#2240 - Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino is an Academy Award-winning writer, producer, and director known for films such as "Pulp Fiction" and "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Roger Avary is an Academy Award-winning director, screenwriter, and producer known for "The Rules of Attraction" and his collaboration with Tarantino on "Pulp Fiction." Together, they host the second season of their podcast, "The Video Archives," available now. www.patreon.com/videoarchives Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The Joe Rogan Experience.

• 0:13Joe Rogan?

  So you're saying that someone was telling you how to kill someone with coffee?

• 0:16Speaker 02

  Okay, so I got to know all these, you were talking about some

• 0:20Joe Rogan?

  His name's John McPhee.

• 0:21Speaker 02

  Some operators and I got to know through a friend, through a billionaire friend who loaned his plane to Clinton to fly those people out of, I think, North Korea. And so from that point on, he was surrounded by these guys. And one of them, this guy Mikey, which isn't his real name. I think he's actually named, they name them all after the archangels. So he was like Michael, and there was another guy Gabriel, and like, they take on these...

• 0:56Joe Rogan?

  There's nothing greater than an assassin with a biblical name.

• 0:59Speaker 03

  Named after an archangel.

• 1:01Speaker 02

  And, well, you know, and so he, we got to know each other because of our mutual friend. And I think what happened was he and a couple of the other guys, you know, they were placed on me as like for surveillance purposes, like, you know, find out what this Avery guy's about, maybe, or just keep an eye on him, or whatever. And they told me right up front, like, be nice to your surveillance, you know, like, don't try to lose us or anything like that. Because, you know, I heard stories about how, you know, they're surveilling somebody in wherever, Bolivia. And suddenly, some gang attacks their surveillance and they step in, kick the shit out of the gang. And so, so I got to know these guys and naturally,

• 1:44Speaker 02

  you know, I'm a writer and filmmaker, and so I of course want to talk to them about stuff. And they immediately started volunteering, oh yeah, we've learned all these different ways when I became an operator, blah, blah, blah. I learned how to kill people without, and I was just making a list now of the 10 ways to kill someone without leaving a trace. And I was like, well... Just like when I told Quentin about this, he's like, well, what are those? I'd like to hear those. Everybody wants to hear those. And so, one of the ones that I think is the best one is you inject someone with coffee. Caffeine, like, just inject coffee into their bloodstream, gives them a heart attack, and it's untraceable. Later on, they do an autopsy and they just discover caffeine in your system.

• 2:26Joe Rogan?

  That's it?

• 2:27Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 2:27Joe Rogan?

  Is this just right into the blood, coffee can kill you?

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Sometimes the simple ways are the best.

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Like, just right into the jugular with a syringe?

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:34Joe Rogan?

  Jesus.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  After extracting whatever information you need to get out of them.

• 2:37Joe Rogan?

  How much coffee will kill you like that?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  A syringe worth? I don't know. Is it the Turkish kind, or is it Folgers?

• 2:45Joe Rogan?

  Cuban espresso?

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he was a medic during the war. The war. And he was a medic, and so he was kind of identified as somebody who knew how to kill somebody very easily, because you know what will work.

• 3:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Because you're a medic. And so, I would hear every now and then, I'd say I'd kill some guy, some diplomat or something in the Philippines, and I'd hit him with my car, and I'd look in my rearview mirror and make a determination, a medical determination of, is the guy still alive? Or, I'd better finish him off, and put him in reverse and drive him over again a couple of times, and then take off. And he's doing that all the time. All the time, they're doing it.

• 3:30Joe Rogan?

  Well, Jamie and I were just talking, and they think they have a photo of the guy who whacked that insurance CEO.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, uh-huh.

• 3:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they think they have a photo of his face now.

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Oh, they do, huh?

• 3:39Joe Rogan?

  Well, I would think with the amount of cameras-

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Or they picked it up later?

• 3:42Joe Rogan?

  I think, you know, there's cameras everywhere now. And that's part of the problem with someone. I don't think this guy was a professional. I think this guy, if I had to guess, some guy who got fucked over. Apparently, that company is really bad on denying claims.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Thirty-four percent denial rate?

• 4:00Joe Rogan?

  Normal's like sixteen.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:01Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, so. Those guys.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  I don't think anybody's gonna like be crying too hard over that guy.

• 4:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, maybe his family, but that's about it.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:10Joe Rogan?

  It's a dirty, dirty business. The business of insurance is fucking gross. It's gross. And especially healthcare insurance, just fucking gross.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Well, actually, all insurance. I live in California and all of a sudden, because I live adjacent to any kind of open space, like, nobody will insure my house because of fire.

• 4:29Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  And so suddenly, it's like I have a house that's uninsurable, and it's not just me, it's everybody.

• 4:33Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  And so, it's chaos.

• 4:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, I have a friend that's trying to sell a house in California, and it turned out it was a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars a year just to get fire insurance. Like, what?

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's insane.

• 4:47Joe Rogan?

  Fucking nuts!

• 4:48Speaker 02

  It's insane.

• 4:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but, you know, I was evacuated three times when I lived there. I used to live in Bell Canyon, and, you know, it was fucking, it was rough.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  I mean, like, I've been, like, I've been really lucky. I live in, I'm almost afraid to say it, all right? Because I've been living in the Hollywood Hills, and I've never, any of the fire stuff happens, never happened around me.

• 5:06Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it is just luck, yeah.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  I mean, the benefit of your place is, you're at least in a helicopter-accessible, they're just gonna dump all that fire retardant right on top of you.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  I literally am kinda at the top of the hill on a bunch of rock. All right, so if the whole fucking place is, it turns into an inferno, I'm still fucked.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  And I think that place has probably been there a while, it's probably withstood all sorts of calamity.

• 5:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, when I was filming Fear Factor, I talked to this guy who was a fire guy, for the fire department, and he said, "It's just gonna be a matter of time. There's gonna be one day where a fire hits LA, and the wind is the right way, and we're not gonna be able to stop it, and it's just gonna burn right through to the ocean." He goes, "It's just a matter of time, we all know it." I was like, "What the fuck, dude?" I go, "The whole city?" He goes, "The whole city." He goes, "When those big fires get going, there's not a damn thing," like, what happened in Malibu a few years back? Like, those are, I always thought Malibu, those rich people, they're gonna protect them.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Maui. That was like around ninety-three, that actually happened while we were shooting Pulp Fiction.

• 6:06Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, there was a, there was a big Malibu fire. The big Malibu fire happened while we were shooting Pulp Fiction. So, we actually set up a TV on the set because Bruce Willis was gonna maybe lose his house. And so, he was like, actually, uh, so we have this little TV area so we can like, in between takes, we can watch what's going on with the fire. And they're like, uh, and there was all these reports that, no, Bruce Willis and his family are on top of the house with the, with their water, with their water hose. And I go, no, he's not, he's right here.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Well, the thing is, fires were normal. Like, it used to be, when I was young, uh, you know, I grew up in California, and so when I was young, fires would burn through Malibu constantly. But now, they put all those houses in there where there never were houses. Because the fire is a natural process. It kinda clears the land, cleans the land, and, uh, it's, it's normal, actually. But, you know, when you put all that kindling in there, suddenly, we end up with these, like, superstorms of fire, just, where everything's just, you know, going crazy.

• 7:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Uh, it's, I think it's overdevelopment, which is the cause of these insane, uh, kind of...

• 7:15Joe Rogan?

  This episode is presented by Searchlight Pictures' Wild Horse 9. Shortly before Chile's 1973 coup, two CIA agents, played by John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, find their mission on Easter Island spiraling into a web of conspiracies, unexpected alliances, and chaos. Wild Horse 9, only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now. This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog. Here's a fun fact: research shows that dogs who maintain a healthy weight can live up to two and a half years longer, on average, than dogs who are overweight. Isn't that wild? And also, kind of obvious, at the same time?

• 7:55Joe Rogan?

  So, why is feeding vague scoops of ultra-processed kibble still the status quo for most dog owners? Healthy alternatives exist, and trust me, I know. I buy one. The Farmer's Dog. I use it for both my dogs. They love it, they eat it up quick, it smells good to them, it smells good to me, it's human-grade food. The Farmer's Dog... Makes fresh food for dogs and my dogs love it. Their recipes are made with real meat and fresh vegetables that are gently cooked to retain vital nutrients. They also portion out the meals to your dog's nutritional needs, which helps avoid overfeeding and makes weight management easier. And isn't getting more time with our four-legged best friends something every dog owner wants?

• 8:39Joe Rogan?

  The answer to that is yes, obviously. So try The Farmer's Dog today and get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food. Plus, get free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com/rogan. This offer is for new customers only. I know how chaotic things get this time of the year between all the holidays, trying to train, and last-minute projects at work. It can seem impossible to get everything done. If you feel like you're running on fumes, AG1 Next Gen is an easy way to get the support that you need. With over 75 ingredients and five clinically-studied probiotic strains, it supports your energy and your immune health, among other things.

• 9:24Joe Rogan?

  And for extra boost, there's AG1 Pro, and that has the same Next Gen formula, but with five grams of creatine, CAHMB, and zinc carnicine. Plus, both are NSF certified for sports, so you can feel good about what you're putting into your body, no matter how busy things get. Go to drinkag1.com/joe and for a limited time, get a free immunity bundle, including a bottle of Omega 3 Fish Oil and Vitamin D tossed in with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro, backed by a 90-day money-back guarantee.

• 10:08Joe Rogan?

  That's drinkag1.com/joe.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Fires that we're getting.

• 10:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but it's a cool place to live. Not gonna stop people from developing in Malibu, you know? It's just too nice.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  No, you're not gonna stop.

• 10:20Joe Rogan?

  You just take your chances, roll your dice.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, well, but you roll your dice, you take your chances and you roll your dice no matter where you live.

• 10:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's just, it's just fucked up when it happens, like.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 10:30Joe Rogan?

  I drove home once, we were filming Fear Factor, we had to stop the set early because the fire was so bad. This was like 2003 or something like four. And driving home, it took me 55 minutes on the five to get home and the entire time, the right side of the highway was on fire. For 55 minutes. Everything, like Lord of the Rings style, like.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  So three different times you got evacuated from your house?

• 10:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, three different times.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  And so what is like, okay, so you decide what you're gonna take with you, kinda thing?

• 10:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, last time, the last time was the last time. It was like, you know, the last big fire in LA. And I came home from the Comedy Store at like 1 o'clock in the morning. And my wife and I are looking out the window and the fire's like maybe 500 or 600 yards away. And it's coming over the hill. And we were looking at each other and I said, let's just get the fuck out of here.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, right on.

• 11:14Joe Rogan?

  Let's just get out of here now, just, so we grabbed the kids, got a laptop, took some clothes. I didn't even have underwear. I just, I said, we could just buy stuff, who gives a fuck? You know, who cares?

• 11:24Speaker 02

  If you have your life.

• 11:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  I'm always the, I don't wanna say the stupid guy, but I'm the guy who for some reason always decides I'm gonna stay. And like, I'm gonna, and.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  Oh, you're that old guy.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  I live near a fire department, there's a fire hydrant across from my driveway.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  You're the guy on the roof where the flood is happening. You're on my property!

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's me, like, my family went away and I was like, well, they're gonna close it out so we can't get back in. I'm just gonna hang out here until I know that it's, and you know, at a certain point, there was fire like cresting the ridge. And I'm kinda watching it, I ran down to the fire department to see, you know, like, hey, guys, it's, it's coming. It's, I can see it from my house. And they're all there like hanging out, eating sandwiches and like not even worried about it at all. They're like, they kinda looked over at it and said, nah, it's okay, it'll be fine, it'll just burn a little.

• 12:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they get a little too blasé blasé about fire.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  They're pretty blasé. By the way, my spec ops friend, uh, he's like, fuck those firemen, man. Fuck them, they get so much like credit for like nothing, they barely do anything, they're on these incredible pension plans, like, ah, ah, ah. He like hates firemen.

• 12:29Joe Rogan?

  That's ridiculous.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Well.

• 12:30Joe Rogan?

  That's a, it is a great job, but you can't get mad at someone for having a great job.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  For having a great job.

• 12:35Joe Rogan?

  There's a buddy of mine that I used to play pool with.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Well, he has to actually hump it into another country and kill somebody, so.

• 12:41Joe Rogan?

  That's well, the thing is, he's not, he's not getting enough credit, that's what it is. That's really what it comes from.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  That's a better way to say it.

• 12:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's the, that's the reality of our world today. Those people don't get enough credit. But firemen, you know, it is a great fucking job.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  But I like the way he breaks it down, fuck those guys.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  It's like they all, these huge pensions, and everybody thinks they're heroes. They're not heroes!

• 13:05Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's funny because...

• 13:06Speaker 02

  They're just doing their job!

• 13:07Joe Rogan?

  The firemen are very comfortable with fire. These people are very comfortable with people dying. And dying because of them, you know. They just get real... They get blase blase about murder.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  It's not murder if it's sanctioned by your own country, apparently.

• 13:20Joe Rogan?

  Isn't that wonderful?

• 13:21Speaker 02

  What a cool loophole. Yeah, isn't it?

• 13:23Speaker 03

  I had a, uh, interesting thing, you know, it's like, you know, when you live in the Hollywood Hills, you're paying actually, you know, uh, you... Pretty decent property taxes, so you get, there's, you know, there's, you know, there's a little vig that comes with it. You know, you get a, there's a reason why you're... You know, you don't have to wait two hours during, uh, when you're, uh, uh... During election, you just go to the, you go to the local, uh, elementary school, you're in and out in five minutes, alright? When it comes to election day. But also, um... It's one of those stupid things that you do that like, like, you're like, what was the fucking idiot? Where you, you turn on the burner and then you like leave the room for a while? Alright, and then you come back and all of a sudden your, your kitchen is, is flaming.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  And so, uh, uh...

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Has that happened to you?

• 14:07Speaker 03

  That happened to me once.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  And, uh, so the, uh, the alarm goes off and I hit the button. Let the fire department know, and then I, I, I, I put it out. I put it out, like, pretty much immediately. And then...

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Maybe five minutes later, it could have been three, five minutes later... The fire truck is at my door. So I didn't even have time to say, hey, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's okay now, it's okay. And so there's an entire fire truck at my door, and I, I left the minute, I go, guys, I'm really sorry, I was really stupid. You know, I, I left the room and with the pot on the stove and whatever, in any way, and, uh... So I'm really sorry I wasted your time, I'm really, really sorry I wasted your time. Having said that, it's nice to see that you guys are here this quick.

• 15:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm sure they were like, "Oh, we'll just get a selfie."

• 15:05Speaker 03

  And they were like, "Yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Your private taxes pay for something. Are you sure you don't want us to come in and just make sure?" "Yeah, go ahead if you want."

• 15:14Joe Rogan?

  The problem is sometimes they have to chop through the walls to make sure that there's not fire and embers inside. Yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Spray it all down.

• 15:21Joe Rogan?

  It's a hard fucking job, but it's a hard job, though. Thing is, most of the time, they're just chilling. You know, they get to cook, they eat, they work out.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Oh, I take ice cream down to our guys. At the, like, I'll go out and buy a bunch of ice cream or some pizzas and take it down, just on random days, just to, uh...

• 15:37Speaker 03

  Well, actually, it was funny...

• 15:38Joe Rogan?

  That's cool.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Well, it was...

• 15:39Speaker 02

  I'm okay with the fire guys.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  It was actually funny because it was like, uh, uh, one of the things that was a crack up was like the local fire department when we worked at Video Archives at our video store. The local fire department, uh, was a customer. And so they'd rent different movies, but like, it was almost out of, out of five movies that they would rent, four are pornos.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  No, they lived up to their, their career.

• 16:06Joe Rogan?

  Did you guys work together?

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:08Joe Rogan?

  No shit.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  That's how you guys met?

• 16:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  That's how we met.

• 16:11Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Video Archives in Manhattan Beach.

• 16:14Joe Rogan?

  How fucking cool is that?

• 16:16Speaker 03

  Yes, from like, uh, eighty-four, yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Eighty-four for about five years.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. Maybe you had a little bit before eighty-four.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  Well, I started officially at eighty-four because I remember...

• 16:23Speaker 02

  But you were a customer before that.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Well, I was a customer before, yeah. I was a customer before, yeah.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  I, I predated Quentin as, uh, one of the employees, so I was there.

• 16:31Joe Rogan?

  Look at you guys!

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, that's, that's us.

• 16:35Joe Rogan?

  That's crazy.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Uh, very unfortunate shirt on my part.

• 16:42Joe Rogan?

  There was a lot of unfortunate shirts in the eighties. Everybody was confused. They cut the drugs off in the seventies, no one knew what to do for ten years.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  That's exactly it.

• 16:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's, it's crazy. Like, you would have never thought back then that that industry would completely vanish. You thought Blockbuster Video's gonna be around forever.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  Well, you know, one of the things that, that, uh...

• 17:02Speaker 02

  What? I didn't think film was gonna vanish either.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  I didn't think the theater experience was gonna go away either.

• 17:07Speaker 03

  But one of the things, though, that was the...

• 17:12Speaker 03

  Death keel to video stores that no one ever like. When they're talking mom and pop, when they're talking old people to like, hey, you know, you've retired from your business, you've got a nice little nest egg, if you want to, if you want to invest in a nice little business where you get to work with your neighborhood and be in a nice little store with your family, you know, video stores, that's a, that's a good business. Well, I don't know anything about movies. Well, you have people who help you, you know, help you choose the titles and everything. So there's a lot of people that like invested in this stuff and it seemed like a good idea. The reason that it seemed like a profitable idea was the idea like, well, you know, I

• 17:53Speaker 03

  sell you this video cassette and you, you pay for the video cassette, but the minute you rent it past the point that where you paid for, you paid for the video cassette yourself, then everything else is you. All that other money that you make from here on in is just all profit, once you pay for the actual cassette. And of course you'll have some cassettes that don't rent as well, but you know, but that's the way it works out, but it should work out great. Well, again, that sounds like a pretty good business model. Well, if I spend this money and then, you know, five years from now, boom, everything is, is a profit. Where, where, where it all fell apart is the idea that you always have to get new shit.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  Because like life, it's not a bookstore, well, bookstores need to get new stuff too, but it's not a library, like life doesn't stand still. Every month, there's new titles coming out and you have to be competitive and you have to get the new titles. And so even if, if that were the issue, that wouldn't be that big of a deal, but if you're a mom and pop store, you only have so much room. Mmm.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  So.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  It's a spa- it's literally a space- shelf space issue.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Within three to four years, you're bursting out of the seams of videos. You're just bursting out. You've got no more room. You've got no more room. And so now, all of a sudden, rather than having your fa- your tapes facing out, now everything is, you know, uh, sideways.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Spine facing.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Spine facing. And, and you've got a really, uh, and, and it just never stops. It never stops. The next month, then you gotta get this. And next month, you gotta get that. And next month, you gotta get that.

• 19:36Joe Rogan?

  You need a Costco-sized building.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, yeah, well, again, if you have four different video stores, or if you have a chain, you can move things around and it's easier. But when you're a mom and pop, that's just it. You know, if mom and pop store and you have a bike store, you don't have to keep getting new bikes every month. If you have a pottery store, you don't have to keep getting new pots.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Regardless of your inventory.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  Every single month, yeah.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  You constantly have to grow your inventory.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Every six months, you get something cool. You don't need to get it every month. And you're defined by you having the new shit.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  And then there was another problem when, um, when companies that were massively funded, like Blockbuster, came onto the scene, they would go in and they would kind of do this sort of gray market purchasing, where they would buy, you know, 50 diehards. And a mom and pop store can't afford to buy more than one or two diehards or three, maybe, to satisfy your clientele.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, the thing is, you'd spend, you know, you spend the money, like, okay, like, you know, one of our big titles when we, in the early days of video, was Top Gun.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, Top Gun. Perfect example.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  So you get like, you know, you, you'll get, even the mom and pop store, you'll get 12 or 15.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Cause everyone wants to see it. And at some point, it's gonna be out. And it's gonna be checked out. And so you've gotta satisfy your-

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Well, you're gonna, yeah, you'll rent all 15 of those for the next two weeks. You know, it's gonna be, you know, it's gonna be good, but then now you, now you have to sell them off. You know, for $10 apiece, you know, uh, once the, the, you know, uh, once the, the, the desire has died down.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  It largely fell on us because we were a smaller store and we had a Blockbuster just a block away, basically.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  Not even a block, we're talking about in the same fucking.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Basically.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Not a block away, it was in the.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  On the block.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, in the shopping center that we were in.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  And, yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  Well, you're, you're missing the best, the most interesting thing. It's not about the, the bulk buy, the bulk buy is, that's what it is. But that's every mom and pop store has to deal with that, depending, dealing with a, a franchise.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Well, it changes your strategy, though.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, but what Blockbuster would do, and they were famous for doing this, they were famous for doing this, and,

• 21:46Speaker 03

  uh, but particularly they were strategic about it, is like, okay, uh, we're gonna go into this town, okay, we're going into Manhattan Beach. What's the biggest video store? What's the most popular local video store in Manhattan Beach? Well, that would be Video Archives, they're right on supposed to, you know, they're right across the street from the warehouse, all right, which is like, was the big, which is one of the big rental places. Before Blockbuster, that was the place. It was rent, uh, was, uh, warehouse, warehouse, directions to tapes. And, and they still managed to survive across the street from warehouse.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  And then, what does Blockbuster do? They buy the Shakey's Pizza that is in our shopping center, our shopping center. And they moved into the Shakey's Pizza. Because of like, wow, okay, with warehouse and with the, these Video Archives guys, well, this is obviously the place to be, so they just bought out the Shakey's Pizza. And opened up, and they still couldn't shut us down.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  I'm sure they had the attitude of, we'll just brush them aside.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Oh, of course, of course, that's how they felt.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Consequently, because you don't, you can only get three or 12 Top Guns, whatever it is, it's not as many as Blockbuster is getting. You end up having to focus on, like, how am I gonna convince my clientele to watch something other than Top Gun this weekend? And so, if.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  Well.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Landed on us to basically say, oh, you can't get Top Gun. Well, how about this movie?

• 23:05Speaker 03

  Well, but you know, but you know, it's, you know, it's the difference between being a cool coffee place and being Starbucks.

• 23:11Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  You know, or, or, you know, a, a franchise bar and a cool little Joe's Bar, all right? The bartender knows you.

• 23:18Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  You know, so it's like, look, if you just absolutely positively need Top Gun that weekend, then go to across the street to the warehouse and get it. All right, uh, uh, we have what we have. But we had customers that like came in every fucking day. And part of their day or every other day, you know, when their camps were run, were, were due. And they were people of the neighborhood and, and they came in and, uh, not only did they rent stuff, they dropped stuff off and then they rented new stuff out, but like they came in to talk to us for 20 minutes or 45 minutes, like every other day.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  And there's no algorithm to tell them what to do. We're the algorithm.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  You have to know, oh, this guy, oh, they're on a date night, so they're going to want this kind of rom com type movie, or this guy, he really likes, you know, uh, Vietnamese hooker porn, uh, tapes. I gotta make sure to find something like that for him. And those kids, they're going to want, you know, some skate stuff. So I've got to learn all about the Bones Brigade, uh, videos and stuff like that. And so, you know, you just kind of figured out like, how can I upsell the stuff that they haven't heard of? Cause invariably, anybody who comes in, they have-

• 24:28Speaker 03

  But you're making it just sound a little bit more cynical than it was. You are making it sound more cynical than it was.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  More like, more like the challenge. You guys are like a married couple. Yeah, totally. We're like a married couple.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  It wasn't that cynical.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  Without the benefits.

• 24:40Joe Rogan?

  Tell them the whole story, honey.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  Just tell them the whole story.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  We were just hanging out and they're coming and hanging out too.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and we would pop a movie on and like, uh, you know, pop the movie on and be watching scenes from it and be talking about the scenes. And a customer would come in or many customers would come in and they'd just become part of the conversation. And we would have like, you know.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Like a chat room in the.

• 25:03Speaker 03

  No, no, there was like, no, there was, there, there was about like 15 customers that like. You know, I talked to five hours a week, every week for five years.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  You know, because they came in and I'm like, we'll spend at least forty minutes. Every other day. And I expected to see them. And you know, the, I watched what I watched on TV. I saw what I saw at the movies and then they saw what they saw in the movies. They watched what they watched on TV. We all talked about it and they talked about the videos and then what else we're gonna get and da-da-da-da-da.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  And if you like that, you're gonna like this.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  About our lives and everything, yeah.

• 25:38Joe Rogan?

  So at what point in time, while this is all going on, do you guys decide, we need to make our own fucking movies?

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Well, it was always the case.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  Well, we were always thinking, well, well, Roger and, and Roger had another friend that, it was a guy that connected me and Roger together, was a guy named Scott who, who took his own life at a certain point of early on.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  His father owned another video store that I worked at as well and that Quentin used to come into.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  But the thing is though, that while I was just thinking about making movies, Roger and Scott were like making movies on Super 8.

• 26:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 03

  And they were making little horror films and little zombie movies on, on, on, on Super 8.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Supernatural thrillers.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  And they're, and they're, Warped Turns is a zombie movie.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, yeah.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of an, yeah, it's kind of a zombie movie, eh, eh, eh, more of an afterlife film.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  Okay, maybe, okay. And, but, uh, uh, but you're making like legit horror films. I'm just thinking about this stuff and these guys are like Sam Rainey-ing it, you know, like Sam Rainey. They're making, they're shit in their backyard and they're working on it for like three months and stuff.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, um, you know, like, I was friends with all the punk guys, cause it was like LA punk and, um, so they were always in my movies.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  All the punks were in my movies and, cause they were media literate. They loved movies and so they were easy to pull in and, uh, and to be in the film. So they were always playing like, you know, the gang of punks who beat somebody up or something.

• 26:56Joe Rogan?

  So it must've been cool working at a video store though, because it's essentially like you have, it's like an education.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Well, when the time came where we actually wanted to be making movies, where we were talking about making movies, cause I can remember when, I think it was. It was around the time of Sex, Lies and Videotape, or maybe She's Gotta Have It.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  No, no, definitely Sex, Lies and Videotape.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  But I remember you coming to me and saying, "The moment is happening."

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  It's happening. Like, a small movie is possible to get made. Like, it's happening for us, for guys our age.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, the one, you know, the Sex, Lies and Videotape was sort of like the, uh, like the Seattle Band that Broke. All right. But I was already looking at, uh, Blood Simple was my in.

• 27:45Joe Rogan?

  That's a great movie.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Was my in, all right. Where it was, that was, okay, it's an artistic movie, it's arty, it's funny. It can play the arthouse, it can play the arthouse circuit, but there's a genre base to it.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  There's a genre base. It's like, you know, it's a thriller. It's a film noir-y kind of thriller done in a certain kind of way, but it's a genre base. Yeah, I go, "That's the way you do an art film. You do it, you make it a genre-based art film."

• 28:12Speaker 02

  If you keep one foot in, in...

• 28:14Speaker 03

  Cause it's entertaining.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you keep one foot in exploitation, in some way, in genre. If you keep your foundation in genre, then you can do whatever you want. Like, my favorite filmmaker is Stanley Kubrick. I love Kubrick movies. Okay. One can pretty much look at all of his films and say, each and every one is a genre film. He's got his science fiction movie, he's got a horror movie. Even Barry Lyndon as a costume drama at the time.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  Is a costume genre, is the genre, yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  That was a solid, bankable genre.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  The book is definitely a pulpy genre of its time.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  The book was serialized, wasn't it? It was like Thackeray wrote them in like, uh, like an episode. It was like a soap opera.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  But that was a very popular, popular book at that time.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so, um, yeah, it was all, uh, if you can, if you can, and I knew this making my first film, and I know Quentin, you were talking about it. This was the conversation we were actively having of, we have to make sure that we make a movie people want to see, like a genre film. Like, and I was calling them exploitation movies at the time, like, "I want to keep one foot in exploitation." And then, but at the same time, I'm like, "Well, I kind of also want to make like, you know, I want to elevate it as much as possible." And so, when the time came for me to make my first, first film, Killing Zoe.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  You know, it was like, I knew it was gonna be a bank robbery because I wrote it around a location. You know, we, we found this while they were scouting for, uh, Reservoir Dogs, Lawrence Bender. Uh, or maybe you also had scouted that location. You found this bank location. And Lawrence called me up and he's like, "Hey, I'm calling all the writers I know. I found this bank location and if you can, if you have a script that takes place in a bank, we can kick together a couple hundred thousand dollars and make a movie there." It's like this complete, solid, amazing location. And I said, "Oh my God, Lawrence, this is your lucky day. I happen to have a script that takes place in a bank." And then I just quickly wrote one. Based on the location. And as I was writing it, I was thinking, "Okay, um, you know, I know that it's gonna be a bank robbery. It's a bank.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  And so I know it's gonna be a bank robbery and that's my solid, bankable genre that I'm going to, uh, to stick with." But I knew I wanted to do something more with it and I had just traveled through Europe and, uh, and I'd been telling Quentin the stories of traveling through Europe. He's like, "Oh, you should do a movie called Roger Takes a Trip." And, uh-

• 30:32Speaker 03

  I still think it should've been called that.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's a different movie. I think it's a different, I don't think it's a-

• 30:38Speaker 03

  No, you kinda made Roger Takes a Trip, just added "bank robbers" in it. But it's still Roger Takes a Trip.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  I had been in Paris, I had bumped into a guy that I knew from Los Angeles who was a French guy and he was like, "Oh, I'll show you the real Paris." And I went out with he and his friends, Henri, Jean, Claude, all the characters from the movie. I went out with him and his friends and we, uh, you know, he drove me through Paris and next thing I know, he's doing heroin and I'm like, and, and it started-

• 31:04Joe Rogan?

  With you?

• 31:05Speaker 02

  No, not with me. I, I-

• 31:07Speaker 03

  And now we do heroin.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was like, "Now we do heroin. Hold my arm." I did hold his arm. And like, I had never-

• 31:12Joe Rogan?

  For real?

• 31:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I had never seen anything like that.

• 31:14Joe Rogan?

  Like he tied his arm off? He's like, "Hold my arm."

• 31:16Speaker 03

  No, no, no. He, he was the tying on. Roger was the tying off.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Roger, "Hold my arm while I shoot up."

• 31:21Joe Rogan?

  Gee.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  So-

• 31:23Speaker 03

  But like, he doesn't quite know that this is all gonna happen, that, that, that everything else has been a preamble to this.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, suddenly that happens and then-

• 31:30Joe Rogan?

  He just needed a heroin partner.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, and his friends were like, "Oh, drink it in the nose, doesn't even affect me anymore." You know, things like, and I'm, and I'm like writing these lines down, like, "This is great shit." And so I get back and I tell Quentin, like, about this whole story and about these guys and going, you know, driving around the Champs-Élysées. "Oh, this is where the fags sell themselves."

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Now we go into the nightclub down below and we do more heroin. I'm like, what about the cops? Aren't the police gonna say anything? It's safer here than on the, you know, like you can do heroin anywhere in Paris. And it was like, no, I work at Le Monde. Like all of it was like, basically everything in that movie, I, you know, was stuff that I'd actually seen. And so when the time came to make it as a bank robbery film, I just, you know, I'm thinking about it. I'm like, well, it's a bank robbery movie, but it's going to be about these guys. And it just became a movie about a guy going someplace and the, and everything that he thought he knew is wrong.

• 32:30Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by NOCO. You're miles from home, you turn the key, nothing, dead battery. Normally that means finding another car, someone willing to give you a jump and dealing with old jumper cables. But what if you didn't need any of that? Keep a NOCO portable jump starter in your glove box and jump start your car yourself. No cables, no second vehicle, no waiting for help. It also works as a power bank and has a built-in LED flashlight. NOCO, the end of jumper cables. Use code ROGEN10 for 10% off. Select jump starters at NO.co. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock.

• 33:12Joe Rogan?

  Scams have gotten smarter because criminals use AI to flood you with fake texts, emails, and phone calls that are designed to be more convincing than ever. One wrong click can put your personal information and your identity at risk. So protect yourself with LifeLock. LifeLock helps detect and alert you to threats. And if your identity is stolen, LifeLock will step in to fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Dedicated US-based identity restoration specialists will work with you until your identity is restored, backed by the million dollar protection package with up to $3 million in coverage for eligible losses and expenses.

• 33:53Joe Rogan?

  Visit lifelock.com and save up to 30% your first year with the promo code JRE. That's promo code JRE or go to lifelock.com/jre for 30% off. Terms apply.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  You think, you know, you haven't seen your friend in a while, you go see him. Okay, uh, it's all about that, that kind of friendship and misconception. He's downstairs at the bank. Jean-Yves Gagnol, the bad guy is upstairs. The chaos is going on upstairs. He has no idea what's going on upstairs. And so this kind of just became what the movie was about. And so I just quickly wrote the script. And then, uh, you know, we ended up not even using that location to shoot the movie in. It, uh, came together later and I ended up shooting in downtown LA instead. But, but it was, uh-

• 34:44Joe Rogan?

  The seed was planted.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  The seed was planted. And so the idea was, okay, I'm gonna make a French film out of it. Cause I, I'm like in LA, I'm making a film. What can I do that would be different? Like that would make this more than just a bank robbery movie. And because of the experience I had just had, I was like, well, I'm gonna make a French film. Okay, I had no business making a French movie.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  I didn't even really speak French. I just thought it would be kinda cool. I like, you know, a cool French girl and like greasy, dirty French guys, French criminals. And I always loved, you know, Alain Delaun and The Samurai. You know, the way he wears a suit and the way he carries a gun and the way he walks around. I just like, I, uh, you know, just adored all of that. And so it was like, well, let's put all of that kind of space that's in my brain into the movie. And then the movies tend to take on a life of their own. They tend to be like children. You know, it starts off as a concept, as a conception, has a conception, and then it has an infancy. And then you're raising that child to become the movie.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  And along the way, you're really just kind of protecting it and trying to allow it to grow in to what it's gonna grow into without forcing it to become something that it's not. And, and it's a little bit of a balance. You have to be a good parent, which means you have to give it a little bit of freedom to grow into something that you don't know what it's gonna be. But at the same time, you have to be willing to, you know, be strong with it as well.

• 36:06Joe Rogan?

  That's a very underappreciated movie. It's a fucking great movie.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  I think I'm, I think I'm really good at making underappreciated movies. I think I've had, I've built a career on underappreciated movies.

• 36:17Joe Rogan?

  Those are the classics that you would look for in a video store.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 36:20Joe Rogan?

  You'd look for the movies that were really good that nobody knew about.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  Dog Day Afternoon's not in, but we can get you killing so.

• 36:27Speaker 03

  My favorite moment in the movie, well, I like it when the guy gets burned alive. All right, you know, the hamburger scene.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  But that was, yeah.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  But I remember they were trying to talk to you to cut out and they go, no, no, you can't cut that out. I'll take my name off.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, Quentin did that. Actually Quentin was a great gorilla to have on my side at that time.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  But, uh, uh.

• 36:46Joe Rogan?

  Why would they tell you to cut that out?

• 36:48Speaker 03

  Well, they're like, well, I don't know.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  Everyone is afraid.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  It's too rough, it's too rough.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  Everyone's afraid. Everyone operates out of fear.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  If you take that out, I'm taking my name off.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  The only people that don't operate out of fear, I think, is the director and the actors. Those are the ones who, if everything's working right, you're fearless.

• 37:02Joe Rogan?

  It's always executives that fuck everything up.

• 37:04Speaker 03

  But it's the scene, that my scene, my favorite scene is the scene with Hugh Unglan when he walks into the close up.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  And he's just like, wait a minute. He's like remembering what he heard and he's, and he realizes, uh, uh.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Okay, so that's a good example of, because the movie was shot for.

• 37:23Speaker 03

  Explain the scene better.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  The scene was shot for.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Explain the scene better.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  I will. The movie was shot for, for very little money. We had no money to make it. So I had to shoot the entire upstairs first and then the downstairs. Because it's like doing a company move, but I had kept, I, I knew that, you know, when writing, and this was sort of a, uh, kind of a rule that we had was, I mean, one, make a genre movie, two.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Explain the scene.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  I'm going to.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  I said, explain the scene. Don't tell me that you, what you felt about at that moment. You missed the exit.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  The scene was a replacement for another scene that was in the movie that was too expensive to shoot. That's the short of it.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  What does that have to do with what I like?

• 38:04Speaker 02

  What I replaced it with was, and I had to fight for it, was a single shot. Because originally, he goes downstairs and he sees a bunch of like, guys coming in through the sewer. So he starts machine gunning people in the sewer. Cause there was like a little sewer man hole in the bottom of the bank. I was like, well, let's use that. And so I had this whole thing. And the Bond company showed up and you're like, you're behind schedule and you've gotta like, uh, you know, we're gonna, you gotta cut pages and I couldn't cut anything and I'm shooting upstairs, downstairs stuff. And so it's like, I had to have something, cause he leaves the scene and then comes back angry. And so I knew, I knew I needed to have something. And originally I had this whole scene where the cops are coming in and he reacts to that. And so I said, well, okay, I just need one shot. And, cause it's all I could, had time to do, cause fucking Bond company.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  And so I set up, which were actually really cool to me. They were actually, Film Finances was great. They, um, I, I just set up a single camera. I asked for a, kind of a Kubrickian lens, a nice wide, like maybe a 14 millimeter lens. And I just had John Hugh walk up into a close up. And I just had him do, I said, just walk into a close up and just start looking around and just start seeing things coming out of the walls. And, is that the shot you're talking about? He does like a little magic trick beforehand, like.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  That's not the one you're talking about?

• 39:21Speaker 03

  No.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  That's the great shot. That's a great shot.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  No, the scene I'm talking about is, but that's why I wanted you to explain it, because I hadn't seen it in a long time. But it was.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  See, is that the shot?

• 39:32Speaker 03

  Well, that's the shot.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  That's the shot I'm talking about. Look, he's looking into the walls, he's looking around.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  But I thought the whole idea about it is the idea that.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  I added those lines of dialogue in.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  No, but I thought, I thought the whole idea, I thought the whole idea is, is, he puts it all together. He realizes that there's something going on, that the cops are doing this, or Eric Stoltz is dirty with him, all that. And it all hits him. He's ready to do something else and he walks into a close up and it all hits him. But now we, the audience, know what's going on.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  And then he's just like.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Well, it just shows that sometimes if you can't do what you wanna do, what you come up with is better. And this was an example of, it rained that day and I had to use the rain. That's sort of the example.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  The frustrating part for me about what you're talking, is like, I don't care how the sausage was made. I like the sausage. I wanted you to talk about the sausage. Not the, not the factory.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  You don't want to know what's in that sausage.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wanted to hear about the Italian sweetness.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  Well, it was very sweet, but it started off sour. It started off sour because I couldn't do what I wanted to do. And so I just came up with something that was, well, he puts it together in his head. But, and I-

• 40:50Speaker 03

  No, I mean, I still think that sequence is exhilarating because it's all, it all boils down to an actor's face.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  Well, I had Tom Savini on the set because, and I couldn't afford Tom Savini, but I found his number and before I shot and I called him up and in Pittsburgh and I said, Tom Savini's a makeup effects artist who did Dawn of the Dead.

• 41:08Speaker 03

  He did all the effects for Dawn of the Dead.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Like, and not to mention all the great Friday the 13th, all the slasher movies, like-

• 41:14Speaker 03

  He's the superstar of, of, of practical makeup effects of horror films of that era.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  He was in Vietnam and saw some shit. And every time I'm talking to him about stuff like, he's like, oh yeah, well, you know, no, if you're bleeding from back here, you know, there's only two small veins and blah, blah, because when your head gets knocked off, like, he's seen all this stuff and so this is his way of processing it. But Tom came in and I couldn't afford him. I called him up on the phone. I was like, hey, can you think, uh, I'm a young filmmaker, I'm, uh, you know, I'm your biggest fan. I'd like your makeup effects, blah, blah, blah. Okay, he flew himself out. We had no money to pay him. I think we paid him like some tiny amount. He flew himself to LA, put himself up, worked on the film and he made that burn makeup on that burned guard in the vault

• 42:02Speaker 02

  out of Vaseline paint and tissue paper. And I watched him make, it was the most unbelievable thing how he made blisters and burn effects and it was like watching one of the great artists work. Tom is

• 42:18Speaker 02

  incredible guy. He's an incredible, incredible guy.

• 42:21Speaker 03

  Well, you were asking earlier on about, whoa, you're working at a video store. Did you ever think, you know, when did you start thinking about making your own stuff? Well, I was thinking about making my own stuff for like a long, long, long time, but these guys were actually doing it.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  But there is a truth, while I thought about it, like, for a long, long time, and always figured I would do that eventually. I did fall asleep for a few years. You know, it was, uh, because, uh, working at that store, I just got caught up in the little life there. And it was, you know, it's interesting because, um, you know, you spent your twenties going to comedy clubs and, you know, building, building a career. So I'm still in my twenties there. And, well, it's one of those things where it's like, "Well, this isn't my dream." "This isn't what I wanted to do, working at a video store for years."

• 43:19Speaker 03

  Uh, "I wanted to actually make movies. It's not my dream, what I'm doing."

• 43:25Speaker 03

  But it's dream-adjacent, it's, it's close to my dream, it's close to my dream. I get to watch movies all fucking day. I get to talk about movies all fucking day. I don't have to work at a pizza parlor. I don't have to, I'm not delivering pizzas, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not busting ass, uh, as a bartender. I'm not busting ass doing menial jobs. I mean, this is the kind of job I, uh, uh, that, you know, I, I'd do if I, I'd, I'd go to the store if I wasn't paid to go to the store. You know, so it's like, you know, but, but for a couple of years, it did put me to sleep. It did kind of put me to sleep. It, it put my ambitions to sleep for a little bit, because I was happy enough.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:05Speaker 03

  I was happy, and just all, one of these days, I'll...

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Right, but you didn't have the fire.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  I didn't have the fire. And when I got the fire, when I eventually got the fire back again, and it was a life-changing thing, it was a life-changing day. It was, um, we had a buddy of ours named Steve-O.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 03

  And I, he was one, uh, uh, um, we had different living arrangements, and at one point in time, me and Steve-O were living in the same house together. Renting, uh, in the back of the, towards the back of the store.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  The dude house.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. It was where everyone would hang out. And, um,

• 44:44Speaker 03

  but now, Steve-O was older than the rest of us, so it's like, he was about, like, almost five years older than us, but you, he didn't seem like it, he was a young guy.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, five years younger mentally. Or emotionally.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And, um, but...

• 45:01Speaker 03

  So he hits thirty and he starts changing. He starts changing like drastically. I mean, he was like the, one of the funniest guys I ever knew. And he was this really, really funny stoner dude and really cool. And all of a sudden, he's like angry about things. And now he's not quite as funny and now he's got this issue. And so we're roommates and there's this one night that he's kind of like all, he's kind of disgusted with his life. And he starts ranting and he, and, and he's describing a situation that was very common if you were a kid growing up without a, you know, without a degree or anything in the eighties, especially in California.

• 45:46Speaker 03

  Where it's like, you can't get any really good jobs, but like you could work at Licorice Pizza. And if you're an okay employee, you could like work at Licorice Pizza for a couple of years and maybe you could even become assistant manager or manager and maybe they send you to another store. And, and maybe you worked there for three years and that's really great. But then, you know, all of a sudden, the district manager doesn't like you, you run afoul of somebody higher up in corporate and all of a sudden, next thing you know, you're fired and you're out in the street.

• 46:15Joe Rogan?

  Again, it's management.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. And so now you've just spent three years at Licorice Pizza. Now, now you could get a job at TRW or some of the places like a real job job. Or, well, those are kind of hard to get, but you can work at Warehouse Records and Tapes tomorrow because you just had three years at Licorice Pizza. Same thing with Wild West Clolier, same thing with Miller's Outpost, same thing with any of these kind of stores. Next thing you know, you're twenty-eight and the only jobs you've ever had are minimum wage jobs behind a counter that, that were designed for kids to pay for their gas.

• 46:50Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 46:51Speaker 03

  And, and you've like spent your entire twenties doing that.

• 46:54Joe Rogan?

  And then you start getting bitter.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  And you start getting bitter. And, but, but he was not just bitter about the job aspect of it. He, but I knew, oh my God, he's telling me the truth. I'm learning something here. Because he, you know, he goes, you know, you know, Quentin, you think that we're this really great team, we're this really great crew. Well, we are. I mean, you know, that time of your twenties, we're like your, your group of friends or your family, you know? And like, well, we are. Quentin.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  At twenty, I worked at South Bay Cinemas. And I hung out with a bunch of guys, just like you. And some girls there, too. But it was a bunch of guys, just like you. And then I stopped working at South Bay Cinema. Then I worked at Miller's Outpost. I hung out with a bunch of guys, just like you. And we did everything, just like we do. We went to movies together. We went out and we dated amongst the girls there, everything. Yeah, then I worked at Lisa's Pizza for four years with a bunch of guys, just like you. I've wasted my life hanging out with a bunch of guys, just like you. And they all go away at a certain point. And I realized, this guy's kind of telling the truth.

• 48:12Speaker 03

  He's showing me a truth about him. He's, I'm, this is coming from somewhere. And then, all of a sudden, he still hung around us. He still liked us. But then he started making it a point to touch base with some of his high school friends. They were still around. So he's not just hanging out with guys four years younger, five years younger than him. Anyway, I'm turning twenty-five around this time. So I'm having my own little, okay, well, what have I done with my life so far? So far, fucking nothing. So I'm having my own little anxiety hitting twenty-five. But I'm seeing what it's like five years from now.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  When you turn thirty.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  A window to the future.

• 48:54Speaker 03

  When you're turning thirty and you're in this situation. And, and there was like one night that I had what I used to call, I would do it every once in a while. I haven't done it in a long time, thankfully. I would have a Quentin de Teste Fest. Where I'd stay up all night long. And rather than give myself excuses, I would look at everything that I'm fucking up in my life, or everything I'm not doing, or whatever. And just not give myself any fucking excuses out. Just like nail it. And I would spend like all night laying out everything I'm doing that's wrong. And then I would spend the last two hours figuring out how I can change it.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  And as opposed to just doing it and then going to get some sleep, and then you forget about it and fall back into your, you know, your routine. I decided to change my life. And I was like, look, the problem is, is that I'm living in the South Bay. And even though I drive to Los Angeles, I, one, I gotta not worry about this job anymore. I gotta just move to Hollywood. I gotta get involved there. I gotta meet other people that are in the business. And if I have to work manpower jobs, you know, where you just work like four days at this place and four days at that place, well, then that's fine. And by the way, I shouldn't be making money until I'm making money doing what I want to do.

• 50:16Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  And not that that was ever a danger. All right. But, uh, um, uh, but then, you know, the next thing I knew, you know, I was, I moved out of the South Bay. And then I couldn't move into Hollywood. I couldn't afford Hollywood, but I could afford Koreatown. And I was close enough. And, uh, and literally the minute I kind of moved out there, I met a guy who wrote, uh, low budget horror movies. And then through him, I met other guys that wrote low budget horror movies and this guy who directs a few low budget horror and this guy who produces a couple. And well, but yeah, you meet one person and that introduces you to three other people. Now, all of a sudden, I actually knew people who were actually making movies.

• 50:58Speaker 03

  And the other thing about it was, it was like, also, well, if these guys can do what I can do.

• 51:04Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 51:05Speaker 03

  Because they weren't too special.

• 51:06Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  You know, uh, uh.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  That's the weird realization that you end up having.

• 51:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. Uh, uh, and, and then literally, it wasn't like everything changed, but like within a year and a half from moving out of the South Bay, moving into the Hollywood area, within a year and a half, I was finally able to make a living as a, as a writer. You know, getting like a, uh, $7,000 for this rewrite on the script over here, $4,000 for this polish over here, another $10,000 for this rewrite over here. Well, shit, I mean, I would make $10,000 a year, uh, through all my twenties before that point. So like, if I can make like, if I can make 15,000 from writing, oh my God, that, that was the greatest thing in the world.

• 51:50Joe Rogan?

  Wow. But it just takes being around people that are actually doing it so you realize it's possible.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Well, it's the realizing it's possible, but it's also, but it's also a situation where it's like. Um, as opposed, you know, as opposed to talking to your buddies about comedy in Minnesota, your buddies who like comedy, no, you're at the comedy store and you're dealing with comedians every fucking night.

• 52:15Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  And you're with the, you know, you're in the place where the shit happens and you're, you're, you're hearing how the laughs work, but also he's like, you know what's going on. Oh, Caroline's Comedy Hour is doing the tryouts for this.

• 52:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  And, you know, Chuck, uh, uh, uh, Chuckles is, is doing this thing or that thing. Oh, and there's this sitcom going on, there's the funny neighbor guy.

• 52:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  At any moment.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  You're, you're in the, you're in the, you're plugged in.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, at any moment, there's a circle of people rising in any industry.

• 52:41Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  And it's just a matter of finding those people and those people will all gravitate towards the same things.

• 52:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they have the thing where it's sort of like, you know, like, hey Benny, we, we have a, a spot for you that could be really, you know, I can't do it, but my friend Joe could do it, can you, can, yeah, how about, how about giving Joe a chance?

• 52:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 03

  Okay, will you, will you back Joe up? Yeah, I'll back Joe up. Okay, yeah, well, let's, well, let's call your friend Joe, can he be down here at nine? Yeah, he can be down here at nine. Well, that's how you get a fucking gig.

• 53:08Joe Rogan?

  This is exactly what we tried to do when we built the mothership here.

• 53:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:14Joe Rogan?

  What we've done. We decided when we left LA, like, we need a place where comics have a hub. And when we were all in Austin, we all just moved to Austin because of pandemic.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:21Joe Rogan?

  And all of a sudden, we were allowed to perform indoors. It was crazy. In November of 2020, we were doing shows indoors. And, you know, you couldn't go on Twitter because they would call you a big super spreader, a fucking monster. But everybody started moving here. By the, you know, by the time 2020 rolls around, there's like 15, 16 world-class comedians that didn't used to live in Austin that are here now. And we were like, let's, let's build a club. And so we bought the Ritz Theater, uh, where, uh, you know, some of your movies are played.

• 53:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:49Joe Rogan?

  It's fucking crazy. And when we put it together, the, the whole idea was like, have a place where people can come. We have two nights of open mic nights, Monday and, or, uh, Sunday and Monday night. So there's always a chance to get on stage. There's always a guy that's a real talent, he get, is a, Adam Ege is a real talent coordinator. He's really gonna watch you, he's really gonna give you advice, and you're around the best comics in the world all the time. And everybody knows it's possible. And everybody treats you the way you would want to be treated if you were starting. So you're just one of us, you just started, but you're not, we're not better than you. We're not, we're not, there's nothing special about us, we're just telling you. We, we started walking and now we're fifteen miles in, you're fifteen feet in. Just keep walking.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Okay, but let me, okay, but let me ask you a que, let me ask you a question, cause it, you know, when I watch some of the things on the Comedy Store, now, cause you know I'm, I really love going to the Comedy Store.

• 54:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  You know, and, and they treat me really great there, it's really cool. All right, um, but you know, it,

• 54:47Speaker 03

  the mythology of the place, is you go down there on Open Mic Night, and if you have something to offer.

• 54:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 54:53Speaker 03

  You know, then you, you know, you work your way up and then you're the doorman and then, you know, you, you, you work your way up. But it seems like,

• 55:03Speaker 03

  that was then, that was a long time ago, now it seems like people are almost paying ten years, all right? Or eight years before they actually are getting up and getting paid.

• 55:14Joe Rogan?

  Not necessarily, um, like Tony Hitchcliff started at the Comedy Store. He started as a doorman, you know, and he worked his way up to selling out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row. I mean, it, it is possible to still be a doorman, I met Tony when he was just starting out.

• 55:28Speaker 03

  I'm, I'm figuring that that's a spot, but it seems like, but if you have to wait five years.

• 55:33Joe Rogan?

  Well, you don't get good for ten years.

• 55:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

• 55:36Joe Rogan?

  It takes forever, comedy is like making a mountain out of layers of paint. It takes forever.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  You have to fail.

• 55:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 55:43Speaker 02

  You, you have to have the opportunities to fail.

• 55:44Joe Rogan?

  Well, there's also no one who can tell you how to do it.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:47Joe Rogan?

  Like, writing a film, like, you, you, you know, you have a protagonist, you have the antagonist, you have a plot, you have a, you have a bunch of stuff that you can kind of create and formulate.

• 55:56Speaker 03

  Would you really, but would you really say that it takes ten years to be a solid comedian?

• 56:01Joe Rogan?

  It takes ten years to be a real headliner, like a guy who could do a real-

• 56:04Speaker 03

  Well, headliner, that's, that's a little different, that's a little different.

• 56:06Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's when you're a real comic.

• 56:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 56:08Joe Rogan?

  When you can do an hour, you can do an hour and then you could write another hour.

• 56:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:12Joe Rogan?

  Like, you, you, you kind of know who you are.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  Cause it takes years to build that, that, yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 03

  Well, also to be a headliner, you actually have to be enough of a, you have to be enough of a name of a draw, to actually draw an audience.

• 56:21Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes, and you know, you have to, usually you go on the road with a headliner and then the people get to see you. Oh, I remember, he was- When Tom Segura was in town, that guy's really good. We saw him then and he did fifteen minutes, now he's gonna do an hour, this should be great. And it's sort of that kind of a deal. But it's the same sort of situation where most people don't, like if you're in Pittsburgh, you don't know what to do. You know, you go up, there's a couple of open mic nights, everybody sucks. And there's no inspiration.

• 56:48Speaker 03

  It's not set up for comedy and it's in a fucking pizza parlor.

• 56:50Joe Rogan?

  Exactly. And it's good on the weekends.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  And it doesn't work and you go, well, I guess this is not for me.

• 56:54Joe Rogan?

  Right, it's good on the weekends because they'll fly in, you know, Greg Fitzsimmons, some headliner, and you'll get to see a real comic for a weekend, so you get a little bit of an education from that. And maybe if you're lucky, the club owner will let you open for him or do ten minutes on that show and you kind of like get a feel what it's like to perform in front of a real audience that's there to see a real comic. But you gotta be around, like comedy doesn't exist in a vacuum. There's no great comedian that lives in some small town by himself. Like, you could find some great blues artist.

• 57:24Speaker 03

  Or a great novelist.

• 57:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, novelist is probably the best one because you kind of live in your own head. But you, you have to be around the other people that are doing it.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  Which is exactly why Quentin moved to Hollywood.

• 57:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 57:35Speaker 03

  Get away from these losers.

• 57:37Joe Rogan?

  You had to do it, but you, you really do have to do it.

• 57:39Speaker 03

  Cut the dead weight.

• 57:40Speaker 02

  I recall, I recall living in Hollywood as well.

• 57:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, you did.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  Freaking Franklin.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  Yes, you did.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  Across from Plummer Park.

• 57:46Joe Rogan?

  Your bitter friend gave you a valuable little piece of information.

• 57:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, he did, no, very much so.

• 57:51Joe Rogan?

  You need those, you need those moments.

• 57:53Speaker 03

  Oh, I knew I was hearing the truth. And I knew I was hearing a coming attraction.

• 57:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 57:57Speaker 03

  Because I was already feeling it at twenty-five.

• 58:00Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 58:01Speaker 03

  Am I throwing my topsoil years away?

• 58:03Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, the topsoil, exactly. It doesn't come back.

• 58:07Speaker 03

  It doesn't come back.

• 58:08Joe Rogan?

  You never get to be twenty-one again, let's hit reset.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you get one weird march through this life. And if you don't, if you have a dream.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  You can throw it away until twenty-three, but from twenty-four on, you need to be thinking about what you're doing for the rest of your life.

• 58:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  Get it going.

• 58:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, get it going.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:24Joe Rogan?

  That, well, I think these conversations are so important for young people to hear. Because there's a lot of people out there that do have ideas and sometimes they have a little bit of a fire and then maybe they have a job that's kind of cool like yours was. And they, they get sedated.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Almost the worst thing that can happen is getting comfortable, which I think is what you were talking about.

• 58:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 58:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you know, I mean, you know, it all worked out, okay? It all worked out really, really good. And the thing about it was, you know, uh... I did get comfortable, but I got comfortable in a cool place and ultimately I did have the energy and the wherewithal to ultimately get dissatisfied with it and want more. You know, the alternative would have been me working at a department store for those four years.

• 59:06Joe Rogan?

  Yes, right, right, right.

• 59:07Speaker 03

  And I would have been like, really been miserable.

• 59:09Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 59:10Speaker 03

  Here I'm able to, I mean, you know, in this instance, I'm still involved with, I mean, the part, the sedative part was the idea that it was close enough to what I wanted to do.

• 59:21Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 59:22Speaker 03

  It was close enough. I could get comfortable.

• 59:25Joe Rogan?

  There's guys like that at the Comedy Store. There's a friend of mine at the Comedy Store that was, he was a bartender in the back bar and he wanted to be a comic.

• 59:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:32Joe Rogan?

  But he was there, it was like five years after I met him, I'm like, hey man, you gotta quit this fucking job.

• 59:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:38Joe Rogan?

  Cause you're here with all the greatest comics in the world, but you're not going on stage because you're, and you're making good money.

• 59:42Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:43Joe Rogan?

  And that's, that's the velvet curtain.

• 59:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:46Joe Rogan?

  You know, that's pulled over your eyes, like.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  I, I worked on Lords of Dogtown, the movie about Zephyr surfboards and skateboarding and polyurethane wheels and surfing. And I'm not like, like a surfer or anything, but my entry point into that movie was Zephyr surfboards was exactly like Video Archives. And I imagine that this is like this in a lot of places where, you know, you have a shop, they make, they do skateboards and they've got a shaper guy there, you know, Skip Englem, who's a surfboard shaper and he was sort of like Lance, the guy who owned Video Archives. And he started a shop and he's selling to all the kids locally and all the kids who like love surfing, you know, like Stacy Peralta or Tony Alva or guys like that, they would

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  just go hang out there, just like we would go hang out at the video store. And so I looked at that and I was like, okay, I don't really know anything about these guys other than growing up in the beach community, but my real entry point was, I understand gravitating towards what you love and wanting to be close to it and that if a video store is the closest thing to Hollywood in your town, that's where you go. Or if it's not a movie theater and so.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  Well, you know, it was, it was funny because.

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  When I first started, when I started at the video store, I'd like, it was great because, you know, like I said, I got to hang out in this place that I enjoyed and I'm surrounded by movies and talking about movies.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  Access to all those titles.

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  But then also, there was also the situation of, you know, I became like a little film critic in that town, you know, it was like, I was like, the, the, the store was my little village voice and I was the Andrew Saris there, I was the critic. And people would come in and at a certain point, like, oh, Quentin, what should I get? You know, and the thing is, and I'm not just like holding court on my own personal taste, pretty soon they got a really good idea about my, my taste. But the thing is, I'm usually gearing it towards the people, you know, I'm, I'm not gonna, you know, uh, uh, get some housewife to watch some gonzo movie that I,

• 1:01:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:50Speaker 03

  gonzo violent movie that I really like, I'm, I'm, I'm gaming, I get to know her.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  You have to tailor, tailor it to her.

• 1:01:55Speaker 03

  And so I'm, you know, I'm putting something in her hand that I think she's gonna, she's gonna appreciate and I kinda know what kinda comedy she likes, I know who she likes, stuff like that. And so I'm like, you know, really kind of, um, you know, uh, gearing it in a certain, in a certain way and that, that, that felt, that felt really good, you know, it felt like I said, I felt like a film critic.

• 1:02:16Speaker 02

  Hmm, yeah.

• 1:02:18Speaker 03

  You know, but one of the things that, I forgot, I was gonna, I was gonna go somewhere with that and I forgot, I lost my train of thought, all right, uh, uh, uh, but, uh, um, but one of the things that ended up happening, and if I, I hope I didn't say it the last time I was here, uh, that ended up happening is we became really famous in the neighborhood. We were the video guys.

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  And, you know, our store was a little different than most of the businesses that were in, uh, uh, Manhattan Beach. And so everyone kinda knew us, we were the video guys. So in a strange way,

• 1:02:53Speaker 03

  It was a precursor to what it would be like to be famous with the whole world kind of knows about you like that. In Manhattan Beach, I'm like walking down the street and people like, "Hey Quentin, hey, how you doing?" You know, I'm like, I'm at the, working at the store, I'm walking to the Jack in the Box to get a Coke and come back. And then, you know, but we'd walk into the man's movie theater, all right, that was by the theater, you know, and me and two of the guys would walk in to go see a movie.

• 1:03:23Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Believe it or not, the holiday season is here again, and that means you might need to fill some seasonal roles, fast. Maybe you need extra cashiers or stalkers, or maybe something more unique, like a lead elf, or an expert gift wrapper, or a Zamboni driver. Whoever you're looking for, whatever skills you need to power through the rest of the year, ZipRecruiter is one of the best places to start your search. Because you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/rogan. And because ZipRecruiter helps sort through thousands of resumes and applications, showing you the most qualified and interesting ones first.

• 1:04:06Joe Rogan?

  There's even an option for candidates to explain why they want the job. Let ZipRecruiter find the right people for your roles, seasonal or otherwise. Try it for free today at ziprecruiter.com/rogan. That's ziprecruiter.com/rogan. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. With the excitement of the holidays, it's easy to forget the rate for burglaries goes up this time of the year. So let's talk about the solution, SimpliSafe. They provide top-notch security, protect your home, your family, even your dog. I get how important it is to feel like your pets are safe at home alone, especially as

• 1:04:49Joe Rogan?

  you get roped into all the holiday madness. And the reason I say it's top-notch is because SimpliSafe's security system protect your house 24/7 with agents that can intervene unless

• 1:05:02Joe Rogan?

  than 30 seconds. That early intervention is crucial in these situations. I've also partnered with Simply Safe to offer my listeners the biggest savings of the year, 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplysafe.com/rogan. That's simplysafe.com/rogan. And write in the Joe Rogan Experience at checkout. That really helps the show. Simply Safe, ahead of crime, in real time.

• 1:05:32Speaker 03

  You be walked down the aisle and we hear, "Hey, those are the video archives guys. Those are the video archives guys."

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I was in San Francisco once and the guys from Red Cross, the punk band, they were customers of ours. I was like, "Oh, they're doing a signing at this local record shop. I'll just go show up. I'll just show up there on Haight-Ashbury." And I walk in and immediately the McDonald Brothers guys were like, "Hey, it's the video store guy."

• 1:05:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  "Hey, man, come back behind with us." I don't think they talk like that.

• 1:06:02Speaker 03

  They kind of talk like that.

• 1:06:04Joe Rogan?

  It's good to get that slow drip, get a little bit of a taste of it before you actually get famous. Just to get a feel of what it's like.

• 1:06:12Speaker 02

  It still doesn't give you the full, it's like, you know, "Oh, I'm just gonna smoke a little weed," compared to, "I'm gonna mainline, you know, heroin."

• 1:06:22Speaker 03

  Oddly enough, the thing that it did was, it made me feel part of a community, which I had never felt with before. I actually felt part of the Manhattan Beach community.

• 1:06:33Speaker 02

  Manhattan Beach?

• 1:06:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. I felt part of the Manhattan Beach community. I was part of the Manhattan Beach community. You know, the people knew me there. And I was, I was an upstanding member inside of that community.

• 1:06:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Yeah. The fame thing is, no one can teach you how to do that. There's someone, there needs to be like a group of people to get together with people that are about to get famous and say, "Hey, listen, we're famous already. Let me tell you how fucking weird this is. And I don't know if you're prepared for this."

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  When we were first trying to make True Romance, you know, Quentin had this amazing screenplay and it was like, we were gonna try to do it Coen Brothers style. We had just seen Blood Simple and we were like, "Okay, I'm gonna produce. Quentin's gonna direct. We're gonna go out and make this." Our first thought was, "Okay, we've got this database of doctors and lawyers and housewives in Manhattan Beach. We're gonna go to the video store." You know, we ended up not doing that.

• 1:07:23Joe Rogan?

  You were gonna ask them for money?

• 1:07:24Speaker 03

  We never had the balls to actually ask anybody for money.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  Thinking about getting money and actually getting money are two different things.

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  We strategized about it a lot, but we never actually.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  I drew up full partnership papers before, uh, before that whole dream failed of doing it that way.

• 1:07:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, nobody knows what it's like to actually be successful until you are. But in the beginning, did you guys feel like pretenders? Did you feel fake? Did you have imposter syndrome?

• 1:07:52Speaker 03

  I didn't have imposter syndrome because I did a movie and I was really happy with the film. But the thing is, what I felt like, I'll tell you exactly how I felt. I didn't feel imposter syndrome. Well, I guess a little bit. There is all that like, we're waiting for somebody to tap you on the shoulder. What the fuck are you doing? Get out of here.

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  Who would let that guy in?

• 1:08:09Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:08:09Speaker 02

  The fuck out.

• 1:08:11Speaker 03

  What I had was, I felt like I was a reporter deep undercover. All right, on the opposite side of the line.

• 1:08:21Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  This isn't really me. I'm like those people over there.

• 1:08:26Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:08:27Speaker 03

  But I'm deep undercover.

• 1:08:29Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  And I can, I can give you reports from the, from the, from the front. Right. Of what it's like here on the, on the, on the battle line.

• 1:08:35Joe Rogan?

  Right. Well, maybe that was a good thing, though.

• 1:08:38Speaker 03

  It was a really cool thing.

• 1:08:39Joe Rogan?

  Because I think that's one of the things you did with your films is you did shit that was very risky. Like, we're talking about executives and all these different management people that are gonna come in and fuck with your thing and don't do that and cut that out. But you, you had a sensibility, not of a person in management, but of a person that I know what I'd like. I know what I like. And I, and I think I can think differently than these people do.

• 1:09:04Speaker 03

  Oh, no, no, I would, no, I, one of the things we talked about, we had a little theory about it. What was, uh, that gave us a bit of a superpower when we were first brought into, well, once we established ourselves, that people knew, you read our scripts or you knew we were, we had something to offer.

• 1:09:22Speaker 03

  We would walk into rooms and we realized that, and, and, and, and, look, I'm not here to make fun of Hollywood executives. Some of those guys, like, look, you don't know how bad some of these movies, these scripts are. They actually, oftentimes, they actually make them better. They're really, really terrible. All right, they, some of the, when they go through the sausage factory, oftentimes, they get better. Uh, uh, believe it or not. But the thing is, though, you'd walk in there and...

• 1:09:56Speaker 03

  You don't become this super successful executive by being doubling down on your own opinions. You kind of want to get the temperature and get a consensus going on. You're not the maverick. That's not how people establish themselves as executives. The D-girl doesn't become the head of the development process by, you know, being the punk rock person who's, you know, shooting for the plimsolls. They're looking for a Rolling Stone.

• 1:10:32Speaker 03

  But film people, film geeks and film, you know, film buffs, the one thing they have is their opinion. And they have spent years defining their opinion. And they almost have nothing to show for their dedication to cinema other than their highly evolved opinion. So you put them in a room and say, "Well, what would you do?" "Well, it's about time you asked me." And then you, and then all of a sudden you take the strong point of view. And the room, the term in Hollywood is, "He who has the strongest point of view in the room wins."

• 1:11:17Speaker 03

  And executives don't have the strongest point of view. You know, but the maverick artist who only can hear the sound of his own voice, he definitely has the strongest point of view. But it's refreshing to them.

• 1:11:28Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  You know, invariably, they hire you because you scare them a little. You're a little scary and they like that. They want to be like a little thrilled by that.

• 1:11:37Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:11:38Speaker 02

  But then, you know, like a girlfriend or something, they want to change you. They think they're going to make you normal.

• 1:11:43Speaker 03

  Exactly, right?

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  And then it falls on you to just stay true to that initial guy who was in the room.

• 1:11:48Speaker 03

  I had a really interesting situation where I had a guy who was an executive who actually directed a movie. And he was talking about like, "Well, I've seen these jokers out there and, you know, what they do isn't so special. I think I could do it." And so he, you know, so he finds a book and then they adapt it and now he's doing the movie.

• 1:12:11Speaker 03

  And you know, he's getting through it. Everything's working fine. He's getting through it. And then, uh, then he realizes the difference between himself and a director because there's a, he's dealing with another director about something. Cause he's, he's an executive. So he's dealing with another director about another movie. And he asked him a very important question about his movie.

• 1:12:34Speaker 03

  And the way he answers it, he realized the difference between him and that director. And he goes, I realized. Oh.

• 1:12:45Speaker 03

  See, he's a real director because he sees the movie.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:50Speaker 03

  He sees the movie in his head. The question I asked, he went into his head and he saw it. He saw it. And he could actually answer it. He goes, oh, the flower pot is green. Because he sees the entire picture.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:08Speaker 03

  And I don't see it. I'm just doing my best. I'm, I, I, I see it written, all right, but I don't, I don't see the movie in my head. I'm just doing my best with the, with the written material.

• 1:13:18Joe Rogan?

  He's the Comedy Central executive that thinks they could be a comedian.

• 1:13:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right on.

• 1:13:22Joe Rogan?

  And then they get on stage and they eat shit. Like, oh god. What you were saying is exactly what happened to Chappelle.

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:13:28Joe Rogan?

  The Chappelle shit.

• 1:13:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:29Joe Rogan?

  Like, they loved him. He's this wild dude. And then all of a sudden, this is too wild. This is becoming really successful. We can change you. They want him to stop saying the N-word. They want him to stop a bunch of different things on the show.

• 1:13:41Speaker 03

  And we'll give you all this money if you, if you roll over.

• 1:13:43Joe Rogan?

  They gave him literally the devil's deal. We're gonna give you fifty million dollars and this is, this is what you're gonna get. And he's like, no, I quit. I quit everything and I'm, I'm gonna go to Africa. I'm gonna hang out in Africa for a while. And I'm gonna quit stand-up for ten years and come back and still be the best.

• 1:13:58Speaker 02

  That is so the right move.

• 1:13:59Joe Rogan?

  Oh my god. Well, look, he's a legend now, but he, but that's the, that's really him. If you're around him, he's a, he's an artist in like the truest sense of the word.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  You know, um, when I was young, one of my first jobs was actually given to me by one of our customers, this guy, John Langley, who did that show, Cops. And so, uh, like he was, you know, getting his power turned off and stuff like. You know, constantly and he was struggling to get by and he would do these little things with Geraldo Rivera that Quentin and I would work on his PAs every now and then and

• 1:14:30Speaker 03

  The Dolph Lundgren exercise video.

• 1:14:32Speaker 02

  We worked on the Dolph Lundgren exercise video together.

• 1:14:34Speaker 03

  We did, we were PAs on the Dolph Lundgren exercise video.

• 1:14:36Speaker 02

  We were picking up dog shit in Venice Beach with our hands so that Dolph could do aerobics on that little grassy knoll.

• 1:14:43Joe Rogan?

  Hilarious.

• 1:14:44Speaker 02

  And so, you know, I'm like the first, I'm a PA working for him, a driver, I'm running around town, my car is like, the transmission is going out, I'm trying to figure out, what am I gonna do, this is not what I want to do, I don't want to work on Cops, but like, I need the job. And so I'm, I go in and I meet with, with John and he's been a customer of ours and he's fatherly like to me.

• 1:15:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  And I go into his office and I sit down and Cops has just started. It started because of a Writers Guild strike. You know, there was a Writers Guild strike and so Fox was like, well, that show has no writers. And so they ordered his thing and he went from nothing to like, I'm buying yachts.

• 1:15:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:23Speaker 02

  I'm collecting vineyards.

• 1:15:25Speaker 03

  Not only that though, I remember when he first came up with the idea with his partner, Malcolm Barber.

• 1:15:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:31Speaker 03

  All right, so he comes in and he's like, hey, we've got a really good idea for a show. So he's, he's, he's describing Cops before Cops has ever been made.

• 1:15:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:39Speaker 03

  And, and his first idea was, it wasn't called Cops, it was called The Real Miami Vice.

• 1:15:50Joe Rogan?

  Probably was, doesn't scale out to the whole country like Cops did.

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  He, um.

• 1:15:55Speaker 03

  Well, they defined it. They refined it.

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  I asked him, I said, John, like, you've worked on, you know, in this business a long time. He was an AD for a long time. What kind of advice can you give to a guy like me who's trying to, you know, work my way up? He's like, well, what do you want to do ultimately? I said, well, I want to direct films. Well, then be a director. Don't work your way up the ladder, don't try to be a grip and work your way in, just be a director. And I heard that and he's like, start at the top. It's the best way to go. Just start at the top and, uh, you know, just tell people you're a director. Put yourself in that. Otherwise, people will just pigeonhole you. They'll just say, that's who he is. He's a grip or he's a PA or he's, you'll, you'll have to work your way up. Just tell people who you

• 1:16:42Speaker 02

  are. So I thought about it and I was like, okay. I quit.

• 1:16:49Speaker 02

  What? I said, I quit. I'm a director. And I left. I walked out. I mean, I gave him notice. And, uh, and I walked out. And he sat there and he later told me, years later, told me, man, I thought that was the most audacious ballsy thing. That I gave you advice and you took it right away. And, okay, never mind the fact that it took me years of just telling people I'm a director. I directed Super 8 movies. Like, I was not a director. I was a poser. I was faking it until I made it. But I told people what I was and what I was doing. And eventually, it stuck. Eventually, enough people hear it. And all those people who you end up going into a room,

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  and pitching your idea, and they say no, eventually, they see you at Cannes, running around, you know, trying to do foreign sales. They're like, hey, maybe that kid is a director. That was all, you know, it was just believing in yourself.

• 1:17:45Speaker 03

  It's funny, that guy.

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  When no one else believes what you believe.

• 1:17:47Speaker 03

  The guy you're talking about, John Langley, who created Cops. It was, you know, he was a really good customer, and his wife Maggie was really lovely. She came.

• 1:17:55Speaker 02

  Morgan, all of his kids.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  And, uh, I heard the story came back to me later. That, uh, you know, uh, when I got the deal to make Reservoir Dogs, you know, just little by little, through the Manhattan Beach community, they started, you know, hearing, oh, hey, Quentin's making his movie.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:14Speaker 03

  Quentin got his movie off the ground. He's actually making his movie. He's not at the video store anymore. He's actually making a movie. Good for him. And who knows what's gonna happen to it, but it's happening. And, uh, um, and I think they were having a little dinner party at their house. And then Maggie mentions to, uh, John about what happened. Really? That's actually happening? It's actually happening? Yeah, no, they've got production offices and everything. They're, they're, they're making the movie.

• 1:18:40Speaker 03

  Everybody, raise your glass.

• 1:18:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:43Speaker 03

  To Quentin. He did it. Good for Quentin.

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 1:18:47Speaker 03

  Raise your glass. I'm getting teary-eyed just even thinking about it.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  You know, I just have to say, John Langley, you know, because I had some shit happen to me in my life. I spent some time in jail. I kind of screwed up my life. But when everything went down, when everyone in Hollywood dropped me like a hot rock, John Langley was there. Our customer, John Langley, because I lost, we lost everything. He loaned me some money. He gave me my first job when I got out of jail, writing something for very little money. But he wanted me back in the saddle.

• 1:19:20Joe Rogan?

  I love the things you wrote from jail.

• 1:19:22Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks. Thank you.

• 1:19:24Joe Rogan?

  They were really good. It was really interesting. It was like this, like, super intelligent writer who's in jail, you know? It's a different, different sort of perspective.

• 1:19:34Speaker 03

  Roger's working on a book about his jail experiences that is fantastic.

• 1:19:39Speaker 02

  I kept a really detailed, super detailed journal about like everything that's going on around me. And, you know, it became a really, I mean, that was an,

• 1:19:52Speaker 02

  it was a very intense experience, being placed into a room, having the doors closed, and you're just left with yourself. And everything, all your things which define you get stripped away. Everything gets kind of dropped and you lose who you are. And you're just left with your remorse and regret for why you're there. And you have a lot of time to think about things. And, but having said that, as a writer, there was a concrete bench that I could sit on. I had golf pencils. I could buy sheets of paper. And, and I've never in my life been more productive.

• 1:20:34Speaker 02

  I've never wanted to write more than when everything was taken away. And I've never felt more about the world. And I've never, yeah, I've,

• 1:20:46Speaker 02

  It was a very monastic. I was telling Quentin at one point, it was kind of monastic like, you know, you're, you're in a, you're in a secular kind of, you're in a cell, you're in a cell and you're with a bunch of god dudes and you're writing, you know, it's like you're, I, I became a scribe. I started, I mean, I was a scribe beforehand, but I really, really, it became my escape, being able to write, being able to fall into things and to be able to travel into another world. And then also people find out you're a writer and they're like, hey, man, would you write my, yo essay, would you write my girlfriend? You, I want to write her a love letter. I need your help. So I wrote like a ton of love letters.

• 1:21:27Joe Rogan?

  That's actually good practice for dialogue.

• 1:21:29Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. No, totally, totally. No, actually I heard some amazing dialogue.

• 1:21:35Speaker 03

  And you're writing your Robin Hood script, all right? And there's, so that's your way to get out of the cell is to write his Robin Hood script.

• 1:21:41Speaker 02

  I, you know, I, well, there's a book cart and so I'm, you know, every now and then you go through the book cart and mostly it's like Tom Clancy novels. They love Tom Clancy and stuff like that. And Clive Barker novels and things like that. But lo and behold, I found this old Penguin paperback of, you know, an old, old version of Robin Hood written by E. Charles Vivian. And like, oh, man, this is going to be great. And I start reading it. And it's like, they get into Evil Hold, which is like this castle where, you know, Marian's father is being kept and nobody knows it and he's there and he's not away at Crusades. He's in this prison and Robin Hood goes into the prison and in the moment

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  when he's in the prison, how he sees the other prison, the, the wretches that he has to leave behind because they're too wretched to even come out. Like how bad the prison is and what he's seeing inside and his observations. I was shaking after reading it. I'm shaking thinking about, I mean, the entire experience now, but you know, it was such a, um, a vivid depiction. I'm like, well, I'm, I'm adapting this because I'm feeling it right now. I'm feeling like what it's like. I'm feeling what it's like to have authority, to have the boot on your, on your neck. I mean, rightfully so, but I nevertheless. And so I started writing, you know, my version of Robin Hood and with on, you know,

• 1:23:08Speaker 02

  pencil and paper. And as I'm writing it, like, I was crying as I wrote it. I was looking at the pages the other day and there's like teardrops, like, all over it, like, on every page. It's like, holy crap. It's like, when you're writing like that and you're feeling that much, it's not a bad thing to cry when you're writing. It's like, thank God, I'm feeling. Like, I'm feeling something and it's traveling into the page. And also, because I had been a working writer in Hollywood for a long time, just by speed, I had fallen into the very bad habit of composing at my computer, at my laptop, like one of those assholes who goes to Starbucks. And I was that guy. And so I'm sitting, and I had kind

• 1:23:51Speaker 02

  of become used to that. Well, writing by hand in, well, incarcerated, it reconnected me with, like, pen to paper, or pencil to paper. And it reminded me that, not only, like, when you write something down, you have a different relationship with the word.

• 1:24:10Speaker 03

  No, I consider the pen is the antenna to God.

• 1:24:13Speaker 02

  It is the antenna to God. And also, when you type it into the computer, that's a process of rewriting. And so you're losing an entire section. And so it reconnected me with that.

• 1:24:24Speaker 03

  I couldn't agree with you more.

• 1:24:25Joe Rogan?

  Okay, well, tell me, explain this more to me. This is fascinating to me. Because I've heard many people say this about comedy, that they have to write on paper. I don't. I write on a laptop. I've always written on a laptop. For me, it's, what I like about writing, even writing on paper, is that it takes more time to write the word appreciate than it does to think about what it means to appreciate something. Like, the word appreciate, you know what it is instantly, oh, he appreciates this. But to write appreciate, it takes longer, so there's more thinking. And in more thinking, I feel like, when you have more thinking, there's more little different ways you might alternately branch off with your ideas.

• 1:25:02Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't, I don't think, I, uh, uh.

• 1:25:05Joe Rogan?

  That is not false.

• 1:25:06Speaker 03

  Not that I've, not that I've ever, not that I've ever written an hour-long stand-up comedy show. All right, but, um, I would think that your writing is different than my kind of writing.

• 1:25:16Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 1:25:17Speaker 03

  You know, it would like, I would think as far as writing stuff down, it's like notes and ideas and of, of, uh, funny word phrases, or

• 1:25:24Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:25:25Speaker 03

  or this and that and the other, but then you're working it out, you're saying it, you're saying it, you're saying it, you're saying, and then you get your story. Right, and maybe you say it into a recorder, maybe you do this or you do that, but you know, but it probably doesn't even look right when you, when you, even when you type it up on a, on a thing, it doesn't look right.

• 1:25:41Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:25:41Speaker 03

  It's the way you tell the story.

• 1:25:42Joe Rogan?

  What I was gonna get to is that when you, when I type, I can type quicker than I can write by hand. Oh, yeah. And the problem with comedies, it comes quick and slippery. And also you can, you can edit with the

• 1:25:53Speaker 03

  No, that makes, that makes a tremendous amount of sense. I mean, we're writing stuff that has to hold up on the page.

• 1:25:59Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:25:59Speaker 03

  That has to hold up as writing.

• 1:26:01Joe Rogan?

  I'll write a fifteen-hundred-word essay and I'll use one line. Like, there's one thing in there that might be a bit, but I'll write all this other shit on transportation and then

• 1:26:11Speaker 02

  It's like strip-mining, you just go pull all that dirt out and just process it, get a little ore.

• 1:26:16Joe Rogan?

  Exactly what it's like. I've tried to write

• 1:26:18Speaker 03

  So you open up your mind about, okay,

• 1:26:20Joe Rogan?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:26:21Speaker 03

  just let loose on public transportation.

• 1:26:23Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes, and it's, I'm not even trying to be funny, I'm just trying to write, and then I'll find something funny in it. And then that's, that's the starting point. Now, I'll take that, cut it, copy it into a completely fresh document, now, what is this?

• 1:26:39Speaker 03

  Okay, but let me ask you

• 1:26:40Joe Rogan?

  And how do I get to it?

• 1:26:41Speaker 02

  Ultimately, it's whatever works is what is the best.

• 1:26:44Speaker 03

  Is it you on either typing or whatever, is it, is it you doing that

• 1:26:52Speaker 03

  eight-page thing on, uh, on transportation, or is it more likely that you're just pacing around?

• 1:27:00Speaker 03

  Doing a running monologue on public transportation.

• 1:27:03Joe Rogan?

  Well, I'm sitting still, right? That's what you mean. The thing about typing is I type good. So, not great, but I don't have to look at the keys. I can type pretty quickly. And if I have a good laptop, like a ThinkPad, that has a lot of finger travel, then you really feel it. And I get into like a zone. And then it's just about like-

• 1:27:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, so no, you actually do write your notes.

• 1:27:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And then it's just about trying, but they don't always come out the same way. Because sometimes when you bring them out on stage, the moment lets you know, this is not the way to go. It's this way. And then all of a sudden, you're like, God, how didn't I not see that in front of the computer? Because you weren't in that vibe of the cra- like it's a- You don't do it on your own. You have to do it with them. It's like the one art form that literally cannot be practiced in solitary.

• 1:27:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:45Joe Rogan?

  You have to do it. So, when I write, I write like that. But I also write things down on pieces of paper. I also write, like, whenever I, if I have an idea, I gotta catch it.

• 1:27:54Speaker 02

  Well, they're not gonna give you that computer in jail.

• 1:27:57Joe Rogan?

  Really, no. Well, that's true.

• 1:27:58Speaker 02

  You're gonna be forced to write it on pencil. And that's gonna be an okay experience for you.

• 1:28:04Joe Rogan?

  But what is it that makes it to you like the hand to God? Like, what is it about writing on paper?

• 1:28:11Speaker 03

  I, well, my little analogy of it is, you can't write poetry on a computer.

• 1:28:16Joe Rogan?

  Why not?

• 1:28:17Speaker 03

  Well, because we're, it's, I'm going for a rhythm.

• 1:28:21Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:28:21Speaker 03

  I'm going for, I'm going for, I'm going for a rhythm. And then, and there's a connection between my chicken scratch and this paper and this pen as opposed to this other thing. And the more unintelligible and only I can read it, the more legit it kind of is. And the thing is, and it's vomit. It's absolutely vomit. Okay, da-da-da-da-da-da. You, when you write by hand, you overwrite. You way, way overwrite. Because you're just, bleh, you're just getting it out there. You're getting it out there. Then, after all the vomit happens, then you sit down with a typewriter, or then you sit down with a thing, and now you take the vomit and you tame it.

• 1:29:04Joe Rogan?

  You massage it.

• 1:29:05Speaker 03

  And now you make it, now you make the sentences work. And now you, there's more creativity. This is a bleh. Okay, now you make, and now you come up, and now you, now you make it work like a writer. Now you make the page work. Now you make the sentences work. Can we stop for a second while we're in the restroom?

• 1:29:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:22Speaker 03

  Hey, uh, you have cigars, don't you?

• 1:29:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you want a cigar?

• 1:29:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:25Joe Rogan?

  Let's have some cigars.

• 1:29:26Speaker 03

  He doesn't do anything fun.

• 1:29:27Speaker 02

  I'll have a cigar. On Joe Rogan's show, I will have a cigar.

• 1:29:33Speaker 02

  He doesn't do anything fun.

• 1:29:35Speaker 03

  That is the truth.

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  You don't do anything fun, really? Nothing? Well, then, maybe I should talk about this.

• 1:29:43Joe Rogan?

  You should talk about it.

• 1:29:45Speaker 02

  Maybe I should talk about, uh, are we on?

• 1:29:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  Can I go?

• 1:29:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:48Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, I don't do anything fun. Don't do anything fun. No, uh, you know, um... Making movies is fun. Well, that's the fun-

• 1:29:55Speaker 03

  Where's the cutter? I thought that was a cutter. That looked cool. I was like, is that a cutter or is that brass knuckles?

• 1:30:03Speaker 02

  Um... What were you saying about fun? I don't do anything fun. Well, you know, after, after what happened to me, I, I mean, I should probably tell the whole story and maybe I eventually will here, but, um, you know, I, I went to jail

• 1:30:23Speaker 02

  for a DUI-related incident, uh, that caused manslaughter. And one of my passengers, uh, um, died. And, um, uh, you know, after that and going to jail and whatnot, meh, I- He's not the funnest guy to get drunk with. Yeah, I don't, I, I, it's kind of what it is. I, you know, if I go to a party or something like that, I, I don't want to be seen holding a drink with, uh, you know, even with water in it.

• 1:30:57Speaker 03

  I'm teasing him, but I, you know, I get it.

• 1:31:00Joe Rogan?

  Of course. Who wouldn't fucking get it?

• 1:31:06Speaker 03

  But then you add the fact that he's a vegetarian. I mean, all the, all the fun shit.

• 1:31:10Joe Rogan?

  You're a vegetarian?

• 1:31:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:12Joe Rogan?

  Why'd he do that?

• 1:31:13Speaker 03

  Cause his wife made him.

• 1:31:14Joe Rogan?

  That happens. That happened to a friend of mine.

• 1:31:16Speaker 02

  That's, uh-

• 1:31:17Joe Rogan?

  He sneaks out burgers every now and then.

• 1:31:19Speaker 02

  I, um- I also have a kind of, uh, it's, it's kind of like a, an animal thing. I had a pig, um, as a, as a pet.

• 1:31:30Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:31Speaker 02

  And man, when you look at those eyes, those are human eyes. They're, and, you know, I looked into it and it looked into my, I just, I had chickens before that and you know, chickens are like cats, you know, they want back scratches and stuff. And I just couldn't, like after a while, I just couldn't do it.

• 1:31:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It, there's people that are feral. You ever met a feral person? You don't want to let them sleep in your house.

• 1:31:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 1:31:53Joe Rogan?

  You met a wild, crazy person, you're in jail. So push that thing up. You had it right. You had it right.

• 1:31:58Speaker 02

  Did I?

• 1:31:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  This thing right here?

• 1:31:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, push that up. It's an intelligence test. I'm sorry, push it down.

• 1:32:02Speaker 02

  Pull it down.

• 1:32:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, sorry.

• 1:32:03Speaker 02

  Pull it down, sorry.

• 1:32:04Joe Rogan?

  Hey, I'm digging, I'm digging this. You've, yeah, they're great. Foundation cigar, shout out. Um, you've, you've been around feral people, right? You don't want feral people living in your house. You don't, you don't want to take some murderer and, you know, give him your car and let him, you know, come and sleep in your room, you know?

• 1:32:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:22Joe Rogan?

  It's, it's different.

• 1:32:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:23Joe Rogan?

  I should take you around some wild pigs.

• 1:32:25Speaker 02

  No, I've.

• 1:32:25Joe Rogan?

  Wild, wild pigs are like little demons. They make, they make like orc sounds.

• 1:32:29Speaker 02

  Wild pigs are wild pigs. No, I get it.

• 1:32:31Joe Rogan?

  You hear them fighting with each other.

• 1:32:34Speaker 02

  There are people who are like that also.

• 1:32:36Joe Rogan?

  Exactly. That's my point. My point is domesticated people are awesome.

• 1:32:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:41Joe Rogan?

  Domesticated people like yourself and myself, we're, we're fun to be around. We're nice people. We know, you know, we're not going to rob you. No one's going to kill you. It's, there's a difference with the wild. The wild is, yeah. It's different. So I, I understand that you wouldn't want to eat animals, but they eat each other. And it's just this bizarre cycle of life. I think it's, it's where you're getting your animals from. Are you getting your animals from a, of, of like a, these mass factory farming, disgusting?

• 1:33:13Speaker 02

  Is, I, I think there's a line in Highlander 2 where Sean Connery says, "I don't eat anything that I cannot identify." And I kind of feel like that as well. Like, I don't have a lot of trust for large industrial.

• 1:33:28Joe Rogan?

  You shouldn't. But you can, you can get meat from like a farm, you know, like you can get it from a ranch. You could go to one of those. You know, they have those, what are those farmers market type deals?

• 1:33:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:33:41Joe Rogan?

  You go meet a rancher and you can buy beef right from them.

• 1:33:44Speaker 02

  I am not like one of these people who are like, oh, never, never. Like, you know, if I am in the right place and the right environment and the right. Uh, food is, is there like if there's a like, if I'm in on an island in Greece and the guy comes up from the boat with a basket of fish and which one would you like?

• 1:34:03Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:34:04Speaker 02

  I'll take that one. You know, sure.

• 1:34:07Joe Rogan?

  Right. Do you at least eat eggs?

• 1:34:09Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 1:34:09Joe Rogan?

  Okay, so you eat eggs?

• 1:34:10Speaker 02

  Like they're going out of style.

• 1:34:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's good. So you're probably getting what you need. As long as you eat eggs, I tell people like eggs are free. No one's getting hurt. Especially if you have your own chickens. That's the greatest thing in the world. We have 15 chickens.

• 1:34:22Speaker 02

  There's nothing like, uh, eggs straight from a chicken.

• 1:34:26Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it's great. But it's also, it's karma free. Like, the chickens are having a good time. No one's getting hurt. You're like, they're all, they're all like treated like pets. Like, hey, girls.

• 1:34:34Speaker 02

  I love chickens.

• 1:34:35Speaker 03

  No, I would, I know. I actually really have, I've always actually thought that.

• 1:34:43Speaker 03

  An exotic pet would be to have like a chicken. You know, it's like one chicken.

• 1:34:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:48Speaker 03

  And just like treat it like a dog and treat it, hey, that's my chicken. He hangs around.

• 1:34:51Speaker 02

  You gotta get a couple of them. They, they need to have a pecking order.

• 1:34:53Joe Rogan?

  Yes. They like to hang out with each other, too.

• 1:34:56Speaker 02

  Goebbels figured that one out.

• 1:35:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, the.

• 1:35:00Speaker 02

  He was a chicken farmer.

• 1:35:01Joe Rogan?

  Was he really?

• 1:35:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:35:02Joe Rogan?

  Oh, no shit.

• 1:35:03Speaker 02

  Chicken farmer. That's how he worked out all of his policies in the camps is.

• 1:35:07Joe Rogan?

  We shouldn't talk about that. Don't want to connect that to chicken farming. It's just, you know, it's like this, the name Adolf, right? You can't use it anymore.

• 1:35:15Speaker 02

  You can't, can't have that little mustache anymore. Can't have a chaplain.

• 1:35:19Speaker 03

  You can't have that cool mustache anymore.

• 1:35:20Joe Rogan?

  Remember when Michael Jordan tried for a little while?

• 1:35:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:22Joe Rogan?

  Like, that's how competitive that guy is. Like, fuck that. I can, I can wear that mustache. He had a Hitler for a while.

• 1:35:27Speaker 02

  Think I can't make it happen? I'll make it happen.

• 1:35:29Joe Rogan?

  He just decided he was gonna force it through.

• 1:35:31Speaker 02

  You know, as far as writing in jail, I'm just thinking about it right now. Um. One of the other things I had to contend with was...

• 1:35:39Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by ShipStation. Black Friday is madness if you're shopping. But if you're the person trying to get all those orders out the door, that's a whole different kind of crazy. That's where ShipStation comes in. It's an end-to-end order fulfillment platform that brings all your orders into one place. So when volume spikes, your team isn't scrambling to keep up. More than 1 million businesses have used ShipStation to get through peak season, scaling fulfillment up to 40 times while cutting costs up to 30%. It's the kind of tool that helps businesses stay in control when things get nuts and every order matters. Peak season doesn't wait and neither should you.

• 1:36:23Joe Rogan?

  Get ahead of it today with ShipStation and get 60 days free at shipstation.com with the code JRE. That's shipstation.com code JRE. Taxes and fees apply. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Look, it's good to prepare for the future, but when you start overanalyzing what's happening around you, dreaming up every hypothetical situation of what could happen, that's when it gets dangerous. You can start to hyper-fixate and stress out and all over things that haven't even happened. That's no good for current you or future you. If you're struggling to stay in the present and out of your head,

• 1:37:07Joe Rogan?

  try talking with a quality therapist from BetterHelp. They have psychologists, family therapists, marriage counselors, social workers, and more. Whatever you need to work through, BetterHelp can match you with a seasoned professional with the specialty that you need. BetterHelp is now a network with more than 125 health plans with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com. That's better H-E-L-P dot com.

• 1:37:51Speaker 02

  They would confiscate anything that I wrote.

• 1:37:54Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 1:37:55Speaker 02

  So, um, you know, like, once a week, or once every two weeks or so.

• 1:37:59Joe Rogan?

  Why would they do that? Was it illegal to write?

• 1:38:00Speaker 02

  I was considered a security threat by what I was writing. And, um...

• 1:38:04Joe Rogan?

  Oh, because you were telling the truth about what was going on?

• 1:38:07Speaker 02

  That, and then when they sent me in, like, I was placed in this, like, solitary confinement thing, like, in the hole. And, uh, you know, you're in there and, like, I had never been in anything like that before in my life. I was thinking, this is like fucking Guantanamo, except it made me think about it. I've got due process at least. And so, um, I'm in this, like, crazy Kafkaesque mechanized totalitarian environment. You're in a room where you have no window and the lights are on 24/7. And, you know, I don't care what anybody says. You go into a room three days deprived of sound and, and, and the understanding of time, you go crazy after, you know, after two days.

• 1:38:51Speaker 02

  You're insane. They, they broke me after two days. I was like, oh, I'll do some yoga, I'll meditate, uh, no problem. No, after a while, if the lights are on 24/7 and you can't hear, and it's like being inside of a seashell, you go slowly nuts.

• 1:39:05Joe Rogan?

  Is that by design?

• 1:39:06Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's by design. It's like you're placed into a, and, and, um, so

• 1:39:15Speaker 02

  about once a week, like, in, when I was in population, um, about once a week, the, you know, middle of the night, or, you know, the lights are down, and suddenly the lights come on bright. Lights are always on, but lights come on bright, and suddenly a bunch of guards come rushing in through the doors, you know, they just storm into the, the tank, into the, uh, the section, and, uh, they pull everybody out of their cells, and they strip everybody naked, and they put you up against the wall. So you're up there with, like, you know, Sancho and, you know, Leroy, and, like, everybody's, suddenly you're all, you know, one moment you're being kept separate, and next thing you know, you're all naked together, standing up against the wall, and they're going through everybody's cell, and they're just ripping your cell apart, looking for anything.

• 1:40:00Speaker 02

  Usually they're looking for tar heroin, or a shank, or a weapon of some kind.

• 1:40:05Speaker 03

  A works or some kind.

• 1:40:06Speaker 02

  Cell phones, anything. Like, they're looking for anything that's considered contraband. Okay, for me, they were looking at my writing, because when I was in solitary that time, like, literally on kites. A kite is a, like, a requisition form that you send out to the guards. You're not allowed to talk to the guards. They don't want you to, they don't want to talk to you. You tell them what you want on a kite, and then you give them the kite, and then they take it off, and maybe it gets answered. I'd never had one answered in my life.

• 1:40:34Speaker 02

  And so, um, they, they come in, they strip everybody naked, they take all your clothes, and they're, under the guise of, we're, you know, we're doing a laundry exchange. And so, everybody gets new clothes, and you end up with, like, these big baggy pants, and, or something too small for you. And they would look for contraband for everybody. Well, with me, they would look for whatever I was writing. Because when I was in solitary, I was writing, um, you know, like, maps. I would map the place, like a fucking idiot. Like, I still was, uh, you know, I'm writing about, oh, Eisenhower, the guard. I saw him watching, you know, uh, uh, like, literally saw him watching on a little TV Nazi propaganda. Like, Triumph of the Will is playing on his TV, and he's watching it. Oh, I'm gonna write that down.

• 1:41:19Speaker 02

  So, they didn't want me writing all my stuff. They were like, that guy is a fucking threat! You get whatever he's written. And so, I noticed that whenever I was taken out of my cell to shower, to go to yard, to do whatever, that they would come in, just take whatever I had written. So, I learned that they couldn't take or open letters to my attorney. And so, um, because it's privileged. And so, what I would do is, I would just write, and then whenever I had to leave my cell, like, to go to yard, or if they were raiding the cells and taking everybody out and looking for contraband, I would just quickly seal the envelope. My writing would go in, you know, I always left it when I was working, in the letter to my attorney.

• 1:42:01Speaker 02

  And then, uh, as soon as they would raid it, I would just seal the envelope, and then that would go out. And then he would send that letter to my daughter, who, uh, would then type up the pages that I was writing. And so, that's how I wrote several scripts, was like that.

• 1:42:16Speaker 02

  And, um, uh, yeah, because little.

• 1:42:20Speaker 03

  What did you, what did you, you said you read some of Roger's writing when he was in, uh, prison? What did you read?

• 1:42:25Speaker 02

  You, uh, where did you publish it? I don't remember where I was reading it. Well, was it on Twitter? I had several things. Okay, so first of all, I was placed.

• 1:42:36Speaker 02

  I was sentenced to go to a low-security, like a country club facility. I went, I went to a low-security facility and, um, I went in there and, you know, you have access to stuff. Uh, it's, it's, you know, it's more like a, like a camp almost and you're there and you're incarcerated, but it's, it's a light incarceration almost. And I had access to a cellphone and so I started tweeting and these were the early days of Twitter.

• 1:43:04Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:43:04Speaker 02

  And so I started tweeting, oh, they found tar heroin in so and in, in, you know, pudgy cell and, uh, they dragged him off and, oh, they, uh, you know, this happened over here. Oh, the, uh, so-and-so shanked so-and-so, oh, they've rolled up so-and-so and taken him away. I was like tweeting this stuff. And this is the early days of Twitter and, uh, Roger Ebert, who was like at that time, the biggest on Twitter, was following me and he put me on blast. Like he, uh, he suddenly decided that he would tell every, and like, all of a sudden, one day overnight, like the story kinda went everywhere in the world.

• 1:43:42Joe Rogan?

  He put you on blast in a positive way?

• 1:43:43Speaker 02

  Well, he, he just told everybody that, oh, this is happening. Somebody is, Roger Avery, Academy Award-winning writer, is tweeting from jail and tweeting from behind bars.

• 1:43:55Joe Rogan?

  Did he, but did he have a?

• 1:43:56Speaker 02

  At the time, now it's like nothing. People do it all the time. People like, uh, um, I've got a-

• 1:44:01Joe Rogan?

  Shug Knight's doing podcasts from behind bars.

• 1:44:03Speaker 02

  I've got a friend who's one of those January 6 guys and he's, uh, he's sends me like tweets all the time. Like he's-

• 1:44:09Joe Rogan?

  You got a friend who was a January 6 guy?

• 1:44:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:11Joe Rogan?

  You got a friend who was a January 6 guy?

• 1:44:13Speaker 02

  Well, he's still there. He's like, uh- Hundreds of days in jail without, uh, without any kind of, uh, without trial.

• 1:44:21Joe Rogan?

  Without process.

• 1:44:22Speaker 02

  I, I, I, I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but like, that's not how it's supposed to be, is it?

• 1:44:27Joe Rogan?

  It's not how it's supposed to be.

• 1:44:28Speaker 02

  You're supposed to have a due process of some kind.

• 1:44:30Joe Rogan?

  Well, especially when you watch the actual footage of how it went down.

• 1:44:33Speaker 02

  Oh, I watched it live and there was that, that guy, that Antifa guy waving people in, you know, like moving them in.

• 1:44:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:41Speaker 02

  They were moving the, the, um, the block, the stockade, the blockade things, they were moving them out and cops were waving people in. They were opening the doors for people.

• 1:44:50Joe Rogan?

  I want you to think about it this way, in the most heavily armed nation the world has ever known, why would you have an insurrection with no guns?

• 1:44:58Speaker 02

  You gotta have guns, machine guns.

• 1:45:00Joe Rogan?

  Those guys weren't planning on an insurrection.

• 1:45:02Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:45:03Joe Rogan?

  And then you have the factor that there was agents in, in the crowd and we don't know how many. There's government agents in the crowd that were inciting people to go in.

• 1:45:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:12Joe Rogan?

  That's what they do.

• 1:45:12Speaker 02

  And I want to know who that cop was who shot that woman.

• 1:45:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:15Speaker 02

  What about that?

• 1:45:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that, the whole thing's crazy.

• 1:45:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:18Joe Rogan?

  The whole thing's crazy. And then there's this thing that cops died, that no, no cops got, died that day. That's not true.

• 1:45:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:45:23Joe Rogan?

  The cop who died, he died of a stroke and I believe it was a stroke, a stroke or a heart attack, but.

• 1:45:29Speaker 02

  Well, like everything, there's a lot of misinformation being given to us by the mainstream media.

• 1:45:32Joe Rogan?

  But it gets attributed to it, you know, sort of like when, you know, anything happens to anyone four years after the vaccine, they attribute it to the vaccine. Oh, it was probably the vaccine.

• 1:45:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:41Joe Rogan?

  Could have been the guy just had a fucking heart attack. But this guy who is a cop, he did not die, there, he was not killed by the protesters. And you watch the video of the, the shaman dude with the fucking buffalo hat, they're walking him around, the cops are guiding him.

• 1:45:55Speaker 02

  They're showing him around.

• 1:45:56Joe Rogan?

  They're guiding him. How would you ever think that that is going to let you wind up in jail? How would you ever think that if you're an unsophisticated guy who was wearing fucking face paint?

• 1:46:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:05Joe Rogan?

  And you're, you're kind of a kook, which, and you're part of, you think you're part of a movement, which is really scary, you know?

• 1:46:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:11Joe Rogan?

  People get a part of a movement and they, "Fucking yeah, we're all doing it." And then you've got literal government agents encouraging you to do it, moving barriers, letting you in. They were playing chess and these idiots were playing checkers.

• 1:46:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, that makes sense. That, that, that makes a lot of sense. Well, because nobody was doing it in an insurrection.

• 1:46:29Joe Rogan?

  It wasn't an insurrection.

• 1:46:31Speaker 02

  It wasn't an insurrection.

• 1:46:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you don't do an insurrection without weapons. It's, the whole idea is crazy.

• 1:46:35Speaker 02

  There was no presumption that there was gonna be any kind of like, that you were gonna get thrown in jail for a thousand days. And so my pal Jake Lang is, uh, he's been there forever. And every now and then I get like a picture of him, like, he's been in like, look, I deserve to go to jail. That guy doesn't. And most of those guys don't.

• 1:46:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I think it was a bad decision, certainly to go into the Capitol. It was a bad decision to smash windows, but I want to know who was doing it.

• 1:47:00Speaker 02

  People had been smashing things like for a whole year before that.

• 1:47:04Joe Rogan?

  Right, that's a very good point.

• 1:47:06Speaker 02

  It's like we were a culture of smashing things at that point.

• 1:47:08Joe Rogan?

  It's also as soon as you find out that there were government agents that may or may not have incited people to go in, the whole thing fucking changes. Like, what are you trying to do? Are you there to serve and protect? Or is there some other weird shit going on? Because it seems like there is, and no one wants to talk about it because you don't want to be that guy. But at a certain point in time, you should be that guy. You should fucking, you should go, what's going on, man?

• 1:47:32Speaker 02

  There comes a point where men of good conscience must stand up and, uh, and, and speak out against things that are obviously wrong.

• 1:47:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:41Speaker 02

  And that is one of them, I think.

• 1:47:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that is one of them. It's a big one. It's a weird one. And you know, there's all this pushback about Trump getting into office because he said, one of the first things he said was he was gonna release all the January 6 prisoners. Like, how long do you think they should be in there for? Who's, who's opposing this?

• 1:47:58Speaker 02

  They should at least be going to trial. Yes. You should at least be going to trial. It is unconscionable to hold somebody for over a year, two years, or like, like.

• 1:48:08Speaker 03

  Well, the thing, I mean, the government has always had a situation where, uh, and we talked about when we did our, uh, uh, episode on the Andersonville trial.

• 1:48:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:48:16Speaker 03

  You know, is, um,

• 1:48:20Speaker 03

  The one charge that the government can put against you where they don't need direct evidence is conspiracy.

• 1:48:26Joe Rogan?

  Ooh.

• 1:48:27Speaker 03

  If they arrest you for conspiracy, that means they don't have direct evidence, but they don't need direct evidence for conspiracy.

• 1:48:32Speaker 02

  By the way, when I was in...

• 1:48:33Speaker 03

  Like, just one thing, that's how they got Manson.

• 1:48:37Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:48:38Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's true.

• 1:48:39Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:48:40Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:48:41Joe Rogan?

  Well, they knew what Manson had done because they were helping him.

• 1:48:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I believe that, too, because...

• 1:48:45Joe Rogan?

  Jerekeos?

• 1:48:46Speaker 03

  Oh, that's...book's one of the best.

• 1:48:48Joe Rogan?

  Well, the best book ever.

• 1:48:49Speaker 03

  Believe me, I read every Manson book that there possibly could read, and then I read that one. I throw the rest of them away in the fucking trash.

• 1:48:55Joe Rogan?

  Chaos is insane.

• 1:48:56Speaker 03

  Chaos is just fantastic. And he helped me, too, because my first AD is a friend of his, Bill Clark.

• 1:49:03Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:49:04Speaker 03

  And when I was writing the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood book, I go deeper into the Manson stuff. And so I had a couple of little questions in my head that I always kind of wanted to know the answer to. So I got Tom's number, and I called him up, and I was able to ask him some really super, like, direct questions that could really help my book.

• 1:49:23Joe Rogan?

  It's a crazy fucking story, man.

• 1:49:25Speaker 03

  Oh, it's...

• 1:49:26Speaker 02

  You know, when I was in jail, I found out they record everything. They're just constantly recording. And so somebody's in there, and they're like, "Man, I'd like to kill that DA." Well, that's conspiracy. And so they'll wait and like, "Oh, you're about to get out." And they'll literally start walking out, like, "Ah, stop."

• 1:49:42Joe Rogan?

  Oh, God.

• 1:49:44Speaker 02

  Remember that thing you said about conspiracy? Let's play that back for you.

• 1:49:47Joe Rogan?

  Oh, God.

• 1:49:48Speaker 02

  Or what you said about killing the DA? Well, that's...you're going away again. You're going back to trial.

• 1:49:53Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:49:54Speaker 02

  That happened a lot.

• 1:49:55Joe Rogan?

  But it's also...

• 1:49:56Speaker 02

  Don't ever talk.

• 1:49:57Speaker 03

  They put guys in your cell to get you talking about shit.

• 1:49:59Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. That happened right away. That happened right away. They're trying to get you to incriminate yourself deeper constantly. It's like a fun game.

• 1:50:09Joe Rogan?

  What a fun game. What a fun game. To serve and protect, incriminate you deeper.

• 1:50:14Speaker 02

  Well, I...like, I had a...as Quentin will confirm, I have my authority issues. I always have. I always have. I'm suspicious of anyone in power, and...

• 1:50:27Joe Rogan?

  You should be.

• 1:50:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:50:29Joe Rogan?

  It's intoxicating.

• 1:50:30Speaker 03

  Maybe like this. Okay, so when Roger...okay, good. Part of the thing on our show...I'm getting back to what Roger's saying. I'm not changing the subject.

• 1:50:38Speaker 03

  When we do our show, you know, the thing is, when we do our show, we talk about three movies. So I pick three videocassettes.

• 1:50:47Speaker 02

  The show we're talking about is the Video Archives Podcast, which is...

• 1:50:50Speaker 03

  It was our second season.

• 1:50:51Speaker 02

  Patreon.com slash Video Archives.

• 1:50:52Speaker 03

  But the thing is, all right, so it's like, there's like, the main movie, then there's that second movie that's like, kinda like the main movie, but probably you don't know that much about it, and some wild exploitation thing that I, you know, this, what the fuck is this? Let's watch it, find out. And the, one of the things that's about our show is, I don't say, "Hey Roger, so find these movies, and you watch them, and I'll watch them, and we'll get together, and we'll do it on the phone, too." Well, all right, no, no, no, we don't do that shit. All right, you know, we, we get together to watch the movies together.

• 1:51:20Speaker 02

  Part of it is the experience of being together and watching the movie together through, watching it through his eyes.

• 1:51:25Speaker 03

  The reason we came up with the idea of the show is like, when we, when we, when we reconnected, we started doing what we used to do.

• 1:51:32Speaker 02

  During the pandemic.

• 1:51:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then we were sort of like, well, hey, let's come up with a way we can get paid to do this, all right, you know? So me and Roger will get together and we'll, we'll, we'll watch three movies, and sometimes even four, and then we'll get together, then we have a day off, and then we get together on another day, and then we record, and we're always in the room when we do it. But the thing is, when Roger comes over to watch the films, I've kind of learned that it's like, Roger, I'm starting, it's three movies we're gonna watch. I am starting the first movie 20 minutes after you get here, because Roger will just get off on some archaic piece of, of, of thing.

• 1:52:09Speaker 02

  The Earth is flat! The Earth is flat!

• 1:52:11Speaker 03

  And the next thing you know, all right, it's been an hour and 15 minutes later, and you're getting further and further and further away, all right, from the, from the, the alchemy we're trying to create with the first movie. So now it's like, in 20 minutes, I'm hitting play, and that's it. So wrap it up.

• 1:52:29Joe Rogan?

  That's a problem with podcasts. When people come over, sometimes we have some of the best conversations before the podcast. So now I have to be rude. I'll be like, "Stop, stop, stop, let's not talk."

• 1:52:38Speaker 03

  You're all good.

• 1:52:39Speaker 02

  Let's catch that magic.

• 1:52:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, because you gotta catch it, because it is weird. It's a, it's a weird thing, you know? It's, it's a beautiful thing, though, because it's so open, you know, there's no one telling, like, there's no studio people at your ears.

• 1:52:53Speaker 03

  No, even the idea, I mean, one, the fact, the idea, uh, uh...

• 1:53:00Speaker 03

  The idea that this has replaced the talk show, the talk shows that we grew up watching and like those guys were the kings. The fact that podcasting, and you're the king of it, but the fact that podcasting has replaced that, but also the fact that anybody that's got something intelligent, has got a cool little setup, has got an interesting personality and can sell an interesting conversation theoretically can start a podcast.

• 1:53:31Joe Rogan?

  100%. Yeah. Yeah, the barrier to entry is so low. Think about the barrier to entry when you wanted to be a director.

• 1:53:37Speaker 03

  Oh, God, Jesus.

• 1:53:38Joe Rogan?

  It's fucking crazy.

• 1:53:39Speaker 02

  Not only that, you know, like the old days of television, you know, like Desilu.

• 1:53:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:46Speaker 02

  We own our content, like you own your content.

• 1:53:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:49Speaker 02

  And never mind that it's a podcast, I'm okay with that. I like the fact that this is something where for the first time in my life at least, I'm involved with something where there is nobody else. It's me and Quentin who decide everything.

• 1:54:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:03Speaker 02

  And, you know, if Quentin wants to do it, we go there. If I want to do it, we go there. Well, I talk to Quentin. If Quentin allows it, we go there. I mean, basically what we're doing is the same thing we used to do. That's true. Video store. We do what we used to do at the video store. We're talking about movies.

• 1:54:21Speaker 03

  Your idea is completely terrible. I have the kill switch, but other than that.

• 1:54:25Speaker 02

  No, no, no. I didn't mean it like that.

• 1:54:27Speaker 03

  I never used a kill switch.

• 1:54:31Joe Rogan?

  But the kill switch is always there.

• 1:54:34Speaker 03

  No, not really, not really. Well, I guess theoretically.

• 1:54:38Speaker 02

  But you know what?

• 1:54:39Speaker 03

  But you want, you want a theoretical, sort of, damn, a clean.

• 1:54:42Speaker 02

  You know what? Most times when you've used the kill switch, you've used it on your own.

• 1:54:46Speaker 03

  I use it on myself.

• 1:54:47Speaker 02

  You used it on yourself. You actually haven't used it like on any of my things that I've wanted to do, which is really cool. But basically, we're doing the same thing we used to do. We used to sit around and talk about movies. And so during the pandemic, you know, Quentin called me up and we hadn't talked for, I mean, we had bumped into each other.

• 1:55:06Speaker 03

  We bumped into each other a few times.

• 1:55:07Speaker 02

  But we hadn't really, we had had a little bit of a

• 1:55:10Speaker 03

  We had a falling out.

• 1:55:11Speaker 02

  We had a falling out. And I call it a sort of a Business-related falling out and maybe if I had been a little more mature, I was young as a filmmaker and probably unprepared to deal with the complexities of agents and attorneys and Hollywood and money and fame and the press and the press's agenda and all of that. I was just approaching it like I'm a SoCal, Gen X, punk filmmaker. That was how I approached it. I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I wanna do. I'm gonna make the movie that I wanna make and I, with that attitude of, you know, I know what I want and I know what's right and nobody can tell me I'm wrong. Cause you have to be a little bit of a megalomaniac to be a director.

• 1:55:54Speaker 02

  You have to be willing to say, no, I'm right, even when everyone is telling you you're wrong. And, um...

• 1:56:00Joe Rogan?

  Is that how Joker 2 got made?

• 1:56:02Speaker 03

  I like Joker 2. I like Joker 2. I know you did.

• 1:56:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like Joker 2 also.

• 1:56:06Joe Rogan?

  I haven't seen it. I'm just fucking around.

• 1:56:08Speaker 03

  I will defend Joker 2.

• 1:56:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I will. I'll defend the movie as well.

• 1:56:11Joe Rogan?

  I can't wait to watch it.

• 1:56:12Speaker 03

  Not that I need more fucking press on that.

• 1:56:14Joe Rogan?

  I can't wait to watch it and then talk to you about it afterwards. Cause Tim Dillon said it's the worst fucking movie that's ever been made and he's in it.

• 1:56:23Speaker 02

  You know, I can't, well, that may have colored his perception though.

• 1:56:26Joe Rogan?

  Oh, but Tim thinks everything sucks. It's like the beauty of Tim. No matter what everybody's saying is amazing. Like, Tim loves to talk shit about Austin.

• 1:56:34Speaker 03

  I gotta tell you, the funniest thing that I've heard for a while on YouTube, when I was listening to you guys talk is, he's a guy, I never really listened to his show or anything like that.

• 1:56:44Joe Rogan?

  He's fucking brilliant.

• 1:56:45Speaker 03

  But when he was on your thing talking about the election and when he described Tim Waltz as like, "Well, that guy's a goofball who just should be at a county fair eating hot dogs." I laughed for 15 minutes and played it back about three different times cause I thought that was such a funny comment.

• 1:57:08Joe Rogan?

  He's always funny. He said it sounds like Kamala Harris is doing voodoo curses. She's doing gypsy curses, he said. She speaks in gypsy curses.

• 1:57:19Joe Rogan?

  And he always does his show with these fucking crazy glasses on, like that's his new thing. Have you ever watched his show? It's the best because it's literally just him ranting and a producer. And the rant, the ability to rant as a singleton operator is a fucking lone person out there without anybody to bounce ideas off of. Is a rare talent and he's the best at it I've ever seen. Bill Burr is really good at it as well. But Tim Dillon is the best at it I've ever seen. He's so fucking good at it and he's just basically performing to one person who's his producer.

• 1:57:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:57:52Joe Rogan?

  And he's just ranting. And so because of that, he's got this crazy muscle that he's developed from years of doing that. Where he just rants about all these different things, but it's fucking brilliant.

• 1:58:03Speaker 02

  I like ranting.

• 1:58:04Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, clearly.

• 1:58:07Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's the great thing about you guys doing a podcast together. Well, I was gonna get to is like in the beginning, you're talking about replacing the talk show. Well, fucking you guys replaced Siskel and Ebert, right? Cause Siskel and Ebert.

• 1:58:17Speaker 03

  That's what we wanna do.

• 1:58:18Speaker 02

  Thank you. That was actually the agenda that Quentin proposed to me.

• 1:58:21Joe Rogan?

  Well, both those guys are gone. You know what I love watching is videos of like outtakes of those guys like bitching at each other.

• 1:58:27Speaker 03

  Bitching at each other, yeah.

• 1:58:28Joe Rogan?

  They fucking hated each other. They were so shitty to each other and then they had to be smiley and what a bullshit way to live.

• 1:58:36Speaker 02

  Do you remember when Vincent Gallo wished testicular cancer on Roger Ebert and then he got it?

• 1:58:43Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:58:44Speaker 02

  Do you remember that?

• 1:58:45Speaker 03

  Okay, I do. Now that you bring it up, yeah.

• 1:58:48Joe Rogan?

  Right? Like he lost his jaw, like they had to remove his jawbone.

• 1:58:51Speaker 02

  That was Vincent Gallo cursing it onto him. He apologized after he, oh my God, I didn't, I think he got it.

• 1:58:58Speaker 03

  Well, I think it was after Roger Ebert, after Roger Ebert said that Brown Bunny was the worst film to ever play in the history of con film.

• 1:59:03Speaker 02

  That's exactly what happened. And then he went and he cursed him and then the curse came true and then he regretted. I talked to him, he was like. I wish I'd never done that.

• 1:59:12Joe Rogan?

  It's crazy if it really worked. That movie Brown Bunny, I wanted to talk about that because

• 1:59:18Joe Rogan?

  I've always thought it's so strange that we can show violence, but we can't show sex. And I know they tried to do that with like, you ever see the lines outside the movie theater when Deep Throat?

• 1:59:30Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:59:30Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah. Carson was in line.

• 1:59:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:32Joe Rogan?

  Johnny Carson went to see Deep Throat in a public theater.

• 1:59:35Speaker 03

  I heard, I heard stories about Bing Crosby arrived at midnight at the

• 1:59:38Joe Rogan?

  Because people didn't know what they were seeing yet. It hadn't been defined as a genre. There was nudie movies that people watched at stag parties.

• 1:59:45Speaker 03

  And there was, there's that little moment in seventy-three where there was porno chic.

• 1:59:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, Stallone did Italian Stallion.

• 1:59:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that wasn't a popular thing. This was, and everyone had to kind of see it. And, uh, and like, oh, hey, maybe this will be a thing.

• 2:00:01Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:00:02Speaker 03

  Maybe this will be a thing now that like, you know, you know, you know, uh, one or three or four porno movies will come out every year. That'll be like, kind of considered like real movies, you know, that couples will go see.

• 2:00:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:13Speaker 03

  And that was a whole thing was, uh, uh, um, promoting the idea of, uh, couples going to see, uh,

• 2:00:22Speaker 02

  A porn film.

• 2:00:23Speaker 03

  Either porno films or just heavily erotic movies.

• 2:00:26Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:00:26Speaker 03

  You know, uh, like for sexy, for sexy nights.

• 2:00:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, not like Travis Bickle, not like how Travis Bickle does it.

• 2:00:31Speaker 03

  No, no, no, it's a sexy night. Now we're gonna go, we're gonna have a sexy night. We're gonna go out and see, and then we'll go home and we'll take care of business.

• 2:00:37Joe Rogan?

  Right, yeah, but

• 2:00:39Speaker 03

  And it didn't really happen, but there was this hope in the early seventies that that could happen.

• 2:00:45Joe Rogan?

  But it's fascinating that it didn't happen because what I was gonna get to is like violence, we don't have any problem with. But we all agree that consensual sex is way better than someone getting shot in the face.

• 2:00:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:00:56Joe Rogan?

  But people get shot in the face in movies constantly. You see heads explode and arms getting lopped off.

• 2:01:03Speaker 02

  Bread and butter.

• 2:01:04Joe Rogan?

  Game of Thrones.

• 2:01:04Speaker 02

  Bread and butter.

• 2:01:05Joe Rogan?

  It's constant.

• 2:01:06Speaker 02

  I think it's actually gone too far, I think. I mean, this could be for me. Well, it's not that violence has gone too far. It's the meaningless violence has gone, violence without purpose almost. And I started to recognize

• 2:01:19Speaker 02

  This during Walking Dead, but really Game of Thrones, though you mentioned Game of Thrones. Like, I loved Game of Thrones at first, and then I started realizing, wait a minute. Like, they're getting off on me falling in love with characters and then the moment I've fallen in love with a character, suddenly they're vivisecting their genitals. You know, it's like, uh, and then the cycle begins again. You fall in love with a different character. And then they're killing them and they're just doing it like sadistically because there's like, there's nowhere to go other than that. They're, they're just pushing the ceiling higher and higher.

• 2:01:53Joe Rogan?

  Sort of, but also if you were living in that world, that would be reality. Nobody lived forever and became the hero of the fucking movie. There's no heroes back then. Everybody's getting gutted. There's, they're getting usurped.

• 2:02:05Speaker 03

  Turned into a dungeon, you know.

• 2:02:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, people getting fed to lions.

• 2:02:08Speaker 03

  You're out of the picture now.

• 2:02:09Joe Rogan?

  It's just, you're getting eaten by dogs. This is real.

• 2:02:12Speaker 03

  And now you have to fight for the next five years against the rats, right? They're in the fucking dungeon with you.

• 2:02:16Speaker 02

  But television, at least the television I grew up with, was all about like the familiarity of returning to the characters you love.

• 2:02:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but there was plenty of characters. And you did get to return to the ones that stuck around and didn't get their heads lost off.

• 2:02:29Speaker 02

  I just wish they'd killed other characters.

• 2:02:31Joe Rogan?

  Anyone else than that. I love that.

• 2:02:33Speaker 03

  Let me give you another, let me give you another example of my everyone talks about how great television is now and it's, it's pretty good, I gotta say. It's pretty good, but

• 2:02:46Speaker 03

  it's still television to me. And what's the difference between, what's the difference between television and a good movie? Because a lot of the TV now has the patina of a movie. All right, it, uh, they're using cinematic language, all right, to get you caught up in it. And, um, and, and obviously I'm talking about good shows. We're talking about shows that you're

• 2:03:09Joe Rogan?

  Ozark.

• 2:03:11Speaker 03

  Shows that you're compelled to watch.

• 2:03:12Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:03:16Speaker 03

  And so, okay, so, okay, I'll use an example of a show. I'll use, uh, Yellowstone. I didn't really get around to watching Yellowstone the first three years or so. And then, then I watched like the first season, like, wow, this is fucking great. I've always been a big Kevin Costner fan. He's fucking wonderful in this, alright? And I got really caught up in the show and everything, and all of a sudden I'm having a good time. And, you know, I've got a couple of seasons I haven't seen, so I'm watching it.

• 2:03:38Speaker 03

  And, and in the first season, I'm kinda talking, oh, this is like a movie. This is like a big movie. It's like a big movie. And the guy, the guy who writes that is a good writer. There's good, like, punchy monologues and stuff.

• 2:03:52Speaker 03

  So then I end up watching, like, three seasons of it. And then I even watched that, like, 1883, where, oh, this is a good, good western show. I like westerns. But then,

• 2:04:04Speaker 03

  after I've watched, like, two or three seasons, or one season of 1883,

• 2:04:10Speaker 03

  look, while I'm watching it, I am compelled. I'm, I'm caught up in it. But at the end of the day, it's all just a soap opera. They've introduced you to a bunch of characters. You actually kinda know all their backstories. You know everybody's connection with everybody else. And, you know, they spend some time selling that out. And then everything else, then everything is just the, is the compellingness of the soap opera. Of what's happening to this character.

• 2:04:35Joe Rogan?

  And what's different between that and a film?

• 2:04:36Speaker 03

  Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. Because the thing is, if you wa, if you watch Edge of Night, Monday through Friday, you get caught up in the dramas of the, the family and everything.

• 2:04:47Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:04:48Speaker 03

  But you don't remember it five years from now. You're caught up into the minutia of it at the moment. Alright, so the, the difference between is, is I'll see a good western movie, and I'll remember it for the rest of my life. I'll remember the story. I'll remember this scene or that scene. And it, it built, it built to an emotional climax of some degree. Uh, uh, and, you know, one, the story is good. It's not just about the interpersonal relationships. The story is good itself, but, but, but there's a payoff to it. But there's not a payoff on this stuff. It's just more inters, interconnectional drama. And while I'm watching it, that's good enough. But when it's over, I couldn't tell you, I can remember who the bad guy was in the first season of Yellowstone,

• 2:05:31Speaker 03

  because it was, uh, Danny Houston. I remember him in it. But I don't remember any of the, the, the, the details of it. And I don't remember any of the bad guys for season two or season three. It's out of my head. It's just completely out. And same thing with eighteen eighty-three, when I watched the whole thing and that was like a, that seemed like a movie, except I don't remember. Sam Elliott is about the only thing I really remember of it when it was finished. But now, Red River, I remember for the rest of my life.

• 2:06:00Joe Rogan?

  Isn't that though, because it's a different thing, right? Because when you go to a film, film is, is designed for one sitting. You sit down in the theater, you're gonna get the entire encapsulation of what happens to these characters in three hours.

• 2:06:12Speaker 03

  Okay, I'll give you an example of one that is more than a soap opera. And you'll, and here's the difference. Here's the difference. Okay, uh, cause yeah, you could say that. Uh, look, they're in the soap opera business, but I'll tell you one that's not, okay? If you watch that first season of, uh, now here's one that really works like a movie. If you watch the first season of Homeland.

• 2:06:32Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:06:33Speaker 03

  That first season of Homeland.

• 2:06:34Joe Rogan?

  First season's incredible.

• 2:06:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:06:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, very good.

• 2:06:37Speaker 03

  When it gets to that final episode of the first season, and he's got the suicide vest on. And he's in the room. He can kill the guys that he's been waiting for to do it for the whole movie. And you don't want him to die, but you're kinda into him and you kinda want him to pull it off. And then his daughter calls him on the phone before he does it. She doesn't know what he's gonna do, but she gets that little sense from him. That something's weird. She goes, Daddy, you, you need to tell me that you're gonna come home right now. You need to tell me right now that I will see you later tonight.

• 2:07:16Speaker 03

  And the entire series has been built to this scene. And it's one of the most emotional scenes I've ever seen in, in a movie, in a TV show I've ever seen dramatized.

• 2:07:25Joe Rogan?

  The first season was great.

• 2:07:26Speaker 03

  I've ever seen dramatized. Now, that was a movie. That was not a soap opera. That's built to this moment of him being in that fucking room with the suicide vest on. And and and there was complexity. She doesn't know what she's asking, but we do.

• 2:07:43Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:07:44Speaker 03

  She's stopping this major thing and she'll never know that, but we do.

• 2:07:48Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:07:50Speaker 03

  And he's still committed, but he's more committed to her and we know that. That's just great shit. That's a movie.

• 2:07:59Joe Rogan?

  Right, and you can't, can you do that every week?

• 2:08:02Speaker 03

  No, I didn't say you can do it every week, but I'm saying, but I'm saying when this, when the season's over, I need to walk away with more than just the soap opera.

• 2:08:10Joe Rogan?

  An impactful moment.

• 2:08:12Speaker 03

  Exactly. Now, I don't expect you to do that every week, but at the end of the arc, if you're telling a continuing story, at the end of that fucking season, you need to bam, drop the mic.

• 2:08:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:25Speaker 03

  You need to tell me a fucking story, not just dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

• 2:08:30Joe Rogan?

  I see what you're saying.

• 2:08:31Speaker 03

  And look, while I'm watching it, I'm not asking for that. But the fact that it all just disappears, once it's over and it's just sand on the beach.

• 2:08:40Joe Rogan?

  Right. It's a different thing though, right? I mean, this is with the weirdness, this is the weirdness of the theater experience versus home.

• 2:08:48Speaker 03

  Here's where it's not a different thing. Part of the thing that makes it different is the fact that everyone's watching these continuing stories, continuing stories, continuing stories. Okay, if it, if it were, if it were Bonanza, where it's just a setup story, Charles Bronson uh shows up, he's a half-breed Indian and he's working at the Ponderosa for a while, and he gets involved in a, in an adventure and then at the end it's, it's, it's done. Well, on that show, you, you have the, the episodes are maybe not so good or the episodes are, they're, are, uh, whatever, they're treading water.

• 2:09:21Joe Rogan?

  One continual story.

• 2:09:22Speaker 03

  But then, but then you'll have this great episode with Charles Bronson. Or do they have a great episode with, with James Coburn?

• 2:09:28Joe Rogan?

  They're almost standalone, so they're, yeah.

• 2:09:30Speaker 03

  That could, that could have been a movie. They could have expanded that to a movie.

• 2:09:34Joe Rogan?

  Right. They're standalones instead of just a long, ongoing story.

• 2:09:37Speaker 02

  Well, the difference is, is that that's episodic.

• 2:09:40Speaker 03

  It's a long on, ongoing story that leads to the soap opera aspect.

• 2:09:44Speaker 02

  Well, it's episodic and television now has become completely serialized.

• 2:09:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:48Speaker 02

  And so, you know, somebody's going in and they're pitching their show, even a really, really good show like Deadwood. Okay, Deadwood, I know what they, they probably went in, they pitched, and what they knew that they were gonna make was the, was it Wild Bill? Uh, the Wild Bill story. And they've got Carradine and like, uh, and they know that story, and that show is fantastic, as long as they're telling that story, which is like six to eight episodes. Once he's gone, I don't think they had a plan. They, that was what they pitched, and it was like they pitched a movie, spread out over a number of episodes. But it wasn't even the full season.

• 2:10:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, but by that point in time, they have, now they have all the town characters.

• 2:10:27Speaker 02

  Well, they've got everybody, but, uh, but I would maintain that for the rest of Deadwood, after Carradine's gone, it's just things are happening, stuff is happening. But I don't remember anything about that show. Other than the town and, you know, the, the various actors that I liked and on, on the show and, but really, all they had was those first six to eight episodes. I can't remember what, exactly what it was.

• 2:10:49Speaker 03

  And the thing that, and the, the thing about it is, I'm not, I don't say all this, and the sum up of it all is, it's useless. It is very compelling while I'm watching it. But it just doesn't compare to a movie real story that is, that, you know, that stays with me for the, for the rest of my life, in some cases.

• 2:11:10Speaker 02

  Right, I know what you're saying.

• 2:11:11Speaker 03

  And like, I mean, I like, we'll, we'll watch a lot of, you know, I try to watch at least one movie every episode that I haven't seen. And sometimes it's like, well, I haven't seen it since I was 12. You know, uh, uh, or I haven't seen it since.

• 2:11:23Speaker 02

  Those are actually the scariest ones to watch, because if you loved something when you were young, it's almost like.

• 2:11:28Speaker 03

  Well, and I'm expecting not to, I'm tougher on stuff now than I used to be, alright, uh. I, I, you know, I was a big champion about stuff. Now I'm not such a champion. Now I see all the problems with it. Alright, but I'll watch something that I haven't seen since I was 22, and I saw it like the day it opened. Uh, um, and I, you know, and I, uh, I watch, you know, I, I watch it again. I think I just lost my train of thought.

• 2:11:49Speaker 02

  Well, actually, I can jump in really quick if you want, um, you know, one of, one of.

• 2:11:53Speaker 03

  Talking like I'm stoned and I'm not.

• 2:11:56Speaker 02

  Strong cigars. Yeah, strong cigars. Um, one of the movies we saw that, um, we had seen a million times and we didn't even think that it was gonna be anything was, uh, Dressed to Kill.

• 2:12:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. Okay, let me set this up a little bit.

• 2:12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, set it up.

• 2:12:07Speaker 03

  And then you can take it.

• 2:12:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:12:08Speaker 03

  Uh, it was one of those things where we were doing a thing, a special episode with Eli Roth, where we're taking, you know, the Italian Jallow thrillers and saying, okay, where are the American versions of Jallow thrillers? And we figured out there was like four of them. And one of them was Dressed to Kill.

• 2:12:22Joe Rogan?

  Michael Caine.

• 2:12:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so we get together with, with Eli, and we're gonna watch these four movies. And then it comes down to Dressed to Kill, and it's like, God, I mean, I can't even think about how many times I've seen Dressed to Kill.

• 2:12:34Speaker 02

  Hundreds.

• 2:12:35Speaker 03

  I can't even think how many times he's seen it, and how many times that, uh, Eli's seen it. I mean, we're just huge Brian De Palma fans, and Nancy Allen fans and everything, so it was like, how many fucking times? And so, I almost, almost brought up, I mean, do we even need to watch Dressed to Kill? I mean, we've got, we've got-

• 2:12:51Speaker 02

  We had a little congress about it.

• 2:12:52Speaker 03

  We've got three movies to, no, okay, well, let's just watch it, we'll just watch it. That ended up being one of the greatest screenings of Dressed to Kill I've ever seen. All right? It was in that, in our living room, in my living room, watching it with Roger-

• 2:13:06Speaker 02

  On VHS.

• 2:13:07Speaker 03

  On VHS, on VHS, Pan and Scan, all right? The old Warner Brothers video, because we watch them on, uh, we, we watch them on the actual video cassettes of video archives, all right?

• 2:13:17Speaker 02

  Literally, the tape that we used to rent and handle and shuffle and put back and forth into the drawers and then rent to customers and that has been sitting on the shelves with the number on it and everything for the computer-

• 2:13:26Speaker 03

  We've seen the movie a bunch of times, but something about watching it with the three of us, and then just sitting there, and it's so good, but, but, but, but it was Roger who was adding to it, it was Eli that was adding to it.

• 2:13:37Speaker 02

  We're seeing it through their eyes.

• 2:13:38Speaker 03

  And I was adding to them.

• 2:13:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:13:39Speaker 03

  You know, and like, we just had this, like, appreciation for the movie, watching it with the three of us in this situation, the fact that we even considered not even watching it, was just like sacrilege.

• 2:13:51Speaker 02

  And we saw things in it that we had never seen before, that was the other thing.

• 2:13:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:13:54Speaker 02

  It's like, I saw things in, during that screening, because of, because of feeling, watching the movie with you guys, that I had never thought about before. And so it opened up all sorts of avenues and, you know- Most frequently, you watch a movie and it's, it doesn't live up. I'm afraid to watch movies again. A lot of the time. That was just one of those happy incidences where the movie really lived up. It stayed strong, even when we'd seen it hundreds.

• 2:14:28Speaker 03

  I know. I mean, you could not, it'd be hard to pick a movie that I've seen as much as Jessica.

• 2:14:33Joe Rogan?

  See, this is the better version of Siskel and Ebert. This is exactly what I'm talking about. The completely unproduced, uninfluenced version.

• 2:14:43Speaker 03

  Well, I told Roger when we finished the first season, I go, you know, Roger, if we do this the right way, in three or four years' time, we could be considered like Siskel and Ebert.

• 2:14:53Joe Rogan?

  A hundred percent. It's just a matter of getting it out there. I think there's just a bunch of people that aren't aware of it yet.

• 2:15:01Speaker 02

  They will come. Build it and they will come. What I love about the way we're doing it, because our first season, we just, you know, we just put it out and we had a partner with Sirius XM back then. And this season, you know.

• 2:15:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, they kind of went out of business in their own for their podcasting thing a little bit.

• 2:15:18Joe Rogan?

  Oh, did they? I think they're Pandora now, right?

• 2:15:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, they kind of turned into a different thing.

• 2:15:22Joe Rogan?

  They just signed a big podcast deal with the Call Her Daddy chick.

• 2:15:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think they did, yeah.

• 2:15:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, so I guess they're trying to get back into it. I think some other people as well.

• 2:15:30Speaker 03

  They paid us a lot of money to do it and like, we actually did pretty good for like our little archaic little movie. Show that goes on about two hours.

• 2:15:38Speaker 02

  It's a real niche, niche type.

• 2:15:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, and we, can you guys do Jaws? No, we don't want to do Jaws.

• 2:15:45Joe Rogan?

  But that's the best part of it. Do whatever the fuck you want to do.

• 2:15:48Speaker 03

  That's exactly it. But the thing is, they were like, uh, uh, so we actually had about like two million listeners, which was like, hey, that was pretty good for us, for us doing our little stupid, movie show about VHS. And it's all about VHS. It's about the VHS.

• 2:16:04Speaker 02

  And we're talking about the box art of VHS tapes.

• 2:16:07Speaker 03

  We watch the, we talk about the trailers that are in front of the movie, all right? And we talk about the transfer.

• 2:16:13Joe Rogan?

  By the way, the movie VHS is one of my guilty pleasures.

• 2:16:15Speaker 03

  That's a good film, yeah, yeah.

• 2:16:16Speaker 02

  The one with the devil lady?

• 2:16:19Joe Rogan?

  She turns into a devil?

• 2:16:20Speaker 03

  The three, four different stories, or three different stories?

• 2:16:22Joe Rogan?

  But that one is worth it. Just to sit through the other three for that one. The devil lady was fucking amazing.

• 2:16:27Speaker 03

  But I think, they were expecting us to, to do like a-

• 2:16:31Joe Rogan?

  Duh, Citizen Kane!

• 2:16:32Speaker 03

  They were thinking of doing like Dax Shepard kinda numbers.

• 2:16:34Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 2:16:36Speaker 03

  We were never gonna do that with what we're doing.

• 2:16:38Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right, yeah.

• 2:16:40Speaker 02

  And, you know, and so we're talking-

• 2:16:42Joe Rogan?

  But you could though. People want to see it. They wanna listen to it. It's just a matter of, just it being, they'll, they'll realize they wanted it once they hear it.

• 2:16:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:16:51Joe Rogan?

  That's what it is. It's like, oh, we want them to only talk about Citizen Kane. No, then, no, no, no. It's gotta be whatever the fuck they actually wanna talk about.

• 2:16:59Speaker 03

  But what we ended up-

• 2:16:59Joe Rogan?

  And then you'll learn about that movie that you never heard about. Maybe you go see it, and then you'll have a deeper appreciation of why these guys love movies.

• 2:17:05Speaker 03

  But one of the things that was interesting when we did it, when we, okay, so, when we made our deal, we're thinking, okay, well, maybe we'll do it here for two years. And we own the show, and then we wanna take it to Patreon, so we don't have to do commercials.

• 2:17:18Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:17:18Speaker 03

  Okay, and then when I did commercials, I did it with a, a, a, a, a seventies DJ announcer voice, alright? Cause I felt like such a sellout, that I'm not gonna do it in my voice.

• 2:17:30Speaker 02

  And I literally-

• 2:17:33Speaker 03

  The Dotson 750 is coming, and it's coming soon! You know, and I did it like the real Don Steele. That was my whole thing. I was like, do I get like the real Don Steele?

• 2:17:43Speaker 02

  I just did those readings like myself, and people started commenting on Twitter. They were like, man, Roger Avery-

• 2:17:49Speaker 03

  ZipRecruiter, can you fill your, can you fill your placement in the first week?

• 2:17:56Speaker 03

  Some people even get, in the first week, they get qualified candidates, only on ZipRecruiter.com.

• 2:18:03Speaker 02

  Look, I like solo stoves, they're great, but, like, I found myself doing, like, you know, stainless steel ads, basically, and talking about solo stoves. And suddenly people on Twitter were saying, Roger Avery will sell you sour milk from a sick cow. It's like, well, I don't know if I wanna like be shilling stuff like that anymore.

• 2:18:24Joe Rogan?

  Well, you just have to only approve the ads that you wanna do. Like, I, I approve ads. I don't like just let them-

• 2:18:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:18:31Joe Rogan?

  -give me every ad. I'm like, I can't do this one. And I say it all the time.

• 2:18:35Speaker 02

  We're not even under that kind of pressure now.

• 2:18:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, the thing about it was, I thought about that would be kinda cool, it, you know, is, like, if we go to Patreon, we'll lose a whole bunch of, uh, we'll, we use, we'll lose a whole bunch of listeners, but- You know, we'll put a forty minute version of the show out there for free. You know, but if you want to get the whole show, then you've got to like, you know, you've got to subscribe. And if you just subscribe, you get the show. If you pay, if you pay five dollars, you get our show, boom, boom. And if you pay eight dollars, then you get an extra special show that we do. And we're gonna...

• 2:19:07Speaker 02

  There's still a truncated version of it available for everybody to listen to. You like the first part of it? Come for the rest.

• 2:19:13Speaker 03

  But the thing is, though, is what I like, and some people are sort of like, I fucked those guys. And I think, well, okay, fine. All right. And look, I get it. I'm the guy that, I'm the guy in my twenties would go to happy hour at the bar, all right? And nurse a beer while I ate all the pizza and the chicken wings and everything. And that was my dinner.

• 2:19:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 2:19:31Speaker 03

  So I get that. You know, and by the way, you know, if you want to like wait till the end of our season and then join for a month and listen to all of our shows that way.

• 2:19:40Speaker 02

  Have that.

• 2:19:40Speaker 03

  That's an easy way to do it. You can get everything for free for a month. You can get everything you want in a month. But that's not who we're doing it for. We're doing it for the people who care about the show and are subscribing to it. And those people, those are our audience.

• 2:19:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:19:55Speaker 03

  And then they write on the message board and we write them back and like, so we're doing it for those people. And as long as we can make enough to just do the show, we're cool.

• 2:20:05Speaker 02

  And the general feeling is, wow, this is like a five dollar film school. Because you've got a couple of guys talking about movies and talking about how to watch movies, how to appreciate films, how to read a film, and then...

• 2:20:17Speaker 03

  And hopefully just genuinely compelling discussions.

• 2:20:21Speaker 02

  And using our experience as filmmakers to discuss even, you know, deeper into the movies and to better understand them. And, you know, it's, largely, something has happened in culture where people...

• 2:20:39Speaker 02

  They don't know how to argue anymore politely. They don't know how to like enjoy an argument with each other before. And so Quentin and I, we don't have to like the same movie, just like Siskel and Ebert. Didn't have to like it. Uh, but you know, we can argue about something and then afterwards it's like, okay, let's go do karaoke now.

• 2:20:57Speaker 03

  It's not, it's not, it's not a recommend show. We wanna pick three movies and we wanna discuss them.

• 2:21:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:21:03Speaker 03

  And

• 2:21:04Speaker 02

  You don't have to like it to discuss it.

• 2:21:05Speaker 03

  Even if we don't like the movie, if there's an interesting, if there's an interesting point of discussion about it. Well, that's good. That's all, that's all we need. We just need an interest, we need an interesting, uh, uh, an interesting conversation.

• 2:21:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:21:17Speaker 03

  That we have about it. It's not about, it's not about, we recommend you watch this movie.

• 2:21:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:21:21Speaker 03

  Personally, I don't care if anybody watches any of the movies that we talk about. I want them to listen to the show and enjoy, enjoy our back and forth.

• 2:21:28Speaker 02

  And get to understand how you appreciate movies.

• 2:21:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. If you wanna go out and check the movies out afterwards, fine, go ahead, but I don't care if you do or not.

• 2:21:35Speaker 02

  And we have a really like dedicated group of people who have come and they've signed up and they like, like I really, what's funny is I really care about these people now. It's like they're there and they're like in the club. It's like a clubhouse.

• 2:21:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:21:49Speaker 02

  And the people who wanna be there wanna be there and they're talking and they're talking, they're on a message board with Quentin and you know, Eli is, Eli Roth is there and Edgar Wright. And like everybody's like, and so it's a, we wanted to create a, uh, something that was like video archives and that people could come in and talk.

• 2:22:08Speaker 03

  And I wanna at least one of the three movies, not every week, but at least I wanna, they're not easy to find. I wanna come up with like, well, that's not streaming anywhere. How am I supposed to get this? Well, it's on VHS, you know, get a VHS recorder and buy it on eBay or, and now all of a sudden that little group is like, well, maybe we can buy a, hey, maybe if we buy a VHS and then we can, we'll burn it and we can trade it with everybody else. And now they're all doing the work to do that. Well, good.

• 2:22:38Speaker 02

  My daughter Gala is one of our producers on the show and, uh, and she's on the show with us. And one of her things is like, we get together and we watch the movies at video archives and then we know the films and then she has to, she doesn't have that access.

• 2:22:52Speaker 03

  She doesn't have access to the, she's not there with us.

• 2:22:55Speaker 02

  She's like, she represents one of our, one of the people out there. She's gotta find it. So if Quentin finds something that's, you know, pretty difficult to find, she's got to track it down and she usually has a little timetable to do it on. And she kind of is doing her proof of concept on, you can get these, you can find these. She'll find it on VHS.

• 2:23:13Speaker 03

  She explains how she tracked it down. And you can follow her guide.

• 2:23:16Speaker 02

  If it's on YouTube, she'll tell you it's on YouTube.

• 2:23:18Speaker 03

  However, when she goes, Quentin, I just couldn't track this one down. I'm like, yes!

• 2:23:26Speaker 02

  I think that's the real reason he likes to do the show.

• 2:23:31Speaker 03

  That's right! Eat shit, yeah! Gotcha! Gotcha!

• 2:23:37Speaker 02

  Is everything, is everything on YouTube now?

• 2:23:41Speaker 03

  A lot of things, not everything, but a lot of things, a lot of things.

• 2:23:43Speaker 02

  A lot of things.

• 2:23:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, there's some certain things you can't find on YouTube still.

• 2:23:47Speaker 02

  And if it's up there and it's not there, it'll be up again somewhere. It's like Whack-A-Mole.

• 2:23:52Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:23:53Speaker 02

  It's like Whack-A-Mole.

• 2:23:54Joe Rogan?

  There was the Gore Vidal film, the transsexual movie with Raquel Welch.

• 2:23:58Speaker 03

  Oh, we watched that. We didn't do an episode on it, but I have the video of that. We watched it, Myra Breckerman, I like that movie.

• 2:24:04Joe Rogan?

  It's a crazy movie.

• 2:24:05Speaker 03

  When she fucks the guy in the ass, that's the best fucking scene. When she fucks the guy in the ass, that is the best fucking scene.

• 2:24:12Joe Rogan?

  It's pretty wild.

• 2:24:13Speaker 03

  I liked that movie so much, I read the book afterwards, because I thought it was so cool.

• 2:24:18Speaker 02

  Okay, I never liked Rex Reed, and I am not gay, but I was actually like, wow, Rex Reed's kind of hot in this.

• 2:24:27Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's what he was trying to do. That was the whole movie.

• 2:24:30Speaker 02

  He did it.

• 2:24:30Joe Rogan?

  Gore Vidal was trying to turn you gay. Can you give me that lighter?

• 2:24:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:24:35Joe Rogan?

  That's one of those weird ones, it's difficult to find. I had to buy a DVD to get it.

• 2:24:41Speaker 03

  Oh, I like that line she has that keeps building up to it. She goes, when she asks you to finally show her pussy, she goes, "Well, it looks like the moment of truth has finally arrived."

• 2:24:57Speaker 03

  I think Raquel Walsh is fantastic in that movie.

• 2:24:59Joe Rogan?

  Did you ever see those debates that Gore Vidal did with William F. Buck?

• 2:25:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:25:04Speaker 03

  Those are legendary.

• 2:25:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, incredible.

• 2:25:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:07Joe Rogan?

  But this is, you know, you used to be able to...

• 2:25:09Speaker 02

  Gore Vidal always won, though.

• 2:25:10Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah. Well, he was just... Well, he was right and he was better.

• 2:25:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's right and he's better.

• 2:25:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:15Speaker 03

  But then you have Gore Vidal fighting with, like, a Norman Mailer.

• 2:25:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:18Joe Rogan?

  What were they fighting about?

• 2:25:19Speaker 03

  Oh, no, just they'd get on, like, they'd get them on, like, the Dick Cavett Show together.

• 2:25:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, Dick Cavett.

• 2:25:24Speaker 03

  He would talk to him like a Poncy bastard and the other one would talk to him like a Neanderthal.

• 2:25:30Speaker 02

  I'm sure they had dinner afterwards.

• 2:25:33Joe Rogan?

  Just you used to be able to have those kind of conversations on television, which is really fascinating.

• 2:25:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:38Joe Rogan?

  It's like now they exist in podcasts, you know, and like the Siskel and Ebert thing, what I was talking about is like, you can't manufacture a friendship.

• 2:25:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:25:46Joe Rogan?

  And you can't manufacture a real interest. You can't be a guy who was a local news reporter, who auditioned for the role of the guy who reviews movies, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:25:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, yeah.

• 2:25:57Joe Rogan?

  It's like this thing that you guys have is what, this is the whole new media movement is based on authenticity, right? And this is like the whole thing, you want people to not be able to find these movies. You want to just review movies that you want to review, and that's the beautiful thing about it. It's like the perfect show in that regard, like for a film review show or a film discussion show. It's the perfect show.

• 2:26:21Speaker 02

  And also, when a customer used to come into the store, they had basically three requirements. I want something that's new, that was always the first one, that's good, that I haven't seen yet. And I was like, well, if it's, if you haven't seen it yet, it's new to you. So that takes care of two of those. And no, we don't have that new one, but let's show you something interesting. And so it was always a matter of, you know...

• 2:26:45Speaker 03

  Well, the thing is, one of the things that, like, and there's a lot of movie, there's a lot of movie shows out there on podcasts and they talk about stuff, and the idea isn't for me to just say, oh, we're better than all those guys. We're not coming from that, that place. But I'll tell you what bugs me about a lot of the other shows is the fact that the people are sincere. They're completely sincere, but...

• 2:27:10Speaker 03

  Their film knowledge is fucking abysmal. They really don't know what the fuck they're talking about. And especially when they're trying to talk about movies from like the 70s or something. They were usually born in the 80s. So, they don't know what something was like when it opened up and they don't really have any context. They definitely don't have context, that's what they don't have. They don't have context. They just know whatever they've learned along the way and so they just yank stuff out of their ass and say stuff that's just wrong a lot. They just misinformation a lot. We actually fact-check our shit. You know, we re-record it, alright? To make sure that we just don't yank shit out of it. And we, there is a little bit of yanking stuff out of your ass, but when I'm not sure about it,

• 2:27:55Speaker 03

  we look it up and then if I'm wrong, then we change it.

• 2:27:58Speaker 02

  Well then also, there's the fact that...

• 2:28:00Speaker 03

  You can count on what we're saying that we're telling you the true fucking shit. We're giving you, I consider it as, I consider it as a film expert that, that I would be, I, my show wouldn't be worth listening to if I don't give, if I don't tell you the truth.

• 2:28:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:28:15Speaker 03

  If I don't give you factual information that you can count on.

• 2:28:17Speaker 02

  Well, also because you were there during the opening of the film and, you know, we're going...

• 2:28:21Speaker 03

  I can describe the context, yeah!

• 2:28:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, we have the context to talk about. A lot of these people, they maybe didn't see these movies in theaters.

• 2:28:29Speaker 03

  And the thing is, you know, it's like, you know, my, my writing guru as far as like film writing, but I think writing in general was the New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael. And she had one, one rule, and I, one rule for, for film criticism. And I think this could apply to all writing.

• 2:28:54Speaker 03

  You have to give the reader a compelling reason to read your writing. It's that fucking simple. It's that, there has to be a compelling reason for you to engage in reading analysis. And the same thing about talking about cinema, you have to give a compelling reason. Now, yeah, I like the guys, that's, that's, that's, that's a good start. I like their personality, I think they're kind of funny. That's a, that's a good start, but there has to be something more than that.

• 2:29:23Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's what's more than that, what you just did. This passion for it, right? That's what's more than that. It's just this like severe commitment to it. That's, that's what's exciting.

• 2:29:34Speaker 03

  And then when we talk about the movie, and we talk about everything that's good about it, and we talk about the things that, that aren't good.

• 2:29:38Joe Rogan?

  Right. Honest.

• 2:29:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, very honest, yeah. And, and, and, and I can be wrong. I, I, I don't have to be right about it.

• 2:29:45Joe Rogan?

  You might be wrong about The Joker, I'm not sure.

• 2:29:49Joe Rogan?

  It's audacious, it's audacious.

• 2:29:51Speaker 03

  You're big a dick because you haven't even seen it. You're, you're just jumping on a fucking bandwagon.

• 2:29:55Joe Rogan?

  I'm just talking shit.

• 2:29:56Speaker 03

  Talking shit.

• 2:29:57Joe Rogan?

  I just tried to wind you up.

• 2:29:58Speaker 03

  Talking shit.

• 2:29:58Joe Rogan?

  I've just tried to wind you up, sorry.

• 2:30:04Joe Rogan?

  What, what's like an example of a film that you love that other people hate, other than The Joker?

• 2:30:10Speaker 03

  Uh, I don't know if I loved it, but okay, uh, uh, I liked it a lot. Uh, uh, um, oh, there's, I have a ton of those. As a matter of fact.

• 2:30:18Speaker 03

  No, this, I have, I have so, I have so many. But, but when I was younger particularly.

• 2:30:26Speaker 03

  I was the champion of like the movie that everyone, that all the critics put down and said was a fiasco. And I wanted to defend it.

• 2:30:33Joe Rogan?

  Is it because you're a contrarian?

• 2:30:34Speaker 02

  Can I, can I guess?

• 2:30:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:30:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:36Speaker 02

  Is it Ishtar?

• 2:30:37Speaker 03

  Well.

• 2:30:38Joe Rogan?

  You liked Ishtar?

• 2:30:39Speaker 03

  I defended Ishtar, I defended 1941.

• 2:30:41Speaker 02

  He was, he was like one of the champions of Ishtar.

• 2:30:43Speaker 03

  I championed, Ishtar I championed 1941.

• 2:30:46Speaker 02

  Pushing that tape on so many customers.

• 2:30:49Joe Rogan?

  How many of them came back angry?

• 2:30:50Speaker 03

  No, Ishtar's a funny movie. It's a funny movie.

• 2:30:54Joe Rogan?

  Is it really?

• 2:30:54Speaker 02

  Well, the problem with Ishtar, and we were talking about this a little bit, uh, earlier. The problem with Ishtar is that it suddenly became not about the movie, but about the production.

• 2:31:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:31:05Speaker 02

  And so people had informed an opinion about whether they liked it or not.

• 2:31:08Joe Rogan?

  Because it was so expensive.

• 2:31:09Speaker 02

  Because it was expensive. It's like, it doesn't change your ticket price.

• 2:31:12Joe Rogan?

  No, but that is the kiss of death. If you feel like a, a film is over budget.

• 2:31:17Speaker 03

  Especially comedies. It's like, it's like critics, critics have a, have a thing about like, you know, spending a lot of money on comedies. It seems obscene to them.

• 2:31:26Speaker 02

  Hmm. What happened with this film? Like what, where'd the budget go south?

• 2:31:29Speaker 03

  Well, where the, where the budget kind of went south for the most part was the fact that, uh, uh... Like Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman kind of like had their full freight on the movie. So Dustin Hoffman got his high big salary, Warren Beatty got his high big salary, and so now-

• 2:31:46Speaker 02

  And all the accoutrements that go with it.

• 2:31:48Speaker 03

  And everything that goes with it.

• 2:31:49Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:31:50Speaker 02

  I need a plane to fly me back from Morocco to New York every weekend.

• 2:31:54Speaker 03

  If-

• 2:31:54Joe Rogan?

  Oh, really?

• 2:31:55Speaker 02

  I'm sure.

• 2:31:56Speaker 03

  No, no, he's just making that up.

• 2:31:56Speaker 02

  I'm making that up, but that's not unrealistic.

• 2:31:58Speaker 03

  That's not unrealistic. It would be like if when they did, during the time when they did Ishar, Tom Hanks was famous, but he wasn't the superstar that he is now.

• 2:32:07Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:32:07Speaker 03

  Alright, so if that had starred Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari?

• 2:32:11Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:32:12Speaker 03

  Like the two guys from Bosom Buddies?

• 2:32:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32:14Speaker 03

  Well, then that movie would have been, it would have been, it would have cost a lot less and would have been just as funny.

• 2:32:18Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:32:18Speaker 03

  Those guys were terrific together, and they would have been really good in that role, and the film would have been seen for what it is.

• 2:32:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32:24Joe Rogan?

  Hmm. When a film does get labeled as a bloated film, though, that is the kiss of death.

• 2:32:31Speaker 03

  It kind of is.

• 2:32:32Joe Rogan?

  Because the general public will turn on it then.

• 2:32:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:32:34Joe Rogan?

  They want it to fail.

• 2:32:35Speaker 02

  You know what, generally you give those movies a couple of years, and suddenly they're like these amazing movies.

• 2:32:40Joe Rogan?

  Waterworld?

• 2:32:40Speaker 02

  They're like, oh my, well, Waterworld's a pretty fun film.

• 2:32:43Joe Rogan?

  Shut the fuck up.

• 2:32:44Speaker 02

  I kind of have a great time watching it. Waterworld was the first LaserDisc I ever bought. That and Days of Thunder. I bought them at the same time.

• 2:32:51Joe Rogan?

  Here's one I bet you can't defend. Kevin Costner's the postman?

• 2:32:54Speaker 03

  I never saw The Postman.

• 2:32:55Speaker 02

  I like the idea of The Postman. I remember the screenplay for The Postman was great. The idea that like-

• 2:32:59Speaker 03

  I never saw The Postman, but I actually like Kevin Cost- I actually think Kevin Cost- I think Dancing with Wolves is one of the best movies made in my lifetime.

• 2:33:07Joe Rogan?

  I love that dude.

• 2:33:08Speaker 02

  But you're right about the postman. It's hard to defend. It's hard to defend.

• 2:33:11Speaker 03

  I'm not saying he's right about it, because I've never seen it. But now that says something that I've never seen it, but-

• 2:33:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:17Speaker 03

  But I wouldn't mind seeing it, and I'll bet y'all like it.

• 2:33:18Joe Rogan?

  But then there's films that are so bad they're great, like Showgirls.

• 2:33:22Speaker 02

  I love Showgirls.

• 2:33:23Joe Rogan?

  Showgirls is fucking great.

• 2:33:24Speaker 02

  Oh, Showgirls, there's nothing wrong with Showgirls.

• 2:33:26Speaker 03

  I can absolutely defend it.

• 2:33:27Joe Rogan?

  I can defend it as an entertainment piece.

• 2:33:29Speaker 03

  I, look, I am not a so bad it's good guy.

• 2:33:32Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 2:33:33Speaker 03

  I'm not a so bad it's good guy. You are a so bad it's good guy. I'm not a so bad it's good guy.

• 2:33:36Joe Rogan?

  The sex scene in the pool?

• 2:33:37Speaker 03

  Because that's a little ridiculous, but-

• 2:33:40Speaker 03

  Yes, the sex scene in the pool is a little ridiculous, but actually, the fact that it's going for a Hollywood movie that's it's it's it's it's going there was actually interesting. But what I really liked, what I really liked her in it, but when she beats the shit out of that guy, that's so fucking cool. When she beats the shit out of the guy at the end, and the guy who fucked over her girlfriend and like beat up his girlfriend and then she does these spinning roundhouse kicks and beats the fucking shit out of the guy. I was like, yeah, Elizabeth Berkley, go.

• 2:34:13Speaker 02

  What I love about Showgirls is normally a movie like Showgirls would be made for under a million, go straight to video, star Robert Davi, and just be this little exploitation movie. And here was an example of that being made for $60 million with Paul Verhoeven directing.

• 2:34:29Speaker 03

  Doing whatever the fuck he wants.

• 2:34:30Speaker 02

  Doing whatever he wants, making it as big as possible.

• 2:34:33Speaker 03

  And we're releasing it NC-17. Fuck you all.

• 2:34:35Speaker 02

  It's basically the same as one of those sub-million dollar exploitation films. It still has Robert Davi in it. He's still playing the same part he would normally play. And so it's this opportunity to see one of those weird little, you know, exploitation movies made in this grand fashion, in this huge fashion. It's exciting.

• 2:34:57Speaker 03

  Showgirls doesn't sit on a special shelf in my, in my heart. All right, all right. But I really liked it what I saw. I saw it at the theaters. I enjoyed it.

• 2:35:06Speaker 02

  Elizabeth Berkley like pushes Gina Gerson down the stairs. Is it Gina Gerson she pushes down the stairs? Like, everything about that movie is awesome. I think it's great. I love the film. I love the film. I brought it up to all the, I had a dinner once with Verhoeven and a bunch of the producers that filmed it. I started going off on it. They all sat there at the dinner watching me go crazy over their film. And then at the end of it, somebody, one of the producers said, "Well, yeah, that's all nice to hear, but really that movie was just about us doing a lot of cocaine."

• 2:35:36Joe Rogan?

  That's exactly what I was just gonna say. I'm so glad you just said that, because I always described that movie as a cocaine movie and I was just casting aspersions. With no evidence. But it seems like a cocaine movie. Because it seems like they thought it was great while they were doing it, but it's like, what are you doing? You know, it's one of those things where you think it's great because you're on coke.

• 2:35:56Speaker 02

  I have a place in my heart for those big movies like that. I mean.

• 2:36:00Speaker 03

  Like I said, that's not the one that I would, that's not the one I would make my case on, but I still like it. That's not my case, that's not my, that's not my chess case.

• 2:36:07Joe Rogan?

  Well, isn't that sort of an example of what happened in, when the eighties were cocaine culture? The, the world kind of shifted from a psychedelic thing from the sixties and seventies to a cocaine thing in the eighties. And you get movies like that.

• 2:36:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, you get a little bit more edgy, a little less trippy.

• 2:36:25Joe Rogan?

  Well, also like a little more ridiculous.

• 2:36:27Speaker 02

  But see, look at how great.

• 2:36:28Joe Rogan?

  See, the beginning, it's pretty good.

• 2:36:29Speaker 02

  That's what I call an actress dedicated to her role.

• 2:36:32Joe Rogan?

  No, this is where, this is where you're losing me. This is where you're losing me. Cause how are you keeping a hard on?

• 2:36:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then it's Colin McLaughlin of all people.

• 2:36:40Joe Rogan?

  The whole thing is.

• 2:36:41Speaker 03

  Okay, but just watching Elizabeth Berkley's tits, alright, in a big studio movie like this, flopping up and down like I'm, I'm getting my money's worth.

• 2:36:47Joe Rogan?

  Well, that was huge. Cause it was from Saved by the Bell.

• 2:36:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I'm, you know, okay, I'm not, actually that's, I'm not thinking about it from his point of view. I'm thinking about it from the water hitting her face. I'm looking from her point of view, that's, that's the, that's the unrealistic part.

• 2:37:02Joe Rogan?

  That true. True. Cocaine movies are fun though. There's, there's quite a few of those that were just like, what is this?

• 2:37:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:37:11Joe Rogan?

  Like, how much coke was going around in the eighties?

• 2:37:13Speaker 02

  A lot. A lot.

• 2:37:15Joe Rogan?

  When you, it was actually coke too.

• 2:37:17Speaker 02

  It was actually real cocaine. It was like proper cocaine.

• 2:37:20Speaker 03

  There was, you know, there was this, I mean, it's actually really interesting because it's like one of those things where, uh, uh.

• 2:37:27Speaker 02

  Remember that customer who used to come in and he would bring in like a rock of cocaine?

• 2:37:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:37:31Speaker 02

  Drop it on the counter, like a rock of cocaine. We, and you get, boys, here.

• 2:37:36Speaker 03

  The guy, his name was Tuttle.

• 2:37:37Speaker 02

  The size of, yeah, Tuttle.

• 2:37:38Speaker 03

  Tuttle, tuttle.

• 2:37:39Speaker 02

  The size of a coffee mug. And he would bring us these things of coke.

• 2:37:43Speaker 03

  He was a coke, he was a cocaine dealer and the thing is he would rent, you know, we'd let him take the movies out and come back whenever he wanted.

• 2:37:50Speaker 02

  Whenever you want.

• 2:37:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. And he would come in and, uh, he'd, he'd get his films and then he would like either open up a little like, uh, uh, uh, uh, skull can, skull can.

• 2:38:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:38:02Speaker 03

  Alright, with a bunch of coke.

• 2:38:03Speaker 02

  I remember that skull can.

• 2:38:05Speaker 03

  Boom, alright, on the counter, there you go, boys, have a ball.

• 2:38:07Speaker 02

  Have fun.

• 2:38:08Joe Rogan?

  Jesus Christ.

• 2:38:09Speaker 03

  Or you take out a coke rock and just like bam, I throw it on the counter and it bounce off you. There you go, boys, see you later, see you in two weeks.

• 2:38:16Speaker 02

  Like a baseball. Like a baseball and you take a colander and like just grind it up. Okay, who wants some?

• 2:38:24Speaker 03

  For the first time, because we're minimum wage kids, for the first time, we actually had fuck you coke.

• 2:38:33Speaker 03

  Had access to coke in a way that we could never afford. Like, for about a few months, because those relationships don't last that long.

• 2:38:39Joe Rogan?

  No, no, no. Cocaine relationships never last.

• 2:38:43Speaker 03

  But for a few months, we were like, holy shit, we're in the fucking, you know, we're in the powder.

• 2:38:48Speaker 02

  Well, he, there was a party once that he came to, and he brought, again, a rock of cocaine and a live hand grenade. And he put them both down.

• 2:38:57Joe Rogan?

  They usually go together.

• 2:38:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it was like, okay, it's a dangerous combination.

• 2:39:01Joe Rogan?

  The type of person that does a lot of coke usually would buy a grenade.

• 2:39:04Speaker 03

  And his name was Tuttle, and we always described excess as tuttle. Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna get into a tuttle situation.

• 2:39:11Speaker 02

  Dude, I'm so tuttled.

• 2:39:13Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's hilarious. It became like your Fegazi.

• 2:39:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:39:16Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's so funny. When I worked at, uh, in Boston, at Nick's Comedy Stop, they would offer to pay you in cocaine or cash.

• 2:39:25Joe Rogan?

  There was guys who just took the cocaine. There were certain comics, they just wanted to get paid in coke.

• 2:39:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, wild times, you know, that's the eighties.

• 2:39:35Speaker 02

  It was the eighties, it was the eighties.

• 2:39:37Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, that was actually even kind of an interesting situation, because like, uh,

• 2:39:42Speaker 03

  it was also one of those things where like, I was actually really kind of proud of us, because we all kind of like, woo, we all kind of went nutty for like a little bit, with this kind of like, uh, more access to coke than we normally have, would have.

• 2:39:54Speaker 02

  More access to coke than we ever had.

• 2:39:56Speaker 03

  Ever had, ever had, yeah. You know, and like, because we can't afford that shit, all right? And, uh, so we all kind of went nuts for like a little bit about it, and then we all kind of like, okay, let's...

• 2:40:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, enough of that.

• 2:40:08Speaker 03

  Let's bring it together.

• 2:40:09Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's great.

• 2:40:10Speaker 03

  Let's bring it together. And we, and we'd also saw some other people who were like, who let it get, uh, let it get the best of them.

• 2:40:18Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:18Speaker 03

  And they got really kind of...

• 2:40:20Joe Rogan?

  Like your friend with the story about being bitter. It's the same sort of thing.

• 2:40:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:40:24Joe Rogan?

  The same sort of thing. You go, oh, I know where this is going.

• 2:40:26Speaker 03

  And so we all like, okay, let's, let's pull back, let's get, let's, let's, let's get control of this, and then, and we all did. It was all collectively, we all kind of just got our shit together and put it in the rearview mirror.

• 2:40:37Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 2:40:39Speaker 03

  Didn't mean we didn't do it, but we, we, we, we just, it was, we, we controlled it.

• 2:40:44Joe Rogan?

  Contrary to your goals.

• 2:40:45Speaker 03

  We'll stay with pop, we'll stay with pop.

• 2:40:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:40:53Joe Rogan?

  When I was growing up, a bunch of people that I knew got hooked on coke and that's what kept me from ever doing coke.

• 2:40:58Speaker 02

  I would stop, I mean, I had children and suddenly it was like, oh my god, like, I have to be on call 24/7.

• 2:41:06Joe Rogan?

  Right, you can't be out coked up.

• 2:41:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, like, that, that's not gonna last anymore.

• 2:41:11Joe Rogan?

  That gets in the way of mushroom trips.

• 2:41:14Speaker 02

  And pretty soon, my Saturday mornings became more important than my Friday nights. It's pretty simple.

• 2:41:18Speaker 03

  But my thing about priorities was, was, I wanted to have excess or I didn't, oh, I wasn't that interested in it.

• 2:41:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, you wanna take it to 12.

• 2:41:26Speaker 03

  No, I wanted to have a big pile of it and we're doing it all fucking night until...

• 2:41:30Speaker 02

  Until this is gone.

• 2:41:31Speaker 03

  Until, until, until the straw is bloody.

• 2:41:36Speaker 03

  You know, okay, now I'm stopping now because the straw got bloody.

• 2:41:38Joe Rogan?

  The thing is, like, some people don't have the ability to only do that once. Like, for whatever reason, some people, they have that thing and they do coke a little bit, then they just wanna keep doing coke.

• 2:41:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, that's scary when that happens. That's scary when that happens.

• 2:41:53Joe Rogan?

  Because you're captured by a demon.

• 2:41:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's literally, and I think it's literally a demon captures you.

• 2:41:58Joe Rogan?

  No, I think...

• 2:41:59Speaker 02

  In the classic gin sense of the word, where it's whispering into your ear.

• 2:42:03Joe Rogan?

  Well, in the sense it does all the things a demon would do. You know, you, you could say the demons aren't real, okay, but if the act of, they might be real. Look, they've been around for...

• 2:42:13Speaker 02

  I think there's pretty good evidence.

• 2:42:14Joe Rogan?

  There's a lot of legitimate evil in the world, you know, and where is that coming from? What's that energy? Like, what, what begets that? What, what is the, what is the reason why people are willing to, you know, mass murder? Like, what is it? What is it? People are willing to launch missiles into cities. What is that? Where, where's that coming from? There's got to be, like, that would be evil if you defined it in the classic sense of the word. You know, when a, a invading army comes into a village and hacks people, that's not demonic? That's not evil? You're lighting children on fire and throwing them on thatched roofs? That's not demonic? Seems pretty demonic. Like, a demon would do that. Whether the, the physical demon exists is almost like not even important.

• 2:42:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:42:55Joe Rogan?

  It's like demonic behavior is 100% documented.

• 2:42:58Speaker 02

  What would Jesus do?

• 2:43:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 2:43:01Speaker 02

  Just ask yourself that.

• 2:43:02Joe Rogan?

  But it's the thing, it's like everybody wants to be smart.

• 2:43:03Speaker 02

  It's unlikely he's gonna raise a fist.

• 2:43:05Joe Rogan?

  Everybody wants to be smart and you wanna be secular and you never wanna say that you believe in something that's superstitious or ridiculous. So you don't believe in religion, you're either agnostic or atheist, that's how you get respect. And it's like this weird thing where you're not willing to consider, like, okay, but what are the actions? What are the actions of good and the actions of evil? There's those, the actions are real, right? And we all know in our heart and our soul, when you do a good thing, how you feel. Versus how you, when you do, how do you a bad thing, how you feel. Like, so what is, what are those forces?

• 2:43:37Speaker 03

  Well, there's a whole speech in Apocalypse Now. When, uh, uh,

• 2:43:42Speaker 03

  Brando's Kurtz tells the story of going into the village and inoculating, all the children in the village, shooting their arms with, uh, uh, uh, um, you know, flu shots or something like that, inoculating them.

• 2:43:59Speaker 03

  And then the, uh, the soldiers came in and then hacked off all the kids' arms. And then there's like a little pile of arms. And Kurtz says, you know, so we did all that, then we came back in the village, and next thing we saw the little pile of all the little arms in there where they hacked them off. And I cried like a baby.

• 2:44:18Speaker 03

  Then, I started thinking.

• 2:44:22Speaker 03

  The genius of that. The genius of that. Because,

• 2:44:28Speaker 03

  these are not monsters. They're not demons. These are men, doing a job. And, uh, and they had the force of will to take the job and, and take it to its logical conclusion of what they had to do. All right, you know, I'm not.

• 2:44:45Speaker 02

  Condoning.

• 2:44:46Speaker 03

  I'm not condoning what Kurtz is saying. Kurtz is a fucking crazy person.

• 2:44:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:44:50Speaker 03

  You know, uh, uh, um. But I'm interested in his perspective, but of course, of course, that would be Kurtz's perspective.

• 2:44:59Joe Rogan?

  He's speaking about true power.

• 2:45:00Speaker 03

  Where he's a god, he's a god worshipped by these natives, yeah.

• 2:45:06Joe Rogan?

  Clearly lost his fucking mind in the fog of war.

• 2:45:09Speaker 03

  He's completely lost his mind in the fog of war, but he's talking like Genghis Khan.

• 2:45:13Joe Rogan?

  Yes, exactly, like they all talk.

• 2:45:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:45:16Joe Rogan?

  But this is the thing where you're suspicious of power, right? Like, why are you suspicious? Well, you should be, because you see where it ultimately leads. It ultimately leads to a Kurtz, or it ultimately leads to the way to really be in control of people. Like, you have to use violence. You can only use words for so long.

• 2:45:32Speaker 02

  Strong men hold civilizations together. That's just a fact of things. Both of us have become friends over the years with John Millius.

• 2:45:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Who wrote Apocalypse Now.

• 2:45:42Speaker 02

  Who wrote Apocalypse Now. And, you know, John is the kind of guy who's like, you know, conquerors, conquerors, you know, the... And he wrote a script about Genghis Khan.

• 2:45:54Speaker 03

  That you worked on.

• 2:45:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that I worked on with him to help turn it into a series. My daughter and I helped him with it after he had a stroke. And, you know, you look at his Genghis Khan script, and he's, you know, he's realistically talking about these horrific atrocities that just, you know, sewing people up in felt and lighting it on fire and throwing them in river. Just however you can kill somebody, he figured out a way to do it better. And, but at the same time, you know, he invented paper money, and he invented the Silk Road, and he, you know...

• 2:46:29Joe Rogan?

  Opened up trade in the East.

• 2:46:30Speaker 02

  Pulled, pulled, you know, that whole region of the world together under one empire. And, you know, over the course of it, you know, you start out as, you know, almost like Conan, Conan the Warrior, Conan the Conqueror, Conan the King. Eventually, you're...

• 2:46:48Speaker 03

  King by his own hand.

• 2:46:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, king by your own hand. And eventually, you, you start realizing...

• 2:46:54Speaker 03

  And John Millius also wrote and directed Conan the Barbarian.

• 2:46:56Speaker 02

  And so he, you know, he rightly recognizes that it's strong men who conquer, but also who hold together and, and maintain order. And there's a balance to be had between force and, and strength and, you know, and compassion as well. Too much compassion, you know, countries fall apart. Too much introspection, countries fall apart.

• 2:47:17Joe Rogan?

  Right, and when things are too good.

• 2:47:19Speaker 02

  When things are too good.

• 2:47:20Joe Rogan?

  Things are too easy and you think they're supposed to be easy, you don't understand how they became easy and what keeps them easy.

• 2:47:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:47:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And that's kinda where we are right now.

• 2:47:31Speaker 02

  Weird times right now.

• 2:47:33Joe Rogan?

  As we are, we're in a Conan movie.

• 2:47:35Speaker 02

  Well, it does feel a little few, like we're in kind of neo-feudalistic times where, you know, there's highwaymen and, uh, that you have to contend with when you go out and everything's a little more fragile and...

• 2:47:48Joe Rogan?

  Well, there's also this new thing, uh, which is the internet and social media. And there's this new thing that has overcome our minds. And, uh, it's affecting everyone in this very bizarre way and it's making people more tribal and more inclined towards echo chambers, more antagonistic against opposing beliefs and views.

• 2:48:06Speaker 02

  True.

• 2:48:07Joe Rogan?

  So you were saying about like being able to sit and have a conversation with someone and completely disagree, but not take it personally, just disagree about the points. We've lost that in our society.

• 2:48:17Speaker 02

  It's really important to be able to engage with other people, to disagree with them.

• 2:48:21Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:48:22Speaker 02

  And then to know that that's just that. We can still have dinner together. We can still be friends.

• 2:48:27Speaker 03

  I can, okay, so I go on a, a show and I said that I like Joker 2. Well, I say I like Joker 2 and now, now, now there's 150 articles that come out on, you know, all these cannibalized articles. Well, one person listens to the thing and writes an article about it and then there's 150 ripoff articles on that. And then you read the comments, it's like, "Me, he's a fucking asshole. That movie's fucking sucked. Me, he's a fucking asshole for saying this."

• 2:48:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:53Speaker 03

  Why am I a fucking asshole?

• 2:48:55Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:48:55Speaker 03

  I like the fucking movie.

• 2:48:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:57Speaker 03

  All right, that makes me a fucking asshole?

• 2:49:00Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 2:49:00Speaker 03

  You either like the movie or you, you don't, all right? And I'm not, I'm not plugging the movie. I'm not, I'm not saying, I'm not doing anything, all right? I'm just saying I like it. Who gives a fuck what I like?

• 2:49:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:49:10Speaker 03

  What do you care what the fuck I like?

• 2:49:12Speaker 02

  Right. And also, it also...

• 2:49:13Speaker 03

  But then I'll say, "I didn't see something."

• 2:49:15Joe Rogan?

  "Well, he's a fucking asshole, all right?"

• 2:49:17Speaker 03

  "Didn't see it." What do you care what the fuck I see and what I don't see? What the fuck do you fucking care?

• 2:49:24Joe Rogan?

  But there's no one in front of him to say that. He's an idiot alone with his phone. If he just said it out loud amongst reasonable people, they would turn to him and go, "What the fuck are you talking about?" But he doesn't get that check.

• 2:49:34Speaker 02

  Well, also...

• 2:49:34Joe Rogan?

  Which is also part of the problem with social media.

• 2:49:36Speaker 03

  Someone will say something like, "Well, I think he's fucking missing out." Well, I'm sure there's a lot of shit I can say that you're missing out on, and I don't care if you miss out.

• 2:49:45Joe Rogan?

  Also, you have to be missing out, otherwise you don't have a life.

• 2:49:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:49:49Joe Rogan?

  How much information do you think you can absorb in a day? How much things can you watch and listen to?

• 2:49:55Speaker 02

  Four movies a day, apparently.

• 2:49:58Joe Rogan?

  That's a lot of time, man. You have to miss out. There's gonna be shit you miss out on. Well, the other thing is, if you're a film fan today, you're not just dealing with today's films. You're dealing with this insane archive.

• 2:50:11Speaker 02

  The back catalog.

• 2:50:12Joe Rogan?

  That goes back to Rocky.

• 2:50:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:14Joe Rogan?

  You know, goes back to, you know, On the Waterfront.

• 2:50:16Speaker 02

  Goes back to the 20s.

• 2:50:17Joe Rogan?

  Good lord. There's so many films to watch.

• 2:50:20Speaker 03

  No, no, no, like, you know, a film that I saw that was, like, very meaningful to me this year

• 2:50:26Speaker 03

  is, I really liked the story of Bojeast, the, you know, the French Foreign Legion story. I like French Foreign Legion movies, any old way. But that's a really cool story, and I really liked the whole story of the three brothers in there. And, uh, you know, I was familiar with the Gary Cooper version, the 1939 version, put it on a stamp. But I'd never seen the silent version, and it starred Ronald Coleman. And I watched the silent version recently, and I was blown away by it. The storytelling was so epic, and was so visually just beautiful. And we have a little micro cinema in the theater I have, one of the theaters I have in Los Angeles, the Vista. And it's like a little 20-seat cinema that we just show VHS and 16mm.

• 2:51:08Speaker 02

  It's our video archives.

• 2:51:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like Video Archive, the Video Archive Cinema Club. And it's like, literally, it's like the brick and mortar version of Video Archives, but just like, but like a little Paris back avenue cinema.

• 2:51:19Speaker 02

  It's like a little clubhouse. I mean, it's open to everybody, but for our core fans.

• 2:51:24Speaker 03

  And the thing is, and we showed, uh, last week, we showed the silent version of Bojeast in it. And, uh, and I wasn't there at that screening, but I asked the guy who was our manager, their man, I go, I said, "How did it go?" He goes, "Quinn, you would have really loved to have been there for that screening." And I go, "Well, what?" And he goes... It was so moving, the end of it, and it is really moving. And it's just like, nobody was talking. It was just, it was silent. You could hear a pin drop and then it was over and, and everyone was still kind of in this collective emotional state and they just all kind of left the theater and they, they'd just seen something emotional. And they all kind of just moved out into the lobby and, and in this emotional state and it was like, that sounds fucking fantastic.

• 2:52:08Joe Rogan?

  Hmm, that's amazing.

• 2:52:09Speaker 02

  I mean, I think one of the most magical things about movies is that it can speak to you at different times of your life. You know, at the different windows of opportunity in your life. So you might see a movie and not like it and then, you know, people might see Joker two today and not really care for it. And then five years from now, revisit it and watch it again and you're in a different place. Culture is in a different place, everything's in a different place and you have a different perspective on the movie and maybe you like the movie. I hated Blade Runner when it first came out, did not like the film. I thought it was awful.

• 2:52:39Speaker 03

  Really?

• 2:52:40Speaker 02

  Awful, like boring, uh, like muddled, like everything that was wrong. Suddenly I'm seeing Kubrick shots in the end from, uh, The Shining, like.

• 2:52:52Speaker 03

  Roger would say, Blade Runner should be called Blade Crawler.

• 2:52:57Speaker 02

  No, I was really hard, I was really hard on movies. I was a really angry young guy.

• 2:53:02Speaker 03

  He was such a prick about shit. He's a completely different guy, alright? Now he's like, bends over backwards to be nice about it. I'm like, who the fuck is this guy?

• 2:53:15Joe Rogan?

  Hummed by life.

• 2:53:16Speaker 02

  Well, I, I now look at, I mean, having, you know, been a filmmaker and, you know, and, and knowing the struggle that goes into getting something on screen. Look, I know how hard it is sometimes to get what you have up here on, onto screen and doesn't always work. And sometimes you're faking it by the time it gets to the cut. But, you know, it, it's, it's not an easy, uh, thing to, it's not easy. So when I watch a, a movie now, I'm applying my life experience to it. And I'm like, okay, this movie may not be the greatest movie, but this is somebody's, you know, vision.

• 2:53:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:53Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna give that, you know, I'm gonna value that and give myself to it and try to find in it what I like about it. And so I always give every movie a shake, you know, a good shake.

• 2:54:04Speaker 03

  What's happened with our show that I think is really cool, again, for the, the fans that follow it and everything is.

• 2:54:11Speaker 03

  In our first season, we ended up like covering about 70 movies, you know, all together. And we mentioned a zillion movies in the course of a show, but like, you know, we covered about 70 movies all together. And, uh, between the three movies that we did over the course of like 26 episodes. And, uh, and we kind of created new classics, at least amongst the people who followed the show. Cause they followed it and they liked it and they, you know, watched some old Mexican horror movie like Demonoid and they, "Hey, that was pretty cool."

• 2:54:42Speaker 02

  Demonoid is amazing.

• 2:54:43Speaker 03

  And then everybody, and everybody would put it down. If you tried to look at anything about it, it would all be shitty reviews about it and everything, but then we talked about it with passion. And then we gave the right context in which to appreciate the movie. It's a killer hand movie. And we gave the right context in which to appreciate the movie. And then the people appreciated it under that right context.

• 2:55:02Speaker 02

  Like, because a movie is old and because maybe they didn't have the money to do it like super clean or perfect, you know?

• 2:55:10Speaker 03

  Actually, that actually has the most, best hand effects of ever seen in my life.

• 2:55:13Speaker 02

  That movie in particular is actually a tough one to, because it's, is this Demonoid?

• 2:55:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, that's Demonoid.

• 2:55:18Speaker 02

  So it's a killer hand that fucks everybody up? Is this the best, like, hand on the loose movie?

• 2:55:24Speaker 03

  It's a, it's a me- exploitation movie. Okay, a Mexican exploitation movie, but the one that's great about, well, she's fantastic in it, Samantha Egger.

• 2:55:32Speaker 02

  Samantha Egger is-

• 2:55:33Speaker 03

  She's become one of our heroes, all right, uh, from the show.

• 2:55:35Speaker 02

  I love Samantha Egger.

• 2:55:36Joe Rogan?

  This movie looks hilarious.

• 2:55:41Speaker 03

  But what's ni- but what's really cool about, about, uh, uh, uh, the Mexican horror genre is, uh, they take their tacky horror very seriously. It's tacky horror, but they take it really seriously. And I, and you appreciate the seriousness that they're, that they're delivering, that they're delivering their payload with.

• 2:56:01Speaker 02

  And I know how hard it is to, to do some of the things that they're doing on there. This is like, it's pre-computer graphics, it's, they have a limited budget.

• 2:56:10Speaker 03

  No, their shit is like-

• 2:56:10Speaker 02

  But their vision is so big and you're watching it, you're like, "Oh my God, this is, if you just, like, if you try not to judge it on what a movie looks like today."

• 2:56:19Speaker 03

  No, but, but, but not only just that, the, what's interesting is when you see some of the effects that you, there's a couple of the effects, "Well, how did they do that?"

• 2:56:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:56:26Speaker 03

  Uh, cause it's all done practical. And then some of it, it's like, "Oh, well." I can see how they did that. Oh my god, that's so fucking clever.

• 2:56:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:34Speaker 03

  They figured out how to do it in such a clever way. I can see how they did it, but that's so neat. Because they just figured out how to do it on camera in a way that, that, that sells it.

• 2:56:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:45Speaker 02

  And, and, and it's a crazy movie also.

• 2:56:48Speaker 03

  That is crazy.

• 2:56:48Speaker 02

  It, it's like you're inside of some sort of crazy Mexicans head, making a horror movie. It's fantastic.

• 2:56:54Joe Rogan?

  Well, the horror genre is hard to do to not make ridiculous.

• 2:56:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. Although the best thing about the horror genre and science fiction is that they're the best vehicles to kind of study culture and sociological issues because you have that abstraction layer that, you know, makes people think, oh, I'm just watching a science fiction film, or I'm just watching a horror movie.

• 2:57:14Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:57:15Speaker 02

  Like you watch Dawn of the Dead and yeah, you're watching a movie about zombies in a shopping mall. Or are you watching a movie about the vanishing middle class being drawn to the consumer temple because it's what they remembered from their lives that was an important place to them.

• 2:57:27Speaker 03

  Ah. Like, literally quoting the movie.

• 2:57:30Speaker 02

  I'm actually quoting my liner notes that I wrote for the DVD way back when.

• 2:57:36Speaker 03

  Let me stop and go to the bathroom one more time.

• 2:57:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:57:38Speaker 03

  The coffee's making me take a piss.

• 2:57:39Joe Rogan?

  No worries.

• 2:57:40Speaker 02

  Go for it.

• 2:57:42Joe Rogan?

  We can keep going.

• 2:57:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:57:43Joe Rogan?

  So, when you first got into this, like, did you have, like, a film that you aspired to create something like? Like, when you first, did you say, you know, like comedians would be like, I want to be the next Eddie Murphy?

• 2:57:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it was a composite. It was a composite. I have, like, a kind of a top three filmmaker, you know? When you're a young filmmaker, and when you're a young child, you look to your parents to learn how to behave. You know, you're a child and you look, you look to them and you're like, they teach you how to be.

• 2:58:16Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 2:58:17Speaker 02

  And so, to, at the beginning of your life, you're copying your parents. And, because that's, that's who you love and it's what you're copying. When you're a young filmmaker, very frequently, you kind of copy your parents, your cinematic parents. And, you know, so, in my case, uh, you know, I mean, you know, in, in many filmmakers, like for instance Stanley Kubrick, who is one of my favorite filmmakers, who I'm always thinking about his zero-point perspective, his reverse-tracking shots. I, I just love the, the intention of his shots and how he assembles his movies. I like, um, I like everything about his work. Um, Kubrick.

• 2:58:58Joe Rogan?

  Huge fan.

• 2:58:59Speaker 02

  He, like, if, if you love Fritz Lang, you can see that, oh, Kubrick was, that's how he felt about Fritz Lang. Like, when I watch M, I can see the Kubrick shots.

• 2:59:09Joe Rogan?

  Is Fritz Lang Metropolis?

• 2:59:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, he did Metropolis, he did, uh, I mean, like, some of the greatest.

• 2:59:14Joe Rogan?

  Metropolis is wild.

• 2:59:16Speaker 02

  Metropolis is a super, super powerful and kind of important movie that's exactly, uh, talking about everything that's going on today. That people should see. The movie I was thinking about was M, which is his movie with Peter Lorre about the pedophile who's, uh, and the movie's made in, uh, just, just before the Nazis took power.

• 2:59:37Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:59:38Speaker 02

  And so he's making a movie that's really about, like, kind of the rise of, uh, the rise of Hitlerian fascism in Europe. But he's doing it through this movie about a pedophile and it's, it's, Peter, and Peter Lorre is fantastic in it. It's actually his first sound movie, like Fritz Lang hadn't made a sound movie. And so every single shot in the film is based on sound. So he'll have shadows talking and the backs of people's heads talking, or even the device of the movie is Peter Lorre whistling, peer giant, you know?

• 3:00:15Speaker 02

  That becomes like the device by which they find the killer in the movie. So the whole movie is about sound. So as a young filmmaker, if you want to learn how to use sound in a movie, that's the movie to see. Yeah, because every single shot, like, it used to be, you would show a, an empty frame and it would just be a shot of nothing. But, you know, now Fritz Lang is able to juxtapose, like, a woman has lost her daughter. She's calling for her daughter. And so she's looking for her daughter and she's looking for her and, Elsa!

• 3:00:46Speaker 02

  Elsa! And they cut to an empty shot of a stairwell and you hear her, Elsa! And they cut to like, you know, an empty playground. Elsa! And then you see the balloon that she was carrying trapped in something like whipping in the wind. Elsa! And it's super, super intense. It and but all he's doing is he's using sound juxtaposed with images, which he couldn't do before.

• 3:01:12Joe Rogan?

  Crazy that he just called it M.

• 3:01:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, M for murderer. And um, this is a, this is an amazing, amazing movie. So Kubrick, see, that's a Kubrickian shot. That's it. This is where he's, Elsa! Or Elsie?

• 3:01:46Speaker 02

  I seem to remember more Elsie's, but.

• 3:01:48Joe Rogan?

  I think I caught the wrong.

• 3:01:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's okay, but anyhow.

• 3:01:51Joe Rogan?

  This is.

• 3:01:52Speaker 02

  But uh, so Kubrick had his forefathers, who he used to, who he used to watch and that he used to look to. And so those would be like my grandparents in a way. And so there's this like lineage of cinematic grammar and vernacular that gets carried on from filmmaker to filmmaker. And eventually, after you've made enough films, you start walking on your own. You start coming up with new ideas. But for me, it was Stanley Kubrick, John Borman. He's the guy who directed Excalibur and Hope and Glory and Point Blank and Hell in the Pacific. I mean, a number of movies. I don't think Quentin's such a big fan of John Borman, some of his films. I think you're a fan of his writing more than you are his films.

• 3:02:34Joe Rogan?

  No, I, I, I have nothing but respect for John.

• 3:02:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and um, John Borman and then Roman Plansky. I think those three guys for me and, and their work, not the guys, but mostly their work. Like, I am a composite. If you watch my movies, I'm a composite of those guys and other people as well. And um, those were the filmmakers who are important to me. Those were my parents, so to speak.

• 3:02:57Joe Rogan?

  Kubrick is so, was such an odd one. Like his films are so different. And he was a weird guy, too. He did like complex mathematics in his spare time.

• 3:03:07Speaker 02

  I do complex mathematics.

• 3:03:11Speaker 02

  Nothing wrong with that. No, um, uh, yeah, he's a weird guy, but he was also, I think, thinking three steps ahead of everybody at any kind of given moment. I mean,

• 3:03:24Speaker 02

  I mean, to be honest, I was just thinking, I just pulled my script from Eyes Wide Shut. I had a script that was from set and I was reading it, uh, over the weekend and I saw that, um, uh, it has this, I mean, I've known this for a long time, but I started really thinking about it over the weekend. It's missing a narration. It's missing a third person narration that, uh, was originally in, in the movie. And that's because the movie was recut and, and changed after his death. And, and they'll, and they will, um, deny it, but as a student of Kubrick, I'm watching the movie and I'm like, well, Kubrick wouldn't do that. Kubrick wouldn't do that either. Kubrick would have trimmed this scene.

• 3:04:05Joe Rogan?

  I didn't know they recut it after his death.

• 3:04:07Speaker 02

  Okay. So apparently.

• 3:04:09Speaker 03

  They finished it.

• 3:04:10Speaker 02

  Well, that's the, that's the party line. That's the party line, but I think that they changed the, the notes, the closeups, the, the inserts of the notes. I think those are changed. It's missing a narration. It's definitely missing a narration. Uh, you know, a third person narration, like that scene where he sees the, the prostitute who's died. He's at the morgue and he's looking at her and he's like leaning over her. It's a bed for narration. There's this whole thing. What they do instead, cause they couldn't say that Kubrick finished the movie because they hadn't done the recording of the narrator yet. And so maybe they just kind of cludged it together, except there's an entire thread that's kind of been.

• 3:04:49Speaker 03

  Squashed?

• 3:04:49Speaker 02

  Squashed in that film. And that's the, the two men that are throughout the movie that are constantly in the background of the film, who eventually in the final shots of the film, you see like, uh, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in that final scene in the toy store, when she's looking at the Rosemary's baby bassinet, which is totally Kubrick saying something. And they never take their eyes off their daughter until the moment they take their eyes off and the final line of the movie is coming up. You see those two guys walking off with the daughter. They're taking her away. They've given their daughter to the pedo cult. That's what's happened at the end of the movie. And there's an incident where, when they first screened the movie in England.

• 3:05:32Speaker 02

  Uh, people who were outside apparent, this is all secondhand, by the way. There were people who were outside of the theater who could hear inside of the theater Kubrick yelling at all the executives and saying, "It's my movie, you can't cut it. You can't fucking cut my film." Blah, blah, blah, blah. Big argument going on. Then he dies like four days later.

• 3:05:52Speaker 02

  So, somebody went in and finished the movie, but I think when they finished the movie, they hid the film. The, the movie got changed into something else.

• 3:06:02Speaker 02

  And I would love to finish that film. I like, I'm like...

• 3:06:07Joe Rogan?

  Have you ever made an attempt?

• 3:06:09Speaker 02

  I've thought about it and, um, reading the script over the weekend, I started seriously thinking about it. Well, somebody should recut this, or somebody should...

• 3:06:19Joe Rogan?

  So it'd just be a matter of recutting it with narration?

• 3:06:21Speaker 02

  Well, yes and no. There's obviously missing. There would be missing footage now. There's, things have been removed.

• 3:06:27Joe Rogan?

  And is that accessible?

• 3:06:29Speaker 02

  No. Not unless you crack it open and there's no way anybody, they would never...

• 3:06:34Joe Rogan?

  But hold on, here's the thing. Now we have AI.

• 3:06:37Speaker 02

  Well, I know. That's, you're, you're, you're one step ahead of me. I'm one step ahead. I, I've actually been experimenting a lot with, uh, with AI.

• 3:06:46Joe Rogan?

  The newer versions are pretty stunning.

• 3:06:48Speaker 02

  I've been working on Runway lately, which is, uh...

• 3:06:51Joe Rogan?

  The curve is insane. Like the exponential curve of improvement.

• 3:06:54Speaker 02

  I'm literally, as I'm working on things, I'll be talking to the guys and, you know, I'll be saying, "Well, it'd be nice to be able to move the camera." "Okay, we got that tool on Tuesday. We're, we're gonna give that to you." And so it's like literally whatever you think you can't do, ask us, cause we probably will be able to do it in a couple of days. And so it's advancing so fast and so rapidly that I, without telling you Quentin, I made a little claymation version of you. And I, I have him talking and, uh, it's kinda funny looking.

• 3:07:26Speaker 03

  I'm sure a clay version of me would be funny looking.

• 3:07:29Speaker 02

  But it's a claymation version of both you and me.

• 3:07:32Joe Rogan?

  How bizarre that something that would have cost like hundreds of millions of dollars. Like if you wanted to do a film, like a pixel type, you know, one of those crazy movies where you have all this like insane animation, that shit took forever.

• 3:07:45Speaker 02

  The best work that I've seen of it lately, it was the first time, I've been kind of ignoring AI and like, I know what it is, it's like form completion with visuals and I get it, I understand what it is and we'll see, we'll see, but I like tactile, I like tactile and I do. But I worked on Beowulf, I made Beowulf with Robert Zemeckis.

• 3:08:02Joe Rogan?

  Oh, okay.

• 3:08:03Speaker 02

  And like that was a big, you know, video, uh, puppetoon type CGI thing.

• 3:08:08Joe Rogan?

  That was a fun movie.

• 3:08:10Speaker 03

  Motion capture.

• 3:08:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, my original plan for that movie, because I was gonna direct it myself, was to make it like, you know, in Iceland, you know, under 10 million dollars, you know, just really dirty. I wanted it to be like, uh, you know, uh, like an early Terry Gilliam film, like Jabberwocky. That was actually the, uh, one Neil and I were, um, thinking about when.

• 3:08:28Joe Rogan?

  Neil Gaiman.

• 3:08:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, Neil Gaiman, when, my co-writer on that film. And, um, yeah, the movie ended up getting made much bigger. It turned, suddenly it was like, whatever budget I had was probably our craft service budget. It's nothing like making a hundred million dollar movie. It's like sushi every day, champagne, fly the plane to England, you know, whatever you want. It's like, uh, it, it, it's crazy, but that was definitely not the movie I had planned on making. However, um, when we made it, like, and it turned into this big performance capture thing, it was fun.

• 3:09:07Speaker 02

  Like, working with Zemeckis and, and he's such a, like, an excitable, like, creative genius, like, he's, and even before you were able to do stuff like what he was doing in that film, he was like constantly taking, you know, like when he made contact, oh, we'll take that eyebrow off of, uh, Jodie Foster and I like that eyebrow thing she does, and so put that on this take. And so he was like messing with her face and doing all sorts of performance stuff.

• 3:09:35Joe Rogan?

  Whoa.

• 3:09:36Speaker 02

  And even when you go back to his earliest film, I wanna hold.

• 3:09:39Joe Rogan?

  That's crazy that you can do that now.

• 3:09:40Speaker 02

  I wanna hold your hand, I wanna hold your hand is almost a visual, uh, uh, trick, you know, having the Beatles there but not be there and even though he's not using computer graphics, I think he's just a really super inventive guy and it was so much fun making the movie with him because we were.

• 3:09:55Joe Rogan?

  What year was that?

• 3:09:56Speaker 02

  Inventing technologies, that was. 2010 that I think the movie came out.

• 3:10:00Joe Rogan?

  Jamie, wait, pull up Beowulf. Let's watch some of that because I want to remember what it looks like.

• 3:10:04Speaker 02

  It looks probably like a video game pre-cut scene at this point.

• 3:10:07Joe Rogan?

  That's what's crazy, right?

• 3:10:08Speaker 02

  I could make, I've thought about taking Beowulf, importing it into my system and then just painting over it.

• 3:10:15Joe Rogan?

  Let's fucking go, Roger.

• 3:10:16Speaker 02

  Which.

• 3:10:17Joe Rogan?

  Let's fucking go.

• 3:10:18Speaker 02

  Which, by the way, you can do easily.

• 3:10:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:21Speaker 02

  Easily. I thought about fixing.

• 3:10:22Joe Rogan?

  Let me see what this looks like with the Beowulf. Oh, geez.

• 3:10:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it looks like a, like a video game cutscene at this point.

• 3:10:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but it was kind of cool because everybody looked like that, not just the monster. That's, that was kind of cool about it.

• 3:10:35Speaker 02

  I mean, the difference is, is that this was actual, like, performances. And so we could, we could take, you know, Ray Winstone and have him, Ray Winstone doesn't look like that. He looks a little heftier and, uh.

• 3:10:55Joe Rogan?

  Cuts his own fucking arm off.

• 3:10:57Speaker 02

  Cuts my arm off. Cut my own arm off. It's funny because my, our original script was much more modest than this, but then Zemecus was like, okay, boys. It costs a million dollars a minute. Do whatever you want.

• 3:11:10Joe Rogan?

  He stabs a dragon in the heart.

• 3:11:12Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 3:11:15Speaker 02

  This movie is kind of a, um, I mean, it's a little. It's, it's an interesting experience what happened to me on this film, if you don't mind.

• 3:11:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 3:11:24Speaker 02

  So I, um.

• 3:11:27Speaker 02

  So I was going to make this movie myself. Um, I had, I had set it up initially at, at Image Movers, uh, with Zemecus producing. And then it fell out and the rights kind of reverted back to me. I had to cover the turnaround on it, but the rights reverted back to me and I was going to go make the movie myself. For nothing and I was trying to set it up and it was really, I was broke at the time and, uh, I was not going to make money and I had to cover the turnaround. Expenses myself on the, on the film, which were considerable, but I wanted to make the movie really bad. And I was working on Silent Hill, this other movie I wrote, and, um, I suddenly started getting calls and it was like.

• 3:12:06Speaker 02

  The producer of, uh, Polar Express, this guy Steve Bing, wanted, wanted to buy the script. He's like, I want to buy it for Zemecus. And I said, ah, too little, too late. I'm making it now. And I kept saying no and every and I was working on this film in Canada and I'm just trying to finish it and every hour I'm getting a call from agents at CA and they're like

• 3:12:27Speaker 03

  Jack Raptier, right?

• 3:12:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, actually, yeah, it was Jack. How did you know it was Jack? Did I tell you that?

• 3:12:33Speaker 03

  Well, no, because he was, he was Zemeckis's agent and became Zemeckis's

• 3:12:36Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 3:12:37Speaker 03

  producing partner.

• 3:12:37Speaker 02

  And so I was getting

• 3:12:40Speaker 03

  And he's the guy who gets shit done.

• 3:12:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, he is the guy who gets shit done. Well, I was like, you know, no, no, no, and, you know, no, I won't. I'm doing it myself. No, no. And Steve Bing, and I said, if another agent calls me, I'm firing the agency. And they're like, will you, will you at least meet with the producer? And so I went ahead and I meet with him and he says, listen, if I don't make this film with Zemeckis, with Bob, I'm gonna miss the moment. I'm gonna lose the movie. It's, it's gonna be over. Just, what's your price? Just tell me, what's your price? And I said, I don't have a price. I don't work like that. He said, listen, everybody's got a price. I said, well, I may have one, but I'm not gonna tell you. And he's like, look, why don't you just tell me, just discourage me. So I said, okay, you want me to discourage you? And so I started like making shit up. I

• 3:13:26Speaker 02

  need this. I want that. I want this. I want this. I tried to come up with how much money had anybody ever made on a script and let's add some money to that. I went over the top. He's, well, Roger, that is, and I had grown a beard to make the movie and like grew my hair long like a Viking to learn about, you know, why Vikings had beards. All that kind of stuff. I'm making the movie. I'm a Viking. He said, well, Roger, that is really discouraging, but we have a deal.

• 3:13:54Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 3:13:55Speaker 02

  And I was like, and I was like, well, okay. And I started driving home and I started like, I'd never done anything, I'd never done something for money before. I'd always done it because I, for passion, and then the money came. And this was the first time in my life that I'd ever made a choice based on money. This Titanic amount of money and I was understandably broke.

• 3:14:20Speaker 02

  And I went home and I cried. And then the check came and nothing dries tears like money. And then Zemek has invited me into the process, which was really great of him. He really wanted me and Neil to be at his side and collaborate with him. And it was a fabulous experience, but to be honest, I was like, who am I now? What does it all mean? I just gave away something I'd wanted to do my entire life. I've always been chasing this John Borman film Excalibur. I think it's one of the most beautiful movies ever made about the Arthurian legends. And if you watch Beowulf and Excalibur, they're very similar, actually, thematically. And so I was like, who am I now? What does it all mean? You know, I don't even care. I don't even know if I want to make a movie anymore.

• 3:15:03Speaker 02

  You know, like, what do I have to tell now, now that I've just completely sold out?

• 3:15:09Speaker 02

  And then I was at a dinner and a big dinner and I was driving home that night. And I was giving somebody who was at the dinner a lift. My wife was in the backseat of the car and we were, I told my daughter I was going to be home by midnight. We lived in Ojai and it was dark. And I, so I was speeding. I have a lead foot. And I was speeding to get there. Without getting into the details of what happened, I lost control of the car. There was another vehicle, but they led the scene.

• 3:15:53Speaker 02

  I lost control of the vehicle. I think my tire blew, but I was going into a ditch and I knew I was going into this deep ditch because it was right near my house, full of rocks and stuff. And I knew if I go in there, we'll die. And so I turned into the thing and then I turned away from it to try to, the car spun out and I ended up on the other side of the street where I knew there was like a cow pasture. And I was like, well, what's the worst thing that could happen there? Well, it was pretty bad. There was a telephone pole and I hit the telephone pole. My passenger.

• 3:16:29Speaker 02

  Took the impact and my wife was thrown from the car. When I came to, all I could hear was the horn, you know, my hearing is going to have glass in my mouth and I'm injured as well. I climb out of the car and it's dark. It's really dark. But somebody's already arrived, the ex-DA from Ventura County who did all the drunk driving laws and put those on the books. And he was the first person on the scene. I was right near the fire department. They showed up shortly afterwards. But when I jumped out of the car, I came running around to see what happened and I saw my wife on the asphalt. She'd been thrown from the vehicle.

• 3:17:09Speaker 02

  And I threw myself onto, you know, onto my knees on the pavement and I found myself in that moment asking for the one thing that mattered, which was just life. She looked dead and she, and I just, in that moment, I dug down, I begged her to come back to life and I just, I said, "I will give anything for life, just in any form, I'll take it." And in that moment, she came back to life. It was like, the life came back into her. Okay, it was a completely fucked up scene.

• 3:17:54Speaker 02

  My other passenger is dying in the car or dead and my, the police are suddenly there and next thing I know, I'm in jail. And, and suddenly, you know, like, suddenly I found myself in jail. I found myself guilty of manslaughter and, and something that is absolutely irreversible happening, which is, you know, someone lost their life at my hand. And so after that, I, you know, I ended up, I found myself in jail and doing time and suddenly everything that had come was gone.

• 3:18:38Speaker 02

  Like, everything that I had made, gone. It all went, you know, out. All that money you made? All that, to the settlement. It, I didn't even have time to spend it. Didn't even have time to register that it was there and it was gone. Cause it doesn't, it was like it was not real. And...

• 3:18:57Speaker 02

  And then you find yourself in jail and uh and and suddenly everything is gone. Career is gone. Everybody stops calling. It's over. Two number, two hit films, doesn't matter. It's all over. In fact, it was right in the middle of the publicity on Beowulf. It was just toward the end of it. And um it was, it's the most horrible thing that that has ever happened to me. And I um and I found

• 3:19:31Speaker 02

  myself then alone in jail, incarcerated, um, alone with my remorse and regret and and really getting existential about things. Really like um coming to appreciate, you know, simple existence is the best thing there is. It's, people don't appreciate what we have. You don't appreciate it until it's gone. And it is, can go like, first of all, we live in bodies of glass. My wife was horribly injured and uh, you know, and it has been

• 3:20:16Speaker 02

  a decade to, you know, to not just rebuild our lives, but to, you know, for her to come back to health even. Um, what it did though, you know, as, as, because I would do anything to, to reverse that, to reverse what happened. I would give anything to do it. And I don't say this lightly, but having said that, I'm kind of grateful as well. Because I was

• 3:20:54Speaker 02

  Like asleep, walking through life. And it wasn't until that happened that I completely, like, it changed how I see everything. It was like my third eye opened up. I don't view anything the same way. I, you know, once you've been incarcerated and you've been deprived of, of everything and you have a lot of time to think and be existential, you come out of that, at least I came out of that experience, and, you know, I, I looked at a tree and I was like, okay, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. I hope I never not feel this way.

• 3:21:36Speaker 02

  This, um, this appreciation for a cloud. You know, uh, to be able, like, when you're imprisoned, to be able to pet a cat, for example, it's so simple, it's such a nothing thing, you think. Okay, to be able to pet an animal is like a gift. The simplest things are gifts. When I was in jail, it was also a little bit like a comedy. You know, you have people walking in circles and, you know, everybody's trying to control the outside and so you start really seeing human behavior up front. I mean, when I was in jail, uh, you know, I, there, literally, during the Academy Awards,

• 3:22:18Speaker 02

  it's on the TV in the tank, and I'm watching him win, like, for Django.

• 3:22:24Speaker 03

  Winning the Oscar for Django.

• 3:22:26Speaker 02

  So while Quentin is like at the height of things, I'm pretty much at the bottom.

• 3:22:31Speaker 03

  Watching through bars.

• 3:22:32Speaker 02

  And not only that, but Greg Shapiro, who produced The Rules of Attraction for me, my producer, who came and visited me with Robert, Robin Wright in the days that followed, he won for Zero Dark Thirty.

• 3:22:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:22:45Speaker 02

  And so I'm like there, like, like...

• 3:22:51Speaker 02

  To be taken from one point where you feel like you're at the top. And you're like, "Oh, you think you're, uh, you think you understand things." No, I'm gonna take you and put you at the bottom. But let me tell you something. In that moment, I was sitting on the asphalt and my wife came back to life. I immediately knew what I had to say as a filmmaker after that. It was like, whatever had, whatever cynicism I had had, you know, uh, about the movie and not making it, it just went away.

• 3:23:24Speaker 03

  Evaporated, yeah.

• 3:23:25Speaker 02

  It evaporated. It evaporated. Um, and the ecstatic experiences, and they were ecstatic, that I had in jail, were like, I mean, you see things kind of for real. When you see somebody, you know, get hanged by their cellie, uh, in a cell. Um, or when you see, when you know that, you know, uh, "Oh, that El Salvadorian MS-13 hitman guy, he's gonna kill that, that gay dude." He's gonna kill him in the yard. "I'll go lock myself in my cell." Literally, "I'll go lock myself in."

• 3:24:09Speaker 02

  "You go shut the door, because you know shit is gonna go down."

• 3:24:12Speaker 03

  Jesus.

• 3:24:12Speaker 02

  And so, like, like, that was like every day. And so suddenly, it was like, you know, and also, you really know who stands with you after something horrible happens. And, you know, and like John Langley, uh, our customer from Video Archives, ended up being like, like, when I, like I said, when I was in jail, he loaned me money and he, uh, gave me my first job when I got out. That was our customer who did that. And so, um, like, I value our customers.

• 3:24:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:24:48Speaker 02

  And, uh, and, and, and especially John and his family. And Maggie, who I, like, it really is, like, I talk about John a lot, but really Maggie. She was really my big champion, I think. And so, um, anyhow, I, uh, um, you know,

• 3:25:08Speaker 02

  What it taught me, actually, because I was a filmmaker and I was up my own ass most of the time, but what it kind of taught me was, you know, be compassionate to other people because you might not know it, but they might be going through shit in their lives, you know, and God forbid it be something health-related, which is almost out of your control, but, you know, people are suffering and people are struggling and I used to be a lot more cavalier about people and kind of fuck with people and, uh, um, and be forceful with people and not really care as much. Now I'm acutely aware of, um, of people and, you know, what they may be going through.

• 3:25:50Joe Rogan?

  I think this is the best way to wrap this up. Perfect. Gentlemen, thank you very much. This is a awesome conversation. Really, really appreciate it.

• 3:26:00Speaker 03

  This has been really great. Thank you for letting us come down.

• 3:26:01Joe Rogan?

  Three and a half hours just flew by.

• 3:26:02Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 3:26:03Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. I, I, I, I actually thought, oh, I guess he's wrapping it up quick.

• 3:26:07Joe Rogan?

  No, I think it's three hours.

• 3:26:10Speaker 03

  I thought it was like 90 minutes.

• 3:26:12Joe Rogan?

  Three hours and 15 minutes at least.

• 3:26:13Speaker 03

  I thought it was like 90 minutes.

• 3:26:14Joe Rogan?

  No, there it is. The Video Archives Podcast, um, on Patreon.

• 3:26:19Speaker 02

  Patreon.com.

• 3:26:20Joe Rogan?

  Patreon.com.

• 3:26:21Speaker 02

  Patreon.com slash Video Archives. If you just look up VideoArchivesPodcast.com, it'll bring you there.

• 3:26:26Joe Rogan?

  Beautiful. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

• 3:26:28Speaker 03

  Thank you. Thank you.