Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYb6UJ0XsSM
the Joe Rogan Experience. Look, I live with the fact that there's some people that love what I do and then there are some people like, I'm [ __ ] baffled. Why is this [ __ ] still here? So, I get it. I get like uh I get that love it or leave it or love it or hate it. Really, I mean, I'll take love it or leave it. You're a perfect example. What you just used though is a great example. What's special about this whole thing is that a a guy like you, like you saying that uh you know uh that you're a love it or leave a guy, but if you weren't you, you're you're look if you weren't a guy who has his podcast sponsored by the flesh, a guy who puts out a podcast on the internet way before anybody and a guy who's most recent movie, you just said, "Well, kind of [ __ ] everybody. I'm just going to do this on my own. Do it and release it my way. [ __ ] the entire system of it." A guy like you really wouldn't exist any other way. No, you can't. It's kind of You got to go. You're You're the ultimate love it or leave it. You're You're doing it your way. Play it with passion. Do Here's my philosophy. And it's everybody's philosophy. It's not even an original one. One life, you [ __ ] die. That's it. And you don't know what's on the other side. And we hope for this, that, we hope for Candyland, but we don't know. It could be as simple as get in the box and stay there for all the [ __ ] eternity. You had your shot, your computer, we shut you down, and you're finished. So, if that's the case, it it it behooves you to shoot for your dreams every time. I know it sounds a little dopey and Tony Robbinsish, but like, but it's real. It's real. Like, in a world where you're going to [ __ ] die, like this is the way I think about it. And it's a an example that's real close to home. My old man was a good dude. My father, good guy. Not many good men in the world. This was a good [ __ ] guy. Did worked at a post office. uh cancelling your [ __ ] stamp. What a soulkilling horrible job that is for years just to pay for a [ __ ] family. Who knew if he had dreams? Maybe his only dream was to like, oh, get married and have kids. Work maybe wasn't a big deal to him and he did whatever he had to to put food on the table and stuff like that. Good dude. Take me to matineese every
Wednesday. Go see a movie. Take me out of school half day. Go see flicks and whatnot. Uh never no one of these parents that, you know, [ __ ] around with a kid or something like that where you're like, "Oh, he was all good." Except there was that good straight arrow [ __ ] dude. Didn't had went to church cuz his wife made him, but wasn't big into the church. [ __ ] mowed his mother-in-law's lawn all the time. Good guy. Good guy. Raised three good kids or at least two good kids in me. And so my father, we go out to eat one night. Uh he's about 68 years old. We go out to eat Morton's in Philadelphia. Uh and it's one of those special nights, man, where like the whole family winds up being the same place. Hadn't been that way in years. my mom, my dad, uh me and my wife's with me. Uh my sister and her husband and she lives out. And at this point, I think she was living in Coobe, Japan or something like that. So, she's rarely back in the States. And my brother, he's married to a dude, but his husband wasn't with us. He didn't make the trip that time, unfortunately. But there we are in a back room at Morton's, you know, and eating, having a great time, chitchatting, and the old man's putting away steak, cheesecake. He's had a couple Manhattan that was his [ __ ] poison. And you could tell, and I don't even like paint this in retrospect. It was clear on the night. Parents love seeing their kids all in one place, happy, healthy, not [ __ ] in the head or something like that. And you could tell he was enjoying it. There were his kids shooting the [ __ ] Everyone's trying to make each other laugh and [ __ ] trying to make him laugh. He everyone since everyone's paying attention to everyone else, maybe nobody's paying attention to him eating maybe too much cheesecake that night, but [ __ ] it. We're all having a good time. Put him in a cab that night, kiss him on the head. It was like, "Hey, man. I'll see you in the morning." and he'd come out to Philadelphia to see me do a Q&A at the uh Wizard Comic-Con. Philadelphia Wizard Comic-Con. Off he goes in the cab, go home and I I go to the hotel, go to sleep. I get a phone call at 6:00 in the morning from my brother and my brother's like, "Um, you got to get down to the hospital on Walnut." And I said, "Why?" He goes,
"Dad." And now my father was in and out of poor health. He was diabetic and whatnot. He'd had like strokes, heart attacks, and stuff like that. He Yeah, he was bad health dude. But um but so when my brother's like, "Dad's in the hospital." I'm like, "Okay, what now? [ __ ] throw a rock and dad's got it." And my brother, he could hear in his voice. He was just like, "You got to get down here right now." And I was, "Oh, oh shit." And I hung up, got your ass, went down. I get to the emergency room, open the door, first thing I see is my mother, who looks more scared than I've ever seen a human being in my life. [ __ ] terror on her face. Not I've seen my mother cry in my lifetime, you know. I've made my mother cry in my lifetime. I've watched her cry watching [ __ ] Falcon Crest when I was a kid. This was different. This was like terror, fear. Uh, you know, almost like there was a [ __ ] gun to her head. And off of her face, I looked at my brother. My brother just has this expression where he just kind of gives me the slow nod, which is he's gone. You know, my father was dead. And I went in and I saw him on a gurnie and [ __ ] And it was so strange. And I go outside and I was a smoker, like cigarette smoker in those days. I was go to have a cigarette and uh Donald comes out and I was like uh oh this is a shock and whatever you know we were upset and stuff and uh I said how was it cuz he was there I said what happened and Donald tells me the story of like uh dad woke up and had this like big reaction like just like I'm hot I'm hot throwing the sheets off and mom freaked out she's like what's the matter what's the matter she told Donald call the call the ambulance call the hospital and he was gone within seconds So that's, you know, bad enough. You know, he was hot and uncomfortable. You didn't want to hear like, "Oh, he died in his sleep." And we woke up and he just didn't. But then my brother says this thing probably define my life. My brother goes, "Uh, he died screaming." And I go, "What? What?" And he goes, "He he died screaming." And I was like, "What? I mean, that's is that a figure of speech?" And he goes, "No, he literally he died screaming." And you could see my brother was haunted by it. And my father wasn't like a I wouldn't say he was a butch man or strong man,
but he wasn't a soft man by money any stretch of the imagination. And I never heard him get real loud or anything like that. And the notion of my father dying screaming changed my life. Cuz I was like, even a good man in this world, you played a game, you play it straight, you play it by the rules, you do everything you're supposed to, you're going to die screaming. And at that point, I was like, there's no point in not trying to accomplish every stupid [ __ ] dream I've got. Even if it's dumb [ __ ] like [ __ ] you know, oh my god, I've always wanted to collect this many [ __ ] Wayne Gretzky cards in one [ __ ] binder. Or if it's like I want to make a movie or if it's like I want to put on a podcast or I want to do a TV show now or I want to write a book, chase it all down. Chasing whimsy is what I've been doing for the last few years. Just smoking weed and chasing whimsies. Anytime I'm like back in the day, I'd have a good idea, something I really wanted to follow through on. And all sudden you get scared, you start thinking about some what some [ __ ] is going to say and be like, "Oh, it's stupid. Why would you [ __ ] do that?" And [ __ ] why why a lot of why people in this world I try to surround myself with the why nots [ __ ] who you're like I want to try this like why not let's go let's give it a shot you got to be game man people help you achieve your dreams and [ __ ] so for me the last few years I've just been trying to accomplish every dopey dream the big [ __ ] the little [ __ ] you got to do them all you can't just do the climb every mountain [ __ ] you know sometimes lay the bar down step over it and be like tada so you feel accomplished but chase it all and do it all because we're all going to die screaming and you might as well enjoy it here. And I and when I say chase, don't [ __ ] do it at the expense of someone else. Obviously, don't hurt somebody else. But go after your dreams, man. If your dream is to like I want to kill 12 children, that's I'm not saying I'm not talking to you. But go after your dreams if they're not going to hurt anybody. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]