74: Hard Times, Violence, Death, Darkness, The Cro-Mags, & Redemption. Hardcore Life w/ Harley Flanagan.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:12:06 - Crazy from the start. 0:17:39 - Introduction to Music. 0:30:17 - New York Life. 0:40:54 - The Hard Core Scene. 0:48:09 - Skin Heads and Drugs. 0:57:51 - More trouble in New York. 1:12:16 - The Cro-Mags. 1:34:23 - Sinking deep into Darkness. 1:45:43 - Bouncing back. Jiu Jitsu, etc. 1:55:36 - The Break Up. 2:06:11 - Focusing on Family. 2:16:45 - Another Violent Incident. 2:24:51 - Finding the Good. 2:36:44 - Losing Mother. 2:42:45 - Final Thoughts. 2:49:11 - Support, Cool Onnit http://www.onnit.com/jocko, Amazon https://www.amazon.com/?&tag=jocko20-20&camp=216797&creative=498533&linkCode=ur1&adid=1DKYGWXQBV0KNEZ3MZZX&, JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, with Jocko White Tea http://www.jockotea.com and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychological-warfare/id1183222322. Extreme Ownership (book) http://amzn.to/2jonHTx, (Jocko's Kids' Book) Way of the Warrior Kid http://amzn.to/2n9k6I9, and The Muster 003 http://www.extremeownership.com. 3:23:45 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 74 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  Now, I always dug music and I'm pretty sure it started when my dad would play Hank Williams Senior on the 8-track in his, I think it was a 1971 Barracuda. And he played that tape just over and over again and I still know those songs by heart. And then, you know, I got, that was when I was a little kid and then I got a little bit older and like a lot of kids, all of a sudden I was listening to the Beatles. Sure. Elvis.

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  Thought they were great. I still think that song While My Guitar Gently Weeps is a good song. But that wore out kinda quickly and it was, something wasn't there in that music. Something just wasn't quite there. The music didn't sound how I felt.

• 1:16Jocko Willink?

  And then in 1980, AC/DC Back in Black came out and it was popular, right? It was popular and so it went into my ears at some point and I said dang, alright, better, closer, warmer, we're getting there. And then I watched around in the hard rock for a while, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and I can't help throwing on a little Jack Black when I say that, if you watch that tribute that he did to them.

• 1:52Jocko Willink?

  And that, you know, some of the kids that I hung around with in New England, they rode that train down to hippity-dum. You know, we're talking Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Janis Joplin, and the Grateful Dead, and all that. I couldn't relate. Wasn't there. Didn't get there. Didn't seem to reflect the world that I was beginning to see myself. I got on the other train. Right? And we're talking about Van Halen. Yes, this is the 1980s. You know, if you were a kid in America, age 13, we got issued the album 1984 by Van Halen.

• 2:35Jocko Willink?

  That was just a given. You were gonna get that. Got issued Diver Down. Boom, you need to listen to this. This is rock and roll, people. This is Eddie Van Halen. Listen to that guitar solo. Eruption. Listen again. Do it again. Iron Maiden, right? Actual song called Trooper. You know you gotta listen to that when you're a kid. And so now I'm heading in the right direction. I'm feeling it, starting to reflect what things are like in my head. And then there was that day where I got an album called Black Sabbath by a band called Black Sabbath.

• 3:15Jocko Willink?

  And the first song is also called Black Sabbath. And I put that on. And boom. I had found something that sounded like I was thinking. And from there, I was definitely on the right train. Then it was Motorhead. And soon after, The Ramones. Boom. And then that leads to The Sex Pistols. Cause you're just going harder. That's what you do. That's what I was doing. Like, what's a little bit harder than that? What's a little bit harder than that? Sex Pistols, Bodies.

• 3:54Jocko Willink?

  No feelings. They're singing songs. No feelings. Okay. I hear what you're saying. Louder, more anger. And then finally, we get to Black Flag. My War, Side Two. Still one of my all-time favorites. Minor Threat. Get ahold of a little band. Another little band from DC called The Bad Brains. Some Detroit hardcore negative approach.

• 4:22Jocko Willink?

  And then, so I was, you know, I was kinda in the game, right? I was there. And so eighty-seven rolls around. And one of my friends, who is actually more of a metalhead at this time.

• 4:36Jocko Willink?

  He gives me a cassette tape, because this was dark in the day when you were just gonna have to listen to cassette tapes, and they were usually dubbed forty-seven times from somebody else. But I, this was the real tape, man. This was the real deal. This was an actual original with the full cover on it and everything. And the cover of this tape was just a giant mushroom cloud of death and destruction. And above the mushroom cloud, in large, old English script blazing across the top, it said, "Cromags."

• 5:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay? And then underneath the mushroom cloud, in a little bit smaller script and old English, it said, "The Age of Quarrel." Okay?

• 5:23Jocko Willink?

  So I put it in my tape deck. And I press play. And the first track,

• 5:31Jocko Willink?

  it hit me like a train.

• 5:35Jocko Willink?

  And it's, the first track was called "We Gotta Know." And let me just tell you the lyrics.

• 5:42Jocko Willink?

  "Struggling in the streets, just trying to survive. Searching for the truth just to keep us alive. Gotta break these shackles, gotta break these chains. The only way we'll do it is if we use our brains. There's gotta be some meaning to the purpose of life. I know there must be more than the struggle and strife. Looking for the answers and I need a clue, but my mind is so disturbed now, what do I do?"

• 6:05Jocko Willink?

  Now, I can tell you, I was not struggling in the streets. But like most teenage kids, I did feel some shackles, right? You feel the shackles of things.

• 6:19Jocko Willink?

  And I was looking for answers and I needed a clue. And so, I was like, mm, yeah. We're on to something. The next title track had me a little worried, a little concerned. Cause you know, like I said, there was a lot of kids were taking the hippie route. And so I was not into that. The next song title had me a little concerned. It was, the song was called "World Peace." And so I was kind of, oh, oh, uh-oh, red flag. And then I listened to the lyrics. Lyrics. "All you hippies better state, start to face reality. Are you, all your far-fetched dreams of anarchy? Better start to see things the way they are. Cause the way things are going, they won't be going far. World peace can't be done.

• 7:04Jocko Willink?

  It just can't exist. World peace can't be done. Anarchy is a mess." Okay.

• 7:13Jocko Willink?

  And the rest of the album kept up that assault on my brain, on my attitude. And that was it. I had found something called hardcore music. And it, I never really left it. And I listened to the Cro-Mags and a ton of other hardcore bands from that time until now. And that's pretty much essentially the soundtrack of much of my life. And it had a pretty big influence on me. And it was an attitude that I kept throughout my life. And it was my own interpretation. I can tell you that right now. It was my own kind of, you know, you listen to the lyrics and you kind of apply what it means in your world. That's what I did.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  Which to me was pretty simple. Because to me hardcore meant hardcore. That's what it meant. It's pretty simple. Hardcore in everything you do. Work hard, be aggressive, don't back down, fight for what you believe in, hold the line. And that's kind of what I did in my life.

• 8:17Jocko Willink?

  And I don't know, like a year ago or something.

• 8:21Jocko Willink?

  Somebody asked me something about, you know, on, on, on the interwebs. Someone said, oh, yeah, what, what, what band should I listen to? You know, I said, oh, blah, blah, blah, Chromax. You know, check them out, whatever. And you might want to do that. And eventually, you know, it's the, the internet is an incredible thing. And eventually I, I, uh, uh, the founding member of the Chromax, guy by the name of Harley Flanagan. He like reached out and said, hey, what's up, man?

• 8:55Jocko Willink?

  How you doing? And I had heard over the years, you know, that Harley was a jujitsu, jujitsu guy, black belch in jujitsu. And so, you know, he just kind of hit me up and

• 9:08Jocko Willink?

  eventually, you know, we were talking and, and he said, hey, I got a book coming out. Send it to you. And I said, cool. Yeah. And he said, man, the book's crazy. And I was kind of like, yeah, you know, yeah, I know, man. Cause you know, I was around that stuff. It's cool. I get it. It's kind of crazy. And he's like, no, no, no, man. It's, it's crazy. And I said, okay, cool. So he sent it to me.

• 9:29Jocko Willink?

  And then I read the book and

• 9:33Jocko Willink?

  damn, I, I had, I had no idea. Actually I had a semblance of an idea, you know, cause in, in the hardcore scene, people know each other. I mean, like you know, you know, you, after a show, you talk to everyone and it's the band members. It's people, everyone kind of knows each other. So I had heard stories. But the book, when the reality behind the stories was, was way more intense and crazier than I could have, uh, thought it was. And there was one point when I was reading the book, I'm going to read a little excerpt right now.

• 10:09Jocko Willink?

  And it said this.

• 10:13Jocko Willink?

  This is Harley. When I started working on this book, I was staying in a hotel in the red light district in Amsterdam.

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  The working title was the longest suicide note ever written. I was trying to document the madness from as far back as I could remember until the end.

• 10:36Jocko Willink?

  The story of my life as an insane suicidal joyride of rock and roll depravity and demise until the final crash and burn.

• 10:49Jocko Willink?

  It was gonna be a book that all the great fuckups never got to write because they died first. So I began working on it. I figured the end would have come sooner than later.

• 11:03Jocko Willink?

  But I was wrong.

• 11:06Jocko Willink?

  And once I got done reading the book, I I reached out to Harley and I said, hey, man, there's a lot in this book that's crazy. And the fact that you lived through it and the fact that you got through it and the fact that you got to the position that you're in now with your life. I think a lot of people can learn from it. And it'd be awesome if you come on the podcast. And Harley said, let's do it. So Harley Flanagan. Welcome to the show, man.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  It's great to be here. Thank you for having me on.

• 11:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's awesome. And I saw you several times when I was a kid and we were trying to figure out names of clubs where I saw you, but that was pretty cool. And it's pretty cool to be sitting here. I guess we're talking about 30 years later, you know, because I was seeing you when I was in my teens, 14, 13, 15, around there. And here we are.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Pretty amazing trip we've had since then, huh?

• 12:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And usually I, when I ask people, hey, you know, talk about where you come from quickly and kind of where you grew up and we don't spend a lot of time there because most people didn't really do anything significant that had any long-term impact on their lives when they're like eight, nine, 10 years old, right? But for you, I mean, when you were eight, nine, 10 years old, shit was already crazy.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Shit was pretty much crazy from the start.

• 12:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just kind of pull a little something here out of the book. Just to give a little bit of background, this is from Harley's book Hardcore Life of My Own. I was born at San Francisco General Hospital on March 8th, 1967, at the start of the summer of love. My mom's name is Rose Marie Felu.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Felu.

• 13:01Jocko Willink?

  Felu. And my dad's name was Harley Wayne Walker Flanagan. My mom was a hippie, my dad was a drifter, and somehow their paths crossed. Before the hippie days, my mom was into all the early rock and roll stuff, Motown, and pretty much all the music that was happening when she was young. Her father, Juan Felu.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yes, Juan Felu.

• 13:25Jocko Willink?

  Juan Felu came from the DR, the Dominican Republic, came to America through Ellis Island by himself when he was in his early teens and was the first, was one of the first Dominicans to join the United States Army. Served in World War II where he played in the military band. That's how he got his citizenship by serving in the military. He was one of the funniest people I ever knew. He worked all kinds of different jobs, everything from building, a building super to a longshoreman. He was a charming guy with a thick Spanish accent.

• 13:56Jocko Willink?

  So that's the beginnings. Do you speak any Spanish? Uh, curse a little bit.

• 14:04Jocko Willink?

  So you got that going for you. Yeah. Now you continue on. My mom was a go-go dancer. And like so many people, she was caught up in the whole drug culture of the sixties. And when I was a kid, she was still a stripper. I remember going to work with her a few times when I was little. That was weird. Looking back on it now. There was even a short period of time when she was a dominatrix, but that was later. My dad left home for good around the same age as me, maybe fourteen or fifteen, and started riding freight trains. He liked to live from moment to moment, and from everything I've heard, he had a serious drug and alcohol issues most of his life.

• 14:48Jocko Willink?

  He was always in and out of prison. It's hard to accept that your dad chose heroin and alcohol over you. It really does kind of hurt even now.

• 15:01Jocko Willink?

  I guess that might be one of the reasons why I turned out the way I did.

• 15:06Jocko Willink?

  My mom and me did a lot of hitchhiking and stayed with a lot of different people. A lot of crazy shit happened on those trips. At one point, a friend of hers was going to Europe and asked, "Do you want to come?" And my mom was like, "I'm getting the fuck out of here." She did, and I went with her. I was probably around three or four. That was that. I never saw my father again. I stayed in Europe pretty much until I was about ten, but I'd come back to the States every year or so. We settled down in Denmark nineteen seventy-one.

• 15:43Jocko Willink?

  Denmark and Danish culture are very wholesome. It's a great place to grow up, but of course, there's an underside too. In the sixties, and in my case, the late sixties and seventies, it was cool in certain aspects and wasn't so cool in others. You had all these people fucked up on drugs and all the free love. Everybody's fucking everybody. And it's not really the best environment for a kid to grow up in. And as cool as some of the things and a lot of the people were, a lot of them were, at least some of them, were just fucking lost. And yeah, all the kids were wild. What do you expect? I mean, we were just imitating the grownups.

• 16:25Jocko Willink?

  So as a result, I was getting laid and doing all kinds of other crazy shit before I'd even reached puberty. You basically had a lot of little kids just going off. You got all these hippie kids with their hippie parents, seeing all kinds of craziness, adults running around naked, people doing drugs, being insane. That shit rubs off on kids. Damn.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:49Jocko Willink?

  Did you completely think that was normal at the time? Was that just the way the world was?

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Well, that's the way my world was.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  I didn't realize really that we were so different from the rest of society until

• 17:08Speaker 01

  my parents tried to put me into a regular school. And of course, I started getting fucked with a lot by the kids because I had long hair and, you know, I didn't. I didn't really fit in and my parents looked like freaks and now is when it really hit me and it was also, I went from being at that hippie school to being in a very strict school in Denmark, which was like real old school and very rigid. So it was total.

• 17:33Jocko Willink?

  Culture shock for you.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  What the fuck, you know, and so I started cutting school a lot and going back to the free school to visit all my friends there and just hang out.

• 17:42Jocko Willink?

  And that free school, that's, that's where you started mu- is that, that's where you started playing music?

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Much, you know, I mean, I was always into music, but that was really the first place that facilitated it, you know, like they, that was one of the cool things about that school was they really

• 17:59Speaker 01

  pushed the arts, you know, they, they, whatever the kids' interests were, they would give you the ability to pursue that. Unfortunately, they were also very lax. So if like you didn't have the interest in pursuing math or whatever, they'd be like, oh, well, you know, he's just not interested in it, you know, he wants to be a musician and and it's like, you know, as me, as we all know, as parents, it's like, no, fuck that. You need to, you need to know how to do your math. You need to know your shit. You need to, you know how to use your brain. You know, it's not just about, you know, gratifying your artistic and creative interests because that's not going to always pay your fucking bills.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  So, no, but it was, it was cool. It was, it was cool in certain ways, like I said, you know, they. My math teacher, he was actually from the States. He was from the Bronx. And he was a jazz drummer and played stand-up bass and he really was a big inspiration on me musically.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  So, you know, he gave me some tools, you know, that came in handy later in life.

• 19:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure. So, you were listening to, actually you got your first gig then? Like, like you were playing little Santana covers and Cool in the Gang covers when you were six or seven in your school band?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, my school band was cool.

• 19:19Jocko Willink?

  Well, they were legit.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, they were fucking legit. I mean, we were like, you know, funky stuff, you know, I mean, we were playing the, like I said, my math teacher, he was one of the bandleaders. So, you know, you got a guy from the Bronx who's a jazz dude. He's gonna be teaching all these little Danish kids musically what's really going on.

• 19:36Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Because in Denmark at the time, things that, you know, ABBA was what was big, you know, so, you know, I mean, so it was like, what the fuck? You know, so, yeah, my school was cool as far as music and counterculture and all that shit. But then, you know, then, well, as, as you may have seen in the book, really, then when my mother of all people turned me on to the Sex Pistols, that's what really, that changed everything for me, you know? Thanks, mom.

• 20:07Jocko Willink?

  That was, that was an eye-opener when we heard the Sex Pistols album.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. It changed everything for me.

• 20:13Jocko Willink?

  And, and at that time, like you got one section here where you said, I remember coming offstage, you were playing with the band that, I think the school band at this point, I remember coming offstage one night and these girls there that I was hanging out with. They were like, you know that lady you came with, which was your mom? She's in the bathroom, she's not feeling too good. I went in the bathroom and my mom was throwing up all over the place. That kind of shit was a kind of come down.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:37Jocko Willink?

  Back to reality. You have to walk your mom home.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it's fucked up, you know, little things like that, they stay with you forever. But, you know, to, to her,

• 20:51Speaker 01

  she, she did sober up eventually and, you know, she's, she sobered up for about in the eighties till the day she died, she was clean and, you know?

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, people fall victim to drugs, to alcohol, and uh, sometimes it's hard to pull yourself out, you know? But eventually she did, you know, unfortunately, I had to witness a lot of real, um, ridiculous shit, but um,

• 21:19Speaker 01

  you know, I don't think there's such a thing as a perfect parent, you know?

• 21:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, no doubt about that.

• 21:28Jocko Willink?

  And your mom, she did, like you said, she gets you the Sex Pistols albums, and like you said in here, you said, well, that was that.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:37Jocko Willink?

  And, and it's almost, kind of, it's what I was saying, here we go, going to your book here. Until that point, I hung around with all these little hippie kids. I had long ass hair, so we were really already little freaks. We'd walk around the streets, people would give us looks and trip out on us. Our parents and teachers had long hair and beards and shit like that, but then punk rock came about. And this was more appropriate for me. It wasn't all peace and love, it was just more me. The music was raw, and the imagery and the craziness appealed to me. It was energetic, and a big factor for me was you didn't have to aspire to be Jimi Hendrix, you didn't have to be Carlos Santana. So you, you would listen to that music, and you'd say, you know what, I can just play it.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  I can do this.

• 22:22Jocko Willink?

  You can play that now?

• 22:24Speaker 01

  I can have fun and do this shit. Like, this is, you know, you don't need to rack your brain to figure out how to do this, you could just do it.

• 22:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  You know?

• 22:33Jocko Willink?

  Get your power chords on.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, you know, it's like, you just need sincerity, man. That's all you need, man. That's all you fucking need.

• 22:40Jocko Willink?

  You know what's funny is I, I always tell people this about music. If you go to a guitar store, anywhere in America, and you put up a little flyer in there that says, you know, "I need someone that can play every note on the following three albums," you know, and you pick complex, you pick Rush, and Heart, and there, and two, there'll be, there'll be, you'll get ten people that'll say, "Yeah, I can play all that stuff, I'll play, I'll play it for you right now."

• 23:05Jocko Willink?

  But there's...

• 23:07Jocko Willink?

  And all those guys, I mean, a lot of those guys, unless they have that thing, unless they have that sincerity that you're talking about and they have that little spark of creativity. It doesn't matter how technically you are, if you don't have that heart.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  You could be technically amazing and have not one ounce of inspiration in your fucking body, you know, and uh. I mean, look, man, you know, the Ramones were, you know, some of the worst, greatest musicians ever, you know, those guys could barely fucking play and they wrote some, they wrote songs that are still anthems. You know, songs that you will still hear played at like major sports arenas or and whatever. I mean, you know. Yeah, you know, music's a fucking weird thing, man.

• 23:50Jocko Willink?

  It is, it is. And uh. You had your first band called Little Big Boss. Was that in reference to you, I'm assuming?

• 23:58Speaker 01

  You know, it must have been, because the other two guys in the band were adults and they named the band. So looking back, they probably named it after me because I was like, I guess already tyrant to play with.

• 24:12Jocko Willink?

  And you were playing drums at that point?

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:14Jocko Willink?

  Hammering on the drums. And then you guys moved back to uh, back to New York.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:21Jocko Willink?

  And you were going back and forth, back and forth to New York?

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, me and my mom, we lived in Europe, um, but we would come back every like year or year and a half or so to see uh my grandparents and. And my aunts and stuff. And so we always had that connection to New York. We always came back and I, you know, and I. I was here during all like the pivotal moments in history in New York, like, you know, I remember Son of Sam, which was huge if you were here, you know, I remember the blackouts. Which were also huge if you were here. I remember the garbage strike, which was also insane because you had like, you know. Twenty foot mountains of garbage every fucking where. I mean, the city stank. I mean.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  You know, like I remember all the madness of New York. I mean, I moved back here for good in seventy nine, like. I guess January or February of seventy nine. It was like the weeks had died. Actually, the Stimulators were supposed to play Max's the. One weekend that he was playing and he died before the show. But um, yeah, you know. It was a much different place back then, you know, you guys know, you know, but um, you know, a lot of people who have only been here over the last twenty years, they they have no clue.

• 25:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it is a different place and and I mean, you know, in in the book, you got crazy pictures like you and Andy Warhol.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:44Jocko Willink?

  Because you were just your your it was your aunt Denise that was running with them?

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Well, no, actually, he that.

• 25:50Jocko Willink?

  Or is that just a random?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  My mom actually knew him. She had been in one of his movies when she was young, when she was like fifteen or something. And um, that picture was just taken at uh at the Clash show, like I used to run into people like him at different clubs and stuff. This was backstage at a Clash gig, the first time they played in New York.

• 26:09Jocko Willink?

  You look like you're about ten?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  I was uh, I was actually twelve in that picture.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, I was at all the clubs all the time, you know, I mean, it was actually.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  It was uh, you know, kind of weird, you know, thinking back on it, because like, I mean, when I when I um. I did a thing with Anthony Bourdain a while back and he was like, you know, he he's like, I remember standing in front of clubs like Max's and trying to get in and, you know. Here come this like twelve year old kid who just like walked through the fucking door, like the bouncers would just like let him in, like, you know, like he belonged in there. And I'm like, who the fuck and why the fuck is this child here? Like, who let him in and who the fuck is he and why are they serving him? Like, he's the fucking mayor, you know?

• 26:54Speaker 01

  You know, thinking back, it is, yeah, it's fucking a little strange, you know, I mean, I was I was the youngest kid that you around on the club scene back then and then, you know.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  As time went on, you know, my band, The Stimulators, really uh had a lot to do with it, the the crowds at the show started getting younger and younger. Uh because like, you know, we started pulling a very young following, you know, go figure, twelve year old in the band. And um, people like the Beastie Boys, they started coming to see it before they were the Beastie Boys, they were like, they were just fans of ours, friends of mine. They were like some of my best friends growing up and.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  And then a lot of other people who went on to start a lot of the first wave of New York hardcore bands were fans of the Stimulators. Kids who were all like, you know, in their early teens when they used to see us play. And then they went on to start a lot of the bands that, um, you know, set off that next wave.

• 27:55Jocko Willink?

  How long, how long did you play with the Stimulators for?

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Uh, I had only played with them from like seventy-nine to like eighty, maybe the beginning of eighty-one, and then I was done with it because at that point I had already, you know, the Bad Brains had come to New York and I was already, and I was, eh, a- all that first hardcore that came out from, you know, Black Flag to Circle Jerks, Minor Threat, and of course bands like Discharge from oversea- from England, you know, and all that shit was starting to really, um, take over my, my, uh, my soul. And, uh, so I was like, you know what, I can't play with the fucking Stimulators anymore. This shit is too poppy, it's too like, it's happy, it's just not, it's not where I am.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  And at that point I had already, you know, the life I was living on the streets and the life that, uh, the other band members were living was not really the same. I was just hitting my teens and as we all know, that's when the problems begin. You know, that's when you start getting in trouble, so. Yeah. And the music that I started writing really reflected the, um, the feelings that I, that I was having and, uh, you know, the, cause of the, not just the environment, but just, you know, everything leading up to that point had, had created this person.

• 29:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  And, uh, and it was a really violent neighborhood.

• 29:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  It was a really violent neighborhood and I, I ate a lot of shit for being white. And, um, which is ironic because, you know, I'm a quarter Dominican and I'm Cherokee and I'm Choctaw, but if you look at me especially, you know, in all Puerto Rican neighborhood, I'm a white boy. You know, so I really ate a lot of shit. I really, you know, until I started fighting and actually started getting more, I hate to say it, but started getting more violent. That started to earn me a little bit of respect and, uh... I guess the fear and the credibility kinda went hand in hand like when people, you know, people knew that they couldn't fuck with me, I started getting respect and I don't really

• 30:07Speaker 01

  think that's a really healthy for a young mind to associate popularity with violence and aggression, you know?

• 30:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I mean, New York at that time, and like you said, and I used to come down to New York sometimes when I was younger, and it was completely different, you know, in the, in the mid eighties, you were there earlier than that, but for me in the mid eighties, when you'd come down here, it was completely different. I mean, we're sitting here right now in Times Square. Times Square was-

• 30:39Speaker 01

  It was fucking nuts around here.

• 30:40Jocko Willink?

  It was nuts, man. There was like, you'd take two, every two steps, somebody'd be offering you drugs, you know?

• 30:45Speaker 01

  I used to come here when I'd cut school and just watch people get pickpocketed, watch the hookers turning tricks and the guys selling drugs and the people getting into trouble and-

• 30:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was madness.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  It was madness. It was a fucking free for all.

• 30:58Jocko Willink?

  It was crazy, really. And where you were living, you were living, there was-

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was way, way worse. It was way worse. I mean, I was talking to Ice T the other day, we were talking about, you know, some of our experiences and just in my area alone, I mean, there was about five or six gangs within a, you know, ten, fifteen block distance, you know, everything from the hitmen on my block who were fucking really out of control to the Hells Angels on Third Street who back then were like legitimately no fucking joke. I mean, you know, I mean, I could tell you some fucked up stories, but you know, you could tell me fucked up stories too, so where does that go? It goes into, you know?

• 31:45Jocko Willink?

  Uh, it's, it's, it's hard to, if people go to New York now, it's just completely different.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:52Jocko Willink?

  It really is, man. It really is completely different.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  It's impossible to really get it. I mean, the best thing you could do is look at like some old movies that kinda try to capture the-

• 32:00Jocko Willink?

  And you got some pictures in the book that show the neighborhoods-

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:04Jocko Willink?

  And there, you can tell, you can tell they look like a war zone.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't know, but they look as close to war-

• 32:10Jocko Willink?

  They look like a war zone. You can take it from me on that one. They look like a war zone.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  I mean, dude, I was living in a squat, we literally had no running water, no windows, no doors.

• 32:20Jocko Willink?

  So what's, how old were you when you like moved out?

• 32:21Speaker 01

  I left home when I was like fourteen, you know, because basically I was getting into so much trouble in school that they were about to basically take me from my mother and put me in like Spofford and I was like fuck this, you know, I had lost interest in school and and all that shit. It's actually funny, something I wanted to tell you, um, when I was fifteen, actually just right down there, there was a recruiting center, army, marines, navy, the whole bit. And when I was fifteen, I I tried to enlist in the marines, you know, cause like I at that point I was already, I was very, I guess I had a lot of pent up aggression, you know, and I was just like, oh, I just wanna fucking, you know, I probably

• 33:06Speaker 01

  shouldn't say this, it probably sounds bad for the military, but I just wanted to kill. I just wanted to fucking kill and I wanted to be able to, like, I just was so fucking, ah, you know, and it didn't help that my mother was a hippie. So, you know, just it's natural for a teenager to rebel against everything their parents believe in. I mean, I had like fucking recruiting, you know, catalogs and shit under my bed, whereas most kids probably had, you know, their Playboys and shit like my mom would find my military recruiting shit, be like, what is this? You know, instead of like holding up the fucking, you know, penthouse, like, she's like, I had raised my son to be no soldier, get out of fucking hippie fucking.

• 33:45Jocko Willink?

  There's a lot of guys in the military, so.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  You know, I'm like, fuck this.

• 33:51Jocko Willink?

  Through the years, you're a hundred percent right, cause through the years, there's so many guys in the military and you meet some guy and you're like, hey, how's it going? You, you know, you learn their last name at first, but then, you know, you get to know them a little bit and you're like, you know, oh, what's your first name? And they'll be like, oh, my first name is Rainbow. You know, my first name is, you know, Ocean. And then they go, yeah, my parents were hippies, you know, and and so many kids rebelled against their hippie parents. They're like, I'm going in the Marine Corps, I'm going in the army, I'm going, I'm going in the in the SEAL teams. That's very common. So you're a hundred percent right. It's a good, good way to rebel. And I even say this, you know, for me, you know, hardcore was a rebellion.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:28Jocko Willink?

  And and going in the military for me was a rebellion against the the norm, you know, was everyone's going to a, I'm gonna go be a hippie, smoke dope, uh, go to college, get a job. And I was like, no, I'm gonna go be a commando and just get after it.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Fuck, yeah, dude.

• 34:44Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  You know what? It's fucked up because it's like, had I. Followed those instincts, you know, I mean, you know, in some ways, my life would have been probably a million times better, you know, I would have had a lot more, you know, discipline, I would have had a lot more focus, I would have had more positive shit, you know, going on. I would have learned some skills and shit, but at the same time, I wouldn't have fucking written Age of Quarrel. I wouldn't have written Best Wishes, I wouldn't have influenced people like you to be, you know, to go above and beyond what the fuck I could ever fucking try to do, you know? So it's like, I feel like in, in my own way, I, I managed to do my service to, you know,

• 35:29Speaker 01

  humanity, if you will, you know, although it was a disservice in a lot of ways, because I did inspire a lot of people to do a lot of really fucking wrong shit, you know? But, but nonetheless, the inspiration, that it was real, it was genuine. I think that's why 30 years later, people still give a fuck about that record. And, and people are still out making money on that record and, you know, people still cover songs off that record, you know? And, and it's funny, because I was telling you earlier, I mean, that lineup that played on that record only lasted for one fucking record. You know, it's amazing how short a period of time. Yeah, yeah, you know, and it's like, and you know it was something special, because still now, 30 years later, people are still talking about it. And not many people can say that based on

• 36:14Speaker 01

  one fucking album.

• 36:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  You know, so.

• 36:18Jocko Willink?

  That's good shit.

• 36:24Jocko Willink?

  I gotta, I'm just gonna go, like, we were talking about your neighborhood. This is just kind of a sample of what you were living around and in. Back to the book, I remember one night lying there, hearing some chick down the street getting raped. And knowing there was really nothing to do. It was like a helpless feeling. You knew that if the cops got called, it wouldn't matter, because they probably wouldn't show up. And if they did, it would be too late, and they probably wouldn't find her. One night, my mother's then-boyfriend got the tip of his nose almost shot off by a zip gun. He has a scar to this day. Just because he was white, looked a little freaky, and was walking down our block.

• 37:05Jocko Willink?

  I remember coming home one night and my aunt and my aunt and Ann Gustafson, the stimulator's bassist, got jumped by six dudes with golf clubs and shit trying to pull her guitar out of her hands. You don't really think about a group of guys jumping two chicks and a kid, but that shit happened. They didn't give a fuck. You've got to figure a lot of these guys would hang out and huff glue and shit. And when you huff glue and you smoke a lot of dust, you get pretty grim and lean towards violence.

• 37:35Jocko Willink?

  So there's your surroundings, there's your environment.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's, I'll tell you, man, it's, it's, uh,

• 37:47Speaker 01

  it's almost harder to hear it being read back to me now, especially in your voice. But, uh, but it's like, you know, it's real and it brings back a serious emotional response in me, you know?

• 38:07Jocko Willink?

  You know, as I was reading that, I was just thinking to myself, because you and I, you know, in the scene, there was always guys that had dogs, right? Pit bulls. Everyone had pit bulls. And as I was reading that, you know, you and I both know, if you take a pit bull and you bring it up and you beat it and you torture it and you herd it, that dog's gonna be a mean, evil bastard. And if that dog's brother can get brought up and get fed and get taken care of and, you know, gets treated good and that dog's gonna grow up and be nice. And, you know, I'm just thinking, you take a person, a human being, and you put them in an environment where that's what they're living with and that's what they're seeing and that's what's around them, they're gonna tend towards that direction.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:50Jocko Willink?

  And it's gonna be hard to break out of that shit.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  It is, you know, and it's, you know, look around at the world, man. You know, look at all the, all the fucking ghettos everywhere. Look at all the, you know, all the, you know.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  A lot of people don't get outside of this country, you know.

• 39:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Live here, so people don't realize how well they have it.

• 39:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  You know? And even, you know, I used to laugh. I was talking to my friend, Melly Mel. And we were saying, I was saying, you know, I don't even understand what the fuck's up with all that like west coast gang banging shit. I mean, these guys, they, first of all, they don't even have to deal with winter.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  You know, second of all, they all got like yards and garages and fucking barbecues and shit.

• 39:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Like, we grew up in like apartments with fucking rats and roaches and, you know, concrete everywhere.

• 39:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  And, you know, what the fuck are you so pissed about that you need to go and shoot at each other and kill each other? You that fucking bored? Like, it's just, you know?

• 39:59Jocko Willink?

  It is an interesting dynamic here in New York City, the way it is.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really intense.

• 40:06Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  I mean, even now that it's like, you know, soft as fucking baby shit, it's still intense.

• 40:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  You know?

• 40:14Jocko Willink?

  Like, I, I, I just, I feel confined when I'm here, you know?

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:19Jocko Willink?

  Now, now that, now that I've grown up, when I come here and I live in Cali, I live in California.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:24Jocko Willink?

  And you're right, I got a yard.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:27Jocko Willink?

  And I got a barbecue.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  See that shit?

• 40:28Jocko Willink?

  And, and my neighbors have yards and, and.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  And they say, good morning.

• 40:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, what's going on? And, and it's, it's like you just, you have space, man. Space is a real thing and animals, you know, you can't put an animal in a little tiny cage, they get pissed off. And that's what we do with eight million people in New York, put them in little tiny cages, they start getting pissed off.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially when, you know, the good majority of them are broke as shit.

• 40:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  You know?

• 40:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:57Jocko Willink?

  But this whole time, as you're doing this, at the same time, you're still, you're listening to music, you're, you're going to shows all the time. And like you said, the bad brains show up, you know?

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was a changer, that was a game changer. They were as groundbreaking as, as far as for me, they, they, they rocked my world as much as like the Sex Pistols. Like that, they, it was like all of a sudden, it was a new chapter.

• 41:21Jocko Willink?

  I, uh.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  You know?

• 41:22Jocko Willink?

  The way you wrote, you wrote about the bad brains, so the bad brains, for those of you that don't know, is a band from DC and they were. Pivotal in changing music, really, a generation of music. And there's all kinds of bands that reference them, like big bands that reference the Bad Brains. But here's what you said about the Bad Brains.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  One thing, just for those who don't know. They were not only one of the innovators of what we call hardcore punk, but they were all black. And they were from DC. And it, you know, there was not many black kids on the scene. There always was black kids on the scene. There was always Puerto Ricans. It was always everybody, you know, we always, it was always mixed diversity on the scene. But they were like the best. They were the tightest. They were the best. They were the fucking, they were the shit, man. And a lot of times when people first heard their first 45, you know, just because of the, the style of the music. People didn't even know they were black and they'd go see them and they'd be like, oh shit, these guys are black.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Now that may not seem like a big deal now, but we're talking about fucking 19, you know, 80.

• 42:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  You know, and yeah, they were just the fucking, they were the shit, man. And then they got into Rastafarianism and that, you know, even further made it even more bizarre. A bunch of fucking Rastas from DC playing hardcore.

• 42:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  You know, what the fuck is that? And playing it better than everybody, like fucking smoking motherfuckers.

• 42:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  You know?

• 42:46Jocko Willink?

  You know, I think if you got to see the Bad Brains back in the day, you're lucky. And I mean, I, I remember seeing the Bad Brains and just being, you just, it's just sick.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it'd be like seeing James Brown back when he had Bootsy Collins on bass, like back in the old, like when he was like all over the. I always used to liken HR to like James Brown meets Johnny Rotten.

• 43:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  You know?

• 43:08Jocko Willink?

  Here, here's what you said, back to the book. You hear a lot of crazy stories about HR. HR is the, the singer from the Bad Brains throat in the Bad Brains.

• 43:19Jocko Willink?

  But as crazy as HR can act at times, back in the day, he was inspirational beyond belief. He and the Bad Brains had the entire New York hardcore scene talking like fucking Jamaicans for the longest time. Everybody was like fire burning, blood clotting. It was hysterical. Bands like The Mob were so heavily influenced by them that the bass player started growing dreads and wearing a rasta hat. A whole contingent of white rasta started popping up on the hardcore scene. They took things to another level. It was impossible not to be inspired by the Bad Brains. The only way to describe HR would be like James Brown meets Johnny Rotten meets Bob Marley.

• 43:57Jocko Willink?

  He was such a dynamic frontman. HR could do a standing backflip and land right at the end of the song, nail it right at the last beat. It was like, oh my God, did he just plan that? I remember one time at A7, which was a tiny club, within the first two minutes or so of their show, he had already knocked the sheet rock ceiling out and bent the mic stand in half. The amount of explosive energy that would come out of that motherfucker, you couldn't help but be blown away. Especially since we were all young and here was this guy that was in shape. He used to be a javelin thrower back in high school. He was always athletic. So you had a bunch of scrawny punk rock motherfuckers and then this dude's up there that was an athletic powerhouse going completely ape shit.

• 44:37Jocko Willink?

  And he could sing his ass off and he could hit notes. HR came out there with a purpose, like he was on a mission. Every show I saw of theirs back then was amazing. I remember I saw him up in Boston one time and he was like going, there was, I guess like fire pipes or whatever, sprinkler pipes? And he's leaping up and swinging on those things and jumping off in the crowd. It was nuts.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  He was a motherfucker, man. He spent half the show in the crowd. Like he was, yeah, you know, you can't, you can't. You just can't even, you know.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, they were something. Everybody has that moment, though, that that period where they really, you know. Well, not everybody, but everybody who's like intense, you know. You know, you think about your life, you can think of that one period where you were just on fucking point, you know, and they

• 45:35Jocko Willink?

  It started when I was like sixteen and it ended like last week.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Alright, well, it didn't last that quite that long for some of us, but. But yeah, there was a period when they were just fucking untouchable.

• 45:51Jocko Willink?

  And and have you seen HR now?

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've seen him over the few.

• 45:55Jocko Willink?

  Have you actually like seen him, talked to him?

• 45:57Speaker 01

  I last time I spoke to him and he came out to my house was probably around two thousand eleven or two thousand and ten and, you know, he's definitely.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  You know, he's he's got some issues, you know, he has suffered some serious, he has like

• 46:16Speaker 01

  mental issues, you know, I mean, I don't know what his diagnosis is, I'm not gonna stand here and pretend to know, but it's, you know.

• 46:23Jocko Willink?

  But you can tell there's a clear change between that guy from back in the day to the guy now, there's something that's

• 46:29Speaker 01

  There's definitely

• 46:30Jocko Willink?

  Clearly

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Something clearly wrong, you know, and I you can't just blame it all on drugs because you know, some of us have done plenty of them and are fine, so I mean, some, you know.

• 46:41Jocko Willink?

  No, it's there's there's something and it's

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, and it's really, it's really sad.

• 46:45Jocko Willink?

  You know, they're playing sometimes.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I don't, I don't know, I don't know when or what they're doing and playing, I mean, and God bless him, you know, I mean, Doctor No, you know, he suffered a stroke and a heart attack and he had to like learn how to use his hand again and and everything. I actually did a benefit show us a record that's available on pledge music, it's the only place you can get it, you can't even buy it in stores and and forty eight percent of the music goes to help him, just help him.

• 47:11Jocko Willink?

  Awesome.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  You know, to whatever he needs help with, you know, because God knows he's

• 47:15Jocko Willink?

  Pledge music?

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:16Jocko Willink?

  What do you do, you search pledge music?

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Pledge music, Harley Flanagan, and the the song will come up, it's the, one of the songs is called Friends Like You. And um. But anyway, yeah, I mean, those guys were intense, I mean, it'll never be what it was, you know.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  I'm glad that they're, you know, doing their thing or, you know, whatnot.

• 47:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  But I think, uh, my memory of them is from that period.

• 47:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And you probably saw, how many times did you see them? Unlimited to a hundred dozens.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  I have no idea. I saw them so many times. I saw them out on the west coast and, you know, excuse me.

• 47:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I saw him in Tijuana.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 47:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but HR wasn't with him. So it was kinda like, oh, cool. But not that's cool. No offense, the other dude.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  No, no, they had all the singers who were really great dudes, great singers. But it's really hard to follow in someone like that's footsteps. I mean, it's really impossible.

• 48:08Jocko Willink?

  That's a rough follow on shot. So meanwhile, you did a trip to England? This is the first time you saw skinheads before?

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Well, I saw.

• 48:20Jocko Willink?

  Or Ireland, sorry, Ireland.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  I got my head shaved in Ireland. I had seen skinheads one time before in London, but I didn't know what the fuck they were. I was just like, what the fuck? Like, I could tell that there was something, they had an interesting look, like they, you know, and, but the shaved head thing was what got me. And, uh, yeah, so I, I met skinheads in England in the seventies, but I got my head shaved in Belfast in nineteen eighty.

• 48:44Jocko Willink?

  And here's what they told you, going back to the book. I always remembered what the Belfast Skins told me. Teach America about skinheads. The first few friends of mine to shave their heads included Adam Yatch. You know who that is?

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:57Jocko Willink?

  From the Beastie Boys and a few others who weren't really skinheads in the stereotypical thug way. They just liked the look and the music. I mean, we were all into the early oi style music, Cockney Rejects and bands like that, even though it wasn't really called oi yet. The two-tone thing was happening with all the ska bands jumping off, like the Specials and Selector and Madness, and they were all popular with the skinheads early on. But there still wasn't a skinhead scene in New York, just a few friends of mine who were up on it. Within a couple of years, all that would change. So obviously, the, uh, the, the typical person when they, that doesn't follow the music scene, at least at, at a deeper level, when they think skinhead, they immediately think of

• 49:41Jocko Willink?

  sort of the, uh, the branch that went off and, and got the most press, which was the, the neo-Nazi skinheads. But the original, the origins of the skinheads is actually.

• 49:55Jocko Willink?

  Black dudes, rude boys, ska bands, like The Specials and Madness. And that's kind of what you saw and?

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I actually talk about a little bit of that in the book. I give a little bit of the historical information just to give people a clearer idea. Um, yeah, but you know, the media always la- latches on to whatever is most sensationalistic. You know, they try to always grab the worst aspects of, of what people are doing. And, um, you know? Yeah, you know, that it's, you got it, you know?

• 50:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll say one more thing. The New York scene had always been more diverse than most hardcore scenes. There'd always been Spanish kids, black kids, Asian kids. A lot of the early New York hardcore skinheads were Spanish.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:51Jocko Willink?

  Roger from Agnostic Front, which if you don't know Agnostic Front is probably, ah, they might be considered like the, oh, they're definitely one of the biggest sort of skinhead bands from America.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  And they were absolutely the first real like New York skinhead band, you know? I mean, but, uh, yeah, you know?

• 51:07Jocko Willink?

  And he's Cuban, Roger is Cuban. Diego was Puerto Rican, as was Jose from The Mob. And so were a lot of skinheads that came around later. Even back in the Max's days, you had The Bad Brains, Pure Hell, The Influence were one of the first real New York hardcore bands, and they were all black.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think where you just pulled up, I was just talking about the diversity on the scene in New York. New York has always been different from other places as, you know, you, you know, it's one of the things that's cool about it here, you know?

• 51:38Jocko Willink?

  I could say, you could say it's fairly diverse here in New York City.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, fuck, you know?

• 51:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this has got to be one of the most, I bet you that, I don't know, you have to look at this, but is New York City one of the most diverse places in the, on the planet? As far as like different languages being spoken?

• 51:54Speaker 01

  I mean, one thing I noticed that, you know? You can eat any type of food here, you know.

• 52:00Jocko Willink?

  Cooked by the people that invented that food.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  So, I mean, we had.

• 52:04Jocko Willink?

  Moved here like three weeks ago.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  That's one thing I always loved about it here, you know.

• 52:08Jocko Willink?

  We just had Gangnam Style, uh, uh.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Dumplings.

• 52:11Jocko Willink?

  Dumplings, yeah, dumplings and sushi, served by, by Gangnam Style.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Actual guy.

• 52:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 52:21Jocko Willink?

  And meanwhile, you know, at this time,

• 52:26Jocko Willink?

  back to the book, I was drinking a lot, huffing glue, taking pills and lots of LSD and whatever else. So this whole time, that's what's just prevalent in the scene, drugs.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, New York was a very much, um, our scene liked to get fucked up.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  In DC, they, where they invented straight edge, you know, they were, they were all about, uh, being clean and sober and, and God bless them. And, uh, you know, that caught on like wildfire and in other places, you know, uh, the straight edge movement spread and whatnot. And we always went the extreme opposite. We, we were like, are we, you know, they had a song, uh, don't drink, don't smoke, don't fuck. We used to sing, you know, we, we drink, we smoke, we fuck, fuck you, you know, and, um, yeah, we're a bunch of fucking idiots, you know, I mean, you know, unfortunately, you know, at that point in my life, and in the hardcore scene, uh,

• 53:31Speaker 01

  it was often cool how fucked up you could be. You know, and I'm sure it's that, that way in a lot of the world and a lot of youth culture and, and a lot of, you know, crews and gang culture and, and.

• 53:46Jocko Willink?

  You know, I don't mean to theorize, but I'm gonna do it a little bit and philosophize a little bit. You, you know, like cultures back, back in the day or, or some cultures even today, when you wanna prove that you are, will sacrifice yourself for the tribe a little bit, like I'll go hunt that lion or I'll go out and do something that's hard and I'll take risks for the group and I'll prove that, that I'm, that I don't care what happens to me.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:11Jocko Willink?

  I, I, I.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Shit has been replaced.

• 54:13Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes I think that, hey, I'm gonna prove that I don't care what's happened to me. Watch me drink this, watch me shoot this, watch me smoke this and whatever.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  No, I, I agree. I think that that instinct that's still in us. Doesn't have a place to be used properly.

• 54:28Jocko Willink?

  And I'll tell you where I got that philosophy from. In the SEAL Teams. Man, when I came in, it was like, the way that you kinda proved that you were tough was drinking and fighting, right?

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you take everything to a fucking extreme. If you fucking drink five, I'll drink ten. You fought two motherfuckers, I'll fight fucking five motherfuckers.

• 54:49Jocko Willink?

  And that's what it was. And when the war started, it's not like that stopped, because that stuff still goes on, but it definitely, in my mind, in my mind, I was thinking, and we still drank, and we still partied and got after it, but it was different, man. It was different to all of a sudden be saying, hey, look, you know what I need to prove myself is on the battlefield. I need to be ready for that. And so I, I, when I apply that to like, all of society, it seems like a young kid like you, who's fifteen, sixteen years old, how do you prove that you're tough? How do you prove your manhood? Oh, you think you can drink twelve shots? I'll drink twenty. Bring it. And that's a jacked up thing. And, and, you know, you talked about like the straight edge movement, and those guys, it's interesting.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Well, they took it to another level too. They stopped fucking. They even, they stopped drinking, smoking and fucking.

• 55:39Jocko Willink?

  And then how did they prove, how did they then prove that they were tough? They would go out and fight and beat up people that were drunk and shit like that.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Well, that's what started happening in some scenes. I mean, because like in DC, those guys were always, they always tried to be more PC. They always had a little bit more consciousness. But in a lot of other places, you had bands like, you know.

• 55:58Jocko Willink?

  I got, I got in trouble with, uh, Ian McKay. At, uh, remember when, remember when Fugazi came on the scene? So Fugazi, one of my buddies from DC, this is back in the day, and, and one of those guys, one of my buddies from, one of my buddies from DC, he sent me a demo tape. And he's like, hey, this is, this is Ian's new band. They're called Fugazi. No, I was like, cool. And that's a great album.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  No, actually, I like, yeah.

• 56:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's a great album. And so, we went and saw him in Brooklyn. Me and my boys, we went down to Brooklyn to see him. And we went berserk, cuz.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  And he wasn't feeling it.

• 56:32Jocko Willink?

  And he was like, and he had like, longer curly hair, and, and he's standing there, and he played, like, they played their first song, and we just cleared out the pit and destroying everything. And he, he was like, He was like, um, hey, I'm just trying to think what he says. So he knows I'm not bullshitting. If he ever hears this, he said something along the lines of like, let's leave our, let's leave our machoism and our egos at the door. You know, if you're gonna dance, be cool or something like that. And so then I was like, like dude, what do I do now? Like your music rocks. I want to break stuff and I couldn't. So.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I remember when he started going that route and you know what? God bless him.

• 57:08Jocko Willink?

  No, man, you said here, you got a lot of respect for that guy. I do too.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  Fucking cool as fuck, man, you know, and he has always had his integrity and as he, as he matured, you know, his, his way of thinking.

• 57:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you know what? You gotta respect him. He held the line with what he did, his record. He never sold out.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  You know what? Hats off.

• 57:29Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  He's fucking legit, man.

• 57:31Jocko Willink?

  For sure, man. For sure. Now, at this time.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  I did use to break his balls fucking relentlessly though, but that's just the way I am. If I, if I, if I like someone and respect them, chances are I'm going to really fuck with them whenever I have the opportunity, you know, so.

• 57:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  So fuck you.

• 57:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I hear you, man.

• 57:53Jocko Willink?

  The, at that time you, you kind of came up with the name of the Chromag. You came up with the Chromag's name. And you started like tagging everything with Chromags, writing it everywhere.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:06Jocko Willink?

  And you just, you had a kick ass band. It was like when we talked about my first hardcore band called Bronson's Children. First thing we did, no music, but we made t-shirts.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, you gotta, yes.

• 58:17Jocko Willink?

  We're thinking merchandise.

• 58:20Jocko Willink?

  So we, you know, that's what we did. But you were doing the same thing. You just, the only difference is you could actually play music and I was just an idiot.

• 58:30Jocko Willink?

  Let me see where we're going with this one. So you start, you start coming, putting together the band and then.

• 58:39Jocko Willink?

  Things started getting a little bit crazy. You beat someone up who's some friend of someone else and all of a sudden you heard that you had like a price on your head.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  That was actually before the Chromeags really uh.

• 58:50Jocko Willink?

  It was yeah, it's pre Chrome, it's like you made up the name but you were nothing yet.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's actually why I wound up um heading out to California. I had to take a little break from my neighborhood. Yeah, it was pretty intense, man. This dude um. Alright, there was a gang on my block called the Hitmen and this is back in, you know, I remember them from the seventies through to the eighties. I mean, this is when they still used to wear colors, you know, patches on there. In fact, the Puerto Rican gangs looked more like bikers, like Puerto Rican bikers without bikes back then. Like they all had like patches and jeans and like MC boots and you know, they'd wear like the F True Pats and it was total old school, you know, like. You know, uh, wolf tails and shit, you know, lots of fur collars. This is like ridiculous shit.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  If you look on old YouTube and then old photos of New York gangs, they'll be like, oh, okay, that's what he's talking about. Anyway, yeah, these guys were fucking, they were no joke and they, one of the Hitmen was Pigman and he, you know, they did hits. They, they weren't called the Hitmen, you know, because they, you know, wrote hit songs, you know. They, you know, they besides selling heroin, they, they did hits and uh. Pigman, I've known about him my whole childhood. He was like a, a Lower East Side myth, like. You, you know, everybody had heard of him, but no one knew, you know, because if you saw him, that was most likely the last thing you saw, you know.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  But he would wear a pig's mask. That's why he was called Pig's, Pigman and he would pull up in his Blue Nova and fucking blast you with a shotgun. And it was that simple and uh. They actually kicked in a friend of mine's door and put shotties in people's mouths and guns to their heads. Whereas Harley in one of the Skinhead Apartments looking for me and they came to my squat. Uh, pulled someone into a corner and put knives to their throats, which apartment's Harley in? And Pigman was cruising by my friends with the mask on and didn't see me, so kept driving, I guess. So it was real and uh, I'm like, I was, you know, I was like fucking fifteen, you know, I mean, I'm fifteen.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  I got fucking Pigman looking for me. I mean, that's fucking no joke. This is Pigman, motherfucker, you know? Pig man. And I'm like telling the locals on my block, I'm like shit, man, my mother lives on 12th street. You know, what the fuck, I don't, what about her? Don't worry about your mom, everybody loves your mom, this, this, this is not personal, man, there's money on, of all, you know, it's business. But you should get out of here, man, you should hang low.

• 1:01:22Jocko Willink?

  These were your Puerto Rican brothers telling you this?

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, like the guys from the block, just people who knew me from school, like people like, you know, my friends' uncles and shit like that, you know, like dude, you should get the fuck out of here. So I'm like, you know what, I think I will.

• 1:01:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:35Speaker 02

  And that's just, that's because you beat somebody up?

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I used to, I used to get in a lot of fights and I used to also, you know.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I beat someone up and it turned out he was a, it was this guy who was one, a, a owner of one of the after hours clubs on the Lower East Side. And a lot of these after hours clubs, like, you know, Save the Robots and the Pyramid and all these other places, they had like, no, they like, they were the late night freak clubs where everybody'd go like till six in the morning and they would all be doing blow and doing coke. So I guess that's how they knew the hitmen because they all used to, all the club freaks used to buy all their drugs from the Puerto Ricans in the neighborhood. So we were kind of fucking up their business too, because we were like fucking up all the, all the new freaks that were starting to come to the Lower East Side. All the new white people that we were like, you know, fuck, we just made this motherfucking neighborhood safe.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Now you motherfuckers all think you're just as gangbusters, like you're all just a flood, it's fucking, fuck this, it's our neighborhood now.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  You know? So, yeah, you know, I was an asshole, I mean, I, you know, I have to admit that, you know, looking back, if you know, if you're ever gonna man up, you have to be able to say, yes, I was an asshole, you know? But that shit, uh, yeah, Pig Man was no joke. And I went to California, the shit died off, I came back.

• 1:02:51Jocko Willink?

  Dude, you went to California and I was reading that part of the book and I was like, what in God's name is going on?

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:00Jocko Willink?

  Dude, talk about the vats.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, I, we were living in an abandoned brewery. Uh, there was, you know, a couple hundred kids living there probably, we were all living in the actual vats that they used to have. The, like, rubber coated square rooms, like with a manhole to get in and out of, and you know, we were living in the air vents and, yeah, it was fucking crazy, man, and everybody was fucked up on drugs, everybody was a runaway, everybody was, you know, it was, um,

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  What amazes me about the eighties is the lawlessness, you know, in New York and in San Francisco, you know, like you could really get away with just about fucking anything and there would be like no police involvement, no repercussion, you know? I mean, you'd get into a fight and the shit could go on for half a fucking hour, like from one area to another and back and forth, you know?

• 1:03:54Jocko Willink?

  Gunfight.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, I mean, you'd fucking start fighting on Avenue A, you'd end up on First Avenue over on Seventh Street, then back over to Eighth Street and back down to Avenue A and it's like mad screaming and, you know, stabbings and bottles breaking and no cops, you know? And it was like, you know? I mean, shit happens now, man, you fart too fucking loud on the street here and you get arrested.

• 1:04:22Jocko Willink?

  I just, so how, you're fifteen years old? You living in a, in a, in a vat?

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:28Jocko Willink?

  In San Francisco with a bunch of, everyone's runaways, drugs, meth.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Crystal meth, fucking shooting crystal, left, right, front and center, dropping liquid acid in their eyeballs. Yeah.

• 1:04:44Jocko Willink?

  How's that even like? How do you process that? And the other weird thing is, is like, you're surviving, like, you know, you're, you're, you're getting food somehow, right? You're stealing food.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  Shoplifting and panhandling and mugging people. Yeah.

• 1:05:00Jocko Willink?

  Figuring it out.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  Figuring it out.

• 1:05:01Jocko Willink?

  And that's what everyone in this vat, these vats are doing.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, there was only a couple of us that were out mugging people because there was only like me and Mark Dagger and, and a couple of other people who were like hard asses. Everybody else was either out panhandling or turning tricks, you know? It was like, you, you, you know, you were either out mugging someone, sucking a dick or begging for change, you know? And um.

• 1:05:26Jocko Willink?

  And we did you just think like, okay, this is what life is like?

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what life was like.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, I remember like eating at soup kitchens, you know, with like adults and I'm like fifteen and and that being weird and like almost getting into fights with like dudes who were like ex-cons and you know, like dudes who had just got out of prison who were like to them, they were still in the prison lunchroom, you know? And to me, I'm just like trying to, you know, get some food, you know? And yeah, it was it was pretty intense, you know, I mean.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  But to be fair, I had a great fucking time, you know, I mean, I had a lot of fun, you know, the the debauchery, the violence, the drugs, I had a fucking blast. Would I recommend any of it? No. Would I wish it on my kids or my worst enemies? No. Did I have a great time? Yes.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  I had how I fucking made it, I don't know, but you know.

• 1:06:28Jocko Willink?

  I guess it's I guess is that like when people talk about well, when people say to me, oh, I think this is the same thing because I'm sitting here going, how can that be fun? But I guess.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, dude.

• 1:06:37Jocko Willink?

  People ask me about like being.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  No, think about the most intense situations you've been in. It's like the adrenaline, the fucking. Ah, like dude, the last time I got in like a real fucking crate, no, not the last time, the third or fourth, the last time I got in a really bad violent situation like uh, the one it's in the book when I got had like that I fucked up this dude who was in a gang. And the next thing I know, I got like thirty dudes fucking coming after me with pipes, bats, ba ba ba, smashing out our windows and I'm running into the crowd of them to save a friend of mine. Now, see, like dude, I was fucking like high for like a week off of the adrenaline.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  And then when I finally came down, I was like, whoa, what the fuck was that, man? I could have died, you know, but like for literally a week after that shit, I was just like, yeah, like fucking bring it, you know, and and and you know, that's like.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  But that's the difference between certain type of people like, you know, I will run into a fucking violence to save a friend.

• 1:07:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  And a lot of fucking people that I grew up with will fucking punk out. I've seen people that I respected fucking run and leave their friends behind.

• 1:07:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  And it's some real pussy shit, especially when they're trying to be all badass, skinhead, tattoos and that. Um, this, I'm that, you ain't nothing but a bitch, you know? And um, hey, hey, man, and you know, and that's one reason why I'm really fucking proud to be here, you know? Because it's like, you guys, one of the things I respect the most is someone who will put themselves on the line for someone else. Like when you will put your own life at risk for another person, there's nothing uh more admirable than that.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  So hats off to you guys and to all, all the military out there, you know, serving this country and serving their brothers, their sisters, their families and everybody, you know, hats off, man. It takes a lot of fucking balls and I respect, and I'm not, you know, e- even law enforcement, you know? And I'm not a big fan of the police in many circles. I've, I've become friends with a lot of cops since I started doing jujitsu.

• 1:08:59Jocko Willink?

  Jujitsu changes a lot of things for the positive.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  But, but, but however, you know, I still have my reservations, but I respect, again, anybody who's willing to put their life on the line for others and for the greater good, you know? And there's really nothing higher.

• 1:09:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:09:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, like obviously I, I, man, I work with the police and they're, they're the same way, man. They're, they're, and they got a, they got the, one of the hardest jobs in the whole world, man.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Look, I, I, I say that with, you know, a little tongue in cheek, you know? I mean, it's like I've grown up always being on the shitty end of the stick when it comes to the cops. And, you know, still to this day, even like when I'm trying to get something achieved and accomplished and I try to go to them for guidance, they still look at me like they're, they wanna slap the cuffs on me more than fucking help me out, you know? So, you know, but, you know, I

• 1:09:47Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna make you some friends.

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  But, but I do understand, you know, I, I What they deal with on a regular basis, so I I get it. But I also think that a lot of people are attracted towards lines of work that give them a a position where they can abuse their position, you know?

• 1:10:04Jocko Willink?

  I think that happens.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  That's in human race, though, I mean, it's not.

• 1:10:08Jocko Willink?

  It's like, uh, go do a ride along with some cops, man.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Oh, dude, no.

• 1:10:13Jocko Willink?

  It is, I couldn't do it, man. Like, cops is just they, what they deal with on a day to day basis, what it does to their brain over time.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  I hear you, man.

• 1:10:21Jocko Willink?

  It's a hard ass job.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  People don't understand, I mean, it's like, there's a certain level of, uh, you know, once you've seen some some shit, you're always on that edge.

• 1:10:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  You know, and that fight, that fight or flight, you know, and unfortunately, they don't have the choice. They have no choice but to deal with it.

• 1:10:42Jocko Willink?

  They gotta fight.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  So, you know, so.

• 1:10:45Jocko Willink?

  And they gotta protect, you know, of course, you see, oh, we always see the negative thing of cops beating someone down, but.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  Trying to work within certain guidelines and that makes shit even harder.

• 1:10:55Jocko Willink?

  Of the time, they're they're going, no, hey, sir, please put the bat down, put the knife down. That's what they're doing ninety nine percent. It sucks.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:11:03Jocko Willink?

  It sucks. It's a hard ass job. Hard ass job.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  But, you know, again, I got, I, you know, I also gotta play, uh, I gotta keep my one foot grounded in the streets. I still have my, you know.

• 1:11:13Jocko Willink?

  You were, uh, you're conditioned.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:11:16Jocko Willink?

  From your childhood.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:18Jocko Willink?

  That.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  The man is a motherfucker.

• 1:11:21Jocko Willink?

  You're on the other side, man.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:11:23Jocko Willink?

  You're on the other side, and so now that's how you're conditioned.

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  They hate us, we hit them.

• 1:11:27Jocko Willink?

  Just, just like when they, when they see you, well, I don't know if they see, see you now.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  Well, you know, yeah, things are a little different now, but, you know.

• 1:11:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Hey, you know, what the fuck you gonna do?

• 1:11:42Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'll tell you what I do. When the cops tell you do something.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Oh, I'd do it. I don't fuck around. I'm like, look, officer, no problem. Not, not, no, no problem.

• 1:11:50Jocko Willink?

  That's how you, that's how you make friends, man.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  I see my stupid fucking friends were like, yo, fuck that, ba ba ba, sir. He's like, what the fuck is wrong with you? All you had to do was say, yes, sir. How fucking difficult is that? You know, motherfucker, you that stupid?

• 1:12:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, um, man, we haven't even gotten to like the Chromags yet, have we?

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  Who?

• 1:12:09Jocko Willink?

  The Chromags.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:11Jocko Willink?

  Like, put together the first album, you know what I mean?

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Shit.

• 1:12:18Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:12:21Jocko Willink?

  You guys finally get together. Here we go. Back to the book. It'd been three years since Paris and you. So Paris, the guy was

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  He was the guitarist.

• 1:12:28Jocko Willink?

  Guitarist from the Chromags. Hooked up and started writing November 2nd, 1984. And on February 16th, 1985, the Chromags went into Hi5 Studios on 27th Street and Park Avenue and recorded 12 songs. The Age of Quarrel cassette, which is released on CD called Before the Quarrel.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was the original version of the album before we actually went and recorded the album, Age of Quarrel.

• 1:12:53Jocko Willink?

  So that's 84.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:55Jocko Willink?

  That that's going down.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:12:57Jocko Willink?

  And

• 1:12:59Jocko Willink?

  that's a good recording. I have that one too.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  I actually like it a lot better than the album. I was telling you before.

• 1:13:05Jocko Willink?

  I can't tell if I, I, I, the other one's so ingrained in my head that I expect little things that aren't there. And so I

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  I like the first one better because I think it's just more raw.

• 1:13:15Jocko Willink?

  It is more raw.

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  You know, the, the, this, it's more explosive. I think it's more true to what we actually sounded like when we played live, you know?

• 1:13:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  The other thing, uh, the other one had, you know, a lot of production shit that I wasn't too happy about, but yeah.

• 1:13:29Jocko Willink?

  So now this is where, now you think the story's been crazy so far, Echo? I'll just throw you under the bus right now. The story's been crazy. Now it goes, just takes another kind of, what I, I consider as an even more, more bizarre turn than everything we've talked about so far. So going back to the book.

• 1:13:48Jocko Willink?

  I was into vegetarianism, but it took me a while to get into Krishna. At first, John, this is the, the singer from the Chromags or one of the singers that sang in the Chromags. John and me used to go to the trucks where they served free food in Tompkins Square Park, which was a big hangout back in the day. Everyone used to go there and hang out. A lot of hardcore kids did. I mean, I was living in a squat. I was vegetarian. I had no money and here was free vegetarian food. They also had a few preaching centers on the west side that me and John used to go to to eat. But still, it took a while for to give a fuck about what they were saying. I was there for the free food. I wasn't looking for religion. I was just hungry and trying to survive. We would always show up late.

• 1:14:32Jocko Willink?

  John would tell us when the good time was just to get the food after the reading and preaching and everything. But over time, I really started getting into the philosophy. In the beginning, people didn't take John and Krishna seriously. It was kind of something the hardcore scene laughed at. But as my friends and me started getting into Krishna, it started to change. So you guys started getting into Hare Krishna.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, yes.

• 1:14:55Jocko Willink?

  Which.

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  It's pretty fucking funny looking back now.

• 1:14:58Jocko Willink?

  Tell me the fundamental philosophies. I mean, obviously, Hare Krishnas are vegetarians because they don't want to like hurt, you know, animals.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Actually, it's more to it than that. That's actually not why. It's because now I'm gonna start fucking talking all that shit.

• 1:15:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, give me a little bit of understanding.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  They only eat food that are offerable to God and you can't offer God a rotting carcass to eat.

• 1:15:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay. There's nothing that has to do with like, hey, we don't want to hurt things?

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Oh, there's all this karmic stuff, you know, everybody likes to, you know, not make more karma for themselves, good or bad.

• 1:15:33Jocko Willink?

  See, that's what I'm saying. Like, this is why. This is why it gets more bizarre to me. Yeah. Because you're trying not to create more karma for yourself.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  See, that's the thing is with the amount of karma I had already created for myself, I was trying. But this is where it gets even more fucked up and twisted because you got me and my friends who were like recovering skinheads, for lack of a better way of putting it. You know, dudes who used to go out and get in like, you know, 20 fights in a night, you know, put 19 people in ICU just because. You know, just walking from the east side to the west side. What you looking at? Bah! You know, fuck you. Ah, all night, just fucking wilding. You know, and then all that shit with Pigman and this and that and God knows how many other things, you know, how many bodies I've found and came across and, and, you know, how many, how much madness?

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  I had experienced, you know, like we were talking about, you know, it's like sometimes, you know, when you're dealing with life and death on a regular basis, you know, sometimes you're like, you know, God, you start calling out to God, you don't even know what the fuck God is and you're just like, God, help me, God, you know, please, you know, guide me, help. It's the call of desperation, you know? And um, I had never been into Christianity and this and that, I just, it all just sounded like a bunch of bullshit to me. And here I was actually hearing some things that made some sort of sense to my teenage mind, you know?

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  Karma, ooh, you know, all these other things that like were like resonating with me, you know? And it's like, I needed that shit, you know, I needed some sort of guidance and had I not had something like that, I mean, it could have been fucking Buddha, it could have been whatever, you know? But I needed something that was greater than.

• 1:17:26Jocko Willink?

  You needed some kind of guidance in your life.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  I needed guidance, I needed hope. Some kind of discipline. I needed hope.

• 1:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Oh, hope, yeah.

• 1:17:33Speaker 01

  You know, and when I started going out to their farm for a little while, like they were getting up, we were getting up at like 5:30 in the morning and meditating and watching the sun come up and like, it was like this whole, you know,

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  going from like being like hunted by the gangs in my neighborhood to that, it was just like,

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  I can't even really explain it, it really, it was like,

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  I don't know how to fucking put it, man, it was just like, it was like here I am at peace.

• 1:18:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, it sounds like peace for the first time.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  You know, so that, but then the more I was involved in it, the more I seen, you know, that people in religions in general are typically a bunch of fucking hypocrites. You know, you get a lot of people preaching a lot of shit that they don't all fucking follow and all rules don't really fit all people, you know? Every human is different and not everybody can follow the same guidelines. And when is, when do things start becoming just belief? And what the fuck is belief anyway? It's just what you choose to believe, you know? Unless it's like, this is real, you know? This is really cutting my face, that's really blood, this is, you know? I really have to eat food and breathe air.

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  Belief is just that, you know? And I, I still have, you know, my spiritual inclinations, I still believe in some sort of...

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  I don't like to say the word God anymore, cause I don't, I, I, I don't have that overview that I know any fucking thing. I just know, uh...

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  I know I got a lot of love in my heart for the people I care about and I know I, I wanna try to do good things, you know? I've done enough bad things. I'd like to try to prevent some people from experiencing what I experienced and at the same time, I would like to share the, the great experiences that I, that I had with people, you know?

• 1:19:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, one of the, one of the great experiences and one of the things, the great things that you shared with people is that, that album, that, that album that we'll go to here, going back to the book, The Age of Quarrel. Some would call it one of the most, if not the most influential New York hardcore and crossover albums. It was recorded and mixed in under 100 hours over a 14-day period, January, February, 1986, at Eastside Sound by Steve Remote and Chris Williamson, our manager and so-called producer, but it was really Steve. So, 86 comes around and you guys put together The Age of Quarrel.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:28Jocko Willink?

  And this is the, the one that got released on a bigger scale.

• 1:20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was like the first hardcore...

• 1:20:32Jocko Willink?

  That profile?

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, I, probably one of the first hardcore records to ever be put out on a... Real major label, like something that wasn't like Discord or Slash Records or something underground.

• 1:20:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and now, this is, you guys are, you guys are starting to get a big draw. I mean, huge draws outside of New York City.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were starting to tour at this point and doing, you know, we, our first big break was touring with Motorhead. And then we got, uh, you know, we went on to play with many other metal bands at around that time. Uh, the whole crossover thing.

• 1:21:09Jocko Willink?

  Right, so, yeah, for those of you that don't know crossover, when he's talking about that, that's the crossover from hardcore to metal and kind of combining the two of them.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  Metalheads started discovering hardcore, when people like Metallica started wearing GBH shirts and coming to see the Chromags.

• 1:21:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  When people like Anthrax started daring to come to CBGB's.

• 1:21:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  You know, and that's really-

• 1:21:34Jocko Willink?

  But, but the hardcore bands started getting more metallic too.

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, because like Metalheads started shaving their heads and getting into hardcore, like the kid, like yourself, like kids who had been listening to Van Halen when they were little, who started getting into hardcore later on.

• 1:21:47Jocko Willink?

  Hardcore bands started getting more metallic, don't you think?

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  No, no, we, we definitely did, I mean-

• 1:21:51Jocko Willink?

  You did, Agnostic Front did.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, they, a lot of people tried to jump ship, you know, I guess, you know, I don't, I say that kind of jokingly, but I guess, you know, it seemed like there was more, uh, opportunity to actually make a living.

• 1:22:05Jocko Willink?

  Bigger audience.

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  Bigger audience, you know, actual record deals, you know.

• 1:22:10Jocko Willink?

  Pantera.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Pantera, fucking great band.

• 1:22:13Jocko Willink?

  Cause Pantera-

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  I mean, one of my favorite bands probably, you know, Dimebag, uh, fucking love that dude, um, one of the worst tragedies imaginable, uh, to, uh, music is motherfucker got shot on stage, man, by a fucking psychotic fan. I mean, it's like, you know, what the fuck, man?

• 1:22:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that was awful.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, uh-

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, not to, not to talk about, not to get into, you know, the whole Chromag beef and this and that, but like, one thing I will say is, you know,

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  It really bothers me that uh Dimebag died like that and that they never, cause I know they would have buried the hatchet by now and they would have done an amazing reunion tour and they would have, they would have just kicked the shit out of everybody. And they'll never have that opportunity now because he was robbed from us. And to know that my band are such a bunch of stubborn, immature, fucking old assholes that we can never actually embrace each other purely based on what we did achieve together and how many fans would be so happy, you know, cause once, once you're gone, you're gone.

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  And you know, it's just very rare that four or five people will have that chemistry for a moment in, in life. So, you know, just based on that alone, it's pretty fucking sad and pathetic, you know?

• 1:23:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's a weird run that you guys had, cause you guys, you guys, you guys were on the verge.

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:53Jocko Willink?

  I mean, and, and when I, you know, when I remember you guys touring, and I didn't see you on the Age of Coral tour, cause that was a really fast tour and you went to Europe and I just didn't have the opportunity to see you. But uh, I saw you on the Best Wishes tour, which was the next album that came out. And you guys were big. I mean, you guys were, and for, just to kind of put it in perspective for people, like I think the, the places where I saw you play, and this is kind of a national brand, is the House of Blues. If you've ever been to House of Blues, I saw you at a place that was like as big as the House of Blues.

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  We used to play there a lot.

• 1:24:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I didn't know you actually played there, but like that kind of venue. So that's, in my mind, you know, that's a legit band that-

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  Venue. I mean, when you're playing places that size, you can make a living and you, and if you keep going and stay consistent, you know, you can do fairly well for yourself, but.

• 1:24:43Jocko Willink?

  Now, now, this is the, so, you know, Age of Coral comes out, you guys are popular, you toured Europe, you know, you're getting after it, you're, you're filling up places. Uh, Best Wishes, you're filling stuff, you're headlining Best Wishes, but you're playing with Motorhead too before.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:57Jocko Willink?

  You're supposed to play with Black Sabbath one time.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:59Jocko Willink?

  By the way, that would actually be the ultimate show of all time for me.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  I have to fucking agree.

• 1:25:05Jocko Willink?

  Cause my favorite band of all time.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Us and Motorhead would just knock it the fuck out.

• 1:25:10Jocko Willink?

  That would, that would have been epic.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:12Jocko Willink?

  But Black Sabbath didn't show up, man.

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:14Jocko Willink?

  Cause they were having some issues, but uh, yeah, that, that.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  But just the flyer alone.

• 1:25:18Jocko Willink?

  You have the flyer in the book, dude.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  Flyer alone.

• 1:25:21Jocko Willink?

  You have the flyer in the book, that's awesome.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Dude, you know, I made it on a flyer with Black Sabbath and Motorhead.

• 1:25:26Jocko Willink?

  You're good, you're good.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  I'm cool.

• 1:25:28Jocko Willink?

  You can die now. But here's the crazy thing, as I was reading the book, I couldn't believe this, you come home from those tours.

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:25:36Jocko Willink?

  And you have no money.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:40Jocko Willink?

  And you hear this, this is kinda like a rock and roll myth, right? Oh, the guy signs the contract, the producer, and I, I've watched a bunch of uh, uh, programs about this. And what the, what the record companies do is they say, hey, look, we're gonna give you a hundred thousand dollar advance for your next album. And then you go, awesome, so they give you a hundred grand and you start spending it, and you, and then they backcharge you for your studio time and the promotion. And next thing you know, literally, at the end, you, you haven't even gone on tour, you owe them twenty, twenty eight thousand dollars.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  You're working to pay it off.

• 1:26:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they lent you this money with interest, and so that's the kinda shit that was happening with you. And you come back off these tours, you're famous, cause also at this time, now that I think about it, you and the Cro-Mags, you guys were like on the cover of like the metal magazines and stuff.

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  All those stupid metal magazines, man, you'd turn, there'd be like Skid Row on one page and us on the next. And you're like, what the fuck? Ozzy on one page, me on the next, yeah.

• 1:26:37Jocko Willink?

  So you were there, I mean.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were, we were on the cusp, we were right about to break it, you know?

• 1:26:43Jocko Willink?

  And you were still broke, still, you would come home from those tours and still be living on the streets?

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  I would, I would be coming off those tours and trying to figure out where I was staying. Or I'd be showing up at my grandmother's house, you know, or I'd be like, you know, yeah, we got pretty fucked, man. But you know, you don't know what you don't know, you know? And so it's like when, when you're a kid and you ain't got no guidance, nobody looking out for you, you know, you make a lot of mistakes.

• 1:27:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And also back then they had a much better monopoly, the, like, the record companies.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  And here nowadays, you can say, oh, you know what?

• 1:27:20Jocko Willink?

  I'll just make my own record and I'll, I'll be able to distribute it through YouTube and social media and all this other stuff.

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  You know, that would have been helpful in those days as far as, you know.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  But, um, you know, I, I think that the internet and everything is also really kind of fucked music up because it's like people don't have to have any lineage or any connection to their roots anymore. It's like people who don't know anything can just Google it and cut it and paste it and call it their own. And the next thing you know, they're an artist and it's like, no, you're not a fucking artist. You're a fucking cut and paste and motherfucker who hasn't ever actually experienced a fucking thing. And you don't even know the history of what you're imitating. You just know that you're into it right now. So you're imitating it right now.

• 1:28:01Jocko Willink?

  The, the other crazy thing is, you know,

• 1:28:06Jocko Willink?

  it was hard to get like these records when I was a kid.

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. You, you had to know.

• 1:28:10Jocko Willink?

  You couldn't order them. You, you had to like get somebody that was gonna go to New York and hey, if they have this album, can you pick it up?

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  Will you go to Bleecker Bob's and grab it?

• 1:28:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it was like that. You couldn't just, but nowadays you can, if you say, oh, the Chromags are cool because I heard a song. You put them into Google, you get Chromags, you get every other band that's been related to them. You get Bounce that Sam liked them and you can just download them all immediately and it's no factor. It's kind of crazy. That's why for me, like, you know, how many record, total record albums I had, and I loved music. I probably had like.

• 1:28:45Jocko Willink?

  Eighty records, right? Eighty records. On my computer right now, on my phone, I probably got ten thousand records. No, I got all kinds of songs, right? Every band that's ever existed, I got them on my phone.

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  And you would shit if you saw my fucking.

• 1:29:01Jocko Willink?

  I bet you have a sick one, huh?

• 1:29:02Speaker 01

  Would shit. You would fucking be like, like a kid in the candy store, man. You fucking, because I got everything from back then. I got it all. I got like Motorhead test pressings.

• 1:29:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you're one of those guys that goes out and gets test presses. I was watching some video with, uh, Rollins, uh, because you know Rollins has.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, dude, he has my first single. He bought it from me.

• 1:29:26Jocko Willink?

  I think he, he might have one of the most epic record collections. Some of the stuff that he, and he likes weird stuff. He likes stuff that like, I, I wouldn't want it, but he's got, you know, first pressings, test pressings.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  He's a freak.

• 1:29:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:39Jocko Willink?

  And he's got money too.

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a good dude.

• 1:29:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:42Jocko Willink?

  Um. You end up trying to, trying to sue a little bit. I think you tried to sue the record company or something. You end up just going into legal costs.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  What we were trying, what happened was we were trying desperately to get off of our record label and get away from our management because, uh, we got to a certain point where we were just on the verge of blowing up and Profile was, was still treating us like chumps. You know, we weren't getting no money. We weren't getting anything. We were getting treated like fucking dog shit. And, um, someone who was working at Elektra was interested in signing us. So we were like, Elektra, Metallica. Oh, here's our fucking shot. So we like.

• 1:30:19Jocko Willink?

  Cause Profile, Profile was like all metalish, right?

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  No, Profile was actually a hip hop label. So what they did with us was really kinda.

• 1:30:27Jocko Willink?

  Out there?

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  Out there because they had, you know, their big band.

• 1:30:29Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it like Century Media slash?

• 1:30:31Speaker 01

  Came after, no, no, no. Uh, Profile was big for Run DMC. That was who they're, and then like Rob Base. Uh, It Takes Two, It Takes Two. That was like their, those big, they, that was their hits. Run DMC was their main shit.

• 1:30:45Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of crossover, Run DMC.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:48Jocko Willink?

  They brought the metal, the riffs.

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, they've. Those guys were great, man.

• 1:30:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  I saw them play so many times back in the day. I remember seeing them with the Beastie Boys at the Garden and that. That was a fucking great show. It was fun, man. It's like all the Beastie Boys brought all like the little white kids and Run DMC brought all the black kids and the black kids were just walking around robbing all the white kids. I was sitting there fucking laughing my fucking dick off, like watching people just get yoked in the fucking aisles. I'm like, this shit is hilarious. It was funny.

• 1:31:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh damn. So you were trying to get off that label?

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:24Jocko Willink?

  And trying to get on to Elektra, damn, because Elektra was huge.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that would have been a good move for us, but Profile didn't like us and they would have rather taken, you know, you couldn't offer them enough money to give us our freedom. They were like, fuck these dudes. Yeah, we had some issues with some of the head people there.

• 1:31:45Jocko Willink?

  And then you end up, so with Alpha Omega.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:51Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, I didn't say this, but you sang on Best Wishes.

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I sang on like half the album, more or less, you know? And then me and John both sang on Alpha Omega.

• 1:32:00Jocko Willink?

  On Alpha Omega. And I gotta read this from the book, because I gotta kick out of it.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 1:32:08Jocko Willink?

  Here he goes, back to the book. You know how you can always tell when a heavy band is starting to lose their edge? When they start using a fucking keyboard? Yeah, we did that.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  All right, to be fair, I was eating a lot of mushrooms at that recording session. So like, things sounded a little bit different to me and they were sounding, the keyboard sounded cool, man.

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  I was eating all kinds of mushrooms and drinking mushroom tea and I was like, yeah, that shit sounds cool. Yeah, roll with that, you know? But see, at least I can look back and laugh at myself, you know? It's like, if you can't fucking laugh at yourself, man, you're an asshole.

• 1:32:52Jocko Willink?

  And some other, I think I might have breezed through it, but there's another point where you're talking about how spinal tap-ish, like all this, and even that's spinal tap-ish, right? When you start venturing out.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  Stonehenge.

• 1:33:08Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  Ed, do you wanna hear something really fucking funny? I mean, me and Doug watched Spinal Tap with John one time. Just to show you a little bit about his intellect. All right, we're watching about halfway through that movie. John turns to me and Doug goes, "Yo, man, these guys suck. I've never even heard of them. Why did they make a movie about them?" And me and Doug just look at each other like, "This motherfucker thinks this is a real documentary? Oh, my fucking..." Anyway, sorry, I had to.

• 1:33:40Jocko Willink?

  Hey, you know what? I've seen Spinal Tap.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:43Jocko Willink?

  Twice. Live.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  Oh, I saw them once. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:47Jocko Willink?

  I have a Spinal Tap lighter.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what's up.

• 1:33:50Jocko Willink?

  I brought my wife. And you know when they play Big Bottoms? You know, they all play bass.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:55Jocko Willink?

  The whole band gets out basses. Yeah, that's why.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  That was a fucking brilliant fucking movie.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  No, but I remember like being in those clubs where you're trying to find the stage. You're walking around, you're like, "All right, Cleveland. All right, Cleveland." You're like fucking walking around. You wind up outside the club. You're like, "Where the fuck is the stage?" Yeah.

• 1:34:15Jocko Willink?

  Now,

• 1:34:17Jocko Willink?

  you're still, man, you're still struggling.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You know, I struggled up until pretty much not that long ago.

• 1:34:25Jocko Willink?

  Till two weeks ago, like I said.

• 1:34:29Jocko Willink?

  You wrote here, "Before I get into this next chapter, I'm telling you that I had to lose a lot of stuff from this era 'cause I have kids now and I don't want them to know exactly how insane things got or to think I'm a worse piece of shit than they already will or do. But again, this is proof that you can plummet to the bottom of the worst depths of hell and still come back and try to become a better person. There was enough filth, drugs, orgies, violence, and crime during this period to write a book about nothing else. As insane as it was and as much fun as I thought I was having, deep down, I was looking for a way out. I think that's why I took everything to such an extreme. I don't think I cared if I lived.

• 1:35:13Jocko Willink?

  There were times I don't think I wanted to. I'm not proud looking back on it now. If anything, I'm surprised I survived."

• 1:35:28Jocko Willink?

  Heavy.

• 1:35:30Speaker 01

  It's fucked up here and you read that shit, bro. Like, it makes me go.

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  But yeah, man, uh, it's true, you know?

• 1:35:41Jocko Willink?

  You know, I've seen some of my, uh, friends that

• 1:35:47Jocko Willink?

  they, they start to, I think, get the same outlook. They start doing shit that is, uh, not, you know, high survival rate activities.

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:59Jocko Willink?

  And it's like they're walking that line of, you know?

• 1:36:04Speaker 01

  Well, it's kinda like you wanna die, but you're not gonna take the pussy route and kill yourself. So you're just gonna do everything you can to kill yourself without actually putting a rope around your neck. So instead of putting a rope around your neck, you put a rope around your arm and stick a fucking needle in it or, you know, smoke dust until the world is just a fucking illusion, you know?

• 1:36:29Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna read this right here, cuz this is, this is, you know, here you go, back to the book. "At one point, I was broke as shit." This is after you have three albums, signed by a major record contract, toured all over the world, played with Motorhead on tour. Here we go, back to the book. "At one point, I was broke as shit and I got busted shoplifting food at a supermarket. I didn't have any ID, so the kids I was with ran back to the house and came back with three of my CD covers as ID. I was sitting in this holding area in the back of the store and the store cops were looking at me all confused. They were like, 'This is your ID.' I was holding up pictures from the Age of Coral Best Wishes and Alpha Omega. And I was like, 'See? Look at the picture and look at my tattoos. This is me.'

• 1:37:12Jocko Willink?

  They were like, 'You're kidding, right? This is all the ID you got?'

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I didn't even have a fuck. I had no ID. I had nothing, dude.

• 1:37:22Jocko Willink?

  You know what else I just realized that I completely bree- breezed over? Is like I'm saying that you had this record, you had this record, you had the... You're also a sick bassist. I mean, like, an unbelievable bassist, you know, like, like, so you had this incredible musical talent, you played drums too, but, I mean, your bass playing is savage.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  I'm actually a better drummer. But, that's...

• 1:37:42Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's good. But your bass playing is sick. So you had all this talent,

• 1:37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:47Jocko Willink?

  and you had records, and you had fans, and you had all this shit, and you're still down in the, down in the dirt, man.

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  Shoplifting to eat.

• 1:37:54Jocko Willink?

  Shoplifting to eat.

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  Fucking smoking ice.

• 1:37:57Jocko Willink?

  Damn, dude.

• 1:37:59Speaker 01

  Hey, man, you know, it could have been worse, man. I mean, look at fucking people like Jocko Pistorius. I mean, that motherfucker was like the the most-

• 1:38:06Jocko Willink?

  Best bassist ever.

• 1:38:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, the...

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  And Jimi Hendrix, you know, he was the Jimi Hendrix of bass, and look at Jimmy and him, and it's like, you know, you can have all that talent, and if you're you know, if you're suffering on the inside, man, you know. Me and fucking Jocko, there's another tragedy. Motherfucker got beat to death by a bouncer, you know, who didn't know who he was.

• 1:38:28Jocko Willink?

  This is, uh, not this Jocko, this is Jocko the bassist, yeah.

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  Jocko Pistorius. He, uh, he actually got, tried to get up on stage at a Santana show, because he was friends with Santana, and he tried to get up on the stage, and he was so fucking messy at the time that nobody could recognize him, and the bouncers threw him out, and he kept being belligerent, and they beat him to death.

• 1:38:47Speaker 01

  You know, so it's like, you can have all the talent in the world, but, you know, it's, it's just, it's sad, because really, the people who are, have that gift usually are people who are really emotionally... Well, that's why they have that gift, because they're so fucking emotional. You know, I think.

• 1:39:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that definitely-

• 1:39:03Speaker 01

  And, and that can really become destructive if you don't have a positive place. Like, if you're really... The only times in my life where I haven't been all fucked up on drugs was when I had something constructive to do, something that gave me a purpose. And when you have that creative, emotional...

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  Self-destructive thing in you.

• 1:39:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  Cause it really can become self-destructive if you don't have a place to put it. I mean shit, man, if you wouldn't have fucking gone into the military, god knows what the fuck you would have done with that. Intensity.

• 1:39:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, the, the military, I've talked about this before.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  I mean, it's like.

• 1:39:43Jocko Willink?

  It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing for me.

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it probably would have been for me too. I just wound up, but you know, in, instead, I wound up being the soundtrack to your.

• 1:39:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but a lot of, a lot of fighters, you know, you, you know, a lot of UFC fighters and stuff and, and a lot of those guys have a rough time, you know?

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely. It's hard to be that type of an intense person and to go to, to such extreme emotional dumps. Because, you know. One second, you're just a tough guy on the street. The next second, you're a tough guy in front of fucking thousands of people and there's lights flashing everywhere. You know, and then, you know.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  And then some people, it's like your career is done and you're still that tough guy who still will fuck shit up, but nobody gives a fuck. And now if you fuck somebody up, you're going to fucking jail. You know, and it's like, you know, and drugs become an easy way to deal with fame and, and the confusion of popularity and, and the depression. It's a, a heavy thing to go from.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  To the silence of your room and your mind.

• 1:40:50Jocko Willink?

  There's a buddy of mine plays in a band called Slightly Stupid and they're actually a big band and they play in front, they're from San Diego. And one of the guys and he, he was, you know, we were just, you know, he's got a little kid, he's a normal guy, but he plays in Slightly Stupid and. He, he was, you know, they just got back from tour and, you know, I just said something to him about, how was it? And he goes, man, it just never gets old, you know, getting up in front of. 10,000 people that are singing your songs, man. He said, it's just like. Unbelievable, man.

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  I tell you, man, I haven't been in tour, on tour in a really long time and, and I'm, last time I gigged out.

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  I think the last time I did a tour was like 2011 or 12.

• 1:41:35Speaker 01

  And then a lot of shit went south in my life, go figure. And I needed time to pull myself back up and get my shit back together. I'm going on tour in about nine days. I'll be playing in Berlin first. I'm gonna be playing a bunch of shows in Germany. I'll be playing in Venice, in Italy, and I'll be playing in Switzerland, I believe, in Belgium, in the UK. I'm gonna have about 12 or 13 shows in 13 or 14 days. I'm really, really looking forward to this.

• 1:42:16Speaker 01

  I'm not looking forward to driving five, six-hour drives. I'm not looking forward to not sleeping in my bed. I'm not looking forward to not waking up next to my wife. I'm not looking forward to all that shit. But I am really fucking looking forward to doing my thing again, you know. I got so involved with jujitsu and teaching jujitsu and stuff that music actually started to take kind of a backseat. Especially when I had my kids and I really couldn't tour and stuff anymore.

• 1:42:49Speaker 01

  While it was a choice I made, I mean, I could have done whatever the fuck I wanted, but I chose to be there for my kids. Now they're older and so on, and life has made this possible to do again. I can't wait, man.

• 1:43:09Speaker 01

  You know, affecting people the way you do with music, you make a connection, you know. You know, you know, "Look, man, I'm sitting across from you now because you do a fucking album I did 30 fucking years ago. What does that fucking tell you?"

• 1:43:24Jocko Willink?

  It's badass.

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:43:27Jocko Willink?

  It's good.

• 1:43:29Jocko Willink?

  You're going back to book here, you're you're at that point, you know, you this is, you know, the same time period where you're getting arrested for shoplifting. Here we go. I was in a state of depression and the drugs helped me stay in it. I was trying to get better as far as wanting to get off drugs at least half the time and I would for a few days or a week or so here or there, but I was just too depressed and one thing would lead to another, then back into the abyss, the death spiral into emptiness, nothing and nowhereness. Of course, I was all into Alice and chains and nine inch nails and all that

• 1:44:11Jocko Willink?

  fucking depressed drug music, but even as fucked up as I was, there was this wheatgrass juice stand on Mission and I'd still make sure to go get a shot of wheatgrass juice every day because I figured, hey, at least wheatgrass juice is equal to eating tons of vegetables.

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  But I was trying to sort of stay healthy. Like I was like, okay, I know I'm not eating regularly and I'm not eating very well. So let me at least try to, you know.

• 1:44:40Jocko Willink?

  And this is, this is another thing that's again, I think this shows your state. So I go to music stores.

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  Heroin and fucking wheatgrass juice.

• 1:44:56Jocko Willink?

  That's horrible.

• 1:45:03Jocko Willink?

  I'd go to music stores and pretend I was gonna buy shit and just play instruments. I'd hang out as long as I could and then leave. I actually got offered gigs while I was playing in stores. I got offered gigs for doing sessions for different producers, but I'd be all fucked up and miss the session because I wouldn't know what day it was and then realize a day or two later I'd lose their business card or whatever. So you just can't get your shit.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was really just, I was pretty fucking, it was embarrassing.

• 1:45:28Jocko Willink?

  And that was, by the way, that was taking place out on the west coast.

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:32Jocko Willink?

  And then it sounds like.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Funny, I went to San Francisco to clean, get clean off drugs. That's like the worst city.

• 1:45:37Jocko Willink?

  Bro.

• 1:45:40Jocko Willink?

  Haven't you ever heard of Idaho?

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  Where?

• 1:45:44Jocko Willink?

  You need to check out Idaho or, yeah, Montana. Uh, then you move back, you move back to New York and now you start kind of bringing it back together. I'd go for these long runs at night because I couldn't sleep. Uh, your girl lived down by the Twin Towers and I'd run from there to Central Park and back. On the way, I'd stop by Coney Island High on St. Mark's Place to see who was hanging out for a few minutes. Say hi, then keep running uptown to the top of the park. I'd run a few laps around the reservoir and then turn around and head back down. On the way back down, I'd stop at Coney Island High again. And there would be the same people. Everyone was pretty much in the same place, just slightly more shitfaced. And I'd hang for a few more minutes and then keep running. It was kinda good to see that as I was getting my shit together to see all these people not really doing anything but standing around,

• 1:46:30Jocko Willink?

  getting fucked up as they got older and did nothing with themselves. It gave me motivation to keep my shit together.

• 1:46:38Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's when I started pulling myself back up, you know?

• 1:46:46Jocko Willink?

  And one of the things that helped out with that, first of all, you guys got Def Jam? You guys got signed to Def Jam, is that right?

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  We had a uh-

• 1:46:54Jocko Willink?

  They gave you an advance or something?

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, we got an advance to record something for them and then the deal wound up falling apart. So we wound up being left with the recordings in our possession that we were able to then put out ourselves.

• 1:47:07Jocko Willink?

  What, what album was that?

• 1:47:08Speaker 01

  Uh, Revenge.

• 1:47:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  Which I thought was actually a really good album, but um, you know, it is what it is. Shit never managed to stay together. That band just had fucked up karma.

• 1:47:21Jocko Willink?

  And around this time, you started your jujitsu career.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, well, that's, you know, I, I've said it many times, man. Henzo really fucking saved my life in a lot of ways, cause uh,

• 1:47:35Speaker 01

  you know, even though I was doing those, you know, 12 mile runs and shit like that, I mean, I've worked my way up to really doing long ones. I started off doing like three, four miles. I got into it. But I would still have my moments of just like uh, depression and just, and I'd wanna get fucked up and stuff. But I had jujitsu. And I was living in my rehearsal studio. I didn't even have a fucking shower. I was like bathing on the roof with uh, filling up uh, two gallon buckets. I'd go up there with like four or five buckets and just like bathe. I was living in the rehearsal studio. I, I wasn't, you know, life was not great, but every day I'd go and I'd train.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  And uh, that gave me a place to uh-

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  To find myself again.

• 1:48:27Jocko Willink?

  When was this? What year?

• 1:48:29Speaker 01

  Uh, it was like, uh, January, February of ninety-six.

• 1:48:33Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:48:34Speaker 01

  Like, uh, when I came back, I discovered MMA from UFC one and two when I was out on the west coast. I'm like, what the fuck did he just do to him? Like, I, I would probably, you know, hit a thousand people in the face. I kicked a thousand people in the head and headbutted and bitten, whatever. But I ain't never seen a triangle choke. The fuck is an armbar? You know, and I made up my mind. This is even when I was still on smack. I was like, I made up my mind. I was like, yo, if I ever get the chance to learn that shit, I'm gonna fucking learn that shit.

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  So when I came back to New York, I just kept going through like Black Belt Magazine, Kung Fu Magazine. I'm like, one of these motherfuckers gotta move out here. Sooner or later, this is New York. I mean, they can't all stay in California. They're fucking Gracys are like a very big family. One of them's gonna have to move out here. So Henzo moved. I found an ad, Henzo Kukuk, Gracie Kukuk, it said, Gracie Kukuk, he was still with his old partner. And yeah, man, uh, I went down and I met Henzo and that, that changed my life. And that was twenty-one years ago, you know?

• 1:49:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and a lot of people are, they think, I don't know why they think it, but they think jiu-jitsu is gonna be, you know, kinda when you walk in, it's gonna be intimidating. And it, you know, I could tell from the way you wrote about it, Henzo's just like, hey, what's up, bro?

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, he just makes you feel so welcome and so at home.

• 1:50:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:03Speaker 01

  And, um,

• 1:50:06Speaker 01

  he's, you know, I can say this and, and mean it, you know, I, I really love that man, you know? He, he was there for me through some of the toughest parts of my life and he didn't give up on me and he believed in me. And sometimes really that's all you need is somebody to believe in you and to not give up on you. And, um, you know, when I got arrested in two thousand twelve and I was all over the papers and the news and everywhere, you know, they

• 1:50:36Speaker 01

  A lot of people were shying away from me, let's just say that.

• 1:50:41Speaker 01

  For those of you who don't know, I got jumped by about five or six guys.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  And I wound up biting a nice chunk out of one of their faces and slicing a couple of them and poking one of them. In the process of me getting jumped, I got forty stitches, I was stabbed and, you know. A lot of people were like, you know, "I can't believe he did that, blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, "Did what? You know, got jumped? You know, I got fucking jumped, man, and fucking tell me about slicing, cutting, stabbing and fucking tell me shit about shit until you got five or six motherfuckers trying to take your fucking life. You know, then you can start talking about, "How could you this, how could you that?" Fuck you. You know, you got five dudes kicking you in your face, stomping on you. You

• 1:51:32Speaker 01

  had better be willing to stab, bite, or rip someone's balls off. You know, that's what people don't fucking understand, who have never experienced real violence or real

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  potential of death. You know, when I first got into jujitsu, it was all about the fighting, you know, I was like, "Oh yeah, learn more ways to fuck people up, yeah." Now, I really, it has nothing to do with fighting for me anymore. I mean, I just love the art. I love the relationships that I've made through the art. I love sharing what I've learned.

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  If anything, I'm a...

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  Again, you know, the fight or flight, man, I'm way more likely to run than fight at this point because I know

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  how bad things can go.

• 1:52:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:24Speaker 01

  You know, like-

• 1:52:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I definitely, I actually, I might have told this story before, there was a badass Marine. And- His name was DA. That's what everyone called him. And DA in the military, DA is short for short for direct action, but that was his initials too. But it just worked. And he looked like a superhero. He's a total stud. And he was a gang banger from Texas. And but, you know, he joined, he would be like you, right? But he joined, he was a black kid, but he joined the Marine Corps. And he was in force recon. He was a total badass. And I said, hey, man, you got to come and try jujitsu out. And so he started training. And like after like, six months, he came up to me. And I was like, hey, man, you know, because I was like still deploying and he, so I wouldn't see him a lot.

• 1:53:08Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, man, how you like jujitsu? He was like, man, it's kind of fucked up.

• 1:53:15Jocko Willink?

  And I said, what do you mean, bro? It's awesome. He goes, he goes, no, man, because I used to feel like a real badass. Now, everybody I see, I'm thinking, I might be a pussy.

• 1:53:26Speaker 01

  So, yeah, man, it's funny.

• 1:53:30Jocko Willink?

  It's very humbling, you know, it's a very humbling, it's a very humbling game to play.

• 1:53:34Speaker 01

  It really is. But, you know, at the same time, though, to me, it is. It is that, though. It is a game for me. It's like when I think of fighting, or when I think of self-defense, I believe in jujitsu. I mean, I am 100% a believer, but

• 1:53:54Speaker 01

  jujitsu is fun for me. It's not about violence or self-defense or fighting.

• 1:53:58Jocko Willink?

  Jujitsu is fun as hell.

• 1:54:00Speaker 01

  Because fighting and violence to me is about ending something, ending somebody, you know, I mean, because

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  I know I could die. I tell people all the fucking time, I'm like, you know, you don't got to worry about like, you know, a black belt kicking your ass. Because he's a black belt. He's already matured past the need to kick your ass. You got to worry about that 90-pound motherfucker who will stab you without you even having a chance to say, dude, we don't need to have a problem.

• 1:54:29Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  You know, you got to worry about that dude who's just so, don't give a fuck. That before you even have a chance to say, buddy, your shirt's wet. And you're like, oh, shit.

• 1:54:44Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:54:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:45Speaker 01

  And um.

• 1:54:46Jocko Willink?

  Well, I we've talked about that on here, you know, people say like, oh, I was gonna get in a this guy said something to my wife, what should I have done? I'm like, just grab your wife, go home and buy her, you know, a nice dinner.

• 1:54:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, say, honey, I love you.

• 1:54:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You know, it's not worth getting stabbed in the neck.

• 1:55:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not worth and it's not worth having to stab that junkie in the neck either. And I just know from my own experience that there's always the potential that I could go to that extreme. I don't think for one second, because I'm a jujitsu black belt that like, I'm just gonna submit this guy and hold him down until the police get here. Because you know what? That guy may have three other friends standing in the shadows behind you, or that guy may fucking start stabbing you when you're looking to fucking you're trying to, you know, submit him. And all of a sudden, you're like, why, why is my T-shirt wet? Well, you know, why is my pants wet? Oh, my God, that's fucking red, you know?

• 1:55:39Speaker 01

  I mean, that's just life, you know, that's, that's why, um, you know.

• 1:55:45Jocko Willink?

  Now, as good as jujitsu is and as good as you felt doing it, you go on tour. And just before you go on tour, you break up with a girl at the time.

• 1:55:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:55Jocko Willink?

  Blah, blah, blah.

• 1:55:58Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, without the feeling of being needed, I didn't feel I had much purpose in my life. I started falling back into fuck up mode. I was seeing several different chicks around at that time.

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  Actually, what, sorry, I don't need to interrupt, but.

• 1:56:12Jocko Willink?

  Hey, you wrote the book. If it's wrong, man, you gotta correct it.

• 1:56:14Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I'm correcting you. No, no, it wasn't even so much over just a breakup of a chick. I was actually, I'd been with this chick for a while and she had a daughter and I had raised her daughter.

• 1:56:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 1:56:25Speaker 01

  So it was like, you know, also not just feeling like betrayed and everything else that goes along with the breakup, but as any father or stepfather, stepmother, you know, you have a certain, um, you know, you develop love for a kid, even if it's not yours, you know, and that was really what was, uh, hard on me more than anything, because, uh, the mother was all fucked up on drugs and I had actually taken the kid from her and I was raising the kid for her while she was off just being a fuck up. And then the grandparents and me got in contact, so I wound up doing, you know, what you do. You know, this is your family, this is your blood, you gotta grow up with your family.

• 1:57:07Speaker 01

  So that was, that's why I was struggling, you know? It was because it was like, you know, I was, I never had a father that gave a fuck about me. So every time I've been in a child's life, it has really mattered to me. Like to be, to protect them, because no one protected me, you know? So, so that was why I, I really started to lose my way again, you know? Cause I was like, you know, I don't have a purpose, there's no one for me to love, no one for me to care about, and no one to feel

• 1:57:50Speaker 01

  my, my love, you know?

• 1:57:55Speaker 01

  So yeah, the drugs started to fill in the gap again, you know? But fortunately, that didn't last forever.

• 1:58:06Speaker 01

  It's funny, man, some of the fucking, some of the toughest motherfuckers actually got the biggest hearts. And that's what a lot of people don't realize is, you know, I'm sure that underneath this rugged exterior, you're quite a sensitive motherfucker. You know, and um- Are you talking about me? No, I'm talking about the guy behind you.

• 1:58:26Speaker 01

  But, you know, I mean, seriously, some of the most illest motherfuckers I've known in my life have been some of the most sensitive people on the inside. And I think that part of that

• 1:58:38Speaker 01

  illness has been a shield, you know? To protect themselves.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  I know, and it probably was with me in a lot of ways, you know? If I wasn't as violent as I was, my neighborhood would have devoured me. My environment would have devoured me if I wasn't as um-

• 1:59:01Jocko Willink?

  Yep, so to your point, I agree with you and that's one of the reasons why I think going back to jujitsu or boxing or wrestling or Muay Thai, but when, when you, me, when we're kids, young men, going back to the whole thing about proving yourself, how are you going to prove yourself that you're tough? When you're a kid, you go out and you fight and you beat people up and you do stupid stuff. When you do jujitsu, you know you're tough and, and you know, when you look at some guy in the street like, hey, that guy might stab me, but if he doesn't, I'm gonna, I will choke him out and it'll take me 15 seconds. So I don't have to do anything to prove. That's why I think it's for me. And I think it was Tim Ferriss asked me this question. He's like,

• 1:59:46Jocko Willink?

  what makes a man or something like that? And I was like, to your point, for me, learning how to fight. So learning jujitsu,

• 1:59:58Jocko Willink?

  getting married and having kids and going into combat. Those were the three things that I was like, okay, those three things, they were evolutionary to me and they were the three things that happened where I said, okay, I don't have to walk around trying to prove myself to this guy or that guy. I know how to fight. I, I don't even need to impress that girl over there. I got it, girl. You know, and I got, and I got mouths to feed. So I can't act like an idiot and I know I'm not a coward. And if shit goes down, I, I know that I will do the right thing. I know that a hundred percent. So those were the things that to me gave me like security as a man. And so it's the same thing that you're saying.

• 2:00:38Jocko Willink?

  How, you know, when we're young and there you're out there just to try and prove and, and protect and shield your, your emotions.

• 2:00:47Speaker 01

  Your sensitivity.

• 2:00:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, yeah, that's what you do. And so a good way to get over that, in my opinion, is instead of having to fake it, you learn it for real. I wish I would have had jujitsu when I was a young kid. That would have helped me immensely, you know?

• 2:01:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, well, I mean, just, just one person I'll just mention briefly is, um, Hyun Gracie,

• 2:01:10Speaker 01

  another brother that I, I truly loved and, and, uh,

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  You know, he died in two thousand and seven. It was very tragic and um. Here's a guy who was feared by ninety nine point nine percent of the people that knew him. And the one percent of people that knew him fucking loved him. And he was, you know, it's like I'm saying, like, you know, you got these people who are fucking dangerous motherfuckers. You don't even want to look at them wrong or for too long, you know. But if they fucking love you, man, nobody better fuck with you ever.

• 2:01:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, you got a part in the book where you're talking about, he came home, he fought in Japan.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:54Jocko Willink?

  Comes home, he gives you, you know, you just had your first kid, he gives you two grand.

• 2:01:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:58Jocko Willink?

  Not for nothing, just for being you.

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  And I didn't want to take it and he's like, shut the fuck up. It's for the baby.

• 2:02:08Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, I know motherfuckers my whole life who didn't do that for me, you know.

• 2:02:13Jocko Willink?

  You know, Dean, Dean Lister, who's, you know, one of my friends and training partners and all that. But he's got some funny stories about Hyun and he's like, Hyun was fucking crazy.

• 2:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:23Jocko Willink?

  Like Hyun's.

• 2:02:24Speaker 01

  No, he was a crazy motherfucker. But, but, but to be honest, though, I never had any crazy experiences with him. Because I feel like when he looked into my eyes, he knew he didn't have to prove anything to me.

• 2:02:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you guys kind of counted it out. What's that called?

• 2:02:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was a. Cancelled each other. Well, it was like, you know, I don't have to prove I'm a badass to you. You don't have to prove you're a badass to me. Let's just go out and chill.

• 2:02:47Jocko Willink?

  That's good.

• 2:02:47Speaker 01

  You know, we'd go out and like go to stupid movies like, you know, go out and just

• 2:02:54Speaker 01

  work on his English, you know, like, I'd never, you know. Yeah, we had fun, you know, but we never like got in brawls and got, you know, rah.

• 2:03:04Jocko Willink?

  But I mean, you know, he, he died. He got, uh, he got arrested.

• 2:03:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was a bad, it was a whole bad scene. But you know, again, it's like, you know, again, this is somebody who was very emotional.

• 2:03:17Speaker 01

  And sadly, you know, like many people, started using drugs as a way to deal with shit, I guess. I don't want to say to deal with shit, but maybe just as a little bit of an escape. You know, you gotta figure what kind of fucking, you know, I mean, his favorite song was A Boy Named Sue by Johnny Cash, and he really felt like he was living that life by being him, you know, with the name Gracie and having to be, you know, always having to step up, always having to prove himself, and always having to be a badass. And I think that when you're forced to react and deal with things on that level all the time, and especially

• 2:03:56Speaker 01

  when you are actually a nice person at heart, or a sensitive person at heart, when you're forced to always take that stance, that shit's a fucking tough one, man. You know, that's a hard road to travel. And, you know, I always have him with me. Always. I always have him sitting on one shoulder and Henzo sitting on the other. And, you know, when I-

• 2:04:19Jocko Willink?

  Good backup.

• 2:04:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I have big, when I am confronted by, you know, serious shit, I think about, you know, how one would react and how the other would react. And then I try to find my own sense in there.

• 2:04:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Hyun's kind of a classic example of everything that we're talking about.

• 2:04:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:43Jocko Willink?

  For all, for all practical purposes, you shouldn't be here right now. You should be either dead or in jail or whatever.

• 2:04:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:49Jocko Willink?

  And he did some shit that was going down the same path, but he didn't, didn't make it through the path.

• 2:04:54Speaker 01

  He didn't make it, you know. And that's, you know, that's the, that's the thing, man. I feel really fortunate that I had music because I think that it gave me a tool to, to, it gave me a paddle to row my way through the shit.

• 2:05:09Jocko Willink?

  But it also came with its own load of shit.

• 2:05:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:12Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's funny because, you know, I probably should have encouraged my kids to learn more about music and be more musical, but I encouraged them to be jujitsu guys because I felt that, you know, MMA is way safer.

• 2:05:26Jocko Willink?

  There's less, there's less off roads there, man.

• 2:05:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:29Jocko Willink?

  Less bad exits you can take.

• 2:05:30Speaker 01

  You might get punched in your face a bunch of times, but at least you won't, you know, at least it won't be life punching you in your face.

• 2:05:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, damn.

• 2:05:36Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:05:38Jocko Willink?

  And there's, you know, all kinds of drama around it. You, you described it again as Spinal Tap, you know, just the rock and roll crap. Cro-Mags comes to an end for the most part and you end up putting out out of record Harley's War.

• 2:05:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:54Jocko Willink?

  And, um, good, good rock and roll music, baby. And, uh, now, and also during that time, you, you had some kids.

• 2:06:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:08Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, you, you met the mother of your kids and she wanted to go to school. And so you took off some time to just?

• 2:06:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I pretty much

• 2:06:23Speaker 01

  put my musical career on, uh, hold. You know?

• 2:06:30Jocko Willink?

  To take care of your kids?

• 2:06:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:33Jocko Willink?

  And, uh,

• 2:06:35Jocko Willink?

  you know, one of, one of the paragraphs that you wrote in here is awesome.

• 2:06:40Jocko Willink?

  Talking about your kids and you say, and this is something I completely related to. "I'll tell you, the first time I looked down at the other end of the mats and saw my boys training, it was one of the greatest moments of my life. My youngest son spent his birthday at the academy with George St. Pierre and all the rest of the fellas. My eldest son had his birthday there with all the Gracies and about 30 kids, a full house and a cake with the Henzo Gracie Academy logo on it. My sons have grown up with Henzo like an uncle. Igor, Halls, Gregor, Daniel, Nieman, all the guys treat my boys like family. They've known their instructor, Magnogama, since birth. He came to the hospital to see them hours after they were born and Henzo, they have known since they were days old.

• 2:07:24Jocko Willink?

  My eldest and I have been on Greyhound buses in the middle of the night, traveling hours away to represent RGA and Team Henzo Gracie." I have competed with my sons at nationally ranked grappling submission and jujitsu events. One of my proudest moments was when we both competed at the same event. My son took first place in his division and I took second place in the expert masters division in the thirty to thirty-five year old age bracket, although I was forty-four. Henzo joked when he first saw my son, this is the proof that even though the fruit is rotten, the seed can still be good.

• 2:08:02Jocko Willink?

  That's, uh, yeah. We, we all know that one. And, you know, I, I guess it's when you see your kid doing anything that you love doing and you see, get to see your kid do it echo, you got that in your future. When you see your kid, oh yeah, you, you see your daughter on the mat right now. And, uh, that's, that's cool. When you see your kid like training and I'm to the point right now, my son's a big kid. He's fourteen, but he's, I can roll with him, man. Like a legit, like can roll with him.

• 2:08:31Speaker 01

  He's taller than me?

• 2:08:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:32Speaker 01

  He's, he's. My fourteen year old's six foot buck eighty.

• 2:08:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:37Speaker 01

  How's that even happen?

• 2:08:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, uh, it's awesome when you, when you get to training and you know, the other thing I noticed as well, I surf and with my son, as good as it feels to surf, like as good, there's a really good feeling when you surf. As good as that feels, it feels just as good, if not better, to be paddling back out after catching a wave and see my son just, just, just getting after it. It's just, it's so awesome. It's like, sometimes you sit there and watch, you know, I'll just like, I'll just like watching him and, and you try not, you try to like contain yourself.

• 2:09:14Speaker 01

  It's just groovy.

• 2:09:17Jocko Willink?

  It's just so awesome. It's so cool. And, and you know, you see, you know, and I got a bunch of daughters too and seeing them do when they, it basically, when you see your kids kicking ass at stuff, man, it's.

• 2:09:27Speaker 01

  No, man, it makes you feel fucking good, you know? Yeah. I mean, you see them doing positive shit, especially man, cause God knows, I mean, I've done so much negative shit that when I see my kids doing something positive, makes me feel really good.

• 2:09:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:44Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, talking about your dad. My dad, my father died from a fire. So you, your fa- your father, and we didn't talk about him much, he'd gone away and then he'd like had intermittent contact with you over the years.

• 2:09:55Speaker 01

  Well, actually, once he was out of my life, I, you know, when my mom left him when I was real young, you know, I never saw him again and I only actually spoke to him twice on the phone. I got like one letter from him. And it was like one or two pages and a cassette of him playing guitar in a halfway house. And basically just apologizing a lot. And

• 2:10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, he, he knew he made a lot of bad choices, but um.

• 2:10:39Speaker 01

  It's fucked up though, because you know, I mean, he was all, you know, he was fucked up on heroin and he was an alcoholic and

• 2:10:48Speaker 01

  he, he actually like kicked my mother in the stomach when she was like very pregnant with me, you know, and um.

• 2:10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how much he didn't want me.

• 2:11:03Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:11:08Speaker 01

  You know, it's a, that's a hard pill to swallow, you know, when your father would rather be strung out on heroin than be your father.

• 2:11:17Speaker 01

  But, but I've managed to

• 2:11:21Speaker 01

  turn it around, you know, because I, I love being with not just my kids, but I, I teach the kids at the Enzo Gracie Academy. And

• 2:11:32Speaker 01

  so the childhood that I didn't really have, I get to experience and live vicariously through all these other kids and I get to be a a role model to them whereas I didn't have any. And, you know, I'm teaching these little boys and little girls how to defend themselves and how to fight and how to fight and have honor and how to lose with honor and always to shake their opponent's hand and say, good job, whether they win or whether they lose and how to have that respect for their opponent as well as themselves.

• 2:12:07Speaker 01

  You know, when I teach these kids that, you know, there's like they say in jujitsu, there's no losing in jujitsu. You win or you learn. And when I can take a kid who, you know, I've worked with a lot of kids who have, you know, varying degrees of spectrum disorders, whether they've had autism or physical issues, and to see the improvement that they make, not just in jujitsu, but in in their social skills. You know, kids who are so insecure that they won't look at you, and now they're making eye contact with you, talking to you. It's a life changer.

• 2:12:48Speaker 01

  Looking at your face and shaking your hand, and their chest is out, and their shoulders are back, and they're not all, you know, that. You know, so where I didn't have certain things, you know, at the end of the day, it gave me something else. It gave me the ability to value that that relationship that you can have with children that a lot of people take for granted, a lot of I even get disappointed with a lot of the parents that bring their kids to jujitsu, because I feel like, you know, you're a lot of people hand their kids off to everybody else to teach them how to do everything. You know, they don't work on stuff at home with them. They don't sit there and teach them. They don't

• 2:13:32Speaker 01

  I get, you know, when you have a kid that doesn't know how to do a fucking jumping jack, you're like, what the fuck? Your parents do with you? They don't roll around with you? They don't teach you how to do a somersault? I have to teach you which is your left and your right hand? Like, really? You know? I don't think people value that time enough, and I have said it before, it's like, you know, your your job may, your career may change several times in your life. Your spouse may not be your spouse forever, but your kids are always going to be your kids. So you really have to Cherish and value that and the time that you spend with them because they'll always be your kids. That woman that you think you're in love with may leave you.

• 2:14:17Speaker 01

  You may fall out of love. Your job may, you know, fold. But your kids, you're gonna be your kids forever and they'll always need you, even if it's just emotionally to know that you're there, even if they're not seeing you every year or every six months, or even if you don't speak to them, they, you know, you still have to be

• 2:14:42Speaker 01

  an emotional and spiritual backbone, even from afar. You know, I mean, I you know, I forgive you, Dad.

• 2:14:54Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:14:57Jocko Willink?

  You, uh, when he died, you actually flew down to Texas to, uh, you know,

• 2:15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:04Jocko Willink?

  Basically.

• 2:15:05Speaker 01

  To bury him.

• 2:15:06Jocko Willink?

  Bury him. And

• 2:15:09Speaker 01

  That, that was cool too. I got to finally meet his mother and learn about my father's side of the family. So there was some closure in that.

• 2:15:19Speaker 01

  But I buried him myself. I, I wouldn't let anybody throw dirt on top of him and, uh,

• 2:15:27Speaker 01

  and as it turned out, I wound up burying my mom too with my,

• 2:15:33Speaker 01

  with my youngest son.

• 2:15:38Jocko Willink?

  You're, um,

• 2:15:44Jocko Willink?

  you're, now you were kind of wrapping up this book when you were writing it. And, and you know, you kind of closed it out, um,

• 2:15:56Jocko Willink?

  and

• 2:15:59Jocko Willink?

  When you closed it out, you said this at the end of the book. I guess part of being a father is learning how to eat a certain amount of shit. You do it for your kids because they need you. You just throw a little, on a little salt and pepper and maybe some Tabasco and smile because you gotta be there for them. One thing my father said was, "I've got all these years of experience, experiences that I don't know what to do with, and that's kinda how I feel with my boys. How do I come in for a graceful landing after so much fucking turbulence in my life? Hopefully, I can guide them better than I was guided, or at least maybe they will learn from my mistakes. God knows, I've made enough for everybody."

• 2:16:40Jocko Willink?

  And if I remember correctly, you were, that was the, kinda the end of the book, and then you were moving on and then, and then 2012 comes along and

• 2:16:56Jocko Willink?

  there's like a hardcore fest, you know, they're kinda bringing back like, oh, I don't know if it's like a reunion fest, bringing back a bunch of old bands and the Chromags, I should say a formation of the Chromags or members of the Chromags.

• 2:17:10Speaker 01

  Oh man, you can just call it the Fomags, let's just keep it real, man.

• 2:17:14Jocko Willink?

  They were gonna play-

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  A fake ass band that does my songs with one of the old members, you know.

• 2:17:20Jocko Willink?

  And they were gonna play.

• 2:17:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:17:22Jocko Willink?

  And you were like, "Okay, um, you know, I'm gonna go check it out, and you know what, I'll bring my bass, maybe we'll get on stage, I mean..."

• 2:17:30Speaker 01

  You know what, there was actually two members of the original group playing that night, and my intention was to go and to extend my hand and say, "You know what, guys? I, I love you guys. As much as I hate you, I love you, you know? And just because I like to think that at the end of the day, two people that were friends can laugh at their own foolishness. You know, I would like to think that, that people are able to look beyond their egos and forgive each other for being idiots, because God knows we all are at times. So yeah, I went to that show with the Hope.

• 2:18:12Speaker 01

  Of maybe even being invited up on stage to play a few songs with them. And, uh, well, the rest is history.

• 2:18:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you show up and, and here you go. You're, you're walking through the place. You go to the, you get invited up the dressing room. Hey, come say hi. And then here we go back to the book. As soon as I walked in, I literally walked into the room, took two steps, the door shut and I got punched from behind. Out of the corner, I, my eye, I could see it was some big dude with tattoos. It was like bam, he hit me hard. I saw a bit of a flashbulb, like you see when you get hit out of nowhere and you don't expect it. And then it was a rain of fists and kicks that were coming from every direction of the room. And this was a small room. It's a dressing room and I started falling forward. I fell onto the couch and rolled onto my back and started throwing up kicks just instinctively to get people off me. I was getting jumped by at least four or five guys, probably more. There was a bunch of people in the room.

• 2:19:02Jocko Willink?

  I think I counted seven or eight, although I couldn't even really count in all the chaos. At that point, I reached into my pocket. I had a little knife. I pulled it out and it still had its sheath on. So I just tried to punch the first person that was in front of me and get them the fuck off me. Everybody started screaming. I saw the door of the dressing room open and, and I started yelling, "Security, security." And then I left. And then I saw somebody pull the door shut. And I thought to myself, "Fuck, these dudes, their intention is to fuck me up and they don't want no one to see it." They're trying to beat the shit out of me. And I've seen all these dudes in a pack kicking people to the point where their brains don't fucking work. And I knew right then that if I didn't get the fuck out of that situation, I was not gonna make it home in one piece.

• 2:19:47Jocko Willink?

  So I started flailing the knife as furiously as I could, just to get myself the fuck out of that situation and toward the door. Everybody's screaming, "He's got a knife, he's got a knife." And I don't even know who it was or how they ended up in my face. I guess it was when they were lunging at my arm. I bit whoever was in front of my face. I tore a big piece out of his cheek. It was obvious it was a setup. When I saw the door pulled shut, I was fighting for my life. These guys wanted to kick the shit out of me, stomp me out and no one would see it. There would be no witnesses and that would be that. But that shit was not going down. I bit the one guy's face. I just tore his fucking cheek open right below his eye. He was screaming, blood was running down his face. I bit someone's wrist

• 2:20:30Jocko Willink?

  as they were trying to get the knife out of my hand. I just didn't bite it. I tried to tear a piece out. That's when the bouncers broke into the room. At this point, I was on the bottom of a pile trying to stab and kick and everybody started trying to grab my hand. They're like, "Give me the knife, give me the knife, I'm security." I ended up getting dragged out onto the balcony, getting kicked. I got one good kick in my right face and I'm surprised it didn't knock my teeth out. One dude screamed, "Get on your stomach, get on your stomach, put your hands out in front of you." And this one big guy stepped on my back with both of his feet and another guy was looking at my face and squeezing my throat. I don't know who the fuck was who. One guy looked at me and said, "Motherfucker, I'll kill you, I'll kill you. I will kick you in your fucking face until you are dead, motherfucker, if you don't stop moving."

• 2:21:13Jocko Willink?

  I saw Pete from Sick of It All in the crowd of people next to us with a freaked out look on his face. He was gesturing with his hands for me to calm down and stop resisting. He kept mouthing the words, "Harley, chill, Harley. Please stop. Chill, Harley." That's when one guy said, "Put your hands out in front of you." I asked, "Are you a cop?" He was like, "Yeah," so I said, "Show me your badge." And at that point, the boys in blue came running up the stairs. I was like, "Fine, I'm not moving anymore, cuff me." I stuck my hands out in front of me, face down on the floor. I still didn't know that I'd been stabbed. I got forty stitches in my leg, thank God. It was in my leg. Only the cops cuffed me, turned me over, and that's when I saw the wound in my leg. It was grotesque. The blood was bubbling out of it. The fascia and tendons were literally hanging out of my leg.

• 2:21:58Jocko Willink?

  That's why people started saying that it was a compound fracture. The cops cuffed me. They put me on a chair, carried me down the stairs, and put me in the ambulance. It wasn't until I got cleaned up in the ambulance that they realized it was a stab wound.

• 2:22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a fun night.

• 2:22:17Jocko Willink?

  So, and you kinda already talked about this. I mean, they basically arrest you immediately.

• 2:22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:22Jocko Willink?

  It's total melee.

• 2:22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:24Jocko Willink?

  And...

• 2:22:25Speaker 01

  I actually, when I got arrested, I thought we were all gonna get arrested and there was just gonna be like a bar fight. Everybody get pulled in, but all these fucking guys, uh, started making statements that were basically that I launched into the room and started just stabbing people. So, you know, you got a room full of people saying, "He did it, he did it, he did it." And you got one of me saying, "What the fuck happened? And who the fuck you think is gonna get walked out in cuffs?"

• 2:22:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you end up on Rikers.

• 2:22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:56Jocko Willink?

  Rikers Island, for those of you that don't know, from around the world, is a jail, New York jail, Rikers Island. And meanwhile, the media, you know, is putting out all these, uh, diversion that's getting told to the media, which is that you instigated it and you were a horrible person, etc., etc. And now you're out at Rikers Island, going back the book, all night you'd hear people screaming and talking shit. The youth offenders were in the same building as us, right next door. So, all night, you'd hear them screaming, "Suck my dick, motherfucker, I'll fuck you up, suck my dick."

• 2:23:34Speaker 01

  Suck my dick, fuck you, suck my dick, I'll fuck... All night long.

• 2:23:41Jocko Willink?

  Riot cops came in all the, all fucking night. Then, as soon as the sun would start coming up and they'd finally shut up, the seagulls would start making noise. It was non-stop. Ironically, it was the best sleep I'd gotten in a while, ever since I started going through the bullshit with my ex. My life had truly become a nightmare. I remember at one point, I was looking out through my window, through the gates. It was a beautiful sunny day and I could hear the birds and a butterfly flew past my window and I was like, "Damn." Right then and there, that butterfly represented freedom. What I wouldn't do to be free right then, I had no idea what was gonna happen. My lawyer told me I was possibly looking at two and a half years in jail.

• 2:24:32Jocko Willink?

  Rough.

• 2:24:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember that butterfly very vividly.

• 2:24:38Jocko Willink?

  Papillon.

• 2:24:42Jocko Willink?

  You get that?

• 2:24:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:44Jocko Willink?

  You get that? I know what a pap-. Papillon, it's also a famous prison movie, yeah. It was not in France? Yeah, it's like whatever island.

• 2:24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:24:54Jocko Willink?

  They were on, that was a prison island.

• 2:24:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a fucking no joke prison island.

• 2:24:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was a no joke prison island. And at, you know, we always find the good in things and you got a visitor that came to visit you.

• 2:25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:06Jocko Willink?

  A woman by the name of Laura.

• 2:25:08Speaker 01

  Yes, who is now goes by the name of Laura Lee Flanagan.

• 2:25:13Jocko Willink?

  And she was, she had interviewed you?

• 2:25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:18Jocko Willink?

  For what, for what website?

• 2:25:19Speaker 01

  Uh, she had a website called New York Natives dot com and um, yeah, they did a lot of stories and then, you know, about things happening in the city and interesting people and this and that and blogs and stuff and she interviewed me as a native icon, uh, because, um, you know, you wouldn't know it from looking at her and or by her career. I mean, she's a lawyer. She's, you know, from the Upper East Side. She's amazing and um, she used to be in hardcore for a brief moment in her childhood. So she knew of the Chrome Eggs. She had seen us play and um,

• 2:26:03Speaker 01

  a friend of hers, uh, they were doing, she did a story on C-Squat, uh, squat that I used to live in, you know, and um, it was a really good story. It was very interesting. And one of the people she spoke to around that time said, you should speak to Harley. He used to live there and he'd be, uh, interesting for, you know, for you to interview and she, uh, pursued it and, uh, we started talking, um, we did the interview and I started sending her some chapters of this book that I was still working on at the time.

• 2:26:39Speaker 01

  And, uh,

• 2:26:42Speaker 01

  I don't remember how exactly it came about. I mean, she has a PhD and she's done a lot of writing and stuff in her life and a lot of editing and stuff. And she really enjoyed the book and I needed some help in the editing. I mean, I have a seventh grade education. So there was, the book was basically one sentence when I gave it to her.

• 2:27:04Jocko Willink?

  She gets the award for like editing challenges.

• 2:27:08Speaker 01

  No shit. I mean, it was, it was.

• 2:27:10Jocko Willink?

  When I met her tonight, I was like, yeah, you edited the book. And then we, cause I was an English major too. And we, we had a moment of like, um, I had, I gave her a moment of mutual respect and admiration for her efforts.

• 2:27:21Speaker 01

  You don't know how much she, more she needs. I mean, this book would, okay, it's like 300 pages. It would have been a thousand pages. And it was, like I said, it was one sentence and, and we literally had to like, okay, we've got 10 stories about fighting now. Can we lose these other 20? Okay, we've got 10 stories about like almost overdosing. Can we lose the other 30? Okay, we've got, you know, so there was a, you know, I mean, it would have been a fucking endless book. I mean, I took a lot of fights and a lot of drugs and a lot of rock and roll dumbness and just a lot of, actually good stories didn't make it in, you know?

• 2:28:02Speaker 01

  But I think, I think we got left with a, a, a pretty good picture of everything, you know? Everybody, it's actually funny because when I had the book signing, a lot of people that I went to school with in like fifth and sixth grade from my neighborhood showed up. And they were like, dude, you nailed it, man. You described the neighborhood so perfectly. And the funny shit is actually one of the hitmen, the guys from my block was at my book signing and I actually asked him, I was like, dude,

• 2:28:29Speaker 01

  who the fuck was Pig Man?

• 2:28:33Speaker 01

  And he's like, oh man, that was Crazy Eddie. And Crazy Eddie was a brand of PCP we all used to smoke back then. So I'm sure that's why he got the nickname. But, um, he's like, yeah, man, you know, he's, he's. You got an auto body shop now, grandkids, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, word? You know, I'm like, what's up? I said, what's up? You know? But it was funny because literally like all, that actually mattered more to me than the reviews of the book was when I had people who were, shared those experiences and people who grew up in the neighborhood. I mean, even more so than the Chromeags parts of the books, like the people who were like, yo, you fucking nailed it, man. This is exactly what the city was like. I try to tell people all the time and they don't get it. So I bought them a copy just so they could fucking see for themselves.

• 2:29:18Speaker 01

  That was when I knew that I nailed it, you know? That's, that was, that was it, you know? There was a couple of publishers that didn't want to put it out. They're like, yeah, we can't touch this.

• 2:29:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I can imagine. Like, hey, hey, you know, you know how, um, your wife had to lose like 20 to fight stories and, I had to do for this podcast, I got rid of that, you know, we discussed a fraction of the crazy shit that's in here.

• 2:29:41Speaker 01

  No, I mean, we haven't even touched, I mean, we could sit here and talk for the fucking till, you know, tomorrow and, you know, but, uh.

• 2:29:50Jocko Willink?

  But I do, you know, I just, the book gets it across and that's why, like I said, I thought I was familiar with the hardcore scene and factually, I mean, I went to CBGB's, I don't know,

• 2:30:03Jocko Willink?

  hundreds of times when I was a kid and all shows all over the East Coast, Boston. So, but I still didn't recognize that there was this much chaos.

• 2:30:16Jocko Willink?

  And speaking of chaos, I'm going to go back to the book here. You're sitting in jail and here we go. Because of all the people talking shit and trying to frame me, the record label I just signed with was having second thoughts. Everything was coming to a head and now I had to prepare for a court date, facing four felony counts of second degree assault and weapons charges for biting and stabbing people.

• 2:30:37Jocko Willink?

  If there was ever

• 2:30:38Speaker 01

  And I teach the kids.

• 2:30:42Jocko Willink?

  If there was ever a time that I was about to lose my shit, I'd have to say it was around this time. If there was ever a time someone would relapse into drugs, alcohol, or some self-destructive shit, it was a time like this. I actually went out and got drunk a few nights, which I hadn't done in a long time. I was really depressed. I was really at the bottom. I could have easily spun out of control, but I said to myself, "Fuck that. I'm not gonna let myself go and do that to myself or my kids, or give in and give the satisfaction to my enemies. I'm a black belt. I have more control than that now. I'm not who I once was. I'm stronger than that."

• 2:31:25Jocko Willink?

  And then

• 2:31:29Jocko Willink?

  the next court date, I wound up getting an adjournment again because they didn't have a case against me. And again, it got pushed back while the DA continued to try and build it. Until finally, in December of 2012, they contacted my lawyer and said to appear in court on Friday, December 14th, when the entire case was dismissed.

• 2:31:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:53Jocko Willink?

  And

• 2:31:57Jocko Willink?

  yeah.

• 2:31:59Jocko Willink?

  You, at that point, you know, you kind of get back on track.

• 2:32:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:03Jocko Willink?

  And you're teaching jujitsu, like you said, and there's a good quote here when you're teaching jujitsu after you had the incident at Webster Hall, and one of the parents said, you know, so here he comes back to start teaching the kids' class again after he's been all over the front page of all the papers and stuff.

• 2:32:19Speaker 01

  Everybody's looking at me like, "Oh shit." You know, I walked in the academy and like, every, half the people were like, super happy to see me, and the other half looked at me like, like a gunslinger just walked in. Like, I was like, you know, fucking Wild West.

• 2:32:33Jocko Willink?

  One of the, one of the moms, one of the moms was quoted as saying, "Well, at least I know my kid isn't getting taught jujitsu by a pussy."

• 2:32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was why that fucking made Henzel laugh.

• 2:32:46Jocko Willink?

  And yet, there's still, um, there's still hard times because at this point, you're, you're losing custody of your kids.

• 2:32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:53Jocko Willink?

  And that was, you know.

• 2:32:55Speaker 01

  That's, you know, I gotta tell you, I mean, that, that has been the, the biggest.

• 2:33:03Speaker 01

  Trial and tribulation I have dealt with and obviously I've dealt with many. But you know, especially someone who didn't really have

• 2:33:14Speaker 01

  responsible people like really

• 2:33:20Speaker 01

  raising me, you know, I it really hurts to not be there for your kids every day, you know, because I really, I used to cherish those moments more than anything. I mean, just walking them to school in the morning and the little conversations we would have on the way to school and you know, taking them to jiu jitsu and you know, I really was the the main caretaker. I was with them all day, you know, I did everything with them, took them to the parks, the museums, the thises, the thatses and and to then have that taken away.

• 2:33:58Speaker 01

  It's difficult to, again, to not

• 2:34:03Speaker 01

  start fucking up, you know, especially when you're you know, dealing with depression and all that shit and again, you know, it's just like, like I said, you know, when you don't have someone to love and to feel that, that

• 2:34:19Speaker 01

  reciprocation and

• 2:34:22Speaker 01

  you don't feel needed. It's hard to not feel needed, you know?

• 2:34:28Speaker 01

  But I

• 2:34:31Speaker 01

  I, you know, I went through all the process of family court and this and that and you know, unfortunately, they don't live with me full time, but I see them a lot and you know, everybody knows who's been through a divorce and has kids or fortunately, I was never married to their mother, hallelujah. But anybody who's been in that situation knows it's not easy and it comes with a lot of challenges and so now my challenge is, is to try to

• 2:34:58Speaker 01

  Be involved with my kids' lives as much as I can and to try to give them some moral guidance and manhood guidance from a distance, you know. And sadly, they did see, you know, me and their mother act like complete and total savages towards the end of the relationship because people, when they break up, they typically don't know how to act or behave, even in front of their kids. So, but you know what? Even all of this has made me a stronger and wiser person because I feel that it has, again, forced me to look at myself and

• 2:35:42Speaker 01

  you have choices in every situation how you're gonna react and how you, you know, what you're gonna do and now I really think about the consequences of everything. I know I can't just react explosively if somebody does or says something to me on the street because I know that that could cost me my freedom, it could cost my kids, their father, it could cost my wife or husband. So, you know, even, even losing my kids has been a learning experience that I hope, God forbid, they ever, you know, wind up with kids and separated and this and that,

• 2:36:26Speaker 01

  but hopefully even this bad stuff can help them become better men and smarter men and hopefully better, smarter than I was, you know, and I just try, I try to believe really that in the end, love wins, you know.

• 2:36:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, um.

• 2:36:55Jocko Willink?

  There was still one more

• 2:36:58Jocko Willink?

  thing that you had to overcome in the book.

• 2:37:03Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, sometimes, man, I just read a big chunk of the books that I'm reviewing because it's just a, uh, uh, the way it's written and the way it goes together and the story that it tells. I just don't really wanna change and I just wanna put it out there, so I'm kinda gonna do that right here.

• 2:37:27Jocko Willink?

  After all the madness in my life and the recent drama surrounding Webster Hall, my arrest, losing my kids, starting a new relationship, getting my kids back in my life and dealing with all the drama of family court, my mom was stricken with terminal cancer.

• 2:37:44Jocko Willink?

  After a major operation and what seemed like a recovery, things took a turn for the worse.

• 2:37:51Jocko Willink?

  And through it all, she remained supportive in my battle for my kids and I started spending a lot more time with her.

• 2:38:00Jocko Willink?

  It's fucked up when you know your mom or dad is dying. You go through your whole life with all the baggage and shit that they put on you and all the shit in the world and your friends put on you and then there comes a time when you realize you have to put it all down.

• 2:38:19Jocko Willink?

  And just let it all go.

• 2:38:22Jocko Willink?

  I was with her as much as possible during the last few months. We spent more time together than we had in years. We even left the city one day just a month before she died to spend some time at a horse stable. She loved horses and she hadn't been around them since she was a child.

• 2:38:42Jocko Willink?

  She said it was the most beautiful day in her entire life.

• 2:38:47Jocko Willink?

  And later, she spent the night, and then the next three nights, at my apartment.

• 2:38:54Jocko Willink?

  We had such a good time that she completely forgot to take her pain medication.

• 2:39:00Jocko Willink?

  I hope I can face death with as much dignity.

• 2:39:04Jocko Willink?

  The way she has handled it, I've never seen a braver person in my life. She makes all the men I know look like cowards. Sadly, she only saw my kids twice during her last few months. But the time that they spent together was amazing and very meaningful, and picked up her spirits.

• 2:39:24Jocko Willink?

  And I don't know, and I know that she took great comfort in the fact that I'm finally in a place in my life where things are coming together in a positive way. I just wish she could have been here with us longer.

• 2:39:38Jocko Willink?

  She died Monday, June 15th, 2015.

• 2:39:47Jocko Willink?

  At the funeral, her ashes were carried out and placed on a table.

• 2:39:53Jocko Willink?

  They were in a box not meant to be buried. A beautiful statue of a crying angel.

• 2:40:01Jocko Willink?

  We all took part in reading from Bible verses. "I held on to my son Jonah, and he cried quietly." "My son Harley stood behind me with my girlfriend, trying to keep his composure as tears rolled down his face."

• 2:40:18Jocko Willink?

  "At the end of the service, a slight drizzle of rain started again."

• 2:40:24Jocko Willink?

  "When everyone was done consoling each other, and people started walking away, I looked at the box sitting on the table surrounded by flowers, with the hole in the ground beside it."

• 2:40:36Jocko Willink?

  "Two cemetery workers arrived with shovels and a rake, and I walked back and asked if I could cover her with soil myself, as I had done for my father 13 years earlier."

• 2:40:49Jocko Willink?

  I explained that I didn't feel right about someone who didn't know my mother covering her with dirt.

• 2:40:56Jocko Willink?

  They understood.

• 2:40:59Jocko Willink?

  I thanked them.

• 2:41:02Jocko Willink?

  I took the box with the angel off the table.

• 2:41:06Jocko Willink?

  I kissed it. My sons kissed it.

• 2:41:10Jocko Willink?

  And I got down on my knees and put it in the ground.

• 2:41:15Jocko Willink?

  One of the cemetery workers handed me a shovel and I started to fill the hole.

• 2:41:21Jocko Willink?

  My youngest son, who'd been crying, came over next to me, got on his knees and started to help me fill the hole with his hands, grabbing pieces of soil and putting them in, picking out rocks, so none would damage her box as we filled it.

• 2:41:37Jocko Willink?

  And his tears stopped.

• 2:41:40Jocko Willink?

  I put down the shovel and we both finished by hand. And then I raked the soil over and we patted down the earth with our hands. And it was done.

• 2:41:53Jocko Willink?

  It was so sad and so beautiful.

• 2:41:59Jocko Willink?

  The next day was Father's Day.

• 2:42:04Jocko Willink?

  When I started writing this book, I didn't know what the end was gonna be, or what I wanted to say besides telling the story of my life and setting the record straight.

• 2:42:16Jocko Willink?

  But now it's so obvious what it's about.

• 2:42:22Jocko Willink?

  Closure.

• 2:42:41Jocko Willink?

  And that...

• 2:42:47Jocko Willink?

  That wraps up the book.

• 2:42:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:42:53Jocko Willink?

  And...

• 2:42:58Jocko Willink?

  Look, no one has lived a perfect life.

• 2:43:05Jocko Willink?

  We've all made mistakes, we've all done things that can't be undone and we've gone places that we should not have gone.

• 2:43:16Jocko Willink?

  But we all have the opportunity to redeem ourselves.

• 2:43:24Jocko Willink?

  And it starts with confessing what we've done. It starts with owning it and then getting on the right path and staying on the right path.

• 2:43:35Jocko Willink?

  And staying on that path.

• 2:43:39Jocko Willink?

  The correct path. It takes discipline and it takes humility and it takes courage and it's hard.

• 2:43:52Jocko Willink?

  But

• 2:43:55Jocko Willink?

  what is the other choice?

• 2:44:00Jocko Willink?

  What else can we do? Let the darkness completely consume us, live for instant gratification wherever we can find it, be overtaken

• 2:44:14Jocko Willink?

  by temptation and vice?

• 2:44:21Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:44:25Jocko Willink?

  Do not accept that.

• 2:44:29Jocko Willink?

  I, I hear from a lot of people that struggle with all these things. They're caught, they're drowning.

• 2:44:42Jocko Willink?

  They're folding under the weight of pain and suffering and misery and addiction.

• 2:44:55Jocko Willink?

  And they ask me what I think.

• 2:45:02Jocko Willink?

  But what I think

• 2:45:06Jocko Willink?

  and what Harley proves is that you are better than that.

• 2:45:14Jocko Willink?

  You are better and you can triumph over these dark forces. You can become better, you can be better.

• 2:45:25Jocko Willink?

  For yourself and for the people around you. For all of us.

• 2:45:36Jocko Willink?

  Hold the line.

• 2:45:41Jocko Willink?

  Stay clean.

• 2:45:47Jocko Willink?

  And never surrender.

• 2:46:01Jocko Willink?

  You overcame a lot of stuff, man.

• 2:46:09Speaker 01

  I have and I'm still trying, you know.

• 2:46:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's um.

• 2:46:22Jocko Willink?

  I guess everyone is.

• 2:46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:28Jocko Willink?

  This is the time in the podcast.

• 2:46:33Jocko Willink?

  Why we have echo here.

• 2:46:35Speaker 02

  One of the many reasons.

• 2:46:38Jocko Willink?

  Cause we get the chance to decompress a little bit.

• 2:46:42Speaker 02

  Yes, fully, fully.

• 2:46:43Jocko Willink?

  He gets to ask a couple of questions.

• 2:46:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, they plague my mind a little. You know, like when after the thing, um, where'd they stab, where in your leg?

• 2:46:52Speaker 01

  I actually got stabbed in my leg.

• 2:46:55Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, you can see when I walk.

• 2:46:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, like lower leg. Yeah, cuz you were saying they, you thought or they thought it was a compound fracture.

• 2:47:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz the fissure is white.

• 2:47:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:47:05Speaker 01

  Hanging out, so everybody thought that was bone that was sticking.

• 2:47:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it makes sense down there, but kind of by your shin, like in your thigh, it'd be like compound fracture.

• 2:47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I didn't even know it happened until I was cuffed on the floor.

• 2:47:16Speaker 02

  Bro, see, that's so crazy, like when you're in like the moment so much where you can get straight up stabbed.

• 2:47:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude.

• 2:47:23Speaker 02

  Stabbed with your stuff hanging up.

• 2:47:25Speaker 01

  Half your face can be hanging off.

• 2:47:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:47:27Speaker 01

  What, what, what?

• 2:47:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:47:29Speaker 01

  Okay, what's next?

• 2:47:30Speaker 02

  Okay. Oh, what was that? Oh, my face is off. Oh dang. So crazy.

• 2:47:34Speaker 01

  Here's your eyeball. Thanks.

• 2:47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I mean, that's why, that's why I'm so sketchy when it comes to, like as much as I, you know, I gotta admit it like. That shit was fun. I, I, I like a, a, a good adrenaline.

• 2:47:52Speaker 02

  A good scrap.

• 2:47:53Speaker 01

  Like a, a good violent confrontation, a good fight is fun, but.

• 2:48:03Speaker 01

  It was also like life and death, you know? So it's like, you know, like I was saying, you know, like I had that one fight in California where I'm running into a mob of all these dudes like, you know, I was high off that shit for like a week. My adrenaline was like, ah, I felt like I could fucking, yeah. And then like a week later, I'm like, what the fuck, man? What the fuck was that shit? You know, so like as much as, you know, yeah, it was fun. Like, well, how often do you get to have a street fight anymore, you know? Shit, especially at my age. Put three guys in hospital, that's fucking good time, man. But it was all the other shit, all the fucking ripple effects that came along with it.

• 2:48:43Speaker 01

  Like, fuck, I may not see my kids. Fuck, I may be in jail fucking for the next three years, like fucking, you know, protecting my ass from bubbles over here. You know, I'm like fucking, you know, the whole shit was like, damn, man, can't we, forget, can't we just all get along? Can't we all just have a, a street fight? You know, it's just like, can't we all just have a street fight and get on with our shit, you know? But, you know, but, you know, shit happens, man. What are you gonna do, man?

• 2:49:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, when you put everything into perspective, the whole getting into street fights doesn't seem quite as dope.

• 2:49:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it changes when you got responsibilities.

• 2:49:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that's the thing, the responsibilities.

• 2:49:24Speaker 02

  Anyway, speaking of responsibilities.

• 2:49:26Speaker 01

  Speaking of responsibilities.

• 2:49:28Speaker 02

  We're not getting any younger. Um, so we'll talk about Onnit first, as always. Um, so Onnit, supplements, you know, you know about Onnit?

• 2:49:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:49:38Speaker 02

  Most people usually just know about Onnit, or in the West Coast they do, I think.

• 2:49:41Speaker 01

  That's how you motherfuckers are so big, is you Onit?

• 2:49:45Speaker 01

  I need to get some of that shit. I need to get on it, yo. Yo, what the fuck is up with Onnit?

• 2:49:51Speaker 02

  Actually, true, but here in Indore, and that's what I thought too, with supplements, where it's like, yeah, it takes supplements to get you big. I found that that's not necessarily the case. So the supplements that I take, that we take, they're for like-

• 2:50:02Speaker 01

  You got a suitcase with some in it for me?

• 2:50:04Speaker 02

  I forgot.

• 2:50:05Speaker 01

  I'll get you, I'll, I'll, I'll get you some. I'm getting Onnit, motherfuckers. I've been on other shit, now I'm gonna get on it. This is stuff that's good. This is legal. I want you to be on the right stuff, far as-

• 2:50:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:50:20Speaker 01

  I want you to stay moving towards the light.

• 2:50:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:23Speaker 01

  And the light is Onnit, right? This is the way from the darkness.

• 2:50:26Speaker 02

  Yes, especially if you do Jiu-Jitsu, you know how like you do, like, for example, the one, the ones that- I take, we take now, it's krill oil.

• 2:50:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For inflammation and shit like that.

• 2:50:38Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly, right.

• 2:50:39Speaker 01

  You didn't know about that krill oil?

• 2:50:40Speaker 02

  Who knows? So the, so Onnit is like a real reputable company that, um, like you know, you're getting it, cause right, you can get supplements.

• 2:50:47Speaker 01

  No, you get some bootleg shit.

• 2:50:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:49Speaker 01

  You get like, they say krill and you're getting like fucking, you know, rat oil.

• 2:50:54Speaker 02

  It's like this much krill oil.

• 2:50:56Speaker 01

  Or some shit, you know, yeah.

• 2:50:57Speaker 02

  And they'll be like, yeah, there's krill oil in there.

• 2:50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, like this much, you know, the rest of it's all vitamin E gel.

• 2:51:02Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly, right. So this Onnit is like known to be the best.

• 2:51:07Speaker 01

  I'm gonna have to get down.

• 2:51:09Speaker 02

  Actually, Aubrey, the, the, you know, the main guy, his like, he has an extensive background in like uptake. You know how like, you can get a calcium supplement, but that supplement won't deliver the uptake. So you, your body doesn't.

• 2:51:22Speaker 01

  You're not even breaking it down or absorbing it correctly.

• 2:51:24Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. So there's all these states.

• 2:51:26Speaker 01

  No, there's a lot of different vitamins and all that shit. I, I, I try to get all my vitamins through food.

• 2:51:32Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:51:33Speaker 01

  You know, if I can, you know. Yeah, that's optimal.

• 2:51:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that's, that's kind of the point there where like, yeah, when you get it with food, you know that you're going to get the best uptake. For the most part, you know, if you, if you're getting your, you know, I don't know, protein from soybeans or something, you know.

• 2:51:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, I don't get as much protein as you animals over here. I'm a vegetarian.

• 2:51:52Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 2:51:53Speaker 01

  I, I have been since like eighty-two or something like that. Which I also think is one of the reasons why I managed to, uh, maintain a certain level of health and, and sanity. Despite all the drugs, I think, I think that that actually, you know, helped me.

• 2:52:09Speaker 02

  The wheatgrass.

• 2:52:10Speaker 01

  You're right, that's true.

• 2:52:13Speaker 01

  Hey, hey, everyone that's listening to the podcast, if you're shooting up heroin, make sure you take your wheatgrass. And always wear a condom when you're shooting your heroin.

• 2:52:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:52:23Speaker 01

  Good lord.

• 2:52:24Speaker 02

  But yeah, you figure that's optimal from the food, but Onnit, like they like, they do a good job in, in, in knowing like the optimum way to uptake, like the nutrients. See, I found that out.

• 2:52:34Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 2:52:35Speaker 02

  So you know, so you know, that's a good one. Anyway, one of the reasons. So we do krill oil, Strongbone, new one I just started. Jocko always does it for your, for your joints. So you do jujitsu and you know.

• 2:52:45Speaker 01

  No, I have some joint issues.

• 2:52:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, man, after a while, that's how. And yeah, and the krill oil helps a lot, a lot, a lot. That's the, I'd say that's the number one.

• 2:52:54Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 2:52:55Speaker 02

  That I would recommend. I'd recommend a few more other things too, but just for different reasons. Like they have this one Warrior Bar, it's Buffalo, you're vegetarian, so nevermind. Buffalo meat.

• 2:53:05Jocko Willink?

  Buffalo meat.

• 2:53:06Speaker 02

  Made, you know how like they make, not necessarily.

• 2:53:08Speaker 01

  Well, I know buffalo meat's better for you. I mean, I know, you know, it doesn't have all the fucking hormones.

• 2:53:12Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if you could necessarily offer it to the gods.

• 2:53:15Speaker 01

  Which god you're offering it to. I mean, I'm sure there's some Native American god you could offer it to.

• 2:53:20Jocko Willink?

  There's a lot of gods out there. I do know that the Warrior Bar is good. I know that much.

• 2:53:25Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, if you're Hindu, there's enough gods to pick from, you know?

• 2:53:29Jocko Willink?

  That's true. They got plenty.

• 2:53:32Speaker 02

  I think they'd be down for the shroom tech as well, which is stuff. It's made from a mushroom. Do you know the mushroom name?

• 2:53:39Jocko Willink?

  Different kind of mushroom.

• 2:53:40Speaker 01

  Different kind of mushroom. That's the kind I was doing on Alpha Omega.

• 2:53:44Jocko Willink?

  Where the keyboard started to sound good.

• 2:53:48Speaker 02

  But it's just to help you uptake oxygen when you do athletic.

• 2:53:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:53:51Speaker 02

  Hard stuff, like jiu-jitsu.

• 2:53:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, your oxygen level, you need to, especially as you get older, your oxygen doesn't travel as well and.

• 2:53:58Jocko Willink?

  I just realized there's great, there's no greater joy for Echo than when someone's on the, on the, on the podcast as a guest that wants to know about this stuff. He's pumped. Look at him.

• 2:54:08Speaker 02

  Bro, they'll ask me at Pat, like when I'm training or whatever, they'll be like, hey, what's up with the krill oil? Is that like, you know, your thing? And then, bro, I'm, I'm like doing a sales pitch to them. Seems like it anyway.

• 2:54:19Speaker 01

  Get him a krill shirt.

• 2:54:23Speaker 02

  Ask me about the krill oil. Change your life, man.

• 2:54:25Jocko Willink?

  Don't, don't, don't ask me about that.

• 2:54:26Speaker 02

  Bro, I'm telling you, in the mornings, I told this story before, Jock heard it plenty of times. In the mornings, my daughter, she's, she's like four now, but you know, when she was like three, she'd come in, wake me up.

• 2:54:35Jocko Willink?

  Actually, the only person in the world that hasn't heard this story is Harley Flynn. But he's about to hear it.

• 2:54:40Speaker 01

  I'm about to hear it.

• 2:54:41Jocko Willink?

  No one's gonna stop him.

• 2:54:44Jocko Willink?

  You and me talked for three hours right there. Echo gets to talk for an hour now about krill oil. Go.

• 2:54:49Speaker 02

  Alright, yeah, you told your story and that was a good one.

• 2:54:51Jocko Willink?

  Go.

• 2:54:52Speaker 02

  Here my, anyway, she'd jump, she'd, she'd wake me up, jump on my back. So, you know, now I gotta stand up, out of bed, cold, sore from whatever, with a three-year-old on my back. And it'd be stiff, I gotta do the correct form to get up. Otherwise, you know, you turn your back, your knees, all that stuff. After like, it was just under a week, krill oil. No factor. It's like I was already warm. That's the feeling.

• 2:55:18Speaker 02

  You want some krill oil?

• 2:55:19Speaker 01

  I was just gonna interject, I gotta give my uh father-in-law some props, may he rest in peace. He turned me on to the krill.

• 2:55:26Speaker 02

  Boom, me too.

• 2:55:27Jocko Willink?

  Same with your father-in-law, right?

• 2:55:29Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 2:55:29Jocko Willink?

  The father-in-laws know what's up.

• 2:55:31Speaker 01

  The father-in-laws, they've been around.

• 2:55:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, they know.

• 2:55:33Speaker 01

  They've been around a little longer than us. Yeah, no, he turned me on and, and even though, you know, I am a vegetarian, I do take the, the fish oil, the krill oil and whatnot because, you know, I mean, look, I, I started off as a vegetarian for, for whatever spiritual reasons and whatever health reasons. Now, I, I, I believe it's best to have a mainly vegetarian diet. But if my body starts saying, motherfucker, you need some fish, like you, you are like about to be dropped dead if you don't get some serious protein surge. Like, I will do what I, what my body tells me to do.

• 2:56:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:12Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I think humans are, are designed to be able to do vegetarian and meat. That's why we have two different kinds of teeth. I, you know, when we were hunter-gatherers, you know, you were gathering a lot more than you were hunting realistically. Cause hunting wasn't always easy with a fucking spear.

• 2:56:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:56:29Speaker 01

  You know, so, you know.

• 2:56:31Jocko Willink?

  I listen to my body a lot too, and my body usually tells me to eat.

• 2:56:38Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:56:39Jocko Willink?

  Props.

• 2:56:39Speaker 02

  Yep, total prop. Well, the good thing about the krill, whether this me, however much this means, how they harvest the krill.

• 2:56:47Speaker 01

  Is also, yes.

• 2:56:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, so how they do it though is, is good. They use like eco-friendly chips. You can watch the video.

• 2:56:54Speaker 01

  Friendly chips?

• 2:56:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:56:55Speaker 01

  What the fuck is that, a robo?

• 2:56:57Speaker 02

  I'm telling you.

• 2:56:59Jocko Willink?

  It's a canoe.

• 2:57:01Speaker 01

  A really big robo.

• 2:57:03Speaker 02

  It's a canoe. Big robo, yes.

• 2:57:05Speaker 01

  Eco-friendly ship. Fuck is that?

• 2:57:09Speaker 02

  I watched the video, I watched the video, it's good.

• 2:57:12Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Maybe you just need to have your own podcast called the Echo On It Podcast.

• 2:57:16Speaker 02

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna. People need to know.

• 2:57:18Speaker 01

  You gotta fucking make your own line, echo oil.

• 2:57:22Speaker 02

  Something, I don't know, man, the On It one, I think they have a nail in that for sure.

• 2:57:25Speaker 01

  Alright, On It, I'm gonna get On It.

• 2:57:27Speaker 02

  Interestingly enough, how your father-in-law turned it up, my father-in-law turned me on to it. I didn't listen to him, by the way. I only did it when Jaco was like, yeah, I take krill oil, so I was like, okay, I'm gonna take krill oil. My father-in-law, yeah, he, whatever. Anyway, anyway, on it dot com slash Jaco, that's how you can get 10% off of all your stuff, whatever you like.

• 2:57:45Speaker 01

  Well, I'm just gonna ask him directly, get me the 10%.

• 2:57:48Speaker 02

  Oh, he'll slide you, yeah. That's what, that's what I did in the beginning, too.

• 2:57:53Jocko Willink?

  Taking my Krill oil.

• 2:57:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:57:56Speaker 02

  Also, good way to support Amazon click through. So what all that is, you shop Amazon, right?

• 2:58:02Speaker 01

  I guess I have.

• 2:58:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're good.

• 2:58:03Jocko Willink?

  Okay, then, remember how I just said you're the only person that hadn't heard like the Krill oil, so now you're the only person in the world that's not getting everything they buy off of Amazon.

• 2:58:12Speaker 01

  Bro, I, I, I live in the city. I go to the store, man.

• 2:58:15Jocko Willink?

  I guess it's different here.

• 2:58:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. We want it, we go out on the front door and get it.

• 2:58:19Jocko Willink?

  You can walk, yeah, you can walk everywhere. Yeah, it's not like that. Like I said, we got yards and.

• 2:58:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, you got fucking barbecues and yards. Fuck, y'all motherfuckers all miserable about fucking, no winter, bitch ass motherfuckers. No snow, nothing.

• 2:58:36Speaker 02

  He gets to, we have a winter, what?

• 2:58:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, he's from Hawaii, right? So he's, he goes, he takes it from California, goes one step further.

• 2:58:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, my mom says that, oh yeah, in the winter, it rains a little, but I don't even know if that's true.

• 2:58:48Speaker 01

  Rains a little, that shit, that don't qualify as.

• 2:58:51Speaker 02

  I know, what is that?

• 2:58:52Speaker 01

  Anything. You mean it feeds the plants, what is that? You know, unless it's a fucking monsoon, I don't wanna hear it.

• 2:59:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, man, I hear bad things, I hear bad things, but yeah.

• 2:59:04Jocko Willink?

  So, Amazon.

• 2:59:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, back to the Amazon.

• 2:59:06Speaker 01

  Amazon, all these things you're turning me on to.

• 2:59:08Speaker 02

  In the event of you shopping on Amazon, and this goes for everyone, before you go to Amazon, you click through the website.

• 2:59:15Jocko Willink?

  Through our website.

• 2:59:16Speaker 01

  Your website.

• 2:59:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's like a little, it's like a support. So when you buy, you get a thing from Amazon saying, hey, thanks for referring people, you know, it's pretty, that's pretty dope.

• 2:59:25Jocko Willink?

  They give us a little bit, a little piece of that.

• 2:59:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:59:27Jocko Willink?

  And you know what it costs? The, the cool thing is, cuz you can set up things for, for like podcasts, that's basically give me money. Gi- just give me money, but.

• 2:59:36Speaker 02

  Oh, like a donation.

• 2:59:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't really like asking people for money. This, you don't even, it doesn't, your price doesn't go up. It's actually in my book, it's kind of a good way to stick it to the man because Amazon gotta kick a little bit down to the podcaster over here.

• 2:59:49Speaker 02

  But it's kind of not because.

• 2:59:52Speaker 01

  Wait a minute, you stick it to the man too?

• 2:59:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I do.

• 2:59:54Speaker 01

  I thought you were all about the man.

• 2:59:56Speaker 02

  He's kind of an ambiguous sticking it.

• 3:00:00Jocko Willink?

  I guess, I guess I'm probably, you know, I still got the roots, man.

• 3:00:03Speaker 01

  Give it his integrity, fuck the man. Wait a minute, I am the man. Wait, am I the man? Wait, fuck the man.

• 3:00:14Speaker 02

  There is a, yeah, a little bit of confusion there.

• 3:00:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 3:00:18Speaker 02

  But I mean, either way, you know, when you do, do this, I think it does benefit Amazon because like a referral, you know? I mean.

• 3:00:24Jocko Willink?

  Oh, because they get, so you're saying that somebody might order something from another online retailer, but instead someone says, I'm going to support the podcast.

• 3:00:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, fuck that. Support the podcast, motherfuckers. Yeah. Don't be a bunch of bitches. You gotta support the home team, man. Fuck that.

• 3:00:39Speaker 02

  I feel the same way.

• 3:00:41Jocko Willink?

  It's hardly on that one.

• 3:00:42Speaker 01

  Straight up, man. Shit.

• 3:00:43Speaker 02

  But Amazon is actually pretty cool like that. Like they'll offer every once in a while, like little things like, oh, you want to donate? Like you round up, like let's say your thing costed like eight eighty-nine. And you're like, hey, you got eleven cents to the next dollar. You want to donate that eleven cents to like something? It's like charity. Anyway, Amazon's good like that. Anyway, you want to support the podcast through the Amazon click through? Go to the Jocko Podcast website, which is jockopodcast.com and click on the support or the Amazon banner and then do your shopping. That's a good way. Some people, they'll do it and then like the little, they'll get a screenshot of it and they'll send it to me on Twitter.

• 3:01:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that, that is cool.

• 3:01:20Speaker 02

  That is dope.

• 3:01:21Jocko Willink?

  It's confirmation.

• 3:01:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's kind of like, like they're saying, hey, I'm supporting the bot. And I feel, I feel that like the literal direct support from them.

• 3:01:29Jocko Willink?

  So if you want to give Echo Charles a good day as you support the podcast, hit him with a little social media pump.

• 3:01:36Speaker 02

  A lot of times they don't see like the price or nothing, they'll just say, oh, it'll be a screenshot. Pretty ambiguous. It could very well not even be them supporting the podcast necessarily. It's just, I just feel like, oh, yeah.

• 3:01:46Jocko Willink?

  They're just trying to tickle your.

• 3:01:47Speaker 02

  We kinda did that. Maybe. It works. It works. I like when they do that. Makes me feel good. I feel like they care.

• 3:01:52Jocko Willink?

  Please.

• 3:01:53Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, very easy, very easy. Anyway, you can subscribe to the podcast iTunes if you listen to it on iTunes and Stitcher, Google Play, all these ones. Um, yeah, that helps. Leave a review if you're in the mood like what Jocko's saying. Or Harley, like Harley's thing. You know, give a review on this specific one. Uh, we have a YouTube channel. If you have not subscribed to that, go ahead, subscribe to that. If, if you like the video version of this podcast, but the excerpts, you know, people have been kind of giving me crap about saying excerpts a lot. Do I say excerpts?

• 3:02:27Jocko Willink?

  You say it a lot and you put your tone on it.

• 3:02:31Speaker 02

  For real?

• 3:02:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:32Speaker 02

  You don't just say. I don't think I said a lot.

• 3:02:33Jocko Willink?

  No, you don't say, hey, you know, we've got some excerpts that we put on it. You go, I made a couple excerpts.

• 3:02:41Jocko Willink?

  You go, you go escalation voice level 12.

• 3:02:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess. Well, I think that was your, was that your idea?

• 3:02:48Jocko Willink?

  Excerpts?

• 3:02:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:02:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:50Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 3:02:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because people don't want to watch. Yeah, they're not going to watch three hours. Yeah, three hour podcast. If there's some point, oh, hey, Jocko did a cool thing with Harley Flanagan. He was talking about this.

• 3:03:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:03:01Jocko Willink?

  They want to see Harley for three minutes. They want to send it to their buddy that they listen to hardcore with.

• 3:03:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:03:06Jocko Willink?

  They, they can't send them, hey, watch this three and a half hour podcast in the next, during your lunch break.

• 3:03:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:03:12Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't work.

• 3:03:12Speaker 02

  Can't do it.

• 3:03:13Jocko Willink?

  You gotta send them a little clip. Listen to Harley Flanagan talk about a street fight.

• 3:03:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, exactly right.

• 3:03:19Jocko Willink?

  Maybe you should do a bunch of excerpts of yourself talking about on it.

• 3:03:22Speaker 02

  And excerpts. You're saying excerpts. Yeah. No, that's not very shareable, but that was a good idea. Thank you, Jocko, for that. So if you want to see excerpts of random lessons, not random, they're not random. Sorry. I didn't mean random. Excerpts of lessons, individual lessons.

• 3:03:37Jocko Willink?

  Selected.

• 3:03:38Speaker 02

  Selected from the podcast. Boom, that's on YouTube.

• 3:03:41Jocko Willink?

  And also if you want one. Tell Echo on social media, hey, make this time period on this podcast into an excerpt. And put me on there too, because that way I can harass him to, now, we can't do it every single one. Taking requests.

• 3:03:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:03:55Jocko Willink?

  You can't do every single one, but some of them I see and I go, yeah, Echo, come on, man.

• 3:04:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, no.

• 3:04:02Jocko Willink?

  The people are asking.

• 3:04:03Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 3:04:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, can you post wheatgrass and heroin?

• 3:04:05Speaker 02

  Yes, see, yep.

• 3:04:07Jocko Willink?

  That'll be a fun one.

• 3:04:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, bro, I think we're gonna, I think we're gonna do that one.

• 3:04:13Speaker 02

  But not yet.

• 3:04:14Jocko Willink?

  That's the one they're gonna do.

• 3:04:16Speaker 02

  Fuck. Yeah, that was.

• 3:04:19Jocko Willink?

  We'll have t-shirts.

• 3:04:23Jocko Willink?

  Cause everybody, that's another thing, they want excerpts, but people also wanna have t-shirts for everything. You know, every, like, anything that some person somewhere. Health, food and heroin. Yeah, somebody finds something funny or interesting or whatever, and it's, hey, we need to make that into a t-shirt. And then it gets escalated to a certain point where enough people ask for it, and then we break down. Echo breaks down.

• 3:04:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:04:43Jocko Willink?

  And, and makes a t-shirt.

• 3:04:44Speaker 02

  Puts it up, it's true, it works too. It's like a, um, yeah, it's good. Anyway, yeah, so the excerpts, good idea, thank you, uh, YouTube. But if you do the requests, if you're requesting the, the, you know, what episode and what excerpt, be sure you know which, uh, which excerpts are already on there, cause sometimes people, hey, do this one, and then it'll already be on there. Just saying.

• 3:05:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sometimes people t- tell me to do a book review, and it's already been done.

• 3:05:12Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:05:12Jocko Willink?

  If you're doing a real, yeah.

• 3:05:14Speaker 02

  Art of War.

• 3:05:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I get a lot of requests like that. And then I have to, then I have to look up and see which one it is, and then send it back to them and say, hey, man, I already did it on this one.

• 3:05:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, actually, that's a good, like, how, how we were going over today, that's a good thing about how we put the, the timestamps on all the subjects, so, and that feeds into the search terms. So if you, you're like, hey, Sun Tzu, Jocko Podcast, Art of War, it'll go, boom, to that episode.

• 3:05:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:05:36Speaker 02

  Twenty-two or three, whatever.

• 3:05:37Jocko Willink?

  You know, actually, coming on top of this book, uh, there's a book out about HR right now from The Bad Brains.

• 3:05:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:05:42Jocko Willink?

  And the reason I'm thinking of this is cause one of my buddies who's into the podcast, who was a hardcore kid growing up, and his name is Nako, but. He's a, he's a cop in LA and he was a cop in New York. And so, it's, I'm just thinking about that, like, here's a kid that grew up listening to the Chromags, who's been like saying, get a Harley or you gotta get a, he's a cop, he's a badass cop. And his, and his girl's a cop too.

• 3:06:09Speaker 01

  I got, I got friends that are cops, man. I don't hate them all.

• 3:06:16Speaker 02

  You know how people, they'll be like, hey, no, I don't hate cops. I got friends that are cops.

• 3:06:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, some of my best friends are black people.

• 3:06:25Speaker 02

  Look, I got a picture of me and a cop on my phone.

• 3:06:31Jocko Willink?

  Busted, busted, busted.

• 3:06:34Speaker 01

  Busted, disgusted, not to be trusted, fuck, nah.

• 3:06:39Speaker 02

  Oh, good. Um, also, hey, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko's Store. These shirts Jocko and we were talking about.

• 3:06:45Speaker 01

  I need to get one of these discipline equals freedom motherfucking shirts. You know, I wrote a song recently that I named Discipline Equals Freedom. And, and just, I gotta fucking say, because, you know, I, I, I don't give a fuck. I'm gonna say it and that's that. Yo, when I found out that Jocko was into hardcore and when I found out that he was into my band, the Chromags, I was, I was very proud and all and, uh,

• 3:07:15Speaker 01

  and I asked this motherfucker, you ever thought about singing in a hardcore band? And their fucking reaction I got out of this motherfucker, if my computer screen could like just turn into like a fucking screaming like, the motherfucking, the, the, the, the response. Anyway, I'm very proud to say that, uh, what, what we're gonna be playing, besides doing this European tour, I'm going away in, in a week, playing all over the place. Then we're coming back and in June, I'm gonna be playing in LA. And we have invited Jocko to come and make a special guest appearance when we play at the Fury Fest in LA.

• 3:07:54Speaker 01

  So for all you motherfuckers out there who want to see me playing with one of the baddest motherfuckers walking this fucking earth certified by the US fucking government, then you were gonna see some fucking badass shit because I'll tell you, I have not gotten, I haven't been able to just play the bass and not be chained to the microphone in a really long time. And that was one of the things that was intense about the Chromeags back in the old days was that me and the singer both used to go fucking ape shit when we played. And it's funny because I've been thinking for the longest time, "Man, if I could get a singer, who would I get?" And I'm like, "You know, shit." You know, Henry Rollins in his prime was fucking badass.

• 3:08:37Speaker 01

  You know, Phil Anselmo in his prime was a fucking badass. I wonder what Jocko would do with this shit? So.

• 3:08:45Jocko Willink?

  We'll see what happens if a mic ends up in my hands.

• 3:08:48Speaker 01

  We'll see what happens. So all you motherfuckers who want to see some shit. You know, I used to have a fake seal singing in my band. Now I'm getting a real one.

• 3:08:56Jocko Willink?

  We'll see what happens if a mic ends up in my hands.

• 3:08:59Speaker 01

  Well, I may have to slap him with a mic and see what happens.

• 3:09:02Speaker 02

  There you go. Boom. Yeah, you can sing with those shirts on. Discipline equals freedom.

• 3:09:08Speaker 01

  That's fucking right.

• 3:09:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. Jocko's story, that's where you get them. I got you. Whatever shirt you need, I got you. For sure. But if you're in the mood to support the podcast, purchase a shirt or whatever. We have other stuff on there. Jacostory.com.

• 3:09:22Jocko Willink?

  What about those mugs you made?

• 3:09:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, those are some good mugs. So.

• 3:09:26Jocko Willink?

  I shouldn't have even said this. He's been amped about these coffee mugs we got. Or what are they called? Travel mugs?

• 3:09:32Speaker 02

  Travel mug, tumblers. I've heard.

• 3:09:34Jocko Willink?

  Here we go.

• 3:09:35Speaker 02

  Alright, I won't go that deep into it this time. Next time, I'm going deep, extra deep. This time, I'll go just kind of deep. This is straight up the best cup I've ever.

• 3:09:44Speaker 01

  Does it look like his head? Like your hand line is like?

• 3:09:47Speaker 02

  Jocko face. Actually, we kept it a little bit simple. You know, it's just black on black. It's like black matte and then the design, you know, it looks like this on one side, then it's shiny black. Anyway, it looks super dope. But 30 ounces, so big enough, but small enough to fit in your cup holder. Boom.

• 3:10:09Speaker 01

  I'd be drinking some motherfucking coffee, so.

• 3:10:12Speaker 02

  So here's the thing about the coffee. It's it's those ones that are like, I don't know how they make them, you know, the inside and I don't know. They're stainless steel, BPA free, all this, you know, good stuff. I don't know what all of that means, but it's, I know it's dope.

• 3:10:27Speaker 01

  There's krill involved.

• 3:10:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's somewhere, you know, down the line. Uh, krill is involved, but it keeps it like your, if you like your coffee hot, it'll keep it hot. For like eight hours or something like that. I don't know if it keeps it the same temperature for eight hours. It might, I don't know. I've never had.

• 3:10:45Speaker 01

  I'm a cold coffee guy.

• 3:10:46Speaker 02

  All right, well, here's the good news about that, bro.

• 3:10:48Speaker 01

  I was gonna say.

• 3:10:49Speaker 02

  Bro, you put, how's this? I put ice water in it and I was drinking it. I drank.

• 3:10:56Speaker 02

  Like almost all of it, there was still a little bit in the bottom and I forgot about it, went to sleep. The next day I was cleaning up, I was like, oh, my cup from last night, boom, ice still in there. You know how usually in a regular cup, it's like water? It'll keep it cold for 24 hours. Boom. Not losing any coldness. Anyway. I want to go way deeper next time, but this is straight.

• 3:11:16Speaker 01

  We'll have a special podcast for you to talk about that, that cup or mug. The cupboard. Yeah. One episode will be the cup, the other episode will be the oil.

• 3:11:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh, no, oil every single time. I'll go deeper.

• 3:11:27Speaker 01

  Start with the oil.

• 3:11:28Speaker 02

  Bro, I'll go deeper with the krill oil right now, if we have to. I know, but anyway.

• 3:11:33Speaker 01

  They make krill oil lube too, eh?

• 3:11:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's essentially what it is anyway, but yeah. But yeah, Choco Star, there's some cool stuff on there. Travel mugs are out. Those are good. There's some bumper stickers, some women's stuff on there, some patches. Some rash guards, one new rash guard, man, it's not, it'll be out, but nonetheless, I'm not gonna promise anything quite yet. But new rash guards are gonna be out, hoodies are on there. There's some good stuff. Hey, just take a look. If you like what's on there. You want to support in that way? Get something. Also, psychological warfare, okay?

• 3:12:06Speaker 02

  Alright, Harley might not know about Psychological Warfare, so I'm gonna explain it. Go deep, not that deep. So, basically, it's an album.

• 3:12:13Jocko Willink?

  We're three hours and eighteen minutes into this.

• 3:12:17Speaker 02

  It's an album.

• 3:12:18Jocko Willink?

  He doesn't care. Echo don't care. Echo don't care. He doesn't care. Three hours, and keep listening.

• 3:12:22Speaker 02

  No, I'm just saying, this part is kinda important, too. You know what I mean? People are out there getting after it. Waking up early, some people, some of us. Sticking to the program, sticking to the diet, sticking to the workouts, right? Every once in a while, you wake up, or you don't feel like waking up early that day, or you don't feel like working out that day, you're kinda tired, you had a hard day, whatever. So, when it's time to, when it's go time, you're like, hey, maybe I'll skip today. You know, when you're sleeping on the program.

• 3:12:50Speaker 01

  I know that feeling.

• 3:12:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's the point, we all do.

• 3:12:54Jocko Willink?

  When you skip your wheatgrass.

• 3:12:58Speaker 02

  Exactly, right. So, bam, you get this, it's, okay, it's an album called Psychological Warfare, it's Jocko. It's not, it's not music, it's just tracks, with Jocko telling you how to overcome those weak moments in your program.

• 3:13:11Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 3:13:12Speaker 02

  But it's him telling you.

• 3:13:12Speaker 01

  When I, when I am having a weak moment, the last thing I wanna fucking hear is Jocko fucking telling me to get after it. Oh, fuck.

• 3:13:22Speaker 02

  Really?

• 3:13:22Speaker 01

  Right now?

• 3:13:23Speaker 02

  No, I gotta do that.

• 3:13:24Speaker 01

  Really? Fuck. It's four o'clock. Give me a fuck another four hours. Fuck me. You know, I like sleep. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you guys, but whatever, it's all good.

• 3:13:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, hey, you know.

• 3:13:37Jocko Willink?

  Echo likes sleep, too.

• 3:13:38Speaker 01

  I like sleep a lot, too, for sure. I like dreams.

• 3:13:40Jocko Willink?

  No, I like sleep, too. No, actually, I don't. Sleep is the enemy.

• 3:13:44Speaker 01

  Ah, man, I like sleep. It's like, it's like the, the last hallucinogenic I can take.

• 3:13:53Speaker 01

  Sleep, I dream, my brain goes bananas. Love it.

• 3:13:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. If you had my dreams, you wouldn't wanna sleep either.

• 3:14:01Jocko Willink?

  I prefer to be awake.

• 3:14:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I hear you.

• 3:14:03Speaker 01

  Makes sense, makes sense.

• 3:14:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, I get it.

• 3:14:07Speaker 02

  But it goes for the workout stuff, too, though, not just the sleep. So, you can skip the sleep ones. So, you go, but like, like, the workout one, and tell you, tell you, don't skip the workout. Anyway, it's good. Very helpful. Hundred percent chance of success with that one. That's a good one. Psychological Warfare.

• 3:14:22Jocko Willink?

  And also, by the way, when you click through Amazon, you can click through and you can buy this book right here. The book is called Hardcore: Life of My Own. It is written by Harley Flanagan. And we'll have it up on the website, but let me rephrase that. It's on the website. Oh, yeah. Waiting to be purchased. And there you go. Pick it up. On Amazon, you can also get some Jocka White Tea. I hear good things. Now, there's some things in the book that Harley does not recommend. He's tried them, but he does not recommend. Some of those things that he clearly states in the book, he literally says,

• 3:15:02Jocko Willink?

  "I do not recommend," for instance, "I do not recommend angel dust. I do not recommend heroin. I do not..." So there's a lot of things he doesn't recommend. Now, here's something that I will strongly recommend. And that's Jocka White Tea. It's gonna get you a lot better results than anything, any of the supplements that Harley's taken in this book. You go with Jocka White Tea instead. You're gonna have a much better trip. I'm gonna tell you that right now. Also, we talked a lot about jiu-jitsu today. And we talk about jiu-jitsu a lot, you know, jiu-jitsu's a big, you know, jiu-jitsu is a powerful thing. And there's a book, it's out right now, and it's geared, it's written, kinda written for kids.

• 3:15:48Jocko Willink?

  It's called Way of the Warrior Kid. It's available. Everyone that's bought it already, thank you. I appreciate the support. Thanks for spreading the word. Thanks for letting kids get a little insight into life. And I'll tell you, there's something about this book that is, when I wrote it,

• 3:16:09Jocko Willink?

  the dad, the father, the book is about a kid who's, you know, fifth grade, going through life. The father in the book...

• 3:16:19Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't have a role. Now, you might think I'm a, you know, bad person for not giving the father the role. But, you know, all he says, there's one line about the father in the book. He says, "My dad's gone a lot with work and stuff." It's that ambiguous. And, and there's a couple of reasons why I did that. And the number one reason is because not everyone, not every kid has got a dad.

• 3:16:43Speaker 01

  I mean, what you're saying is actually very real.

• 3:16:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:16:46Speaker 01

  You know, and a lot of kids have to just deal with, "Oh, yeah, my father's not around much."

• 3:16:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:16:52Speaker 01

  You know?

• 3:16:53Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's why I did it. And, and there's another subtle reason. And, you know, without going into too much crazy detail, the, the lead character in the book, his name is Mark. And he's actually named after Mark Lee, who was one of my guys, just an incredible, incredible person, incredible warrior, and he was killed in Iraq. And, you know, he was, he didn't have a dad. His mom raised him. And, you know, so, it was my way of saying, "Look, you know, not everyone has a dad." And, and in the book, he's got a strong uncle that comes in and helps him. But at the end of the book, his uncle points out to them, and he says, "Who's gonna help me now?"

• 3:17:37Jocko Willink?

  And his uncle says to him, "Look, you don't need to, you know what the right things to do are. You know how to stay on the right path. You don't need someone to hold your hand all the time. You can make this happen for yourself." And that's my, the message, you know, that I'm trying to get across to kids that might not have a dad. They might not have an uncle. They might not have a mom. But you can find out what the right path is. You can get on it, you can stay on it. And that's, that's why I wrote the book that way. And, and you know, it's, it's interesting because I've gotten asked many times over the years, you know, about what do you think about fatherhood and, and the important roles that fathers play? And again, you know, I go back to, for instance, Mark Lee's a great example of a kid that was raised. He didn't have a dad. And his mom's a strong woman and a, and an incredible person, and she raised a warrior.

• 3:18:21Jocko Willink?

  So, that's why I did that in that book. And, you know, another thing I did in that book is, you know, jiu-jitsu plays a prominent role. But you could replace that with wrestling, with boxing, with, with Muay Thai. But jiu-jitsu was really a, a big part of it, but so is studying. You know, um, learning, learning how to learn. And having, and, and as a kid, seeing what the opportunity is in being educated. Because a lot of kids, myself included, when you're going to school, when you're... 10 years old or 15 years old, you don't care. You just don't care. And it's, I want, I want kids to realize that it's beneficial to get stronger, faster, smarter and better. So that's it. Way of the Warrior Kid. Get it and get it for your local library too.

• 3:19:04Jocko Willink?

  Because they need it. Cause there's some kid that will grab that book in the library and it'll get him on the right path. Also, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. You can find it by itself in the Get After It section of any bookstore or online book retailer. If you look in the Get After It section, there's a big empty shelf. There's one book there. It's called Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. We gotta start petitioning now to make that happen at Amazon. They just need like when you drop down, business, lifestyle, health and fitness. Get after it. Boom. There's that one book. They better get in the game. And also there's Extreme Ownership. The book that kinda started all this stuff.

• 3:19:49Speaker 01

  By the way.

• 3:19:50Jocko Willink?

  Thanks. Appreciate it. It's about leadership and it's about combat.

• 3:19:55Speaker 01

  And it's about taking fucking responsibility.

• 3:19:58Jocko Willink?

  And it's about taking responsibility. Absolutely.

• 3:19:59Speaker 01

  And that's fucking huge. That's huge. That's something that I think is one of the hardest things for most people to do.

• 3:20:09Jocko Willink?

  And you know, I, I actually highlighted that a bunch of times in your book where you're kind of explaining things that I guess you would say maybe resulted in something happening bad in your life and you'd say, hey, this happened and this happened and this happened. And every time you went, laid that out, at the end of it, you'd say, but it's my fault and I should have done, I, I made this happen to myself. So it's pretty, uh, and, and you wrote this book before, you're probably writing this the same, no, you were writing this book the same time.

• 3:20:36Speaker 01

  I was writing that book when I was basically fucking trying to kill myself with drugs and everything else is when I started it.

• 3:20:42Jocko Willink?

  And even in that state, you always say, You know, it's my fault. I should have, you know, hey, my dad wasn't around.

• 3:20:50Speaker 01

  I don't make a habit out of looking for other people to blame. I mean, it's important to identify the roots of the problem and so on, and what made you the way you are.

• 3:21:03Jocko Willink?

  So you can fix them.

• 3:21:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 3:21:06Jocko Willink?

  So you can fix them.

• 3:21:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. And a big part of being a man is accepting responsibility for your fuckups.

• 3:21:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I thought that was awesome, you know, and again, you know, when you were talking about what you learned from your dad not being around, and then how you apply that to help other kids that are in that situation, teaching them jiu-jitsu and taking care of them and building relationships the best you can with your kids and with other kids that are around now, that's exactly what you're talking about.

• 3:21:36Jocko Willink?

  So that's extreme ownership. And also, don't hoard the knowledge. You might think, hey, I'm gonna get extreme ownership for myself. I'm gonna read it at night and then I'm gonna become a good leader and I'm gonna do better at work. Don't do that. That's the wrong move. What you wanna do is you wanna actually distribute it to your team.

• 3:21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:53Jocko Willink?

  And that way, they all get on board and now the whole team starts kicking ass. That's what you wanna do. Up and down the chain of command. Then if you need more than that, you can hire our leadership and management consulting company, Echelon Front. We are the premier leadership consulting company

• 3:22:11Jocko Willink?

  in the entire world. So, we're the ones that teach the methods and the techniques and the tactics and procedures from extreme ownership proven in combat. So, you can email, contact us, [email protected]. We just had the muster, number two in New York City.

• 3:22:36Jocko Willink?

  Awesome event. If you missed it, come to Texas, July 13th, 14th. Omni Barton Creek Resort and Spa. And again, forget about the spa. You're not going to the spa. Don't come for the spa. Not happening. But what will be happening is leadership. We'll talk about combat leadership and how to apply that to your business and to your life. And if you can't make Texas, it's okay. We got backup. We got contingency operations. If you can't come to Texas, September 14th and 15th, we will be back in San Diego on my home turf where there is no winter. We got big yards and barbecue.

• 3:23:13Speaker 01

  You spoiled motherfuckers.

• 3:23:14Jocko Willink?

  We're spoiled. And that's the way we like it.

• 3:23:16Speaker 01

  It's all right. You're entitled to be spoiled at this point in your life.

• 3:23:21Jocko Willink?

  It's, I'll take it.

• 3:23:22Speaker 01

  I'll give you a pass on that.

• 3:23:24Jocko Willink?

  Until the musters, we can be found actually on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and in the Facebook. I'm gonna find it there. Harley is at Harley F. Flanagan. And Flanagan is spelled F-L-A-N-A-G-A-N. Harley F. Flanagan. Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. Echo, you got anything else?

• 3:23:56Speaker 02

  Nope, that's it, man. My pleasure.

• 3:24:00Speaker 01

  Gentlemen, it was a real pleasure.

• 3:24:03Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely. You got any other closing comments you want to make?

• 3:24:11Speaker 01

  I definitely wouldn't advise smoking PCP. Taking a list. No, seriously. No, thanks for having me on, man. It's a real pleasure. You know, you've become a big inspiration. I love reading your quotes and your books and listening to the podcast. Sometimes it's exactly the kick in the ass that I need. And I appreciate that. And again, I'm very honored and proud to have been a part of the soundtrack to your life.

• 3:24:49Jocko Willink?

  Indeed. Yes, indeed.

• 3:24:52Speaker 01

  I'd also like to give a shout out to my better half, who without her, I definitely wouldn't be doing so well. My book would not be as good. It would probably suck, and my life would definitely suck. So Laura Lee Flanagan, I love you. And if my sons are listening to this podcast, I love you, boys.

• 3:25:15Speaker 01

  Keep up all the good work and keep your training going and keep checking out Jocko's podcasts. You might learn a thing or two.

• 3:25:24Jocko Willink?

  Awesome, man. Well, Harley, obviously, thanks for coming on the show.

• 3:25:29Speaker 01

  Such a pleasure, man.

• 3:25:30Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for the years of music that you gave to me and millions of other kids that needed to hear it.

• 3:25:43Jocko Willink?

  And thanks for making it through what you've made it through and coming out on the other side with a with a positive outlook and a positive impact and a positive message.

• 3:25:57Jocko Willink?

  That it's it's never too late. And it's never too dark and that we can always turn things around.

• 3:26:11Speaker 01

  As long as you're alive, there is hope.

• 3:26:17Jocko Willink?

  Yes, indeed.

• 3:26:20Jocko Willink?

  Thanks to everyone else that's listening and supporting and spreading the word. And as always, to the folks in the military out there.

• 3:26:32Jocko Willink?

  We salute you and thank you all for holding the demons at the gate.

• 3:26:40Jocko Willink?

  And to the police and law enforcement and firefighters and EMTs and first responders. Thanks for fighting the demons here at home.

• 3:26:52Jocko Willink?

  And

• 3:26:55Jocko Willink?

  to anyone else that's out there that's listening, that's

• 3:27:02Jocko Willink?

  started to go down, down in that hole, down into that maw.

• 3:27:10Jocko Willink?

  Trapped in the chains of depression or addiction or rage.

• 3:27:23Jocko Willink?

  When you're down in that hole,

• 3:27:28Jocko Willink?

  look up.

• 3:27:33Jocko Willink?

  Look up. Look up and recognize that there is a way out. There is a path for you to take.

• 3:27:43Jocko Willink?

  And it's not an easy path.

• 3:27:47Jocko Willink?

  It'll be a fight. It'll be a fight that demands focus and work and tenacity. And of course, discipline.

• 3:28:01Jocko Willink?

  But it is that path.

• 3:28:07Jocko Willink?

  That hard path, that hard path of discipline

• 3:28:13Jocko Willink?

  that will lead you to freedom.

• 3:28:19Jocko Willink?

  So stay on that path.

• 3:28:24Jocko Willink?

  And until next time,

• 3:28:27Jocko Willink?

  this is Harley Flanagan and Echo and Jocko.

• 3:28:33Jocko Willink?

  Out.