#2254 - Mel Gibson

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Joe Rogan Experience #2254 - Mel Gibson

Release Date: January 9, 2025

In episode #2254 of The Joe Rogan Experience, host Joe Rogan engages in an in-depth conversation with renowned filmmaker and actor Mel Gibson. The episode delves into a variety of topics, ranging from personal health challenges and philosophical beliefs to filmmaking experiences and historical insights. Below is a comprehensive summary of their discussion, structured into clear sections with notable quotes and corresponding timestamps.

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1. Health and Personal Challenges

Mel Gibson opens the conversation by discussing his lifelong struggle with scoliosis and ongoing back issues.

• Scoliosis and Back Pain: [00:14] "Oh, man, my back just now. Fantastic." Gibson explains his condition, stating, "Well, I was born scoliotic, you know." [00:24] He shares his aversion to surgery, expressing, "Once you start opening stuff up and fooling with it, there's no going back." [01:09]

• Impact on Daily Life: [01:37] Discussing chronic pain, Gibson reflects, "There's a gift to not thinking straight," suggesting that his pain has led him to explore deeper cognitive and emotional paths. [01:49]

2. Wildfires in California and Relocation Plans

Gibson addresses the increasing danger of wildfires in California and his contemplation of relocating.

• Current Wildfire Situation: [03:15] "I would be surprised if my home is still there." He references the destruction of his neighborhood, highlighting the severity of the fires. [03:23]

• Possible Move to Costa Rica: [03:48] Gibson reveals his long-held plan to move to Costa Rica, appreciating its safety and tranquility. "I bought there many years ago. It's in a real nice spot." [03:49] He acknowledges potential dangers but remains optimistic about the country's safety. [04:06]

3. Discussion on Mayan Civilization and Historical Insights

The conversation shifts to Gibson's interest in ancient civilizations, particularly the Mayans, and their impressive architectural feats.

• El Mirador and Mayan Pyramids: [12:07] Gibson discusses the grandeur of the Mayan civilization, noting, "It's bigger than the ones in Egypt and it's in Guatemala." He emphasizes the sophistication of the pre-classic Mayans. [13:13]

• Revival of Lost Cities: [13:59] He marvels at the discovery of extensive Mayan cities hidden in the jungle, underscoring their advanced societal structures and eventual decline. [14:15]

4. Filmmaking Experience and Challenges

Gibson shares his journey in filmmaking, including the making of iconic films like Apocalypto and upcoming projects focused on profound themes.

• Making Apocalypto: [12:32] Discussing the film, Gibson appreciates its raw portrayal of Mayan society, stating, "It's cool because I think it's scary because nobody's speaking your language." [15:44]

• Upcoming Resurrection Film: [50:05] Gibson unveils his ambitious project centered on the resurrection of Christ, detailing the extensive research and collaboration involved. He mentions, "It's an acid trip. When we wrote it, it is like I've never read anything like it." [136:01]

• Challenges in Distribution: [133:21] Reflecting on distribution hurdles, Gibson recounts how his films initially struggled but eventually found success despite systemic resistance. "It was outside. Well, I had no alternative." [135:32]

5. Religion, Good vs Evil, and Corruption in Institutions

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around Gibson's critiques of organized religion, particularly the Catholic Church, and his beliefs about good and evil.

• Church Corruption: [11:02] Gibson criticizes the Catholic Church's handling of scandals, stating, "You can't just... It's a dark institution in a lot of ways." [32:04]

• Good vs Evil Dichotomy: [16:05] Exploring the concept of good and evil, Gibson asserts, "We send our young people over there to die. Sometimes for good reason, sometimes not." [16:22] He likens modern societal issues to ancient human sacrifices, emphasizing ongoing moral decay. [16:24]

• Resurrection and Faith: [53:18] Discussing religious beliefs, Gibson affirms his faith in the resurrection, citing historical and personal reasons. "I believe that was a real event." [52:02] He intertwines his faith with his personal experiences, highlighting miracles in his life as affirmations of his beliefs. [60:39]

6. The Shroud of Turin and Beliefs on Resurrection

Gibson delves into his fascination with the Shroud of Turin, supporting his belief in the resurrection of Christ.

• Verification of the Shroud: [53:31] He mentions recent studies confirming the Shroud's age aligning with the first century, reinforcing its authenticity. "They've said, no, it is back then." [54:03]

• Debate and Skepticism: [56:21] Acknowledging skepticism, Gibson defends his belief by citing scientific intrigue and historical consistency. "It's like, you know, that's science, isn't it?" [56:25]

7. Views on Evolution and Creation

Gibson expresses skepticism towards evolutionary theory, advocating for intelligent design and creationism.

• Skepticism of Evolution: [67:22] "I don't really go for it. Ice age dinosaurs, you know, what did they turn into?" He questions the natural selection process, believing in an orchestrated creation. [67:58]

• Alternative Explanations: [74:07] While acknowledging some aspects of adaptation, Gibson insists on the necessity of an intelligent force behind creation. "There has to be some big intelligence that orchestrates everything." [76:25]

8. Personal Struggles: Addiction, PTSD, and Neuroplasticity

The conversation touches on Gibson's personal battles with addiction and PTSD, highlighting his journey towards healing.

• Addiction Recovery: [65:44] Gibson credits religious faith and programs like Alcoholics Anonymous for his recovery, emphasizing the importance of humility and seeking help. "You have to appeal to something outside that you consider bigger and better than yourself." [62:23]

• PTSD and Brain Health: [41:27] Sharing his battle with PTSD, Gibson recounts a diagnosis stating he had the "worst case of PTSD I have ever seen," and discusses his treatment involving nutrition and hyperbaric therapy. "It fixed my head." [43:26]

9. Future Film Projects and Philosophical Goals

Gibson outlines his vision for future projects that intertwine profound philosophical and spiritual themes.

• Upcoming Resurrection Film: [50:05] He elaborates on his next major project, aimed at exploring the resurrection story with deep theological and historical underpinnings. "It's about creation and redemption." [63:19]

• Thematic Depth: [125:00] Gibson emphasizes the necessity of portraying good and evil, angels' fall, and Satan's origin to create a comprehensive narrative. "It's trying to find the way in. It's like a magic trick." [137:11]

10. Filmmaking Anecdotes and Inspirations

Gibson shares various anecdotes from his filmmaking career, illustrating the challenges and unexpected moments encountered on set.

• Meeting with Martin Scorsese: [124:14] Recounting an encounter with Scorsese during a food poisoning episode, Gibson describes the surreal experience of being offered a role in The Last Temptation of Christ. [124:17]

• Encounter with Keith Richards: [119:27] He narrates a bizarre incident involving Keith Richards, highlighting the unpredictable nature of film sets. [124:35]

• Teaching Martial Arts: [112:06] Gibson discusses incorporating martial arts techniques into his films, demonstrating the blend of physical discipline and creative expression. [117:15]

11. Philosophical Reflections on Good, Evil, and Human Nature

Towards the end of the episode, both Gibson and Rogan engage in philosophical musings about the nature of good and evil, societal structure, and human purpose.

• Institutional Evil: [83:24] They critique the intertwining of profit and corruption within major institutions, labeling actions that prioritize money over human life as inherently evil. [83:34]

• Human Purpose and Redemption: [63:44] Gibson reflects on humanity's search for purpose, advocating for mercy and redemption through divine intervention. "There's a great deal of mercy involved in the fact that I believe that God sent his son down to tell us." [61:56]

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Notable Quotes:

• Mel Gibson on Scoliosis: [00:24] "Well, I was born scoliotic, you know."

• Gibson on Choosing Costa Rica: [03:48] "I bought there many years ago. It's in a real nice spot."

• On the Shroud of Turin's Authenticity: [53:31] "They've said, no, it is back then."

• On Evolution vs. Creation: [67:22] "I don't really go for it. Ice age dinosaurs, you know, what did they turn into?"

• On Overcoming Addiction: [62:23] "You have to appeal to something outside that you consider bigger and better than yourself."

• On Future Film's Ambition: [137:11] "It's trying to find the way in. It's like a magic trick."

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Conclusion

In this compelling episode, Mel Gibson offers a candid and multifaceted exploration of his personal life, deeply held beliefs, and creative passions. From grappling with health issues to critiquing institutional corruption and advocating for creationism, Gibson provides listeners with an intimate look into his worldview. His dedication to portraying profound theological themes in film underscores his commitment to blending art with spirituality. The conversation, punctuated by Gibson's insightful anecdotes and philosophical reflections, presents a thought-provoking dialogue for both fans and newcomers to his work.

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Note: Advertisements and promotional content interspersed throughout the transcript have been omitted to focus solely on the substantive discussion between Joe Rogan and Mel Gibson.

Transcript

[A]

Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

[B]

The Joe Rogan Experience.

[A]

Train my day.

[B]

Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. All right, we're rolling. What's cracking?

[A]

Oh, man, my back just now. Fantastic.

[B]

What is going on with your back?

[A]

You.

[B]

You've. You have, like. You've had back issues in the past, right? We talked about that the last time you came out.

[A]

Well, I was born scoliotic, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's like I bought just. I just bought my own pen along so I could click the ship here. Take all devices away from it.

[B]

You remember. You remember clicking on the pen?

[A]

That's hilarious. Oh, yeah. I'm a fidget, you know, so I. Let me take everything off. It's not good. Oh, yeah. Born. Born slightly scoliotic. And then, of course, I banged myself up over the years, you know.

[B]

Of course. What can you. What. When the. Do they do anything other than surgery for people with scoliosis?

[A]

They do, because I don't want to do surgery. Once you start opening stuff up and fooling with it, there's no going back.

[B]

Especially the back.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Back is a rough. I never met anybody that had, like, fusions or anything where it turned out good.

[A]

No. And like Hippocrates, you know, the father of medicine, he said, in any ailment, look first to the spine. And it was like, he's kind of right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Emanates from the. From the core.

[B]

Well, if your back is up, everything's up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, no matter how strong your arms and legs are, if your back is up, you're. You're in trouble.

[A]

Yeah, that's true. Your brain, everything. Everything goes to hell. Yeah.

[B]

Well, you're in pain all the time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

People with back problems, like, they can't think straight because you're always like. You know, it's always.

[A]

There's a gift to not thinking straight.

[B]

Tell me. Tell me more. I want to know.

[A]

Well, it actually takes you down some pretty weird paths, you know, if you're happy all the time. I don't know. You don't have. You. You don't have to strive to find thoughts to make yourself happy.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So it's like. It's a good. It's a good. It's a good predisposition. I think I agree to that.

[B]

Yeah. I think being happy all the time is a. It's kind of an unlikely scenario.

[A]

No. Nobody is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No. And. But we all want it. You notice. We all yearn for it. There's this incredible. That's the only thing we all want. Right.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Just happiness. A little peace.

[B]

Well, it's also. We're shown it, like in, you know, television movies. We're shown happiness as this goal, like seek happiness.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Should be happy all the time. Happy. Should never be upset. Yeah, well, it's not realistic.

[A]

It's completely unrealistic. However, it's nice to have those little journeys through art where you can actually explore those things. You can explore your ids. You can explore happiness, and so you can experience the opposite. I look at situations around me, and I. I generally feel pretty grateful for what some people go through. I'm grateful. And everybody's got their crap, you know. But like this morning, for example, I would be surprised if my home is still there.

[B]

Yeah, we were just talking about that. The Palisades is on fire.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

My friend Tom, Tom Segura, his house is gone.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where he used to live. He sold it, luckily.

[A]

Yeah. I have a son. He's in the sort of volunteer fire brigade. Milo, I call him the mayor of Malibu. And he's running around. I asked him, how's things looking there, Milo? He says, not good, pops. He says, your neighborhood? And he sent me a. A video of my neighborhood, and it's in flames. It looks like an inferno. So. Yeah.

[B]

Do you think this will get you out of California finally?

[A]

Yeah, maybe, you know.

[B]

Where are you gonna go?

[A]

Oh, I don't know. I got a place in Costa Rica. I love it there.

[B]

Yeah, Costa Rica's nice.

[A]

Yeah, I bought there many years ago. And, yeah, it's. It's in a real nice spot. It's not too touristy or, you know, dirt roads, so it's off the beaten.

[B]

Does it feel safe out there?

[A]

Pretty safe, I think. Look it. No place is safe. I mean, you've got the dariang down there, you know, what's that? It's kind of in the. What's the next country down? Panama. And there's this no man's land where the Colombians come through. And it's like, you know, all kinds of dirty dealings in the jungle with, you know, who knows, you know, drugs and mules and, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it can be dangerous. And I've heard of danger happening there. You know, you hear about somebody getting chopped up by a machete, and Costa Rica is actually. It's actually a cool place because it. It never had a culture of death like a lot of the Central American countries did. They have a culture of death. You know, even Mexico, I mean, they used to, you know, tear people's hearts out And Aztecs, all that sort of stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Aztecs were like the Romans. The Mayans were like the Greeks, but they all sort of dabbled in some stuff. Costa Rica always had a policy where they was like the Switzerland of Central America. They emphasized education and health, and everybody's literate. And it's. It's kind of interesting in that way, but it deals with its own little troubles. Yeah, well, like every country, you know.

[B]

Anywhere down in that part of the world, it's just like, there's so much sketchy going on all around you.

[A]

Yeah, there can be.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. One has to be forewarned, forearmed, all that, you know. So I have a nice place down there. Yeah.

[B]

I have some friends that have a place in Mexico. And I'm always like, don't you ever worry?

[A]

Yeah, I work in Mexico. A couple of times I was down there, and it was. It was in Veracruz, and apparently, you know, people were rolling heads into bars and stuff like that, you know, rival gangs and stuff. And they said, I go for a walk, you know, and they'd say, you're crazy going for a walk. You'll get kidnapped. I said, I'm not gonna get kidnapped. I'm the guy that pays. You're gonna get kidnapped, and I'm not gonna pay your ransom. It's like, I never felt insecure in that way. And, you know, if something's gonna happen, it's gonna happen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, if your number's up. I know. I used to watch guys who do what I do for a living, and they'd have a phalanx of bodyguards around them, you know, and, like, for security and stuff. But. And I used to have that stuff for a little while. But. Yeah, it doesn't make any difference. You're gonna be okay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Or not.

[B]

Or not. Right. Until you're not.

[A]

Until you're not.

[B]

And everybody's going to be okay until they're not.

[A]

Yeah. I got in a dodgy situation one night, and I acted crazy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What happened?

[A]

If you act crazy, everybody leaves you.

[B]

Alone, Especially if you are a little crazy.

[A]

You know, you're in a stress mode, so you actually get angry. I. If. If I feel like I'm threatened, I get angry, which is what happens. And then you get really in people's faces, and they think this guy's crazy. But all the old cultures thought that, like, when there were people traveling across the Great Plains to go west, you know, if you acted nuts, they'd leave you alone because they didn't want your.

[B]

Evil spirits so what happened with you?

[A]

Nothing. They left me alone.

[B]

But where was this?

[A]

Oh, man, I was in a bad neighborhood. I was. It was when I first got into la and I was to go to dinner with Costa Gavros. He was a Greek director. I went the wrong way. And it was before they had, you know, phones with, like.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And all that stuff.

[B]

So the Thomas Guide.

[A]

It was the Thomas Guide. Anyway, I wasn't guided well by Thomas. I ended up in the wrong place. And then my muffler fell off. And I was driving a Mercedes, you know, pretty nice, sporty car, you know, And I thought, oh. And I had the wife in the car. I pulled into a side street, the sun was going down, and as I got out of the car, I thought, oh, I gotta fix this muffler. I can't just drag it. People started coming from houses, and they came up to me and. And I saw them coming in the rearview mirror, and I jumped out of the car and got in their face and I said, what the fuck do you want? Because I thought I felt threatened, right? And. And the guy said, man, I'm just looking for some money. You got any money? So I was being mugged. And it was like. I thought, I'll think about it when I'm fucking finished. Like, you know, I opened the trunk, and this is the weird part, Joe, I. I will never quite understand this. I opened the trunk to see what I could find to help me put the muffler back on. And sitting there, the only two things in the back of the trunk was a pair of wire cutters and a coat hang. It's exactly what I needed. And I don't know why it was there. That's weird, isn't it?

[B]

That's very weird. So you use the coat hanger to wire up your muffler?

[A]

Yep. I cut a piece of wire, wired the muffler up. The whole time, more guys are coming.

[B]

Jesus.

[A]

And they're standing behind me, and I'm feeling like, oh. And anyway, I get up, I finish the muffler slam, and I'm acting mad and crazy the whole time, and I think, this guy's nuts. And I get back to the car and. And my wife gives me a handful of cash, and I thought, what's this? She says, it's just fives and ones. Give it to her. So I threw it and drove off. But it was, like, it was looking hairy for a minute. And you never know.

[B]

What year was this?

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

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[A]

I think they are.

[B]

Yeah, I think so. For sure.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Yeah. We were just talking about the wildfire situation and how crazy it is that they spent $24 billion last year on the homeless.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And what do they spend on preventing these wildfires?

[A]

Zero.

[B]

Zip.

[A]

Zip. And in 2019, I think Newsom said, you know, I'm going to take care of the forest and maintain the forest and do all that kind of stuff. He didn't do anything.

[B]

Didn't do anything. And then on top of that, they cut the water off.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's all funny. And then I think all our tax dollars probably went for Gavin's hair gel. I don't know. But it's like, you know, it's sad. It's like the place is just on fire.

[B]

Well, the whole state is just so poorly managed. It's so. It's so frustrating and confusing. And then he gets on TV and pretends like everything's great and California is the best. We have the best state. We have the most amazing economy. And like. You're out of your fucking mind, dude. You've ruined this state. Personally ruined it.

[A]

Well, it's the same team that was up in San Francisco, they came down to LA and they're doing what they did in San Francisco. And yeah, San Francisco is kind of like apocalyptic now, you know? Yeah, I went there and it's just like people, you know, homeless, you know, it's just, it's a mess.

[B]

It's just unbelievable that society can crumble that quickly. It was unbelievable.

[A]

It doesn't take long.

[B]

No.

[A]

Yeah. I read a book once by Jared diamond called Collapse. Never read that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Crazy, right? It says all the things you need for a civilization to cave in and collapse. And a lot of the things are present, all those earmarks, the precursors of a collapse, they're present in our time. So it's an interesting observation.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we're no smarter than our grandparents, I don't think.

[B]

Well, that brings me to one of my favorite movies of yours is Apocalypto. You know, when the Mayans were running things, like, who could have ever thought, when they had such an incredibly sophisticated society, unbelievable construction, like the stuff that they had built, that one day you just walk through there and there's nothing, nothing, nothing and nobody.

[A]

In fact, there's something because it's interesting. Somebody was flying by what they thought was a volcano in the 30s, some buzzboy and he thought, hey, that's. Somebody built that. Wait a minute. There's four by eight foot bricks. That's not. That's man made. And it is literally the biggest pyramid in the world. It's bigger than the ones in Egypt and it's in Guatemala.

[B]

Yeah, we talked about that the other day. Yeah, it's a recent discovery, right?

[A]

Well, not that reason. I was maybe 20 years ago, I visited. I went down there with the, with the archaeologist, a guy named Richard Hansen, who's from Idaho or someplace, and he's down there with his family. He's been working tirelessly for like 30 years trying to extract this pre classic city from the jungle. And there's not a bunch of tourists. All the pyramids in Tikal would fit inside the one big pyramid in El Mirador. Really? Yeah. It's a monster. And so that tells you that the pre classic civilization was bigger and grander and more sophisticated than the civilizations that came after it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Pretty interesting.

[B]

Well, it is unbelievable how like when, when you the accounts of like people that visited Mexico and visited the Aztecs, like what the markets looked like and how insane it was and how gorgeous it was, and then just. Yeah, disease.

[A]

Yeah, disease or. I don't know if it was disease or what. I think the people were pretty dissatisfied. It would have been hard for Cortez with his limited numbers to actually take over a civilization like that. Unless they kind of happened upon a civilization that was pretty dissatisfied with the way things were going.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I think they had people to help them sort of rebel.

[B]

When. When you're making a movie like Apocalypto, I mean, that's a crazy undertaking. You're making an entire movie where there's no Eng in it at all, and it's a blockbuster.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It's cool. It was fun.

[B]

That's one of the best movies, man. It's a great movie.

[A]

Well, because I think it's scary because nobody's speaking your language and you're looking at indigenous peoples who you. And because they're not speaking the language, you totally kind of buy it. And you can buy the horror and. And the primal nature of. Of the story you want to tell, and really it's just a series of fears, one after the other, you know, being chased by, you know, scary guys or eaten by wild animals or, you know, hit by blow, you know, blow down. It's all like a series of these things. But I think basically what I was doing was trying to talk about our time now and the civilization that we live in and how close are we to collapse and what are the things that lead to collapse. You know, it's environmental stuff. It's human sacrifice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, we do that, kinda. We do, yeah. Yeah, we do.

[B]

We just dress it up.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

When you find out medications are killing people and they keep prescribing them and they do it for money, that's kind of sacrifice. When you find out that wars are irresponsible.

[A]

They're not just wars.

[B]

Not just. No, they're. They're for money.

[A]

We send our young people over there to die. Sometimes for good reason, sometimes for not. I mean, I. I love this. I love the warrior. I do. I love the warrior, but I hate the war.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we hate.

[B]

We hate an unjust war.

[A]

Yes, absolutely.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Anyway, it's. It's a mess. But the human sacrifice aspect is. Is alive and well in our society. I think it really is.

[B]

It's just dressed up in a different way.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Rhetoric around it, but they've always been able to justify it. Like in Apocalypto was like, yeah, so the crops will be better. Hey, we'll just, you know.

[B]

Yeah. Kill a few people.

[A]

Yeah. And then I had all these people come out of the woodwork. Hey, we're. We're archaeologists and scientists, and that never happened. So there's this revisionism about it too, that it didn't happen. But there are accounts from the Time where, yes, people did witness these things. And. And of course, I had a bunch of battery of archeologists and scientists and professors on my own that say, yeah, well, this stuff did happen. Here's the. Here's the, you know, the depictions of it in paintings and images. And, you know, so it's like, it did happen. So when you, when you set out.

[B]

To make a movie like that, like, what. First of all, what brings you to that? Did you get the script first? Like, what would it. Was it an idea that you had in your head?

[A]

It was. It just came in here and I was working on something, and a buddy of mine said, so, what do you want to do next? I said, ah, man, I want to direct something. And I always want to direct a chase film. He said, what kind of chase? I said, a foot chase. He said, what? I said, yeah, people chasing you. I mean, there's something kind of primal and scary about a foot chase. And I think in order to have a foot chase, you can't have a society where there's any kind of cars or anything like that. Otherwise you have a car chase. But I want to film a foot chase. Like, it's a car chase. And he said, oh. I said, what are you thinking? I said, well, I'm thinking if you go back before Columbus discovered America, you know, and it's like people assume that Columbus discovered America and then life began. I said, I want to know what was happening right before he got there. Before he got there. And I said, so I had this idea that you see all this stuff going on and there's no time period on it, and then all of a sudden you date it by the arrival of Europeans. And I thought, it's kind of like the Rod Serling, you know, Planet of the Apes. It's kind of a cool, cool ending. And he said, oh, wow. And he said, where do you think Columbus landed? I said, why don't. Let's look. So I looked up, and the first peoples he encountered were Mayan trading canoes off the coast of Honduras. And I thought, cool. What was happening in Honduras? You know, and you look at these towns and, and pyramids and temples and stuff at that time. And then the story was born from there. And of course, then we read the book by Jared Diamond, Collapse. I read the Mayan Bible, the Popol Vu, and, you know, tried to delve into what they believed and, and. And what their civilization was like. And they had concepts, as we do, of heaven and hell, of punishment or reward. You know, it was a little different quite a bit different, actually. In fact, when I went down to the archaeological sites at El Mirador, they dug something up and it was like, well, what is it? They said, we don't know. There was this carved image in the stone of this Mayan warrior drinking, and he had an ear spool. And it was like. So they dug further and further and it went like 26 meters down. And it was the entire story of the popol vu, of the twins going into hell and getting their father's head and swimming back. And it was. It's this crazy story. And it kind of dated that book because I think it was almost 3,000 years old. This, this mural, this carving. So it tells you that the story is pretty old. And they thought initially it was probably back in the 1300s, but this confirmed that it was at least 2,600 years old. Something like that. Yeah. So it's pretty cool that to be there when they're digging that stuff up is mind blowing.

[B]

This episode is brought to you by the Farmer's Dog. More and more are switching from kibble to their freshly made food because the farmer's dog makes it easier than ever to feed your dog a healthy diet of real meat and veggies. Dogs prefer their food. Even picky dogs and owners prefer their service because they have 247 customer service that connects you to real humans who are genuinely interested in providing the best experience possible for you and your dog. From the very first order, you can tell you're dealing with people who love dogs. They give you detailed instructions on how to transition your dog to fresh food, plus they even pre portion it for your dog's specific needs. Need a delivery postponed or relocated? You can go to your account and make the necessary changes for a seamless transition. So try the Farmer's Dog today and give healthy, freshly made food a try. You can get 50% off your first box of food@the farmersdog.com rogan. Plus you get free shipping. Just go to the farmerdog.com rogan. This offer is for new customers only. This episode is brought to you by den of thieves 2. Pantera. You love the action heist Den of Thieves. And now it's back with a sequel that cranks it up a notch. Gerard Butler and O'Shea Jackson Jr. Are returning to the franchise. But here's the twist. Butler's cop character, he's flipping the script and joining the heist. That's right, the cop goes gangster. And I can't wait to see the chaos unfold. See den of Thieves 2 Pantera only in theaters January 10th. Well, they're missing so much of the Mayan history. It's very interesting. On some coffee.

[A]

I want some water. That's water. Water.

[B]

They're missing so much of the Mayan history, you know, because everybody's gone. But one of the. You ever see the very bizarre carving where it looks like there's a guy who's sitting in a cockpit of a spaceship.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Looking through some sort of an. An eye thing.

[A]

Yeah. They got some weird stuff. It's like.

[B]

Weird.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where there's fire underneath the chair. Like, what is that?

[A]

They got dudes that look like Europeans. They have these guys with red beards and helmets and stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's like these Phoenician guys who probably traveled over there early on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Probably maybe in the 6th century or something like that. So they. It wasn't that long a boat ride, so they probably went over there and made contact and they. They thought they were gods or something. And then they went away again and they said, well, wait for them to come back. And of course they did come back, but it didn't work out the same.

[B]

No, no, no. Well, there's so many accounts of, you know, people visiting the. Especially when you get into the Amazon.

[A]

Sure. Oh, I don't know about the Amazon.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

What's. Tell me about that.

[B]

Well, first of all, the Amazon used to be filled with people. And most of the Amazon is man made. The jungle in the Amazon, I didn't. Agriculture.

[A]

Yeah. Wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

The jungle in the Amazon, they didn't even know this until fairly recently. And they now know from flying over they use LiDAR, which is this light radar. So they. So when they use this laser radar, when they fly over it, they're finding all these grids and pathways and cities in the jungle. So the jungle had contained. Consumed all these cities. I think there was millions and millions of people living in the Amazon and that Europeans came over diseases, everybody dies. Jungle consumes the city. People come back 200 years later looking for it. Like the lost city of Z. Like that. That story.

[A]

Right.

[B]

They go back to look and there's. There's nothing left.

[A]

Yeah. Guns, germs and steel.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Great. Yeah. Wow, that's fascinating. I'll have to look into that.

[B]

And we're going through all those things right now. Guns, germs and steel.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Germs. Yeah, the germs I had. I'm just. Just on the tail end of some hideous flu that was going. I don't know.

[B]

Did you get the H5N1 or whatever the it is?

[A]

I don't know what the hell. Yeah, I've had that. That was the swine thing. I had swine flu one time.

[B]

You had that? 2009.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, it was around then. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, it was a. It was an epidemic, a pandemic, whatever you want to call it. But it didn't have the same sort of press releases that Covid did.

[A]

Sure, I got the swine. I acted more like a pig, you know, Terrible, terrible. Wallowing in my own mud.

[B]

So I like Flight Risk. It's fun movie.

[A]

Oh, that's a who. You know, it's a. It's a hoot. I mean, I think the first thing you gotta do with any film, and I think it's incumbent upon all directors, artists, to entertain first in some fashion. Even if it's a heavy story, you have to find some. Some aspect of it that entertains. And. And I think this for entertainment's sake is just fun. And it's quick. I'm not subjecting you to four hours of, like, watching autism dry.

[B]

Right. It's like.

[A]

It's like, you know, it's 85, 90 minutes. Yeah.

[B]

It's a good time.

[A]

Yeah. And Mark is insane.

[B]

Yeah, he's great in it. He plays a good psycho.

[A]

Oh, he's a psychopath. Mark's got a good dark side. There's some. There's some dark stuff there that he was able to draw from. And every now and then he'd let it out. I can't even repeat some of the stuff he'd say. In fact, we had to cut most of it out. It was, like, really sick. But we hint at it anyway.

[B]

When you make a movie now, I mean, you've had such a career when you make a movie now, like, what motivates you at this point in your life? Like, how do you. How do you decide? Let's hit the green light on this one.

[A]

Yeah. There are things that speak to me and. And they speak for. For a long time. It's. I remember when I was a kid in high school, I was studying English and, well, where did the English language come from? And they talked about, wow, it came from this old guttural German, Old Norse that the Vikings brought across. And I was thinking, well, that's cool, the Vikings, you know? And then immediately I start thinking, man, somebody should make. I want to make a film about Vikings. And they only speak in Old Norse. Because if they say. If they say, you know, if they speak English, all Of a sudden, you're not buying it. If they're speaking some guttural language, you're sort of scared by them. And it's like, that's scary to me. And then I said to myself, I'm 17 years old. Why am I thinking about making films about Vikings? I don't know anything about making films and not much about Vikings, so why the hell am I even thinking about that? But that was something that was early on was like a drive, I guess, to sort of depict things like that. So I did films in other languages, in Mayan and in. In Aramaic and in Latin, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And there's the power to that. I noticed when I was young, I used to go and watch a lot of foreign films, and I watch French movies. Right. Or German or whatever. They were Spanish. I'd watch them and I think, wow, the acting's great in those. And it seemed better because of the subtitles, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

More believable somehow. I don't know.

[B]

Right. Because you're not. You're not hearing insincerity in their voice because you don't even understand what they're saying.

[A]

No.

[B]

Yeah. You just feel the emotions in the words.

[A]

And it also has to take your attention because you have to do another function. You have to read.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is another thing that sort of maybe blinds you to the flaws in the filmmaking, perhaps. So, you know, hey, it's a great trick. It's obfuscation.

[B]

There's a. There's a thing about reading it while you're watching that's like an added element of concentration. You know, like subtitled movies. You feel like you're a smarter person watching a movie where you're reading it as well.

[A]

Yeah. And there's. Yeah. There's something about the written word that's like. It's a pretty interesting thing to throw into the mix. I know when I first started, it was kind of confusing, but then I got really good at it. And I think, especially with something like what the passion that I did, the written word was very important because it was. You know, you got all those books, the Bible, you know, you've got the different gospels and stuff that people are quite familiar with. Half the time, they didn't even need to read the subtitles. They could look at it and know what was going on.

[B]

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[A]

Oh, yeah, no, there was.

[B]

Which I, I thought was very strange. There was like Hollywood resistance to that movie. Like people didn't like that you were making it.

[A]

It seemed like, yeah, there's a lot of. There was a lot of opposition to it and I don't know it. I think if you ever hit on that subject matter, you're gonna get people going because of course it's big subject matter and it's like, you know, and my contention is, you know, when I was making it, it was like, you're making this film and the idea was that we're all responsible for this, that his sacrifice was for all mankind and that for all, all our ills and all, all the things in our fallen nature, it was a redemption. So, you know, and I believe that, you know, I actually am, you know, I was born into a Catholic family. I'm very Christian in my beliefs, you know, so I do actually believe this stuff to the full. So depicting. That was an honor. But it was also, yeah, you got the, you got the daylights beat out of you for it.

[B]

Yeah. Because there's, there's resistance, first of all from secular Hollywood where for whatever reason, Christianity is the one religion that you're allowed to disparage. Yeah, Christianity is the one religion where people, all these progressive, open minded, leftist people, they'll embrace all these different religions. Until it comes to Christianity. And for whatever reason that represents, like white male, you know, whatever it represents colonialism, you know, whatever it, you know, whatever it represents, it's negative.

[A]

Yeah, sure. It's gotten a bad rap and they. People do feel free to beat up on it. Even I do when I see it's like, you know, when it's not fair. Right. I think it's off.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like, you know, when they appoint some cardinal in some diocese and he's been covering up for like people who are child molesters.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know, like Theodore McCarrick or Cardinal Wuerl or those kind of guys. I mean.

[B]

Or the Pope.

[A]

Yes, absolutely.

[B]

Benedict.

[A]

Not Benny. Well, he was covering up, but like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So is the guy now.

[B]

Is he really?

[A]

Well, yeah, yeah, it's. It's not great.

[B]

I thought he was like the more progressive Pope.

[A]

Oh, he's very progressive. Yes.

[B]

But he's covering up for stuff as well. Well, they all are. I mean, it's a. It's a dark institution in a lot of ways because it's history, you know.

[A]

Well, you know, the institution, it was instituted by Christ, you know, but that doesn't mean that it can't be flawed. And there's a school of thought that says it isn't what it purports to be anymore. It's moved away from what it was intended to be and what it is almost. There's a guy called Bishop Vigano who says it's a counterfeit parallel church and it's running an entirely different religion. I actually, I don't. I don't adhere to a post conciliar church. I adhere.

[B]

Can you define what that means?

[A]

Okay. There was an event that happened in the, in the 60s. First, there was an event in the Vatican where they elected John XXIII Pope. Right. In 1958, I was two years old. Right. He was elected. And there was a very funny thing that happened in the Conclave. You know, usually there's white and black smoke that goes out of the chimneys to tell you we have a Pope, you know, Habamus Popham, you know, and the white smoke came out and everybody cheered and they went crazy. And then about a half an hour later, black smoke came out. That never in history has that happened, that the white smoke came out and then the black smoke.

[B]

So white smoke means we found a new Pope, black smoke means no Pope.

[A]

That's right. They'd have votes or there'd be one reason or another. They'd have a round in the Conclave and black smoke would Come out many times. Many times. Maybe. Maybe it would take two weeks. But never was it known that white smoke came out then black smoke came out.

[B]

So what was the scenario?

[A]

That somebody was elected and that maybe something else happened and he was pushed aside and someone else was put in. So it was power struggle, some kind of power struggle. And of course, the man who came out was a man called Angelo Roncalli and he was John xxiii. Now, it's interesting to note that never had a pope taken the name of another pope ever before in history. But this man took the name of a known anti pope from the 15th century that Cosimo de Medici put in there as his own man. I'll get you in the chair and then everything will be rosy, you know, everything will go good for business, you know, whatever. He was putting him in there for some corrupt reason, but. And there have been corrupt men in that place before. I mean, there's Alexander VI and Julius II and Sixtus iv. I mean, some of these guys are, you know, they're not saints. So he took the name of a known anti pope from the 5th century who actually said, yes, I'm an anti Pope. Sorry, I'm not the right guy. Because there was more than one. And he confessed to being. And he wanted to, you know, square things with. With the Almighty, I guess. So he confessed to being an anti Pope, and so he took the same name as that guy, John xxiii. So it's interesting, don't you think? I mean, I. Why would he do that?

[B]

Well, whenever you have that kind of power, like, I'm sure you've been to the Vatican, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's stunning.

[A]

Yes. It's huge.

[B]

It's so crazy when you're walking around, you see just the massive. Just the dollar, dollar value in the art that they possess.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's insane.

[A]

It's crazy. Yeah. And you know, it's a very small country. It's a country.

[B]

Yeah. It's a country inside of a small city.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because Rome's not the biggest city.

[A]

No.

[B]

And then it's got a country inside the city.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

With a. With walls around it.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And you can't extradite people.

[A]

Yeah. Pretty weird.

[B]

How convenient.

[A]

Yeah. Even Ratzinger, he didn't drive from the Vatican to the other place. He flew. Ooh. And it was only a little while because who knows why? I don't know.

[B]

Well, he was wanted.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, he had done. One of the things that he had done was he had moved a priest that had molested a Hundred kids. And he moved him to some new place where he molested deaf kids.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, boy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I know.

[B]

That's the dirtiest, most evil practice that the Catholic Church has been accused of.

[A]

I think so. And many institutions as well, but that is a very bad one. And I think it's all part and parcel of the same corruption that crept in. And when you asked what's the difference between pre Vatican ii? So Vatican II happened and of course they, they took the church and they, they reformed it and they changed things in it, and it didn't necessarily agree with everything that went before it. And up to that point, yeah, you could find it agreed with itself, but all of a sudden you got something else to the point where now, I mean, I mean, we got a Pope that brought a South American idol into the church to worship.

[B]

Really?

[A]

He did the Pachamama. He bought the south and he got it.

[B]

I don't know what that is.

[A]

It's a, it's kind of like a South American God, Pachamama.

[B]

Why would he do that?

[A]

Good question. But he did.

[B]

Did he have an explanation for why he did it?

[A]

Yeah, it's kind of a weasel worded thing of like, oh, all religions are just as good as one another. But, you know, if that's his contention.

[B]

He shouldn't be the Pope.

[A]

No, I mean, how can you be.

[B]

The Pope if you say all religions are just as good?

[A]

Yeah, we all worship, you know, so. Yeah, that is Pachamama. There you go.

[B]

So he brought that in.

[A]

Yeah, into the Vatican. Then the higher he, the hierarchy even worshiped that. They had a ceremony around it. Outside what? Well, that constitutes apostasy. Yeah, it's, that's an apostasy move. All right.

[B]

Worshiping false gods.

[A]

Yeah, that's number one on the Mosaic hit list. Yeah. Moses goes up on the mountain, he comes back down, people are worshiping in a golden calf.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, it's, it's that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you can't do that. And for me, that's a departure from, you know, that's called apostasy.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's a falling away from. And the very nature of apostasy means that you have to be part of it to fall away from it. So it's an inside job.

[B]

So what do you think there's a motive behind these things?

[A]

I don't think, you know, probably.

[B]

What do you think it is?

[A]

I don't know, but it isn't good. I think. Look, I think we're, we're looking at a world where. And this Is the. In the next film I'm going to do, I'm going to try and tackle this question that there are big realms, spiritual realms, there's good, there's evil, and they are slugging it out for the souls of mankind. And my question is, why are we even important? Little old flawed humanity, why are we important in that process where the big realms are slugging it out over us? And I think there's bigger things at play here and institutions that purport to touch on the divine are necessarily going to be affected by that slugfest that's going on between good and evil.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And.

[B]

And sometimes good gives up ground.

[A]

Yeah. And maybe not on purpose, you know, maybe there's some deception involved or self deception. Every morning when I wake up, I actually pray that I don't deceive myself because it's like, you know, your mind is a very funny place. I mean, there's. I've always said, you know, it's your second thought and your first action that you're responsible for. Your first thought, throw it away, you know.

[B]

Right. But upon consideration, second thought is what you're responsible for.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's the difference between first degree and second degree murder.

[A]

There you go. Right, right.

[B]

First degree. Like I'm plotting this out and we, we take that into consideration when we sentence people.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Like if you're a person who just, you're all of a sudden you're in a fight with a guy, you didn't expect it, and you stab him and kill him. Second degree murder.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But if you're like, I'm gonna kill this motherfucker, I'm gonna find out where he is and I'm gonna go get him. First degree.

[A]

Sure. I planned a lot of murders in my life, you know.

[B]

Yeah, we all have.

[A]

Yeah. In your head, you plan the murder and you think, well, that's not a very good idea. But I think I could get away with it.

[B]

Right. Is the second thought. Yeah. That is interesting that we take that into consideration. Yeah, that we do. Like, if you've had time to think about it, you're a different kind of person. The person acts in the act.

[A]

Sure. You're in your animal passion.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And I found this out. I actually spent a long time in my animal brain, which is a very horrible place to be.

[B]

And when you say that, what do you mean by you've spent a long time in your animal brain?

[A]

You're in flight or fight.

[B]

Right.

[A]

All the time. You don't even sleep. It's like really not a good Place to be. And if anybody looks at you the wrong way, you want to bite them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And sometimes you say and do things that are socially unacceptable. And, you know, I went and got a brain scan by this guy called Daniel Amin, who's this brain guy. He's against all psych meds and stuff, but he thinks, like, let me have a look at your brain. And he put a radioactive tracer in me. Whoa. And to photograph my brain.

[B]

He works with a lot, right?

[A]

Yeah, he works with a lot of football players and guys who've got brain injuries. Man, it's thirsty in here. But so he looked at my brain, and he was like. And he opens the file, and I'm in there with the guy, and he looks up and he goes, are you okay? And he got first. No, first he went like this. And I said, what? Anyway, are you okay like that? And I said, yeah, I think so. And he. He came over and he sat next to me, but very slowly and cautiously. And he says, no, you're not. And I said, what do you mean? He says, you got the worst case of PTSD I have ever seen. And I said, you mean, like, even worse than guys in war and like that? And he goes, yeah. And he says, you're not okay.

[B]

Jesus Christ.

[A]

And I was like. And I. And I started. I started to well up, you know, like, no, no, I'm not.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

And it was. He had a very miraculous and great remedy for it, which was to eat a bunch of fish oil, vitamin B complex, and get into a hyperbaric chamber for 40 sessions, but make sure you do at least two or three a week. It fixed my head. Really? Yeah. It got me out of that wacky.

[B]

Place, you know, so it was something to do with nutrition and oxygen and.

[A]

And your brain is neuroplasticity. He explained neuroplasticity to me and how. Okay, you could get brain damage and, like, holes in your head and all, you know, concussion. I used to play rugby, and I've been knocked out on the field a couple of times, you know, that explains a lot, you know?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so it actually. You can actually heal the holes in your head. It looked like Swiss cheese. It's, like, horrible. There's a lot of these football players get like that, too. The poor guys. I mean, they get depressed and they get. Oh, yeah, you know. Oh, yeah.

[B]

Hormonal imbalance, pituitary glands up.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah. Not producing testosterone or human growth hormone correctly.

[A]

That's correct, yeah.

[B]

Depression, low energy.

[A]

Yep. Irritability, Irritability you want to kill somebody. Terrible.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and. And it's just not socially acceptable. Plus, I don't want to go to prison.

[B]

Yeah, well, the rugby, I bet that's a giant factor.

[A]

Yeah. I played from, like, 13 to probably in my late teens, and. And you get knocked around a lot.

[B]

100.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. There's no if, ands, or buts about that.

[A]

No helmet. No. You know.

[B]

Well, people don't realize, like, even shots to the chest cause brain damage. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's what people are realizing now.

[A]

Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, and, like, I'm addicted to the ufc. Right. I love it. But I know that these guys are. I. I feel kind of sorry for them.

[B]

I do as well, you know, and.

[A]

One of the guys, I. I knew one of the guys fairly well, and usually I'm pretty immune to, like. But, like, he was in there and he was fighting against Volanovsky. It was Brian Ortega, and he was getting his ass handed to him in one fight. He almost got him a couple of times, but, like.

[B]

Yeah, he almost submitted him twice.

[A]

Yeah, I know, but because I knew Brian, it was like my child. It was like my son was in there. I almost started crying. I was like. And it got to me. I was like, I should probably feel like this about all these guys, but I don't know them as well.

[B]

It becomes a problem for me when I'm friends with a guy. And then also, I see when they're on the tail end of their career and they can't take shots anymore, and then when you talk to them, you recognize the speech patterns are slurring. Yeah, Yeah.

[A]

I met Muhammad Ali when he was in a chair, you know, And I don't know if I could even tell this story. What he said was so funny. Funny. But he was still in there, and he was still a little devil. And he was like. And he was still. He was still with people, of course, but it was like, I can't tell this.

[B]

You can't?

[A]

No, man.

[B]

Okay, footnote it. Tell me later.

[A]

I'll tell you later. It's funny, but it was my assistant, you know, it's what he said to my assistant. It was like, so funny. And. And. And then he said it, and we all were like, whoa. And then I looked at him and he was just laughing. He was laughing his ass off. So he was still all in there, but it was hard. I guess he had the damage of being punched.

[B]

Yeah. Trauma related. Parkinson's disease. Yes. Very common for fighters. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

It's not good. I got knocked out when I was in a fight when I was like, 20. And it was like, knocked out, like out. And it was, you know, I woke up in the hospital. Not good.

[B]

No. Well, a few of those will explain a lot.

[A]

Yes, it does.

[B]

Yeah. And we didn't know that, you know, back then. That's why it always drives me crazy in a movie when someone gets hit over the head with a gun and knocked out, and then five minutes later, they're fighting and they're fine, you know.

[A]

Or shot in the arm, you know, they kill you, you know.

[B]

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[A]

That always makes me laugh, too, but we used to do it.

[B]

Well, you kind of have to, right? Yeah, it's like part of the whole thing of telling a movie. You gotta.

[A]

Sure. I mean, Michelle disbelief, Michelle Docker, even brains. Mark Wahlberg with a fire extinguisher at one point.

[B]

Yeah, he's back.

[A]

You know, Brains him.

[B]

Shoots him.

[A]

Oh, yeah, he's a cockroach. He can't kill him. It takes a lot more. Well, you'll find out.

[B]

Yeah, but we're. You know, people used to think that concussions are just something you recover from. Like, no big deal. You get a concussion, take a break for a little while. You'll be fine. You might not be fine.

[A]

No, you're not. Yeah, I got a concussion at my daughter's wedding. This is really weird. Okay, so she's getting married. Married a great guy. They got a great family. And a buddy of mine from Australia comes to the wedding, and he goes. He comes up and I go to hug him, and he ducks down and he comes up and he puts his shoulder into the point of my chin. The guy weighs 240, and he puts his shoulder into the point of my chin and knocks me the fuck out.

[B]

Jesus Christ. I'm like.

[A]

Ah. And, like, for the next four months, I'm messed up. I have to get, like, a guy to work cranial sacral, you know, fix me up and stuff like that. It really messed me up.

[B]

Fucking Australians.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, there you go.

[B]

Wild folk.

[A]

Worse than Germans.

[B]

Yeah. Wild ex prisoners.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Wild prisoner of mother England.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Anyway, so this.

[B]

This story that you want to tell about good and evil, like, do you have a script, or is it just a thing in your head? What is it?

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's. It's the resurrection story. And it's. But it's. It's. It's not just. It's not linear because you can't really. It's hard to understand. So it's got to be put in a framework where you answer a few other questions as well, and you have to juxtapose the event itself against everything else so that it makes some kind of sense in. In a bigger picture, which is a hard thing to do. And it took my brother and I about. And. And a guy called Randall Wallace, plus my brother and I, took us six, seven years to write it.

[B]

So are you doing this with historians as well? Are you trying to make it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Historical stuff. Well, I regard. I regard the Gospels as history. It's verifiable history. Some people say, oh, it's a fairy tale. He never existed. But he did. And there are other accounts, verifiable historical accounts outside the biblical ones that also bear this up, that, yes, he did exist. And. And. And the other aspect of that is that the. All the evangelists, the apostles who went out there, every single one of those guys died rather than deny their belief. And nobody dies for a lie. Nobody. So that's part of what I'm doing. It's like showing nobody dies for a lie.

[B]

Yeah, well, the resurrection is the one that is the most difficult for people to swallow.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That is the one that requires the.

[A]

Most faith, the most faith and the most belief. Yeah. Resurrection.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Who. Who. Who gets back up three days later after he gets murdered in public? Who gets back up under his own power? Buddha didn't do that shit.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know.

[B]

So you believe that was a real event?

[A]

Yeah, I do. Yeah.

[B]

What brought you to that belief? Is this something that you've always had, or is it something you. You studied it and you've come to this conclusion because of the historical accounts and.

[A]

Yes, I think as a child, you know, one accepts things on faith because, you know, you're raised by people who are nice to you and they believe it. And my dad was a pretty smart guy. He was like Mensa smart, you know, like real smart. Like back in 1968, he won Jeopardy. Right. And then. Really? And then they brought all the Jeopardy. Winners back, and he played all the winners, and he beat all of them, too. So he had a mind like a steel trap. And his memory was practically photographic. My memory is pornographic, but it's like his. His was like, I don't have that. That kind of mind.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But I'm more like, he did math and, you know, I can't add, but. So as a child, you learn these things and you accept them on faith. And I still have that faith, but as I got older, I came to it through intellect and through reading and putting things together and accounts and then occurrences like in my own life. I mean, just recently, they verified the Shroud of Turin. Have you seen that?

[B]

I've been reading about it, and I know that there's some contention, there's some discussion and debate about it, but they used to think that it was only a couple hundred years old. And now they've changed that.

[A]

Yeah, they've said, no, it is back then.

[B]

They also don't understand how it was made, which to me is very fascinating because it's not paint. It's not. They don't know what caused the image itself and how that technology would have even been available. It wasn't, a couple thousand years ago.

[A]

An intense light, I mean, atomic. To leave almost like a photographic imprint on a piece of cloth.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's wild.

[B]

Pull that up. Pull the Shroud of Turin up.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

It's wild to look at because it's so interesting.

[A]

Oh, yeah. And you can see it, that it depicts a first century Hebrew male because the hairstyle was from the first century. And a Hebrew hairstyle that he was about six feet tall, that he was completely scourged all over his body. He was crucified.

[B]

The one on the left is. The one on the right is just like an artistic rendition.

[A]

That's the face.

[B]

Yeah, Click on that one. The face. The face. Yeah, that's good enough. Get that large. That's crazy.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Scourged, beaten.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The wounds on the, the thorns, the hands, the feet and, and the scourging and the, the. The hairstyle was from the first century and the pollens that they found in the cloth were from that region.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Also the weave was a first century weave. That was typical. And another guy, an archaeologist who I knew, who actually translated the Passion into Aramaic, told me that if you look close, you can see that the image of a Tiberius coin marks on the eyes. Now I don't know if that's real or not. I've never actually, actually checked that, but that there's images of Tiberius on the coin.

[B]

So they would put the coins over the eyes.

[A]

Yeah. So that would date it. But they have now verified that it does actually go back to that time period. For a while they were testing pieces that had been repaired in the 13th century or.

[B]

Right. You know, what is the latest on that, Jamie? Can you see, like I was trying to get that. I. Two different articles from within the last six months.

[A]

Yeah. Opposite, of course.

[B]

Dig into which one sells the most accurate. Well, it's such a crazy thing to even try to verify. Like, what are you, like what are you saying? You're saying that this is really the shroud that Jesus was covered in. So you're saying Jesus historically absolutely did exist and we think that this is the shroud that covered him. That just, that alone, people, incredulity, people's immediately their hackles raised. Like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. And they just, instead of like looking at it objectively, they own. Almost always want to look at it from a point of view of dispute, disproving it immediately, dismissing it immediately.

[A]

But that's, you know, that's science, isn't it? You have to sort of, you know, you play the devil's advocate.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's okay. Go for it.

[B]

You know. Do you. Are you aware of Graham Hancock? Oh, no, Graham Hancock is. He's sort of historian that has a very. He's got a series on Netflix. He's a fascinating guy. And his, his career started because he was investigating this, these accounts in Ethiopia of the Ark of the Covenant and that they believe the Ark of the Covenant is in this one church that's protected by all these monks that wind up getting cataracts and radiation, disease and sickness. And they think that it's because they're protecting this Ark of the Covenant, this, this act. Actual thing, that it's an actual physical.

[A]

Thing that's there and if you touch it, you get zapped.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And that even being in its presence, these people up maybe, maybe.

[A]

Who knows? I mean, it's got to be someplace, right? They buried it, they lost track of it. Yeah, but man, it used to be. And, and all the stories are if you even touched it, you fall over, you know, because it was constructed electrically somehow.

[B]

Yeah. Like what is that? What's in there? Yeah. What. Why is it giving people cancer if they're really protecting.

[A]

I think it's the actual structure of the container it's in that is the problem. That's my thought on it. I could be wrong, but I think inside it they have things from like when Moses was like manna and you know, stuff like that that they managed to keep from. Like for example, they say that, that Golgotha, the place where the crucifixion happened, it's called Golgotha, the place of the skull because that's where Adam's head is buried. Really? Yes. And that it's also perhaps the same place and it tells you it's kind of in the same area where Abraham almost sacrifices Isaac. So it's interesting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's. And, and the cross, when in any artistic depiction, at the foot of the cross underneath it is the skull representing the skull of Adam.

[B]

Huh.

[A]

So it's interesting. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, there it is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's the skull of Adam, huh?

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Place of the skull memory myth in the chapel of Adam.

[B]

What did you find on the Shroud of Torrent? Jamie, Both those articles. Jed just asked like one person, like one researcher thought it was, another researcher.

[A]

Based off of their research said it wasn't.

[B]

Can you put it to the one that thought it was? So the one who thought it was is like does killer researchers, a nuclear researcher. Jesus Christ. One was like a. AI artist from Brazil.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I, I don't know who has the most. So it says. Study published in the journal Heritage. The authors conducted dating work on a sample from the Shroud, coming to the conclusion that it may be a 2000 year old relic. The Shroud was long been the subject of Intense scrutiny features a faint image of a man some believe is the body of Jesus miraculously imprinted onto the cloth. While the latest study does not discuss the question whether or not the artifact was indeed Jesus's personal burial shroud, specifically, the authors did find its age is roughly consistent with his time. Oh.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, I think. Isn't the Smithsonian guy all for it? I don't know. Maybe that's him. I don't know. But. Yeah, there's foreign against. There's always been.

[B]

Yeah. Always. But it's just.

[A]

But the. But the. But the image is like.

[B]

Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Whatever it is is pretty crazy. And the fact that they don't know how they made it is also pretty crazy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's not a painting.

[A]

No.

[B]

Not. Not exactly sure how it even came about.

[A]

Yeah. It had to have been some kind of intense light.

[B]

Well, the thought was that even trying to replicate something like that today would be incredibly difficult to do.

[A]

Sure. It's like an X ray vision. Yeah, it's like an X ray. That's what it. You only see. You really see it in the negative only.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know. Right.

[B]

It's like a negative. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Hey, I buy it. But, but, but that's not the only reason I buy it. I mean, I think, you know, there's other logical reasons why I. Why I believe so.

[B]

Like, what are those?

[A]

Oh, okay. Stuff that happens in your own life. The results you get from actually appealing to a power greater than yourself, you know, And I mean, I don't think it's any secret I am flawed in the fact that I am by nature born an alcoholic. Right. I did drugs. I did alcohol, so. And there was nothing that could stop me from doing that. Nothing. So I was really kind of on. You're on a downhill run. So I regard the fact that I was able to appeal to something greater than myself to help me and actually stop me doing that. I think that's a miracle. It is for me. It is. And for many, you know, so.

[B]

Well, that is the thing about aa, right. It's a part of the whole process is appealing to a higher power.

[A]

Sure. It's a spiritual program.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because you're suffering your spiritual malady, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's a spiritual cure. And that's the essence, I think, of why it works, because you can't explain it otherwise. I mean, it's. You. Well, you kind of can, but I think what you're being asked to do is to think about other people and other things more than yourself. Because it's kind of an ego disease.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So if you.

[B]

That is the problem with addiction. Right. It's very narcissistic.

[A]

Very narcissistic.

[B]

You're constantly thinking about yourself and what you need. I need a drink. I need a bump. I need a lot, you know, I need something.

[A]

Sure. I need. Or. And no matter what you need, it's never going to be enough.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

So you actually have to appeal to something outside that you consider bigger and better than yourself, which instantly kind of pushes you more in the direction of humility because you're not the center of the universe anymore and that you can't do it. And the first step in any of that sort of stuff is accepting that you are powerless over it. That's the most powerful step you can do, is that you're powerless. When you realize that, you're like, okay, there's fuck all I can do about this. I have to appeal to something better than me. And that, to me, is a miracle.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, it's a very uniquely human thing, the ability to. Course. Correct. And also just the concept of addiction in the first place.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

You know, it's a very uniquely human thing that we all know there's dark roads our mind can go down. And then we wonder, like, what is the purpose of these dark thoughts? What is the purpose of this destructive behavior that we're all prone to in some way, shape or form?

[A]

What is the purpose of everything? I mean, like.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I mean, why am I here? What's the meaning of this?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm looking for purpose. And what is it we're here for? I think, you know, we have to leave some stuff, but you have to leave some good stuff. You can leave plenty of bad stuff, you know, and it's. And we're all prone that way. I often think about, you know, the human race as a whole. You know, you think about guys like, you know, Stalin or Hitler or Chairman Mao or. And I'm. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be sharing a cell in the afterlife with those guys, you know.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I don't know where I'll be on the ladder, but.

[B]

Depends on how you end up.

[A]

Right? Well, that's it. Yeah, it really is. It's like, you know, and we're allowed to make mistakes, and we do. We are so flawed. And I am. I. I'm more flawed than anyone, you know, but it's something that you. I think. And it's pretty safe to say I'm in the third act now. You're in act two, Right. Go soon. Tight. But I'm, I'm like, I'm in the third act, man. So you got, you have to think about the other side.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Think about what comes next. Is there a next? Yes, there is. I believe there is. And I think it's depends on how you live now. And the beauty of believing is that even for your transgressions, you can be forgiven and you can be redeemed. But it's all up here, right?

[B]

You know, is the true acceptance and understanding of what you've done and what you should do.

[A]

Sure. You have to look at yourself honestly.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Absolutely. Honestly. You have to be able to accuse yourself and, and understand that there is, there's, it's a great deal of mercy involved in the fact that I believe that God sent his son down to tell us, okay, I'm gonna ransom you people from your fallen nature and, and I'll give you a roadmap on how to do it. And, and people do it. There's even people that do it that I've never even heard of it, you know, some guy in the jungle someplace, I'm sure.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, because the Creator is above the law. I mean, it's an interesting fact to note that the first canonized saint, you know who it was?

[B]

No.

[A]

The first ever confirmed canonization as a saint was Dismas. You know who Dismas was?

[B]

No.

[A]

He was hanging. He was the thief on the cross next to Jesus. And he says to him, you're going to be okay this day. You'll be with me. Unbaptized criminal, all that stuff. So, wow, the lawmaker is above the law. So there's a lot of mercy.

[B]

What about people that never experienced Christianity? What about the contacted people?

[A]

That's right, that's what I'm saying. Some guy in the jungle. Yeah, it's been known that it's called invincible ignorance because they don't know what the truth truth is, you know, it's possible that they can be saved as well, you know.

[B]

So what are your thoughts on evolution?

[A]

Wow, the Darwin thing. Yeah, I don't really go for it.

[B]

No.

[A]

Yeah, Ice age dinosaurs, you know, what did they turn into? I mean, things became extinct at some point. I don't think I was some kind of like, you know, legless thing that crawled out of the ocean. I don't think I came from that. I think I was created.

[B]

Do you think other things were legless things that came out of the ocean? Do you think like multi celled Organisms came out of single celled organisms. And there was some sort of a natural selection and random mutation and it led to everything else but us.

[A]

Sure. Look at gain of function. You can like, you can make stuff happen. I'm sure stuff did happen, but I think it's all part of creation. I think it's all ordered. I think anyone left anything left to itself without some kind of intelligence behind it will devolve into chaos. And so that there has to be some big intelligence that orchestrates everything. Not that we don't have chaos in the world, but I think that's our own making.

[B]

But what do you think separates us from all the other creatures?

[A]

Wow. I think we have a soul. We're created with a soul. And you know, I went to a restaurant last night, it was a steakhouse in Austin. And it was interesting because all the pictures on the wall are pictures of animals that look resentful, like cows and steers staring at you, looking angry as you rip into a stake. But I just believe we are higher than those creatures because we have a soul, we have an intellect above theirs, and we aspire to higher things. We have aspirations.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And you know, this is part of why people drink and smoke and do dope and all this kind of stuff is because they're looking for a. A spiritual experience. They're looking for like, they actually call alcohol spirits. I mean, right. It's. They're looking for something higher. And I think we all have that yearning in that we want to be happy and we want to be at peace and we want everything to be hunky dory. So there's this yearning in building all of us for that to aspire to something greater. And that's why we're inspired by stories, I think, because it's like, you know, hero stories. You know, Joseph Campbell's stuff. The Hero with a Thousand Faces and stuff. It's like these stories inspire us. I met. I was at a party the other day in. In Tennessee. And you think, Tennessee, what's gonna happen there? It's gonna be squeal like a pig. No, man. There's some people live in Tennessee, sure, but like amazing people. And I found myself in a conversation with four tier one dudes, all of who did something extraordinary. And it was that Tom Slattersley guy. It was the Blackhawk down guy. There was Sean Ryan, who's. He's got. You probably heard of this guy, a friend of his. Yeah, right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There was a guy called Christian Craighead. You know who that guy is?

[B]

No.

[A]

Whoa. And then there was Eddie. They wrote a book about him. Gallagher. Yeah, Eddie Gallagher. I was talking to four of these guys at the same time, and I didn't know who to. Who do you even talk to? But their stories are amazing, especially. And the one guy I ended up talking to was an SAS guy. British sas. He just looks like a bank teller. But he did something extraordinary and incredibly brave and with no regard for himself, only regard for other people. And it was like, whoa. You hear these stories and it's sort of just like. It pumps you up. You think, would I. Could I do that? Could I be that person? I don't know if I could. I don't. In a way, I don't even want to ever find out because you have to be in an extreme situation. But. But hearing about other people and how they behave in situations that are difficult is very inspiring. So, you know, it's. Yeah, there's so many of those stories around and through history.

[B]

Well, that's another unique thing about human beings is that we learn from others in a very extraordinary way. And that's one of the reasons why we like stories.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Why we like myths and fables. Because there's. There's lessons you can apply to your own life without having to actually go through those things.

[A]

Yeah, well, that's right. I made a film about that guy, Desmond Doss. You know, I don't know if you saw it. It was like Hacksaw Ridge. It was this film, and it was about a medic who figured, so much killing going on, he's going to go into the battlefield and save lives. And he didn't have a weapon, and he was in the worst place on earth. And he. He got a Congressional Medal of Honor because he kept going in to the worst place possible and dragging wounded guys out with no regard for himself. I mean, who does that kind of stuff, right? And over and over again. He didn't just do it once, he did it hundreds of times. He finally got, you know, hit with shrapnel and a bunch of other stuff. But he lived to be an old man. But wow. And it was just pure faith, you know, so, you know, those guys that. Those kind of stories inspire the hell out of me.

[B]

Anyway, so when. Back to this idea of evolution. So do you believe that evolution exists in animals? Do you think there's some sort of a natural selection process? Or do you think that it is all intelligent design?

[A]

Well, I think everything was created right. And maybe things do move on and adapt and change through time, but I think that That's a function of an intelligence also. And I mean, look at the fires in la, you know, I mean, what's that gonna do? It's gonna give me a new house, you know, Maybe, maybe. And.

[B]

Or a new place to live.

[A]

Yeah, something. Yeah. I'm just not totally convinced. I feel it. I'm like. And I can't really. I'm sorry, I can't intellectually tell you why I don't believe in evolution, but I don't. It's just a feeling. I don't think I was some ape or I don't think my ancestors were. I think they had to be pretty smart to survive.

[B]

So what do you think all these pre human hominids are that they keep discovering?

[A]

Like what? Tell me what a pre human hominid.

[B]

Like Australopithecus or some of the other human like creatures that never made it. Like Denisovans, Neanderthals.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, stuff like that. Okay, well, they've got something called Zinganthropus. You remember him?

[B]

No.

[A]

Zinganthropus Man. And he was like, he looked kind of like this, but he was like. They, they looked at it and they did some core samples on and it was put out there by people advocating evolution and they discovered that it was a human skull attached to the jaw of an ape.

[B]

Oh, I do remember. So it was a hoax? Yeah, there's been some hoaxes, yeah. Yeah. But there's also been real stuff.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah. You don't think so?

[A]

Well, maybe.

[B]

Well, what?

[A]

You know, like. I don't know. Tell me.

[B]

Well, what was that one that we looked at the other day that was one of the first pre humans that buried their, their young, or buried their dead rather. It was a Homo ninaldi. What was it? Remember that? I can't remember how to say it, but. No, lady. Yeah, Pre human hominid, very small creature that buried their young. Or buried their dead, rather. I keep saying bird. Their young, they buried their dead. You know, Australia Pythecus, there's, there's a bunch of different, you know, the Lucy skeleton. There's a bunch of different pre human hominids.

[A]

Yeah. Maybe they're monkeys, I don't know. You know.

[B]

Yeah, well, there was. They're similar to us, just not where we are.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They're on the road to becoming what. What it means to be a human being.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

[B]

What do you think those are?

[A]

I don't know. They could be animals or they could be like. Look at today. I Mean, you can get some mosquito can bite you and, and your kid can be born with a malformed skull or something. It's like, you know, they have those, you know.

[B]

Yeah, but this is like a, did like a genetic thing, like they've done. They've mapped the genome of these creatures.

[A]

Oh, they have.

[B]

They're different. Yeah.

[A]

Well, I don't know how to explain those, Joe. I don't know.

[B]

But, but you do think that human beings were created.

[A]

I do, yeah.

[B]

When do you think that happened?

[A]

When? Oh, probably. And not that long ago.

[B]

Really?

[A]

No, not really.

[B]

Like, what do you mean by not that long ago?

[A]

Probably only about 8,000 years ago. Really? Yeah.

[B]

So what do you think things like Gobekli Tepe are when they find these constructions that are dated carbon dated to 11,000 plus years old?

[A]

I question carbon dating.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That makes things a lot simpler.

[A]

Well, yeah, they, they're. Yeah, well, there's a lot of money in, in, you know, claims and water's there.

[B]

Yeah. Well, carbon dating seems to be pretty rock solid studies. Yeah, I mean science, the science behind radiocarbon dating and detecting carbon isotopes, it's like, that's pretty.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Pretty legit.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know. I can't square it.

[B]

Yeah, well, you don't have to and.

[A]

I don't have to.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What difference is it going to make to me?

[B]

Yeah, that's the thing. It's. It doesn't make a difference in terms of your experience in this life on Earth.

[A]

No.

[B]

Like you, you can have your faith and your ideas and live a great life from beginning to end, and it might not suit you to really ponder evolution and all the puzzles and problems.

[A]

It doesn't, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I just like, you know, I look at all sorts of stuff like that. Like, you know, the, you know, the icebergs melting and the water overflowing. It's not ever having a glass full of ice and watched it melt. Did you ever see the glass flow over?

[B]

No.

[A]

Takes up less room, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, the hot greenhouse, whatever.

[B]

Well, there's a lot of horseshit that's involved in climate change for sure. I've studied that and I've had many discussions over the last four years. The problem with anything is that once a narrative gets established and then there's a profit attached to the solution to that narrative.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And that's green energy and green energy bills and there's businesses that are wrapped around there. And then there's also this fear that they love to pump into people about climate Change that, you know, they terrify the shit out of young people that we're going to destroy the world. And climate change, you must act now. And then you become beholden to the political party that it's espousing these ideas, and then. And your enemy is the deniers of this science, even though you don't even understand the science.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And did you see the Washington Post article that they published recently about temperature change on Earth?

[A]

No.

[B]

Well, there's a down. Like what they've realized is over the last, you know, X amount of thousands of years, that the temperature on Earth is plummeting.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's dropping. And then when they look at the. The dips. This is the most important thing for anybody that's really freaked out about climate change. There's no static temperature of Earth ever. There's never been a time where it maintains a temperature until human beings came along and fucked it all up. That is just not real. Before human beings ever existed, if you trust these core samples, there's been a giant rise and fall. And this constant dip.

[A]

There it is. Yeah.

[B]

Scientists have captured Earth's climate over the last 485 million years. Here's a surprising place we stand now. Look at the dip at the end.

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

That's where we are. That's. That's reality.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And then if you look at the course of history, you look at the rise and fall, like, it's never a straight line. Way before human beings ever existed, if you believe these silly people, way before human beings had ever existed, there's always this rise and fall. And this idea that the whole thing is based on carbon emissions from human beings is total bullshit. It's not true. We might be having an effect, but we're having a small effect. A very small effect. And the other things are completely outside of our control, including solar activity, the distance between the Earth and the sun. You know, there's a lot of factors. There's. There's all sorts of factors involving natural activities like volcanic emissions, you know, which devastate, you know, the entire human race was knocked down to a few thousand people.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

At one point in time. Because the Toba volcano.

[A]

Oh, my God. Yes. Yeah. No light.

[B]

Yeah, no light for years. Good luck.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, good luck. And the people that survive are fucking barbarians.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

This most savage. And then they takes a long time before they can figure out civilization again.

[A]

After that, it's like dinosaurs. They just stop. So what do they evolve into?

[B]

Chickens, I guess. Birds? Raptors. Well, they think a lot of dinosaurs had feathers now. Yeah, that's the. The newest thing.

[A]

Yeah. Maybe.

[B]

You don't think so. I don't know.

[A]

I need to take a pee. I'm so. Okay.

[B]

Let's take a be. Let's take a be. We'll take a break.

[A]

I need to take a piddle. It's a nice picture. It's.

[B]

That's got to be a moment in your head where you just, like, every now and then just go, yeah.

[A]

Yeah, it is funny. Yeah. But it was a good picture. The only thing that was going through my head was, okay, I just can't look bad. And I didn't have anything. No grooming implements, so I just tried. Tried my best to not look too bad.

[B]

Yeah. You talk about humility. Like, what gives you more humility than being publicly humiliated?

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Public humiliation. And you know what? Most. For most people, it is their number one fear.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Is public humiliation.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Public speaking. And because of that, public humiliation.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Happens all the time.

[B]

Because we're so concerned about other people's opinions of us, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Because we're not sure of our own opinions. Well, we've been through a lot.

[A]

Well, so have you. Yeah, I mean, I remember. You know, I think they were giving you a grilling once for taking horse worm medicine.

[B]

Yeah. Funny, which. Yeah, that works.

[A]

Yeah. Funny how that works. Funny how. Funny how that does work.

[B]

Yeah. What's really funny is how that. Was that a part of the demise of mainstream media? Because people were like, well, this is crazy. This doesn't make. Are you guys really the news? Like, what is this?

[A]

Yes, I know. It seemed to be. They seem to be complicit with a 100%. And, you know, you think, well, why? Why?

[B]

Because of money? I think this is what we were talking about before. That there is good and evil.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And sometimes it manifests itself in a very clear and obvious way. And I think that's what that was. That was evil. That was putting people's lives second and putting money first.

[A]

Well, I don't know why Fauci's still walking around.

[B]

How is that guy still walking around?

[A]

I don't get it.

[B]

If just people understand the history of the AIDS crisis and what that guy did back then.

[A]

Did you read that book?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I read the book.

[A]

I listened to it.

[B]

Yeah, I did.

[A]

I drove up to San Francisco and I listened to it, and I had road rage. Oh, yeah. And it was like, whoa, how is he still there?

[B]

How was. First of all, people that don't believe it. How come RFK Jr. Didn't get sued.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How come there's no lawsuits? If there was lies, there would be lawsuits. You'd be publicly humiliated. Instead, they kept that book off bestseller lists. That book sold millions of copies.

[A]

I know.

[B]

They hid it. That's when you find out that bestseller lists are actually curated. It's not really bestseller. Bestseller.

[A]

Yeah. It's censored. It's all. Yeah, everything's censored.

[B]

You know, but that book is an accurate depiction of what Anthony Fauci did during the AIDS crisis, which probably was an AZT crisis.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it was an AIDS crisis.

[A]

I mean, it's. It's fairly incontrovertible now that he was fooling with gain of function 100. And, you know, it's. I. You know, what? Why is he still around? Right. Or at least free.

[B]

Right, right. And no repercussions.

[A]

Yeah. Whatever happened to that story where, you know, the wombat and. And the weasel got together and they were horsing around and a bat pissed on him with a golden shower, you know, and all of a sudden, it was in a wet market.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Very wet market.

[B]

You got, you know, complete, total horseshit. And totally. The scientists that we're supposed to trust pitching that horseshit.

[A]

It was like the AIDS thing. Some green monkey bit of Qantas Stewart on the ass. Then he went around the world and got everybody sick, and it was like, you know, ridiculous.

[B]

If you want to go through the AIDS rabbit hole, look up a guy named Peter Duberg.

[A]

Oh, yes, I know. I read that book.

[B]

Yeah. That is crazy. He's telling the truth. This is the COVID crisis times a thousand.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I had him on the podcast way back in the day. It was one of the earlier guests that I had. It was like, way back in, like, 2010. It was one of the first times I got openly attacked. For someone being on the podcast, there was like, blood is on your hands. I'm like, first of all, no, it's not. It's 2010. Who's dying of AIDS. Zero people. So stop. It's not bloods on your hand. Like, if this guy's correct, he's a tenured professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who is like, his work on cancer is. You know, everybody thinks it's groundbreaking work. Brilliant doctor, but he was a heretic. He was a guy who stood outside of Fauci's the narrative doctrine and the narrative. And he said, I don't believe that HIV is what's causing this. When all these people that are Having these immune systems are all heavy drug users. He's like, I think this is a disease of a decimation of the immune system due to heavy drug use. And then on top of that, you're prescribing this chemical, this AZT that kills people.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They stopped using it for chemotherapy because it was killing them quicker than cancer was.

[A]

I was in the Sydney Theater company in the 90s and I was going to a funeral once a month of friends. They were all dying. It's crazy. In the, in, in the 80s and.

[B]

90S and they were all getting AZT.

[A]

Yeah, maybe.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

Well, the ones that were getting azt, even the ones that were asymptomatic.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like Magic Johnson. They were giving Magic Johnson azt. Had to stop taking it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because he was making him sick. It was killing him.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I read it and like it's even with RFK's book. And, and he's an amazing guy. People say he's kooky, he's crazy. He's not crazy.

[B]

He's not.

[A]

He's, he's one of the most erudite. You know, he's. They say he's an anti vaxxer.

[B]

He's not, he's not.

[A]

He's like, he's, he's, he's a very shrewd. He's never lost a case. I don't think when he brings something to suit, I don't think he's ever been defeated. But that book is not just him, him, it's him and about a thousand highly qualified scientists and physicians commenting on.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

The whole situation. So when you read it, it's, it's a pretty convincing document. And you're right. Nobody sued him for it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, it's pretty scary.

[B]

Well, not, not only do they not sue him, their, their response is to try to ignore it. They don't want to debate him on it. They don't want to do anything. No, they want to just ignore it and hope it goes away. But it doesn't go away. And the more people talk about it, the more people read it. And when you do read it and you go, if this is true, what the is going on? And how is that monster still loose?

[A]

Yeah. Oh, well.

[B]

And he seems like a monster. The way he talks about things. He just seems. Well, first of all, there's so many instances of him lying. There's so many, like where he said one thing, two years later it turns out to be a lie. Said one. Like whether, whether it is the, the thing, the mask thing, Whether it's the natural spillover, you know, the, the lies about gain of function to Congress, you know.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

When he was lying to Rand Paul about whether or not they did gain a function research. Like, how is that not perjury? How is he not in trouble?

[A]

Yeah, well, hey. Other mysteries, you know.

[B]

Well, then the Biden administration is now talking about taking that guy and giving him a full pardon.

[A]

It's like. Yeah.

[B]

Fucking crazy.

[A]

Yeah, they might. You know, I gave Hunter a pardon.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But, But Hunter's like, Hunter didn't need a pardon. Was he indicted?

[B]

Well, I mean, he was in trouble for tax evasion.

[A]

Oh, I see.

[B]

There's a lot of tax problems. He's. He, he definitely did some uncool things. And then there's the burisma thing. But the crazy thing about his pardon is it starts at the time of him being involved in burisma. So it's from 2011 all the way to today.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That's. That's what he pardoned him is the, the biggest sweeping pardon that anyone's ever received. Ever. And Biden's pardoned more people than anybody ever, too.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He was already over 8, 000 people pardoned.

[A]

Yeah. A lot of criminals on death row and stuff.

[B]

Well, there's that. And. But then there's also people that, like the kids for cash judges, you know, the. Where they were locking up kids and putting them in child detention centers because they wanted money and they were doing it for kickbacks.

[A]

Yeah, I saw that. It was a documentary.

[B]

Yeah. Evil again, what we're talking about. Good and evil.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like there. These are real things and rational people that profess themselves to be intelligent and secular. They don't want to believe in good and evil. They don't think that they're. They just think people do bad things. People have motivations. They do bad things. But they don't want to believe in the concept of good and evil because these are biblical concepts.

[A]

They are.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah. And I, you know, they've been around since the beginning, and people want to.

[B]

Pretend they're smarter than the people that sort of embrace these biblical concepts.

[A]

Right. Or. Yeah, I think that goes into evolution. Are we smarter than our grandparents? You know, I don't know.

[B]

Well, we are about some things, but we can't survive the way they did.

[A]

Nope.

[B]

They are obviously intelligent.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just. They didn't have access to information the way we do. But there's a difference between information and intelligence.

[A]

Sure. Yeah. I don't have many devices for Information. I read books. I read mostly history books.

[B]

Yeah?

[A]

Yeah. Oh, I gotta recommend a book to you.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

It's fascinating and it's. It's called the Frontiersman, and it's about a guy called. Called Simon Kenton. You ever hear this guy?

[B]

No.

[A]

Whoa. And it was written by a guy who's now deceased. His name is Alan Eckert. And it is really about opening up Ohio and Kentucky and places like that with this guy, Simon Kenton, who was just an Irish immigrant. He wasn't much for farming and stuff, but he thought he killed a guy. And so he ran away because he thought he'd be indicted for some crime or something. And he ended up being this frontiersman. And it is. It's a very interesting document because you get the history of what was going on at the time when the country was opening up between the settlers and the Indians, you know, the Shawnee. One of the most brutal books I've ever read.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Oh, it's. It's very well done and it has a narrative, but it's reconstructed from his, you know, all kinds of historical documents and letters and diaries and all this kind of stuff. So I think the guy took about 15 years to sort of compile all this stuff and write it. And the first half of the book is about this guy, Simon Kenton, and the second half is about Tecumseh, you know, the chief. Really great book. One of the. One of the most fascinating books I've read. You can't put it down.

[B]

Really.

[A]

Yeah, because it's just like. It's like little chapters.

[B]

I'm gonna get that right now. Have you ever read the Empire of the Summer Moon?

[A]

Nope.

[B]

Empire. The Summer Moon is about the Comanche.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

And it's all about the settling of this area.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's fucking incredible. Again, one of the most brutal books ever. So this is the Frontiersman.

[A]

The Frontiersman by Alan Eckert.

[B]

Yeah, I'm gonna check that right now so that I make sure that I have it.

[A]

Yeah. And it's all in little bite sized chunks. And it actually, for a history book, it has this incredible narrative with heroes and villains and. And all the players. Very interesting document.

[B]

I'm getting it right now.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Don't read it before bed. No, no. It gets pretty. It gets pretty dark.

[B]

Why are you so drawn to history?

[A]

I don't know. I think because maybe I'm trying to learn something. It's been about 80 years since the last big war.

[B]

Alan Eckert got it.

[A]

I think I just want to learn, you Know, I mean, my dad went to World War II. He went to Guadalcanal. Right. Got bit by mosquitoes. He had, you know, malaria. Which is interesting to note that he used to take hydroxychloroquine. They get a malaria.

[B]

Isn't that crazy?

[A]

And then when I tried, when my doctor recommended I get it, when I had Covid, they gouge me. 800. It used to cost him 30 bucks. They wanted 800 bucks for. They were gouging.

[B]

Well, not only that, when Trump talked about it, then all of a sudden, they demonized it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. They laughed.

[B]

Yeah. Which is crazy because it's an antiviral.

[A]

It works.

[B]

Yeah. It works on malaria. Yeah, yeah. And people have been taking it forever.

[A]

Sure. Pregnant women can take it if they have the flu and it doesn't hurt the baby. You know, safe. It's like Ivermectin.

[B]

But that's what's so bizarre about the time that we just went through, because there's more information now available to people instantaneously than ever before.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You look it up on your phone, instantly know, oh, Ivermectin. The guy who created it won the Nobel Prize.

[A]

Yeah. 2014. Yeah.

[B]

15. Yeah. For use in human beings.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So what the is going on?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, how who's running this thing?

[A]

And it's harmless, and it wasn't made for horses. It was made for people, and then they used it for horses. Right, right. So.

[B]

Well, it's like saying penicillin is for horses because they use that on horses too. Like, that's stupid.

[A]

They told me it was for moldy bread.

[B]

That's what it was from. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, there's a lot of medications used on animals, too. You can't say it's a veterinary medication just because it's also used on animals.

[A]

No, that's true.

[B]

It's been used on. Literally prescribed billions of times on human beings.

[A]

Yeah. It's like the stem cell stuff. They started using it on horses with emphysematic lung conditions, racehorses, because they would bleed. And they got the stem cells from the. From the umbilical cords of their offspring, injected it into them, and it healed their lungs, which is part of my story, because I smoked for 45 years and I couldn't stop. And I read this silly book by Alan Carr. Not the little guy who, you know, managed the Village People in the caftan, the little fat guy. But no, this other guy, Alan Carlos Car. And he wrote this book, and it's the only thing that made me stop it worked like crazy.

[B]

But the book made you stop. Like what the book made me stop.

[A]

I read this book. It was the book called the Easy Way to Stop Smoking. And it's a silly title, right? And it sat. And my son gave it to me. He said, stop smoking, dad. Here, here's this book. I left it on. I used to walk past the bookshelf and go, dumb book, dumb title, you know? And then I finally, my doctor said, you have first stage emphysema. And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. He said, yeah, you gotta kit the smile. Yeah, I better read this book. So I read the book and I stopped, right? So it was. I think it was like neuro linguistic programming or something like that. You read it and you kind of self hypnotize yourself. But it worked.

[B]

What did the book tell you?

[A]

It said it didn't tell you you're bad, you're gonna die. It didn't tell you all that sort of of stuff. It was like. I mean, they had things like maybe, maybe I'm blowing it. But they had a chapter where it says, okay, we focused on the negative aspects of smoking. Now we're going to talk about the good aspects of smoking in the next chapter. And then you turn the page and the page is empty, you know, and it's just a trick. It's a mind trick. The whole thing was a mind trick. But it worked. And I don't know why it works. It worked, but it was sort of like self hypnosis while you're reading the book. And it wasn't a negative thing like, I gotta stop this. It's bad, it's bad. I'm scared. It wasn't even that. In fact, if I hadn't had the stem cells afterwards. My lungs completely healed from that, by the way.

[B]

Did it do it intravenously?

[A]

Yeah, intravenous. And it gets stuck in your lungs.

[B]

Was this Dr. Reardon?

[A]

That was Reardon. Yeah, we talked.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it worked. Stem cells are incredible. And the fact that you can't get them the way they can get them in overseas disease. We can get it in Panama, where Reardon has his clinic, and Tijuana.

[A]

They're getting better here.

[B]

They're getting better, but there's so much resistance because the fda.

[A]

Yeah, sure.

[B]

And the resistance is purely because of money. It's again, it's an evil thing. It's not because they're. They're not effective. It's not because they're dangerous. It's just because of money, I think.

[A]

So and, you know, there's an agenda. I think, you know, pharma wants to keep you on stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I want to sell you something. So if there's a surefire cure for something, it's not necessarily hailed.

[B]

No. Well, and then there's also the problem of the media. The media is lockstep in with these businesses that are promoting these things.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And they're not giving you information. They're giving you propaganda before they're giving you information. Propaganda is more important to them than information.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's what's crazy. It's like you. We're counting on you guys and you, us. You, us for four years with this Covid thing, and now you expect us to listen to you about the swine flu or the bird flu or whatever other thing you're trying to freak us out about, which always coincides with some sort of a political event. Like, here it is, the inauguration of the new president, and, oh, look at this. There's a new disease.

[A]

What do we got now? What is it? Do you think there will be?

[B]

Well, there is. There's this wine flu, H5N1. Whatever.

[A]

I thought it was bird flu.

[B]

One bird flu. One person died. One person in America. First person died. 65 years old with a bunch of comorbidities.

[A]

Yeah, okay.

[B]

Which is usually what it is. But by the way, 65 people with a bunch of comorbidities die all the time of nothing. They die of anything. Any. I mean, this is like a car that's falling apart, and you run over a nail and. Oh, the nail killed the car. No, that car was. Was falling the apart. Yeah, like the. The nail you ran over was the last nail in the coffin, but the thing was falling apart.

[A]

I got covet from my gardener, and he had it first, and then I got it. I was like, ah, did I grab the hose or what? You know, what was. I don't know, but it was. It was. I knew the guy for 20 years, and we both went to the same hospital and he died, and I didn't. I think we both got remdesivir, which is not good.

[B]

Not good.

[A]

Not good causes kidney failure. I know. I. I couldn't walk for three months after I had that stuff. Really? Because it kills you. I found that afterwards. It kills you. And that's why I wonder about Fauci.

[B]

Oh, you should wonder about that guy. Well, meanwhile, they were trying to stop people from getting monoclonal antibodies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've restricted monoclonal antibodies, which is fucking insane, because they Wanted to promote that vaccine because they wanted a profit off of it. Which brings us back again to evil. Evil's real. It's real. Putting money over human lives is evil. It's a real thing. And there's a. There's a temptation to do it, too, which is even more crazy.

[A]

I don't believe that there is anything that can afflict mankind that hasn't got a natural cure for it. I think that there has to be. It just makes sense to me now. I couldn't prove that, but I just believe that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That there's got to be something that cures things. And I'll tell you a good story.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I have three friends. All three of them had stage four cancer. All three of them don't have cancer right now at all. And they had some serious stuff going on.

[B]

And what did they take?

[A]

Jesus. They took some. What you've heard they've taken Ivermectin, Bendazole.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I'm hearing that a lot.

[A]

They drank hydrochloride, something or other.

[B]

There's studies on this now where people.

[A]

Have proven that people are drinking methyl blue and stuff.

[B]

Yeah, methylene blue, which was a fabric dye. Yeah, yeah, it was a textile dye. And now they find it has profound effects on your mitochondria.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This stuff works, man.

[B]

There's a lot of stuff that does work, which is very strange because, again, it's profit. When you. When you hear about things that are demonized and that turn out to be effective, you always wonder, well, what is going on here? How is. How is our medical institutions? How have they failed us so that things that do cure you are not promoted because they're not profitable, that they can't control it. They don't have a patent on it, whether it's vitamin D, K2, and magnesium, you know. Well, yeah, I'm zinc and corset. I do all that stuff.

[A]

Did you do the brica thing?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, me too.

[A]

I lost.

[B]

I do all that stuff.

[A]

I lost, like, £30. Right.

[B]

That's fantastic.

[A]

I was talking to Dana, and he said, oh, you know, and he. And I said, yeah, I got to do something about this. I'm like, I'm 5:10, 2:35, you know. Know. That's too fat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I had to. I had to sort of roll it back some. Now I'm under 200, which is.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

Should be, you know, but. And it was that breakfast stuff.

[B]

No. Gary's a national treasure.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And on all over the place, too. Oh, sure, yeah.

[A]

Going to sauna. But I feel better.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Oh, I do all that stuff.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Cold plunge, sauna. I'm ritualistic with it.

[A]

Yeah, that's good.

[B]

That's part of my everyday life.

[A]

You. I hear your. Your cold plunge is like 34 degrees. I don't understand that though. I mean, dude, 34 degrees?

[B]

Yeah. Whoa. Yeah, it's cold.

[A]

That's hardcore. Yeah.

[B]

You get accustomed to it. It, to me is not. I mean, it sucks. Every time I do it, I'm like, don't do it. Don't. There's like the part of me that's like, my inner do this. We don't have to do this. But luckily the general is stronger than the inner. The general is always telling, shut the fuck up. Get in there. And I just get in there every day.

[A]

But I do like 48, man.

[B]

That inner is always talking, though. He never shuts up.

[A]

No.

[B]

Never shuts up. Don't ever think that it, like, even though I do it every day. Anybody who's like, I don't know how you do it. I don't know how I do it either, but I do it. I make sure I do it. I just. I'm the boss.

[A]

Yeah. Do you do the saunas too? Oh, yeah, the red light bed.

[B]

I have a red light bed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I have a sauna, red light bed. I have a hyperbaric chamber. Wow. I have everything.

[A]

Hyperbaric chambers are the best.

[B]

Yeah, man. It's incredible. Incredible.

[A]

I got to get back in there. I feel like I got more holes in my head.

[B]

It's phenomenal for just overall recovery for everything. And it's. It's also been shown to lengthen telomeres. They did a study out of Israel. Yeah. They gave people a protocol over 90 days. You do 60 sessions of 90 minutes over 90 days.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's shown the length in telomeres and decrease your biological age.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And you just feel great.

[A]

That makes sense.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. You're flooding your body with oxygen. Most diseases, a lot of them come from a lack of oxygen. You know, your body not having enough oxygen is very bad for you.

[A]

Yeah. I used to have a chigong master. This is what kind of blows my mind about medicine and about ancient stuff. This guy is from Shanghai. He didn't speak much English, right? A little bit. His wife would translate for him and he'd come in and he could like, point at you right. From this far away. And you'd feel it, but, like, feel it, like, to the. As palpable as someone pushing you around. It's like, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not kidding.

[B]

What year was this, when this was happening?

[A]

Oh, I met him when I was like, 40. Yeah, he only just passed away. Damn.

[B]

Too bad. I'd like to meet that guy.

[A]

Oh, no, there's people like him. There are others like it. Oh, yeah. He's not the only one. He learned it from somebody and I think he. I think he imparted some knowledge. But, you know, he would get you and he could. He could like, point at you and stuff like that. And it makes you wonder, like, how did they build the pyramids? You know, I mean, if. If he can use his mind and kind of get into quantum physics and move shit around with thought and with energy, there's actual energy coming out of his fingers. They could have built the pyramids like that. I don't know, maybe somebody had that down somewhere, but.

[B]

Well, I'd like to hear a better explanation.

[A]

Me too. Well, it was really weird. One time he was working on me and he was working on my liver. He said, your liver is blocked because he looks at you. And if you look at him, he looks away. And his wife engages you while he checks you out. And then he gives you a little body map and he puts X's all over it. And you go, yeah, that's right. I got a pain here and a thing there, you know? He knows where everything is. He knows exactly what's going on.

[B]

Did you ask him what he's seeing?

[A]

Your aura?

[B]

Like, what is he seeing?

[A]

Everything. He sees everything. He was an allopathic doctor. First. He went to medical school. He could write your prescription, he could do all that stuff. He was a doctor. And then he saw a chi gong master, this. This old guy, and people were lining up getting cured. And he thought, that's really interesting. And he learned that on top of being an allopathic doctor. So one day he's at me on my back and he's pushing and I could feel my back. And I'm at the wall and there's a poster of a film on the wall. You know, my office. And I'm looking at. And I can see him in the background. And he's like, down like this, like, ah, like kung fu, pointing rays of energy at me. And he hit me. He started yelling at my organ, at my liver, like, get out. You know, whatever. And I. I went up the wall and there was like 8 inches of air under my heels. And I was up the wall and I was like, whoa. And I came back down. It Freaked me out. And he. I looked at him and he just went, ah. He said, don't. It's just science like that. Just science, okay.

[B]

Just science.

[A]

Yeah, just science. And I was so freaked out, I went to a priest. I said, is this guy demonic or something? Because he's lifting me off the wall. And the priest was like. He was an old Jesuit, right? A traditional old guy. And he was. He was a cross between Jimmy Stewart and Elmer Fudd. You know, that's. That's the way he sounded. And I said, is this anything, like, demonic about this guy, like, putting. He says, whoa, whoa, whoa. Did he heal you like that? And I said, why, yes, he did. And he said, that's all right then. And he says, I have no trouble with something like that because it was. It was within the realm of possibility that somebody had power like that. And then it's inexplicable, but that it works. And it did work. Yeah. He just passed away. He was pretty old.

[B]

There was a place that, you know, I bought a comedy club out here. And before the building that we bought was the Ritz Theater on sixth Street. But before that, I was under contract to another building. And then this other building was owned by a cult. And this is a crazy story. The cult was awful, horrible. There's a documentary on it. It's called Holy Hell. And this guy who was a gay porn star and a hypnotist, he was a yoga instructor, got a bunch of people in West Hollywood and then eventually moved them all out here to aunt. But what this guy was doing, one of the things that he would do to his disciples is he would do a thing called the knowing. And they had to be chosen for it. They had to earn it. And when he would get them and bestow the knowing upon them, he would touch their head and they would have this incredible experience where they said they contacted God. Now all these people denounced him. Eventually, they left the cult. They all said he was a con man and this and that. But they all talked about that experience, and they said it was the most profound experience of their life, that they really do feel like they came in contact with God. And it's like, what can a person. If a person truly believes and this other person truly believes, that they can do this to them, and they have this moment and something does happen. Like, what is. Is that all inside of us? Do people have ways of pulling that out of you that we've lost track of, that we don't know? And even an evil person who's running a Cult and manipulating people and exploiting people, still has this thing that he was able to do to them that even after they've admitted that this guy exploited them, they say that was the most profound moment of their life.

[A]

That's interesting, isn't it? Because I think, yeah, there are party tricks that you can get, right?

[B]

But is that that party trick, if it really is a pathway to connect you, at least temporarily with God, that there is a thing inside of. Of us?

[A]

Well, that's why I went to the priest, because I thought, right, Because I'm off the floor, right? So I thought, I gotta check this out because this is too weird. And he said, did he heal you? And I said, he did. And he said, that's all right then. Because the guy wasn't trying to get anything out of me, right? In fact, he never charged me. The first time I went to see him, he charged me and it was like, okay. And then he never charged me again. And he used to call me when I was sick. Really? I wouldn't call him. He knew when I was sick, he'd call me, I need to come see you. I'm like, okay.

[B]

So he had, like, some sort of a direct line with your energy, something pretty amazing.

[A]

And. And. And he could. Oh, this is the other thing. He could teach you martial arts, like, quickly, without you having to know what to do. It was a weird thing. He did it firstly with my son, who he got him for a couple of weeks. And like, he said, I'm about to show you something. And I went out there and he blindfolded him. He had these two swords, and he was doing all this, you know, this crazy stuff. I'm like, what? I said, how did he. How did he learn that so fast? He said it was in him. And I'm like, whoa. And then he started to. He started to do a thing. He taught me how to harness this energy and to actually begin what seemed to be almost like involuntary movement. And depending on the hand mode you took, it would create a style of kata or self defense. I mean, I used to do, like, some. I used to do a crude martial art. Not crude, but like a hard martial art.

[B]

What was it?

[A]

Kyokushenkai.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, way back.

[B]

Kyokushin karate.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think it's Korean.

[B]

It's Japanese.

[A]

It is, Yeah. I can't remember, but it's like, you know, I didn't stick with it, but it was. But. But he. He. He got this whole other approach of breathing and visualizations that would actually draw energy into Your lower chakras. And then you, you know, you'd release the energy and it would create this kind of movement. And I showed it to a friend of mine who was a martial artist, and I said, tell me about the footwork I'm doing here and what I'm doing. And he looks at me, he says, that looks really good to me. I said it was kind of like, what's that really soft kind of martial art, Tai chi. It was like that. I was doing stuff like that. It was crazy. And it was really a great release, but it was about visualization and breath.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the release of those. That energy that you pent up from all around that you visualized coming, manifesting itself in you.

[B]

There's got to be something to all that stuff. People have been practicing tai chi for a long time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They wouldn't be practicing the same movements for all these years if it didn't do something.

[A]

Yeah. Pretty interesting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It keeps people young and healthy. They do it in China. You see groups of people out in. In Asia, sort of out there in groups, doing it all in unison. It's like, it's a good thing, Exercise.

[B]

Yeah. What do you do now for exercise?

[A]

Oh, gosh, I'm terrible. I've been. I've come off. I'm falling apart. I got this. I got dead, dead guys. Parts in my shoulder. I've got, you know, cadaver parts. This shoulder fell apart, this shoulder fell. A hip, a foot. Foot was terrible. I couldn't walk for about a year almost, really. And so, you know, you fall down. That's partially why I had to go and see Breca, to sort of get the couch potato stuff off. But, you know, I lift weights and I do some, you know, walking and stuff like that. Like, really get your heart rate up and stuff like that. So, you know, I'm trying. Hey, I'm, you know, I'm 69 years old, so it's like. It's getting to be like seven decades or, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I want to stay fit if I can. And I banged myself up a little too much in my early life, so I'm paying for it now. And, like, in your 60s, man, you're not there yet, but stuff starts, like, giving up on you.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It's like.

[B]

No, I feel it in my 50s.

[A]

Yeah. How old are you?

[B]

57.

[A]

58 is when it starts, man.

[B]

Oh, Jesus.

[A]

Yeah, that's what I. That's what. That's. That's when I first noticed it was like, oh, what's going on with this hair, the shoulder, and I went down to Reardon, of course, who shot it up with stem cells, and it was good for, like, two years, you know.

[B]

You just got to keep going back. Yeah, Yeah.

[A]

I didn't go back often enough.

[B]

That's the thing. I think it's just. Your body's just not going to heal the way it did when you were younger unless you consistently get therapy for that.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. You're in good shape, though.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean. Yeah, so I was in reasonable shape at 58, and I think I'm in reasonable shape now, but I'm. I'm just. You know, it's just trying to push the old man off and using various methods to do it, you know?

[B]

Yeah, that's what it is. Keep the body as young as you possibly can. Yeah, yeah. And demand a lot from it. That's what I do.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I just demand a lot and make sure I recover.

[A]

I think a lot of it's about meditation, too. You know, you can actually get into a good headspace that kind of cools you out and stops the stress even, no matter what's going on. I'm gonna have to do it tonight when I find out whether I still have a home or not.

[B]

Yeah. Well, if anything looks demonic, it's the fires in Los Angeles.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I remember one time we were filming Fear Factor, and we had a drive home. We had a cancer. Cancel the shoot or end it early and drive home because the fires had hit. And this is, like, up. We were off the five and driving home for 50 minutes on the highway. The right side of the highway was in flames.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like Lord of the Rings. Like Sauron is coming over the top. It looked insane. It looked. It's biblical. Yeah, it looks insane.

[A]

And you got to be careful, too, because you could die. Oh, yeah. 100 breathe.

[B]

I mean, if you can't breathe or if the car's in front of you, catch. Catch fire. And the wind blows this way, and all the cars catch fire. And you can't get off the road because the. To the right of you is on fire. To the left, use on fire. And the fire is coming up the highway.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Yeah. People have died that way.

[A]

And it can happen in an instant.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I got. I got hung once by mistake. I. And it was. I was on a film set, and I was. I had my neck in a noose, and I. And I was directing the film, so I was. I'm on a ladder, and I'm like. So I'll just be hanging here like this Man. And then the next thing I knew, I was waking up. I was on the floor, you know, and there were all these people standing over looking at me, and I'm saying, what are you people doing? Get to work. You know, it was like. And they said, well, you hung yourself. I said, whoa. Kidding me? It happens in an instant, and you don't know. It. It wasn't painful, nothing. I was just gone.

[B]

Well, you probably got choked out.

[A]

Yeah, choked out by the. By the noose. And then they grabbed me by the legs and got the rope off. And. Jesus. During Braveheart, it was.

[B]

Oh, really? Oh, wow.

[A]

Was funny. So I. I found out what it was like to sort of go into the next realm. But of course, we. We did. I. I was fortunate enough to work with. With Horion Gracie 39 years ago.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, he'd just come from Brazil.

[B]

Well, I remember when you were doing Lethal Weapon, it was the first time I'd ever seen Jiu Jitsu in a movie.

[A]

A leg choke on film. Yeah. He taught. Yeah. Horan taught me the leg show. He said, now you grab your foot and you.

[B]

Yeah, okay.

[A]

And it was. It was cool, but it was. Now my girlfriend does it, and she's like a purple belt. So I've learned. Really? Yeah. I've learned not to talk.

[B]

Oh, she's legit.

[A]

Yeah, she's legit. Yeah.

[B]

Purple belts. Purple belt is basically a black belt. You just need a little bit more time.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

If you can get. I always tell all Jiu Jitsu students, if you can get to purple belt, you are a black. A black belt. You're going to be a black belt.

[A]

Oh, she will.

[B]

You just got to stay on that path.

[A]

No, she is. She's just obsessed with it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And she's, you know, as I say, I don't talk back to her.

[B]

I think the purple belt is the hardest belt to get to. It is because it's just like in the beginning, you're just getting crushed. That's Jiu Jitsu, especially for women. It's so difficult for women because they don't have the physical strength that the men have.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because you can kind of get away with a lot if you're a big strong guy, you can get away with a lot of. But then by the time you get to purple belt, like. Like, man, you have to have real technique and you have to have a real understanding of what's going on.

[A]

She's got a good mind, and I think she's like. Like a chess player.

[B]

It is like that because I Know.

[A]

From fighting with her, she. She wins arguments when she's wrong.

[B]

So sometimes you let them win, though, right?

[A]

You have to just like.

[B]

You gotta walk away.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Sometimes it's like, you gotta go. Okay. My second thought of my first. Action.

[B]

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[A]

Yeah, but she got the purple belt.

[B]

That's amazing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Good for her.

[A]

Yeah, it's good for her.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. A woman black belt. That's an unbelievably exceptional woman. They can get to that because they have to roll with men. And it's just disadvantage big dudes and stuff.

[A]

And she's like, you know, she. Yeah, she's done some exceptional things, I've heard. So it's like. Yeah, it's pretty good.

[B]

That's awesome.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't follow it up.

[B]

You can still do it.

[A]

No, I'm a more baseball bat gun kind of guy. You know, I'm in trouble. I just like, you know, that kind of stuff.

[B]

Well, be careful with that. In California, you could wind up being in jail.

[A]

Yeah, that's true.

[B]

You wind up using it to protect yourself and they'll lock you up.

[A]

Yes, it's.

[B]

Which is also evil.

[A]

Yeah, I happen. Happens a bit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, well, it's. Yeah. There's a perverse nature in. In our society right now with the law.

[B]

You know, when you look at your life now and you're on your third act, as you were saying, like, what. What do you look forward to these days? Is it creating things?

[A]

It's creation?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, I think it is. It's about creation. And I figure I'm not. I'm pretty average at most things, but I'm good at a couple of things, you know, I know how to tell a story on film. I know how to do that. I don't know. That's a weird place to be. But I think a lot can be achieved by art and image. And you could convey a lot without actually having to say it. You can do things to affect people emotionally or spiritually, even without being overt. I always like to reference just a shot that. And it's in a Ridley Scott movie. Right. And you don't know why it works, but. Or why it's effective on some level. But it's. It's kind of a profound, effective shot. And it's that first shot in the Gladiator movie where he's running his hand over the wheat. Right. With that music and stuff. Why does that work? I don't know. You can't explain it, but it works.

[B]

Well, Ridley Scott is a master.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There. That's a. That's a visionary human being. He sees things.

[A]

He knows how to shoot.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And. And that is. That's really good. But it's. It's a valid pursuit, I think, in storytelling, if you can do that. Everything. Every time he goes out there, it's a. It's eye candy. It's a feast for the eyes, you know.

[B]

Do you have different goals with, like, different projects? Like, obviously, Flight Risk is entertainment. It's fun. It's entertainment.

[A]

Entertainment, yeah. And. Yes, different goals. And it was. The other thing, too is it's like we're living in a different time now in the film world. I mean, everything. Things upside down and. And you have to compete in a medium where you have less time, less money. Do it fast. Do it now. And it's like, wow, can I do that? I always had the luxury of, like, you know, big budget and 3,000 people on horses, all this kind of stuff, or, you know, and. And was able to take my time with stuff, but I had 22 days, and here you got tell the story in 22 days. So I felt the challenge of being able to do that and being able to make something that really got people, like, they could watch it and enjoy it, you know, And I'm glad you saw it. I'm glad you liked it. And that's all I want. I just want people to have a nice little ride, a fun ride, entertainment. But, yes, you have different goals with things. I mean, the next thing I'm going to tackle is more profound for me. It's going to take more out of me.

[B]

This is the resurrection story.

[A]

Yeah. And I even have to change my entire life to do it.

[B]

How so?

[A]

You can't go into a project as profound in nature as that without somehow preparing yourself for it. It's like. It's like preparing for a fight, you know, it's like you have to be fit for the fight. And. Yeah. So you have to spiritually prepare yourself for that. And. And that's. That's going to take some sacrifice and. Because, you know, you know, I profess this and I profess that I'm not a great example of Christianity. You know, I'm just, you know, I'm flawed and I make a lot of mistakes, but I have to try and be better somehow in order to go in and make that film. So what does that mean? I think I know what it means, you know.

[B]

Well, one of the things that I thought was fascinating was reading and listening to Jim Caviezel talk about his experience playing Christ in your film. Yeah, that just truly changed. That guy's the course of his whole life.

[A]

Well, it was fascinating to watch him work, actually. And most of the time, I just, like, backed away because he was doing something that. And I've seen a lot of people portray Jesus in films, Right. And I never buy it. You can't quite buy it. Something creeps in the color. That's not something. Something's not right or discordant. And some of them are pretty good, but you never quite believe it all the way.

[B]

What was the Willem Dafoe movie?

[A]

Oh, that was a Scorsese film, Right.

[B]

What was that called?

[A]

The Last Temptation.

[B]

That's right. That's right.

[A]

Which, interestingly enough, I was in a hotel in the Savoy, and I had food poisoning. I was near dead from. I ate a bad oyster in London, and I was dying in a hotel room, and I couldn't even leave. It was the worst. I think it was like salmonella or something. And I saw this cord on the side of the bed, and I pulled it. And all of a sudden a door opened up and a butler, like Jeeves came in. He says, yes, sir. And I'm like, whoa. I said, I'm really sick. I said, what do you think I should eat? Might I suggest some warm consummate and a cup of tea? I said, okay. So this butler took care of me in this hotel. But while I was there, Scorsese calls the room and she says, come here. I want to talk. So I go in and talk to Martin, and he's in his room, and all the windows, the screens are drawn. He's got 18 different TVs going on at the same time in this dark room. And he's talking to me about the Last Temptation of Christ. And he wants me to play Jesus. And I said, whoa, I'm not doing it. And I sort of got out of there, and then I went back to my room and they changed my room. This is really weird. They had changed my room and moved my stuff, and they told me they were going to do it, but I forgot. So I'm using a key to get into my room and it won't work. And the door opens up all of a sudden, and it's Keith Richards in his underpants standing there, staring through me like. Like any. And there's a girl in a mink coat walking around it. Mink coat and nothing else walking in the background. And Keith Richards standing there in his underpants with a split. And I'm like, I tried to explain that I thought it was my room, but it wasn't. And you know, it was ridiculous. I'm 26 years old and he just looks at me, like, shuts the door in my face. I thought, well, that was my. That was my meeting with Keith Richards. He slammed the door in my face. It's fantastic. You know, Anyway. But what were we talking about?

[B]

Caviezel playing Christ.

[A]

He did something, I think, that nobody else did. And I think he pulled it off because I totally, like, believed it.

[B]

I believed it too.

[A]

And it was like, what did he do? He emptied himself out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And he invited something else in and he left it. He just. He didn't try anything. He just. He emptied himself out and he meditated and he let Christ in.

[B]

That role seemed to have had a profound effect on him. Him.

[A]

It did.

[B]

As a human being.

[A]

Oh, absolutely.

[B]

And kind of him up in his career a little bit because people associated him entirely with that film. And then they associated him with Christianity and then they associated him with right wing politics and. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And then, you know, he got sidetracked by a few guys. I mean, there's some people out there, like, they get in your ear and it's like Cassius, you know, know, talking to.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And they get you up, just make a speech somewhere and.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, it's like, you know, people throwing eggs at you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you wonder, you know, should I even be saying this? And so he stepped on a bunch of landmines. But yeah, it did have a profound effect on him. But I think he was all. He's. He was already mostly there anyway. And I noticed that because I. When I was trying to cast it, I thought, who could play this? And I saw the opening shot from Terry Malik's film, which was the Thin Red Line, and. And it was just a big close up of Weasel. And there was something otherworldly and childlike going on there in the close up. And I thought, who's that guy? He's amazing. Of course, you couldn't keep the blue eyes. You had to. You had to trade him out. So I. I changed the color of his eyes to brown and. And all that stuff. So it looked like he came from the region.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But amazing what. He already had a quality, an ethereal kind of otherworldliness. Space cadet quality.

[B]

Yeah, that.

[A]

And he's still kind of like that. He's still like, wow.

[B]

Yeah, he's, you know, I want, I want. I wish I had met him or I haven't met him still, but I wish I'd seen him before and then after, you see. Like, what did that role change him? Because it seemed to have strengthened his faith.

[A]

Sure it did. Yeah. Yeah, he got. He got in real tight with it. And I think he had some experiences while he was doing it. He suffered a little, you know, and.

[B]

Didn'T he had struck by lightning?

[A]

Well, there's two times there was these lightning strikes happening on the set, you know, and there was this guy with him. He was a young fella, one of the assistants on the film. His name was Jan. And old Jan was like. He's like 6 foot 2, Italian, Northern Italian guy. You know, if he tripped in the street, women would slide under him. You know, it was that kind of stuff. The guy was like a babe magnet, right? And. And I think he was taking full advantage of the gifts he had. But he got hit by light lightning the first time, getting people. We were out on the hill and there was a lightning storm, like with the crosses and stuff.

[B]

Oh, Jesus.

[A]

And. And the. This guy called Chieppo, he was a grip. And he never spoke a word to me the whole time. He's just a quiet kind of guy. And I figured, oh, he doesn't know English. So, you know. But he came up to me and in perfect English, he said, you know, I think you should get all the people off the hill. We could be struck by lightning. And I thought, oh, that's a good idea. Let's get off the hill. Hill. So we're moving off the hill, everybody's getting off, and this kid gets hit through the umbrella. This yawn guy, he gets zapped by lightning, right. But he's 22 and he goes to the disco all night. And dad, you know, he's doing the whole, you know, 22 experience. And he, he comes back the next day, he's like, yeah, it was great. And then he was with Jim the second time it happened, but this time I found him in a Fiat bambino with his knees up around his ears, like, waiting for the third strike. He was like this. This just doesn't happen twice in the third strike. And he says, I have to change my life. So it was pretty filming that movie.

[B]

Must have had a profound effect on a lot of people, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because you were. You were doing something that wasn't just a film.

[A]

It was verite kind.

[B]

Yeah. And it was strengthening people's faith. That film was a. I mean, profound success. And a lot of people dismissed the idea of it even.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You know, especially in Hollywood. I mean, you had a self fund all that, right?

[A]

Yes, it was self funded and. And it was a very strange experience, that one, because I can. I put the money and I thought, well, maybe I'll break even. And it was then I got these messages back. All the majors would distribute it. So I was like, nobody will distribute it. Okay. I guess I've. I've lost, you know, the money. But it was worth the experience. And so one guy was left in the room at the end when the, when the dust settled. It was some guy, he's, ah, I'll distribute. And he had a little company called New Market and they distributed like one or two films before. And I think it was a Charlize Theron movie called A Monster about that horrible serial killer. And. And he said, I'll do it. And, you know, it was just really basics. I went and I met the exhibitors and, you know, and this guy was like the distributor. This little company was just him and a toothless dog and a fax and an assistant. And it was like, okay, what's all the smoke and mirrors about this? With. Between the distribution, an exhibition, I met, I made handshake deals with all the exhibitors. Yeah, we'll show this. I said, okay. And then we put it out there and it went out. Nobody expected it to do much, but it did phenomenally well. And. And there was this kind of thing in town, in the town. They said, did anyone just see that? Anyone just see what that guy did? Can't let that guy do that again. And we don't want anyone doing that, you know, because it sort of walked around the entire system.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And scored.

[B]

Right. So there was two things. There was resistance to the Christianity aspect of it and promotion of Christianity. And then there was resistance to the fact that you went outside the system.

[A]

It was outside. Well, I had no alternative.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because no major would back it.

[B]

Because the Christianity aspect of it, I guess.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Well, Rupert Murdoch said, you know, he wanted to. And then he said. And then somebody advised him and said he'd be out of business in five years. Rupert Murdoch, wow. In five years. If he distributed that. If he. Yeah. And I was like, wow, if he's scared. What. I'm like, I've gotta. I'm gonna crash and burn here. But it actually did all right.

[B]

It did phenomenal.

[A]

Yeah. And then again, I tried to. Then I went. I went with the studio on Apocalypto, but. And that didn't work out so well.

[B]

It didn't? In what way?

[A]

Well, it was interesting. The. The film was a film with it had no stars, it was in another language. And it came out on a weekend with another film that had Leo Leo in it and another film that had Cameron Diaz in it. And so those three films came out in the same weekend and the one with no stars and without the language won the weekend monetarily. It won the box office by a narrow margin on the other two. And the second week out, Disney pulled the screens. Really? Yeah. So I thought, oh, that's funny. Well, screens are gone. I guess there's another agenda. Agenda. Because that was another self funded one.

[B]

Did they pull the screens because they had movies that they had already made deals with?

[A]

I think so. But you know, it's just, it's just politics and, you know, and I think perhaps the distribution deal on that wasn't as good as.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Something else or, you know, so it's, you know, it's all business.

[B]

It's a phenomenal movie, though.

[A]

It's a great film. Yeah. And it did better afterwards.

[B]

And DVD and, and streaming and all that. Yeah, yeah, I did well, yeah, yeah, I watched it again like two years ago. Yeah, I hadn't seen it in a while and I watched again and I forgot a bunch of aspects of it. Like, God damn, it's a good movie.

[A]

It's just primal.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And I think I love primitive stuff, you know, and primal emotions. I mean, basically it's a guy just trying to get back home to save his wife and kid and. And he's got a lot of obstacles in the way, like jaguars and bad guys chasing him and trying to skin him and trying to rip his heart out. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[B]

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[A]

And I sat in a room with my assistant. He said, what do you want to do next? Chase movie? I said. He said, well, so we found out where the Mayan canoes in Columbus and all that. And then we just started making the story up in the room and we wrote it.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And yeah, some assistant man, he actually wrote. He actually, actually tapped it out. Crazy.

[B]

So when you're making this resurrection movie now, you also have this obligation. There's this. You're doing a very similar thing that you were doing with the Passion of the Christ, where this is. This is a profound story.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

When you put something like that together, how do you choose who's going to be the next Jesus?

[A]

You use him again.

[B]

Caviezel.

[A]

Yeah, I know it's 20 years later. It's 20 years later, but.

[B]

Yeah, but it's the right guy.

[A]

Yeah, but it's supposed to be three days later, but he got 20 years older. And I think I have to use a few techniques that they've started to.

[B]

Get really good with the CGI and. Yeah. Oh, they can do amazing things now.

[A]

You can actually get some of the same people.

[B]

By the time you film, it'll be better.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When are you gonna start filming?

[A]

I'm hoping next year sometime. It's. There's a lot required because it is. I'll just tell you this. It's an acid trip. When we wrote it, it is like. I've never read anything like it. And my brother and I and Randall all sort of congregated on this. So there's some good heads put together, but there's some crazy stuff. And I think in order to really tell the story properly, you have to start with the fall of the angels, Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is you're in another place, you're in another realm. You know, you need to go to hell, you need to go to Sheol.

[B]

So you're gonna have hell, you're gonna have Satan, all that.

[A]

Yeah. Whoa. Sure. You got.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

You got to have his origin.

[B]

How do you rep. How do you depict that?

[A]

This is a good question. And I think I have ideas about how to do that and ideas about how to evoke things and emotions in people from the way you depict it and the way you shoot it. So I've been thinking about it for a long time, so it's. It's. It's not going to be easy, and it's going to require a lot of planning and. And I'm not wholly sure I can pull it off, to tell you the truth. It's really super ambitious. But I'll take a crack at it because that's what you got to do. Right. Walk up to the plate. Right. So I think I can get it, but it's not about me, you know, it's about something else.

[B]

Well, if anybody can do it, you can do it.

[A]

Well, I hope so. It's. It's. It's trying to find the way in. That's not, like, cheesy or obvious, but that actually, it's almost like a magic trick in a sense. It's diversion. It's obfuscate. This show that look over here, you know. Yeah, it's.

[B]

Do you have a title?

[A]

Yeah, it's just like the Resurrection of the Christ. Yeah, it's like. So that's a title. And yeah, it's. It's very ambitious. That's all. I'll say. It's just it took a long time to write. It's really ambitious and it goes from like the fall of the angels to the death of the last apostle.

[B]

Do you have a start date?

[A]

I don't have a start date. I just have to begin pre production and see what happens. And it's just gonna roll in its own time. It's taken its own time. I thought it was late. I thought taking too long. It's taking too long. But it's probably just right. Yeah. It's when it's supposed to be.

[B]

Yeah. Well, if you believe that that's true.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know. I hope you're right.

[B]

I think I'm right. My instincts are that I'm right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. And if I was going to trust anybody with that story, it would be you.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know. It's a, a massive thing and theologically it's, it's something that you have to really look at and make correlations that, that ring true because it's not all written.

[B]

Do you consult with someone like a biblical scholar?

[A]

Oh, yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, you know, there's your own thing that comes into it from having read the book a few times. You read the book a few times and it's amazing how your memory, how there's these recessive files somewhere in the background. How you can correlate this piece to that piece over there. And that's important because juxtaposition is everything with this story and what it means in a bigger picture.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's hard to explain, but it's, it's, it's quite involved.

[B]

Yeah. Well, I can only imagine.

[A]

Yeah. And I don't know that you can do it in a foreign language because the concepts are too difficult now so that you may have to resort to the vernacular so that, that at least is clear.

[B]

Is that up for debate right now with you?

[A]

Yeah, it is. I'm thinking like, eh. But like, look, have you seen these apps now where they have this AI stuff where the guy's talking German and then he switches to French and then he's Spanish and then Chinese?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Have you seen that?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And his mouth moves and it's the same voice. I mean it's crazy what they do. So.

[B]

So you're going to use that kind of a tool.

[A]

Do you think you could.

[B]

Will you begin it in Aramaic or in Hebrew maybe?

[A]

Yeah, Aramaic is, is really the kick, isn't it? But you know, I think, I think I'll write. I've written it In English. But I wrote the last one in English, too, and translated it, but. And then the people had to learn to speak it because there was. I think there's only about 400 people that actually speak Aramaic still. Wow. And apparently they understood it, so I was happy about that.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So that was good. Yeah. 400,000 people. Sorry. Oh, in the world.

[B]

That makes more sense.

[A]

Yeah. Sorry. 400 people.

[B]

I'm like, preserve those 400 people.

[A]

Not many people speak in Latin still, but. But that's quite well known.

[B]

Well, I can't wait to see it, man. And I just want to say I appreciate you very much. All the stuff that you've done, you've made some really awesome pieces in your life. You really have.

[A]

Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Done some great stuff.

[A]

Yeah. I'm blown away by where you got to with this, which is like, didn't you start off just smoking a spliff on a couch with a guy?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's amazing.

[B]

Yeah. It's pretty bizarre.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm not exactly sure how it happened.

[A]

No, that's good.

[B]

I just kind of kept doing it.

[A]

Yeah. Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I'm a fan.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

I watch it all the time.

[B]

Thank you. There was no plan do it. I'll tell you that. No, there still kind of isn't. I still kind of do it the same way.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. Every day you wake up.

[B]

Yeah. I just look at my phone, I'll go online and say, who do I want to talk to? Yeah, this guy might be interesting.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

That's really it.

[A]

Who's next? You get some. Pretty interesting.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah.

[A]

I was amazed at that. I can't remember his name now. Terence. What?

[B]

He's all into Terence Howard. Yeah, yeah. The actor. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Had a bunch of stuff going on. I was like, whoa.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, he's out there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, he's out there. But, I mean, you have to be to be one of those guys.

[A]

You do well.

[B]

Listen, brother, thank you very much for everything. Appreciate you coming in here.

[A]

Yeah, thanks.

[B]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your new movie's great, and all your stuff's great. I'm a big fan.

[A]

So, tickets on sale today?

[B]

Yeah. When does it come out?

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

On the 25th.

[A]

24Th. 25th. Yeah. 24th thing. Okay.

[B]

So soon?

[A]

Yeah. It's fun.

[B]

It is fun.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I enjoyed it.

[A]

Yep. All right.

[B]

Thank you very much, Joe. Bye, everybody.