Joe Rogan Experience #1726 — Chuck Palahniuk Transcript

Transcript

0:00 the Joe Rogan experience They seem to be ramping up. out there because you tap into these super uncomfortable stories and you're willing to Okay. and they give birth to ultimately a whole crew of severely deformed children, plus a whole crew of These people who had survived the Spanish flu and survived the First World War. And I think in some ways even audiobooks don't do justice to some

4:54 and in the kind of sympathetic neural phenomenon that's happening when you read a verb. Yeah, there's books that were made at a different time where even today people don't want you reading them anymore. and that people generally like Mel Gibson. They really like Mel Gibson and nobody really wants They removed Tom Sawyer from some schools. Just because a

8:27 And also he was getting all these bids for tens of hundreds of millions of dollars Yeah. You know, a lot of people hate It wasn't the best, but how do you make a documentary about something that you can't show? And then he expands for several chapters, saying Chris is not the first young guy at that age to sort of throw everything away and hit the road.

10:52 And then we show Chris dying. And so if you're going to do the zoo story, you need to expand it You'd probably pixelate a lot of faces. They did. It is just him getting fucked by the horse. Or it was. He was the caretaker of some wealthy people who had these horses and the wealthy people it's not natural and ultimately it's going to be our demise so there's so many people that like the idea of going to the woods is really appealing the idea of getting fucked to death by a horse

14:31 all of the power and you show them getting fucked to death by a horse and dying on the floor in an It's the other day at Buy Mart, It's like, who do I know that needs rutting elk pheromones? a bow, you hunt them when they're fucking. I needed a backstory for the female character in Fight Club. That's how her father dies. I think that is the best backstory I've ever written for a character.

18:02 Do you see them out there? and the tines grow Like every year you find one dead. That's how they breed. that one of the tines goes through the rib cage, when they're congregating like this. And one of them occasionally will break loose. Yeah, it's like meow, meow. and he found himself in the dark, And ultimately, he realized that these barks were the elk themselves,

21:59 it's pretty clear. Have you heard an elk bugle? Was it? It was the 70s, okay? there's no if ands or buts this is And this is one of them. The samurai sounds. Like, you can tell they're bad actors. See if we can find where they start. but the sound was like... That was the footage where it's like the dumbest, fakest looking footage of all time. camera that he used to film this.

26:37 And then you see there's – they did side-by-side footage of Bob Hieronymus walking Did you have any thoughts that that might be real? Yeah, meth. Yeah, meth. They found bones of these very small humanoids. They thought maybe it was like a deformed human that they found. In the transition between Australopithecus and Homo sapiens, So there was a real Bigfoot at one time.

29:44 I thought that was debunked. No, there's jaw bones and everything. I mean, it's a real animal in the historical record of creatures that died off. forgotten primate and show and that image of the guy standing next to a Maybe more recently. Because things don't just die off anymore. Yeah. But I'm not going to go there. Well, I think they were a real thing.

33:10 so they find shit in ghana okay there you go well if it's on youtube it'll live forever white cuckoo that exists Yeah? And so the parents end up feeding the cuckoo fledgling. Whoa. It is tragic. Well, birds are never heard that before. It's kind of tragic. It is tragic. You ever see videos of owls snatching hawks out of their nests? They kind of look like juveniles, right?

36:25 ever heard of in in the womb is there's a shark I forget which kind of shark it The hatched embryos begin to eat the surrounding eggs, because nobody wants to spend their time, typically when they're alone, And she does it all in upspeak Valley Girl language. And it's very fast. It's from the very early 80s. this low slangy language telling a traumatic story, the disconnect there makes it even more tragic.

39:50 forcing the audience to carry the horror themselves. That is what I want to do. Where you have them because they're trusting you more. joy or what that you enjoy giving to to people that are reading your stuff? Is it in college his father was this mining professor and this very super macho guy and my best friend in college, his father was this mining professor and this very super macho guy.

42:44 one of his mother's brooches. And he put that brooch through the front of this beehive hairdo to hold it in but everybody's had a pain like that. And I've never been the same. you were talking about someone else's story, about how they were jacking off in a jacuzzi Where she had put this vibrating heating pad on her vagina and had her friends do the same

45:41 humiliating, but also make it funny, funny then that would that gave her proof that and all of a sudden you're getting the fuck beaten out of you, And one of these psychic women that I'd never met before said, there is a man standing with you. and I couldn't get it off. And so I waited until a finger was swollen up and turning sort of purple And at the time, there was no drama.

48:57 there is a man standing over you in a white T-shirt How accurate was her depiction? Do you remember what your father was wearing? And my friend, Ina, started to sob at that point. And we can't put those together. And weeks later, Yeah, I don't want you to have to live with this knowledge, so I'm not going to tell you what the cards predict. But has there been anything in your life

53:39 Dad was murdered in May of 1999. And they were pressing charges against his ex-husband, And then he took a couple extra hours and he made a sign that said Kismet Rock so that he could label this boulder as a kind of landmark. And the coroner says that because of the angle of the when he was very small, he lived in northern Idaho sort of looking for his mother because as his father was trying to kill him, he was trying to

58:52 That prevented him from getting there in time where he probably would have been able to escape before the ex-boyfriend arrived. Not fate, or not It seems like something that my father's, Did he ever explain to you why his father was looking to kill him I have a lot of experience with people that have had head injuries And a woman had the sun in her face in the windshield that you couldn't see and hit Roseanne Barr.

1:01:48 Like if I look at the top great comics, It was such an important cultural China. He sold encyclopedias. He was a kind of late 19th century failure. He failed at everything. when it comes to traumatic brain injuries. Let's try it. Let's see. Let's go. And those people tend to take more chances. And I think Then he was hit by a car when he was five years old.

1:05:36 that for whatever fucking stupid reason they fixed, You know how crazy you have to be to bring a gun to the comedy store where Sam Kinison was the greatest comic that ever lived. Histoplasmosis. Fighters going to Mexico to get it? Yes. Because, you know, I interviewed Sapolsky from Stanford, and one of the doctors told him check that check So literally, their testiclesicles swell their dicks get hard

1:09:07 when they're pregnant, stay away from cat litter. Because if you're near cat shit, you might get You know, I've never really told this story, and I'm going to tell it in a kind of oblique way. And as I came around a corner, a whole mob of teenagers slammed me. And they all started beating on me with their fists. in big mobs. And it was, I could still hear those kids just pounding on me.

1:12:08 I guarantee you that had a fact. resonated so well with so many people. Because they never had that kind of a jump, but I think that is why Fight Club has resonated so well with so many people, I was hitting the head a lot from the time I was 14 to the time I was 21. I was, I was hitting the head a lot. and never been the same. there's been some therapy that is really promising in that way

1:14:39 but the consequences of the beating she took in that fight haunted her for years Maybe I've called their fights and maybe I've seen them in gyms training with them. They look like they're less stable. Because I think football, there's something about that running into each other that's the worst. And I knew that my parents' marriage was over the day we came home from school.

1:17:00 Like a lot of the sparring that we did when we were kids, it wasn't really sparring. But there's also Well, and also there's the aspect of comfort, because there's that whole Temple Grandin group of people who find comfort in slamming their heads against things. there's comfort in the impact? And a lot of times people have forgotten these incidents.

1:19:23 world enough so that you were willing to express yourself in a more dangerous way? I think maybe every MFA program should include boxing. It's apparently very popular. And do they play chess afterwards as well? And he's playing... I don't know that it caught on. And what do you know? Not a bad skiing accident. but then I got on the ski lift with my daughter who was 10 at the time and I I

1:22:37 Like the next day I was okay. bounced off the hard, you know, packed down ice of the ski slope. There will be a lot of people. It so doesn't work on every level. sometimes I think that if I could just, you know, have a punching service and just, no, seriously, I think that the better solution is exercise. lockdown and the gyms closed, I went to a stone yard and I ordered six dump trucks of granite

1:26:50 And for years... And I'd bought them all, and I just sent them outside. But I got a castle out of it. It's not glamorous by any means. And it also has the chess game because you're holding three-dimensional Tetris-like objects that weigh 80 pounds, 90 pounds. rather than create forms for the concrete, What kind of steel and how are you doing it? really magnificent way and they will not corrode because they're covered with that kind of

1:31:20 And did you take lessons in how to do this? to stand out in the desert with hammers and clean this cinder block under the beating hot sun for Really just by, you know, seat on my pants. Right. How long did this take you? But the only thing that was missing is that camaraderie that you get at the gym where you're with people. that I think maybe in particular men have to be involved in a task in order to sort of maintain

1:35:12 I can't take this anymore. That unless you go to disaster, you will regret not having gone far enough. but you should do five many times. So instead of just going to 10 and then exhausting your muscles, And so instead of doing, you know, like say if you go to 10 repetitions I don't want to say I train that way, Have you ever done steroids? So you get just so jacked.

1:38:38 And the kind of working out that you're talking about where it is steady and involves rest and camaraderie and talking, hormones, hyper human levels of hormones, Some of the most potent shit I ever did, I could buy at GNC. I was like, I can't believe you can just buy this stuff at GNC. live in this giant house that needs constant maintenance? It's a pretty significant factor in recovering from injuries.

1:42:03 Really? The guys at the gym trying to get jacked? Trying to be a bodybuilder, that kind of stuff. There's not really a thing that a woman can take that makes it more womanly. into Pam Anderson. maybe for 20 or 30 years even. But it was called sectioning, but we had to cut the penis lengthwise. Was she there at the beginning? Yes, there you are. Come on.

1:46:09 That seems to me ridiculous. Yeah. Mr. Hands clearly needed something larger than what a human was capable of providing. And with that in mind, do you mind if I use your bathroom? We'll be right back. And that's why I want to talk about that phenomenon. What? Maybe it was 96. I bought the Buddha when I was on Fear Factor. I would have given them away if I didn't like them.

1:49:23 Yeah. Well, you seem pretty slim. Oh. Really? on their feet that they could barely walk around in and they're so desirable like those weird fucking stiletto heels and the And it was all these studies that empirically broke down why we find things attractive and why we stylize our bodies in certain ways. God, I don't even know these words. It's that the paleness is a signal of high fertility.

1:53:07 Like when you're on your toes, your butt kind of sticks out. I know guys. Right. Got a limp. It signals aspirations. when they got just a little bit of bathing suit. but it's also signaling high availability. Any questions? the reason why the buildup to Christmas is so intense Oh, yeah. I bet animals have this enormous history of jabbing each other with antlers in order to

1:57:40 pump. I've seen videos of sparrows doing this. And sparrows do this very effectively. Boy, I'll take your word for it. Cows, okay. They're dirty hoes? But when you look at the amount of people that consume it, And that whole languaging of master versus slave has been completely displaced in the last five or six years. So it's going down the animal road.

2:01:32 A lot of things have broken psychologically during the lockdown. and you had to set it to a certain way, and the way you would read the books on descriptions. main cylinder and each wheel has Yeah. But the women are just, women that are in the gym all the time, they maintain their And that whole genre, the MILF genre. Yeah. that sort of self-denial.

2:05:13 They had no carnal awareness. was that one guy that drove into that crowd of people i think it was in canada and he devoted Right. I'd love to say. guaranteed a mate. And so they have to go out into the world and cause trouble. And so Gunnar Heinzen really Antifa and incels, they're very similar, right? Why? Yeah, like a Biggie song. Yeah, I draw a line there.

2:09:29 A live duckling. Yeah. I don't want to see this. And it was a... It was probably... I thought it was a terrific movie until that moment. Up until that moment. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, fuck. Oh, yeah, it is real. Yeah, it's real. And it was a... But the moment you cut the leg off a duck, I think that's it. So when you cut the foot off of a duckling and you see it happening.

2:11:19 but they'll get cut into music at some point. No, that wasn't a real duck. There it again. So they probably just taped its leg or something Is that what it was? The Mexican director dying. So probably why one of the most popular movies of the 70s, El Topo, doesn't get played very much. Yeah. it and it was going to be called Alien. I thought so. You know why?

2:14:20 You look great. How old is she? Yeah, in Canada, they live to like 200. And for the first time with Alien, we saw what space travel was really going to be. The food was crap. And you're fucked. You're fucked That's a really good point. It's not much time difference between Star Wars and Alien. nothing. And they'd sort of fallen into the me generation of disco by that point. And they were

2:18:43 was none of that shit back then. What the hell is this? jobs, doing drugs on the side. it was still going to be lost in space life will be glorious. Ray Bradbury wrote it when? That's interesting. And what drew you to Substack? into that comment stream and interact with somebody. For instance, Sassy. Sassy is the Do you interact or have you on social media?

2:23:46 They seek you. Right. Right. Yeah. And also Substack is very user friendly, very intuitive. They're very hand-holding. Instagram censors people. Well, the structure of the thing itself censors people because clumsily worded, but more honestly worded, and also goes to a place Yeah. But if I can write it down, I've got it. You know, you develop a shorthand.

2:27:15 Always. just to be trapped in that seat and transcribe my notes I think there's two factors. a lot of demands. I used to do my best work at work. I could get my work done in two hours and There's very little else to do. And go, why the fuck can't I do that at home? kind of floated through it but that was a long time ago yeah I I think I did Vicodin once when

2:31:48 You are already bright. But it's quicker, right? But if it looks like scrolling on a page, I can go back and I can scribble over it. Do you have a... For a long time... Really? I'm not about what people want, okay? Like I've got a letter that Hunter S. Thompson wrote. Yeah, I do way more than that. During the lockdown, I made a hundred, over a hundred, really elaborate four-foot bookmarks out of semi-precious stones

2:36:01 And so as I travel, I'm always looking for some of my precious stones everything I came back from And so this jewelry store owner sent his sons around the country with cash and offered every This is what the gemologist told me. And each of these gifts takes me between three and four days to make. And as part of sort of opening it, they have to destroy it.

2:39:01 like Ukrainian Easter eggs. Because I'm trying to picture rocks and bookmarks. where something has to be parents. Yeah, the teaching is interesting. And what are those flowers made out of? They have to destroy it? Yeah, I'm a stupid person. I think it's fun. Yeah. I like it. i like it all and you know he writes a lot about uh the lemur, L-E-M-U-R, like the small monkey. And so I just want to keep that in mind that it's about, you know, sacrificing or dedicating, devoting a certain amount of time and energy to kind of fulfilling that destiny.

2:43:58 Always. Let's close here.