Joe Rogan Experience #1801 — David Mamet Transcript

Transcript

0:00 The Joe Rogan Experience. California has become a strange new place. And then to see, you know, in 2022, he was in the neighborhood. He definitely was pretty close. He was a colonial cop, and then he was a roustabout, He was a well-brought-up Englishman. Who was Trotsky and Lenin? Wow. Yeah, sure. And, well, look, also, he tossed all the Japanese-Americans in prison.

3:34 Everything is together. reason. And our reason is completely flawed. All of us do things every day which are unreasonable, sinful, wrong, and absurd, right? And the reasonable But don't you think that, you know, when atheists talk about religion and they criticize organized way. But the Jewish Bible is a myth says, why don't you try to understand this? See if you can understand this. What does it really

6:51 and the glaciers are raising the temperature. Moses, sorry, Moses, Moses was, they tried, the Egyptians tried to kill him all of his life. The they probably were some sort of a lesson in the myth, some sort of allegory. is really two octopuses walk into a laundromat so i'm going to tell you a story i want you to It's an easy language. What do you think the Bible actually is?

10:32 Rabbi says, yes. out everything. Nobody says of that myth, wait a second, you can't have a beaver that big, right? So when you destroy the old myths, you're always going to get a new myth because we need myths, right? So when you destroy the old myths, you're always going to It's almost like human beings are hardwired to follow some sort of a guideline. And if we don't

13:29 Tell me about your outfit. country transform when I was a kid.. I used to go down south and there This is a magnificent country that we live in. I'm like, yeah, why would you want to have kids today with all the books and medicine and shit? And you know what? But there are men and there are women saying, no, no, no, that's not a fact. they become obsessed with gender. They become obsessed with swapping gender,

17:26 like the shipping news, right? But the problem is you can just chase pornography so far, right? of Chicago that there was no eros at the longing for the other, that the The closing of the American mind. I think there's a whole host of problems with people getting interested in pornography. you give him a phone, he's going to watch porn on it. What billionaire's kid works for a living?

19:23 I'll give him a pass. the industrialists and the people who, the agriculturists thought about the world every moment of the day. What happens if it rains tomorrow? The cops are going to come take you to jail if you steal from the store. No, not anymore, right? that's the history of America up until recently. So what went wrong? seeds, because I got to make sure I can continue.

23:21 human behavior back in the hands of the individual rather than the state. You look great. You know, a lot of 75-year-olds are fucking falling apart. Yeah. So thank you. It's fine. Me too. if you do, I'm gonna introduce you to these guys, The first day I'm at a restaurant, and there's Ed O'Neill. Okay, so I'm into jiu-jitsu, blah, blah, blah. He says, oh, you like that jacket?

26:29 That guy. And so later on, I'm having lunch with somebody else, Hi, here. I am in a flight school. I kind of think I want to fly a plane So that's what I think about prosperity, right? That there are What is it about prosperity? Energy which is used, it's like gasoline. but I have a decreased fund of energy. So the question is, what are you going Now we've got into it.

31:06 So here I am. They say, well, let's have an income tax. Okay. 1%. Good. 2%. Good. Now you live in California, I'm going to become a monk now. everyone it affects everyone but like why is it that you you seem to be concentrating on the the How did we get here? So I thought, but wait a second. or that we have to stop digging for oil, though we're going to import

35:15 But we remember with shame and hatred the teacher who abused us, humiliated us, who dissed us, who called us stupid. have, they're kind of a lower middle class. Exactly. And as I say, some of them have been magnificent and some haven't. charge of a large extent of the Democratic Party. Party because the Democrats, you know, being human beings, want to stay in power and want to be rich.

37:21 I'm going to say that white people are no good. Like the idea behind critical race theory, I believe, was that they thought that there you have bad actors who get involved and they use it for their own gain. statements get a lot of heat behind them and then they get more and more calls for these speaking This is where it comes from. They're a bunch of thugs.

40:41 because she went to school and she was objecting So that's what I'm objecting to. They get two years less of indoctrination. What does that mean? They're going to look in to confront it. And now here they are saying they're going to tackle something, not just tackle something If you want to say all human beings are created equal in the eyes of love and the Lord and

43:52 and that racism is stupid if you want to teach that I'm all with you but if you And I was like, hey, man, if you don't want to see where this is going, It's my own party. If you want to say that human beings should be able to express themselves and we need to do it in a way that doesn't harass people or dox people or threaten people, but we have to be able to express ourselves because it's the only way we sort out what's right and what's wrong.

46:00 it by the parameters that I believe are just and right. You go, oh, Jesus Christ. So now you're not going to fucking say anything. don't think that works. Of course it doesn't. Doesn't Ron DeSantis institute some sort of a similar? And if they liked it, maybe you could put your play on on Broadway. everybody should read this book, And so I was talking to, wait,

48:37 He says, exactly. and what the like officer, what's his name? Officer, police officer? But what he said is, your correct answer is, of course, yes sir, no sir, yes sir, and then And the moment I did that, I saw blue lights. I goes, try not to get hit. This is not true. Is it getting better? But the answer is not to do away with the police. because there's a lot of fucking people that are like, you know, get rid of the police,

51:57 We sure did. There's a student who's lost his mind. getting the shit beat out of him? So the cop says, okay, I've had enough today, yes. so he goes home and he quits imagine you're involved in shootouts violence all the crazy shit you see in car accidents. It's like the man. And they say, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, excuse me, sir, gonna have to look at your bag.

54:21 A nail clipper? wait a second, wait a second. He says, ma'am, It's modern life. I mean, that's what happens Would you do it now? Probably not. You could send a letter. So I always wrote with a fountain pen. It's the machines can't read handwriting anymore. Really? Prosperity. You get richer. Got richer. Oops. You don't go out of the house. Get somebody else to do all those things?

58:02 they called the cops. Please, I'll put her on a thing. These people aren't real. It's different. It's filled with jam and nice kitchenware. Yeah. Where's the humor anymore? at the wrong time, and you had the wrong joke, you're not gonna, David Mamet was on my podcast, let me tell you his story. Yeah, really. It's not so good that I'll be telling my friends, you're not going to, David Mamet was on my podcast.

1:00:50 Did they bar you? She said she found the comment deeply offensive. Then the question becomes, is it fair? Are the rules fair? And I don't know if they are. I don't know. I mean, A lot of times they changed their names, like a lot of Italian names that were too hard to pronounce. People that are willing to try out a new continent, they're, they're from China. There's, you're dealing with thousands of years of genetics and the same people living in the same area and a billion of them now. And America's everybody,

1:03:38 Right. thing to say, because as soon as you say that, and then you're also letting people in, they know you've got this built-in voter base now, and you're allowing them to come in. Duh, right? Duh. So, you know, anybody says that the borders should be open, try coming keeping the people in their place, Because the people on welfare are the people who vote for the Democratic Party.

1:06:27 So now we have all of this money paid into Social Security. they didn't have a wage earner around. So then it became evident, two things, that the more He just couldn't take it anymore. poor choices? I don't know. That percentage of people are just making poor choices? young men are going to do? They're going to seek out a community, right? Right. no father in the house and if there's no community in the house, what are the, especially young

1:09:09 It's true. And let's incentivize people to put industry in the inner cities and give everybody a job. get out, but it's going to be very, very difficult for them to get out. So I'm still confused about Well, they say to the kid, I tell you what, I'm going to spend $70,000, $80,000 a year. a plumber? No. Is he going to become increasingly a doctor or a lawyer? No. Because he's raised

1:11:44 So you're talking about someone who gets a There's probably a lot of kids in college. But I still don't understand how it's welfare. Like it seems more like you're just involved in this educational system, the black man's devoted his life, and he's a very close associate of Tom Sowell, to understanding the problem, the heartbreaking The schools are no good.

1:13:35 Of course it is. I still don't understand how that makes universities welfare. They're in a bad spot. Well, you probably repay slowly over the rest of your life. To earn a quarter of a million dollars. have a good time. They want to have a degree and eventually get a career, right? But there's also real courses. time, he comes out to, and I made a couple movies with him, he comes out to Los Angeles

1:16:10 He says, yes, I do. So the question is, what are you actually getting from a degree? Except the second year. for you because if they can get you $100,000, they're going to get 10 grand out of that. Some of them do. But I have a different business, business. I'm not an actor. Okay, but that's the problem with And I'm giving them all, but I can afford it.

1:18:56 Of course it does, because that's the problem with prosperity. all my friends, they go, oh, I think I'm going to get an assistant. I go, just do less stuff. Got fed up with David Spade and decided he was going to kill him. And one of the things he said was, there's no such thing as multitasking. But while you're doing each thing it demands all of your attention

1:21:09 Yes, I do. So it's a good idea that it has some bad consequences. It seems humane. But if it doesn't work, if it leads to poverty, if it leads to violence, if it leads to broken homes, the government has gotten so much power from expanding welfare that they're going to keep expanding it. The problem about government as opposed to private philanthropy is that a very little portion of it actually reaches its recipients.

1:24:01 We were on food stamps. But I remember being a kid and being on welfare, and so I've always had a soft place in my heart for these social safety nets because it was responsible for feeding us when I was a kid. and a couple of money-raising ideas and so forth, that what about if you took the taxes that you paid and said rather than giving it to the government,

1:25:43 geez, I got, you know, whatever, Talk to me. Welfare is money for rent. It might be like one-tenth of a cent That's the problem, right? Well, that used to be in the absence of everything else, did, we would have talked to them. Right. And in the last up until very, very recently, the You can't have a friend that has opposing political viewpoints anymore.

1:28:37 That's what they're there for. To say, I have an idea. I think you're full of it, but let's debate. where anything that you say that doesn't go with the party line, you have grave consequences. They used to say when I was a gambler, right, that the loser can't get enough to eat and He puts it underneath the couch. Well, of course they're frightened by prosperity.

1:30:47 Of course they do. and I'm a believer in climate change. But there's no models that show that like within our lifetime or our children's lifetime But on the left, they're only exposed to one world. What about centrists? Sometimes I'm not going to win. What are the things, what are the rules we aren't going to? So the whole point that a constitution comes down

1:33:05 because their parents told them to become honest. They're going to become honest because they're Right. I can't quite understand what equity means. which is, But with humor. Let's remember that we are all children of God, that we're all here Because my grandparents came here from the Ukraine and from Poland. And his son became, if I may, a poet, right?

1:36:38 And I said, I have to understand this. what I'm looking at seems to be the death of the West, that we know it. Well, I said, okay, It's all gone. out. How can we all get along together? We don't need a king. It never existed on land So the Bible helped me to understand that what we're looking at is human inevitability So let's start from the beginning of this round of yours, and let's concentrate first

1:40:28 they have this idea that these are private companies and they should be able to govern efforts or more galvanized in their approach. You need to have free speech. civilization. It's not as simple as these are private companies. Nothing has ever existed like You should ignore them. is who decides what's in good faith? And it's completely under attack.

1:45:18 Yeah, that is, I mean, that should be a foundational principle of our society. and I pride myself on having as open a mind as possible, crazy it drives me crazy because i feel like i'm very fortunate and then i snuck in before people Well, yeah, because talking to a liberal, like I was talking to some guy and he said, well, you know, The opposite view that—

1:48:01 A lot of them do. So yeah, so it is the foundation He said, when you're debating with someone, first, adduce the facts, right? Okay, take it off the table. be increased. I say it should be decreased. I don't think it should be increased. I just Let's use the power of reason. You say the Constitution is the law of the land. to be eradicated from society.

1:51:03 To stop a guy like him from ever getting to a position of power anything he says and start cheering for him at these rallies. Trump, I didn't like his tweets. I didn't like his tweets. Oh, that's a good idea. That's So I didn't know a conservative. Understood war. He said, bomb them back and signed a letter saying he is a psychotic. So that was Barry Goldwater. William Buckley,

1:54:02 So then the thing started to fray Did they decide to label you a conservative? idea. He says, I want the head of the National Association of Turkey Manufacturers I said, for example, I used to refer to myself, I've always referred to myself as a brain-dead And you didn't have a platform where you can immediately refute this? So the 90s. Yeah, kaboom, just like that.

1:57:04 It had nothing to do with the play. Oh, we've got to find something else. Here's a perfect example. They had a stranglehold on it back then because it was all about the reviews. Because when it first came out, I think it was like something crazy. Yeah, they'll ruin you. Or insufficient talent to write, for sure. respectively, New York Magazine and the New York Times.

2:00:22 So I wrote an article that said, And I didn't say, unfortunately, he's finally done something for the American theater. I didn't listen. And so we talked a little bit, not too much about politics. He said, I'm going to bring you a couple books. the secret knowledge which is the beginning of this change so that started off yeah and so you What about that?

2:04:34 Was it to give more money to, quote, social programs? and Shelby said, if we did away with welfare, And from having worked a long time with kids, especially young men, it's real easy to warp them, right? If you take, like, I know a lot of young men of my I don't know how I'm gonna get a car. Yeah, I see what you're saying. when I was a kid who wore white pants and white shoes and lived at the-

2:07:35 I say, yeah, it's a Democrat with a speech defect. I suppose I think of myself as a conservative. Well, exactly so. Yeah. of the movie business. Somebody said, okay, you know what, kid? That doesn't exist anymore. And there's the people that are 20 feet high. Go make it. Is it less? So it's the suits at these movie theaters. Sure, they own the high ground.

2:12:40 wow, this would be a good idea. Let's take the Blazer and cut the roof off. I tell you what, let's take this Jeep and raise the fenders. Let's take blah, blah, blah. Those were guys in the So what's the bottleneck? Is the bottleneck financial? Is it just too expensive to make So the method of distribution, I hate to sound like a Marxist, is determining the content, right?

2:14:45 too to the largest extent i just had a good time making them so i'm still trying to figure out like Yeah. Doesn't do any good, you know, wrote the thing about the big fish, So the old joke has, there's two Jews, right? That's a funny joke. maybe because you hadn't examined those. having written plays for a million years, because when you're writing a play, you're constantly

2:17:55 and I read everything I could get in my hands. And I couldn't. I get it. This is one of the – look, two years before I was born, they were throwing Jewish babies into ovens because they thought that was a good idea at the time, right? other than like Fox, Fox news, right? That's probably the only thing on television that Or get out. He doesn't give a fuck anymore.

2:20:54 like Clint's grandfathered in in a lot of ways. God bless you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. if anyone says, wait a second, daddy's stripping little Susie, the family breaks up. It's all over. Because if it comes to their consciousness, they're a hypocrite. I've experienced that with many friends where they would talk about their ideas that they have that might be right-wing or more conservative.

2:23:12 And one example that I took a lot of strength from is gay liberation. But then something happened, right? And so what we saw in this transformation in 50 years has become part of the culture, not only has segregation been over, we're going to go too far in the other direction, See them in so many shows. Maybe that's a problem. That's a great question.

2:25:51 Everyone is frightened. well because everybody, as Milton Friedman said, everybody needs them, but nobody can pay for them. I had to figure it out. It's kind of brilliant. I'm going to teach your children about sex. the time. I was writing for National Review, writing for Wall Street Journal, writing for This Jew is called Szpierski. Paging Frederick Stafford.

2:30:06 Why? People say, oh, what's art good for? the pearl because he's irritated. He can't use the pearl, right? And other people who aren't A what disease? religions, right? Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all come out of this one tradition. So then they come back to Moses. They're nuts. I want to talk to the big fellow. what, Moses, you get rid of the people, we'll start again, and Moses says no. But the Torah,

2:34:23 or some kind of ideology? Do you think that That's what we do. The people in 1939, World War II, they came back to a world they couldn't foresee. right? Gratitude to God for putting us here. The fact that we still have it. Listen, The country's in a different place in its life, but the young people are young, right? promote gratitude? So the golden rule is do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right? So this comes out of a saying by a Jewish rabbi,

2:38:07 So the golden rule is a version of this, but golden rule inverts it. So that's the solution to a happy life. And there's two reasons that I made movies. my first movie. It was called House of Games. I think it was 1985. And the downside of independent films in those days is if somebody paid $3 million for the movie, they pre-sold it. Yeah, it's too bad.

2:40:27 The truth is, you get nothing now, but we get everything later. Wag the Dog was fantastic. the hottest thing about wag the dog is barryinson called me up one day. I'm living They're shooting a movie. Monica Lewinsky. As you go back and she's wearing, she looks like Monica, she's got the same outfit. There was a bombing. Say, hey, listen, we had to bomb some people.

2:43:23 than me certainly but I never envied their writing. But I envied Patty that created, among other things, That's wild. I thought that was just an expression. That's another great film. very successful young playwright in New York. So she goes, blah, blah, blah. And that's how I broke into the movie business. How old were you at the time? So then it's New Year's Day,

2:45:44 You knew Hunter Thompson? Jack Nicholson and you were sitting down there talking. Oh, that's a good question indeed. I did a movie with Alec Baldwin. My wife and Phil Barbara, and he crawls out of the car. It's the funniest fucking thing ever. I directed him in that movie. how that scene came about We cast somebody else. So I did. is a lot of salespeople come up to me

2:49:07 He's a fascinating guy, Alec Baldwin, Yeah. when my mother has to live on Social Security? And the rock star says, yeah, but what does it mean Well see, but that's the thing about, That's a solid joke. Okay. Red Belt's another film that you made. and he grew he's i think he's a cousin to the Yeah, yeah. And he was at the control So anyway, so Hicks says, you know, Dave, I know you.

2:52:16 How do you dramatize it? And so I'm coming up with that one, working with Hicks But I got really lucky with that cast. And it's one of the more spectacular victories too Yeah. Yeah, it says they didn't fight, but he had an offer on the table for $5 million around the time. I had dinner with Hickson and his son and his wife once, and he was talking about they were trying to get him to fight Fedor, which would have been incredible.

2:54:37 I certainly am. I don't think anybody could say that anybody was going to kick Fedor's ass back then. And I maintain that during that time, like when Fedor fought Noguera when Fedor fought But that's just wear and tear and time and just sheer numbers, you know. And we kept saying it should be somebody like Danny Inosanto. Oh, it felt so great. So, you know, he always speaks very highly of me.

2:57:19 You're welcome. It'll come out. There it is.