LL Cool J

The episode opens lightly. One speaker reports getting sneaker recommendations from the guest, who apparently said the Pumas being worn should go in the incinerator. The other side holds to the claim: "You have no reason to believe me yet," but once the recommended shoes are tried, "you're going to say, yo, your man was telling the truth."

The conversation then goes back to a first meeting around 1994, at an industry "up front" event where networks present new shows and everyone has to attend. The speaker remembers sitting at the same table while still "a nobody" and finding it strange to be around famous people. What stuck with them was the guest openly mocking the event: "you didn't give a fuck about it all," and the speaker wished they could do the same. The reply puts it more mildly: you can take part, but "I'm not going to take it too serious."

Asked how old he was when he signed his first contract, the answer is 16. The account given is that Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons first started Def Jam as a production company, and the first Def Jam Productions song was "It's Yours" by an artist transcribed as "Tila Rock." The label itself was formed after that, and the speaker says "I was the first act." The same segment says Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys programmed the beat, Rick Rubin produced, and the speaker "did the mic."

The two then recall the boombox, which one speaker says "meant everything to me," and remember people carrying their music down the street. From that comes an observation about how listening has changed:

Actually, in a weird way, even though the world is more public, music has become more private.

The world was private, but music was public back then.

Calling the guest a pioneer leads to a detailed timeline. Sugar Hill's "Rapper's Delight" (transcribed "Rapids Delight") is dated to 1979, but the speaker says his involvement started earlier. Around 1975 to 1977 he was hearing circulating tapes of Grandmaster Flash (transcribed "Grandma's Flash") and the Furious 4 "before they were the 5," plus groups transcribed as "the Tretcher's 3" and "Mo and the Co-crush." Being in Queens meant these tapes were "coming out of the Bronx."

The speaker describes his geography: born on Long Island, raised in Queens, and also living in North Babylon. There, foster kids next door who came from the Bronx, Harlem and Brooklyn brought the tapes with them, so at about eight years old he was hearing "the newest of the new." His summary of the effect: "baptized in the fire, hip hop early."

The other speaker calls it a "fortuitous time to be a kid." The reply compares it to Malcolm Gladwell's writing on being born in the right place at the right time, using his example of Seattle "when software exploded." Luck is given only part of the credit. The speaker points to "a little sprinkle, be in the right place, got the capability," and the other side adds "the drive and the discipline."

The discussion turns to fitness, and the speaker says he recently took up jiu-jitsu. He trains in Brooklyn with Brian Glick, who is said to have trained under a coach transcribed as "Donaheer." The lineage is traced through a name transcribed as "Henson Gracie," and the introduction came through "my man Scott, Scott Khan." He has trained for "not long at all."

Both speakers stress how humbling the sport is. One says "you think you're a tough guy, but you're really a little old lady." Earlier training in other styles, including Sado karate and wing chun as transcribed, is described as "a completely different thing." Both agree that beginners are helpless: in a closed guard a newcomer will "do everything but stand up." They also call it "a deep pool" that "keeps going forever and ever and ever," which the speaker likes because "we want to maximize our potential."

One speaker argues it is especially healthy for famous people to do something that has nothing to do with status: "you are either good at this or you are not good at this. There's no charm. There's no charisma." They add that being loved on sight is "the opiate for celebrities."

The reply sets out a view of fame that much of the episode comes back to:

I'm a celebrity by consequence, like as a result of what I did. I'm not a guy who's celebrity-minded. I'm an artist, Joe.

The speaker says he doesn't "walk in rooms feeling famous" and calls himself "way more blue collar." The joke that follows is the cigarette holder and ascot as signs of celebrity airs. Both agree Kat Williams could "pull it off," while neither can say what a cigarette holder is for. That brings up Hunter S. Thompson, the writer whose book became the Johnny Depp film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." He is described as having used one, as "a complete total maniac" who was "out of his mind on drugs," and as someone who still "wrote some of the most genius shit ever."

When one side suggests that some people need something to get out of their own head, the answer is "it's called humility." The other speaker connects this to young people: be an artist and let fame follow from the work, "because if you're arrogant, you can't learn anything." On this view, learning is the most fulfilling part, and thinking about yourself all day is boring. Trying to learn something difficult is offered as the cure, and jiu-jitsu is the example because there "you're just surviving."

The speaker says he reads "everything" and names Carl von Clausewitz, correcting himself from "Austrian general" to "Prussian general." He summarizes Clausewitz's idea of "Friction" and the "Clausewitzian triangle," whose three areas he gives, after correcting himself mid-sentence, as "probability and chance, logic and reason, and passion and enmity, hatred."

He applies the framework to the present: laid over society, the trinity shows "we're operating in a place of emotions and passions," so logic and reason "wouldn't even mean anything." A following passage, apparently read from a description, lists elements around a central "grand strategy": government, politics, reason, the armed forces, calculation, chance, odds and values. He says he reads history and literature to get better, and that the more he reads, the more he realizes how little he knows, which makes it "more exciting."

The speaker describes the choice facing someone who becomes successful at 16 to 18: "either you can get high all day, spend all your money" and go on a binge, or figure out something else. Asked how he knew that so young, he credits his mother. She showed him books with pictures of drug addicts with sores on their arms and told him, "Todd," that this is what happens if you ruin your career and your life. She also told him that "girls don't like dummies." He clarifies that the goal was not to be "some pedantic super nerd" but to "stay inquisitive, stay curious."

The other speaker adds that women want a man "who can navigate life." The reply says intelligence alone is not enough: alongside intelligence and health you need "intestinal fortitude," "because if you have intelligence but no willpower, you still get banged out." Both then mock the person who understands exactly why they are quitting but never changes: "I know why I'm giving up, but I'm going to go to therapy and never get better."

One speaker argues that society undervalues discipline, drive and perseverance, and that there is "no virtue in being emotional and giving up." Feeling bad sometimes is acknowledged as universal, but celebrating giving up as being "in touch with his emotions" is rejected. The reply adds a distinction:

Because empathy, we need empathy.

But empathy is not the same as weakness.

The speaker says moods have to be managed because "one spark can set a prairie on fire," and that doing what needs doing when you don't feel like it is "the language of success." The other speaker calls this an important quote, since many people spiral after following one bad thought. Both agree school doesn't teach this. You either have wise people around you or you work it out slowly, through drama, finding the silver lining, and learning to "get comfortable being uncomfortable," which the speaker admits is "kind of a cliche but it's true."

He passes on an analogy from someone he can't name, saying "I'm not trying to take credit for this": if a plane's engines are on fire, you don't crash it, you keep flying until you can land safely. In life, likewise, you don't quit "just because one of your engines is not acting the way you want it to." He adds "attitude determines your altitude."

The other speaker adds that people who are often uncomfortable seek comfort and then cling to it. Both agree that is when people stop progressing and "become defensive." One says such people also resent ambitious people. The reply is partly qualified ("Well, some can") and offers some sympathy: seeing someone else fully committed can hurt a person who is afraid of the next level.

The practical example is someone who won't go back to school because it takes three years, answered with: "Well, three years from now is going to be three years from now any goddamn way." The section ends with a slogan and a caveat about perfection:

Dreams don't have deadlines. That's the headline.

The speaker adds that you can lose a battle with yourself and still win the war, that "none of us are perfect," and that you can still reach the next level "if you keep going."

The conversation stops for a DraftKings advertisement. It says the sportsbook app is live in all 50 states and offers new customers who use code Rogan and spend five dollars $150 in rewards within 14 days. It includes problem-gambling hotlines, a 21-and-over requirement, expiry periods for bonus bets and predictions dollars, a statement that event contract trading involves risk of loss, and a note that availability varies by state.

Back from the break, one speaker praises the advice as coming from someone who has "actually done it," unlike motivational speakers whose list of achievements is "very small." The other speaker pushes back on this reasoning:

like if a homeless guy tells me don't do push-ups in traffic, I'm going to listen.

The first speaker agrees that great people sometimes give bad advice and "every now and then a moron will tell you something" useful. The second speaker grants that the messenger is "relevant" but says he focuses on the message, because "you have to contextualize the message in your life." This is compared to Bruce Lee's "absorb what is useful."

One speaker says Bruce Lee is why he got into acting, because Lee was the only non-white performer he saw "doing some cool shit on TV or in the movies." He remembers wearing the yellow-and-black "Game of Death" suit and Chinese slippers on Jamaica Avenue. The other speaker says Asian friends felt that "finally we have a fucking superhero."

The main claim is that people today underestimate how revolutionary Lee was. Before him, martial arts were "siloed": a kung fu instructor would be upset to find a student training in another style. Lee combined American boxing, Chinese boxing, kung fu, judo and more, which they call "heresy." One speaker asks rhetorically "who was the first mixed martial artists," and they add that "People wanted to kill him for that."

This leads to theories about his death, which both speakers treat as uncertain. One mentions a rumor about the triad, the Chinese mob, which allegedly financed his early films, and "a gigantic dispute" when he left for Hollywood, followed by "I don't know if they're true." They recall that he took pills, lay down and died at someone's apartment. One speaker suggests possible head injuries from sparring with boxers, experimenting and film stunts, adding "Who knows if he had a brain injury?"