I was talking to someone via Snapchat, a girl, and I got a Snapchat back, and it was Jake. That makes sense. So Jake, half the shoe. I might not have hair on the crown on my head, bro, but I have an intro written for today's show.
Absolutely. Now you're wearing a crown on your head. Let's get started. Welcome back to Impulsive, the number one podcast in the world.
We've got a lot of people in the audience today. Hot damn. We've got my girlfriend. We've got V, Connor Blakely.
We've got Kevin, potentially member of the team. Let's see what happens. Max, you're sitting on the far end of the table. I'm way over your neck.
How are you feeling? It's a little lonely. I get you. We're going to put two real good guests next to you.
Handsome. Real good handsome. Best looking since Nate Shot. And he was the best looking since Bryce Hall.
He was the best looking since Jacob Sartorius. Just a bunch of studs on this podcast. A lineage of studs. Only the best and brightest for Impulsive.
I still feel rushed. All right. We'll talk more about the fact that I don't have any hair on my head, bro. What am I going to do about this?
No, we can only talk about that for so long. I didn't even start talking about it yet. There's another lineage on YouTube and digital media, and that's balding celebrities, bro. It's a very interesting topic.
Most of them work their asses off to hide it, and obviously you guys have gotten to know my L.A. pretty well. Okay, so we do have a picture of Mike. This is going to be probably about 10 years from now, so we definitely need to be taking some sort of precautionary measures to prevent that from happening.
There are surgeries you can get. I know. I'm going to get one like Mike. I'll join you.
I'm going to go to Turkey and fix our hair. I don't want to be that guy. It's just aging with a fucking shiny ass head with a reflection. It might be mostly genetic.
No, all my family have a full head of hair. It's like a decade of drug abuse or something. I don't know what it is. You know what's something that's super weird in the genetic world?
Twins. Oh, it's so strange. They have the same DNA. Nice light up, Mac.
Nice job, bro. For what? Have you prepared the eye? Yeah, all right.
You guys may know them. You may have seen them before on YouTube, maybe even on Instagram. They once done the cover of GQ magazine as the hottest twins on the planet. They have relationships with Chamberlain, I think, and a bunch of other top-level celebrities there outspoken on mental health, as well as the science behind being a twin.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's the Dolan Twins. Wow. Wow. That's life, dude.
I'm old and bald, but... What up, boys? What up? Welcome to Paul's.
The most awkward podcast on the planet. Here we are, guys. Good to see you. You too, man.
How are you feeling? Well, Mike. Yeah, finally. I can't think you guys haven't met yet.
He's the last person in the public, I think. Oh, God. Kicking the balls? No.
What was I doing? I think he was eating food. Oh, God. That's something Mike loves to do.
What's your guys' favorite restaurant in LA? There's a place called Little Pine. It's a vegan spot there. Are you guys vegan?
Yeah. You're both vegan. I want to talk about that. But let's start from ground zero.
All right. Because, boys, we have some history. We do. We have a lot of history.
Probably more than... Yeah, everyone in this room except for Mac, who's been my best friend since fifth grade, which is crazy. We go way back. We go way back.
When you guys first started coming up on Vine, Jake and I were as well. And what happened? Jake spotted you guys... Jake, no, I was talking to someone.
I don't even know if I can say this. Oh, shit. For legality reasons? No, I don't know.
I'm not trying to throw anyone on the bus. He just won a lawsuit. He just won a lawsuit. You probably say it.
He's on Winning Street. I was talking to someone via Snapchat, a girl, and I got a Snapchat back and it was Jake and I was like... That makes sense. So Jake cackaged you.
No, no, no. What happened? He was just there and he was shirtless and I was like, oh, what the fuck? Oh, so he was hitting on you?
I think that's kind of what it was. Now I just kind of figured it out. But no, we got to talking and then we had some common interests and stuff like that. And he was like, oh, I see you on Vine.
And I was like, what's up, man? I see you too. But where were you guys living? New Jersey.
My parents house. And I remember he invited you to LA. Literally like three days after talking. He was like, you'll come stay with me.
Interesting. And I was like, no, none of my friends have even done this. Yeah, we were 14. And he was like, I'm getting a place in LA in three days.
You'll come stay with me. He was 14 years old? He was what, 16, 17? He was a junior in high school.
He just had a Jeep. That one already had that. Yeah. Damn.
He was actually... No, the Mustang. How long was this? The Mustang was new.
This is like six years ago. Long ass time ago. That's fucked. I remember you guys walked in my house.
I was like, who are these kids? You guys are pretty funny. I think we made some good finds together. You went in a vegan restaurant, actually.
Veggie Grill. Do you still go there? Hell yeah. My girlfriend and I have some favorite restaurant.
I've been trying to get sponsored by Veggie Grill for years. They haven't yet. It's so good. Fantastic.
So good. Again, I want to talk to this vegan stuff with you guys. That's fascinating to me. Like big, bulky.
I saw that you went vegan for a short period. I tried. I tried. I tried twice, dude.
I went for four months before my first fight against KSI. And I've mentioned this on this podcast before. I got to a point where my body was literally consuming itself. Like my muscles were eating away at themselves because I couldn't support myself because I wasn't getting the nutrition that I needed.
I had a nutritionist. I had a private chef. I got my blood drawn and tested. And for some reason, the vegan diet does not fit my body type, which is why I'm looking at you guys.
You're bulky kids. You're fit. You're athletic. You're big.
How are you? Six foot? Yeah. Six foot.
Six foot. So how is your body not literally just metabolizing itself to the point where it's just a constantly burning furnace? I don't know. I feel like there's a misconception about macronutrients, especially protein.
Sure. You don't need as much as people say you do, especially to build muscle. When you're talking about bulking and putting on muscle in size, it kind of comes down more like calories. We just like blindly die.
Sure. Yeah. It was mainly for ethical reasons. That's why I started.
But then I was very fascinated about how it was the best for my health as well. Like I watched a couple documentaries. And also the feeling that it brought me. So I'd always been eating lean meat and egg whites and all that.
I'm staying away from anything that was like quote unquote bad for you. Red meat and stuff like that. And I was dairy free for about a year. And I just never felt the health benefits of my diet.
That was supposedly really clean. And I was like, I'm going to give this vegan thing to try. I had this realization. And yeah, we went vegan for ethical reasons.
And then three weeks after like holding on to like I'm staying really strict on the vegan diet, I was like, what the fuck? I can like all of a sudden run so much more. My muscular endurance is like all the way up. And I felt the benefits of eating healthy finally.
Well, it's clean. You're putting like premium fuel into your body. There's no extra additives. Yeah, it's literally the most natural shit.
And that three to four week window is the window where you'll start to feel it. And you finally burn off all that excess bullshit that wasn't your past diet. Except the longer I went, the more I started to notice like this is affecting me in a negative way. How long have you been vegan for?
10 months. I'm only up in 10 months. Damn. You also, you probably don't train the way he was training for a fight.
Like this kid was, I'm sure you guys were working out. He was working out like twice a day for like four hours. They just like overtraining the shit. So I think it was a combination of you needing the fuel for that kind of workout.
Yeah, I think sometimes like when something's different in our life, like whether it be diet or the amount of sleep that we've been getting, like we like to say that, or pin the blame on feeling like fatigue or tired. It's a little bit off just because something's different in our life. So it might not have been your diet. You may have been getting sick.
And you're just like, oh, I think it's because of the vegan. But is the sickness correlated to a weaker immune system because of the diet that doesn't fit my blood type or body type? Whatever it is. A caveat that I would put on that is, because we all thought the same thing.
I'm training four hours a day. I'm definitely overtraining in my body. I haven't eaten plants for a certain period of time in my whole life. And now all of a sudden I'm doing it during the most intense training session of my life.
But the caveat I would say is last year in January, we tried to do vegan January. We made it, right? No, you did. I got 28 days in and the same thing happened.
I wasn't training. I was just living my life in the same thing. I was like, yo, I tried. I just got so fatigued.
Maybe you just weren't eating enough. But I'm telling you, it was probably. Yeah, he had a scientific nutritionist. Calories, counting every day.
Like I have to stay at the end of the day to different strokes for different folks. Yeah, 100%. That makes sense. There's people like Kayla Pearson, Jordan Pearson's daughter, who's like kind of fixed all her health issues by having a completely carnivore diet.
Yeah, I heard like Rogan's tried it. Yeah, absolutely. How could you do that? I think statistically you do end up like shitting yourself on a diet.
Yeah, that's nice. I can honestly say that I've only had one stomachache in the past 10 months since going vegan. And before that it was like, oh shit, I gotta go to the bathroom, I'm gonna make it. So not shitting yourself on a diet.
It was from antibiotics, it was. Yeah, I was gonna get into that. The only stomachache that I've had is from antibiotics because it's sinus infection. Okay, but also, bro, I've been down that path.
You know, with a vegan diet, you eat food and it's coming out of you within 30 minutes. I know y'all are pooping three or four times. No, that's cap. No, I don't.
I think one healthy one is scheduled for 11 a.m. after I have oats and coffee. Like in your calendar? I don't shit.
How is that possible? I don't know. I don't know. What are you talking about?
Every vegan I know is a pooping machine. Oh, Max toilet is disgusting. I pooped one time a day. But that poops.
I think it's all, like shitting, I think I would definitely, no, it has to do with calories. If you're eating a caloric surplus, then you're probably going to be shitting more because your body doesn't need all these things you're taking. If you're in a deficit, you shouldn't weigh less. And if you're at a maintenance, you shouldn't be shitting pretty much.
Fascinated by bowel movements. Really am. Yeah. Don't love them.
We talk about, like, I feel like we don't even do like this on our podcast. Shit. Like, yeah, people who talk, like, on accident. When did you guys talk about your podcast?
It's new. Yeah. Not new, but we haven't done video yet. Video's going to be new.
Right now we're just doing audio only. And it's in the 30s maybe. I don't even know. That's new, Michael.
Hey, what is it you guys like about the podcast medium? Do you enjoy it? It's just like an open conversation. Like, I just have a shit on my mind that I wish I could say on YouTube, but, like, YouTube is just not the place.
That's for, like, premium entertainment and, like, we're starting to try to make it the place. Yeah, we are, like, in the process of slowly making it the place just because, like, we can't sustain with, like, yeah. Like, I heard you say something at one point about either retire or reinvent. Yeah.
And we, yeah, I was actually, like, really thinking about that. Because we've been, like, at a point where we just, like, have been really confused as to what to do with the content. Join the club, boys. Join the club.
Y'all have been doing this forever. Yeah, that's the thing. I feel like I've been kind of, like, trapped in my 17-year-old body as soon as the fucking camera turns on because I'm, like, this is what my audience likes. I have to act the same way that I did when it was working.
And, I mean, yeah, it will work, but I'm going to go fucking insane. We just tried to film a video. We completely failed just because I don't feel like myself on the camera. Like, sorry.
I don't know. Like, I'm a 20-year-old dude in that 2 a.m. And my fans are kind of the opposite. Like, our demographic is, like, 78% to 80% female.
And they're our age, but it's kind of, like, the opposite, you know, me, in a lot of ways. So, like, it's hard to find, like, the balance between what you want to film and what people are going to want to see. Yeah, what they want to see. Because, like, a lot of shit just doesn't, like, hit.
Yeah, we've been talking about it. Like, just going more and more into, like, deeper discussion just trying to figure out what to fucking do. And, like, we've come to some realizations about, like, we haven't really been living our lives as, like, dudes. Like, I just started skateboarding a lot more with my friends.
I've been making friends in the skate scene. Oh, just hanging out. Just hanging out. Yeah, I knew that if I, like, I couldn't make everybody else.
We don't hang out at all. And do you mean starting to produce content around that? Because what I'm noticing, by the way, is that in the past, YouTube has been a relatively soft platform. You know, not to call LP and his earlier days soft, but, like, in a lot of ways, it catered to a younger audience.
There's a larger female fan base. Now, in the days of the Nelt Boys, in the days of the Night Shift, in the days of, you know, even Adam 22 and some of this more risque adult-style content, I think that the platform is starting, and the audience there, is starting to shift at least slightly to be more accepting of that kind of energy. And I think that will behoove you guys and benefit you guys to start to showcase some more of the authentic and real you. Yeah, that's what I'm going to start going for, to be honest.
You have to be. I realize you're going to be fucking miserable. You just described it. Mitch, Mitch, did you break down?
Oh, yeah. We drove, this just happened, like, a few days ago. We were like, oh, let's drive to Oregon. We always want to go to Oregon.
But let's make a video out of it because it's a fucking waste of time if we don't trip. So we're eight hours in, like, 600-some miles, whatever the fuck that is. And we're just like, fuck this. We turned around and came back.
Y'all turned around and came back. Full break. Full break. Fresh half of it.
You have no idea. And then we want to fucking kill. We want to beat the fuck out of each other. And, you know, it's your fault.
No, it's your fault. And then... But that's what we were saying about it being a waste of time. We don't want anything to be a waste of time.
As you know, like, your job is you. That's your business. Like, every single day, you have to document what you're doing. Unless you start to see the numbers slip in there.
And then it's like, all right, I have to just completely, like, give up all my hobbies and everything just so that I can get views on shit that my audience will receive daily. So I wouldn't go skateboarding. I wouldn't go cliff jumping. I wouldn't do, like, this, like, man-type shit.
This dude stuff that I wanted to do. I didn't have any friends who were into that stuff because I was like, oh, my audience isn't going to want to see it. Like, I have to be more time for it. First piece of advice is remove yourself from the numbers.
That's the healthiest. It's next to impossible being a creator because numbers dictate, in a way, your success. But the faster you can remove yourself from a view count, translated to how happy you are, the healthier you're going to be. But is it possible?
It's possible. It's easy for the guy whose view count is always high as well. No, no, no. There's a period.
I remember, like, between one and two million views, I was reinventing trying to do new formats. Bro, I did a fucking cartoon on my main channel. I did an episodic sketch series with Evan called... Yeah, like, I just tried to experiment with new formats, and eventually I found a model that worked for me, and now I'm, like, happy every day I try to create.
You guys still sound like you're very much stuck in a rut of where you were when you were trying to do it. But so when you were in that point and your numbers were low, was it affecting you every day? It was. So right now, like, I know what you're saying totally, and I appreciate it, and I'm, like, trying to listen to that advice the best I can because I'm telling myself every day.
But, like, when your numbers aren't where they once were or where you, like, want them to be, I don't know if there's a way around feeling like shit. Mr. B says this advice for creators with this problem is picture it like a challenge. Stay optimistic.
Oh, yeah. We've labeled the game. We've labeled the game lately, and it makes it fun. Exactly.
How can I do better? Ah, this is not quite resonating with our audience. And also, you guys are in a bit of a difficult position where your audience is, like, a super dynamic, ever-changing group of people, i.e. young women, young women who are becoming women, adults, like, fully-fledged people with hobbies and interests that they weren't excited about when they were 14.
And so now it's not only do you have to do a bit of reinventing publicly, but personally, because the more that you personally are going to be able to just be yourselves on camera, you're going to garner a new audience that has new interests and new hobbies. Like, bro, I'm 60, 70% male. Y'all should honestly be probably skewing the same way. Like, you said you have an interest in doing more dude shit and skating and cliff jumping.
Like, lean into that. You're growing up. You're growing up. Never underestimate the ability you have to shift your audience.
Instead of trying so hard, super hard to cater to the current audience, I mean, he's a shining example of this. He aged up. He mailed up through the creation of the content he was doing, through the collaborations he was doing. And so, you know, it's definitely possible.
Another piece of advice, I think the place where most really successful creators lose right off the bat is they get married to the idea that they are getting a shit ton of views. Nobody's going to maintain that view count for an extended period of time. Maybe a handful of people. But even when you look at the best in the world, the biggest, most inscribed in the world, look at PewDiePie.
I mean, he gets three or four million, you know, maybe five million views per video. I'm not knocking them, but people need to understand that this shit is fucking fleeting. When I started getting three to six to eight million views on my YouTube videos, everything I remind myself every day was, tomorrow this goes away. Tomorrow this goes away.
So when it goes away, you ain't surprised. You're not stressed out about it. You know what doesn't go away? A book about mental health.
A long-form piece of content that you're fucking proud of. How are you diversifying your game to create shit that, regardless of how it's accepted by the general public, you are happy about the project you put into the fucking world? We definitely have a lot of projects that we're really happy about putting out. Yeah, that was great.
I really like that. Yeah, we did a documentary about our dad and what it's like for this one. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Thanks a lot. And then I directed, and he acted in a music video about the whole private movement and everything like that. Sick. Yeah, which was 2018.
Again, one of my favorite experiences that I've had as far as my YouTube channel. You guys have been super woke for how young you are. Thank you. Thank you, man.
Like, definitely on the progressive, would it be a reach to say, liberal train? I don't really like to label myself anything. I feel like our generation is pretty woke. Sure, sure.
You know what I mean? Because when you were 20, like, it was, I was 14. I wasn't woke yet. You weren't woke yet.
I think just the way the world moved. No, no, you were. You were. Like, even with the Japan thing.
You guys are pretty... vocal and outspoken about like denouncing me and it was i had had of many woke up moments that i had i was like how are these kids seeing this were significantly younger than me and i'm just like blinded to some sort of fucking ignorance that i had i think it was the numbers too at the time for you sure i got consumed by by this like nasty cycle just trying to just get views views um but you guys have always been a bit ahead of the train on yeah i think it also is the down like the times of like low numbers and things like that that i have all these realizations become more woke too so there is like such an advantage to like suffering in your business i feel like it also like kind of it's a huge challenge to like see your numbers dropping so yeah personally strengthen the foundation because you know that that shit is fleeting and if it does and you need to be like okay with who you are it's almost like a relationship like my mom told me when i would probably it's semi yeah i'm openly that's another thing like hiding personal relationships and friendships and shit like that yeah because like we've been burned so many times i'm sure you have too by like friends and stuff that have you know seen through the camera and everything like that but for us it was like our fans were really investigative and would figure out like all everything about these people why are you trying to hide it so much because bro to be honest i haven't had it we're done hiding it like right now we're done like that's like we're 22 and so is our audience so they understand and like i'm not cheating on our demographic saying that i want anything to change i'm not trying to like flip my whole thing and have a male the predominant male demographic i love what like what we have right now and we've grown with them in a sense i think we just i think we've always had a lot in common with our demographic and just being like we're really like-minded about everything so i think i think i've been kind of surrounded by woke people since i was little and didn't follow me because that's who we were that's the energy we put outside so i think that's the way the world's moving so i think we just be ourselves and create a demographic like a new demographic of people who like are like-minded to us then you know does it help for self-awareness to literally have someone that's almost exactly you to look at uh bounce back and forth ideas that are similar to you like yeah looking at a person that's almost exactly you i think it's helpful and it's also like the exact opposite i think it just heightens everything yeah that's the way it's like it's just everything heightened so like when we're almost like one brain especially now that we're like isolated together and everything what the world's going through right now like our brain kind of forms is one and like if he's sad and i'm sad then we're like double sad and then same on the flip like when i'm up like he's up but i can't walk in the room and like if he's having a shitty day have a good one it's just like the same you guys you guys have been doing this on the podcast and it was you'll start saying something you say i i and then you pick up and say me me like at no point does it feel like you're having a different conversation because you are the same guy kind of same regiment same video stuff so it's cool to see one pick up or the other one drops off we pee at the same time it's like it's like we girls are best friends and like they sync up hey you want to go to the bathroom no but like we'll be driving here you guys check each other if you notice something is going yeah that's like all they were just checking each other yeah that's only lately that's what it's been like do you because i know you guys have been out like i said earlier in the show uh have been outspoken about struggles you guys have had with your own mental health do you guys feel like you suffer from similar issues in your separate brains you know or is it you know at this point i feel like yeah we can relate to each other on everything mental health wise yeah have you had identity problems yeah oh yeah that's what we're gonna do right now i think that's okay that's like the source of all our problems like when i i i on this road trip i was like dude and it wasn't a waste of time it wasn't like we drove in the drive back was so productive because we just talked about everything that went wrong okay and let's take advantage of the situation and there was when we really like put together that we have had these identity problems i was like dude like i'm becoming my 18 year old 17 year old self when this camera starts recording yeah i can't break away from it and like we need to figure out how the fuck i'm gonna do that when the camera's on i immediately become this character like it's me but it's like i know i know what you're talking about yeah i went through it i have semi-tried to coach jake going through it as well and in a way maybe not so much like statistically it's sort of worked for jake like the more he can just be himself on camera like he gets these comments all the time on his walls it's like yo i love you and logan's vlog so why i'm gonna come on this channel is it like that's right i was on our channel recently and people were commenting they're like wow he's so genuine like holy shit so i talked about it the more you can just be yourself and again the more you can just act yourself but i'm talking about like identity problems because you're twins like you're grayson dolan you're ethan dolan but even us introduced you on a show with the dolan twins that's for gravity sure i can't imagine yeah i think it's also different when you're twins like you and jake people just group you as the polls oh they do yeah they do but you're logan and he's jake like for us it's always the dolan twins but we're like we're okay with that because we're like such a team we do have like the same similar interests and everything i mean we basically kind of are the same person yeah in a lot of ways in our personal lives that's where we separate but like when in business we love doing that together like we definitely have our roles though he likes to like communicate with our team where i like to do creative but we have no problem sharing a house and a bank account and all that shit like at all i'm sorry what was that sharing a house and a bank account i heard the house part too did you say bank account yeah yeah that seems that seems risky yeah i mean we have a personal where we like dump extra funds and shit but like we don't really care that's why you guys really are a unit yeah have you ever shared a girlfriend no yeah that's where you draw the line well that's one of the places the line is drawn so there's other places too has a girl ever tried to be like oh i'm not here for the squad um like y'all like i love the dolan twins i love both the dolan twins i mean like i don't know okay so i want to talk about this i love it i mean anyone who would just say that to me it would kind of like definitely turn me off push off yeah that'd be like disgusting um and uh if i know i mean like the people that i like i um like if i'm gonna talk to a girl i usually reach out it's not like it's not like we always wave it off if it's like someone coming to you you know what i mean yeah like you guys bro you can't have a girl they bolted you guys come on they don't strike me as those kind of guys like you guys don't strike me as the kind of guys they're gonna go to a face claim party looking for a foursome i don't understand like i haven't been to a party in LA since that's what i'm saying yeah yeah wow so wait so also you have a girlfriend and you currently don't yeah how does that dynamic work that's interesting yeah because i feel like we do everything together so when i'm like texting her he's freaking the fuck out because he doesn't know how to be any animosity towards the girl no no not this time we've been through this so many times we've been like so many cycles where it's like you feel that person's getting between your personal relationship and then it like causes like a little bit of resentment even if it's subconscious but um no i i think of his girlfriend like a sister at that point we've known each other for four years she's great and um yeah but there's a good time when i'm up in the kitchen waiting for Ethan to come get breakfast with me because i'm bored and alone and then he's like in bed like the 45 minute like you know texas catch up it's great he's just eating it's long distance he's like where's he living in australia that's a cool topic that we never talked about yeah i mean especially in covid days like we can't just go yeah i can't go i can't go into australia um because they're not letting anybody in who's not a citizen and they're not letting any citizens out so she was here with me for like six months and then she flew back she had a hotel quarantine for two weeks like alone no windows she was a prison hotel wow it's pretty much like they stick in prison you guys like the military is there just like making sure it's been a very successful program for them in new zealand i know it's in australia but they they they isn't new zealand had no cases for about three days is new zealand a part of australian content no it's not i believe in ireland but i don't know if it's the same embassy or anything like that but we we also speak about the embassy of australia we just applied for residency there what yeah i also do love australia too so that helps we need to apply for residency there's a good thing called a distinguished talent visa i think that's what it's called we apply for so uh if you just basically so if i become a resident i can go visit her despite what's going on in quarantine how did you meet this girl um in australia like four years ago and you like her accent yeah the australian accents are a bit tough for me to uh just to swallow i'll be honest with you yeah i like to do them what the hell is the submerged continent of zealandia oceania oceania dude like it says new zealand is not part of the continent australia but of the separate submerged continent of zealandia that's that's how it doesn't depend at that time is this fucking are you kidding me right now whatever yeah do you ever start speaking australian like with that i can do the accent a little bit not with like pressure though no problem no he's so good at it like when we go to australian he does it no one knows that he's not australian i like to do the australian accent i think it needs a little wick i think it needs a little wick uh i feel like i'm trying to tell my ally can you get an australian pirate or an arg no you might i only have the pirate i need to walk the plank yeah i like this relationship i don't know if i can do it i don't know if i can do it so josey don't don't don't leave you guys can probably do it i feel like every relationship i've ever been in was like distance i mean even like a smaller scale like in school when i was a freshman i had my first girlfriend she looked like hounds over so also she like didn't go to your school yeah i guess it's like a more particular like who i click with and stuff like that it just ends up being like distance so you're able to pull it off regardless don't sit the distance it's just like my girlfriend dude like she if i don't go to sleep and wake up they're like we're waking up every single fucking how much time have you guys spent apart what's the longest time you spent six days maybe yeah i think your entire life we basically accept the the fact that like when when we do have our own families around everything like that we're just gonna live like right next to each other that's the only way that's what we're trying to do in this house i'm trying to get yeah i'm trying to get like to move across the street or like at least i want to be able to throw a rock in this house we've been looking at you there's a couple the one across the street i think it's going to like six six and a half and i'm not you know it's a little too small for mike yeah i'd like it's not a little larger you guys like tiny homes yeah yeah the last time i saw you guys you were trying to sell me your sprinter van that you remodeled into a tiny home yes we did and did you sell it yet because i have one i have a sprinter van yeah it's much nicer yeah we did sell it we did sell it yeah we sold it to a guy that fits the part for it you know what i mean he was like really on road trips he wants to and he paid your asking price not the asking price yeah but it's fine 50k yeah what's with it that's true it's a bit of a pill to swallow i just like i know i'm gonna have to swallow this pill with my cool bus like i love this bus and i want $75,000 for it but i know no fucking idiot isn't paying that much money for that bus cars are just like i'm not into cars like so i can never justify spending money i'm glad i learned that at a young age i bought a bronco i was gonna ask you about that yeah we sold that sold the bronco sold that for probably like $40,000 less than i put into it cars are tricky they are depreciating assets worse the worse man they're terrible that's why i used to hate the idea of leasing but now i kind of like the idea of leasing like you know amara drives the lambo it's leasing i think she coughed up like 60 racks for like an 18 month lease but then give it back oh it's leasing oh she's cap well i mean she's got six other cars that are bought but she's not wearing leasing's cap at all now no no no no no but it means on terms of her no it's just like what she said she bought it depends on who you are you're gonna get made fun of like if you're a rapper you're leasing cars you're fucked they are leasing every rapper every celebrity is leasing cap no it's not cap is not how are they paying taxes because we like we've been in the industry for so long i talked to some like high offscan like record libs and stuff like that like we know i know the revs between them and people are getting fucked over there's no way they can't believe it's the longest story in los angeles history every house you see is rented every car you see is leased it's the most false reality of all fucking time all those r8s and bethleys that drive past you are six months away from going back to the fucking dealership if it's not a tesla it's not worth it wow you really are welcome oh yeah and he convinced me on i'm switching my car to a tesla before right now switching to the model s so it's like you don't have to drive you literally don't we didn't drive here no we didn't oh wow we're saying laguna right now because our house we normally live seven minutes away but our house under construction so we're in laguna okay and we just all piloted it all the way here didn't drive you just have to put your hands on the stereo yeah you gotta correct it but he didn't actually physically drive that's great how do you not have a tesla yet i don't understand because i'm semi waiting for the new ones to come i want the roadster the fast one the real fast one i don't think you have a date when it's gonna come out who knows when they remember they came out with the uh the tesla semi jake oh yeah jake put a $25,000 payment on the tesla semi he said it was a flex but the steering wheel is in the middle of the semi truck and i wanted to wait for the roadster to come out because it's a badass car and everyone already has the what's the one with the wings on the side it's sick but i feel like every no no no i feel like every influencer has the tesla model s we just keep it plain jane though so it's literally just really convenient yeah just point a to point b i'm gonna test the future and so we're just gonna say it i want to change my shit every year if i pay over a hundred thousand dollars on a car i don't want the fucking new one in three years you know what i mean i'm not gonna want like just the old like four year old car i feel like leasing is good for for like people who can't afford to buy outright and people who can afford to buy outright 50 times over like i feel like it's the midsection that makes sense for people to buy the car drive it into the fucking ground and then get another new car but like if you can afford to pay a high note and lease a car and have the newest model every time it drops then like why not do that that's my point there's a there's an answer to that i don't know what i have not least it's not like i have not least a single car but in my business team there's smart people and there's a reason behind it i don't know what it is i lease for the right-off purposes too some of our stuff is written off because it is that's the production vehicle the van someone watching this has the answer to this i'm sure and i personally don't and i've always bought two like i like instead of renting apartments or condos like when i was like i'm only going to be here for another two years i literally would just buy the apartment buy the apartment i still own apartments and rent them out the people instead of take my vehicles up that's why i just dangerous because think about all the modifications i do in all of that that's that's why we have a Tacoma in jersey and we bought it i can't lease a Tacoma because we're gonna fuck it up yeah yeah that makes sense yeah yeah but also um actually what was i was gonna say what is the price difference between doing all this is it even that great it's pretty it's pretty i mean well i'm not like buying and renting but like overall like say five years on the line like is it gonna make that big of a difference if you bought or it depends what you're doing with your money i think the benefit of leasing or putting like a down payment and paying the rest off whether it's like a house and paying workers whatever it is it is because you can now invest or uh put your money somewhere where it can make you money yeah right that's why i wouldn't that's why i wouldn't put $400,000 down on a car if you do 50k and then lease the rest and then that other $50,000 you can collect in the bank whatever it is that's the strategy there cars are the outlier too like people need to know that like this doesn't apply to houses cars and boats that was my first vehicle shout out you guys missed the tri-state bro so joe rogan i watched joe rogan's explanation the other day of why he moved to texas a lot of great reasons uh overpopulation in cali crime uh taxes legacy taxes so if you're a wealthy individual that leaves california you still have to pay the wealth tax you're lying you're lying you're lying a proposed 0.4% wealth tax for 10 years after you leave california oh my god i don't think it's gonna pass but the main reason he was leaving or one of the big reasons he was leaving was because he thinks that the fact that there's no weather here affects you there's no weather every day you wake up and it's the same fucking weather he thinks it affects you because he thinks that there's a power in how many times do you guys remember this happening boys there's a major storm brewing this week we're gonna huddle together as a family we're gonna ride this one out you sit in the house for six days in blizzard conditions i went 14 and a half days with no power i was legit splitting wood when i was like 12 to heat the house and we all slept by the fire that was hurricane sandy how old were you how old were you during sandy 12 i think now that was easily the craziest storm i ever witnessed in my entire life i was i can i think i hit that it was demolished i was on the coastline connect the whole houses were just washed oh yeah my grandma's peach house literally lifted gone gone jersey shore destroyed now this was when i was still a psychopath so i actually was i shit you not swimming when sandy hit land made land fall in connecticut i was in the ocean in the fucking ocean there's videos of this with a gallon of tequila in one hand and my cell phone in a plastic bag in the other naked oh we fucked up we fucked up demolished what on what just alcohol so i got clean done a year sober but this was when i started to kind of like go back to partying not using drugs but like being out doing that kind of stuff and uh i knew it was gonna be a big storm but i mean the waves were the size of houses i was just getting smacked on a diet we all came out yeah i mean not honestly i'll call that some shit you and my friends would have done from around town we grew up like in the middle of the country like we lit literally almost our town on fire once we like accidentally we almost were accidentally but we weren't but i probably just still and i did that when i was 11 um yeah it was fucked so we had like the driest like it didn't rain for forever spring break no spring break so it was like it was weird it didn't rain in the spring at all um And my friend lived on this house in the street, but behind his house there was like a hike like two miles into the woods, however many acres that is. And then one of the founders of the town lived next to him and had all these like huge fields like back there for whatever, like riding quads and shit. So we hiked up to one of them and we had these like dud like old fireworks.
And we let's light them off in this field. And it was just us three. And yeah, we lit one off and it went well. And then the second one went off, but like every single fire was bigger than the next.
So we're like, let's keep getting bigger. We had this pile. Then the second one lit a little patch of grass fire. We just stepped it out.
And we're like, oh, it's chill. By the time we got to the last one, it was like some burnt patches that we stepped out. But like this was a big, it was like double the size of anything we lit off so far. So we light it off and it starts going off and like the shit is like shooting up now.
So we're like, fuck, we can't get close to it to step out the fire around it. Now the other one, we just want to like step it out. But this time we're like, we're going to hit the face of the fireworks and we go up there to step the fire out. So we had to wait until the fire completely died out.
And by the time it did, it was like, the fire was like, it was like a rain. So it would burn and go out. And the middle would like, it was already out because it burnt out. So, but it's going like this.
We all immediately start screaming. We're crying. We're crying. We're going to step out.
I don't know what happened, but I just had this like instinctual. First of all, I want to say, our friend, our friend was like, let me run back down to my house and get water. I'm like, we're two miles. That's going to take you 45 minutes.
Right. Next thing I knew, I had my sweatshirt off and I was just beating the shit out of my mother. Yeah, my sweatshirt. And I look at them and then they had their sweatshirts off too.
And I saved the fucking day. I was a true fireman. That's a fireman. That's some Jersey sweatshirts in spring break.
That's a scary feeling being completely out of control. It's fire, fire, fire, fire. That's what I told my mom because I had to confess to someone. I was like, I felt hopeless.
And I was the scariest thing about it. Hopeless, sure. That's probably the first time I ever felt that. Anyone who was 11 years old?
Because you know, there's some serious charges for accidentally starting wildfires. I just wonder what happened when they're that much of a minor. Like 11 year old? But the town would have been done.
Do you ever feel like the days of, because now when you tell that story, like there's a reaction that's evoked from it from the audience. Even us on the set, like, wow, that's dangerous. Like you guys made that stop. You know what I'm saying?
Bro, that was every single fucking week of my life when I was a kid. Do you think that, like, do you think gone are the days of boys will be boys and like, like everything now is captured on video. Bro, I used to, bro, if there was an opportunity to throw a mailbox through a fucking window, that shit was gay, done. And now that shit's gonna be on video.
Like, bro, I, this is a great question. This is a phenomenal question. I'm obviously not provoking it or making people have any kind of desire to go out and put a baseball bat through a mailbox or throw a watermelon at a car or anything like that. But, you know, don't do that.
But like, at the same time, I'm like, that's all we fucking need. Is that over? No, no, it's not. I don't think so.
I think we're in a bubble in LA and especially with what we do gives us very limited time to think about other things like that and so we've grown up too. But we're actually staying in Laguna right now and we saw a bunch of like little kids riding their e-bikes around like cheesing cars. So they have a bunch of cheese on the windshield. What do you do?
They call it cheesing. I was like, what are you guys doing? Oh, we're cheesing cars. It's a new thing.
Well, because in my day, it was baloney and that tastes the pain. So I'm happy they're doing cheesings. It's just a little like frustrated driver type thing. Which is dangerous, but like to young kids in...
Oh, moving cars. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. They get the best stop signs.
They'll pull up and they'll have e-bikes. They're all on the electric bikes. That's what it is. Especially in Laguna.
That's probably in itself. You know, they're running around e-bikes. They're running with dirt bikes, though. Dirt bikes, yeah.
But even where we're from, not someone like, I'm just wondering. That's a tricky mission. You've got to be kind of skilled to be able to on the go on your e-bikes show a piece of cheese in a car and then escape because this has to happen. Like the car chases down.
Or like, or maybe not because who's that mad about cheese in a car? I was happy that it even happened because it was refreshing to see kids doing what I did once. I was like, you know, I can't be pissed right now because I did this shit. It works, probably.
Yeah, but okay. So it went from baloney, which would actually fuck up the car. The cheese, now it's like a kind of practical joke. Soon it's going to be water balloons, essentially completely ineffective and then just air.
But I feel like there's so many, I feel like there's so many things. I think the one that sticks out to me the most. And I also think it's slightly dependent on the family you come from or what your parents thought you about it. And so when I would go out, right?
And so when I would go out with my friends and it just snowed and, you know, on the East Coast what kids would do, you know, you build the igloo first and then one kid always wants the first snowball. And I would take off. I'd be like, this is one thing I couldn't do. And my mom didn't tell me not to do heroin.
She told me. It would have helped a lot. But she didn't want me throwing snowballs at the car so I would always leave. Luckily, the thing that saved me from the things I didn't walk away from is video.
That is the game changer for today's kids. Everything is being captured. Everything is being posted. So think about how much you used to be able to wiggle out of shit.
I'm having a TVT right now. So we used to go take air horns to the golf course by the house. We'd film that though. Sure.
So what's... See, now I don't like it. What's the thing you don't fuck with the man's back swing? We'd blow the air horn.
It was funny. But we filmed it, right? So it was either like, you're going to film it and have a good time. But at the end of the day, there's no harm done.
Snowballs and cars. You know the story of the kids who were like harmlessly throwing rocks off a bridge and one of them went through the window and killed the lady and the kids, four of them are in jail. What if he got a hundred grand on his golf swing? You know, that was the final...
Not in fucking Westlake, Ohio. But it's a scary thought that like young men, young everyone, humans are subject to everything being captured and documented for the rest of your life. Yeah, definitely contributes to my paranoia. Sure.
The other thing you do is being watched. Like the other day we were in a rental house and we were having a conversation in our kitchen and then we heard people outside like streamed the lens and I was like, I'll close all the windows. And I literally didn't have a conversation about anything I wanted to have that night because I was like, I was going to record it. Sure.
They're standing outside your house. How about the opposite of that though where you do literally record almost everything you're creating a legacy that's being recorded for the rest of your life? I don't know how I feel about that. Like, do I want to delete it when I'm becoming a father one day or do I not?
Like, is it like, how are we just going to be when our kids watch us when we were there each other? I hate the fact. I don't know if I'm thinking about it. It terrifies me.
One word of advice to someone who has gone through this a lot, don't ever hide your past. Don't ever be ashamed of what you've done. No, you can't. You don't even have the option now.
I understand that. But live that shit. Be proud of that shit. Everything you are right now and it will always be the same as this.
It's just a result of what you were the day before and the day before that. That's it. That's it. So don't ever probably, I've done so much nasty shit in my fucking life and I wouldn't change a single fucking thing.
Mike, but yours isn't on video though. It's written. It's written. I know it's not on video.
I know what you're saying, but I'm just saying, like, it's all just a pathway to being who you are. If you're proud of who you are now, then people would understand and you should appreciate and understand the things that led you to being the man you are. Sure, sure. I just, I have a fear that my kids are going to watch my vlogs that I'm like really not proud of.
But guess what? You're on camera. I can't do anything about it. You know?
It's just, it's just, the one thing makes sense because I'm going to see you doing some crazy shit. Oh, I'm allowed to do that. That's what concerns me because I'm not going to be able to say, like, truthfully, I can't say, yo, don't do that. No, really don't do that.
He'll go, dad, you fucking did it. In fact, here's the video I'm going to be posting on August 15th, 2017. I'll be like, AOLO gang, what's popping? And I'll be like, ah, shit.
So I'm not going to, I think parenting is going to, I think, move into a much more free-flowing, open relationship between a parent and child where it's not so strict like the boomers, you know? Like, you, this is my house. You live under my rules. I think it'll become more of a friendship.
A friendship. I would hope, you know? I mean, that's the goal anyways, right? I mean, there's obviously a balance to it because the kid needs it.
You got to tell the kid you don't touch the fucking stove. You know what I'm saying? Or, or, or, or, I'll go, and this is why I'm like, again, at 25, I don't know how I'm going to raise my kids. But I think it's going to be something along the lines of, what's up, uh, Rocky, you want to touch the stove?
Because I see you're like, kind of playing with it, looking at it. And she'll be like, yeah, I'll be like, okay, so I've done this, Rocky. I've been in the same position. I wanted to touch the stove.
And I did. It was very hot. And I got hurt badly. You know, that's my advice.
You do with it what you want because I understand she's going to have to live life for her own. Like, at the end of the day, experience is the best thing for growth and evolution. That was incredible. I was just looking at you doing that right there.
I don't know if anybody in the audience I'm going to be a dad. That was incredible. That's exactly how you should talk to your kids. That was incredible.
It's my advice. If you don't want to take it, that's on you. I'm sure you're going to figure it out for yourself. But I'm not going to sign up to be a parent to be just a parent, overbearing, controlling.
Like, that's not what I'm going to do. I feel like that's proven itself to never work, ever. Not never, but it has to be slightly better. I feel like they always rebelled.
True, true. Like, the reason that my head is on straight and I believe it is and I've been able to focus on and probably does the right things over the wrong is because I had a friendly relationship with my parents and they never said, don't do this shit. Like, they were, like, strict on things they needed to be. But, like...
I didn't want to let them down because they gave me so much freedom. Exactly, I love it. I was about to do... I don't even remember what it was, but I was about to do something bad, but I'm going to disappoint my dad and I'm just not going to fucking do it.
He never asked. He never said, don't do that, but I was like, you know, if you find out, why am I going to do that? It's going to be flushing on him the kid he raised. You know what I mean?
Maybe I thought a little bit differently, but... No, I think you're spot on. My parents were the same way. Kind of just like an open relationship.
Like, oh, you want to go play outside in the woods and skip along on the trees in the backyard? You're probably going to break an ankle, but, like, just be fucking careful. Then I broke my ankle. But, like, I was warned and I had that really nice relationship with my parents where I didn't feel like I was a slave in my own household.
I feel like it's just a human nature to rebel. Like, if you, like, follow this right guy, you're going to cheat on me. You're going to keep people on what they can have. You know what I mean?
Yeah, so... Yeah, it's the same with your parents. I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about your dad. Yeah, I was going to say that.
Because that's a... major moment in your guy's life. And I met him. I mean, he's an absolute sweetheart.
Thank you. And when I heard about that, obviously, my heart was broken for you guys. And it was after we had a little, like, beefing on Twitter and none of that mattered anymore. Yeah.
And I'm sure you guys felt something along the lines of, wow, there's some things in life that you just can't replace. And I just wonder how you guys move on from that and what your learnings are from it. Yeah, it's different every day, honestly. Like, when it first happened, he was just, like, a warrior for the whole situation.
Like, he had really gnarly cancer. Like you said, like, absolute sweetheart. But, like, he was just, like, the toughest guy but just, like, was a sweetheart on the outside. So he didn't want you to think he was a tough guy.
He had, like, quiet confidence about how he had about everything. You know what I mean? And he never let his hope die. Like, he got a tattoo right over he had gastrocephal cancer and he got a tattoo that never faded me right over where he got it.
And I truly think it never faded him and who he was in his soul and who he was, like, inside of his head. Even when cancer went to his brain, he's still, like, when he would snap a nose and he got moments of him, like, it was just, like, he didn't let it affect him. And he didn't let anybody around him see that it did. Warrior shit.
So it was, like, seeing him like that and then losing him, like, I live my life like that now where I'm just, like, I don't like the, even if it's, like, extreme, I just can't let it bother me because, like, none of my life, not there's been anything that I could possibly relate to his in any way in a situation that he stayed so strong in. Sure. So, like, yeah. We're living in the second year after losing him and people say, like, oh, no, he catches up with you after a year.
And my first year was pretty shitty so I was, like, what's the second year gonna be, like? And I think what I have to say about that is, like, if I'm ever feeling really down or just, like, fucking confused about who I am and all this shit, like, I understand how it could really fuck you up after losing someone who's so close to you because you start questioning the meaning of life and then you're, like, what the fuck's the point of it if my best friend isn't here anymore? And, like, the whole time my dad was, like, passing away, it was, like, a straight month of me just sleeping on the couch next to him and I was just, like, reassuring that wherever he was going was better than where we are. And then I literally convinced myself that for a full month.
I was, like, he's going somewhere way better than where I am. Why the fuck am I still here? Like, what's the point of carrying on? So, like, yeah.
It's fucking, it's a rollercoaster, honestly. I can't imagine, guys. It's just, like, yeah, the first he was really numb and I was, like, I felt guilty for not being as negatively affected as I should have been. I think it was, like, a lot of that had to do with the fact that, like, I feel like I kind of collected a piece of him.
Sure, sure, sure. Like, that warrior in me was, like, keeping me so strong. But as the years go on, like, I guess I'm able to process things a little bit better. I'm still not really able to think about it.
Like, I can't right now think and, like, start crying about, like, losing my dad. You know, he's the closest person to me besides my friend and brother. I can't, like, there's something I can do. And it's, like, this numbness that's so confusing and you can't really explain.
But I will say that, like, I was, like, pretty optimistic that I was going to be able to, like, not be fucked up from it. You know what I mean? I was going to be able to hold that. But, like, it's, like, proven itself that, like, yeah, it is going to fuck me up at some times.
It affects you. Yeah, yeah. It will forever. And I, like, I push the guilt aside when it does make me upset or when it does make me angry or however it comes out of me.
Like, I was guilty about that. But, like, for anybody that lost someone, like, you got to know that all your emotions are valid. Like, you're allowed to feel how you feel. Absolutely.
It's a personal experience for everybody. Grief is not the same for everybody. It's so different. Like, so, it's made me rush life in some aspects as well because I realized how quickly it can be done.
My dad was, like, 49, so, yeah. That's young. It just turned 50, like, and then passed away, like, weeks after. So, yeah.
And it's kind of making me rush wanting to have a family and everything, too, because I feel like I have a lack of a family. Like, my dad was a heart of my family. I have a very loving family and I see them a lot and I appreciate them. We talk all the time.
Your parents were still married? Yeah, yeah. How's your mom holding up? She's really tough as well.
I mean, like, she's like a warrior like him, honestly. I couldn't imagine they started dating in high school. Holy boy, this is fucking tragic. Yeah, yeah.