Steve-O on Leaving California, Getting Rich, and Going Broke

I just could not make it through a day without perpetrating some ghastly Behavior I didn't see how I was gonna be able to navigate the world my one thing that I that I really loved was uh attention seeking and and video editing and that was where I derived this crazy plan to become a famous stunt man with my home video camera all my wildest dreams came true like I'm famous what made you want to change the way that we behave is a reflection of how we feel about ourselves what are you most afraid of the whole art of Jackass is is a a young man's thing and to be steo old it's scary if you could impart any wisdom onto our viewers right now what would that be it doesn't matter what you want to do it doesn't matter what you want to accomplish what matters is alrighty steo thank you so much for coming on the ice coffee hour it is an honor to have you well thank you man it's been an honor to be here this is so cool I think for both of us too we've been fans since like growing up with you and jackass and I remember like all of us as as kids would would watch it and then try to like I don't want to say we would recreate it but we'd find like different skateboarding stuff and like just try to imitate we loved it how long have you guys known each other uh five years years some change and you were a skateboarder yeah what was uh your level of proficiency what was your best trick kick flip wow you could kick flip I could kick flip I did not and I could drop in on a halfpipe that was like the five foot one yeah yeah but I could I I had a very hard time getting up on the the lip and then turning back down right right roping yeah that's it but you had the kickflip that's good man kickflip while rolling yeah no while ruling yeah my favorite board was Zero for what I just always had zero I'm a big I'm a big fan of Jamie Thomas yes I played him in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater yeah who uh he rode for Toy Machine before starting zero I love him that's I got to be honest when we were doing our research we realized it is incredibly difficult to introduce you because there's just so much that you've done so I don't even know necessarily how to introduce you but if you were to describe who is steo how would you do it um I would say that I'm an Entertainer an Entertainer yeah an Entertainer um or in more simple terms I suppose an attention [ __ ] an attention [ __ ] I I uh I think I've always leaned into calling myself an attention [ __ ] because on some level it's uh inherently self-deprecating it's uh it's a way of um not taking myself too seriously but at the same time I do believe that uh attention could be argued uh to be the most valuable commodity known to man if you look at how much of uh the the the world is is driven by advertising Revenue it follows that attention really is a commodity and uh a a very precious one at that well we want to talk about the revenue and the monetizing and all of that stuff because we actually started out as kind of like a finance podcast of course and during our research we also learned you had a stint in there where you were like what doing backflips for 50 cents to go buy a sausage hot dogs hot dogs and stealing the buns and then heting them in microwaves at gas stations buying yeah which is uh surprising because I think it's it's better known that I had a a very privileged upbringing you know um I I was the the son of a corporate executive I grew up in five different countries because my corporate executive father worked for all these multinational corporations so the fact that uh that I was legitimately homeless for three years after dropping out of University and doing backflips for for 50 cents or or a dollar whatever and and stealing um hot dogs while I paid 50 cents for a loaf of bread and that was um I I I attribute that to uh having been raised with enough Pride that I I I wasn't willing to ask for my my father or my parent to bankroll my activities when they amounted to nothing that they approved of how did you feel about your financial situation because I know nowadays A lot of people that are around that age are just like you got to grind you got to go monk Mode work super hard and make a bunch of money but you it seemed so far in what I learned that you were kind of okay with that um I had a pretty pessimistic view of my own future I didn't expect that um that I was going to live for very long I I think that I I I I I at my core believed that I lacked the the basic skills needed to survive in uh in our society I could not keep a job any I got fired from every single job that I ever had I just couldn't do it and um I couldn't get through college I couldn't keep a I just couldn't I didn't see how I was going to be able to navigate the world um my one thing that I that I really loved was uh attention seeking and and video editing and and that was where I derived this crazy plan to become a a a famous stunt man with my home video camera and um I again I didn't think I was going to live very long so all of my my exploits with with videotaping crazy stunts felt like an exercise and packing my message into a bottle for it to be discovered after I had passed a tragic and and and young failed life how much did you make from Jackass the first season less than 1,500 bucks for the entire first season why why so low is it because they they weren't sure it was going to be a hit um it was certainly a shoestring budget um I I was uh like with Jack guys I never so much as countered you know and and offered like I I I was just it was always just me being informed what I was going to be compensated um and uh I looking back on it I I just view it as um I had to pay my does you know sure like uh I I felt that I was uh really not compensated financially for the early days of Jackass but I was uh compensated in attention I was they they kind of made made me a monster where I was paid an opportunity yeah what did you spend the money on do you remember uh um at that time it was uh illicit substances at that time and when did the money really start rolling in after that came out the uh first season of Jackass I I made less than 1500 bucks after um the third episode aired I got a call that the show really was a major hit and that they that MTV was going to purchase Seasons two and three at once in their their reorder the first season was eight episodes and now they're going to buy 16 more representing seasons 2 and three and they said because it's a hit we know we have to pay you and uh that's why we're going to give you 2,000 bucks per episode and I remember thinking wow 2,000 * 16 is 32,000 and like wow you know i' never had anything anywhere near that money you know that amount of money to myself so I was very very comfortable with that um they paid half of that amount of money largely upfront and after taxes which they took out yeah um half of $32,000 after taxes was 10,000 so I got I got a check early in the filming process for Seasons two and three I got a check for 10,000 bucks and I remember thinking wow this is more money than I've ever had this is great uh I'm going to deposit this $110,000 check into the bank and before it even clears into my account um I will have packed up my car and and driven from Florida to go move to Los Angeles to take advantage of this opportunity and I told that to um Jeff train who is the the you know the boss the the director guy and uh he said you're not you're not driving anywhere until you give me a a list of ideas to film in every state between Florida and California and he said if my if I had ideas uh if my ideas were there that he would fly out a camera crew to follow me cross country and film in every state so that's what happened and um it was March of 2001 and and and I got I got a good leg up on all that filming because I had my own you know wow but obviously that's not where like the money started really rolling in a bigger piece of um I suppose Financial Security uh it came about in in January of 2001 when uh I got a call from a a rave promoter in Cleveland Ohio he said he was throwing a party he wanted to fly me to Cleveland for this night I remember as a January 25th of of 2001 he said I um I'll fly you in the night of the party I'll fly you out the next morning you won't even be gone 24 hours and and I want to pay you $700 bucks to attend this party just got to go to just be in attendance and my response to this guy was don't just give me $700 I will light myself on fire you know I will chew and swallow glass you know like that's kind of where I was at with all that and um sure enough I went out there uh I attended the party it it was broken up by cops for for uh a venue being like uh overcrowded much overcrowded I I did all kinds of um illicit substances all night uh you know then the next day and next morning he found me under his uh kitchen table and he said that they said your flight departs in an hour do you even want to try it and I was like ah so I ended up staying in Cleveland for about a week wow I remember uh he said um he said uh you know when he need to be back and and I told him oh there's this girl I'm kind of into I'd like to be back by Valentine's Day He aren't you worried about you know like I was like Oh no I got like you know at the time I had like 1,500 bucks in my bank account because I'd been working for some do company videotaping things like God totally cool um and uh this guy just saw kind of dollar signs in in my willingness to do stuff and he booked more personal appearance things the next personal appearance that this uh this guy arranged for me was uh in Spring Break and uh it was just show up at a nightclub and just be there but when when I show up at this nightclub I saw I saw there was this stage that wasn't being utilized and I was like oh I'm going to get on this stage and perform crazy stunts chewing and swallowing glass lighting myself on fire and uh and what what ended up happening was that I coralled I don't know maybe close to a thousand people you know this this whole nightclub just kind of went over the stage to watch me do my uh my my silly dumb things and um that turned it into a tour it was a don't the don't try this at home tour and um this Shady Rave promoter guy uh ended up booking a a full scale World Tour and um granted given that it was all on my name and you know I probably could have done a lot better with it but um from where I had been financially to where that got me that's where um I I can say I've never been broke since then but before we get into that starting a small business is absolutely thrilling from that first customer to your first hire to that first real paycheck but let's face it it can also be really scary from the paperwork the payroll stress and of course compliance worries that can just pile up well that's where our sponsor just works comes in your all-in-one platform for small business growth with just works you can get seamless tools for benefits payroll HR 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know you'll break a light bulb okay and uh and you can chew pieces of glass from a broken light bulb and um you effectively chew it into sand um it it doesn't cut how does it not cut is there a special way what it does do is it's very bad for your teeth it it uh your your teeth are are um effectively sanded down so not a good habit to to pick up on a daily basis but um but yeah that was uh it was an interesting era in my life and I had um like a bunch of footage that was not suitable for MTV it was uh not allowed on MTV and so it was this same guy and this other business partner that he had who arranged a uh a video a distribution deal for me to make too hot for TV videos those were big at the time too yeah I had my I mean to their credit they uh they set up my own um late night television commercial campaign for the director response direct to Consumer yeah I I think those are the days when the girls gone wild DVDs were like coming up in the Heyday watch Comedy Central and after 11:00 p.m. sure enough that that song would come on you know instantly that song I I had exactly the same format of uh of late night TV commercial um and yeah I never got paid I don't think by those guys for those videos but it did raise my profile interesting how far along the jackass Journey did it take for you to get recognized for the first time oh my God it was right away right away the very first episode of Jackass um I had like a a very insignificant uh bit like a very forgettable like but it was the second episode of Jackass which aired uh that featured me swallowing the Goldfish and and regurgitating it into a fishbowl and that one changed my life overnight like the the next day after that show you got to understand that this was in the year 2000 there was internet but there was no thing as highspeed Internet there was certainly no uh there's real no real way to watch videos I mean you could kind of what what it was a big undertaking to watch any kind of video clip on the internet at that time and the media just simply wasn't fragmented the way that it is today so um you know to be like the level of a hit show on MTV at that time it meant substantial viewership like we had uh it was just so different at the time the media was was considerably less fragmented and um like a a hit like jackass at that time commanded uh a fairly substantial portion of the the attention span of of uh the general when do you think you saw the biggest swing of your net worth 2022 really big time what happened in 2022 was it a it was a positive swing oh yeah what happened um we had uh jackass forever come out um and I had um Built My Own revenue streams that they were set up in a place for all of the the media machine supporting jackass forever to really just energize all of these revenue streams that I had with the the merch with my tour um I made it from uh performing in comedy clubs to to booking theaters and um so like like one night in a theater I would be making the amount of money that I that I would make per week in a comedy club so like it was just an exponential uh an exponentially aberration strong here the one thing I found surprising is that you were doing a video with ween man and mentioned that wild boys paid less than the residuals of Bad Grandpa oh yeah how does that work because Wild Boys in my opinion was was such a huge show but then again I guess the movie was also fairly large the TV deals with MTV were not um very lucrative and with the uh with the the movies um we did we got our our profit participation albeit our profit participation was you know I'm not going to say negligible but a very tiny percentage although it was a tiny percentage it was uh by the same definition as Spike Jones John you know so we we got that definition which made that percentage albe it small like like a legitimate percentage what would you say was the biggest net worth swing negatively for you 2008 financial crisis really as far as uh a percentage of um of my net worth yeah what what happened there I mean I I didn't pay a lot of attention to um like what my investments were if I got a financial statement I would just go straight to the bottom line like oh that's what I'm moreth cool um in reality uh I had a stock broker guy who was in charge of um half of my savings and I had my father who was in charge of the other half of my savings elast what was uh to be deployed for investment purposes and um it was kind of a fun uh competition you know gentleman's who's gonna get who's gonna make my money earn more from me and um I I I believe that they were both just very into the stock market and so um being heavily invested in the stock market in September of 2008 meant that what was it 50% of you know um did you did you hold or did you end up selling I can't even remember okay I can't even remember and at the time I was living in a halfway house you know having recently gotten out of rehab I got uh you know I went into rehab in March of 2008 and um my my life was was uh a bit of a disaster at that point I had um burned a lot of bridges and and I just kind of spiraled out of control and up to that point I um just didn't think that I I expected like oh I'm going to you know be dead I'm not you know I just didn't ever like envision living uh to be middle-aged or you know to have a full life I I just pictured it that it was all going to crash and burn and I was going to be dead imminently and um I I really uh dedicated myself to the recovery process and in doing so it it occurred to me that that I wasn't necessarily going to die imminently you know that actually might not now that I've stopped effectively killing myself with drugs and alcohol now that uh you know I'm actually taking care of myself now I actually might be less than halfway through my life I might be looking at at many more Decades of life in front of me and here I am you know I've burned like burned every bridge that I had in my career at that point what I what I was being told about uh being a man in recovery was that uh to be in recovery I had to adopt spiritual principles I had to deflate my ego you know I had had like everything about being in recovery seemed totally antithetical to being steveo from Jackass so I I didn't know that that I could continue to have a career in entertainment um my future my financial future felt very uncertain and then in come September you know half of my savings was was obliterated um so yeah that that was it was a scary time I'm interested in the rehab why do you think you were able to successfully complete that whereas so many other people fail what did you have that they don't I I I'm as baffled as as as anybody and the only thing I would I would um respond to that is that it's not something that you complete you know I think um there there's no complete it's almost like saying um like uh if somebody were to get into good um Fitness you know good physical shape it's not something that you complete it's like oh so you're in good shape you've gotten you've become fit like that you could become unfit at at any time so I really equate um you know everything about um being in recovery for chemical dependency issues um like it's all a an analogy for for Fitness you know like people say uh like oh does you know does the Rehab work well you know the rehab is like the gym get you kind of get out of it what you put into it you what do you think is the most difficult part of sobriety I think that that uh the most challenging part of sobriety would be um to completely disengage from the environment that that you struggled in you know like when you go into rehab if you think that you're going to spend 30 days in a rehab and then go back into the environment where you had all your problems it's never going to work you know you have to completely change your your environment and I I was fortunate because when I went into rehab I had um been evicted from from my apartment I'd been uh i' I had been in this relationship the relationship fell apart um yeah and and having burned all the bridges in my career was actually kind of I had zero distractions I had no uh home to return to no relationship to return to no jobs to distract me so across the board I had an absolutely like clean and fresh start and um I uh I was told that um if if I wanted to really give myself a a strong chance of success in long-term rety that what I should do is is be in a rehab facility an Inpatient Rehab for 30 days and then from there go into what's called a sober living environment like live in a halfway house where where there's structure where you know I've got to follow the Like rules where I've got to submit uh drug tests and breathalyzers and you know where there's real guard rails in place to protect my sobriety for any moments of weakness and um that like to commit to that is probably the hardest you know what made you want to change I just could not make it through a day without perpetrating some ghastly behavior that brought about shame and humiliation on just an a horrifying level you know where would you where would you hear the shame and humiliation was that other people telling you this or is this you looking back and and saying I wish I didn't do that I I I think I could sum it up by saying that the way that we treat others the way that we behave is a reflection of how we feel about ourselves I think that there's some kind of a spiritual law in that and um you know over the course of my addiction my uh self-esteem my selfworth it just was just degraded to a point where uh my behavior and and my actions towards others was was uh degraded as well and I would be on these crazy Benders where I just you know I I wouldn't I was just so irrational so uh impulsive that you know I I would just find myself lashing out at at people I would um particularly be ashamed um by actions I would take to try to hurt people's feelings you know I I became capable of being very nasty very mean spirited I would I would try to hurt people's feelings harm their reputations um just despicable things that that I I would realize that I did later you know like oh my like and that would bring about shame um I I was broadcasting my downward spiral and in Virtual real time if not literally Real Time with the Advent of YouTube I mean this is like YouTube came out in 2005 I was an early adopter you know I was like videotaping myself in in uh horribly humiliating States just Distributing links you know it's a like so that was just the problem is that you know at the peak of my uh acute intoxication on all these various substances I would think that what I was doing was just the coolest thing ever and I'd be committing it to video and then Distributing the the video links and then later coming to realize oh that wasn't super cool you ever look back at those videos or do you ever like watch them or what what's that like for you to see yourself in that state today I I have I I can look back on it now and and see like uh having evolved the way that I have evolved now I can you know look back with gratitude at what once was so it it doesn't necessarily bother me if anything I'm profoundly grateful for for the change the you know that that I've made since then so like the Jos of who I am now to that kind of makes it palatable and and okay to be entertained by how bad it was and that's why I've have had no issue um pilfering The Archives of of this humiliating footage and and making it into you know retrospective storytelling YouTube videos and and monetizing it you know um I don't have any issue with that because because that's not me anymore yeah um but yeah that's some pretty outrageously humiliating and shameful stuff why do you think people are drawn to self-destructive Behavior because it's not just alcohol and drugs it could also be food it could also be you know doing something that people know is not good for them but they continue why do you think that's well I think the definition of addiction is um continued Behavior despite consequences mhm when when when when a behavior is causing harm to you and not only do you continue the behavior despite that harm but in fact you cannot stop the behavior and um I mean that's uh the only explanation for that is that it's a literally Insanity it's a it's a disease that's centered in our mind so yeah I'm curious do you believe that everything happens for a reason I mean you get a little bit dangerously close to uh ruling out free will as a possibility you know like I certainly don't believe in in uh predestination you know I think um I think that the laws of the universe require that um that we have free will um with that said I think that um on some kind of a spiritual level the the we have a a blueprint for challenges that we we choose to take on in our lifetime so gets a little bit murky where if there's free will and nothing's predetermined then how do you have a blueprint for for your life and uh you know and then I I also believe very strongly that um there are forces at at play that that do play a role I mean so me I don't know it's it's all super confusing things happening for a reason yes what moment for you do you feel like there was something that was just this isn't chance that this was meant to happen I had this uh this terrible thing happen while I was filming um a project it was just a the idea but the I was filming like kind of a proof of concept maybe a Sizzle reel know kind of a thing I had this idea for for a project which would serve to reunite the wild boys it was me and Chris ponus and um we didn't want to like you know do wild boys again because um with all the animals and stuff I'm much more sensitive to uh to animal rights and and uh you know doing the right thing but um in uh March of 2018 there was a request that came out which was largely a response to this video I had made um where I found a dog in the streets of Peru my dog Wendy yeah this video got hundreds of Milli of views the most viewed piece of content I ever ever uh put on the internet and uh you know one of the results of this video about the dog Wendy got a request from Puerto Rico they had just had hurricane Maria it devastated Puerto Rico and there were uh dogs displaced like um and and it was there was a real crisis situation they said that they were having this event to uh Mass Bay and neuter dogs and then you know did I want to come and participate in it I said hell yeah you know this is something I absolutely believe in and um I knew that I wanted to get uh get a vasectomy as a stunt uh for for this project I was working on but I thought oh you know like I'll go to support this spay and neuter you know in Puerto Rico and I'll get a vasectomy there you know tied into it and then I thought you know what's we're going to I'm going to go to Puerto Rico anyway and they need help and we could really be spearheading this uh campaign to promote tourism in Puerto Rico to help them you know and it it felt very organic it was um like it didn't feel like a creating positive like uh I I hate artificial positivity in general you know but this felt like organic and I thought wow what if we made a a bigger thing out of this trip you know we got the dogs thing you we got to promote tourism maybe we'll do like a kind of a format of like the wild boys and we get into all this crazy wild stuff we're actually going to places that need help and we'll be ambassadors of Goodwill so we're there and um it's like our second day of filming and we've got this uh this thing where we're gonna mess around with jet skis to show us having fun and promoting tourism and you know we're GNA I said I said let's tie uh tie ourselves together with a rope and we'll just punch jet skis and opposite directions P you know and get yanked off and uh this producer guy who I hired he said oh man that could really you know causes spinal injuries did you do it with the bungee cord okay well that makes sense sure do with bungee court so it's called it the bunge tug of war it was just the craziest thing because we had a massive crew like there were I went there with a crew of 10 people and then on top of that there were all the other people there that you know were on on the set it didn't occur to anybody that in us like doing a tug-of war with a bungee cord like what if the bungee cord breaks and that's what happened no the bungee cord broke and this guy who uh this guy was in the water had struck him like I struck him in the head and it was um turned into a it turned into a really crazy lawsuit which which only just recently ended under totally um undis like confidential terms you know it's a long lawsuit yeah six years yeah six years and and um God the just a very very unfortunate like for that many people to have been in that situation like that that that there was some kind of the universe manipulating the situation for that to even be possible because nobody it didn't I just can't 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one like more Reckless than the one before and I kept getting away with you know each one and I thought well I got to get kind of hurt you know so what did it ended up in me uh laying down in a bed of rocket engine fuel and my buddy's lighting it and I was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and I ended up with third degree burns that that were so heinous um I I had skin graft surgery on 15% of my body looking back on that one how I thought that I was going to you know get away with that and um that was just a particular uh a particularly weird episode where um I felt that there was some kind of uh other forces at play yeah do you think that maybe like some someone or something is like watching over you to make sure that like I I do believe that um I I do believe that that I've got some kind of a of a of a network of angels what are you most afraid of I think I have very similar fears to the average person um I think typically fears are derived from uh losing everything that you have and or not getting the things that you want yeah I mean I think that that losing everything like um being like being broke like that that's probably my biggest fear being broke yeah like I think that um it's particularly easy to uh lose a lot of money all you got to do is save a lot of money you know I think that uh it's it's pretty incredible how uh you can how it's possible to lose well I think even in that lawsuit example yeah is that could get insanely expensive with relatively uncapped potential liability on something like that for sure is okay yeah yeah definitely is okay what is your biggest insecurity you know like I I've got this trademark voice very recognizable if I call to order a pizza there's a strong chance that the person on the other end of the line is going to say no way dude this steo you know and um that's something that uh that's that's a like it's trademark you know like I know that my my fiance she loves it but but I at times um find myself very insecure and self-conscious of uh what a piece of [ __ ] voice I have that was not what I was expecting that's not what I was expecting at all at all yeah um for for me it's very much of a trademark like I wouldn't even think of anything other than attributing that voice to you right right I mean like it's it's far more recognizable than my actual appearance do you know like what it is about your voice that makes you bothered by it specifically my my concern my my uh my fear my insecurity is that that it it's unpleasant to listen to wow okay it makes you feel any better never never bothered me yeah I mean in the past few days I've listened effectively to your voice nonstop you prob listen to your voice well that means the world to me thank you you know you know what I also think too that um if you ask most people I I I suspect most people when asked what they're insecure about would not be inclined to give an honest answer and that that in declining to give an honest answer what they're effectively doing is packaging yeah like like bottling it up so that it can fester and have more power over them and um I I do subscribe to to being transparent to uh just saying you know what like I I find myself very self-conscious about my voice and and having having said that uh openly and honestly um took a little bit of power out of it and your guys response was uh was appreciated by me that is just such an unexpected really yeah now what about because we were talking on your podcast about uh the process of Aging yeah how you felt like you are known as steo but your body might not always be able to keep up with that and what what way if you could explain it what I was saying is that my my identity yeah is um very tied to uh adolescent Behavior you know like like recklessness immaturity like the whole art of Jackass is is a a young man's thing and to be sto old it's scary you know like I I I've I've felt that somehow it's it's not okay for steo to be old and as I was saying that Kevin Smith that he uh pushed back on that yeah you know he pushed back on that strenuously saying that he can see uh he can see a future for an edgy old steo to be very cool and and and active what age do you feel mentally man I I don't know that I feel mentally a different age than I am and and it's crazy to say that I'm 50 you know 50 years old like uh it's hard for me to compute that I'm 50 years old but at the same time um the amount of experience that I have packed into this lifetime is my mindboggling you know I I really I I was um last week I uh went skydiving 25 times in four days getting certified to do a particularly ridiculous stunt for this multimedia tour that that I am embarking on we broke for lunch one day and these two skydiver guys were talking and in in a casual conversation one guy was saying you know time is the most valuable thing you never get it back you know time like and I wasn't even part of the conversation because I was over at the counter like with trying to get my food and I was just I had a moment to myself contemplating like what the I just heard time is the most valuable thing you never get it back and I just had this uh this this moment of reflection thinking that yeah time really is valuable and I feel that uh God I've been proactive about making all my time count you know like I I think uh 50 years is a long [ __ ] time and um I can't imagine how uh any other 50-year-old could have had as much life experience as I've had even anywhere near close to it yeah having so many experiences and having gone through so many things is there a specific decision or moment in time where if you could go back in time you would change it or what is your biggest regret uh I say it a lot that my biggest regret is um not being diligent about flossing my teeth like uh flossing and and Brushing in general and um you know because I've said it so much I won't spend too much time on it but some people can get away without flossing some people cannot and when I say that some people cannot I was one of those people who had a a bacteria that uh accumulated in my mouth because of not flossing and this is a bacteria that that brushing will not eliminate so like you know there were just so many years in my life where I would brush my teeth and like immediately after brushing my teeth someone would tell me dude your breath is gnarly like what are you talking about I just brush my teeth and uh I didn't understand it it's a you know so the thing is that in our society when somebody has like an odor emanating from their mouth like it's not uh it's not like societally okay to tell the Earth and in the case of had people who have this bacteria in their mouth they themselves can't detect it so no one will tell you you've got it and you don't know you have it yourself to just go through life like just being vow and offensive to anybody who's within speaking distance from you and uh yeah it's tough man one thing I really admire about you is even shown when prompted uh what your biggest in security is which is like this sense of like lack of embarrassment or shame what would you say is the most embarrassing moment when you think back um I I'm not going to say that I I like uh impervious to embarrassment or shame on any level was there ever a stunt that you that was like too embarrassing to do I was terribly embarrassed super recently over uh the way that I backed out of doing this big stunt that I told everybody I was going to go um and and get uh breast implants for my new tour like oh mean it's going to be crazy I'm going to I was so absolutely convinced that if I went and and uh just as a gag went in and got d-size breast implants this would be such big news that it would be such headlines that every person in the world was going to know that steo got boobs for his new tour and and whether or not anybody agreed with it or or like whatever I I believed in the sheer num as a numbers game yes because you have to go great have to go see them incredible market like that Instagram photo that first one I imagine getting 10 million does it get deleted does it get taken down you draw the line is is a heterosexual man who identifies as a man allowed to be topless if he's got got boob and then but then there are men who have boobs naturally when they gain weight are should those be censored versus the ones that you get artificially I think it's incredibly interesting and I believe firmly that the uh the list of creative ideas for pranks and stunts that that I would film during the two months that I had the boobs I only ever intended to keep the boobs for two months and then I was going to get them taken out I just knew it was a nuclear attention getting thing and I was just Comm just committed to it committed to it to the point yeah where it was fully paid for I had a hyperbaric chamber set up in the living room which was apparently going to speed up my recovery process to twice as fast I was going to heal twice as fast by sitting in this hyperbaric chamber i' like really really gotten like shockingly good at acrobatic pole dancing to film hidden camera pranks in strip clubs like I had like the god like the the level of commitment that I had was was like utterly undeniable and I got to the point of being within 10 hours of of the surgery it was to happen at 8:00 a.m. on July 11th 10:00 p.m. the night before 10 hours before surgery I got a call that the anesthesiologist backed out they found out it's steo doing a and of course they found out because I told everybody I like posted about it I made it so know I'm GNA do this like an idiot I blurted it out to the world and um the anesthesiologist backed out then um the doctor was uh didn't want to be associated with it anymore the surgery center they were trying to get get it rescheduled and this will turn out to be a story that I tell like ad nauseum so I should you know shouldn't dwell on this too much but in any case the uh the next day they're trying to reschedule it the next day the day that I was supposed to already have had the surgery I'm in the supermarket um buying grocer and the person ringing up my groceries is evidently transgender and in my view I had never needed permission to go through with this s like I was so perfectly clear on what my intentions were which were to get to get attention to get laughs to be crazy wild jackass stunt like that's the next logical step for for like what I do but uh I felt that here's another example like This was meant to be you know like here like you know this like I just couldn't deny the possibility that here like I'm having this encounter with this evidently transgender person for a reason and uh I thought man you know like this sequence of events seems like to be pointing then I just said to this person hey can I run something by can I have a that's interesting yeah what do they say I mean I I explained my my the my whole thing and even like down to like what the you know the specific pranks and stunts were um to the extent that I described the whole exercise as being the ultimate statement of body autonomy I said you know what like I I think this is just you know this isn't to be uh hurtful or offensive to anybody this is just my body my choice I'm going to be wild and here here we go this person said that uh my body my choice thing is great we're all about that but when you're in disguising yourself I had a plan with a like a for a motorcycle helmet to completely cover my my face and head and to be uh with airbrushing cover all my tattoos and waxing no hair bikini top Daisy Dukes with my motorcycle helmet on riding a pink vet around at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally you know with hidden cameras filming like gangs of Hell's Angels Bikers like checking me out parking the vesa and walking up to him and then pulling off my helmet and saying yeah dudes what's up you know like um and it would have been like if I I believe that would have been amazing yes but but I also believe that it would have been more compelling more and entertaining if the reaction from the Hell's Angels guys was was one of uh contention disgust of like what what is that even if like you know it's fairly reasonable to expect that that perhaps they would assault me and in my view that's what would have made the footage the craziest yeah and uh this person who I spoke to saw real issues with that and that uh going like the the the disguising myself to trick people is like something very sensitive and particularly to to make the reveal which which uh invites or uh insights like like a a hateful response that the the basically the the creative plan there was one to celebrate um like hatred get that it's it's one of those topics where I feel like it's it's become such a big issue yeah that didn't quite exist to the same extent 20 years ago and I feel like back then like in 2005 you do this and it's the hit now I think it just comes at it from a different angle where all of a sudden it turns into this issue and now you have much bigger groups take a meaning to it that you never intended right and it in in the leadup to this whole thing I knew that there were going to be people who were like very hot under the collar about it I knew that it was going to be a super polarizing thing and I thought it's a numbers game you know like let's go like uh it's gon to so people being sensitive about that it was just the the the conversation that I had with this person and and particularly when they described a level of Oppression that was genuinely breaking you know like wow and um I mean I I don't even uh I don't even know that any one thing was it I just felt that like the the the cumulative effect of the whole chain of events like genuinely led me to believe that the Universe had intervened to prevent me from going through with that idea that makes sense I could see that at the risk and and looking back on it now I'm so glad I didn't do it you know I'm just so glad I didn't do it but that doesn't change the fact that I'm still humiliated by the way that I said I was going to do it and then I didn't do it and like you know I I this even the the notion that I planned to do it and hadn't yet got traction with uh the media yeah to the point where when I'm going about my my day doing random things in public random people would say so when are you get in the boobs it's like and then I'm I have this this uh this embarrassment like wash over me and I explain oh well see what happened you know just never been the kind of guy to say I'm going to do something and then not do it um and and I'm I'm not necessarily embarrassed that I backed out I'm just more embarrassed that I blurted it out to begin with um and perhaps in equal measure I'm proud to be the kind of guy who can admit that he's wrong that's fair that's very fair at the risk of sounding very ignorant I think that that would have been so funny to see like when you're telling me those ideas the fact that you got good at stripping and like you were gonna go on a vesa and try to Garner attention from like biker game like that like envisioning that in my head is one of the funniest things like the marketing on that alone not trying to you know convin doing everything I'm just saying I think we we can separate it from everything else though I see it I don't see it as like steo like mocking anybody I just see it as Ste with boobs which is just funny I you know what I I I get it and and and uh I also genuinely appreciate the kind words I I do consider myself to be uh uh a creative guy with a neack for coming up with entertaining plans yeah that is strongly evidence in in the show that I was doing going to do this for you know like uh I I put together wildly entertaining shows and and um I feel really strongly that everybody who comes out to see me on this tour this steo super dummy tour that they're going to be wildly entertained So speaking of Comedy this aside do you feel like comedy's gotten too soft lately because the we've we've spoken with a few comedians who we've had on the podcast and they've definitely noticed a change from you know 2000 or even the 90s through today in terms of what could be said and you know what's what's socially acceptable I don't know that I feel qualified to answer that because um I've never really been uh like an insult guy you know like for the most part I've always been like the the target you know self deprecating yeah I've like uh I've only ever sought to harm or put down myself and and um when it comes to uh the ways in which you know audiences and and uh comedy has been policed and and you know the the woke like uh what has become unacceptable in this woke era like um it's it's been deemed not okay to be uh offensive to be hateful like I mean I don't know like call me woke but but uh if if there's less um bigotry and hatefulness like I'm not mad at that you know if you gota like be hateful to be funny like you know maybe but then again I'm not the comedy police either so I don't [ __ ] care you know I think that if uh if people are laughing at a joke it's probably because it's funny yeah no I'm curious because you put yourself through a lot of physical pain how does it from mental pain oh man it's a great question um for the most part when I've experienced physical pain there's been uh a tangible reward in the like form of video footage which was uh you you know valuable um so I I feel like I've been handsomely rewarded for the physical pain that I've endured for the most part mental pain it's uh more Insidious and less rewarding um I'm a big fan of um a prescription I take called Zoloft which um I believe protects me from uh like a morass of dark thinking and you know even at times like ideation of self harm um I take the I take this zolof and I'm free of that for the most part um but I looked back on times when I wasn't taking it and scary how would you describe depression for someone who's never experienced that level of depression I would describe depression as um that like in a word helplessness uh an equal measure hopelessness yeah like um a deep sadness that you feel devoid of Hope and you know devoid of help it it's dark man it's it's scary and I think that the the antidote for um feelings like this is to articulated you know I think that um again like with the voicing your insecurities you know by like it takes power out of it if you can tell just another person if you can speak up about what um what you're feeling what what you're going through that I think that is the strongest uh medicine to to get you through it and I think that in cases when people uh you know they find a permanent solution to a temporary problem it's because they didn't speak up they weren't uh vocal about what was bothering them in terms of the physical pain did you have a certain experience or something where you realized that you kind of had a higher tolerance for it or I don't you you do you not think that you have a higher tolerance for it no you realize that's insane to hear I get aut and I freaks out yeah I had a popcorn kernel stuck in the back of my throat and it ruined the night it was it was all I could think about for hours and it was a popcorn I mean as a way to illustrate my belief that I don't have a high tolerance for pain um if I did then I wouldn't be reacting in these situations where I where I'm experiencing pain M I think that the fact that I don't have have a special tolerance for pain is evident in the fact that I react to pain when I'm in it and it's that reaction that people find compelling and entertaining um the the secret to how I'm able to force myself into painful situations is that my desire for attention outweighs my desire for Comfort that's really interesting where do you think the desire for attention comes from oh man um I uh don't believe that you have to be Sigman Freud to um to look at at my my childhood and you know having the corporate executive father who's you know sh was popping off man like um I was raised by servants and and spoke my first words in Portuguese because I was raised by servants because my dad um was the president of Pepsi Cola and all of Brazil and so like you know like my parents had it going on like their their life was popping and and I think that um I didn't get the attention that uh that a that a baby should get from their parents and I think that created a vacuum on some level that uh please love me like you know like I think that when parents um you know when parents don't pay attention to their baby that that that creates a like a back and then that's not necessarily an indictment of my parents they did the best they could they didn't know you know um I'm certainly not mad at them for it but I think that it just check out you know especially because you know with my dad you know traveling and my being so uh immersed in in his career and my mom was uh very active in alcoholism so that I think that that it all created a bit of a of a void where like like I I didn't feel that I was getting the love and so it's like I need to be loved like like I looked everywhere for love and that's I think what attention seeking is are you comfortable being so open about everything was there a point where you've learned how to be just so brutally honest because it's it's for us it's very rare that that people speak so candidly or are so open about these situations um it's a good question man I think um I think that there was some uh I think that that's that's kind of built into me um to begin with and I think that the process of uh sort of living in in recovery like there's um you know with the whole like 12 step approach to life like taking accountability and and being rigorously honest is really at the Forefront so I'm kind of and I'm super grateful to be so conditioned to own up to my mistakes to be admit when I'm wrong to uh tell it like it is and just to you know be transparent um I I attribute some of that uh perhaps to my DNA and some a lot to um living in recovery where does religion fit into your life it doesn't I mean spirituality yeah um I think that that you look at all the major religions and um there's so much that uh haven't common very like I I almost think that that you could zero in on the differences between all the major Rel religions and chalk up those differences to human error you know like there there's been enough centuries that with the you know the exchange of information word of mouth and and translating you know all of these uh scriptures they they were written in languages that they've all been translated lot a lot was I think a lot was Lost in Translation and I think a lot was uh you know like the game of telephone the word of mouth distorted a lot I think that um and that would probably draw the eye of Many Many religious folks but I just think that it's all very close and that the difference is I would attribute to human error but I remember um when I was still in rehab they brought us on a a field trip to this church of all religions it's called the self-realization fellowship and um that's the one of the Palisades right correct yeah that's actually the the original one was in the Palisades it was started by uh a yogi named paramah Yogananda and uh we went to this service and at the beginning of the service they have a special prayer which is uh unique to this this place the self-realization fellowship that it starts out um I think that it goes Heavenly Father uh Divine mother um Saints of all religions we bow to you all and it just it it just grabbed me as uh like everything that turns me off about religion is um how it can exclude and this just by the very nature of how they started the whole proceeding sought to include every Saints of all religions we bow to you all like I that that's what I'm into do you think there's a chance we're living in a simulation sure and I think that that uh space and time I I can subscribe to the notion that that these are Illusions I tend to agree right and um particularly space because um there's really uh I can when you say are we living in a simulation like uh like that conjures up the the notion of um an artificial reality which is like could be like the Matrix pre pre-programmed whereas uh or something that you control yeah whereas I think what what my view on it would be is um that there's nothing artificial about it um it's very real the experience that we're having but it's just not um that there's no such thing as space and time if that makes it does that there's like like a like um you can travel through a video game to the farthest reaches you know like an expansive distances you can cover when in fact there is no distance there is like it lives all of that space and time like lives uh space of time you know it's so I I think that without considering it a simulation that uh our reality much like the the whole video game reality actually doesn't take up any space or that SPAC or time is is an illusion in that regard that that our reality is just kind of a video game that we don't we don't know now with all that said does that change anything about a reality no so it's fun to think about in a hypo hypothetical sense but to the extent that you contemplate that you've completely wasted all that time so it's interesting is I uh this this happened actually recently I went I was on Twitter and I read this really interesting Theory uh that Elon Musk was even talking about there's a non-zero chance that we're living in a simulation I started doing research on this finding it really interesting because everything we perceive is really just like you have no idea your eyes are actually seeing what you're seeing just all signals in your brain and that that would mean theoretically if you could recreate those signals you could recreate reality in your head and just experience that so I started digging into this a sight any sense anything so I was starting digging in I found it really interesting senses can absolutely be manipulated I believe that later that night something happened that that the chances of this happening were were so slow I mean everything had to line up for this encounter this thing and afterwards a buddy was like dude I think this confirms we're living in a simulation I thought that's so weird you just said that I pulled up my phone and after doing all this Research on Twitter the video I had watched right before that was on YouTube are we living in a simulation I thought okay that that's just kind of weird the timing of that but then I got in the car and it connected to a Bluetooth really quickly and I forgot like five years ago I set my Bluetooth to you are living in a simulation and I just completely forgot about it but but say your Bluetooth that's the name of his the name of this phone is just when you connect to it it says connect to you are living in a yeah and I just did that for fun because if people are trying to air drop me things it'll come up like you are living in a I just thought it was like a funny little thing but all of that happening with the same like little bit and so many occurrences too in my life where it's like when we talk about are things happening for a reason or things meant to be it there there's so much that that at least has happened for me that I think the chances of that just are impossible and and stacked like one on top of another on top of another that I think there's there's no way this is just random chance I I agree there's a book that I talk about a lot it's called conversations with God does a good job of conveying this notion of uh the universe being just one thing which in its absolute sense uh is only one thing and one thing can't experience anything because there's there's nothing for it to relate to like one thing cannot have a sense of up or down because there's nothing to compare it to so the universe in order to have experience divides itself into like a multitude and that's what we all are is this uh one thing infinitely divided into separate things for which is described as the realm of the relative and that it's all an illusion that really it's only one thing but the universe has divided itself into different parts so that it can experience itself I like that a lot yeah this is uh the the book conversations with God does a much better job of conveying this idea but by that measure if you look at all of creation as being an exercise in the universe experiencing itself then it follows that we are all equally Divine we're all equally valuable equally and uh to take that view of the universe um it would just it would have to just eradicate any uh hatred like how could you hate something yeah how could you be hateful or or bigoted towards something that you see as Divinity right you know like and I love that I really I really love that and there's also something that that I I go on about a lot which is the idea of Life review yeah everybody's heard about when you die your life flashes before your eyes yeah but there are thousands and thousands of people who have had the experience of dying it's called a near-death experience and they uh somehow are they've died had the experience of being on the other side of death but then coming back into their body and being able to describe yes what what what what happened and these accounts that people share having had what's called an nde in near death experience are so similar like they're so consistent and they describe that uh for however many minutes that they were dead that on the other side of death that uh there's no such thing as time like they're all very consistent about that um they describe what's called Life review where without the limitations of time they're presented they they typically describe having um a spirit guide you know guide them through you know different chambers and sub like on the on the other side and um they'll be in some kind of a room some kind of a chamber and they'll be presented what looks like a holographic displays of moments of their life and in reviewing these holographic like displays of moments um without the constraint of time with a level of detail that that our finite human mind cannot even fathom that they re-experience these moments in their life but not as they experienced them they experience these moments from the perspective as the individuals who are affected by them so it's like this concept of the the universe only being one thing and in this life view you're now experiencing your own life from the Vantage Point experiencing the experience that others I love that and it's it's terrifying to me to think of like everybody who I was angry at who I made feel bad everybody you know like I'm gonna I'm going to experience as them and and then I find myself because this is so impactful to me that as much as I can to keep it at the Forefront of my mind so that every encounter that I have that I can be deliberate about uh having a positive you know really going into every little chance encounter oh you want a photo like absolutely like you know to try to bring love and joy to every exchange you know so that I can so that I can kind of Stack you know My Life review for the bik because there good there's enough bad [ __ ] that that I got to go through you know that uh I'm trying to stack good [ __ ] on there I find that so interesting I've always found the near-death experiences reading up on those experiences and trying to understand them so fascinating and what you said about everything being connected we've spoken with quite a few people who have done some sort of like a psychedelic and and a lot of the time their big Revelation was that they never understood how everything is connected and like every little thing has an energy to it and it's all from the same thing yeah there's a there's there's one guy I met uh I was still in rehab and and um and he just put it one way that that really uh resonated with me he said we're all eyes in the same head dude you know like it's pretty epic yeah have you ever had a near-death experience not anything like um like I just described people sharing accounts of um I mean I've had like close calls the if I if I were to say like the closest call that I had probably would have been um a scuba diving incident where um I was just uh ignorant of uh what I was doing and I had descended like like too far too fast somebody grabbed my uh my fin and when we got up they said they were just exasperated they said you almost just died and I almost died trying to save you and I was just like oh sorry dude like they told me the Sharks were on the bottom I was just going to the bottom did you not feel anything at that moment I didn't I didn't know like you didn't know how serious it was yeah I didn't yeah I was ignorant of uh like I had not uh effectively retained what I learned in my scuba diving instruction yeah it's kind kind of a boring uh closest call I mean I don't know uh oh man there was uh not even that I was on my phone or anything but um my first time visiting I mean visiting my first time going to my home in Tennessee um after purchasing this this house which I now live in in Tennessee it's driving a rental car and uh I mean who knows I was probably might have been going to like the bicycle store I wanted to got a mountain bike to ride through the woods I don't know where I was going but I was driving a rental car in my town and there's like a I blew through a stop sign right into a lane on the of the highway there's like literally a highway and as was a stop I don't know how I did it I have no idea how I did it but uh it was just by chance that a car going like 60 some 70 miles an hour like didn't I just came out I mean that's the I could hilarious answer Ste I could absolutely have just been killed in that moment because I don't I don't even know see I look at moments like that because things happen to me where it's like I I lost my phone it's somewhere in the house I got to find it I'm 5 minutes late and I think to myself if I were 5 minutes earlier would that have led to something like that where you just lied at that exact moment and is that one light that you hit stopping you from reaching another Point like 20 years from now because you misplaced your wall it something like that yeah I mean it would have been terribly uh pathetic if that's how I died that would have been crazy yeah like um and and it just it it really affects me I go like on a almost daily basis ah no not almost very regularly I go I stop at that stop saying every time it it uh I the worst like moment of thoughtlessness this is kind of a crazy question it's a little offbeat but I'm Cur I'm just so wildly curious you mentioned on another podcast that you went on that you've done like nearly every drug like in the book was never smoked never did was there a reason why you drew the line there yeah um my mom made me go to rehab in 1995 just to age myself even more I was 20 years old in 1995 um I it was her condition for bailing me out of jail uh I was called her collect from jail where I was locked up for drunk driving she said I'm not bailing you out unless you go straight to rehab and I didn't want to be in jail so I agreed to go to rehab and um I mean again I was 20 years old like I wasn't even legally allowed to have a drink like it wasn't in the cards for me to be really serious about sobriety at that time but what really um I took away from the experience of being in that rehab was that um I I noticed or I perceived that in the rehab there was like a hierarchy of of respect based on like how messed up you were kind you know like it was like oh like it's almost a badge of honor like you know that we would always uh being in like a big circle you know kind of sharing our feelings like what you know was going and on a daily basis like one person would like sort of graduate like they would leave the rehab and and you know another person would come in and um you know you would the the new person would come in and introduce themselves to the group and and state what their drug of choice was you know like why they were in the rehab and um I remember uh there was just like I I just got this sense like there's one guy walked in and and it was like offensive to the group that this guy said his drug of choice was marijuana you know like people seem to be offended by that like oh dude get out of here you know and um you know like if if if the person's drug of choice was like it it in some cases it seemed like they would be like carried in you know like they were like like read like oh the oh the the the person just came in like we'll see them in a couple days you know they're going to be be like you know like I I got a a real sense of being like whoa like gnarly you know like don't mess with that and the other thing was like if people walked in and said their drug of choice was crap it was just like oh I just got the sense that person's a right off wow like people would describe people would describe like having you know addiction issues for decades and then they took a hit like then they took their first hit of and lost everything like so fast you know like and then again it was 1995 like was still came out I guess uh in the late 1980s so you know 1995 at that time like was at it's like Peak destruction that's still interesting though that you drew the line there CU you also mentioned you'd go on these like 3day Bend where you just be a nitrous oxide like 247 to the point where you'd inhale like a full thing I would do my best to not inhale anything but nitrous oxide exhale and next one was another whole thing so just depriving yourself of oxygen yeah you said your lips would turn blue and you'd even go into St of psychosis but even in that state of psychosis you would draw the line pretty much yeah that's just fascinating like it would just never there's no world in which it would have happened yeah like um I was just not so you had a boundary yeah is something I because I read stories on Reddit uh there was a user who wanted to try not a not a drug user at all but just wanted to try it just to for the sake of being able to say that they've experienced what that was like and they wrote this whole expose about here's my plan I'm not going to get addicted I live a clean life I just want to be able to try it and they ended up trying it liking it enough to feel like hey it's actually not as bad as people say I had a great experience with it let me keep doing it kept doing it became insanely addicted to it and it completely ruined his life from one time trying it I believe it it's it's it's mind-blowing that there are substances that they're so powerful that just change the way your brain chemistry is is worked the scariest thing that I heard about was not even like the destruction that it does to you while you're on it and while you're addicted but while you're in the recovery process and you're no longer taking the fact that you exist on a plane of kind of just black and white like nothing is as exciting or as joyful or as happiness inducing as when you were high that sounds more like um a is situation like with when when you're withdrawing from it like you're actually sick there's not like it's not simply a a a lack of Joy I was talking about like L for like till the day you die like it's kind of just like people are describing it as though it's like they've they they've never had an experience that's even 10% of what their experience is like on that yeah I don't know man I I I would push back on that okay the idea that uh the rest of your life is uh going to pale in comparison to the experience that you had and to qualify that position um I believe that it's the addicts and alcoholics who achieve long-term sobriety who are the luckiest people period and um granted it's a very small percentage of alcco Alcoholics and addicts who do achieve long-term sobriety I think that you know like in the gr the the big picture of the entire population I think it's about 5% of Alcoholics and addicts who actually like our long-term sobriety um but those 5% man very lucky because any other disease that you can fall sick with the best you can hope for is to get back to as healthy as you were before you got sick but for us when we treat our disease we actually become better versions of ourselves eles than we ever were before like I believe that strongly and and and I believe not only do I believe that strongly I believe that I am evident of that because there in my view there is no younger version of myself who is a better version of myself than than I am today and I attribute that to having you know the the accountability the honesty like the the TR like having that kind of like conditioned into me with this uh you this this adopting of a spiritual approach to life you know like it's it's a big ass deal man it's a big ass deal and like so many people are are worried like oh but you know I know I got a problem with drugs and alcohol but if I get sober life's going to be boring I can assure you that my life is not boring you know how do you want to be remembered I used to be so worried about it you know about how I was remembered like I described the you know the early days before I could even call it a career like the early days of me capturing stunts on video like I was packing my message into a bottle thinking that I might just be discovered after after I died um um it was so important to me like I I I literally looked at the video camera at what I was doing capturing things on video as my way of becoming Immortal you know I was like we're all going to be dead you know we're all going to be dead but if people are watching videos of me after I die then I'm not technically dead like I will live on So I placed so much importance in the permanence of of video documenting things on video and I cared so much about being remembered beyond my you know my lifetime I I remember too like like way before jackass I was in clown college 1997 and um you know we had this apartment building that we uh all 33 clowns lived in and it was the whole apartment building was occupied by US 33 clowns except for there were five marine biology students and each Saturday we would put on a show like we would kind of write our our gags you know like and uh they would open up to the public so that we'd have an audience to perform for every Saturday night we'd put on a show and then after the show like we'd party and Sunday would be the one day that we had off so one night we just done a show I'm partying I'm getting all drunk on Saturday night and I'm in this uh marine biology students apartment this it it was a girl and I'm drinking we're drinking together and I'm explaining to this marine biology student how we're all going to be dead but because I've got all this rad video footage I'm actually G to live forever you know CU if people are watching my rad videos after I die I'm still alive and this marine biology student I'll never forget it just she it was like she shook her head in disgust she looking at me like she was like maybe she said you're pathetic you know she said you think it's all about you you know she said how about if I do my job and you know and after I die some marine animal some fish goes and and and feeds on a coral reef that I preserved then I live forever you know like that's my leg you know like I'm a marine biology I'm a marine biologist if I preserve a coral reef and it feeds a fish then I live forever it's not all about you she says you know like I just thought even then I thought wow touche you know a wise thing to really good really I never would have thought that yeah right so I think that taking into account how impactful that notion is that we should all strive to have a legacy of leaving the world somehow better than when we found it that should be that should be the highest goal for this marine biology girl preserve the coral reef that should be her Legacy I mean there's um all kinds of ways to to do that I mean like I said that that was in 1997 I would kind of uh you know twist the dials a little bit and and and uh you know I would go on to describe my calling my purpose in life I I would say that you know most people uh don't enjoy their job you know some people um are not happy in their marriage you know some people have uh health issues you know there's all kinds of different ways that people are stressed out that people are unhappy that people need um some kind of an escape and and I submit this would be my my whole pitch that I submit that when people are are exposed to my art that that that the that the art I create is is compelling enough is engaging enough is entertaining enough that when people are exposed to my art they are not thinking about their stress their Health their job that I I don't I don't claim to fix any problems but albeit temporarily I absolutely make problems go away and by that measure I deemed myself to be a professional distraction therapist I love that distraction therapist is a noble you know I I I believed then I I still believe to some extent that it's a it's a noble cause you know to make people's problems go away I mean that's a a pretty major gift it was just one little step removed from absolute self-importance and self-indulgent yeah but still in that whole realm you know I think now um where where I'm at today and we bought this big property in Tennessee to to have an animal sanctuary like you know I i' love the the feeling that I I I get from from uh rescuing animals I I love that I love the bigger implications of of sharing my journey with with animals you know um inspiring other people to you know like the idea that that um perhaps at some point will forfeit our our uh beloved privacy and and actually I mean we're resistant to that but to to Forfeit our privacy so that we can invite people to where we live to have their own experience with our animals you know I think that there's a moment when when when you look into the eyes of of an animal that you kind of think wow like why would I participate in the factory farming of this creature you know know like without beating people over the head with righteous like uh shaming and and you know like I used to do all that with the the vegan you know holier than now like don't be you know and now I'd love to to to inspire and cultivate um a respect for animals and and uh and animal rights which is which is just by encourag positive experiences and not shaming anybody or or anything that but like just MH yeah these could be good things that that um you know contribute to leaving the world better than than it was before and and thank God too that that these aspirations are just a little bit less douchy and self-important you know like the marine biologist said like you know to open my mind to the idea that it's not all about me I got two quick things yeah first thing is if you could impart any wisdom onto our viewers right now what would that be a lot of people have asked me like um yeah I want to be a stunt man like how how do I do it you know like how do I you what's your advice and maybe they they want to just you know if it's not that or and I I always say the same thing that um it doesn't matter what you want to do it doesn't matter what you want to accomplish what matters is how passionate you are about your goal that's the most important thing in in life is not what you want to accomplish but how badly you want to accomplish it and like when I say how passionate you are really enthusiasm is the engine which drives accomplishment and it's fascinating to me that the word enthusiasm broken down to its roots in other languages um it's uh and Theos I think there's other like ways of Break Down The Roots it means with God like when we're enthusiastic like we are like uh like doing God work you know like it reminds you the Flow State when that you tap into something that's greater than just yourself yeah and that's when um yeah when we're on fire for something man like so I just think um following your enthusiasm is the way to accomplish just about any goal that that um that you want to that you want to accomplish you know and and with caveats of course one yet about like being realistic M you know maybe like somebody wants to be a big time Hollywood movie director it's like okay I'm not going to say that that's um uh not not worthy to pursue but let's start up with uh a more um b side you know like that's your end goal that's what you want to Let's uh let's find something that we can realistic practically attain uh that puts us in like as close to that as close to being on a track to that as we can let's say let's seek out a job as a a production assistant you know very reasonable to expect that you can get a job as a production assistant which puts you in on a set where there is somebody who's got this this uh position that that you covet and the closer you can get to that the more you can glean and and whatever it is that you want to accomplish having the enthusiasm to accomplish it do not wait for anything start now like if you wait for the right time to present itself [ __ ] that if you wait to be picked and handed an opportunity [ __ ] that start now with the one caveat that you want to find somebody who is closer to that goal than you are somebody with more experience and who can guide you because if you're just got if you've got something that you want to get good at and you just start on your own there's a a chance if not a likelihood that you're going to be learning bad habits which you ultimately have to unlearn don't go in the wrong direction where you're going to to turn around and double back and to even get to a you know the beginning find somebody who can guide you enough so that you know you're learning the right way but [ __ ] a don't wait for anything get started it's a great piece of I agree with that wholly I think enthusiasm is a good feeling to look out for yeah yeah for sure lastly just because I'm so curious about this you have like one of the most recognizable voices faces you're just a very recognizable person how difficult is it to just get things done I imagine honestly anybody between the AG of like 20 and 40 especially if you're a guy they know who you are at the risk of of sounding douchy I would even say that it's it's younger and older no no no 0 I want the brutal honesty like Matthew mccon like I get I get older they just stay this um yeah I mean I don't know like um it's uh it just depends on the the situation I mean like like if I if I'm going around in in uh like crowded places yeah there's there's going to be um like everybody like uh it can be challenging for me to be in crowds yeah and uh like like going through airport whatever but then again with the um the uh the whole like concept of Life review like every every encounter is an opportunity to like you know make their day yeah to have a good experience which ultimately like I genuinely believe I will have MH like cuz we are the same thing like I'm you know yeah it's funny you mention that I met Chris ponus 2010 at Mel's Diner at like two o'clock in the morning in LA and I was so nervous to go up to him and just say hi and as we were leaving I mustered up the courage to go and say hi to him the nicest guy and he want he was like no come take a picture with us I was with some friends we all take a photo of him and he pulls out knife and he goes like this like he's about to stab one of us just but he he left us with such a great feeling after I still have it we could put it on the screen here uh but I still remember that and Facebook tells you like what happened a year ago and I always check that and it comes up once a year and I remember that moment yeah and I've remembered it ever since and it meant so much to me that he did that I believe that it meant a lot to him like gu he's he's like that man but uh yeah I um there are certain situations where it's too uh it's unmanageable if they they know like if I go to um like a a UFC event which like I'll be at on on Saturday like um you know like I'll be in my seat then they'll say like oh come over here like let me get a phot and I'll go over there and then I'm just stuck you know and uh and then I be it can become unmanageable but like I'll throw myself into it every time