#2013 - Paul Rosolie

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

This is one of the rare times that Marshall's been in the studio during a show. Come here, bye-bye. Say hi to everybody.

Paul Rosolie (0:24)

You buddy.

Joe Rogan (0:25)

He's the best. He is the best. They're the best dogs. They're like universally sweet dogs.

Paul Rosolie (0:30)

They're such sweethearts. I just love that, like, my dogs, I can literally take a piece of meat out of their mouth, and they'll be like, is something better coming? Like, they're just so friendly.

Joe Rogan (0:40)

Yeah, there's no, like, worry about protecting themselves or survival.

My friend calls them love sponges. It's the best way to describe them.

Paul Rosolie (0:49)

Yeah, they're perfect creations.

Joe Rogan (0:51)

Hang out with us. We're going to be in here.

So, dude, first of all, I'm in your book right now. I just started it. It's insane. How the fuck did you even get the idea to do what you did? How does this take me through the first seeds of the thoughts that had you go to the Amazon?

Paul Rosolie (1:12)

When I was a kid, I remember very far back. I remember being a kid and going to the Bronx Zoo and looking.

They had an exhibit, I think it was in the House of Reptiles, where there's all these scientists, and they're holding a giant snake, and they're doing research, and they're protecting these places. And so I always had it in my head that, like, I want to see these places before they're gone. I grew up with a lot of, like, environmental stress. I really felt like this message of, like, we're losing the rainforest, we're losing elephants. I was like, I just...

Joe Rogan (1:40)

How did you develop that feeling?

Paul Rosolie (1:43)

I mean, my parents would, you know, read me Jane Goodall's books as a kid, and again, things like the Bronx Zoo, Steve Irwin.

You know, and I loved, I grew up, you know, and having access to, like, New York and New Jersey. I mean, there's such incredible forests there. At around...

Joe Rogan (1:58)

It's really, the New York, New Jersey forest thing. Like, people, for whatever reason, that don't live around there, they think New Jersey is, like, some vast wasteland. Like, New Jersey's, like, more bears per capita than anywhere else in the country.

Paul Rosolie (2:12)

There's amazing forests there. I grew up, like, you know, and then, like, by, like, 13 years old, I was like, you know, I had, like, a hunting knife and I would do one match and I'd bring my Golden Retriever into the woods, and we'd do, like, a mini solo, two nights, you know? And I have to make a fire with that one match. And it's like, I was always doing shit like this, like.

Joe Rogan (2:29)

So you always had, like, a call to that kind of life.

Paul Rosolie (2:32)

I always just, rivers, streams, forests, tracking bears, trying to figure out where the fox's hole is. Like, I liked spending time with animals in nature. And then, like, it just drove me crazy that, no matter how deep I would go, you know, in eastern forests, you always, like, come out the other side.

And I always was just, like, I want to find somewhere where it's, like, truly wild, like, where there's no limit to it. Like, what's the max? What's the highest you can turn this thing?

And I was terrible in school, failed all my classes, severely dyslexic, all that. And so I tried, actually, my wonderful parents were like, you do know that you can take a GED, skip the last two years of high school, and go straight to college. And I was like, I did not know that. So I did that. And then as I was doing that, I just said, you know what? I was like, I'm gonna go to the Amazon Rainforest. I had a professor that showed me a piece of wood, and he made a joke, like, oh, this is probably, like, Teague from the Amazon. And I was like, oh, yeah. I gotta get down there before it's too late.

Joe Rogan (3:26)

That's what it was.

Paul Rosolie (3:28)

That is what it was.

Joe Rogan (3:28)

I gotta get down there before it's too late.

Paul Rosolie (3:31)

Yeah. I mean, it's like, they're telling you that there's Jurassic Park. There's literally Anaconda dragons in these monster swamps, and there's Harpie Eagles taking howler monkeys, and there's all this incredible bustling life, and it's all vanishing. And I was like, well, I wanna see it before it's gone.

It's the greatest show on earth.