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Welcome to episode 385 of Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing
and this week it is my absolute pleasure to welcome back on the show, Josh Brolin.
Now Josh is my guest on episode 82 which we did shortly after Only the Brave was released.
So in that discussion, if you haven't heard it, I highly recommend that you do. He talked about that
project, about how they were trained to portray wildland firefighters, the fitness element,
some of the incredible stories that came out of that. And since that interview we ended up
becoming good friends. He was so kind to actually write the foreword for my book and we have these
amazing conversations and I'm always in awe at just the difference in perspective that he has.
He's a man who's gone through the acting world who now has definitely been held in high regard
as far as his ability and fame and so has a very different lens that he looks through some of the
issues that we see. So we just sat down and pressed record and we talked about kindness,
about unkindness, about mental health in the acting world and some of the other perspectives
that I like to talk about on this project but just from a completely different perspective.
So before we get to that interview, as I say, every single week please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave
a rating. Each five-star rating truly elevates this project making it easier for others to find
and this is a free library for you, whether individually, whether organizationally. So all
I ask in return is that you take a moment and share these incredible men and women's stories
so I can get them to everyone else who needs to hear them on planet earth.
So that being said, I introduce to you Josh Brolin. Enjoy.
All right, so we are rolling. So I just want to start by saying thank you so much for inviting me
to your beautiful home. So you don't have to be specific but where are we on planet earth right
now? We're in the south. The south? No, we're in Atlanta, Georgia and equally thanks for driving
up here. I mean you got up at five whatever this morning and made the five-hour drive here.
I love that you made the effort. Yeah, well it was worth it. For a little old me.
Well like I said, my goal is to help elevate your career.
You can't do shit. No, it does. You know what it does? It elevates me personally which has become
much more of a focused theme now than ever I think. Yeah, well so I'd love to start just kind of
at the most recent event. So last time we met, I guess the first time we met, you were still in
Malibu. I cringe when you say that. It's weird. So you had this shift. You're a dad again
and you're about to be a dad for another one. Continued. What has been
after the huge success that you had in the summer of Brolin, what has been that shift for you that
included moving to Atlanta? I don't know man. I don't know that I can follow like a trajectory,
a simple trajectory in what event led to the next reaction. I know that the summer of Brolin
existed for whatever it's titled as. But something happened. I went into what I call major contraction
and I don't know if that, it wasn't necessarily because of quote unquote attention or fame or
fame or expectation or any of it. I just felt like I had hit not a success peak,
but I had set out to do something. I love the idea of being 50, going and doing an action film.
Thanos was supposed to be basically a cameo when I said yes when I was in England and I was doing
Everest. And they had come to me with this idea and I was like, I like that it's not one of the
Avengers. I don't know that I'd do it if it were one of the Avengers, nothing against any of the
Avengers, but I just didn't see myself. I never saw myself like that. As Black Widow. Black Widow,
exactly. That maybe like the RuPaul story as Black Widow. I was like, no, I can do that.
I tried to do that. But I love that it was all of them against this purple dude. And once they gave
me the Bible of what it was and I started to go through it, it just became really interesting to
me. So between cable and having to be in that kind of shape and to do it without steroids,
being a Gold's Gym member, knowing that I could take the other route and I didn't,
and I love that people refuse to believe that I didn't. They said, you just don't have the
testosterone capacity to look like you did. But we did it, which is cool. And I love that. And you
know that better than I think anybody. Being very health conscious and what you have to do in the
fire department and all that. In order to be able to be there for other people. I just love that
idea of being there. So that's the motivator. It's like, if I had another job, would I be able to do
it? I think that that's kind of a secret motivator of mine. Still refusing to believe that I'm an
actor. But so I hit a peak, you know, those movies did very well. And I was like, okay, so,
you know, Deadpool didn't really continue. And that didn't bother me so much because I felt like I'd
done it. And the Thanos thing was a two movie, one off, and that was done. So it was like, what now?
You know, I'd done a lot of character stuff. I'd done a lot of different types of genres and
different budgeted movies. And so something in me contracted, I think part of it was having a kid,
you know, and I just said, I enjoy this more than I enjoy that. And the idea of, you know,
being on your own and traveling around and Josh, Josh, Josh, hi, hello. Hey, you know,
and they're shaking when they're taking a picture with you and all that. It's like, all that's really
nice. And I know that from my side and meeting Ray Bradbury and being so just like, this is the guy
that came up with Martian Chronicles, or this is the guy that came up with with Fahrenheit 451. But
I don't know, man, I had some kind of strange wall. And I was like, I wasn't sure if I wanted
to do it anymore. Because I was enjoying and I still am enjoying being a dad so much, just one
really paled compared to the other. There's a rest to that story, but I'll stop so you can ask
me a question. No, no, I mean, we carry on. I mean, that's that's just so interesting for us.
Because I say us, like, you know, everyone that was looking from the other side of the movie
screen, right? Because, you know, you hear like the overnight success, and obviously, you know,
your backstory is, you know, acting from very, very young. But you see, you know, people rise to,
to fame, and they get all this exposure. And then, you know, it's like, well, then there has been or,
you know, whatever. And it's like, well, I always look at it like, you know, what impact does that
have on that person, though, are you held in that pedestal? And then maybe you don't get woke,
you held in that pedestal, you don't want to be there anymore. Like you see, I'm always curious
about Mike Myers. Like he was, you know, huge doing all the movies that he did. And then I don't know,
I have no idea. But I'm assuming that he probably just one day was like, I just want to be a dad now.
And just step back. I don't know, you know, and you are Cameron Diaz. I mean, somebody brought up
Cameron Diaz the other day, and she just literally disappeared. And then the question, the next
question, which is a very cosmetic question is, oh, has she got to a certain age where maybe she
didn't get the work that she had gotten before she wasn't in a position. So you try to look for,
you know, again, these kind of lame cosmetic reasons, oh, something must have happened.
They don't want him anymore. They don't want her anymore. And I know that that's a reality. But I
think also, there's a personal aspect to it that we deny with people who are, you know,
public spectacle, for lack of a better phrase, you know, and they start to think, well,
they're not human, you know, it's, their success is really up to us, you know, their choices are
up to us now that they've given their, they sold their soul to the devil. And which is very much
not the case because there's, there's a whole life going on. And here, like I've made this move,
I'm a staunch Californian. I remember when I went from California, which I wasn't very proud of,
because I thought that there was a lack of character in California. And I moved to New York
to become a quote unquote, better actor, or quote unquote, real actor. And then I realized that in
New York, there's as many, you know, characterless assholes as there are in California or anywhere
else. You know, it's an amalgamation of a wide array of characters and people. And, but what I
did learn in New York was the pride around living in your city. And there was an incredible pride
there. And when I went back to California, I said, I'm going to inherit that New York pride of New
York in California as a Californian. And I did, you know, and I love Venice Beach and I still love
Venice Beach. And even though it's, it's a little nutty right now, and it reminds me kind of like
when I was a kid, where it's, you know, getting a little more violent and, you know, filled with
homeless and all that kind of stuff. But again, it's my Venice Beach and, and I am proud of it.
And I was in Paso Robles, you know, where I'm from, I am proud of that. And I have a ranch there
still. And, but something happened, something happened when I moved to Malibu and it just
wasn't my thing. And people imagined me growing up there and I didn't grow up there. My dad always
wanted to live there. That was always like a goal for him, but it was never for me. But we found this
amazing piece of property. Long story short, I love the property. We had an amazing house. You were
at that house. It's a, it's a really, you know, the ocean's right there. It's incredible, man.
We got it at the bottom of the market so we could afford it. We couldn't afford to live there for
years, but after a while we could. And something, there was an all we that happened to me there.
And there was, there was, there was, I, I, and not everybody, and I'm not going to judge an entire,
you know, you know, Malibu society, but it, it was like a lot of people with broken compasses
that were just trying to figure out where to point themselves in any given day.
And that was not a good thing for me to be around. Yeah. Well, community is so important. And if you
don't feel like you're in a nurturing, healthy community, then eventually it's going to take its
toll. For me, it did. At least that community, for me at that time, maybe it would have been
different in my twenties or it would have been different in my seventies. I don't know. But for
me at that time, it just, as much as I liked moments of it, there was a general feeling that
feeling that just wasn't feeding me in a way that I liked to be fed. So I'm in, you know,
I could never imagine living in Atlanta. You know, my wife's from here. I could never imagine it.
Like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here, but I really like it. I'm really enjoying it. I
really enjoy the kindness of it. You know, our neighbors came over and brought us a, a, a loaf
of, of, of peach bread, peach banana bread or something. And they introduced themselves and
wake, you know, welcomed us to the neighborhood, which was amazing. And also 10 minutes away,
you have old fourth ward, you have Krog street, you have, you know, Ebenezer church,
which I've always had a fascination about. Howard Zinn taught here at Spelman. You know,
I had a really close relationship with Howard Zinn. And so there's a diversity here that I
very, very, very much appreciate and I feed off of. So I get in the truck and I'm bang,
I'm down by Ebenezer church and I'm feeding off all that. We just went down and took a bunch of
pictures down there, which was great and then a lot of people, you know, I come there. So there's a
lot of, it's not just one bubble that I'm interested. I'm not interested in surrounding myself with a
bunch of mirror images of myself and my belief systems. You know, I like to be challenged and
I like to experience other cultures and, and Atlanta feels the perfect place to be right now,
to be able to do that. And then I leave, I get on my motorcycle and I leave and I'm in farmland and
then I can, I can satisfy that part of me, which is a full country boy, you know, and I pull over
and I'm looking at a farm and a guy comes across the street and we talk about catfish or large
mouth bass in his pond. And I love that. I don't know. It makes sense to me, finally,
why I became an actor. And for me, very personally, it wasn't like, you know, I've heard a lot of
stories when I was four and I love doing scenes for my family. That was never me ever. I had no
interest in that. And I just wasn't that kid, but what I did have an interest in is diversity and not
necessarily diversity of just characters and stories and people. And, you know, I would,
I would just as soon listen to Cardi B as I would the Avett brothers, as I would Chris Stapleton.
It's, it's, it hits a different part of me. It satisfies a different part of me that I need
satisfied. I'm not, I don't want to just be consumed with Johnny Cash, love Johnny Cash,
but not as a rule. Yeah. I'm intrigued with some of Cardi B stuff. I still don't understand why
singing about a wet ass pussy. I mean, to have diarrhea is embarrassing as it is when the singer
sings about it. But you know what, when you see, when you say, I just saw a video recently of a
bunch of like geriatrics listening to her song and they, they get, she got through the first like
verse or whatever it was and they all cracked up. They were all laughing hysterically and to see a
bunch of 80 year olds laughing at Cardi B sing about wet ass pussy just makes me happy. I gotta
look that up. It's genius. It was genius. Anyway. Yeah. So I don't know, I don't know what that is
and I've always been like that. And not that it's better or worse than anybody else, but even when
I was in past Robles, there was a, a need to, I see it in my daughter, man. I just explained it
to you earlier. She's always looking for the challenge. It, it just works for her. It makes
her day more complete. Where's the obstacle and where's the challenge? And it's not a negativity.
It's just like, there is more here. There is something, there is a way to fulfill and enrich
my day. And I see it in her as a 23 month old child. So I go, yeah, I get it. I get what you're
doing and I will be a facilitator as much as I possibly can. Yeah. No. And I think that's,
that's something I'm observing at the moment is I think people are so, and I say people,
it's a generalization, but, but a lot of the things that we see on TV, people are so comfortable in
their box that they're threatened by anything that's outside instead of actually understanding
that there's so much beauty in everyone else's, you know, arena. And then you lose that commonality
when you just build a fence around yourself. And I think that that, you know, absolutely. And I
think that that lends to, you know, conspiracy theories and all that kind of stuff. You start,
you're left up to your imagination and your imagination is not necessarily your best friend.
If you're in defense and if you're in fear, your imagination can take you to a place to create
a lot of enemies instead of this collective thing that you and I often talk about,
about, rely, you know, your book and not to segue. And I'm sure talk about your book,
your book, the one that I wrote a forward to, but it's your book.
The one you said that I was the ghost writer for.
Exactly.
You said it was your book.
I wish I said that. Is that you need people, man. And when you need people, you can't
determine exactly what they should look like and be like when you need them. That's why
humility is such an amazing thing. When you're truly humbled, when you truly feel humility,
all that shit goes away. You just have very, very basic needs, you know, love, support, food,
shelter, you know, all the other judgments seem to go away. When you have everything,
and you're sitting in some kind of luxury bubble, you start to create, at least in my judgment,
what I've seen, you start to create enemies. It's just what the worst part of our mind does.
And that's why I think tools like AA, AA is not necessarily to stop drinking. AA is just a great
set of tools to live better. And I think we all like we need mentors, we need people we look up
to. When we're children, we look up to our parents, we're influenced by our parents. When we get older,
we're influenced by a coach, we're influenced by friends, you know, you. I mean, you started
writing this book and I was like, bro, you're a better writer than this. Like, reach down,
don't be a pussy. And like, fucking find it. And you did. And I was so emotionally impressed,
you know, where it's better than I thought. And it wasn't up to me to say, oh, come on.
And it wasn't about that. But that's what we do for each other.
Well, because I asked you.
Yeah, that's true. You know, I mean, no, I didn't just find you and call you up.
You just handed me down your book shit.
Yeah, you suck. But that's yeah, yeah, you're right. That's a good point. And you put yourself,
you created a space for it. And I like creating that space. I think ego is like not confidence is
great. But ego is not a friendly thing. Most of the time.
Yeah. Well, I think the humility piece comes in as again, where if you're humble, you realize
that there's people out there that are better than you. And I mean that in a good way, like
someone that you can ask for help that will be a mentor, you know, and I think that's again,
the more you do that, the more you see skills, you know, value to all the other people that
are around you. And you don't look at skin color or sexual orientation or whatever it is. But yeah,
I mean, you, I think asking for help is almost like look down upon and it's the complete opposite
and mental health is perfect example. Yeah. And so many people just poised, waiting to help,
we just need to know who needs the help. And even when you said about staying here,
like how many people love having guests at their home, but people are, oh, I don't want to intrude.
Right. I love it when people come stay. I'm going to make you breakfast and have
awesome Swedish coffee and sit on the porch. So yeah, I mean, I think that's, we've almost got
this fear of community and needs to be the complete reverse. The reverse because it's tiring.
If I make you coffee, I don't even know how to make Swedish coffee, but if I make you coffee,
it's tiring and it's consuming and I have a child. But the consequence is so good.
You've had this communal experience, you have this story, you've enriched each other's lives.
Even if it doesn't go well, you've learned something from that, but going back to what
you were saying and having somebody celebrating other people, I find it interesting that I see
more now than ever people unwilling to celebrate other people because they feel that if they do,
it's solidifying that you're better than me as opposed to I love what has happened to you,
whether you've earned it or not. Some people are just lucky and they're given the opportunity
and they're smart enough to take advantage of that opportunity when it presents itself.
Wonderful. Now I want you to come over and if you came over when I was in a 500 square foot
apartment in New York City, when we were all there with one tiny bedroom that looked like a closet
and we were all mushed in together and I would take any job, it didn't matter other than maybe
porn. I was like, we have this great job for you, I can't do it. I need the money but I can't do it.
Then it's like people come over and it's easy and then in and out and then suddenly you have
a house in Atlanta and people are like, whoa, what is this? Come over and use the gym. Oh,
it's a thing. It's your gym. No, but just come over. Even if I'm not there, use the gym. If
you're afraid because of COVID right now to go to a public gym, then fucking use my gym.
I don't know. I don't like it. I don't want strings attached. You know what I mean?
Strings attached and then you... You know what I mean? All that kind of thinking. It's ridiculous
to me. I'll read you a quote that a buddy of mine, Jimmy T, is a Marine, an ex Marine or
you're never an ex Marine. He's a Marine. I think he was a Marine. Retired Marine. How about that?
But he sent me a quote and I love that it was from Bukowski,
which usually connotes this kind of adolescent. Yeah, you read Bukowski, but it's not at all.
And I sent... I've been sending it to people who I love, who are going through something.
And here's the quote, we're all going to die, all of us. What a circus. That alone should make us
love each other, but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities.
We are eaten up by nothing. And to me, that's a very positive thing.
And to me, that's a very positive quote. It sounds really negative, but it's like, hey man,
we're going to die. All of us. That's it. That should be enough. Just knowing that,
like this idea of like, you know, dying with the most toys and all this kind of competition,
competitive nature and all that. You go, it's pretty stupid if you think about it. I get the
drive, but it's pretty stupid. But on top of it, not only are we not living in with that understanding,
with that innate understanding, but then we're getting into trivialities and things that really
don't matter to make us feel bad. It's all pretty dumb. Like where it doesn't matter,
none of it matters. It's all going to end. So with that, why not just do something good?
Why not bring a smile to somebody's face? Being in Budapest and seeing somebody walk across a street
that was handicapped, why not stop and help them? Just to make sure. And even if it's not that,
even if it's for your own ego, so be it. Go play with your ego and help somebody across the street.
Why not? That's a good manifestation of the ego, I think.
I agree 100%. And that's, you know, people have their own religious philosophies and you know,
what happens next? You come back as a cockroach or you go sit on the cloud in the sky, you know,
whatever it is. And I don't mean that to be insulting at all the ward system that you actually
feel good. So whatever your other beliefs, just know that using your life to do something good
is only, how can it not result in something if it means you go to heaven or if it means you
come back as a unicorn, not a cockroach, you know, whatever it is. And again, I'm not making fun,
but whatever belief system you're on or whatever path you feel like you're on,
the only thing you control is right now. So why not be a kind human being now? And then we're
sadly getting told all the opposing views of that on all our screens at the moment.
Yeah, yeah. There's a saying that I've heard a long time ago. Two things. One is you have one foot in
the past and another foot in the future, then you're shitting on me and myself. I see a lot of
insecurities now and compensations for insecurities. But you want security. What is it? What is it?
We want self-esteem. Do esteemable acts. That's it. You're never going to find it in a book.
You know, you can sit there and go to whatever the self-help guru is, which I don't think they're a
bad thing necessarily. But again, it's a bandaid. You have to know that you are responsible for
doing something good and build on that. And eventually you will have done more good than bad,
even if you've only done bad. All you can do is start building on the good. And if you do enough
good one day, the good will outweigh the bad and you will feel that it will become more of a default.
It will become more of an intrinsic reality. Yeah. Well, that's a good point you made too, is
people get hung up on the past, whether it's drinking, nutrition, whatever it is, infidelity.
That's what I mean. But everything starts today. So yeah, you could be the world's biggest shitbag,
but it doesn't mean that you can't change. Look at who you were. Therefore, we've judged you and
you will always be that. And if you do, you flip-flop. You're wishy-washy. It's kind of like,
I said it the other day and I pause at saying it, but fuck it, I'll say it anyway. I said to
somebody last night who has kids the same age as my kid, and I was like, if there's not one point
where you don't want to chuck your kid out the window, something's wrong with you.
Something is actually wrong with you. You talk to these people like, I've never been mad,
I've never gotten in a fight. And I'm like, then you've got to be sociopathic. You have to be.
It's true.
It's not that you've reached this point of guru heaven or Gandhi status. You are a human being.
You have to feel all those things. It's what we do about them that's different.
It's why we do need tools. It's why we do need mentors. When I think of Anthony Kemp,
I just go, dude, I just want to be you. When I think of my buddy Anthony Zerbe, I go, if I can
be a version of you when I'm older, I'm good. You still have electricity. You are still plugged in.
You are still stoked by the day. You still see the possibilities. Tony Hopkins is so funny to me,
man. I'd say, and thank God for Instagram in that way, that you have access to Tony Byham.
Basically, losing his mind in the most fun way. But while he's doing it, he's composing amazing
piano concertos or compositions or he's painting wildly or he's playing with his cat or doing
something funny, whatever it is, his relationship with his wife. And I'm just like, is that because
you have money or is that because of you? Because you have the ability to be yourself.
And I have, in the last 40 years, for a guy who was a pretty nasty, drunk asshole, garnered and
embraced some tools that has turned him into a pretty amazing human being and great power of
example. Yeah, well, that's exactly it. To pretend that some of us are completely infallible and,
for example, Ty, my little boy, the reason he ended up in basically with the Baker Act in a
psych facility snatched from me was because he was in tears and he was going through some shit
in his mother's home and everything that absolutely would upset any child. But he was just into,
they got him doing a visualization thing. He was in tears and they said, you know, what's wrong?
And he said, I hear this voice, you know, but he wasn't acting on anything, just sit on his own
until he was asked. And it was about this kid that had been bullying him. And he ended up in there,
they were like, oh, this is obviously a threat to the school then the next thing,
he's locked away for three days. And I was so fucking angry. I can't even believe to tell you.
My character that is. That's exactly what I think for every person that cuts me up on the road.
I don't act on it, but I want to grab them out through the window. Sure. And, you know,
teach them that that's not a cool thing to teach them, whether I could physically do or not,
who knows? It's not going to fix anything. But do I have those thoughts? Absolutely. Of course. But
he was punished for reacting to bullying from this little shitbag in his class and held himself in.
And now what does that teach him? Oh, you know, you're, you're crazy to think those thoughts,
you know? So yeah, I mean, to suppress the humanity of people is, I think, again, the road to a lot
of the problems that we're seeing now. Because it's out of, it's outside of the norm. It's anomalous.
So it's like, no, no, no, no, it would be better if you had those and you locked down and you smiled
and you did the lesson. Yeah. And you did it well. You know, it's, it's, it's strange to me. It's
like, I see it in Westland, you know, my daughter, she'll lock down. She'll lock down. If she falls,
she'll look at you and say, bye bye, bye bye. Which means like, don't fret over me. Like, I don't want,
I want to kind of deny this moment and just bear down through it. She's 23 months old, dude.
So for me, on a very personal level, because each situation is different and each kid is different,
I have to remind her, hey, it's okay to feel. Because I know I come across like that.
You know, I just come across like that by nature. You know, if you get hit in the face, then you
continue doing what you're doing. Or you hit back or whatever, but you bear down, you deal with it.
You don't sit there and cry because you got hit in the face. But the truth is, the matter is,
you do sometimes. Sometimes it just is humiliating and it sucks and it's awful and you feel scared.
And that's okay. And I have to remind her that's, I have to remind a 23 year old who doesn't even
know yet. It's okay to feel. It's okay to feel. So each, each situation is different. But I find it
interesting. You know, there's that kind of natural what you're born with and then, and then who you
become because of, you know, cultural conditioning and all that kind of stuff. But I don't believe in
any of that, that anything should be a certain way. Everybody's different. Every culture is
different. And that's why I say I love being in Atlanta, because there's incredible diversity.
And I'm constantly hit with something new. I cannot relax completely and I'm happy about it.
Yeah, no, absolutely. So that was kind of a good segue to something I want to talk about anyway.
As you know, I advocate a lot for advocates, as long as the lame word, but, you know, I'm,
I'm entrenched in people's health in general, but mental health is a big part of it, and especially
in our professions. But, you know, there's always been this thing in the the entertainment world,
whether it's actors, whether it's, you know, people in bands, that we've seen overdoses. And
the sad thing was, it was like, well, you know, they, they were a junkie, they were whatever,
you know, and it was almost looked down upon. So coming from the inside of entertainment,
and obviously losing a close friend, Chris Cornell, like, what are some of your observations of
the pressure of, you know, either pressure of the fame, or whether it's touring, whatever it is,
but elements within that circle that you think are contributing to mental ill health in those
professions?
That's a big question, man. That's a big question. You know, there's this, again, with conspiracy
theories, and Chris Cornell, and Chester, and all that coming out with, you know, child,
child sex trafficking, and all that, and they were killed. You know, that's, that's one thing.
I knew Chris really, really well. And I knew demons and lonelinesses and contractions and
isolation that he was dealing with and all that. And just as a normal human being that had that
going on. And when you're on tour, and I'm just kind of speaking, you know, out of my ass right
now, but because I don't know, and I'm not him, but, you know, to me, there was a perfect storm
that happened, you know, a little slip on medication and being by yourself from city to city to city to
city to city, and not being with your family, and him getting older and feeling like he was losing
his voice, and not having the support that a human being needs in a moment of real crisis.
I get it. I've seen it a lot. I've seen it a lot. You were just talking about it earlier with fame
and people who are, you know, suddenly they're, you know, they're hyper uber valued, and then
suddenly they have no apparent value. It doesn't change the value of who you are. It's just the
public perception of your value. And some people put a lot of onus in that. I don't. I don't know
why. I'm glad that I don't, but I'm probably not as successful as I could be if I did, because it
would mean more to me to get the accolades or the appreciation or the compliments and say, now I'm
in the right place. Now I have an Instagram account where there's only compliments. I'm good. I can
sleep well now. Have you got that yet? No. Fuck, dude. That doesn't feed off it. And then I'll get
back to what you're saying, but that doesn't necessarily feed off it. But that's a sociological
reality. There is a difference of opinion. There are reactions. There's a potpourri of different
personalities. And I appreciate being in the middle of that on my chosen profile feed.
The bigger question of mental health and why is it getting worse when we have so much access to
things to quote unquote, make it better? Why? And I don't know the answer. I mean, you and I can
kind of go back and forth of why that is. But even in your book, you talk about this kind of
hero effect and firemen and fire people, fire women, fire persons. Firefighters. Firefighters
being perceived as heroes and being inhuman almost in people's minds to a certain point.
Every firefighter that drives by will stop always in wave. And I say to Wesleyan, I could cry saying
it, that thank you. Thank you for helping us. That's what we say every time. Like literally not
one truck goes by where we don't say that. And so again, there's a hero status, even that I'm
creating in my daughter, there's a hero status. And in that hero status, what? You don't need to
sleep, man. You don't need to take care of yourself. You're here for us. You're a hero.
You're Batman. You're Superman. There is no kryptonite to you. It doesn't exist. When the
truth of the matter is, is you're human. Firefighters are human. Firefighters die.
Firefighters go crazy. People go to war. There's PTSD. There's veterans killing themselves every
day because of what they experienced. It's amazing. You don't remember that. We like to stick with the
idea of this is patriotic. This is for your country. Go 18 year old just out of high school.
Go and do this thing. And I get it. And I'm a major advocate of it. I'm major support of our
of our troops. But there is another side of it. And the other side of it is we are fallible.
You know, we are human. We are real. No one less or more than the next.
The few sociopaths that I could name. But they never got angry. Yeah. Anyway, I hope that answers
your question or at least starts a conversation. It does. I mean, another thing I think that I see
a parallel and of course, there's different paths between the military service and first responder
service and you know, whether you're in entertainment, but it is that regardless,
these people are put on a pedestal. And when they're loved and adored, then through their eyes,
everything's good. And there's no better analogy with the Britney Spears of the world where one
minute she's on cloud nine, the next minute she has a breakdown, all of a sudden, that's it.
She's the other side. And then the same with FDNY, EMS at the moment. When COVID first hit,
they were gods. Again, only perception. No support, no PPE flooding in, no pay raises,
no extra staffing, just claps, you know, and lights on buildings. But the moment that wave had come
and gone, now, sorry, actually, we're cutting a bunch of jobs. All the doctors and nurses that
staff these hospitals have got laid off, you know. So to me, I see that same shallow response that
we see in the music and entertainment world with the perception of the firefighters. And then
something that I saw so much this year were posts on missing 912 because of what we're seeing,
like you said about gratitude. There's none. We live in the most amazing country. And yet,
all we see on TV is a bunch of crybabies saying how everything sucks.
But yeah, but the other side of it, and it's so extreme, you see, I mean, you just said it,
you see a bunch of crybabies or you see a bunch of hyper patriots. You know, it's like talking
about the cops and defunding the police. It's like, is that the smartest thing to do? Probably not.
But there's some shitty cops out there, period. There always have been. Watch Serpico. It's not
new, you know. There are always corrupt, fucked up people in every industry. All of Hollywood are
not pedophiles, all living under the same roof talking about how they can continue their sex
trafficking business.
They don't suck the adrenal glands out of small children whose faces just got ripped off?
Apparently. I mean, I'm reading a lot about it, but you know, again, it's like, and it's not to
take away from the severity of the people involved. And when that truly exists, but you blanket of the
events, of the actual events, you know, not all firefighters are perfect. And firefighter, I mean,
firefighters to me, I mean, that's, that's even me, man, you know, and I know a lot of firefighters.
And it's, it's, you know, I do put it on a pedestal. I can't help it. You know, that's why we
stop and we say, thank you for helping us. Thank you for helping us. But your weak links and your
weak links, you have to point out in order to make that chain stronger. And it's irresponsible not to
do it. So why we go to one extreme or the other just absolutely, totally fascinates me even, you
know, and I, it's, it's been so much the subject in you and I talking about it, but even me and
talking about, you know, this idea of liberalism, and I know I put up these videos and everybody
shit on it, whatever, and it's okay with me. It's actually okay because it, it shows me how extreme
things are right now. And it shows me sociologically where we're at. It's a great defining platform,
you know, it's a litmus test. Yeah, totally. And, and you go, that's all you see, Marx Socialist,
or Trump supporter right wing. You have to support this through and through no matter what,
is that it? Those are our only two choices. That's, that doesn't make me feel very good,
you know, and then you start looking in the, in, you know, moderate, you use that word moderate,
and then other people don't like that word. I've had a conversation recently about moderate,
and they're like, I was a moderate president. Me, me, me, me. That's how they see moderate.
Me, me. And you go, I don't see the extreme doing anything wonderful. I see a lot of chaos right
now. I know you didn't like Obama, but are we in a better situation now? We're more patriotic,
which makes you feel better because you want to feel good about your country. Totally get it.
I totally and completely understand being on a platform of feeling good about where you live
and who you are. But if you back up a little bit, what's the reality of that? Okay, we have
problems. How do those problems, is it even possible? You know, or are we headed out of
the democratic republic that we very really are in? And are we going into some other place?
Some, I don't know. I mean, again, these are all questions that, that come up in my head and I go,
you know, when you think about your children and all that, which I'm sure every parent has done,
what's this, you know, Elvis existed and they were like, oh my God, he's shaking his hips.
What's the world coming to?
Devil music.
Now we've got Cardi B, you know, and it's like, you know, I don't know, does that make it a
worse world? Does it make it a more, is free speech at an all time high? All over the place,
because it is a big question mark. I'm not a politician. I don't know. And even if I was a
politician, I would never say that I know, because I think that's part of the problem.
This is my intention. This is what I would like to see. How can I collectively create it?
I'm looking out for my entire country. When I think of JFK, who was anything but a perfect human
being, you know, you talk about infidelities and all that kind of stuff. But as somebody who cared
about this country, I go, seems, seems pretty good. I think of Abe Lincoln, who nobody liked,
nobody liked, wasn't, you know, didn't he lose like five elections or something before he became
president? I'm not sure. Yeah, something like that, you know, seemed like a, like a, like a caring,
you know, was in the field, was down with the troops. I don't know. You know, the making
America great again, to me, goes back to something like that. It's like, are you going to be involved?
Are you really part of the, the collective of it, of it all?
Well, and I think that's the thing is, is to me, I think we are, it's, it's refinding our
greatness. We've always, you know, every country is great. Everyone should have pride of where they
live. And this whole greatest country in the world. Now you're starting to push it a little bit,
right? You know, there's a lot of great countries in the world. But what I see is a complete lack of
change when two sides argue with each other. I just put a post up the other day and it was
purely highlighting, and this was taken from annual stats in the U S that in a seven month period,
per the CDC, which is where we get all our stats from the moment, we would have lost half a million
people to obesity and smoking related diseases. One lady lost her shit. I've got COPD and asthma,
and you're saying that, and I'm like, you didn't even read what I fucking said. I'm advocating for
you. You don't have COVID. I'm saying where's the discussion about the underlying health issues?
And, and that's actually being suppressed. And the COVID thing, it's not anti, it's just, that's being
said, oh, it's being said to death. So we're fully aware of that. Can we please have a conversation
about the things that even if COVID hadn't shown up, was still slaying millions of people around
the world. But even that is lost between the left and right, you know, the, or the, you know, the
red and green or the whatever you want to, the zebras and giraffes, you know? And then so, and I
see that with the defund the police thing too. But, and then there's obviously, there's a lot of gray
areas where, in my opinion, because the police are underfunded, under trained, under armed, under
staffed, that we set them up for failure in many, many times, you know, but again, while there's
that whole war between these two extremes in the middle, nothing is improving. It's just getting
worse and then walking away. And I, a statistic, you know, that I read a while back about
other affluent countries, Germany, England, this, and the type of training that you need to endure
to become a police officer, a peace officer, a peace officer, remember when it was a peace officer,
and, and the training is exponentially more than in America. And yet you, you know, you, you, you
can't do that. You go, that feels like a bandaid to me. I understand that it makes everybody feel
better because you've seen those videos of these guys dying because of chokeholds and because of
holding onto the chokehold for too long. I mean, shit, we see it in MMA all the time. It's like,
when you tap out, man, and you have somebody sitting there watching, and if he's gone out
before he can tap out, get off him right now because it is life threatening. It's a life
threatening thing. I get it. But in some scenarios, it may be needed in violent scenarios. And I don't
know. I don't know. But the truth of the matter is it feels like a bandaid to me. You have more
training when there's more respect put into, I mean, that's another thing that I heard recently.
God, who was it? I heard deals with anti-corruption in Russia. And he's, and he's had a lot of different
jobs, a very high up guy. And he said, you know, most of these jobs in, in military and all that,
you have to be screened in every way possible. The one time, the one job that you don't have to be
thoroughly screened in is the presidency, which is amazing to me. And that's not even pointed
toward anybody. It's just the one thing that you don't have to be screened for. Really?
It seems like one of the things that should be essential that your character, who you are,
where you come from, what your reactions are, what your whatever. But anyway, I waylaid. We
were talking about something else and I got lost. Were you talking about the chokeholds and? Oh,
about, you know, the, again, the training, you know, you go into massive training, if it's two
years of training, how is that going to be a bad thing? And if I'm going to pay taxes, my taxes to
go to places like that, where you can, again, there's a confidence that comes with that.
There's a confidence that comes with training, that it becomes less reactionary because you have
the confidence that you can take care of a situation and therefore create friendship. Like,
yeah. I mean, the cop that we knew the best, what was his name? Smokey or something like that. My
mom had been pulled over. My mom was a very outspoken woman. She insped a lot and she got
pulled over by this motorcycle cop and she took his book that he said, signed the ticket and she
threw it out in the middle of the freeway. And he stopped traffic and he picked up his book and he
came back and he handed it to my mom again. And my mom loved that so much that they actually became
friends and he spent a lot of time at our house. They became friends. It just would never happen
now. The act of doing something like that, not that it was okay then, but again, there was a
confidence obviously in him and he didn't feel threatened. Whereas now you can imagine, yeah,
a woman did that and she got shot for it. You go, God, there's such a mistrust. How do you build
that trust again? Confidence in training. Make sure that those policemen, which I don't think
that they would be against, it's like, oh, I want it to be as easy as possible so I can get there
and use my gun. And I want to be in the toughest scenarios. I want to be in war scenarios.
You go, God, man, that's a traumatizing moment. You know it in a fight. If you're in a fist fight,
there's not a lot of likelihood that you're going to remember it. It's going to be a blur.
You're going to be in a blackout. And I talked to a lot of guys, a lot of cops and all that,
and they were like, look, when I was in a firefight, I don't remember any of it. So you go into motor
memory. How well are you trained in that? Reflex. How well are you trained in that motor memory?
You know, being under that kind of stress. I don't know, man. Again, I'm talking as a citizen.
I don't know. But that's good though, because normally it's members of the taxable population
on here. So that's an important perspective to get. And I think, you know, for me, any good
police officer, firefighter, dispatcher, corrections officer would want the hiring standards higher,
would want the training to be longer, would want to be better prepared and better equipped.
And you know, something I advocate a lot for too, have a work week that actually sets them up for
success, doesn't break them down, have staffing. I think all police officers should have two to a
car. Oh, it's budgets. We have more cars spread out. Yeah, but you know, now you're making these
people very vulnerable. As soon as they roll up on two people, that's two on one right off the bat.
You know, so, but then the other thing is, you know, as you know, I talk about a lot is reverse
engineering. Why do we have so much crime in the first place? And I think that, you know, personally,
my stance is the drug policy is just so broken and shown to, you know, be a complete failure
that we need to address that too, because most of this, when you reverse engineer, it goes to
to drugs, you know, so creating a program that promotes mental health roots, you know, and
creating healthy Americans would be a much more progressive and cheaper option than locking away
every single person. How once you put police officers lives at risk to pull them over, you
know, just filling our jails and increasing, you know, 600% over 50 years, which is, you know,
scientifically is the absolute epic failure, right? But it's not masculine.
It's not masculine. It's not rehabilitation doesn't sound masculine, does it?
You know, say just say no to drugs. This is your brain. This is your brain. No, that's an egg.
You know, and that's the thing. And that's what we deny, you know, I've seen, I know what,
you know, I can't tell you how many people hit me up and say, let's have a drink. I'd love to
have a drink and talk with you. I don't drink. I'm sober. But I don't, you know, for me sobriety has
been much less about needing a drink than what it gives you when you are not relying on this thing
that changes your chemistry, you know, so I'm witness to a lot of people in a community that
I love. I don't love the entire community because I think some meetings can be like a fucking wake.
It's horrible. It's like, why would you want to get sober? You see a bunch of guys like whining
about a bunch of shit. I don't know. Ball and chain and my wife and my this and my that. I'm like,
dude, you're killing everybody. It's horrible. I wouldn't want to do it, you know, and it and to me
that there is a community that I've seen that democratically works together. And that is also
scrappy punk rock, fun, electric, but is equally as heartfelt, supportive, vulnerable, real men.
I just saw that's a real man. That guy's tough as fucking nails. And yet he's talking about,
you know, tearing up at the idea of his kid trusting him and not putting his kid in peril,
because it's the masculine thing to do. I have a beater. I'm fucking chug some Jack Daniels.
I don't give a fuck. Drink you under the table. Yeah. You know, that's fine. OK, go on then.
Exactly. Johnny Cash was sober. Tom Waits is sober. They make you think they're not,
but they are. And they're and they're and they're more productive. And the people who weren't sober,
Dylan Thomas, great writer, stopped writing great things in his late 20s. Then it was shit.
And then he died. Hunter Thompson, such a great writer, amazing, you know,
amazing technician of a writer, blew his face off. You know, that's the reality of what that does.
Once it starts to catch up to you and get away with it in your 20s. And I feel very lucky because
I got away with it, even though I hurt a lot of people, I got away with it. And then I am doing
this. So I feel like I live two complete lives, you know. But. Again, I lost myself.
No, I was originally talking about the the prohibition thing and the addiction element.
The oh, yeah, the no, the house I live in a documentary, you know, they talk about it's a
you know, they talk about it's a great documentary and they talk about having lost, you know,
trillion dollars on the war on drugs and it's changed nothing. And now you have
psychopharmaceuticals and you have all these other drugs. But rehabilitation, I've seen it work.
I've seen it work when it's an attractive thing, you know, stay sober October. Great.
I think it's great. You Joe Rogan, whatever. I think it's fantastic. Why not? Why not play
with the idea of of of habit, of habituation, not that everybody's an alcoholic that has nothing to
do with it. Is it working for you as a relaxant or is it not? Does it become a habit? Is it a crutch?
And when it becomes anything becomes a crutch, I don't care if it's alcohol or anything else,
you know, poor or not, you know, I'm escaping, I'm escaping, I'm escaping. Well, I want to
challenge that now. I want to challenge it. I want to see why. I went to the dentist, my nine cavities
on my my my gum line because of the sugar and the nicotine pills. All right. I thought I was going
to get away with murder. I didn't fuck. Now I got to look at maybe I need to quit these. Maybe I need
to get away from them. Maybe, you know, nothing is for free. Nothing is is consequence. It's like,
look, what we've done has not worked. And it's a great example of sticking with something because
it seems strong. And it's a complete failure. Can we release ourselves from the idea of having big
muscles and being more functional? And we look at something and say, Look, let's try something
different. It may benefit us all in the end. I mean, the prohibition of alcohol is a perfect
example. Like there's no, you know, Bugsy Malone, I mean, Al Capone, should I say,
anymore? You know, and I always joke like Jim Beane and Jack Daniels don't have gang fights,
right? You know, so does it change the mental health that the leaning on alcohol, the sad thing
is that becomes the elephant in the room now, right? You know, because we have an illicit drug
trade, and then we have the legal one. So as long as you're doing the legal one, you're fine. But
oh, this guy does, you know, benzos or whatever. So he's doing that, that masculinity point is
interesting. And it'd be kind of cool to get your perspective. I always point to Hollywood, a blanket
statement, of course, but our match of this country other than put on a cowboy hat and you know,
say, get out and drink your milk and all that bollocks. But, you know, but I think to me,
that's, again, that that reality has got, as I point out to so many times, the real men on
Band of Brothers, that are in tears recalling what they went through in World War Two.
Yeah. Yeah. So what's the question?
That's a good point. That's a great question. So my so my thing is, what is, especially with
your dad being, you know, in the movies from, you know, around the time where I think we had the
shift like post World War Two, you know, what what have you witnessed about the perception of a man
and how that relates to our Hollywood male manly stars?
I would be part of that. And yet,
I think the old school ver I'm guessing, but I think the old school version is people tried to live
for the public. So they kept up a cosmetic notion of what they were perceived as in Hollywood.
On screen.
On screen. And I think that still exists. I think that's part of what people, you know,
it's kind of like, again, Instagram, why would you want to ruin your career by voicing your opinion?
It's not ruining my career. Like, it's my voice. If my if I said what you wanted me to say, you
wouldn't say that. So it's basically a personal thing. It has nothing to do with a professional
thing. The the the confusion is, is I shoot Mexicans. That's the confusion that I shoot
Mexicans. It would you would really think that I'm finding gold in caves, too, which was the goonies.
Oh, that wasn't a documentary?
Yeah, no, that wasn't. For some, for some it is. And you go, oh, well, that's so far. It's very
real, you know, it comes across as very real. And it taps into something, a need again for masculinity
to look a certain way when I've only seen that get us in trouble, you know. The greatest men
in my experience are people who are willing to be a complete human being and not an idea.
And the greatest people that I've come across in the military are like that. And the people
I've come across, real heroes, like real heroes that you meet, that I've met,
always seem to have a way about them that is not living up to that's not compensating for an
insecurity. You know, David Goggins is the only one I know that has held this thing a
fucking you gotta fucking run 100 miles. And you're right, David, you're right. You're right.
100 miles. And you run 100 miles and you're like, I'm gonna stop you and push you around 100 miles.
That's the only guy that's kind of stayed in that place where I'm kind of just more fascinated by
him. And or that's what works for his to promote his product. And that's a different self talk to
I think I think verbalizing it. Yeah, same way as Jocko, like Jocko definitely maintains his public
persona to hear who he really is. And some of the interviews where you know, he's around is his true
true friends. But but yeah, there's very much that, you know, and if there's an understanding of that,
but there's a lot of people who go around. And they're trying to emulate that constantly. And
I think by emulating that, not by being inspired by it is different, but really trying to emulate
it cosmetically takes away from who you are intrinsically takes away from the whole person
that you are. So yeah, you know, firefighters that, you know, again, across the board, you know,
are people who are the same guys that I can sit and have a cigar with and talk about a whole array
of insecurities or questions or instead of having to know the answer, somebody told me recently that
they hated when Obama went to Japan, that they hated that he bowed. I told you this before, right?
Well, I've heard a lot of people say and it's funny because I live in Japan. That's a sign of
respect. It's a sign of respect. Same way you don't leave your shoes on when you walk into the house.
Exactly. Exactly. But it was the act it was the the perception was that it was weak,
that it wasn't American. And then you think of a real American, you know, a stand-up American like
Reagan from from certain, you know, points of view. And Reagan was the guy who actually signed
the apology to Japan for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Apology. The other one was a sign of respect for
the culture. One was an actual apology for even though it did in World War II and maybe it
maybe it saved more lives than it killed and the atrocity of what that that actuality that those
events were and the melting of children's skin and all that. It's just a fact, you know, it's not
unpatriotic to say that it's just a fact. It happened. So the fact that that Reagan signed
an apology for it makes sense to me. It's like we want to we're sorry that he brutal and so
inhumane and we want to move past it and we want to do better, you know. And I go, yeah,
I respect you for doing that. That's big picture thinking. It's not small thing. The black guy
representing America bowed. Well, even conversely, finally, we have a black president and like, well,
from the same system. So, you know, same system. Did it change everything? No, I mean, I think,
you know, I think the diplomat in him, the interaction with foreign leaders, I thought,
you know, he was a very he presented himself well as a statesman, definitely one of the more
articulate presidents that we've had. But you know, this focus on all we need a woman, we need to,
you know, this color, we haven't had an Asian yet. I mean, for fuck's sake, let's get a system where
we can actually allow anyone in the US to run for that position. Right now, you have to be a
millionaire. How I mean that inherently and at its basis, and then that's not counting all the
lobbying, all this stuff that ends up with the same horrendous decision left out me and, you know,
told me, hey, hey, I love the podcast, but I can't listen anymore, because you're so disrespectful
to our president, you know, bye bye. And I was like, well, you know, firstly, I'm not heartbroken.
But regardless, I'm disgusted with our system. And we are in idiocracy right now. I don't care.
No one who, you know, when when they had multiple choices in each political party, no one was vying
for the last two we had last time. No one that wasn't their first choice. So don't pretend that
this is your, you know, your frickin Holy Grail now. So to me, you know, it's not about left or
right and anything, but it's, we can do so much better. We have, you know, you and I could name
100 people who would be amazing leaders, male, female or walks of life, but none of them are
going to get a chance to do it. And I think that's the problem is that everyone's arguing over these
fucking idiots. I mean, you know, that the lesser of two evils should not be a sentence used in
selecting the person that represents a country of 330 million people. Right?
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. And I looked at that.
The debates, and particularly the presidential debate, and it was just, it was cringe worthy.
It was cringe worthy. You know, it was really, it just didn't, it was, and again, those are our
choices. That's our choice for right now. Well, so and so hasn't done anything in 47 years. Why do
you want to do anything now? And then this guy has done so much. And then, and then there's, again,
it becomes an ill reality. You're not basing anything off. And now we're all, because we're
in perpetual fear of any fact being a fallacy. You don't know who to believe, who not to believe,
whether to vote, whether or not to vote, whether it's going to count, whether it's not going to
count. So we're in all perpetual fear. We don't trust anything or anybody. There's nothing that
we can rely on, much less our politicians. And were they always corrupt? Yeah, there's always
a form of corruption with power, always. Like I remember talking to Jim Webb and him saying,
what the public knows is about 5% of what really goes on. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Makes sense, because you're a little bubble. You're all really not against each other and all that.
I mean, now I think they are, but I think back then they worked as a collective. You do me this
favor, I'll do you this favor, and you vote for this and I'll do that. And that was just the nature
of what it was. But now fear is so... Just a great sound. I think either turning a valve or choking
a dog in the back. Make it annoying. Yeah, and I don't know where to take that man. Because again,
as a citizen, as a human being, I go back to where do you go? Where do you go now?
The Green Party, the Independent Party. I just voted and I saw Kanye on the Independent
ballot. And I'm just like, okay, I don't even know how to react to that. Is it funny?
Is it meant to be funny? Was there a reason to get on the ballot? Are you really vying for that
position? Or has this become a joke? I understand the mentality and I know people who were Democrats
who voted for Trump for the last election. And I understood it.
And I understood it when I talked to them about it because they were like,
look, we don't trust politicians. What if a guy came from over here? And I go, well,
what about Ross Perot? Why didn't we go for Ross Perot? Because he sounded funny and he had big
ears. He's a small guy. He's too small. It's just like what... He didn't look right. We have a
cosmetic necessity. And it goes back to what you were saying. Yes, we need a woman in power,
just to say we did as president. We need a black person just to say we did. I don't know. What
about Mexicans? Do we get a Mexican? When it comes down to it, who is the right person? Who is the
person who is expressing and that you believe has the most care for the collective well-being of
the United States of America? And does that even exist anymore? Or are we idealists and think that,
look, that this country is still in a... It still has the possibility to think that way.
Or do we really... Are we voting for somebody that... When I think, oh, I don't want to pay
taxes, so I want to vote for the guy who's going to do less taxes, whereas I know I'm going to pay
taxes, I know I'm going to pay taxes, and if I pay another 6% taxes, are they going to places that I
believe in and therefore I'm willing to pay that extra tax? That's how I feel about it.
I love saving money. When they talked about Trump, 750 bucks, and they were like,
no, that's not true. He actually paid 4 million in this. And I was like, he's a billionaire.
I made good money last year. I paid more taxes than he did, regardless of what number it was.
That's severe to me for a guy who 10 years ago was maybe clearing 30,000 a year. That's severe.
I don't want to pay something that I don't want to pay. I want to be able to save all my money,
all the money that I earned, acting, saving the world from boredom,
the living mirror. And overpopulation.
Right, exactly. But I think that's again another conversation with two extremes.
Like, I don't want to pay tax, too much tax, and the government's going to waste it all,
and all this stuff. Well, the happy medium is let's pay enough tax where everyone in the US
has health care, and let's put that money into prevention. So the next time we get a virus
sweep through, we're more like Sweden and Finland and Norway because we're a very resilient, healthy
population. We can focus all our resources on the lesser amount of people that get sick.
But again, it's not. It's considered socialist. And that's bad.
Exactly. I'm a commie.
Forget you're a commie. You're a Marxist. And who knows what a Marxist is? About 0.00001%
of the country even know who Karl Marx was. Clearing me. But the truth of the matter is
you're not, again, you're not looking at the reality of the subject. I've had a lot of,
I just went for, before I saw you, a PT for my ankle. I have a huge bone spur in my ankle.
And I got knee issues. It's all on the right side. I don't know why something's wrong with
the left side of my brain. It's that giant glove that you had to hold on to.
It is. I mean, what it was, was that the left one? And I'm going to these things,
and I'm having to pay a deductible with most of them. But I'm going, I can't imagine I would have
to live with this. I remember what it was like living with sciatica for a year and a half. I
mean, it's a personality changer. It's a total personality changer. Perpetual chronic pain.
You wake up in the middle of the night, you have to take a pee, you're in pain, massive pain.
And I go, imagine if there was no help with this. Imagine if I had no health care. I can't even
imagine. I would be broke right now for sure in the money that I've paid out in order to surgeries
and hernias and this and that. And to think other people don't have the access is amazing to me.
It's amazing to me. And then we get into the other thing that you talked about, which you and I,
you know, we both have, you have knowledge of my familial situation and all that, and, you know,
and obesity and all this kind of stuff. And what is that? Is it ennui? Is it entitlement? Is it
whatever it is? Mental health? You know, and we get into like, look at the severity. We're going
to make, God, where was I? Decatur. And I know I'm going all over the place, but Decatur, which is
outside of Atlanta. And it was a very, very poor area, very, you know, African American, you know,
the majority. And yet there's a McDonald's, a brand new McDonald's right there, right in the
center of it and another brand new KFC. And otherwise, everything else was from the 60s,
60s and 70s, all old school businesses and all that. Okay, so you're giving them access to the
worst fucking food you can put in your body imaginable, but it's the affordable one. Does that help? And I
just heard a story yesterday from my wife about how the Bahamas lost electricity for a year,
for an entire year. So you couldn't store food. You couldn't, you know what I mean? They're
better off now than they've ever, you can't sit there and watch Netflix and they're better off
now than they've ever been. They're healthier than they've ever been. I learned that for a second.
And that came out of, you know, a natural disaster, but they're better off for it
because they have to go back and do this very basic thing of taking care of yourself. And you
don't even have that. We should go and get a cake right now at the pie place. Well, they can't because
it's not accessible to them. But they have papaya and they have fresh fish and all these things
that are there. Yeah. I mean, the thing that you've said about the whole Marxist socialist, all this
thing, you know, I've made a remark, but it's true. Like, you know, so many of us believe in
philosophies that revolve around, you know, kindness, whether it's Jesus, whether it's, you
know, Buddha, whoever it is. And that's what they do. It says there in these books, like,
he wasn't hoarding all the fish and bread, you know, and he wasn't deep frying the fish and bread
and then selling it for 99 cents with side of fries. You know, he was, you know, taking care
of the people and going out there and the health, mental and physical health of the people in the
stories that he interacted with, whether they were a prostitute, whether they were, you know, whoever
it was, that was what it was fundamentally about. And yet for some reason we found ourselves now
where you want to have the same kind of thing in, you know, in your own country now. And again,
you're a socialist if you want to stop elderly people feeling like they're having to work in
Walmart so they can pay their health insurance and then all but his ownership. Absolutely. But
you have to create an environment that promotes healthy choices. And like you said, no one,
no one can deny the fact at the moment that our system right now is set up for failure,
which is why we have 70% of the population either obese or overweight. 70% 70%.
You know, the Jesus thing is, you know, paupers and and whores. And in Middle Eastern, by the way,
a dark skinned dude, and most of them had short hair, so he probably didn't have long hair.
Yeah. And again, it's not, we don't want that. So the difference is, and kind of what you're saying
is the thought of Jesus and the study of Jesus, the study of what he did and who he was is amazing.
It's a great, it's a great example, talk about a power of example to live your life and pattern
your life after, you know, the people less fortunate, you know. And religion is a different thing.
It's interpretations of that. It becomes a business. It becomes wasn't Marxist that?
Didn't they talk about that? I think I read something recently was Marxist was,
or maybe Karl Marx said, like the worst thing that can happen can be state and corporations
coming together and creating an entity there. It's just, it's too powerful. It's too controlling.
It's too, you know, and that's what's happened with us. So I guess I would be an anti-Marxist.
No, that's the thing. Like, we don't know which label to stick on my forehead.
You know, is kindness and compassion an option? Because that's kind of where I'm coming from.
Kindness and compassion, you know, and that's going back to the Jesus thing. And that's the
example that again, how can I be less reactive? There was something that happened to me recently.
And I think with time, what we were talking about this in the beginning, a new default,
you know, a building block of, of, of what did I call it? What did I say? Not insecurity,
but anyway, whatever I said, I'll remember in a second, but building your confidence and building
self-esteem, building self-esteem, doing a steamable acts. And, and you go back to,
to doing that when you create it, when you, when you, when you, when you are sensitive to other
people and you create that new default. And if you do it enough, I found myself reacting. And the
older I get, and the more I apply those tools, the less I follow through on my reaction.
So I heard a guy speak the other day and I was irritated by it because it was really personal.
And I was like, what is this guy's like? Basically we're his couch right now. And he's going,
you know, we're his therapist. And, and I found myself getting reactive. And then I got, and then
I questioned it. And then the reaction was, oh, there's personal stuff that I don't want to look
at, abuse and all this kind of stuff. And, and, and I'm very much like, you know, I'm a motivator
and I motivate myself and I got that rocket fuel behind me and I got that burner going and, and,
and I live my life and I forget sometimes to go back to this grounded place of like,
or have you dealt with all those little reactions in your, in your life on a daily basis? So you're
coming from a much calmer, much more connected place to yourself, much more real place. And then
I, so I caught that reaction and I was like, how funny had nothing to do with the guy. He wasn't
doing anything wrong. It was me. It was the, what it created in me. And actually when I came to terms
with it, it was a great thing. So I thanked the guy afterwards. I was like, thanks for the irritation
because I'm a better guy because of it. Cause I saw it was for me and I realized, oh, I should
probably go back into this. And then I did. And I just felt better. I'm a better human being because
of it. But most of us, including myself don't have that or I didn't have it. That's for sure.
I lived in my reaction. I lived in an idea of something and I can't anymore because it's
irresponsible. And I find it irresponsible in other people. Cause all I see is the reaction or
the idea that they're trying to transpire. And I go, it's not real. I don't, I don't see the you in
there. You know, I would love to, I like to experience, and I have more and more with friends
with you. You're a great example. You know, you put it out there. We may not agree on everything.
We're finding our way through this interview. We're pontificating about this and that. Does it have,
you know, when you do a podcast, you want things to land, man, you know, it's like you're fucking
Thanos killed half the universe. You know, that's, we saw that movie. That's it is what it is,
you know, but we don't want to meander. And the truth of the matter is, is there, there is gold
in the meandering because you can meander with others. You meander with a collective and you come
up with what would be best for all of us. And it sounds like even when I say it, I go, oh,
fluid, where's the muscle in that? But there is, it's just a deeper muscle. Maybe not such a,
it's not a steroidal muscle. It's a yin and a yang.
Well, you mentioned about the gentleman doing the comment. And I know that's something that,
you know, I see the frustration in you. I see it with other people, but it's definitely identified
as an issue in mental health in kids. So I've had discussions with psychologists, but, you know,
the trolling, the shit that you have to deal with on social media. And I'm very lucky. I get once
in a while and I just, you know, it's so few that I'm able to just pinpoint and block and
take them out. And it's not for someone disagreeing, someone just being a complete
asshole. But, you know, what, how do you perceive that? What impact does it have,
especially with this whole, well, you're an actor, so you just need to shut the fuck up.
Because I see how frustrating that must be. It's like saying you're a firefighter and you need to
shut the fuck up. Yes, that's my profession. There's no difference. And you came to my personal
page, FYI, you sought me out. Yeah. So what, you know, tell me about some of your frustrations and,
well, there's a frustration that I don't want to have that I have as a human being
that I don't want to have. And I don't want to get into self-pity and how dare you question me
and how dare you try and shit on me because of my own malleable belief system that I'm still
trying to figure out, you know, who am I? I grew up in the country. I was down in the urban,
you know, I have Republican friends, I have Democratic friends, I have extreme friends,
I have extreme friends, I have non-extreme friends, I have moderate friends. So how do I get along
with so many people? What's the through line? The through line is respect. I have respect for you as
a human being. And then I see on social media, which I felt long before any of this political
stuff was you are manifesting. I did a movie called Hollow Man, and I found it a great opportunity
that was not met. But I found it a great opportunity. Given invisibility, what would you
where would you naturally would you do things that were covert and, and, and what's the word?
Man, my fucking brain,
covert and kind of toward the negative, or would you do things that are beneficial to others,
you know, and I always thought that was a really cool thing about that movie that we never hit on,
but regardless. And that's that thing where you go, am I naturally, am I this guy who's gonna,
who's gonna help? Am I gonna help humanity? Am I gonna do something for the benefit of others? Or
am I gonna do something against, you know, what were we talking about before when you first,
when you first brought it up? Or just about the, the comments and you know, being told
you're just an actor. Oh yeah, yeah, it's the social media thing. Yeah. And so,
consequenceless reaction, and what people suddenly felt the liberty to say, because I know there was
no, there was no consequence. I can say whatever I want to say. But the hard part is you don't know
if the person's 14 or 80. Like you just don't know. They can put up any picture they want. They can
put up any kind of post that they want. They had 170 posts of their dog. You don't know who they
are. So I don't even know who I'm reacting to. Fuck you for just saying what you said. It could
be a 14 year old, destroying that person's life by deciding to, you know, counterattack. So you're
constantly thinking of that. But then you get into where the world is right now, which is very
different. You can see it through social media in a big, big, big way of people reacting to,
to me, you know, voicing my opinion or voicing, you know, whatever my thought is for that morning
or that evening. And, and, and, and it's, you know, I read something I actually DM, you know, I,
I don't even want to say this, but I, it's just an admittance of what I do. And I don't want to ask
for any more of it, but I'm sure I'll get it is, you know, I'll reach out to people sometimes.
I'll be like, call me motherfucker, you know, or, or I call somebody and it's, and it's interesting
to me, especially extremists. Well, I'll have these conversations and I'll find in the conversation
somewhere, we'll be screaming at each other in the beginning. My wife is like, what is the matter
with your brain? And, and, and then I'll hear things like, well, heroin, you know, like drugs,
for example, heroin addicts, there's no point, might as well just kill them all.
And you go, wow. And they go, I met a heroin addict. There's no way they can get sober. It's
impossible. I go, not in my experience. In my experience, I see it almost every day
with collective support, not a very masculine word or words, you know? So again, that guy,
I'm thinking of one guy in particular was convinced of certain things. It was almost like he was
reading a manual of what's been fed of this is what it is. If you're this, you're a socialist.
Are you positive? What if I have no interest in social or what if socialism, you know, whatever.
And, and so that, and then it comes down to a very human place, where suddenly we're having
a conversation, we're respecting each other. And it's a totally different thing. I think
that's because it's more, even though that's on the phone, it's more face to face. Whereas
there's something else that happens when there's this idea of writing and responding to somebody
without consequence. I think there's something evil that resides in us all that just wants to
win. And I think that's a very, very dangerous thing personally. I know it's it, it, it, it,
I think it belongs in certain in war. If we're protecting ourselves, if we're truly defending
our own land or an ally's land, you know, then you get into a frame of mind, like when you fight a
fire, fire, you know, you go in there and you literally, your life becomes secondary.
And you have to train yourself to go into that place. And I know it's like, this doesn't matter.
What matters is I do this thing. I save other people like, you know, extinguish this fire,
whatever it is. The other extreme is I got it recently. Somebody said, I can't wait to see you
hung from a noose. And I DM the guy and I said, did you just say quote, hung from a noose?
And then he erased it. He erased the comment. And I never heard back from him because I'm sure he
got scared that, well, he could get in trouble for that because that's an actual life. And I
don't know if he knew that. I don't probably wasn't the intention. But again, when you're in
that position of consequentialist reaction, you're not thinking in those terms. You're just trying to
make an impact. I want to, and then there's the other thing about like, I just want to get the
guy to react. You know, I got Thanos to react. Thanos is writing me back. You know, he's pissed.
What did you say to that? You said fucking what?
Exactly. And then what I said, you know, I just think it's a very interesting, like I said,
sociological. It can be a great sociological study. But I think on a more human level, it's
a very irresponsible platform because it's not natural. What's natural is this.
Yeah. And that would be an immediate, you know,
If you said something that was really insulting to me, I'd be like, what's happening?
Yeah. What's happening? Do I defend myself and my family's here? And now you've put me in a
position where I need to protect my family. And then that becomes something different. But it's
specific. You're here. And if you're not here, I don't have to worry about you. At least that I
know of. You know, whereas there, it's so much, it's elusive. And I think it lends to this just
kind of generic, general fear. This fear that is always there, that there is nobody to trust.
There is nobody. And especially like I'm a 52 year old, fairly well-educated,
human being at this point. And if I was 18, dealing with what I deal with, forget it. Forget it.
I mean, there's just no way. I mean, you get into this, which is a whole other subject,
but you get into suicides and all that. You go, oh yeah, for sure. For sure. If you're looking
for what friends give you, for what mentors give you, for what parents give you,
for what should be that natural support on that platform, forget it. You're done.
Yeah. My thing is, if you keep looking, and I say, if you, when I keep looking at my phone,
I don't care about followers. I mean, I value the people that are invested in the podcast. And I
think that the Instagram and that is an extension of that. And that's fantastic. I'm going to try
and put positive stuff out, but as far as how many likes and all that stuff, it's irrelevant. But
as a well-put together person that really doesn't, I still find myself reflexively looking and
you know what I mean? I'm still looking at my phone. I'm still looking at my phone. I'm still
reflexively looking and you know what I mean? So if that's that addictive to someone who's really
not that invested in that platform, Ty was his bloody mother gave him Instagram around the same
time he was having issues. And thank God after that happened, I was able to take it away again.
But it was that measuring up to people element too. So you get this facade on Instagram,
and whatever people are passionate about, whether it's some dude that runs around rages with his
weapon, or if it's these millionaire kids that have these YouTube channels or tie watches,
they know we've got a bounce house in the back and a pool. And these regular kids are looking at
it. Oh, that's normal. Therefore, I must suck a little bit. No, that's not normal. That's a
billionaire's child who lives in a mansion and it can rent out an entire roller rink just to play
their airsoft game, whatever the fuck they're doing. You know, but all these, like you said,
all these little narrow field lenses that people are getting into these lives. That's another
element of this is just so so unhealthy. Yeah, they're in your house all of a sudden.
They're in your house. And that's goes back to what I was talking about and being able to
celebrate somebody and being able to say it's different. That's your friend, that's your,
you know, acquaintance or whatever. Instagram, it's like suddenly you're that's what I'm saying.
It's all suddenly personal. You know, when I know the rock, if it wasn't for Instagram, no,
we haven't done a movie together. Yet. Thanos returns with his twin.
And I can't wait. I can't wait. You know, but he and I go back and forth
on on Instagram. And that's, you know, that that's purely based on a social platform.
So really, it's not real.
But is it, you know, and yet the positives of it, if you can be disciplined enough, which you can't,
is I've met so many writers, so many artists, painters, I've been turned on to so many people,
people who I have in the house, you know, whose work I have in the house and whose work I appreciate
as writers and all that, because you have access to that where I wouldn't normally have access.
So there is a positive. There is a positive. But I find it becoming, you know, I'm lost in the subject
now, but I find it becoming more damaging. You know, I don't know if you saw the social dilemma.
I did. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. But then you get into that and you have all these people who
basically, you know, came up with these algorithms that are so powerful, so powerful, so powerful,
came up with these algorithms and came up with phones and Instagram and all that, who are all
across the board like this is bad. It's gone bad. And started with their intentions were definitely
good. Great. How can I remember when email started and I was like, what a great thing,
we can start writing letters again, can actually start writing again. Why is this a bad thing?
It's not a bad thing. I used to write, dude, I've got thousands of pages of emails, Cornell and I,
forget it, hundreds of pages of emails, you know, fun. I put it all out into a book that I can read
myself, not for public consumption, but I go through it and I look at those emails and we would go off
fucking pages. Just great. You know, very poetical and fun and personal and revealing and right.
That's a, that was a positive to me. You know, this Instagram was a positive to me when I started
because it was a great way to brevity and writing, you know, short stories have always been harder
just across the board, the novels, because you have to be very, very specific and condensed.
You know, it's a, it's a, it's a structure that you have to keep, you know, somebody's attention
and you can't meander necessarily, you know, and, and I loved the idea of putting out these kind of
poetical, you know, things and having to stay within, I think, I don't even remember what it was,
but it was like 130 characters or 160 characters that turned into 320 characters words and all that.
I love that idea. That's, I denied Instagram forever. I was like, why would I want to do that?
It's just stupid, you know, more self promoting, no thanks. And then, and then that, so that was my
kind of in into it. And then now you see me doing fucking five minute videos about the state of our
country. The fuck happened to me. And it's true. There's a part of me that's like, what do you,
what do you, why just promote your work and do what you do. And the country is going to be what it is.
But it is, it's the same way as this. I think that's why podcasts are so popular. I listened to
a couple of fantastic ones with Andy Stumpf on the way up here and he had Mike Glover,
who I've got coming on and then a couple of Navy Seals, one who sounds like a, I mean,
absolute badass, but now through his own personal journey with using Sila Simon to get over his PTSD
now runs an addiction center for the Seals, you know, so, but, you know, so, so these platforms
can be very powerful and then can be a way of voicing, but the moment, as we said, there's
extremes when those people start chirping off, you, they nullify the actual middle ground message.
And that's what's so, you know, frustrating even for me. And I'm on a much, much smaller scale.
I've got a friend who just, um, it's not the same post started sending me all these things
that the government's done to help stop smoking. And I'm like, and he, this guy's well invested
in CrossFit and everything. So he's a, he understands wellness, but I'm like, you're missing
the entire point. No one's negating COVID. We're just saying for the love of fucking God, can we
talk about this other thing? So I think that's what's frustrating is when you have a middle of
the road message, you're just trying to say, Hey, here's some common sense. This is what's on my
mind. And I'm hoping it might sow some seeds on the people. And that's kind of as a group,
collectively try and elevate, you know, our country. It just gets shot down by these shitbags.
And what's the point? What's the point in shooting it down? Exactly. Because you, again,
you get a little tingle in your special place and you know, you high five your mum before you go to
bed. You know, that's, that's good. I like that. That should be the motto for your podcast. Um,
yeah, I, that's what I don't understand. You know, again, going back to, you know, you and I
spoken before about Wilmington on fire, you know, you have a society post civil war that is integrated
and doing very well. And then you have somebody or a group of guys that just decided, I don't like
this. I'm going to change it. Yeah. Based on ultimately money and power and always pigmentation.
Always. Yeah. Yeah. But the excuse is pigmented. Oh, exactly. That's the, that's the excuse I can
use. What if they were all white and one's doing better than the other? You can't, you don't really
have a scapegoat there. Yeah. Well, I mean, look at the Irish, they're white and they got treated
like shit. You know what I mean? So, you know, that's the thing. Colin, my buddy, Colin Broderick
wrote Church Inn, which is a novel that just came out that, you know, recently and I've been
reading it and because I have a kid, I can't, you know, it's like sitting down for an hour and then
reading and then, but it's so good. It's so good. And it talks about, you know, this character who's
really him during the troubles in Ireland. And you're a Catholic, North Irish, you're a North
Irish Catholic and you're basically seen as a piece of shit in your own country. You're garbage.
So you're going through British, you know, borders and all that. And they're, they're asking, they're
trying to instigate something that will allow them to shoot you with cause. They were, they were riled
up and they're already a piece of shit because they're Irish and they're Catholic. So I shot him,
which is what we're supposed to do, get rid of them, decided who, at what point, this was their
country. And it's crazy because you've got Catholics and Protestants, which are both
Christians. Christians. For the love of God. No pun intended, but you believe in the same damn
things apart from some, you know, small print. The damning. Yeah. Apart from the damning.
You go to hell, you don't necessarily go to hell. You're going to find out anyway,
so it's not even worth arguing about. You know what I mean? That's what I mean. There's nothing.
And it's such a strange reality. You know, it's like, it's almost like out of boredom. It's like,
what do we do? You wake up one morning, like I don't, anybody wears black. I forget it.
Anybody who wears pink shorts, you go around Atlanta, there's a lot of pink shorts around
here. I don't understand. Too many pink shorts. Way, way, way, way too many. And a lot of starch.
I don't understand it. I don't understand big golfing community. And I laugh every time I see it.
But can you imagine pointing that out? What makes me laugh? What makes me chuckle as a,
as a country Californian? Imagine if I just demonize those people right away. And I was
like, those people need to go. I've moved to Atlanta now and they need to go. That's it.
It's ridiculous. The idea of it is ridiculous. Yeah. So is the idea of telling someone who is
African descent to go back to Africa when their ancestors were dragged here kicking and screaming
in the first place. But you don't want to believe that. You don't want to believe that Jesus was
Middle Eastern. You don't want to, you just don't. It goes away from like, what? Oh man,
we've spent a lot of time creating this other thing that we're comfortable with,
that we're saying one of us, the house next door looks just like us. We don't have to deal with
any Indians or any blacks or anything. And that person's white and I trust them.
So the other thing is, I mean, the sad thing is that's obviously a small percentage of people
that think that way, but it's represented like it's the whole country where I live. And I've
talked about this a lot. The community is awesome. My neighbors are from India, China, you know,
we've got all different skin colors and creeds. I'm obviously British. So I'm not, you know,
native, not native American or native American. You know, so, and everyone gets on fine. And it's
awesome. And we have a Facebook group and we, you know, tell each other when someone's car got
broken into and all the things that neighbors would do. So then when I see this division
and this divisiveness being shared on the television, me personally, I see small pockets
of people and I don't know how the fuck do they get, you know, the talking stick where they
represent the entire 50 states of the U S when the reality is these are pockets of shit bags from
me the side, they then go and hang out opposing each other and poking each other with sticks.
And that's supposed to represent this whole country. I mean, I just, I don't understand that.
It exists and it exists for whatever reason it exists because extreme situations and people
exist in every walk of life, every profession, every this, but it doesn't represent the whole
of America. It literally doesn't represent the whole of America. And what's interesting is,
and this may be part of it, this back to social media thing, you know, I posted a video and I
would say 80% of the comments were not only divisive, but, but violent almost. And I was like,
those are all my followers and it wasn't what it came to be. What I came to learn was, oh no,
these are people that just stayed out of it. They were like, this is so extreme and most people
aren't that extreme and it is scary for them. And maybe that's the point. Maybe that why these
people come in and they want you to be afraid. They want you to contract. They want you to be
a hermit crab that goes back in their shell so they can control it. And that's, I don't know.
I don't understand that mentality. I understand a masculine war mentality. I understand being
there for your brother. And like you said, brothers war, you know, it's, there's a camaraderie
there in the fire department. There's a camaraderie where you, where you lean on each other, where you
work, you know, where you trust each other. I get that, man. I absolutely, a hundred percent get that.
And I have that and I've been involved in creating that, but it's not at the demise or of other
people. I don't care. Even if you have, it doesn't mean that every, what was that movie, Gran Torino?
It's like when you get outside of your little bubble, you may learn a thing or two and you may
loosen up a bit. And is it going to get you killed? Not necessarily. Not necessarily. And not that
everybody has to live in this, you know, this cornucopia of, you know, of different countries
and different, you know, races and not like, I understand that's like some black communities
want to stay black and some white communities want to stay white. But again, it's a different
mentality when you say we want to stay white because we hate you. We're afraid of you and we
know where you're going to ambush us and we're ready. We're ready. It's a different thing. It's
like you're creating that. That's a manifestation. It's like what I do as an actor. I'm creating
a vibe. I'm creating an ambiance. And if you just, which, you know, this administration
knows better than anybody because they come from marketing, say the same thing over and over and
over and over and over and over and over and it will become the weaker's default thought,
the impressionable. And we're all very impressionable. Yeah. I think there's a
lot of people that just need to ask why. Like say you want, you know, your anti whatever group.
Right. Why? That's the three ways. Whether it's because of anything Benghazi or, you know,
this thing that's come up that I just saw come up that my buddy emailed me about Hunter Biden
or Trump. They all should be kept in check. All of them. There's not one side or the other. And
I've never seen it as one side or the other. If there's a Republican that happens to have more,
that is more than 50% of the beliefs that I have, then I'm going to vote for that Republican, period.
Yeah. I'm not going to vote for somebody because I hope. Oh, I hope otherwise would have voted for
Ross Perot. I don't know why I didn't now. Because of his ears. You know, because of his ears.
Billionaire, smart, great businessman, obviously cared. But too tiny.
Yeah. Well, same with, you know, with Tulsi Gabbard. I mean, someone that seems a lot of
people aligned with the Democrat side didn't even make it on the ballot. You know, so
the sad thing is people get excited, I think, from some candidates on whatever party they
tend to hail from. But usually those people don't make it. So, you know, that's the thing.
You've been cheering on a horse that doesn't even get to race in the end.
No. And then what I saw, you know, during that debate, and this is just my own opinion,
is I saw a personality contest, a really bad one, like just horrible. All the snickering on both
sides, you know, laughing when you don't really think something's funny, you're pissed off. So
did you at least learn a lot about what they stand for and what they're going to do the next
way? Obviously not. I mean, it's a loaded question. You didn't learn from the political campaigns.
It's unbelievable, dude. I didn't learn shit. I didn't learn anything. It made me angry.
I was like, fuck you guys. Yeah, if I was a bouncer, I'd throw them out.
You're using this country as a little bitch fight. Why? It's an entire country.
There's a lot of people here. There's a lot of people here in need.
There's a lot of people here relying on you. You know, so I went back and I heard, you know,
Nixon is the greatest president of all time. But I heard, and by the way, you know, that I don't
want to do it on, I don't want to debate on Zoom. And then you go back to Nixon and JFK and they
were in separate, they did that basically. It wasn't Zoom back then, but they were in separate
states when they debated at one point in their debating trajectory. But I listened to one of the
debates, and I don't know if it was that one, but I listened to one of the debates and it was
highly intelligent, highly. And one debate would be about one subject, by the way,
90 minutes or whatever, maybe it was 60, 90 or 60 minutes, talking about one subject. We're
talking about foreign policy for 60 or 90 minutes. And respectfully, didn't mean that they weren't
corrupt, didn't mean that they didn't turn out to, you know, Watergate and all that shit.
But it just, it was a, you know, there was none of that to me, none of that in this debate. And it
was, again, it sounds really negative. And I don't mean to just pull this down into a negativity,
because I understand it's much easier and it feels much better to say, you know, if your kid has
issues, it's just like, no, my kid's great. My kid's great. You know, but we were noticing that this
is happening and they didn't know they're great. They're great. They're great. We live in Atlanta.
It's great. It's all good. You know, went to church on Sunday. It's great. And you go, okay,
you're doing you're hitting all the things that you think are great. And that, you know,
is a proponent for greatness. But what's the personal? Where's the personal?
And it's not a negative thing. It's being able to touch on these things of fallibility
and humanness and saying, okay, now we dealt with that. Now let's move on. And you are,
you are, you are a more, you are a more enriched human being because of it.
Two people talking together learn about the state of what it is to be alive for this very short time
with this very given gift that we have, and then you're dead. So why not make the most of it?
Why not connect? Why not, you know, and if I say something about Trump, it's much less about,
it's about what are you doing? What's your intention? What is your intention? You know,
people are protesting. They're angry. Yeah, man. Just like with police, the people are going out
and, you know, starting fires and small business. That's fucking horrible. It's horrible. But you
do not go out to peaceful protesters and smack them with batons and gas them. You don't. You don't.
That's in the constitution. If you're an advocate of the constitution,
which is, I've heard, that's the thing. You don't do that. You really don't. You don't do that.
You don't do that. You respect the constitution. Anyway, wish you a fucking shit.
Well, I gotta let you go to your appointment very soon. How long have we got left? If anything?
Okay, so we'll just, I'll wrap up with, well, we've definitely put the world to rights. No
question about that. But I want to just kind of open the door for the stuff you're working on now
because you talked about, you know, your, when you used to write on Instagram, you talked about
the kind of reflection you did after some of the big films that you made. So tell me about what
people have to look forward to as far as your work with television coming up.
I mean, look, something happened. I told you that something happened when I contracted for that year
and a half and it had a lot to do with my kid being born and a lot of changes. We've just
gone through a lot of changes. We've moved, you know, have we moved out of California? No,
not necessarily. But do we live in Atlanta right now? Yes, we do for sure. A hundred percent.
And we have a baby coming in December and, you know, that's, it's all really, really wonderful and
very life affirming. But with work, something happened at the ranch in California and I was
up there for a couple of days myself, which doesn't happen often these days. And I started
watching these behind the scenes and I think I wrote your forward during that time. Maybe,
I think so for your book, which we didn't talk about, which is strange.
This is not about me.
It is, it's your podcast. And I started watching these behind the scenes and it just reminded me
of the necessity of storytelling and the history of storytelling and the mirroring of society and
our behaviors and what we learn, all that kind of stuff. And it really got me jazzed up again.
And I literally went from one behind the scenes to watching that movie to another behind the
scenes to watching that movie to another behind the scenes and just taught every aspect of
filmmaking, editing, writing, you know, direct photography, script supervising, everybody,
hearing everybody talk about, you know, the importance and the fascination around behavior
and the human condition was very inspiring to me. So I just delved back, like that's all it took.
That's all it took. And I love to write. I've always written long before I wanted to become an
actor. Writing was always the priority and it was always the go-to. I think that's my way of kind of
figuring out how I feel or trying to solidify in my own mind how I see things or just clarify,
not solidify, but clarify. And so the writing has been a big thing. I did the forward to your book,
which I was very, very honored to be asked to do, honestly. I've done a couple of other forwards to
other people's books that I'm also very, very honored to be asked. And, you know, so yeah,
we're doing a lot of writing right now. And then TV, you know, to me, you were born and you died in
TV. That's where I come from. I'm like old school guy. You start in TV and then you hopefully
graduate to movies and then you go back to TV before you die. And TV is a different thing now
and the platform is very different and they're doing little movies now and it's kind of amazing.
And so I read this thing. I said no to most TV that's come my way, but I read this Western
and I loved it. I loved it because it kind of had Brad Berrien, who I loved as a kid,
aspects to it. So kind of supernatural aspects to it that I really, really appreciated
and things that have fascinated me for a long time. So I loved the way it manifested and I kept
saying to the person that was in the office, this is so fucking weird. And I was like,
this is fucking weird. And I love that. I love that. It's just a very unique perspective on
another, you know, typical story, you know, two warring families in the West. And
so I'm doing that next. I did Dune that just got pushed another year. So that comes out in October
2021, which I was very happy about doing. Amazing actors, amazing filmmaker, Denis Villeneuve,
who's become a very close friend. And, you know, I'm a little more, I'm not going to work as much.
I'm just not going to work doing that as much. I'm very happy to still be able to do it. I'm
very happy that I have choice in it. But I there's other things in my life that have started to
surface that have become more of a priority. And I and how I spend my time is very, very,
very meaningful to me right now. You know, I have this obsession with my deathbed, and I just want
to be able to chuckle right before I take that last breath. I just want to go, oh, wow, that was
cool. That was a hell of a ride. That was a hell of a ride. And I could say that now, but there's
more. There's more. And it'll be a little deeper chuckle than it would be right now. But I feel
very, very humbled and very honored. And this is not just a bullshit, bullshit affectation is that
I get to do this. I get to do this. You know, you just came up from Florida. Now we're talking.
We've been talking on the phone every few days. And, and, and, and I do, I go, it's like, how cool.
I'm going to go in and see my little daughter and, you know, the dentist, I'm not, I'm not too stoked
on it. And that's the scenario and the day's scenario. But I do feel very, very lucky to be
doing the things that I get to do. And I always have, whether I had money or not. You know,
when I raised my older kids, I didn't have a lot of money and it didn't matter. I remember we were
on vacation and it was just me and the kids and they were small and they were in the back seat.
And I said, where are we going to sleep tonight? And they would say in unison, we don't care. And
we literally didn't know from place to place, day to day, where we were going to sleep, whether it
was going to be in the car, somebody's trailer, a guest house, a BNB, and it didn't fucking matter.
And that's a, it's an outlook that I've tried to hold on to and we'll try to hold on to until the end.