Joe Rogan on What Made Anthony Bourdain Special

in that area. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So I mean and listen there are people uh you know at 10 years on the show I was on the show for a long time there's people a lot longer there's people who did the whole 17 years people have done well over 100 episodes you know no one left that show you don't leave that show if you get a spot on it. Were you with him when when it ended? No uh no I was with him um about a week and a half before uh so no I had good friends that were there. I was in um Chicago and uh I woke up and I checked my phone and I got a text from my friend Maynard uh Maynard Keenan from Tool and um Maynard is a jiu-jitsu brown belt and really loves jiu-jitsu and he and he um texted me he said so much for the uh Maynard versus Anthony Bourdain celebrity jiu-jitsu match and that's the whole text and um you know just sunk sunk a pit in my stomach and I just I just picked up my phone I went into Google and I looked it up and I saw it I'm just like oh fuck I just couldn't believe it I couldn't believe it you know I started crying I think I think I called my wife I think I called Maynard I texted him I called my wife called a few friends you know just like you know just couldn't believe you know when someone's just not there anymore I didn't get to see him a lot but I was just a just appreciated the fuck out of that dude you know I kind of want to do anybody's tv show but when I got a call from him I was like fuck yeah what are we gonna do we're gonna shoot pheasants and and hunt and camp we're gonna cook by the campfire fuck I'm in dude you know I'm in I just really uh appreciated him as a a genuine unique person like he's a genuine rare person and uh you know that's that's what I got at being being able to spend some time with him and being able to talk to him and pick his brain and he did my podcast once and we always planned on doing it again which we never got around to it because we're both have ridiculous schedules but just my I would think about things differently because of him like my I would sometimes like hold things to his standards and he like legitimately his appreciation for things and his enthusiasm for things change the way I look at a lot of a aspects of food and culture and and and even travel you know yeah I mean um I'm sorry man and I you know and I know he thought very highly of you and that was that experience in Montana was fantastic man so fun um you know I it's been I it's been a rough three months and it's still hard for me to really contextualize it and put it together it feels like you know upside down world like there's no and he was such a I mean he was a friend and a collaborator and you know but also just such an icon to me you know yeah and um and uh that it's almost like you know it's almost like the sun disappears you know or something it's something that is so just inherently part of life there and dependable and you know um so yeah I mean it's been it's hard to describe how um profound that's been um I remember when he got into jiu-jitsu I got psyched because I'm like we got more to talk about now like I can actually I can actually show him some shit you know and he was always asking about things you know he's really good at things remember when we were in Montana we were rolling around on the dirt I know showing him stuff him and Josh I was like like when you're in here like here's what you can do you can get there and he's like oh yeah he was so wide-eyed you know I think it was before he even got his blue belt or maybe it was like around blue belt so he was super super jacked about it and he was doing it every day I remember when we were we were filming we were outside of Billings is that where we were where were we yeah well we're the hunt was yeah the hunt we were in like uh up in central Montana you know so um we kind of started in Billings but we headed up towards central Montana he was training so often and even on the road that he traveled to a club there was just a jiu-jitsu club in Bozeman yeah and he found some guys and he was rolling with these guys in Bozeman yeah yeah definitely like damn you're doing it every day well that was every day for a long time on the show that was a mandate we find the local you know the local clubs and yeah make sure that he had a place to roll he texted me from some European block country said he was shitting bone bone chips because uh he worked out with some old school Carlson Gracie guys they don't believe in rolling light it's all the top game and smashing you and he said I'm shitting bone chips but I just I admired that a guy could be 58 years old and decide I'm going to learn jiu-jitsu and I'm going to be obsessed with it and then he became addicted to it which you know jiu-jitsu is a very beneficial thing to be addicted to but it is absolutely an addiction I've I've come back from injuries where I definitely shouldn't have been training yet and I just wrap my arm up and just fucking get in there people get super super addicted to it and he got addicted to it just like he's been addicted to many things he just he jumped right into the jiu-jitsu experience yeah man um um well I'm glad he did it was it was clearly like really good for him to us I mean I know very little about jiu-jitsu I know what I know from Tony you know he got so slim yeah he lost all that weight all sudden he had a six pack stop smoking yeah you know those were those were big things man and uh and he looked great he's you know got off statins yeah no longer on any sort of medication he lost all that weight yeah cut all the carbs out he was just eating like you know yeah just protein crazy man he looked so good he did look good um he did look good and also just I you know the whole thing was kind of indicative of the way he was I mean he did things so passionately you know whether it was travel and the world and soaking up all these experiences or jiu-jitsu or whatever if he was into something if something caught his attention he was just so aggressive about knowledge yeah learning what he could pulling everything out of it that he that he could you know it's just crazy to see someone do something that's that physically demanding yeah no kidding 58 with no background in athletics at all yeah like you could see when he was like even when he was doing things like when he went to Kurt Osiander's place and was rolling around like he doesn't have a background in that but he's just pushing himself to it yeah yeah and again I think that was true with everything you know I mean if he if it was something that was interesting to him he just went yeah you know he loved it man it was crazy and I said you know I remember texting him going like how deep you getting into it he goes real fucking deep and he goes but he goes uh he goes I'm getting tapped out every day but he goes I'm giving guys half my age a real struggle and he goes uh and I'm loving it yeah and he talked about that a lot I mean I think he talked about like the the failure as much as anything else and he loved that yeah going in and you know getting smashed yeah but you know again to his credit you know we'd show up in these places you know Bozeman Montana man or or Butte you know I mean I think he rolled in Butte you know Butte's a hard hit in town man and listen I love Butte I love Butte too much respect to anyone from Butte but man that's a hard hit in town you know he'd roll into these real cowboys places yeah you know and uh and get the shit kicked out of him and show up on set all you know sore bruised and oh man and then just jump into that you know it's just different for a guy who's 58 I mean you got a guy who does it at 20 I admire anybody who does jujitsu because it's a real humbling ego dissolving experience in a lot of ways because she's makes you realize like all your illusions of how well you can defend yourself they go out the window and someone just chokes you easily and you're like oh great I'm just a bitch wanted around run around this life thinking I'm a man but the fact that he did it at 58 just showed what kind of an unusual duty was yeah but what you just talked about there I mean what you're talking about with like the ego diminishing aspect of it again I think that that was something that he took great pleasure in yeah and I think that you know if you look at the way he went through the world um one of the things that you know I appreciated right off the bat and one of the things that kept me around as long as I stayed around you know um there's a fact that it you know for Tony I think that he was constantly trying to dismantle that persona you know to say like I'm I'm not the focal point of this scene or what I'm the what we're interested in here what I'm interested in talking about is out there that's the cameras pointed away from me you know he was kind of a clearinghouse for all that information and he was the root of the show and it was his journey but you know ultimately you know what was refreshing is he wasn't like working with some celebrity or host that was completely consumed by their own ego and their own you know brand and and how they were presented to the world that's so disgusting right you know yeah dude but it's it's everywhere it's everywhere yeah he was very self-deprecating and and he had reverence for real artists and real masters and that total reverence yeah came across it came across I texted him about some guy there was a photo of a restaurant and uh I'm sure it's still on my phone some dude who's like a real famous guy who's like some big time chef character and I was eating in this restaurant and so I'm like who the fuck is this guy I guess it seems like it's a big deal and so uh I uh I texted him the photo of this cat right here yeah do you know who that guy is what's that guy's name so I said who is that guy it says Marco Pierre White made Ramsay cry like a bitch all-time original rock star chef genius madman the original punk but that kind of text like that's that's a Tony Bourdain text that's that's what that that text shows that reverence yeah for the masters oh yeah you know I mean even the the way he phrases it you know made him cry like a bitch all-time original rock star chef genius madman you know and um and and that's the way I mean he what was what worked about that is he had a like an instant ability to sniff through the bullshit you know so you know listen there's all kinds of famous people celebrities and you know well accomplished people that he met that he didn't feel that way you know he would cut through that shit instantly but if you were on his radar in that way you know it's like total commitment to what you do you were in or you're out yeah you're the Anthony Bourdain club exactly dude you want to be in man that list of people is like yeah that's a cool list to be on yeah well I just remember hanging out with him you know like I just it was one of those guys he was one of the ones that I met that I was like pretty starstruck like right away yeah I said something really stupid like my wife says you're my boyfriend because I watch his show all the time yeah she would just joke around oh you watch your boyfriend on tv yeah I'm like he's great this guy's great stop leave him alone but um like uh when we were in Montana that's when I realized why I always knew how hard he went but when I was blasted out of my mind and he was like where's that bottle where's those joints and I was like Jesus man yeah like I can't even I'm hanging on to the earth here yeah well that was a late night man yeah that one I mean listen like in all fairness not every night was quite like that you know without we had a lot of fun that night it was real fun and a really interesting thoughtful dialogue around the campfire with super land townie from uh backwards country hunters and anglers and all these the other guys that were with us you know these guys who it was good to get a different perspective on what going out and getting your own wild food is like yeah you know and then having him cook it there and it was delicious yeah it was awesome and but also being able to put those ideas on like a major network and pretty pretty rare man you