I love News Radio. The show was more brilliant than most people realize...totally underrated. Anyway, when I first started training, I was all excited to find out he was involved in the BJJ/MMA world...until I heard him talk. I wasn't surprised at his crassness (his character wasn't exactly an angel), but at the end of the day, words are very important to me and profanity, for my ears, is like someone giving me little shoves while they talk...basically I find it distracting and mildly aggressive.
So I just listened to one of his podcasts...this one was with Tim Ferris and I ended up there after reading a post from Slidey in a discussion about Lloyd Irvin's marketing. They covered...so much...from isolation tanks to aqueducts, hallucenogenic drugs to hogzilla. They mentioned Pimsleur and Seneca and made me realize that my high school was magical because it was a place where you had your choice of playing spades, hacky sack or Magic: The Gathering. The whole thing was like the trips down the Google rabbit hole that so often deprive me of sleep.
Getting past initial impressions is a funny thing. It's something I think I'm good at. I love my smart, objective introverts, but I have a lot of different personality types in my life, so I've gotten fairly adept and weeding through my own, personal tastes in humanity to reveal the people underneath their shells. With Rogan, the more I listened, the more I heard similar core values and perspectives on life and the world. Same with Tim Ferris...I'm not a fan of his work (I say that, but I do think 4 Hour Work Week had an impact on how I think), but I'm beginning to reconsider just the purpose he serves. Listening, I heard them have the same conversations I've had with my closest friends. I think it's just a certain type of people I'm drawn to and they come in a lot of different types of packages (which would explain my language learning...the more languages I speak, the more people I like I can find...probably why I set out to speak the 3 most common languages on the planet). At the end of the day, I think it boils down to people who are willing to reject cultural conventions they were raised with...not solely for the sake of being different or as an act of defiance, but because said conventions simply do not work for them. I guess it then makes sense how many of them cross the BJJ/MMA path.
So yeah...150 minutes later, I'd really like to talk to both Ferriss and Rogan...though likely separately.
So I just listened to one of his podcasts...this one was with Tim Ferris and I ended up there after reading a post from Slidey in a discussion about Lloyd Irvin's marketing. They covered...so much...from isolation tanks to aqueducts, hallucenogenic drugs to hogzilla. They mentioned Pimsleur and Seneca and made me realize that my high school was magical because it was a place where you had your choice of playing spades, hacky sack or Magic: The Gathering. The whole thing was like the trips down the Google rabbit hole that so often deprive me of sleep.
Getting past initial impressions is a funny thing. It's something I think I'm good at. I love my smart, objective introverts, but I have a lot of different personality types in my life, so I've gotten fairly adept and weeding through my own, personal tastes in humanity to reveal the people underneath their shells. With Rogan, the more I listened, the more I heard similar core values and perspectives on life and the world. Same with Tim Ferris...I'm not a fan of his work (I say that, but I do think 4 Hour Work Week had an impact on how I think), but I'm beginning to reconsider just the purpose he serves. Listening, I heard them have the same conversations I've had with my closest friends. I think it's just a certain type of people I'm drawn to and they come in a lot of different types of packages (which would explain my language learning...the more languages I speak, the more people I like I can find...probably why I set out to speak the 3 most common languages on the planet). At the end of the day, I think it boils down to people who are willing to reject cultural conventions they were raised with...not solely for the sake of being different or as an act of defiance, but because said conventions simply do not work for them. I guess it then makes sense how many of them cross the BJJ/MMA path.
So yeah...150 minutes later, I'd really like to talk to both Ferriss and Rogan...though likely separately.
Have you read The Four Hour Body? I'm not a fan of Tim Ferris, but that book is excellent. So many little nuggets of information on a wide range of training and nutrition subjects. Definitely worth getting from the library, if not Amazon :)
ReplyDeleteI might borrow it from a friend...it does sound like it's worth a review.
ReplyDeleteI group Ferris in the same group as Irvin, so I've yet to be tempted to read anything by him. I'll look forward to your review if you do, though. ;)
ReplyDeleteI used to love NewsRadio too, though I think I only watched the early series. I stopped watching the UFC when Joe Rogan became a commentator and I'm not generally a fan. For example, he used to (and I presume still does) have this rule on his personal forum:
"The posters here, especially the long time veterans have administered a rule that you must post porn within your first 10 posts or be ignored.
What the newbie porn rule DOES do is weed out Christians, those who would be offended by pornography, squares, and feminists."
I haven't paid much attention to him recently, so perhaps he's changed since then.
Though either way, he's definitely been a big help to BJJ, as if it wasn't for Joe Rogan talking about BJJ so much during BJJ commentary, quite possible it wouldn't be quite as popular as it is now. Just a shame he wasn't a Saulo, Renzo, Ralph etc guy, rather than an Eddie Bravo guy (though he does of course have rank under JJ Machado too).