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Chapter 1: What unique item does Joe Eszterhas discuss at the beginning?
the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day You need the headphones?
Never.
No?
Okay. If it's okay with you. I know I've seen it both ways.
No, you don't have to wear them. Okay. You were telling me about your cane. That cane is amazing.
It's amazing. It's carved by the Dogan people who were in Mali. And it's a family that's been doing it for 100 years. And many of them were killed in the Rwandan war. It's heavy. It's beautifully done, I think. And it's been a close companion of mine for many years. It seems to be indestructible.
It's pretty awesome looking. It looks heavy. The Dogon people have a very strange origin story. It's a fascinating origin story that involves—is it the— It involves like, here it is. I didn't want to misspeak. So here it is. Centers on the supreme creator Ama and the cosmic journey of the amphibious water spirits known as the Noma.
So they have this crazy cosmic origin story that's a part of their mythology. Ama then attempted to procreate with the Earth, but the pairing was flawed. It's like a very strange descendant of the Ark. According to the Dogon traditions, the Noma descended to Earth from the Sirius star system in a giant Ark-like vessel.
The vessel contained the eight original human ancestors, along with the seeds and animals needed to populate the world. Those are the Dogon people.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of the Dogon people's origin story?
And I'm very sympathetic to the Ukrainians because I'm, I've got a Hungarian background. In 1956, the Russians devastated Hungary in a similar freedom fight. So maybe it gave him the balls and the wisdom to go after Putin.
Maybe it just made him horny. Who knows? Might have nothing to do with the war. Might not.
You made some crazy fucking movies, man. You really did. There are 18 of them that have been made, and there have been like 34 scripts. There are 16 that haven't been made yet. And I don't know. I kid around and I say there's a twisted little man inside me who lives in some spot that I'm not sure where it exactly is. But he's 29, born 29. He will die 29.
And with anything that has a relatively strong sexual content, he wrote the fucking thing. I'm just an old guy giving him the space. So when the recent deal was made for a record amount of money for – Basic Instinct 3, because there was a sequel to it that was a total piece of shit and I had nothing to do with it. But this would be 3, and my title for it is Basic Instinct Jezebel.
The twist of a little man... put together this story that I think people will have fun with. But it continues in that same vein, and it seems to be his specialty. So let's see what happens. I like how you refer to yourself as like another person.
Yeah.
The twisted man. There is, you know, there's this thing with little kids where they have a companion, an invisible companion. The twisted little man is my main one. I have others. Mark Twain is one. And interestingly, Jesus of Nazareth is another. And these people are very, very close to me.
Twisted Little Man is a darker presence than the others, although Twain is a cross between the two of them, and I absolutely love him.
So when you were writing things like Basic Instinct, do you really feel like you were channeling like another person? Is that what it felt like?
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Chapter 3: How did Joe Eszterhas's early experiences shape his writing?
I write flesh and blood. So no wonder it wasn't made. What did he mean by you need more incense? Well, to make it more hymn-like, to give it a sense of piety, to make it inspire the people so that they become Catholic in this specific case. and that it was too secular. And I think what happened to me with all three is that I fell between views, between so-called Christian films and secular films.
And so that's why we never got to finance it, all three of them.
When you say you fell between Christian films and secular films, you mean in the way you were writing it? That you weren't writing it specifically as a Christian film or specifically as a secular film?
The way I was writing it naturally.
Like you wrote everything else?
Yeah, without political considerations or clerical considerations. I was just writing it for my heart. And that was too gritty. to get Christian kind of financing, and on the other hand, too religious to get the secular financing.
That's too bad, because that bridge is probably what would bring more people to Christianity, where they could relate to it.
I agree with you, absolutely, and my argument was, you know, these could be hit movies, because my movies, in a lot of cases, have been these could be hit movies, and that's more important than... than spiking people with incense.
It's interesting how Hollywood has always rejected those kind of religious films, like The Passion of the Christ, for instance. That was a huge movie.
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Chapter 4: What impact did Hunter Thompson have on Joe Eszterhas's career?
The movie really reflected that.
No, it was horrific. And then there was also that Willem Dafoe film. What was that one called?
The Last Temptation of Christ.
That's right. Marty Scorsese.
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. I love Willem Dafoe. I mean, he's one of my favorite actors. And I liked it. And it's also very real, historically real. Yeah. You know, the notion that Jesus of Nazareth You know, it was this Fred Rogers figure who wasn't really a real man, whereas the Bible says he was a true man and true God. That film really showed his human side.
And my conception of Jesus, who I revere and who was one of my close friends that I speak to on most days, is that he was a true man and true God. He was a Jewish zealot, a freedom fighter against the Roman Empire. He was crucified by the Romans.
As a freedom fighter, he hung around blue-collar guys and fishermen and hookers and tax collectors who were the lowest of the low back then, as they should be now, but they were the lowest of the low back then. And those were the people that he primarily buddied around with.
That's Jesus of Nazareth, and that side is completely ignored by most films except the two that you mentioned specifically that are like that.
Yeah, The Last Temptation of the Christ, I don't remember.
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Chapter 5: What are the key themes in Joe Eszterhas's reflections on journalism?
Is that where it says from? Right, but the singer, the song.
Oh, you said who?
Yes, the guy, I'm sorry, the guy who wrote the... The song? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like an electronic dance music song. We played it before, many times. God, I can't believe it's like... Beardy Man. Beardy Man, thank you. This guy, Beardy Man, put it to music, and it's hilarious. I've got to check it out. It's amazing.
I mean, it's a tragic story in a lot of ways, but in his prime, the writing that he did was, in many ways, it was the narration of an era.
Yes, it was, and it was genius. You know, there was this thing called the new journalism, and I practiced that, and so did people like A.J.
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Chapter 6: How does Joe Eszterhas compare Hunter S. Thompson to Mark Twain?
Lees and David Elverson and Larry L. King. But then Hunter took that and created an entire new genre. The Gonzo journalism thing was his, and it was a kind of humor that— that just knocked you down. And they were totally revolutionary.
And Tom Wolfe said, who of course was one of the people, the founders of the new journalism, said that he was today's version of Mark Twain in terms of what he was able to accomplish. Two books especially I taught, the Fear and Loathing in Vegas, of course, and the campaign book, the 72 campaign book, which in my mind, It's the best political commentary, including all of Teddy White's books.
No, it's fantastic. Yeah. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.
Yeah, 1972, yeah.
And he also had this freedom that was very different from all his other reporters because he was a one-time guy. He was going to go in there and follow the campaign for the entire time and then wrote this book about it.
But Joe, these were all stayed, the shoe-tie-wearing reporters. And you turn this creature loose on them on the campaign trail. And, of course, they all fell in love with him.
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Chapter 7: What insights does Joe share about the influence of alcohol on creativity?
And they did because he was such a free spirit compared to what their lives were going to be like.
Well, imagine you're doing this boring thing, which is following a bunch of fakers as they're telling you how they're going to change the country, which you know they're not really going to do because you've been doing this for 20 years. Absolutely. And then along comes the guys like, let's do acid. Come on, pussies.
And all of a sudden, you've got this fucking maniac who's drinking and saying wild shit and writing wild shit. And he doesn't have to be held to the same standards as everyone else because he knows it doesn't matter. If they never have him back again, it's fine.
I'm so sorry that Hunter wasn't here with Trump's time.
Oh, my God.
Because that could have been fucking... Wild and hilarious. But there's also a part of me that says he would have liked Trump.
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Chapter 8: How does Joe Eszterhas view the impact of Hollywood on culture?
I know this is heresy to liberals, you know, who do think that he's a, you know, that he would absolutely hate him and all of that. But I'm not certain of that. And I think that certainly in terms of his style. he would have liked things about him.
Well, I think he would have liked the fact that he's this wild character. Absolutely. A completely wild character that has never existed in all of presidential politics before. There's never been anything like him, for good or for bad. There's never been a guy like him.
What he did today, I mean, he had a shit fit with Netanyahu. Yeah. And he said, you know, you're fucking crazy. Yeah. You would have been in jail except for me. I saved your ass.
Yeah.
What other president, for God's sakes, has ever spoken like that, not only publicly, but to us? Right. And in that sense, you know, I'm proud of being a deplorable. I'm from Cleveland. Right. You know, I grew up among poor people and blue-collar people, and he's the first president that didn't talk down but talked directly to us.
Yeah, for good or for bad.
Oh, yeah, absolutely for good or for bad.
Yeah, I mean, he is who he is, which is very odd. You know, it's a very odd person to be running the country.
Listen, I have a lot of questions in certain areas. You know, the ICE area bothers me, the whole shit with the ballroom and all of that stuff.
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