#2041 - Steve Strope
2023-09-28 02:30:03
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Just had a set of these on at band rehearsal on Sunday.
You look like you just had band rehearsal.
That's right!
I hate to make you feel old, but we've known each other for 20 years.
Okay. Dude. Thanks.
How wild is that? Does time fly or what? Yeah, that's... We've been friends for 20 years.
That's pretty... Really?
20 years.
You know what I did? I also experienced the odd time continuum to brief myself for this. I'm like, I should probably look back when I did this, this, and this, and this, that, and the other thing. I'm going, holy crap, I forgot. That was like 2004..
Are you kidding me?
2004 seems so long ago. Yeah. That was the Fear Factor days. Yeah. That's like round around when I met you.
When I brought the barracuda to you. Fish. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, because you... Yeah. Because it was... Well, I have my handy cheat sheet here.
You actually made a cheat sheet to prepare for this?
Well, there's...
Dude, I got paper. Dude, by the way, the shirt, it's exquisite.
I got it. I know, but... Can I officially gift you in front of the camera? Sure, please.
Please do.
Okay. So...
So this is a shirt with the Nova that Steve built for me. Yeah. Steve built the greatest Nova the world has ever seen, a 1969 Nova with...
Camaro-shaped sheet metal. Yeah, you have to see it. Yeah.
You really, we could talk about it all day, but people have to actually see it online.
Lots of fun. I wanted to do the kind of...
That's a dope fucking shirt.
So there's a mixture of stuff, like those clouds, and stuff are taken from those crazy Chrysler ads in the 70s, like the Roadrunner stuff with the smoke building up behind it. Wow. We copied that. And then the sun thing was just in, like every other 70s artwork I could find. And then, of course, the prerequisite small UFO.
And I wasn't going to take your Joe Rogan experience, so... And being that my other life was in rock and roll, of course, I leaned towards the Hendrix of RU experience. So it came out pretty cool.
There it is. There's the car. The t-shirt's very cool. Yeah, there it is. There's the car.
The coolest Nova of all time. I love that thing, man.
Thank you.
It drives so well.
It does.
I mean, it's not just so cool looking. Like, it drives so well. The independent suspension, the way you set it up, was it Art Morrison?
Yeah, Morrison stuff. I went a little softer on the spring in the front and, believe it or not, a little stiffer on the rear and played with it quite a few times before I delivered it to you.
It's magnificent.
Yeah, I was very... Because I set it up. I didn't set it up for track attack, because that's not what you're going to do.
Right. No, I'm just going to cruise around.
So I set it up, so when you go over those little joints in the road going onto a bridge, it doesn't...
Leave that up in the background, Jimmy. Just leave that there.
That was the amazing photography of Wes Allison.
Wes Allison, you're the shit.
He is the shit.
That's a great picture. I think I need to get a steel version of that picture. Put it up on our... Yeah, let's do that. How big do you want it?
I don't know. Pretty big. We need a big one, right?
Just to see the details. It came out real nice and the funny thing is, or the... I don't know about funny, but the point of it was is there's so much done and none of it looks like anything was done.
Yeah, it really does look like just a really cool 1969 car. If you don't know the manipulation that you guys did to the sheet metal.
Well, then, not only that, the grill is changed. The little headlight doors on the side, those are changed. I used to, I would joke with different Nova people and go, give me a hundred bucks if you can tell me what I changed in the front. Oh, wow. And they're like, we added bars.
The grill is actually taller. Those bars.
What does it look like in real life? Do they just have black spaces?
What they had was a piece of plastic that came from underneath the bumper and it went underneath that headlight and then came up. So you see on the very outer edge how there's like, I can't count from here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, like eight. Yeah. Those bars right there.
The bottom three are added.
Wow. Jamie, can you pull up a 1969 Nova grill?
Or a Nova front end.
Nova front end.
Yeah.
But there's lots of little changes.
This is what it looks like.
Yeah. Well, yeah.
Can't see it in that.
There you go. You can see how there's just a piece of plastic under it and it comes up. The silver plastic comes up. So those ribs aren't. That's not the greatest photograph.
That's a better photo. That looks custom.
No, he's got the plastic coming up.
Yeah, he's got something else.
You can see that piece of plastic come up.
That's a beautiful Nova too. Boy.
So we extended the grill and extended those outer things to just fill up the space. It just looks better. It's such a unique looking car.
Yeah, there it is. That car is just so unique. And I think it's one of those muscle cars that really never got its due, because it kind of started out as more of an economy kind of car.
Yeah.
And Nova wasn't like. If you had a Barracuda, you were the fucking man. Right. If you had a Nova, it's like, oh, you couldn't afford a Barracuda. Like if you had a Duster.
Unless you had the Nova SS with the 396.. But those were few and far between. There weren't a lot of people that ordered that.
When I was a kid, this kid in our high school had a Duster. What was the other one? There was a Duster. There's a Dodge. A Dart.
Yeah. He had a Duster.
Or a Valiant.
Yeah. And nobody gave it any respect. I was like, that's a cool car. Like, what's wrong with you people? But there was like this thing where, like some of those older cars were less desirable.
So I'm in high school and so I graduated in 85.. So we're talking about, I think, I think my friend had this car in like 84.. So, you know, it really was only 14 years old. Which is kind of crazy.
Yes, it is.
That's super crazy.
Like 86 when we were driving around, a 68 was only what? 18 years old. Right. Wasn't an old car. Not super old.
Yeah, 18 years old ain't shit. That's like 2005..
Where you and I are about to do math.
Right.
That's bonkers. 23 minus 18, yeah. That's bonkers.
Which is like kind of a new car.
Yeah.
Like, if you have a 2005 car, you can't differentiate them at all from a 2020.. Unless you're like a car connoisseur.
Right, yeah, sure.
You know, if you have a 2005 Camry, it looks like a 2020 Camry.
It's interesting how time marches on, how perception of length of time. It's true. Like you were saying when we sat down with our friendship, let alone everything else. It's like, how is that 20 minutes? Oh, it's going very fast.
That's the one thing our older generation, when we were growing up, told us. That was the one truth. It goes so fast. Yeah. Enjoy it, because it's car.
It's also because, when you were a child, one year was literally like one-tenth of your life. It was so long.
It was an eternity.
Because you had so few points of reference. But then, as you get older and you have more points of reference and more experience and more life, then you realize like, oh my God, time is full. I don't have much time at all. No one does.
It's, it's, it's amazing how.
It goes quick.
How the boost kicks in and all of a sudden 40,, 50, 60, what the hell just happened?
And you're just like, let's hang in there as long as I can. I got some stem cells today. I did? Yeah. I was, I was reading this thing that this year, I'll send it to you, Jamie.
But they believe now that through stem cell technology, they're going to be able to extend lifespan far greater. And the article said something about like having people work until they're 120, which is like not a good selling point.
Yeah.
Here, I'll send it to you, Jamie.
Hey, you can suffer longer.
Yeah. Hey, you can hate what you do longer. You got it already? Oh, there it is.
And it will start within a decade, says doctor to the star. So it doesn't, they're not necessarily saying you'll be working until you're 120, but living and working.
Hmm.
So this guy is, uh, using stem cells. I believe we can create prolongation of life. Von Schwartz cells. That sounds like. Yeah.
The beginning of every heart. I believe we can have prolonging of life.
We can do it. Dun, dun, dun. Oh, goody.
Probably, within a couple of years, people can live to be 120, 150 years old. If not longer than that, it's not just bed bound, non-communicating individuals, but really active individuals who participate in social life, professional life, and have a quality of life. Because that's the goal. Yeah. I'm in, let's go.
I'm enjoying life. You know, I'm enjoying, uh, doing stuff and, uh, my friends that are, um, older, that are having like health problems. It really makes me realize, like, man, you gotta stay on top of everything. Because if you don't, if it slides off and then you have to try to bring it back up, it's way harder than maintaining.
Yeah. I'm yeah. Yeah. You know, the stem cell thing, uh, if he could, if Von Doom there could get on, uh.
On the eyeball stuff.
Fixing the eyeball. I'd be very appreciative.
That would have, do the, let's tell everybody what happened to you, because this is a crazy thing. Um. Oh.
Uh.
It's a real bummer, right? That you just out of nowhere started seeing dark spots, right?
No. What happened was, well, little background. I had already, um, stage one was going into your local Dr. Eye guy because you have metal in your eye.
Oh, wow.
Cause. that's some of the fun that happens. Even when you're wearing safety glasses. All the haters calm down. We wear safety glasses.
How did it show? Oh, it just bounces around. You know, you're working with a carbide bit spinning at, you know, 15,000 RPM. Stuff bounces around. But since then I have, I, I've been using, I found this place in France that makes these motor, antique motorcycle, World War I aircraft goggles.
The ones that Nazis used to use for duels.
I don't know that one.
You don't know that one?
But it, but it seals to your eyes and it's got little vents in it so they don't fog up. So, but anyway, I got metal in my eye, which is, uh, uh, for those of you who haven't done it, it's lots of fun. Um, you, hold still, you're wide awake and they come at you with a Dremel drill bit and they drill it out. So, and you, and the, and the instructions are hold still.
Don't move. Right. Oh my God.
I mean, they put a numbing drop in, but you still see the drill bit coming and yet easy, easy. You can handle the stuff you've been through. I'm sure you could handle it. Yeah. That's wild.
But so, so I've been drilled a couple of times. That sounds wrong.
And it, if they came up with a photo of my eye, it looked like a golf ball, little dimples when the drill comes in. So anyway, that guy is like, you know, when they're in there, they're, if they're experienced cats or they've just happened to look around. Right. Yeah. And he goes, Hey, um, I think you should come back and talk to our other doctor, so-and-so, and have him do some tests, because I saw some stuff.
Don't know. But I think it'd be wise if you blah, blah, blah. So I go in, we do the test and the guy goes, and this is, wow, this is a while ago, uh, 14, 15 years ago. Here we are again with that time portal.
Right.
Um, he goes, you have advanced glaucoma. Then I go, what the hell is that? And he goes, it's like creeping death. It slowly takes your peripheral and most adults don't know that they're going blind until they're 80. and it's moved so slow that you don't, you don't notice the change.
Right. Well, mine's trucking along. And so we start with a medication that lowers in your eye. You basically got a faucet and a drain. And if the drains plugged up or if the faucets on overload, it's, uh, acting not like a water balloon, but pressure builds.
that pressure is, uh, think of your optic nerve, right? Your brain is the, um, cable TV company. Your eye is the expensive flat screen TV and the cable connecting the two of them, right? That pressure building up is like somebody with a heel of his boot digging on that cable. And sooner or later, right?
So you take medicine to reduce the pressure, so it doesn't eat away at the optic nerve. Okay, great. We got that under control. We're killer. So then, um,
Oh, probably eight, nine years ago, I have cataract surgery in my right eye and, um, put the cataract lens in and it's like, oh my gosh, it's a crystal clear and beautiful and incredible. You know, stoked on it, about a year passes and I'm at PRI, which is the race, real serious race version of SEMA. it's in Indianapolis. So there's no fuzzy dice there. It's all race car parts and stuff like that.
And I'm walking around and I just, I don't know how to describe it, but it actually moved in stages, like a curtain coming down and just gray. And then you just saw gray. And it was my retina falling off, detaching. So I'm in Indy and I fly back and get together with the doctors and they're like, you got to put that shit up.
And, um, instead of doing the long version, I'll give you the short version. Seven surgeries later. And every time you have the surgery, there's stitches in my eye. I am. And that's fun.
That's way more fun than the drilling. and you're laying face down for a week. Oh boy. Can't move. And it just kept falling off.
They couldn't, they couldn't go up. So I went to another surgeon. I also have a buckle permanently sewn into my eye. They try to change the shape of the eye to promote the retina staying up better. Oh boy.
So anyway, um, got to new doctor, great guy, Dr. Osmali, back home in Cali. And he's like, I got this man. There's other guys, they're losers. We're going to get it up there.
We're going to stick it up. That was surgery six. And, um, it didn't hold. And he was more, I think he was more depressed than I was. And, uh, so we scheduled seven and he sat down with me.
I remember, before we went into, uh, into the operating room, he goes, look, I, I don't think I can, I'm going to go try to save your eye. I'm not going to save your sight. Because, and he, he, he did it this way, which I thought was cool. He went and did a little research to speak in my language. And he goes, when you're trying to weld metal, if, uh, both the pieces are kind of rusty and beat up or whatever, that it won't weld, very good, right?
And I go, true. He goes, so you gotta have clean metal to clean metal to weld. And I go, yes, that's true. He goes, well, all the attempts have just frayed the living shit out of the, um, retina, so I'm going to cut away the yucky stuff and I'm going to have a new edge to, they, they use a laser. They basically, the only thing they know how to do is tack, welded up.
That's what they do. Right? So he goes, I'm going to make new clean edges. I'm going to weld it up. You're going to lose some sight, at least cause I'm taking away part of the retina, but I'm going to save your eye.
Cause, if the eye, if we can't get something going on in there, then your body will kill off your eye. It shrinks back. It's painful. Pop it out, put a glass eye in. And I go, yeah, let's, yeah, let's not.
So he did that. And, uh, he goes, I cut away about a third of the retina and I had a visual, like a vertical rectangle of sight. Right. Not all the way over to here, to here, here to here. But, uh, fast forwarding, scar tissue moved over and pretty much just eliminated.
And they're like, we can go in. and I'm like, no, no, no. We're not going to go in and do anything. Um, so this one's basically gone. You know, that's that for now.
Uh, we'll see if science.
Do you know who Michael Bisping is?
No, sir.
Michael Bisping is one of the toughest human beings has ever walked the face of the earth. This is what I said. And not just because he was UFC middleweight champion, but because Michael Bisping fought the last 10 fights of his UFC career, including winning the title, blind in one eye. And he didn't tell them, he hid it.
Oh, I heard about that.
Yeah. He hid it.
He didn't tell anybody.
Do you know, gangster? You have to be, to want to be fighting the best fighters in the world. Dan Henderson.
And not being able to see over here.
Anderson Silva. And you can't see out of one eye. Like his, his one eye is gone, man. Yeah.
I understand.
Which is fighting world-class fighters that you can see. his right eye is completely missing. It's like, it's just foggy.
Yeah.
He wears like a little thing that goes over it, like a lens. So it looks normal. But, uh, he's a fucking stud. That guy fought 10 fights with one eye. I mean, just think of fight with two eyes is fucking terrifying and fighting against the best guys in the world.
And he wins the title, knocks out Luke Rockhold with one eye.
Yeah. Well, it took a lot. I would sit there and practice like basketball into a garbage cans, just to try to retain the, um. Depth perception. Depth perception.
That's the real issue, right?
Yeah. It's, it's difficult. And then also it's, it's frustrating when you're, uh, so anyway, the, the fun of I'll interrupt myself to continue with the fun. So now I'm where I'm at. Right.
And they're like, your other eye is going to need cataract surgery. Oh, Jesus. And I'm like, so I did ask when the retina fell off. Hey, did the cataract surgery have anything to do with that? Possibly, you know, and every doctor and every specialist and everybody I talked to all said the same thing.
I'm paraphrasing. Well, any procedure on your eye may, could, might possibly have the possibility of.
Like one of them commercials for a pharmaceutical drug.
You know? So it's like, did the operation on your eye cause the retina to fall off?
Uh, anything could, maybe.
Anything could maybe.
So anyway, so now I've got to have cataract surgery. on this one. I got a great guy. Who's one of the best in the West coast, et cetera, et cetera. We do the surgery and there is a mistake in, cause.
they're account for my pressures. They tried to keep the pressures low, cause my glaucoma. Well, they went a little too far. And my pressures were down to your normal eyes run. Like your eyes probably run at like 20, 22,, you know, maybe even a little bit higher, but right around there, for pressure inside, we'll call it, we'll call it air pressure, you know, it's not the right term, but so mine, with medication, we keep it down at like 13 and 12..
Right. Okay. So, um, when, after the second cataract surgery, the one on the one working eye, they had dropped the pressure solo. I coughed and it blew out blood vessels inside my eye, which when you wake up and you look, it looks like it's snowing inside your, it looks like it's snowing and I'm like, what the hell is going on? And at the same time, we did a special little surgery to like drill out the drain tube.
Because in my eyes, the faucets wide open and the drain tubes plugged. Oh boy. That builds the pressure. So the medicine turns the faucet down and clears away the drain tube. Right.
So we drill out the drain tube. I'm over, I'm making this web, I'm sure there's eye guys listening. Well, that's not technically, look.
Like the describing mechanical. Right.
They drilled the damn tube open. Right. So all the blood goes down and plugs that. Okay. So that ruined that.
Yay. And so they rushed me and they basically take a needle and insert fluid into my eye. I'm wide awake. Mind you,
just too little. You ever been where the two handles under the table?
Oh yeah. You gripping them? Yeah. Oh, my God.
Motherfucker.
Do they have your head secured or anything?
No, you just put it in the little foamy breeze.
Oh boy.
So they do that. And that was miscalculated. And the pressures went to like 62.. And I, I was, I was, um, what's the word? terrified.
No, I, I was throwing up. I couldn't stand up. I was so disoriented because it was, I mean, it was screwing with the deal. And so the doc, who, again, great guy, I'm still, I'm not slamming him. And he actually met me at his office.
So like, I don't even know when it was three in the morning or, and, and I'm throwing up in his bushes. He's out front. Oh my God. Right. And he did this three times, head in the thing, hands on the handle, took a blade, lifted my eye and let the, let the pressure out, let the fluid out.
So I'm like digging that. Right. So now we get the pressures under control. Right. And so that was, uh, two to three years ago.
And believe me, every day when I wake up and I can see, Mike, is this the day this retina falls off? I'm not going to have a repeat of the last one.
Oh my God. I have clammy hands. I really do.
I'm the one living through it. You don't have to worry about it. You're good.
Yeah, but still.
It's for you. Yeah. It's, you know, but it's like anything else. When someone has something, they,
uh, when sitting is always over your shoulder, you can either focus on it and worry about it, or just go to the shop and build some cool cars, you know?
Well, I'm glad you chose the latter. Yeah. I guess that's the only choice to make.
Yeah. You know, I can't. So I do go like every four to six weeks. I have a lady I love, um, Dr. Tor, I go into her office.
Luckily, it's like a mile and a half from my house. So I go down and we check my pressures. I don't have to. She's like, you're fine. Come in six months.
I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm coming in once a week, you know, but I, I come in at like four to six weeks. We check the pressures. We look at the retinas. We, you know, so we're a day, we're.
Have you looked in the stem cells? Was there anything?
There's nothing massive now. I have a meeting with the Dr. Asmali. I'm getting together with him next month. And he's down at, uh, I think it's UCLA.
He's real hip. That stuff.
And I'm still hip. People are still hip.
Yeah. He's hip.
That t-shirt you're wearing with your fucking band hair.
Still hip, man. So.
So he's hip to all the. Yeah.
I'm going to grill him again and I'm interested. I'm going to talk with him, cause I don't know. I was so, when they were saying we'll go in and clean the, the scar tissue. I'm like, absolutely.
Let me, um, connect you to, uh, my friend Brigham. Uh, he owns ways to well, which is a stem cell clinic in Austin. And he is, he was one of the most amazing guests I ever had on the podcast, where explained how these things work. And, but one of the things that he does is he's, he's always up on the latest research in terms of like what. he's the one who sent me that thing.
This latest article.
Oh, the thing that was up on the screen.
The beginning of the horror movie.
This will make you forever soldiers.
Forever, you will be connected to the big machine. Oh, terrific. Um, I'm in. But let me connect you to him and he'll, he'll know what's going on in terms of like, if there's anything going on with eyeballs, there's a lot of really good stuff with, uh, neurodegenerative issues. Um, people that have, uh, all sorts of, uh, neurological issues have gone down.
I know Dr. Reardon from Panama was talking about that. He's the first guy I ever had come on and talk about stem cells. He's, uh, the guy that came out with Mel Gibson. I don't know if you ever saw that one.
Oh yeah.
Oh, that guy.
Okay. I, I, um, how it was described to me was again, there, there were, at least he was being honest. He was like, the retina is like brain tissue. We know what it is. And that's, um, yeah, that's about it.
We can't reproduce it. We can't copy it. We can't make it. We can't. Well, I, my, again, all they do is tack, welded up with lasers.
My hope is they're going to be able to make new ones, because one of the things they've been able to do with stem cells, if they, they've actually made a woman's, uh, bladder, I believe, I believe they reconstructed a, an actual bladder with stem cells, with her, her tissue, and then put it in her body. Find out if that's true. I think that's true. Hmm. Which is obviously.
it seems like that would be a less complicated thing than, you know, than an eyeball that has to like take it. Yeah.
And I've heard of them trying to, or somebody doing an eyeball. Really? Because it's easier to make the whole thing than try to replicate.
Right. That's what I was thinking.
But I'm like, how are you going to connect it to all those optic nerves? How are you? What the? Yeah. What are you going to do there?
And what does that do to the, like, what does that go South? And then, all of a sudden, you forget your childhood. You know what I mean? Like, what's, what's connected back there?
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how they're going to do it.
Weird dreams about hanging out with your brother that are going to be just gone forever.
Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. I, I, I'll be interested to talk with a Smalley again when I'm, when I'm back in and just see if there's any new, cause, I'm down for it.
Jamie, did you find anything about the making eyeballs?
Yeah. You were looking up the bladder. Did you find that? Is that real?
Making?
I've found. it's that real. I think it's real, but I never know. I mean, I say things sometimes and I go, okay, let me check. Cause.
like a lot, you know, I don't expect to be talking about people making bladders. It just, you know, this wasn't a part of the plan today.
It's just how it goes.
Oh, I'm the benefit.
We all, we all, we all, have the benefit. It's just a real conversation. Yeah. The quick search shows that there's definitely studies on bladder regeneration, but there's a difference between them, like getting a functional urinary tract, kind of like functional bladder. I see.
So I think it does. From what I've looked at.
I partially see.
In an animal, in a small animal, I think, is what it said. They didn't do it to a woman. So I was just looking into it, and then you kind of cut me off. Okay, go ahead. Try it.
Try to find it for a woman. Cause I'm pretty sure I read that. I was very impressed. They could have got me, though. They could have got me some clickbait bullshit.
They get me so many times. They get me these motherfuckers.
Look at that woman's bladder.
That's their job. You got me. It's fair and square. That's the job. Their job is to fucking make some shit that you're going to click on.
Right. So if they can make the most outrageous version of what is kind of true.
Right.
It's iffy at best.
It's a little iffy, but it's kind of true. A new bladder made for myself. Gave my life back. Bioprinting human tissue. That's the same thing.
Is that it? No, this is from 2018.. It's not the same thing. Yeah, that's it. This was a little kid, though.
Is it a girl? Luke Masella. Does he identify as a girl?
Way to push.
Sorry, Luke.
Push that to the edge.
Trying to push gender ideology on Luke.
Does he identify as a girl? Sure. Why not?
I'm just trying to be right.
Maybe on Wednesday.
I'm just trying to be right. I mean, there are stories that are shown. I don't know if I might have to find something specific to find the one you're talking about.
Hell with that. Find the eyeball.
Yeah, let's find the eyeball. The eyeball's more important to Steve.
Yeah.
To all of us.
A little closer for me. So anyway, I'm going to revisit. Background. And ask him if we have to go in like they did before to scrape off the scar tissue. Because I did have a vertical slot of sight.
Because this eye has a new cataract lens, which is still in there.
Right.
And I remember when I.
But the scar tissue's covered over it.
Yeah, when I could walk around again, and I was walking outside, you know, I'd cover this eye and there would be a, instead of this, it would be like that. A vertical, full height, but just not as wide. But clear sight. And I'm like, well, you know, it's been a while now. If they can clear that off and I can get that, that'd be awesome.
Yeah, that'd be amazing.
I mean, yes.
So they think they can do that?
He suggested it back then. So I was not ready to do it. I was sick and tired of being on the table. Right, right, right. I literally knew how to put the IV.
I prepped myself for freaking surgery.
You gave yourself an IV?
No, I'm just saying I could. I was, I was so freaking. When you go in the surgery center and they go, hi, Mr. Strope. Yeah.
You know, recognize you.
Giving yourself an IV's next level, right? It's like giving yourself a tattoo.
Yeah, I'm not doing that.
Guys who tattoo the inside of their own thighs, like, whoa.
Who the hell's doing that?
A lot of folks.
Okay. I'm glad I'm not.
Guys practice on themselves.
Hmm.
Yeah.
I'm going to say no for that one.
Well, tattooists do it to themselves all the time. If they want something and they maybe want to draw it, they're very skilled. You know, maybe they want like a specific kind of flower somewhere. Fair enough. And they can reach it.
Okay. Stem cells.
Stem cells from one eye show promise in healing injuries in the other. Interesting. There's another story, too, where he had a very specific eye injury that was called a stem cell.
My problem. It's not my problem. Well, it is my problem. But my situation is. there's stuff they do on the outside, like cadaver stuff, but the inside, like the retina, what I've been told is like no man's land.
It's like, well, good luck, you know?
Hmm.
It's like, oh, you can get that from a dead body. No, you can't. They can't replace a retina. And if I'm wrong, great. Bring it on.
Maybe they just can't do it now. Well, yeah. But then it's also someone else's organ. So you're going to have to take all these drugs to keep your body from rejecting it.
Yeah. I'm sure there's no.
My friend C.T. Fletcher had a heart transplant a few years back. He's an amazing person. Like he's, a super, super inspirational person.
And had a heart transplant. And now he has someone else's heart inside of him. Now he has to take medication. That's so trippy. It's crazy.
So your body, when you have someone else's organ in your body, your body knows it's not yours. Sure.
So I imagine that does wreak havoc with your immune system. But it's keeping him alive. And it's amazing, man. This guy is so full of love. He was like this crazy, wild, like power lifter dude.
Who was like real, like, just real, motivational and aggressive, you know. And now he's like this real, peaceful, interesting, like wise person. Who's enjoying his last moments. alive. You know, but it's heavy.
It's heavy. I mean, the heart is obviously the big one, right?
Yeah. That's the big one. Probably really important.
We're fucking 10 years, 20 years away, max, from them being able to suck your brain out of your head and put it in a robot.
Oh, good. That'd be great.
They're going to give you a Steve Strobe robot.
That'll be terrific.
You look like Ken from the Barbie movie.
I hope not.
Yeah. And the first ones won't be able to feel real pleasure. And so you have to sign off on that. But then the next ones, the better ones will.
That's where this is going.
So you have to decide whether or not you're going to get another surgery. They've never removed a brain from one robot and put it in another robot. You know that, right? Yeah, but they know how to do it. They're pretty good at it.
Who's they?
These new people in the future. The robot brain scientists.
Oh, good. Yeah.
Would you opt in for that? or would you rather just say, let's see what's next? Let's let the lights go dim and see what's next.
That's a good question.
It's a good question.
I don't know.
I don't know. It's hard to say. Because everybody's scared to die, but no one's scared to sleep.
Hmm. That's a good statement.
Yeah, it's weird.
Because you're expecting. The odds are. you're waking up.
You should be expecting the other one too.
Huh.
You know? True. It comes for all of us.
Yeah, that's a great equalizer, is it not?
I wonder if that's like, you know, if Satan was real, that would be the ultimate temptation. To trick you into transferring your consciousness into something immortal, so that you can never experience heaven.
Wouldn't that be wild? If that's what's going on? Because everybody wants to think that, even people that believe in God, they don't necessarily talk too much about Satan. It's very rare.
I have it. I have a very. Your good old standard issue religious background with my parents.
What did you start off with?
Well, I'm from, we're going to get into Appalachian in a little while.
Appalachian? Appalachia? Appalachian. What's that?
Appalachian mountains, the Yeehaw stuff down south.
What kind of stuff did you guys do?
What kind of stuff did you guys do?
You didn't do the Yeehaw stuff. What did you guys do?
Appalachian, New York is a very, very small farm town in upstate New York. Still has a red light at the end of it, where it meets 434.. Okay. Has a post office and a fire station.
Okay.
And known for a very important large mafia bus in 1957..
A mafia bus?
There's actually a paperback and a movie about Appalachian.
What's the movie or paperback?
Appalachian.
It's just called Appalachian? Yes. Yeah. Yes, sir. And it's all about the mob?
It's a huge bust.
Look at it, on this day. in 1957, the FBI finally had to admit that the mafia existed.
They were all gathered in a farmhouse. The leaders of the main mob families. And they were basically working out jurisdictions, properties.
Fun. I think, I was researching some stuff one time and I stumbled across. this meeting happened after a failed meeting in Cleveland. Because the Cleveland family fucked up the meeting and they got mad. It's like, fuck it, we're doing it in New York.
Yep, they did it. And so the two sheriffs just saw these black Cadillacs and Lincolns going up to this farmhouse.
And I think, if memory serves me right, they kind of fucked up and all panicked and ran into the woods. In fact, they did do that. But if they just would have said, hey, we're just hanging out.
Right.
What are you going to prove? But they all bailed. And they ran into, if I remember right, they're coming out of the woods near where my dad, where my grandma's house was. That was a dirt road back then. And I could take you there.
The house is on top of a little hill behind the area where we have our fireman's field days every year.
State troopers noticed all the fancy cars parked in Barber's driveway and started taking down license plate numbers. Some have suggested that. How hard, back in the 57, you get a license plate number. What is it, like a week until you find out whose fucking car it is? You know what I mean?
Suggests that one of the Genovese rivals tipped the cops in hopes of spoiling Genovese's crown ceremony. Oh, God. The assembled mafioso noticed this and began to panic. Some fled into the woods, some hidden in the basement. Others ran to their cars and tried to drive away.
The troopers caught about 60 of them. When questioned, many insisted they were there for a barbecue. They had just come to visit their good friend, Joe Barbara, who was recovering from a heart attack. When all was said and done, the troopers had apprehended mafia leaders from New York, New Jersey, Tampa, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and other locations. But isn't that funny?
Like, what did they bust them for? Just being there? I don't know. Were they all wanted already? They just...
Well, I think the paperwork laying on the inside was showing dividing up territories.
Oh, boy.
And it was one of the first times that the FBI had proof.
Hold up, hold up. Look at this. The whole thing made national news and finally forced the FBI to acknowledge that organized crime was a matter worthy of notice. Some believe that J. Edgar Hoover's reluctance to acknowledge the mob's existence can be ascribed to the mafia somehow acquiring photographs of Hoover in drag and using those to blackmail him into leaving the mafia alone.
There is no evidence to suggest that this is true. That was always the rumor. But that would be the rumor if there was a guy that ran the FBI. Like, what dark secrets does he have? You know, if he's, like, holding the secrets of everyone.
What's his secret?
What's his secret? Probably you'd have to have secrets. You'd probably go crazy. if you didn't. You know, like, you're the one who keeps the secrets.
You'd probably do the weirdest shit. Possible. So almost automatically you'd think that he would wear drag.
Yeah, that's where my brain goes.
That's where my brain would go. Like, he's doing some freak shit.
He's doing, quote, freak shit.
Freak shit. And, you know, if you are more, you know, dark minded, you would think even horrible things. They're doing horrible things. That's always the worry that people have about, like, the elites. Like, what are they doing?
Like, the skull and bones? and, like, what kind of fucking rituals? Bohemian Grove. What kind of freak ass shit are they doing? What freak shit are you doing?
You know?
And getting away with.
Yeah, when you're on a $500 million yacht every weekend and you're just fucking balling all over the world. Hanging out with your other, balling all over the world, buddies, doing freak shit. Yep. Staying in the club together. Mm-hmm.
Hunting people. Okay. Freaky. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
Freaky. Freaky. Freaky. Yeah.
So, anyway, background. Small South African Baptist Church. My dad's a deacon at the church. My sister is married to somebody who's a pastor and she moved to France, Mont-Plaire, and she's a missionary there. So, all the basic Christian education, I got it.
Mm-hmm.
But no one, you know, has had conversations with the devil, right?
No, not really.
But people, I bet you've talked to people that said, God has talked to them.
Not, I don't know. My dad would never say God talked with me directly. Said, you know, he reads the Bible.
It's not an uncommon thing, though, right? No.
But my background or the church I grew up in and my mom and dad are pretty strict. Like, Pastor Walter growing up, that guy was a logger. You know, this was a small little town.
That's a cool story.
And he had, I'm not kidding, he had a scar from here down through his jaw to here, a chainsaw, jumped back and went crack. Cut him right through the face. That's a manly man right there.
It's like a Ted the Atlas.
Took himself to the hospital. Fuck yeah, he did. With a towel on the side or a shirt on the side of his face.
Of course he did. Yes, he did. Probably would have fucking stapled a shot if he had a stapler in the car.
And he was the nicest, pleasant, like, hi, good afternoon.
Yeah, I've seen some shit. Oh, my goodness.
So everything, it was real simple. Here's a good book. Read it. If it says yes, do it. If it says no, don't.
That's all. There's no pomp and circumstance.
There's no robes.
Real, simple. Real, straightforward. So, but my dad would be interested and he'll be listening to this. So he would be interested in your thing if the end times doesn't come and Satan can say, hey, guess what I can do?
But here's the thought.
Would somebody take that?
If Satan really was clever.
Oh, if he's real?
If he's real.
He is the prince in power of the air. He is the great deceiver. He is, he's very clever.
Right. But if Satan is a real thing, what a genius thing to make it ridiculous to believe in him. What a genius thing to make it so that even saying you're, you've communicated with Satan, or saying.
You sound like a loon.
You sound like a loon.
Because if you negate him.
I said that if the president said God is with our troops, we would say awesome. But if the president said we've located the devil, he's in Afghanistan and we're beginning bombing, he'd be like, what, what the fuck did you say?
And you're right about genius, because if you're ridiculed or look like a loon for believing in Satan, then by default you're a loon for believing in God. So he's done his job by negating everything.
Well, sort of. Well, to a point. Because a lot of people that believe in God.
They're both in the same book.
They believe in Satan as a concept. I think, I think it's like a, there's like a graph. True. Of people that like, if you had a pie chart of all the people that believe in God. Right.
Sure.
Or the entity of God.
The ones that think that Satan's a real thing is probably like a quarter of the pie.
And if they read again, not some weird, crazy, but just the plain Jane Bible. Right. Satan was the number one angel. He was number two in charge. He was the big cheese and said, I want to have everything.
And God was like, not going to happen.
Yeah. But isn't that always like, even in the mob. Yes. That kind of thing happened.
Number two tries harder, doesn't he?
Number two tries to kill number one. Yeah. When they killed Paul Castellano in front of Spark Steakhouse in New York City.
Is that the shot you have right there in the hall?
No. What shot is that? Oh, that's Jack Ruby, shooting Lee Harvey Oswald.
That's right. That's it.
Yeah. That's, yeah. That's a different one.
Yeah. I, uh, so in my area around me, there's a lot of Italian, growing up, lots of Italian, lots of Italian. Right. So I got good food.
There you go.
Really good food. But so. They know how to eat.
Tell you that. If you want to eat for pleasure, the Italians got it nailed.
Yeah, they do.
They do. What's crazy is the difference between their food here and their food in Italy.
It's like. It's, it's, it's, it's gone its own, um, shoot.
Yeah. But that's not what I mean. I mean, in terms of like what it does to your body, I would really like some fucking signs to be done on it. Like what is happening? You go to Italy, you eat their pasta.
You don't feel bad at all. You come to America, you feel like you ate a bowl of glue. I'm like, Oh my God, I can't move.
A bowl of glue.
I can't move. There's something about their bread. It's different. Apparently they have heirloom wheat. They have different wheat before we started fucking with it.
We should unfuck the wheat kids because I know it's like a higher yield.
Joe Rogan's new unfuck the wheat program.
This is what I think. But I, you know, there's also some people that believe that one of the things that we're experiencing, when people have like gluten intolerances and intolerance to wheat, is actually, you might be getting glyphosate from it. This is a highly speculative theory, but they've tested people and they found out that, what was it, Jimmy? Like 94% of people, 94% of people have glyphosate in their body, and glyphosate is toxic. It's an herbicide.
Yeah. It's an herbicide.
Is it because what we do to plant and grow wheat?
Yes. Well, we grow corn, you know, Monsanto created it and they created a corn that, that is immune to it. So you eat like this Monsanto corn and they can spray glyphosate on it, and it kills everything else. It kills all the bad weeds and you just get the nice corn.
Okay.
The problem is that stuff gets in everyone's body in some small amount and the question is like, is your body able to filter out the amount that it has in it? Like, what's the, what's the toxic level? Are we below the fear? Is it fear mongering? Because, like, there's a certain amount of top metals that you're going to get just from eating sushi.
If you get some salmon or some tuna rather from the Pacific ocean, there's real high possibility that you could get mercury in it. Some amount, right? Isn't it like, what's the prevalence of toxic metals in tuna? Let's just guess. Because I think, I have a friend, I don't want to mention his name, but he's brilliant and he won't eat fish from the Pacific anymore.
And I said, why? And he said, Fukushima. He said, they're, they're literally dumping this nuclear water into the ocean and we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what effect this is going to have. We don't know the ocean's just going to easily absorb it or whether it's going to kill fish.
We don't know if it's going to contaminate them, if they're going to have levels of radiation. He was freaking me out.
Oh, boy.
And he's a lot smarter than me.
Oh, well. So you're not.
He doesn't fucking eat fish from the Pacific anymore. I'm like, whoa, is that valid? So what's the, first of all, let's look at, first. one is tuna. Are there levels, high levels of mercury in tuna?
Yeah. So you could get mercury poisoning from one serving. Sorry, let me rephrase that. The amount of mercury you're allowed to have in a week, you could get in one serving of tuna. Jesus.
So if you're eating sushi every day.
Cause I've heard of people actually getting sick from eating sushi every day. Like they literally get mercury poisoning.
Yeah.
Oh, not, not good.
No. Um, what is that shit that I had? Snake? Yes. I was eating sardines.
like every day. I love sardines. I love them. So I'd eat like three cans of sardines a day. And I go to my doctor, I get my blood work done.
He goes, um, he says, you have arsenic in your body.
Arsenic?
Arsenic. Yeah. Trace levels of arsenic. And I said, how much? Like someone's trying to poison me.
He goes, I don't think so. He goes, are you eating a lot of seafood? I go eat three cans of sardines a day. He goes, don't do that. Don't do that.
And he explains to me that these are bottom feeders and that they live a lot of times in areas that are polluted by humans. So we've fucking polluted the ocean to the point where, if you eat too much fish, you get sick. You know, all these people that are worried about the weather warming up and climate change. What are we doing to the ocean? What are we doing?
I mean, how many, what's the number in terms of depopulation? How much fish are missing from the ocean than 50 years ago?
I think, a large amount.
Let's ask the fish population in the ocean now versus 50 years ago. Let's find that out. Let's guess. Let's guess. Before you give me the answer, let's guess.
How much of the ocean's fish has been depleted in the last 50 years?
I'm going to say 50%. No, I'm going to say 70%. Really? Yeah, I'm going to say 70%.
I was at like 45, maybe 50..
That's probably reasonable. I might be fear mongering. Let's find out.
Fear mongering?
Yeah, I've done that before.
Oh, good.
You know, not a lot. You know, like, you know.
You're not massively mongering.
You know, like you play cornhole at the beach. I'm not like a cornhole player, right? I played a few times at the beach with my kids. It's on ESPN. now.
I guess it's a legit sport.
Oh, dear.
So, Jamie, what was your guess?
Help us all.
I didn't. I was trying. There's too many questions I have before I can give you a good guess, because it's already a strange. Like, how are they going to measure that in 1950?? Good question.
And even now, how would you know how many fucking fish there are? Very good question. Very good question. Especially when you.
More than six.
Yeah, especially when you. There's more than six fish. Yes. Especially when you account for the fact that we haven't really explored most of the ocean. So, how they measure it.
Oh, we don't know anything.
Is based off of how much they're pulling out. Right. So, they measure how much they've taken in for the year.
How much they've murdered.
So, what's the. Yay. What's the estimates in terms of. The mass? that's down.
It says in 1950, total catch of fish in the ocean was an estimated 18.5 million metric tons.
Now, a half century later, it says 73.5 million metric tons.
That's an increase. 400% increase. That's an increase.
But another guy says that 90% of all large fish have been removed from the ocean since 1950.. And I don't. Like, how.
How would he know?
That's kind of his. Put it up there. Let's see what it says. Yeah, I will. That sounds interesting.
Because that sounds crazy. 90%? Clover popularizes the work of fishery scientists such as Daniel Pauly, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who have pieced together a picture of imminent catastrophe in the global ocean. Among the first to recognize that fisheries catch rates were in decline worldwide, Pauly discovered in 2001 that the phenomenon had previously gone unnoticed owing to systematic distortions in catch trends that were skewed by incorrect reports from countries of big fisheries. In 2003,, Boris Worm and Ransom Myers of Dalhoyce University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, reported that 90% of all large fish, including tuna, swordfish, and marlin and cod, had been removed from the ocean since 1950..
Holy shit.
The end of the line is informative. Is that a book you wrote? The end of the line? Clover's reporting reveals that bluefin tuna, the endangered species with perhaps the most alarming plight in the ocean, is allegedly being bought and frozen in bulk by major corporations. Once ocean supplies run dry, the frozen fish can be sold at sky-high prices.
So they're freezing tuna in bulk because they anticipate they're going to run dry? That's wild. They're stockpiling it like they do diamonds.
Clover's portrayal of the global fisheries problem falls down on two counts, oversimplification and polarization. Although current fisheries policy is inadequate, much of it is based on science. Clover suggests, where have we heard that before? Clover suggests, for example, that the practice of discarding, by which some 7 million tons of caught fish are thrown back into the sea each year, has arisen because fishermen simply do not want the species they have caught, but wasteful discarding is more often the consequence of a fisheries policy that is designed to prevent fishermen targeting juveniles and species outside of their allotted quota. Well, that makes sense, because they kill fish and then they have to throw some of them back in the water because they killed fish that were too small.
But that's because it's indiscriminate. They're still killing them, if that's what they're saying. Clover's quick to point out the culprits of the fisheries crisis, slippery politicians, greedy fishermen, and thoughtless consumers in big businesses, while making activists and scientists the stars of this show. But in adopting a tone of advocacy with its inherent moralism, Clover isolates viewers and misses an opportunity to place this problem in context. Huh.
It still seems like there's a problem. They're just kind of like making it look pretty. Over-exploitation of fisheries is one part of the huge dilemma that humans face in an increasingly resource-limited world. We can seek sustainability, but we will not be able to diversify our consumption indefinitely, and climate change will decrease marine resources further. They always have to bring it back to climate change.
If you don't, people won't take you seriously. Those most affected will be the fisherfolk of developing countries. who... Fisherfolk? Fisherfolk.
Why do I hate that term? Who make up 98% of people who are directly dependent on fisheries for their livelihood.
Because it's not fishermen.
Yeah, it's fisherfolk, bro. How many non-binary fishermen are there out there? That's what I want to know. That might be the lowest population of non-binary humans in groups on Earth. Fishermen.
No, fisherfolk.
Fisherfolk. They don't want to fucking hear any of that.
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