Charlie Sheen’s Craziest Hollywood Stories and Why He Refuses to Believe the Official Story of 9/11

So, that interview that you did in 2011, the famous Tiger Blood interview, I watched that and I have never forgotten it.

And I never will forget it.

And here was my takeaway.

My takeaway was: this is a guy who's obviously in drugs, like there's a manic quality to it, which I recognized.

But despite that,

the life force and the talent, it was just so obvious.

And I thought to myself, how many actors, how many people could be whatever, an eight ball in the bag or whatever was going on with you personally and talk like that

and reveal so much to themselves.

I just thought there was something really great despite the craziness that came out of that interview.

And when I heard that you had, you know, gotten sober and were happy and pulled your life through and all that stuff, I was just, I was just thrilled.

Thank you.

For you, I mean that.

Thank you.

I just wanted to get that out of the way.

Thank you.

And that's why I wanted to talk to you.

I just thought that interview revealed something really impressive impressive about you.

Wow.

Wow.

Not everyone felt that way.

I don't think that.

No, that is

the only,

I mean, I'm the only person that complimented that interview.

Up to this moment in time in my life, that is the only positive review

I've ever received with that interview.

Oh, yeah.

So, this is, this is,

I'm going to sit inside this moment for

on a drug curve, having used drugs candidly, and I'm very against drugs, just to be clear.

But I was like, if someone can talk like that while he's impaired,

that's crazy.

Thank you.

What did people other than me think about that interview?

Oh, just that

it was the beginning of the end.

It was the moment when

the,

yeah, when

it just, I had completely left the reservation.

And there was

fair.

Yeah.

That I think people might have respected the commitment to it.

That

I knew there was no turning back.

You know,

I do do respect that, man.

You burned your boats.

Yeah.

If you're going to go, I mean, all the way is the only direction that you know, right?

You definitely went.

How long?

So do people approach you and say, you got to make a change or do they stop talking to you?

Or like, how, what was the response?

What do you mean, right after that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There was, there was fallout.

There was fallout, you know, especially what was going on with the network and the show and, you know, all the, all the, all the high stakes elements in play, you know?

Yeah, I, I, I, it's weird because I've, I've, I've watched it and I've watched it just on this recent tour as it's been referenced and played and in clips and stuff.

And, and it's, it's, uh,

it's like watching somebody else.

Yeah.

It's like, it's like I kind of look the same.

I mean, I look kind of the beat up version of me, the very fatigued version of me.

Sound at sleep was not, you know, something I

picked up there.

Yeah, no.

And it's interesting, the

quality of my voice, did you notice that?

No.

Just the grovel and the depth and the thing.

And I was like, yeah, that was from the testosterone cream,

which I was doing

heaping amounts of.

In the book, I describe it as slathering on like a, like a freaking Pons commercial.

So what, that's, it's, it's interesting that everyone's all for hormone treatments now for kids, but I think it's still forbidden to want to use testosterone cream.

I've never used anything like that, but I'm interested, like, what does that do?

It was, um, in the doses, it was, it was prescribed and, and, and recommended to be applied at, um,

that, uh,

you know, following those dosage guidelines, um, it was, it was for enhanced,

you sexual enhancement,

more lean muscle mass, more energy.

When you exceed those,

40x,

then

it can metabolize into what's essentially a Reut rage.

Wow.

So that was a lot about what was going on during that whole thing.

That's why I couldn't pull the train back into the station, you know, that

once it once it got away from me.

you just become the incredible Hulk.

Pretty much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's, but just during this time and

even, you know, working on some of that,

that chapter in the book,

there's something that dawned on me.

It's like I turned into the, I, I became that thing that, the, which I, I, I detest most, and that was a bully.

Yeah.

I became a bully, you know, and I could say, I was bullied as a kid and I wanted to see how it felt from the the other side.

So what, right?

It didn't, it didn't feel good from the other side, you know, bullying is still like not cool.

Yeah.

Still sucks.

Would you recommend testosterone lower doses?

I would.

I would because I've, in, in recent years, have, have, have used it responsibly and have had, have gotten

the results that were promised or

that I was expecting.

Yeah.

Is there a downside um to responsible use

i i don't i don't i hope not i don't know i don't know they are finding uh downside uh uh you know in long-term use to uh hgh yeah to human growth hormone you know um i believe that yeah if it's gonna if it's gonna make things grow then if you got you know if you got a tumor or something that's that's kind of been lurking it can bring that thing um

into

you some larger form.

Men with prostate cancer typically have their testosterone reduced medically

because it feeds the tumor.

So that makes sense.

I don't use shaving cream or fluoride toothpaste, so it's like not my world, but I'm interested.

Have you tried the toothpaste from Wellness?

No, I use the Dr.

Browner's.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

We grew up on Dr.

Browner's.

So did I.

That's why I use it.

Yeah, we ate his chips and everything.

Yeah, it was the Southern California thing in the 70s.

Remember Healthy Hunza?

No, but I just, you know, you use the Castile soap with all the weird sayings on the side.

We are one.

It was like a hangout from the hippie era.

That's the stuff my mom bought us.

Exactly.

That's exactly how I grew up.

Yeah.

And I still use it to this day.

Oh, really?

Yes, I do.

Wow.

I no longer use Dr.

Zog's surf wax.

Remember that?

Best for your stick?

That's right.

That probably doesn't exist.

But

so

you got better.

you got sober after that.

How long did it take from that interview tell sobriety?

So that was 2011?

Yep.

Yeah, no, it got pretty dark after that.

Even though I did another, somehow managed to do another TV show.

It's still in the middle of all that.

You know, I mean, I was able to pull it back and

present,

you know, nicely enough,

at least walk into a room and

actually, can I just go back just a sec?

One of the things I loved about that interview was the hostility that you so clearly had.

I mean, it just was obvious toward like the whole class of people who profit from the creatives in Los Angeles.

Right.

And, you know, the agents, the managers, just that whole constellation of people.

And you clearly were at war with them.

And yet the way the system is set up, even now, you were telling me at breakfast, like it's necessary.

Like you can't really work without participating in that system.

So how did you fix those relationships?

Time.

Just over time.

And

just,

you know, working on myself.

And

yeah, and

those relationships can only be fixed if.

if both parties are still in the game.

Yeah.

You know, so I think, I think that helped.

but the stuff I talk about in the book

about that time was that

it was that tour that, that really, um, was ill-advised, you know, and that was not my idea.

And, and I'm still not sure how I allowed myself to get talked into it, you know.

Um, yeah, everybody blames Mark Berg, but it wasn't Mark's, it really, really wasn't Mark's brainchild.

It was Live Nation.

They, they, they watched all of that and like they're,

through their filter, they saw that as taking that on the road.

Yeah, we got to get this man into expensive hotel rooms.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yes.

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Well, it's not even about their performance.

It's about the experience of being on the road, which anyone who's ever done it can tell you.

I mean, there's a reason so many performers wind up with these really tragic personal lives, which is like being on the road is not good for you at all.

Yeah, no, it was especially really not good for me.

I mean, on a good day, it's not good for a good person.

Yeah.

But an addicted person is just going to like, so what, what happened?

What was it?

It was 21 cities in like

31 days with no act.

With no act.

But Jeff Ross did come in and rescue a good portion of it.

So that was.

Did they call Jeff like midway through?

They called him like right after the second show.

Yeah.

I mean, we bombed right out of the gate.

So what was that like?

It It was awful.

It was awful.

Did you know that it was bad when it was happening?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

No, it was, it was an absolute train wreck.

It was complete bed shit.

No, it's fine.

I'm sorry to laugh at your mouth.

No, fortunately.

I'll take it because there's a thing I talk about in the book that,

you know, the

Hemingway's,

you know,

to

become a man, you know, his, his list, right?

You got to, uh, you got to, you got to fight a bull, you got to have a son and plant a tree.

Yeah.

Right.

He left out

being booed off stage in Detroit on opening night.

Yeah.

It was, we didn't make it.

We didn't make it to the second act.

Wow.

And then Simon Rex, you know who he is?

No.

He's an actor and he'd done some rapping and he had this one song that I really dug.

And so he was going to perform it, you know, and I was getting pelted with stuff, like

not food, but like programs and shoes and whatever anybody could throw.

And he was in the wings.

And so I started like motioning him out.

So you're actually on stage.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's, it's turning violent.

There's his, we are like

on the verge of bedlam.

And so I wave him out and I, and I switch places with him.

I'm done.

It's over.

And he tried to do his song and they kept they went harder on him.

And then he told me afterwards he said dude you can't like you have to he says you completely overlooked the fact that you that you brought a a a white rapper out on stage in detroit who wasn't eminem and expected the crowd to be satisfied you know wait but what

we're skipping over like the key part which is what did you do to make the crowd so mad

um stuck to the script that was absolute dog shit this thing that i built back home thinking yeah and then we'll do this and then we'll do that and then the girls will come out.

And just all this stuff that I was imagining would be crowd-pleasing stuff.

But they just literally wanted me on stage just screaming those dumb slogans.

They wanted more tiger blood.

Yeah, they wanted, you know, more seven gram rocks.

They wanted more Adonis DNA.

And what I, you know, finally explain in the book is that none of that, the biggest irony in this whole thing,

none of that stuff was my original material.

I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't cook all that, all that stuff up.

No, it came from a phone call from a baseball player like three days before I sat down for the interview.

And it was supposed to, it was, I think it was delivered as a pep talk.

Like in some dugout?

No, um, there's a guy named Brian Wilson.

He, he, he used to pitch for the Giants.

They called him the beard, right?

Great ball player, super dude.

And I was watching a highlight package of him one night.

And I just, I, I don't know, there was something about his magnetism, his presence, all of it, right?

And I told my friend Tony Todd, I said, get, get him on the phone.

I want to speak to that man, right?

And the next day I was on the phone with him.

And I think it was before the season started.

And he, he just, he, he just volunteered.

He said, it's, hey, it's a pleasure to talk to you, man.

And it was already known that,

you know, the train had left the tracks with my show and the beef with Chuck and all that stuff was already in play.

So he says to me, he says, you know, we're not like other people.

We're not.

We're different, man.

We got, we, you know, we got, we got tiger blood running through our veins.

We got a, uh, we got a substrate of Adonis DNA that doesn't allow guys like us to ever lose because we're always winning, right?

This is all him giving me this material.

So, and he's, he's probably thinking, cool, man, that's gonna, that's gonna make him feel better,

at least for today.

And,

you know, maybe, maybe he'll, he'll, you know, make some progress with this other other mess right and then the interview comes around and there was something that she did say it's not that no part of it was her fault I mean no part was the ABC lady yeah Andrea Canning and so she made a crack to the two gals that I had shacked up with right and

and then she tried to continue like on to her next question and I was like whoa whoa whoa whoa you you owe them an apology And she was like,

okay, my bad.

I apologize.

I'm sorry.

I'm like, thank you.

And so then she tried to continue the interview and I started grinding on it.

I wouldn't let it go, even though she apologized.

And we should have just moved past it and we didn't.

And

so that's, that's when the whole thing just came out.

I suddenly felt like I'm, I'm going to be delivering another interview and checking every box that they want.

And I'm supposed to show remorse and I'm supposed to show,

you know, all of those, all those things that, that,

you know, that, that, that you sit down and do that interview and, and deliver, you know.

Which, I mean, that was the point of the interview, right?

That was set up because you have to go through this ritual.

Right.

Yeah.

I think that's what they were expecting.

And I think I might have agreed to it on those terms.

And

yeah,

I flipped the script sort of midway through.

And then

I had all of his material.

And it was just sort of like, you know, it was there, man.

It was on standby.

It was kind of kind of on a loop, just looking for the right venue.

And there it was.

And it all just flew out.

And that, that's what started that whole thing.

Did he call you?

Did he see it?

The ball?

Yeah.

He was probably like, oh my God, what have I done?

What have I done?

I gave my best stuff to the wrong guy or the most right guy ever, you know?

So I felt maybe I'm shallow.

I'll just do it.

I felt like you created a kind of art I felt like that was like a thank you I did think no that's I do think that's awesome thank you um and most lines are other people's lines so there's no shame in that thank you okay good good yeah um

no and oh and for years I didn't want I didn't think it was fair to to trying to lasso him into the craziness so I always kept it

kept him out of it.

I kept Brian out of it, which I felt was the right thing to do.

And then and then over time, I did start admitting that, yeah, that

wasn't my material.

It didn't come up with any of that stuff originally.

And then with the book and

this tour, I've just said, yeah, it was, it was, it was Brian, it was that guy.

Do you still talk to him?

Yeah, I spoke to him about a year ago because we asked him to be in the dock.

And he said he was going to do it.

And

he just changed his mind, didn't want to.

And that's fine.

That's fine.

he doesn't have to revisit it um i i kind of do so and well i was telling stories in about it in the dock where i was already anticipating them cutting to him for his side of it so it would have made sense if if if he was there but no i don't there's no love lost at all about that you know

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

I'm again, totally pro-sobriety.

On the other hand, it's just nice to to see vigor in a man in a world filled with men without vigor that, you know, I'll take a little craziness.

I just wrote that word to somebody yesterday.

Which?

Vigor.

Yeah, it's much needed.

Yeah, no, somebody wrote something to me.

Hey, this thing, or did you guys do this, something, something?

And I, and I was sitting there for like four minutes, and I finally...

wrote back with vigor.

Yeah, exactly.

So yeah, we knew a little Teddy Roosevelt, right?

And I saw a little cocaine-infused Teddy Roosevelt in that

interview.

So you go on tour, Live Nation decides, hey, we can profit from this guy.

Yeah.

Not to impute low motives to Live Nation.

No, of course not.

No, no.

Yes.

And so you, and you bomb the first two nights.

So then they call Jeff Ross, the Toastmaster General, to come in and save, which not stupid, actually.

No.

Did he do a good job?

He did a great job.

Yeah, of course.

He did a great job.

But what surprised me is that

the set that he rolled out with, he showed up in a hazmat suit, like he was there to clean up a, you know, the radioactive spill, right?

Which he kind of was.

And the crowd loved it.

And his jokes were terrific.

And I'm like, wow.

And then I just figured he would be, then we get to the next city and he would come out with a different set.

And he didn't.

He just stuck to the ones he had assembled and built and

they already killed.

And he figured that the next city hadn't heard them yet, but everything was in the paper because there's no internet or something.

Right, yeah.

And he just stayed with it, you know.

And then one night he couldn't make it.

So, um, do you know who Chuck Zito is?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Chuck was helping me with security during the tour.

And I said, Chuck, I think it's going to be funny if like you, you come out and just take the podium and say, Jeff Ross couldn't make it tonight.

So

I have his material and I'm just going to go through them one by one.

And he did.

And it bombed.

It bombed.

But it bombed.

Maybe your security guy read Jeff Ross's set.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wearing his leather jacket and the whole thing, not Jeff's.

It's like so meta, actually.

I would have enjoyed that.

Yeah, I did enjoy it.

It's kind of high concept.

I was on stage.

For a stadium show.

Checking up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Chuck Zito filmed in for Jeff Ross.

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So when you get off stage the first two nights when you bomb and people are throwing things at you, giving you the old Islamic shoe treatment,

like what have,

what do your people say when you get back?

They're like, good job, Charlie.

No, they were like, huh, okay, we really have to sit down and figure out if there's any way, like, what it's going to cost you to issue like all of those those refunds.

They were, yeah.

Refunds.

Yeah.

Actually, the second, it was really just the first night.

I was wrong about that because something did happen between Detroit and Chicago.

Something usually does.

Yeah, right.

Between those two cities.

Yeah.

Especially on a tour bus.

Yes.

No.

So I.

I said, okay,

everything that we had planned,

just leave it right where it belongs in the toilet where it wound up, in the sewer, in the gutter.

we are scrapping everything and they said okay all right good start um

good you know okay cool sheen you're reading the room man um and was it the shoes

yeah

partly it was that last high heel um and and and i said i uh i think i have a fix They were like, well, do you want to share it?

I'm like, no, no, I don't have it yet.

So

I'm going to ride the tour bus.

I'm not going to fly.

I'm going to take the bus from Detroit to chicago by myself and i just need uh i need a notepad and and two pens and i did and i just rewrote the entire show alone on that trip knowing that it was it was do or die because they were all because i knew that tour was also um it was it was the child support tour

oh yeah yeah because warners was hanging on to all my dough They were keeping my dough hostage because I'd violated all the morals clauses and I acted in bad faith and therefore they didn't have to pay me what they owed me, you know?

And I was like, well, hold on a minute.

Anyway, they ultimately had to, but I had to assume to get my

get my scratch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How about that?

So I couldn't surprise.

So anyway, so that, yeah, so I did go on that thing.

There, there,

there were, there were some noble

motives behind it or motivation, rather.

Just to have some dough to, you know, keep everybody housed and fed right because you have a big tribe yeah yeah big enough um

and so bigger than average bigger than average yeah i mean that as a compliment yeah thank you thank you yeah i and and and plenty of room at any any any stage of it at any any any table that that we sit down at there's plenty of room for everyone you know beautiful um thank you and so we get to chicago and so i go there in the morning and they're like what are you doing here The talent never shows up until five minutes for, you know, sound check or whatever.

And I said, I just need to see, I need to see the theater.

I need to feel the building.

They're like, okay.

Where were you playing in Chicago?

Do you remember?

I couldn't tell you at gunpoint.

The theater, probably.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was nice.

It was vintage.

It felt dumb.

Yeah, yeah.

That's

right.

Yep.

So,

so I basically decided that it was just going to be like with a moderator.

Right.

Smart.

Yeah.

And I said, I just need two chairs, you know, just at the, you know, facing each other, just behind the curtain.

And I wrote this letter, and I'm sure it's on video somewhere.

And, um, and I wrote, and

I wanted the chairs just behind the curtain so I could come, I could walk out first, deliver this, this love letter to Chicago.

about, you know, what happened in Detroit.

And the whole thing was a mislead about, you know, I've, I've, I've, I've fought in the jungles of Vietnam.

I've, I've been through the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

hellscape of, of,

you know, the volcanoes of, you know, just this whole like,

like mythological,

uh, just this thing where it felt like, and then the whole thing kind of ends with, uh, and that was just opening night in Detroit.

And I said, uh, and then, then the whole place went nuts and I knew knew I had them.

And then the curtains parted and we sat in the chairs and we just talked about everything.

We just talked about it.

How did it play?

It played great.

And then everybody, you know, all the Vlimation guys and, you know, the agent types and everybody that was around, they were like, you rescued the show, man.

Good for you.

You've rescued the show.

Well, sincerely, good for you.

No, it was, it was, it was cool.

And so we went with that.

And then that kind of petered out because it wasn't like at the energy level that everyone was because you weren't pivoting against disaster exactly yeah yeah and then that's then a little bit later they that's when they brought jeff in because they're like okay we got we got we got our you know we got we got our bearings let's let's let's ramp it up but in a in a in a sense you know just in a in a in a sensible way i think what did you think of working live like that

um

it was exciting yeah it was exciting yeah and i i i made the decision to um start entering from the back of the auditorium, you know, like there everybody.

Not from backstage, but from the audience side.

Like from like the exit door.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just,

I don't know.

I don't know why.

Just

it was just cool.

Just everybody was expecting me there.

And I.

I would run up the aisle, high five and everyone, you know, and just to break it up, just to keep it.

I don't know.

Yeah.

No, it was a trip.

I've seen the shows that you've done.

Yeah, no, I love it.

I hope that that whole form continues, whether I can participate in it or not.

I think it's important for people to be physically present with each other.

You seem really comfortable in those situations.

Oh, I like people.

Yeah.

You like to smell people.

Yeah, I don't like, that's my main problem with the internet is I think it just disaggregates people from actual people.

Sure.

There's no, it was like, there's a person there, but everyone's sort of reduced to his dumbest opinion or most.

provocative opinion.

I'm not against those, obviously, but I think that's not the whole story about people.

And it's just, just, I just like people.

It's like good to be with people.

I like physical contact.

I hate the COVID

era because of its lack of physical contact.

I just, I mean, these are not like groundbreaking ideas, but no, I just like being with people.

Yeah, for sure.

What's the point?

Otherwise, yeah.

So, how much were you partying on tour?

Not

see that, and I covered that in the book also is that they sent

the head of the network, Les Moonvest, to my house

with the Warner Jet like fueled up and idling on the runway to take me to rehab.

Like right after the ABC interview?

Yes.

And

I said,

I appreciate it.

It's also Les not lost on me that

this is the first time that the jets ever been made available to me during the whole run of two and a half, right?

Was to put me in rehab.

That's fine.

And I said, but I'm going to do this at home.

I'm going to do this at home.

And then the look on his face was, man, I felt he, he, he, he was saddened.

He, he actually felt for me.

I could, I could see the good for him.

Yeah.

And it had nothing to do with commerce.

And I, and I write that in the book.

Good, dude.

I also describe him as a, as a good dude and a fucking gangster.

No one's yelled at me yet about that because we're supposed to keep him.

right, parked in the cornfield.

Yeah, I mean, I think the assumption is in this business, and especially in your part of the business, you know, you got to be a pretty tough character to get to the top, right?

Yeah.

I don't think non-gangsters run big entertainment organizations.

Right.

Or they never have.

They never have.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not an insult.

I'm not judging.

Sure.

But yeah, no,

I think it requires that.

So

you never went to rehab?

No,

I did a rehab at home.

What's that?

Not a rehab.

Not a rehab.

Well, there were a rehab with cocaine.

No, there was no dope.

There was no drugs.

There was no dog.

Actually, yeah, there was girls.

Yeah.

There was girls and testosterone cream.

That's the one thing I didn't quit.

And that's, that was probably the one thing.

I probably should have stayed on the Coke and gotten off the cream.

Can you imagine like a doctor recommending that?

You know, that's super interesting.

I've never heard that before.

So you think the testosterone cream used at 40X recommended doses was worse for you than the cocaine?

Well,

I think it was doing more damage to my psychological state.

Interesting.

Yeah, because the Coke is kind of predictable.

Oh, of course.

You know what you're going to, you know, how it's going to, yeah, how you're going to behave in certain situations.

Yeah.

And that other stuff was just like, ooh, it was a trip to the outer limits, you know.

Really?

Yeah.

But like the really like kind of

the angrier part of the outer limits, like the testier part, the more edgy part.

Yeah, it's like the more than cocaine.

Yes.

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so did anybody wow that's i'll think about that did so i did i did stop

did anyone ever say to you you know it's good to get off the you know the narcotics but like testosterone cream when slathered in the amounts you're slathering is like pretty heavy did anyone ever say that to you um

yes but but a couple months before that um do you know nick cassavetes he's a director he's a writer he's an old friend of mine is he's the son of john cassavettes yeah nick directed and wrote the notebook.

Yes.

Everybody's favorite romantic comedy, right?

It's not a romantic comedy.

It's a

love story.

So,

sorry, Nick.

Call this film a comedy.

You might want to cut that.

Well, you laughed and cried.

Yeah, you laughed and cried.

Yeah.

So

he, we were in Palm Springs, and I don't know at what stage in the in that whole thing, that that whole time it was, but he did say, hey, man, I noticed

that

you're using like a lot.

They recommended like the, you know, the size of a dime and you had like five silver dollars in your hand.

Yeah.

And he said, you just, um, just think about, think about cutting back a little bit.

And I was like, you got it, man.

Thank you.

Good advice.

I appreciate it.

Just ignore, ignore.

So, yeah, he, no, but you mean like in the moment, in that thing, while it was going on, did anybody say?

Yeah.

um, I didn't really broadcast what I was doing.

I don't think people would think to look for that, exactly.

Testosterone cream.

I mean, I didn't even really know that was a thing, but if I had known it was a thing, I wouldn't really think about it,

you know, and think like the crack is the problem, but it turned out.

So, when you

was it hard to stop using the illegal stuff?

Um,

yes, and no, I

missed it just physically for

like a like a week, you know, but I wasn't on any opiates.

So the Coke detox is pretty quick, you know.

But it's

the other stuff gave me the energy and just a different mindset to just to not even think about what my body was feeling.

Yes.

You know,

so then,

because you asked like how, how long,

yeah.

So then then that, that, um, but when I came back from the tour is when I, is when I, I went, I went dark.

Interesting.

Went dark and stayed dark.

Yeah.

Usually it's the other way around

when people are on the road.

Yeah, no, it, um, I, I, I just wanted to finish it.

I just wanted to honor that commitment.

As crazy as, as that commitment was, I knew there was, there was, um,

there were a lot of, there would have been a lot of consequences I didn't want to deal with had I not done every city, every,

you know, every leg of the

job.

Yeah, yeah, so and you're pretty work-oriented anyway, right?

Yeah, yeah, I have, I have that gear, yeah, yeah, you know, me too.

That's important, it is, yeah.

But it was after that, I think, I think the come down from it, just finally like landing and, and sitting with the damage I'd done to myself and my career and my, you know, and, and, and then, you know,

how that affects my family, you know.

Um,

yeah, I just had to just

close the blinds, turn off the phone and

yeah, get back into the hard stuff, you know.

How long did that last?

Uh, about

three months, four, four months, I think, maybe longer, maybe six-ish.

But not six years.

No, no.

Because then a couple other things happened as a result of that dark place, you know.

But as far as finally putting it down for real,

it was,

yeah, it was, it was December 12th, 2017.

So how, I guess my core question is how, and I'm asking this not for prurient reasons, but to inspire others, like, how did you do that?

Because I do think there are a ton of people who want to do that, but keep failing.

Sure.

I, I just, my body was really starting to send the kind of messages that that

you either pay attention to or you die from.

Yes.

You know, I'd never had the shakes before.

I'd never had the DTs before.

Oh, did you get the DTs?

Yeah.

And

just from, and not from being off of anything for a week, just from like going to bed drunk and then waking up and not being able to function until, you know, I got a few pops in me just to just reel on my compass.

Yeah.

So that was, that was one.

And then how scary are the DTs?

Terrifying.

Yeah.

Terrifying.

People die from that.

They do.

Yeah.

And then, you know, and I, I, for the longest time, I thought, you know, I thought Nick's portrayal in leaving Las Vegas, Nicholas Cage,

I thought it was over the top.

I'm like, that's an exaggerated example of it.

And no,

he nailed it like spot on.

And just the thing about you can't, you can't, you can't take a drink because you'll, you'll break a tooth.

Yeah.

And then, you know, a couple of days later, you're puking blood.

So your body is like saying, hey, man,

yeah, we, we have these, these, these, this built-in warning system, this, these flashing red lights for a reason, you know?

Um,

and then

in- What's interesting is,

you know, I think people imagine that the delirium tremens are like something that 80-year-old winos get.

Right.

But you like weren't that old and you'd had a job the whole time.

Sure.

Right.

So you're functioning actually and you still got them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It gets you faster than you realize.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And then you're the example of that.

You're the character in that story.

You promised you made a sacred vow to yourself that you would, you would, you would never star in.

in that story.

Yeah.

And it's just like,

so there's a lot of, you know, self-loathing.

There's a lot of, of course, yeah.

But then, you know, I have an athletic background and

I'm competitive.

And so it was about a challenge of, okay, it's me against this thing.

How tough are we?

You know, how much tiger blood is really running through these veins, you know?

The Adonis substrate.

Yes.

And so.

Yeah, and there's a really nice moment in the book.

There was a thing with my daughter Sam,

you know, in a car one day, just like, it isn't like this grand event where I, you know, got in a shootout with the cops and hijacked a blimp and wound up, you know.

Just a blimp.

You know what I'm saying?

Like

if you could hijack a blimp, I'd be impressed.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

That's that's a box I've never checked, but it's not a bucket list moment.

So that's good news for the blimp industry, right?

Yeah, and it was just, it was this really personal,

very soulful, painful moment with my daughter that just made me realize in that moment, it was, it was time.

Cause there's a, there's a theme in the book about, you know, talkers and doers,

you know, and it was time to, as I say in the book, to

there was nothing left to say.

It was time to shut the fuck up and get busy doing.

And then that, like that night and the next day

took a few volume, had a few beers and then the next morning decided we're done

we're done for real and it just happened to be cassandra's birthday my oldest daughter it's just timed out like that cosmically you know that there's there's themes and tones in the book about that kind of stuff where you know certain circles close when they're supposed to you know and certain things align because they have to you know everything's about timing because

that's just just the way it is sometimes.

Yeah, it's pre-written.

Yeah.

Or feels that way anyway, sometimes.

What, so what was that?

Okay, so it's one thing to decide.

Lots of people decide.

Right.

Everyone struggling with addiction has made many decisions on Sunday morning.

I got to shut this down.

Sure.

But then you don't.

Right.

Because it's awful.

So was it awful?

No.

Really?

No.

It was, it was, it was, I mean, it was a little shaky for a week, but I, I knew that.

I had enough experience with, you know, star stop, star stop, you know, for a bunch of years.

So I knew,

you know, what that path in front of me was going to look like, but it was a really short path.

Really?

Yeah, I knew it wasn't going to be, you know, a long walk into the, you know,

the end of the forest.

No, it was like, it was like from here to the, that park bench right over there, you know.

Wow.

Yeah.

And I just, I just rewrote, I, I, I wouldn't commit to the same stories I'd been told told to worship for so long.

I said, I'm going to rewrite everything about this.

What were the stories you've been told to worship?

Just the stuff

in and around the rooms of AA that you're.

So you've been to AA before.

Yeah, a combined 21 years.

What?

Yeah.

So it isn't a guy that just did a few meetings and went, ah, it doesn't work for me.

It was a guy that really committed to it and did the steps like a bunch of times.

You did?

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

I sponsored people.

I was deep into it.

But but it never felt like it was celebrating the victories.

It was always making everybody, just in my experience,

making me rather, um, be prepared for impending doom, for the ultimate disaster that I was always on a collision course with, you know,

that as long as you've got something, some,

you know, some disease on board that is, that is ultimately going to control your behavior.

I couldn't subscribe to that any longer.

I couldn't do it because add to that that subsequently, you know, I have a legitimate disease on board that is life-threatening.

And, you know, I take medicine every day and it's not life-threatening.

It's as manageable as diabetes, right?

But I've, and then the doctor said, if you don't take this medicine, you'll die.

And that's not something, that's not like you don't, there's no other version of that conversation, you know, that is, that's, that's undebatable, right?

So you just follow that protocol and stay alive and live a, you know,

a happy, healthy, fulfilling life, right?

Yes.

But AA says, um, you know, you got Southern disease on board.

If you don't go to these meetings every day or make that a part of your, of your, of your regular,

you know, your, your, your,

your curriculum,

you know, um, then then

what's in you will kill you.

So I took the pills, I'm alive, didn't go to a single meeting, and I'm coming up on eight years.

That's amazing.

Well, I'm just a rare example of a guy that understands the, the, the,

you know, the physiological reality of a disease you can see under a freaking microscope, right?

Versus one that I think was born out of necessity to keep people

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It's worth it.

It's interesting.

I didn't get so worth AA either.

And I always felt like I wanted to de-emphasize that part of me.

Like, why would I want to marinate in ugly things?

Right.

Don't want to stay positive and forward-looking.

I like the AA meetings I've been to have brought other people to, really.

I like the honesty and camaraderie of it.

But I do think you're making a point that's impossible to ignore.

You don't want to focus on, it's not healthy to focus on the downside all the time.

No, and that's what

you're reminded of.

And

it's drilled in any time you step in.

And then if their slogan is keep coming back,

that implies that you're going to be coming back because something else has taken control.

And

it's what they call a no-fault disease.

What What does that mean?

Just that

it went bad again, and it's not my fault.

You know,

I always felt it was all my problems have all been my fault, 100% my fault.

Likewise, likewise, thank you.

Yeah, yeah, otherwise, it's like nothing to apologize for, right?

Yeah,

um,

yeah, no, I, I, um, it just, I, I never felt,

uh,

I never felt celebrated there.

I always felt

there was just

like an just this weird air of suspicion and

expectation,

you know.

Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't miss it.

I don't miss it.

And, and, you know,

I didn't put down the bottle to then,

you know, close all the bars.

or or or uh

you know convince others that this is this has to be their path as well.

That's not, you know,

I quit drinking to live in the real world

happily and successfully, you know.

Well, I agree with you on that.

Yeah.

There's a bar right behind you that I've never touched, but I like bars.

Oh, I do too.

I hate drunkenness, but I love bars.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah, no, there's an energy in a bar you can't find

anywhere else.

In fact, in the decline of bars in the United States, mirrors a kind of societal collapse where no one is with anyone else.

I mean, again, I'm a sober person.

I don't like, I don't drink.

I would never drink.

I hate alcohol.

However, I love the idea of people getting together and laughing and telling vulgar jokes and like hugging each other in sloppy ways.

Like, that's a bar.

I like that.

Yeah.

Or to watch the big game.

100%.

Yeah.

And like, that's actually died.

People have gotten less sober, but at the same time, everyone's on something, it seems like to me.

But there are no bars.

Nobody goes to the bar.

That's gone away.

I think so.

I mean, I'm a little bit cut off, but I it does feel that way.

Interesting, interesting.

I mean, do you know people who like go to the bar?

Do you know anyone who picks up members of the opposite sex in a bar?

I've no one has shared a story like that in recent memory.

Exactly.

Yeah, interesting.

So, I'm not like endorsing, you know, bar hookups or whatever, but as compared to what, like, I don't know, it's just important for people to be together.

That's all I'm saying.

I agree.

And that was a place for them to do it, which I always liked.

But I have to add that, you know, anyone that's doing AA successfully and it's a part of their life and

it's the reason that they can have the life that was given back to them or that they claim, you know, reclaimed, then absolutely.

Well, of course, AA wonderful for so many people.

I completely agree with that.

I mean, I'm always talking up AA, though I don't, you know, I'm not an A guy, but I, but no, I think you're making an important point, which is you don't want to, alcohol is the center of your life when you're addicted to it.

And the goal is to make it not the center of your life.

Right.

Right.

That's how I've always felt.

I don't want to think about alcohol, actually.

I don't either.

I don't either.

Yeah, I thought about it a lot

while I was drinking.

Oh, I know.

While I was drinking.

And I don't, this idea that you have to identify as an alcoholic.

Oh, I agree.

And it's like, how is someone still an alcoholic that, that, you know, the guy hasn't had a drink in 20 years.

Right.

I'd much rather be identified as a father or something that matters to me.

Yeah.

There was a guy in one of our private groups, and I can't say who.

Yeah.

Super famous, great dude.

And he would identify, they'd go around the room.

Hi, Dave, alcoholic, Charlie, alcoholic.

And it would get to him, I'm so-and-so human being.

And he refused.

And they were like, well, that's not how we do it here, man.

He's like, you're not allowed to be a human being being here.

Like, no, of course you are, but it's important you identify with your disease.

And he's like, Uh, no, first and foremost, I'm here

on earth because I'm a human being, right?

And in this room, I'm a human being, and I'm here to address some issues that I have, but I'm not, I'm not going to

just reduce myself to a label.

And I was like, That guy, yeah, yeah, did he stay sober?

I

think so.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

An AA meeting in Hollywood must be wild.

It's awful.

Why?

It's awful because it's not just about that.

And that second A is just, that's,

they, they honor that as, as, you know, as little as possible.

Oh, is that true?

Yeah, no.

It's, hey, I heard you were at the Sundowners meeting at, you know, 5th and Broadway or whatever.

And it's like, yeah, but I went there because

we're supposed to be be anonymous?

Second A, yeah.

And yeah, there's, there's a lot of,

you know, people that want to give you a script.

Actually?

Yeah.

Or want to hit on your girlfriend or just

creepy stuff that you're not going to get at home alone watching a ball game, you know?

Oh, that's

right.

There was an element there that was just never felt just like skeevy at times.

And there were other meetings that were like, okay, all right, this makes sense.

Cool.

I like these people.

And then at some point it turns.

At some point it turns.

And that's this is just my experience.

Wow.

So you said when you did that interview, lots of people judged you, lots of people scolded you.

Then you go on a tour and you bomb the first night, people judging and scolding you.

Who were the people who were kind to you throughout all of the dark moments that you had?

Family.

Yeah.

you know, um,

you're close to your family, I was

interested in you, yeah, um,

my ex-wives, really, oh, yeah,

yeah, they were very supportive, really, yeah,

how'd you do that

because, um,

you know, I've kids with both of them, except for my first wife, Donna, but uh, with Brooke and Denise, yeah, so you know, we decided early on, you know, after the, after the splits, that, um,

you know, our

stuff is is is incidental, is secondary.

It's hi there.

It's about the kids.

You know, we have to have a

children first

North Star, you know.

Yeah, but lots of people

set that goal.

And I'm saying, yeah, it would, it would, it would run through peaks and valleys, but

when it, when it's good and is good today,

no, they're really supportive.

Really?

Yeah.

The whole time?

80% of the time.

That's amazing.

70% of the time.

Yeah.

I'll take it.

I'll take it.

And your family was kind to you the whole the whole way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They,

you know,

a guy with my kind of history and, you know, the, the, um,

you know, not, not, not so much a chronic relapser, but a guy that would get some time and then just blow it all up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

yeah um

you know it's the it's the trust thing that you can't you can't get back in a day or a week or a month and so when i what i decided to do was not make the big announcement not say i've i've quit drinking everybody and they're gonna be like here we go again right yeah and i was just gonna just do it and then as soon as someone made a comment about hey you're looking look a little

you look clear you look uh you look content yeah As soon as I started hearing stuff like that, I would then volunteer the

changes I'd made.

Called a soft blanche.

Okay.

I like that.

I like that.

You don't do the media tour.

You just start doing it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And much more effective.

Much more effective.

Much more effective.

It dials down the pressure

a little bit.

Do you think, were people like your work peers supportive?

Any?

Well,

nice to you.

I guess that's what I mean.

You you mean for like former work peers yeah you know people outside your family who you know yeah absolutely so you they were loyal people yes that's what i'm asking yeah because i didn't really haven't had the big job um in in this in like this time

which is fine which is actually probably better which is good that i had all this time to gain some perspective and and and just work on myself and and be like a responsible available father to all these kids, you know, and grandkids.

How many kids do you have?

Five and three grandkids.

It's amazing.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah.

You're a biblical patriarch.

Thank you.

How about that?

Is it

like I'm always

wondering about

the studios, the manager, the agent, even the accountant, the lawyer, you know, all the people around

actors and in related businesses.

And like, they have kind of a mixed incentive.

Like they, you know, you're not doing well, but they want to keep you working.

Sort of like the athlete who gets, you know, the Novocaine rather than the surgery because he's got to play the game.

Do you feel like they,

any of them actually try to help or they just kind of want to keep the money coming?

In that, in that extreme example

that I lived through,

I think there was

a want to help from

specific individuals.

I don't think they knew how

or that

I was reachable enough to

receive it.

Yes.

You know, so I think they had to kind of decide, is it, is, is, you know, kind of like,

you know, weighing the pros and the cons, is, is he going to be at least, if he goes back to work, is that enough of a full-time full-time thing with distractions and responsibilities that

that will be deterrent enough?

Or have we sent him just back into the lion's den, just covered in fresh blood?

So,

yeah, I probably

don't think I was ready to go back to work on anger management.

on the show about a year after the whole two and a half disaster.

Right.

And I don't think that was advisable.

However, it's still, it, it comes down to me giving that final, yes, I'll do this.

So I do, I, I have to own that, that part.

Well, yeah.

So you said there were threads throughout this whole experience,

times, the timing of certain events that made you think there was a supernatural quality here.

I mean, did you, how would you identify?

Is that God?

Like, what is that?

Yeah, it's interesting.

I got asked this with Bill Maher just last week.

Bill Maher asked you about God?

Yeah, he did.

Yeah.

Really?

What world is this?

What is happening?

I don't know.

Bill Maher is asking you about God.

We are in a brand new age.

Yeah, no, and

I wasn't happy with my answer.

All right.

Well, now you have a chance to read it.

Yeah.

Most days I don't know what else to call it.

That's what I should have said in that moment.

Most days, I don't have a better word or anything else for it.

It is exactly that.

And just my whatever my interpretation of that is, you know.

But I, yeah, it just kind of caught me off guard.

And

yeah, I should have just leaned right into it and I did a little bit of a tap dance, you know.

Well, it's kind of weird to, I mean,

we're, you know, about the same age, didn't grow up in a world where people talked about God at all.

Right, right.

Did you?

No.

Well, my dad, devout Catholic growing up, and rather than that,

you know,

he always, you know, let us know that that was his personal journey.

And

we were welcome to climb on board, but it wasn't anything that he was going to mandate, you know?

Yeah.

And so

we did have exposure to it in our house our entire life.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it never.

What did you think?

I didn't.

I, I, I, I saw some, you know, I saw a lot of goodness with it.

Um, I saw other stuff I didn't want to align with.

Yeah.

Um,

and

yeah, it's, you know, I was, I was talking to Lexi just yesterday, you know, some days I'm all in.

Yeah.

I'm like, okay, then sure.

Well, you, you know, can I describe it better?

Do, do, do I have a better prediction?

Yeah.

No.

and there's other days i'm like i don't know i don't know you know so not people will read the book and you know there's not a chance they say oh that guy's an atheist right but there is a chance they go oh he's curious he doesn't quite he hasn't fully figured it out or so you're god curious you would say yeah sure yeah and then i don't think that's um and that's not me just wanting to say that in your presence that's me having time to in my presence well because you know right just of i don't know.

I mean, I'm hardly an authority on the subject.

No, when I understand the, the, the, you know, what it means to you.

It's come to me now.

Yeah.

I mean, I, you know, again, things are changing so fast and I'm, I don't have the answers to most questions, but I definitely have become convinced that God's real for sure.

Yeah, no, and that's inspiring to, to, to see that level of of

acceptance.

Well, don't you feel it, kind of?

I do.

I do, but, and, but there's there's still, there's a part of me that, you know,

just still wants to be a science snob.

I get it.

Yeah.

Because you were, I mean, for the longest time.

My whole life.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm not, I was always pro

things about it I like, but I mean, I would, I don't think I would ever say in public, I know God's real, because that's like freaky.

And also there are cultural connotations attached that are just different from the culture that I grew up in, like completely different.

So, you know, it just sounded kind of phony or not really like me or whatever.

But then

things changed so much in the world.

And I saw all this stuff that blew my mind.

And I was like, wow, God is real.

I can't believe this.

And then when you say it, you're like, actually, that's not crazy.

Everyone's always thought that.

I can't believe I was like embarrassed to say that.

So then once I do think that once you say it, something in you changes.

That's been my experience.

Not that I have a ton of experience or would, you know, feel qualified to give advice to anyone.

I certainly don't.

but

yeah i i i don't want to get there and be wrong

you know what i mean yeah well you don't there's the thing i don't there's the thing but isn't there some like

um

aren't you allowed to wait till the last minute

i think um once you know it's it's just it's kind of like a lot of things

you arrive in a place and you're like, yeah, wait, I've always known this.

Interesting.

I've always

felt this.

And it's totally what I thought.

Right.

You do occasionally feel that way about things.

Of course.

Yes.

No, I'm not controlling any part of all this.

Right.

That I know for a fact.

Right.

So, and it doesn't have the feeling of randomness, does it?

No.

No, there's too many signs.

Nothing's a coincidence.

Exactly.

And it's just, it's everything's connected.

Exactly.

And people are connected.

Yeah.

And how do you, how do you explain deja vu?

Well, you kind of can't.

And then you realize that actually the real religious nuts are the science snobs

who are sort of desperately backfilling against the evidence.

Like, well, what does that mean?

Well, shut up.

They're just like so.

desperate to cling to something that is just absurd.

I'm not saying that the physical world can't be measured in a lab.

Of course, it can.

Right.

And I'm grateful for that.

And I'm grateful that, you know, for its byproducts, like, I don't know, automobiles and penicillin, but I'm not against science.

But the idea that science explains everything is itself a religion and really kind of the dumbest religion ever concocted.

Interesting.

And the people who espouse it know that it's dumb.

And that's why they're so brittle and so given to lecturing you about it.

There's no Mormon missionary who's ever been judgier or more persistent than Tony Fauci.

Trust the science.

Wow.

Does any Christian ever say that?

Trust the religion.

Not that I've ever heard.

Or I'll hurt you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, the science religious wackos believe in conversion by the sword.

Like, do what we say, or we'll hurt you.

Right.

That's not a religion I want to be anywhere near.

Me neither.

No.

No, that's bad.

It doesn't sound loving.

It doesn't sound forgiving.

No, it sounds dangerous, actually.

It does.

It sounds kind of like al-Qaeda a little bit.

So, um, I'm, I just think, and it's sad because who acts like that?

Only people who know they're wrong act like that.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's actually a line in the book that, um, I don't know where I read this or heard this, but they, uh, somebody smarter than me described science as a, uh, as a, uh, uh, an ongoing

historical

series of corrected mistakes.

Exactly.

How about that?

Yes.

Yeah.

It's just kind of institutional.

It's a method for satisfying curiosity and understanding the physical world.

And I'm totally for that, completely for that.

But at its heart is skepticism and an acknowledgement that you don't know the answers to the most obvious questions.

And so keep trying to find the answers.

Sure.

I'm 100% in favor of all of that, of course.

But what it's become is the medieval church: brittle, rigid, punitive, stupid, laughable.

And the second you describe it with no emotion, any normal person's like, well, that's insane.

I don't want to be part of that.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

And, and, um, but I'm,

you know, I'm not,

I, I, I'm not going to try to solve the unsolvable.

Right.

You know, and I'm fine being completely mystified by it.

Well, that's the beginning of wisdom.

You know,

mystified.

Right.

Yeah.

Because you're admitting you're not all knowing.

No.

Yeah.

And

yeah, for sure, not all-knowing.

Well, speaking of mysteries, how did you wind up knowing Alex Jones?

How did I wind up knowing Alex Jones?

He, it was his early videos.

It was his early documentaries.

It was the stuff he produced himself, like on VHS.

How could you have seen that?

How did I see it originally?

You're like like in los angeles making movies yeah um it's wild i've always been a guy that likes to just needs to peek behind the curtain i've always been a guy that's done my own research always been a guy that just never

not always satisfied with the official story about anything good and um you know and and i've you know i create fiction for a living Yes.

I'm pretty good at spotting it.

I just want to pause on that.

I create fiction for a living i'm pretty good at spotting it yeah it's a good quote right it's a great quote it's true yeah thank you thank you um

and so

you know uh dad played both kennedys what you know when we were growing up so we had access to jfk stuff that wasn't in the public sphere documentaries and and you know um unedited zapruder stuff and so we were you know i talked with with with rogan about this a little bit last week and we were,

you know, so we

always had to, we're just raised to,

you know, take take a deeper dive,

look at things just with a more, just polished,

through a more polished lens, you know, or skeptical lens.

And so,

yeah, I, I,

you know, be it JFK or 9-11 or Oak City or Columbine.

We just did a 9-11 doc, and it was an amazing experience for me to be involved in this because I not only bought the 9-11 story, I was very resistant to anyone who questioned it because it felt like disrespectful or desecrating the grapes.

I don't know why I had that incredibly embarrassing,

not at all noble reaction to people's honest questions about 9-11.

So it took me a long time

to want to rethink it.

And then once you do, you realize like it's just a tissue of lies.

At what point did you start asking questions about it?

04, 05,

whenever Loose Change dropped.

Yeah.

That was the first.

Well, no, actually on the day.

Really?

On the day.

Yeah, there were things.

And Millio and I had it because everybody like rushed to Malibu.

We were like in the city.

I was in a high-rise.

I didn't know how far this thing reached.

You know, like everybody just had to get the bait, get back to the folks' house.

Like, you know, let's, let's reassemble at base camp, you know.

And Amelia and I were out on the deck and I said, you know, man.

At your parents.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I,

I said, there's something about the way that building came down.

I'm just, I don't know.

And, and, you know, by that point, we had seen different angles of it.

And it was really, um,

it was,

you know, there was, there was a lot of content to to digest, you know, horrific content, I'd add.

Um, and we just, yeah, and then I, I just, just thought, nah, because that would entail

all of these things.

You just shut it down in your life.

Yeah, we talked each other out of it because that would entail.

It's interesting, though, that two guys in the business of like manufacturing images would focus on that image and say, that there's something about that that's weird.

Right.

And so I kind of just let it, i let it you know

just didn't didn't go near it yeah and then um

you know it led to what it led to

um the the the the the the whole world was different you know the whole world was different never returned to what it was no it really hasn't no there's there's pre and there's post yes um

And then

I watched that documentary.

I'd been

a fan of Alex's early stuff,

you know, and that's you know, just him.

So you knew who he was on 9-11?

Yeah.

How?

How did I?

He's my friend.

I would mean no disrespect.

I love him.

He's coming in a month, but I'd never heard of Alex Jones on 9-11.

And I was in the news business.

I don't know.

How would you have heard of him?

That's amazing.

Just, you know, spending time

on those research channels in

just in that part of the

subjects, you know.

It's interesting that you, so you have long felt like you want to look at other sources of information.

Of course.

Yeah.

I've always done my own research, always.

And then.

Do you know other people?

Did you know other people around 9-11 who already were thinking like this?

Like maybe

reality as presented to us is not entirely real?

People would believe things only so far.

Yes.

And so I would back off and I say, you know what,

we're just going to focus on two things.

We're just two things.

And if you can explain those,

I'll submit to the official story.

I'll just say, all right, fine.

However you say it had to play out, I'm in.

Right.

And it was.

But explain these anomalies.

Yeah.

Building seven of the Pentagon.

Yeah.

Just help me out there.

You know, I've got to believe that the Pentagon is the most protected and documented, you know,

video protected, surveilled building in the history of the known universe, right?

Turns out not.

Well, I'm saying

we just have one

videos from the parking parking kiosk.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So

that's the thing.

And then.

And then that is weird, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then building seven, it just, you can't,

you just can't.

You can't watch that and say that is the result of a fire that burned for five hours on two floors.

You can't sell that to me.

And, and, and, and, you know, that for years that was always met with, that is disrespecting the victims.

And I'm like, I don't, okay, how?

How is that disrespecting

the fallen heroes?

How?

If you're just looking for the truth behind what is clearly not

how it was explained.

Clearly.

I mean, a three-year-old could look at that and know,

you know, that looked like that hotel in Vegas that we watched them bring down intentionally, you know?

So that's how I met Alex

was reaching out.

Trust your eyes.

You've always trusted your own perceptions.

Yeah.

And, but I,

I did this in the middle of two and a half at its peak, decided to, did, to be vocal about 9-11.

Now we're in the studio.

They were like, oh my gosh.

There's actually a commercial because one of the advantages we had with that show promotionally was the NFL because we were a Monday show all of Sunday.

All the CVS football games on Sunday were just, you know, every 20 minutes is a commercial for us.

And that is like a built-in thing to keep the ratings and the momentum in the eyes and and all of it.

Yeah.

And it was

great.

It was the best tool you could possibly have.

So

they

made

a commercial, like a promo, and it's probably on YouTube somewhere.

Someone out there is going to find it.

Right.

And it opens with,

Charlie has a lot of questions.

And then my character would be, hey, Alan,

you know, where'd you hide the beer?

Hey, mom, where'd I leave my car?

Charlie's really curious.

Hey,

you know, is that, is that, is that,

is, is that, is that, is that a silk bra or is that polyester?

Whatever, like actual lines from the show to support Charlie's curiosity.

Charlie Harper, right?

Yeah.

But Charlie, in the world, like going into places that on a corporate level with a giant hit show, your lead actor is not supposed to be doing.

So they tried to make it kind of like, hey, he's doing these things, but don't worry, he's still, he's still in our world doing them.

You know, they, they just, it was, it was kind of a brilliant piece of propaganda.

If you think about it, really, I was just thinking that it's a geo move.

You take the energy and you pull it in your direction.

Right.

Yeah.

And I remember watching it and I was flattered that they like put all that energy into this thing that I'm sure was upsetting a lot of people.

And I never saw it again.

Did they ever say anything to you directly about your questions about 9-11?

Kind of, but not really.

Things like,

maybe it's not the best time

to be doing this kind of research, kid.

Maybe,

you know, take a little pause for the cause.

Yeah, it was, and, and,

yeah, they, they, but they didn't like, you know, show up at my house

like they did for,

you know, going crazy on dope

or testosterone.

But yeah, they, they, they were, they were nervous.

And so, and I did pull it back.

I did organize a symposium in L.A., though.

It's a three-day event called A Weekend of Truth.

Alex Jones was the key speaker in the middle of two and a half.

Seriously?

Yeah, I did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you feel that your job was at risk by doing that?

I thought the other stuff was more important than my job.

Really?

Yeah.

No, it just is.

How many lead actors on hit shows put anything above their job?

Cult of one.

Yeah, none.

None.

Well, dad.

My dad has at times gone heavily against the grain in the face of, you know, the same type of pressure.

Yes.

But yeah, no, that was.

And then when Alex and I got together and, you know, I sent him that email that I told you about.

Yeah, yeah.

And my last line was, zero hour is upon us.

So just for people who weren't at

breakfast here?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You said that you saw something he did and you just emailed him cold.

I did.

I said, hi, Alex.

I'm a fan for yours.

Perhaps you've heard of me.

My name is Charlie Sheen.

I said,

we have to talk.

Zero hour is upon us.

And he called in 10 minutes.

Amazing.

Yeah.

And then flew out to see you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then we thought, okay, let's build a secret weapon.

Let's do something that like

is unique and,

you know, let's do something within in the media.

Let's use the media to try to,

I guess this would have been

07, 08.

Yes.

So we we got together and we wrote this piece called 20 Minutes with the President.

And what it was, it was a fictional

retelling

of

this 20 minutes that I was granted by Obama.

And it was me sitting down with him,

asking him 20 questions about 9-11.

and asking him that based on these

irrefutable bullet points that if he would consider

activating,

you know, reopening a new 9-11 commission.

And we put it online.

And this was, but you didn't actually get 20 minutes with Obama to ask that.

No, it was all made up.

It was all made up.

But the research that Alex and I dug into that we that we because

it could have been 100.

It could have been 100 questions, could have been 100 minutes with the president.

And

we drilled down into the 20 things that were really bulletproof, really bulletproof.

And so we published it online and we let it kind of marinate for about 20 minutes before we added the following

has not taken, didn't actually take place.

But we're hoping one day that it could or that it might.

So we did let kind of the hysteria build a little bit that people thought, holy hell, man, did Sheen and Obama,

right?

This thing actually happened.

And because we didn't want to prejudice it with it being, you know, a work of fiction right from send.

And it was a little bit of a manipulation,

but so what?

Right.

I mean, did anyone from the Obama White House reach out to you?

There's a guy.

He was the deputy press secretary.

His name was Bill something.

Bill Burton?

yes

yeah he called me i got the memory well done thank you yeah because i knew his name was the same two initials yeah he called me and i said uh how's it yeah hey uh thank thank you and he's like yeah that that that that thing that you and your buddy wrote uh that that that that meeting you're looking for never gonna happen

those were his words never going to happen i said well that's a shame because it really should he said okay all all right good luck to you have a nice day it was like a 14 second phone call

yeah but anyway so yeah and i guess and then alex said look when this thing goes out they're not going to debate any of it because because we you know we told uh it was bill o'reilly it was harold rivera we said we'll we'll sit down and debate you just on these 20 things and nobody bit and alex said look they're just going to call nobody bit no

Nobody, nobody, nobody took the challenge.

And you're at the height of the show's popularity yeah nobody took the debate challenge you're one of the most famous actors in the world and you're offering talk show hosts the opportunity to be on their show right to talk about something that is really interesting and controversial and they say no they said no yeah what do you think now what do you think that is charlie sheen

that's a little weird it's a little weird having been in the talk show business i can promise you yeah It was you should have called me, man.

I would have done it in a second.

Yeah.

Well, I probably scolded you for your ridiculous questions, but I still would have done it.

Right.

Yeah.

Are disrespecting the memory of the victims.

Yeah.

How dare we?

Finding out why they were murdered is disrespect.

Right.

Wow.

Now, I know it's insane.

And I always force myself to admit that I had these views because

I want to be less judgmental toward other people.

And reminding yourself what an asshole you are is a really good way to be less judgmental.

But also because it's like, it's a feature of human nature that we don't want to know the truth about things.

Actually, interesting.

Don't you think that's true?

Well, it's clearly not true for you, but it has been true for me.

I don't want to know.

I don't want to know that.

What do we then do with that information?

Trust me, I'm not defending that attitude at all.

I'm ashamed that I had it, but I just think it's more calm.

And I think of myself as like one of the most open-minded people I know.

I mean, I am very, very open-minded.

I'll entertain any possibility because I've seen so much that you cannot cannot entertain any possibility.

Right.

But

if I have felt that way, that means that it's probably just how people are built.

And you have to convince them that they should know what's true, that the truth does matter, actually.

It does.

It does.

But Alex said, they're just going to paint you as

crazy.

Oh, of course.

But

I said, really?

That's like they can't get more creative than that?

He says, no, they're just going to call you crazy.

And Smash Cut to like a week later.

And it was, it was literally, it was Bill O'Reilly and it was Geraldo.

And they just dismissed me in one sentence.

Well, Charlie Sheen's obviously crazy.

No.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Someone can find that clip, I'm sure.

Handmaidens to Power.

Wow.

That is.

I got it.

Yeah.

That is.

But then I saw Bill O'Reilly outside of Dr.

Oz one day.

I saw him in the parking lot.

And he was just over there.

I guess he was the second guest or he'd already come out or something.

And I started walking right up to him.

He's kind of a a big dude, right?

He's huge.

Yeah.

He says, He's not going to punch me, are you?

I said, No, I'm not stupid.

I don't want to get my ass kicked.

He's like, Whoa, I said, I'm just came over to give you a handshake.

Just want to shake your hand.

He was like, Oh, well, oh, okay, well, good to meet you.

I said, Nice to meet you.

And he's like, Yeah, sorry about the doves.

I said, I don't care.

I don't care.

You know, I get it.

Showbiz.

That's what I said to him.

It's showbiz.

What did he say?

He left.

And then we both went in and had a pretty good episode with us.

So, but it was a trippy thing.

He was like, he was on his heels a little bit.

Yeah.

He's not as comfortable with human contact.

Yeah, that's pretty disgraceful

on all of our parts.

And I wouldn't have, I don't think I would have called you crazy because objectively, it's not crazy to ask about why the greatest tragedy in American history happened.

I didn't think it was.

It's not.

And it's still not.

Shutting people down for asking sincere questions

very hard to defend, I think.

Yeah.

Wow.

But anyway, that's the Alex Jones kind of origin story.

That's amazing.

I just wish I could tell you where I actually acquired the videos.

And it had to have been online, like mail order stuff.

So you really cared.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he just, the stuff that I'd seen, he just was a guy that was just on the constant hunt for the truth and just,

you know, for the right reasons.

Yes.

Not Not to exploit it, but to expose it and share it and do something about it.

I think that's all noble.

And I, and I think that of him, you know.

And I think, by the way, he's been vindicated by time.

I think.

I don't think quite as many people mock Alex Jones as crazy anymore.

They can't.

At all.

They can't.

They can't.

No, that's exactly right.

He called 9-11.

Really?

Did you call 9-11?

I did.

No, I didn't.

Nobody did.

Nobody did.

Alex Jones did.

So right there, we know that he's worth taking seriously.

In fact, it's worth asking, how did you do that?

I've asked him many times, never gotten a straight answer, but we know for a fact he did.

It's documented.

So that's incredible.

My dad spent some time with him.

Really?

Yeah, because

we asked dad to read the president role because we wrote it like a play when it gets to the thing about the actual conversation that we have.

And we wanted to hear it out loud to see if it sounded like legit exchanges of dialogue.

And he was currently playing the president, right?

So he and I played the scene.

And, um,

you both had big shows at the same time.

Yeah, on, on the same lot.

We'd visit each other like at lunch.

Not often, not often because we were both super busy, but yeah,

they overlap by, I think, two seasons, maybe

three.

Warner, yeah, the Warner Brothers lot.

Yeah.

And then, so dad spent some time with Alex.

And anytime he'd leave the room, dad was like, I don't know, man.

I think, I think this guy's ex-CIA.

I think he's too smart.

He knows everything.

I think he's, uh, I think he's got a background that

is like this interesting thing.

Yeah.

Which was him complimenting Alex.

Well, and it's the way that people talk now.

It was not the way people talked then.

So that's just, that's interesting.

I mean, now that just sounds like Twitter, but then people took things at face value.

Right.

I mean, do you remember?

Well, obviously we're in a different world.

So how did other people in Hollywood react?

to the so you're at no boo and malibu and you say i don't really understand how Tower 7 came down.

What do people say?

It's not,

there's more resistance to it than alignment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not

so much anymore, but at the time in that moment when, you know, it was like the lone voice out there, at least in my industry.

But it was a lot of support from.

you know, architects for truth, pilots for truth, all, all of those, various associations.

Actual experts, you mean?

Those guys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're just reminding me, how did this interview get started set up in the first place?

I totally forgot about this.

Like you wound up at this table this morning because why?

Because

I saw a promo on somewhere on

online, not even on YouTube,

that

Sean Stone.

had directed a six-part documentary called all the president's men and the only place that it could be viewed was on your platform.

Yes.

And so I

signed up and I watched it all six episodes

in one day.

Wow.

Yeah.

And

had to sit down and have a conversation with myself

about just everything that

Well,

it goes back.

It just,

it was,

it was a gear I was familiar with because it was it was it was a doubt it was a downshift that that that made sense yes because it goes back to a guy that does his own research yes and i hadn't for so long i hadn't done my own research for so long and um

you know i i i decided that when

the the second trump victory right

that I was not going to allow myself to feel how I felt during the first one.

I just wasn't going to do it because it just wasn't, it wasn't healthy for me.

It wasn't, it didn't, it didn't,

no, no part of my life got better feeling like that every single day and being told who I was supposed to despise and why I was supposed to despise them, you know, and you were on that list.

Yeah.

And, um, I was on the despise list.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, and so,

you know, apologies.

Um, I'm, but I've been so despised for so long.

The sting is gone.

No, but I watched that documentary and it just, I, I, now I was armed with some fresh data.

Did you know Sean Stone?

Yeah, I've known him since Wall Street.

He plays Michael Douglas's tiny child in the movie.

No way.

Yes.

I've known him since he was a child.

And then I reconnected with him as an adult.

And we had talked about a project here or there.

He would write a script and send it to me.

I'm like, he's a good guy.

He's a great guy.

Yeah.

Really smart.

He really texted me wrong.

Oh, no.

I know.

I know.

It's strange.

Yeah.

And so I, um,

you know, I would read a script that he wrote and say, oh, it's, it's not for me, but it's really good, you know.

And then I didn't talk to him for a while and then saw that he'd done this and, and, and done it brilliantly.

And so it just, it created a desire to, to, uh,

just,

you know, embark on what I can describe as an experiment,

an experiment, just changing the channel, just, you know, stop listening to the chorus of nonsense that,

you know, in the

another thing that that twilight zone that I was stuck in for and it's just so dumb.

The funny thing is that Sean did that series.

We didn't produce it for him at all.

He came to us with the series.

I think I'm actually in the series.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he came to my house and I, I, you know, sat for it and everything.

And I like Sean a lot.

I really like his, I know his dad and I, and I admire his dad.

I do agree with him on everything.

But like, I think he's an honest guy and I think he's a brave guy.

And he's, by the way, earned the right to have his opinions as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah.

Having dropped out of Yale to serve in the infantry during Vietnam.

And like, he's a good man.

Oliver is.

Anyway.

But he, I don't think he could get it aired anywhere.

That's the crazy thing.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Things have changed so much

that the level of open-mindedness in the world that he grew up in is just gone.

There's just no open-mindedness.

It's like, here's the story, deviate from it, we'll kill you.

Right.

It's like, it's crazy rigid.

Do you feel that?

I do.

I do.

Yeah, but it just really, it brought me to a place to

continue with further research

into some of these subjects, you know, and

to,

as I said, change the channel, you know, and,

you know,

like most experiments,

the results are constantly evolving.

Yeah.

Right.

But so far,

I'm pretty happy with those results.

It's kind of wild who you wind up talking to and agreeing with.

Yeah.

Isn't it?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, also, if you're, if you're told to feel a certain way about someone because of this specific set of examples or reasons or whatever.

And then you decide one day

you're going to investigate on your own.

Oh, yes.

And then you come to something that is

the exact opposite of how you were told to feel.

Oh, yes.

Because you decided to, I don't know, be autonomous, maybe.

Right.

And just exercise.

Live as a free man.

Yeah, there's that part.

Yeah.

And so it's been quite liberating.

The distance between what you're told someone is and what you discover when you spend time with the person is

really vast.

I had that experience with Oliver Stone.

I'll be honest.

I mean, I always thought Oliver Stone was a kook, a conspiracy nut.

I was told to believe that.

I accepted it uncritically.

Years later, I wind up at Oliver Stone's house in Los Angeles alone, just me and Oliver Stone.

about something specific.

And I'm like, I can't believe I'm at Oliver Stone's house.

Like, wow.

You know what I mean?

That after you've had this feeling, sure.

Maybe you have it right now.

I'm having it right now.

I am.

So sorry.

And I'm like, and have been for the last hour.

Yeah.

So I'm like midway through this conversation with Oliver Stone.

And I'm like, Oliver Stone is a really nice man, a courtly man, very smart.

Yeah.

And has thought through everything that.

he's saying.

And by the way, I agree with everything I've heard him say.

I don't agree with the things I've heard said about him.

Right.

Like those are bad.

Sure.

But what he's actually saying me, I'm like, I completely agree with you.

And also, you're a decent person.

And so I'm like, why did I?

And then I really felt misled, I guess, is what I am trying to say.

Yeah.

I had been lied to.

And that's not the only case where I've been lied to, and where I uncritically accepted those lies.

And so then you feel stung by that.

Like, what?

You lied to me because you didn't want me to have this conversation.

I don't know who I'm referring to when I say you, but like,

the media environment that I grew up in and that my views were formed in was dishonest, really dishonest, and probably intentionally so.

And probably part of the design was to prevent me from ever talking to people with whom I might share common ground because that would be a threat to the people lying to me.

Of course.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, you're, you're, you're, you're telling my story, too.

Well, it's just, I wouldn't have had this experience if it weren't for my job, where, you know, the one upside is I can talk to a lot of people.

You know, you have people's phone numbers.

You can call them.

Sure.

Why is he calling calling me?

Okay, I'll take the call.

Like, you have the chance to actually meet people that you hear about.

But I think for most people who have normal jobs, like, how would they ever wind up at Oliver Stone's house?

They wouldn't.

No.

Right.

So they would never know that they, not only that he's a good guy and worth listening to,

but also that they've been lied to.

They have no idea because they're never going to get out within, you know, a thousand yards of Oliver Stone or whatever.

Right, right.

Yeah.

So the deception is really subtle and incredibly effective.

Sure.

But it's, it's, it's, uh,

you know, what it's taught me is, is just to go, just to, you know, trust going back to basics.

Yes.

And, and not, uh, until I have an experience with a person

that, you know, that I can't rely on the opinions of others because of,

you know, just how, you know, however they've

chosen to see the world.

Exactly.

Or experience the world.

You got to spend the weekend in Moscow.

That will make you as angry as you've ever been

because not because, you know, I'm not Russian.

I'm not moving to Moscow.

I don't want to move to Moscow.

I want to live in my country.

I don't love Russia for some weird reason.

I just, I was angry because I was like, this is nothing like I thought it was.

I'd never been here.

It's very hard to get there.

You're not going to go there by accident.

You have to really try to get there.

Probably won't even succeed.

I did succeed.

And I learned like, oh my gosh, they've been lying about this.

And so then I tried to say, you know, we've been lied to about what it's actually like.

You can make your own judgments about the politics from Putin or Ukraine or whatever.

It's totally up to you.

Decide what you think about that.

But the physical reality of that city is undeniable to anyone who walks through it.

And so I say this and it's like, shut up, Putin stooge.

I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not defending Putin.

Or maybe, you know, whatever, it has nothing to do with Putin.

Look at the city.

This is insane.

And you lied about it.

And I'm mad at you.

Shut up.

It's like.

That will blow your mind.

Don't go there.

Okay.

Yeah, because you don't need the aggravation.

Okay.

No, no, no, no trips planned there anytime soon.

No, you can't.

I was there in 94.

Oh, when it was tough, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

we shot, it was bad.

I mean, not the worst film, but it should have been a great film and it wasn't.

It was a disappointment.

It's called Terminal Velocity.

It was a skydiving thing with Nastasia Kinskey and

what was she like?

She was pretty cool.

She was pretty cool.

Yeah, she's sexy and fun.

What happened to her?

She's still around, right?

I mean, I don't know.

I think she was dating Quincy Jones at the time.

And so they.

their relationship was a little bit bristly, you know?

So she'd be on the phone with him in her trailer and then, yeah and then she'd come out of the set and and at times you know was still carrying the tail end of that conversation into the scene but i i had a terrific time working with her um i hope she's doing well but so we went there just for like four days or it was myself

uh chris mcdonald oh anyway and i get to the airport and chris and i are just on the way there i mean how long is that flight 14 quite long yeah yeah we're hammered and i'm in the airport And there's a guy before I can even like find my bags, who's who's up in my face screaming, taxi, taxi, taxi, taxi, right?

And I don't need a taxi.

I know there's a car waiting for me.

I don't speak Russian, you know.

And I'm like, I'm fine, I'm fine.

No, no, no.

And he's like, taxi, taxi, taxi.

And I'm just, at some point, it somehow got to fuck off, right?

I bet pretty quickly.

No, it took about two minutes.

I was trying to be patient, but I did say fuck off out loud.

But it wasn't like fuck off.

It was this fuck, you know, fuck off, man.

I just kind of threw it to the, to the,

to the clouds.

And I guess fuck off there means something a lot different than it means where I come from.

And the guy lost his fucking mind.

It's pretty tough here, too, I would say, even in English.

Right.

But he,

he started repeating it, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off.

And he, he tried to go, he tried to get to me.

And so whoever was with us had to get between the two of us and like keep this guy from like really

doing some damage, you know, at the airport.

At the airport.

Yeah.

So I, after that, I only saw the hotel

and I saw the set where we shot and my trailer.

That was it.

Yeah.

I was like, okay, this is the rules are a lot different.

Well, 94 was kind of a famously low ebb, I think, for Russia.

Yeah.

That's my Russian airflow.

Lots of killers.

So you're on a media tour for the book and the dock, and you were doing Rogan last week when Charlie Kirk was murdered.

Yeah.

You were actually in the middle of the interview?

We were.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

like we just had the bathroom break.

I said to Joe, I said,

is it cool?

Can we pause so I can hit the hat?

And he says, yeah,

we can wrap it up pretty soon.

And I said, well,

let's just do a couple more minutes at the end, just cover one more thing and then we can wrap it up.

He's like, you got it.

And then so

the producer pauses.

And

as soon as we're clear, he says, Joe,

there's breaking news

and it's really bad.

And it's everywhere.

And it's really bad.

And Joe's, no, he says, Joe, don't look at your phone.

And Joe's like, tell me.

And he says, breaking news, really bad.

And Joe says, what's going on?

And he says, Charlie Kirk's been shot and he's clinging to life.

And it was just, it was

suddenly everything was different, you know, for all the wrong reasons.

It was just

awful.

It was awful.

And

then we, like 30 seconds later, we go out into the lobby and one of his security guys says to Joe, he just died.

Charlie's dead.

And then it's

what went from bad to just, it's as, as awful as it could have been, you know?

And it was, I hate to say it, but it felt surreal.

Yeah.

It always does.

I don't want to be disrespectful.

That's not disrespectful.

That's the experience that every person has when something that shocking happens.

We sit together and then we couldn't really get the details.

Then we went, we finally wound up in the bathroom and Joe says,

we need to talk about this on the air.

And I said, yes, we do.

And so we came back on.

And then I guess what they've been playing a lot is us coming out of that moment.

And for me, it was,

it was, I immediately went to fatherless children,

husbandless, widow.

And it was just that, that part of it breaks my heart.

Yeah.

You know,

and it's just, and for what?

And for what?

You know, I mean, I, I, i i've been as mad and in in as did

in in

complete disagreement just absolute total

you know nuclear frustration with people and have never thought like well now this is this has to be the next logical step this is the thing that i now must do because of how they've made me feel with their words it's just that that that's where we're where we've arrived.

It's where we're at, you know.

If that's the case, we can't stay here.

No, we can't.

And

what his wife said at his memorial,

pretty powerful, you know, is a, is a, is if you thought you were going to silence him with that, this will be my, my, my cries, my tears will be, will, will be the battle cry

that you'll hear around the world.

And she's not wrong.

No, she's not wrong.

That happened in the first hour.

Yeah.

But

yeah, you just take the politics out of it,

take all of it out of it.

And

it's a father

that

loved his children and his family and his wife

and was committed to.

The things that he, you know, was so passionate about.

And all he asked people to do was, you know, just just

debate me you know and and he set the example of showing up that prepared

you know and and challenging others to to to to be equally as prepared you know

And even if they weren't, even if they stumbled or fumbled or didn't, couldn't get their thoughts or, you know, didn't look the part or whatever, he never demeaned.

He never belittled.

He never criticized.

He didn't do any of that stuff.

He wasn't there to make fun of people.

He was there to inspire.

He was there to, you know, maybe just create just even just the tiniest little spark of something for someone to maybe

feel something a different way.

And

that cost him his life.

Really?

You don't want to live in that country where that happens.

No.

And it does, you know, it makes people that are in the, you know, that have to be in the public for their professions.

you know it's like do

you know

i'm sure a lot of people are feeling that

you know that there may be a little more censorship

you know personal censorship you know of course yeah like whoa that's

that's what the deep end looks like now i think i better just stay in the kiddie pool for a minute you know

there's no question yeah and and like everything else bad, it divides people from each other.

So all of a sudden, you know, people don't want to be near each other.

You know, it causes physical separation,

which is hell.

It's what we do to prisoners.

It's what we do to prisoners.

Interesting.

I think.

Yeah.

You don't want to be shut in alone.

No.

That's the worst thing.

And this just divides.

It makes people suspicious, makes them hate their neighbor.

Everything about it is evil.

And

I think it's just important to say that.

All right.

So I want to end.

I never do this, but I just really believe in it.

I want to end on a product testing moment.

Amazing.

Amazing.

I want to do that because as noted, you know, I don't drink and I'm happy with that.

And I've discovered a product called Athletic Non-Alcoholic Beer, which has convinced me that non-alcoholic beer can be amazing.

I discovered the same product, athletic.

So I just, there was such a stigma, you know, 23 years sober, I never had a non-alcoholic beer because I'm straight.

And then they sent me this, and I was like, wow, that's incredible.

Just the taste.

So now I'm like all about non-alcoholic sugar.

Sure.

It's like the greatest thing ever.

And it doesn't make you as fat as other things that I like actually turns out, right?

Right.

Yeah, for sure not.

Yeah.

And

so you have a non-alcoholic beer.

I do.

I do.

And I'm not a spokesperson for this.

I'm a co-founder.

And a consumer, I assume.

Yes.

Yeah.

Because,

you know,

it's quitting, you know, booze eight years ago

that,

you know, I said always loved beer, still like beer, and, you know, tried like you did, pretty much all the non-Alecs that were out there.

And I'm not here to shit on any of them.

But they taste like urine.

A lot of them don't.

Not that I would know.

But but the good ones are are good.

They're not for me, they're not great.

And I thought, well, how can I, how can I affect this?

How can I, you know,

how can I make this better?

Not just for myself, but for the world at large, you know?

And so I aligned with

three companies

in partnership with Silent Spirits, with Ryan Perry, who's the gentleman that was with me today.

Yeah, great guy.

With

our brewery partner is Harpoon out of Boston.

Wow.

And our distribution is

zero-proof.

Yeah.

And so, but unlike, you know, just being like invited into

a finished product and being the pitch man, which would be the normal thing for a celebrity to do, or sorry, an actor, right?

I've been working on this as long and as passionately as I have.

with the with the book and the dock.

And it was interesting because kind of the mantra in my house with my kids and excited about the things I was doing, it was always, it was always book dock beer, book dock beer.

These three things were happening at the same time and were and were evolving at the same pace.

And then we didn't, we didn't realize until

this tour actually started that we got to a place where we can start taking orders like first week of October and shipping through e-commerce

a couple weeks after that.

So this isn't like.

Because it has no ethanol, you can ship it.

Exactly.

Yes.

And this is something that

I was in on the development of this and in on every stage of building the recipe.

And I'm not a beer expert.

I'm an expert on what I like and what I know to be, you know, the

different levels of quality, you know.

So, so,

and they were, they were really relying on me as not just a co-founder, but a consumer.

And

there's another thing that's kind of cool is that

just during this eight years, the amount of people that I'll see at a restaurant or a ball game or

just on the street, they'll come up and say, man,

I always wanted to have a drink with you.

And, you know, I'm glad that you're sober, but I'm sad that we can't do that.

Now we can.

I love that.

Now we can have a drink.

I feel that way.

And so so I'm going to taste it.

Don't mind.

Cool.

This is Wild AF.

I guess you can fill in the acronym as you so desire, alcohol-free, or whatever that might stand for.

All right.

Now you can tell I've been off my game a little bit because I totally screwed up the head.

All right.

Some of there's going to be some, there's going to be some foam slurping at the beginning.

That's all.

That's all right.

I'm barely German.

So that's great.

Thank you.

It's excellent.

Thank you.

That just tastes like beer.

Well, it is beer.

Yeah.

It's actual.

No, I mean, it's, it's actual beer just without the alcohol, you know?

So what you realize when you have it is that, and I drank beer, you know, in the morning for years and really enjoyed it,

but it was the alcohol that I was looking for, but it was also the alcohol that made it not that great.

Right, right, right.

So when you take the alcohol out, the hops really come to to the fore.

Sure.

And hops are just an amazing plant, kind of astringent.

I think they're a relative of cannabis, actually, which I don't smoke, but still, aren't they?

Hops related to

marahuna, yeah.

Well, whatever it is, they have this really flowery, interesting taste that's a little bit biting that offsets the inherent sweetness of the malt.

But they're kind of like overwhelmed by the ethanol in a normal beer, but they come out in this.

Do you feel that?

I do.

I do.

And

it's, you know, it's a, it's a craft lager.

Yeah.

And what I,

the, the model that I was urging the, the, you know, not to get deep into the science of it, but please do.

Well, I don't have the, I don't know the science.

Just make it up.

No, I was like, you know, you're using nuclear technology for the first time ever in the brewer process.

That's, that's what we're doing.

Yeah.

No, it's just like, you know, what, what, like, our, our target is,

you know, like, what, what's, what's a great beer that that is commonly served at a ball game, you know?

And I want it, I want something that, that, that,

you know, not, not, not, not mirrors that, obviously eclipses that is more,

it feels just a little more,

a little more full.

Yeah.

A little fuller, you know?

And real, not thin and watery.

Should we give it the Spaniel test?

What is that?

Oh, the spaniel test.

I'm just going to let them.

I've got my spaniels.

Come here.

And I'm going to let them

know that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then didn't.

Is that a pass or a fail?

No, no, that's a full pass.

Now, this is a legit.

grouse dog.

Okay.

Okay.

We went yesterday.

She's got an amazing nose.

And if this dog doesn't doesn't like something, it's immediately obvious.

Oh, no, she liked it.

Okay, good.

I'm not going to let her have any because God knows where that tongue has been.

Exactly.

And also,

you know, there's obviously a tie-in with Wild, with Wild Thing.

That's why the badge is

the profile of that character, which is kind of cool.

But Wild can also be,

you know, connected to how people perceive me for so long.

Why do they perceive you that way, do you think?

I mean,

just a little Charlie Sheen joke there for me.

Yeah, yeah.

The, the, the universe of evidence, perhaps.

Yeah.

Um, was fairly overwhelming.

There wasn't much debate about that.

Yeah, exactly.

Um, but yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's alcohol-free.

It's as so when you drink this in the morning, you feel no guilt at all.

None, none.

Because I got to be honest, I'm not, I legit enjoyed beer in the morning.

I mean, it's just a.

I did too.

Yeah.

I did too, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, of course, I haven't done that in a long time, but this is a way to get your breakfast beer in with no downside.

Exactly.

And I started drinking it.

And all I had to work with for the longest time was the prototypes, but they would send it to me as it kept evolving.

And I was drinking it during workouts.

What were the...

other people present thinking, I wonder.

There's Charlie Sheeney's drinking beer during a workout.

It does seem like a tiger blood thing.

I was just working out in my bedroom alone.

Yeah.

It wasn't like in a gym.

But I heard somewhere years ago that the German weightlifters used to chug beer

to get all the carbs and stayer did it.

I mean,

yeah, that famous movie of him from the 70s.

He's like drinking a giant style.

In pumping iron, yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I just do it on a rower.

Drinking

on a rower, yeah.

On like an ERG thing?

Yeah, you know, like when you're on a rower.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not while I'm actually like holding the can and rowing but i would pause and have some have some pops and then would you ever shoot like bedroom video of that and put it online

i mean i i i i didn't um

i don't

i i i i try to shoot as little bedroom video as possible you know just this is the new charlie sheen you know

But no,

I think people are going to really, really respond to this.

Well, I already have.

Oh, good.

So has my dog.

So anyway, Charlie Sheen, thank you for taking all this time.

This is amazing.

It's been great.

Yeah, no, it's an honor to be here.

Thank you.

It's an honor to have you.

Thank you very much.

Awesome.

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