#2539 - Protect Our Parks 17

I’m trying to quit these nicotine pouches, man. I kept taking the six-milligram ones in the green room, on the ride home, watching TV—then I’m lying in bed at two in the morning with my legs buzzing and my brain doing beautiful-mind numbers. I can sleep anywhere, on a pile of rocks, after espresso; this stuff is different. You have twenty over a night and suddenly you’re uncomfortable in your own skin.

The WNBA getting rougher is kind of fun. It has that old-school basketball energy: hard fouls, grudges, people building a little bag off the drama. Nobody cared for years, then attention arrived and everybody started treating it like a reality show. I like the physical play. It’s closer to the era where guys would actually settle something, rather than every star being protected from contact.

That UFC event on the White House lawn was one of those things where I kept looking at DC and Jon Anik like, what the fuck is this? Fighter jets went over, snipers were posted everywhere, motorcycles were flying over the pool, and the cage was right there with the White House behind it. I almost stayed home because I thought it would be a zoo. Then I saw the stunt bikes and went, no, I have to see this.

I canceled on that White House thing about four times. I didn’t want the heat, didn’t want the photos, didn’t want to be part of some weird political circus. Then I’m home on the couch and see motorcycles jumping around on the lawn. I was like, all right, this may happen once in my life. You can call it whatever you want, but a fight on that lawn with those flyovers? That’s a crazy night.

The best part was Gaethje pulling off that win against a guy people considered one of the best alive, then doing a backflip from the cage. And Paddy Pimblett is just as wild in a different way: walking out, he’s having a party with the whole crowd; the second he enters the Octagon, he goes stone-faced. Then he hit that choke people are calling the Pad Thai. He trapped the arm with his leg, rolled through it, and made a position that looked completely hopeless.

I’ll admit it: London has been hard. I’ve been turned down for apartments, and they want rental history and guarantors and every bit of paperwork imaginable. I’m freelance; I don’t have some regular boss to point at. Everybody acts like I’m pretending to be an immigrant for a joke, but I’m over there trying to rent a place and getting treated like I just got off a boat.

Come back here, man. I’ll give you a place for a year, we’ve got a condo by the club during the week, you can work whenever you want, get some sun, shoot arrows, eat a real cheesesteak. You’re not in jail because you got a visa. Be multi-city. Austin doesn’t have to own you; it can be your free vacation every month. You’ll be happier than you think.

I do get why you’re pushing it. Being away from crowds and the usual routine has probably been good for me. But I’ve only just started over there, and I don’t want to bail because the apartment hunt is annoying. Also, you keep pitching Austin when it’s hot as Satan and then acting shocked that I’m not immediately sold. Have this conversation in December and maybe I’ll listen.

The old road stories were brutal. I did one of my first headline weekends at a club connected to a restaurant, with maybe three people in the room. The owner tells me, get the swordfish, get this wine, it pairs perfectly. I’m broke, so I’m thinking, holy shit, a real meal. Then he hands me a bill that nearly ate the whole weekend’s pay. He wasn’t treating me—he was upselling me.

Those clubs could be insane. I had a promoter short me, tell me I should be grateful for what I got, then call later asking me to work again. I also saw a guy pull off one of those slick dress shoes and beat somebody with the wooden heel. Blood all over his white shirt. Back then crowds were out of control, owners were shady, and you learned fast that getting paid could be as dangerous as the set.

That’s why I love the Ulysses Grant story. Before the Civil War, the guy is washed up, drinking too much, working behind a counter at his father-in-law’s store. Then war breaks out, and within four years he’s commanding the Union Army. He knew so many officers from West Point that he could size up the other side personally: that guy’s tough, that guy’s a coward, we can take that fort. It’s the greatest comeback story.

History is so violent that it makes modern life feel absurdly comfortable. The Comanche controlled this part of Texas for generations, settlers were sent into country they barely understood, and entire families got wiped out. Then you go further back—Mongols, Aztecs, ancient warfare—and it’s nightmare fuel. We’re complaining about flight delays while people used to live in tents, wear animal skins, and wonder whether a raiding party was coming for them.

That’s why I can’t take every clean modern label we put on ancient people too seriously. We look back and say everybody was this or that, when their whole world had different rules, different roles, different ideas of family and sex and war. Still, some of that history is so deranged you’re grateful somebody eventually showed up and went, hey, maybe stop doing that to children.

We got into the old days of comedy, too—the weird clubs, party buses, guys trying to hustle you, broke comics eating whatever was offered. When I got a little television money at twenty-five, I thought I was rich. I was taking everybody out for lobster and steak every night because I’d been poor forever. Somebody saw my spending and thought I had a gambling problem. No—I just wanted to enjoy it before it disappeared.

And now we’re sitting here drunk, arguing about whether England has decent beer, talking about K-pop, trying to convince a guy to move countries, and acting like a food truck is foreign policy. That’s a pretty good day. Also, I’m telling you: if you’re in Austin, get the Philly cheesesteak truck. The club can have all the fancy stuff it wants, but one good steak and cheese before you go on? That’s civilization.

We opened on LBJ meeting with the bathroom door open, then Trump’s alleged fourteen Diet Cokes an hour. Bullshit. Twelve a day is still a lot of liquid.

I bought a Maybach, left Austin, came back and thought, what am I doing? It’s a chauffeur car. I’m selling it and getting an Accord.

My ’73 BMW’s perfect in the canyon. Washing it with hose, bucket, sponge felt real good. Forms? Need a guy.

Paperwork makes me black out. Health insurance is fucked: real claims get rejected because they just say no and hope people disappear.

We pay more for private health care than public coverage would cost. What the fuck are we doing? Great podcast: drunk policy opinions.

Teddy’s Square Deal meant consumer protection, trust-busting, conservation. Now corporations, super PACs, politics are braided together; unwinding them is brutal. Systems drift toward control, money, power.

We’re boiling: nobody buys homes or covers bills, and cameras arrive before anybody notices. Rough moment, though there’s great shit around.

Tech oligarchs shape the story, economy, social systems—everything. The internet’s horrible, but we have to stop it turning everybody against everybody.

San Francisco’s great in pieces: walkable, food, bars. It needs live music and patrols. East Coast heroin guys sleep; West Coast meth guys scream and chase you.

Homelessness showed up after Reagan-era institution changes, exploded around 2016, surged in pandemic. California spends billions while numbers climb. Tenderloin desk: “Don’t go right.” That’s half the fucking city.

You wreck something for ten years, it may take thirty to fix. I’m building a new hour—check my site: clubs, Drunk Tuesday Stories, Netflix hour.

We’ve done two. I’ll see you all in hell. Praise Allah. Love you guys, bye.