The guest
Kurt Metzger: Stand-up comedian and writer; correspondent/writer on The Jimmy Dore Show and Kyle Dunnigan's show, formerly a writer on Inside Amy Schumer.
What this episode covers
Kurt Metzger joins Joe Rogan for a sprawling, weed-fueled conversation that starts with addiction stories and the brutality of opiate and Suboxone withdrawal. From there it sprawls into deep conspiracy territory: CIA drug-running exposed by ex-cop Michael Ruppert on C-SPAN, MKUltra's possible link to Charles Manson, FBI entrapment of would-be terrorists, and the marketing fraud behind the serotonin theory of depression. They dissect the FTX/Sam Bankman-Fried collapse, war propaganda around Ukraine and Libya, and how media outlets flip narratives overnight. The episode closes with lighter but equally rabbit-hole tangents on parasitic wasps, dinosaurs, didgeridoos, the 'gay bomb,' and Haiti's reparations to France.
Recommended on this episode
BookRecommended
Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties
Tom O'Neill
“amazing book; he went deep down the rabbit hole for 20 years; it's meticulously researched”
“Tom O'Neill who wrote the book chaos which is a amazing book all about this he went deep down the rabbit hole for 20 years writing this book it's meticulously researched”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
Dune
Denis Villeneuve
“yeah it's great; it was pretty good”
“did you see uh that Dune movie where they uh the new one they made and the guy there's like they're doing some sacrifice”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
Sasquatch
“it's a good documentary; got a 93 on Rotten Tomatoes; really good”
“there's actually a documentary called Sasquatch and it's about a Sasquatch killing these guys who are doing the exact same thing we're talking about grow Ops”— Joe Rogan
ProductRecommended
White Claw
“Ryan long got me into white claws; I've been drinking white claws; people try to shame me and I don't give a”
“Ryan long got me into white cloth I've been drinking white claws people try to shame me too about it and I don't give a”— Kurt Metzger
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
BookReferencedISBN verified
Best Evidence
David Lifton
“I found out about this from this dude who gave me uh the book best evidence by David lifton”— Kurt Metzger
BookReferenced
Hidden War
John Norris
“I had this guy um John Norris who uh wrote this book uh about the it's called hidden War”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Fight Club
Chuck Palahniuk
“we already have a straight romantic gay romantic comedy for straight man called Fight Club that we're all very happy with”— Kurt Metzger
BookReferencedISBN verified
Haunted
Chuck Palahniuk
“they should warn people about haunted that's it yeah so is uh which one is it uh which story is it”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Collapse
“he also was the subject of that movie collapse you ever see that movie no it's a wild movie”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Quigley Down Under
“Quigley Down Under yeah you ever see that with Tom Selleck no I never saw that oh yeah he he shows up”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
The Big Short
“Big Short The Big Short yeah all that stuff mattybee wrote about has he never been addressed or fixed in any way”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Manhunt
Rockstar Games
“Manhunt remember that Rockstar game Manhunt well you know that whole CIA connection to uh Charles Manson happened when he was in prison”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
League of Legends
Riot Games
“he would play League of Legends while he's on the phone doing a 20 million dollar deal”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Insomniac
Dave Attell
“remember Insomniac he would get hammered in every town was great he told me it was like impossible to do”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Bros
“I just know the tagline it's a gay romantic comedy for straight men which would be a funny thing to say”— Kurt Metzger
MediaReferenced
High Maintenance
HBO
“that was that HBO show high maintenance about a guy who delivers weed on his bike”— Kurt Metzger
MediaReferenced
Half Baked
“Half Baked was all about that the you know the delivery like he had he had to get a friend to be his bodyguard”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
The Dirty Dozen
“I've seen The Dirty Dozen I know how I know how that one”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
The Devil's Double
“that Devil's Double thing that guy might be completely full of and I think probably is the whole story about he had to get surgery to look like Uday”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Brass Eye
Chris Morris
“remember brass eye that Jimmy said it's a it was like a British fake news thing it's really funny this guy named Chris Morris”— Kurt Metzger
MediaReferenced
Bring the Pain
Chris Rock
“he said it's like Chris Rock from bigger and Blacker like bring the pain that level just crushing Will Smith reignited the Beast”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Transparent
“when uh Jeffrey Tambor won for transparent remember he got like me too off that show because he was sexually harassing the trans co-stars”— Kurt Metzger
ProductReferenced
Clase Azul Tequila
Clase Azul
“especially if you like to drink expensive like Clase Azul Tequila or something or some old scotch that's just really expensive”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
IWC Pilot's Watch
IWC
“no need for a satchel was loaded yeah he's got an IWC Pilot's watch on yeah”— Joe Rogan
Big reveals from this episode
- Metzger details getting hooked on Oxycontin and heroin, and says tapering off Suboxone over nearly a year produced worse withdrawal than the opiates themselves.
- They replay Michael Ruppert's 1996 C-SPAN confrontation publicly accusing the CIA of dealing drugs in South Central to fund covert operations.
- Extended riff on FBI entrapment: most so-called terror plots are run by informants, and 12 of the 14 people in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot were FBI informants.
- Joe lays out Tom O'Neill's 'Chaos,' linking MKUltra figure Jolly West to visiting Charles Manson in prison and supplying LSD.
- Discussion of the real 1994 US military 'gay bomb' proposal designed to make enemy soldiers irresistibly attractive to one another.
- Reveal that Haiti was forced to pay France reparations (nearly $30 billion in today's money) for freeing its own slaves, paying it off until the 1980s.
- Allegation aired that a US-based security firm helped recruit the Colombian mercenaries behind Haitian President Jovenel Moise's 2021 assassination.
Worth remembering
- Vitamin D acts more like a hormone than a vitamin, and covid survival rates were cited as roughly four times higher in people with adequate levels.
- The Parkinson's drug Requip was pulled after a lawsuit where a man developed compulsive gambling and hypersexuality, winning a settlement.
- The serotonin 'chemical imbalance' theory of depression was heavily pushed by drug companies (e.g. Eli Lilly's Prozac) and is not supported by the evidence.
- Modern vaccine hesitancy traces partly to an early polio vaccine manufacturer accidentally including live poliovirus; vaccine-derived poliovirus 2 is a documented real strain.
- California prison inmates make up roughly one-third of the state's firefighting force, earning between about $2.90 and $5 a day.
- California's legal cannabis is taxed so heavily (about $817 million collected in 2020-21) that the illegal market has grown larger than the legal one.
- The last person legally freed from slavery in the US (via debt peonage) was around 1942, prompted partly by WWII propaganda concerns.
- Parasitic wasps inject larvae and a fungus into hosts like caterpillars; one wasp-release program was credited with saving around 20 million from crop loss.
- The famous Nixon/Jackie Gleason 'dead frozen aliens' story falls apart because the cited Esquire interview appears never to have existed.
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