Joe Rogan Experience #1162 — Valentine Thomas Transcript

Transcript

0:00 three two one boom you gotta appreciate a person who shows up with not just food but booze Oh, okay. Because you're from Montreal. Yes, exactly. Okay. So I found out about you online definitely it's about something maybe like three four thousand dollars a year so compared to the something different oh by the way you're way better than I was just in Thailand.

3:12 which is civil law, and then I was stuck in Quebec for the rest of my life. Is that the same with, like, if you were a doctor, would that be the case? We're very different in Canada, but my biggest problem with Quebec is definitely not a culture or anything like that. Yeah, shout out to my friends David and Fred from Joe Beef in Montreal, That's a jamming place.

4:49 And he asked me to go do a course in Egypt, the freediving. You can swim from shore, and you have very great depth. Like if I couldn't see the bottom, on Ascension Island. I've never heard of it before. To get there, we had to go to the military base in the UK, which is about an hour and a half away from London. Oh, wow. i was like being strapped down and then facing the other side it's actually a commercial flight

7:46 15 20 seconds and so you were going there with 15 20 seconds worth of breath i was pretty bad Like, I don't want to be here. I take a deep breath. I'm a little bit clumsy because I have my gun, Oh, is it? And then I get, it was kind of a big fish. It's edible. They're very strong fish. It was about like 25 pounds. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you about...

10:30 Do you ever get them on, are they commercially epileptic shock oh well that's so you can you can that can happen but normally you just have So what would you compare the meat to? Maybe. You shoot this blackjack. That's the same exact thing that happened to me when I went deer hunting. It's primal, right? need to respect what's around you you can't tell me ten years ago oh you have

13:57 of our actions what when when you're you know first experiencing this, your first time, do anything. And then all of a sudden How did that happen? And everybody thought I was completely crazy. depletion of fish in the ocean and i said that is one of the dumbest fucking things i've ever heard You're as in touch as you can get but to think that And we went spearfishing with my friend.

16:50 What was the argument for not, what was the piece that they were trying to put you in where they pulled you out of it? She's like, well, one of our sponsors said that if you speak at a conference, and you know me, I don't mind that you have pictures in a bathing suit. You're not wearing a bathing suit. What am I supposed to wear? It's about how it looks.

19:16 It's crazy when you see the sheer volume of fish that they pull out of the ocean. And when you realize there's countless numbers of these like here we go. France is very big on trawlers. and they destroy anything that they touch. Right. What? Yeah, too, in Canada. In Canada, you're not even going to touch anything. And I'm like, how can you be in your camping chairs on your boat, drinking beers all day,

22:13 that I'm the cheater? You think they're probably doing it wrong. They're like, yeah. There's not that many of you. dangerous and difficult than bow hunting it seems like the next level seems like one of the most But the human body is actually made to do this. is colder. So your body I mean, I guess that was a very Yeah. so google the whoa look at that what they used to look like.

27:14 Well, but it's not even just about your heartbeat slowing down. notably children under five, of exceptional submersion times Okay, the aquatic ape theory, now largely dismissed, The theory even links an aquatic existence to the extinction of human speech, 1.4 million years ago, Africa became drier during certain seasons. But that no body fat, and you throw them in the water

30:18 But if you throw a baby person in the water, they hold their breath. and not moving and doing your preparation. It depends the conditions. That makes sense, obviously. So your body is getting ready for it. No, no, technique like you breathe a little bit before. how to control it and it's not because your body tells you to breathe that you're necessarily out of oxygen. So what techniques do you do to relax that? Breathing. So I do mostly, especially when

33:35 vital organs and then you also have about a few years ago maybe only 50 years ago they taught that Oh. I mean, did you really feel like this is more of who I am than the life that I was living before? that it changed my way of thinking completely. Aqua Negra? And then the living conditions were really bad and after a week that's the the the focus changed on the good things that we were seeing around us.

36:55 And I was like, wow, I've been living in London for six years. Well, it's a very recent way that people have been living. I do believe that a human being, to be happy, you need to have this sense of community. And I think it's probably one of the reasons why so many people are so grossly unhappy and so depressed and so disconnected. I'm like, yeah, but you're not even talking to those people.

38:56 It would probably be like 5 million. and they're all sharing fish and they're, you know, you're, everyone's taking care of everybody the society isn't designed for this. My lifestyle is very hard to adapt with It's, I still need, you know, to survive. Do you make any money off your Instagram page? Oh, yeah. She's like, I'm sorry, we can't hire you anymore.

42:05 A WWE, like the panda one. The wrestling? Yeah, that one. Interesting. Meanwhile, when they cross, they're allowed. It's the law. How many straw do you think they are five people cruise ship how many straw I don't buy this disgusting farmed salmon from Whole Foods because it's gross. Salmon is not pale orange. It's dark orange. Well, they killed quite a few.

45:49 to figure out a way to carve this path again yeah it's pretty weird how they died too you like rot to death what that's what people eat but again you know the wall street Right. well you'd make a post on instagram and a couple people would like it i'm like Florida, you do. just write Spearfisher men. The sport is going fast. It is. That's close to 1%. Right? There. Holly dug it. That's a lot of people. Yeah, that's a big estimation. I don't think so. That's like almost, that's close to 1%, right?

49:43 So you're telling me if you get a room with 200 people, There was only 80 people that article's from 2016. I'll try again. much as you can and then you're waiting you're in a hunting mode you're focusing around and you're trying to meditate as much as you can. And then you're waiting, you're in a hunting mode, In the Bahamas, they're pretty much always there.

51:18 I got pretty bad encounters with sharks. We don't have to watch each other. aggressive yeah they're not the nicest one you want to you want to show up and then it was a everything that's going to hurt him as much as i can and i'm not very strong especially in the And at some point, I'm not going to miss And I'm like, oh, shit. I'm like, there's a tiger shark behind you, buddy.

53:44 I'm like, don't panic. Everything is fine. fine how deep is the water like 15 feet of water it was And he screams, tiger shark! Because was it the governor of New York that killed that shark when he was fishing? But something happened something changed and i think it was when there was all this awareness about um it. But there's sustainable populations of some sharks.

56:46 and now there's a lot of great whites too. funny about it. In New York, Exactly. What? It's sad. That's people talking about bears. They don't run a hunting operation, but they spend a good amount of time bear hunting black bears. a trophy hunter, like someone who's shooting a rhino or something like that. Someone who's a But it's one of those animals that my friend Steve Rinella calls them

1:00:24 one wants sharks to go extinct. I think sharks are awesome. They're cool. But they're also edible. And if there's a lot of them, I've seen people catch Mako sharks off of the coast They're killing things with cash. You're paying a supermarket hitman to go out and do the work for you. And I could just point to one of those fish and go, hey, give me that thing.

1:02:10 a fish section. Then we go a little bit further down, there's a Gelson's, they have a big fish I completely agree. And our connection with food. And there's no better example than that than the Tokyo fish markets. We eat it next year. there they're not making a ton of money those aren't a problem though like the small family he's catching like kilometers long.

1:05:49 And that would be a real difficult thing to pull off, the idea that we could fish the ocean out is so crazy. these gigantic boats can pull out? There's nothing you can do about it. The Sea Shepherd busts those guys. But to this day, the majority of buffalo that live in North America are all on private land, the majority of them. a caribou. Yeah, caribou are these migrating deer that live in Canada primarily and in Alaska.

1:09:09 Antelope, deer, elk, buffalo, they were almost all wiped out by market hunting And then they instituted these laws where it was illegal to sell wild game. There are some commercial farms. marketable product it's something that has you have to have a tag for it you have to pay for So it goes to preserve habitat and wetlands, there is a way to save everything.

1:11:54 to that kind of strict management that brought back wildlife in North America It is. fishing rods and lures and guiding people and charters and things like that yeah that kind of And all they do all day long is they catch tuna, they catch tuna, No, for sure. Yeah. time I was coming back, I could see there was even less and For tuna, I mean, spearfishing is illegal.

1:15:34 have your candy anymore. Then they're going to be like, and I'm going to visit this. No, it's near Australia, I think. Oh, that's fine. listening that I'm joking around where your arrow is You just have to be it creates problems. What kind of diseases Again, it's all about being responsible. and i mean it exists in the wild and it exists in deer farms so it's like it's very complicated but

1:18:13 Is that the term? And parasites are pretty rare with ocean fish, right? For sure, right? I'm not going to try. One that if you freeze, it'll die. So you have to cook it. Oh, that's bad. I mean, maybe that's why I'm skinny. 1,300 calories an hour. food. I'll just go freediving oh, I could eat so much food. That is the nuttiest shit ever. a lot of people asking me for for um what I can do, what I can eat.

1:21:53 when my parents have a country house they do that too and it works the only problem i would see with But there are solutions. Don't you think that it's the optics, though? And because of that, because people are so willing to protest. I mean, unless this guy is like some sort of white supremacist or some racist himself, yeah, that's terrible. should look at it and go, wow, what an interesting way to get your fish. Like how many of these

1:25:58 Journal support, was it Wall Street Journal? Yeah. The Wall Street Journal supports mass extinction like the millennials or whatever, we're all And then we all reach like our mid-20s and all of a sudden we're being told about everybody. Do you know California eliminated straws? Like, you're not fucking, you're not fixing shit. Yes, you with your straw.

1:28:26 I made a Facebook post this morning saying that I wasn't getting straws, How can it be so difficult to be like, look, plastic is a problem. So the water can still go through it, but it just shows you this insane amount of debris and garbage I do. You should think about settling down, having a family. to becoming a person that's 31 years old, I was seven.

1:31:59 I need a step back, I need to look at everything around me, I'm figuring out what's important for me and what my real values are. Yeah, I did for a while. Yeah, but I have. life with passion and i want to follow my interests and i don't mind living in my car and showering at the a freediving instructor too so i don't i only give private lessons I'm a freediving instructor too, so I only give private lessons.

1:35:09 around and i think that's that's something that really really interests me conferences like that's stupid, that girl's a fool, blah, blah, blah. I have a – it's going to be in French, but it's about – I'm going to be traveling around the world and fishing with – I'm not even sure I'm going to talk about that. So we're doing, I have a few things in my pipeline. I'm not, I don't like being bored.

1:36:56 and in a way that was making me proud and happy. There probably weren't a lot of people that were telling you, you go for it, girl. Who cares? I never regretted it. especially when, you know, filming a documentary in Africa push you on the ground and run away with a can of tuna. on a nine-to-five job. that i want to keep doing that. to forget everything.

1:39:20 even if it's a one hour show, If I'm crying, I want it there. You could smell it when they're acting. But it's... And people are like, with me you're gonna realize but i also think what you're trying to do is relay your passion publicly. So that's one that I've decided to do less of publicly. But part of me wants people to know that there's a satisfaction to like bow hunting in particular is very, very difficult.

1:42:16 this um they think of this uh abusive relationship that humans have with animals instead of the way I look at it, which is people that are going to ensure that these animals are, that this environment and this available for so long we're used to it like if there was just a machine that you could go to And in this day and age, it's very easy. They like to express outrage.

1:44:56 You just get everyone to realize you're an asshole. because people just don't want to see it. and their voices are, it's a loud minority. I mean, you have, how many followers do you have on Instagram? Uh, 84,000. Think, And it was not with bows, it was with actual gun. And then they started cutting it in pieces. I just got excited. I know it's bad, but I felt really, really like an hypocrite after that.

1:48:11 I love fishing. But I didn't feel a connection with fish the same way I felt the connection because it knows you're going to eat it it's anthropomorphization right we look at animals he was right there he's alive or she's alive yeah it's probably freaking out it's outside the water Yeah, but it's got to be a freakout. With a gun. Yeah, spear gun. Because I know they club them.

1:50:52 Yes, I get that. Right. Yes. You know what I didn't know? Oh, you bleed it first. as possible. Yeah. And do you immediately throw them on ice? Yes. It's the same with meat? Yeah, because when you fillet it, you know, you cut it on the side. smell to chicken in particular, that when you get it, it might smell a little funky. I tried with shark, actually.

1:53:13 And then he was fileting, like, a small mackerel shark, And then I read online, it said put in milk and lemon juice for 24 hours. I just fry it in a pan. I actually, I mean, opposite in a way that I always love to cook and I got into spearfishing because of cooking. And he got into it because he wanted the freshest ingredients. very passionate about it.

1:55:24 I was in the water scared of my own shadow for two years. I was of spitfishing. I didn't even like spitfishing. I was underwater scared of my own shadow. I fell in love with catching my own food and cooking after and all of that. of them i've been lost at sea once which was pretty shitty day you got lost at sea once, which was a pretty shitty day, I must say. You got lost at sea? Yeah. What happened?

1:56:17 I've never spearfished before, and we're in the water. it's pretty deep and my friend is like for the shore five miles maybe. So I'm trying not to panic. The captain that we hired. okay, let's swim. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm like, I'm lost. enough gas in the boat oops i'm like what so he ran out of gas he ran out of gas. He ran out of gas. So you were, he would never have been able to get you.

1:58:43 Oh my God. So how'd you get back? And then he managed I never want to see you again. What time are we going tomorrow? And we get to the car and my friend is like, oh, I give him like a hundred dollars in chip. the water besides the tiger shark yeah definitely for sure it was was there anything else like that really quickly. about like sharks Underwater?

2:00:43 your lungs on your way to the surface are going to expand back. And then you just pass out. when it comes back up, if your buddy And I was beyond grateful to see his face at the surface. i realized i was like whoa i'm actually pretty deep and i've been there for quite a while What does that mean? So I could start feeling, I could feel like my body making like weird movements.

2:03:03 And he grabbed me and then he woke me up. You have to take the mask off. Like it's weird. So once you shut off, you get shut off again. Oh, that stuff. I used to think that stuff, that Kratom was, I didn't think it was a drug. Oh, okay. I wasn't like knocking things over. which is one of the reasons why they're making the argument that it should be illegal. But if any opiate is legal, it should be that one,

2:06:32 It's, um, I've never, I mean, I've, I've had my knee operation. I had one of my knee operations. was on this motion machine right after bang! I took it once and I hated it. are very dangerous. Yeah, like an actual complete face plant. woman being like the nurse being like like you had you had a lot you sure you want more you So I'm happy I did that.

2:09:15 I was like, nice. It's good. If I have one message today, it's talk about it.