#897 - Hunter Maats

Hunter Maats (0:05)

Till How are you doing Tudo??

Joe Rogan (0:06)

Director I'm doing good. Now, that we're actually live, she feels more formal.

We're just talking about how crazy some of the people in Bryan Callen's past been. What is it like to do in his show, man? You guys... You're, like, a co-host. You keep him on the level?

Hunter Maats (0:19)

stamina 林 a couple of years ago, Bryan and I were talking about books and Bryan had just started doing his podcast at that point. I was at a point, and he was sort of interviewing strippers, a lot of strippers or porn stars or MMA guys, and that was fine, but I was like, Bryan, if you enjoy these books so much, why don't we get on some of these professors? And he was like, really?

Professors would talk to me, and I said, well, what are your download numbers? And he told me them, and then I went off, and I lied to the professors, and doubled or tripled them.

Joe Rogan (0:51)

How dare you? That's a way to do it, though.

Hunter Maats (0:53)

Yeah, and then as a result, they were all like, that's great, because if you're a New York Times bestselling author, you usually have an audience of three. And so if you have a chance to actually reach a decent number of people, then yeah, you're gonna come on this weird podcast. You're like, I've heard of podcasting. What is that? Why not, right?

And so we started getting all of these professors and academics and scientists and all of that stuff on, and that's sort of been the journey, and we're now 200 plus episodes in.

Joe Rogan (1:22)

Yeah, Bryan loves that kind of stuff, but how come he never talked about that on stage? He just, he wants to be Captain Silly Face on stage.

Hunter Maats (1:33)

Joe, are we willing to wander into the dark, dark place that is Bryan Callen's mind?

Joe Rogan (1:37)

Dark, dark place.

Hunter Maats (1:39)

Yeah, are you ready to go there?

Joe Rogan (1:41)

Yeah, I've been there, dude, for 20 years.

Hunter Maats (1:44)

So, I mean, a lot of it comes down to Bryan's own personal insecurities. Like, he loves it, but he doesn't feel confident engaging with and breaking with those ideas.

Joe Rogan (1:51)

See, I would disagree with that. I would say that he's just, his comedy, he prefers it to be silly, you know, because there's a difference between comedy and Bryan's mind, especially, between what's really funny and what's really deep, you know? And he doesn't find deep things to be very funny. He's not, he doesn't, you know what I mean? Like, he's, when he gets into deep subjects, he kind of gets into them just for what they are and not, like, tries to translate those into comedy. Does that make sense?

Hunter Maats (2:19)

It does make sense. I mean, but part of what I've seen across the course of, you know, these 200 episodes is I think that Bryan Callen is growing up.

Joe Rogan (2:27)

Oh, no way.

Hunter Maats (2:29)

Finally, at, like, whatever age he is.

Joe Rogan (2:31)

55

Hunter Maats (2:32)

55 Tomorrow. Yeah, there's starting to be an evolution. And part of it is just sort of having actually talked to some of the smartest people in the world. He's like, oh, these are just people. And, you know, they know certain ideas that I didn't know, and now I know them, and, you know, maybe I can. And he's even started experimenting with, he particularly got really excited. We had a guy called Joe Henrik on, who wrote this great book called The Secret of Our Success, which is all about cultural evolution, how cultural evolution works. And one of the things he talks about in there is, you know, why do we have black people and why do we have white people? And, you know, it comes down to vitamin D and folate and all these sorts of things.

Oh, I spent a lot of time in England, and I got rid of most of my accent, but there are weird words that come out, like vitamin and bean. And so sometimes people think I'm Canadian, which is, you know. Ah, that's hilarious.

Because they literally can't place it.

Side story, when I first went to college, I wanted to major in linguistics for a while, and I met with my linguistics professor, and he sits me down, and we're having a conversation just like this. And then all of a sudden, he stops me just like you did, and he says, wait a minute, and he proceeds to ask me these really fucking bizarre questions. He's like, if John and Jane are in a race, and John comes fifth, and Jane comes in afterwards, what position does Jane come in? And I was like, sixth? And he goes, British. And he proceeds to do all of these tests to basically spot my accent.