#2458 - Matt McCusker

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Joe Rogan Experience #2458 - Matt McCusker (February 20, 2026)

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Episode Overview

In this lively and wide-ranging conversation, comedian Matt McCusker joins Joe Rogan for a deep dive into stand-up comedy, health trends, conspiracy theories, internet paranoia, the social climate around therapy, and wild stories from life on and off stage. The episode balances humor with candid observations about modern life, wellness, media, and the absurdities of society today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Vanity, Aging, and Health Supplements

• Modern Vanity: Joe and Matt kick off discussing the growing trend of lighting and facial filters for men, especially among comedians.

  • "The weirdest shit is men who use filters when they take pictures." – Joe Rogan [00:40]
  • Netflix doctoring promo images is cited as a funny, but misleading, industry standard [00:52].

• Aging and Parenthood: Both reflect on hitting milestone ages and how having kids accelerates aging due to lack of sleep.

  • "I age as soon as I had kids. I age, like, immediately." – Matt [01:23]

• Creatine & Gut Health: Creatine dosing, side effects (notably, GI distress), and whether diarrhea is truly unhealthy spark an extended riff [01:33 - 02:08].

  • Joe details his creatine regime, splitting doses to minimize digestive issues [01:46].
  • "I'm also not convinced diarrhea is bad for you. I swear to God." – Matt [02:01]

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2. Diet Experiments: Veganism, Carnivore, Microbiome

• Vegan Poop & Hemorrhoids: Matt shares hilarious accounts from a month as a vegan and the unexpected bowel consequences [03:03].

• Carnivore Diet: Both tried all-meat diets, reporting extreme changes in bowel movements and feelings of "rabbit pellets."

  • "I stopped pooping. Like, I was like, this can't be good for me." – Matt [04:09]

• Fiber vs. No Fiber Debate: They weigh the confusion around opposing diet tribes, the role of fiber in the microbiome, and fermented foods like kimchi and sauerkraut [03:56 - 04:42].

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3. Unhealthy Modern Environment & Media Paranoia

• Environmental Hazards: From talc and asbestos anecdotes (including baby powder cancer lawsuits) to LED lights, the duo reflects on shifting health warnings [06:47].

  • Matt’s unconventional adolescent use of baby powder for masturbation provides a gut-busting moment [07:44].

• AI-driven Fear & Internet Anxiety: Both joke about being scared of LED lights and admit to falling into algorithm-driven doomscrolling and outrage addiction.

  • "I have to stay offline." – Joe [08:43]
  • Matt wonders about facial recognition and eye-tracking on phones: "I feel like they watch your facial expression through your phone camera..." [10:09]

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4. On Outrage, Addiction, and Internet Conspiracy

• Addicted to Outrage: They discuss media’s negative focus and the psychology of online outrage [09:57].

  • "There was an article I read recently about people being addicted to outrage. That's a real thing." – Joe [09:57]

• Surveillance Anxiety & Social Media: The proliferation of surveillance, both real and imagined, and the overwhelm that comes from tracking scandal stories (Epstein, Prince Andrew) is explored [10:20].

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5. Epstein Saga & Conspiracies

• Deep Dive into Epstein: The trio (with Jamie) spends significant time deconstructing the Epstein case, cellmate violence, prison conditions, and the endless plot holes in the official narrative.

  • "How could you take the most high profile defendant ever and put him in a cage with a murderer?" – Joe [19:01]
  • The conversation details botched suicide watch, evidence mishandling, and the death of co-conspirator Jean-Luc [12:39 - 19:10].

• Secret Societies & Historical Parallels: Joe ties secret power to real history and cultural references like “Eyes Wide Shut” [20:57].

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6. Risk, Random Violence, and Social Decay

• Street Violence: Matt and Joe discuss the dangers of confrontation with strangers and the unpredictability of people on the edge—drawing from both statistics and wild personal/family stories [23:48 - 25:20].

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7. Animal Kingdom: Sharks, Alligators, and Everglades

• Shark Stories: Extended riffs on bull sharks, swimming mishaps, and Florida as a land of monsters, including alligator-infested moats at Guantanamo [25:57 - 31:14].

  • "Florida's filled with monsters." – Joe [30:27]

• Iguanas, Snakes, & Invasive Species: The problem of invasive reptiles and stories like “Snake Island” in Brazil, plus vegan vs. carnivore impact on wildlife and human diets [32:14 - 34:38].

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8. Human Diet Through History & Modern Comparative Health

• Eating Patterns, Past & Present: Comparing early American and hunter-gatherer eating to modern abundance; worrying about vitamin deficiencies (especially D), and the way modern foods have complicated health [36:52 - 39:14].
  • "Hunter gatherers, they got a meal a day." – Joe [36:18]
  • Vitamin D’s critical role, synergy with magnesium, K2, and absorption practices discussed at length [40:04 - 44:07].

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9. Drugs, Stimulants, and Stand-Up Comedy

• Caffeine & Nootropics: Matt’s anecdotal struggles with caffeine, dream suppression, and alternative “smart drugs” explored [42:28 - 44:33].
• Coke, Adderall, Meth, and Amphetamines: Tangents on prevalent stimulant abuse in various industries, stand-up, journalism, and real estate; includes tales of Joey Diaz, Hunter Biden, and Dave Portnoy [45:22 - 48:23].
  • "All these journalists are on Adderall." – Joe [48:06]
• Edible Tolerance: A comedic aside on edibles and everyone’s wildly different capacities [48:44 - 49:03].

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10. Stand-Up Comedy: Craft, Bombs, and Open Mic Follies

• Balancing Substances & Comedy: They stress that certain substances (especially speed/Adderall) don’t mix well with live comedy [51:35].
• Writing Process: Joe and Matt describe their personal writing processes—essays, bullet points, structured vs. spontaneous—and how bombing can spark breakthroughs [52:19 - 55:04].
  • "Failure is important. It sucks. You don't like it, but you gotta go through that." – Joe [54:47]
• Comedy Class Scams & Gatekeeping: Stories from the trenches about predatory comedy classes, club politics, blacklisting, and the struggle to break into “the real world” of stand-up [66:34 - 69:37].
  • Matt’s story about nearly being kicked out of Helium for running a fake comedy class is a highlight [68:02].
• Scene Survival & Talent: The heartbreak and bafflement of comrades who never “make it” [69:37 - 71:34].
• Open Mic Craziness: Both reminisce on the “freak factory” of open mics and personal pain/bonding that comes with growing as a comic [64:01 - 66:11].

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11. COVID-19: Early Fears, Parenting, and Podcasting

• Paranoia and Precautions: Both recount the paranoia, testing rituals, and evolving attitudes toward risk in the crucible of early COVID [73:46 - 79:49].
• Vitamin D, Immune Health, and Recovery: Joe contends his vitamin regimen shielded him from infection [79:32].
• Parental Struggles: Matt reflects on the extra layer of anxiety with a newborn in lockdown, and sleep deprivation’s lasting toll [79:49 - 80:09].

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12. Fitness, Endurance, and Life at Altitude

• Travel & Performing: Tips for beating jet lag (work out immediately), impact of altitude training, and the “superpower” of cardio fitness [82:00 - 83:56].
• Sprint Training: Matt’s return to intense sprint workouts, numb hands, and hormesis; Joe cited studies supporting explosive exercise for aging [85:12 - 86:46].

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13. Willpower, Weight Loss, Determinism vs Free Will

• Jelly Roll’s Transformation: Joe spotlights musician Jelly Roll’s 300lb weight loss, done “the hard way”—no shortcuts, just will and discipline [87:09 - 88:13].
  • "That's what will does. That's a real thing, man." – Joe [137:10]
• Philosophy of Change: Spirited debate over the roles of individual willpower, genetics, and circumstance, especially around criminality and addiction [136:19 - 138:50].
• Problem of “Minor Attracted Persons” Discourse: Sharp criticism of academia’s attempts to rebrand or rationalize pedophilia [139:09].

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14. Therapy, Academia, and the Social Justice Turn

• Therapy’s Efficacy and Groupthink: Matt describes his time in social work school as a “freak factory,” filled with groupthink and social justice posturing, at the expense of practical wisdom or real-world results [119:21 - 125:59].
  • A standout: His academic tribunal appearance and defense over podcast “safety” concerns [123:47].
• Therapy Modality Effectiveness & Placebo: Skepticism over therapy’s true helpfulness for most, while recognizing some value in talk therapy and perspective [131:20 - 134:37].
• Activist Therapy: Matt recounts horror at curriculum normalizing “activism therapy” as a solution to existential distress [125:29].
• Race Conversations in Therapy: Matt critiques forced, awkward “acknowledgment” of racial difference in therapeutic settings [129:13 - 130:32].

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15. Health, Allergies, and the American Food Environment

• Food Intolerances and Modern Diet: Matt’s lifetime struggle with gluten and revelation that much may be due to glyphosate use in American crops [152:09 - 153:38].
• Sunlight and Nutritional Deficiency: Discussed links between sunlight, vitamin D, and food tolerances [154:13].
• Food Policy & Political Polarization: Debate over RFK Jr., the new food pyramid, and why consensus on “real food” has become politically fraught [155:07 - 156:31].

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16. Media, Science, and Corruption

• Trust in Science Questioned: Both critique “science as religion,” noting systemic financial and academic corruption shaping public policy and health recommendations [157:08].
• Pharma Data Rigging: Detailed account of pharmaceutical companies gaming studies and the peer review process [157:59 - 158:53].
• Wine Studies & Food Pyramid Misinformation: How industry-favored studies (e.g., benefits of daily wine) get elevated to dogma [158:52 - 159:33].

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17. Recent News Bites & Political Intrigues

• Presidential Comments on Aliens: Brief reaction to Trump’s response on Obama and aliens, and the ambiguities of political theater around classified information [93:08 - 96:09].
• Bob Lazar’s UFO Story: Joe gives a detailed recounting of Lazar’s Area 51 claims, linking it to ongoing government disclosures and public confusion over UAPs/UFOs [96:09 - 105:47].
• Texas Politics and Colbert FCC Debate: A tangent on congressional equal time rules after a Steven Colbert segment is censored, sparking debate on media fairness [108:43 - 112:45].
• Wexner Deposition/Epstein Ties: Reaction to recently released Les Wexner deposition footage and ongoing disbelief at how power shields from consequences [161:25 - 163:37].

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "The weirdest shit is men who use filters when they take pictures." – Joe [00:40]
• "I age as soon as I had kids. I age, like, immediately." – Matt [01:23]
• "I'm also not convinced diarrhea is bad for you." – Matt [02:01]
• "Well, that's just his attorney saying that." -- Joe, exploring Epstein’s many conflicting narratives [19:00]
• "Failure is important. It sucks. You don't like it, but you gotta go through that." – Joe [54:47]
• "Florida's filled with monsters." – Joe [30:27]
• "Jelly Roll... lost 300 pounds, dude. No OIC. Just stopped eating sugar." – Joe [87:09]
• "That was such a drastic thing, but I was like, damn, this is. My circulation is like going." – Matt, on rediscovering sprinting [86:19]
• "Especially, like, people just talk shit to strangers. Like, you have no idea who that person is." – Matt [24:40]
• "I hate taking [antibiotics]. They mess my stomach up so bad." – Matt [149:09]
• “I couldn't have thought of a bigger waste of money in terms of, like, bang for buck. And, like, what did I actually learn?” – Matt, on social work school [124:21]
• “We’re all just bags of goo.” – Matt [139:26]
• "We're getting poisoned." – Joe [161:09]
• "If nothing ever happens, people are going to lose all faith in everything." – Joe, regarding the Epstein fallout [162:48]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |---------------|---------------------------------------| | 00:12–01:23 | Vanity, Lighting, Filters, Aging | | 01:33–02:19 | Creatine, Poop, Diet Gut Effects | | 03:03–04:42 | Vegan, Carnivore Diet, Microbiome | | 06:47–08:43 | Asbestos, Baby Powder, Cancer Risks | | 09:57–10:20 | Outrage Culture & Internet Addiction | | 10:47–12:33 | Epstein, Prince Andrew, UK Scandal | | 12:39–19:10 | Epstein Jail Details & Conspiracies | | 25:57–31:14 | Sharks, Alligators, FL Wildlife | | 36:52–39:14 | Historic Diet Patterns, Vitamin D | | 40:04–44:33 | Vitamin Stacks for Absorption | | 45:22–48:23 | Drugs in Journalism, Business, Comedy | | 54:47–56:10 | Bombing & Growth in Comedy | | 66:34–69:37 | Comedy Class, Gatekeeping, Politics | | 73:46–79:49 | COVID, Paranoia, Family Experience | | 82:00–83:56 | Altitude, Fitness, Superpower Effect | | 87:09–88:13 | Jelly Roll’s Weight Loss Story | | 119:21–125:59 | Social Work School Groupthink | | 136:19–138:50 | Determinism vs. Free Will Debate | | 139:09–139:52| “Minor Attracted Persons” Terminology | | 152:09–153:38 | Gluten, Glyphosate, Food Allergies | | 157:08–158:53 | Pharma, Peer-Review System Critique | | 161:25–163:37 | Wexner Deposition, Epstein Update |

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Tone & Style

The conversation fuses honesty, irreverence, dark humor, and sharp skepticism. Both men are candid about personal foibles, skepticism toward authority, and the generally chaotic state of modern society and health. The episode is bursting with anecdotes, laughter, and the kind of “no holds barred” authenticity that defines The Joe Rogan Experience.

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For Listeners

Even if you missed the episode, this summary gives you a comprehensive sense of the key conversations, the findings (or lack thereof) in health and conspiracy disputes, and vivid stories that bring the world of modern American comedians—and citizens—sharply to life.

Transcript

[Matt McCusker]

Joe Rogan podcast.

[Joe Rogan]

Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

[Matt McCusker]

Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[Joe Rogan]

A lot of people have lights on their tables now to light up their face to make them look more pretty.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. They have, like, a slight. Like a. Like a opening in the table and then a light that gets on you so you don't see, like, the shadows in your face, so you don't look. Look shitty.

[Matt McCusker]

I feel like. Isn't that what you do? Like a scary story? You put a flashlight under your chin?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, but they're not trying to do that. They try to, like, balance it out.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Flat.

[Matt McCusker]

That's crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

You look like. What you look like.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. You got to give up after a while.

[Joe Rogan]

The weirdest shit is men who use filters when they take pictures.

[Matt McCusker]

That's insane.

[Joe Rogan]

I. There's comedian men that use.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Joe Rogan]

Yes. It's very odd.

[Matt McCusker]

How do you know?

[Joe Rogan]

How do you know what they really look like?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And then you see them, and they look like a cartoon. Like, Netflix does that with the pictures that they use when they promote your special. Like, the picture of you, they'll put that through a filter, and that makes sense. You look so pretty.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. If you will. See you after the show, you're like. You look horrible. I didn't know you looked so bad.

[Joe Rogan]

You look so old. Thanks, man. I am so old. Yeah. I'm almost 60.

[Matt McCusker]

Dang.

[Joe Rogan]

I know. It's crazy. I'm 58.

[Matt McCusker]

I'm 40. Just turned 40.

[Joe Rogan]

That's. Those are real numbers.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I know. I age as soon as I had kids. I age, like, immediately. You would have thought I literally gave birth.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, well, it's this lack of sleep.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. That's what got me.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. You know what's really good for that? Creatine.

[Matt McCusker]

I've been taking it.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, creatine. They say 20 grams a day. Start, like, with five and work your way up to 20 and check to see how your butthole holds up because the seal might be loose.

[Matt McCusker]

I've ran this experiment. 20 gets my guts going, man.

[Joe Rogan]

Bro, it does. It does. I don't do 20 in a dose. I do 10 in the morning and 10 at night because I was doing 20 in a dose, and it was just like, everybody out of the pool.

[Matt McCusker]

I'm also not convinced diarrhea is bad for you. I swear to God. Like, not shitting for sure, but diarrhea is just, like. It'll speed this up.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, isn't that. What is that? Consumption? What is the disease where you can't Stop having diarrhea.

[Matt McCusker]

Dysentery.

[Joe Rogan]

Dysentery, that's it.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. All right. Well, if you can't stop having it, sure. But.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that's like. You can't digest food. It just goes right through you and just shit constantly.

[Matt McCusker]

Now you starve. Yeah, that sucks, actually.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, not good.

[Matt McCusker]

Once a week, though. That's fine.

[Joe Rogan]

You know what I used to do? I used to drink kale smoothies in the morning. That was the first thing that I would do. I would throw kale and garlic and, like, apples and in a blender, and that's what I would drink first thing in the morning.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And, boy, that is just like. That clears the pathway. That's like. Like, you know when you clear your rain gutters of leaves?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You get a hose on that and he's. Blow them off the top. That's. It's like.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I've done the green drink before. It does get you. I was vegan for, like, a month, and that was like the biggest dumps. But I actually got hemorrhoids from being vegan.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh. Because on the toilet.

[Matt McCusker]

Because it was just that the turds were so big. I was getting, like, blown out. I got hemorrhoids from being vegan.

[Joe Rogan]

Was it taking too long to poop or was it you just, like. It was just. Just spectacular.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it was spectacular. There were massive bowl winders every. It was like twice a day. I was like. I was like an adult entertainer. I was like, my body just gave out.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, when you think about it, it's all that fiber that your body doesn't process. But they say that that's what's good for keeping you clean, you know? Yeah. Fiber pushes everything out.

[Matt McCusker]

I'm back on the fiber train now. I was all about protein. Now I'm like, yeah, I need. I need my fiber now.

[Joe Rogan]

But it's. It's hard to know who's right, because the carnivore people are like, you don't need fiber. There's no need for fiber. But then there's like. There's evidence that fiber's good for you.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Isn't that what your whole microbiome needs to, like, make.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

The germs or whatever that are good for your brain. I don't know, I. I get confused as well.

[Joe Rogan]

But my balance is. I eat a lot of kimchi. I really like kimchi.

[Matt McCusker]

That's a move.

[Joe Rogan]

I eat that stuff all the time. Kimchi. And I eat sauerkraut. That stuff's legit.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I know that Stuff's supposed to be good for you, but. Yeah, I. I tried the Carnivore and it was like. I first five days I felt cool. And then, like, after, I think I made it to 17 days, I was like, dude, if I just ate in some vegetables with this, I'd be the healthiest guy in the world because it would just. Like, I stopped pooping. Like, I was like, this can't be good for me.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, you don't poop much because there's no fiber. So when you do poop, it's just.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I remember.

[Joe Rogan]

I remember this whole rabbit pellets, and you're like, where's the rest? But I mean, isn't that a good thing? Doesn't mean your body absorbed all of the food. Instead of, like, having all this undigestible stuff go through your digestive tract. This is the argument that the carnivore people. Yeah, I don't want any. That's a nutritionist right now, pulling their hair out.

[Matt McCusker]

Disinformation.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm just asking.

[Matt McCusker]

It's a solid question because it's like, yeah, does food. Does meat get stuck in your body and you need plants to push it out of your butt? Or will meat come out of your butt just like plants will?

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that was the thing that they would always say, that every man, when he dies, has a pound of undigested meat in his stomach. Apparently, that's not true.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that was the old thing about John Wayne. Like, John Wayne had 50 pounds of beef jerky in his butthole. I've thought about that since I was a little boy. I've been wondering, how much are they gonna find in me?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I don't think that's tr.

[Jamie]

True.

[Matt McCusker]

So it's not the case?

[Joe Rogan]

No. John Wayne just had a gut from probably beer.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, beer and pasta and bread.

[Matt McCusker]

True.

[Joe Rogan]

And, you know, normal American food.

[Matt McCusker]

Also, he was. I mean, when was. What was his heyday? Like, 50s, 60s or 60s, I guess. 60s, 70s, maybe.

[Joe Rogan]

When did you do that Genghis Khan movie? That's what killed him. What year was that? 50s, I think.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, because it's like, those dudes weren't on, like, True Grit.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, those days.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, dude, they weren't being like, oh, how much fiber have I had?

[Joe Rogan]

No, no.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, they were. That was even in, like, the 90s. The dude didn't think about what they're eating.

[Joe Rogan]

6:56. Wow. This is one of the worst movies of all time. You'll see it.

[Matt McCusker]

No, this Genghis Khan movie, how did it Kill him.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh. He filmed it in the same area where Nevada was doing their nuclear tests. Oh, everybody got cancer.

[Matt McCusker]

Damn.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, the whole crew, like a giant number of people got cancer.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. And that, I'm telling you, that was back when guys would be like, nuclear bomb. I don't care about. Like, they didn't. Like, I used to work with guys that do asbestos back in like the 90s when I was little. Me, like my dad, my uncle's all day construction. So we were like taking this barn down and I was like a little boy, just like hammering nails into an A frame. And they shut it down because there was asbestos in there. And there's this guy who was like, dude, your uncle's a pussy. I'd eat that shit for breakfast. I don't care about asbestos. And it's like, I don't know now. I grew up, I'm like, damn, thank God they shut that down.

[Joe Rogan]

But, well, there were so many things that caused cancer that no one knew about at the time.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, how about baby powder?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, dude, I didn't know about that either.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, the thing is, what I think what the story is is that where they mine the talc, that the talc is not always pure and the talc has other stuff mixed in it and they don't filter that stuff out. Is it asbestos that it's mixed with?

[Matt McCusker]

I thought that stuff was cornstarch.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm not into perplexity. Please.

[Matt McCusker]

I thought it was cornstarch.

[Joe Rogan]

What?

[Matt McCusker]

Baby powder?

[Joe Rogan]

Baby powder? No.

[Matt McCusker]

So it's talc.

[Joe Rogan]

Talc, I believe evidence small but real cancer risk with some talc based baby powders, mainly due to genital use and possible as contamination. Yeah, that's it. But the data are mixed and the absolute risk for any one person is low. Talc itself, as a mineral can be mine near asbestos. So contamination is the main worry. Asbestos is a known cause of mesothelioma. Mesothelioma and other cancers. Yeah. Quite a few women. I think there was a lawsuit.

[Matt McCusker]

I remember hearing that. I remember I was dismayed because that was like. I had a weird thing when I was younger. I used to use baby powder to masturbate.

[Joe Rogan]

Yo.

[Matt McCusker]

Because it just like makes everything feel so. So it was kind of nice. And the smell. If I smell baby powder to this day, it's like a trigger for. Yeah. If I smell it, I'm like, God damn, bro. That away from me.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I used to use it a lot to play pool.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, yeah?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Everybody use baby powder. Use baby powder on your fingers. It makes the shaft slide through your fingers. But then they invented gloves, and so that keeps the table clean. Yeah, this is like they're, I guess they're. I don't know what they're made out of. It's like a nylon, like a very thin nylon so it's not getting caught up and slick. Yeah, yeah, but baby powder, no bueno. What else?

[Matt McCusker]

They're saying LED lights now.

[Joe Rogan]

That's what I keep hearing.

[Matt McCusker]

Led. They're saying, like, it kills your led.

[Joe Rogan]

Are these led? Do we have to change our lights? Are we dying in here?

[Matt McCusker]

I think they, like, crush your mitochondria.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, geez.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't know if I just get scared by AI clips on Instagram. I'm scared of everything.

[Joe Rogan]

I have to stay offline.

[Matt McCusker]

I know.

[Joe Rogan]

I, I, the, I'm reading too much of the news and it's overwhelming me. Like sometimes at night time, like, I can't wind down.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like there's too much news, too much fucking madness. We're about to go to war with Iran and everyone's eating beef jerky and pizza. Like, what are these fire. What the fuck is pizza? You know who. How far does this go? How come this never got released before? Like, what is happening? This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all in one website platform that helps you stand out online. And I can say that because my website is powered. Powered By Squarespace Joe Rogan.com is a Squarespace website. Squarespace makes it easy to secure the best name for your business, and they provide privacy and security tools to ensure your domain remains protected. Head to squarespace.com rogan for a free trial and when you are ready to launch, use the offer code rogan to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[Matt McCusker]

I mean, my thing is, like, I'm not. First of all, the news for me is like, aside from all like the disastrous wars, it's just so, like, negative. When you read the news is mostly people being like, guess who's a giant piece of.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Matt McCusker]

You read that over and over and you get like, addicted to being like, yeah, that guy sucks. I'm good.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, there was an article that I read recently about people being addicted to outrage. That's a real thing.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, for sure.

[Joe Rogan]

Being addicted to being upset about stuff and addicted to out where you go search for it. Which is why your algorithm shows you all that.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. No, I mean, I, I don't know if this is true, but I feel like they watch your facial expression through your phone camera. And feed you stuff if you're making, like, interested or outraged or whatever.

[Joe Rogan]

I wouldn't be shocked.

[Matt McCusker]

I've heard they, like, track your eyeball movement and they're like, okay, this is holding his eyes. And they just keep feeding you.

[Joe Rogan]

Really?

[Matt McCusker]

I. I've heard that.

[Joe Rogan]

Probably put a piece of tape over that.

[Matt McCusker]

I know. I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

I wonder if you did, how much would change? That'd be an interesting experience.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, they got you Mike, too, so they got your audio.

[Joe Rogan]

That's true.

[Matt McCusker]

But, yeah, the new dude that. Yeah, all that. Epstein is like, I can't follow it. It's too much. It's too many names. I don't know. State representative. They're, like, naming all these people. It's like, damn, I knew who that was.

[Joe Rogan]

And it's dark, too.

[Matt McCusker]

It's horrible.

[Joe Rogan]

And it goes so high. There's so many levels to it. You know, Sagar and Jenny was just on flagrant, and they were reading off files and talking about. And it's just like, what the fuck, man?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it's. You need to study all day to, like, follow it. Prince Andrew is crazy, him getting arrested. He's the first. What other prince has gotten. It must have been like, not since 500 years ago.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. When's the last time a prince was arrested?

[Matt McCusker]

I have no idea. And also, he's. If he goes to jail. If he goes to real jail, he's getting clapped.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

He's a known. You know, it's very, very likely he was a pedophile. If pedophiles go to jail.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, what do they know? That they're putting him in jail first or they're arresting him first. Like, what do they know? Because they did a bunch of things, right? The first thing they do is they. They stripped him of his prince hood. Right, Exactly. And then they banished him to a. Some estate somewhere on the country. And then they removed him from the estate. They kicked him out of that state. Yeah. So it's been like, levels upon levels. So what do they know?

[Matt McCusker]

I think the rural family gets to see the real deal. So they probably saw the real deal and were like, bro, you're fried. You're going to jail. And he'll be. He might be the first. He might get, like, clapped in jail.

[Joe Rogan]

Jesus.

[Matt McCusker]

Someone might get royal.

[Joe Rogan]

Royal?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, he's my royal.

[Joe Rogan]

Do you think they'll. Don't you think they have him in. Did they have protective custody?

[Matt McCusker]

He'll be in productive custody for sure.

[Joe Rogan]

Do they have that over there?

[Matt McCusker]

They'll probably make a Jail for him. I would imagine they do. I think anything we have here, I would imagine they have protective custody, because if you're. Even. If people even think you're a pedophile in jail, they're going to.

[Joe Rogan]

Do you think that starts, like, a whole cascade and then a bunch of other people start getting arrested?

[Matt McCusker]

No, I think they're going to hang him up and be like, we got him. I don't believe that all these billionaires are going to let themselves get arrested. They have billions of dollars.

[Joe Rogan]

Paris prosecutors opened two new Epstein linked investigations. Oh, with who?

[Jamie]

There was. I think it's the Jean Luc guy.

[Joe Rogan]

Who's that?

[Jamie]

Co Conspirator. He was also died at it. He died in custody. So they've reopened the investigation on that. And somebody else, I think that they just found out. That was high up, and I lost it here.

[Joe Rogan]

How did he die? In jail.

[Jamie]

I don't.

[Matt McCusker]

I.

[Jamie]

Officially.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah,

[Jamie]

there you go. He was found dead.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay, so just found dead. Oh, he died. How old was he

[Jamie]

at the time?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, and also the 76.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, that's a. That's about the time dudes like that die.

[Jamie]

Yeah, but they didn't ever. There's a probe, and I think they. They've reopened the probe also of how he died.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's gonna be a tough one to solve.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, you're gonna have hit some roadblocks. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody whacked him. We were just talking about the guy that Epstein was in jail with, which is crazy. Like, if Epstein is alive, some people think he's alive, some people think they. They scooted him out of his cell, switched a body double, kill that guy. But if. Why would they put him in jail with that gigantic cop who is a contract killer? That guy. That's one picture. Show me the picture of the tank top picture. That's the one.

[Matt McCusker]

Whoa, bro.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at the size of that guy. And this guy was a. He was a cop who was a dirty cop who was killing drug dealers.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. I mean, maybe that was the plan. Be like, all right, we'll put him in here. It'll sound good if this guy kills him. Like, oh, man.

[Joe Rogan]

And then 18 days before he died, he complained that his cellmate tried to kill him. What? Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

See, we can find the. The different guy.

[Joe Rogan]

No, Epstein did.

[Matt McCusker]

No, I'm saying, was he complaining about the murderous cop, or is this a different guy? Yeah, that's crazy, dude. That's crazy. Also, how did he try to kill him and not kill him?

[Joe Rogan]

That's what I Was just gonna say what the.

[Matt McCusker]

Talking about. Epstein slipped away and just, like, sat in the corner.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, maybe he screamed loud enough and the guards came. Yeah, but they would. The night Jeffrey Epstein claimed his cellmate tried to kill him. So he laid in a fetal position on the floor of his jail cell, unresponsive, with an orange fabric. Oh, this is when they found him 18 days before Epstein's death. He wasn't breathing. His eyes were opening. Oh, so this was when they found him. Oh, they. So they did find. They found him in the fetal position. Oh, no, that's with the orange fabric noose. That's when they found him dead. Okay. 18 days before Epstein. No. Okay, so it is saying that. So it's saying that he had an orange noose tied around his neck 18 days before he died. What? What?

[Matt McCusker]

What the.

[Joe Rogan]

What? So, July 23, 2019. 18 days for Epstein's death. He wasn't breathing, his eyes opening and shutting occasionally, but he wouldn't or couldn't respond to officers questions and commands. According to a confidential corrections officer's memo obtained by CBS News, they hoisted inmate 763-18-054 onto a stretcher. Officials have repeatedly said Epstein's death, eventual death by suicide, was foreshadowed by this earlier alleged attempt. Former Attorney General Bill Barr reiterated that claim in an August closed door deposition before the House Oversight Committee, which released the interview transcript last week. Barr, who did not reply to questions from CBS News, said in his testimony he knew about the July 23 incident, which he viewed as an attempted suicide. Barr said he considered it indicative of Epstein's state of mind. But jail staff memos, other never before reported documents obtained by CBS News, as well as interviews with more than a dozen people who interacted with Epstein before and after the incident, reveal a murkier picture than the one depicted by Barr. The new documents have surfaced amid persistent speculation over Epstein's death, despite official conclusions that he died by suicide. So he's laying on the floor and his bunky is screaming, I did nothing. I banged on my door to get him out of my cell. The source said corrections officers carried Epstein to a cell on a different floor as he remained unresponsive. Is it. Was it the same. The same cop? The. The contract killer? Yep. Right. He told him he thought he'd been attacked by his cellmate, an ex cop who was awaiting trial on four murders.

[Matt McCusker]

But they're saying that was an attempted suicide.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, they tried to frame it as an attempted suicide. No, I would imagine he doesn't have A way to contact the outside world and just tweet about this. Yeah, right. He can't make an Instagram video. Hey, guys, this guy's right. Kill me. He sat up on the bed and began telling me that he thinks his bunky tried to kill him. A responding officer wrote in one memo. A senior officer wrote in a separate incident report that Epstein initially implicated his cellmate in the incident, claiming he had previously said things that made Epstein feel threatened. So Nicholas Tartaglion, his cellmate, repeatedly disputed the initial allegation. I did nothing and said he tried to revive. I tried to revive him. As with Epstein's eventual death, any camera footage of the incident was either mislaid, lost, or never captured by the facility's faculty. Faulty system, rather. Tartaglion has not responded to emailed questions from CBS News. How odd. His lawyer said Epstein's initial claim that Tartaglioni tried to kill him was flatly not true.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, okay, so maybe he did try to. I mean, you know, there's a chance he did try to kill himself and was like, I don't want to get.

[Joe Rogan]

And then his guy saved him. He said he saved him. So it says it right here. Scroll back up a little bit. Tartaglion said in a recent interview the house and that Epstein also left a suicide note and it even offered Tartaglion money to kill him. What? Neither of those details, if true, are referenced in any of the Bureau of Prison records that were reviewed by CBS News. So as we scroll up higher, it says he. He said he saved his life the first time. So it's saying that he saved his life. He yelled when the guy. His attorney says, yeah, yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Like he's saying he tried to kill himself once.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, but that's just his attorney saying that.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, for sure.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, Epstein claimed to both corrections officers and the source that he felt threatened by Tartaglion, hulking retired cop turned drug dealer who is charged and later convicted for four murders. Just how could you take the most high profile defendant ever and put him in a cage with a murderer? His bunky told him that if he beat him up because of Epstein's child sex trafficking charges, the officers would not report it. Oh, that's what he told him. The wealthy. Allegedly. The wealthy former financier told jail officers that he believed Tartaglion was trying to extort money from him and stated that if he didn't pay him that he was going to beat him up. The officer wrote, he stated that. This has been going on for a week.

[Matt McCusker]

Then that guy saying Epstein was trying to pay me to kill him for himself. You would think they could find a middle ground, man.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, someone's lying.

[Matt McCusker]

I know. That's the craziest. There's too many plot holes. There's no way.

[Joe Rogan]

Imagine, like, Hussein, I'll pay you to kill me.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Also, it's like, wait, how are we going to do that? How are we going to work this all out?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, the guy's already. Well, that wouldn't. Then what's he going to do with the money?

[Matt McCusker]

Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

How do you get the money?

[Matt McCusker]

I guess you can give it. If you know somebody, you know you love, you can give it to them, but.

[Joe Rogan]

Right. Does he have money? Or does all of his money go to the victim's families? Like, he killed four people.

[Matt McCusker]

Shit. He might be right. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

So it have to be like an offshore account that, like, gets slipped over to the prison so he could buy cigarettes.

[Matt McCusker]

If anyone can do it. If anyone can do it, it's Jeffrey Epstein, man.

[Joe Rogan]

But it would have to be worked out in advance. Like, you would have to have the cigarettes in the commissary. Okay. Time to kill you, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

It's. It's too. You know, I think it's just one of those things. I don't know if people can, you know, want to wrap their heads around it, but there's just people who do things in this world on behalf of, like, you know, uber billionaires that were just never going to know what's going on for sure. They do horrible, terrible, secret stuff and they always have. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

This is the thing. If, like, if you go throughout history, there's always been secret societies and people that get together with creepy meetings. All that Eyes Wide Shut shit that Qbert put in his film. That's not. He's not imagining that. No, that's always been a thing.

[Jamie]

The officer that discovered his body dead in August was originally charged with falsifying documents related to his death, but those charges were dropped.

[Joe Rogan]

I wonder what the falsifying of the documents was.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't know.

[Matt McCusker]

Who knows? Maybe people charged it to try to open up the paperwork or whatever.

[Joe Rogan]

Here it is. Because Epstein was on suicide watch after the July 23 incident, Thomas was required to law to record a log of observations about Epstein in 15 minute increments. Those notations were released by the Bureau of prisons in 2023, along with just one entry he made in the log. A Note made at 2:15am 45 minutes after the incident. Fifteen minutes later, at 2:30, Thomas wrote, Inmates sitting on bed trying to remember what happened.

[Matt McCusker]

Huh? Yeah, man.

[Joe Rogan]

So this is the. When he got attacked the first time that he survived, huh?

[Jamie]

Yeah. They claim once he got into the separate cell, he was trying to fall forward on his head or some sat

[Joe Rogan]

on the edge of the bed and

[Jamie]

began moving forward as if he was tempting to fall over head first.

[Joe Rogan]

Huh.

[Jamie]

He was told to stop, don't do it again, and he gave a thumbs up. That's how they confirm he was trying to commit suicide.

[Joe Rogan]

So he's gonna try to commit suicide by falling straight on his head.

[Matt McCusker]

That's impossible. That's literally impossible.

[Joe Rogan]

You might be able to pull it off.

[Matt McCusker]

That's crazy. You would block for sure, right? There's no way you can just do a sail. I was, like, thinking about this the other day. I was walking off my steps. I was like, even if I tried, I couldn't do, like, a swan dive onto the cement. You would. Your body wouldn't let you do it.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. You would resist just enough to be paralyzed for the rest of your life.

[Matt McCusker]

You would get fucked up for sure. I don't know. I think you would just kind of flatten out and flail.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Guys die all the time in street fights when they get knocked out and then they fall and they hit their head on the concrete. Dude, they die all the time.

[Matt McCusker]

Happened before I left Philly a year or so ago. There's a guy just walking his dog off leash, and this guy was like, put your dog on leash. They got into work, you know, they started arguing, and a guy punched him, and he hit his head and died. And then my brother went on an online date with the fiance, the guy who died, and, like, learned throughout the date, like, oh, you're the lady. He was married.

[Joe Rogan]

Bummer of a date.

[Matt McCusker]

It was pretty sad, actually. He, like, put it together. He's like, oh, he died. That sucks.

[Joe Rogan]

How long after that was the date?

[Matt McCusker]

I think it was maybe a year and a half. It's. It'd been some time, you know, Enough

[Joe Rogan]

to stop the crying.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. I mean, you got to pick it up at one point. Especially if you died. Like, that man got punched on a dog walk and died. I don't know if I was a

[Joe Rogan]

walk with a helmet until we.

[Matt McCusker]

If I was a lady, I'd be like, oh, I dodged a bullet. Oh, husband could have just died. Yeah. That's scary, though, man. That's. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

The.

[Matt McCusker]

The whole thing of, like, altercations and people popping off to each other anymore is just like, I was walking down the street recently, and, like, you Know, I had the. Right away. I walked, and I didn't even, like, rush in front of the car. The car pulled up and was like, get the out. He's, like, threatened to shoot me in the face. I was just like, what the hell, man? Yeah, it was like he had pulled off far enough. He's like, I'll shoot you in your face. And I was just like, please don't. Like, you know the man. What are you doing, bro?

[Joe Rogan]

You never know who's unhinged.

[Matt McCusker]

I know.

[Joe Rogan]

You never know what's going on. That life, the divorce, this. That just got fired, about to go to jail. Who knows?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Who knows, dude?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Best friend was your wife.

[Matt McCusker]

Could be literally anything. Yeah. And like, I. I never. It's like, yeah, whatever, man.

[Joe Rogan]

So many people are barely hanging on out there doing something all day they hate.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Just fucking tired. Life's in a shambles, dude. I don't.

[Matt McCusker]

And especially, like, people just talk shit to strangers. Like, you have no idea who that person is? My. I don't know. You know, who knows if this is, like, just like, an old construction worker tale. My dad was telling me. Some guy, he knows his mom or whatever. Or, like, you know, his friend's mom was at the grocery store. Someone back. They, like, both going for a parking spot. It's like an old lady. And the guy was like, fucking bitch.

[Joe Rogan]

Get the hell out.

[Matt McCusker]

Blah, blah, blah. Started cursing her out. Her son came out of jail for, like, you know, like, he was, like, a biker, all this stuff. And they all, like, knew each other in the neighborhood. Apparently, the guy who had, like, cursed out the mom, they were like, nobody ever saw him again. So if that's true, it's like, gee, I always think about that. I'm like, dude, that's. You know, you just can't be. You shouldn't yell at an old lady anyway. But you just have no idea who you're dealing with.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Matt McCusker]

Just might as well chill.

[Joe Rogan]

That was one of the creepier things about the Epstein emails or the. The files. The data was that he ordered 330 gallons of sulfuric acid after he'd been indicted.

[Matt McCusker]

What does that do?

[Joe Rogan]

Dissolves bodies. Oh, no. Yeah, so. So they were trying to speculate that, like, maybe that was for his desalination system that he had. He had, like, a water system. The. Some sulfuric acid cleans it out. But then Jamie looked into it. He had only ordered it, like, once before, ever, but never that much.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's terrible. Also, he lives in. Near the oceans. Like, why don't you just go in the ocean, just. You gotta get rid of bodies. You live on an island, just go out the water.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, but they could find it.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I guess so.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, they might find it. Yeah, you can't have that.

[Matt McCusker]

True. Especially if enough. They need a bunch of acid.

[Joe Rogan]

Do they have a lot of sharks down there?

[Matt McCusker]

I would think, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like the Bahamas, right? It's like Bahamas area.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. I would think there's like sharks in Florida. I was just in.

[Joe Rogan]

Florida's a lot of sharks.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Bull sharks.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, exactly. I was swimming, I brought my friend with me to do shows and he was like, I'm worried about sharks. There's no fucking sharks out here. And we got back and the Uber driver was like, yeah, this is like shark season right now. I was like, oh, my bad.

[Joe Rogan]

Shark season.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. I think it's the bull sharks. They see them all the time down there.

[Joe Rogan]

Bull sharks are scary. They're the ones that they think are responsible for the murders in New Jersey that inspired Jaws.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

How big do they get?

[Joe Rogan]

They don't get as big as, like, great whites, but the thing about them is they could swim in fresh water. So those murders, that murders, those deaths by shark in New Jersey in like the early 1900s, they were in a river.

[Matt McCusker]

What?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. So these people were swimming in a river and they got killed by sharks?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. You would never expect it either.

[Joe Rogan]

Bull sharks are, like, very aggressive too. Are they really super aggressive? They. There's a Florida Keys, like, guys fish off the piers down there and it's really great fishing, but if you catch a big fish and you're struggling to get it on the line, most likely a shark's gonna kill it.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Most likely you're gonna get it bitten in half. There's like tons of videos of guys pulling in fish and the shark just snaps it in half while they're pulling it in.

[Matt McCusker]

That's terrifying.

[Joe Rogan]

They're all over there, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

I went to Turks and Caicos.

[Joe Rogan]

My.

[Matt McCusker]

Me and my family went down there. My kids, we were. We went snorkeling and we, you know, the guy takes us out and he's like, hey, we like, you know, got in the area where we're gonna jump in. He's like, hey, there's some baby sharks out there, you know, but they're not gonna bother you. So I'm like, exactly. And I have like. I've had like 2 and a 4 year old with me. So I jump in, I'm like, let me suss it out. I'm gonna go See, dude, I go down and like, these were like, you know, they weren't like 18 foot sharks, but they were like five, six. They were like big enough, but they were 40. It was like probably 40ft deep. And then they were like at the bottom, but then another 50ft away. And I was like, bro, I'm not bringing my kids in here.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I'm trying to find this video that my friend Adam sent me of sharks in Florida because I always give him. He lives in Australia and I always give him like, bro, you live in a place filled with monsters. What the fuck are you doing? Because it's true. Florida. Florida has a lot, but. But Australia has more. Australia has saltwater crocodiles. They have great whites. But he sent me this video. He's like, this is in America, mate. And it's. These guys are throwing. God, I can't find it. These guys are throwing fish into the water, right? No, I'm not gonna find it. They're throwing fish into the water right next to the shore. And it's just sharks, like piranhas just smashing. And they're like off a dock, dude. They're just like throwing fish scraps in there. And the fish. The sharks are apparently used to it, I guess.

[Matt McCusker]

That's terrifying.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, dude, I. Oh, here it is. I found it.

[Matt McCusker]

Nice.

[Joe Rogan]

Here, hold on, I'll send it to you. Jamie.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude, dolphins. You ever see a dolphin in real life?

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[Matt McCusker]

They're scary as hell. Those things are huge.

[Joe Rogan]

Swam with them.

[Matt McCusker]

I did it, too. I was in Mexico and I thought I was going to be like, you know, gliding on two of them. I was like, barely wanting to touch this thing.

[Joe Rogan]

I did it in Hawaii. You jump off the boat and you snorkel and you get to see them swimming under. It's really wild. Check this out. So this guy throws these scraps in the water. Look at these.

[Matt McCusker]

God damn.

[Joe Rogan]

How crazy. Look at these things.

[Matt McCusker]

Fight for this.

[Joe Rogan]

Look how many of them there are.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's.

[Joe Rogan]

Bro, that's crazy.

[Matt McCusker]

Look how big they are.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. More than big enough to take your legs off. Go ahead, dick wagon.

[Matt McCusker]

Why I'd be so mad? If I was his neighbor, I'd be like, dude, I'm trying to paddle board, man.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I think this is just what they do every. Which is why the sharks are there in the first place. I think when these guys get there, you know, when they fillet the fish, they have the bodies, they just chuck the body overboard and these sharks just destroy it. Yeah. How spooky is that?

[Matt McCusker]

It's terrifying.

[Joe Rogan]

Dude, yeah. That's Florida.

[Matt McCusker]

That's. That's crazy. Where's Marco Island?

[Joe Rogan]

I don't know. Where's Marco Island?

[Matt McCusker]

It's probably the Keys.

[Joe Rogan]

Probably.

[Matt McCusker]

That's. That's awful.

[Joe Rogan]

Florida's filled with monsters. Like that whole thing that they're doing with ice where they've got that alligator. Guantanamo. You know, they got a. They got their. They built a Guantanamo for detainees, and then they surrounded it with alligator country.

[Matt McCusker]

Like a cartoon moat.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Check this out. Okay, so where is it?

[Jamie]

It's like opposite of Miami on the.

[Matt McCusker]

Okay.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay. So it's not. It's not the Keys. It's just Florida. Crazy.

[Matt McCusker]

Damn. So they have, like, a classical moat with alligators around.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, it's not essentially a moat, was it Island?

[Matt McCusker]

I guess.

[Joe Rogan]

How did. How did they do it? They build an island down there? Is that what they did? Somebody got a sweet contract to put that in there. Yeah. They call it Alligator Alcatraz. What does it look like? Can you show us?

[Matt McCusker]

Damn.

[Joe Rogan]

Dude, alligators in Florida, everywhere. They say there's not a, like, standing body of water that doesn't have an alley.

[Matt McCusker]

I know. My friends are just at Disney World, and they said they got a. They're like, is there alligators around here? Like, yeah, we flush them out all the time.

[Joe Rogan]

One killed a kid a few years back.

[Matt McCusker]

I heard about that.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Reached up and just snapped, bro.

[Joe Rogan]

Imagine your little toddler at Disneyland just saw Cinderella having a good time.

[Matt McCusker]

That's got to be fast. That's fast. Pass for life, though. Here is a family.

[Joe Rogan]

So that is all the Everglades. And the Everglades is just filled. Like, if you go walking, like, I'm out of here, that, like, something's probably going to get you. No, the Everglades are so. Because it's not just the alligators. It's also the pythons. There's giant pythons. AI so ruthless. Allig with ice hats on, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

The pythons are another. Because you. They catch you while you're sleeping. So you lay down to sleep and you just wake up and you're just.

[Joe Rogan]

Are there more pythons in the Everglades than there are anywhere in the world?

[Matt McCusker]

No way.

[Joe Rogan]

Because there's a half a million of them. They think.

[Matt McCusker]

Did you ever hear about Snake island in Brazil?

[Joe Rogan]

No, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

There's an island in Brazil that I guess, like, whatever, you know, tectonic plates or whatever moved, and it used to be connected to the mainland. It went out and all the snakes just got stuck on there with no natural predators. So yeah, they just fight and eat each other. And there's. Dude, there's apparently a snake. Like every meter you move, there's at least one snake.

[Joe Rogan]

What?

[Matt McCusker]

I. Dude, the images are. Fuck. Are terrified. They're like, just piled on top of each other.

[Joe Rogan]

There are not more pythons in the Everglades than anywhere else. The Burmese pythons native range in Southeast Asia from India to Indonesia. Supports far larger wild populations, though exact numbers are hard to quantify due to their vast habitat. Everglades context Burmese pythons are invasive species. Florida Everglades with estimates ranging from tens of thousands to 300,000 individuals across Southern Florida concentrate in Everglades national park, where their density is notably high. Population exploded from a few snakes in the 90s to enveloping much of the region by the 2000s, driven by the release from pet trade and events like Hurricane Andrew. Yeah, they had. Hurricane Andrew apparently blew down a facility where they were studying pythons.

[Matt McCusker]

No, and that's how they got out.

[Joe Rogan]

A bunch of them got out. And then there's also people with pets just. And death metal bands.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, they just dropped them.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, they just dropped.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, that's how we. We. There's what you call it parakeets here. They're like. They're like an invasive species. And they think that happened too. Someone just like let their parakeets. Sure. Now they're a problem here.

[Joe Rogan]

That's iguanas in Florida too.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, they sell candy guana meat in Florida now.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. A buddy of mine lives in Florida. He just sent me this. He sent me. He was at the supermarket and they have iguana meat.

[Matt McCusker]

Probably not bad. Dude, I'm telling you, the snake island. I. I was like, I thought it was fake. My wife was telling me about it. I'm like, dude, you got tricked. This has to be. AI looked it up and it's like it's a real thing. Let me see that. Iguana meat. Yeah, I'm saying I would eat it. It would probably be good. I've eaten gator before. Gator's not bad.

[Joe Rogan]

This might be fake.

[Jamie]

I think it is.

[Matt McCusker]

God damn it.

[Jamie]

I'm googling it. There's a. A pizza restaurant that got in trouble for serving it.

[Joe Rogan]

Really?

[Jamie]

But nothing else is popping up about

[Joe Rogan]

can they got in trouble for serving it. Did they tell people they were serving it? You know, because people eat them. They hunt them and eat them all the time. I was watching a YouTube video the other day where this guy was making like stir fried iguana meat.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, they get massive teriyaki. They get massive.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah. And they apparently taste good.

[Matt McCusker]

Probably they're aggressive too. If you see them in the wild, they'll like charge after you. They're nasty, man.

[Joe Rogan]

They're big. Yeah, they're like four or five feet long.

[Matt McCusker]

They're. Yeah, they're huge.

[Joe Rogan]

Nuts.

[Matt McCusker]

That was another animal I encountered in Turks and Caicos. We did the shark swimming and I was like, all right. I let them like get out of the way. And then we went to this island that was just full of iguanas and they'll, they'll just run up on you.

[Joe Rogan]

Do you know in Florida when it gets really cold, they just fall out of trees. No, because sometimes Florida, it'll dip, it'll get into the 30s. And these just fall out of the trees, they stone. They just freeze and freeze and then they thaw out and come back to life.

[Matt McCusker]

What?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it's an ancient species. Like these are ancient creatures.

[Matt McCusker]

Damn. So they, I thought they, I thought they need the, like they're cold blooded and they die. So they can just. I guess they can just chill.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, so are alligators and alligators freeze in lake sometimes with their mouths above the water. They have their nose and their eyes above the water and they just, they're frozen. There's a bunch of images of these guys that's frozen in lakes.

[Matt McCusker]

I guess everything just slows down and they just chill.

[Joe Rogan]

They don't have to eat for a year. What? Yeah, they can go without eating for a whole year.

[Matt McCusker]

So how much do you think we really have to eat if alligators, Bears don't have to eat all winter. Alligators can go one year. Like do you think. I always think, like, do we have to eat every day?

[Joe Rogan]

Well, we definitely eat more than any people have ever have. Except like royals.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, that's why people are so tiny. Like you go back to like the Civil War, the average man was like 130 pounds.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, because nobody had any food, you know, nobody had any protein.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But if you think about like how much we eat morning, noon and then evening, hunter gatherers, they, they got a meal a day.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, like if you got lucky, you had a meal and you ate as much as you could because there's no way to preserve it. And then you went out the next day and hoped you got another animal.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's kind of wild. You must have spent like 6,000 calories a day just trying to get one meal.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. And then other than like drying your meat Out. There's no way to preserve it. So they would make jerky, you know? Like, I know in Mexico, some friends of mine went down there, and they have this traditional way of taking buffalo, and they slice it, like, really, really thin, and then they hang it on, like, a clothes hanger and dry it out.

[Matt McCusker]

Really? That's all we need to do.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that's what they had to do. They had to figure out how to dry stuff because, you know, there's no. How hard life must have been with no refrigeration.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude, it would. Sucks so bad.

[Joe Rogan]

Sucks so bad, man. I mean, that's like, when you go back to the turn of the century, all the diseases were happening in America. Just think about it. No running water. Everybody's, like, in holes in the ground outside the houses. There's no ventilation. There's no air conditioning.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

No vitamins.

[Matt McCusker]

Especially here. How do people live in Texas? I've been reading. It must have been crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Hard people. Yeah, I'm hard people.

[Matt McCusker]

I've been reading Western. I'm reading Lonesome Dove right now. It's like an old classic Western.

[Joe Rogan]

And.

[Matt McCusker]

And they just talk about how hot they are all day long. It's just dust in their face. And it's like, dude, that shit would suck.

[Joe Rogan]

Especially if you don't live near a lake so you can cool off a little.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Oh, no. There's like. Yeah, they have, like, a spring house. And every time they got to get water, there's just rattlesnakes everywhere near the spring house. It's like, dude, that sucks so bad.

[Joe Rogan]

There's a great book about Texas called Empire of the Summer Moon.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, I've heard of that before.

[Joe Rogan]

About the settlers encountering the Comanche. You got to think, like, if the Comanche, if this is where they lived and they lived here year round, like, they had to be the hardest people in the world.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, dude, that would be brutal.

[Joe Rogan]

Just had to be fucking. Just tough as.

[Matt McCusker]

Especially when it gets, like, freezing, too. They have, like, that two weeks where it's super cold and. Yeah, that would be.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. You never know when it's coming back then, either. You couldn't prepare. Like, Texas, like, right now it's 80. Two weeks ago, it was 30. Before that, it was 20. Before that, it was 70. Like, it's. You don't know when it's coming.

[Matt McCusker]

No, you have. I, like, I've been here for two years, and I know we're gonna get, like, a solid collective week of real winter, and the rest of it's just, like, 50, 60, 70, 80, 20, 40. Yeah, it's kind of.

[Joe Rogan]

It's worth it. I think it's perfect because it gives you just enough cold so you appreciate the warm just enough, but nothing like where you want to kill yourself.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I agree.

[Joe Rogan]

Nothing like, there's, you know, Montana winters and Wyoming winters where they last, like seven months. You're like, I don't know if I want to do this.

[Matt McCusker]

Even regular east coast winter, I couldn't handle it. By the time I had left, like, you don't feel the. For like, at least three months. And I remember spring, it would finally, like, come out. And it's like, that messes me up. Like, I need. I'd rather it be super hot and sunny than be cold.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Because you can just like, you know, just figure out jump in a lake, jump in a pool.

[Joe Rogan]

You can, you know, that's what flu season's all about, too.

[Matt McCusker]

What?

[Joe Rogan]

It's not like the flu.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Emerges in the winter. It's just everybody's immune system's low. No one has any vitamin D. A buddy of mine who was a doctor said that he would do tests on people in New York City, and he said so many people would come into his practice that had undetectable levels of vitamin D. What? Yeah, because they weren't supplementing at all. And they were wearing winter clothes and they were never outside, and everybody's sick and they don't know why. Well, your vitamin D depleted. Yeah, that's why. In Seattle, they have a lot of people go in tanning beds and they try to, like, do something.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, just get people.

[Joe Rogan]

Because tanning beds will give you a natural dose of vitamin D. That's kind of nice. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Apparently it's. Isn't it like a hormone more than a vitamin? So. Yeah, so I heard it's like, not even just like, like, you know, vitamin A or B. It's like something you absolutely need big time.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. A lot of people are saying you should hyper dose it too. Like, because the USDA recommended is like 5,000 milligrams. A lot of people are saying, like, 30,000 is what they take every day.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I had to do that for a while because I had low vitamin D. And they were like, you can take as much of this as you want. I'm like, so I'm like, such a baby with medicine. Like, I'm like, super sensitive to it. It did, like, absolutely no side effects at all.

[Joe Rogan]

No, it doesn't use side effects. But for full absorption, I think you're supposed to take it with a bunch of other stuff. Like I think the recommended. I take it with K2, vitamin K2 and magnesium. I think there might be one other thing that also helps absorption. But like Dr. Rhonda Patrick was on a podcast recently and she was talking about how vitamin D. Someone was taking vitamin D but they weren't showing any improvement. She's like, where are you taking it with magnesium. So magnesium apparently helps vitamin D get absorbed in your body. There's a bunch of those things that works if you take them without any fat or any food, they're not good. But then amino acids, you have to take them on an empty stomach. It's like, you gotta know what you're doing.

[Matt McCusker]

That's true. Yeah. I have like a paste. It's like a goop that's like fatty. And I just put it on a spoon. What is it? Just vitamin D. Vitamin D. It's like a liposomal thing.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, you put it on a spoon?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. See, I just eyeball it. I'm like, that's probably about right.

[Joe Rogan]

I wonder if like liposomal and absorbs easier. Isn't that the whole idea about it?

[Matt McCusker]

It's paired to a fat and it kind of.

[Joe Rogan]

Right. I wonder if that you don't need as much like or you don't need vitamin D or K2 rather.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, I don't know. But I was low and then I'm not now. So I'm like, maybe it worked. Maybe it was the fact I was outside. I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm sure it works. Yeah, yeah. It's just like, does it work optimally? That's the thing.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like just taking it alone definitely going to be better than not taking it at all. But they think that for maximum absorption, what are the things that you should take with vitamin D for put that in perplexity. The things you take with vitamin D for maximum absorption. And it's hard to remember all this stuff too. That's part of the problem. Like, I'll hear it on a podcast. I'm like, yeah, yeah, go back home. The did Andrew Huberman say.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I remember. I heard Huberman had this thing about cortisol and he's like, you need to spike your cortisol early in the morning. Which I, you know, if I get up and exercise in the morning, like, yeah, that seems true because I feel good. But then I was like, I can't have caffeine anymore. I had to get off completely.

[Joe Rogan]

Really, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

I have. I can't have it. I'm like, super sensitive to it. I had a cup of coffee. What time is it right now? If I had a cup of coffee now at 2 o', clock, I would not sleep till midnight.

[Joe Rogan]

Is that because you don't drink much of it or is it.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't metabolize it.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, interesting.

[Matt McCusker]

That's my mom. My dad can drink coffee and fall asleep. If my mom has coffee, she's. It just it like you have it. I can feel it just in my body for hours and I. It's just like a non stop cor. Like I love caffeine. The mental effects. My body just can't stand it.

[Joe Rogan]

Have you ever tried nutrition? Nootropics like theanine?

[Matt McCusker]

I've done it all.

[Joe Rogan]

Acetylcholine.

[Matt McCusker]

Not acetylcholine, but I've taken L theanine with it which helped a little bit. But then I'll just drink more coffee because.

[Joe Rogan]

No, I don't mean with coffee. I mean by itself as like a little bit of a pick me up.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh yeah, no, I like, yeah, I've take, I take L Theanine before I go to sleep. I think it kind of helps me sleep.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I hear that too. Which is interesting because it helps with your memory. Like how does it help with your memory and also help you go to sleep?

[Matt McCusker]

I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

Here it says vitamin D is a fat soluble nutrient. So pairing it with dietary fat maximizes its absorption in the gut. Gut. Take vitamin D supplements with a meal containing fats for optimal uptake. Studies show you can boost serum levels by about 50%. Foods like fatty fish, avocados, olive oil, nut seeds or full fat yogurt provide these fats effectively. Supportive nutrients. Magnesium aids in converting vitamin D to its active form and transporting it in the body. Vitamin K2 works synergistically to direct calcium to bones, enhancing benefits for bone health. Omega 3 fatty acids from fish oil also improve absorption alongside fat fats. All right, so that's it. So vitamin D should take with magnesium and K2 and probably some fish oil. Nice. There you go.

[Matt McCusker]

I was eating it after breakfast though. There we go. Yeah, getting my fats.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

But yeah, the caffeine for me, I can't like, you know, everyone's different but I, I can't have it.

[Joe Rogan]

Like I could drink two double espressos and go to sleep.

[Matt McCusker]

That's crazy. So here's my thing too. I stopped was I didn't start really drinking caffeine all the time until I had kids. But I like, I don't have dreams at night, if I drink even coffee during, like the day. Day, no dreams. At night, really, if I don't know what it is, man, I'm super, super sensitive to it.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, a lot of people that stop smoking weed say that they get wild, crazy dreams.

[Matt McCusker]

That happens too. That kind of blocks your dreams, too. Yeah, but even that, like, I don't know, I smoked weed forever and, like, I would still kind of have dreams, but it's the caffeine just like completely neutralizes them. And then they say that it's like anecdotal, but they say that caffeine, there's anecdotal evidence that it kind of. Of what is it, like, discourages or, you know, whatever it does. Your brain, you don't do as much divergent thinking. It's more like convergent where, like, if you need to get like a task, like, all right, I need to edit something. Caffeine's great. But if you're like, I need to come up with a story idea. There's like anecdotal evidence that says, like, people who are on caffeine report that it, like, messes up their ability to like, just kind of like, you know, come up with, like, new or novel ideas.

[Joe Rogan]

That makes sense. Yeah, because you're just hyper focused on the one thing that you're doing. Yeah. Like a low dose method, meth.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Joe Rogan]

You're like my friends that have dated girls that have had problems with amphetamines. One of the things they say is they know when they're on it because then they start cleaning the house. They start cleaning everything.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

They start getting, like, hyper focused on, like, organizing and cleaning. Like, that sounds like a good drug.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. What's. What's the bad. It's probably a spaz, though. That's probably the backlash. Well, it's probably.

[Joe Rogan]

They're doing it for 12 hours while they're listening to Slayer.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. You're not even talking about Adderall. This is them doing, like, crystal meth, you're saying.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't know who's saying Amphetamines. I assume it's like meth.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Amphetamine babe would be not ideal, I don't think.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I've talked to people that have done meth and they tell you feel like you're Superman, but you also, like, want to get things done.

[Matt McCusker]

Really? Yeah. That's. I've heard that a similar thing about crack where you feel like a genius. You smoke crack, apparently you're just like, dude, like, like, why would I have a Refrigerator, I can sell it right now and I can just order out to. And like, apparently you're just like the smartest person in your head in the world.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Matt McCusker]

And then you just like it all crashes every 30 minutes.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like free based cocaine is what all it is.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like what Richard Pryor was doing back in the day. That was just before crack.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

It was free basing cocaine. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

And it's weird too, because I think it just like coke, I think just floods your brain. A lot of things just flood your brain with dopamine.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. But the delivery method apparently of crack is superior. There's something about smoking it where it just goes right to your head. Well, I know this from Hunter Biden because Hunter Biden was, he was on that Channel 5 show when he was talking about it, it's. He was so descriptive of it. It almost made you want to try crack. He. It was almost like it was like a romantic tale of like a bad romance that he had to get out of.

[Matt McCusker]

This is a very gentlemanly way to say it's his superior delivery mechanism.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, he's very smart.

[Matt McCusker]

Right.

[Joe Rogan]

So he's very articulate and he's talking about out like what it was like to smoke crack.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like holy, man.

[Matt McCusker]

And I wonder, I guess, I guess he's off of it because I guess like, you know.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

If you started again, it's probably just another.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, there was that baggie they found at the White House. But first of all, it might have been his. But also. You think he's the only one of those people doing coke?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I was about to say that could be anybody.

[Joe Rogan]

Listen, there's probably a lot of those folks that need a little pick me up sometimes for a meeting before they have to do a press thing or. Oh, dude, you're working 16 hours a day. Little tire.

[Matt McCusker]

Big time.

[Joe Rogan]

Let's go.

[Matt McCusker]

I used to work at a real estate company when I was in college. Just, you know, they would like buy apartment buildings and dude, all the, like the senior management were like, they used to buy Adderall off me. They would just chomp Adderall, come in and just be like. They would do sales meetings and just be like.

[Joe Rogan]

A friend of mine is a journalist, says that all these journalists are on Adderall.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I believe it.

[Joe Rogan]

Says it makes you pretty productive. Yeah, they're all doing it. Some of them are like super open about it. Like Dave Portnoy, when he was in here, he was telling us, what did he say he took 30 milligrams thanks. I don't remember, but, yeah, it was enough that I was like, yo. And then I had to go to Jamie. How much is that? And Jamie was like, a lot. 30s.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, 30s. That would get you.

[Joe Rogan]

But not a lot. If you do it a lot. Right?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, you get it.

[Joe Rogan]

That's the thing. It's like, if you're doing edibles with Joey Diaz, like, how much should I take? Take two.

[Matt McCusker]

Like what?

[Joe Rogan]

Take two. How much do you take?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that would definitely. I mean, I feel like I can't get a tolerance to eat edibles. They just knock me out every time.

[Joe Rogan]

Jamie can just eat them, and they don't do anything.

[Matt McCusker]

That's crazy. I know people like that, too. Like, I need, like, 200 milligrams to feel it. I'm like, I'm psychotic at 200 milligrams. I'm fried.

[Joe Rogan]

It's a lot. Yeah, 200 is a lot.

[Matt McCusker]

I said these lollipops that were 200 milligrams. So I would try to gauge it. Like, I don't want to eat too much of it. And it would just. I would get whacked all the time.

[Joe Rogan]

So. So we went over how many people are on Adderall once. Like, the number of Adderall prescriptions in a year was something bonkers. It was like 39 million Adderall prescriptions in this country. But then you have to go, like, how many people is that? Right? Because you refill your prescription. So how often do you refill it? How many times a year? You know what I mean?

[Matt McCusker]

I think it's more than 39, if that's the case. I feel like there's 39 million subscribers to Adderall.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, there's definitely people that are getting it other ways.

[Matt McCusker]

For sure.

[Joe Rogan]

For sure.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. You get your script and you sell it, but it's like. So there were. That.

[Joe Rogan]

You're getting it illegally.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, you're getting illegal good and bad. You're, you know, getting cartel stuff, like, pressed and stuff. Yeah, like, they. They can make a Valium that looks just like a Valium, and there's fentanyl in it.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, true. No, that's. That's a. That, like, the pill world is. They're, like, completely riddled with that right now.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, it's scary, man, because kids are taking the. These. Like, there was a kid from a local high school around here that I read a story. He took an Adderall. He thought it was an Adderall and had fentanyl in it. He died yeah. Got it from one of his friends. He was just trying to cram for studies.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's. That's why I always tell people anyone I know does coke. I'm always like, you gotta stop, man. They're like, no, we'll test it. It's like, no, you're not. You're gonna be at a bar, you're gonna be hammered. You're gonna buy coke and shove it up your nose. I'm gonna stop and be like, let me see.

[Joe Rogan]

I've never done it, but all my friends who have done it have all said the same thing. Don't do it.

[Matt McCusker]

I've never. I've never done it either. I had. No. I've never had any interest, but it's like, I. Every time I'm around people on it, I'm just like, dude, this sucks. Yeah, maybe they're having fun, but it's.

[Joe Rogan]

They want to sell you Bitcoin.

[Matt McCusker]

They want to go into business now. Everybody does.

[Joe Rogan]

They get, like, super hyped about a project. They want to bring you in.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, that's what I think. I guess that's the way it was explained to me. You just feel like you accomplished something major, so you just, like, snore coke. And you're like, I am the best ever. Why? I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

I just. Yeah. Joey Diaz used to say that you can't go on stage with that.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I can see that.

[Joe Rogan]

The worst. He goes, you have no feeling. You don't feel for the crowd.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's how I feel. But I can't drink and go on stage because I'll just. I. I'm way too confident. If something doesn't land, I'm like, whatever. Like, I just don't. I don't care, and I just do so bad. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it's. It's a weird, fine dance that people do with substances and performance, especially if you're doing, like, a speed or something, because you can get it wrong, I would imagine.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You can get your balance wrong.

[Matt McCusker]

I've heard the Adderall does not mix with comedy at all.

[Joe Rogan]

That's what I've heard.

[Matt McCusker]

I've heard people like. It's.

[Jamie]

You're just.

[Matt McCusker]

It's like a weird part of your brain where you're just too lasered in.

[Joe Rogan]

I've heard people like to use it for writing, though, which I think is weird, I guess.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

I know they use it for writing books.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't know if it would be the same for writing comedy, because you Know, you're talking about, like, coming up with ideas. Like, you'd imagine that would be the coffee thing on steroids.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, Right. For me, for writing, like, I like to write, I like to write books, I like to do other stuff. Writing standup is more like. It has to just pop into my head. Then I go like, oh, that would be funny. And then I, you know, if I start fleshing it out, like, new ideas come. But I've tried to, like, write stand up and it never. It like, very rarely do I get anything that like, works when I do that.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, me too. But what I do is I write essays. I just like essays on a subject and then from that I'll extract little things.

[Matt McCusker]

That's a good idea.

[Joe Rogan]

And then I take that little thing and I say, how do I introduce this thing? And what is. What would be funny about this thing? And how would I lead into this? And what are the other, like, surrounding things that would go with this?

[Matt McCusker]

No, that's. That's a good way to do it. I have to. I have to trick myself into being like I'm memorizing my material. So I just bullet point it and then I get bored and my mind wanders. I'm like, that would actually be pretty funny.

[Joe Rogan]

Right? And then you start rambling. Yeah, that's the thing about the essay that if you just sit down and write a subject, you know, about a subject, whatever that subject is, is that you just start thinking about all the different aspects of that subject instead of thinking how to write in comedy form.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, you know that that's a, that's a smart idea. Because, yeah, if I try to write it, then, like, you try to repeat it, but you wrote it down. So that sounds like a written thing. And it's like.

[Joe Rogan]

But even that in the essay way, it's a brutal process because then you have to take that one sentence or that one paragraph in a thousand words and. And then figure out a way to introduce that where it's not clunky and then figure out what's the funniest part about it. And it's like, you have to always know that the first time you bring it out there, it's gonna suck. And you have to just slowly but surely trust it to get better and just throw it into the fire. Every night you have your bits that you know are gonna kill and you're like, I don't wanna trot that one out here.

[Matt McCusker]

I know. That is the, kind of. Is the funnest part, though, to me. Like, when I moved Here. I had just. I think. Yeah, I think I had just put out an hour or, like, recorded. So I had no. I had to, like, start with, like, new material, which sucks. You move somewhere, you have new stuff, you're like, dude, I have only new. It's a bad feeling, but it's like, it's exciting because you're like. You don't know of how it's going

[Joe Rogan]

to go every night.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't know. I like. I like that.

[Joe Rogan]

I think it's good. I think it's like we were talking the other day about loss, about failure. Like, I was talking with Michael Malice about bombing on stage. I think bombing is good because what happens if you bomb that feeling? You feel terrible the next. Next day, you feel terrible that night. And then you're like, I gotta get back on stage and really, like, tighten up my. And I always have in the past made big leaps after I bombed. I'm like, I think it's important. Like, failure is important. It sucks. You don't like it, but you gotta go through that. Like, maybe you got overconfident or maybe you were in a bad mood, or maybe it was like, whatever.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, no, it helps. That's what, like, motivates me to write. Stand up. If I bomb, I'm like, all right, now let me. Let me, like, dial it in. Because I have, like. I'm always doing a bunch of stuff and like, I'm like, oh, I got a show. And I like, you know, organize kind of against the gun. But yeah, a good A bomb really is like a clarifying. It's good for you, honestly.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes, it's good to have a bomb. Well, I used to say that to fighters, too. You lose a fight, it's good. As long as you get really hurt, it's good because you like that feeling. Go home with that feeling and think about all the stones that you left unturned. All the times we skipped road work work, all the times we skip strength and conditioning, all the times you're half assing it in the gym. That guy didn't do that. He just beat you. Now, you know, you know, you know, like, you have to understand that there's levels to these. There's levels to dedication, there's levels to competency. And, you know, a good loss is good for you.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it kind of like, you know, again, if you have your tried and true and you're just going on stage. Yeah, it's working. Night after night, you just go home, you're like, oh, whatever. But, yeah, when you bomb it, like, for me, it does something in my brain where I. My thoughts start flying. That, you know, whatever that is, just helps me get stuff out there.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, when I lived in Boston, one of the things that was a real problem was there were these. There was these local headliners that had these acts, man, they had 45 minutes of, like, hammered samurai sword. It was so good because they had been doing that 45 minutes for a decade and a half.

[Matt McCusker]

Crazy, dude.

[Joe Rogan]

It was so good. Their timing was so good. The. The. The pacing was so good. They would crush every night. Night. But after a while, they never added anything new to it. And these guys just, like, a buddy of mine went to see a Boston headliner that we knew from, like, fit Simmons went to see a Boston headliner that we knew from the 80s, and he goes, dude, he was doing the same material. He goes, it was so sad. He goes. He was just phoning it in. It was barely getting a response from the audience. It was, like, dated references because this guy just had an act, and he. Like a fucking guy who shows up at the office, he would open up his suitcase, pull his act out. That was his act.

[Matt McCusker]

Those guys are always fascinating because when you're like, you know, I started in Philly, and, like, so, like, the only. The first, like, paid gigs you get as an open micr are, like, you do, like, moose lodges and shit for, like, 50 bucks. And it's always one of those, like, wacko headliners.

[Joe Rogan]

Has been around for 30 years.

[Matt McCusker]

He's doing it forever. He's giving you the career talk in between the show. There's like. I would get, like, comedy magicians all the time. Time.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

And, dude, it was like, yeah, those. Those guys would always kind of freak me out. Like, I would open for guys that would talk about, like, floppy discs in, like, the 2000s. And I'm back, bro. What are you doing, man? Like we have CDs anymore. This guy talked about porn on a floppy disk on stage. Dude, it was Screech Rip. It was Screech Rip. I opened for Screech back in the day, and I was like, yes, this is gonna be awesome. He was.

[Joe Rogan]

He was killing it in the comedy club clubs. He was, like, one of the first people to go from being on a sitcom to touring on the road.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I. I caught late Screech, though.

[Joe Rogan]

Skippy. Remember Skippy from Family Matt? Was it Family Matters? Is that was his name? What was it from. What was the show? He was another guy who was. He was on a sitcom.

[Matt McCusker]

Was he on? Not Step by step.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't remember.

[Matt McCusker]

But he remembers the same thing. Just the same thing. He was became.

[Joe Rogan]

He. Like Hollywood didn't work out for him. And Family Ties. Family Ties. Family Ties with Michael J. Fox. Yeah. Yeah. So that guy was headlining comedy clubs. Yeah, all over the place.

[Matt McCusker]

This was like a bar in Delaware. This was not a glamorous gig.

[Joe Rogan]

Whoa.

[Matt McCusker]

It was bad this year. This was. I was, I graduated college in 2009. It would have been like 2012 maybe. So this was like late. This was like late Screech. And the whole time he's on stage, people going, Screech. And he would just. It fucking made him so mad. But I remember it was. It's a funny show. Cuz I. It was supposed to be a lady, was supposed to host. I was going to feature. It's going to be Screech as the headliner and the guy who owned the venue just b like wanted to this lady so bad that he was like, hey, I'm letting that lady feature. You're going to host. And he was like, I'll pay you the same price. And I was like, yeah, whatever. I don't give a. So he paid me. And I had been, you know, I've been doing stand up for a couple years, so I was like kind of sharp, you know, especially for like that bar show. And this lady, I, I didn't he. She had never done stand up. This was her first time. This guy fucked her over. He thought he was doing something nice for her. She sat there for all the 20 minutes and read out of a giant notebook and just fucking like completely horrific. Like a first time standup doing 20 minutes, completely bombed. And Screech was in the back with me and he's like, the fuck is this? I remember he was like bragging, being like, dude, they gave me eight grand. I don't give a fuck about this show.

[Joe Rogan]

I knew a few guys who, their girlfriend started doing comedy and then their girlfriend started opening for. For them and it was just wild for her sakes.

[Matt McCusker]

You can't do that.

[Joe Rogan]

No, it's so.

[Matt McCusker]

It's such a bad idea.

[Joe Rogan]

It's so crazy. And these guys were like competent headliners. So the people were coming to see them. They're excited.

[Matt McCusker]

Hey, we're gonna go, we're gonna go

[Joe Rogan]

laugh, have a good time. Nope, no, you're gonna get tortured for 20 minutes before you get to laugh.

[Matt McCusker]

Also. That's not going to help him either. She's going to be furious. Like it's. I don't know why People do that

[Joe Rogan]

well, they want to do it. Like, help me, help me. That's one thing that happens a lot with comedy couples. Like one of the couples will help the other one, right?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Writing is one thing, but like, and

[Joe Rogan]

it's, that's why they want to do it. It's like they want to hook up with a headliner, whether it's a guy or a girl.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You hook up with a headliner, he or she helps you with your act and then you go back and you

[Matt McCusker]

know, it's also impossible though, because if you're dating a comic and then you book your own opener, you can't be like, ah, next time. I got you next time. You know, to flat out be like, no, I'm not. You're not doing this right.

[Joe Rogan]

And then you break, break up.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, yeah. But if you really care about their comedy, you'd be like, bro, you gotta, you gotta go to the open mics and you know.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Doing it in front of a sold out show when you're just starting out is a crazy idea.

[Matt McCusker]

I couldn't imagine, I literally couldn't imagine it would, it would have messed me up.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that's why kill Tony. So nuts.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like there are people, there are people who have gone on for their first time ever in Madison Square Garden to a sold out arena of 16, 000 people.

[Matt McCusker]

And then it's filmed for what, like a million, a couple people. It's like millions of people.

[Joe Rogan]

You're out there eating dick.

[Matt McCusker]

That must feel crazy waking up the next morning.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, just like if you go to sleep. Let's imagine that you can go to sleep. If I flub a word, I don't go to sleep. They can go to sleep after that. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

You're essentially filming a one minute special. The first time, the first time you

[Joe Rogan]

do it on Netflix. God Damn. Or on YouTube. I mean, both of them are getting millions of views.

[Matt McCusker]

I know, that's, dude, I, I, I, I'd be so scared to do that. People who can do that, I'm like, that's amazing. Go out there and do crazy. That's actually true.

[Joe Rogan]

Some of the people, when you're, you're interviewing them after they do the set, like I go, does this guy been screened? We need to make sure he doesn't have a knife on him.

[Matt McCusker]

They do need that airport. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, 100. Some of these people are out of their mind.

[Matt McCusker]

I always wanted to hang in the bar, right? Like the holding tank where everyone is. Because that's got to be the easiest vibe in there.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, you remember open mic nights.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, true.

[Joe Rogan]

Open mic night at the Comedy Store in particular was always so nuts. Yeah, it was just a complete lunatic asylum. There's this one guy, Robert William Apavaya, and he would come there everywhere. He was a really nice guy, and all of his act was about marijuana. And he at one point in time was a lawyer, and then I guess, blew a few and then just was doing comedy. But he would walk from downtown. He lived in a flop house in downtown, and it would take him hours. He would walk from downtown to the Comedy Store. And when it rained out, the way he would deal with the rain is he would take plastic grocery bags and tuck them inside of all of his clothing so he'd wrap them around his body so he had his clothing on the outside and these plastic bags all over his body.

[Matt McCusker]

That's so fucking funny. The clothes are on the outside.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

So he let his clothes get wet, but his body would be.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, he couldn't figure out how to put it all outside of him.

[Matt McCusker]

Okay.

[Joe Rogan]

So his solution was just cover his skin and keep him from getting wet and cold, which I guess would work. It'd probably keep you sweaty too.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, you'd sweat. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. So he was like a staple. And he would go there every night, late at night, and he would be like one of the last guys up at open mic night every week. Week. Whoa. Yeah. And just was insane. Like, you couldn't. You couldn't shake your hand, couldn't touch him. He was always nervous that everybody hated him, and so he'd, like, be scared. And I became friends with him, so he was cool with me. I. I'd talk to him, but, like, one time I tried to give him knuckles. I'm like, I. Sorry, I forgot.

[Matt McCusker]

He just wouldn't.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he would, like, like, mumble and look at the ground, like. Sorry. Yeah, he was legitimately cooked. Yeah, whatever. Whatever was going on. Ah, yeah. But he was bit. A little lawyer and he just blew a fuse.

[Matt McCusker]

Jesus Christ.

[Joe Rogan]

It happens.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it does. No, there's. You forget, like. Well, at least I did because I, you know, doing the open mics, it's like. It is like a complete freak factory.

[Joe Rogan]

A freak.

[Matt McCusker]

You're like. It's steeped in that so much for years. And then I remember, like, when I finally stopped going to open mics all the time, I was still in Philly, and I, like, just took a break from the open mics. I would go do shows, and I was like, let me go to the open Mic. It'd been, like, six months, and I was like, I'll go to one. Tries to stuff out. I, like, got in. You know, I'm sitting behind the area. I was in, like, Philly helium, just sitting there at the open mic, and I just got, like, right away, guys like, dude, look at him. And it was just like, all these people like, oh, this was, like, the worst environment you can possibly be in. Yeah, it was just. Everyone was like, this guy's a fucking piece of shit. I hate this guy. And everyone is so fucking angry, and just everyone's so charged on adrenaline all the time.

[Joe Rogan]

They're also, like, on the outside of this thing that they want to do this dream, and they get to try it like a regular person with no training, no schooling, no nothing. Yeah, you get to stand on that stage with a microphone. I went down a rabbit hole the other night, and I was watching open mic nights from Long Island. Oh, dude, it was so crazy.

[Matt McCusker]

That would be fun, though.

[Joe Rogan]

It's so crazy watching someone that definitely shouldn't be doing comedy. That's trying comedy for the first time. And, yeah, I was. You know, it was one of those dumb things. It was like, midnight. Like, well, let me see.

[Matt McCusker]

And they have.

[Joe Rogan]

There's all kinds of stuff, basically. You find anything? Yeah. Online. And I. I started watching. I can only watch for so long that I get anxiety, and then I have to shut it off.

[Matt McCusker]

That was like, when you do open mics and you finally, like, a showcase, you invite your friends or your family to watch, and they're just like, what the are you doing? Who are these people? You're like, they're my friends.

[Joe Rogan]

I brought some of my friends. The first time I ever went on stage, I didn't want to do it by myself.

[Matt McCusker]

I was the opposite. I didn't want anyone to see me for a long time. Yeah. And I did a show one time because I have a big family. So I did a show, and there's this place at Raven Lounge in Philly. It was, like, awesome. Like, when we started, tiny little black box thing in the top of a bar. It fit maybe, like, 25 people. And I have a big family. So I finally was like, all right, I'm inviting my family out, dude. I remember I was on stage, and I knew, like, 17 out of the 25 people, and I was like, dude, fucking kill me right now. This sucks.

[Joe Rogan]

And they're staring at you like this.

[Matt McCusker]

All my aunt in the front is, like, looking at me, and I was like, no.

[Joe Rogan]

Watching you choke. Watching you bomb oh,

[Matt McCusker]

for them. They were the audience. I'm like, fuck.

[Joe Rogan]

It's. But that's, you know, the only way. It's like, I know some people that have taken comedy classes, and then that has kind of got them into stand up.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's.

[Joe Rogan]

This is a function of comedy classes, and that function is, like, it gets you to try. Try it. I don't think anybody. Maybe there's a few out people out there that are, like, legit comics that are teaching them, but for the most part, not how.

[Matt McCusker]

So we had a comedy class at Helium there, and the thing was, if you won, if you took the comedy class to get. Let you in the comedy classes contest, then you can compete with the other people in the class. And if you won that, you got the hosting gig at Helium. And it was. It was a sweet deal. But it was so hard to get into Helium. So I had done stand up for a while, while I took time off, and when I got back into it, I was like, it. I'm taking that comedy class. I'm gonna try to fast track myself into host. So I won the comedy class contest, and. And then I got into Philly's Funniest when I won Phillies Funniest. I got. You know, they're like, the improv theater across the street was like, we'll let you host a comedy class, and we'll give you, like, 35 bucks an hour, dude. I had, like, no healthcare. I had nothing. I was like, absolutely. Let's do it. So I. I had a comedy class, and they showed up, and I. I was like, all right, Never take a comedy class ever again. I was like, don't ever do this ever again. This is so dumb. You guys did this, but we're just gonna run this as an open mic. And I was like, get up there. And I had them all go up and just do, like, five, you know, it was just an open mic.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that will work.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's what I try to tell him something. Yeah, that's what I try to tell him. But the one I was at was, like, real sketchy, man. It was very much like, I'm about to blow up. I'm taking you guys with me. This is how it's done. And you get out of it, and you go, this motherfucker, bro. I got deals in development, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Joe Rogan]

But there's so many of those guys.

[Matt McCusker]

I. I got blacklisted from Helium because they found out I had a comedy class, which was even a. It was a fake comedy class. I just wanted the money for it.

[Joe Rogan]

And did you try to tell them?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I told the owner. I was like, bro, what are you doing? He's like, look, man, just chill. And I was like. I was like. I was like, can I do the open mic still? He's like, you can do the open mic. And the guy found. I was on the open mic and they booted me off that for like a month.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, my God.

[Matt McCusker]

He was out for blood. And I called him, like, what the. Cuz I knew this guy. I'm like, what the are you doing? He's like, well, I didn't call them. I'm like, okay. You know, it was like, it's a big thing, but.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, there was talk when they were the same people owned Cap City here now. There was talk that if you headline there, you couldn't do my club for three months.

[Matt McCusker]

It's crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

And I was like, come on, guys. Why? I go. I. I said to him, I'm like, I'll. If you. If one of my friends is at your club, I'm like, I'll tweet about it. Like, I don't. I don't want this to be competition. There's plenty of comedians and there's plenty of audience members for everybody. That's silly.

[Matt McCusker]

Also. Everyone's gonna be fine. I just. Yeah, that's such. That's insane. Crazy. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't like that young guy coming up. You're banning him from the club because he's hosting a comedy class for money.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it was. It was kind of. It was nonsense. Now you know, now comedy class is

[Joe Rogan]

probably going to lead more people to your club. Like, it's all feeds off of itself.

[Matt McCusker]

I know. And it was literally like, well, you know, maybe the word got out that I was like, never take a comedy class ever again.

[Joe Rogan]

Why did Philly have a. Did Helium have a class?

[Matt McCusker]

That was the class I took. I took a class at Helium because I wanted to fast track myself to the host. Otherwise you had to do Philly's Funniest. And then. Yeah. So I was like. I completely gamed it. And I was like, it. Cuz these were like, people have never done it before. I'd done it for years. So I just went and did the class so I could do the contest.

[Joe Rogan]

Do you ever go back and think about people that you knew in the early days and you're like, I thought they were going to make it.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, there's a couple people that. I was like, this guy's like a celebrity. Like, he's. He's got it. And it's just like. I don't know what happened. They just kind of like they're.

[Joe Rogan]

I guess.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

It's weird. Weird.

[Matt McCusker]

It is weird.

[Joe Rogan]

There's a few people that I started out with, I'm like, damn, this dude's talented. Like, there's something there.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, no. Yeah, I know. It's funny you said that. I'm like, I don't think so. Then I'm like, oh, yeah. There was definitely at least one, if not like two or three that I. Yeah, they would come, they would do this, but they were. This guy was always on his own time. He would like show up late, just walk on. Like, it was. I think there's some people you just can't keep into like a thing at all. But their personalities are, like, magnetic.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. There's some people that, for whatever reason, they never figure out how to make a living at it. Yeah, they never, like. And then they get bored with it or they get frustrated or something.

[Matt McCusker]

There's. Yeah, I couldn't imagine just the, like, the. There was. I'd see people go. Who would like. You know, everyone bombs when you're starting out at open mics, but there are people that bomb every time for like years and they keep doing it. And you're like, bro, how are you?

[Joe Rogan]

How do you live? How are you doing this?

[Matt McCusker]

I have one bad set. I'm like, I'm going to kill myself, dude. I hate this.

[Joe Rogan]

Some people just don't see it. And that's also. They don't address it. And that's also where they don't get any better. They don't have any self awareness.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that could be it.

[Joe Rogan]

And their perception of how people see them is distorted.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. You know. No, that's kind of scary actually.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. You want to put blinders up.

[Matt McCusker]

It's pretty cut and dry though, when, like, people are silent in front of you. You're like, damn, I suck right now. I should change something.

[Joe Rogan]

But in the beginning, it's just. It's such a weird. You're. You're basically like running a marathon. Blindfold unfolded.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Through trees.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude. Like, finally when I did like a special, I was like, oh, this is the point of it. You have to come up with an hour of stand up.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Before I was just like, I need to have a good five minutes for tonight. And I would just go up and do it and be like, great, and I'll just go back home with like no plan or anything.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that's a lot of Guys who live in cities where you do short sets all the time. Yeah, we were talking about that the other night in the green room. Like, some guys who do a lot of, like, New York City clubs, they have a really good 15 minutes. They'll crush for 15 minutes. But when they have to do an hour hour, then things get weird because they can't keep the same energy for an hour. It's not. You have to pace it. It has to be hills and valleys. You have to kind of, like, structure it.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And then they also don't really have the material because they're basically just doing their best 15 minutes all the time.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, true. I. I had the. I wasn't even really doing stand up.

[Joe Rogan]

We.

[Matt McCusker]

Me and Shane were doing the podcast, and I was like, I was gonna do the podcast. I don't even want to do stand up anymore. And then he. It was pretty funny behind my back. Went to the manager at Helium, was like, dude, have mad headline. And I was like, fucking dick. And the guy hit me up. So I started doing that. So I had been, like, not doing

[Joe Rogan]

stand up for how long?

[Matt McCusker]

For, like, months and months and, like, maybe a year off. And I had, like. You know, I went. You know, it was like I would go and try stuff. So then I started doing. When I first started headlining, I would do an hour, have off for, like, two months, do an hour somewhere else. It was the most insane. It, like, really started fucking with me.

[Joe Rogan]

Did you have recordings to listen to?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I would record the audio and I would listen to it, and then I would, like, jot down notes and, like, it was the most insane way to get back into it.

[Joe Rogan]

That was the thing that we experienced after Covid. There was a moment where I hadn't done stand up in, like, four or five months. Yeah, it was. It felt so weird. And then Houston had stand up. They had clubs open and they, like, space people out and put masks on them. Like, this is so ridiculous.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And we were doing shows inside, and I only did one weekend. And then I got super, super paranoid. I'm like, what if I give it to someone and then they die? Yeah. Why am I being so selfish that I want to do these shows?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I gotta stop. So I had this old lady on the podcast, and my first thought was, what if I have it and I give it to her?

[Matt McCusker]

Damn, that would suck.

[Joe Rogan]

I was so freaked out.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I didn't have. I wasn't even remotely sick. That was what was crazy. Like, it was just a. It was a boogeyman for sure. It wasn't like, I'm coughing, Maybe I shouldn't come into work. No, it was like, I feel great, but what if I have it? I don't know. I know I give it to this lady.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I. Dude, I had my first kid, right, like, March 2020. So it just. We got out of the hospital, and like, a week later, I was, like, holding my face in a grocery store to being like, what?

[Joe Rogan]

Well, at least you could be with her when she gave birth then.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that was cool.

[Joe Rogan]

That was what was crazy. Yeah. People were dying alone because you couldn't visit them while they were dying.

[Matt McCusker]

And it was insane. Dude. It was. It was, like, in luck. Luckily, when we went in for our second kid, that was like. It was still kind of in the mix. We were able to go in together, but like, our nurse, you know, if we didn't have, like, our mask on, she was like, I don't. Whatever. I don't care. People were getting, like, just like. Like two weeks after we had our kid, people were in there like, I gotta stay home. My wife's in there by herself. Blah, blah. And it was, like, disaster. But even navigating, that was crazy, because it was like, you know, I'd tell my wife, like, I want to go do this. She's like, well, what if you bring it all to all of us? And it was just. I remember just at one point being like, then we're all gonna get it, dude. I don't know. Like, we. I. You know, I. I did the numbers. Like, I think this affects older people or, you know.

[Joe Rogan]

But what time was this?

[Matt McCusker]

This would have been March. It was like March 2020. And then, like, the next six months, because I, you know, I would, like, go try to do stuff. He's like, if you go outside, we're all gonna get sick.

[Joe Rogan]

I was worried about it. I wasn't really confident that people weren't gonna get really up by it until, like, a few of my friends got in, got up over it.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And then my family got it, and I didn't get it. And I thought that was crazy because I tried to get it. Like, I didn't. Yeah, I didn't. I hugged my kids. They were laughing. You're gonna get coveted. I was like, I'm not gonna get it. And I was. Part of my head was like, boy, I hope I don't get it. Yeah, I never got it. I worked out, and I didn't feel so good. And I said, let me just go through the paces today. And then I Worked out the next day, same thing. I'm like, I don't feel so good. I feel, like, weak. So I just let me do, like, my kettlebell routine with, like, 35 pounds. Just easy. Don't push it sets. And so I did that two days in a row. And then the third day, I went to the gym. I'm like, how do I feel? And I'm like, I feel good. Like, I feel great. Like, nothing feels wrong at all. And I had a full workout, and I felt fine. So I'm like, all right. I guess I didn't get it.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And I went and gotten tested to see if I had antibodies, like, if I had recovered from it. Nope, never got in there. Yeah. I had sex with my wife. She was coughing, and that's awesome.

[Matt McCusker]

That's such a beast move, dude.

[Joe Rogan]

She was like, you're gonna get it. I'm like, let's find out out. Let's find out.

[Matt McCusker]

That is a beast move. I don't. I'm, like, terrible at math. But I remember looking up, like, how likely is it to die from this? And it was like, 0, 0, 001 something. I was like, fine, man.

[Joe Rogan]

But they. There was so much propaganda, and it was like. The thing was, we were in the middle of doing podcasts, and we've tested everybody when they show up, make sure that nobody has it tested all the employees, security guys, everybody that works for me. Everybody got tested every day.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

We'd show up, we'd be separated. Nurse would come with a mask on, test everybody. And then once we had the results, then we would allow the show to go on.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

So I was like, I can't this up, because if I this up, I this up for everybody.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

So I got to be careful.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And I still want my guests. Like, the guests were flying in. They were taking a chance. A lot of them were older, you know, like a lot of professors, you know, they're flying in to do this podcast. And I had to make sure then. And then someone ratted us out. So the health department showed up at the studio, and they wanted us to have a bag of masks, like, right when you walk in. So we had to put a bag of masks right there. We had to put a hand sanitizer thing right there. And then a sign that says, like, what you're supposed to do. Six foot distance and all that. I was like, all right. But they were saying that we weren't socially distancing. We saw him hug people outside the front door.

[Matt McCusker]

That's completely dystopian. Man. That's completely crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't know why. You know what? It was because my parents were just like. Because, you know, the first time we all hung it outside, my. Both my parents were like, bro, this sucks. We're just. Come inside. We're not doing this. And that was like, oh.

[Joe Rogan]

My parents were terrified of.

[Matt McCusker]

My parents didn't give a.

[Joe Rogan]

They were like, yeah. My parents didn't want to hang out with anybody until they got vaccinated.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, they were real nervous about it. They're older, you know, it's like when you get older, you know, like, that's why a lot of these people, like the. The Neil Youngs and Howard Stearns and all those people that really freaked out about it, they're older people.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

So to them, they're looking at. They might. That 1% that dies. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

You know what I mean?

[Joe Rogan]

Whereas, like, you're young and healthy, you work out, you'll be. You'll probably be fine. You'll be okay. Your wife's healthy, you'll be fine. When you're an old person and you. You. You smell death in the air already.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Every day. Every day you wake up, you're like, oh, back hurts. Oh, Jesus. You could barely get out of bed. Your feet are swollen. Like, it could get you.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it's crazy. I'm surprised.

[Joe Rogan]

My.

[Matt McCusker]

My. My parents are like, you know, I think they're, like, gonna be 70 soon. They were just kind of like, we don't give a man.

[Joe Rogan]

It depends on where you grew up.

[Matt McCusker]

I think that's what it was, man. They're just kind of like, you know, they're all just like that, you know, it's. No matter what it was, they're like, It's.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. If you grow up hard, you're not worried about a cough.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, they weren't. I. I remember I finally got it. I finally got it, and it actually kind of like, rocked me the first day. I talked so much, and I got it. I was like, bro, if I die, this is gonna suck so bad. It's like, like. But we got it. Me, my wife got it two days later. So then I had it, you know, like a little kid. So I had to, like. We just switched off. I kind of was, like, recovered enough, so we were. Our kid never got it.

[Joe Rogan]

Kids can go right through it. My. My. Both of my kids got it, and they just burned through it. One of them had it more, but she's, like, a little more sensitive. She. She was pretty sick for a couple days. Not pretty. Not, like, scary. Like, she didn't feel good for a couple days. The other one, like, barely had it.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, went right through her.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, yeah. The one didn't get it all. The one, like, a runny nose. I was, like, in bed for three straight days. Just, like, hurt, super fever, hurting.

[Joe Rogan]

Were you taking any vitamins at the time?

[Matt McCusker]

No, at the time, I wasn't living very.

[Joe Rogan]

See, that's the thing.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm all over the vitamins and I was all over the vitamins then. And my wife back then, I don't think. Not so much.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't think she did as much. So when I was around everybody that got it, it just never got to me.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, no, I was forgot and I would. We had, like, you know, relative newborn kind of situation going. Going on, and it was.

[Joe Rogan]

That's a hard one. Your immune system's going to be crushed anyway because you're getting zero sleep.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Everybody's, like, ready to fall asleep at any given time, watching tv.

[Matt McCusker]

I've never recovered. I'm still ready to pass out. Like, I can fall asleep. I go home and I'm. I'm fried. I take naps. That was a big thing for coffee. Now I can take naps during the day. I can't take naps when I drink coffee.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, I never take naps.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, I love them, man. A little siesta.

[Joe Rogan]

The only time I ever take a nap is if I have to do something really early in morning. The. The morning. So, like, if I do a set at night and I'm not home until, like, 12:30 and, like, maybe I have to get up at 6 or something, I'll take a little nap.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Just because for me, there's a balance of, like, what is. What's more important, Getting things done, working out, or not getting into a deficit. And for me, it's not getting into a deficit because when I. Like, if I do a podcast and I'm sleepy, I get so mad at myself. I'm like, what are you doing? Like, this is your one job. Be awake and talk to people.

[Matt McCusker]

I'm sleeping like a toddler. Just.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Oh, wow. That's cool. So how long are you in Indonesia for?

[Matt McCusker]

It is embarrassing. You're like, what the.

[Joe Rogan]

It's the worst. And then I'm just drinking coffee and energy drinks and taking nicotine pouches and just trying to fire the brain up.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Then I. When I do that, my face just gets hot and I'm just anxious. It's like, that's why Especially for shows like I try to travel like I leave like on an early, early flight, get where I'm going and show just take a big nap. Yeah. And then I wake up and go do the show.

[Joe Rogan]

One thing that I started doing when I was on the road a lot was I would go in on Thursday if I had a show on Friday.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

So I would get in Thursday night sleep and then instead of flying in the day of the show because you're always a little foggy. You're, you know, it's hard to. And back then I wasn't on the nootropics as much. I wasn't like taking it with me on the road. You know brain vitamins and like alpha brain. But now I don't around. I don't travel without that stuff.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, no you do need I. I do the day of I. I can't help it. I just go early nap. I did a show in Vegas last weekend that like it didn't start till 10pm Vegas time. So I got there, I was. It was brutal. I got there, took a nap, woke up at like 9pm Vegas time. It was just like I felt like a bug.

[Joe Rogan]

You know what my trick for that is? The moment you learn land. The moment you land, put your in your hotel room, go straight to the gym. Yeah. No if ands or buts about it. You got to get a workout in and you gotta sweat, like really sweat. Just really get it going. Do do some push ups, whatever the you want to do. But just really sweat. And it feels like it resets your system.

[Matt McCusker]

I can see that. That would wake you up and kind of calm you down.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it resets your system. Like whatever the happens when you're on a plane, when you get off you

[Matt McCusker]

just like dude, I feel like I've been microwaved. I get off.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, you have been kind of.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, pretty much. I feel I smell weird.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like an X ray. You're getting X ray. Oh fuck yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Try not to. The other day I was like maybe it's like good for me somehow I'm up here. It's just like constricting my blood vessels and they like turning into a superhero. Well, I like was in Denver and I ran recently. I was like running and working out in Denver and I was like probably altered now I did like a 30 minute workout. I'm like I'm probably totally different now.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I lived above Boulder for a while.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh yeah?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. And then I had a gig in February, Philly. So I was living up there for A couple of months I was living at 8, 500ft above sea level, and I'd work out up there. And then when I'd go down to Boulder at 5500, I had all this endurance. I was like, this is crazy.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, in Denver? Yeah. From Boulder to Denver, you're saying?

[Joe Rogan]

No, from where I was, I was in the mountains above Boulder. And so I'd go down to Boulder.

[Matt McCusker]

Got you.

[Joe Rogan]

Boulder's like 55, 57, whatever it is. But I was at 85.

[Matt McCusker]

Damn.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. 8, 500ft above sea level.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. That's a lot.

[Joe Rogan]

So then I went, I did a gig in Philly and I went to the gym. And I remember I called my friend, I'm like, dude, feel like I could run through a wall.

[Matt McCusker]

Damn. I want that so bad.

[Joe Rogan]

That's what. Why a lot of athletes train, like, they go to Big Bear in California. They train up there.

[Matt McCusker]

Damn. I kind of. Yeah, I got. I got to do it for like, just once. And I was like, dude, this is awesome.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. If you can live at altitude and train at altitude and then go down to sea level, you feel like you have superpower.

[Matt McCusker]

That's awesome.

[Joe Rogan]

So a lot of endurance athletes, like, that's why they put the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs.

[Matt McCusker]

That makes sense.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Like, training at altitude is a legit hack.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. I didn't realize because I've always wondered, like, why is it so hard? And it's literally just the air thins and there's less oxygen.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

That simple.

[Joe Rogan]

And then your body has to adapt so you get more red blood cells.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

That's why they take epo. That's what EPO does for you.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, you don't have to go to altitude.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I think a lot of them do both. You know, they just go as hard as they push it to that, like, how much before I get a stroke.

[Matt McCusker]

True.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm trying to win a gold medal battle. I'm trying to win the Tour de France, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

I just started. I started sprinting again. Like, sprinting, sprinting. Just all out total sprints. And just to, like, see where I was at. Because I'm like, you know, because I'm like, if I feel like if you just stop, you can feel that, like, you know, age creep in a little bit. And there's a lot. I think there's a lot of mental stuff to be like, you know, man, it just goes. But, you know, if you're not, like, testing it, you know, how do you know you're just not letting yourself go anyway? So I like, I was like doing it. I haven't been running like that in forever. And dude, like, my fingertips would be numb. I would do 100, I would do 100 meter sprints. And I like can't feel my hands. Now I can. Now I can. I fixed it. And now because you like grow new veins and so I swear to God it's true.

[Joe Rogan]

Are you a doctor? I don't know.

[Matt McCusker]

I just, I've crocked. Dude, we're all equal now. But I remember being. Let me see where I'm at. And I was like, bro, you really. Do you use it or lose it, man. And I can run now. I did it this morning. I. I can sprint now and like, I don't get numb.

[Joe Rogan]

It's pretty awesome. How do you do it? Do you go to a track?

[Matt McCusker]

I have a track. Yeah. A track near my house. And I just bolt early, super early in the morning. You feel amazing.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[Matt McCusker]

All day.

[Joe Rogan]

And so you just pick a certain amount of distance you're gonna run.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I'll do like someday. Like today I did like two three hundreds. Two, two hundreds. And then like we're supposed to do four 150s. I got two. And I was like, I'm tapped.

[Joe Rogan]

So you're done in like 15, 20 minutes.

[Matt McCusker]

You're at, you're done. You go there. I'm, I'm there at like 6 o' clock and I'm done in 20 minutes. And I'm, I'm. You feel like it's like you were talking about, you run to a city and just get like an all out workout.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

You feel like you're walking on air for the rest of the day.

[Joe Rogan]

That makes sense. There was a study recently about explosive exercise and that that's one of the things that's lacking in like older people. As they get older, they stop doing any kind of explosive exercise. Like sprinting.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And how beneficial that is for maintaining your health and, and your ability to move around.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude, I'm telling you, like, I, I live. That was like such a drastic thing, but I was like, damn, this is. My circulation is like going like, I can't run without my hands feeling all like pins and needle y.

[Joe Rogan]

That's so weird.

[Matt McCusker]

And it just, they came back. Now I can do it. My fingers feel fine.

[Joe Rogan]

You're getting in shape.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it's pretty nuts because that was the thing. Cardio was always like, cardio's dumb. Who cares? And then you're like, I learned. I think it just like you secrete growth hormone and Then your veins and capillaries start, like, you get. Literally, you get, like, new and wider veins because they're.

[Joe Rogan]

Makes sense.

[Matt McCusker]

It's pretty cool.

[Joe Rogan]

Makes sense. I mean, your heart is pounding out of your chest.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You're hitting 180 beats per minute. It's like forcing all that through.

[Matt McCusker]

Just clearing it out. Like, all right, let's. What are we holding on to right now?

[Joe Rogan]

But see, like, you never got fat or you never got, like, really badly out of shape when you see a guy like, jelly roll, like, I have so much respect for that man.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I have so much respect for the. That man. That dude lost 300 pounds, dude. How he lost 300 pounds? No OIC. Just stopped eating sugar.

[Matt McCusker]

That was no OIC.

[Joe Rogan]

No OIC. He's. He took testosterone replacement. That's it.

[Matt McCusker]

That's sick.

[Joe Rogan]

Sick. I started.

[Matt McCusker]

I was like, he's got to be on oic.

[Joe Rogan]

He started off just walking, man.

[Matt McCusker]

That's all.

[Joe Rogan]

Just trying to walk. When he came here with. Last time we did a podcast, he ran. I forget. I think he ran. Ran 6.2 miles the day before. So they ran like. He was deer hunting down in South Texas, and he was with my friend Cam Haynes, and they went on a run. They did 6.2 miles. They ran and hills and.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And then he came in here before the podcast. He ran 2.6 on the treadmill. So I was working out, and he was over there running and talking and laughing. Look how good he looks.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

How crazy is that?

[Matt McCusker]

Nuts.

[Joe Rogan]

It's amazing. It's amazing. And we did the whole deal. We did the sauna afterwards. It was awesome.

[Matt McCusker]

How long. How long did he lose it at? Three years.

[Joe Rogan]

Three years.

[Matt McCusker]

God damn. That's crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

And he did it the right way. He did it the hard way. Just working out and eating right. No sugar, no eating clean food, and just slowly let his body drop.

[Matt McCusker]

I mean, he's got to feel over and over again. It's got to feel awesome.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. It's got to be amazing. Amazing.

[Matt McCusker]

Damn. How would you say that's doing, like, career wise? If he has, like a Persona and he's. No. Is like this, you know, I guess his fan.

[Joe Rogan]

He's got an amazing voice.

[Jamie]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, the. The amazing voice is still amazing.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Well, your voice changes with fluctuation with weight a little bit, I'm sure. I don't know. I've heard, like, if you're like an alto or something like that, and you're a certain. You're at a certain weight, it can change if you kind of. Because this is your. Your diaphragms, I guess, in your stomach.

[Joe Rogan]

I know some dudes who lost a lot of weight and they didn't like the way they look when they were thin because their head was. Was too big.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Isn't that weird? Yeah, like your head gets big when you get heavier.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. They. Oh, it just grows. Yeah, it makes sense. It grows your body.

[Joe Rogan]

Significant weight loss can change a person's voice, often making it sound higher pitched, lighter, or clear due to reduced fat accumulation around the larynx, throat, and chest. These physical changes decrease pressure on the vocal cords, improving breathing resonance and reducing the effort required to produce sound.

[Matt McCusker]

So it makes you a better singer.

[Joe Rogan]

But does it though? Because like opera singers, aren't they all fat?

[Matt McCusker]

I think so. Classic.

[Joe Rogan]

I wonder if you have to be.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

Are there any, like, really thin, like, handsome opera singers?

[Jamie]

Yeah, I don't know about all fat.

[Joe Rogan]

I think it's like, I like to just generalize.

[Matt McCusker]

It's a cartoon. I have the same thing. I'm like, yeah, I've seen that in cartoons as well.

[Joe Rogan]

Always a big, fat, jolly guys.

[Matt McCusker]

Fat lady with Viking helmets.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it's always.

[Matt McCusker]

But that sounds good though. So your voice gets clearer, higher pitch,

[Joe Rogan]

and it's not as much effort.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Sounds like that's R and B legend status. Then you can also.

[Joe Rogan]

So cat cardio. Like, you'll have way more cardio. You. Your heart won't beat as fast. You'll be able to have more oxygen to sing. Yeah, dude, it's all good.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

That's awesome.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, his voice is amazing. And it's his songwriting too. It's not just the voice. It's like what he's singing about. It's like, that's not going to get.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. And his. His fans. I'm. I have it like a weird thing in my head where, like, for comedy, I'm like, if I get too good of shape, people are going to be like this guy. Which I don't. That's not what's stopping me. But it's like you always wonder about that. Like, I wonder if they'd be like, like, damn right. You know what I mean?

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that is a weird thing. Like, I never.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't think it matters.

[Joe Rogan]

On stage with a T shirt on.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. If you're too jacked. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, I would never go on stage with a tank top on.

[Matt McCusker]

Tank would be. Tank might be kind of funny. Tank would be kind of funny.

[Joe Rogan]

Crazy.

[Matt McCusker]

That would be crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Rich Voss Used to do that all the time. He always wear a tank top on stage.

[Matt McCusker]

That makes perfect sense.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, boss. Yeah. Character like Kid Rock style.

[Matt McCusker]

I just saw. Yeah, I just saw. Did you see the workout?

[Joe Rogan]

No. What do you mean?

[Matt McCusker]

You didn't see the Kid Rock Robert Kennedy workout?

[Joe Rogan]

Shut up.

[Matt McCusker]

You didn't see this?

[Joe Rogan]

No, bro.

[Jamie]

You said he did it off social media, so you must have really got off social media.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm off social media, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

It is. It's very funny.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm off social media but apparently I'm not off the news, which I think I have to be off now. Yeah. Because I haven't been gone on social media. But I'll read the Apple news feed and the Google news feed and like

[Matt McCusker]

that's basically scrolling too. I tried the same thing.

[Joe Rogan]

I was reading about B52s headed to some Air Force base. Nuclear equipped B50. I'm like, what are we doing?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

So let me see this workout video. It's Kid Rock and. Oh, Jesus Christ, bro. Oh, this must be Kid Rock's house.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Rock out workout. RFK Jr. Works out in jeans.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, he's look, he.

[Joe Rogan]

He always works out in jeans, which is so crazy. Yeah, this is Kid Rock's house. Kid Rock house has a insane house that looks like the White House. He had like the outside of it looks like the white house, but the inside of it has two bedrooms and it's like 25,000 square ft. It's an enormous house with two bedrooms. Yeah, it's all just party. He's got a huge like hot tub room. Look at RFK Jr. Jack.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude. Awesome.

[Joe Rogan]

For 70 on the air dine. Look at him doing push ups. These guys are doing the air D in the sauna.

[Matt McCusker]

I know.

[Joe Rogan]

Wild.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. I think they go to his like

[Joe Rogan]

cold plunge with jeans on. What?

[Matt McCusker]

Crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

What the are you doing? That is ridiculous. What's wrong with your legs? Now I need to know where's Kid? So this is his crazy room that looks like a mining like cavern.

[Matt McCusker]

I've heard of his secret shadow.

[Joe Rogan]

He's got like this. It's really cool. He's really in a pickle ball too. He plays pickleball every morning. Yeah, that's what he telling me. He goes, get up and play pickle ball. 7am Everybody. Pickle ball. He's like, dude, I love that's what it looks like. Look at how dope that is. His house is so dope.

[Matt McCusker]

Like it's so.

[Joe Rogan]

It's the dopest house I've ever seen. In my life.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. That's awesome.

[Joe Rogan]

And it's such a kid rock house. Like, the outside of it looks exactly like the White House.

[Matt McCusker]

That's incredible.

[Joe Rogan]

Just larger.

[Jamie]

I want you to be distracted from the whole milk. They're drinking in the hot tub.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, they're drinking.

[Matt McCusker]

That's raw, bro.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

Can I bring your attention to something that's been happening on the Internet since we've been live?

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[Jamie]

President Trump was asked about Obama talking about the aliens. I got a video on the screen.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, perfect.

[Jamie]

I want to hear it myself.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Barack Obama said that aliens are real.

[Joe Rogan]

Have you seen any evidence of non human visitors to Earth?

[Matt McCusker]

Well, he gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that. Know.

[Joe Rogan]

So aliens are real.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, I don't know if they're real or not. I can tell you. He gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that. He made. He made a big mistake. He took it out of classified information. No, I don't. I don't have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it. Do you believe it, Peter? Well, the president.

[Joe Rogan]

I do now.

[Matt McCusker]

I may get him out of trouble by declassified. We know, illegal aliens.

[Joe Rogan]

I may get him out of trouble by declassifying. That's hilarious.

[Matt McCusker]

What else?

[Jamie]

That was it.

[Matt McCusker]

Ah.

[Jamie]

What's going around the Internet, these in the circles.

[Joe Rogan]

I may get him out of trouble by declassifying. Geez, I, I hope he does.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Really?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Imagine you can go to. You can get in trouble as a president for saying aliens are real.

[Matt McCusker]

I. I don't think so, man. I, I don't think he's gonna get in trouble for that.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, what did he say then? What was that?

[Matt McCusker]

They've been saying there's aliens. But what did he say? He was just. He just hates Obama. He's going like, oh, he's going to jail. I'm getting Hillary and I'm getting Obama for aliens.

[Joe Rogan]

They all hate each other and then they all hang out and shake hands.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Yeah. Whose funeral was that when, like, George Bush and them were handing out candy to each other? It's like, George Bush.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, George Bush and Michelle Obama are apparently friends.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, they're buddies.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Okay.

[Joe Rogan]

Which everybody thought. But George Bush never engaged in, like, this insult kind of thing that Trump does. It's true. It's a different thing.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it's totally. No, that's.

[Joe Rogan]

He was always very close. Classy.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Yeah. And especially when you see the videos of him back in the day. Like, now you're like, man, this guy's, like, lovable.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, dude. In comparison to the politicians saying, yeah. He was like, oh, when is he running again?

[Matt McCusker]

Class. The guy's a complete class act. And then you're like, oh, yeah, the Middle east forgot about that. But it's like, oh, yeah, well, he

[Joe Rogan]

had Satan on his side. Yeah, true. Dick Cheney was true. Running around, shooting his friends in the face and hunting trips.

[Matt McCusker]

That's true.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't know.

[Matt McCusker]

I mean, that thing is like, the. Did it. Was it classified? It's like, now. But then if Trump's going to be like, that he gave out classified, then he's letting you know it's classified. So he's telling you the cat's out of the bag.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, he's saying, I may declassify it. I hope he does. I hope this, like, gets him. Because that is a weird thing to say. He's not supposed to be saying that. Well, that means it's real. He gave out classified information. That means there's real data, that aliens are real. That's the only thing you could draw as a conclusion from that statement.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, right. Yeah. You would think.

[Joe Rogan]

I think. I don't think. Is it. I would try, like, try to come up with another reasonable way he would say aliens are real. You shouldn't say that because it's classified. Yeah, that means it's real.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it is. But that's like, that's such a crazy. If Trump was trying to keep it classified, you think he'd be like, I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

He's talking about, well, I don't know, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

Being like, well, yeah, they are, but I can't say they are. And he's in trouble now.

[Joe Rogan]

I told you, I've talked to Bob Lazar many times. Oh, yeah, I had him on the podcast. I had dinner with him and Andrew Schultz. Schultz was in town in la. Go, what are you doing tonight? And he goes, why, what's up? I go, you want to go have dinner with Bob Lazar? He's the guy that used to back Engineer UFOs at Area 51. He goes, yes.

[Matt McCusker]

Damn.

[Joe Rogan]

All right. So we went to Fogo to chow in la, and we sat down with Bob Lazar and just got to ask him all these questions. I've talked. I've known him for years now. So I've known him for probably when I did the podcast with him. What year was that, Jamie?

[Jamie]

20. 19.

[Joe Rogan]

2019. So I've known him for six, seven years now. Okay, whatever. However it runs out Time wise. And he's always had the same story. He's a very reasonable guy you hang out with. I've had dinner with him a couple times. Super normal guy. Doesn't seem like a big fat liar. Obviously a scientist. Like, obviously like a very brilliant guy. Like I don't know what to think. I. I want. I keep searching for some. I keep searching for some, some thing. He never saw any aliens. He never saw anything. He just was back engineering these crafts that didn't make any sense. He's like, he, he got there, he saw it. The moment he saw it, it looked like that thing. That's what it's based on. That's that thing on the desk. That's the sport model.

[Matt McCusker]

Jesus Christ.

[Joe Rogan]

There's a guy named Designs by Perry and the E in Perry is a three and he makes these, you could buy them on the Internet. He makes a, like a desk clock or a desk lamp rather.

[Matt McCusker]

So he'd have to like examine the like motor or whatever, the mechanisms of that and try.

[Joe Rogan]

They didn't even tell him what he was doing. So this is what it was. So he worked at Los Alamos, Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico. And he was a propulsions expert. He had famously put a jet engine on the back of a Honda. Like he built a Honda with a jet engine on it. Just for funsies. Just a genius. He just loved engineering and doing, doing things. And he had contacted this guy about getting some work, some you know, work in laboratories or whatever. And he said, I might have something for you that is more along the lines with your capabilities. I'm gonna set up a meeting for you. So he sets up this meeting for him. He has no idea what the meeting is about. He has no idea what they're doing. They don't tell him. They just start asking him about his background, what he did at Los Alamos, what, what he's interested in. And he's like, it just tells this whole story of science and this, that. And so they had already heard about him. So they go, okay, show up at this place. There's airplanes that are going to fly you out to where you're going. So he's like, okay. So no one even knew about these airplanes back then. Now it's been confirmed that there's a bunch of airplanes right outside of Mandalay Bay. You could see these airplanes that they fly, the employees that work in Area 51 and they live in Las Vegas. They just fly them out there. But nobody knew about this. In 1989 when he was talking about it when he blew the whistle on it.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And so they fly him out there. They, you know, show him how everything works for a couple days in terms of, like, how the base works and where you have access to what you don't have access to. They bring him this guy that is his co worker that was there before, and then it was kind of gonna show him the ropes. And then a couple days in, they bring him into a hangar, and there's that thing, and it has American flag sticker on it. And so he goes, oh, these are ours. He's like, oh, my God. No wonder why people are seeing these things. This is something that we have. So then they tell him, essentially tell us how it works. It's like, what is this, a test? Like what? Like, they're very vague about everything. No one's telling him where it came from. No one's telling him anything. And then he realizes, like, the whole thing doesn't make sense because there's no welds, there's no seams. It's like it's 3D printed, and you have to crawl in it because it's designed for people that are, like, three feet tall.

[Matt McCusker]

Whoa.

[Joe Rogan]

And there's no controls in it. It's like, what is this? And there's this generator in the center of it that has this triangle piece of this element that doesn't even exist on Earth. Earth. This element. 115. He's like, wait, what the is going on? And they explained to him, you bombard this element with radiation. This is how this thing works. Put this dome on, it gets bombarded with radiation, and then that causes this field around this craft that allows you to move around. And so they do a demonstration for him. He goes outside, they fly this thing. When he's under it, he can't see see it. He has to step away from where he is before so he can see it again. He's like, what the is this thing? It's not making any noise. It moves around. It gives off this, like, glowing light. When whatever. That. Whatever this generator inside of it is is operational, it gives off this blue glowing light. And this thing was, like, silently flying around. And occasionally, it would go from one point to another, another very quickly. Like, it could go from, like, this part of the mountain to that part of the mountain and just appear there. And it would look like it just disappeared because it would move so fast. It would just appear in a new place.

[Matt McCusker]

It seemed like what was steering the thing.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't understand it. And he didn't understand it either. They, they don't exactly know. He knows how. Supposedly this generator, there's these gravity beam projectors that are on the bottom of it. And the way you get it to fly fast, it would turn sideways and then it would point these gravity projectors, or whatever they called it, into a certain direction. It would create this, this void around this craft and it would just instantaneously go to wherever it was supposed to go.

[Matt McCusker]

That's crazy, right?

[Joe Rogan]

And so he's working on this for, you know, months and months and then his wife starts having an affair on him because he, he doesn't tell her what he's doing. It's like super top secret. And so when you have this super talk secret clearance, you can't tell anybody what you're doing. So he's like, I gotta go to work. She's like, it's 11 o' clock at night, where are you going? He's like, I have to go to work. So he would just jet off. And she was like, well, I'm going to go fuck my flight attendant or my flight instructor. So this is all recorded because they're tapping his phones and so they, they suspended him because they were wondering if he's going to be emotionally unstable. So while he's suspended, he takes his friends. He's like, I got to tell people about this. Like, I can't even work, something's going on. I got to tell these people, like, hey, every Wednesday I have the schedule. Every Wednesday they fly these things. And the reason why they do it on Wednesday is because that's when there's the least amount of traffic on the roads. So he takes his wife and he takes a couple of friends and he takes him up to see this thing and they go once and then they go twice and then they get, get caught. Damn. And then when they get caught, then they grill him, they scare him, they're poking him in the chest with a gun and they're freaking him out. And then they tell him about his wife and the affair and all this. And so then he goes public. And so he gets a hold of this guy, George Knapp, who's a news reporter in Las Vegas, and he tells him the story. And at first, initially, they black his face out and you know, like, so he could remain anonymous. He's like, look, the only way I could stay alive, you have to show me my face. Cuz he's there threatening him. They broke into his house. He goes outside, he goes to the gym, goes outside, his trunk is open, his Hood is open, all his doors are open. The car was locked. No one broke into it. So he has no idea they're with him. And he's really worried. Someone shoots his tire out on the highway.

[Matt McCusker]

Where is he now? He's just chilling.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, he's. I don't know if I'm supposed to say where he lives.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, whatever. But he's like around.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, no, he's around. I mean, this is a long time I ago. It was a long time ago. And, you know, he was kind of discredited. They tried to discredit him. They said he never worked at Los Alamos Labs. But then someone got a hold of the employee roster from the time that he was working there and his name's listed there. So someone who worked there at the time said, I have the employee roster from, you know, 1985 or whatever it was. And he says like, sure, right here. And they go through the roster and says right there. Robert Lazar. And there's also a newspaper article that was printed about him being a physicist at Los Alamos Labs and that he had made this crazy jet engine powered Honda. Yeah. So there's him with the Honda and he's listed in this lab that he's a physicist at this lab.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude, that's. That shit's so weird.

[Joe Rogan]

And then what, what that guy just said. Yeah, what Trump just said. He's not supposed to say that. It's classified.

[Matt McCusker]

Like, yeah, what?

[Joe Rogan]

Why don't you tell us?

[Matt McCusker]

Well, I always wonder if they're going to try to do like a Space Force thing where it's like, WMD is the Middle East. We go to the Middle east now they're going like, yeah, I think there are, there are aliens in. It's like, like, now we get to do like Space Force.

[Joe Rogan]

I, I think if they're aliens, you can't do to them.

[Matt McCusker]

I know, but it's also like if you want to erect some weird defense thing in outer space so we can spy on China, it's like, yeah, I think there's probably are aliens for the. By the way. It's like there's. I would imagine there's something.

[Joe Rogan]

I would imagine there's something.

[Matt McCusker]

Because the government, whenever they start floating out things like, I always, I assume there's like an agenda. I'm like, all right, what are they doing?

[Joe Rogan]

100.

[Matt McCusker]

Because they just dropped aliens on us out of nowhere. And everyone was of kind, kind of

[Joe Rogan]

like, okay, well, it really started around 2017. That's when it started to become legitimized. Because that was when the New York Times printed this article about it, and they talked about these pilots and their experiences and these videos that they couldn't explain because these crafts had no heat signature and they were flying in ridiculous speeds over the ocean.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. I remember them just coming out with it and then, like, just. And then they started doing the UAP thing and all that stuff, and they're like, yeah, there's like an unidentified crafts and, you know, blah, blah. So I'm always kind of like, what are they up to?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it's weird.

[Matt McCusker]

The hell are these guys up to?

[Joe Rogan]

It's hard to know what's real and what's not real. But when you start talking to pilots and people that have experienced certain things, you know, you just go, wow, what is this guy saying?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. And again, I don't deny it. I'm always kind of like, yeah, he probably did see that stuff. But it's like, I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, it's like, why is it classified?

[Matt McCusker]

It's got to be mil. I would imagine it's military stuff where they're like, we want to use it for. We want to reverse engineer and use it for our military. If gets into another military's hands, blah, blah, blah. But then they're all spying on each other, so I would imagine they would know too.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, the people that I've talked to said that Russia and China both have retrieved crashes.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. It's not just America that has them. It's other countries that have them too.

[Matt McCusker]

Damn.

[Joe Rogan]

Supposedly, this is the big story. Supposedly there's one that's so big that they can't move it, so they built a building around it that's supposed to be in Korea. What? Supposedly, that's why I heard it's in Korea. But. Yeah, this is the lore that this thing is so big. Big that they couldn't move it that they had to put a building around it.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude, that's. That's wild. That'll be the. The thing I always think about. If they come out and say, yeah, there's definitely aliens. Like, what do people do?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, this is the building. Supposedly, a giant building in South Korea is often cited as a potential UFO storage facility. You imagine if they just built it the shape of a ufo?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it kind of looks like it.

[Joe Rogan]

That's so crazy.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude. Do a square rare building.

[Joe Rogan]

What's in that building?

[Matt McCusker]

I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

Imagine that's real. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

What is this?

[Joe Rogan]

Why.

[Matt McCusker]

Why are they. Why do they think this?

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I would imagine that place would have to be heavily guarded. Yeah, there's just a gate. Who's that guy? Eric Burleson insisted on the existence of aliens, but admitted he has no definitive proof. Okay.

[Jamie]

I was talking that video I showed you the other day, who said. Said he was gonna go look at these places.

[Joe Rogan]

He was gonna go look in Korea.

[Jamie]

He mentioned he was going to go look at the underground one. He didn't say where it was.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, this is the Congressman. Congressman's claim. Yeah. So scroll. Scroll down there a little lower. So here it is. US Congressman's claim the classified facility housing a UFO is hiding in plain sight. Well, that's kind of hiding in plain sight. They literally made a little antenna on the top, just like this sport model. Look at this sport model. It has that antenna on the top up. I don't know what to believe, man, but I know I want to believe. 270ft in diameter. Holy.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's. That's insane. Yeah, Especially now with all the deep fake stuff that's going to come out. Like, the next election will be in, like, deep fake territory. Everyone will be like, you were on the Epstein list. You were on it. No, you were. I'm like, I'm just.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, you could have people saying all kinds of things that they've never

[Matt McCusker]

said or being like, I didn't do that.

[Joe Rogan]

Hanging out with people. They never hung up. I mean, there was all these photos that were fake of Epstein with a bunch of different people.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, yeah. No, there was. There was a completely fake videos people were sharing. Yeah, it's like, you know, so I don't know. By that time, it's like I've been trying to just pull back completely from, like, the news and I'm like, you

[Joe Rogan]

know, hey, what is the official story of the Colbert show where they had to air that talarico interview on YouTube because I'm hearing too much versions. I'm hearing one version is that CBS wouldn't let them air it because, like, Trump was involved and the government was involved somehow or another, because they're worried about this Talarico guys, this very charismatic guy in Texas that I really like. Very nice guy. I'm on the show. Brian Simpson told me about him. And then the other thing that I'm hearing is no. With FCC equal time rules, if he had Talarico on, he would also have to have Talarico's opponent, which is, I think Jasmine Crockett. Is that true? I didn't even know whoever his opponent is. So I think there's rules like that for the FCC that don't exist for podcasts. You know what I'm saying?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, yeah. They have to balance it.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Like if you have this person on that's running for office, you also have to have someone that is opposing them. They have to have equal time.

[Matt McCusker]

I didn't know they had.

[Joe Rogan]

Is that true?

[Matt McCusker]

So he was on. Was. He was on Colbert whose show was he on?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, Stephen Colbert show. Okay. And. And so they were framing it like it was. The government was censoring this guy because they're wor. And he was saying they're worried that they're going to flip Texas. That's what he's saying. I don't know if that's true though, because I.

[Jamie]

So it's the diff. Honestly, this sounds like it's a Colbert saying one thing. CBS lawyers are saying a different thing.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay, what are CBS lawyers saying?

[Jamie]

They're saying that it's the FC FCC thing. Colbert says, quote here, they know damn well every word of my script was approved by CBS lawyers who, for the record, approve every script that goes on.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, but it's not about the script. It's about the humans, the people that are on. If the people are. Yeah, here it is. The show provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled, filled. So you would have to have equal time. Colbert scoffed at the statement during Tuesday's show. They know damn well every word of my script, but it doesn't have anything to do with the script. Said they don't know damn well that every word of my script last night was approved by CBS lawyers, who, for the record, approved every script that goes on the air. Well, that's just diverting because that's not what the subject is. Okay, I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers, something that had never ever happened before. They told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal time exception. And I use that language. Colbert said. So I don't know what this is about. He went on to say he wasn't mad at the network and does not want an adversarial relationship. Well, he's on his way out anyway.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I thought. I didn't know he still was doing a show.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he's doing it, I think, until like April or May or something. Come on, you're Paramount. No, no, no. You're more than that. You're Paramount. Plus, he cracked. And for the Lawyers. To release this statement without even talking to me is really surprising. The host also noted there's been a long, very famous exception, equal time rule. And that exception included talk shows, interviews with politicians. Oh, interesting. So that makes it interesting. We looked, we couldn't find one example. This rule being enforced for any talk show interview. Not only for my entire late night career, but for anyone's late night career going back to the 1960s. He said Colbert said that Carr has not gotten rid of that exception. Exception for talk show hosts yet. Maybe CBS was worried that this is a rule and that the government could crack down on them, although no one has ever done that in the past. So this is a different kind of government. Right. Obviously it's a very adversarial. Adversarial relationship CBS or at least the Colbert show has already with Trump.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. What are they worried about? Who is Tal? What party is Talarico?

[Joe Rogan]

He's a Democrat.

[Matt McCusker]

Democrat. And Crockett.

[Joe Rogan]

What's Crockett? She's a Democrat as well.

[Matt McCusker]

She's a Democrat too. So what is like, oh, they're running against each other.

[Joe Rogan]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Okay. Talarico is a white guy.

[Joe Rogan]

He's a guy. His story is very interesting. He was a schoolteacher and his story was that he had this kid that was very troubled in his class. But the kid was receiving counseling and it was starting to get better. But then budgets got cut and when budgets got cut, they cut off the counseling. And this was kid, kid started off and you know, acting out and really falling apart. And he wound up getting kicked out of school. And it really hurt him because he was like, this kid had like real potential and he is a teacher, you know.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And so then he decided to run for office and to try to remedy these problems.

[Matt McCusker]

Got you. So didn't he just get like jammed up with something now or like they were. Someone claimed they were in his office and that he said something kind of like disparaging about like a black, black guy.

[Joe Rogan]

Talarico.

[Matt McCusker]

He's a very mild manner looking guy, right? Yeah, there was. I, I don't know if I'm getting

[Joe Rogan]

my politicians are running against people stories start a flying.

[Matt McCusker]

But there was a. It was about another politician. All he said was like, I didn't know I was going up against, you know, this like, I don't know, I guess like a. Whatever word he used like electrifying black. I thought I was going up against a mediocre black guy. That was he apparent. They some lady claimed that he called Colin Allred A mediocre black.

[Joe Rogan]

Black man faced allegations that he referred to his opponent, Colin Allred, as a mediocre black man during a private conversation with an influencer. An influencer?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

A comment Reptilarico has denied the allegation caused significant backlash, with All Red calling for supporters to vote for another candidate, Jasmine Crockett.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, yeah. So it's like, yeah, that's a way

[Joe Rogan]

to get people to not vote for that guy.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Kind of sucks.

[Joe Rogan]

An influencer said it.

[Matt McCusker]

An influencer was like, I worked in his campaign. And he was like, if I knew. Known I was going up against this strong black woman, I wouldn't have known. I thought I was running against a mediocre black man. And then the guy responded being like, nothing about me is mediocre. You know, they kind of into what

[Jamie]

the penalty is for the equal time rule. And I don't really see one.

[Matt McCusker]

Poor Tal is having a tough time, especially if it sounds like he's a sweet guy who's, like, trying to help kids out. And there's, you know, his name's too

[Joe Rogan]

close to the guy that killed Epstein.

[Matt McCusker]

I keep him up.

[Joe Rogan]

Taglioni, Talaria, Rico.

[Matt McCusker]

There was a. Yeah, that's.

[Joe Rogan]

I keep confusing them.

[Matt McCusker]

Like, I tell.

[Joe Rogan]

When I say the. The killer's name. Yeah, that cop, I keep saying, I think his name is Tagliato. No. Tall Rek. No.

[Matt McCusker]

It's gonna catch up to him. He's like, I think this guy killed Epstein, actually.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. The thing is, like, an influencer said, like, what does that mean?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I mean, it's. I mean, look. Yeah, it's pretty genius, though. If you want to do dirty politics, you can just be like, but what

[Joe Rogan]

if he said I was going. I thought I was going up against this mediocre guy, and now I'm going up against this powerful black lady.

[Matt McCusker]

That's what.

[Joe Rogan]

It's not a bad.

[Matt McCusker]

But then he didn't. He was like, you know, I'd be like, that makes sense.

[Joe Rogan]

But he is a black man. So if you're saying mediocre guy and it happens to be a black man, and then that person says, he said mediocre black man. Like,

[Matt McCusker]

yeah, it's not. It's not even that bad of a thing to say.

[Joe Rogan]

All we'd have to do is just not say the black part. And he'd be like, oh, he's just talking about a politician that's mediocre. I know, happens to be black, but he's mediocre. But as soon as you describe him as accurately yeah, you just.

[Matt McCusker]

You're fried. Especially. Especially if you're a damn man. If you're damn. You cannot be calling.

[Joe Rogan]

No, he's a religious guy, too, which is interesting, but also opposes putting the Ten Commandments in schools.

[Matt McCusker]

Okay. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I said, I think it's going to push people away from Christianity. He had a very well thought out point about it. We had a really good conversation.

[Matt McCusker]

Also, you don't need to be in school and be like, thou shalt not commit adultery. It's like, yeah, dude, they're not going to your wife.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, well, it's not that. It's your pool pushing this religious rule. These religious rules on people. And it's one religion. It's like, what about people that are Buddhists? What about people that are Muslims? What about people that are Mormons? What about. You can go down the list forever and ever and ever Hindus. Like, what do you. Come on.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, and it's also. You can, you know, you can kind of summarize it up and, like, just be nice, you know, I. I worked in high school for a while. I was a counselor.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, really?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I was like. I went to school for social work for a while.

[Joe Rogan]

So, like, what kind of counsel thing would you do?

[Matt McCusker]

Just, like, therapy. I would. There was.

[Joe Rogan]

It was.

[Matt McCusker]

It was a really cool. The way they did it was like. It was, you know, it was a charter school, and I was there as an intern because I was. I was getting my master's in social work. So they would have interns there as therapists for the school kids, basically, so that the kids could get free therapy at school if they were exhibiting kind of problems or whatever. So it was like. I worked at a. Like, it was like an inner city school in Philly, and I would just go there and chill in an office, and they would just, like. I'd have to get kids from class, and they would just come. We would, like, talk a couple times a week. And then you could bring their family in. If they're like, they have problems at home, you can be like, all right, let's call the mom and dad.

[Joe Rogan]

This is what this guy was talking about. This is what Talarico was talking about, what they cut funding for.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it's a shame. Cause this school was like. They kind of, like, ran it. I guess they were getting funded by the state, but the way they got around it was just using interns. So it wasn't like, you're not getting the most experienced people in the world,

[Joe Rogan]

but you're getting some help getting something, man. Well, this kid that he was talking about, he had this very detailed story about this kid who was like a good kid. Just came from a fucked up, up house. And he wanted. And these people around him were the only positive influences that he had ever had. And he was starting to get better.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And then they took it away and he starts falling apart.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. And dude, it's also like, you, don't you forget like, you know, because there's like, for kids when you like especially like in a city and kids are telling you like their lives, it's like, it's heartbreaking. Like the like their day to day setup, you're like, Christ, man. And then there's looking at you like, what do I do? And I'm like, you gotta hang in there. There's nothing I, there's literally nothing I can tell you to do. You just gotta hang in there.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Matt McCusker]

It was sad, but it was, it was one of like my favorite. If I didn't do stand up, I would probably do that for a job.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. I loved it.

[Matt McCusker]

It was fun.

[Joe Rogan]

That's hot. Well, it sounds very rewarding, right? Yeah. You're actually helping people. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

And you have to, it's just like intense. You're just sitting there in a room with somebody and it's like everything they're saying, there's no like guidance. You have to just be like, all right, well, like maybe this, maybe that. And it's like a. I don't know. I felt really, I always liked it a lot. It was pretty cool. But then you would like, you go back to the school and I, I, it's so funny. I went to social work school just because I was doing stand up. I was kind of kicking around. I was like, yeah, I was doing the podcast, but it was like slow going. And I remember watching Jordan Peterson be like, the schools are crazy right now. And a part of me, like, I always, I wanted to be a therapist, but I remember being like kind of curious, like, I wonder how bad they are. And I went to school, I went to my master's program in social work, which was like ground zero for all like the stuff he was about, talking, talking about. And he was, dude, it was, it was literally like worse than he made it out to be.

[Joe Rogan]

What was it like?

[Matt McCusker]

It was insane, dude. It was literally like, you know, I went to school again to be a therapist. But like, social work, you can be a therapist faster than if you go to school for psychology because you just like don't need any of the science really. You just study kind of like the theory and, you know, whatever. So you can be a therapist quicker. It's like a shortcut kind of. But it would be like, it was just literally you'd be in a room with like 13 other people and they would like, you know, you talk, talk about whatever it may be like, let's, let's talk about like clinical approaches here and there. And it would just right away turn into like race, gender, who's the most oppressed do this? And it was just like, people would tell stories. Like one time this guy said this to me and everyone. Like, I can't believe that guy said that. It was literally like nothing. You paid 60 grand. It was like, like I would be terrified if I was getting therapy. And again, it's like not everybody, but there's a lot of very unhealthy people will cry, cry in class. So you'd be like talking and like, people would just start bursting out in tears, like, I don't feel safe. It was insane. I'm like, dude, you're gonna be talking to people who are like homeless. How are you gonna help them?

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, my God.

[Matt McCusker]

And it was all female. It was mostly female dominated. It was like me and three or four other guys. And then like, people would come in because you'd bring your case files in and be like, here's something I'm dealing with. Let me get some. You know, what do you think about this? I remember this guy was dealing with this like Vietnam vet who like, you know, had like lived in Philly his whole life. And he was like, I was just shocked. The way he talked about women. It's like, bro, you dirty macking your client, dude, for these chicks. I'm like, come on, man. It was just kind of weird. It was like, did you know he's a 70 year old dude? He's lived in Philly his whole life.

[Joe Rogan]

He probably stabbed Charlie in a tunnel somewhere. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

And he was like, he was just very crude about women. It's like, come on, man. Of course this guy is. Yeah, don't throw him under the fucking bus. You're supposed to be helping. That was my whole point. It was like, if you're doing therapy with people, it's like, you know, life is just so hard and so complex and if you're going to be, be like, this doesn't sit with my party politics. I was like, you guys got to drop the political man and just like, meet these people where they're at.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, there's so many guys out there that just want brownie points.

[Matt McCusker]

That's what I. And dude, yeah, he's exactly what it was. I was like, dude, I know what you're doing right now. You're dirty macking this guy so you can be like. Personally, I was offended. I'm like, dude, oh I was the worst. Oh I could, I couldn't stand it at all.

[Joe Rogan]

Those guys are the worst.

[Matt McCusker]

Then they try to kick me out the of the school cuz. Cuz when Shane got in trouble for snl, my name popped up in the byline because I, they had no clue. I, it was like a double life I would do. I would go to social work school, like because I just took out loans. I'm like, we'll just see what you know. If the podcast works, I'll just pay off the loans. If it doesn't, I'll have a degree. And so I had been, it had been pretty contentious because my plan was like, dude, just go keep it cool. Don't say anything. And then dude, you'd be in these classrooms. And like I remember the ones that time this lady and they're all like young, they write out of college, they come out and they'd be like, well and I believe this is like unprompted. She was like, well if she was like, I would never personally call the cops on a black person ever. And I'm just sitting in the back of the room and I'm like, no one's gonna say this is the craziest thing. And I'm like, what if he was beating a woman? And she was like, I mean like. And like it was just that non fucking stop and I couldn't help it. So I would start saying stuff, the room would go into chaos. So like I literally couldn't bite myself, my tongue and. And then eventually they found once they, they already kind of had it out for me. And once that news came out about the podcast, they were like, we got them dead to rights. So then they, they like the student council, like they all them, they didn't like me at all. They all kind of did a motion to get me kicked out. And so the teacher came or like, you know, the dean or whatever who actually was nice. I liked her a lot. She like, I had a meeting with her and she was like, yeah, these people feel unsafe, blah blah blah. So I had, I had to do them and it was like unsafe or they just don't, you know, they don't like with here. But like they, I had a meeting with like the board basically, which you ever like fantasize about Getting, like, defending yourself in court. Yeah, I got to do that. And I got to have like a. You know, we got to, like, debate about whether or not I actually violated the code of ethics. And it was, like, kind of this gray area, so it was like. It was awesome. I recorded it on my phone.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[Matt McCusker]

It's like an hour long. It's. I never listen to it again. But it was like. Because I was like, just in case they jam me up. The lady was like, you know, like, if. What would you do if we kicked you out? And I was like, dude, dude.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, I'll.

[Matt McCusker]

I'll make the most of that for sure. Like, I wouldn't want to do it, but I. I would just sue you guys, man. Like, you can't kick me out. I'm already, like, invested. I. You know, blah, blah, blah. And then covet happened. So, like, they were just hushed it all. I just got to finish online class. Yeah. They tried to give me the boot. And I remember the day.

[Joe Rogan]

Did they have a specific thing that they were upset about? Was it your association with Shane?

[Matt McCusker]

It was just that clip. That Chinatown clip came out.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, wow.

[Matt McCusker]

And they just saw us. Like, I'm sure they, like, looked into other stuff, but they were like, he's making this place unsafe. We're not safe. He. And I was like, shut up. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Podcasters and academia.

[Matt McCusker]

It was. Dude, it was academia.

[Joe Rogan]

That does not go together.

[Matt McCusker]

Also, dude, Like, I thought, like, having a masters, I was going to be around geniuses. It's like, they're not that smart. You go to a place with masters and PhDs, half of them don't even, like, read anything. You talk about a book, like, I never heard of that. And then they'd show you, like, Netflix. You're like, bro, I'm paying 60 grand for this. You're hitting me with a Netflix doc. It's like, this is eight bucks a month.

[Joe Rogan]

They were showing you Netflix stocks.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, there was. We watched the Netflix stock. One of the classes. We watched, like, the 13th Amendment. And I was like, I saw this already. What the fuck, man? Like, it's the. That. That, like, I mean, I remember thinking, like, damn, everyone was on Peterson's ass about this. He was totally right. Liberal. Liberal arts colleges were like, it was. I couldn't have thought of a bigger waste of money in terms of, like, bang for buck. And, like, what did I actually learn?

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I remember when we were talking about all the madness that was going on in schools, and people like, why do you care about this? This is happening in College. College. I'm like, they're gonna eventually graduate, and they're gonna have this ideology, and they're gonna get into corporations, they're gonna get into business. They're gonna. They're gonna carry this with them and try to enforce these crazy rules or,

[Matt McCusker]

you know, somebody like, your kids having problems and you go to a therapist, and they're just, like, psycho. Like, there was. We would talk about modalities of therapy. One of them, someone floated, and the teacher was like, oh, yeah, for sure. Was called, like. It was. I don't know what it was called. It was like activism therapy, where you get people politically active in order to, like, motivate them and enrich their lives. And I was like, you can't do that. You can't take it, like a confused, existentially adrift person and be like, this is what you need to do.

[Joe Rogan]

Go politically.

[Matt McCusker]

I swear to God, dude, it was. There was. There was like, really creepy stuff going on there, and it was all just like, complete group think. You couldn't. Like, if you said anything outside of, like, what was acceptable, you would just get punished. The teachers would kind of even, like. Some of them would try to, like, scold you or be like, yeah, okay, dude. And it's like, it's. It's a lot. It would. I could see it. Why? It would just break people because I would, like, my heart would be beating. I don't really like, conflict like that. Yeah. But it was also like, dude, some of the stuff you're like, I can't not say anything. This is insane.

[Joe Rogan]

Dude, do you ever talk about this on stage?

[Matt McCusker]

No, I've never really talked about being in social work.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, my God. It's like there's gold in them dar hills.

[Matt McCusker]

True. It was fun. That time of the podcast, I would leave school. I would. Then I come back to the podcast. Like, bro, you won't believe what the fuck these people are saying.

[Joe Rogan]

Did you say it on the podcast? Oh, that's awesome. Awesome. It just seems like it's a great gold mine for standup.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, because you have a very unique experience as a window into how crazy people are in school.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, no, it was. It was terrifying, man. And then the weirdest part is, like, after years went by, they were like, do you want to get your PhD here? I was like, no.

[Joe Rogan]

After Covid. After.

[Matt McCusker]

After it all, just wanted your money. Exactly. That's. I saw that, and I was like, man, get the hell out of here.

[Joe Rogan]

It would be nice to be. Call yourself Dr. Matt, though.

[Matt McCusker]

Think I Didn't think about.

[Joe Rogan]

Come on, dog.

[Matt McCusker]

I know.

[Joe Rogan]

That shows you how many kooky doctors there are out there.

[Matt McCusker]

That really opened my eyes. I thought doctors were like the smartest people in the world. And I went to like higher education. I'm like, this is fucking insane.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, anyone can.

[Matt McCusker]

You could be a doctor, dude. Anyone could be. Nobody's like, anyone could be a fudgeing doctor.

[Joe Rogan]

Especially on some subjects.

[Matt McCusker]

Exactly. That's the thing. Not like, not hard sciences, not hard science. If you want to kill us, you want to be a doctor, you could go for like anthropology, whatever. Yeah, no problem, dude.

[Joe Rogan]

No.

[Matt McCusker]

And they can't say like you can make up. You can like make your thesis on anything and be like, excuse me.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, did you ever see what Peter Bosian and James Lindsay and Ellen Pluck Rose did? You know what they did?

[Matt McCusker]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

They. They made these fake academic papers.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I saw that like heteronormative something in dog parks. They were talking about like gay experiences with dogs have. And it was like a peer reviewed paper. Fat bodybuilding was one of them. Yeah. And. And these, they were like celebrated. These papers were celebrated, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

It would go 100 we. The theory, like the critical race theory and all that stuff you cover. When you get into it, you're like. It was. And I remember like saying this, it was very like, it reminded me because I'd been outside of Walmart. Someone handed me like a pamphlet and it was like white supremacist literature. When you read that stuff, you read the first two sentences, you go, okay, that sounds legit. And then it just. There's this like huge quantum leap in reasoning. You're like, whoa, how the do we get here? A lot of that's very similar where it'll make a thing like you just no one can disagree with, right? Then it jumps real quick and you're

[Joe Rogan]

like, just complete group think.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, yeah. But it was, that was scary to be like, damn, dude. These people are going to be like, these people are therapists working with kids, older people, you know, this and that, you know, and it was just like, I was like, like, how this, how is this the people supposedly, like, you know, guiding people through life or like taking people who are lost or suffering and being, you know, I don't know. It was, it was kind of rough because the animus against a person who like thought differently, it was palpable and like very severe to where it was like, dude. And the funniest part was like, I was again, I was in that high school in the inner city. It was the. The school was, like, 97% black, the rest Latino. And they were like, how would your students feel about your podcast material? I'm like, they don't give a fuck. They would laugh like they have bigger fish to fry than being like, what did you say on a podcast? It's like, they're like high schoolers in Philly fighting for their lives.

[Joe Rogan]

How would your students feel?

[Matt McCusker]

That was the big disconnect. I'm like, you guys have, like, I don't know, man. Like, they. They would even teach you. This would crack me up. I was, like, thinking about this the other day where they. They would tell you if you had a client and, you know, say your client was black, and, you know, I'm a white guy. I should lead by going, like, how do you feel about the fact that I'm white and you're black? I was like, dude, you guys realize you're in a classroom studying how to talk to a black person? I'm like, that's fucking weird. I was like, just talk to. Like, you can just talk to the man, and if that comes up, you can tackle it, but, like, you're uncomfortable. And then you're going like, so, black person. How do you feel that I'm white? It's like, dude, that is. And they would push back against me. I'm like, no, no, no, you guys can't do that. That's crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, you were actually applying it in the real world. They were just exhibiting. They were just hanging out in these circle jerks.

[Matt McCusker]

Exactly. And a lot of them would be like, you know, I'm social justice, blah, blah, and big. All right, where's your field placement? That was like your. You know, that was like, your internship. And they're like, oh, I'm out in, like, the Main line's, like, a really nice area in Philly. It's like, I'm doing, like, a high school on the Main Line. It's like, okay, dude. Like, you know, it's like, take that act somewhere else. And it's like, those kids don't want to hear any of this shit, like, at all. And I would let you talk to them. Like, if race comes up, I would talk to them. But, like, you. That would have been so crazy to take a black 8th grader and being like, I'm white. How do you feel about that? That would be so creepy and weird.

[Joe Rogan]

Isn't it crazy that they think you're obligated to bring that up? You have an obligation to discuss it also.

[Matt McCusker]

It's like, they fucking know. They can see me. I'm clearly white. They know I'm white. And it's like, exactly. It's like. And if that talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And then you can like, bring it up because it's a thing, but it's like leading with that.

[Joe Rogan]

I always be like, least of their problems.

[Matt McCusker]

Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

They're just probably happy someone takes an interest in them and is kind to them.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude. And that was a big thing too, of like, you know, because they. You get them out of class and a lot of them, they'd be like, I'm talking to this guy. So like, whatever. And I would just chill and be like, you can just do your homework. And then you just start helping them with their homework, like, what are you doing? You know, and then you eventually build rapport. But it was just like, you know, I'm like, these are the teachers telling you this? And you're like, fuck, dude. You guys are guiding people into this. It was. Dude, I. I walked away from that being like, God damn.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, there's a lot of people that think that, like, a lot of psychology and a lot of therapy is just complete horseshit.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And the argument about therapy being complete horseshit in terms of, like, the academic study of it and applying it to people, is it Very few people, you know, get better. I think it does help a lot of people, though.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And I think it really helps a lot of people if they're in a really bad place. I think some people just want to talk to people, to somebody.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And that can help too.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But it's like, what is the. What can you actually do for them in terms of, like, with the, the tools and the techniques of therapy versus just being a human and talking to a human and, and. And seeing their side of things and trying to tell them your perspective and trying to give them a rational point of view and.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Giving them some. Maybe some things to work on.

[Jamie]

On.

[Joe Rogan]

But it's like, it's not a science.

[Matt McCusker]

Not at all.

[Joe Rogan]

And it varies so much between individuals.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, yeah, there's the individuals, then there's 40 million modalities of therapy. So it's like you can be doing like, cbt, which is like, that's supposedly the most scientific where it's like, there's a system. It's a kind of rigorous. You can have like, youngi and stuff where you're like, what's your. Let's draw like a mandala based on your dreams. Or you can just be like, let me just be Nice to this person who's never had anyone be nice to them and then let them kind of open up and like. Yeah, I think they did a study one time where they took. They let people who weren't trained therapists be therapists, and they didn't find a giant difference in terms of, like, who was getting what result. But then there's. It's. It is a skill, though. That's the other thing. Like, it's a skill. It's a hard job. Yeah, but I think you're totally right where it's like, it all depends on the person. Have they. Are they in touch with. What's the therapist? Do they know about, like, what's up with them? And like. Right, because you can, like. I don't know, man. It's. It's such a crapshoot. And it's like, I think it can be beneficial. I think, like, being stuck in it your whole life. I don't know about that because it just becomes a thing where you start performing and you're like, let me.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, a lot of people feel like you have to be in therapy and everybody should be in therapy.

[Matt McCusker]

Like, yeah, I. I don't know. Like, I remember I didn't do it ever. And then when I went to school for therapy, they're like, you gotta go. You gotta go to therapy so that, like, you can know what it's like. And blah, blah, blah. It's like, fair enough. And I genuinely walked in there being like, I'm about to blow up. Blow this lady's mind. She's gonna be like, I've never met a guy so put together. And then like, I went in there and she kind of picked me apart. And I was like, I'm kind of up. I didn't know.

[Joe Rogan]

That's funny.

[Matt McCusker]

But it was. I for real was like, I'm gonna. This lady's about to be like, bro, let me just tell you about my. I, like, for real, you're gonna be

[Joe Rogan]

the therapist for her?

[Matt McCusker]

I thought I was a chosen one. It was good though, because, like, they. The one thing they can do is like, if you're in a family so system and you have no other, like, you know, available world views, you're. You're locked in that. So a therapist can be somebody outside of a system you would never wise. Ever have access to who can let you run like, things through your head in a way you would never think of that I think is good. But then it's like, you know, at a certain point, it's like, I feel like, you should get in, get out. Kind of like, all right, here's some things. It was like, there's like, like acceptance, commitment, therapy. That's good. It's like they teach you how to be like, mindful, how to like monitor your thoughts without having them like completely attacked. There's like, there are like skills you can learn.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

But it's like, dude fucking. And the money of it's crazy. Like, that's the other thing. Like, it's so expensive.

[Joe Rogan]

Right. And does insurance pay for it? For most people.

[Matt McCusker]

How does ends it? Like, it'll cover it for some. You have to be. You have to get a therapist in that network and then they have to diagnose you. If insurance wants. If you want your insurance to cover you, that therapist has to diagnose you with a mental disorder or some sort of mental thing.

[Joe Rogan]

Do they have to prescribe something for you?

[Matt McCusker]

They don't. I don't think they have to prescribe prescribed. No. But it's like, interesting. Do they have to just give you a. Like, you know, your bipolar adjustment disorder is the one where it's like.

[Joe Rogan]

But with psychiatrists, like, I wonder how many of them are just like incentivized to put you on something.

[Matt McCusker]

Probably a ton. They're just like doctors.

[Joe Rogan]

Right?

[Matt McCusker]

So. And then some of them just swear by it. They're like, just take this, take that, take this.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I have a friend who went to a psychiatrist and he said that like immediately, like, first meeting, this guy's trying to put him on anti depression suppressants.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And he's like, well, I don't think I need that. Like, yeah, I'm not that up. I'm just not happy. Yeah, I'm sad.

[Matt McCusker]

It's also first meeting's crazy because it's like, let's see what your life's about.

[Joe Rogan]

No, he's like, let's get you on this and it'll make you feel better. Yeah, we'll work from there. Like.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, some of those guys are like ruthless materialists. Where you're like, yeah, your brain just

[Joe Rogan]

up, dude, who cares?

[Matt McCusker]

Is that like. Did you ever see the Sapowski guy? Yeah, Robert sp, I think he's great. I loved his lectures. But his lecture, last book. And again, this was like, from him promoting it. I didn't read it, but his argument was like, yeah, we just all have different brains. And if you're like, you know, if you're like a home invader or a burglar, it's just your genes suck. And like, we shouldn't Ever punish anybody. We should just kind of like keep people aside and just rehabilitate. Basically saying like you have no choice over what you do at all. Free will is complete illusion.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, the. That's the determinism argument.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't know about that argument. I mean obviously free will is real, but obviously you are affected by your genes, your life circumstances, your past behavior, your. All the experiences that you've had. There's a lot of factors to say that will doesn't mean anything. But then why is inspiration so important?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Why do people love inspiration? Why do people love like a good pep talk? Why do people love like a good motivational video that gets you out of the house? Like obviously there's will involved.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And will is, Will is the thing that turns you into a jelly roll at 500 pounds to jelly roll at 200 pounds. Like that's what will does. Yeah, like that is, that's a real thing, man. That's not a, it's not a fake thing. This idea of free will. It's no determinism that led jelly roll to decide to start walking. That was hardcore will.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. No, I agree. I, I don't. That argument always. I like Sapowski. I liked a lot of his stuff. That argument just bothers me because it's like, okay, you're taking the idea of will and just switching it with like this new nebulous. Like what? There's like a isotope in your brain that is all. It gets switched on and then you're able. It's just, to me it's such a, like a, just a weird point to kind of like try to push across or like there's no free will. It's just your gene activates and then you do the thing and it's like, I guess, man. But then you can like change your genes apparently by like acting a certain way. So it's like, you know, I, that's, I just never like that stuff, man.

[Joe Rogan]

It's a weird argument, but there's validity to both perspectives. There's validity to the perspective that free will is a real thing. But also determinism is a, it's a giant factor and how many people live their lives the way they live them.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

There's like if, especially if you're in a circumstance, you're in a terrible gang ridden community, you get beaten in your house, your mom's on crack, there's chaos everywhere. The idea that you're going to come out of this writing vegan poetry is insane.

[Matt McCusker]

It's true. It's insane that that's. That's true.

[Joe Rogan]

And that's insane. You're. You're a product of your environment, at least to a certain extent. And usually someone finds something that they love that gives them an outlet and then they get out of there.

[Matt McCusker]

Or the problem with the determinism stuff for me is like, because I, I do get that. It's like, you know. Yeah. If you have a horrible upbringing and you do a whore, you know, you kill people, it is like, yeah, I get it. Like, if I had. That had been me, maybe I can do that. And like, he's like, maybe we should treat everyone a lot more kindly and not punish people. People. And it's like, I'm on board with that. It all. For me, it all stops at pedophiles. And it's like, so what, we're supposed to just like, right, Poo. Poo a pedophile? It's like, part of me is like, we should probably fry those guys where

[Joe Rogan]

it's like, well, that's one of the craziest things about this whole. What's going on. The woke in academia is they're starting to call them minor attracted persons. Yeah. So there's like legitimate academics who are describing pedophiles as minor attracted persons and that it doesn't mean that they're evil. It's like, what?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I know. And that's the problem. It's like, okay, if you have kids,

[Joe Rogan]

like, yeah, I don't know anybody who has kids who has that perspective. No, if you did, you have to be like a sick, like, to think that it's. Oh, it's just a minor attracted person that my kid. Like, what?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, well, that. And that's the whole thing too.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like you were all just bags,

[Matt McCusker]

you know, of like jeans and we're this material goo that just does something sometimes it's like, all right, well, let me squash this pedophile then.

[Joe Rogan]

Let me.

[Matt McCusker]

We're all just bags of goofy. Let me, you know, crush this guy. But it's like, right, it's okay to

[Joe Rogan]

abort a child, but it's not okay to kill a pedophile.

[Matt McCusker]

I know, explain.

[Joe Rogan]

Help me.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's where it gets for me. All that, like, determinism. Like, we should just be kind and have a more rational approach to criminal justice. It's like, for sure. And then it's like, pedophiles. It's like, yeah, you can't.

[Joe Rogan]

Pedophiles, serial killers. Yeah, there's a lot of rapists. There's a lot of different people you could throw into that. One of the interesting things about Sapolsky is he did some crazy work on toxoplasmosis. That's how I really got into him.

[Matt McCusker]

Really? Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

He was the guy that we first started reading about that was saying that a disproportionate amount of motorcycle victims. When he was doing his residency, the. The guy who he was working with, one of the surgeons would test the motorcycle victims for toxoplasmosis. And he said a giant percentage of them have this cat parasite.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, yeah, I've heard about this.

[Joe Rogan]

Cat parasite alters behavior. It makes you more. More reckless. It makes you more prone to erratic mood swings, and it makes you more aggressive. It's interesting. Yeah. Disproportionate amount of successful soccer teams have high levels of toxoplasmosis. Countries with higher toxic. There could also be higher. Countries of higher toxoplasmosis don't have any money. It's easier to get a soccer ball. People get good at soccer. It's the way out of the game. I mean, way out of bad neighborhoods. But this, the motorcycle victim thing is nuts because we know it affects human behavior, and we also know that it affects animal behavior. It makes cats. It grows inside cats guts. It's the only way that it reproduces. So what it does is it rewires a sexual reward system of rodents. And like mice and rats get turned on by the smell of cat piss. So they go to seek out cat piss with like a boner, like, literally. And they lose all their fear of cats so that the cats devour them. And so when the cats devour them, then that parasite is now inside the cat's gut, which is where it reproduces. So that's why they tell pregnant women you should never touch cat litter.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. It's toxoplasmosis.

[Matt McCusker]

And they think it does the same thing in humans where it just makes you like kind of amps up your drives. Yeah, Damn. That's. You know what else is nuts too, because you were saying that's more in like, certain countries that are like, developing.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, it's in rural areas. Any places where people have like, outdoor cats. Yeah, but there was one point where in France, it was like 50 of the people had toxo.

[Matt McCusker]

Jesus Christ.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, because it was wild cats everywhere.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And you gotta think cats are. They're on your countertop. They're, they're. They're is on their paws.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't. That's the one thing Like, I have dogs. I, I. Cats are fine. If I see a cat, I'll pet it. But, like, when I see people's cats on their countertop and I don't get squeamish easily, I'm just kind of like, ew, dude. It is like. It's kind of gross.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, they shit in a box. They paw around in that box of shit and piss. And then they hop on your couch.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And piss on their paws.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Dogs go outside, they take a. They come inside, they're good. Yeah. As long as dog doesn't rub his on your dinner plates, you're probably okay. But I've had cats, like, walk on your plates. They don't give a. They'll have. They'll take a seat on your plate.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, you're like, I have to get a new plate now. You. What are you doing? Get off of that.

[Matt McCusker]

And they are. They're funny. But I've seen every time I see him, like, get out of the litter box and walk across people's counter tops,

[Joe Rogan]

I'm like, dude, it's funny. I've always had them, though. I have. Well, I don't have them now because my kids are allergic. But when I. When I was younger, I had them, and they are fun. I like them. They're fun pets. They're co. They're cute. They come over you and purr.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But it is weird that you have a box of in your house and there's a lot of people, like, they're lazy, and you go over their house, they have a cat. They're not cleaning that litter box enough. And as soon as you walk in, the waft of piss and hits you in, like, bro, you're just smelling this

[Matt McCusker]

all day so bad. I need. I would need an outdoor. I used to let stray cats come in my house when I. After college, I lived in a house by myself in Philly. It was like, a small house. And all the. Like, a lot of the houses on the street have been knocked down. So there's only, like, there were row homes, but I had a standalone row home. There's a lady across the street at a standalone row home. They just knocked all the houses next to us down and, like, two other people and I would let the stray cat into my house. Like, I'll just, you know, you can come stay in here, but I'd be like, you can't. Like, this thing can't get in my bed. And, like, by, like, three days, that thing was, like, curled up next to my face. I got A up eye infection? Yeah, it was called epigemic. No, it's called epidemic caroto conjunctivitis.

[Joe Rogan]

It's called in your eye.

[Matt McCusker]

Literally. But the eye doctor was like. The eye doctor goes. I hadn't only seen. This is like in third world countries. And, dude, for six months afterwards, after it got cleared up, they had to shut the thing down and clean the whole eye practice afterwards, my eye at 10 o' clock was start to droop.

[Joe Rogan]

Whoa.

[Matt McCusker]

Because the white blood cells would rush to my eye. So I would be out, dude, for six months after this thing had finally cleared up because it was viral. They're like, there's nothing you can do for it. I would go out, my eye would just start drooping and I'd be like, I gotta go home. I gotta go home.

[Joe Rogan]

What's your alarm?

[Matt McCusker]

I would feel like I had fucking. Yes. I feel like I had fucking sand in my eye.

[Joe Rogan]

Highly contagious, severe eye infection caused by adenovirus. Typically types A8, 1937. Cause rapid onset of red, painful, watery eyes, often with light sensitivity, blurry, blurred vision and swollen eyelids. Whoa, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

I would wake up in the morning, my eyelid was. It was stuck together and I have to pull it open. And then I saw the movie Ray. Remember the beginning of Ray when his eyes get all globbed up? I was like, dude, am I going blind? This would suck.

[Joe Rogan]

That would suck.

[Matt McCusker]

If you got blind from a cat's suck, dude, bro. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But a friend of mine has shingles on his face. It's crazy. His whole face is all swollen up and he's worried he might go blind.

[Matt McCusker]

He has it now?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he just got it. He's an older guy and he just. Just got it.

[Matt McCusker]

What is shingles like when you don't get chickenpox and it, like comes and gets you afterwards?

[Joe Rogan]

I don't think so. I think it's a form of the herpes virus that affects older people in particular. Older people are terrified of it. They get shingles vaccinations and. Is that what it is?

[Jamie]

I thought chickenpox was herpes too.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, really?

[Matt McCusker]

I always heard that if you don't get chickenpox as a kid, you might get as an adult. My uncle got shingles and it sucked.

[Joe Rogan]

Known as herpes zoster, a viral infection that causes a painful rash. It stems from the reactivation of the varicella zooster virus, the same one responsible for chickenpox, which lies dormant in nerve tissues after the initial infection. So after you get the infection, then you can get Shingles? Oh, no. After chicken pox resolves, the virus remains inactive in the body's nerve cells. Factors like age, aging, weakened immunity, or stress can trigger reactivation leading to shingles, most commonly in adults over 50. Yeah. Yeah. My friend is, like, in his 60s.

[Matt McCusker]

That sucks, dude.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, that's rough. A lot of older people are scared of shingles.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I remember my uncle got it and he, like, he was.

[Joe Rogan]

Is the shingles vaccine effective? Does it prevent shingles? Is that one of the legit ones?

[Jamie]

It says vaccines like shingles, Shingrics, Shingrix reduce risk significantly. Antiviral drugs shorten outbreaks if started early.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, you got to get on it. Right when you see the first bump,

[Matt McCusker]

somebody knew his kids got MRSA from swimming in one of those. Dude, it was scary. We got the pictures. It was just like bubble. It looked crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Mercer's terrifying.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

That's all from people taking anti antibiotics or staff.

[Matt McCusker]

Staff. And staff. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Staff is the more dangerous one. Excuse me? Mrs. The more dangerous one because MRSA is medically medical resistant. Medicine resistant.

[Matt McCusker]

So this was just staff. So it's like a giant bubble on their hand. It looked. It looked crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

I've had staff.

[Matt McCusker]

Did you really?

[Joe Rogan]

I've had it a couple times. Yeah. I got it from Jiu Jitsu. A lot of people get it. Yeah, it's real common. Like, a lot of people get it and they don't even realize they have it until it's too. Like, Ari had it and he didn't even know he had it. We were playing pool once, and he was limping. He was walking around. I go, why are you limping? And he goes, I got a spider bite. And he was doing Jiu Jitsu. I bought him a year of Jiu Jitsu for Christmas. Yeah. I forced him to celebrate Christmas. I didn't say it's Hanukkah. I got him a Christmas present. But I go, let me see. And he rolls his pants up, and I see this bubble on his knee with, like a pus center of it. And I go, we're going to the hospital. Hospital right now. He goes, are you serious? I unscrew my cue. I go, you have to go to the hospital right now. I go, right now. I go, that's staph infection. Oh. And he was like, why don't they tell us about. Why aren't there signs at the gym warning you about him? Like, that's a good point. Like, you kind of have to hear about it from somebody. Yeah, I found out about it from my friend Tate. Shout out to Tate Fletcher, my homie. We were at the airport once, and I had shorts on, and, you know, I had just, like, my foot sitting up like this. He goes, what's on your. Your calf? I had, like, little pimples on my calf. I'm like, oh, nothing. And he goes, dude, I think that's staff. I'm like, what? I go, these are, like, little zits. You think that's staff? And he goes, yeah, you should go get that checked out. And I went to the doctor and he said, yeah, that looks like staff. He goes, I'm going to put you on antibiotics right away, and we're just going to swab it and send it in, but I don't want to wait. And I got on it right away, and so I killed it quick. But I remember the antibiotics. Dude, you feel so weird when you're on. Like, he's, like, so tired.

[Matt McCusker]

I hate taking them in.

[Joe Rogan]

Some guys fight on them. I know guys that have got staph infections in the ufc. Fought off the staff infection with antibiotics and then fought on the antibiotics, which is crazy. Yeah, I don't know how you'd have any endurance.

[Matt McCusker]

No, I don't. I always feel. I also, like, they mess my stomach up so bad. Oh, yeah, I don't. But my stomach's just fried.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, my friend Gordon Ryan, that's his belt up there, he's greatest jiu jitsu grappler of all, all time. He has to retire because he got staffed so many times that he was taking antibiotics so often that it nuked his gut bacteria. And, like, he can't hold food down. He throws up all the time. Sucks. Yeah, it's crazy. He's been dealing with it for years, and he just announced on Instagram really recently that he has to retire.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude, I. I got.

[Joe Rogan]

He can't train.

[Matt McCusker]

That's. I.

[Joe Rogan]

And he's the greatest of all time.

[Matt McCusker]

And he just had. He's done.

[Joe Rogan]

He's 30. Ah, yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

That sucks.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, unanimously regarded as the greatest grappler of all time, and he's.

[Matt McCusker]

That's it.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he's. He's gone, like, 10 years. Undefeated, beating the best fighters in the world.

[Matt McCusker]

Time off. Can he just take, like, five years?

[Joe Rogan]

He's trying. He's done that. He hasn't competed in a couple of years. He can't do it. He can't train.

[Matt McCusker]

That sucks.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like, it keeps coming back.

[Matt McCusker]

Dude. I had eczema one time, and it, like, it came up. Up on my. It was, like, on my legs. And it was on my dick, and I thought it was ringworm because it was like a perfect circle. So I go to the. You know, I go to the Whatever urgent care, and I'm like, I got ringworm. And they're like, that's weird. Usually doesn't go on there. But they're like. Just put, you know, lotrin or I think what? I. Yeah, like Lotrimin. That. So I put Lotrimin on my dick, and it just dried, like, the whole thing. It was like. It was just disgusting. So then I had to go back to another urgent care, and it would have been like the second or third time. I just show, like, a shriveled, flaccid, like, chapped red penis. I showed this one nurse who goes like, I don't know, calls in another nurse, and I'm like, all right. She comes in. I don't know what that is. They call in someone else. I'm like, oh, third nurse, giant black guy comes in.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm like, no, no, no, no. You know, he's gonna laugh as soon

[Matt McCusker]

as he leaves, bro. He was probably. I can't believe y was. It was bad. And then finally I went to. I finally went to a dermatologist, and I. Dude, you can look it up. The Center City Dermatology run by just like, a babe. Like, it's on the website. Everyone knows this. Who's ever gone there. My friend. I was talking about it one time. My friend was like, bro, I know exactly you're talking about. She comes in, checks it out, and she's like, dude, you had. You know, that wasn't even ringworm. And then she gave me this cream, and it, like, cleared it right up. So I had to show, like, my, like, chap. It was like a leopard, bro, that's.

[Joe Rogan]

Whoa. Yeah, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

She saw me at my worst.

[Joe Rogan]

Hilarious.

[Matt McCusker]

So I had to show it to, like, four people. It was like a leprosy penis. And then eventually she was like, oh, no, dude, Take like. It was like a cortosteroid. Cleared it right up.

[Joe Rogan]

I know people that have had eczema that went on a carnivore diet and it went away.

[Matt McCusker]

I can't have. I can't have gluten. That's the thing. I was. I've been allergic to gluten for a while, and if I kind of backslide on that, it's like, I'll get little eczema. Eczema flare ups.

[Joe Rogan]

A lot of people are allergic to it, and a lot of people don't think it's Actually, the gluten, they think it's actually how they finish the crops with glyphosate.

[Matt McCusker]

I've heard about that.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it kind of makes sense because, like, why are all these gluten intolerant? What? Nobody ever heard about Those in the 70s? No, there was no one gluten intolerant?

[Matt McCusker]

No, it was. Dude, weird. The weird thing is my mom, she's always been a health person. She got this book. She had health problems and like, it might have been in the 80s. My aunt was a nurse, gave her this book. My mom self diagnosed gluten allergy in like the 80s. And everyone's like, you're out of your mind. Like, nobody has this blah, blah, blah. And. Yeah, and then like when I was in college, I was like, dude, like I. I feel like my. Every time I swallow food, it feels stuck in my throat. I have like gas. I'm burping, my stomach's up, I'm not sleeping. I was having like racing thoughts and. And she was like, oh, try not eating gluten for a while, dude.

[Joe Rogan]

It can't.

[Matt McCusker]

They cleared it up. Like, it was insane.

[Joe Rogan]

I wonder if that's the same with like gluten that you get in Europe where they're not using any glyphosate.

[Matt McCusker]

No, that's what I heard. You can eat. Apparently you can go eat it, you know, in Europe and it's fine. I remember I took a test finally, and it was like, I. It was like one of those like Internet blood test things and I came up like, allergic to not even the gluten. It's like glydean, which is like another protein inside of wheat, which. I don't know if it's at the same thing or what. It's just like an alcohol allergy to it. I should. I showed it to Shane. He. It was like, it was moderate. And he goes, moderate? You're a.

[Joe Rogan]

Have a pizza.

[Matt McCusker]

I was like, why did I show you? Because he's always. Everyone's like, it's fake. It's in your head. You're full of. So I finally have proof. I'm like, what are you gonna do about it now? He goes, moderate.

[Joe Rogan]

It's one of the worst intolerances to have because the food is so delicious. Like, think about it. Spaghetti, lasagna, br. Bread sandwiches.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't. I. And you eating the gluten free bread is like, not. It's not. At that point you just go like, I'm not eating bread. It's not really good. In order to make it good, you have to put so much in it that you're like, I might as well not eat. I. I've been off gluten since I was, like, 21.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[Matt McCusker]

And then anytime I would, like, backslide at a restaurant where they cook with it and stuff, it would, you know me up. Weirdly enough, though, if I get enough sunlight, I. It like my. I can tolerate a lot. A lot more stuff.

[Joe Rogan]

I guarantee that's a vitamin D thing.

[Matt McCusker]

I. I think. I don't know. It's weird, man. Every time I go to a doctor, they're just like, bro, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, vitamin D is good for your immune system, and these are autoimmune issues. It makes sense that they would kind of be connected somehow or another.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Because I. I couldn't eat after the gluten. It was like, then I couldn't eat dairy. And then every time I'd get sunlight, I could eat the day. It's weird.

[Joe Rogan]

How nuts is the sunlight thing? Like, for so long, people are saying, stay out of the sun. Sun's gonna kill you.

[Matt McCusker]

It's crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

And now, now they're going, no, no, you need to get in the sun or you're gonna die.

[Matt McCusker]

What's the new. We got the new food pyramid now.

[Joe Rogan]

I know. Well, a lot of people are so angry. They're so angry at RFK Jr. For flipping the food pyramid. But there's so much evidence that this is the accurate way to eat. This is the way people are supposed to be eating. It's like whole foods, like, actual food, like vegetables, meat, fish. Like, that's what you're supposed to eat. Like, actual food that people have been eating for thousands of years. That's how you're supposed to eat, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

That's the one. That's the stuff, the backlash against them that I'm like, I don't get it, man. It's like getting like, the weird out of foods that they don't have in your up for, like, schools and stuff.

[Joe Rogan]

And it's like, that was always the left wings position. I do. It was like, no preservatives, no additives, natural foods.

[Matt McCusker]

I know that. And that's the thing too. Like, I. I love, like, because I have all these food allergies, so, like, I gotta go to, like, a hipstery kind of like, rainbow flag restaurant. That's the only place I can eat from. So I'm like, I know you guys like this. Why are you pretending to not, like, getting Rid of like red 40 and

[Joe Rogan]

all that because it's connected with Trump. Because RFK Jr. Is a part of this party, part of this administration. Administration. And so it became a political thing. People are just so silly. They'd rather commit suicide. They'd rather poison themselves than admit that he's right.

[Matt McCusker]

It's insane. Just like, dude, just give him one and be like, all right, that's actually a good one.

[Joe Rogan]

But it's that. That resistance to recognizing maybe this person that I don't agree with because he's connected to this other person I don't agree with. Maybe he's got some good points. Maybe if a person that was like someone that I aligned with ideologically had the same points, I would be like, like, yes, thank you. Yes, these preservatives are terrible. Yes. These dyes are terrible. Yes, this is bad for you. Yes. You should have warning labels. Yes. Other countries have banned these products. Why do we have them? Yes, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

And especially, like, if you have kids, it's like, dude, you worry more about that than like your kids not eating a bunch of crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

It's like, dude, just wait. Let it go. You can be like, all right, like, I don't like this, but that's right. I like that. Let's let him cook on that.

[Joe Rogan]

And it's like, well, so many people that aren't religion, don't have religion in their life. They worship science. Like science, they. They treat it as if this is like a doctrine and a dogma, and if you don't support it, you're a heretic. There's something wrong with you. It's like, well, do you know those people, these scientists, like a lot of them are severely compromised. They're compromised by financial incentives. They're compromised by academic incentives. Incentives. They're trapped in these systems where you're. You're. You're. You're forced to have groupthink.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You have this top down control. The people that at the top are controlled and connected to these pharmaceutical drug companies. They're pushing these ideas like, this isn't all clean.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, they're hanging with Epstein too.

[Joe Rogan]

And I know, isn't that crazy?

[Matt McCusker]

You love scientists, man. Thank God I wasn't a scientist. Isn't that weird? It's so weird. It's so fucking creepy. Yeah, it's. And the science, dude, the science shit is like. Cause I do know this from going to Masters. I know you need to understand stuff, statistics. You need, like a very serious understanding of statistics to actually make sense of those studies. And I I never was able to do that. But it's like you can read those studies and like, oh, look at this. It's a graph. Everything's going up. And it's like, yeah, but, like, what was, like, the percentage of the. What this. And it's like, statistics is for real, like, magic to me, where it's like. It's so slippery and weird and, like, you can make one thing look this way and it's. You can arrange the data in a different way and you're like, oh, the thing went up and now this is better.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like, well, that's what pharmaceutical drug companies do for sure. They'll. They'll run multiple studies and then throw out all the ones that show no efficacy and even hide dangerous side effects. They hide them? Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

I think they're allowed to do as many. I remember reading a book on antidepressants, like, years and years ago, and I think they were allowed to do as many studies as it needed to, like, show basically what they wanted to say, which wasn't even good. It was like 50, 50%.

[Joe Rogan]

We had a lawyer in here that had. He'd worked on cases with pharmaceutical drug companies, and one of the things that he said that was really crazy was he found out that the pharmaceutical drug companies don't. When they get peer reviewed, when their papers get peer reviewed, they don't have to give the data to the scientists. They give their review of the data to the scientists, and then it gets peer review.

[Matt McCusker]

Damn. Yeah, it's like, rigged. Yeah, that's crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

So rigged.

[Matt McCusker]

Remember the study that was like, if you drink one glass of wine, you're going to be healthy?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

That was complete. That was made by a body of science that was, like, promoted by the big alcohol companies. It was completely false. I knew so many people who were like, dude, it's good for me. Oh, I need. I need alcohol every day.

[Joe Rogan]

They were also saying resveratrol. That was one. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Grape. And it's also just like, eat a grape, then.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, also take resveratrol. It's a good supplement. And the amount that you get in supplements is, like, far exceeds a glass of wine. You have to drink the. The whole bottle.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And then you're hammered, liver's destroyed. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

That always threw me off. And I remember. I remember at the time being like, there's no way that's true.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

No. You hang out more and you're less lonely.

[Joe Rogan]

And I think there's something to the relaxation of alcohol that, like, at least it makes you feel Better. And I think feeling better is a part of, like, having a better life and having a better, a healthier your mind. Because there's something about people that are just riddled with anxiety and thinking about things all the time. There's a lot of people out there that are just. They don't have the tools to navigate this up world. And so they're always a little drinky poo every now and then. Maybe not bad for them. Maybe a little. Just juice, like.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, true. If you drop the cortisol at night,

[Joe Rogan]

a little bit, a little relaxation. There's a lot of people that, like, one of the only things keeping them hanging on is a dream. Drink at night, you know, just a little drink. Just nothing crazy.

[Matt McCusker]

Getting.

[Joe Rogan]

Killing yourself.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I wouldn't want to take that from somebody either.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I don't want to take that from people.

[Matt McCusker]

That's true. I wouldn't want to take that. But it is. It's just nuts to be like, this is actually really good for you. Well, it's like. Well, it's lesser two evils, for sure. It's like.

[Joe Rogan]

Or what they try to say that, like, Froot Loops were healthier for you than ground beef. Wasn't that one of the studies?

[Matt McCusker]

Was it really?

[Joe Rogan]

Like, they had comparisons, like, they had a chance chart, like, where. Where things fit on the healthy versus not healthy.

[Matt McCusker]

That's insane. Well, the old food pyramid was the best. It was like cereal, bread, and pasta. That was what you're supposed to eat,

[Joe Rogan]

like, base of your food.

[Matt McCusker]

You're supposed to be charged on just, like, elbow macaroni. It was like, that was for real growing up. That's what it was.

[Joe Rogan]

I remember, meanwhile, people in France, they're eating loaves of bread, and they don't get fat.

[Matt McCusker]

I know.

[Joe Rogan]

And they're healthy.

[Matt McCusker]

I know. It is weird.

[Joe Rogan]

It's. We're getting poisoned.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Everyone who comes here from another country is like, I feel horrible.

[Joe Rogan]

They have a hot dog and they're vomiting in the trash can. All right, dog, let's wrap this up. Can I. One more thing. Yeah, please. Going around.

[Jamie]

Wexner's deposition from the oversight committee came out like the full video did today. And there's this clip going around that

[Matt McCusker]

I don't know what the.

[Jamie]

The context is. I'll show you. It's on the screen right now, Joe.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay.

[Jamie]

I just want to play it and see.

[Joe Rogan]

He says, I'll kill you if you answer another question with more than five words. Okay, Answer.

[Matt McCusker]

Okay.

[Joe Rogan]

He seems like he's joking. Seems like it but he wants him to answer questions for very short answers.

[Jamie]

I keep seeing people saying, you're not allowed to be coached in a deposition.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, that makes sense. I don't know if this is. I'll kill you if you answer another question with more than five words. Okay. That's hilarious that he thought he could whisper that.

[Matt McCusker]

That crazy. That's so up.

[Joe Rogan]

But what is their relationship like? They around like that?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Can't tell.

[Jamie]

It's really hard.

[Joe Rogan]

It's hard to say what that is.

[Matt McCusker]

That almost was kind of charming. I'm like, that was kind of, like, sweet, actually. In so much weird way.

[Joe Rogan]

Kill you.

[Jamie]

His answers in this are pretty tough already. I can see. He's like, I had no idea. They're like, you stealing money from me. ABC reported this five years ago. Like crazy. That's news to me.

[Joe Rogan]

He didn't know that Epstein was stealing money from him.

[Jamie]

That's what he's saying in some of these clips here. We'll see how this.

[Joe Rogan]

Where this goes.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, True.

[Joe Rogan]

If nothing ever happens, people are going to lose all faith in everything.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

If nothing happens from all this. If Prince Andrew is the only one who goes down, what if he just gets a slap on the wrist?

[Matt McCusker]

He's completely going to get a slap on the. He's not going to, like, maximum security. He's not going to, like, Oz. He's not going to be in there, like, doing burpees. And he's. He's going to be in protective custody.

[Jamie]

He's only in jail for 11 hours. He's technically out now.

[Joe Rogan]

Right. But he's going to be tried, right?

[Jamie]

We'll see.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, see, the thing is, like, I never thought he'd be arrested. I never thought that would happen. I thought, like, they'd strip him of his prison friendship or whatever it is. That's it. Banishing him to account. And then they. They kicked him out of the estate. I was like, whoa, things are getting serious.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. I think they saw.

[Joe Rogan]

I think they got to see the stuff, bro. What the. They must. Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's wrap this up, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

Thank you.

[Joe Rogan]

Been a lot of fun hanging club. It's been good times, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

Been, dude. It's been awesome.

[Joe Rogan]

It's fun watching your act grow, too. It's really funny, man.

[Matt McCusker]

Thank you, bro.

[Joe Rogan]

Really great. And you're aware this weekend, Salt Lake.

[Matt McCusker]

Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho.

[Joe Rogan]

So go get some tickets, folks. Go see them. Matt McCusker. Hilarious.

[Matt McCusker]

Appreciate you, brother. Thank you.

[Joe Rogan]

Very funny. Bye, everybody.