The guest
Brian Simpson: Stand-up comedian and Army veteran, a regular at the Comedy Mothership in Austin. Known for his deadpan delivery and a podcast/streaming-adjacent life as a hardcore gamer.
What this episode covers
A loose, wide-ranging conversation that opens with Brian recounting the heart attack he had on Super Bowl weekend in Atlanta and how he coped through humor. They drift through dogs, cats, coyotes and bears, then into Brian's deep gaming obsession (Deadlock, elaborate PC setups, streaming as a business). A long middle stretch dissects nicotine and smoking, including a controversial claim that smoking may correlate with longevity in blue zones if paired with the right diet. The back half turns to crypto pump-and-dump schemes, Ponzi scams targeting the elderly, insider trading in Congress, a Florida neighbor war over a guest house, and finally cosmic wonders like new telescopes, impossibly large black holes, the Great Attractor, and alleged megastructures beneath the Egyptian pyramids.
Recommended on this episode
ProductRecommended
Pure Encapsulations Macular Support
Pure Encapsulations
“the first thing I started doing is taking”
“the first thing I started doing is taking uh this company pure encapsulation has this um it's called uh macular support. It's like a combination of nutrients that help your eyeballs.”— Joe Rogan
BookRecommendedISBN verified
Coyote America
Dan Flores
“There's a great book on it called Coyote America... It's really good”
“There's a great book on it called Coyote America. yeah. It's really good. And um it's uh all about how coyotes”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
Deadlock
Valve
“Right now the game I'm playing the most is called Deadlock”
“Right now the game I'm playing the most is called Deadlock. It's not It's not avail It's not open available to the public.”— Brian Simpson
MediaRecommended
The Insider
Michael Mann
“Good movie”
“remember that Russell Crow movie, The Insider, you remember that movie? Good movie. It's about got about a guy who works at a tobacco company”— Joe Rogan
BookRecommendedISBN verified
Outliers
Malcolm Gladwell
“great book. It's a really good book”
“Outliers. great book. It's a really good book. It talks about like why people are successful.”— Joe Rogan
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
ProductReferenced
Perplexity
Perplexity AI
“let's put this into perplexity. All right, Jeremy, you already perplexity. Perplexity is our AI sponsor brand.”— Brian Simpson
MediaReferenced
Grizzly Man
Werner Herzog
“if you remember Grizzly Man, like that movie, the Warner Herszog movie. So he was living in the middle of Alaska around these bears”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
League of Legends
Riot Games
“Is this like League of Legends but on the ground? Exactly. Okay. I'm glad you put it like that.”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Madden
EA Sports
“The only games I use a controller with is Madden.”— Brian Simpson
ProductReferenced
Volcano vaporizer
Storz & Bickel
“We had a vaporizer. This giant bag, the volcano. Yeah, the volcano. Oh my god, the thing was horrendous.”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
Peak Pro
Puffco
“It's called Peak. The Peak people. Can you look up the Peak Pro? It's big like this uh like this French press.”— Brian Simpson
ProductReferenced
Ultra pouches
Ultra
“I recently got off of um nicotine patches and I started taking ultra patches... It's like neutropics. It's like brain vitamins.”— Joe Rogan
BookReferencedISBN verified
Gut Check
Dr. Steven Gundry
“I have a whole whole chapter in gut check looking at the healthiest, longest living people.”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
ALP nicotine pouches
ALP (Tucker Carlson)
“These ALP pouches is Tucker Carlson's company. these are like six milligrams”— Joe Rogan
BookReferencedISBN verified
On Writing
Stephen King
“one of the things that Stephen King talked about in that book on writing was that one of his biggest bumps in the road is when he quit smoking.”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Wall-E
Pixar
“You know that fat kid in the chair in Wall-E. You ever see that movie? That I'mma transform into that.”— Brian Simpson
Big reveals from this episode
- Joe says red light therapy plus Pure Encapsulations Macular Support fixed his eyesight so he no longer needs reading glasses.
- Brian reveals he had a heart attack three months ago on Super Bowl weekend in Atlanta.
- Joe says quitting cigarettes after his own heart attack was easy because he already felt terrible.
- Joe shares a surgeon's controversial claim that nicotine can benefit longevity if paired with a high-polyphenol diet.
- Joe walks through a hypothetical of using a crypto pump-and-dump as a legal way to bribe someone.
- Joe describes radio-tomography scans showing alleged megastructures over a kilometer deep beneath the pyramids.
Worth remembering
- When a coyote goes missing from a pack's roll call, females respond by producing larger litters.
- A 60-year Russian fox-domestication experiment bred dog-like silver foxes through selecting only for tameness.
- T-Pain reportedly pulls in roughly a quarter-million dollars a month from streaming, sometimes just talking.
- In parts of Sardinia, 95% of men smoke yet reportedly outlive the women, per Dr. Gundry's claim.
- Cigarette packs hold 20 because that's calculated to maximize how many a person smokes in a day.
- The Trump meme coin spiked to ~$75 then crashed; ~800,000 wallets collectively lost around $2 billion.
- Outliers credits the Beatles' skill to relentless reps performing long sets in Hamburg clubs.
- Judges hand down harsher sentences the longer it has been since they last ate.
- The Great Attractor is pulling the Milky Way and ~100,000 galaxies toward something we can't see.
- A new super-syphilis emerged in Washington after one man carried two strains that recombined.
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