Andrew Callaghan: Channel 5, Gonzo, QAnon, O-Block, Politics & Alex Jones | Lex Fridman Podcast #425
- There's two people in the back, two of her homegirls,
wearing like shiesty masks. I'm like, what are we
doing? Where are we going? And she goes, "We're
gonna go film the riot. We're going to Lake Street." And so, we drive down there, Kmart is burning, Target is
burning, everything is on fire. She has the Sony A7. She gives me a microphone and she's like, "Go talk to that guy." And that was the guy with a
Molotov cocktail in his hand who had just burned Kmart down. And so, I go, what should I ask him? She goes, "What's on your mind?" So, I walk up to him and I'm
like, what's on your mind? - The following is a conversation
with Andrew Callaghan, host of Channel 5 on YouTube, where he does Gonzo style interviews with fascinating humans
at the edges of society, the so-called vagrants,
vagabonds, runaways, outlaws. From QAnon adherence to fish heads to O-Block residents, and much more. He created the documentary that I highly recommend
called "This Place Rules" on the undercurrents that led to the January 6th Capitol riots. This is the "Lex Fridman Podcast". To support it, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends,
here's Andrew Callaghan. - I tried to color-match you though. Got the black and white going. I went to Walmart before this and got the Wrangler shirt with the Texas Longhorns
tee and everything. - Is that where you shop, Walmart? - Generally, yeah. - I'm a Target man myself. - There's no way you get
those suits from Target. - So, you're saying it's a
nice way to compliment a suit. - I think you go Men's
Wearhouse, if not further. - I think you would be wrong. - [Andrew] You go further. - No, the other direction. - You got that from Target? - Not Target. I was joking about Target. I like Walmart better.
(Andrew chuckles) It just felt like a funny thing to say. (Andrew laughing) - No, it was funny. - The most expensive
thing I own is this watch. And it was given to me as a gift. - Yeah. When I was on tour, I had
these $2,700 Cartier glasses that I got for a lot of money, $2,700. - Like sunglasses? - Yeah. But they're really embarrassing. - Mm-hmm.
- But I was on tour, so I just felt like I could do anything as far as fashion choices. - Oh, yeah.
- But looking back at pictures for myself in that era,
I'm like, God, what- - So, that was the symbol of
the fame got to your head? I think so, yeah. I think
fame getting to your head. If you spend more than
100 bucks on sunglasses, you've officially gone off a deep- - You've crossed the line, totally. And that's where you go back
to Walmart to humble yourself. I really love Walmart. In fact, I moved to Austin,
because I was at Walmart and a lady said that I
look handsome in a suit. - [Andrew] Mm. - And I was like, that's
it. I love this place. She just said it for no reason whatsoever. This older lady just looked at me and with this like genuine sweetness, just said, "Oh, you look handsome." - She's not wrong, man. - Thank you. - That's part of your whole swag though. - Yeah, the suit thing. Yep. Anyway. What was the first, if you remember, first recorded interview you did? - Hmm. Well, like my first grade
teacher, Mrs. Claudia, this is back in the day,
like I was telling you. We just asked her about her life in Columbia
and stuff like that. But I didn't really get
into actual journalism until my ninth grade year. I had no idea I had an interest in it. Before then, I wanted to be a rapper. It's all about hip hop and meditation and picking psilocybin mushrooms in public parks and stuff like that. That's what I was into. - That's a lot. Psilocybin, meditation, rap, public parks. - Yeah. I was making
like conscious rap music. I was to the point where I had four dreamcatchers
hanging above my bed. - Yeah.
- Alex Grey painting on the wall, tapestry on the ceiling, just scribbling rhymes down all the time. - So, you said somewhere
that you sucked at school. - Okay, well, let's
step back a little bit. So, I had this amazing
journalism course in ninth grade. - Yeah.
- I went to an alternative high school and the teacher was named Calvin Shaw. And he was just like, I ended up taking his class all four years and he used to let me
actually leave school. I didn't like going to school. So, he let me basically go around Seattle and do different interviews with people as long as I could come
back by the end of the day and write a story for his class. And he'd mark me as present. So, the first article that I wrote was about the Silk Road in the deep web. (Andrew chuckles) 'Cause you know. - Yeah. Nice.
- As a ninth grader, when I discovered the Hidden Wiki, I thought that I was really tapping into the most secret society, elite level black market in the world. And so, if you remember, they had that Hidden Wiki link
that was like, hire a hitman. And so, I messaged them
and I was like, all right, I wanna get someone killed at my school. How much is it gonna cost me? - Yeah.
- And I published my interview with the Hidden Wiki hitman, who was probably a Fed or something, but who knows?
- Mm-hmm. - And my first article was called like, "Inside the Deep Web: A
Conversation with a Hitman". - That's nice.
- Yeah. - I mean, you were fearless even then. - I was hiding behind a Tor browser, so there's not much fear to be had. - Oh. So, it was anonymous? - It was anonymous, but I
did publish it under my name. So, you're right. I could
have been in danger. - I also saw that you
took too many shrooms when you were young and that led you to have hallucinogen-persisting
perception disorder, HPPD.
- Yeah. - [Lex] Can you explain what this is? - Well, that condition is classified by persistent visual snow
floaters, morphing objects. I see them right now. I
see them all the time. - The snow is in the room. - The snow is definitely in
the room. It's all over you. And basically, it wasn't
that I took too many shrooms. I think that it was... I took about an eighth
of cyanescens mushrooms, which are the ones that come from the earth
instead of cow shit. And I took an eighth of those
at my friend Toby's house, which is a normal amount,
but I was in eighth grade. So, I woke up the next morning with these extreme visual distortions. And I thought that it would go away. I tried to make it go away, but there's really no cure for HPPD. It's a lifelong condition. So, it's just a matter of dealing with it and realizing that it is only visual. So, when people ask me, "Hey, I have HPPD, how do I cope with it?" I say, remember that every
other sense that you have, what you can hear, what you can taste, your feet on the ground, you're still on earth, you're still here. - Well, you said it's only visual - Mm-hmm.
- and yes, gratitude for being alive at all. - Yeah.
- It's great. But you said that this led you into some dark psychological places like depersonalization disorder. - Yeah. Depersonalization is the
feeling that you are not real, but that reality still exists. Derealization is the
idea that reality itself is an illusion created by your mind and that you're the only person alive. And that everything that your brain is projecting to your
visual cortex is a lie. And that you're the
only living human being. - Both are pretty intense. - HPPD creates both of those things. And so, when I've talked to people who have the condition,
it's really either/or. But more than 70% of people with HPPD fall into either category. They're both coping mechanisms for the, I don't know what really happens. I talked to a researcher
once named Dr. Abraham. He lives in Upstate New York. He's the leading scientist
when it comes to HPPD research. He's the only one who
actually seems to care about finding a cure.
- Uh-huh. - And the only known treatment right now is alcohol and benzodiazepines. - That's not good.
- Right. So, alcoholism, something that came into
my life pretty early, alcohol abuse as a result
of that experience, because that helps with
the visual symptoms. Makes some of the static go away. - Man. - [Andrew] Never tried benzos though. - So, can you explain to me
where in that spectrum you are? So, do you sometimes have a sense that you're not real
- Sometimes. - and something else is not real? Like the reality's not real? - Yeah. I experience it all the time. But like I said, my job helps with that, because I get to feel like I'm, when you seek out extremes
to a certain extent and you put yourself on the
front lines of intense events, whether it be politically or socially, or just dive into deep fringe subcultures, you get this feeling that you're real. And being filmed is also confirmation, if you can look at the MP4 file that you're in fact living here on earth. - Confirming
- Yeah. - that you are in it with reality by watching
yourself on video. - [Andrew] Exactly. - So, is that basically the engine behind all the extreme
interviews you've done? - Well, I got HPPD around the same time that I began this journalism
course in ninth grade. So, I always used journalism as a therapeutic mechanism to deal with some of these symptoms,
especially depersonalization. There's some pretty good illustrations of what it feels like. Kinda feels like you're
trapped behind your eyes or that you're just this nebulous soul that's trapped in a flesh suit that you're not really a part of. You're puppeteering a
flesh and bone skin suit. - Trapped or just the ability
to step outside of yourself? - You feel like your soul is not something that is
connected to your body. It's something living in your head. It's really hard to explain to people who haven't gone through
derealization or depersonalization, but if you go on support
groups, they always say like, "How do I break free from behind my eyes?" Like dark stuff like that.
- Oh, so you're trapped. There's a higher state of being through meditation that you
can step outside of yourself, but this is not that.
- Mm-hmm. Unfortunately, it was the
kind of meditative path or the eastern path that I took and fused that with
psychedelic culture in Seattle that took me down the psychedelic use rabbit
hole in the first place. So, (chuckles) I'd say it all
started with "Siddhartha". - "Siddhartha". That's a good book. Have you done shrooms since then? - No, I don't really do psychedelic drugs, but a lot of people think
that I'm against them, which I'm not, just doesn't work for me. If it works for you, I'm
sure they can be really fun. Especially, I know there's
lots of like therapeutic uses for acid and ketamine and psilocybin, but I personally abstain
from those kind of... Anything psychotropic,
I try to stay away from. - Drinking a bit? - Well, yeah, I didn't drink at all before I had the HPPD stuff and I would've drank later in life, but definitely like 14, 15, every day after school, I'd
drink a 40 ounce of Mickey's. It kinda looks like Olde
English, but the bottle's green and it has a hornet on the side of it. Just became a ritual just to deal with the
anxiety of that situation. - And it made the snow go away? - Yeah. Alcohol really works
to suppress HPPD symptoms. - So, you said you
hated classes in school, except that journalism class. - Okay, we need to clear this up, because on my Wikipedia
page, for some reason, for Andrew Callaghan early life, it says Andrew hated every single class except for one.
- Yeah. - So, I've had a bunch of
teachers who are super cool, like this guy, Tim, my astronomy
professor at ninth grade, - Yep.
- Mrs. Zanetti, my creative writing
teacher in sixth grade, and this really cool dude
at my college in New Orleans named Charles Cannon, who taught me a class called
New Orleans Mythology, - Mm-hmm.
- my three favorite classes besides my journalism class, and they all hit me up and they're like, "Hey, man, saw you said you hated every class.
(Lex laughing) - Except the journalism.
- Sorry I couldn't be everything that you wanted me to be."
- Yeah. - And so, I just wanna say,
shout out to all those teachers. I didn't hate every class. The point that I was making is that being forced into the
institution of school so young and having to take common
core classes like biology, dissecting frogs, history
of the Han Dynasty, stuff like that that I
didn't want to learn, but I had to learn multiple times. I learned about the dynastic
cycle in ancient China three separate times at
three different schools. And I was like, who is writing this curriculum?
(Lex laughing) And why is it so important
that I understand this process? - Yeah. - The part that makes school difficult, especially in college,
is that you have people just going to school
just to get the degree who don't really know exactly
what they're interested in. And they don't even have
time to figure that out, 'cause they're in a business program or a communications program
with no specific interest. - Well, I think if you
wanna do school right, take on every single subject
that you're forced into. It's like the David Foster Wallace, - Mm-hmm.
- just be unborable by it. - Mm-hmm.
- Just really go in as if ancient Chinese dynasties are the most interesting thing
you could possibly learn. - And it is somewhat interesting, the Silk Road and the Great Wall and terracotta, the soldiers and stuff. But I'm just saying like,
when I got to college, I signed up for journalism school. And I didn't get to take a media class until the second semester. And I had to take everything prior to that and I'd already spent so much time. I just think the excruciating boredom of schooling left a bad taste in my mouth. - Yeah.
- But there was individual classes that I liked a lot. - Yeah, there should be some choice or maybe a lot of choice even
at the level of high school for what kind of
- Mm-hmm. - classes you pursue. - Yeah, for sure. - And you're also saying, so Wikipedia is not
always perfectly right? - No, but it's just interesting, because I've said so much in podcasts, but that's what they isolated.
- Mm-hmm. - And I've gotten that question before, which I understand it's the first thing on my Wikipedia page, but it makes me sound like a super hater. Have you ever seen
(Lex laughing) this Instagram page
called depthsofwikipedia? - [Lex] Oh, it's great. - Oh, it's so good, dude. - You said you love journalism. What did you love about
journalism? What hooked you? - On a basic level, everybody
wants media coverage, right? Everyone likes to be on camera and get exposure for
whatever they're doing. And so, being a journalist and being a almost like a
portal for exposure for people allows you to be on the front row of everything that you
want to be a part of. You get to be in the front row for history as it's unfolding, because
everyone wants to be covered. So, being a journalist gives you a ticket to everywhere that you wanna go in life. And so, it allows you to step into different realities almost and then go back to yours. And it just keeps life interesting. - "Buy the ticket, take the
ride," Hunter S. Thompson. Is he up there as one of the influences? Who are your influences? - I think the early
"Daily Show" was so good. Sacha Baron Cohen, huge influence. That was like... "Da Ali G Show" especially. I think Louis Theroux's
broadcast on BBC were great. I was really into Hunter S. Thompson too, but not really until college. - Mm-hmm.
- I really like a particular Hunter S. Thompson book called "The Great Shark Hunt", where he covers the Ruben
Salazar murder by LAPD or LA Sheriff's Department
in Boyle Heights in the '70s. And his relationship with
his lawyer, Oscar Acosta, and that whole saga is great. "Fear and Loathing" I like, but not as much as his
straightforward reporting. 'Cause there's the Gonzo side of Hunter where he is saying he's
taking drugs and seeing shit. And there's the other side of him, which is an actual reporter interested in telling a
story that's has news value. So, it's two different lanes for him. - There is something about
you that makes people want to say you're the Hunter S. Thompson of this generation.
- Mm. - And I don't think they mean the drugs. I think they mean some kind
of non-standard willingness to explore the extremes of humanity - [Andrew] Mm. - and like almost a celebration
of the extremes of humanity. - Yeah. Well, that's a
very kind comparison. I'll get there one day maybe. I just went to Aspen on a little Hunter S. Thompson recon trip to go check out the Woody Creek Tavern, which is the spot that he, it was like his bar near his cabin. And it was pretty cool to see. Unfortunately, it's turned
into not a dive bar now, but it's a sit-down country restaurant. But it was cool. But I expected to see a bunch of gnarly Hunter S. Thompson types doing speed.
(Andrew drowns out Lex) - Doing s... (Andrew and Lex laughing) It's doing drugs. Drugs and alcohol is
all part of it somehow. - [Andrew] Yeah. - So, It opens a gateway to a deeper understanding of humanity. - But I will say though, as someone now who doesn't party like I
did when I was younger, it's not as important as I
thought it was, you know? - Yeah. I'm conflicted on this. I'm good friends with a lot of people that say alcohol is really bad for you. - [Andrew] Mm. - And I believe that too. But there's something
that, as an introvert, as a person who has a lot of anxiety, for me, alcohol has opened doors of just opening myself
up to the world more. - Oh, I'm actually a fan of
alcohol, moderate drinking. But I'm saying like, my life before, I would
say 2019, 2018 especially, there was the chaos on camera, but then there was my private life, which was chaotic partying all the time. - [Lex] Oh, I see. - And I convinced myself
much like Hunter did that that was
- Sure. - the secret sauce that in the core, in my spiritual core
- Yeah. - that gave me the creativity. But then, I cut out a lot of that stuff and I'm just as creative. And it's interesting that a lot of, I think one of the hardest
parts about addiction is that if you're a functioning, highly creative addict of any kind, your brain and the
addictive part of your brain convinces yourself that it's
all part of the cross purpose. And that it has this symbiotic, inspirational thing going on. But it's not true. It can be, but it's typically not. - Yeah, it's not a requirement. - [Andrew] Right. - You can sometimes channel, you can sometimes
leverage all those things for your creativity, but the creative engine
lives outside of that. - [Andrew] Like have you
read Hunter's daily routine in the year up to his death?
(Lex chuckles) It was like 15 grapefruits,
an 8-ball of coke and just a certain
amount of shotgun shells for him to fire into the sky - Yeah, yeah.
- every morning. There's no way, and he didn't do anything
creative in those final years. - [Lex] Yeah. - So, the creativity goes away and gradually you just
become like a party animal. Like Andy Dick. - A caricature of yourself.
- Yeah. - That's why life is interesting. You make all kinds of choices and sometimes you can
create works of genius in a short amount of time
based on drugs and no drugs. Einstein had that miracle year where he published
several incredible papers in one year, 1905. - Did he do drugs before that? - Lots of coke and... (Andrew laughing) - I was like, I believed you for a second.
(Lex laughing) But I'm like, did Einstein have blow? I don't think he did. - How do you think he gets that hair? Come on.
- It's true. - I'm just asking questions. - High confidence hair. - Look into it. Yeah.
- You know what I mean? - Yeah. Well, no, he's a well put
together, sexy young man. The hair came later.
- Yeah. Was Albert Einstein
attractive as a teenager? Not teenager, was he
attractive as a young man. - Sexually attractive, or-
(Andrew laughing) - I don't, you know-
- I'm turned on by Einstein at all ages,
I don't discriminate. - But are you more turned on by the work that he did
or his physical being? - No, sometimes I fantasize what it would be like to be (coughs) in the arms of Einstein. I couldn't even get that out.
- Yeah. In the arms of Einstein.
(Lex laughing) - Yeah. Just, I wanna feel safe. - It's a good idea for a rom-com. (Lex laughing) - To be a little more serious, general relativity, that
spacetime can be unified and curved by gravity is an incredibly wild and
difficult idea to come up with. It's a really, really
difficult thing to imagine, given how well Newtonian
classical mechanics physics works for predicting how stuff happens on earth, to think (sharply inhales) (Lex blows) like that (chuckles) gravity can morph spacetime,
- Mm-hmm. - both space and time, and it permeates the entire universe, it's a field,
- Mm-hmm. - it's a really wild idea to come up. As one human on earth to intuit that is really, really, really difficult. And it's really sad to me that he didn't get a Nobel Prize for that. - Was there people saying he
was crazy when he was around? Or was it-
- Well, he... - Was he universally
recognized as an OG of this? - No, I think once the papers came out, he was widely recognized as a true genius. But before that, he wasn't recognized. He had a really difficult life.
- So, backing up, where does a black hole go? Like after something gets sucked into it? - You mean, is it a portal to another place that kind of thing? - [Andrew] Yeah. - No. Well, we don't know. It could be that the universe is kinda like Swiss cheese
full of black holes. There's something called
hawking radiation where the, because of quantum mechanics, the information leaks out of a black hole. So, it is possible to escape a black hole. There's a lot of
interesting questions there. - I hope we get to the bottom of that. - And there's a super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy, which doesn't seem to scare
physicists, but it terrifies me. - Oh yeah, for sure.
Astronomy can be terrifying. - Yeah, we're all like orbiting. We're not just orbiting the sun, but the sun is part of the solar system, is part of the galaxy and it's all orbiting
a gigantic black hole. - Have you ever spoke to someone
who's been to outer space? - Jeff Bezos. He flew his own rocket. - [Andrew] Wow.
(Lex chuckles) That's pretty cool.
- But astronaut that's been to deep space, no. - Mm. - Well, maybe I've spoken to an alien that just hasn't admitted it. - I wanna do a research paper or like a report about space madness. It's supposed to be this
torturous feeling that you get when you look away from
earth and into the abyss after you've exited
Earth's orbit or whatever. Because there's one specific psychiatrist who knows how to deal with space madness. And I wanna figure out how
and interview people with it. - Is this a real thing? - Yes.
- Like is there Wikipedia article on it?
- Yes, look up space madness treatment. - Well, now, I don't trust Wikipedia after what you told me, so. - I know. They think I hate classes. - I thought you meant more about the fact that you're isolated out in space, that we need social
connection and it's difficult. - Yeah, I think it's just a feeling of
extreme insignificance that you might get sometimes
when you look at the night sky. But it's that times a thousand. It's like an existential void that's created after
looking into the abyss, and then realizing how small
earth is in the grand scheme. You just start to really
have a strange new perception about the pointlessness of existence. - I don't need to go to space for that. - Only a handful of
people have been to space, but I'm sure they're all pretty well-off. So, the psychiatrist has
to be in the multimillions. - Well, technically, we're all in space, 'cause earth is in space, but so, I wonder if
you have to go to space to talk to the psychiatrist. (Andrew chuckles) - Yeah. Probably so. - Well, technically, we're all in space, so he can't,
- Right. - that's a boundary he can't have- - But not everyone believes that, as you've seen from my work probably. - You're right. And those are important people that are asking important questions. - Yeah. - You hitchhiked across US
for 70 days when you were 19. - Right.
- Tell the story of that. - Well, this connects to
what I was talking about with the boredom of school
and these common core classes. So, after my first year of school where I lived in the dorms like a old school dormitory building at a school in New Orleans
called Loyola University, I wanted to just do something. I felt so bored. I was working for the school newspaper for that whole first year. It was called "The Maroon". And I didn't have the ability
to write my own stories. I had to defer to an older editor and they would give me
stories to write about. And they were all about
like on campus happenings, like the Pope visits New Orleans or glass recycling to be
restored in the French Quarter or hoverboards banned on
campus due to safety concerns. And it just felt like,
(Lex chuckles) all right, well, I wanted
to be a Gonzo reporter. I'm not sure if working my way up through the traditional newsroom hierarchy is gonna get me to that point. So, I started reading a
bunch of old hobo literature, like post-World War II vagabonding stuff. And there was this book
- Yeah. - called "Vagabonding in America" by an old hobo Ed Buryn. And I read this and it just basically, obviously some of it was outdated. They had stuff in there
like the hobo code, like, oh, this moniker on the side of a fence means this person has free soup or something like that. They didn't have stuff like that. But what it did tell me-
(Lex chuckles) - [Lex] That's great. - It told me about train
stop towns like Dunsmuir and places in Montana where there was a friendly
attitude toward drifters. And that still persists from
the '60s and '70s to this day. Even though in my opinion, movies like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" have ruined hitchhiking
culture in America, because now, everyone thinks you're gonna decapitate
them if they pick you up. So, after my final day
of courses at Loyola, I literally left all of my
belongings inside my dorm and took the streetcar
to the Greyhound station, got a one-way ticket to Baton Rouge. And I was like, I'm gonna hitchhike across the whole country back
to Seattle with no money. And that was the plan. And it worked out. - I love it.
- Yeah. - I traveled across the
United States before in similar kind of plan. 'Cause you we-
- Were you on the silver dog? - Sil... (Lex laughing) - The Greyhound bus. - Greyhound is pretty nice. - That's a step above hitchhiking. - Yeah, that's way
better than hitchhiking. 'Cause I don't wanna-
- Hitchhiking, Greyhound, Amtrak, airline.
- Yeah. Amtrak, no. That's elitist. - What's in between Greyhound and Amtrak?
(Lex laughing) A car. That's what it is. - Yeah, it's a car. Yeah. A shitty car.
- It's a car. (Andrew laughing) - Okay, cool. - Yeah, I lived in a shitty car. - You lived in a car? - Yeah, when I was - Oh, nice.
- driving across from the United States. Yeah.
- Solo? - With a friend, some solo. - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - And I would eat cold soup. - Mm. I love cold soup.
- Yeah. - What I like is the
cold chickpeas in a can. Get the water out and just dump 'em into your mouth.
- Yeah, yeah. - Those are good, beef jerky, KIND bars. KIND bars are really good for the road. - Yeah, all of that is great, but too much of it is not great. Like too much cold soup, - Hmm.
- not great. Too much beef jerky. - So, what was the route you took? Was it Chicago across or
was it Philadelphia across? - Philadelphia across. - [Andrew] To LA or where? - San Diego's and went up,
but it was a zigzagging. Went up to Chicago, and then
all the way down to Texas. - So, you went Philly through
Appalachia up to the Midwest. - Yep.
- Did you cut over like through the southwest
down to San Diego? - No, no, no. It went
straight down to Texas. All the way down to the Midwest.
- Okay. - So, like. (sharply inhales) - But did you cut from Texas west through New Mexico and Arizona to get to San Diego?
- Yeah. - That is the best road trip place. - Mm-hmm.
- Interstate 40. Like Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Vegas, Kingman, the Mojave Desert,
Yuma, doesn't get better. - Yeah, and you're
kids, so you don't care. And you are throwing caution to the wind. And I met some crazy, crazy people. - It gives me some sanity whenever I'm feeling out
of control or bummed out. I just remembered that the
road is still out there. The open road
- Yeah. - never goes anywhere. And it's like a, I see an invisible door in the corner of the room all the time. That makes me more
comfortable, 'cause I'm like, hey, at the end of the
day, if I'm bummed out, I can go hit the road and I'm sure there's
gonna be a fun time ahead. - Yeah. Get that Greyhound ticket and go. - I would say silver dog half, because sometimes I gotta ride the dog when no one will pick me up. There's some places in the country where no one's gonna pick you up. - Yeah.
- Kansas, Missouri, they're not gonna do it.
- Maybe you're not charming enough. You thought about that?
- I was 19. Fresh, clean shaven. - Yeah.
- I was pretty charming, I'd say.
- All right. - But the older you get, the
harder it is to hitchhike, because they think
you're an escaped convict or some type of psycho wanderer. And some of these people are
like, what we call punishers. It's people who never stop talking. And so, they see someone hitchhiking and they're like, yes, I'm
gonna talk at this person. - Yeah.
- And you can tell that their eyes are wide. They're like, what's up?
And you're like, oh shit. So, it's six hours of
just like, oh, cool, nice. Yeah.
- That's rough. - Yeah, yeah.
- You're right. You're right. I like people that are
comfortable in silence. - Yeah. But then that also raises the question, are they about to kill me? You know what I mean? - I think that's a you problem, not a... (Andrew and Lex laughing) - You know what's funny
is almost everybody who picked me up when I was hitchhiking was like a day laborer.
- Yeah. - It was almost all Mexican
day laborers who picked me up. - Oh, interesting. - Because I think that in
some places down there, that's a typical thing
to do, hitchhike to work. A lot of people don't have cars, but they still have to get to their jobs. So, a lot of people ask me, "Hey, where should I drop you off? Where's your job at?" And I'm like, my job is to explore. And they were down with it. - See, for me, it was really easy, because you just say like, I'm traveling across the United States. - Mm. - And I think people love that idea. - Yeah.
- And they want to help. - Mm-hmm. - I think they romantic... Because they also have
that invisible door. - Mm-hmm.
- Everybody has that invisible door. I just want to go. - So you know what I'm talking about. - [Lex] Yeah, I don't think- - It can anchor you a bit, just to remind you that every pattern that I've fallen into is voluntary and it's for my own
stability and mental health. - Well, that's why I'm renting everything and I'm making sure
- Yeah. - tomorrow I can just go. I gave away everything
I own twice in my life. Just very like,
- Mm-hmm. - I'm ready to go tonight. Let's go. - What's the hardest item you've had to part with
in this experience? - There's nothing. - You've never had a material object that was really hard to let go of? - No. - So, you'd give that watch to somebody if it meant an object?
- No, this, you're right. (palm taps) You're right. That's probably the only... I've never had to let go of that though. - Yeah.
- But that's the only thing I own. This means a lot to me.
But everything else. But then, again, listen, because okay, this watch
is given to me by Rogan, who's become a close friend. But whenever I romanticize the notion that this watch means
a lot to me, he's like, "Don't worry about it, I'll just get you the same one again." - [Andrew] Yeah. (Andrew and Lex laughing) It's like goddamnit. So-
- It's a pretty sick-ass gift though. - Yeah. It's pretty sick. I'm not usually a gift guy, but when when somebody you look up to gives you a thing, it's
a nice little symbol - Yeah.
- of that relationship. So, it's nice. But other than that, no. But even this, like whatever. The relationship is what matters. The human is what matters, not the- - [Andrew] I agree a hundred percent. - You had something like this? - Not really. There was a hard drive that I lost that had all of my
childhood pictures on it and stuff like that, that
I think about all the time. 'Cause I left it on a train. And the certain memories, you think about it, you
just get pissed off. I just think to myself,
someone has that somewhere. I have dreams
- Mm-hmm. - about reuniting with the hard drive. - You and Hunter Biden have the similar kind of dream.
(Andrew laughing) - I don't think he wants
to reunite with that one. - [Lex] Okay. - Dude, it's crazy. All he did was smoke crack, right? - Yeah.
- Or was there more stuff going on? - I think there's prostitutes involved. - Oh, okay. Whatever. - I think you gotta look into it. - I think I have to look into it too.
(Lex laughing) - I dunno. Yeah.
(Andrew laughing) Was Kerouac, Jack Kerouac and somebody that was
an inspiration at all in this road trip?
- Nope. - Did you even know who that is? The Beat Generation and all this?
- I didn't know who it was. And then, after I did the... Ultimately, I wrote a book about my hitchhiking
experience years later. And everyone was like, have
you read "On the Road"? And then, "On the Road", I probably heard the title of that book every day at
least 10 times for two years. And I'm sure Kerouac is a great guy. (Lex laughing) I just don't, I'm not too familiar
with the Beat Generation. - It's a great book. It's a... You read it or no? - I refuse to read it. People even have gifted it to me, have been like, "Hey, man,
you're gonna love this one." And I'm like,
- Yeah. - is that "On the Road"? Honestly, people have given me a book with wrapping paper on it
(Lex laughing) and they're like, "This
is right up your alley." I was like, that's fucking
"On the Road", isn't it? (Lex laughing) - Give you a different cover. - Yeah, no, I'm like, anything but that. But I'm sure it's a great book. It's just the comparison
thing drives me crazy. - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - But respect, big respect to Kerouac, would never speak down on that whole, anyone in the Beat Generation. - What are some interesting moments you remember from that, those 70 days? - Man, there was so much. Getting mistaken for a
gay prostitute on my first hitchhiking ride
- I can see that. - in Louisiana was pretty funny. - Where did you come from
and where did you go? - Well, the journey began in Baton Rouge. And the first destination was Houston, which is about four and a half
hours west on Interstate 10. So, I'm in Crowley, Louisiana. I'm on the side of the road and I guess this was
a cruising truck stop. It was known for being a place where male lot lizards
would go to procure clients. And I was there. - Lot lizards are- - It's a derogatory
term in trucker culture for a prostitute who hangs out at the Loves or Pilot Flying J. - Mm.
- Large interstate truck stops. Now, trucker culture as it once was, is pretty much finished, because of the live stream cameras they have inside of the trucks now. So, you can't snort
Sudafed or pick up anybody. Can't even pick up a
hitchhiker or you'll get fired. - Killed all the romance. - Yeah, definitely. The old school outlaw trucker lifestyle, unless you're an owner operator
who's not even in a union, which is like a real
cowboy way to haul loads. You can't do that. - You were mistaken for a lot lizard. - Mistaken for a lot lizard
by a small man from Honduras with a spiky leather
jacket covered in studs. - [Lex] Nice. - Didn't speak any English, but I thought he was just a nice guy. And then, he pulled over at a... There's private theaters in the south where they have
confessional booths set up and they have three channels and people go in there and you know. - Porn?
- Yeah. - Mm-hmm.
- People go in there and please themselves.
- Masturbate. Yeah, uh-huh.
- Yeah, yeah. So, he thought he was
taking me to one of those. And I was like, all
right, cool, man. Yeah. If this guy wants to go jerk off, I'm just gonna wait in the car. It's all good. I don't discriminate. But then I was like,
he buys a booth for me. And I'm like, okay.
- That's nice. - I'm not really in the mood to watch porn with this random guy. So, he gets in the same booth as me and he starts jerking
off right next to me. And I'm like, oh, man. (Lex laughing) I don't think this is chill. I'm like, dude, can you stop? (Lex laughing) Can you stop jacking off? And he's like, "What do you mean? I thought this is what you wanna do. I have money for you. Like, what's up?"
- Yeah. And I was like, oh, no,
I'm just a regular guy. He was super cool about
it. He started laughing. He was like, "Oh, my bad, man. I thought you were selling something." I said no. And he said,
"Oh, it's all good."' And he gave me a ride
all the way to Houston. - That's great.
- Yeah. We talked about anything except that for the rest of the car ride. - That's great that he
just rolled with it. Oh, sorry about that.
- Yeah. It could have been... I had about a foot and a half on this guy,
- Honest mistake. - so I wasn't too scared. I also had a knife in my pocket, but I didn't wanna stab him, especially not at a place like that. - And you were still, that didn't leave a bad
taste in your mouth? - Well, I figured that can't happen again. It can't keep happening, because I was like,
(Lex laughing) all right, if I got this out of the way the first ride,
- Yeah. - the following rides
are gonna be spectacular. - Yeah, I mean, who among us have not been
mistaken for a lot lizard? - It's a fact. You heard it here first. (Lex chuckles) - What else? What's some interesting,
beautiful people that you've met along the way.
- Well, I used the app Couchsurfing to find places to stay.
- Nice. I remember Couchsurfing. - Now, you can only submit like five Couchsurfing requests a day, unless you're a premium
member, which means you also host people.
- Wait, Couchsurfing's still around?
- Yeah, yeah, totally. - [Lex] Oh nice. - But it's evolved obviously
into a different thing. - Airbnb is the competitor to that, right? - Couchsurfing is free though. - [Lex] Right. - So, Couchsurfing, they call
it like the CS community. So, basically, there'd be
these Couchsurfing superhosts in different cities. There was one in Santa
Fe, this firefighter dude who had 15 other
couchsurfers there chilling. - [Lex] Nice. - So, I would do it everywhere. A lot of them were Catholics, - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - so it was their way of giving back. A lot of them were nudists. And so, I didn't realize that there's a small little section at the bottom of someone's
Couchsurfing profile that says clothing optional. - Yes.
- And that means if you go there, I thought it meant like it's cool if you walk to the
bathroom in your underwear. No. If you go there,
everyone's gonna be butt naked. - Mm-hmm.
- So, I made that mistake a few times. Not that I'm anti-nudist,
but I didn't want to, I wasn't ready to take that leap of faith. And yeah, it was just great. Couchsurfing hosts were amazing. - [Lex] Yeah. - But that was just great. It was this constant thing where I felt like, wow,
people were so welcoming. I'm not having to pay them a
dollar for this experience. - Yeah, I love Couchsurfing. - Yeah.
- For like, again, for me being an introvert, just crashing on a person's couch, being essentially forced into
a great conversation is great. - Yeah. The one thing that gets exhausting about hitchhiking is
constantly thanking people. Being in constant superficial gratitude everywhere all the time. Like, oh, thanks for letting
me sleep on your couch. Thanks for the food. - [Lex] Yeah. - Part of the reason I wanted to live in an RV later in life is to avoid having to constantly live in this thanks so much type of frequency, 'cause it's exhausting to
constantly, hey, man, thanks. - I think the shallowness
of that interaction is exhausting.
- Yeah. - Not just the, not the thanks.
- Yeah. - It was a true favor, of course. I love giving people gratitude for that. But just this thing where
everyone who picks you up is, you get eight rides a day, you're like thanking eight people a day. Like they're the second coming of Jesus. You start to feel a little bit debased. - What'd you learn about
people from that journey? That's your first time
really going into it. - That the American public
is just so kind overall. They're so embracing
depending on who you are. And specifically though,
the Christian family people of the US who drive in minivans and have that fish sticker
on the back where it's like, Jesus fish,
- Mm-hmm. - and then they have the family sticker, where each member of the
family is a stick figure. Those people never picked me up and would flip me off
with their whole family. Sometimes they would throw
full Dr. Peppers at me as a family while I stood
on the side of the road- - As a family together. - They'd yell shit like,
"Go to hell, hippie," when I was on the side of the road. And so, it's weird that
the most charitable Christian American family values people never gave me any charity
or even conversation. They were antagonizing me and saw me as like a hippie
leftover from the '60s who needed to go to work go to Vietnam. I don't get it.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- But the people who really extended a hand to
me is people on the margins. - Yeah.
- People working on seasonal visas. People whose cars have less
than a quarter tank left. People struggling with
addiction who saw me struggling, or at least they thought that I was, 'cause they assumed I was hitchhiking not out of adventure,
but 'cause I had no car. And were willing to sacrifice
their day almost sometimes to take me exactly where I needed to go. - That's beautiful, man. I've had similar kind of experience that people who are struggling
the most are the ones who are willing to help
you when you're struggling. - Yeah. - There's people like in religious context and other kind of communities
that just judge others, - Right.
- because they've constructed a value system where they're better than others, because of that value system.
- Mm-hmm. - And that actually has a cascade that forces you to actually be a dick to other humans.
- Yeah, I never thought about that way. That's so true. Do you think about morality
and religion a lot? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been to certain parts of the world where religion is really
a big part of life. - [Andrew] Hmm. - I'm just always skeptical about tribes of people that believe a thing and they believe they're
better than others, because they believe that thing. That could be nations,
that could be religions. - [Andrew] Yeah. - In Ukraine and in Russia, I've seen a lot of hate towards the other. - [Andrew] Yeah. - And that hate, I'm
always very skeptical of, 'cause it could be used by powerful people to direct that hate, just so the powerful people can maintain power and get
money, this kind of stuff. - It's a scary thing to see how easy it is for high-up political
people to mobilize the hate of just the average working person and can almost convince them to sabotage their own countrymen, who they share more in common with than the politician they look up to just to advance the agenda of one party. That's what we're seeing now. - Are there some places in America that are better than others? Can you speak negatively of like aforementioned Joe Rogan talk shit about Connecticut nonstop? Can you pick a region in the United States
you can talk shit about? - To talk shit about? Oh, for sure. (Lex chuckles) - Or from that experience. Let's just narrow it down to that. - Oh, Colorado.
(Lex laughing) Oh, Jesus.
- Really? - Yes.
- I know so many people that love Colorado.
- Dude, Dallas, Denver. I used to think Phoenix
sucks, but I love Phoenix now. The way they build these cities to just be so circular and massive. It's just like, stop. - You don't like circles? - I like grids, man. - Oh, you're a grid guy. - Manhattan, New Orleans, San Francisco. - What is it about grids that
bring out the worst in people? (Andrew laughing) Circles is where everyone
just, there's a... - Everyone's just vibing out, loosey-goosey,
- Yeah. - but the grid gets people locked in and hateful.
- Yeah. - I don't know, man, but-
(Lex laughing) - I've never heard anyone talk shit about Colorado, I have to say. It's kinda refreshing. - Yeah.
- Because it provides a necessary balance for the
Colorado Wikipedia page. - Yeah. Oh, Oregon too. I got problems with Oregon. - Oregon.
- Yeah. - Well, here's the issue. You have...
- Mm-hmm. - And I don't like just
calling people racist, 'cause it's like a two-dimensional insult, but you have the most racist state with the most psychotic anarchist
city in the middle of it. What is going on up there?
How did this happen? The yin and the yang is so extreme that there must be
something in the Willamina. - What do you have against anarchism? - I have nothing. I
used to be an anarchist. When I was in eighth grade,
I had this friend named Mads, who was part of a group
called Seattle Solidarity, which is like an Antifa precursor. So, I grew up going to
Black Bloc protests. And there was a particular shooting, the murder of John Williams, who's a native American wood
carver in downtown Seattle. He got killed by a Seattle
police officer named Ian Birk. John Williams was carving a pipe from a woodblock with a pocket knife. He's deaf in one ear. Officer pulls a gun on him
and says, "Put it down." He doesn't hear him. He
shoots him six seconds later. So, that police-involved shooting is what instantly turned
me into a very critical of law enforcement kind of
person when I was super young. And so, as someone who
used to see this guy who got murdered, he
was a 55-year-old man. I used to see him around Pike
Place where my mom lived. It's a public market in downtown. That to me, put me into the
anarchist political sphere. Just channeling the
anger of that experience. And the officer got no
charges, by the way. You can look up the video. It's horrific. And it didn't get reported. The officer, I'm pretty
sure, is still active duty. And so, it's like situations
like that early in life channeled me toward political extremism. But I grew up to realize how incompatible that anarchistic worldview is with reality and with American society. It can only exist in a
small little chamber. You can't apply that to the industrial
heartland of the country. - And I think also anarchism. So, we've gotten to know Michael Malice, who's written quite a bit about anarchism. And it's also exists
as a body of literature about different philosophical notions that resist the state,
- Mm-hmm. - the ever-expanding state
in different kinds of ways. And it's always nice to have
extreme thought experiments to understand
- Mm-hmm. - what kind of society we want to build. But implementing it may not
necessarily be a good idea. - Yeah, Emma Goldman, I'm
a huge fan of her writing. Also the prison abolitionists that are associated with
the anarchist movement, Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, all that stuff influential, I still adhere to a lot of those principles
when talking about stuff like radical prison reform
and stuff like that. But just, I drifted more toward having a more open mind as I got older. - Extremism implemented in almost all of its forms is probably going to
cause a lot of suffering. - Yeah. - You worked as a doorman on the, I could say legendary Bourbon
Street in New Orleans. - [Andrew] That's right. (Lex chuckles) - Where you saw what you described as, this might be another
Wikipedia quote by the way, - But this-
- This is where I do my research is Wikipedia.
- Does it say hellish scenes? - [Lex] Hellish scenes in quotes. - Wikipedia is damn right about that one. - All right, thank you. (Andrew laughing) (Lex laughing) That's a win. That's
one in the win column. So, yeah, tell the story of that. What's it like to work on Bourbon Street? What kind of stuff did you see? - I was a host at a fine dining restaurant on the corner of Bourbon in Iberville. So, that's the first street if you go from Canal
Street onto the corridor, so this is like across
from a daiquiri spot. It's the middle of the tourist
corridor of New Orleans. And the spot was like, and
kind of a tourist trap. It was called Bourbon
House. The food was good. Chef Eric, I don't want you to see this and think you don't make
good andouille sausages, but it was overpriced. And so, we had to maintain
this fine dining facade on a street where almost everyone is throwing up, fighting,
or is half naked. So, there was this policy. We had these giant glass
windows next to the tables. So, if you're eating at Bourbon House, you can look out onto Bourbon Street and you can see as you're dining, a full panoramic view of all
these partiers, throwing beads, - Yeah.
- boobs, all that. - [Andrew] Yeah. - We had this policy where
if we're serving someone, we can't look onto Bourbon Street if something crazy is happening. So, there's a fight
(Lex laughing) or something like that, we can't look. So, there is a dude, I remember I'm fucking serving a table. There's a dude in a Batman mask, butt naked with 12 pairs
of beads just jerking it. - Yeah.
- Back to jerking it. - Full on.
- He's jerking it. And every single person
(Lex chuckles) at the restaurant's
looking out there like, look, they're taking pictures. And the manager, Steven,
looks at me, he's like, "Keep your fucking eyes
on the table." (laughs) So, I'm serving these people and I'm like, would you like
(Lex laughing) red beans and rice? Or would you like some
Creole fucking da, da, da. And there's just this dude. And ultimately, the manager went out and escorted him further
down Bourbon Street. But I would get off work at
around midnight every night. And that was when Bourbon
Street is at its most chaotic. And so, I lived in the
French Quarter as well, - Oh, wow.
- so I lived about 12 blocks down Bourbon in a small Creole cottage in a cute little orange old school
new Orleans one story spot. I lived in the attic, above these gay meth dealers
named Frankie and Johnny. - [Lex] Oh wow. - And so, (chuckles) I would get off work and I would basically have to walk through
like this battlefield. It was a battlefield. Getting home was out of
like "The Warriors" movie. It was-
- The best of humanity on display.
- Yeah. It was like Kensington,
Philadelphia, but just alcohol. You know what I mean? - Oh, it's all alcohol.
But it's a lot of... Wait, a lot of visitors,
right, from outside? - Almost all visitors.
- Yeah. - And that would set the
flow for the weekend. For example, if the Raiders
were playing the Saints, Raider Nation, and they
do not play around. If it's the Patriots, that's
a whole different crowd. They think they're better than everybody else.
- Yeah. Well, they technically are
better than everybody else, but yeah.
- But people from Massachusetts aren't
like the cream of the crop in terms of American superiority. - Strong words. Yeah. - No offense, but I mean. - No, I'm sure they won't take that as offense. (laughs) - They are good at fighting
though, I'll tell you that. - [Lex] All right. Great. - New England has hands
- Right. - compared to some places. - Which places are those? Colorado. - Colorado has no hands. - [Lex] Yeah. (Andrew and Lex laughing) - The West Coast, not too much hands. - That's why you feel safe
talking shit about Colorado. - But if you get to the
corn-fed parts of East Colorado, - Yeah.
- these guys got hands bigger than my head. They'll beat the shit
- Yeah. - out of me, but anyways. I'd walk back to my
house on Bourbon Street, and I would be sifting
through this battlefield. And I had a friend at
the time who was like, "Yo, we should do a taxi
cab confessions type spinoff where we ask people to
confess a deep, dark secret." And we posted the next day. And so, we tried that and it went viral on Instagram instantly. It was mostly incest stories,
people admitting to incest. I know it's a common southern stereotype, but there's some truth to it. There was some murder confessions. That was pretty crazy. We never really posted any of those, but. - How'd you get people to confess? - Pretty easy. And New Orleans has a homicide
solve rate of like 22%. So, most of the time,
they'll just tell you. I remember I was walking down Bourbon and I asked this kid, I was like, what's your deepest, darkest secret? And he told me, he's like, "I just smoked a dude in the Magnolia." It's a project house in the Third Ward, project development. And they said, "I just smoked a dude in
the Magnolia playground for touching my sister,"
molesting his sister. And I was like, what? And he was like, "Yeah, look it up." And I was like, all right, hold on. And it was like, man found dead
in Central City playground. Appeared to be homeless,
shot execution style. So, I told the kid, I was
like, why'd you tell me that? He's like, "Man, put that shit out there. I'm trying to go viral. Tag me too." - Oh wow.
- Like, dude, I don't think you understand
that even if you're a juvenile, he was probably 15,
- Yeah. - you can get juvenile life in Louisiana for a homicide, even if it's justified. So, I just deleted the
footage in front of him. I was like, I'm gonna delete this footage. See that trash button? I'm hitting it right now.
(Lex chuckles) Don't tell anyone that again. And he was like,
(Lex laughing) "All right, I appreciate it." And he walked off. But it's the little moments like that that I always remember.
(Lex sighs) - Anything for the gram, I guess. - Yeah. After a while though, it
became sort of a repetitive, 'cause there's only so many things that people can confess to
that go viral, and just... - Oh, so you were trying to see like what- - Well, there's the incest one. Some people just say like, "I eat ass." That was like everyone said that. Or like, "I cheated on someone," or. - I've seen a surprising number of people on your channel
say mention eating ass. - Yeah. (Andrew laughing) How seriously you said that. - Yeah.
- will live in my head for the rest of my life.
(Lex laughing) - That's good.
- Yeah. I have- - I want to live in your head - Mm.
- saying that a lot of people mention eating ass. - Yeah. A lot of people do mention that. - Yeah.
- Also, that's where I developed this magnetism
for freestyle rapping. Everywhere I go, people rap. Not sure why. As a former rapper myself in middle school and for the first year of high school, I think that maybe it
takes one to know one. But everywhere I go, people start rapping. If you and me went outside
of this podcast studio and walked around for five minutes, I could find somebody.
- Yeah. - [Lex] That's rapping. - I can tell who raps or who can rap, who has eight bars in their
head that they're ready to go. - I think you're also,
there's something about you that gives them, creates the safe space - Yeah.
- to perform their art. - Yeah. The "Quarter Confession" series was the first time you saw the suit. - [Lex] That's when the suit came out. - [Andrew] Yeah, it was
kinda like a Ron Burgundy, Eric Andre inspired type- - [Lex] Where'd you get that suit? - [Andrew] Goodwill. - Goodwill.
- Yeah. Always. (Lex breathes out) - Wow. I was playing checkers, you
were playing chess. Good job. - Goodwill has a surprising amount of identical gray suits for sale. - Yeah, I've actually gotten suits at thrift stores before. They're great.
- Yeah. A lot of people donate suits and I was going for oversized suits, which are the cheapest ones there, so. - [Lex] Yeah. - It was like 12 bucks, 12 to $25 every time for the outfit. - If I wanted to look super sophisticated, like I'm from another era, - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - I would go to thrift store. - [Andrew] Yeah. - 'Cause they're usually like this, there's like a, like
the patterns they have, it's just like a more sophisticated suit, which is what you picked out. It made you look ridiculous, but in the best kind of way. - The tough part about
"Quarter Confessions" for me is that everybody that was
featured, for the most part, would more or less regret
being a part of the show. - [Lex] Yeah. - And that over time, just gave me a bad feeling
where I was like, you know what? I feel like I am doing
an ambush interview, especially 'cause I'm
presenting as so agreeable. Yet the intention is to
make something funny. - Yeah.
- And I get that that's what people do
in the satire sphere. I'm sure Ali G and Bruno and
Borat did the same thing. And I don't think it's unethical, 'cause that's all for
the purposes of comedy. It is what it is. But for me, I wanted to
do something different. - Yeah. Because there's an
intimacy to confessing a thing. - [Andrew] Right. - And then, you just don't really realize the implications of that. - And the atmosphere of Bourbon Street is like anything goes.
- Yeah. - It's a free-spirited place, but if you transport that energy digitally to a different place like Colorado, - [Lex] Yeah. - They might look at it and be like... - Different place in time,
like five years later. - [Andrew] Right. - That same person has a
family and stuff like this, and all of a sudden, they're
talking about eating ass. - Right. Exactly.
- And you're like- - The kids have to think about that. Or imagine if there's
a video of your grandma or grandpa out there when he was a kid
talking about eating ass. That's a horrible experience to discover that
(Lex laughing) about your respected elder
later in life, it's tough. - I don't even know where to go with that. But literally the opening question was, tell me your deepest, darkest secret? - Yeah. - You just come up to somebody like that? - [Andrew] Yeah. - How often do you get a no? What's the yes to no ratio? - Well, the weird thing is like, we don't really extract
answers from people. What makes a good interview is when they're ready to talk. - Yeah.
- The more you have to talk and try to get an answer out of them, - [Lex] Yeah. - it's just not a good vibe. So, we look for people who appear to be already ready to talk. Open body language, they
seem confident and verbose and we approach them first. - [Lex] There's a look. - We wouldn't approach a shy person and be like, come on, tell me. No. - What about a person
with pain in their eyes? - Oh, yeah, we're interviewing them. - Yeah. So, they're ready to talk. There's just not like-
- Yeah. - There's different ways to be ready. - [Andrew] Right. - I see homeless people a lot and they always look fascinating. And the ones I've talked
to are always fascinating. - [Andrew] Yeah. We just did a video in the Vegas tunnels, trying to, obviously it got
taken down by FOX, but whatever. We-
- I was gonna make a joke that I didn't see it. (Andrew laughing) - We tried to help a lot of
them by getting them IDs. And when I made the documentary, I had this idea that if I... It's a big roadblock for them
is getting identification. Without IDs, you can't check
into a homeless shelter, you can't do day labor, you
can't qualify for housing. Nothing. So, when we interviewed them,
they'd basically tell us, "If I had my ID, I wouldn't be here." And so, we said, okay, we're
gonna really help this time. We're not just gonna talk to
'em about their struggles. We're gonna actively go out
and get them IDs at the DMV. So, we did that and nothing
really changed in their life. And we sat down with a recovery specialist who works directly with
them day in and day out. He explained to me that he's been trying to do the same thing I tried to do in a one week period
for the past 10 years. And that they have
deeper underlying traumas and pain that need to be dealt with far before they even take the steps to enter society as a housed person. (Lex deeply sighs) - That's a heavy truth right there. - Breaking that shame
cycle has to come first, because you gotta think, I'm from a generation that
romanticizes a vagrancy and homelessness to a certain extent, if it's called van life or if it is done in a way
that's like Rolling Stone, Willie Nelson hit the road. People who are above 50,
they feel really embarrassed to be in the spiral of homelessness. They feel like failures. A lot of them have kids
who they weren't there for. That's not the kind of
pain that can be dealt with by giving someone a tiny home. - Yeah.
- It's a good step forward. But for someone to really make a change, they have to want to change. And so, it's how do you help someone and guide themselves
in the right direction? And if you're too paternalistic and you use shame as a method
to get them to clean up, they're gonna end up
right where they started. - [Lex] Yeah. - That's a tough truth to accept, 'cause a lot of people
want a quick fix to things. And I don't blame people who go out and give baloney sandwiches
out to the homeless. - And each case is probably
its own little puzzle. - Each person is so complex. Now, imagine drug abuse,
- Yeah. - what that does to the brain. - [Lex] Yeah. - Trauma, childhood trauma.
There's so much to unpack. And then, jus the belief that
they're the undesirables. That they don't deserve
to be a part of society, because they failed a
fundamental obligation like taking care of their kids. - If we could take a small tangent to, you mentioned this Vegas
video, which is fascinating. It was taken down recently by YouTube or YouTube took it down based on - [Andrew] Yeah. It was illegal. - FOX 5, I guess. - So, the documentary was
an hour and 45 minutes. We used 10 seconds of a news clip that was publicly
broadcast by FOX 5 Vegas. And according to the
Copyright Act of 1976, you're allowed to use any
publicly broadcast news clip in a transformative capacity
in any documentary film or research paper or
broadcast or anything. They, specifically this
corporation called Gray Media that controls the TV stations
in almost every small town, they had lawyers hit up YouTube and YouTube complied with
an illegal copyright strike to get our video immediately removed. And I'm a YouTube partner. I'm in the YouTube Partner Program. So, to think that I wasn't forewarned is, it's a bit strange, but it also smells like corruption to me to a certain extent. - Yeah. You shouldn't
have that amount of power. At the very least, they
should have the power to just silence that
five-second clip maybe. - Yeah. But I'm taking them to court because I have the means
to be able to do so. I'm a larger creator. I have an audience, I have that
financial backing to do it. I can't imagine how many people out there are smaller creators with
not as much consumer, a fan base they can mobilize
against someone like FOX 5 or the money to go to court. So, I want to take them all
the way there to set precedent for future cases, so that these giant
mainstream media conglomerates can't copyright strike
documentary filmmakers at will. It doesn't make sense. - Oh, thank you for doing that. That's really, really, really important. And that's really powerful. And it might hopefully empower YouTube to also put pressure on people to not... And YouTube is in a difficult position, because there's so much content out there, there's so many claims,
it's hard to investigate. But YouTube should be in a place where they push back
against this kind of stuff. - [Andrew] Yeah. - as a first line of defense, especially to protect smaller creators. So, what you're doing is
really, really important. - [Andrew] Appreciate it, man. - And it sucks that it was taken down. - [Andrew] Yeah. - Do you have any hope? - Well, I talked to my
YouTube partner today and he said that the FOX 5 lawyers have two weeks to comply
with my counter appeal. But (chuckles) I spent 20 grand on human voiceovers in
five different languages. So, I invested probably in
total, like 70k into this video. So, even if it gets reinstated, the steam's kind of been
taken out of its trajectory. - But also it's just like
a really important video. It's good for the world. And why-
- Yeah. Why the hell would FOX 5 have a vested interest in
having the video taken down? - I Just hate it when
people do that to videos or to creators that are
doing good in the world. - Yeah. It's not an expose
on the mayor of Las Vegas. It's an attempt to show
the civilian public how to get involved in a local nonprofit and potentially intervene in
the lives of the tunnel people. - Well, fuck FOX 5. The
other Channel 5, as you said. - Yeah. (chuckles) - Well, thank you for pushing back - Hey, man.
- and highlighting it. Hopefully it gets brought back up. But yeah, defending other creators, - Yeah.
- so that other creators can take risks and don't get taken
down for stupid reasons. - Yeah. - So, "Quarter Confessions" was written? - No, it was all real life
reality TV documentary, but it caught the attention of a larger company
called Doing Things Media. - Yes.
- And they contacted me pretty much like a week after I graduated from
college in the May of 2019. And they said, "Hey, how would you
like to produce a show?" I was like, what do you mean? They were like, "We'll get you an RV. We'll pay you 45k a year. We'll pay for gas, for
food, for two hotels a week. Go out there, make content, and we'll be in the background
just powering it all." - And that was the birth
of "All Gas No Brakes". - Yes. "All Gas No Brakes" was named
after a book that I wrote called "All Gas, No Brakes:
A Hitchhiker's Diary", which chronicled the 70-day journey that we were just talking about. - [Lex] It's a tough
book to find, by the way. - Oh, yeah, there's
only a few copies left. I'm thinking about doing a reprint at some point down the line, but I sold off the last 100 copies like a month and a half ago. - Mm-hmm.
- Yeah. - Until then, you guys should go read "On the
Road" by Jack Kerouac. - [Andrew] Yeah, read off- - You should read it.
(Andrew laughing) I don't know if you read it before.
- If you can't get my book, get "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. - [Lex] It's great. - It's the best. - When's your birthday? I'll send you... (Andrew laughing) - April 23rd.
- Okay. - I'm a Taurus. Coming soon. - Typical Taurus. Yeah. - Yeah. I'm a typical Taurus man. I'm a Scorpio moon. You
just write that down. - What's the time when you were born? - [Andrew] 11:30. - 11:30 at night or... Oh, of course.
- Yeah. Typical. This guy knew it. That's the real science.
- Yeah. - Anyways, so all the idea of
"All Gas No Brakes" as a show was to combine the, I guess, road dog ethos of the
"All Gas No Brakes" book with the presentation and editing style of
"Quarter Confessions". So, is to take "Quarter
Confessions" on the road that was pretty much like a simulated hitchhiking experience, but with the editing and punchy effects of
"Quarter Confessions", which is like, I wear a suit,
we do the fast zoom ins, little effects, stuff like that. It was a, man, those were the best years. It was just so fun. Imagine you're fresh out of college, you were just a doorman
interviewing people about making out with
their cousin and stuff. And then, boom, this company
that you've never even heard of is willing to buy you an
RV and give you 45k a year, which to me at the time, was more money than I
could possibly imagine. So, I called my dad, I was like, dad, I need you to find me an RV, 'cause he's the only guy I
know who knows about cars. And even he doesn't know much about cars. So, he's like, "All right, I'm on it." So, the RV was 20,000.
- Mm-hmm. - And the first event that
we were called to cover was the Burning Man Festival. And that was tough, because Burning Man is
not too keen on filming. It's supposed to be a non-commercialized escape from reality. They have a gift economy set up. It's based upon mutual
participation and non-exploitation. And so, the idea of
making a Burning Man video was tough at first,
because burners oftentimes, and this is not all of them, but are pretty well-off in general. A lot of them have tech jobs or pretty high up in Silicon Valley. And Burning Man is where
they go to take off, to take the edge off, and basically become their burner persona. On the playa, they become reborn. And they take ketamine and they wear kaleidoscope glasses and steampunk hats
- Yeah. - and they snort MDMA and
they run around the sand, listen to tech.
- Do you snort MDMA? That's one.... I need to Google MDMA.
- Yes, you can. - I thought it's a pill.
- Yeah. - I didn't know. - It's better to take
it in a pill or water, but you can snort MDMA. - I definitely need to take MDMA. I'm already full of love, but like that, I'd probably
go on another level. - Yeah, don't snort it, 'cause it'll only last like 90 minutes. - Hmm. Let me write that down.
- Yeah. So, anyways, we didn't know what to do, because we didn't try to film. - Don't snort. - The initial idea for
"All Gas No Brakes" was to, instead of asking people what's your deepest, darkest secret, it was, what's the craziest
trip you've been on? - [Lex] Hmm. - So, the idea was to not
satirize drunk people, but satirize people who are fried on acid. - Oh.
- And so, we went to Boulder real quick. Did a test interview with some lady who talked about seeing ancestral aliens during a peyote retreat. And so, it's pretty easy to extract trip reports from hippies and gutter punks and stuff
like that, or oogles. So, we go to Burning Man. We start asking people like, what's your craziest trip story? And they didn't have the same type of free-flowing storytelling style that like a on the street cross punk in New Orleans might have, where they're like, "I don't give a fuck. I'll tell you whatever." These people were very bottled up about what they were willing to disclose. So, we went on Burning Man
Radio and we did a broadcast. And we said, hey, we're
psychedelic journalists. It was me and my friend, CL, at the time. I said, we're psychedelic journalists. We're parked on 10 and I, which is a cross street
in Black Rock City. And we said, we have a 1998
Catalina Coachmen Sport. It's an RV. We've set up a podcast studio. We're doing a show about
psychedelic voyages. - [Lex] Yeah. - So, lo and behold, two hours later, we had 10 people lined up at the RV - Nice.
- willing to talk. - Nice.
- So, that vetted people in advance for us. And so, we did a couple
interviews and that was that. - What were some of the
stories from the trip reports? - There was this lady named Razma who said that she was known in several circles in Berkeley
for being multi-orgasmic and could create multiple
repeated climaxes using only her mind by squinting her eyes and squeezing her eyes together so much that the pleasure spiral just went crazy. - I feel like I talked to several people like that at Berkeley. - Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. - Not that.... Well, yeah, that lady, I think she manifest
herself in many forms? Yeah.
- Right. But still, it was on the cruder end. There was one guy named Kimbo
Slice was his burner name. He talked about taking a shit after taking a quarter of mushrooms and how he was seeing his childhood and visualizing his past life as the turds were flowing into the toilet and just talks about the psychedelic union between pooing and taking shrooms. - And so, he was very
visual with his words. - Yeah. So, there was stuff like that. I interviewed Alex Grey,
which was super cool, about his first trip in San
Francisco when he was in 1971, shortly after the Summer of Love. I got to do some pretty cool interviews, but still, it was semi-ambush style. I wouldn't say that we
were doing journalism yet. It was still comedic video work. - Was there a narrative - No.
- that tied it together? It's like really just a trip,
comedic almost with the- - Interview, and then I go, Burning Man. And then, it's onto the next one. So, I guess that could
give a loose structure, but it's just like a
punchy and slapstick thing. Everything was going good until we interviewed this
guy named DJ Soft Baby. He was wearing a golden leotard with once again, kaleidoscope glasses, shirtless dancing like dancing. And he was eating chowder
out of a plastic bowl. And he was like, "This
chowder is so fucking good. He is like, "This is the best chowder
I've ever had in my life." And he starts putting
the chowder on his face and he is like, "I want the
chowder all over me, yeah." And so, we just go, hey, man, can you just do a dance for us real quick, just for some B-roll? He does a dance. We post it on Instagram the next morning. Doing Things Media CEO calls me, Reid, he says all of our pages are down. And he's like, "That guy you
filmed dancing last night on drugs putting chowder on his face, that guy's at the top of MIT." - Top of MIT. I don't understand what that means-
- He went to MI-
- That's exciting. (Andrew laughing) - Yo, my brother's a rocket science. He is like head of NASA or whatever.
(Andrew and Lex laughing) - Well, the guy knows people in Boston. - [Lex] Okay. - Not in the Whitey Bulger
sense, but in the reverse sense. - I have trouble believing
that DJ Soft Baby. - Oh, DJ Soft Baby was major.
(Lex chuckles) It could have been Harvard
- Major. - It could have been, but it wasn't UMass. - I don't think there's
anybody that's at quote, at the head of MIT who's putting, what was it, all over his face? - Chowder.
- Chowder. - Well then, you haven't
been to Burning Man yet. - Okay. (laughs) - I have not been to Burning Man. - So-
- I may have to consult my colleagues at MIT if they know DJ Soft Baby.
- Yeah. So, whoever-
- He probably was Harvard. Let's put it on them.
- Okay. The Top of Harvard.
(Lex laughing) So, he made some calls to the tops,
- Yeah. - to the heads of big tech
- Yeah. - and got all the Doing
Things Media pages taken down. At the time, that was like
a vast network of pages. And we ended up having to take the, obviously, the video came down and he held the entire network
of Instagram pages hostage. And so, that was... He made us agree to never
post that video again, and then somehow got all
of our pages reinstated. So, that was my first brush
with powerful people on drugs. And that was probably my last brush with
powerful people on drugs. - So, what did you
transition into from there? - I think after Burning
Man, we went to the south, went to Talladega race weekend, went to a Donald Trump Jr. book signing, went to a Juggalo adjacent fetish mansion in Central Florida called
The Sausage Castle. - A Juggalo adjacent sauce... Okay, can you run that by me again? - A Juggalo adjacent fetish
mansion in Central Florida. - Okay. Fetish Mansion in central Florida. Juggalo adjacent fe... Every single one of those words I feel like
- Yeah. - needs a book or something. - [Andrew] Right. - So, Jug... By the way, who are the Juggalos? Is this ICP?
- Just ICP fans. - ICP fans. Okay, okay. - But I say adjacent, because
it's not a Juggalo mansion, but there's a lot of Juggalos who kick it at the mansion
and it's Juggalo-friendly. - Oh, okay. Juggalo-friendly. - Yeah, 'cause they get made
fun of in a lot of places. - Oh, so, it's not... Okay, got it. - And Juggalos say outrageous shit and they embarrass themselves
and they fight a lot. So, they're kind... They're on the FBI's gang list, which if you ask me and- - [Lex] ICP Or the- - The Juggalos. - [Lex] The Juggalos. - If-
- Who is the head of the Juggalos? - It would be Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. But there's associated acts like Twiztid and there's a whole rabbit hole. Honestly, Tech N9ne is a part of that. - Tech N9ne, I don't know who that is. Should I know who that is? - He's actually one of the
top selling touring rappers, despite having not that many streams. Tech N9ne is like, it's got a huge cult
following in Missouri. This is like, the Juggalos
started in war in Michigan. - We should also say
ICP Insane Clown Posse. So, this is a thing, this is a movement. - Oh, yeah. If you went to Seattle
right now and punched a cop and they booked you in county jail, - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - you may end up running
with the Juggalos. - Running with the Juggalos. - They're a presence in Pacific Northwest Prison
system from what I've heard. - Can you tell a Juggalo from a distance? Well, they say whoop whoop. - Whoop whoop?
- So, if you see a Juggalo, they'll say that. Also like- (Lex chuckles) I'll try to look out for that. - It's called the Dark Carnival is the mythology they abide by. - What do they define themselves? What's the ideology of-
- A family, a family. - No, I understand, but
what's the ideology? What's the philosophical
foundation of the- - They're anti-racist. They like to drink Faygo and also just cheap liquor
and stuff like that. They're into drugs.
- Yeah? - A lot of circles, if
you pull out a crack pipe, people will be like, I don't
wanna drink with you anymore. If you're at a Juggalo party and someone's smoking twiz or something, it's relatively accepted. - What's twiz?
- Meth. - Meth. Right, right. Lots of tattoos? - Yeah. The Hatchet Man
is the most common one. So, it's a Psychopathic Records logo. It's a cartoon of a
clown wheeling a hatchet. It's actually a pretty sick logo. - I vaguely remember enjoying
some of the ICP music. - [Andrew] It's good. - Yeah, it's pretty good.
It's funny, it's edgy. - Well, they get satirized a lot, but I got love for the clowns. And also, so when "All Gas No Brakes" transitioned away from
rich elite drug parties and into the south, that's when the fun
really started to happen. Living in your RV in Alabama and Florida and stuff is the best. - Why? What is it about Alabama?
- People are just so friendly down there and it's warm year-round
- Yeah, yeah. - and people are non-judgmental
and it's just great. The south gets hated on a lot, especially in the coastal states. Mississippi and Alabama are like the butts of a
lot of jokes and stuff. But those are great states. - No, I love it. New Mexico,
Albuquerque, all those. - Oh, yeah. The ABQ is great. - ABQ, what's that? - Albuquerque. That's what Jesse Pinkman
called it is the ABQ. - Oh shit. The depth of references you
bring to the table is intense. - [Andrew] It's okay. - I met a lady in Albuquerque when I was traveling
across the United States and she said, "Take me with you." I said, I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't. - [Andrew] Yeah. - But I think about that lady. - I think you made the right call. - I don't know. Yeah, "On the Road"
- Yeah. - by Jack Kerouac. - Best book I've ever read
(Lex chuckles) in my life.
(Lex laughing) - There's a moment when he
meets a nice girl on a bus and they have a love affair. - Mm.
- It was good. - On the bus or they- - No, no. They went to California. Well, yeah. And there was a love affair on the bus, but it wasn't sexual. It was just romantic. It was- - It was in the air. - It was in the air,
which there is something in the air on the bus, like a Greyhound mega bus,
(Andrew chuckles) that type of situation. There's something-
- Certainly something in the air.
(Lex chuckles) - It was a romance. There is, man.
- Yeah. - When you travel acro... 'Cause it's like
strangers getting together and you're like feeling each
other out, but you're in it. Like you each have a story. 'Cause you wouldn't be taking
a bus unless you had a story. So, especially if you're
traveling across country. There's something-
- You ever taken the dollar bus from Philly to New York? The Chinatown bus?
- Yeah, I have. Yeah. - That's a great bus. The people on that. - It's not a fucking dollar though. There's some that are five bucks. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you book it way ahead of time, which it's like $20.
(Andrew laughing) I was like, this is a
fucking lie calling it $1. - I got on the-
- I don't know why I'm swearing. The anger came out, I apologize.
- Hey, swearing's okay sometimes. Last time I was on the Chinatown bus, there was like a rooster
walking down the aisle. - Actual rooster?
- Yeah. Watch him chilling. It was awesome. - Well, there's a nice part
of your film with a rooster. - Mm. I forgot about that.
- Yeah. That felt almost fake. - Yeah. - [Lex] Did you plant the rooster? - No, the rooster, there's a
place in Ybor City in Tampa where roosters walk around all the time. And we had a rooster parked there right by the main drag for... What did I say we had a rooster parked? We had the RV parked at
Ybor City for a long time and the rooster laid eggs
in the undercarriage. - [Lex] Nice. - Back to the "All Gas
No Brakes" thing though. - [Lex] Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So, it was lots, it
was really fun making it. And then, we started "All Gas No Brakes" in September of 2019. Six months later, the country shuts down and everything just hits the fan. I was actually here in
Austin when it shut down. I was on 6th Street. I remember the... I don't just hang out on
6th Street all the time, but I was just-
- Yeah, you do. Come on.
(Andrew laughing) Let's just be honest. - I do like 6th Street.
- Yeah. - I like East Austin better,
but I like 6th Street too. So, anyways, the NBA shuts down.
Everything's shutting down. So, I went down to the Dirty
6th and I asked this doorman, I was like, are you guys
ever gonna shut down? He was like, "Fuck no, bro.
The Dirty 6th never closes." And I was like, all right,
we'll see about that. Next day, plywood. And then, I was like, all right, I thought my career was
over when COVID hit. I was like, what are we gonna do? Nothing's happening anymore. There's no more parties or Talladega races or
Burning Mans to go to. So, I went back to Seattle in the RV and I just spent four months just depressed living in the RV, trying to figure out what would happen. - But "All Gas No Brakes" went on still through that.
- Well, this was the craziest thing about that period of time is that when COVID hit, I'm sure you remember
everything turned political - Yeah.
- overnight. In Seattle, if you went to a house party, you can get canceled, because people were like,
oh, you're a super spreader. So, if you wanted to socialize even with a group of four or more, you had to do so with your
phones damn near turned off. And a lot of people were doing hyper social
policing at that time. Beyond that, in the south and
in more conservative places, they were doing the opposite. They were trying to prove that
they could hang out 500 deep with no mask to make a statement
against the establishment. - Yeah.
- So, you had this polarization that
led to more division and that's when the
anti-vax protests started. And I went to Sacramento
and the passion was unreal. This is about two months after
the COVID lockdowns began. And that was my first political
video was at the Sacramento, the California State Capitol
in Sacramento documenting the, they called it the freedom rally, but that's typically like anti-vax stuff. And it was real intensity. And that video was my most
successful to date at that time. And so, I was like, okay, am
I a political reporter now? Am I covering politics? What's going on? - What were the interviews
they made up that video? What style of questions
were you asking would? - I don't know if you'd remember, but I was actually scared
when the pandemic started. I thought that this is something that might kill us all based
upon what I was consuming. And so, I'd ask people, what do you think about this lockdown? And I've had people say,
I'm immunocompromised. If I get exposed to COVID,
I have a 95% fatality rate. But guess what? I'd rather be free and dead
than alive, living in fear. And I was like, wow. So, it was just stuff along those lines. You had some San Diego surfers there complaining about the
beaches being shut down when such awesome waves were coming. - Yeah, it's interesting
how that really brought out the worst in people. - [Andrew] Oh, yeah. And so-
- I'm not sure why that is. Fear maybe, paranoia.
(Andrew sighs) I don't know. It really divided people. Like along the lines
- Yeah. - as you mentioned, triple mask yourself or
fight for your country. - Yeah, right. Exactly.
(Lex laughing) Why are those the two options? (Lex laughing) That is literally what it was. - [Lex] Yeah. It's wild. - And both groups think they're fighting for the
survival of something. - Yeah.
- And so, that's where you really run into problems, when you have two polarized
groups who both think that their cause is for the common good. Mutual understanding is
impossible at that juncture. And so, after three months of almost everybody being locked
down, George Floyd happens. And I remember I saw the
third precinct burning on my phone in Minneapolis. And everyone says, "Andrew,
you have to go cover this." And I'm somebody, like I said, police violence has been close to my heart since I was a kid. And my first thought is, I can't do that. I'm a comedic reporter. I can't go to Minneapolis and cover this. It'll be the end of my career. And I had a friend named Lacey
who I went to college with and she told me, she was like, "Bro, this is your chance for
you to do something serious. You can actually create a meaningful piece of reporting like you always wanted to before "Quarter Confessions" and you can turn "All Gas No
Brakes" into a new source." So, I called Reid who was the CEO of the company that owned "All Gas No Brakes". And I was like, look, man,
I want to go to Minneapolis. I was in Orlando at the time. I was actually at The Sausage Castle. And he said- - Sorry, The Sausage Castle? - Yeah, the Juggalo mansion. - Oh, right.
- Yeah. - That was called The Sausage Castle. - So, I'm watching
- Right. - Minneapolis unfold on Lake
Street where it was burning. And I got to the Orlando airport and I booked a flight without cons... I booked it on my own card. I didn't consult my boss or anything. And I was sitting in my seat on the flight and he straight up told me, he's like, "If you fuck this up and this destroys the brand, we're getting a different host. If you mess this up and you turn our show away from a party show
about drinking and drugs and all that stuff and you make this a social
justice show, you're done." But I was like, I just
turned my phone off. I got to the Minneapolis airport on the second night of the riots. And when I got to the airport,
there was National Guardsmen in the airport and it was
like a "Call of Duty" mission, the one in the airport. And on the speaker, they say, "If you're arriving here right now, you are not permitted to go
anywhere outside of the airport. National Guardsmen will escort you to your Uber or to your car. They're gonna take a picture of your ID, they're gonna figure
out where you're going. You are not permitted
to go outside tonight." And so, Lacey picks me up. There's two people in the back, two of her home girls
wearing like shiesty masks. And I'm like, what are we
doing? Where are we going? And she goes, "We're
gonna go film the riot. We're going to Lake Street." And so, we drive down there, Kmart is burning, Target is
burning, everything is on fire. She has the Sony A7. She gives me a microphone and she's like, "Go talk to that guy." And that was the guy with a
Molotov cocktail in his hand who had just burned Kmart down. And so, I go, what should I ask him? She goes, "What's on your mind?" So, I walk up to him and I'm
like, what's on your mind? He said something like, "Everything that was happening
here was supposed to happen. This is how we feel. Is it right? No. Is this gonna benefit the community? No. But this is how we feel." - This is how we feel. That's pretty powerful.
- Yeah. - Through a lot of the
documenting that you do, this is how we feel is like - [Andrew] Yeah. - screaming through that.
- Yeah. And I noticed that aside from
a group called Unicorn Riot, there was no one else actually
interviewing the protestors. The local news was on
the bridge 15, not 15, but five blocks away, filming just the scene
itself, just the fire. But I saw some crazy
things off camera too. I saw, so there was two groups there. There was the anarchists,
more mobilized protestors. And then, there was just mostly African American community
members who were just pissed, who had nothing to do with
the organized resistance. And they were all joining forces to riot. And there was this anarchist kid who ran up to White Castle
with like a Molotov cocktail. And he's about to throw
it at White Castle. And this Black dude ran up
to him and grabbed his arm and he's like, "Nah, we
fuck with White Castle." (Lex laughing) And I was like, what?
- Yeah. - And so, you see, if you go on Lake Street,
every business is burned, - Yeah. White Castle stands.
- White Castle remains. I also saw these dudes
rip this ATM out of a bank and hit it with sledgehammers. They were a group of friends
hitting it with sledgehammers. They're hitting it with
sledgehammers. Boom. All of a sudden, money starts
spraying out of the ATM. I've never seen some shit like
this, like pouring out of it. And then, this group of friends who were just united and getting it open, start fighting each other for the money as it's flying out of it. And so, there was just, it was like Joker from the
Batman's army type vibes. But I got shot in the ass
by the National Guard. It was no good. - Like a what? Rubber bullet?
- Yeah, yeah. Not shot with bullet.
- What did that feel like? - Honestly, it hurt. (Andrew and Lex laughing) It hurt.
- I'm not sure what I was expecting as an
answer to that question. - Yeah, but-
- I liked it. It was good.
- Yeah. And then, after that, I posted the video and it was very well-received and that was the pivotal point where I realized that
everything was gonna change. - There was a still a comedic element to the way you do conversations. So, the way you edit. So, did you see yourself as a potentially like a Jon
Stewart type of character- - At first, but I just think human beings are just funny in general. - Yeah. The absurdity of it. - Cool thing about Jon Stewart is like, I generally like to say that anybody who works for corporate media, whether it be Comedy Central or anything owned by
Time Warner, FOX, MSNBC, they can't say what they want. - Yeah.
- Because in order to climb up in those organizations, you have to appease the narrative of the company that you're
working for to rise in the ranks. Jon Stewart, I feel like, has so much clout in the media world that I'm pretty sure he
can say whatever he wants. I actually don't think that Jon Stewart is controlled by anybody. I really don't. I think that he can go on his
show and talk about whatever. - I do think that certain people have broken the brains of... COVID broke the brains of a lot of really great people I admire. Trump broke the brains of
a lot of people I admire. Like to where Trump derangement syndrome became a thing, like
you can't see the world - Yeah.
- quite as clearly, because of it. And I think Jon Stewart is quite a genius at stepping away, even though the world
needed him in that time, stepping away during that moment of Trump and coming back now being able to reflect being those,
the other statesman. - My favorite Jon Stewart moment that illustrates that perfectly is whenever he went on the Colbert show and he was just joking
around with Stephen Colbert, who I think, is a full-blown propagandist, about the Wuhan lab leak theory. - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - And he was just goofing around and he was like, "It's
called the Coronavirus lab and they had it before." And now, what do we have? And it was like you could
see in Stephen Colbert that he was like gun
to his head type shit. Where he is like, Jon, Jon,
stop joking about that. - Yeah.
- And that made me realize like, oh, everything that Jon Stewart did, especially for the 9/11 first responders, he's a true American. And not in the sense of like
the different political parties want you to believe as an American, not a do your part in
social distance American, not a wave your Trump flag in the back of your pickup truck American. Just a guy who genuinely
stands up for what's right. - There is a degree to which
you can be in those positions easily captured by groupthink though, - Yeah.
- even when you're not controlled by bosses and money and all that kind of stuff. And I think Jon Stewart is
mostly resistant, but it's hard. His position is difficult. - I think he's done the best job though. If someone in that
- Yes. obviously Democrat connected - Yeah.
- corporate media economy, he seems to be the freest talker. - Yeah. So, this is when
you first became famous. - I'm not even sure what fame means. I just see myself as me. - When did you get the shades? - Oh, that was on tour. That's a whole... (Andrew laughing) The shades, that's dark time. But thi... I didn't make like-
(Andrew laughing) - This is a meme really. I don't even know if that's a symbol of fame
- I didn't make - or whatever.
- journalism to become famous. - [Lex] Yeah. - I made it to give people a platform to share their stories. It just so happens that
people liked it enough to where I became famous,
but if I could go back and not be the on-camera guy and just platform the stories, I would. But the reality is people need a face to attach to stuff they like. And so, that's just how it is. But yeah, I would say right
around Minneapolis protest, Portland protest, Proud Boys rally time when I was really in
there is when I started to be acclaimed as more than
just like a ambush meme lord. - Did that have effect on you, the fame? - Not at that point. - Not at that point. So, you were still able to
have a lightness to you? - Well, the country was basically closed. - Yeah.
- So, it wasn't like there was a street to walk down where people were like, there's that guy. So, getting famous, famous during COVID made it so when the country reopened, it was as if like my life really changed, 'cause I was like, oh,
all these fans I made during COVID are seeing me out of the bar. This is cool. - [Lex] Yeah. - At first, fame is the best thing ever, because you can go anywhere in the country and these spaces that you
normally feel a bit insecure in, - Yeah.
- like a local dive bar, a cool restaurant, a coffee shop where you'd just be another guy, all of a sudden, they're like,
"Oh my god, I'm a big fan." They give you like free stuff. You get this sense of acceptance that you never would've gotten before, so. But there's also- - The dark side. - Well-
- It's all love, man. Just to speak to the
first part you're saying, it's just so much love that people have and they share.
- It's amazing. I'm sure you know what it's like. - Yeah. It's beautiful. - The only downside of fame really is that you can't really
be anonymous again. And you have to seek out more strange environments
to be anonymous in. Right now, I live in the desert basically and I wanna live in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert. Not because I'm scared of people, but 'cause I just wannna
be like curious me again, - Yeah.
- who people don't know and I can ask questions to people that I'm interested in without them going, I seen you here, I seen you there. - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - That's the main thing. That's what I loved about hitchhiking. - Yeah, just to have anonymity, for sure.
- Yeah. It's the best. But both are great. Complaining about fame
is just the lamest shit. - Yeah. We should go to furry
conventions that you covered. - Oh.
- Wear an outfit. - I love furries. I should do that. - Yeah, we should go
together. I go all the time. We should go together. What's your favorite outfit?
- You've not been to a furry convention.
- No, I have not. - I think you might like
it more than you think. - I... (Lex scoffs) Listen, (laughs) maybe I'm just afraid to face who I really am. (Andrew laughing) - Yeah, your persona, the
true Lex will come out when you're in a $3,600
- Yeah. Everything is possible.
- lizard suit. - Lizard? Is that what they go with? - Well, scalies are the lizard furries. - Yep.
- And there's a big division in the community where they
think scalies are douchebag, 'cause the scaly suits are more expensive. They're about seven grand,
whereas a furry suit is 3,600. And they're also taller.
- Yeah. - So, when the scalies pull up to the fur fest it's
like, ah, fuck the reptiles. - Fuck the reptiles.
I can get behind that. I'm more like a teddy bear type of guy. - Yeah.
- I think bear's... What's the... Maybe squirrels. I don't know. - Oh. Squirrels are so cool.
- Giant squirrels. Yeah. - I wanna put a GoPro on one and just see what the hell they do. - You were talking about that conversation with the guy at the head
of Doing Things Media. How did that end up? - Well, I want to clear up a few things. Reid, the CEO of Doing Things, I actually think he's a good guy. I think that he was just
trying to run a business. He saw what was working for his brand, which is very college-centric,
very festival-centric. And he was right to think that journalism and especially coverage of
sensitive topics like COVID or police brutality would
definitely not work on merch. You're not gonna sell a picture of me interviewing someone
- Yeah. - at a riot like you would me interviewing a furry or
a drunk dude in Alabama. It doesn't work the same. So, it was a lot harder to monetize, not just 'cause of YouTube censorship, but also just because
of the sensitive nature of the content. So, Reid was looking out for
himself as a businessman. There was a different partner, oh, I'm not gonna say his name, that was more connected in Hollywood. I think he's responsible for
the collapse of the show. - What was the collapse like? What happened?
- So, right as the country's reopening, I get a DM from Eric
Wareheim of Tim and Eric and I'm covering something called the UFO Mega Conference
in Laughlin, Nevada, which is a beautiful river town. And he DMs me and says,
"Let's make a show." And I'm like, oh shit, is this real? I grew up such a big fan of "Nathan For You" and
"The Eric Andre Show" and those are produced by
their company, Abso Lutely. So, I was like, hell yeah, let's do it. Three days later, I get a call that says, "Jonah
Hill wants to hop on board." And I can't believe this. I'm still in the RV and
I'm in Laughlin, Nevada. So, I'm like, Jonah Hill of "Superbad"? Are you shitting me right now?
- Yeah. - 'Cause I was excited. Oh, and "Moneyball". Jonah
Hill's a great actor. - Oh, he's great. He's great all around.
- Yeah. - Doesn't get the credit he deserves. Well, he's got the credit by
now, but still deserves more. - So, basically, just within a week, I assembled this super
team of Tim and Eric and- - "Superbad" team?
- Yeah. Pretty much of Tim and Eric. Sorry, I'm so sorry.
- No, that's good. And Jonah Hill. And yeah, we just pitched it around. Every single TV network
rejected it. I don't know why. And they mainly did that, because I was in this weird situation where I had signed a contract
with Doing Things Media that I didn't realize
was called a 360 deal. That's what they use in the rap world, basically means that I can't do anything outside of them without them getting a hundred percent of the money. So, if I was to go work
at Sbarro or Quiznos while I was working for
"All Gas No Brakes", they would get my 500 bucks a
week from the sandwich spot. - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - I was unable to earn any outside income. I didn't read the fine
print, 'cause I was 21 and like I told you, 45k
a year, RV sounds sick. - Yeah.
- And basically, the TV networks were like, why would we buy a show if the digital brand's gonna
be running at the same time? 'Cause they didn't wanna stop doing "All Gas No Brakes"
to make a TV show. They wanted "All Gas
No Brakes" to continue as a web show while "All Gas No Brakes" as a future TV show at SHOWTIME or Hulu or somewhere like that was
also concurrently running. - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - Which is impossible for one man to do. And so, every TV network said,
okay, we're not doing that. We want an exclusive rights
contract with this guy. Next, oh, yeah, this is
crazy to think about, 'cause it all happened so fast. So, Jonah Hill says A24 Films wants to do a movie instead of a show and they're gonna let you keep
the digital brand running. So, this meant that I could
keep doing my Instagram stuff with Doing Things Media
slash "All Gas No Brakes" while making an A24 movie with
Jonah Hill and Tim and Eric. So, it was just like, I was excited. It sound sounded perfect. So, they said, "Okay, what do
you wanna make a movie about?" And I told them, okay, here's
what's gonna happen in 2020. If Trump wins, there's gonna
be riots across the country. The major cities are gonna burn down. If Trump loses, the militias
and his loyal supporters are going to try to have a coup in DC. That's what I said. And I said, so I'm
gonna follow the lead up to whoever wins the election and I'm gonna document what happens after. So, they said, "Okay." And so, I was to begin
filming in late October, during the campaign trail, maybe mid-October up until November. And then, in the following
months to see what would happen. This meant that I couldn't film anything for "All Gas No Brakes", the digital show, because I had to dedicate a
hundred percent of my time to making this perfect movie.
- Yeah. Yes. - Still, one of the partners
at Doing Things Media was demanding that I not
only produce the movie, but also more content for the show. And I told them it was only
so many hours in a day, man. That's gonna be impossible. And I said, if you want it to be possible, I can make it work, but I want to have half of the
monetization from the show. 50% profit split, which I thought is fair.
- Mm-hmm. - If you want me to do double work when I was getting almost nothing before, split me in on the profits. They fired us immediately. Me and my two childhood friends who I hired to work on the show with me we're all out of a job as we were filming for
the now HBO project. We got our fire notices. - The guts on that person to... 'Cause you should be owning
probably close to 100% of it. - I think so too, but they
didn't see it that way, 'cause they figured we made
the initial investment, we discovered him is
how they looked at it. So, it wasn't Reid, but
it was the other partner who wasn't Reid who said,
- Yeah. - "We have tons of,"
verbatim he said this, "I have tons of connections
in the comedy world. We can replace Andrew overnight." - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - I'm not sure why he
made that miscalculation. I wish he would've thought about it twice. I wish he didn't have to
end like that, but it did. - Why do people do that? What's the benefit of acting like that?
(Andrew sighs) - [Andrew] I think- - Because you can part
amicably without the drama. - I think all betrayal in anything like that is
motivated by self-interest. Whether that be economic success, social stability, whatever it is. They figured that because
I was being such a burden in asking for the profit, that they could just release me and find someone equally talented and not split them in so
they can make more money. - Oh, I see. Well, that's
a stupid way to think. - People think like that,
man. People who are... (Andrew sighs) The word I use is like sidekick syndrome. When people are a part of the production, but they're not integral.
- Yeah. - They start thinking that the front man doesn't
matter or something. And that the brains of the operation are actually the people on the periphery. And so, they start to believe that they can just shift things around and the audience won't care. Not realizing that I was actually the one who created the show and that the lore of the
show is connected to my rise outside of their jurisdiction,
if that makes sense. The people who watch "All Gas No Brakes" watched "Quarter Confessions"
and read the book. And so, you know. (sighs) - Well, this happens also
not just financially, but just with people that
they're part of a team, but they don't really contribute
creatively to the team and they force their opinion or pressure. - [Andrew] Yeah. - Whether it comes from editors
or all that kind of stuff or from sponsors, there's
pressure they create when the creator alone
should be celebrated and have all the power, 'cause they're the ones
- Yeah. - that are creating the thing. - In a way, I have sympathy,
because I can't relate to that, 'cause I've always been the front man of my
own projects by design. So, I'm not sure what it's like to be a, like someone's owner from
a content perspective. I don't understand the
challenges they face. Maybe there was something
- True. - that I didn't understand. I don't know.
- True. Well, oftentimes, if you
own a thing like this, like this company, you
do think about brand. - [Andrew] Right. - And then, maybe you
have a big picture idea of what brand means and
that can be at tension with the creative project, right? - [Andrew] Yeah. - But ultimately, freedom for the creator is the best kind of brand.
- Yeah. I remember all three of us who worked on "All Gas No Brakes" got fired at the same time. And were in the RV that Tim and Eric's company bought for us, which was a bigger RV, in the parking lot,
- Nice. - parking lot of a
Walmart in South Philly. And the propane had just ran out and it was 15 degrees outside. So, the RV was getting
really cold really fast. And I just looked at my phone
and it was like, you're fired. And I was just like, God, help me. But I've had a couple moments like that and God does help me. - And they were always in the
parking lot of Walmart, right? - [Andrew] Well, yeah. Although... - I know that Walmart, by the way. - The one in South Philly is great. - [Lex] Yeah, that's great. - But technically now, you
can't park an RV there. - Well, you're not a man
who follow the rules, if you know what I'm saying.
- Well, the thing is though is Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and Big Five are supposed to technically all let RV campers park overnight. But if there's a crime problem in the city where they're at, they can lobby, individual Walmarts can lobby with the corporate to take that away. So, all the Portland Walmarts, you can't sleep there anymore. Any city with significant homelessness and petty property crime,
the Walmarts are a no-go. - Fascinating. So, that was a low point. - [Andrew] Yeah. (Lex chuckles) - But from there, from
the ashes to Phoenix Rose, - Over time. Yeah. - Channel 5 was born. - Channel 5 was born in the March of 2021 after we finished filming
for the HBO project. - Oh, really? So, you went all in on
the HBO project at the- - Yeah. We filmed the HBO project from November, 2020 up until April, 2021, damn near, we were just
picking up the pieces, going back for individual
interviews, stuff like that. - So, let's go to that project. It turned out to be a movie
called "This Place Rules". - It's supposed to be called
"America Shits Itself". - Oh yeah? Maybe you can
tell the story of the film. You have, what's his name? I wrote this down, Joker Gang
and Gum Gang. Is that correct? - [Andrew] Yeah. The opening scene. - The opening scene of two
characters just talking shit, and then getting into a fight. And I think it was really brilliant how you presented that as
a, almost like a microcosm of the division
(Andrew chuckles) between the extremes of the left and the extremes of the right. - That's exactly what it was. I'm glad you picked up on it.
- Yeah. And then, (chuckles) what I really liked is that the Joke, again, Joker Gang was
- Yeah. - a little bit of a
spoiler alert, I apologize, but at the end of the film
was a voice of wisdom. - [Andrew] Yeah. I just realized- (Andrew laughing) - He seems the most sane. - He was the voice of wisdom. (Andrew laughing)
He like cut through it. - [Lex] Yeah. - I also just realized that a lot of people are gonna stream the movie after watching this
podcast, which is cool. - Yeah. Where do they stream it? On HBO Max. Sorry.
- Oh, yeah. HBO Max. I never got a chance to promote the movie. - It's such a pain in the ass, man. I wish we could all just pay
on it on YouTube or something. - Yeah.
- And HBO gets the profits or whatever, but like, it's such a...
- Yeah. - I have to subscribe
for every single thing. But yes, if you wanna
watch it, it's really, I recommend, extremely
highly sign up to HBO, whatever the hell. - On the positive note,
HBO is great to work with. They're the most professional, respectful company I've ever
worked with pretty much. - Like-
- Yeah, HBO has created some of the greatest TV ever. - But even on in the
background, they get shit done. There's no wait time. They have some of the best
heavy hitters on their team, for trailers, for posters. All the promotional apparatus
they have is super solid. - Did you get good notes from
people there? Like how to- - A little bit, man. But you know. - It's a truly original documentary. Meaning like, I just haven't
seen anything like it. It's even like... So, there's a humor and a lightness at the
right kinds of moments. - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - Like I said, there's
a rooster in your... That's like, okay, that's like a non-sequitur
thing as part of a storytelling. It intensifies and reveals
the absurdity of the division - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - and how once January 6th happens, everybody goes on to the next thing. - Yeah.
- It's like, what happened to us? It was almost like a delirium that everybody was participating in. Some weird, just like, well,
like people say, mind virus. Like all of a sudden,
we just got captured. - Yeah.
- And people just yelling at each other and doing the most ridiculous shit. And really, January 6th, the way you presented especially just reveals the circus of it all. - It really broke the fourth wall, or that's how I would describe it. Because if you were at
January 6th and the lead up, it felt like it was the beginning to a series of similar riots, but it just popped off
so much that that was it. You haven't seen anything like it since. It was supposed to be a
second one on January 20th. It was the actual inauguration
that never happened. It was a crazy time to
be alive and around. And especially the
relationship that I developed with Enrique Tarrio, who's the former chairman
of The Proud Boys. He's now facing 23 years in prison. It's like a trip, 'cause I went to his house in Miami maybe
two weeks after January 6th. And talking to him, it seemed like he didn't think
anything was gonna happen. He was just like, "Yeah,
man, that was crazy. I'm glad I wasn't there. They're dumb for doing that." He even told me he doesn't
think the election was stolen, - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - which is just a mind fuck. It's like, why'd you get
everyone so hyped up? (Lex chuckles) It's just weird to think about how so many people's lives are
drastically altered forever, because of that just
bizarre moment in time that will always live on. - Yeah. What did you... QAnon is part of that story. What'd you learn about QAnon from that? - Just an all-encompassing worldview. That family that I talked to,
I call them the QAnon family, but it's called the Spencer family. They were nonpolitical up until the Stop the Steal Movement began in September of 2020. And within four months, their entire life revolved around the
mythology and lore of Q. And I've never seen in my life a psyop just devour people's
minds in such an intense way, in such a rapid period of time. - And I love how the kids in the movie are also the voices of wisdom. - Yeah.
- The Spencer family, it's the kid who goes through the full journey
- Yeah. - of believing that whatever
Hillary Clinton is a lizard and just believing all the worst versions
- Mm-hmm. - of the conspiracy theories, and then waking up was
like, what was the point? - Yeah, it was heartbreaking
to see his disappointment in his dad for even following
Qanon so militantly. 'Cause he was like, I felt
like they let my dad down. I felt like they let our family down, because January 6th was
supposed to be the day, according to Qanon, that the storm happens and that the military
is supposed to mobilize and arrest the members of the deep state, Clinton, Soros, all that. Trump was supposed to
go into a helicopter, you know what I mean? And take control of the
country back from the swamp. And it didn't happen. In fact, the next day, he
was almost denouncing it. Now, he doesn't, but then, he did. And it was a really, I think
it hurt people's pride a lot. My friend, Forgiato Blow,
he's a Trump rapper. He describes it that way. He says, "A lot of people's
pride got hurt by January 6th." - Trump rapper. - Oh, yeah, dude. Honestly, there's some pretty
dope Trump rap out there. (Lex chuckles) I'm serious. - There's some-
- You're not gonna rap. - Yeah, you would think like, oh, yeah, MAGA, there's no rappers there. But there's rappers and
they do a pretty good job - [Lex] They're good? - at delivering the messaging
they want to deliver, yeah. They think of stuff that
I'm like, that's clever. - They're like, they have
some political depth to 'em. - Yeah.
- Wow. - is there something more you could say about how QAnon works? Like who's behind it?
- Man. - What's your sense of who's
behind the whole thing? - I don't want this to sound rude or anything. I just don't care about
QAnon. You know what I mean? I've put so much thought into it and I just can't seem to
care about it. (sighs) - Was it almost a disappointment, because to me, it was like a thing that just captured a very
large number of people's minds, and then it just faded. - I guess that's why. It just seems like it's gone. And the ideas of QAnon have just bled into mainstream standard
conservative thinking. - But there has to be a retrospective. That's the problem I have with COVID. A lot of stuff happened.
Everybody freaked out. There's a lot of big drama around it. And now, like, oh, okay. Forgot.
- Yeah. - Just like, moved up. What are the lessons learned? Has anyone learned any lessons? - Yeah.
- Like what? - Exactly.
(Lex chuckles) And what I'm saying is I
don't want QAnon adherence to see this and think I
don't care about them. - [Lex] Yeah. - But as far as who is behind
it, the damage is done. - Yeah, but what are the
mechanisms that made it work? That's really-
- What do you think? Have you thought about that? - I think that these viral
ideas can be driven by, and your film shows this,
by just a handful of people. And they're not malevolent.
- Yeah. - They just want the clout. - [Andrew] Yeah. - And there's something sexy, there's something really sticky
about conspiracy theories. Especially extreme ones. You just like, some of them
can have this momentum. They capture the minds of a lot of people and you just go with it. - Yeah.
- And it, like, when I hear some conspiracy theories, like there's something, like a small part of me
that kind of like, yeah, get excited.
- It's possible that QAnon is a psyop to distract people away
from actually uncovering - Yeah.
- what the deep state is and who is truly running
things behind the scenes. Because the deep state is just the 1%. You get people so close to any type of class consciousness, and then you totally divert everything into lizard humans who live on the moon and that Hillary Clinton
is eating babies on camera. And QAnon did just that. They wanna convince you that one, there's no conservative deep state, which is even more hilarious,
that Trump isn't connected to a huge rich corporate
apparatus of propagandists. And two, that the democratic establishment is the only deep state. And that some middle of
the road conservatives, that there's no grifters or manipulators outside of
that three-headed snake. - There's grifters everywhere. - Everywhere, everyone
wants to make money, dude. This is the world that
we're in. It's in collapse. Everybody wants to make money. And engagement is the rule of law. So, anything, that's why
these news organizations follow retention incentives. They want to make money by selling ads. So, they try to create
fear and constant division to enrich corporate media establishment. And you have people who
are almost realizing, hey, it seems like FOX and CNN, it might be owned by the same people and are tactically using these machines to keep us divided perfectly 50/50 to ensure that the power
structure never gets disrupted. Then, you get these people,
you know who's gonna save us? Donald Trump, that's the
guy. How is that the guy? It's not the guy.
(Lex laughing) And I don't have TDS. I'm not an Orangemen basher who thinks about the guy all the time, but I don't think he's the guy. - You were shirtless lifting weights while whiskey or some alcohol
was poured into your mouth by Alex Jones in this movie. And then, you did the same to him. - That's true. Mm-hmm. - This feels like an interrogation. (Andrew and Lex laughing) So, Alex
- Yup. - was a part of this film. He was like throughout the narrative and you had a great interview with him. What did you learn about
interacting with Alex, Alex Jones from making this film? - For one is that he's
the exact same off camera as he is on camera.
- Yeah. - It's not an act. He told me that all real
Americans die before 58. He mentioned Sean Connery
and a few others. And- - How old is he? - Getting up there.
- Yeah. - Think early 50s.
- Yeah. - I just found it fascinating
how nice his studio is. The guy's got like an MSNBC level set up. - Mm-hmm. - I actually had a great time with him. It's bizarre, because
having him in that movie created so many problems for me. And when I interviewed him, I didn't necessarily portray
him in the best light. we joked around a bit, but it wasn't an Alex Jones
hit piece necessarily. But I like to think that I was a bit critical
of him in the film, especially the ways that he
antagonized his supporters to storm the capitol or
to follow that trajectory. He told me, when I met
with him, he was like, "I know you think that
having me in this movie is a good idea, but you're gonna have
some serious backlash because of that." At the time, I was like, man,
it's fine. It's all good. We're just hanging out, drinking whiskey, doing bench presses, drinking Jameson. It's all good. First of all, I had to campaign
to get him in the film, because the studios were like, we don't... There was a bizarre time around like, I think it was 2018 where deplatforming was the big thing that
people were encouraging. It said, giving a platform
to problematic ideologies will in turn expand their reach, and so even extending your platform to someone who's
problematic is helping them, AKA destroying humanity, whatever it was. So, that was the whole thing. And when I did this media
training that was mandated by HBO, it was all training and how to defend from
that exact question. They said,
- Mm-hmm. - "When we put you on NPR
and we put you on CNN, they're gonna ask you about platforming problematic ideologies." And you're gonna have to say stuff like, sunlight is the best disinfectant. I believe that extremism only goes away when you shine a light on it, because leaving it in the dark
will only allow it to grow." They gave me like 15 pointers. I didn't use any of those pointers, because I'm not the kind of person who wants to be media-trained. I like to speak freely. But in the promotional run for the film, when I went on CNN, this
was a crazy experience. So, I went on CNN and
thankfully, (chuckles) my friend was with me. And so, I'm on CNN and- - By the way, your friend
is chilling in sunglasses, laying in the couch right now.
(Andrew laughing) Most, it's like the-
- That's Larry Suit. (Lex laughing) It's a mix of the dude from "Big Lebowski" and the Brad Pitt role in "True Romance". - Yeah.
- You know that reference or-
- No, but I mean, I'm sure it describes Larry Suit. He kinda looks
- Kinda look - like Brad Pitt.
(Andrew drowns out Lex) - [Lex] Jack Kerouac.
(Andrew laughing) Yeah, (chuckles) yeah. - So, HBO had a press tour set up for me and the main ones
- Yeah. - were CNN and NPR. And so, they said, "You're gonna go on CNN on the Don Lemon morning show and he's gonna ask you about your life, what led up to the movie,
what we can expect." So, I get in the studio, it's about seven o'clock
in the morning in New York at his show the night
before at Times Square. So, I'm like groggy-eyed, whatever. They put the lab on me, boom. I'm live on CNN Sunday morning. And he goes, "How would you describe
Enrique Tarrio's mental state in the lead up to the
Capitol insurrection?" And I'm looking around, I'm
like, is this guy serious? (Lex chuckles)
Am I sandwiched in the January 6th hit piece right now? - Yeah.
- I thought it was about me. - Yeah.
- And so, I told him, it's not about Enrique Tarrio, it's about how companies like FOX, MSNBC, and even your station, CNN,
(Lex breathes out) use the 24-hour news cycle to enrage people to generate ad revenue - Yeah.
- and pit Americans against each other during times like that. - Yeah.
- And he said, "There's nothing fake about CNN." And I said, I didn't
say you were fake news. I'm not saying you're lying, but you're directly antagonizing and stirring people up
against half the country, because you need money to
support a dying platform. - [Lex] You said that? - Pretty much.
- Nice. - And
- Great. I was so... My mom was watching
and she was texting me. She's like, "What are you doing?" And I was like, I don't know. And so, he goes, "Why'd you extend the
platform to Alex Jones?" And I go, I don't know, I just
wanted to drink some Jameson and lift some weights with him. At this point, I don't
support that kind of media. I don't support CNN. So, I didn't give them much
information about Alex, but it was very awkward. They never posted the segment online. When I got off of that interview, I had a handler that A24 assigned to me. So, I had someone with me and you could tell she was flustered. She was furious about what I just did. And so, she goes, "I just got an email from
Time Warner C-suite." And I go, what's Time Warner C-suite? She says, "I don't know if you know this, but the same people who own CNN own HBO, and it's Time Warner." And so, they canceled my press tour. So, my press tour was finished. (Andrew and Lex laughing) All the late night shows
that I was supposed to go on. I was supposed to go
on the late night shows and that was off the table, 'cause they were worried that I was like a loose cannon, I think. And then, the only remaining appearance I had left was NPR in Boston. And that was supposed to be a premiere. So, it wasn't supposed
to be an interrogation. It wasn't supposed to
be anything like that. Supposed to be a premiere in front of a live audience
where they watched a film. And I show up after for a Q&A. So, I'm like, all right,
whatever. It's weird. They only have this one
press opportunity left. I felt bad that I ruined
the entire press tour by confronting Don Lemon. But at this point, I wanted to just do this final one, especially 'cause it was a viewing. And I was like, cool, I want to... I sat in the audience, I watched people laugh to the film. It was awesome. So, I go backstage and there's an NPR
journalist waiting for me. And nothing against people who wear masks, but she had two N95s on. Two N95s is- - [Lex] It's a lot. (Andrew chuckles) - It's over the line. So, I go, hey, great to meet
you. She doesn't shake my hand. - Yeah.
- And I go, why not? - And she goes, "You've
been around some people who I don't want their germs." - Yeah. Oh. - And I'm like, okay, okay. This is weird. I thought this is a fun
premiere for my movie. We sit down. The first thing she asks me is, "How do you think the Sandy Hook families would feel about you platforming one of the most despicable Americans in history, Alex Jones," in
front of a live audience. NPR never published this. The only recordings of it are by a fan named Rob in
Boston who put it on YouTube. It was vertical phone footage. And I literally am like, well, the Sandy Hook family's
lawyer, Mark Bankston, who represented them in
court in Connecticut, told me specifically that Leonard Pozner, the father of Noah Pozner, who died at Sandy Hook,
was a huge fan of the film. And so, I said that to her and that just silenced that conversation. But the rest of the whole conversation was just about exploitation and why are you platforming
mentally ill people and giving a platform to
conspiracies like QAnon? Don't you feel like you're
a part of their spread? Someone would call you a
misinformation reporter, all this crazy stuff and
yeah, next day hit the fan. - Fuck all those people. That film, just in case you
don't get a chance to see it and you should, you are critical of Alex Jones in the most artful way. It was the correct way to be critical. It showed him to be more
interested in the grift of it. - [Andrew] Yeah. - And you didn't do it in
a like a pointing fingers and saying in the NPR way
that you just mentioned, but more like a human way. Like this is tragedies
happen all over the world and there's grifters that roll in, and then take advantage
of it in interesting ways. - Yeah.
- And then, human beings get swept up on either side of it and it's revealing the human,
the absurdity of it all. And it was done masterfully. It was done, like for
people who criticize you for platforming Alex Jones or whatever,
- Yeah. - The film from a political perspective is probably leans very much left, - Yeah.
- like heavily left. But does it without that exhausting energy of judging. - Right.
- Just this, you know, yeah, two masks judging.
- Yeah. It was just... (Andrew sighs) When all that was happening, when I was under fire
from the mainstream press for platforming Alex Jones, I thought back to what he said to me, and doesn't mean I agree
with everything he says, but he told me, "You're
gonna be in trouble with these people if you
put me in your video." And it wasn't too bad of trouble, but definitely, I do think sometimes what the film would've
been like without him. And I think that it was worth it, because his scene is so funny to me and it brings me back to a
different time in my life. And I'm happy that that scene's out there. - I think it was really well done. - It showed
- Thanks, man. - the layering of it
all, the entertainment plus not considering from his perspective, the consequences of rallying
people up in this way. That it's not just, you really highlight
this in the interview. He keeps saying it's infowars, but then there's always a sense that infowars can turn to
actual like civil war and- - [Andrew] Yeah. - But maybe not. Maybe
it's all just a circus. Like we play for each other. - If you look at the speech
he did on January 5th, it was said, he said, "Tomorrow, millions of patriotic Americans
will take our country back." - Yeah.
- So, he eggs people on, and then when it gets hot, he steps away. - Yeah. But like you said, the thing he told you, he
turned out to be right. - [Andrew] Oh yeah. - And the frogs are becoming gay. - They've always been gay. (Andrew and Lex laughing) - Well-
- Saying frogs are straight is even crazier. - I've read stories where you kiss one and it becomes a prince and- - Yeah, that true. - A hundred percent. You think Alex believes what he says in terms of
everything he says on infowars? How much of it is real? - He's right about big tech censorship. I think if he's right about anything, it would probably be the heads of big tech colluding together across company lines to
deplatform certain people. He's right about that. I think most of the things that he says follow the
question everything narrative, and then everything is like a conspiracy or like a plot or a false flag. I think that he's built up a following for so long that wants him to do that. So, I think he'll question things that he probably thinks are
relatively straightforward, because that's the shtick of the show. The infowar is fighting misinformation and people want to see him be that guy. So, to a certain extent,
if you're a creator who supports your family, you
do follow economic incentives and people want you to be the character. And so, you're gonna naturally
gravitate toward being it. Do you feel that pressure yourself? - I did years ago. Not anymore. I feel like now, I can speak freely and really say what I
wanna say in my new life. But when I was younger, yeah, I feel like I had to be this
awkward, amicable, aloof guy who just didn't think
anything about anything and just was here to listen. But now, I feel more confident
adding some narrative and voiceover and things like that. - So, for some people especially
who publish on YouTube, the YouTube algorithm, they can become a slave
to the YouTube algorithm. - Yeah. For sure, 'cause... And I definitely feel that sometimes. I know what works for
me, but I like to think that my audience appreciates
when I try new things, so I'm not totally enslaved to it. - Yeah, I try not to pay
attention to views or any of that. - Well, you get some high views, so I'll report that for you. (Andrew and Lex laughing)
- No, I... So, I wrote a Chrome extension that hides all the views
on anything I create. - So, you took it to that level. - Yeah, just 'cause it's a drug, man. And I'm also a number guy. Meaning like, you give me
like, if I do 30 pushups today, tomorrow I'm gonna try to do 35, just like enjoying
- Yeah. - number go up. That's why I like video games like RPGs, where you're improving your skill tree, you're like getting an extra point. And there's some aspect of
YouTube and other platforms, anything and any other
platform, you're like, ooh, I got more today
than I got yesterday. That's really, really dangerous to me, because it can influence
how much I enjoy a thing. - [Lex] Hmm. - Like if nobody gives a shit about it based on the numbers, you're like, oh, maybe that wasn't such a great experience. I thought it was a great experience, but maybe it wasn't.
- Yeah. Honestly, I do actually, (chuckles) I feel that way sometimes. I'll put out something
that I care about a lot, but if it doesn't get
as many views, I'm like, all right, it must have not been as good as my higher review videos or whatever. - Yeah. That's just like not true though. - [Andrew] Yeah. - And it might mean on YouTube
that your thumbnail sucks or something like this or whatever, however the algorithm works, but that's the thing I'm battling against to make sure I ignore all of that. - Right.
- And it's actually something Joe Rogan has
been extremely good at. He gives zero shits.
- Yeah. - And-
- I think it's easier to do when you're really successful. - Well, he was doing that
when he wasn't successful. - [Andrew] Really? - But anything, he just follows
the stuff he enjoys doing and legitimately enjoys it. He happens to be really good
at it, but he gets good, because he's doing the
things he really enjoys and like full on
- Yeah. - passionate about. And that's why he'll have
ridiculous guests and just- - [Andrew] Yeah. And just like- - Just shit he enjoys doing. - Yeah. That's pretty cool. Maybe I'll one day try to do that. (Andrew and Lex chuckles) For now, I'm too attached
to the gratification of getting a million views
in a day and stuff like that. I'm not gonna lie to you and say that I've beat that or something, like. - Well, It's a worthy
enemy to be fighting, 'cause it's a drug and it's one
- Yeah. - that should be resisted for a creator, 'cause I feel like
- Yeah. - it can do negative stuff
to your mind as a creator. - Oh, yeah, for sure. - Anybody that controls you - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - is not good. - A lot of people are
controlled by their audience. They don't have to have a puppet master on a corporate level. Audience incentive is a different type of, I don't want say slavery, but- - Yeah, it is. And that's why variety is
good and you're doing that. - Yeah.
- Always expanding. Well, let me just zoom out on this. You made a film. - [Andrew] Yeah. - That's pretty cool. - Yeah, it was a great experience, man. It was awesome working with Tim and Eric. Awesome working with Jonah Hill. I feel the same about HBO and A24. Everybody that I worked on the film with, I have a lot of love for and
I appreciate the experience. It's my first movie. It's a big deal. - [Andrew] That's a good one. - In my head, it's like I finally got to make the transition from
a YouTuber to a filmmaker and that was always this psychic barrier that I felt like I had to jump over. - There's a, I mean,
just the way it's shot, the humor that goes throughout it, just the narration that you're doing in a shitty director's chair, - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - that was really well done. Whose idea was that? - It was actually Tim and Eric's idea. There was a really great editor named Clay who works for Abso Lutely. And they did all the editing
pretty much in the office. And so, it was Clay's idea to add a retrospective director's chair narrative arc to the whole film. - Yeah, Just like starting
with the absurd fight and then going like, oh, that's a good way to start a movie.
- Yeah. - Just really, really well done. - Thanks, man. - Well, what about Jonah Hill? Like he- - [Andrew] Great guy. - He believed in this. - He did. - So, what's that like? What do you think is behind him believing in such a wild project? - I think that Jonah Hill has a good eye for what's cool
amongst the younger folks. He's into skateboarding stuff. That's why he did that film "Mid90s". And I think he probably
saw a similar thing in what was going on with
the "All Gas No Brakes" and was like, shit, this could be big. And so, not only did he
actually fund the film, he also gave me his agent. And I forgot to mention that
it was Jonah Hill's lawyers that he gave me for free that got me out of my contract eventually with Doing Things Media or freed me up to speak
about what happened. - So, he was also part of you
kinda gaining your freedom. - Yeah, in a weird way. Even though him and I
don't talk that much, just 'cause he's doing his own thing, Jonah Hill is a huge factor
in my current success and just everything that
I've been able to accomplish. - Just on your own politics, is it fair to say that
your politics leans left? - I'm not really sure sometimes. I like to think that I am socially left. I think people should be able to dress and act like however they want. I don't believe in restricting people's social freedoms. Economics-wise, It doesn't seem like leftist economic
policy works very well on a city funding level. Like if you see what's
going on in California, it seems like the city leadership is mishandling the
funds in California too. So, I don't know about
that, but I don't know, I don't really see
myself as left or right. I just never have. - Well, if you just objectively zoom out and don't have an insane
standard of the extremes, - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - it feels like a lot
of your work leans left. - I tend to lean toward like
the empathetic perspective, which I do think is more
on the left and the right. But I also, I'm not into
super like PC stuff. I don't believe in limiting
free speech either. I don't believe that... I believe in a free internet, which I think is more
embraced now by conservatives. - But it does seem that,
maybe you can correct me, but I get the sense sometimes that the left attack
their own very intensely. - It does happen. But every
community has terms of exile. (Lex chuckles) Think about what happens
in the conservative realm. Like when Black Rifle Coffee company denounced Kyle Rittenhouse,
they lost a lot of money too. It's not the right attacks its own too. Think about Bud Light and stuff like date. - Terms of exile, like-
- I mean, every community has (chuckles) terms of exile. You just gotta know who
you're engaging with and you gotta make that
decision carefully. - It'd be nice if
there's an actual writeup of the things you're not
allowed to say for each thing. And then, I wonder
- Yeah. - whose list would be longer. It just does feel like the last list - Right.
- is a little longer. - If you're a conservative and you have a T-shirt with
a demon on it, say goodbye. You know what I mean?
(Andrew and Lex chuckles) There's certain stuff that they freak the hell out about. - And conservatives are really
concerned about pedophiles. - Yeah. I don't like pedophiles either, but I don't think about it all the time. - It's one of the things
you do in the film is confront one of the QAnon folks where his concern is that
everybody's a pedophile and you showed to him- - Well, calls himself a pedophile hunter and makes videos exposing
democratic elite pedophile cabals and is himself a convicted child molester. There's an old thing that people
say that every confession, every accusation is a confession to a certain extent.
- Yeah. - So, it's bizarre that
some people's whole life after a big mistake will revolve around trying to seem like the good guy instead of taking
accountability for themselves. - [Lex] Yeah. - It's a common thing
you see all the time. Like neighborhood watch
people, you know what I mean? What made you that? What did you do, bro? That you feel like you have
to get karmic retribution by doing the reverse. I don't get it.
- Yeah. Do you think to the degree, you have bias that
affects your journalism? - No, but with the migrant
situation, I don't know. - What was that covering that like? - I just got a lot
(Andrew drowns out Lex) of hate from conservatives for letting the migrants
tell their stories about their journey and stuff. - Well, what did you learn
from just going to the border? - Just the sheer desperation that the citizens of the world are in. There's people who truly
believe that America is the only hope for their success and to feed their family. And I think a lot of 'em
are getting catfished. - Meaning America has its problems too? - It has severe problems.
There's extreme poverty here. - But in America, if you just
compare to other nations, the level of corruption is much lower to where the opportunity for a person to succeed to rise is higher. - I wish success on
everybody who comes here, but my thing is the
expectation that they have and the American dream propaganda they've been installed with isn't necessarily a reflection of contemporary American reality. So, I'm talking to people
who speak no English and say I'm here for a better life. I go, where are you gonna go?
They say, "I have no idea." And I'm like, man, that's tough. And you almost think how
bad are things elsewhere for someone to abandon their family, make this journey across
multiple continents, and end up here with no plan? And it just made me realize how sheltered I am to a
certain extent as an American. And walking back what I said a little bit, 'cause I was just trying to make a point, - Yeah.
- But what I think of as bad poverty, like
let's say West Baltimore or Ninth Ward New Orleans,
is nothing compared to what's going on in almost
half of the world, if not more. And so, it just made me
zoom out a little bit. Sometimes you forget
about third world poverty when you live here for so
long and you get programmed to believe the worst
things that are out there is like Kensington, Philadelphia or Tenderloin, San Francisco. But those are just microcosms of more or less functioning cities. Despite what they might
lead you to believe, Philadelphia is a great
place, so is San Francisco, but there's places where
everywhere is really run down. - Yeah, and like, people
focus on in major cities in the United States like homelessness. Somehow, that's a sign of a fallen empire. - Right.
- But that's a problem. There's definitely... It reveals some mismanagement
of cities and government- - Homelessness in Seattle and San Francisco is for sure a result of the housing crisis,
- Mm-hmm. - especially post-COVID and all the gentrification
that preceded it. And it's unfortunate now
that the conservative media is saying like, look at Biden's America as if Biden created homeless people. And it's just disappointing, because once again,
you're seeing the media use real issues that should
concern every US citizen and causing people to point fingers at a different political party as responsible for the
suffering of others. - Do you think January
6th can happen again? - [Andrew] No. I don't think so.
(Lex inhales) - So, all the lessons were learned? - Yeah, for sure. People
got really screwed over. - Don't you have a sense
that there's a greater and greater growing questioning of the electoral process
and all this kind of stuff? - I think that Americans overall are very comfortable with
our standard of living. I think people like going to Sonic and waiting in their car
and getting milkshakes. And people like going to the AMC Theaters and they like going ice skating and mini golfing and going
to the bar after work. I don't think that anyone wants a collapse of the basic structure of the country. Even the most politically divided don't want to see 7/11 go away. We are so comfortable. If you look at other countries, even Europe, look at how they protest. And look at the Arab Spring. Those guys were talking like January 6ers and they actually took
control of the government. - Yeah.
- And so, think about even if the MAGA crowd took over the capitol
building, it's just a building. I don't know.
(Lex chuckles) I just think that Americans, when they talk about civil war stuff, it's just so, we're so far from that. Even if the rhetoric is as divided as it was in 2020, it won't happen again. - For it to really happen, there has to be a level of desperation. - There has to be a level
of economic desperation that's causing people to starve or some basic resource going away. Water, something like that. - Who do you think wins, Trump or Biden? - In the civil war? - Well, we don't like
- No, - the guns.
- in the game of "Mario Kart", no.
(Andrew chuckles) In the (chuckles) election 2024. - Oh, man. I have no idea, man. I don't even know if I'm gonna vote. - It's weird that this is our choice. - I know. I wish people were more
focused on city politics. I'd rather vote like yes
or no for a bike lane in my neighborhood than I
would for the president. - So, local politics to you is where it is.
- I think the- - And you feel it. Yeah. - Oh, your vote actually matter. Let's say you have a
community of 500 people and you live in Henderson, Nevada. You can influence whether
or not there's a bike lane or this is gonna be a
playground or an ampm. You get to choose and you can
influence a hundred people to choose and boom,
this is your community. You can't influence the
result of an election. - Still that those at
the presidential level, it sets the tone of the country. And so, Trump running again
and Biden running again, it just feels like
there's going to be a lot of questioning of election results. - I just can't believe those are our guys. - [Lex] Yeah. - That's really our guys? (Lex chuckles) That's where we're at? All these smart people
we have in this country. The great history. - We got Joker Gang versus Gum Gang. - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - Where'd you find Joker Gang? - Well-
- Is he a legit Juggalo or is he just-
- No, no, no, no. Joker Gang is like a Miami Cuban guy. - [Lex] Oh. - It's Joker 305 rawest Chico alive. So, me and...
(Lex chuckles) I had been following him for
a long time on Instagram, 'cause he used to post videos
of himself popping Percocets and smoking blunts on
the toilet freestyling. - Yeah.
- And so, I had followed him for a while. And then, I finally got this platform and I said, oh my god, I bet you now that we
have a million followers, Joker Gang will sit down with us. And lo and behold, the clout did its thing and there I was face to face with the man. - There was a controversy a year ago where a woman came forward and said that you were pushy with her. You respected and know
you got the consent, but you were pushy about it. - Mm.
- Looking back, can you tell the story of that? What are the lessons you learned from it? - Yeah, I've yet to speak on
this for a lot of reasons. Mostly 'cause it was a hard time and it's a sensitive subject and I've wanted to
prioritize the reporting. But I think that now I'm
ready and able to do so. Everything started on December 30th, 2022 and that was the release
date of the HBO project. Like I told you, we didn't know when
movie was gonna come out. We weren't told that it was gonna come out on that date until early November. And so, it was like,
oh my god, here we go. We got a movie coming out. HBO had... I didn't even know it was gonna be them. So, every day for those (chuckles) 50 days to where I received word and
to the movie announcement or to the movie release, I was like a kid waiting
for Christmas morning. You know what I mean? It was like every day, I just... I saw the movie release date as the first day of the rest of my life. - Mm-hmm.
- And so, I remember the week of the movie release, it was like every day I was like, oh my god, six days, five days, four days. And when it became two
days, I was so excited and so honestly anxiety-riddled, because it was such a massive platform that I went out to the desert by myself out in the Mojave, got a
hotel, and just sat there. And then, movie release day comes, it was supposed to come out at 8:00 PM Pacific Standard Time. I remember it was like 12
hours left, 10 hours left. And then, 8 minutes
before the movie, at 7:52, or I guess it was 10:52 East Coast Time, I got a text message requesting a portion of my fat HBO check to contribute
toward apparently years of therapy bills that
this person had accrued after she says that she felt that I pressured her into
giving consent years prior. And I was confused, not
only because of the timing, but because this is someone that I hadn't seen in years
or spoken to in years. And I presume that I
was on good terms with. So, I didn't respond to the text message. And then, when I didn't respond, about seven days later, this
person made some TikTok videos and with the help of some friends, launched an online campaign. They got picked up by
the press pretty quickly. - So, what did you feel
like when you got that text? - Well, it's tough, because on one hand, I'm not opposed to restitution being part of a private accountability
process for real abuse. If you've hurt someone to an extent that it took them out
of work or something, I think they're entitled to some money. But unfortunately, as I later learned, this person had legal counsel and this was an attempt to
basically create evidence by extracting a confession
from me to use as precedent for a civil lawsuit to the tune
of a couple million dollars. - It's dark. - Yeah. - How did you meet this person? - Well, I met them when I was 22. And like I told you, I was living in an RV making this show called
"All Gas No Brakes". And I would travel between
cities every other day. And so, I would basically pick a new city and I got in this pretty bad
habit of what I would say is essentially treating
Instagram like a dating app. I would go to a new place,
I'd post my location, I'd surf the DMs, and I would
look for fans to meet up with. It wasn't always girls. It was just people to party with, 'cause I was also partying every night, but a lot of times, ended
up being girls and stuff. And so, that's how this situation was. I didn't have sex with this person. Had a consensual encounter that they reached out to me
about two weeks after saying, "Hey, I don't want you to
take this the wrong way. But looking back, I
felt a lot more pressure to agree than I realized in the moment. I don't think this is any fault of yours. I just think that you
came on a bit too strong and I didn't want to let
you down, so I gave in." That language made me feel horrible. Mainly because if this person had told me, hey, I don't wanna hook up, I would've said, yeah, of course not. I don't want to hook up with someone who doesn't wanna hook up with me. And I think that as fame
increased during that time, I think I was just oblivious
to how people were seeing me, especially those who had
a digital relationship with me prior to me knowing them. And I don't think that I
handled that the right way. - Well, thank you for
taking accountability. But just to clarify, you got consent? - Yeah, I was the initiatory party in an interaction with a fan who felt it she had to say yes, because
of, I'm not sure why. I don't know why, but like I said, this person also disclosed to me, they had a history of childhood trauma and were actively being treated for PTSD and that they felt things move too fast for them given their situation. And so, I told her, I said,
hey, if you wanna reach out, if you wanna talk on the
phone, I'm always here for you. I'm sorry to hear that. Let me
know if we can talk further. About six months after that,
I was at Sturgis bike week and I remember this day,
this was the hardest day. I was just chilling and I
got a text from my friend and said, "Hey, man, you're
getting canceled right now." And I was like, what do you mean? Did someone find an
old tweet or something? What are you talking about? And I opened my phone and it
was this Instagram story of me, it was like the ugliest
picture of me you can find. It was like my face open,
it was like screenshotted. And it said, I remember this specifically, 'cause I just couldn't believe it. It said the ugly loser who hosts "All Gas No
Brakes" is a piece of shit. He knowingly abused my
friend and got away with it. If you follow him, I'm gonna
message you and ask you why. So, this person who I don't know, I didn't even know who that
accusation was coming from. They emailed every production company that I was working with, DMed hundreds if not thousands of people. Just saying that I was this piece of shit and I didn't even know
who this person was. So, I was frantically calling and texting every person
that I'd seen intimately for the past year and being
like, hey, are we on good terms? Is everything okay? And then, I figured out that the person was coming from Florida
and I knew who it was. And so, thankfully, I reached
out to the original person who I had the communication with and I said, hey, I think
this might've been you, this might've been your
friend who posted this. Are we good? I'm sorry. I apologized again. I was like, listen, I feel
bad that you feel this way. I wanna do anything
that I can to help you. Again, I apologize. And she said, "Apology accepted. I'm sorry, my friend asked if
she could post on my behalf. And I'm sorry, I was going
through a lot mentally and I saw your fame increasing. And so, I agreed to let
her speak on my behalf." And we made amends in private. I said, okay, I'm here
for you. Let me know. And she said, "Apology's enough. Thank you for taking the
time to speak with me." And that was two years
prior to this text message being sent to my phone eight
minutes before the movie. So, naturally, I wanted
to go on my platforms and talk about what was happening, but I also didn't wanna mess
up the rollout of the movie, and so the PR firm was like, "We got this. We'll handle this for you." And that was, I guess by way, of a TMZ thing that said
Andrew Callaghan is devastated. I'm not sure why they thought that that was gonna make
people be in my favor. But it was just a picture
- Yeah. - of me on NBC that said, Andrew Callaghan,
devastated by allegations. That was their plan, I guess, to show that I was
remorseful or something. - How much of this do you think lawyers pushing this when money
and fame are involved? - Well, I wish I could say the lawyer, but I just can't, that
was involved in this. But I will tell you that I try to lean away from resentment and toward accountability completely. What was my role in the situation? How can I never make someone
feel like that again? What can I do? What changes can I make
to make sure that, one, I never treat someone this way, and, two, to never be
in that position again. - Well, again, thank you
for taking accountability. - And the main reason I talk about that is because it wasn't just that person. There was multiple people who made videos reporting
similar behavior. And so, it's obvious that that was a pattern
of behavior of mine. And so, I made the
apology video to announce that I was taking some time away, because I just needed time away. My entire support system collapsed. My friends at the time disappeared. I was getting obituaries
texted to my phone that were like, hey, it's
been nice knowing you. It was great to see you grow. Good luck. Like I was dead. And yeah, it got dropped from my agency. No one gave me tough love. No one called me to ask
me if I was all right. It was just only everyone
disappeared in a week. - Again, thank you for
taking accountability, but I just hate how many
cowards are out there. Like when people
- Yeah. - hit low points is when you should help, when you should stand with them
if you know their character. - Yeah. And it was just... It was hard to separate
the initial situation that I knew was more or less a setup and the possibly genuine other accounts. And so, it was like, all
right, you know what? At this point in my life, I wanna be on the right side of history. I don't wanna be the
anti-cancel culture mouthpiece. I don't have the mental
strength to fight this. Especially because I was
envisioning the HBO drop to be this like, the world
opens up to me moment and it was just the reverse. But it wasn't so much the media reporting on it that hurt me. It was just little stuff
like a childhood friend that you love seeing, they
unfollowed you on Instagram. Or just seeing someone on the
street that you grew up with and waving at them and they
don't do anything back. And you're just like, oh my
god, man, this is my new life. But what are you supposed to do? Thankfully, I somehow two weeks after, I met an amazing partner who
I'm still with to this day. And I was able to conquer
my two biggest fears, which is monogamy and dogs. I was terrified of dogs and terrified of having a girlfriend. Now, I have a girlfriend
who I love and two dogs. (Andrew sighs) So- - What was the lowest point? - Well, right after this happened, I entered like a recovery programs. Started with AA, but then I
found a more specialized program that dealt with the issues
that I was dealing with. I'd say the hardest point was logically deducing that the lives of my loved ones would be better off if I was gone, you know what I mean? And thinking that my mom and my friends, that their life would be better if I took myself out of the picture. And for one, I just figured,
their friend's canceled. Her son is a disgrace. My family's gonna think
they raised me wrong and my friends, I'm a social
pariah now, I'm a burden. I'm better off dead. And the hard part was I would read stories and books written by parents
who lost their kids to suicide and they reported feeling a
lot of anger after the suicide. So, I tried to think of
what's the way I can do it to get the least amount of anger on behalf of the people who would grieve. 'Cause the hanging,
someone will discover you. So, I figured that
drinking myself to death would be the way to do
it, and I wasn't able to. Yeah, that was just a dark place. I remember hating the people who loved me, because I knew they would grieve and that made me mad, if that makes sense. I was ready to go. I had no will to live. But their grief was like,
I didn't wanna cause that, because I didn't wanna hurt them. So, I was like, I hated
the people who loved me, 'cause they were stopping
me from taking my own life. And it's weird to think that
when I was going through that, if you walk by me in the street,
I look like a normal guy. And so, now, when I walk
around and I see people, I think to myself, you have no idea what that
person is going through. It's crazy that so many people are suffering in complete silence and they don't wear it on them. - Many of the people you
talk to are probably that. - Yeah.
- Many people you've interviewed before,
all this and after, are probably going through some shit. - I also thought if I could write down what I just told you on a piece of paper and I was to do it and
then they found the note, they would take it more seriously, 'cause they would know
that I wasn't lying. - [Lex] Yeah. - But then, if you do it, it reduces the lifespan of
your parents by 15 years. So, I looked at it like I was
taking time away from them. - Well, thank you for the most part, leaning towards accountability,
it's the right path to take. What advice would you give to young men that look up to you on
how they can be good men, especially in regard to women? - If you have any kind of platform, doesn't have to be famous on Instagram, it could be like if you're a pillar of your community in the
culinary world or whatever it is, just be hyper aware of that and remember that you are
inheriting a power dynamic that can create situations where there might be some pressure that you don't even realize is there, but it's definitely there, and you just have to be aware of that. And two, when meeting new partners, having hookups and stuff like that, just try to have a
trauma-informed conversation about their past. Really know the experiences
and the backstory of what a new partner has gone through in
that world of intimacy. Whatever they're comfortable
to share obviously. But I would advise
against one-night stands. I would advise against
hooking up with someone that you're meeting for the first time. Have those conversations prior, because even though it might sound like a
vibe killer, it's not. And if you think that that
conversation is a vibe killer, you probably shouldn't be in that situation in the first place. Especially now how
hypersexualized things are and how common that type of violence is, you need to be able to
have those conversations and stop and say, hey, tell me
a little bit about your past. Is there any triggers that
make you uncomfortable? Let me know how I can be
the best partner to you. And I'm sure that college-aged people are not having those conversations, but I'm sure that it would go a long way. - So, especially when
you're young college-aged, you don't have enough
experience to be able to read a person without
having that conversation. 'Cause a lot of times, you can see the trauma without
explicitly talking about it. - Yeah.
- That takes experience and knowledge and seeing the world. When you're young, you
really don't know shit. Making things a bit more explicit is probably better.
- Yeah. And also as men, we're trained to believe that it's our duty to
be the initiatory party in any type of sexual encounter. Like, oh, like man chases
woman. You know what I mean? You have to be the one to make the move or like she's playing hard to get if she's resistant to your
first compliment or something. I think that that's not
always how it has to be. And that extra caution needs to be placed if you're taking the initiatory
role in an interaction, especially if someone has
a traumatic background. They might agree to do something with you, because they're scared and you might not realize
that's what's going on. But because you don't see
yourself as a predatory person. You don't see yourself as someone who would ever consciously
make someone uncomfortable or cross a boundary. But people have histories
that you might not understand. And for me, as someone
who doesn't have much, honestly, like childhood
trauma or anything like that, it's been an interesting year for me working in therapy and elsewhere, understanding how that affects the mind. And also, I understand that
hurt people hurt people and that someone with
a traumatic background isn't going to have sympathy for applying that traumatic
pain to someone else, even if that person isn't the cause of what
put them in that spot. - If we can go back to Channel 5, can you tell the origin story of that? - Yeah, Channel 5, during
the "All Gas No Brakes" days, we used to tell people that
we were called Channel 5 if we wanted them to stop antagonizing us
while we were filming. 'Cause every town has a Channel 5. So, when people were
like, "What's this for?" If they were being super rude and trying to get in the
camera and be hella obnoxious, we would just say, oh, we're Channel 5. And they would be like, "Oh,
my grandma's gonna see that." And they would leave us alone. So, Channel 5 was a diversion tactic during "All Gas No Brakes". And it just so happened that
we were in Miami Beach one time and this kid came up drinking liquor, trying to yell about whatever they yell about in Miami Beach, like titties or whatever. And we're like, bro, this is Channel 5. Be careful what you say.
And he was like, "For real?" And he just walked off. And I said to my friend at the time, I was like, that sounded
pretty good, right? - Yeah.
- The Channel 5. And he goes, "That does
sound pretty good." He's like, "That's gotta
be trademarked though." No. (Lex laughing) It's not trademark. - Yeah.
- It's crazy, right? There's a Channel 5 in every city, Channel 5 KTLA, Channel
5 Seattle, KOMO News. Dude, Channel 5 itself, we own it. (Andrew and Lex laughing) - Yeah.
- "cause no one's thought of something that simple. 'Cause you'd think you'd have to specify. We own channel5.com,
channel5.news. Dude, we own it. It's awesome.
(Lex laughing) - So, it was the same kind of
spirit as the previous thing. - [Andrew] Yeah. - What was the first one you
did Under the Channel 5 flag? - Miami Beach spring break. (Lex chuckles) - I think I've seen that.
And it's gonna be a callback. I think somebody mentioning
eating ass there too. - [Andrew] That would be the place. - I believe that was- - There's only about five places in the US where people yell about eating ass all the time.
- Mm-hmm. - Bourbon Street,
- Yeah. - South Beach, Miami,
6th Street in Austin, Broadway in Nashville, and I'm just gonna go
ahead and say Times Square. You might not think it, but. - Times Square. Really? - Yeah. They yell about ass there. - Times Square. - I would say Beale Street in
Memphis, but it's not good. - Oh, yeah. (laughs) - Beale Street is like the median age is too high on Beale Street
for anyone to yell about ass. (Lex sharply inhales) (Lex sighs) - Oh, this is a fascinating portrait of America through that specific lens. So, Miami Beach.
- Yeah. - And then, how would
you describe your style of interviewing just now that
you've collected so many? If you had a style, how would you describe your style?
- I guess before especially, it used to be like deadpan. Now, I would describe it as more directed, but still relatively affable, agreeable, deadpan interview style. - Yeah, there's a, like
in the face of absurdity. - Yeah.
- You're just like there with a microphone. There's a comic aspect to it. - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - And that's intentional.
- Yeah. I used to look at the camera like Jim from "The
Office" back in the day. - Yeah.
- I don't do that anymore. - What about the editing? How do you think about the editing? - I still do most of it,
but Susan helps a lot too. It's my associate. Yeah, the editing style, like I said, we pioneered this editing
style that honestly, was inspired a bit by Vic Berger, but we took it to real life. Crash zooms, chopping up vocals a bit to add comedic timing where
it didn't necessarily exist. You might add two seconds
of awkward silence that are built with room tone or you might make everything really fast by cutting silence and switching frames, I mean switching camera angles. But now, we try to be
pretty straightforward, 'cause we wanna be taken more seriously. (Lex chuckles) - Yeah, sure. What's
crash zoom, by the way? - A crash zoom is when the,
like it's artificial zoom that you might add in Adobe Premiere, where the camera zooms
in on someone's face. - Where the resolution is not there. - The resolution's not there unless you have like a
Blackmagic cinema camera. - Which you don't. - We don't. We don't use those. The file size is too big.
- Make it slo-mo. The file, that's the only constraint? - Yeah.
- Okay. - A hundred percent. - And you also do voiceover storytelling. - I think the first time I really did that was in the San Francisco Streets video, because there's so much content about San Francisco homelessness,
Tenderloin shoplifting. But there's not that much
context in those videos about the history of San
Francisco, the housing crisis, nimbyism, random zoning
stuff that sounds boring, but has a major role in the current situation
on the streets there, as to why the Tenderloin
neglected by police and by the city council and the other neighborhoods
like Knob Hill, and North Beach are so nice. So, I added that purposely
to the San Francisco video and then also to the
Philadelphia Streets video to accentuate the reporting and add some historical analysis. - What's your goal with
some of these videos? Like the Philadelphia Streets one? Is it to reveal the full
spectrum of humanity? Or is it also to tell a
story that's almost political about the state, or is-
- Well, number one is always humanization. That's the primary goal, is to
take people in circumstances where they're often news items and remind the public
that these are people with lives and concerns
and dreams just like you. But secondly, we also wanna start introducing more
solution-oriented journalism. So, not just, oh my god, I'm becoming aware of
how horrible this is, but what can you actually do to help? And as you can see with
the Vegas tunnels video, people are responding
pretty positively to it. Here's how you can maybe
help a homeless neighbor, help get them an ID, help
them qualify for housing, or get a job at the scrap yard. There's always ways to help. But so much of the YouTube
world is oversaturated by just endless videos
of people suffering. And the comments are always
like, wow, so horrible. But what does that really do for somebody? - You've interviewed many rappers. - [Lex] Yes. - Educate me. - There's a lot to it.
- Yeah. Can you explain this drill rap situation? What is drill rap?
- It's an evolving situation. Drill began in 2010. Some people say it was
Chief Keef in Chicago. I think it was King Louie in Chicago. But I think all of it was very influenced by Waka Flocka Flame, who dropped an album
called Flockaveli in 2010 that was hyper violent,
adrenaline-boosting rap music made by people who were
actually in the streets. So, in the '90s, you had 50 Cent, you had rapers rapping about
whatever gangster shit, selling crack, and beating people up, but they weren't actually doing it. Drill has a true crime
component to where drill fans want to know that the person rapping about catching bodies
does in fact kill people. So, drill is, it's pretty horrifying. It sounds great, but
it started in Chicago, then it spread to England, and now it's bounced back to New York, like the Bronx and Brooklyn specifically, and spread from New York
to the rest of the country. So, now, there's probably a drill rapper every 10 square miles. - So, these are, as opposed to pretending to be a gangster and killing people, you get some credibility
by actually doing it. - Yes. And the fans are typically not in the communities that
are affected by poverty. So, they're like
superheroes to White kids. (Lex chuckles) - It's dark. - And not just White kids, but just anyone who's not in the hood. It's not necessarily a race thing. There's White drill rappers too. Slim Jesus was a big one. He's out of the picture now, but there's White drill rappers. - Slim Jesus. You made a video on O-Block.
- Yeah. - What is O-Block? The place, the culture, the people, you- - O-Block is a housing
project in South Chicago, in the Englewood area where
Michelle Obama grew up. It's also where Chief
Keef was born and raised. I don't know if he was born
there, but he was raised there. And he is the forefather of modern drill music as we know it. So, these are the projects
where Drill began. It's also the first place where
you have that intersection of drill music and true crime, because O-Block has a lot of rappers. And then, nearby is an
area called St. Lawrence AKA Tookaville, which has
a lot of rappers as well. And so, these two rival
drill gangs basically have a lot of history and it
connects to music at large. - So, you've interviewed people there. - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - Was there any concern for your safety? - No, I think that O-Block
has calmed down a lot. For one, it has security, so you can't even really get in and out. But two, I think that O-Block's trying to rebrand itself a lot,
because it could be, 'cause Lil Durk's avoiding a RICO charge. Could be for a variety of reasons. I know you don't know
exactly what that means, but. (Lex laughing) - Lil Durk-
- Rapper Little Durk is affiliated with O-Block.
- Yep. - And a lot of people have been murdered in retribution for
killings that Lil Durk may or may not have influenced
the ordering of, but anyways.
- And Lil Durk (Andrew chuckles) documented the killings via rap music probably.
- No. Okay, I know you don't know about drill, but Lil Durk was associated
with a rapper named King Von. And King Von perhaps paid
for the assassination of a rapper named FBG Duck who got killed in Chicago's
Gold Coast neighborhood. It's possible. The O-Block 6 are drill-associated, not rappers, but just shooters, and they perhaps operating
on King Von's behalf, went and killed FBG Duck. King Von was Lil Durk's
artists. King Von's now dead. So, there's a definitely a concern that some of the Fed
charges will fall on Durk. Not sure if that's true, but it's rumors in the hip hop community. So, O-Block right now,
and when I film the video, is trying to go through
a major image rehab. If you go on any Instagram
of anyone in O-Block, they've all converted to Islam. And so, they post pictures of themselves praying in the morning and have captions like, put
the guns down, let's pray. So, I think when I went there, they saw it as a good opportunity to
do a positive rebrand. And so, I interviewed a
rapper named Boss Top, who was there all the way back in 2011 when Chief Keef was coming up. And so, he basically
ensured my safe protection. But he didn't even need to. They're all very friendly and they know exactly what's
up with YouTube stuff. - I like how 2011 is the
old days, like the ancient, - Oh, yeah.
- the founding fathers. - [Andrew] I was in eighth grade. (Andrew and Lex laughing) (palm taps) - Oh, man. Time flies
when you're having fun. - [Andrew] It sure does. - Lil Durk. Where's the Lil Durk now? - [Andrew] Atlanta. - Hmm. So, you left Chicago. - Yeah.
- Not safe. - Yeah, every rapper has
to leave their hometown. It's what I did. - It's a journey. (Andrew and Lex laughing) - Seattle would've taken me out, bro. - You do interview a lot of people. That's like a top comment, but it speaks to the reality of the fact that you always find somebody
rapping or you, yeah, you create the space for people to rap. - Yeah.
- What's that about? - I don't know, man.
- Well, they're usually really good. - [Andrew] You think so? - I appreciate it. - Well, hell yeah, man. - Rappers,
- In their own way. - since I touched a microphone, rappers have gravitated toward me. - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - I think there's something happening- - You're a rapper whisperer? - I think there's something happening on a deeper cosmic spiritual level - Yeah.
- that lets the mind of rappers know that
they have a safe place in front of our camera crew. - You have an interview with Crip Mac? Who's-
- I do. Free Crip Mac. (Lex chuckles) He's in jail right now. - Oh, he is?
- Yeah. - Is that a hashtag? Free-
- Yeah, for sure. - That's an intense interview.
People should go watch it. People should go watch
all your interviews, but that one is pretty intense. - [Andrew] Thanks. - I was a little afraid for your life. - Oh, Crip Mac's the
safest guy in the world. - [Lex] He's a sweetheart. - Oh, definitely, dude.
- Yeah. But it's fun. - I feel more safer on Crip Mac than I do with any given pedestrian. - Yeah, he was loud and flavorful, - Yeah.
- I should say. So, who's he? What's his story? - Well, his name's Trevor. He grew up in Ontario,
California in the Inland Empire. Moved to Texas with his
mom after his dad left. His mom started dating a cop
from Houston named Mr. Gary. His mom found Mr. Gary getting anally penetrated by a coworker, and so she booked Crip Mac a one-way Greyhound ticket to
LA where he joined the Crips. - That's a good story. (Andrew and Lex laughing) (companion faintly speaks) - It's true.
- Oh, you've jumped right to Mr. Gary
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
- in 10 seconds- - Yeah.
- So good. - I'm just saying that he's a classic case of somebody without a father
figure who found camaraderie and sense of belonging and purpose in a street gang, which in LA is like a rule
of law in most of the city. - I forget what context earlier, talking about martial arts and fighting and he's gotta work on
his punching for him. - Yeah, I think so. He gets into a lot of
fights in jail though. And from what I've heard, he wins about half of them,
- He does that? - so (faintly speaks)
- All right. What'd he go to jail for now? - Firearm possession. It
was a probation violation. - [Lex] Oh. - It's too bad. - All right. So, Philly, you went to the border, - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - occupy Seattle protests,
you went to Ukraine. - [Andrew] Yeah. - What are some interesting things that stand out to you from memory? Just as I asked the
question, some interesting- - I was in jail at the border for a while. That was horrible. - [Lex] What was that like?
Was that your first time? - Yeah, well, I didn't know that I couldn't hop my
own border as an American. I'm thinking, this is my country. I can get in any way that I want. Wrong. You can only enter the US through an official port of entry, which I learned the hard way, 'cause I got arrested by border patrol and held as a detainee at a
migrant center for a few days. - What was that like? - Horrible. - [Lex] Which aspect? - Well, for one, I don't know. It was just to be in a place like that and I probably sound like
such a wimp right now, 'cause I know someone's watching this who's done some hard time. But we thought we were gonna
do at least six months in jail, 'cause the guards freaked us out and were like, "You're being
charged with a federal crime. You know what you boys did is serious. We're waiting on word from San Antonio about whether or not we're
gonna extradite you." So, we're just sitting
in these cells alone, most of the time in solitary
with no pillows, just a- - [Lex] No pillows. - No pillows, no mat, nothing.
(Lex laughing) Just a space blanket. And
I was sleeping on my shoes. - Yeah.
- Stinking up the place. It was no good. - You mentioned the UFO convention. - [Andrew] Yeah. - What have you learned from
those guys? The ufologists. - I really wanna know
what you think about that. That's the one question
that I wanna reverse on you, because you've talked to so many people. Do you think that aliens
have actually visited Earth? - Yeah, so.
- When? - When? Exact dates? I do... I think there's alien
civilizations everywhere and I talk to a lot of people
that have doubts about it. I just think... I even suspect there's a intelligent alien
civilization in our galaxy. And I just can't imagine
them not having visited us. So, I lean on that. What that actually looks
like, I don't know. The stuff we're seeing in
terms of UFO sightings, I think that's much more likely to the degree it's real, it's much more likely government projects. So, military, Lockheed
Martin, this kind of stuff. - So, you think that they
have knowledge of it? - Yeah, yeah. - One thing I think about
with aliens is scale. So, we have this idea that an
alien would be a gray alien or a almost humanoid lookalike that would visit us in human
form, arms, legs, head. But who's to say that they're
not able to shrink down to microscopic size with
the same neural capacity? - Yeah. Or just have a very
difficult to perceive form. - But they would go small, not big. - No, I think that would
take a humanoid-like form just to be able to
communicate with humans. I think that the big challenge with aliens is to be able to find a common language. So, if you come to another planet and you suspect that there's some kind of complexity going on, but it looks nothing like humans, you have to find a common language. - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - And I think aliens would try to take physical form that's similar, - Yeah.
- that us dumb humans would understand. - Language is really interesting too. I have this series that I'm gonna announce for the first time on here, but I'm really interested in
endangered languages in the US. There's like 150 languages in the US with less than 1,000 speakers. - Wow.
- And I wanna help spearhead efforts to
preserve some of these. Like for example, Hawaiian sign language, 15 of those people left. - [Lex] Holy shit. - Because when Hawaii got annexed, the ASL community tried to make it, so the deaf native Hawaiians wouldn't be able to speak
their native sign language. And so, they would do it under the desks at schools for the deaf and blind. And they would get their mouth washed out with soap and stuff if they so much as did
the Hawaiian hand signs. Also, the Gullah Geechee language in the South Carolina Sea Islands. Hilton Head Island and
stuff, that's like a, it's almost a Creole language
that's been in the US for hundreds of years
existing in isolation, that's being threatened by
golf course developments. I don't know how into language you are, but I've been getting
super nerded out about it. - Actually, I'm interviewing
somebody tomorrow who's an expert in human language. He's from MIT, studying the
syntax of a lot of languages, including in the Amazon jungle, the peoples that live in
the Amazon jungle region. Yeah, it's fascinating. Human
language is fascinating. And also the barriers that creates. And also how the games are played to what you're speaking by governments. This is part of the story
of Russia and Ukraine is a battle over language. The Ukrainian language is
a symbol of independence, which is why they are trying to make it the primary
language of the nation. - Mm-hmm.
- And so, sometimes, the language represents the
culture and the peoples. - Yeah.
- And it's like intricately tied to the culture
- Yeah. - of the people. - I've been trying to learn Navajo. - Which languages do you know? - Spanish and English. - Spanish well? - Si. (Lex laughing) - I don't know Spanish that well. So, that passes me. Yeah, dude,
- Okay. - you're fluent based-
- That means yes. - Oh, it doesn't.
(Andrew chuckles) Hola. (Andrew and Lex laughing) - That was good.
- Yeah. - That was real Cancun spring break. - Well, I actually speak fluent Spanish according to Spotify, 'cause every episode is
translated over dub by AI in Spanish.
- Oh my god. - [Lex] Yeah, there's a very- - You have a Spanish
robot assigned to you? - As a Spanish robot, I sound like incredibly intelligent and intellectual in Spanish. - Not a Fridman. - Exactly. (Lex chuckles) From everything you've done,
all the people you've seen, do you think most people
are good (inhales) underneath it all? - Yeah. - So, the ones that do
all the extreme shit- - Okay, I'll put it like this. Most people think they're doing the best
thing for the world. I don't think anyone, except for maybe a small
fraction of sociopaths, wakes up every day and says, I'm gonna fuck somebody's life up today. I think the far majority of people are fighting for what they think is right and do want to see America succeed and want us to be in a happy place where no one is subjugated. I just think people have
drastically different ideas of what means will get us there. And unfortunately, that's leading to a lot of misunderstandings between cultures. And yeah, I think that
most people are good. I've been through some things
that leads me to believe that a lot of people though are primarily motivated by self-interest. And that in a fight or flight situation, most people will choose flight. So, I don't know if people
are courageous as a whole, but I think generally good. But the energy to stand up for what's right, I'm not sure about that. - They have the capacity though - Yeah.
- to do good. - I think human beings are
inherently selfish as well. But I don't think that
selfish is inherently bad. I think humans are primarily
motivated by self-interest, but generally have positive intentions. - I do hope more humans
rise to the occasion and have courage, courage of their convictions,
courage to have integrity. But yeah, I think that
most people are good and they want to do good and they have the capacity
to do a lot of good. - [Andrew] Mm-hmm. - That's why I have hope for this whole thing we got going on. How do you heal the misunderstandings between people you think? - Listening. It's the only option we have. No forced education, no forced meetings or mediations between political opponents. Just listen to more
people and really listen. Try to get rid of whatever
preconceived notions you might have about how you should feel about someone you are
supposed to disagree with. And just keep your ears
and your heart open to people that you don't know
and your life will change. - Keep your heart open. - A lot of people are scared to listen. - Well, Andrew, I'm a big fan and thank you for being one of the best listeners in the world. - Hey, man.
- And showing the full spectrum of humanity to us, so we can listen as well and learn. And just thank you for doing
everything you're doing. Keep me-
- Hey, man, thanks so much for having me on. You're a great man.
- Thank you, brother. - I appreciate it. - Thanks for listening to this conversation
with Andrew Callaghan. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you some words from Hunter S. Thompson. "The edge, there is no
honest way to explain it, because the only people who really know where it is are the ones
who have gone over." Thank you for listening and
hope to see you next time.