Jocko Podcast 348: Dont Be Careful. Careful Kills. Peter Maguire. Author/Professor/Surfer/Black Belt

2022-08-29T18:30:32Z

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AI summary of episode

yeah I can tell you that right now because he's tapped me out one million times and I and I've seen it we used to do you know dojo storms and all that stuff and even just tournaments he would just foot lock leg lock everybody um and win by other methods because his whole game of jiu-jitsu but it's kind of wild you know like Donner was asking him like you know or said something like you know you spend a lot of time on the you know going for people's legs and and Dean Lister said why would you ignore 50% of the human body and that's become this thing i mean they're significant but this is usually just one or two bad elements of them and in fact you get bad guys who some some movies they do on purpose and they do it well where if they want you to really not like a bad guy like they'll make him like kind of weasley or someone who like you wouldn't want to like listen to her hang out with in fact you'd really rather be quiet and not show up to the party kind of a thing but usually the good bad guys you're like oh as long as he liked me i would like to hang out with that guy or be like that guy when you think about it so you get a conor mcgregor as the bad guy and you know how like you know kind when you get you know when you get hungry and then like even like a normal chocolate bar or something seems like oh like wait you know just when you get real hungry bro fully you ever and this is not a judgmental thing by any means but you ever um you ever think about yourself before you knew jiu-jitsu and been like man i felt like that was almost like an empty shell version of myself you ever think that you feel like you were not enlightened yes you feel like there was just a whole thing it was all a lot a lot of it too was like a lie but what's there's another word what is the word like the buddhist used to say is an illusion you were in i was a little bit of an illusion because there's a lot of things that you think that are wrong I mean I that's what I told Jose Padilla the director I was like go get some private equity people I mean this isn't that tough a business case to make yeah come on and that's not it's not like a crazy special effects movie or anything either like it's not going to be a huge budget film it's big like you know you got some great fights you know you have like Helio fighting Camara no Camara so that's literally my buddy had to free went to his house you know like the big industrial toilet paper rolls that are like a foot across that's what they had in the seal teams and this dude had it at his house outside pro you're a savage wasn't even a papers on toilet paper taking a freaking roll of that roll probably lasts like six months here's the thing well here's the thing and actually which is part of the fraud wastes and abuse by the way fraud wastes and abuse is though those things in life cost money and if you don't have a lot of money like certain parts little little tiny parts of life that all are and there's a lot of them too a lot of them every day all day those little parts of life are hard it's like they're so hard that you're taking toilet paper from the but oh i kind of want to be like him and that always has to have a positive element to it like darth vader um like they're they're usually like guys who are like sure they're all you know you just gave you just gave me a list of one you started counting your fingers too like you're gonna have at least five give me a list of one you know you you've heard the story that like you know Dean Lister is obviously and he he had that conversation with Dean and it's kind of like this mythical thing now right it's a little bit of a mythical thing that Dean said you know Dean was get catching guys and Dean tells it's super humble but you know what I at the time and you've heard me say this like I was a richest guy in the world me and my friends in the games we thought we were the richest guys in the world we had so much money young single team guy dude e5 frog man gets on in your position too you get a lot of stuff paid for right by the you know like well wet suits so if you have money I'll just pay for it just whatever whatever whatever kind of a thing where it's like things will come a lot easier and I thought about this too where you know how like when you think back to the times when you don't make any money it's like what what was the difference because 20 years I was in the Navy but think about it there are certain parts of life it's funny I say that I said, let's, I know the US attorney and like, let's do it, you know, if you, you got to think this through, if you want to, you know, go really do this, you go to the US attorney, you don't go or would the DA in town, you don't go to some academic bureaucrat that will pollute the case. hey oh hold on you know that kind of hurt that kind of thing and like the other day we actually like he i had forgotten he'd hurt in his hand because he's been hit he's at all taped up you know Yeah, they want people, you know, most of the elites were, you know, real, you know, peasants with, you know, no education, nothing. places to stay like these are pretty like per diem if you have if you have money or you get that stuff free it's kind of like it makes it things so much easier but it keeps you in a little bit more of a box than if you didn't so let's say this i'm a jujitsu bomb surf bomb whatever i don't have like i don't tell weed i don't rob banks i have normal So, you know, for leadership, for me, you know, the reason I know this is because I teach leadership, and we teach leadership to people that have gone through big programs, and they don't, they'll tell us like, oh, I learned more in the three days I just spent with your company about leadership, infinitely more. And you know, that some of them have been, you know, real heavy lifters when it comes to drugs, you know, like, they should take them to the Mayo Clinic and test them because from crack to fentanyl to and lost a lot of friends to fentanyl lost a lot of friends to opiates in the last few years. right they love him he's not just a pure heal you know what they term heal is right from wrestling like like chael sonan was duty he was you know bad guy ink bro like right you kind of like dude some of the trail sonan uh like smack talking i don't know it entered the algorithm it entered my algorithm oh you know how he knew all these people you're like Eric Paul's in you know like all these people And, and as I said in the book, like, they were minor compared to like guys like you, then there was like prison extraction unit guards that were so big. And I see a lot of programs that are set up like that, where they're teaching you a lot about the guitar, and you learn some theory about the guitar, and you know what a guitar looks like, but you don't know how to play that guitar. it's almost like within a certain certain threshold it's like you that's the best thing you can actually do for yourself within reasons so sure if you would look at and be like hey this is dumb this is a dumb move you know but there's also a lot about life and a lot about people dealing with problems and you know similar to the things you talk about and how the answer can't be found in a pill or a shrink and that you know you you kind of have to you you know there's sections on strategy there's sections on things Hicks and talks about generally i i mentioned my book final spin publishers weekly gave me a good review thank you publishers weekly hey publishers weekly you didn't like breathe that's a bummer it's a good book check it out i've written a bunch of other books about leadership i've written a bunch of kids books get the kids book for kids you know it's gonna help them it's gonna make the world a better place ashlomfront we solve problems through leadership if you want to check out or if you need help with leadership at your organization go to ashlomfront.com come to one of our events next one is at lana we have the muster everything we do sells out that's going to sell out too but i don't know i didn't i didn't use dalton that's what i think no i don't know i didn't look at that bro a bunch of people just been sending it to me and then people have been bringing it up to there's a lot of roles that connor McGregor would be awesome at dalton's not one of them in my opinion i don't know you think but i never knew this as a specific thing so the best bad guys in history are guys that we like like guys who are we're like hey sure he's a bad guy and it's it's just it makes the dod seem positively efficient same thing is going on though too with like Hollywood because if you want to you could make a movie and you can post it on youtube and see what happens well and the thing is like the Hixon movie is remarkable because it starts with Maeda so it starts in 1890 in Japan and Maeda is an unbelievable guy I mean he's prize fighting all over Europe he comes to the United States like in the 20s he's prize fighting in the south and then you know like all your knowledge and stuff like that it's like from hixon And that wasn't even the bad teams like Pico Rivera, with these like these Mexican teams running the wishbone, you know, just like, what is this? you know you know how like you get like a And they just, you know, got it got their boats, took them in, took them to Toul Slang prison, interrogated and tortured them for, you know, gosh, the last two who died, you know, there was days before the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia. and I think what's motivated me on this case is is how heavily that's weighed on those Marines and those who knew that and were ordered not to talk about it as well and so um I spoke at their reunion this last May and um you know this is something that you know many of these guys have been back to Cambodia they've met with M. Somme they've pleaded with him where are their bodies and you know So, and we had to do a lot of standup back then and Luis LeMau would put on these, these ridiculous leather boxing gloves and, and I do my Bruce Lee stuff and they all like Hicks and kids thought it was the best, you know, and, and, and it was a great time, you know, and, and Hicks and I became good friends. and I'm gonna meet this guy now I know this guy you know it's kind of crazy how many like that for one level of connection to John Donahur and then John Donahur to Dean Lister And so, you know, so I, you know, again, and I would throw this stuff at Hicks and come on, Hicks and like, yeah, and you know you know surfing yeah drugs and beating you know beating up street fights where is it that's probably the most everything you've done that might have been the closest to death you've been and then back to your weed uh selling days you said you didn't like to do the small stuff no only do like bigger like what how does that work where would you get it from or whatever from the older guys who were smuggling it

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocko podcast number 348 with Echo Charles and me,
[00:00:03] Jocko willing. Good evening Echo. Good evening.
[00:00:06] We are turning our society upside down. One Kamirooge officer told a newsweek reporter in
[00:00:12] the weeks after the revolution. The people of Panam pen will grow rice, he said, and almost as
[00:00:20] an afterthought added they will work or starve. By early May 1975, the Kamirooge were implementing
[00:00:30] one of the most radical political plans of the 20th century, a peasant revolution with a punitive
[00:00:36] edge. Buddhist monks were made to plow fields. Pagodas were turned into killing centers.
[00:00:42] Cham Muslims, a religious minority, were force fed pork. Cambodia's national library was converted
[00:00:49] into a pigsty. In Pol Pot's democratic Campuchia, books were used to start fires.
[00:00:58] It was more about revenge, recalled one Cambodian. All private property, even money, was abolished
[00:01:06] in this ultra great leap forward. The early accounts of life under the Kamirooge came from
[00:01:15] Cambodian refugees who escaped to Thailand. At first they sounded too bizarre to be true,
[00:01:20] as if George Orwell had written them to satirize life under a dictatorship of the proletariat,
[00:01:27] a place where parents feared their children and civilians were slaughtered in numbers and for
[00:01:32] reasons unimagined since Stalin's purges or Hitler's Third Reich. Survivors described a system of
[00:01:39] slave labor, communes where men, women, and children toiled like human water buffalo under the
[00:01:47] watchful eye of the mysterious and all-powerful leadership cabal known only as Angar. They
[00:01:55] lived in perpetual fear. The CIA held little hope for America's former allies and educated
[00:02:05] Cambodians. Quote, executions are reported widespread and in many cases members of the entire
[00:02:13] family of former government officials or soldiers are executed along with the heads of the family.
[00:02:19] Almost all executions occur in the same manner. Several communist cadres beat the person to death
[00:02:26] with hoe handles or other blunt instruments. End quote. Not only did the Kamirooge eliminate
[00:02:34] family life, they made sex before marriage a capital offense. Kamirooge survivor Yuk Chang
[00:02:42] remembered watching two young lovers beaten to death in front of his entire commune.
[00:02:49] In a larger sense, the Kamirooge were threatened by all expressions of love between husband and wife,
[00:02:55] parents and children, friends and colleagues, observes Elizabeth Becker. One Kamirooge survivor
[00:03:04] is still haunted by his mother's final words. You have to learn how to live without me.
[00:03:14] Lang Thurth, Kamirooge minister of culture and social affairs stated quote,
[00:03:20] only children can purely serve the revolution and eliminate reactionism since they are young,
[00:03:28] obedient, loyal and active. End quote. So that right there is a little excerpt from a book called
[00:03:43] Facing Death in Cambodia. It's written by a man named Peter McGuire. And Peter has also written
[00:03:51] about the Nuremberg trials about the treatment of Nazi war criminals.
[00:03:56] But his focus has not always been on war or genocide. He actually has a pretty significant
[00:04:05] dichotomy in his life. Peter McGuire grew up a surfer in Southern California.
[00:04:10] That led to chasing the mythical endless summer that many surfers pursue. And he funded that
[00:04:21] chase by drug smuggling. Eventually he left that life for academia, where he received his
[00:04:31] doctorate in history. Along the way, he became a jujitsu practitioner. He's a historian, an author,
[00:04:40] a defense contractor, college professor. And he's lived an extremely multifaceted life. And it is
[00:04:47] a privilege to have Peter McGuire here with us tonight to share some of his experiences
[00:04:54] and some of his lessons learned. Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming out.
[00:04:59] I guess how did you and I originally connect? Surfer's Journal. I interviewed you. But how did
[00:05:06] you did you just reach out somehow? Through Ivan, I think. Through Ivan, man. So Ivan Trent is a
[00:05:15] former seal. And the reason I knew about Ivan Trent, well, when I got to on my first deployment,
[00:05:22] I was on my first deployment, I went to Guam, and I walk into like the headquarters area. And
[00:05:30] there's a picture hanging on the wall of a guy dropping in on a giant wave, big Hawaiian wave.
[00:05:36] And it's signed, you know, it says, you know, some cool quote. Ivan Trent. And I'm like,
[00:05:41] hmm, that's interesting. Well, it's Buzzy Trent's kid. And Buzzy, Buzzy Trent is one of the iconic
[00:05:46] guys that opened up big wave surfing for the world. And his son was a seal. And so you did an
[00:05:54] article about how did you know Ivan? I knew Ivan through the combat rescue boat that I did with
[00:06:02] George Greno. And so Ivan, our fathers surfed together in, you know, Malibu in the 50s. And so
[00:06:10] yeah. And so I reached out to Ivan and he was our greatest help and a true ally. And we became great
[00:06:18] friends. And I stayed with him in Virginia Beach whenever I went there, would have to do jiu-jitsu
[00:06:24] with his son on the on the carpet. I think his son might train here. And, and then his little
[00:06:30] Chihuahua dog would try to hump my leg. Yeah. So Ivan has Chihuahuas. That's speaking of dichotomy.
[00:06:37] Well, let's get into it. And just let's go through kind of how you ended up here because you have
[00:06:45] been on a wild ride. I mean, relatively speaking, your life's been a wild ride. So you're born
[00:06:54] in 1964. Tell us about your, tell us about your mom and dad. My mother was one of the first women
[00:07:02] screenwriters in in Hollywood, Joan Tuxbury. She wrote Robert Altman's Nashville, among other things.
[00:07:10] She was actually the ostrich in Mary Martin's Peter Pan on Broadway. She was a child kind of
[00:07:19] Shirley Temple in Hollywood, grew up in Hollywood. And my father was the son of a famous pilot,
[00:07:28] Robert Maguire, who ran operations Magic Carpet and operations Alibaba flying Yemenites and
[00:07:35] concentration camp survivors to Israel. So at 14, my father was a mechanics assistant in Tel Aviv
[00:07:42] Airport. He was flying missions with my grandfather. He was flying at 14. I think it wasn't DC
[00:07:50] 3s, but it was one of those big silver. Well, how did that, how did that happen? My grandfather was a
[00:07:57] pilot in World War Two, and then Alaska and airlines was hired to, to resettle Jews in Israel.
[00:08:07] So that's originally how he got involved. But then Alaskan Airways pulled out and he set up a company
[00:08:13] called Far Eastern Air Transport and flew a remarkable number of hours in a short amount of time.
[00:08:21] And Ben Goree and called them the Irish Moses. And the last chapter of Leon Urus's Exodus is called
[00:08:29] the King Crab King. And that was my grandfather who lived at Rincon, right at the indicator. And so,
[00:08:36] so my dad was a real wild guy. He died about a year ago. And he, so, you know, he gets,
[00:08:43] goes to Tel Aviv, his mother, their parents are divorced, she finds out that he's being raised
[00:08:48] by wolves in the Middle East. So they send him to a fancy French boarding school. He,
[00:08:54] So this is your dad, my dad. And so then he gets to the,
[00:08:59] So, so hold on. So your dad's mom realizes that your kid is, that your dad is like a
[00:09:04] feral child. Exactly.
[00:09:06] Running missions. Yeah.
[00:09:08] And says, we're going to get him the hell out of there. Yeah.
[00:09:10] I'm going to take him and send him to a French boarding school.
[00:09:13] Yeah. And so they send him there and the French couple that was supposed to be taking care of
[00:09:17] him, took the money and ran. And so he and an older kind of French nobleman whose parents
[00:09:23] had been killed in the Holocaust said, let's not tell anybody. And so they basically ran away
[00:09:30] and spent the better part of a year riding bikes around France, going to Nice, going to the
[00:09:37] hookers, going to the whole shebang. And then he moved to California after that. And there was
[00:09:41] no hope for Southern California. And so he became one of the biggest real estate developers in
[00:09:48] Los Angeles. He built Playa Vista and much of the skyline. And they called him the cat with
[00:09:54] 10 lives. And so it was a boomer bust life, like, you know, up one day and then a kids were moving
[00:10:02] and you're going back to public school. So in my DNA, I knew the only thing that could
[00:10:11] be taken away from me was an education. I knew there would be no inheritance, nothing. And he
[00:10:18] went public in I think 2008, 2009, had a billion dollars cash and then bet it all on black and
[00:10:30] basically bought the Blackstone Groups real estate portfolio two weeks before the subprime crisis
[00:10:38] and lost it all. And so he passed away about a year ago and inherited a few lawsuits.
[00:10:49] That's what you got out. Yeah, but he was a classic guy, you know. And so, you know, just big
[00:10:56] things were expected of you as a kid. I mean, my grandpa had, we always had boats. And if
[00:11:02] Ventura, my grandpa lived in the Ventura Keys, and if Ventura Harbor was closing out, well,
[00:11:07] that was a good day to take out the boat. Like, let's punch through. Yeah, yeah. And like, so that
[00:11:12] was not anything out of the ordinary for me. And so when I first took my job, I got my PhD at
[00:11:21] Columbia, my PhD advisor was Brigadier General Telfer Taylor, the chief prosecutor at Nuremberg.
[00:11:27] And I had friends who had set up a nonprofit to collect the photographs taken at Tool Slang Prison.
[00:11:37] The Khmer Rouge's central torture and execution facility, roughly 20,000 went in,
[00:11:43] roughly 20 survived, everyone got their picture taken. So they were preserving the negatives
[00:11:50] and the photographic record. At that time, the Khmer Rouge was still a major force to be reckoned
[00:11:56] with. So this is what this is 93, 94. So I go there in early 94. And it's very volatile. The UN
[00:12:05] has this incredibly absurd occupation where they treat the neutrality as the sacred principle.
[00:12:14] So it's the, it's the UN's model that goes wrong in the 90s. So the Khmer Rouge are allowed,
[00:12:20] you know, allowed to run in the election. They're treated. You know, there's no accountability.
[00:12:26] There's, you know, Khmer Rouge killed roughly, you know, we think 2 million out of 10 million.
[00:12:32] Yeah, it's like a quarter of the population. Yeah, in three years, 10 months, 20 days,
[00:12:38] most of them, you know, with with an ox cart, a handle, the axle to the back of the head.
[00:12:43] And no accountability when the Khmer Rouge falls in early 79 Thailand, China, Singapore,
[00:12:53] the US all back them. And so then Pol Pot et al become freedom fighters. And so,
[00:13:03] so it's just too bizarre. You couldn't make it up. And so there's absolutely no accountability. And
[00:13:07] I knew from my Nuremberg research is the only thing in that kind of situation, an unresolved
[00:13:15] conflict still fighting going on is historical accountability is preserving the empirical
[00:13:22] evidence of the crimes. So that was very important to me also was building the chains of command
[00:13:29] from the bloodstained butcher, who's usually the scapegoat. It's easy to try Lindy England or
[00:13:36] these kind of people and the garden variety, you know, sort of perpetrator, but to move up to the
[00:13:43] food chain like they did in Nuremberg to get the shot callers, policymakers. That's what I was more
[00:13:49] interested in the senior leaders. And so that was my goal. I also wanted to link them to their
[00:13:55] their masters, the Chinese government, because, you know, this was a Chinese sponsored affair.
[00:14:05] There were Chinese advisors throughout Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge years,
[00:14:09] and the Chinese have never copped to it. And they still, we didn't support the bad policies. And,
[00:14:16] you know, and they, I was there when Jingxia Main came for the first time. And we went to the press
[00:14:22] conference and one of my friends from the Wall Street Journal said, what about accountability?
[00:14:27] What do you say to the Cambodians? And he just started screaming at him and went, no, and stormed
[00:14:32] off the podium. And I went, wow, this is a different kind of press conference than I've ever been to.
[00:14:41] So that was my initial foray was, you know, with these photographs, finding the survivors.
[00:14:47] But then I was able to find the perpetrators. And I worked with a pretty remarkable guy named
[00:14:53] Sok Sin, who was he said, I'm remarkable survivor. And I use the weapon of the mouth.
[00:15:02] And I said, how did you survive the Khmer Rouge? He goes, I worked harder than any man. And I sang
[00:15:08] revolutionary songs louder than any man. And yeah. And so Sok Sin was a rough guy. And he,
[00:15:15] you know, started as a pedicab driver. And one of the guards at the hotel that was the Fancy Hotel,
[00:15:22] the press state would whip him with a chain, because he'd be too aggressive. So the chain
[00:15:26] that blocked the driveway, he'd whip Sok Sin with. So every time Sok Sin got a new car, he would
[00:15:31] pull it up to that same guard who'd been there for 20 years, guarding that gate, honk the horn,
[00:15:37] and wave at him. And so Sok Sin taught me a lot about Cambodia, probably just driving around with
[00:15:43] him. I learned as much as, you know, and he would see two young lovers on a motorcycle. And he was
[00:15:50] like, I cannot look. And I'd say, why? He goes, he goes, I missed that. I didn't get that in my life,
[00:15:56] like too painful, too painful. And it was just amazing what those people went through. And,
[00:16:04] you know, one of my students, a professor named now named Sopa Ear, his parents were sort of
[00:16:10] elite Cambodians, they pushed their Mercedes out because the Cameroon came in April 17 1975.
[00:16:16] They said, Oh, we're just leaving for a little while. The American bombers are coming, you know,
[00:16:21] we just so they're pushing their Mercedes, right? And one of the kids gets separated, never sees
[00:16:27] them again. And then the father dies, the men always die, the women survive, the Cambodian women
[00:16:32] kept that society together. Very similarly, how the southern women did after the Civil War. And
[00:16:39] but much more extreme anyway, they go to one of those horrible rice gulags where, you know,
[00:16:47] they're barely given enough calories to survive. And they announced, Okay, any Vietnamese, we're
[00:16:55] going to allow out. But you have to take this Vietnamese language exam. You fail that exam,
[00:17:02] you die. And so she had had Vietnamese maids. So they coached her got her Vietnamese backup to speed.
[00:17:10] She passed the exam. So now they go to a refugee camp in Vietnam. She finds a phone book. And I
[00:17:17] don't know how starts dialing numbers in Paris, gets a sponsor. They family gets to go to Paris.
[00:17:26] She works as a seamstress. Then she finds out she has a relative in San Jose or Oakland. They come
[00:17:33] to the United States. She makes sure that she gets a fake address in the best school district
[00:17:42] in San Francisco, makes her kids take the bus two hours each way. Every one of those kids today,
[00:17:49] doctor, PhD, you know, those are the immigrants we want, right? Yeah, no, we just, we just,
[00:17:58] we just did another podcast and we were talking to talking about some Vietnam, Vietnamese
[00:18:06] immigrants that came over after the war that had gotten out. And it was the same story for all of
[00:18:11] them. They'd all worked so hard. And all their kids ended up just, you know, doctors, you know,
[00:18:18] engineers, just the whole nine yards and because education was so highly valued for them
[00:18:22] after they were able to get out of Vietnam. And after, you know, basically everyone that they
[00:18:26] knew that stayed back was murdered. Oh, yeah. Awful, just awful how that unfolded.
[00:18:36] Let's rewind a little bit. We kind of jumped straight into Cambodia, but you took a strange
[00:18:39] path to get to Cambodia. So you're born in 1964. Yeah. That's kind of a cool time to be growing
[00:18:49] up and you grew up where in Malibu? Malibu Pacific Palisades. Yeah, Santa Monica Canyon.
[00:18:55] So this is like 19 year, what time did you start? How old were you when you started going down to
[00:19:00] Malibu by yourself and surfing all day, which I'm sure you must have done all the time. Well,
[00:19:05] we had a house in Carpenteria and then my grandpa lived at Rincon. So we were going to Santa Barbara
[00:19:12] pretty much like on the Rincon little point there, the cinderblock wall at the indicator.
[00:19:18] And that's how I met George Greno. You know, it was about 10 years old. And so I had a charmed life.
[00:19:24] I could go surf the Bixby Ranch and drive in and the Channel Islands. And I had a very charmed,
[00:19:31] I was, you know, I was a privileged kid and, and, you know, Malibu, I lived in the colony as a very
[00:19:39] little kid, then we moved away, but I still knew all those guys. So then I life guarded in Malibu
[00:19:44] colony, which was quite a quite an experience, but we were bad. So this is now the, so this is now
[00:19:50] what the 70s, when did you graduate from high school? 83. 83. And I was start like you said,
[00:19:57] going to Malibu with the older guys, smoking weed in the back of the pickup, you know, probably
[00:20:04] 13. What kind of music were you listening to? Led Zeppelin and cream. And yeah, that, you know,
[00:20:14] some eagles, but yeah. And, but yeah, we were bad. And we were like free range children. All
[00:20:21] our parents were divorced. Very permissive time. I mean, there was, especially in Malibu, bizarre,
[00:20:29] like one of our friends, mothers had a primal scream room that you like walk through a giant
[00:20:35] vagina to get into. And just bizarre seven. Wait, what's a primal scream? You have to expand on this
[00:20:42] one, bro. You go in this familiar. Yeah, you go in this room and you scream, and you let it all out.
[00:20:49] And, and then there was, you know, there was, there was orgies and this kind of stuff. So what
[00:20:55] are your parents doing at this point? Like my mom was making her way in Hollywood and my dad was
[00:21:00] were they together? No, they got and who are you living with? I lived with my mom till I was about
[00:21:06] 10. And then she knew I needed a dad and put me with my dad and my dad was a hard ass. Like I was
[00:21:14] bad. And, and he kind of he had a thing where he would wake you up at five in the morning. And then
[00:21:20] he'd say, come downstairs, we need to talk. And, and he was always the throw weight and all the
[00:21:26] union stuff in LA, because he owned all the buildings. So what he did with labor was how the
[00:21:33] strikes went everything. And he usually sided with labor. And so he would sit you down.
[00:21:39] And he would just inventory the litany of your sins that you didn't think you thought you were
[00:21:44] getting away with everything, right? And, and it was so startling. And, and then he would just
[00:21:51] handle you. Okay, this, yeah, this address, you need to be down there tomorrow morning at five.
[00:21:57] And it was the AFL CIO local 300. So you're going to get some? Yeah, Union Hall. And so he made me
[00:22:04] work as a union laborer on the high rises. But little did he know my, my, you know, this was the
[00:22:11] punishment job. And it was a graveyard shift 11 nights to six in the morning. But I worked with
[00:22:16] all Darrell strawberries family. So my marijuana empire expanded exponentially, because back then
[00:22:26] the there was green, there was green pot in the winter and brown pot in the summer and, you know,
[00:22:30] and tie. And the inner city LA couldn't get any of it. No one dared, you know, no white boys dared
[00:22:37] go down there. And so I did. And I go down, I go to Venice, because I knew some guys from the
[00:22:45] Venice gangs through athletics. And then I would go down the Crenshaw area with those guys. And I
[00:22:51] write about that in my book, tie stick. And then, yeah, and then I got, I got busted when I was 19.
[00:22:58] So hold on. So okay. So it seems like your dad, I mean, you your dad owns all these buildings.
[00:23:05] What what's what's getting you to you had to have looked at that even as a 15, 16, 17 year old
[00:23:12] and said, Hey, man, my dad's doing all right. I can probably figure out some kind of a livelihood
[00:23:17] by working with my dad. But how do you end up getting in the pop business?
[00:23:21] Um, I, I don't know. I just did. It was easy. It was right in front of me. The, you know,
[00:23:29] the surfers controlled the high end marijuana trade. And so particularly the tie trade. And so I,
[00:23:37] you know, wrote in tie stick that the arrival of the time marijuana fleet marked the beginning of
[00:23:42] summer. So the older surfers that I looked up to, and I would see these guys fly into Scorpion Bay,
[00:23:49] I mean, I first went to Scorpion Bay. I think it's 79. And it was guys on the lamb. I mean,
[00:23:54] it was a shady place and it was hard to get to. And so, you know, 16 years old crossing the mountains
[00:24:00] from the, from the sea of Cortez, you know, in my old man's suburban. And, and, you know, these
[00:24:07] guys would fly in for low tide and Cessna's and really good surfers. And then they, you know,
[00:24:12] they, they give us some cold beer because we didn't have ice, you know, like ice was the best commodity.
[00:24:18] And it's okay, we got to go back to Kabul for happy hour. And, you know, and they led this
[00:24:24] charmed life, you know, oh, North Shore in the winter, Indonesia, you know, in the summer,
[00:24:29] Baha in the summer. So these guys were on the endless, these guys were literally on the endless
[00:24:33] summer train fueled by marijuana financed by pot. Yeah. And so, so tie pot. So you said it was
[00:24:42] green. I forget what you said. I'm not familiar with pot because I spent my whole life well,
[00:24:48] I was in the military for 20 years. I grew up as like a straight edge hardcore kid. So,
[00:24:51] yeah, I don't know enough about pot. Well, now educate me. Yeah. Well, I call it Frankenweed
[00:24:58] now, like it's gone way beyond. We had the what we called purple seedless, which was the Northern
[00:25:04] California pot. Isn't that supposed to be good? Like California? Yeah, it was the best. Now,
[00:25:09] but it's this weird GMO pot that that's the Frankenweed. I don't like that stuff. And I don't
[00:25:14] think it's I don't think you should be smoking it all the time. So pot has has left me, you know,
[00:25:22] way behind. But anyway, so that would pretty much run out that. So it was a real Adam Smith supply
[00:25:27] and demand thing. So there was not unlimited amounts of good green pot all year round. So what's
[00:25:34] the brown pot that would be would be Mexican, Colombian inferior pot with seeds and this and
[00:25:41] that but then the ties were master growers and the famous tie stick, right? And so you had pot
[00:25:50] in the early 70s worth $2,000 a pound. And so one sailboat full, you're a millionaire, you know,
[00:26:00] and so that's why so many surfers got involved in it because what do surfers need? They need
[00:26:06] freedom and they need time. So one sailboat full, you're a millionaire and this is in the 70s. So
[00:26:12] that million you're good for a life. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, then you go, I'll do another.
[00:26:18] Well, I'll do a bigger boat. Oh, you know, and then all of a sudden you're dealing with tie
[00:26:22] gangsters, you know, bringing it across the border and Pmax gas trucks, paying million
[00:26:28] dollar bribes. I mean, like, you know, remarkable tradecraft actually. And then that's where I
[00:26:34] learned a lot of tradecraft. You have this quote. So you wrote a book called ties to come to pull
[00:26:38] a quote from it right now. It says one afternoon a long haired well traveled surfer came into the
[00:26:45] surf shop and after exchanging warm greetings and elaborate handshakes with the shopkeeper,
[00:26:49] he threw a big plastic bag filled with greenish brown plant matter onto the counter and said,
[00:26:55] tie sticks, bro. That same summer, my friend found his older neighbor stash of tie sticks and stole one.
[00:27:02] So it was just like this seemed like the thing. You also had another good quote in there. The
[00:27:08] quest for utopia turned into self indulgence and narcissism. The beach was an escape, a constant
[00:27:14] and stable refuge during a time of uncertainty. This is like the 70s. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah,
[00:27:21] as I said, almost all of my peers, parents were divorced. And, you know, and luckily, athletics
[00:27:29] grounded me very much, right? What athletics? What were you doing? Baseball, basketball,
[00:27:33] football from five years old to 14 years old every season with the same guys, you know,
[00:27:41] Pop Warner. And, you know, we were the Palisades dolphins, light blue uniforms with dolphins on
[00:27:48] our helmets, about 40 blonde haired white boys. And our schedule was Watts, Crenshaw. And that
[00:27:57] wasn't even the bad teams like Pico Rivera, with these like these Mexican teams running the wishbone,
[00:28:03] you know, just like, what is this? Yeah, and we're in our dorky little, you know, Palisades
[00:28:10] dolphins, you know, but there were some great athletes who came out of the Palisades, Steve Kerr,
[00:28:15] Jay Schrader. So it was interesting because back then LA was not segregated. So we were,
[00:28:22] you know, we were going up against the best of the blacks had to offer the best the Mexicans had to
[00:28:28] offer. And we had a lot of mutual respect for each other through athletics. So what is it
[00:28:33] segregated now? I would say the LA riots changed things dramatically. And I saw with my younger
[00:28:40] half siblings, they didn't, you know, they stayed in their little, you know, enclave. Yeah. And it
[00:28:47] and it wasn't good, you know. And and then I, you know, then I went to private school and it was
[00:28:55] this is once you turn 14, 15 or whatever. Yeah. So I was public school until seventh grade,
[00:29:00] then I got sent to a very difficult prep school, despised it, fought at every step of the way.
[00:29:08] Did you have to wear a uniform and stuff? No, but just had to do about four hours of homework
[00:29:13] a night. And yeah, and you know, we fought a lot in public school. I mean, back then we all went
[00:29:19] to a park after school and played sports unsupervised always. And people fought all the time. And it
[00:29:25] was a very honest hierarchy. And and so I had a guy try to bully me at the private school.
[00:29:32] And I was like, Oh, you got to be kidding me. And so I waited for cross country running day.
[00:29:38] So we could get the furthest possible away from the coaches and then tripped him from behind. And
[00:29:43] then just just he and he and I let him bully me like I, you know, I, you know, from fighting a
[00:29:50] lot of its acting. And so I got him like, like salivating and and then, you know, I probably
[00:29:57] hit him 15 times in the face, unanswered. He didn't even put his hands up. And then no,
[00:30:04] no, but then he had, then he had like weird knots all over his head from that day forward. And I
[00:30:10] won't tell you his last name, but it begins with an L and his name, he became lumpy L after that
[00:30:17] day. And then nobody bothered me at private school anymore. And then I wasn't invited back
[00:30:23] because I'd been on academic probation and was starting to turn pretty bad by about 10th grade.
[00:30:28] And and then I went to a very, very fancy movie star kid, very permissive, very liberal school
[00:30:38] in Santa Monica. And, and that's where I really went back because I had some, I had an old buddy
[00:30:47] from sports, whose family were all big Crips. And so he was there as the basketball ringer.
[00:30:53] So they had this ringer basketball team. And so we were involved in all kinds of, you know,
[00:30:59] selling weed, charging people to park at their own high school. It wasn't pretty. And I wasn't nice.
[00:31:07] And what's your what's your dad doing during this? He's just working his ass off all the time.
[00:31:10] Working his ass off kind of has a new family, new wife. And, you know, I would they're just like,
[00:31:16] but they would say, Well, how's Peter doing? My dad said, Well, there's still sand in the house,
[00:31:21] so he's alive. And, and that was about it. And so then, yeah, I went, I was the only one who
[00:31:28] didn't go to college. I moved to Australia at 18 to surf and, and had an incredible time.
[00:31:35] You say this in the book, tie sticks are extreme confidence in the ocean often translated to
[00:31:40] dangerous sense of freedom and arrogance on land at 14. I was busted by customs at Tijuana border,
[00:31:45] trying to smuggle fireworks at 16. I was sneaking onto private government property to surf waves
[00:31:50] guarded by barbed wire fences, no trespassing signs, and men with guns at 19. I moved to Australia,
[00:31:55] never looked back. There was very little we were not willing to do if it enabled us to
[00:32:01] surf perfect, uncrowded waves, whether it was bringing a few cases of Canadian whiskey through
[00:32:07] this through the surf during prohibition, poaching some illegal Mexican lobsters from
[00:32:12] officers in Vegas, working on the gambling boats anchored in international waters off Santa Monica
[00:32:17] pier or offloading or offloading a load of Thai marijuana. California watermen had always been
[00:32:23] part of the black market. Fast money, fast money bought time and freedom. That's like a history
[00:32:29] of what surfers have been doing for the past since since the prohibition crying out loud.
[00:32:38] You say by 16, marijuana was my daily bread without which no surfing session was complete.
[00:32:45] Although there was a Western surfing association, a national scholastic surfing association,
[00:32:50] a Christian surfing association, and probably even a Republican surfing organization,
[00:32:54] my peers and I were members of the marijuana surfing association. Not all surfers smoked
[00:33:00] pots, some were adamantly opposed to it, but for us, pot and surfing went hand in hand.
[00:33:04] Not only was smoking anesthesia for that dulled life sharp edge, it was above all
[00:33:10] an effective time killer for our endless waiting, whether it was a swell to come, the tide to drop
[00:33:15] or the wind to change, we always seem to be waiting for something. You know, when one of the things
[00:33:21] that I tell people a lot and it seems like you're just knee deep in this, when you're young, you
[00:33:28] don't connect what you're doing right now with your future. And I think that's a huge problem.
[00:33:35] It leads kids to do the wrong things because they don't recognize that, oh,
[00:33:39] what I'm doing right now, this is going to impact my future, whether they're not thinking
[00:33:43] about their future or they don't think they can get caught or they think they can get away with
[00:33:46] anything or they think they're immortal, all those things. It seems like you were just knee
[00:33:50] deep into, hey, I'm living for the moment right now. That's it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I,
[00:33:57] it took a long time to repair the damage because I went to Australia.
[00:34:02] So, did you graduate from high school? Yeah. And then once you graduated from high school,
[00:34:09] now you're 18, 19 years old? No, no, I'm 18. So you're 18 years old and
[00:34:14] does your dad want you to go to college? Did you get good grades? No, but I was always working. I
[00:34:19] always had a couple jobs. So I was always, I had a union job or, you know, I was, I was,
[00:34:26] I was never lazy and I was always motivated just by not traditional things. And so I would work my
[00:34:35] ass off and then I would sell, you know, pot on top of that. But, you know, very kind of only pot,
[00:34:42] only to adults, only large quantities, never to kids or like a dealer. I really kind of frowned
[00:34:49] on that. And just saving all my money for the big surf trip, right? And so I did that for about
[00:34:58] 10 months after high school. Then I flew to Australia and I lived at Brokenhead Point between
[00:35:05] Byron Bay and Lenox Head with a famous old shaper named Michael Cundith. And George Greeno was our
[00:35:14] neighbor who I knew a little bit from Santa Barbara and it was just bliss. And I traveled all over
[00:35:20] Australia with some of the best surfers of the time. One of my best friends was a guy named
[00:35:24] Ant Corrigan who was the best surfer of his generation, schoolboy Cadet Champ. They wanted
[00:35:31] him on the pro tour. He went to work at the pub instead. And I loved the Aussies because they
[00:35:36] didn't care if you're a dick, you're a dick and they're going to call you out on it. And, you
[00:35:41] know, the pubs and the drinking and fighting and fighting and fighting. And, you know, it was a
[00:35:48] wild time, the Aussies. And I had a ball. And then I went to Micronesia, I surfed Micronesia, New
[00:35:57] Caledonia, Fiji before Tavaruea, then French Polynesia. And then I had a Tahitian girlfriend.
[00:36:07] And I thought I had died and gone to heaven. And I'm there and it just, it was too good. And then
[00:36:14] suddenly. So now are you 19 now? Yeah, I'm 19. You're 19 years old. Damn, that's, you're rolling.
[00:36:20] And so suddenly a strange car pulls up in the driveway. And I look. Okay, so you wait a second
[00:36:26] now. You're in Tahiti at this point. Yeah. You got a Tahitian girlfriend at her house. You're
[00:36:30] surfing, living the dream. Yeah. And you're in her house. Yeah. Living there, staying there. And
[00:36:38] now what do we get? Strange car pulls up. Fat middle age Frenchman jumps out. Eyes pop this far
[00:36:47] out of his head. Knocks me out of the way, runs straight for the bed, rips the sheets off the
[00:36:56] bed, starts smelling the bed like a dog. I run and grab my passport, whatever I can find and
[00:37:05] fucking leave half of my shit there and beat feet onto this street up in the hills above
[00:37:11] Papi Ate. And I'm just going like, what she said? She loved me. And so now I'm in the Kuei and
[00:37:19] Papi Ate. I check into some Tiji hotel. Turns out it has like a transvestite disco in it. And
[00:37:25] I was really pretty blonde haired surfer back then. And you know, and I'm basically, I had to
[00:37:30] barricade my door. And then I'm like, I gotta go. I'm going back to LA. So I get back to LA after
[00:37:37] about a year away. And I see my friends are basically sitting stoned in the same chairs I left them
[00:37:46] in a year earlier. And I had kind of a moment of satori and said, like, I'm out of here. I'm never
[00:37:53] living here again. And I'm getting as far away from this fucking place as I can. And so
[00:37:59] that's a weird thing to have, because it seemed like everything was kind of, I mean, other than this
[00:38:10] big French dude who kind of rolled in on your dreams. But you know, you could find another
[00:38:15] Tahitian girl or another girl or I mean, not one that was sponsoring me. That's good. That's
[00:38:21] good. So he was technically sponsoring your aspects. But you get back to LA. Okay, so your
[00:38:27] friends are still kind of stoned and they're surfing or whatever. But it's weird. It seems
[00:38:32] like that's an extreme viewpoint to suddenly have unless I guess the connection that I just was
[00:38:40] talking about where people don't understand that what they're doing now impacts their future.
[00:38:44] So that's probably what it was. You made this connection between, oh, I've been gone for a
[00:38:49] year and these guys are doing the same thing. And they're going to be doing that in five years.
[00:38:52] They're going to be doing that in 10 years. Oh, what I'm doing right now is going to impact my
[00:38:56] future. So maybe you did make that connection. Well, also, I had surfed such good waves and
[00:39:02] so many good waves. I mean, Lenox head back then, light crowds, the outer reefs of Cape
[00:39:10] Iron, you know, big waves, broken head point every day. So that I got back, I was like,
[00:39:17] okay, I'm going backwards now, like I've done all this. And so I found this college of small,
[00:39:24] another extreme liberal liberal arts school Bard College. And at that time, I think there were
[00:39:30] about 750 students. And they basically took your pulse and saw that your check cleared and you
[00:39:37] could get in. And so they had an immediate decision plan. So I flew back, I'd been in LA maybe four
[00:39:43] or five days, I found out about it, I flew to New York, I got in. Was it just timing wise? It
[00:39:49] happened to be in the fall or whatever, whenever they were accepting people. Yeah, August. Yeah,
[00:39:53] they had a they had a rolling admittance thing. And it was basically almost an art school and in
[00:39:59] a remarkable place. And it was up in the woods of New York state. And I got really into hunting
[00:40:06] and fishing. And so I just I fished at a trout stream on my college campus. And I fished and
[00:40:14] hunted every single day. And I had seven weeks off for Christmas, so I'd go to the North Shore
[00:40:21] every Christmas. And then I'd go to Scorpion Bay every summer. So I'd work in the unions, make money,
[00:40:26] and then go to Scorpion Bay. So I still got to surf a lot. But I became a pretty serious student.
[00:40:31] And it was not easy because I was damaged goods, because I hadn't done shit in high school. So
[00:40:37] I was, like you said, making up for these errors. And I was there with these, you know, really
[00:40:44] privileged kids from the East Coast. And like, for example, I had never, ever contemplated doing,
[00:40:51] you know, heroin or anything like that. The first time I even heard about it was on the East Coast
[00:40:57] with the most privileged children of America. And it was horrifying to me. And so I became a
[00:41:05] very, very serious student and had some incredible professors and wrote a really first rate thesis
[00:41:15] on my great grandfather's time at Nuremberg. Before we get there, it seems like you had a moment of
[00:41:21] clarity also when it came to the marijuana business. So in the book, tie sticks, you say,
[00:41:29] you get pulled over. And you say, the officer took one look at my bloodshot eyes, caught a
[00:41:35] whiff of the car's interior and asked, son, are you transporting narcotics across state lines?
[00:41:41] In that moment, under the dark desert sky, I told myself, if I got out of this jam, I would never
[00:41:46] put myself in this position again. Although I continued to smoke pot, I never trafficked again.
[00:41:51] So how did you get that? How did you get through that?
[00:41:56] You know, tradecraft on some level, I had, you know, I was like a half a pound or a quarter pound.
[00:42:05] And it was vacuum bagged and wiped down with the gas or some solvent in the cushion of the
[00:42:11] driver's seat. And it was a hatchback Mustang GT. And I'd been driving straight from LA and was
[00:42:20] all the way at the border of Texas and New Mexico. And I had two joints for the drive.
[00:42:27] And this was just for my personal consumption in college, because there was no good pot on these
[00:42:31] ghosts. And so, so I'm smoking my second joint, and I drop it on the ground. I turn on the
[00:42:39] interior light, I pass a cop going about 85, I don't even see him. And I see, you know, he lights
[00:42:46] so far back and say, oh, that can't be for me. And then I'm hit with a spotlight. And he's on the,
[00:42:52] on the PA going, keep your hands on the steering wheel and pull over to the start of the road.
[00:42:57] So I'm rolling down both windows, the Cheech and Chong shows going on. And I take a really long
[00:43:05] time to stop. And so, and he walks up. Yeah, no, he said, son, he said, there's a fruity,
[00:43:12] herbal aroma in the car and a brown stain on your lip. And I just said, no, sir, that's all I would
[00:43:19] say no sir. Okay, I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the car. Yeah, do I have consent to
[00:43:26] search. So I gave him the keys, hoping he would open it without, and he was too smart. So he said,
[00:43:32] he made me give him consent. And then he started pulling my bags out. And one had a bunch of blocks
[00:43:38] of white surfboard wax and up against the car. And he was sure it was like Coke or something.
[00:43:43] So then he kind of and then he's going through all my bags. And then I have these bundles of slides
[00:43:49] and brown paper with duct tape wrapped around him up against the car. And so he gets two big buildups,
[00:43:55] two strikes and now we're like 20 minutes into it. And he's an American Indian. And
[00:44:00] and and then finally he's he's you know, my my seats are still folded down. He hasn't folded the
[00:44:08] seats up. I have surfboards. I have all kinds of conversation. So he's asking me about this. And
[00:44:14] we he's kind of real. Okay, this guy's not that bad. And then and then he says, son, we're going to
[00:44:20] strike a little deal. And going, Oh, boy. And he goes, you're going to keep it under 55. While
[00:44:27] you're in New Mexico, and we're going to call it even. And that was the hardest part because I was
[00:44:32] going to jump in his arms. Oh, never do it again. And I really never did it again. And and that was
[00:44:40] that because I you know, I had I had made it over the Rubicon, you know, and I had turned my life
[00:44:46] around. But I almost fucked it up out of just, you know, arrogance and stupidity, you know,
[00:44:52] you track on any of the friends that you had back from that era.
[00:44:55] Absolutely. I'm still friends with all of them for better or worse. Yeah, all of them.
[00:45:00] Some surfed with them in Malibu yesterday. And you know, that some of them have been,
[00:45:06] you know, real heavy lifters when it comes to drugs, you know, like, they should
[00:45:10] take them to the Mayo Clinic and test them because from crack to fentanyl to and lost a lot of
[00:45:15] friends to fentanyl lost a lot of friends to opiates in the last few years. So fentanyl,
[00:45:22] fentanyl is a fake or a man made opioid. Is that what it is? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's what a
[00:45:30] thousand times stronger than or something. Do you know the actual number? How much? No, it depends
[00:45:35] on the ratio, but it's it's it's orders of magnitude. And you know, and it's in my opinion,
[00:45:43] asymmetrical warfare against the United States by China. And so the Chinese ship the chemicals
[00:45:49] to the Mexican cartels, they make them thanks to our porous border. It comes across. I mean, we had
[00:45:57] where do you get the like, what, where does this theory come from that the Chinese are sending
[00:46:02] the chemicals to Mexico? It's it's fairly well known because they would get American medical
[00:46:10] journals that had drug recipes that were too addictive that weren't ever approved. And and
[00:46:18] and whether it's I don't see it as as like Dr. Evil, you know, with his pinky in his mouth coming up,
[00:46:26] but look at the impact that it's had on America in last year, more Americans died than 108,000
[00:46:35] Americans died of ODs. So that's more than Korea, Vietnam and the war on terror combined.
[00:46:41] And nobody seems to be two up in arms about it. Is that one year? One year.
[00:46:46] 108,000. Yeah, according to the CDC, as a parent, that scares me more than anything.
[00:46:52] So the reason it scares you as a parent, because your kid can be at a party, and someone says,
[00:46:56] hey, you want to take some ecstasy, exactly, and they take ecstasy, but it turns out being
[00:47:01] fentanyl laced and they're dead. Yeah, and that happened in my town in North Carolina. The kid
[00:47:05] was a sports star getting ready to go to college, you know, senior party, let's take some ecstasy
[00:47:11] and boof. It happened some Naval Academy students, right? Yeah, some Naval Academy students in Florida
[00:47:16] down there partying. Yeah, a couple of them died. I mean, just like a horror. Yeah, it is. And to me,
[00:47:24] I mean, enforcing drug policies are difficult, but you know, and then you look at like Purdue
[00:47:32] Pharma and how the opiate crisis came to America and the corruption. I mean, that's at our core,
[00:47:42] that's the nation's problem now is just a kind of corruption I saw in Cambodia. And, you know,
[00:47:49] where, you know, Pelosi's husband's buying the stock that she's about to approve or Hunter's
[00:47:55] laptop or this kind of stuff. And it's a bipartisan game. I'm not, you know, I just, it's, you know,
[00:48:04] and like we were saying prior to the interview, everybody's in too deep with the Chinese to
[00:48:10] really call them out on anything. And our obsession with Russia is conspicuous to me compared to the
[00:48:17] blind eye we turned to China. Now with Taiwan, we're starting to firm up a little bit. But that's
[00:48:23] sleep. We're sleepwalking basically. And we're, you know, foreign policy has public relations.
[00:48:30] And to have the same neoconservatives back, like you, you know, so succinctly talk about,
[00:48:39] I forget your exact phrase, but, you know, taking responsibility for your failures. And
[00:48:45] extreme ownership, I think. And we look at these foreign policy elites that have just been wrong
[00:48:51] on wrong and wrong. And I've had moments where I got to write for the big periodicals and stuff
[00:48:58] like that. But I always went too far. And I always, I mean, I was all over Soros's guys during the
[00:49:05] 90s because they were utopians. Oh, the international criminal court with universal jurisdiction.
[00:49:11] It's like, well, we kind of tried that Woodrow Wilson and it didn't work out so well. And all
[00:49:17] those people went on to huge positions, you know, Ben Rhodes, Samantha Powers, these were
[00:49:22] cub reporters. These are my peers. And, you know, you played ball, you got tapped, you got pushed
[00:49:28] to the head of the class. And so I was in the odd position where I was critical of the war on terror
[00:49:35] from a policy perspective and thought it could have, you know, particularly when it went to Iraq
[00:49:40] because I had friends at the Army War College that I would call and say, what really impressive guy,
[00:49:47] Lieutenant Colonel Conrad Crane, who was Petraeus's brain, really. And he was the
[00:49:52] author of the counterinsurgency manual. And, you know, and he said, yeah, Tom Warwick from the
[00:49:58] State Department, who I had argued with about war crime stuff. He said he wrote the whole
[00:50:04] occupation plan. They had it like eight volumes. And Rumsfeld said, Warwick State Department,
[00:50:10] chuck it. And so people on the inside were nervous and kind of going like, wow, we don't
[00:50:17] really know where this is going, but it's going. And, and, you know, like, you know, worse than a
[00:50:25] an error is a blunder. And it's kind of blundering. And, you know,
[00:50:30] yeah, I would say worse than an error is to not assess your situation. Exactly. Oh, yeah. You
[00:50:37] know what? I was wrong about this. And here's the adjustments we need to make now. Yeah. And it took
[00:50:42] so long to, for any kind of that type of recognition that it was ridiculous. And then Libyan and
[00:50:49] Syria and keep rolling, you know, and now work this time. And by the way, you know, you can go
[00:50:54] all the way back to Vietnam, you can look at the exact, it's just the exact same thing. It's the
[00:50:58] exact same thing in Vietnam. Everything that was going on. It's like, Oh, the generals only listen
[00:51:04] to the politicians only listen to the generals and the generals only listen to themselves.
[00:51:07] Yeah. And no one's actually talking to the troops on the ground that know what's happening and
[00:51:11] could actually devise a way to move forward in a positive way. Doesn't happen. No freaking ridiculous.
[00:51:22] All right. So going back to going back to little tangential discussions, all good.
[00:51:27] Going back to you. So you end up in college, you go into this barred, barred college, and you're,
[00:51:34] you're having a good time. You enjoy it. Yeah. And you so talk to me about your your master's
[00:51:41] thesis. Well, no, just undergraduate. Okay. And I won a bunch of awards. So what was it?
[00:51:48] I was on the Nuremberg trials and the secret release of the convicted Nazis
[00:51:52] to trade to get German rearmament. Basically, the Germans say, and the Germans were masterful,
[00:51:58] you know, and I mean, statecraft, come on, we're going to beat them. And they said, Oh,
[00:52:03] you have to release our prisoners of war if you want a German army. And now, you know,
[00:52:08] with the Soviet Union seeming to be menacing in Europe, Berlin splitting. And the Germans are
[00:52:18] pouring gas on it, you know, and so hit one of Hitler's best spy masters on the Soviet Union,
[00:52:25] Reinhard Galen, he took all their records on the Soviet Union, buried them and then surrendered
[00:52:31] to the US. And he said, Okay, you want that? You get all my guys off the war crimes list.
[00:52:37] And yeah, we'll give you all the intelligence you want on the Soviet Union. So they flew Galen at
[00:52:42] Al to the United States. And he would he would kind of hype up the Soviet threat to keep the
[00:52:49] Americans, you know, on their heels. And, and so the Germans masterfully manipulated us. And we
[00:52:57] wound up freeing some of the worst German war criminals like some of the Einsatz commandos,
[00:53:03] Einsatzgruppen who followed the Wehrmacht, and we're just pure executioners. And, and so,
[00:53:09] you know, that was quite alarming. When I was younger, I was a little more idealistic before I
[00:53:17] did field work. And, and so I then, and it was an interesting so that that became my PhD advisor
[00:53:25] dissertation. So then I went to Columbia to study with Brigadier General Telfer Taylor,
[00:53:30] who was the chief prosecutor, scary guy. And there's scary in what way there's a, well, he,
[00:53:37] I think he argued, I don't know how many Supreme Court cases. There's a famous movie called The
[00:53:43] Paper Chase about law school. And John Hausman is this really, yeah, he was John Hausman times 10.
[00:53:50] And, and, and if you went off topic talking to him, he would just close his book on it. So I see
[00:53:57] we're finished today. And that was it, you were dismissed. And, you know, and old fashioned law
[00:54:04] school, you go Jones, tell me about the Smith Act. And you get two shots the whole semester. And if
[00:54:11] you blow it, that's half your grade. And so, wait, so this is Columbia Law School? Well, I got my
[00:54:18] PhD in history, but I also took classes in law school, and the School of International Affairs,
[00:54:24] and had some incredible professors. And, and it was horrible. I hated every minute of it.
[00:54:31] I'm so glad I did it now. But it was, you know, like being locked in a boxcar for four years or
[00:54:39] something. I mean, what was your vision at that time for your life? Like, what did you see yourself
[00:54:43] doing? Did you want to go into journalism? Did you want to be a professor? What did you want to do?
[00:54:47] I thought I was going to go to law school. And then I got my master's in history. I wrote another
[00:54:53] thesis another one another step further on Nuremberg. And then I got into Columbia Law School,
[00:55:00] Journalism School, and History. And they, they, at that point, you're kind of a professional
[00:55:05] athlete. So you get no tuition, you get money, and all that in the history. And then I kind of
[00:55:12] pitted them all against each other. And I got the best deal from history. And I was still not
[00:55:18] totally committed to academia. I just, you know, was getting a free PhD. And I, I really enjoyed
[00:55:25] it. And I was going to write a book. And so I think it was journalism more moving in that direction.
[00:55:30] But, but I was always kind of more active person. I didn't want to just sit on the sidelines. And
[00:55:36] then the opportunity came as I finished to go to Cambodia. And it was what I wanted to do.
[00:55:43] So, so how'd that opportunity spring up? As I said, these two guys I grew up with in, in,
[00:55:50] in California, were photographers for agency France Press, they stumbled across the cash
[00:55:57] of negatives at Tool Slang Prison. And they set up a secret darkroom and we're printing them and,
[00:56:04] and really preserving the original negatives, the evidence of, of war crimes. And that I, I knew
[00:56:11] that's the key though, punishing the individuals is obviously important, but creating an empirical
[00:56:18] record of the crimes. That's what's made Holocaust revisionism so difficult. Because
[00:56:25] Nuremberg created an unassailable historical record. So that's where my mind was, I didn't think that
[00:56:33] they would ever try anybody. And it will, and in fact, they did. And I played a small role in
[00:56:41] keeping those issues alive, preserving the evidence and passing that evidence on to the Cambodian
[00:56:47] documentation center. And I worked closely with them as I went further on. And so what year is
[00:56:55] this now? So this would be 94 is my first trip. And then when did you go side note? When did you
[00:57:04] start training Jiu Jitsu? I was training in Jeet Kune Do first with a guy named John Peretti in
[00:57:12] New York City, who was a former pro kickboxer, and a real badass who fought on Indian reservations and
[00:57:20] was fighting like MMA matches in the tunnels beneath Chinatown. And before the era of closed
[00:57:28] circuit TV, he had those ASIC Tiger shoes, and he was so steel toes in them. And, and, and, you know,
[00:57:37] and we get in all kinds of fights in New York City and beat up bad people. And he encouraged us to do
[00:57:43] that. And, and, and, and John Donahue was kind of around a bit at that time. And so I was, you
[00:57:52] know, I was training with Freddie, a lot of kickboxing. And he was a real, a very brilliant guy,
[00:57:59] an odd guy, very sadistic in his training. Everything was live full contact. And he would
[00:58:05] bring in incredible fighters that he knew he brought in a sumo wrestler, Igor Zanoviev, who fought
[00:58:13] a beat Mario Sperry, we met him when he had just come. And he was fighting underground fights.
[00:58:19] A Russian fencer who is the fastest human I've ever seen, only in one direction. And, you know,
[00:58:27] small arms stuff and all kinds of different things. And, and we were all kind of scared of
[00:58:33] wrestlers. And, and Peretti talked about fighting this Russian wrestler, who almost broke his neck
[00:58:40] and killed him in the first round of their challenge match. And then he knocked him out so
[00:58:45] unconscious that he thought he killed him in the second round. But that left a big mark. So, so he
[00:58:51] never, he encouraged us to finish our fights on the hardwood floor. And, and so we had no mats.
[00:58:58] And, and, and not many people lasted that long in that school. And, and then I heard about the
[00:59:06] Garcia brothers, the Mexican guys, the Garcia brothers. And, and that was, that was the Gracie's.
[00:59:15] And so then I had a friend who was a college wrestler and he said, oh yeah, I'm training with,
[00:59:21] with Hicks and Gracie and on Pico. And so you came back out to California. I come every summer.
[00:59:27] So when you spent your summer in California, you got to, that's the first time you went down to
[00:59:32] Pico. Yeah, I went first time. I think 92, I got a private. And then Hicks and said, come back,
[00:59:40] you know, come back and really train. And so then the next summer I trained, you know, three days a
[00:59:45] week in the men's, open men's daytime class. And my friend used to say it was, it was lunchtime on
[00:59:54] the prison yard. And it was, you know, we had Eric, 94, 95, no 93, 93. So this was Eric Paul
[01:00:02] Wilson. John Lewis was in there as a wipeout. And, and as I said in the book, like, they were minor
[01:00:12] compared to like guys like you, then there was like prison extraction unit guards that were so big.
[01:00:20] And the, the gnarliest guy was an offshore oil rig, like pull a pipe joiner guy was like 300 pounds.
[01:00:29] And he would just grab a wrist and like peel, they just take things. And yeah, Paul Vunak was in there.
[01:00:37] And then just all the karaoke Brazilian Rio guys coming here and coming there. And, and, and I
[01:00:44] surfed well and they knew me from surfing. So they liked that. And I was a good standup fighter.
[01:00:48] So, and we had to do a lot of standup back then and Luis LeMau would put on these, these ridiculous
[01:00:54] leather boxing gloves and, and I do my Bruce Lee stuff and they all like Hicks and kids thought it
[01:01:00] was the best, you know, and, and, and it was a great time, you know, and, and Hicks and I became good
[01:01:07] friends. And not that deep. But then we both kind of had a pivotal moment in both of our lives. And
[01:01:16] it was when I was going to start in Cambodia, and he was going to fight in Japan. And we would run
[01:01:23] into each other at sunrise at Malibu. And just there's Hicks and Hey, Hicks and, and we talk,
[01:01:28] you know, for an hour. And, and I don't think I've had any superficial conversations with Hicks and
[01:01:36] in 30 years. And it's always straight to the guts of it. And then I started, you know, going to Cambodia
[01:01:44] and a lot of times I would come straight back from a gnarly trip, right to his house, always
[01:01:52] unannounced in the same clothes I've been wearing, smelling like wood smoke and kind of spun out on
[01:01:59] volumes and beers and because you can't sleep after you get that wound up, right. And, and he'd take
[01:02:06] one look at me and he'd go, take off your boots. And he said, let's play around a little bit. And
[01:02:13] he wouldn't even let me start my show and tell. And then I'd have like a two hour private in, in
[01:02:17] like street clothes. And then he'd say, okay, like, what the fuck happened to you on this one? And so
[01:02:25] and then I would tell him these like these martial arts scenarios, like fighting on motorcycles,
[01:02:30] I got attacked on motorcycles once. And, and like had a full 3040 mile an hour fight on motorcycles
[01:02:38] with three guys trying to pull me off and we made them crash. And then a lot of mob stuff. And as
[01:02:44] I was saying earlier, this is all in Cambodia. Yeah, in Cambodia, like in gosh, I don't know,
[01:02:51] I think about 99. They attack the Cambodian government orchestrated mobs that attacked the
[01:02:57] Thai embassy. And the Thai ambassador had to escape in a speedboat. And any Thai business was ransacked
[01:03:04] by kind of government orchestrated mobs, icons, but in plain clothes, Molotov cocktails. And,
[01:03:12] and I was always saying earlier, I really began to see the mob as this like organic organism that,
[01:03:19] you know, feeds on the sound of broken glass and the smell of fire. And, and they were all on
[01:03:26] motorcycles. And they would the military police would come and disperse them. And then you'd hear
[01:03:33] the beep, beep, beep, beep, and they'd all honk their horns and they'd reform up. And it went on
[01:03:39] and it went on all night. And you'd hear the beep, beep, beep. And then, and this was my wife's first
[01:03:44] trip to Cambodia. So you're bringing your wife on these trips? No, this was supposed to be a Mello
[01:03:50] one. Okay. Yeah, I said, Oh, no, it's Mello. It's not bad anymore. And this brings up out of nowhere.
[01:03:55] And, and this we were in the capital this time. And I was not expecting much. And she goes, Oh,
[01:04:01] look, fireworks. I go, those are tracers. And, and so, and it was a remarkable thing. You know,
[01:04:10] that really stuck with me of, of, and I think, as a society, we're moving towards this point of,
[01:04:18] of, you know, this mob gets kind of the military police heard them down this narrow street. And so
[01:04:25] they're, they're like five abreast all in those little motorcycles, two or three guys on the
[01:04:30] motorcycle. And they're kind of street punks, right? And there's three military policemen,
[01:04:36] all hard old, probably former Khmer Rouge guys, dark skin, which is typically the, you know,
[01:04:44] the Khmer Rouge guys are more peasant areas. And, and they block them off and they all have AKs old
[01:04:51] banged up AKs. And they walk up and the lead punk and the lead cop go nose to nose and the
[01:04:59] car and the punks going, and you see, and I'm on a balcony second floor right above it. And,
[01:05:06] and the, and the lead cop plays really passive. Oh yeah. Okay, man, I'm sorry. And he, and he
[01:05:13] wheels around, takes two steps back, nods to his guys, whips it around from the hip. They all open
[01:05:20] up 30 round magazines, foot over the heads of the, of the mob, reload those guys, leave their bikes,
[01:05:31] run each other over, it turns into complete Keystone cops. They turn into the biggest bunch
[01:05:36] of cowards you've ever seen in your life. And then I went out on the balcony and started clapping.
[01:05:41] And, you know, but yeah, and I just, I think, yeah, it was had a profound impact on, you know,
[01:05:51] on the mob and the cowardice of the mob when someone has the courage to stand up to the mob.
[01:05:57] What was the initial thread that you caught onto for going to Cambodia?
[01:06:02] Uh, was in my mind, this was the worst unaccounted for atrocity since World War Two.
[01:06:13] This was the event that, that destroyed the never again promise that made the whole never again,
[01:06:21] we're not going to be bystanders to genocide, mythical. And, and I said, how and why did this
[01:06:28] happen? And that's what made me go. That's why I wanted to start there. Then Bosnia happened.
[01:06:34] And then I'm in the foreign correspondence club watching Rwanda and Rwanda is just on a magnitude
[01:06:40] that, you know, is like Cambodia. And so these things are flaring up all around us. The UN sending
[01:06:47] forces doing the same bullshit neutrality thing. You had the French foreign legion in Cambodia,
[01:06:53] generals, Laurie Dan and redo said unleashes war is our business. We'll go fight these guys and
[01:07:00] they wouldn't take them off the leash. And both, both generals resigned. You had the Aussie SAS,
[01:07:06] you had real serious guys, but they'd send the Bulgarians. They'd send, you know, I mean, the
[01:07:12] the most lasting legacy of the UN in Cambodia was eight because they took soldiers from all over the
[01:07:19] world, put them all over the country. And that was their mode and UN land cruisers that the Khmer Rouge
[01:07:25] all stole. And they would just steal them at gunpoint. And one of the guys that I hired a ex
[01:07:31] Khmer Rouge guy, he would then sell them back to the UN. He would be the negotiator for them to buy
[01:07:37] back their own cars. And it was just weakness upon weakness. Yeah, you say in facing death in
[01:07:44] Cambodia, your book, you say, I began research, I began the research that would make this book
[01:07:48] possible in 1993. I was completing my PhD dissertation at Columbia University on the Nuremberg
[01:07:52] war crime trials and laws of war. The dissertation was awarded honors, but it was cold comfort.
[01:07:58] I felt hollow and fraudulent like a boxing commentator who had never been in the ring.
[01:08:04] I was writing about modern conflict as a civilian leading a secure life and an Ivy League university
[01:08:10] 28 and a product of one of the softest generations in American history. What did I know about conflict
[01:08:17] resolution, resolution beyond what I had read to teach undergraduates about how the world should be
[01:08:22] without addressing the rapidity changing the rapidly changing world on its own terms was to
[01:08:28] perpetuate a familiar cycle of fraudulence. So you were going to go get in it. Yeah.
[01:08:38] Then so so as Campbell, the first time you went to Cambodia, like how much intel did you gather
[01:08:44] the first time you went there? I saw that it was that the UN had done nothing about accountability.
[01:08:54] I saw that the the evidence of war crimes and genocide and all that was in the wind that,
[01:09:01] you know, I mean, we're finding stuff, you know, from third parties. I got a bunch of material
[01:09:07] in East Germany because the East Germans came in with the Vietnamese military. So there was no kind
[01:09:15] of it was catch as catch can. So my main imperative initially was to preserve the historical evidence.
[01:09:21] And I was a historian with a background in war crimes. And so, you know, when I went to Telfer
[01:09:26] Taylor and said, who do you think I should do this? He looked at me like, were you, you know,
[01:09:31] are you stupid? What did you study all this stuff for? And my grandfather, when I went the pilot,
[01:09:37] when I went to tell him, hey, I'm going to go to Cambodia, you know, he said, yeah, great,
[01:09:41] don't be careful, careful kills. And so nobody in my family thought it was the least bit strange,
[01:09:50] you know, so that, you know, my dad's half sister, Marty Hoy would have been the first
[01:09:58] woman to climb Everest, I think in 82. And her waist belt ended and she fell 5000 vertical feet,
[01:10:04] and they never found her body. And she was probably the greatest female mountain climber of all time.
[01:10:10] My uncle sailed like a 29 foot boat from Ventura Harbor to the Marquesas and spent like six years
[01:10:19] sailing around the world. So we get it honest, you know. And so I don't know, you know, it's just
[01:10:25] as normal. Now at some point, you know, when you're working the Cambodia case, you start
[01:10:33] pulling the thread on James Clark, Lance McNamara, Mike Deeds, and Crystal Lance. Yeah.
[01:10:39] And that's tell us about those guys. Well, I had friends from the marijuana trade who said, hey,
[01:10:47] these guys we knew vanished in Cambodia. And we never we don't know what happened, see if you
[01:10:53] can find any records, see if you can find anything about them. And, and I found one of their pictures
[01:11:03] in the prison, white guy, you know, surfer. And, and that was, you know, that was something I could
[01:11:09] identify with had I been 10 years older, it could have been me, I would have probably done that at
[01:11:14] that time. So that and then I met the families, you know, and, and that, I think, and that's the
[01:11:23] thing also that leads us into the Miag was I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but
[01:11:27] nothing is more damaging and traumatizing to a family than having a family member disappear
[01:11:36] and not knowing how, what, when, and not being able to tie that up and to see the the trauma that
[01:11:45] the family goes through as a result, alcoholism, suicide, all those kind of things, you know, really
[01:11:52] followed a lot of the Westerners who were captured by the Khmer Rouge. How were these guys rolled
[01:11:57] up initially? Sailboat just got too close. And those disputed islands off of Cambodia, the Vietnamese
[01:12:06] and Cambodians were always fighting over. So they had Pete, they had fat American fast boats, they
[01:12:12] had armed fishing boats. So they were patrolling that stretch of water and, and, and very vigilant
[01:12:19] about it. And so, um, yeah, so that that was it. And they just, you know, got it got their boats,
[01:12:28] took them in, took them to Toul Slang prison, interrogated and tortured them for, you know,
[01:12:34] gosh, the last two who died, you know, there was days before the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia. So,
[01:12:43] you know, but they were three months or something, you know, just horrible tortures and, and
[01:12:48] and rewriting their confessions over and over and over and long 30, 40, 50 page confessions.
[01:12:55] And, you know, and, and that's the thing. And that's, you know, you see that at, at a certain
[01:13:01] point with torture, it doesn't work. So, well, it's crazy that the, that the Khmer Rouge decided
[01:13:10] to photograph everyone before they tortured and killed them. Yeah. Did you ever, what compelled
[01:13:16] them to do that? They were so paranoid that they had to prove to the leadership that they were
[01:13:24] carrying out their orders. And the remarkable thing about that prison is there were roughly like
[01:13:29] 1200 guards and staff members, something like 500 of them wound up as prisoners. One guy screamed,
[01:13:39] had a bad dream in the night and screamed, you're a CIA. One guy broke an axe handle, you're KGB. I mean,
[01:13:47] you know, this is Stone Age communism. And basically, they're all spying on each other,
[01:13:54] they're all snitching on each other. They would have these meetings. And, and one guy I interviewed
[01:14:01] was one of the head executioners named Him Hoi. And I was prepared to meet evil incarnate. And he
[01:14:08] was rumored to have killed thousands with the, with the ox cart axle to the back of the neck.
[01:14:14] And so I said, you know, I've been interviewing him and a couple of Marlboro Reds and Tiger beers,
[01:14:21] always kind of loosened him up a little bit. And he said, you know, I said, how did you,
[01:14:27] how did you get it to a sling prison? He said, well, I, they showed up in my village, you know,
[01:14:32] and you were drafted at gunpoint. And I ran away. And then I, they came back to my village. I ran
[01:14:39] away again. And the second time they sent me to the front. And my first battle, I was shot in the
[01:14:45] head. And they said, Oh, you're going to die so over the top, you lead the charge, you get shot a
[01:14:50] bunch more times. He recovers from that. And then during the invasion of Peno Pente, he gets a grenade
[01:14:59] dropped on him. And I say, wow, you know, were you afraid you were going to die? He goes, no, I was
[01:15:03] afraid that I was going to get captured. And they were going to eat my liver in front of me. So he
[01:15:08] crawls under a house survives that. And they say, Oh, comrade, hoy, you're such a valiant warrior,
[01:15:15] we have a special job for you. And they send him to a sling. So he starts out as a low level guard.
[01:15:21] Then his boss is accused. He becomes a prisoner. He moves up the food chain. And so his superior
[01:15:28] is keep getting killed. So suddenly he's one of the head guards, he's driving the truck to the
[01:15:33] killing fields at Chiang Ak. And, you know, and I said something to the effect of like, do you
[01:15:39] feel bad about it? Or some stupid question like that? And he just looked at me goes, it was death
[01:15:44] either way. And, and, you know, and it was remarkable in that he his whole life now is about
[01:15:55] penance. And, you know, because I would say that these guys like, Oh, do you think it's important
[01:16:00] that Pol Pot has tried and we hold them accountable and all this rah, rah, Western human rights
[01:16:06] bullshit. And they would say, No, not really at all. I think they should dig a big hole and bury
[01:16:12] all of it. Because vengeance breeds vengeance. And that's very Buddhist, right? But then they would
[01:16:17] say, What does it matter? He's 70 years old. He's only going to live 10 more years. He's coming back
[01:16:23] for 15,000 lives as a cockroach. So he's going to get his. So their thing is you're reincarnated as
[01:16:32] the lowliest horrible creature on earth for the next 10,000 years. So anything we can do
[01:16:39] in our earthly timeframe is immaterial to them. So that was interesting, you know, that really,
[01:16:47] and that the guy who probably had a bigger, more profound effect on me was one of the survivors,
[01:16:57] a guy named Imchaun. They kept him alive because he could have carved effigies of Pol Pot.
[01:17:02] Sure. He was a good artist. Yeah, he was a good artist. Figured out that he was a good artist.
[01:17:05] Yeah. And, and I same thing, first trip, Oh, isn't this great? Never again. We're going to get you
[01:17:12] justice and, and, and he kind of, and he cracked and he said, You know what? I'm only talking to you
[01:17:19] because the museum director told me to and I don't like talking to you guys. And every time I talk to
[01:17:26] you, you shorten my life. I think that they should take all this crap and dig a big hole and bury
[01:17:34] it and tear down this prison because vengeance reads vengeance. And then I turned off my tape
[01:17:40] recorder said, Okay, see you later. And I could have easily spun that and gone, you know, never
[01:17:47] again, rah, rah, rah, and gotten a big check from George Soros. But I really, it put me on my heels.
[01:17:56] And I thought, what cold comfort that we're, we're going to come in like the white nights
[01:18:02] after the genocide and hold a couple old guys up accountable. And at this time, you've got Rwanda
[01:18:08] going on, you've got Bosnia going on. I mean, during the former Yugoslavia war, they're indicting
[01:18:15] people with an ongoing conflict where there's massive atrocities being carried out and they're
[01:18:21] not even doing anything Rwanda the same East Timor. And these are just blowing up all over the
[01:18:27] place and the UN's taking this very passive, you know, non interventionist, even when they have
[01:18:33] forces on the ground, they don't take them off the leash. And so the whole thing seemed very
[01:18:41] fraudulent to me. I went to the Hague a couple of times and, you know, and you know, again,
[01:18:47] I call it the human rights industry. It's an industry. And when I started in the whole war
[01:18:53] crimes thing, I was one of about three people, nobody was in this field. And then it becomes
[01:18:59] this booming industry with the Hague with all these institutes and places at different universities.
[01:19:06] And I've worked on a lot of these high profile cases because I have subject matter expertise,
[01:19:12] but I can't take money or I'm a partisan. So I've walked a strange line in my career, you know,
[01:19:21] where, you know, I worked on the Jose Padilla, the dirty bomber case, I worked on the David Irving
[01:19:26] case, I worked in the Cameroon case. And, you know, and I sort of, you know, run afoul of everyone
[01:19:33] over the years. And it's funny because books are like children. They make their own friends.
[01:19:39] So I thought, oh, the New York Times, the polite society, they're going to all love me.
[01:19:44] No, they hated me. And, and it was the professional military and the far left became my best
[01:19:53] constituents, you know, and my first book, how was that?
[01:19:59] I, you'd have to ask them, this is this is Lawn War. You're telling me your first book.
[01:20:03] Yeah, Lawn War is an interesting book because that took me 10 years to get published. And
[01:20:09] it got rejected by a lot of publishers. And I would get they take your book, they send it out to
[01:20:16] the experts in the field. And I would always get one really good review, and then one really bad
[01:20:21] review, because basically I said, Nuremberg trials, if anything drew the Germans together
[01:20:28] in their defense of the Third Reich, it was the Marshall plan, it was economic prosperity.
[01:20:34] That's what converted them to see the era of the Third Reich. And the era of the Third Reich,
[01:20:40] the key players are the children of the people who lived through the Third Reich, the 68er generation
[01:20:47] comes of age and say, Dad, what did you do in the war? So that was you say the 68 or January?
[01:20:53] Yeah, the 68ers is, you know, like 68 was a big year of, of strife in the United States.
[01:21:00] Oh, so people that were born in 19, yeah, like the kind of lefties of, yeah. And so
[01:21:05] that generation, that's when that society began to reckon with its past. It was not in the 50s.
[01:21:12] So that was a very unwelcome message. But then a German historian, a guy by the name of Juerg
[01:21:21] Friedrich, he was one of my reviewers. And he said, Oh, yeah, of course, we all know this, this
[01:21:26] should be published, blah, blah, blah. And then my second guy sent me the most scathing criticism
[01:21:32] of anything I've ever written. And I, I, and Friedrich called me, huh, McGuire, oh, great job,
[01:21:38] blah, blah, I said, it's done. I'm they, I didn't get the contract. He said, what? And he sent,
[01:21:44] he said, send me the guy's review. So then he went through the guy's review and ripped it apart
[01:21:49] and got me hired by Spiegel TV in Germany. So then he introduced me to ad now ours, war crimes,
[01:21:57] advisors, the German defense attorneys, Flohten Richter, Otto Kronzbühler, who was
[01:22:04] doonits and crops defense attorney. And this guy was ad now ours, special, you know, advisor on
[01:22:12] the war crime stuff. So in the treaty, restoring German sovereignty in the 50s, where they're kind
[01:22:19] of let off probation in this gigantic thousands of page treaty, he inserts these paragraphs
[01:22:27] that invalidate all the post war war crimes trial decisions, the legal validity is rejected. And,
[01:22:35] and I would know one would ever found it out. But he said, look, I wrote it in invisible ink.
[01:22:41] I put the exception before the rule. No good lawyer would ever do that. And so that's,
[01:22:48] I had that in my book. And that was not happily received. So yeah, so I was, so that was a difficult,
[01:22:55] you know, 10 years knowing that you're right, but you got to fight and fight and fight.
[01:23:02] And then the book got published. And yes, that's the book that the military liked in the left
[01:23:07] like, but the polite society sure didn't like it. But they didn't, they couldn't really come after me
[01:23:13] because they hadn't done the heavy lifting. Like I said, their analysis of the Nuremberg trials
[01:23:20] never went deeper than Robert Jackson's opening address. It's this mythic myth of Nuremberg
[01:23:26] as this redemptive thing. And so yeah. And then what about what about death facing death in Cambodia?
[01:23:34] So that one get received? Pretty well, actually. Yeah, that one, that one I did better. But still,
[01:23:40] it and I mean, is the end what's your takeaway from, you know, vengeance breeds vendors? Is that
[01:23:47] your takeaway from that whole thing? Hey, bury this stuff in a hole and let's move on. No,
[01:23:53] definitely not. But I think what, what really came home for me was that you have to talk to the
[01:24:00] culture that, that survived this, that endured this, you can't come from the high and parachute
[01:24:08] down from the Hague. And that's what they did in Cambodia. And so when they finally, you know,
[01:24:14] they, they took more time to try for 80 year old Khmer Rouge leaders than it took to try thousands
[01:24:24] of war criminals after World War Two. And, and you know, I don't know how many millions they spent,
[01:24:30] the numbers are impossible to tell. And, and they got involved in what I call therapeutic
[01:24:35] legalism, which is we need closure and healing. And, and you can't ask a court to do that. And
[01:24:43] then they point to Nuremberg and say, look, look, Nuremberg did that, which is a myth. And so
[01:24:49] to ask a court to do anything more than punish the guilty and exonerate the innocent is too much.
[01:24:55] And so all of this, you know, therapeutic legalism and you burden it with, with victims units and
[01:25:03] all this kind of emotional stuff. And that's the world we live in now where, you know, this, these
[01:25:10] notions of comfort and safety. And I, I have a very kind of different view of it. And I believe
[01:25:20] that, that freedom isn't safe, you know, the lambs freedom safe, if you want this kind of timid,
[01:25:28] little bleeding freedom. But the lion's freedom is a bold thing. And if the lion breaks its leg,
[01:25:34] the hyenas get it. And that's the game, you know, so you don't get it both ways. And I don't, and I'm
[01:25:40] very uncomfortable with the direction American society is going now with, you know, this note,
[01:25:45] and that's why I don't teach anymore. Because, and I love teaching, it was very fun. But it turned
[01:25:51] into this notions of, Oh, well, you know, you know, I don't feel safe, I don't feel comfortable,
[01:25:57] I can't teach the Holocaust and Khmer Rouge, and you be comfortable. What is that? So I'm very
[01:26:03] socratic in the way I taught in that, you know, you don't raise your hand, I call on you. And,
[01:26:11] and you know, and that's keep some reading and keeps them on their toes. And I would walk in
[01:26:16] when I taught at Columbia with three by five cards. And I'd say, okay, take one, pass it down,
[01:26:23] and they kind of be giggling. And then I'd say, fold it in half. And they go, Oh, arts and crafts,
[01:26:28] I go write your name on it, I can't be bothered to remember your name. Smith, why are you here?
[01:26:35] Smith stock tips, sports scores, talk, and just boom, fast and make them all talk. And just like
[01:26:42] you dealt with in buds, by the end of that first class, they were bound together as a unit in terror.
[01:26:50] And, and then, and then, you know, but then once that class was over, they go, Professor
[01:26:59] McGuire, I go, No, it's Peter said, that was a fucking show. I said, you call on me anytime you
[01:27:05] need a letter of recommendation, anything, you know, you survive, man, I'm yours for the rest of
[01:27:11] your life. And, and I'm still in touch with a lot of those students, and they've done incredibly
[01:27:17] well. And I also also taught jujitsu while I taught history. And I'd say any of you don't
[01:27:22] like your grade, you can come to the jujitsu class and you can settle it with me on the mat. How's
[01:27:27] that sound? Hey, when you look at the Cameroon in Cambodia, when you look at the Nazis, Nazis had
[01:27:39] like a ramp up period, you know, it took 1933, you could see it brewing, there was this sort of
[01:27:46] slower boil as the things started to transform. But the Cameroon was like, overnight madness.
[01:27:59] And madness at a level that's it's it's it's it's actual insanity. Well, it was class resentment
[01:28:07] that was stoked. And so you had an incredibly corrupt, you had the crazy King Sienaq, who was,
[01:28:15] you know, just this kind of wild playboy, and incredible decadent corruption of the elites,
[01:28:25] and the peasantry resenting them already, leading really hard lives. You know, when you go up in
[01:28:32] the Cambodian provinces, a day seems like a week, and it's hot, and it's just it's a hard, hard life.
[01:28:40] And and so, you know, they're seeing these very westernized, you know, decadent elites in the city,
[01:28:49] and then you have pulpotting, serice, cusampon, and these are all Sorbonne educated. So and they
[01:28:57] bring the latest trendy Marxist theories, and, and particularly Mao, and, and the cultural revolution
[01:29:05] becomes, you know, the model. And they want the blank slate clean peasants year zero. Yeah, they want
[01:29:15] people, you know, most of the elites were, you know, real, you know, peasants with, you know, no
[01:29:23] education, nothing. And they would get them away from their parents and reshape them. And, and,
[01:29:30] and that's what they did. And they did very quickly. And they did it with great Chinese support,
[01:29:36] and denial on the Western left, who were, who were, you know, no Chomsky in particular,
[01:29:43] that, you know, would deny the atrocities and cast a shadow of doubt over what was going on when it
[01:29:49] was pretty clear what was going on. And then it was a very shameful period. And then it was
[01:29:56] shameful afterwards when everybody knew and propped them up in the name of Cold War geopolitics. And so
[01:30:05] yeah, and then I mean, so you have in, you know, in 79, you have the Vietnamese knock out the
[01:30:11] Khmer Rouge, then the Chinese knock take a run at the Vietnamese and they have a nasty little,
[01:30:18] you know, border war for a minute there. And then they come to a truce. And basically the Chinese
[01:30:24] are like, you're not to talk about the genocide. Okay. And, and they gave the they did a lot better
[01:30:31] than people thought they would the Vietnamese Vietnamese are pretty fierce. And, and so,
[01:30:39] yeah. And so that that was that was how those, you know, those Cold War geopolitics, you know,
[01:30:44] shape things up. All right. So when did when did when did facing death in Cambodia actually come
[01:30:52] out 2005? Oh, so you were working on that for you're working on that book for 10 years, 10 years
[01:30:58] usually. You're not you're not a fast writer. No, no, I'm very fast. But I had to let the events
[01:31:05] play out Hickson's book took me six months. Okay. So so that means where were you you were in
[01:31:13] Cambodia when 911 happened? I was. And how what was that like? It was surreal. My buddy Luke Hunt
[01:31:22] who had just come from Afghanistan and I think he had interviewed Mullah Omar. And we were at the
[01:31:29] foreign correspondence club. It was late. And, and he could he's Aussie and he runs up the stairs
[01:31:35] World War three started World War three started. And I was like, I'll get out of here. And, and I
[01:31:41] was kind of in denial. And I said, Oh, you know, it's just I'm drunk and a Cessna. And so I had a
[01:31:48] room I would keep at the foreign correspondence club. So me and another reporter and Luke went down
[01:31:54] and we're drinking beer and watching the thing and all of a sudden the second plane flew in.
[01:31:59] And I went, What the fuck? And then then the only thing I was right about was when all of a sudden
[01:32:08] the whole screen went gray. And I was like, it pancaked. And I knew that from construction
[01:32:14] because I'd seen controlled I'd seen buildings collapse and things like that. Because, you know,
[01:32:20] I've been around construction my whole life. And so that that's when I got real. My wife was in
[01:32:27] New York City. And so it was impossible to get in touch with her. And we were on the Upper West
[01:32:34] Side. So we weren't quite near it. But yeah, that was then I took me a long time to get back. And I
[01:32:41] was stuck over there. And yeah, it was it was surreal. Okay. And so this book comes out 2005,
[01:32:53] Facing Death in Cambodia, that's received better than Lawnmower. Yeah. And then in the meantime,
[01:33:02] you're working on this on the Greeno advanced rescue craft. Yes. So George Greeno, who's like a
[01:33:09] legendary kind of iconic surf surfer, shaper, he's kind of credited for the modern surfing fin.
[01:33:19] Yeah. How did you how did you know him? When I lived in Australia. And then that's right,
[01:33:25] you live the next door neighbor. Yeah. And then I would come often from Cambodia to Australia.
[01:33:33] And so it was like the cute the PTSD cure was being afraid of getting eaten by I mean getting,
[01:33:43] you know, killed by the Cameroon. And then you go surf these outer reefs with George Greeno and
[01:33:48] have to worry about getting eaten by great light sharks. And there were so many sharks there at
[01:33:54] that. And they still are it's actually much worse now. And then and I had grown up on boats and George
[01:34:00] always had these incredible skiffs. And he had won a 12 foot boat. He's an amazing fisherman. He
[01:34:07] caught a 12 foot and a 13 foot tiger shark on hand lines off his 12 foot boat, cut both heads off
[01:34:16] with a serrated bread knife, brought them both in. And you know, before it was before sharks
[01:34:22] became the new dolphin, we regularly fished for sharks and didn't feel really bad about it. But
[01:34:28] but anyway, so I fished with George a fair bit. And and I was living on the North Shore. I had
[01:34:36] been a lifeguard and I was having to make a lot of rescues in Moklaia. And the North Shore guy who
[01:34:44] does all the sleds and rescue stuff taught me how to drive a jet ski. And I was like, these things
[01:34:51] suck. And then I had friends in the teams and they were telling me about all you got to do is make
[01:34:56] this one Yamaha SUV that we want because it's stable, just splash a mold off it. And of course,
[01:35:02] that would have been too easy. I don't do anything easy. I always have to reinvent the wheel. So I
[01:35:07] called George, hey, George, you still got the mold for the 12 footer. Yeah, I do. Okay, let's let's
[01:35:12] make a jet boat. And so in the dirt under George's house, me and my old right hand man from Cambodia,
[01:35:21] cut the jet ski up and married it to his 12 footer. And the first one came out of the mold.
[01:35:27] Perfect. And then we canceled, we canceled a military program. And that really, I didn't
[01:35:40] understand military contracting, things like that. And then then we were a big threat and military
[01:35:47] military industrial complex stuff. And, and it wasn't fun anymore. The military industrial
[01:35:53] conference will, will eat you alive. Yeah. And Ivan was a great ally. And we, the teams loved the
[01:35:59] boat. The PJs actually became our best, our best clients, because it was, you know, C 130 dropable.
[01:36:06] So did you actually start manufacturing them? Oh, yeah, yeah, we sold, I think about 30 to the PJs.
[01:36:11] But then they made us, they didn't let us cut up Yamaha jet skis anymore that were perfect
[01:36:16] with perfect wiring harnesses and gauges and all that. So we had to cob and a crappy engine that
[01:36:23] they made us use and wiring harnesses and steering and all that. And just it was like death by 1000
[01:36:28] cuts with NAVC engineers. And, and it was no longer fun at all. But, but I managed to get through it
[01:36:37] and came in on time and on budget and delivered the boats and then sold my company to a company
[01:36:43] called Maritime Applied Physics. And now it's probably the best unmanned craft out there.
[01:36:50] And it's got a Volvo Penta and it's super badass. It goes like 50 knots. Now was it, was the James
[01:36:57] Clark Lance McNair, Mike Deeds, Crystal Lance, those guys, those surfers, guys that were captured
[01:37:04] off of Cambodia and imprisoned and killed. Was that sort of the first thing that, that,
[01:37:11] that the thread that led you to writing tie stick? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so I found out about
[01:37:17] that and I got more information. And I was at Scorpion Bay and which is kind of like a, you
[01:37:24] know, a smuggler's retirement home now. And, and, and it was unbelievable. Oh, yeah, I knew them.
[01:37:31] And, you know, all these people, I knew them, I knew them. And then they kept saying, you need to talk
[01:37:35] to Mike Ritter, you need to talk to Mike Ritter, you need to talk to Mike Ritter. And then they
[01:37:40] and, and I finally met Mike Ritter and he had been a big smuggler in Thailand. And what he didn't
[01:37:48] tell me was that he had been contracted to supply their load. And so he, so he had been
[01:37:55] contracted to bring them their load of pot from Thailand. Yeah, from Trot. So those guys were on
[01:38:03] a boat sailing to Thailand. Yeah, they were going to link up. Yeah. And Mike Ritter was going to give
[01:38:08] them a load of pot to bring wherever, try back in the States. Yeah. And Ritter was a surfer from Santa
[01:38:13] Barbara. And he would go on a Thai fishing boat with, you know, usually no compass. They'd give
[01:38:20] them the crappiest boat they had because they didn't want to get it seized. And he'd have one of those
[01:38:25] truffle log spinners and, you know, just old fashioned navigating. And he'd bring the pot out.
[01:38:31] And, you know, pirates and I mean, that's that period of time is the worst period of piracy in
[01:38:38] world history. This is what years? This is in the 70s. late 70s. Yeah. So, well mid to late 70s.
[01:38:43] Yeah. Vietnam falls in 75. So you have all those Vietnamese going out to sea with all their worldly
[01:38:51] possessions, usually in women's jewelry. That's how they carry their wealth. So you had the most
[01:38:57] feral brutal pirates you could ever imagine. So that was a very dangerous piece of water. And
[01:39:04] and so that's what Ritter was doing for for many, many years and living in Thailand. And
[01:39:09] he was one of the first guys to surf Grodjigan, one of the first guys to surf Bali. So you had a
[01:39:15] bunch of smugglers in Bali in the off season. And basically Grodjigan was founded by pot smugglers.
[01:39:22] And so they were the ones who really were the first to really kind of explore the Indonesian
[01:39:29] archipelago. And and that was, you know, Ritter was one of them. And so then I trained him as a
[01:39:35] historian. And then he started interviewing his sources of old retired smugglers. And we made
[01:39:44] sure we interviewed people who had been busted. So there was at that time no double jeopardy.
[01:39:49] And then things got a little wobbly after 9 11. And and and then I was going to find the old
[01:39:56] Khmer Rouge guys and, you know, different, you know, people on that side, law enforcement,
[01:40:01] confidential informants. There were a lot of old US intelligence guys involved because, you know,
[01:40:07] they had they had the knowledge of Thailand. And they had the insurgent areas of Thailand
[01:40:14] was where all the pot was grown. So they had worked those in surgeon areas during the Vietnam War.
[01:40:19] How long did it take you to write Thai stick? 10 years. But that was 1000 hours of interviews we
[01:40:25] did. Yeah. What do you think the value of the trade, the pot trade coming out of that the surfers
[01:40:34] brought into America? Well, I mean, at that time, it was great. But but ultimately, it's it's basic
[01:40:41] Adam Smith economics. It becomes too expensive to transport it. The the loads get too big. I mean,
[01:40:50] we're talking about like 20 30 ton loads. And then it drives the industry to the United States.
[01:40:59] California is growing the best spot in the world. So people are like, why don't we just grow it in
[01:41:03] Mendocino or, you know, Trinity or one of those counties. And so so there's no the money's gone.
[01:41:11] And so that's ultimately what happens in 88. That's where there's there's a bunch of huge busts.
[01:41:19] And the the biggest guys kind of go down. And then nobody wants to bother with it. It's
[01:41:24] not it. It's implodes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now at some point during this, you you you got another
[01:41:31] book that you're working on right now. Well, I guess before we get to that, you got you did
[01:41:40] right end up writing breathe. You wrote the Hixon book. Yeah. And you kind of kind of got into
[01:41:44] that a little bit. But what was the what was the spark? How'd you convince Hixon that he needed
[01:41:48] to write a book? We had been talking about it for a long, long time. And he and I talk a lot.
[01:41:57] And and like I said, and then it's never light. And and there's a lot of stuff I know that he
[01:42:03] doesn't know. And there's a lot of stuff that he knows that I don't know. And we always were friends.
[01:42:09] And I was a jujitsu skeptic. I was not for how many minutes. Well, I wasn't it wasn't that it didn't
[01:42:16] work in a one on one situation. But but in the worlds I was in, I loved it as an exercise thing.
[01:42:24] I loved it for the friends I made by going and beating these terrifying guys, and then being
[01:42:31] nice and not humiliating them and making them into students and made some of my best friends
[01:42:36] around. I mean, I fought guys in West Australia, Canada, Maine, Cambodia, always with the like,
[01:42:43] well, that wouldn't work on me. And you know how it goes from there and the skeptic for three minutes.
[01:42:49] Yeah. So I was like John the Baptist of jujitsu for a minute there because I was just had
[01:42:55] done it early. But I didn't like ease. And I didn't, you know, there were just pieces of it. I didn't
[01:43:02] like I like striking. I was confident striking. I had some very patented entries that were kind of
[01:43:10] like, you know, I don't have a politically correct way to say it. But the lunging special needs person
[01:43:19] and a drunken monkey. Exactly. Just like, good knows what what what and then close the distance.
[01:43:25] And so, you know, so I, you know, again, and I would throw this stuff at Hicks and come on, Hicks and
[01:43:32] like, yeah, yeah, try to try to disarm me with this knife, like, because I learned the fencing
[01:43:38] from the Russian guys and they're so fast. You're not they're not doing this. They're doing that.
[01:43:43] And so, you know, we really kind of explored this stuff for a long, long time and in a very
[01:43:50] honest way. And we're really good friends through a lot through his son's death. And, you know, I knew
[01:43:55] his son well. And so, yeah, he just finally, I think the COVID year, everybody, things were going
[01:44:03] slow. And that's how we got going. Well, I mean, that was a fantastic book you and you had the New
[01:44:10] York Times bestseller list. Yeah, yeah. Whether they liked it or not. No, Hicks and Hicks and did.
[01:44:16] Boy, we got the worst review I've ever had in my life in Publishers Weekly. And it was, you know,
[01:44:24] toxic masculinity gone wrong. And it was classic. I loved it. And oh, yeah, it was bad. I wrote a
[01:44:32] novel called Final Spin and Publishers Weekly gave me a great review. And it was pretty awesome. And
[01:44:40] my editor like sent it to me. He goes, I can't believe this. They compared me to David Mamette.
[01:44:47] Wow. And just like, oh, this is, you know, bought. And my publisher was like, dude, this is insane
[01:44:54] that they gave you this incredible review. And I was like, well, it's not that insane, bro. It's
[01:44:57] an awesome book. But, but yeah, the thing, the thing that was cool about it was I know that
[01:45:04] Publishers Weekly, they don't play around. Like if they're coming at you, they have no problem just
[01:45:09] trashing your book if they don't like it. So they didn't like breathe. Oh, I hated it. But it was great.
[01:45:14] And there was like, nobody should be interested in this book. There's only martial arts deviates or
[01:45:21] something to that effect. And, and then it was bestseller a week later. Tell us a little bit.
[01:45:29] And you mentioned this quickly. You got the Fainting Robin Foundation, which is a non-profit
[01:45:34] that you have the title, the name of the foundation comes from an Emily Dickinson poem, which is,
[01:45:41] if I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life, the aching
[01:45:45] or cool one pain or help one fainting Robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
[01:45:53] Meaning that if you can help someone that's really not in a position to help themselves,
[01:45:58] that's going to be a positive thing. Absolutely. What inspired that from you?
[01:46:02] I was watching my professions disappear. Journalism, number one. The internet really killed a lot of
[01:46:13] our careers. You know, we went from, you know, getting paid per word royalties every time
[01:46:20] something was published to flat rates and just it goes on the internet. It's gone forever.
[01:46:27] Well, I mean, I kind of look at like that's because I'm on the other side, right?
[01:46:31] I'm like the I'm from the people. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we have a podcast.
[01:46:36] I remember I went to we had, we'd had this podcast for maybe six months or something,
[01:46:40] and I went and got interviewed on NPR. And so I roll into this NPR interview is in New York City.
[01:46:50] I go into a full on studio. There's six or seven people behind the glass pane. There's two people
[01:46:56] in the room. Then there's the person that's interviewed. It's massive, like this massive
[01:47:00] production. I mean, as you can see, like this is the we're sitting in our recording studio right
[01:47:05] now, which is literally a converted closet. This used to be the maintenance closet at Victory MMA
[01:47:10] and Fitness. We eventually made it a little bit bigger than it used to be. But I go in there.
[01:47:15] And so then I go, you know, like how many people listen to you? How many? What's the audience of
[01:47:19] your show? Because I was talking to the guy a little bit afterwards, and he gave me some number.
[01:47:23] And it was some not big number. And I was like, dang, here's me and Echo Charles with a thousand
[01:47:31] dollars worth, literally a thousand dollars worth of equipment. How don't you spend when you first
[01:47:34] bought the gear? Yeah, a thousand dollars worth of equipment. And our audience was at least 20,
[01:47:40] literally 20 times as big as theirs. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm thinking this is kind of awesome. Oh, yeah.
[01:47:45] Here's these people, they went to school, and they got promotion, and they're paying, they're paying
[01:47:50] people to listen to advertisements going on, all this stuff, all this hype. And we're sitting in
[01:47:54] here in a closet with a thousand dollars worth of equipment. Our audience is at least 20 times
[01:48:00] bigger than theirs. So I support the downfall of journalism. Yeah. So tell me your take. What am
[01:48:07] I missing? Well, it is much journalism. It's academia. And because I was also a professor.
[01:48:13] And that are you going to make me attack the academic profession now? Oh, let's go.
[01:48:18] I'm happy to help. But know that, you know, I basically was making less money as a professor
[01:48:28] with three, two books, three books, Ivy League PhD than I made as construction labor without a
[01:48:36] high school diploma at 17 years old without adjusting anything for inflation. And so what
[01:48:43] we've seen in academia is that the money's gone to middle management. So every special interest
[01:48:49] group now has a commissar that they go to who advocates for them. And the student is a customer
[01:48:55] now. So that's completely explained to me the commissar in the middle here. How's that taking
[01:49:00] money out of this professor's well, because Professor salaries have dropped 10 years disappeared to
[01:49:08] make way for this managerial class. And so the managerial class, you know, will typically when
[01:49:17] I first started, I would be the assistant dean for a semester. It was always a professor. Now
[01:49:23] you have people who are neither scholars nor teachers. And this is this, you know, I have a
[01:49:30] PhD in education. Come on, you know, you can teach or you can't teach. I can't teach you how to teach.
[01:49:37] And it's as much an art as it is a science. And and it's depressing, frankly. And I don't want to
[01:49:45] be around it. It's not there's just there would. Yeah, that's a whole that's a whole big ball
[01:49:54] of wax. But I was going to college when I went to college when I was 28 years old, because I had
[01:49:59] been in the military in the military sent me to college, I was going to the University of San
[01:50:02] Diego. And I was in class, I had an English professor, super nice professor, super cool. I was
[01:50:06] an English major. And she said at the beginning one of these classes, so I'd been in the Navy,
[01:50:12] I'd listened to Navy when I was 18 years old. And so I'd been in the Navy for 10 years at that time.
[01:50:17] And the professor, you know, was kind of saying, Hey, listen, you know, here I am, I'm a tenured
[01:50:23] professor. I have a PhD in literature, blah, blah, blah, blah. I went to this school and that school.
[01:50:29] And she goes, And yet I can't afford a house in San Diego. And so I'm sitting in the front row,
[01:50:36] which I always did. I sat in the front row of every class just looking at the professors,
[01:50:40] just like no one else cared, I would line up my pens, like in case I had a pen go down,
[01:50:44] I'd be ready with a secondary. And so I'm sitting there in the front row, and I would,
[01:50:48] I would over, I guess I was being a little bit abrasive, a little bit abrasive. But the teachers
[01:50:54] usually love me because I was like the old, I would most fully engage soon, they probably
[01:50:58] never had in their lives. So I'm sitting in the front row, she gets done with her tirade,
[01:51:01] and I just raised my hand, you know, straight up in the air. And she's like, And this,
[01:51:04] when I went to college was the only place in my life that they called me John, because that's
[01:51:09] what was on the roster. Because my real name is John. So they call me John, I never corrected
[01:51:12] him because I didn't care. So she says, you know, Yes, John. And I said, How, how long did you go
[01:51:17] to school for? And she goes, Well, it was told, I think it was the total was 10 years, you know,
[01:51:22] to get her, blah, blah, blah, this, this, this. I said, And how much did that cost you? And she
[01:51:27] said, you know, whatever it was $380,000 or something like this. And I said, Well, hey,
[01:51:33] I said, I enlisted in the US Navy when I got done with high school. And I've been working that whole
[01:51:40] time. And I have not one house in San Diego, but two. She was so, she was so frustrated with that
[01:51:50] statement. But it's kind of true. Because, you know, she literally spent two, that was what my
[01:51:55] first two houses in San Diego cost, I guess they cost a little bit more than that. But
[01:51:59] that was around what the first two houses I bought in San Diego. So, you know, that academic thing.
[01:52:06] And I mean, the academic world just seems to be have gone, it's gone insane. Am I wrong?
[01:52:12] Absolutely right. And, and the thing is, and I've seen this for a long time and spoken out against
[01:52:18] it for a long time, I'm a First Amendment absolutist. I believe anything short of that is
[01:52:25] sophistry, that this group gets this level and you, you know, and then we come back to, to comfort
[01:52:33] and safety and psychic damage in this and that and oh, you're, you can't, you know, criticize this
[01:52:40] group because of the psychic damage, you're inflicting this and that once you go down that road,
[01:52:45] you're, you're in sophistry lane and I don't want to play that game. And so,
[01:52:52] yeah, it's just everyone, my friends who are still in academia, walk on eggshells and,
[01:53:00] you know, they have to watch out for the cultural commissars because, you know, then you have this
[01:53:06] kind of a star chamber courts where the student goes to one of the many deans and says,
[01:53:15] the, he looked at me in a way that made me uncomfortable and my response to me, you were
[01:53:19] born uncomfortable. I can't help you with that and your level of comfort and my level of comfort
[01:53:25] aren't the same. So then the professor is accused without a hearing, without knowing who his accuser
[01:53:33] is. So there's no due process. I mean, one of the cases my foundation looked into was an anatomy
[01:53:40] professor named Michael Shively. He taught for 30 years at Utah Valley University. The president
[01:53:48] of the university son, universities, what was it, nephew kind of instigated a crusade against him
[01:53:57] because he was, his classes were too hard. He didn't put things up on the right, you know,
[01:54:06] blackboard, you know, sort of computer thing and they couldn't really get him on anything. And again,
[01:54:14] he didn't know who he was accused by. He didn't know what he was accused of. And after about six
[01:54:20] months, he started losing his mind and he blew his brains out. And then the family sued the
[01:54:26] university. It came out that it was, you know, that the president of the university intervened
[01:54:32] on behalf of her nephew. It went all the way to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Now their attorney
[01:54:39] is going for a writ of cert to try to get the Supreme Court to take it up. But these are
[01:54:46] increasingly common situations where you are accused of something and you don't get to defend
[01:54:51] yourself. You don't know who your accuser is. And this is a real violation of due process. And I
[01:54:58] mean, I had a situation where I had a female student come and say, oh, well, I was, I was,
[01:55:05] I couldn't do, I've been missing the classes or something because I was sexually assaulted. I
[01:55:10] said, okay, that's very serious. I said, let's, I know the US attorney and like, let's do it, you
[01:55:17] know, if you, you got to think this through, if you want to, you know, go really do this, you go
[01:55:23] to the US attorney, you don't go or would the DA in town, you don't go to some academic bureaucrat
[01:55:29] that will pollute the case. If you want to go after this guy, oh, well, I'm not sure. I'm not
[01:55:35] sure. I said, well, look, you think about it. Let's talk about it. Tomorrow I go to the head of my
[01:55:40] department. I say, Hey, this happened. I told her she needs to go to the authorities if she's serious
[01:55:46] about it. She said, no, no, no, she has to go to the Title IX group and the this, which is an in-house
[01:55:52] university judiciary. And I said, no, I don't, I don't agree. And I, I'm not going to do that. And
[01:56:00] I'm on one semester contract. So what do you got on me? And I liked my department head. And I didn't,
[01:56:06] you know, want to make trouble for. But then I met with a student the next day, I said, okay,
[01:56:11] come on, let's get into the brass tax of this, because if you do go down this road of litigation
[01:56:17] and all that, you're going to get your past pulled out, it's going to be serious. And I said, was
[01:56:23] there alcohol involved? Yeah. Okay. And so anyway, it turns out she drank too much, passed out on a
[01:56:31] couch at a friend's woke up and there was one of the roommates had come in and was standing over her.
[01:56:36] And, and, you know, that could have ended this guy's career. It could have been incredibly
[01:56:42] problematic. And he wouldn't have known what he was accused of by who, or what.
[01:56:46] Oh, that was the extent of what it happens, what it happened. And so, you know,
[01:56:54] again, these things need to be heard out, you can't just take, you know, every man is guilty,
[01:57:01] every woman is always right. Life is more complex than that. I mean, I saw professors that married
[01:57:08] students that are still married. So I don't have a kind of childlike view of life. I treated my
[01:57:15] students as adults. And I talked to them like adults and I talked to them about their futures.
[01:57:21] And, you know, I would say every student would have to come and meet me in my office and people
[01:57:25] would say, Oh, don't ever close your door with a female student. So why I'm, you know, I'm married,
[01:57:32] I'm not like your students like your kids. And, and I would say, what's your major?
[01:57:39] What are you, what's your major? What do you want to do? What do your parents want you to do? And
[01:57:46] how much student debt do you have? Almost every one of those kids would say, no one's ever asked
[01:57:51] me that in my career. Thank you so much. No one, they've tried to sell them into a new program. Oh,
[01:57:57] we got this new graduate certificate. And I was like, what a certificate? I said, is that a masters?
[01:58:04] No, it's a certificate. I said, that's a fucking scam. And, and so, and I said, are they paying for
[01:58:11] you to get this certificate? Oh, no, I got to pay. I said, well, is the professor that's telling you
[01:58:18] to do it in charge of this certificate program? Hey, how'd you know? I was like, man, you're getting
[01:58:24] hustled. And, and so it's a business now. And because the universities are competing with each
[01:58:30] other, you know, to get students, they're spending huge amounts of money on gyms and vegan food bars
[01:58:39] and you know, just really ancillary stuff. You know, when I look at it, if you can get,
[01:58:50] if you're going to learn something of value, if you're going to be actually educated, great,
[01:58:55] knowledge is power. And you can, if you can go to go to some event or some school or some university,
[01:59:02] and you're going to learn something, you're going to walk out of there and say, oh, I know how to do
[01:59:06] this thing now. More power to you. Great. But yeah, if you're in there and you're spending money on
[01:59:12] something that has no value other than the paper that it's printed on, then it's, it's kind of
[01:59:18] worthless. And I don't know that I think that a lot of times the way the what, what people are taught
[01:59:26] isn't really a usable skill. And especially the way it's taught isn't really a usable skill. I mean,
[01:59:31] this happens with leadership, you know, a lot of there's, there's universities that offer some kind
[01:59:36] of leadership training, but it's not actually leadership training. They don't learn any leadership
[01:59:41] from it. They learn some weird abstract theory about leadership, but they don't know how,
[01:59:47] they don't know how, they don't learn how to lead. It's like if you went to college to play,
[01:59:51] to play guitar, and they never gave you a guitar to play, you wouldn't know how to play when you
[01:59:56] got done. You'd be able to talk about it a little bit, but you wouldn't be able to do it. And I see
[01:59:59] a lot of programs that are set up like that, where they're teaching you a lot about the guitar,
[02:00:04] and you learn some theory about the guitar, and you know what a guitar looks like, but you
[02:00:07] don't know how to play that guitar. And so basically what you learned has almost no value. So, you
[02:00:13] know, for leadership, for me, you know, the reason I know this is because I teach leadership,
[02:00:17] and we teach leadership to people that have gone through big programs, and they don't,
[02:00:22] they'll tell us like, oh, I learned more in the three days I just spent with your company
[02:00:26] about leadership, infinitely more. So, not even close to what I learned in my two-year,
[02:00:31] you know, master's degree or in my MBA. They just don't, they're not doing it in the same way.
[02:00:36] So, and I think that that's kind of become the standard. Sure. The standard is, oh, well, we can
[02:00:40] teach you about the guitar, and we can teach you about the music theory, and they can teach you
[02:00:46] a bunch of different guitars. We're gonna have a bunch of different guitars come and talk to you.
[02:00:50] We're gonna have the best, we're gonna have Eric Clapton come and talk to you, and Tony Iomi,
[02:00:54] it's gonna be great. And that is cool. Sounds cool, right? But you still don't know how to play guitar.
[02:00:59] Right. So, we like to get them playing that guitar. Right, right. Get on that gift box.
[02:01:04] But you're playing a high stakes game in your view of leadership, that there's actually something
[02:01:12] on the table. Well, yeah. But I mean, I teach businesses. I mean, the vast majority of clients
[02:01:16] I have now are, look, we teach law enforcement, we teach military, absolutely. But we mostly
[02:01:23] teach businesses. Sure. Business leaders. Now, business leaders actually do have something real
[02:01:28] at stake. They got jobs, they got capital, they got safety. There's, for sure, this is all
[02:01:34] really important stuff. But it is derived from the highest of consequences. Sure.
[02:01:41] Without question. And so because of all these changes, good and bad, maybe mostly bad,
[02:01:51] some definitely good. Because like I said, it's good that Echo Charles and I could sit in this
[02:01:55] room with $1,000 worth of equipment and talk to way more people than NPR. Yeah. In a lot of cases.
[02:02:00] You made the fainting Robin Foundation. So the mission is to help out people that need it.
[02:02:09] Yeah. And it grew. Like it started out professors, journalists, and journalists pushing the envelope.
[02:02:18] Right. The real guys like Ed Villamy, who was British Newsman of the Year, testified in the
[02:02:26] Hague, found the Serb camps in Bosnia, the people that are outliers that are coming into the later
[02:02:34] parts of their career and have really put it all out there. Isn't it kind of cool now that you can
[02:02:39] do that with no, without being part of the mainstream media at all? I mean, there's plenty of people
[02:02:45] out there that are publishing. I mean, I know you have a sub-stack. Sure. Sub-stack. I love sub-stack.
[02:02:50] You know, that's a way that you can go and you can get published and you can publish your stuff and
[02:02:53] you can get out there and you don't have to worry about the mainstream media. And say whatever you
[02:02:56] want. You can say whatever you want. Yeah. But then it grew into helping those who can't help
[02:03:02] themselves like a lot of veteran outreach. Your generation of veterans did more heavy lifting
[02:03:10] than, you know, really any generation, I would say in American history with the multiple tours, with
[02:03:16] a lot was asked of you. And I am living in North Carolina. There's a lot of veterans and having a
[02:03:25] hard time finding their way after their time in the service, many of them. And simple things,
[02:03:31] helping them find jobs, helping them do things like that, more complex things, getting them off
[02:03:36] SSRI eyes and the, you know, meds and stuff like that. They're giving out those things like candy,
[02:03:42] you know, you see this track in this most recent stuff that they're saying that depression isn't
[02:03:47] from a chemical imbalance anymore. Yeah, it doesn't work. This is like a big lie. Yeah. Like a 30 year
[02:03:52] lie. Have you heard the Secular Charles? So they used to say, Oh, you're depressed. Okay, it's because
[02:03:56] you have a chemical imbalance in your head. Take these drugs and they'll make you feel better.
[02:04:00] And now they're saying, actually, no, it's not a chemical imbalance. It's just like how you're
[02:04:04] feeling and drugs aren't going to help you in that way that we were saying they were,
[02:04:08] which is really freaking disturbing. Very horrible. And particularly the side effects.
[02:04:15] That's very disturbing. Yeah, the side effects are crazy. And the side effects too, that even
[02:04:21] when you read the fine print about what it's going to do to you, there's finer print that says like,
[02:04:27] Oh, and by the way, if you come off this at this rate, or you mix this with that, it's going to
[02:04:32] make you have literal suicidal ideations. Like it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And that I'm,
[02:04:39] and Hickson and I have been talking a lot about that and, and finding, you know, natural ways.
[02:04:45] And I've been, this is some of the things I've been doing, but also doing kind of more direct
[02:04:50] action stuff like a woman, a friend of a friend in Santa Barbara's sister was murdered in Cambodia.
[02:04:56] And we launched an investigation and it took us about eight years, but captured the guy.
[02:05:04] Another guy, the old pot smuggler who did a double life, got double life and a billion
[02:05:10] dollar fine was a big smuggler, but all pot. And, and he did, yeah, 27 years for a conspiracy was
[02:05:18] not part of what, and I, you know, I read these things all the time. A drug conspiracy. Oh,
[02:05:22] yeah. Yeah. And he got out, he got a presidential pardon last year and we were lobbying for that.
[02:05:29] So things kind of, I'm almost like the last resort when everything, every other avenue
[02:05:36] is failed. They wind up at my doorstep and I can't take all of them. I mean, I basically work for
[02:05:43] my kitchen table with no office and, but it's is remarkable what you can do through persistence.
[02:05:50] And, and I have persistence. You're a, you're a one book, a book, a decade, right? Yeah. You got
[02:05:58] definite persistence. So there's a, we got this thread of your, of your writing. And it's the
[02:06:05] thread that you pull through. So, you know, you had the Nuremberg trials. This thread kind of leads
[02:06:10] to war crimes. This war crimes thread leads to Cambodia. The Cambodia thread, you, you find the
[02:06:16] surfers that got rolled up and tortured and killed. That thread leads to tie sticks. There's another
[02:06:22] thread that is something that you're working on now. And that's the battle of Cotang, which happened
[02:06:31] at the end of the Vietnam War. And the Khmer Rouge seized a U.S. merchant ship, the Mayquas.
[02:06:39] And there's this whole thing unfolds. So the, so the Marines go, they recapture the ship,
[02:06:47] but they also assault the island. There's a little island where it looked like the, the crew of the,
[02:06:54] of the Mayquas had been taken. And so the Marines do an assault on this island. Well, the island is,
[02:07:01] it's run by the Khmer Rouge. There's Khmer Rouge elements on there. The, the, they didn't know it.
[02:07:09] The Marines didn't know it at the time, but the crew wasn't on that island at all. And they'd
[02:07:13] actually been released and returned, but they didn't know they're already in the air. They go
[02:07:18] and assault this, this island. And I'm actually going to, you gave me like a kind of sort of a
[02:07:24] draft, your proposal, you're working on it. But let me just read a little chunk of this. This is
[02:07:29] your latest project. It's going to be called left behind. And again, the thread is, how did you get
[02:07:37] onto the story? You met someone that was on contact. You met a Cambodian Khmer Rouge. Yeah,
[02:07:42] that was on Kotang Island and fought against the Marines. Yeah, absolutely. This is what opens up
[02:07:47] this story for you. And you also started hearing about you were, you were tracking on the Americans
[02:07:53] that were in S 21, the, the prison. Yeah. Yeah. And you were hearing that there might have been
[02:07:58] other Americans and where were these other Americans? And so you pulled the thread on this.
[02:08:02] Yeah. Let me go to this little section here. From his trench near the East beach, M Psalm,
[02:08:08] and this is the, this is the Cambodian soldier that you met. Yeah. So, or sorry, Khmer Rouge.
[02:08:14] Yeah, one of a number. M Psalm watched knife 23. That's a helicopter. The next chopper attempting
[02:08:22] to land fly straight toward him. This one had a big propeller on top and a small one for steering,
[02:08:27] said some he shoulder his rocket and waited until it was 50 meters away and in his crosshairs.
[02:08:33] I aim for the head and hit the tail, he recalled. The helicopter's tail broke off with an audible
[02:08:39] snap. And now the rudderless CH 53 shuttered, spun and crash landed on the beach. All 25 Americans
[02:08:47] on board were able to escape from the wreckage and find cover soldiers in stretchy robes jumped
[02:08:53] down, said some there was exchange of fire. Now due to clouds of thick dust and smoke from the
[02:08:59] gunfire, the Khmer Rouge commander could not even see the beach and took a moment to pray to Buddha
[02:09:05] for help. I had been fighting all my life. But the fighting on co tang was really terrifying.
[02:09:11] The initial assault on the island had been a debacle. In less than one hour, the US had lost
[02:09:18] three helicopters and 11 men. The young Marines who had been training in Okinawa less than 48
[02:09:24] hours earlier were now experiencing combat for the first time all alone at seven at only 720 a.m.
[02:09:31] The longest day of their lives was just beginning. Unbeknownst to the Americans and Cambodians now
[02:09:36] fighting on co tang minutes before knife 21 landed on the island, Khmer Rouge radioed announced
[02:09:43] that they had freed the my gues and her crew. Even worse, the prisoners were not and had never been
[02:09:51] on the island. Al Bailey was standing waist deep in a Khmer Rouge latrine almost out of ammunition
[02:09:59] fighting for his life. He was happy to see Jolly Green 43 the big Sikorsky HH 53 search and rescue
[02:10:07] helicopter approach the land. The young Marine was even happier when he saw his six foot to 250
[02:10:14] pound Sergeant Fofo Sergeant T and you say that to a lot to tell me to tell me Sergeant Sergeant
[02:10:23] T to tell me walk onto the beach with mortar rounds exploding around him like a comic book superhero
[02:10:31] Sergeant T stepped out of the helicopter and was like, let me get this shit under control.
[02:10:36] It was a walk in the park to him. He was ready to conduct business recalled Bailey.
[02:10:41] He was like a pissed off parent who had just found someone had abused his kids
[02:10:46] born and raised in American Samoa.
[02:10:51] Man, how do you say his first name? Fofo. Okay, just leaving it. You got you got the full name here.
[02:10:57] Fofo my to golly something like to like to like golly.
[02:11:00] To a telly better known as Fofo moved to Hawaii at 10 and joined the Marines at 18.
[02:11:08] He spent his first tour in 1967 as a scout sniper hunting vietcong in the jungle.
[02:11:13] During his second tour, he fought in Chu Lai case on in the battle of Hue and was awarded two
[02:11:19] presidential sites unit citations for extraordinary heroism and a bronze star.
[02:11:24] After to telly's request for a third tour was denied. He became a platoon Sergeant with
[02:11:30] Second Battalion ninth Marines and had been training Al Bailey squad when he received word
[02:11:34] that training was over and that he would be leading them into combat for the first time.
[02:11:39] Although the soft spoken Samoan treated his men well, he'd made quite an impression on his charges
[02:11:44] in Okinawa when he broke up a fight between a black and a white Marine by placing each of them
[02:11:49] in headlocks. He shouted Marines don't fight Marines. Fofo smashed their heads together
[02:11:56] and knocked them both unconscious. Nobody and I mean nobody ever challenged him said Bailey.
[02:12:03] This man had killed a rack of Vietnamese. You could see it in his demeanor the way he carried
[02:12:09] himself. When Sergeant T spotted his Marines clumped together on the West Beach, he ran toward
[02:12:14] them shouting what the fuck are you guys doing calm the hell down and listen. Fofo worked his
[02:12:19] way up and down their line giving orders and words of encouragement. Finally he turned to Bailey
[02:12:24] and said only fire when the helicopter comes in don't waste ammo watch the trail any of these
[02:12:29] bastards cross the trail blow their ass away. Then he grabbed his M16 and said I'm gonna take care
[02:12:35] of this machine gun problem no shooting until I get back and vanished into the jungle. Fofo walked
[02:12:41] carefully in under the canopy until he heard an incoming American helicopter then he stopped and
[02:12:48] listened. The Samoan saw some branches move then he spotted two bare-chested Cambodians with red
[02:12:53] checkered scarves around their heads adjusting a big gun. When they began firing at the helicopter
[02:12:59] he shouldered his weapon but could not get a clear shot because of the foliage so he walked all the
[02:13:03] way to the edge of the machine gun nest and opened fire. By the time Fofo had emptied his one magazine
[02:13:11] one magazine one Khmer Rouge soldier lay dead and another was wounded but still alive rather
[02:13:17] than reload the Marine picked up a nearby machete hacked the wounded man until he stopped moving
[02:13:22] then grabbed their AK-47s cigarettes canteens and sandals as he worked his way back toward the
[02:13:30] west beach he saw another occupied bunker opened fire and ran towards it by the time the Samoan
[02:13:36] reached it the bunker was empty but a fire was still burning a pot of rice cooking and there
[02:13:41] was a fresh blood trail leading into the jungle. So this is some serious scrapping that these guys
[02:13:54] are going through and just going through some of the events it took place by 0700 there's 109
[02:14:03] Marines on the island three of the helos there was eight helos used in the assault three of them
[02:14:09] were destroyed on the insert between 0900 and 10100 100 additional Marines had been landed on the
[02:14:18] island nine had been wounded and those guys had been evacuated which meant there was about 225
[02:14:26] Marines on the island they make they're fighting throughout the day they make multiple attempts
[02:14:31] to extract the Marines they drop at 1800 at night they drop a freaking blue 82 massive bomb it's
[02:14:39] they call it a daisy cutter I mean it's just a massive bomb it creates a mushroom cloud it's huge
[02:14:46] after dark they finally start to get extracted they're loading helos under fire they leave dead
[02:14:51] behind they also leave with a false head count meaning they think that they have everyone but
[02:14:59] they don't they finally get back on the ships you know and now they do a head count of a legit
[02:15:06] head count and they they figure out that they're missing Lance Corporal Joseph Hargrove PFC Gary
[02:15:13] Hall and Private Danny Marshall and then they received a radio transmission from those guys
[02:15:21] like one of the aircraft circling overhead receives a radio transmission saying hey swim to see and
[02:15:26] we'll we'll get you and they respond only one of us only one of the Marines could swim effectively
[02:15:32] enough to actually swim to see and and these guys get declared missing in action on July 21st
[02:15:41] 1976 those were changed to kill in action the way it turned out Joseph Hargrove was captured
[02:15:49] pretty quickly he had a leg wound and then a week later and you go through the details even in this
[02:15:55] I don't want to you know obviously you're going to put a whole book together on this that we'll
[02:15:58] have to we'll have to cover on the podcast and I hope we can get Fofo in here to get it done
[02:16:03] that's the plan um
[02:16:07] you know because I know this and you talk about it here but he was he received the Navy Cross
[02:16:14] is that correct the Navy no he didn't receive he got uh it was interesting because on
[02:16:21] one of it's the Marine it was a very lower metal and I had a general look at the whole paperwork
[02:16:29] and the secretary of the Navy had signed it and he said the only reason the secretary of the
[02:16:34] Navy would have ever even seen this was uh because he was either up for the Navy Cross or the
[02:16:40] congressional medal so one of the uh one of the lieutenants got the Navy Cross for doing nothing
[02:16:48] close to what Fofo Tatele had done um and and even one of the things I've been trying to do is get
[02:16:56] them the Vietnam service medal and Tulsi Gabbard and Mark Meadows had tried to do it in 2016 and
[02:17:05] the official government position was well you know the uh the Vietnam War ended when the
[02:17:11] Paris peace agreement was signed in 1973 so this isn't the Vietnam War I mean their names are on
[02:17:18] the wall so it's it's a very strange case and I think there's a institutional embarrassment
[02:17:26] as I demonstrate there there's also knowledge that those men were left behind and I think
[02:17:32] what's motivated me on this case is is how heavily that's weighed on those Marines and those
[02:17:40] who knew that and were ordered not to talk about it as well and so um I spoke at their reunion this
[02:17:49] last May and um you know this is something that you know many of these guys have been back to
[02:17:55] Cambodia they've met with M. Somme they've pleaded with him where are their bodies and you know and
[02:18:02] I they they've sent the POWMIA guys from Camp Smith there to do the the mitochondria DNA
[02:18:13] and it's you know I think that the Ford administration acted very badly I think that they
[02:18:20] already had it planted on the New York Times as America is back and that was that was you know the
[02:18:27] height of our impotence so this is May 15th 1975 this is two weeks after the fall of Saigon
[02:18:35] yeah that's one thing that makes it so and again that you've got some of the details even that that
[02:18:41] I read here just that you're used to this kind of incompetence in Vietnam now by you know the
[02:18:49] generals the politicians McNamara LBJ like you're just used to this disgusting lack of ability
[02:18:57] to make decisions and lead and not be influenced just by raw politics on a daily basis just disgusting
[02:19:05] yeah and then but what's interesting about this this is like one incident and since it's a little
[02:19:11] bit separated and you've got a different administration you go oh it's the same incompetence
[02:19:17] and you just see these decisions getting made and these cover-ups are happening it's just gross
[02:19:22] yeah it's gross and of course it's the freaking men on the ground the Marines that pay the pay the
[02:19:27] ultimate price for these horrible decisions I mean you got a section in there about the seal
[02:19:31] commander yeah amazing yeah who's like this is total bullshit he's calling it good for him
[02:19:37] um yeah Tom Coulter and he basically you know faced down the admiral and said okay I'm gonna
[02:19:44] leave room on the front of my zodiac for you and your officers and you can go on that island with me
[02:19:50] and they were not honest with him either and they said oh we want to drop leaflets and this is kind
[02:19:56] of you know they had the lithographer aboard one of the navy ships print 10 000 cards Cambodian
[02:20:06] French and English saying bring all the Americans to the helicopter wreckage including the dead ones
[02:20:14] so that does lead you to believe they knew that these guys were behind I left behind I have no doubt
[02:20:19] they knew and um and again it was already on the cover of the New York Times and the press
[02:20:27] attempt and you know the pictures of Kissinger and Rumsfeld and Ford and Tuxedo smoking cigars and
[02:20:33] you know it's it's the carelessness of the human material you know that's the part to me that's
[02:20:39] so galling and I you know as the war on terror you know kind of pushed forward I'd see it more and
[02:20:47] more just badly used people lives destroyed unnecessarily I mean war is war but you know
[02:20:56] there's a kind of carelessness that only people who risk nothing who are never going to be near it
[02:21:01] who have never felt the hard hand of it or seen the aftermath of it that they can they can entertain
[02:21:08] these fantasies and do it without remorse and do it over and over again yeah yeah I mean you found out
[02:21:15] um through your interviews Joseph Hargrove like I said was captured with a leg wound and executed
[02:21:20] pretty quickly yeah but it was a week later yeah that they captured Gary Hall and Danny Marshall
[02:21:26] so those guys were on the island you got massive American forces around there that could have done
[02:21:32] any number of things to try and get those guys out and they just got yeah and they want and so
[02:21:38] and so you had the marine officers want volunteered to go back the seals wanted to go back I think
[02:21:45] the PJs had gone back to Thailand but the Wayne Fisk unbelievable PJ was on the Sante raid and
[02:21:52] you know the Apollo missions I mean he um you know you had all the all the people ready to do the
[02:21:59] heavy lifting without any qualms about doing it and uh and they just steamed away and left them
[02:22:06] you know left them behind gone and you know and that's uh they were stealing rice from the Khmeruja
[02:22:13] and so basically they finally saw boot prints going into their kitchen because every day the Khmeruja
[02:22:19] guys hey why'd you eat the leftover rice I didn't eat the leftover rice no you did you know so they're
[02:22:24] fighting about this and then the get they go to M.S.M. and they the same accounts of the rice missing
[02:22:32] uh is happening over and over so then they say okay there's still two guys here so let's set up an
[02:22:37] ambush they capture them coming at night to get the rice and they're at this point so physically
[02:22:45] beaten down they don't even bother to tie them up and in fact according to the Khmeruja they made
[02:22:49] them rice and made them food and they just waited for their orders and then they sent them to the
[02:22:55] mainland then they were put in a prison then they were probably interrogated and executed.
[02:23:04] So where's what's the status of this book right now?
[02:23:08] Um uh you know probably 10 years you know no it's been more than 10 years um it's uh it's a hard cell
[02:23:17] and it's funny that's going oh you know we don't want another book about the vietnam war that's
[02:23:22] what my agent was saying and I said look this isn't this is about this is about you know leave no
[02:23:28] man behind this is as old as warfare this is uh a much bigger kind of theme so we'll see I'll
[02:23:35] peck away at it but yeah there's not much interest in the vietnam war not that much interest in this
[02:23:42] subject. What's causing what's causing the lack of interest in the vietnam war? I think there were
[02:23:47] too many books uh there was just a big spate of books and it's just publishing now you know
[02:23:54] publishing isn't doing that well and everybody's nervous the economy's going funny it's just
[02:24:00] well that's one of the reasons for that is because you can publish a book with no by yourself
[02:24:04] yeah you know echo Charles could publish a book in a week yeah you could literally publish a book
[02:24:09] in a week yeah and it could be available on amazon and it could have which is 85 of book sales
[02:24:15] or amazon sure right now anyway so so echo Charles could write a book about uh bicep curls yes sir
[02:24:23] and since that's your area of expertise and he could have it published immediately yeah and
[02:24:29] he could have access to 85 percent of the market yeah which is a pretty unbelievable thing sure
[02:24:35] and so yes the publishers are definitely scared about that but I need to go back I gotta go back
[02:24:41] to Cambodia and do some more interviews and um would you if you're gonna make you've made that
[02:24:47] much effort you've made this much effort now you're gonna make some more effort what if no if
[02:24:51] your publisher doesn't want to publish or what are you gonna do you're gonna publish it yourself
[02:24:53] sure eventually but you know I have like three jobs so it's you know it's uh I have to write a
[02:25:02] lot of stuff to pay the bills and then I uh what do you normally write to pay the bills
[02:25:07] uh a lot of ghost writing some screenwriting um yeah have you written any screenplays that
[02:25:14] we've seen no not yet nothing you know it's Hollywood where everything almost always happens
[02:25:21] I wrote I co-wrote the screenplay for the Hixon movie and uh is that coming that's battling with
[02:25:28] Netflix because now Netflix is all you know taken on water and they're all panicky and
[02:25:34] um I wrote a couple of pilots for the tie stick tv series I wrote a really Kelly Slater by the
[02:25:42] the rights to tie stick he did but then he fumbled him and uh yeah he had a deal with Sony and then
[02:25:49] it's just Hollywood and it's it's just it makes the dod seem positively efficient same thing
[02:25:56] is going on though too with like Hollywood because if you want to you could make a movie and you can
[02:26:02] post it on youtube and see what happens well and the thing is like the Hixon movie is remarkable
[02:26:07] because it starts with Maeda so it starts in 1890 in Japan and Maeda is an unbelievable guy I mean
[02:26:17] he's prize fighting all over Europe he comes to the United States like in the 20s he's prize fighting
[02:26:24] in the south he's he's going to west point yeah and and then he fights like one of the gangs in
[02:26:32] New York guys in Brooklyn and and then he goes to Cuba and then I think we think he's the guy who
[02:26:39] invented the Mexican wrestling mask because no one would fight him and then he winds up in Brazil
[02:26:45] with the meets the graces and then that's where the second part of the story goes and Jose Padilla
[02:26:51] did Narcos who's from Rio grew up you know around Hixon and the Gracie's is the director so it ain't
[02:26:59] rocket science yeah that's a no brainer yeah and you're kind of like so I would I think you're right
[02:27:05] I mean I that's what I told Jose Padilla the director I was like go get some private equity
[02:27:10] people I mean this isn't that tough a business case to make yeah come on and that's not it's not
[02:27:15] like a crazy special effects movie or anything either like it's not going to be a huge budget
[02:27:20] film it's big like you know you got some great fights you know you have like Helio fighting
[02:27:27] Camara no Camara but you also have the Black Panther is former student okay Pantera you
[02:27:34] know the three hour 48 minute fight and and just classic stories that Hixon talks about like as his
[02:27:41] childhood and and so all that's in there and it's just you know you could see it Rio in the 70s and you
[02:27:50] know you know surfing yeah drugs and beating you know beating up street fights yeah yeah and so uh
[02:27:56] what's not to like yeah so they'll I don't know I just like when I write something for Hollywood
[02:28:02] I write it and I forget about it and my mom luckily I grew up around this and I grew you know I grew
[02:28:09] up on the set of Robert Altman movies and Altman was all in Altman was put in his house on the line
[02:28:14] to pay for that movie and there was none of this committee decision like the greatest oxymoron
[02:28:21] I've ever seen is what they call in Hollywood a creative executive and and so you go to these
[02:28:28] meetings about meetings and and everybody has and then I get in trouble because I'm not nice enough
[02:28:36] for whatever and then I'm not really allowed to go to meetings anymore and but the best meeting we had
[02:28:42] was we went into Ted Sarandos owner of Netflix's office and my co-author Mike Ritter glass like
[02:28:50] a half a pound of weed in a 1970s single finned pintail and we had the tie stick cover on top of
[02:28:57] it and I pulled out a rubber mallet and a chisel ripped the deck off of it and put a half a pound
[02:29:04] of weed in an abalone shell and pushed it to Ted Sarandos and go there it is it's all yours Ted
[02:29:09] and he's like and I was like nope I'm not taking it back leave it in your commissary whatever and
[02:29:17] so I left it a bunch of weed at Netflix oh well hopefully some of those things get eventually
[02:29:25] made man sounds like good stuff yeah uh that kind of has us up to date yeah we made it we made it
[02:29:31] through your life to this point um what do we miss anything no I don't I mean yeah but no
[02:29:39] I think we got most of the saline points there high points yeah uh people can find you at fainting
[02:29:46] robin.org if they want to support that you've got your sub stack which is peter maguire.substack.com
[02:29:54] sour milk and it's peter maguire's sour milk what's the what's the title about why is it called
[02:30:00] sour milk because I'm sour milk I'm a 57 year old white guy uh you got your books law and order
[02:30:09] sorry law and war facing death in Cambodia tie stick and then the book that I covered on podcast
[02:30:15] 293 I think with Hicks and Gracie the book is called breathe I wrote the forward and you did a great
[02:30:21] job and that was the best interview anybody did on that whole book tour oh well I appreciate it it
[02:30:26] was an absolute honor to be able to write that forward um when you hit me up I was like you
[02:30:32] know can you said can you write a forward I was like let me think about that for yes I can well
[02:30:37] thank you uh yeah that's just a great book and and and now you're working on a follow-on book
[02:30:42] with Hicks and yeah and what's the what's the premise of the follow-on book with Hicks and
[02:30:46] it's called invisible jujitsu and it's visible jujitsu yeah and it's there's a lot about jujitsu
[02:30:53] and fighting but there's also a lot about life and a lot about people dealing with problems and
[02:31:00] you know similar to the things you talk about and how the answer can't be found in a pill or a shrink
[02:31:07] and that you know you you kind of have to you you know there's sections on strategy there's sections
[02:31:16] on things Hicks and talks about generally but then I make him you know delve into in much greater
[02:31:23] detail and so I think people will find it very useful for their daily lives trying to get people
[02:31:30] kind of back in their bodies and out of their heads and uh I think there's really something to that
[02:31:36] and we've been teaching a lot of really civilian unathletic people really really basic jujitsu
[02:31:44] and how someone's walking into you what do you do you know do you let them close the distance do you
[02:31:49] so kind of coming back to the old self-defense jujitsu and a very fundamental level and uh
[02:31:56] and I have all these kind of auto shape civilian students I've been testing it on
[02:32:00] and they come every week and they love it even though they go drink 20 beers afterwards and
[02:32:06] get even more out of shape but um but now they want to roll and they're rolling and I've got to be
[02:32:11] careful that they don't get hurt because they're not in the best shape but you really see the change
[02:32:16] on them as we've all seen with jujitsu it does change people yeah I think the one thing with
[02:32:21] Hickson is like jujitsu is so much a part of him that there's you you kind of have to tease it out
[02:32:30] of him it's like the water it's like the water that he lives in right and so you ask him how the
[02:32:34] water tastes like that fish story right how's the how's the water they're like what what's water
[02:32:39] yeah so you're you pulling out because my I I connected so many things in my life because
[02:32:46] of jujitsu it made all the all the pictures start to become assimilated into the same world
[02:32:55] and that was he absolutely huge for me and so I think that you know if you pull those strings on
[02:33:01] on Hickson where he can talk about he makes a decision in life without thinking about it
[02:33:08] because that's just who he is but if you start saying hey why'd you make that decision why would
[02:33:12] you do it that way and then you can he'll start to see and you'll start seeing we'll all start to see
[02:33:16] that's the jujitsu well like he talks about acceptance you know and he'll use these words
[02:33:21] and you'll think it's kind of a new age thing acceptance and this forgiveness and I'll say
[02:33:26] what do you mean acceptance he goes well when finaki broke my orbital bones in my eye socket
[02:33:32] I had to accept the fact that I couldn't see and I was gonna have to fight him blind and I was
[02:33:39] figuring out how I was gonna fight him blind and I can't and I had a plan but then I got a little
[02:33:44] bit of vision back and I took him down and you know broke his knee and then choked him unconscious
[02:33:49] and so so it's funny because like you said to kind of force him to really elaborate on some of this
[02:33:56] stuff the well is deep no doubt awesome man uh echo any questions oh so you have your black belt
[02:34:06] yes when did that happen uh after 30 years I got it I don't know two months ago or something oh you
[02:34:14] just got your black belt yeah I have my black belt in jeek and doe but yeah I was a purple belt I
[02:34:18] think for like 17 years well I only would take belts from hixon so and I didn't I'm not out here
[02:34:26] all the time so do you're a black belt snob listen this guy he's like I only take a black belt from
[02:34:31] here crazy that's it yeah yeah he does make sense though yeah he started with hixon and then you
[02:34:37] know like all your knowledge and stuff like that it's like from hixon and then what some other guy
[02:34:41] kind of slides in yeah he's like you know I train with hands out too but you know it just
[02:34:47] it was different you know hixon six and I don her I trained with a lot how much did you train with
[02:34:52] hendo not much because I was a daytime guy so I trained with don her and John was a white belt
[02:34:58] I met him when he was a white belt I was a professor at Columbia when he was a graduate student
[02:35:04] and so you guys knew each other oh yeah you guys were bros yeah oh yeah and he would kind of ramp
[02:35:10] me up for Cambodia you know so I just like take these horrible donner beatings for a month so that
[02:35:15] nothing was really that bad in Cambodia the Legionnaires and stuff that didn't know jiu-jitsu so
[02:35:21] I'm so were you there when he quit being whatever he was being at Columbia and he just yeah oh yeah
[02:35:27] yeah yeah and yeah and he I was getting threatened by the Serbs and I was putting on this conference
[02:35:35] and I had all these big Richard Goldstone the chief prosecutor in the Hague and this and that
[02:35:41] and so John Donner and Paredi my old kickboxing coach came as the undercover security and just
[02:35:48] shadowed these two Serbs the whole time it was pretty funny but um yeah John Donner actually
[02:35:54] came to my wedding and wore a three-piece suit he did not wear lycra did he have a did he have a
[02:35:59] butt pack on no Donner was uh he was he's a classic guy and uh we had a lot of fun and uh yeah he was
[02:36:09] I could I could really plumb the depths of my cynicism with Donner
[02:36:17] well he's been awesome to watch him and his team um man they're just dominating yeah jitsu it's
[02:36:22] freaking awesome well he's I mean he's uh really sharp guy and um and you know on some level I think
[02:36:31] he saw my academic he saw my academic career and was like no way man I'm just gonna teach you jitsu
[02:36:38] no I remember Henzo and Henzo and Donner came to one of my classes at Columbia and I was teaching
[02:36:45] about Japan and the samurai and this and that had a student go um I don't think it's appropriate for
[02:36:52] you to to get into these these cultural stereotypes about the Japanese warrior culture they had almost
[02:36:59] 20 years of Weimar-like democracy just burying my head in my hands and I think that was probably the
[02:37:07] day Donner decided he wasn't gonna become a professor yeah well he's a professor of jitsu
[02:37:13] oh he is he is it's kind of wild you know you you've heard the story that like you know Dean
[02:37:18] Lister is obviously and he he had that conversation with Dean and it's kind of like this mythical
[02:37:22] thing now right it's a little bit of a mythical thing that Dean said you know Dean was get catching
[02:37:28] guys and Dean tells it's super humble you know I was doing okay with my leg locks training with
[02:37:33] some of the students which means people were he was getting tapping people out yeah I can tell you
[02:37:38] that right now because he's tapped me out one million times and I and I've seen it we used to do
[02:37:42] you know dojo storms and all that stuff and even just tournaments he would just foot lock leg lock
[02:37:46] everybody um and win by other methods because his whole game of jiu-jitsu but it's kind of wild
[02:37:52] you know like Donner was asking him like you know or said something like you know you spend a lot
[02:37:58] of time on the you know going for people's legs and and Dean Lister said why would you ignore 50%
[02:38:05] of the human body and that's become this thing yeah yeah but it's if you think about the the
[02:38:12] sharpness of of Donner heard to hear that and go hmm that's a really good point oh yeah that's a
[02:38:20] really good point and Dean was you know Dean it wasn't like if you have the idea that Dean was
[02:38:26] had a couple foot locks in his game and that's what no Dean was way deep in it heel hooks foot
[02:38:33] locks he was way deep in that stuff I mean so far deep into it that people have only caught up
[02:38:41] I think it's been now it's about a year and a half when Dean I was I would ask Dean like hey have
[02:38:45] you seen anything you didn't know yet it was like a year and a half because yeah now they're starting
[02:38:48] to do things that I don't know but that was a long time where Dean was just way above everybody else
[02:38:54] but it is amazing that Donner heard that saw what he did and said oh yeah there's something going on
[02:39:00] here and of course now we have Pete the Greek who's yeah well he's a wrist locker and he says what
[02:39:05] why would you ignore 5% of the human body yeah yeah well I trained with Lebel also oh hell yeah
[02:39:11] and so I try met him a few times and he's scary and and so I have his book you know he's got a big
[02:39:18] book about wrestling finishing holds that one yeah I guess it is and she has more than one I got a big
[02:39:23] giant book by Judo G Lebel and it's all these crazy finishing holds it also got like weird like you
[02:39:29] have a cane and how you can joke some with a cane and all this other stuff well I grew up watching him
[02:39:37] lucha libre eke eke ka eke televison la hankeles and you know that was wrestling at the Olympic
[02:39:43] and Gene's brother was the announcer and then Gene was the hangman Gene was like three different
[02:39:49] masked guys and and then you know when you train with him he goes into character you know get you
[02:39:55] in some weird neck twist me like who's the most beautiful man in the world and yeah he's a scary guy
[02:40:03] he I mean Judo Gene Lebel he has to be one of the premier guys and and for whatever reason it like
[02:40:11] didn't make it out you know like the Gracie's did the most incredible job of marketing jujitsu by
[02:40:18] creating the UFC yeah and Gene Lebel had some some MMA fights oh yeah and he ref what was the big
[02:40:24] fight he ref Anoki and Holly yes right Anoki now he refereed that fight yeah but again it wasn't
[02:40:30] quite it didn't quite get over the hump and maybe UFC wouldn't have made it over the hump
[02:40:35] because you know the fratida brothers and it was banned everywhere and it got eventually got picked
[02:40:39] up but man Judo Gene Lebel he he was a legit submission grappler before that was even a thing
[02:40:47] well he was a au wrestling champ god what a beast he was all japan judo champ at some point
[02:40:55] first american yeah and his mom I think owned the olympic auditorium or ran it something like that
[02:41:03] so he grew up training with like ed strangler lewis yeah the legit catch wrestlers yeah yeah
[02:41:09] the catches catch can guys so he didn't know anything but like you know real nasty old-fashioned
[02:41:17] submission grappling and and yeah and then you I got to go to his cabin at high elevation and you
[02:41:24] show up there at like 10 at night and uh was it a big bear or something yeah and you trained to
[02:41:29] like three in the morning and it was me peretti and john lewis and uh and and we walk in and his wife
[02:41:37] says oh hi boys and that and I and john lewis is so nervous he goes uh it's nice nice to know you
[02:41:43] and then and there's a loft and we hear this booming voice from the loft how do you know it's
[02:41:49] nice to know or you just matter and so but he actually surfed uh with lord tally ho bleers
[02:41:59] who was the old announcer for pro surfing who was a wrestler in hawai so and tally ho bleers took
[02:42:05] him to macaha like on a big day and like lobel got his front teeth knocked out and gene was terrified
[02:42:12] of surfing and so like and I was surfing a lot of big waves then and I must have a picture or
[02:42:17] something so I wound up at his kitchen table like talking to him it's about surfing for hours and uh
[02:42:23] and he was very close to the machatos and uh I think you know john joc machado is one of the guys
[02:42:29] who's impressed me as much as anyone other than hixon yeah and I've been able to train with him
[02:42:34] the last few years um and that's been great and he's he's a really nice guy and that's a book I'd
[02:42:42] like to write what about john joc yeah because being born with judo gene the bell uh both but
[02:42:49] but I think gene's a little more plays it close to the vest um but john joc born with one hand
[02:42:54] and becoming you know one of the best of all time and turning a handicap into an advantage is uh
[02:43:01] it's a remarkable story and he and again he's uh a great teacher did you run into the Armenian crew
[02:43:08] oh yeah go-kart yeah yeah yeah this is like a whole timeline oh yeah dean and we were going up
[02:43:15] there and like those guys were we we did matches in these underground places there was one place
[02:43:21] called neutral grounds it was in some terrible part of uh uh la and like there was pit bulls
[02:43:28] everywhere and there was no like it's just just mayhem but it's hard to explain that to people that
[02:43:35] didn't live through that the pre-cambian times I thought dean killed an Armenian one time like this
[02:43:41] guy these guys would not tap no I mean they were it was a life or death scenario for them oh yeah
[02:43:48] and and they were I mean obviously tough as hell and and they you know they they also knew they were
[02:43:54] also walking in new oh yeah they they were all linked in with judo gene labelle so there's a mayhem
[02:43:59] going up there oh yeah awesome times yeah there were some there were some uh definite chaos between
[02:44:05] jujitsu and I guess sombo maybe yeah at jujitsu tournaments yeah and it would be mayhem but it
[02:44:15] was fun yeah a good way to start to learn things everybody got a lot better fast yeah no doubt about
[02:44:20] it yeah now it's like you you got to just have an open mind with everything yeah you know you got to
[02:44:25] keep that mind open um anyways man yeah a few more things oh we got more questions yeah rewind back
[02:44:33] to tahiti right you're talking about the guy who was who's that guy her husband the sugar daddy oh
[02:44:38] the sugar daddy from paris landed from paris brutal showed up on an ounce and started smelling the
[02:44:44] sheets damn so you were just out at that point passport where is it yeah where is it that's probably
[02:44:53] the most everything you've done that might have been the closest to death you've been and then back
[02:44:58] to your weed uh selling days you said you didn't like to do the small stuff no only do like bigger
[02:45:03] like what how does that work where would you get it from or whatever from the older guys who were
[02:45:07] smuggling it okay so you had to deal with like the the older yeah but they were guys I knew from
[02:45:13] surfing it was very small closed loop it wasn't and they would what sell it to you and yeah you'd
[02:45:18] sell it yeah yeah basically and it didn't want exposure didn't want you know people coming to
[02:45:23] my house or whatever it was just go to mcdonald's and bring in the duffel bag and they leave with
[02:45:30] the duffel bag or you know usually but the crencha stuff was you'd sit on the front porch and you
[02:45:36] know that was a trip like that was a whole another world what's going on there well that was um it
[02:45:44] was just out in the open you know and and I had a I had a white Mustang GT and when that white
[02:45:52] Mustang GT pulled up like line would form and people coming from all walks of life all ages
[02:45:59] everything and and I remember once these cars came screeching up and I was like oh man it's a drive
[02:46:07] by and and they get out and they just robbed the crencha high school marching band and so they have
[02:46:17] sounds like a great take so they got a trombone and so they're trying to run up on on the porch of
[02:46:24] the house where I am to stash the stuff and my buddy's mom comes out no no no they're not putting
[02:46:30] that here so I was like get that shit out of here so then there's like 10 guys walking down the street
[02:46:35] with like crencha cougars big drums and tubeless stuff like oh man yeah so I I uh the truth is
[02:46:46] always stranger than fiction you know it really is and it's just you know yeah how much money you
[02:46:52] when you went on your eight or nine month trip to Australia and and southeast asian what not
[02:46:58] how much money do you think you had in your how much money did you have in your bank account when
[02:47:01] you rolled out probably like 20 grand or something that's like more than enough yeah live forever on
[02:47:07] yeah and my rent in Australia was there's like 300 Australian a month right across the street from
[02:47:15] a little grass trail to broken head point and you know go to the pub and you know play pool in the
[02:47:23] afternoons and yeah it was great and yeah and then the the banquet for the surf contest I was in a
[02:47:30] few surf contests always had to culminate with a giant wild wild west fight and and the Bondi guys
[02:47:38] were real bad asses so aunt and the Bondi guys would come up and it was the big one was the
[02:47:43] sky Easter classic and so we were all in that and then then some guys from Malibu came and they
[02:47:50] started slam dancing at the at the awards banquet and the Aussies thought they were fighting and it
[02:47:57] turns into the gnarliest wild wild west brawl you've ever seen and um yeah and and uh one of the
[02:48:05] Americans got his lips split a little bit and you know it just comes with the turf and uh
[02:48:11] uh yeah no I love the Aussies uh yeah I still thought I'm still friends with all those guys yeah
[02:48:16] I was lucky enough to go down there for a bit and um it was one of the places where I was like man I
[02:48:21] went to damn Nusa oh yeah what the that place is ridiculous oh yeah no no but see then I started
[02:48:30] going to west Australia and that's gnarly and so by then I was pretty good in jujitsu and they
[02:48:37] called me the human knot and um and my friends it's like four brothers and they're the best guys at
[02:48:44] Margaret River so I would stay with them but I would first have to line them all up on the lawn
[02:48:49] and beat all of them just to get it over with and I would also have a mouthpiece with me
[02:48:53] anytime I went out and so and they worked these are hard guys they worked all day on the black top
[02:49:00] shoveling black top and uh and the father was a treasure hunter deep-sea diver and they were also
[02:49:07] commercial fishermen and they come home and their little counsel worker outfits with the
[02:49:12] short shorts and the one brother who was the wimpiest one but he was the natural in jujitsu
[02:49:19] so suddenly he's whipping the brothers they've been kicking his ass this whole life and he's like
[02:49:24] oh and he's really looks scared I go what's wrong Jay he goes well cousin Dave's a bit crook with you
[02:49:32] and I'm like okay cousin Dave I don't know your cousin Dave I go what are you talking about he goes
[02:49:37] well I've gone and shown him that choke and he said no seppo choke's gonna work on me so I've
[02:49:42] gone and shown him but but I forgot to tell him to tap my leg and he's gone unconscious on the job
[02:49:47] site and so then I'd go to these parties and like cousin Dave want to give me the king hit which is
[02:49:53] the sucker punch so you're having like always keep your back to the wall and watch out for cousin Dave
[02:49:59] so and then there was gentleman's night at the margarit vs board riders club which was
[02:50:06] you know an endless glass of beer for three hours then the fully naked strippers and then
[02:50:14] the motorcycle club crashed that party to fight with the surfers then then I and this was like a
[02:50:22] normal Wednesday night no this is a big event you know yeah and so no so we're there and you know
[02:50:27] stumble drunk in true Australian fashion and the whole front window shatters and they get the
[02:50:33] bikies are here the bikies are here so they spill out and there's some fighting with the
[02:50:37] motorcycle guys and then I'm thinking like I can't really stay vertical but if I jog slow it's a lot
[02:50:45] better so I'm kind of jogging slow and and and then and then I see a cop and I'm like oh man I got
[02:50:52] it that cops can get me for public drunkenness or something and then I kind of get lost and now
[02:50:57] I'm in west Australia it's like two in the morning and then I sort of get my bearings again I'm like
[02:51:02] okay and I can see where I'm staying and I'm going down the main drag of margarit river
[02:51:07] and there was like a crazy Australian Vietnam vet who lived in the park and all he did was march with
[02:51:15] this big staff on his head and do push-ups and body weight exercises and he was a monster
[02:51:20] and and I'm lurking in the shadows and I hear this oh I see you oh see you scaredy cat come on scaredy
[02:51:29] cat come out and fly and uh and I go down one block and there's like three blocks to my place where
[02:51:36] I'm staying I put my mouthpiece in and I just start running and I'm like okay it's football time and he
[02:51:41] didn't do anything but then I wake up the next day I'm so hungover and my wife says oh let's go out
[02:51:48] breakfast it's okay yeah and I caught you're married at this point yeah so my wife's gnarly and uh
[02:51:56] and so I take like two steps and run back throw up and I say I just got to go to the beach and get
[02:52:01] in the water and I'll be better like just let me get in the water so you go to margarit river you
[02:52:05] got to go down this long staircase and then there's a big beach with some rocks and I'm with walking
[02:52:11] with my wife and I get halfway down the beach I'm like and my wife just peels off like she's never
[02:52:17] seen me in my life there's like one twig I'm trying to hide under and puke and all the Aussies are up
[02:52:23] on the the thing watching the whole thing and that's when they're like ah that pike's a top block
[02:52:29] and that's like Australia you have to do that you know what year did you get married uh 2000
[02:52:35] wait a second so this was I wasn't married yet you wasn't married yet but it was you she became
[02:52:43] your wife yeah that was her that was that was her final she's like yeah that was your courting
[02:52:49] process yeah and a little time at Up Wedge Island at the lobster camp she liked that a lot
[02:52:55] where's she from originally south uh she's from virginia in florida but a real southerner where
[02:53:03] when did you meet her uh blind eight new york city in 95 I think so again how was she what was she
[02:53:12] doing down this shit was happening in Australia like I took her down there in 1995 no no this would
[02:53:18] this would have been about probably 97 or eight or somewhere around then oh so you were actually a
[02:53:25] grown man doing this yeah yeah I thought this was when you were 18 no no but but in Australia you
[02:53:32] say oh well that was back then everybody's old now and these guys all have kids and all that and
[02:53:38] then they're still down the pub oh no and then the two brothers that night went home and got in a
[02:53:42] fistfight with each other on the way home and then they had to drive like four hours to Perth in
[02:53:47] the car one with a black eye them not talking and the kids in the back and yeah it's the Aussie way
[02:53:54] that's how we roll I guess awesome man oh thank you appreciate you coming on uh thanks for thanks
[02:54:02] for joining us thanks for sharing your experiences um I'd say thanks for reminding us that life's
[02:54:09] a story and and in order to write it you gotta go live it yep so good lesson for all of us
[02:54:15] go out there and live thanks for joining us man thank you and with that Peter Maguire has left
[02:54:22] the building Echo Charles surfing jujitsu academia genocide a lot going on in there yeah definitely
[02:54:34] an interesting path and and it's a good thing to remember that when you're on a path you can step
[02:54:41] off that path and go in a different direction yeah you know this isn't I'm not talking about the
[02:54:47] I'm not talking about the path right capital T capital P yeah yeah we don't want to let's say
[02:54:51] you could be going down one lane of the road and you could get off and go down a different lane
[02:54:58] and it was kind of hard to convey this but a lot of this stuff was happening in Peter's life was
[02:55:03] happening at the same time he's doing jujitsu he's going to Cambodia he's writing about this
[02:55:07] he's still a prophet like he did a lot a lot of this stuff was he was living it was happening
[02:55:12] parallel in his life so that is definitely something to remember it sometimes I think people feel stuck
[02:55:21] in a rut and the reason they feel stuck in a rut is because they're staying in the rut that they're
[02:55:27] in and you don't have to sacrifice everything to go and you know put another toe in the water over
[02:55:32] here test the waters over there you know you can you can go and try to do two class you can go and
[02:55:38] take a guitar class you can go and do some research about something that you don't know much about
[02:55:44] you can go and interview people that's what does it cost to interview somebody doesn't cost anything
[02:55:47] go learn yeah a lot of opportunity out there man I was so surfing is one of those things
[02:55:54] jujitsu is like this too but surfing is a big one and you see you know you see movies about this
[02:55:58] or whatever right the even idea of the endless summer right where you're chasing like essentially
[02:56:03] you're chasing waves right you can go ahead and say it what point break point break okay so that's
[02:56:09] what I that's what I uh basically compared in my mind right because point break is essentially
[02:56:14] parts of it anyway right essentially instead of smuggling drugs but exactly right you know but
[02:56:19] it's the same gig you know where it's like I'm just gonna make as much money as I can as fast as I
[02:56:24] can so I don't have to work right right even though he was working all the jobs but still the idea is
[02:56:29] there where they'll rob all the banks and do all this and then just surf and skydive and stuff the
[02:56:34] rest of time and that's kind of the dream right or you just join the teams yeah but here's here's the
[02:56:39] here's the point with that and actually you're right though you're right where if you go around the
[02:56:44] world chasing waves where you you'll just by incident find yourself in different interesting
[02:56:50] situations where you'll learn new things meet new people have all these like varying levels of
[02:56:57] craziness experiences and then that builds on itself right you know you know how you like one
[02:57:03] experience with this experience put together it's like oh that's also and jujitsu is like that as
[02:57:07] well where but most people don't travel around just doing jujitsu sometimes you do sometimes you
[02:57:11] do and actually I had that experience on a small degree when I was traveling around doing filming
[02:57:16] jujitsu yeah but I was I would train too so that's how I met at that time all the main guys and they'd
[02:57:21] be like yeah come train because I'd be purple belt and brown belt so it's like the perfect guy for
[02:57:26] them to train with because I'm usually their size or whatever not good enough you know so it's easy
[02:57:33] to it's kind of they can beat me up at the same time and then give me the experience of their gym
[02:57:37] and all this stuff it's like hospitality thing it was perfect yeah and so I got that turn freaking
[02:57:41] everybody that is a good thing and then you get all these experiences and now you know them oh you
[02:57:47] know how he knew all these people you're like Eric Paul's in you know like all these people and he
[02:57:51] knew them all but it's because of that same concept where he's like he's going around chasing waves
[02:57:55] you know oh Hickson's here okay I'll take a jujitsu class or whatever and I'm gonna meet this guy
[02:58:01] now I know this guy you know it's kind of crazy how many like that for one level of connection to
[02:58:06] John Donahur and then John Donahur to Dean Lister and we got Judo Jeevan Lebel you got Eric Paul
[02:58:12] like all these are these guys are the premier people that brought the sport to what it is you
[02:58:18] know I mean I mean obviously you've got Hickson and Horian and Alio like for sure but then you have
[02:58:25] all like the second gen people that were coming up and it's just it's just interesting how it's all
[02:58:32] connected and it seems I guess it seems more interesting to me because jujitsu is such a
[02:58:38] big part of my world you know takes up a big part of my world takes up a big part of your world
[02:58:43] and but still like the connection between like John Donahur, Henzel Gracie, Hickson Gracie,
[02:58:55] Peter Maguire, Gene Lebel like it's just wildness it's wildness so I say you know I heard this some
[02:59:05] expression about like if you want to be a writer well what's the best thing you do if you want to
[02:59:09] be a writer go live oh yeah that's a great advice you want to be a writer go live somebody asked me
[02:59:15] yesterday when was I oh yeah when we were up yesterday I got asked um you know oh did you
[02:59:21] always want to be a writer I'm like nope now I've written I think 11 books but I didn't quote
[02:59:28] like I was like oh I'm gonna be a writer yeah I just was gonna be a commando and then happened
[02:59:34] to happen to start writing but that's a good it's not a bad and I'm not saying you have to be a commando
[02:59:39] but maybe you're gonna be of a damn jujitsu player or maybe you're gonna be a surfer or maybe you're
[02:59:45] gonna be anything go out and be something you have something to write about at least yeah take a
[02:59:51] little bit of risk too what was that quote he said about being careful careful careful get you killed
[02:59:56] careful get you killed yeah yeah careful kills careful kills but also careful prevents life prevents
[03:00:04] living and look I'm not saying obviously go out and do dumb shit but don't but don't let caution
[03:00:13] guide your every move where you don't take risk you gotta take risks because you're gonna be out
[03:00:16] there getting after it no look does it is it smart to smuggle pot no it's not but is it smart to
[03:00:24] hey I don't have too much money but I got enough money to get down the you know down to Indonesia
[03:00:28] I'm gonna go surfing oh cool you know don't do dummy legal shit but man roll the dice a little
[03:00:34] bit go get after it a little bit yeah it's gonna be good for you yeah it's almost like within a
[03:00:39] certain certain threshold it's like you that's the best thing you can actually do for yourself
[03:00:46] within reasons so sure if you would look at and be like hey this is dumb this is a dumb move you
[03:00:51] know illegal stuff mainly like falls within that category whatever um then okay that's exclude
[03:00:57] that everything else should kind of be in play anyway when you think about it seriously yeah
[03:01:03] and between the and of course on on one superficial and you got a cool story that's on the super
[03:01:08] but like all the stuff you learn whether you're successful or not it's like by the stuff you
[03:01:12] learn you'd be surprised how valuable that ends up becoming yep go get some experience go live a
[03:01:17] little bit that's the recommendation but the other thing it's a rumour is it's not too you know you
[03:01:22] can be I'm 50 I still need to go out there and get after a little bit more I need to take a little
[03:01:26] bit more chances in the world I will say and maybe maybe you disagree but I would say it gets harder
[03:01:33] and harder though as you get a you know take on more uh fixed responsibility that is true that's
[03:01:39] a hundred percent true from a financial thing but I'm not even and also in other ways it comes easier
[03:01:44] because now you got money like remember when you had no money yeah and you you know you were working
[03:01:49] as a whatever I almost feel like and maybe I guess it depends on the circumstance but I almost feel
[03:01:55] like when you have no money it kind of pushes you to have to do more stuff you know so if you have
[03:02:00] money I'll just pay for it just whatever whatever whatever kind of a thing where it's like things
[03:02:04] will come a lot easier and I thought about this too where you know how like when you think back to
[03:02:09] the times when you don't make any money it's like what what was the difference because 20 years I was
[03:02:13] in the Navy but think about it there are certain parts of life it's funny I say that but you know
[03:02:19] what I at the time and you've heard me say this like I was a richest guy in the world
[03:02:23] me and my friends in the games we thought we were the richest guys in the world we had so much money
[03:02:27] young single team guy dude e5 frog man gets on in your position too you get a lot of stuff paid for
[03:02:33] right by the you know like well wet suits right yeah a lot of the front shoots bro yeah and that's a
[03:02:40] huge deal guns ammo yeah what people would want to spend money on yeah you get a batteries toilet paper
[03:02:46] oh yeah right so that's literally my buddy had to free went to his house you know like the
[03:02:52] big industrial toilet paper rolls that are like a foot across that's what they had in the seal
[03:02:57] teams and this dude had it at his house outside pro you're a savage wasn't even a papers on toilet
[03:03:04] paper taking a freaking roll of that roll probably lasts like six months here's the thing well here's
[03:03:10] the thing and actually which is part of the fraud wastes and abuse by the way fraud wastes and
[03:03:15] abuse is though those things in life cost money and if you don't have a lot of money like certain
[03:03:21] parts little little tiny parts of life that all are and there's a lot of them too a lot of them
[03:03:26] every day all day those little parts of life are hard it's like they're so hard that you're taking
[03:03:32] toilet paper from the yeah you know guys batteries batteries there's kind of an unlimited supply of
[03:03:37] batteries in the seal teams oh yeah uh oh yeah any kind of rigors tape like what what do you call a
[03:03:44] gaff tape sure yeah that stuff you go to guys you go to a team guys house there's a freaking
[03:03:49] pretty good there's a box of rigors tape just in case some 550 cord some one inch two be the
[03:03:55] nylon yep so think about this let's say let's say you don't get free rigors tape and toilet paper
[03:04:02] and you have hotels oh yeah places to stay like these are pretty like per diem if you have if you
[03:04:08] have money or you get that stuff free it's kind of like it makes it things so much easier but it
[03:04:12] keeps you in a little bit more of a box than if you didn't so let's say this i'm a jujitsu bomb
[03:04:17] surf bomb whatever i don't have like i don't tell weed i don't rob banks i have normal uh i have to
[03:04:23] get a normal job i don't have that much money but i want to go to australia first off i'm not flying
[03:04:28] first class in this cozy thing and no one bothering me i'm i might even write in the cargo part and
[03:04:34] then have a good story or whatever but in you being coach or whatever you're gonna meet some weird
[03:04:38] dude or maybe you know or maybe some weird girl or something like this right then you go to australia
[03:04:43] and now you got to search for a place to stay it's not taking care of many adventures you know
[03:04:48] exactly right many adventures because you gotta you gotta like make do you got to struggle for
[03:04:52] everything and and it becomes more of a thing if you have money you're just like yeah you probably
[03:04:57] don't even book it you're like hey can you just book me in that hotel just choose the nicest one
[03:05:01] or kind of a thing so you don't have a story behind that you're safe in the hotel you're safe in your
[03:05:05] box you see i'm saying if you'd have money you're out there earning every little teeny tiny thing so
[03:05:09] you have way more of a experience seem saying embrace it risky too yeah all right well hey take
[03:05:18] some chances go out there if you want to support the podcast you want to support yourself you want
[03:05:23] to get stronger faster better smarter get yourself some jockel fuel new flavors in discipline go
[03:05:29] discipline go new flavors get yourself some moke i need some moke right now bro yeah and
[03:05:35] brah how's this and i'm with you right and you know how like you know kind when you get you know
[03:05:39] when you get hungry and then like even like a normal chocolate bar or something seems like oh
[03:05:44] like wait you know just when you get real hungry bro i i mixed banana moke and chocolate moke
[03:05:51] and i put some chocolate milk in it just because i like you know how everything sounds good to you
[03:05:54] is what i'm saying so i was like oh yeah i put some banana in there whatever and probably it was
[03:05:59] really really good i don't know if it's because i was so hungry or because that could be a banana
[03:06:03] chocolate is good it's a thing wait it was a chocolate peanut butter so that made sense think
[03:06:07] about it you chop up a banana put some peanut butter on it i mean in real life not moke
[03:06:12] and then put a little bit of chocolate on there come on bro that's good it's the same flavor is
[03:06:16] what i'm saying yeah so yeah moke get yourself some moke that way you do it's just so good especially
[03:06:22] like like i'm saying right now so it's pretty standard that when that we are here when we're
[03:06:29] recording i haven't eaten yeah so have you eaten today no so we're both on a fast right now yeah
[03:06:35] it all sounds good i'm gonna break the fast with like some mixed nuts and some moke when i get
[03:06:41] done with this little scenario so i recommend you do the same thing get yourself some moke get
[03:06:45] yourself some disciplined go and uh you can all that at jockelfield.com you can also get it at
[03:06:50] you get the drinks at wah wah we got the ready to drink coming ready to drink protein all the way
[03:06:56] like a date or anything on that august by the end of august it'll be in wah wah it'll be of it we
[03:07:02] we're not able to make enough of it yet to get it everywhere but we'll get it out there i'll let
[03:07:07] you know where it's at um you'll be able to order it i can tell you that from jockelfield.com you can
[03:07:14] get stuff at vitamin shop as well we get a heb down in texas we're going into some other i
[03:07:19] i they're putting a list together me because there's a heat we're we're in a bunch of different
[03:07:23] stores now thousands and thousands of stores so i'll i'll get a list together so i can tell
[03:07:28] everyone where to go and hit it yeah so there you go uh originusa.com if you need jiu-jitsu gear
[03:07:36] you go look if you're not doing jiu-jitsu right now come on let's go let's just get in the game
[03:07:41] get yourself a gi go to originusa.com get american made gi don't get someone don't get a gi that's
[03:07:46] made by someone that's basically in a prison camp bro have you ever had a bad call have you ever been
[03:07:53] at home or wherever wherever you go and just thought to yourself i wish i was like doing
[03:08:00] jiu-jitsu right now yes and not the kind where it's like oh i wish i was doing something else
[03:08:04] jiu-jitsu sounds fun so that i'm you're like the feeling of man i wish i was actually like
[03:08:09] doing jiu-jitsu with someone right now you know what i had the feeling similar feeling but like
[03:08:15] so dean's had an injured hand because he broke his hand for like a couple months right and you know
[03:08:20] so when whenever we're training there's a little bit of a little bit of hold back right a little
[03:08:25] bit of oh hey you know hey switch arms hey switch positions hey oh hold on you know that kind of
[03:08:31] hurt that kind of thing and like the other day we actually like he i had forgotten he'd hurt in his
[03:08:36] hand because he's been hit he's at all taped up you know so when you're rolling you just see this
[03:08:40] taped up thing and then i was gone for a little few days i come back he didn't put the tape on
[03:08:45] because it's healing and it's weird just rolling and when we got done he said something like you
[03:08:52] know my hand felt pretty good today i was like oh i didn't even remember it but the roll was so fun
[03:08:57] because it was like the limits were off yeah i knew it was just like felt so good yeah so yes
[03:09:02] sometimes you got to train that jiu-jitsu yes yeah fully you ever and this is not a judgmental thing
[03:09:08] by any means but you ever um you ever think about yourself before you knew jiu-jitsu and
[03:09:14] been like man i felt like that was almost like an empty shell version of myself you ever think that
[03:09:20] you feel like you were not enlightened yes you feel like there was just a whole thing it was all a
[03:09:26] lot a lot of it too was like a lie but what's there's another word what is the word like the buddhist
[03:09:30] used to say is an illusion you were in i was a little bit of an illusion because there's a lot
[03:09:36] of things that you think that are wrong yeah just he just a straight up even even just the
[03:09:42] pragmatic things like i think i can beat this person up and you don't know jiu-jitsu you think
[03:09:48] that but it's an illusion yeah because you may or may i sure you might be able to but you also
[03:09:51] might not be able to yeah so there's a whole illusion to your life when you're not doing jiu-jitsu
[03:09:57] and that's a problem yes and this is you're actually suit absolutely correct and you're
[03:10:03] you know more about what i was just said than i do actually because now that you say that i remember
[03:10:08] yes that's correct because i was a bouncer in hawaii before i started jiu-jitsu oh yeah you thought
[03:10:12] you were the bad and i i never really thought i was bad because i worked with a bunch of big
[03:10:15] someone guys so i did not think i was a badass but yeah probably yeah probably related to him
[03:10:22] but i didn't think i was a badass in that group but compared to the patrons that would act up and
[03:10:26] stuff i did but i think of myself back then i was like almost like there was this big part of my
[03:10:32] brain that was just empty not knowing unknowing you know so yes not enlightened exactly right did
[03:10:37] you see they're making apparently they're making a remake of roadhouse yes yes you're fired up for
[03:10:43] that the pisses me off it doesn't piss me off but i just i know it's gonna be lame well it's connor
[03:10:48] McGregor so what what what who's connor McGregor he's he's in it he's slayed it given what i've been
[03:10:55] sent and you know it's funny you're the third person now to to bring actually oh yeah because
[03:10:59] everybody knows you're in they've been sending me the stuff yeah and so connor McGregor's gonna be in
[03:11:03] it playing what role well the online stuff that people sent me um had a picture of connor McGregor
[03:11:09] to be in roadhouse okay that's different he's gonna be in it he's gonna have a bit role that's cool
[03:11:15] no i think he's the guy but i don't know i didn't i didn't use dalton that's what i think no i don't
[03:11:21] know i didn't look at that bro a bunch of people just been sending it to me and then people have
[03:11:26] been bringing it up to there's a lot of roles that connor McGregor would be awesome at dalton's not
[03:11:30] one of them in my opinion i don't know you think so i don't i have no idea i think he'd be better
[03:11:35] as the as the protagonist in that the protag the antagonist yeah yeah i think he'd be a better bad
[03:11:41] guy the dude that gets his throat ripped out remember the og one well well here's the thing so
[03:11:48] my fantasy of a roadhouse remake would be a super dark and greedy one not like kind of cheesy like
[03:11:54] dark with drugs and like a real um explicit that was my og fantasy then i found out later that ronda
[03:12:01] rousey in her heyday was slated as dalton as a remake of roadhouse where you know it's a woman
[03:12:10] protagonist that's what i that's the intel i got that's what back in the day was a long time ago
[03:12:14] and then yes recently maybe that's why because my vision of roadhouse was more like an actual
[03:12:21] fighter guy yeah and maybe it was just embedded in my brain and you don't see women bouncers so it's
[03:12:27] like that's i think a big time a mistake when you're trying to sell a certain story and it's like
[03:12:32] okay let's put like a different person in that role that it's like bruh that's not that realistic
[03:12:38] as a woman bouncer they're so rare so unless it's about the rarity of women bouncers cool but it's
[03:12:43] like it's not as believable you know you know how like you get like a um like a like if you get a
[03:12:49] ninja will say but the ninja is a 10 year old boy it's like i see what you're doing but it's like
[03:12:56] bad ninjas aren't 10 year old boys typically ninjas is like a trained decades of training guy that's
[03:13:03] who we're gonna be you see what i'm saying anyway so when i saw khanan migreger i was like hey i i
[03:13:08] feel like that's viable that's what i thought i think character wise i think you would have more fun
[03:13:13] playing like a bad guy i think you're right i think you're the antagonist because even though
[03:13:20] he's good he's that good at talking smack he's kind of good he's kind of good at being a bad guy
[03:13:26] in mma but also has like the good side right they love him he's not just a pure heal you know what
[03:13:34] they term heal is right from wrestling like like chael sonan was duty he was you know bad guy
[03:13:40] ink bro and he was so good at it and and connor plays that role a little bit but he's not but
[03:13:48] he still does it with like a nice side and he has a lot of you know a lot of positivity to him
[03:13:55] and so if he was allowed to just go off and just be bad he'd have a good time with it well here's
[03:14:00] the thing and and i didn't realize this until it was actually like told to me where the i felt it
[03:14:07] but i never knew this as a specific thing so the best bad guys in history are guys that we like
[03:14:12] like guys who are we're like hey sure he's a bad guy but oh i kind of want to be like him
[03:14:17] and that always has to have a positive element to it like darth vader um like they're they're usually
[03:14:23] like guys who are like sure they're all you know you just gave you just gave me a list of one
[03:14:30] you started counting your fingers too like you're gonna have at least five give me a list of one
[03:14:36] and it's freaking darth vader good job he was the first guy that came to all right uh well you tell
[03:14:41] me who who's who's like an iconic bad guy anton sugar okay uh yeah okay so stoicism he's stoic
[03:14:49] dude right in touch with or able to control his emotions super successful like there's all these
[03:14:56] elements of him that are like and then there's one or two really i mean they're significant but this
[03:15:00] is usually just one or two bad elements of them and in fact you get bad guys who some some
[03:15:05] movies they do on purpose and they do it well where if they want you to really not like a bad guy
[03:15:11] like they'll make him like kind of weasley or someone who like you wouldn't want to like listen
[03:15:16] to her hang out with in fact you'd really rather be quiet and not show up to the party kind of a
[03:15:21] thing but usually the good bad guys you're like oh as long as he liked me i would like to hang out
[03:15:26] with that guy or be like that guy when you think about it so you get a conor mcgregor as the bad
[03:15:31] guy yeah perfect and you said trail sonan trail sonan yeah he is a little bit more on the like
[03:15:37] antagonistic side for sure but he has a lot of those elements he's smart he's funny like right
[03:15:42] you kind of like dude some of the trail sonan uh like smack talking i don't know it entered the
[03:15:48] algorithm it entered my algorithm oh yeah and he was freaking epic man he was he was just epic
[03:15:55] as smack talker and just i think he might be the king yeah i think he might actually be the the
[03:16:03] best smack talker of all time anything it got fourth round fifth round fifth round he talked
[03:16:11] the biggest smack to anderson silva oh and and he was in the fifth round and there was a minute left
[03:16:17] man and he got caught brutal that was savage that was savage that was a that was well for i was rooting
[03:16:26] you know for him what was his nickname the american bad guy ink or something well bad guy ink is like
[03:16:33] his uh video channel he's got a youtube channel and he talks you know about mma and stuff like that
[03:16:40] yeah but uh he would say he's a gangster from westland ordin yeah he's like i'm an american
[03:16:47] i'm a gangster he's freaking legit it's so funny i've been to his house before for yeah for for
[03:16:52] interview stuff okay so um and this is back in the new channel yeah a little bit you guys go way back
[03:16:58] yeah like when i last like for example last time i saw him a different thing we remembered each other
[03:17:03] for sure but i don't you know i don't have a month's beat down nothing like this but yes i've been
[03:17:08] to his house when i went to it was just me and yeah that's a real nice place he lives in that whole
[03:17:13] neighborhood super nice what westland orgin westland or he's a gangster from westland orgin
[03:17:19] i salute that so there you go hey if you want to get into jiu-jitsu go to usa.com
[03:17:27] go to jockelstore.com get yourself some cool t-shirts to wear yeah represent represent standard
[03:17:32] issue is that is out oh the standard issue discipline disciplines freedom sure people asked
[03:17:39] what's the layer see if you can figure out what the layers are you got to look at them kind of
[03:17:43] comprehensively there's four of them four versions each one is a little bit different
[03:17:49] there yeah see if you can figure out those layers it's good yeah a lot of cool other
[03:17:53] stuff on there too jockelstore jockelunderground.com youtube we got a youtube channel we got psychological
[03:18:00] warfare we got flip side canvas dakota meyer making cool stuff to hang on your wall bunch of books
[03:18:04] hey here's the books from peter maguire breath which is or sorry breathe with with hicks and
[03:18:09] graesy uh tie stick law and war facing death in cambodia so check those out check out only
[03:18:17] cry for the living by holly mckay i was telling peter about her i'm like dude this girl risks this
[03:18:23] woman is girl insulting i don't think so just like is boy insulting okay this woman risks her life
[03:18:32] to write the book only cry for the living so check out that book if you want to know what war what
[03:18:39] war is like from both sides while it's happening get yourself that book i i mentioned my book final
[03:18:44] spin publishers weekly gave me a good review thank you publishers weekly hey publishers weekly you
[03:18:51] didn't like breathe that's a bummer it's a good book check it out i've written a bunch of other
[03:18:58] books about leadership i've written a bunch of kids books get the kids book for kids you know
[03:19:03] it's gonna help them it's gonna make the world a better place ashlomfront we solve problems through
[03:19:08] leadership if you want to check out or if you need help with leadership at your organization go to
[03:19:13] ashlomfront.com come to one of our events next one is at lana we have the muster everything we do
[03:19:19] sells out that's going to sell out too so if you want to come go to ashlomfront.com get the details
[03:19:24] there extreme ownership.com we have an online training academy where you can be a part of
[03:19:31] what we teach you can learn it you can train it all the time we have live interaction we have
[03:19:37] courses that are set up extreme ownership.com also if you want to help service members active
[03:19:42] and retired you want to help out their families gold star families markley markley's mom
[03:19:47] she's got a charity organization if you want to donate or you want to get involved you want to
[03:19:52] help out our veterans and their families go to america's mighty warriors.org also heroes
[03:20:00] and horses.org we got mica fink up there taken guys and recreating their brains and bodies and
[03:20:07] spirits in the woods on horses and ice baths so there you go and if you want to check us out on
[03:20:15] social media on twitter on the gram on the facebooky echoes out of controls i'm at jockel willing
[03:20:23] of course beware of the algorithm because it's looking to suck you in it's looking to grab a
[03:20:28] hold of your brain that's what they did to me they got me watching these chail sonan smack talk videos
[03:20:34] and now i'm now they're just loading them up for me and i'm like what do he says on this one click
[03:20:39] watch out watch out for the algorithm it'll grab you uh thanks for listening thanks for supporting
[03:20:44] the cause we we would not be here without you listening and supporting so thank you we would
[03:20:51] also not be here if it wasn't for the military doing what the military does so thanks to all
[03:20:58] military members past present and future thank you for protecting our freedom and our way of life
[03:21:05] and also thank you to our police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics emt's dispatchers
[03:21:11] correctional officers border patrol secret service all the first responders thank you for doing what
[03:21:16] you do to keep us safe here on the home front and everyone else out there
[03:21:24] listen to someone like peter maguire is a great reminder for all of us that there is so much
[03:21:32] going on in the world so much to do so much to experience and for peter that meant surfing and
[03:21:41] jujitsu and reading and writing and traveling and maybe some smuggling and some studying and some
[03:21:46] teaching and so much more there's so much going on in the world there's experiences waiting to be
[03:21:54] experienced there's sights waiting to be seen and there's life waiting to be lived so go live it
[03:22:03] and until next time this is echo and jaco out