joe Rogan's podcast, and I had also done these diets where you just eat meat. Like, back in 1992. I did it, like, when I. When I was at USC film school. I was also powerlifting and competing in powerlifting, and I met some other powerlifters that told me I was too fat and I needed to lose weight. And I said, well, I don't know how. And the guy just said, eat red meat, drink water. Okay, for how long? He's like, till you're not fat. So I did it and I, you know, I went from maybe 242 down to like 198. And I would lift it 198. So I'd lost like 40 something pounds doing this. So I knew that it was effective, but I didn't really know it had any health benefits until I saw Dr. Sean Baker on Joe Rogan's podcast. I said, like, this guy's really onto something. I used to do that a long time ago, but I stopped doing it and blah, blah, blah. So I did the Carnivore diet for the past, like, seven years. And I've gone off of it here and there. I'd go like, off and on and try different things. But I think a Carnivore diet is a great base. But what I learned shortly after being on the Carnivore diet for, I think I was on the Carnivore diet for two or three months, and Mark and I went on Joe Rogan's podcast and we talked about eating a diet of meat and fruit. And I don't know if it went over everybody's head or whatever, but, like, basically, you know, we've had people like Dr. Paul Saladino come to our gym, and he was having some problems with his hormones. And so Mark and I told him to eat fruit. Like, hey, try to eat fruit. He was totally against it, but now he's all for it because he's went and researched it. And I think that kind of is the best diet. A diet of like, meat, fruit and vegetables. You really can't go wrong. I don't think you need to cut out all your carbohydrates, but you need to find better carbohydrates. I think they're.
- [118:14]
B
Get them from your fruits and vegetables.
- [118:15]
A
I think they're in your fruits and vegetables.
- [118:17]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the problem.
- [118:19]
A
You might have to cut some starches. Starches tend to hold weight on people.
- [118:23]
B
Is Paul Saladino. Is he the dude who made the video about how he goes on, when he travels? He brings a backpack full of coconuts with him.
- [118:31]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. He's made all sorts of crazy, you.
- [118:34]
B
Know, like, how are you cracking the coconut on the plane? Do you have a knife? Are you allowed to bring a giant, I don't know, machete with you on the plane, coconuts and have, like, what are you doing?
- [118:42]
A
Doing? Yeah. I'm not really sure.
- [118:43]
B
Seems a little unreasonable.
- [118:44]
A
Paul's a good dude. He, like, he's a guy that was, you know, sort of at that, the head of the Carnivore Movement. He even wrote a book called the Carnivore Code and then completely changed his mind and added a bunch of fruit to the diet. But see, I understand that. I think that's the way people should evolve.
- [119:00]
B
Yeah.
- [119:01]
A
But I also really credit Dr. Sean Baker for sticking to his guns.
- [119:05]
B
Yeah.
- [119:05]
A
So, like, the Carnivore diet is. It's awesome. It works, it's effective.
- [119:09]
B
You can tell the difference, the way you feel, your energy, your.
- [119:13]
A
It's just hard.
- [119:14]
B
Mental clarity. Yeah, that's the thing. It's just. It requires so much discipline. It's crazy.
- [119:19]
A
You gotta. If you have a family and like, I have. I live with my girlfriend and, like, she doesn't want to eat meat every. And she doesn't have to. She's in great shape.
- [119:27]
B
Yeah.
- [119:28]
A
Like, what am I going to tell her to eat me?
- [119:30]
B
Like, hey, it takes a lot, man.
- [119:31]
A
She doesn't need to get in better shape. So it's like, what am I going to tell her? So it's like, I don't know. I think if it works for you and you're single and you can just do it, I think, yeah, I think it's great. But I. I also don't think you need to do it.
- [119:43]
B
Even Dom Dagostino, when he was in here, he was like, yeah, he's like, me and my wife will be driving and she'll. We'll go to McDonald's for lunch and she'll eat McDonald's and I'll just, you know, I'll bring my can of sardines and I'll throw my sardines on, some lettuce on a salad, and I'll have my sardines while she eats her Big Mac.
- [119:57]
A
Yeah, well, Dom's insane.
- [119:58]
B
Oh, my God.
- [119:59]
A
That's what you realize in. In this world is there's a couple people that are just insane and they'll do whatever it Takes.
- [120:05]
B
Yeah. You know, he's a. He's a beast, man.
- [120:08]
A
He's awesome. He's a great, great human being. Yeah, the research, that. And again, like, dude, I've gone into, like, deep ketosis, where I've been in ketosis for, like, three months straight, and I felt phenomenal doing that. But it's just hard. It's hard to stay there, you know?
- [120:22]
B
Yeah. Did you. Did you measure it with, like, the. With the thing you blow into?
- [120:26]
A
Yeah, I used to prick my finger all the time. So Dom D' Agostino was. When I. Okay, so in 2016, I was pretty fat and out of shape, basically through, like, because of coming out of rehab and all the addiction and everything. And I was coming out of. I. I basically. It was the day that Trump got elected the first time. 2016, I was actually walking to go vote, and when I was walking to go vote, I had to stop. And, like, I couldn't. I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was, like, maybe having a heart attack or something. Like, man, I'm really out of shape. Like, something. Something's wrong here. And so I don't know what happened. I basically, I sat down for 10 minutes. I got up. I felt fine, you know, after that, and I went home, and I'm like, I really need to make a change. And the first thing I could think of is, like, I need to go back to, like, keto. Like, back when I used to do this meat diet, you know, and I need to go back to keto. So I went back and I started reading some keto information. I found Dom d' Agostino's information, and I called them because, like, you know, I make films, so it's, like, kind of easy to pick up the phone.
- [121:31]
B
Yeah.
- [121:32]
A
Call somebody. And he's like, of course I've seen your movie. I love it. You know, like, let's talk. You know, whatever. So me and Dom started talking, and I was like, can you be in ketosis for more than a week? And he, like, laughs at me and says, I've been in ketosis for seven years, you know, and he basically tells me that, and I'm like, oh, this is interesting. So then I took off on, like, you know, the keto thing. So people think that I jump from thing to thing to thing, but I kind of do, because experimental stuff, I'm kind of learning each time.
- [121:58]
B
Right.
- [121:58]
A
You know, so, like, I. I don't know people in the comments, but this guy jumps to this, to this, this. It's like, well, you're trying to, like, learn how to utilize things. And I think, to be honest, even going back to, like, the sugar diet, what the sugar diet has taught me is like, hey, don't eat. You don't need so much fat. Like, I've been eating literally zero fat every day. Zero. And wow. And I'm plowing through it, and it's. And I feel fine. So when I go back to a regular diet, which will probably be in another couple weeks, my diet will be much lower fat, which will allow me to burn more fat. You, like, basically use more body fat instead of burning the fat that I eat, you know? So I'm. I don't know. I think, like, each. Each stop you make along the way, you learn something. Like, I learned something with keto. I learned. When I. When I did keto, I did that to a point where, like, I did it to the max. I was testing my blood every day.
- [122:55]
B
Yep.
- [122:55]
A
And I got skinny fat. So I did keto, and then I went carnivore. And when I went carnivore, I started, like, lifting a little bit harder. I felt a little bit better. And then I started getting, like, really muscular and jacked. And, like, the best shape I was ever in in my Life was probably 2018-2020 doing, you know, just eating red meat.
- [123:15]
B
Right.
- [123:16]
A
Right.
- [123:16]
B
My problem with the keto was the last time I went super keto, I got my blood work done after, and my cholesterol was, like, through the. It was off the charts. It was, like, in, like, two. It was like 250 or something crazy. And my primary care doctor was like, you need to stop what you're doing. You need to go on statins. You need to freaking get your. The. The X ray on your coronary arteries, make sure you don't have any plaque and all this stuff. And I'm like. Like, I called Dom. I texted Dom. I sent down my blood work. I'm like, dude, am I. Am I gonna die? He's like, no, my cholesterol is the same.
- [123:48]
A
And that's the thing is, like, I have read because I always just try to find the truth. I try to drill down into the truth.
- [123:54]
B
Yeah.
- [123:54]
A
And I have tried everything to find, like, what is it with cholesterol? Do we need to worry about it, or do we not need to worry about it? And I still can't figure out whether or not we need to worry about it. You know, I. I look at guys, like, Lane Norton's a good friend of mine. He likes, lives right here in Tampa. And I He. Do you know him?
- [124:11]
B
I know who he is.
- [124:12]
A
Yeah. A lot of people hate Lane Norton because he's kind of a dick to people. But I like that, you know, because he's so. He's so blunt and he's so honest.
- [124:20]
B
Yeah.
- [124:21]
A
And. But Mark and I have known Lane for years, and he's been a great source of information to me. He'll tell you, hey, man, your cholesterol matters. There's a. A linear line between, like, people dying and their cholesterol being high.
- [124:33]
B
Yeah.
- [124:34]
A
And then you'll talk to other people to say, don't worry about it. Doesn't matter. You're a carnivore. You're a. What they call a lean mass hyper response.
- [124:41]
B
That's what I am.
- [124:41]
A
That's. You'll hear, like, Nick Norwitz talk about. Right. But I also never heard Nick Norwood say, don't worry at all about your cholesterol.
- [124:49]
B
Right.
- [124:49]
A
You know what I mean? So I'm like, there's somewhere in between.
- [124:51]
B
It's always. The truth's always in the middle.
- [124:53]
A
Yeah, it's in the middle somewhere. You should kind of worry about it.
- [124:56]
B
The problem is that, especially the problem with the Internet is that you'll just find people that like to cling on to certain ideas, and they treat it as, like, it's their religion.
- [125:05]
A
And it's easy to say, go over here, eat just fruit and fruit juice and do that, or go, eat just meat, do that. The nuance is hard, and the nuance doesn't sell. The fact of the matter is the sugar diet's not the best. The carnivore diet's not the best. The keto diet's not the best. To utilize each one of these things as tools in your toolbox. And when you can understand each diet and how to utilize it, I think that's what's really important. And if. If you. I mean, look, you could do sugar fasting one day, which they. They call it sugar fasting. If you just. You could do that one day just to get your calories down for the week, you know, where instead of, like, look at it this way, you're doing a fast, but instead of a fast, you're drinking three smoothies a day. I can do that. That's easy. But what's fasting? Fasting sucks, but sugar fasting doesn't suck. So let's do something that doesn't suck and can get. Get, you know, pretty much the same result.
- [125:58]
B
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's good to experiment with, too. Like, even just, like, Straight up water fasts. Have you done like a long term fast with no food?
- [126:08]
A
I've, I've done those. And then in talking to Mark, he's like, I don't think I'll ever do those again. It doesn't seem to make sense. He's like, I think you get the same, you know, you might not get the same health benefits. You know, people always want to talk about autophagy. Well, you get autophagy when you lift weights. You know, you get autophagy when you exercise.
- [126:25]
B
What does autophagy mean?
- [126:26]
A
It means that your old cells dies. Oh, yeah, Old cells die.
- [126:29]
B
Regenerating new cells.
- [126:31]
A
Yeah, yeah. And so that's all it really means. And like, that happens when you lift, it happens when you exercise, you know, do cardio. So why worry so much about this autophagy that's, you know, comes about through not eating? Because like, not eating sucks. So. But I do believe also in if you want to lose weight, you got to be hungry a little bit. You can't be. Yeah. You can't have a full belly all the time and still lose weight or get ripped.
- [126:57]
B
Right.
- [126:57]
A
It's not gonna happen.
- [126:58]
B
Yeah, you gotta live. You can't live to eat. You gotta eat to live. You know, I did a, I did a seven day fast once and I think it was. I forget what I was, I was, I was drinking this like water concoction that was like, it was like, it was like lemonade mixed with syrup in there. Maple syrup up.
- [127:15]
A
And cayenne pepper.
- [127:16]
B
And cayenne pepper. Yeah. I guess it's like the Beyonce F. I don't know what it was. It wasn't labeled the Beyonce thing, but I guess Beyonce has like a diet where she does that same thing.
- [127:23]
A
I forget what that's called, but it's some sort of fast.
- [127:25]
B
Yeah, I learned it, I learned about it from Kelly Slater on Rogan's podcast. Kelly Slater was telling him all about how he did this and it like got rid of this stuff called mucoid plaque that builds up in your intestines. And he's like, after seven days, you'll start out this like, black stuff. Well, I guess after.
- [127:40]
A
And you're like, I really want to do that.
- [127:42]
B
Yeah, I was like, yeah, I was like. Cuz he way. The way he was explaining it was that like, over your lifespan when you eat, you know, you're constantly eating all the time or whatever it is, whatever you're eating, you. Your intestines build up this layer or this liner of like plaque to where now you can't absorb all the nutrients from all of your food as much anymore.
- [128:01]
A
Yeah.
- [128:01]
B
So he's like, when you do this, this seven day fast with this lemonade syrup stuff, eventually that plaque will like strip its way out of your intestines, like resetting your digestive system. And that's the reason I did it. That's the reason I tried it.
- [128:12]
A
It.
- [128:13]
B
And on day five, I remember I stopped. I started the fast on Monday and on Friday I was able to go to the gym and do like three times as many pull ups as I can normally do with like no fatigue. I was, I was, I did like 50 pull ups and I felt great. And I also was able to play full court basketball, a full game of full court basketball with like no cramps. No, I mean, typically, you know, I'll start like getting the side cramp.
- [128:37]
A
Yeah.
- [128:38]
B
When I'm doing that and I'll start to get really fatigued. I'll have to like stop and take a breather. That none of that was happening to me. I felt like super humid human. On day five of that fast, I felt like phenomenal.
- [128:46]
A
Yeah. I've had experiences like that on Carnivore where like the strongest I've ever been in my entire life was like recently in my 50s at on a Carnivore diet, which is insane. And like people like, well, how do you deadlift? So, you know, I was doing, I was doing like trap bar deadlifts. Like, I'm, I'm just good at them for whatever reason. I'm not good at regular deadlifts.
- [129:08]
B
The Hex Bar.
- [129:09]
A
Yeah, I go up to, I'm going up to like £700.
- [129:12]
B
I like the Hex Bar the better best.
- [129:13]
A
And I would, I go up to like £700 on that. But here's the thing is I would do it with no carbs and people would be like, how are you doing that with no carbs? I'm like, I just don't think it takes carbs to do like a one rep, you know.
- [129:26]
B
Yeah.
- [129:26]
A
Max. Or I do like sets of three or something like that. And, and so that it's like, you know, I don't know, it's, it's. I think Mark and I, I think genetics, I was talking about that before. Genetics plays the biggest role in anything. I watched my, my younger brother mark bench press 315 pounds in ninth grade. You know, he wasn't on steroids. Like he's 14, 15 years old when he's doing this, you know. So when, when I tell People like, hey, man, you have to have genetics. I wouldn't be good at squat. You know, I have two fake hips, and when I. With two fake hips, I, you know, I. I don't do it anymore just because, like, the pain got so bad. And it's probably not a great idea to be putting 500, 600 pounds on my back, but I was. I would be squatting with, like, working out with, like, 500 pounds with fake hips. Right? So, like, that's insane. That shouldn't happen. But that's genetics. That's something genetic in my code where I'm short and squatty and I can get under the bar and I can do that, and other people will never do that, but I'll never ride a surfboard, you know, Like. And seriously, like, I'm not built for that. And I think that that's another thing people need to realize and, like, building their physique or doing whatever they want to do is like, go to your strength. Go to, like, what you're. What you're good at, and utilize that. Like, nobody cares how much you deadlift or squat. Really? It's Again, it's only. Only a dude will care.
- [130:54]
B
Yeah.
- [130:54]
A
Like, no girl ever cares. It's like, don't worry about that stuff. Worry about, like, what. What are your strengths? And play to your strengths, you know?
- [131:01]
B
Yeah, totally. And, you know, being able to be. Have that movement, too. Like, the most jacked dudes, they walk around like, you know, like that. That kangaroo. Have you seen the jacked kangaroo videos? Yeah, like, the. Like, you look like the fucking kangaroo where you have, like, no movement. You see the dudes that can't turn their neck.
- [131:18]
A
Yeah. My brother and I went to visit Liver King, and we. We went down to his ranch and hung out with him. He's. He's great. He's cool. I don't agree with what, you know, what he did, but basically, like, what.
- [131:31]
B
Lying about not doing steroids?
- [131:32]
A
Yeah. Yeah, we. We thought it was stupid even at the time. Time for some reason, I think Joe Rogan thought we believed him, but we were just kind of like, I wasn't even involved in the interview. We were just kind of going. You know, it's like when somebody tells you, like, yeah, I don't take steroids. What are you gonna do? Tell them, like, yeah, you do improve it, you know, so.
- [131:49]
B
Right.
- [131:50]
A
Mark asked them all the questions. You never took sarms. You never took. You know, hgh.
- [131:56]
B
Was this before he came out?
- [131:58]
A
Yeah, and he was. Mark was one of the first people to Interview him. I think Logan Paul might interviewed him for first and then like Mark and I did. Oh. The point of it was when we went to see the Liver King, Mark realized right away, like this guy didn't have good movement. Like he's all like, he looks great but he can't, can't move, you know.
- [132:17]
B
Yeah.
- [132:18]
A
And I don't know, I think like that's an important to look at, you know, Like Liver King looks amazing. He's all jacked. It's like, but if he can't move, what's the purpose of it, you know?
- [132:28]
B
And he was on a whole laundry list of stuff like Winstrol, HGH. He was, I think he was spending like $25,000 a month on all the. He was taking.
- [132:38]
A
Well, a lot of it was stupid because I think hgh, human growth hormone I don't think is very effective for muscle building at all. You know, I don't think it's really effective for maybe it's going to help your joints and things like that. But it seems like to me, I'll give you an example, like I work at this compounding pharmacy and I talk to some of the, the higher ups there and they basically just say like, yeah, it's kind of a waste of money money, you know, like, and they have plenty of money to be able to do it, but they don't, they're not doing it because it's like, ah, it's not even, not really worth it. And when you see people that have access to it can get it real cheap, you know. Still not using it. Yeah, you're like, it's probably not worth it. So that's, that's where.
- [133:19]
B
Don't a lot of like NFL players and NBA players use HGH or growth, human growth.
- [133:24]
A
Like my brother, I don't know where he got it from, but he gave me a ton of growth hormone and like I haven't used it either. And I have it, it's free, but I haven't, I haven't used it because I don't think it's going to do anything.
- [133:35]
B
Have you ever used it?
- [133:36]
A
I've, I've tried it. Yeah, I did it for like a couple weeks and I think it can mess up your insulin resistance, like your insulin sensitivity. So I don't, I don't know, I don't, I. Maybe in a giant stack with insulin and everything else, it would be worth it.
- [133:51]
B
Yeah.
- [133:52]
A
Maybe be. You might talk to a bodybuilding coach or something. But like a bodybuilding coach, you gotta remember is not a Health coach.
- [133:58]
B
Right.
- [133:58]
A
So I'm trying to be healthy. I'm not trying to be like, as jacked as I can.
- [134:01]
B
Right. Yeah. You want to live long, right? You gotta. You gotta balance, like, living optimally and feeling your best and performing your best. But, like, also you don't want to die early. That's never good.
- [134:13]
A
No. And like, people need to realize, like, so if you look at my brother Mark, he's probably about 5% body fat right now. He's in crazy shape. That looks great. Great. You know, it's great to be ripped on Instagram, but the. A healthy human being is about 12 body fat. And I think that's what men need to realize is like 12's the goal. It's not 5%, it's 12. And if you can get to 12, most people are. Are going to be above that. But if you can get to 12, you're. That's right where you want to be. And, and that's the preferred. If you're. You're a single guy out there, that's the what women prefer. They prefer 12 right. Over any other body fat. They say, you know what.
- [134:55]
B
What specifically does EPO do?
- [134:58]
A
It gives your body. It basically gives your blood more oxygen so you can go. So, like, if you can go.
- [135:05]
B
So it's endurance.
- [135:06]
A
Yeah. There's a SARM out there. It's not necessarily a SARM, but it's in the group of SARMs. It's GW501, something like that. It's called Carterine. If you look up Carterine C, A R, D A R, I N E. Carterine is a. I don't want to call it a sarm because it's not officially a song, but it's sort of in that group. It's something you could take that will really, really enhance your output on cardio. So, like, if you're having a hard time with your cardio, you were doing jiu jitsu or you were surfing or whatever, and you have a hard time with cardio. Carterine can really, really help the diff. The problem, I guess, is if you look at videos from like, Derek for more plates, more dates.
- [135:50]
B
Yeah.
- [135:50]
A
He sort of shows how in these, you know, in these studies where it caused cancer in rats. But then you look at the studies and the studies are like, well, they did feed a lot of this to the rat. It's like, no human would ever take that amount.
- [136:06]
B
Right.
- [136:06]
A
That kind of thing. So. So it's something that's like, I like. Again, I'm not recommending anything I'm just saying, like, that works. It works really, really well. I would imagine it's banned from competition because it is very effective. You know, the one thing I think maybe Mark talked about this on your podcast as well is like, it's hard for me to believe that Kratom is not banned from the Olympics. It's not banned from any major sports entity at all. It is so performance enhancing.
- [136:40]
B
Like, really, Kratom is.
- [136:41]
A
Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. I take, like, I would load up on Kratom before I go work out and my lifts would be through the roof because it just gives me energy. It gave me. It took away all the pain. So, like, when you're, you know, if you're, if you're playing football and every play you got to get down in three point stance and it hurts to get in a three point stance. Well, imagine if I take that pain away. It's going to be easy. You're going to feel. So it might have consequences later. You might lift too heavy. You know, you might, whatever. But, like, to me, it's. It is the performance enhancing drug that is just so underrated and underutilized.
- [137:20]
B
Yeah, it's crazy. It is, it is insane how, like, we want to come up with these rules to ban these performance enhancing drugs for things like these entertaining sports. Like for a guy to hit a ball with a stuff stick or, you know, to play football. Like what? Like, like what are you doing? Like, why are you trying to do that? If it's going to make these people healthy and it's going to make your. It's going to make this sport and this business that at the end of the day, all that matters to them is their advertising dollars. Like, what are you trying to do here?
- [137:46]
A
Well, pretty soon we'll have the enhanced games and. Yeah.
- [137:48]
B
Oh, I heard about this.
- [137:49]
A
Yeah, it's. It's interesting. So I've actually been helping the Enhanced games because I always have the inside scoop on, you know, different, different performance enhancing drugs and like, who knows what and who does what. And so I got a couple phone calls from people that work for the Enhanced game saying, hey, we, we'd like, you know, can we pick your brain? Who's this guy in your movie? Who's that guy in your movie? So I told them all that, but I'm like, you know what? You want an expert, you need to talk to Vigorous Steve. If people online or anybody watching this wants to know about steroids, you have to look up Vigorous Steve. He knows, knows Vigorous Steve. Oh, yeah, he'd Be great on your podcast too. He knows so much about performance enhancement. It's incredible. It's. It's incredible. And he's from Canada. He's a very fast talker. Yeah, he's jacked. He's just, he's just awesome. He just knows everything. So, like, how old is he? He's probably 40.
- [138:44]
B
Oh, wow.
- [138:45]
A
You know, so I, I basically, you know, said to the Enhanced Games, like, you don't want to talk to me, you want to talk to him.
- [138:51]
B
Right?
- [138:52]
A
And then there's a couple other people I've sent over to them too. Like Patrick Arnold is a friend of mine.
- [138:57]
B
Oh, really?
- [138:57]
A
And Patrick Arnold's the guy that designed. I'm like, he designed drugs.
- [139:00]
B
Arnold's son?
- [139:01]
A
No, no. Patrick Arnold.
- [139:03]
B
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Yes, yes.
- [139:05]
A
Arnold son is Patrick.
- [139:07]
B
Arnold son is Patrick Schwarzenegger. Yeah, sorry, my brain.
- [139:10]
A
So Patrick Arnold is the guy who created the cream in the clear for Balco.
- [139:15]
B
I remember I talked to him on the phone once.
- [139:17]
A
Yeah, he made the drugs.
- [139:18]
B
Dom. He helped Dom, I think.
- [139:20]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. He helped with the ketones.
- [139:22]
B
Yes, yes.
- [139:23]
A
Yeah. Patrick Arnold's great. So it's like I sent him. I'm like, hey, Enhanced Games, if you really want to do this right, you need to talk to these top people in the performance enhancing drug field. There's another guy named Alex Kkel. K I K E L. He's just a bodybuilding coach. He knows everything about every peptide, like any substance you could possibly put in your body. He knows what it does and why people would use it. And so when you get into these Enhanced Games, my, my gripe with the Enhanced Games is like, oh, you can take anything a doctor can give you. And I'm like, well, it needs to be different than that because, like, what about Trend Balloon? You know, what about, what about these drugs that people are going to use to enhance their performance that aren't, you know, aren't doctor certified, you know, Like, I don't know. In my opinion, if you're going to have, if you're going to do the Enhanced Game games and you're gonna half ass it by having everybody be safe, then it's like, it's not. Is it really the Enhanced Games, you know, like, we want to see like the All Drug Olympics and Saturday Night Live where the guy rips his arms off. That's in.
- [140:29]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [140:30]
A
I mean, we don't want to see that necessarily, but if you're gonna have the Enhanced Games, it should be. We should know like, hey, man, these guys were Pretty much allowed to do whatever they want as long as they maybe got a physical beforehand and came in healthy, you know, because why can't a guy like, look, if you can snort a line and run faster, right. And your vitals are in check, you.
- [140:57]
B
Should be able to do.
- [140:57]
A
Why not, right? Maybe your vitals won't be in check when you do that.
- [141:00]
B
I don't know. Where are you going to draw the line?
- [141:02]
A
Yeah, I mean, there's got to be a line somewhere, obviously. And obviously, like advertisers are not going to go for. And this guy just snowed at a line before he came up for the. To the line to run. But they're like, like I said, I'm probably being like a little exaggerating. But like, funny though, there's something too, like if you're gonna have the enhanced games, make it enhanced.
- [141:23]
B
Yeah. And it doesn't just enhance athletics, you know, I think they also enhance creativity.
- [141:29]
A
Oh yeah.
- [141:30]
B
Like some of the best music is done on people with, you know, people on drugs. They make the best music. You know, there's a lot of bands and there's a lot of musicians who once they get sober, they're not creating the same kind of art.
- [141:42]
A
Yeah. Even testosterone, though, has such a tie in to the brain and depression that people that take testosterone usually are less depressed, you know, have a better, better outlook on life, are more motivated, are actually nicer. So people think like people take testosterone and turn into. It's kind of the opposite. They usually turn, they usually become nicer and more generous. And there's a lot of things that are, you know, that testosterone can do that can really help society, you know, where people aren't such bad guys, you know. And yeah, when your testosterone is low, that's, that's the people that are, that are, you know, it's not that, that if your testosterone is low, you're going to. Gonna be a troublemaker or an. But you, your chances of being depressed are a lot higher.
- [142:32]
B
Right.
- [142:33]
A
And if you're depressed, you're not going to be very nice all the time, you know?
- [142:36]
B
Yeah, yeah. I've always been interested in trying it again. I tried it once.
- [142:39]
A
Testosterone?
- [142:40]
B
Yeah, I tried it.
- [142:41]
A
How old are you?
- [142:42]
B
I'm 37.
- [142:43]
A
37, yeah. So you're right about the age where like you should go get it checked. And if it's not.
- [142:48]
B
I get it checked all the time. I get it. I get my blood work done at least twice a year.
- [142:50]
A
And what's your testosterone at?
- [142:52]
B
It was submitted goes. It bounces between the highest it's ever been is like 8:50, and the lowest it's ever been is like.
- [142:58]
A
Like.
- [143:00]
B
600, I think.
- [143:01]
A
Yeah. So yours is pretty good. And I'm like. I'm saying, like, I'm not a doctor. I'm not going to tell you to go on it or not.
- [143:06]
B
Well, I did it for three months.
- [143:07]
A
My. My recommendation is. I think it's great.
- [143:09]
B
Yeah.
- [143:10]
A
I mean, right. And I. I feel great when I'm on it. So it's like, that's just my recommendation. It's like you're gonna. You're gonna have to pull that card at some point.
- [143:19]
B
Yeah, I think so.
- [143:21]
A
Why not just pull it now? That's. That's my thought. But I'm not telling you to do it.
- [143:25]
B
No, I. I did it for three months and I. I tried it. I. And I was like, you know, I want to. People talking about it, and I'm like, you know, I think what really got me interested in was listening to Derek. More plates, more dates. And I was like, God, I gotta try this. It sounds amazing.
- [143:38]
A
At the same time, it's not the panacea of, like.
- [143:40]
B
Right.
- [143:41]
A
All of a sudden, the whole world opens up to you.
- [143:42]
B
That's what I thought it was. That's what I thought it was going to be.
- [143:44]
A
Things just are a little bit easier.
- [143:46]
B
Yeah, I didn't feel that. I didn't feel any difference. If anything, I felt. I felt more tired. Yeah, I felt more tired.
- [143:54]
A
But that's the beauty of it, right? Because it's your choice and just come off of it again.
- [143:57]
B
Yeah. And I did. I just can't. I just. I just stopped it. And I know. I never noticed. Noticed any kind of difference. You know, I felt probably better once I got off.
- [144:04]
A
There's some new drugs that are going to be a little bit better because even though, you know, I. I still hate needles no matter how much, you know, whatever. So, like, there's some new oral testosterone coming down the pipeline that's supposed to be pretty good.
- [144:18]
B
Really?
- [144:19]
A
Yeah. So, like, I just think it'll help compliance, you know, because it's hard to. Testosterone's like. It's a pain in the ass. You got to keep. You got to keep injecting it, people.
- [144:28]
B
But that's the safest way to do it though, right? Is the injecting. Because you're injecting the exact same thing. Because mess around with like, the sarms and stuff and like, antagonizing the. The.
- [144:36]
A
You know what's crazy? When I was in the best Shape of my life. I was on a bunch of sarms that I got from my friend Dr. Tony Huge, who's not a doctor.
- [144:44]
B
I know who that guy is.
- [144:44]
A
Yeah. So Dr. Tony Huge gave me like, here, here's a box of sarms, like, And I'm like, what do I do with him? He's like, ah, take, you know, take one of these, take one of these, take one of these. And I, I did it. And like, I was jacked and shredded and. And I don't know, man. Like, everybody's like, ah, sarms are, they're garbage. And given my. I wasn't doing my blood work. I don't. It might have been in the gutter. I'm not really sure. Because then I. After that I had done SARMs, I did a SARM called RAD140 and it plummeted my testosterone down to 51.
- [145:18]
B
Wow.
- [145:18]
A
And then I got back on TRT and I've stayed on TRT since and not messed with SARMs. But. But I have to say the best shape I ever was in was on SARMs and not on anabolic steroids.
- [145:30]
B
Interesting.
- [145:31]
A
And that's just my own anecdotal.
- [145:33]
B
I have a really good friend who. I was trying to educate him about testosterone and I was like. Because he was like, he went through this like couple year phase where he just was like, not interested in going out, not interested in doing any, any kind of like, activities with anyone. He didn't, Wasn't interested in, in chicks anymore. It didn't seem like he hadn't had a girlfriend in a couple years. And I'm like, bro, you should, you should get your blood work done. Figure out, you know, like what your testosterone level is. He's also, he's huge stoner. He smokes weed all day, every day. And he got his blood work done and his testosterone was 50. Yeah, he's my age.
- [146:07]
A
Yeah, that can happen.
- [146:08]
B
And he got on testosterone. Now he's like back to normal. Now he's like, got a girlfriend. He's like, motivated again and life change.
- [146:13]
A
Horrible. Like when I, when my testosterone was that low, I felt. Felt just terrible. Like I couldn't do anything, couldn't function, you know.
- [146:21]
B
Yeah, I can't imagine what that must feel like for some people. But like, you know, I mean, and it's prescribed in Europe, I think, for ADHD or add. It's prescribed for like a, like normal things in.
- [146:32]
A
You know what's interesting too is that they make it. They make it kind of like you got to jump through Hoops to get testosterone.
- [146:38]
B
Yeah.
- [146:39]
A
So like, I go to a telehealth clinic because it's easy.
- [146:42]
B
Yeah.
- [146:43]
A
So I have to go to a doctor. Like, for some reason I've been on testosterone forever because I just moved to Texas. I have to go to a doctor and get a physical and send that physical to my telehealth person so they can prescribe me testosterone, which I've been on forever.
- [147:01]
B
Right.
- [147:01]
A
It's like, why are you making it hard? You know, I think that's one of the problems with, with the healthcare industry is they make it hard to do anything.
- [147:09]
B
Yeah.
- [147:09]
A
Everything's impossible, you know, and it's like, if I want to get on a glp, one drug to drop a ton of weight, right. I don't have to get any blood work done. I don't get. But for testosterone, I need blood work. I. It's like, I don't know why you.
- [147:21]
B
Want to be safe, but it's like they make it so difficult to do it the proper way, which sucks.
- [147:25]
A
They make it difficult because there is too much of a barrier to entry to most people because they just give up and they go, well, I don't.
- [147:32]
B
Yeah. Yeah. And one of like, the biggest fears with it is like, you know, is there any. Is there any truth to some of these facts that, like, it can increase your. Your arterial plaque or it can increase heart disease, or it can shorten your lifespan?
- [147:49]
A
There's really no evidence that it. At the levels of trt.
- [147:52]
B
Right.
- [147:53]
A
That'll do anything. Negative.
- [147:54]
B
Well, look at how old is Arnold and he was doing, like 80. How much testosterone was he doing in his teens and his early 20s? 20s. He was probably doing an insane amount. He's probably doing grams.
- [148:07]
A
Yeah. The drugs were different back then. They would take D ball.
- [148:10]
B
Yeah.
- [148:10]
A
They would take a little bit again, though, go back to genetics. Arnold would still look awesome if he never took anything.
- [148:17]
B
Yeah.
- [148:18]
A
Like, he'd still look. Right. He. I mean, he is a genetic freak.
- [148:22]
B
Do you think he still takes it, though, now?
- [148:24]
A
I'm sure he's taking testosterone now still. Yeah.
- [148:28]
B
Even at this age?
- [148:29]
A
Yeah.
- [148:29]
B
In his 80s, you think he still takes it? Just. Just probably a lower amount. Just.
- [148:33]
A
I think he takes it. I know Stallone takes it.
- [148:35]
B
It really?
- [148:35]
A
Yeah. I mean, I don't. I don't know for a fact, but.
- [148:38]
B
I mean, that's, you know, the fact that those guys are. Have made it to their 80s.
- [148:43]
A
I don't know for a fact that stolen takes it, but I know he is. He has been on it and so they're like, again, what reason is there to go off if you're, you know, at that age? I know Vince McMahon, he. He's got to be still on it.
- [148:55]
B
Oh, yeah, you know, yeah, for sure. It's just, you know, it's a funny chemical, man. Man, It's. It's so. It's such a funny thing that, like, what the happened? Like, like, why do human beings. Why do we have this weird chemical in our body that just makes us horny?
- [149:13]
A
Yeah. And, you know, and the other. It's. It's.
- [149:16]
B
What is the purpose of it?
- [149:17]
A
Like, male hormone?
- [149:18]
B
Why do we have that? Like, why. What. What part of nature is it just because. Is it. Is it. Is it an evolutionary process that just helps, like, makes us want to reproduce and propagate our species? Like, it seems like that's the benefit of it.
- [149:29]
A
It's like a sliding scale. Right. Because, like, men and women, women both have testosterone and estrogen. And so our.
- [149:36]
B
And the higher the testosterone in the woman, the more horny she is.
- [149:39]
A
Yeah, our testosterone's high. And, you know, it's. It's funny because, like, we actually make products for that. Like when you're talking about, like, how horny a woman is, Senazinol, which is Winstrel, they actually make a formula of stenosinol that is a, Like a rub, like a cream that a woman will rub on their basically, really. And it makes them really horny. And it's supposed to. To like, Supposed to like, heal relationships, from what I hear. Wow. Because, like, the. It'll just make the woman, like, really, like, aggressively. And you can get that at a compounding pharmacy, you know, but yeah, it's like there's levels of like, you know, a woman will have high estrogen, low testosterone, and a man is the opposite.
- [150:24]
B
Yeah.
- [150:25]
A
But if you give a woman just a little pinch of testosterone, a lot of times, that gives them a lot of energy, makes them feel a lot better. So it's like the, the problem with women, usually. And this is another reason for compounding pharmacies. The other reason is dosing. So if you go to a. If you ask your doctor, can you use a compounding pharmacy and you're a woman and they give you testosterone, they can give you a more precise dose because they can make it for you. So they can, like, instead of you trying to draw out like one tiny little milliliter out of a bottle and, and taking too much and starting to grow hair places you don't want to. You. They make it. They make it more watered down, basically. Oiled down.
- [151:05]
B
Yeah.
- [151:06]
A
So that you can take a bigger chunk of it and inject it. So it's more. So it's more normal.
- [151:11]
B
Yeah.
- [151:12]
A
You know, so it's more like. Like the same way a man would take it. It's just that it's watered down so that you can. You can measure it, you know, like sometimes things are just immeasurable, you know?
- [151:21]
B
Right.
- [151:21]
A
You're like, did that even work? Did I even put it in myself? I don't even. No.
- [151:25]
B
Yeah. And the compounding pharmacies, I don't think they can get it as accurate as, like, pharmaceutical grade. Right.
- [151:31]
A
There's a difference between, like. So the place where I work in Power Pharmacy, it's the. It's probably the largest compounding pharmacy in. In the world. I know. At least probably in the country. But everything we make is to GMP standards. So GMP is general manufacturing practices. We can't make anything fda. It's not FDA approved. The ingredients are FDA approved, but the actual final product that we make is not FDA approved because the FDA would have to come and check it. And they don't check on compounding pharmacies. So, like.
- [152:07]
B
Right.
- [152:07]
A
It's a weird. It's a weird thing. It's like, yeah, but it's made.
- [152:10]
B
So the stuff that you buy from a compounding pharmacy versus it is of.
- [152:13]
A
The highest quality you can possibly get, in my opinion.
- [152:16]
B
So it's produced the same way as stuff you buy from like Walgreens or cvs.
- [152:19]
A
Yes.
- [152:20]
B
Okay.
- [152:20]
A
Yeah. Same produce.
- [152:21]
B
And they make it from. From. How do they make it? Isn't it yams or something?
- [152:25]
A
It used to be. It's really weird because I've had this question for years, right. And no one can ever like, really answer it because they're like, well, it's synthetic. I'm like, but what's it from? Like, it's gotta come from something and like, it comes from chemicals. I'm like, I don't know. So it used to be. It used to come from. They used to take extracts of Mexican yams.
- [152:45]
B
Yeah.
- [152:45]
A
And use those molecules to make synthetic testosterone, which they turn in like, you know, a keg of powder, you know, 55 gallon drum of powder and ship it across the country. So. Or, you know, from. From China or wherever they make it.
- [153:00]
B
Yeah.
- [153:01]
A
So I don't know exactly. That's. It's still a mystery to me because everybody I talk to. That's a good thing that. For me to investigate now because. Well, I heard that everybody I Talked to is like, oh, it's just from a. It's just from a factory. It's a synthetic. And I'm like.
- [153:15]
B
Like, it's a weird thing to wrap your mind around that, though. Like. Like, do I want to inject my body with that was made in a lab, and, like, what am I doing to my body? Am I turning myself into a. Into like some sort of a genetic cyborg by doing this?
- [153:30]
A
Yeah.
- [153:30]
B
Well, the crazy thing is, though, when you measure it, they. It's literally bioidentical.
- [153:35]
A
That's what I'm saying. It's bioidentical. So it's like they basically found a way to trick the body. Yeah. You know, into.
- [153:41]
B
Well, I mean, it's the same thing. Like, yeah, it's. It's. It's amazing that we're. That they can do. Do that.
- [153:47]
A
And, you know, so the other thing is that Adam Power, we have these testosterone versions that are so great because you can take an insulin pen, which is, like, really tiny. A little, tiny insulin pen.
- [153:59]
B
Yeah.
- [154:00]
A
You know, prick the bottle, draw a little bit out, and inject it with no problem. Because it's so. Ours is so thin. It's made to inject. It's made to be easy. It's made. So it doesn't.
- [154:10]
B
With a different kind of carrier oil or something.
- [154:12]
A
Yeah, yeah. It's. It's made with specific. We have a specific formula that only we have that's Makes it easier to draw out so you can use a smaller needle.
- [154:22]
B
Right. I wonder how far away we are from just being able to create our own genetically modified babies, you know, that are just like those jacked cows.
- [154:35]
A
Oh, that's coming. Yeah.
- [154:36]
B
With, like, crisper and the jacked cow.
- [154:38]
A
The Belgian blue cows.
- [154:39]
B
Belgian blue cows with the myostatin. The my.
- [154:42]
A
It's a myostatin inhibitor.
- [154:43]
B
Yeah, yeah. Right.
- [154:44]
A
So myostatin limits how big something can get, how muscular something. And if you inhibit that, it'll just keep growing and getting bigger. And the myostatin blockers and things that are on the market right now are all garbage. They don't. None of them really work. I remember, like, Rich Piana was a friend of mine. I love Rich Piana. He was a giant jacked, you know, huge bodybuilder. You should maybe pull him up because he looks amazing. But Rich piano of before he passed away, he was messing with this stuff called Follistatin because he thought phallus could be, like, the next big thing for, you know, really growing, you know? Yeah. Unfortunately. Oh, I remember this Guy, fortunately he passed away.
- [155:24]
B
What did he die of?
- [155:26]
A
So I don't know exactly what he died of. I think it was an opioid overdose. To be honest, from everything I've deduced from the case, he basically took something, started foaming at the mouth and fell on the table. And he was with his girlfriend, she was cutting his hair. And then he went into a coma. All right, they, maybe they did an induced coma with him and then like 10 days later he passed away. He was just a really cool guy, but he had told me in Gold's Gym that he was messing around with this follow statin stuff.
- [155:57]
B
Which follow statin.
- [155:58]
A
It's F O L. F O L L I s like station. Anyway, fellow, statin is basically a, it's going to inhibit my myostatin. But here's the deal. I went to Mexico, when I went to Mexico to get those stem cells. I also did a Follistatin shot that has a technology called mini circles. And what mini circles do is replicate the drug inside your body. This is like another technology that's nuts, but basically like, like, so instead of the F statin shot having only a 90, usually has a 90 minute half life, which means like it's active in your body for 90 minutes and then it goes away. So instead of being like this active, instead of only being active for 90 minutes and you have to shoot it again, these mini circles keep replicating the substance in your body for like a year and a half. So it's like you take a F statin shot and it keeps replicating for a year and a half.
- [156:57]
B
Half.
- [156:58]
A
Now that shot is $25,000 to get one. One shot. And it's supposed to last a year and a half. I have not seen or felt any benefit from it. You know, like I didn't get super jacked, so I don't think it did anything. So I don't know. The, the jury's still out on Follistatin of whether or not it works in humans or, you know, I'm just saying, like I'm just one case study. Brian Johnson, the guy who is trying to live to be 200 years old or whatever, he's also done it. I don't think it did anything for him either yet. I mean, I don't know. I mean I, I've not seen a follow up video from him about it.
- [157:36]
B
What do you think about that guy?
- [157:39]
A
I think it's great what he's doing. I watched a documentary on him and I think he's just like a lot of people. He's.
- [157:48]
B
Isn't he taking his kids blood?
- [157:50]
A
And he's a very, like a very emotionally hurt person who is. Made a lot of money and is like taking that and turning it into something that he can believe in and something that, you know, makes him happy. And like, I'm all for it. I'm like, you know what? Go for it. But like, you could tell he's broken. He's like a broken person who didn't get a lot of love from his dad. Like, I don't know if you saw the documentary they did on him. It was, it was really good because. Because it sort of showed, you know, both sides of it. He didn't get a lot of love from his dad. He was never the cool kid. And now he gets, you know, he's got hundreds of millions of dollars and he gets to play the cool kid, you know, and people want to know what he's up to and what he's doing. I think it makes him feel good. Will he live to be any longer than anybody else? I don't think so. I think he's making a big mistake by being on just a vegan diet. You know, I think there's a lot of. Yeah, there's a lot of.
- [158:47]
B
And he doesn't do any testosterone or anything like that.
- [158:50]
A
He does testosterone.
- [158:50]
B
Oh, does he really?
- [158:51]
A
Yeah, but I think there's a lot, a big advantage to eating animal protein, even if it's just minimal, you know.
- [158:58]
B
Yeah. And he also, yeah, he always defers.
- [159:04]
A
You ever watch the. Watch the video of him and Derek from More Plates?
- [159:07]
B
I watched part of that.
- [159:08]
A
Derek destroys him so many times. And I'm not, not out to destroy anybody. I think, I think what he's doing is great. I think it's great to experiment and learn different things. But Derek just ask him, like, well, who's your team? He goes, well, you know, my team, they have it, you know, and it's like, okay, this is another charlatan con artist trying to make money off of people, right? And so you go, is it that or is he just another hurt guy who's trying to get some attention? I don't know. It's one of the two.
- [159:35]
B
Well, is he selling a bunch?
- [159:36]
A
But like, yeah, he's selling a bunch of. Okay, but like, I'm not going to follow, you know, it's like, I'm not going to be gullible and buy the shit that he's selling because I know that doesn't work, you know?
- [159:45]
B
Right.
- [159:46]
A
I don't know a Lot of these people don't bother me as much as they bother other people because, like, I'm never going to buy the thing that they're selling ever in a million years.
- [159:54]
B
Yeah.
- [159:54]
A
So it doesn't bother me that they're making money off people. You know, I've, you know, there's just.
- [160:01]
B
A lot of people who just like, come onto the scene out of nowhere. Well, that did come out and they. And they happen to be bringing amazing online store with tons of shit you. You can buy from them.
- [160:10]
A
And one of the things that is just mind blowing to me is that there's people out there that are carnivore coaches. And it's like, what do you do if you're a Carnivore coach? Be like, eat more meat.
- [160:23]
B
Right.
- [160:23]
A
You know, oh, you're not eating enough meat. Eat more meat. You know, and it's like, I get it, like, people need support on their diet or whatever, but I just think it's. There's just so many grifters in fitness.
- [160:34]
B
Yeah.
- [160:34]
A
That the last thing you need to do do is have somebody tell you you're eating meat and water wrong. You know, like, that's not like, it's not a thing. It's like the diet is meat and water. That's all you can have. That's it. That's all you need to know, you know, and you might have. You might need a little coaching through.
- [160:49]
B
Well, yeah, I mean, the beginning of it and the.
- [160:51]
A
And the transition.
- [160:52]
B
Yeah.
- [160:53]
A
But there's enough. There's a million videos online, too. So the fact that people are making money off of it always just makes me shake my head, you know, I.
- [161:00]
B
Guess if you have the money to pay somebody to like, like, you know, walk you step by step into, like, how to, like, meal prep and, like, how to buy the right kind of food and how to, like, what time of day to eat it and. Yeah, because there's so much more that goes into it other than what you're eating. Right. Like, there's like, again, something else I learned from Jack and this girl Alexis, who. Alexis Cowan, who came in here, which they were. She was explaining to me how, like, you're supposed to eat during the time when the sun comes up, up before the UVA light kicks in. So, like, there's this short window of time, typically like an hour and a half, depending on what part of the world you're in, where the UV and infrared light is coming out of, you know, coming from the sun. And when that sun is low in the sky, apparently is when your metabolism is working at the highest possible speed. So that's when you're supposed to eat, when your metabolism's really kicking in. And then once the UVA light kicks in, like around here, I think it's like 10 o'.
- [161:59]
A
Clock.
- [162:00]
B
That's when you're supposed to eat less or not eat as much, because that's when you're like. High noon is basically the slowest point of your metabolism during the day. So that's the point of time if you're optimizing for energy. That's not when you want to eat. So, like, a lot of people like to skip breakfast and, you know, eat lunch and dinner. But, like, when I learned that, I started eating a huge breakfast, you know, after I wake up and then skipping lunch. And personally, for me, I felt a hundred times better.
- [162:26]
A
Sounds like it works.
- [162:27]
B
Way more fucking energy, you know, Rob.
- [162:28]
A
Wolf eats like that. Rob Wolf's really smart. He's one of the top guys. You know, he was on the first person I followed when I did, like, paleo and stuff like that. And then we became friends with him. And Rob Wolf told me something that stuck with me forever. First of all, he said, just what you said. Maybe you're better off, like, eating breakfast and eating dinner. Dinner, yeah, and like, sort of intermittent fasting in between, you know, where you don't eat anything.
- [162:52]
B
Right.
- [162:52]
A
And then he also said, I think if our country just simply ate from, like, from when the sun comes up until the sun comes down and not a minute before, not a minute after, right? We would solve, like, 80% of our health problems. Right? And I'm like, that's. That's a pretty bold statement. And he goes, yeah, but I think it's true. He's like, I think the fact is most people eat, eat, you know, when they're not supposed to eat. They eat too late at night. Like, you gotta, when the sun goes down, shut it down.
- [163:19]
B
Right?
- [163:19]
A
And that's like our circadian rhythm, Right. I don't know if he said 80. I don't want to misquote him, but he said a majority of our health problems. Totally. The other thing is that I think people need to understand because we've talked about all these different diets and different plans, and like I said, I think they're all great tools. But the thing that I think people really need to understand is that, like, literally losing weight, weight is the number one way to cure your health problems. So, like, if you have any. Any kind of health problem, no matter what, it seems to Be. It seems that, like, losing weight walls almost always help it, you know, and that comes from our friend Stan Efforting, who's a gigantic bodybuilder, but he's just very intelligent. That's like another thing that's always stuck with me is, like, if your body's failing, you lose one weight because it resolves so many problems. Like, for most people, it's because they're overweight, right? You know, some things are not going to be because you're overweight. Like, you may have a gut issue.
- [164:14]
B
Right.
- [164:15]
A
Things like that. But, like, a lot of our health problems resolve when we simply lose weight. Some people get some sort of issue and they go, I don't know how to fix it. It's kind of like, well, just lose weight, right?
- [164:24]
B
Well, it's saying, just lose weight, though, with, like, how, like, what's the best way to lose weight? Like, what part of your lifestyle do you have to change to lose weight? That's another thing. Like, just taking Ozempic is. I don't think it'd be the right answer. Like, you got. There's got to be a, like, a decent balance of. Of lifestyle changes that you incorporate to losing weight, right? Like, you know, fixing your circadian rhythm, being outside more, eating the right times of the day, not eating processed junk food, not eating out every single day. And then, you know, as well, another thing that I learned is, like, eating native. Like eating native meats, like, eating, like, around here, the fish that is caught around here and not salmon, that's imported from the other side of the. You know, from a fish farm in Michigan or something like that. Like that. That's, you know, another huge thing that I learned.
- [165:10]
A
Well, it's like, where did your food come from? Right? That's like. That's a huge thing for me is, like, I really only eat food, you know, food from certain. Like, like I said, I eat like, meat, fruit and vegetables. So it's all pretty much right. You know, things that are fresh, things that are local, things that, you know, with the. With the fruits, I'd say that's probably not local because that's coming from, like, all over the place. Yeah, but you really can't help it in today's day and age. I mean, like, what do you do? You can't really go the way that the world's built. It's hard. It's like you go to the store and you're like, well, I'm only going to buy strawberries because that's what grows around here. Yeah, it's like you're going to limit all the rest of the stuff that you.
- [165:47]
B
Yeah.
- [165:48]
A
Doesn't grow.
- [165:48]
B
You know, that's why, that's why I like living near the ocean. There's so much good seafood here. So much good.
- [165:55]
A
Yeah. You know, that's one thing I miss about California and California, I'm right by the ocean, so all the seafood was good. I don't eat a lot of seafood, but now that I live in Houston, it's like there's no. That's like landlocked kind of. Yeah. You know, it's like not. Yeah, I don't trust it.
- [166:08]
B
This is the. Actually right down the street here is the. Is the biggest grouper port in the world. There's more grouper caught out in the Gulf of Mexico right here than anywhere in the world.
- [166:16]
A
You eat a lot of fish?
- [166:17]
B
Yeah, I eat a ton of fish.
- [166:18]
A
That's right.
- [166:18]
B
Grouper and snappers mostly.
- [166:20]
A
Yeah.
- [166:20]
B
Because that's from around here. And then, you know, like the tuna is good, but like this, all the salmon, all the salmon's dog around here, there's very, I mean, there's some of it that's imported from Alaska that's like, you know, king salmon. But Most, you know, 99 of the salmon that you go to any sushi restaurant, all of that comes from these salmon farms.
- [166:38]
A
And that's so hard. Right, because salmon is so good for you.
- [166:41]
B
Yeah.
- [166:41]
A
But also so bad if you're like, if you're getting the salmon from salmon farms, it's not eating what it's supposed to eat. So what happens is in the stomach of that fish, it's monogastric. It has one.
- [166:53]
B
Yeah.
- [166:53]
A
You know, one intestine like a calf. Cow can take almost any food you give. You can give a cow corn, you can give a cow old Skittles or old M M's and it's going to turn it into high quality beef no matter what you do. It's got four stomachs and so it.
- [167:10]
B
Cows, four stomachs.
- [167:11]
A
Yeah.
- [167:12]
B
How did I not know that?
- [167:13]
A
I don't know.
- [167:13]
B
That's crazy.
- [167:14]
A
But what it does is it can take anything, anything it eats and turn it into high quality protein for humans. Whereas a, a pig can't do that and a, you know, a pig can't do it and a, you know, a sheep can do it, but you're not gonna, people don't really feed sheep crappy stuff. But a lot of times, like you'll see cows like on these, you know, in these feedlots and they, the, the Feed they give them sometimes is crap, you know, like they give them, like I said, like old skittles old, like broken M M's and they throw it in a bunch of feed and they'll throw it in for the cows to eat. And, and like, to be honest, it doesn't really make a difference in the health outcomes that we, we've seen. You know, I don't know if they've ever done a study specifically on that, but it doesn't seem to matter when you stack up like the benefits of grass finished beef to, you know, that it might, there might be some differences in it. Like, okay, you get healthier fat from the grass finished beef. But first of all, they just did a study that found out like 80% of the grass finished beef in America, like isn't really grass finished beef anyway. So first of all you're dealing with that. And then second of all you're dealing with like, well, how much of a difference does it make? Because it's like $2 a pound more for the grass finish stuff. So you gotta like weigh out those, those issues. And then like with the salmon, since it doesn't have anywhere to go, it will digest the corn that they're feeding it and it'll turn into the wrong kinds of fat that you don't need. And so now you're having like salmon common that instead of being high in omega 3 fat, which is good for you, is high in omega 6 fat or omega 9 fat, which we already have too much of.
- [168:50]
B
Right.
- [168:51]
A
So it's kind of messes up everything.
- [168:53]
B
Yeah, so I think we covered everything. We covered a bunch of your documentaries, but I don't think we covered the trophy kids documentary.
- [169:01]
A
Oh yeah, trophy kids.
- [169:02]
B
At what point did you do the trophy kids documentary?
- [169:05]
A
Yeah, so what happened was I did trophy kids actually.
- [169:08]
B
Second, that was the second that was after Bigger, Stronger, Faster.
- [169:11]
A
Yeah, so what happened was I made Bigger, Stronger, Faster and it went to Sundance. It did, you know, it did great.
- [169:19]
B
Yeah.
- [169:20]
A
And basically like I was trying to figure out like what to do next and couldn't really figure it out. Didn't really get anything going. Like I was represented by William Morris. I was actually trying to. They were trying to sign me on to like direct some big, pretty big movies. But it seemed like one after the other, they just kept up like falling apart. So in the meantime, I was hanging out with my best friend who was a 6 foot 8, you know, basketball player from Michigan, big dude. And he was coaching kids basketball. And I go to go like, hang out with them maybe coaching, like, AAU practice. And I watched the parents arguing, yelling at him, telling them, like, hey, what are you doing? My kid's really good. He needs to play. Yeah, all this stuff like, dude, we should film this. This is crazy. Crazy, because, like, it's nuts, you know, and one mom coming to him saying, you know, I don't know if I should hold them back this year because I need to put some weight on them and, you know, like, oh, my God, they're basically, like, fattening their kids up for the slaughter, you know, And I just thought it was an insane world. And so I just started bringing a camera and started filming it. And then because I worked out at Gold's Gym, I would see Pete Berg all the time. And I go, hey, Pete, I got something for you to see. See? And he's like, oh, okay, like, email it to me. So I emailed him like, a little trailer because I just, like, took some of it and cut it together. I said, you think this would be a good movie? I was like, oh, this would be a great movie. Like, we got to do this, like. And so he basically just said, go ahead, go out and just like, shoot a bunch of stuff and then bring it back to me and we'll see where you're at and whatever. And so I went out and shot a bunch of stuff basically for free, you know, like, went out and shot it with like, the hopes of like, hey, hopefully they this, you know, gets picked up or something.
- [171:03]
B
Yeah.
- [171:03]
A
And then what ended up happening is he saw it. He saw like a. A longer trailer, like a three minute trailer once I had everything cut together and he just loved it. So he basically brought it into his company and turned it into like a. It was. It was a twofold thing. It was a. It's a documentary called Trophy Kids. And then you people can still see it right now on HBO Max. It's part of a program that Pete Berg did called State of Place Play. You can look up Trophy Kids on HBO Max, and I'm sure you'll find it. And that's a shorter version of it. Unfortunately. The. This happens a lot with documentaries and movies. The. The company we were working with on Trophy Kids basically imploded and no longer exists. So I don't even know.
- [171:50]
B
Production company?
- [171:51]
A
Yeah, the production company. And it was on Netflix for a little while, while it did pretty well on Netflix. But then, you know, Netflix has terms. I think it was on there for two years.
- [172:01]
B
Yeah.
- [172:02]
A
And it got pulled off to me. It was an amazing movie. Because the following, these kids and their, and their parents was crazy. And then the HBO version is only like a 40 minute version of it. So it was like an hour and 15 minute, hour, hour and like 45 minute movie cut down to like 40 minutes.
- [172:20]
B
Yeah.
- [172:20]
A
Which is kind of the highlights of the parents yelling at the kids, which is still a lot of fun.
- [172:24]
B
Yeah.
- [172:24]
A
But that's the version I think that lives on HBO and like the full version, I don't even know whatever happened to it. But that was just a crazy project to make because it was, you know, to me it was cool because it got on, it got onto hbo.
- [172:39]
B
Yeah.
- [172:39]
A
And like, you know, I, but you know, the problem is I, I never got any credit. Zero credit.
- [172:44]
B
Oh really?
- [172:44]
A
So like when you go on HBO and watch it, my name's not even on it.
- [172:47]
B
Oh wow.
- [172:48]
A
Because I got. So here's what happened. So to be honest with it, here's what happened when we finished that movie was when I was, when we finished Trophy Kids. That's when I needed to go to rehab. And so actually in a weird way I think Pete Berg helped like save my life, to be honest. So like he was the one that, he was the one that told me, hey man, you're pretty up. Like you, you need to fix yourself. And he's somebody who like I respect. Like I was so excited that Pete Berg wanted to like work on my move. Like he wanted to help me, me with this movie. I was so pumped about it. And then he tells me like, hey man, you're pretty up. Like you smell like booze a lot. You look pretty disheveled, like what's going on with you? And like I was just like, man, like I Scott kind of yelled at by Peter Berg, you know, like he's a big time director, like, you know, and I just like took it to heart. And like two weeks after that I was in rehab. So the reason, there's a reason why my name wasn't on the, that part of the movie. But I still think it's up and my name should still be Hun. I directed the entire thing. I shot the entire movie. Like I shot, physically shot it with, you know, with my own camera. So I think my name should be on it.
- [173:59]
B
Yeah, I would say so.
- [174:00]
A
So the full version it is, but not that, not on that.
- [174:03]
B
So what, what was it about these parents that made them such psychos?
- [174:07]
A
They just, they think that they love their kids.
- [174:10]
B
They think that they love them. Their kids.
- [174:12]
A
Yeah, they don't know how to love their kids. You Know, and so they think, like, well, if my kid's good at basketball and I can get them a scholarship, you know, it was like, instead of putting them on, like, it was kind of funny because it was a follow up to Bigger, Stronger, faster where I said, well, if you can't put them on steroids, just start them younger. And it was like, I was just watching all these kids starting younger and younger and younger in different sports. And, you know, it got to a point where it's like, ridiculous. You have like five and six year olds who can't even throw a ball and their parents are like yelling at them to do better, you know, And I watched it from all different angles. Like, we have a parent in the movie who's a tennis mom, and she's like a born again Christian and she's got all these wacky thoughts about, like, my will for my boys is that they're going to be number one in the world in tennis. And I've asked God about this and I've prayed to God and said they're going to be number one in tennis. And it's like, lady, what are you thinking? You don't pray to God for your. You pray for God, your kids to be happy and healthy. You don't pray to God for your kid to be good at tennis. You're. You know, to be honest, your kids kind of suck at tennis. They're not that good. They'll never, they'll never. Like, we knew that these kids would never make it in the big time. Like, you know, it. Like, you know when you play sports when you're a kid.
- [175:27]
B
Yeah.
- [175:27]
A
You know when you have that kid on your team, like, that kid's gonna go somewhere.
- [175:30]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [175:31]
A
You know, and like, when we were. It's kind of funny because, like, when we were younger, we saw it with my older brother. My older brother played football and he was really good. And we're like, mad dog. Like, he's gonna probably go somewhere and do something. But then we had this kid that came in from another school who was like 6 foot 2. This jacked black kid named Dwayne Gordon comes in. He's 6 foot 2, 240 pounds in high school. And we're like, that guy's gonna, like, he's gonna go to the pros. And we knew. You just. You knew, you knew. Like, those are the guy, those two guys on that team. We're gonna go somewhere. And so my older brother ended up going to the University of Cincinnati. He's the first person in the history of our high school to ever go play division one football. But he dropped out in a year because he hurt his knee and he wanted to come home because he missed his girlfriend. And then he went and wrestled for wwe. Dwayne Gordon, on the other hand, went to New Hampshire, which is Division 1 AA, played linebacker there. He was awesome. And then he went on and played for the jets for a couple years. But you just knew, like, when Dwayne Gordon stepped on the field, you knew, like, that guy's gonna be a pro, man. Like, there's. There's no doubt about it.
- [176:43]
B
Yeah.
- [176:44]
A
And I think, like, even when I went to usc, I knew the kids that were in my classes are like, okay, that guy's gonna be a pro. There's no doubt. Like, he just holds himself in that way and, you know.
- [176:54]
B
Yeah. There was a kid I went to school with in like 4th, 5th, and 6th grade grade, and he was clearly did not belong in that class with us. Like, he towered above all of us. He was just like, super athletic, super freak fast. And even the teacher was like, this guy's gonna be in the NFL. Like, even we were playing. We were playing like, like flag football.
- [177:16]
A
Yeah.
- [177:16]
B
And it was just like, completely unbelievable how this kid, he wasn't even in the same universe as us athletically, and he ended up going to the NFL. He went and played for the Gators, then played for an NFL team.
- [177:27]
A
And the thing is, you see it with their. With their parents are usually cool. Like, they're not. Well, this kid's parents are not usually nutty.
- [177:33]
B
This kid's parents were both athletes. Like, the dad, I think he was like, super tall, athletic dude. And the mom was like a former WNBA player, I think, really? So it's almost like, you know, these two super athletes got together to create a super athlete child.
- [177:49]
A
Well, there's going to be a lot of more. A lot more of that coming up. I mean, that's going to be like. The next thing is like, you're gonna be able to design whatever kind of kid you want. So there's an old HBO real sports thing that when I was making. So when I was making trophy kids, I originally was going to make it more like bigger, stronger, faster. So I had all these clips that I found, and I found this clip of a sperm bank in. It's a ESPN clip of whatever, HBO Real Sports maybe, or ESP1, one of those. And it's a. Basically a story about a sperm bank where you can go and you can say, I want my kid to have Big calves. I want them to have, literally, I want them to have blue eyes, blonde hair, be six, three with big calves. And they'll like. What they do is they match up donors, different, don't like women and men donors, and they try to give you the best shot at what you want. And it's like, oh, my God. And that's. That was like, maybe that clip's like 10 years old. So, like, I'm sure that that's going on already.
- [178:49]
B
And does it work?
- [178:51]
A
Well, it. It's not going to guarantee that the kid's good at anything, you know, like, we had a bunch of kids at our school that were like really big and they should have played football or should it? You know, they never. Just never did because they were lazy.
- [179:03]
B
Right. That's crazy.
- [179:06]
A
So you can't predict that. You can't predict if somebody's gonna be lazy or not.
- [179:09]
B
Yeah, right. Yeah, you definitely can't pick that. But, like, I mean, when we get to the point where people can just go to a clinic and just like choose from a menu all the traits that they want their kids to be.
- [179:19]
A
It'S going to be like ordering a smoothie. Like, do you want bananas, strawberries, you know, what do you want? What do you want in it? It's like, yeah, okay, I'll take the big calves, you know, like the big cat.
- [179:29]
B
Why would you want big calves? Benefit of that.
- [179:31]
A
I don't know that. Because I have big calves and they don't do anything.
- [179:33]
B
Right. The most athletic people have small calves.
- [179:36]
A
No one ever. No one's ever stopped me and, like, wanted to take a picture of my big calves, you know? No one's ever. Yeah, there's never really been any advantage to it.
- [179:46]
B
Right, right.
- [179:46]
A
They're just there and it's just genetic. Like, I've never done a calf. I shouldn't say I've never done a calf raise in my life, but I haven't done calf raises in like 20 years.
- [179:53]
B
Well, like the most super athletic athletes. Right. In America, at least the most jacked super athletes, like LeBron James, for the best example, Jones.
- [180:05]
A
They have no calves, nothing.
- [180:07]
B
Right.
- [180:08]
A
But you're not going to tell them. Go tell them. You have no calves to get kicked right in the head.
- [180:11]
B
Exactly.
- [180:12]
A
You know what I mean?
- [180:12]
B
Or like Usain Bolt, you know, like. So, like these guys, like, interesting. What would be the benefit of having big calves, I wonder?
- [180:19]
A
They don't really. It doesn't really make them stronger. I don't think. I don't think I can, like, outcav anybody. You know what I mean?
- [180:28]
B
Oh, my God, that's so funny, bro. Well, Chris, dude, thanks for doing this, man. This has been amazing conversation. I appreciate you coming and doing that.
- [180:36]
A
It's a fun podcast, man. I really appreciate being on here and the opportunity to talk to you.
- [180:41]
B
Hell, yeah, man. You. Your documentaries are fantastic and everything else you're doing. If. If there is there a way people can, like, get in contact with you or watch any of your stuff?
- [180:51]
A
Yeah, I'm. I'm on Instagram at Big, Strong, Fast. That's pretty much the only place I am at right now. I am going to be making a couple more movies. I'm just trying to decide on, like, what to make and what to do, you know, like, in the. In the meantime here. So I'm. I'm definitely looking into that. You know, I've been wanting to make a sequel to Bigger, Stronger, Faster for quite some time because I think there's such a divide between. Between steroids, then, like, when I made the movie and where it's at now.
- [181:23]
B
Yeah.
- [181:23]
A
And what. You know, and what can be done through. Through modern medicine, like, with all the stuff I'm talking about, like, what's the difference between replacing your testosterone and showing people what that story is and. And, like, people juicing, like, no, you. I don't want people to juice. I want people to use testosterone and sort of telling that story, you know, and, you know, I want to do something about Ibogaine. I want to do maybe something again in this, you know, kratom space. So it's just like. Like figuring out what to do next is sort of what I'm trying to. That's. That's where I'm at right now.
- [181:57]
B
Should do a podcast.
- [181:58]
A
Yeah, I'm working on it, man.
- [182:01]
B
That would be phenomenal.
- [182:02]
A
Yeah. I might need.
- [182:02]
B
You could hear everything, you know, everything you're doing every day of the. Every day of the week. We don't have to wait, you know, a year for a documentary.
- [182:08]
A
I might need your help.
- [182:09]
B
I used to make documentaries, and that's how I created this podcast.
- [182:12]
A
Yeah.
- [182:12]
B
Yeah.
- [182:13]
A
Well, help me out.
- [182:15]
B
Yeah, dude, say the word, let me know.
- [182:16]
A
Advice.
- [182:17]
B
I'm down.
- [182:17]
A
Yeah. Thank you, buddy.
- [182:18]
B
Thanks again, brother.
- [182:19]
A
I love it.
- [182:19]
B
All right, good night, everybody.