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Joe Rogan · 2024-06-27 · 3h 17m

Joe Rogan Experience #1965 - David Choe

Artist David Choe riffs with Joe Rogan on money, sex, psychedelics, the Hadza tribe, AI, and why acting in Beef broke his mind.

Joe Rogan Experience #1965 - David Choe
The guest

David Choe — Painter, graffiti/muralist and gambler who made a fortune from early Facebook stock; host of FX's The Cho Show and now an actor in Netflix's Beef.

The gist

David Choe visits Joe Rogan in Austin for a wide-ranging, freewheeling conversation that swings from his love of the Hadza hunter-gatherer tribe in Tanzania to having effectively 'won' the video games of money and sex. He describes giving his art away for free, asking a billionaire friend for a billion dollars on instinct, and an iboga ceremony that led him to give away 90% of his possessions. He recounts reluctantly becoming an actor in Beef, going method as an angry character, and checking himself into a mental hospital afterward. Joe and David trade thoughts on comedy, religion, superheroes, and a shared belief that AI is birthing a new dominant life form. They keep circling back to human connection, love, and psychedelics as the antidote to a frightening future.

Big reveals

  • Choe says talking about the Hadza on Joe's podcast triggered donations that 'literally saved their lives' through the Maleka Foundation.
  • He claims he made millions gambling, millions from art, and millions from early Facebook stock, treating money as a 'video game' he has already won.
  • At dinner he asked a friend worth hundreds of billions to simply hand him one billion dollars on pure instinct, and was politely refused.
  • After his 2009 Beverly Hills sellout show he stopped selling art entirely and told his finance team to structure his life to die with zero.
  • He hired a 'rogue' trainer who had a key to his house and physically hit him; his mother walked in mid-session and screamed in terror.
  • Going method as the angry Isaac Cho in Beef destabilized him so badly he checked himself into a mental hospital for a week.
  • A powerful iboga ceremony mocked his hoarding, prompting him to give away roughly 90% of his personal possessions over seven months.

Things worth remembering

  • Choe was the cameraman on the documentary We Are Hadza, which films a baboon hunt from beginning to end including the kill and eating.
  • He keeps a freezer full of human placentas and ate his wife's placenta, offering to take friends' placentas too.
  • For The Mandalorian he learned the Star Wars 'Aurebesh' alphabet to make accurate graffiti and refused to be paid by Disney.
  • Joe reveals he named 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu after Zecharia Sitchin's Nibiru / ancient-Sumerian alien theories.
  • The 'Mongolian spot' birthmark appears on over 90% of Native American, 80%+ of Asian and African-descended infants, fading within a year.
  • Archer Lars Anderson revives forgotten techniques, firing multiple arrows from his fingers faster than a gun can shoot.
  • Joe quotes Marshall McLuhan's 1964 line that 'man becomes the sex organs of the machine world.'
  • Choe describes TRE (trauma release exercise), claiming humans and domesticated dogs are the only animals that hold trauma in the body for life.
  • Choe argues comedians should dress like 'clowns' or fools, citing Eddie Murphy's leather suits and Richard Pryor's outfits.

Recommended in this episode

Books, products and media the guest or host genuinely endorsed here — with the buy link.

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Guest’s ownMedia

We Are Hadza

“I helped make a film I was the cameraman on this film called uh we are hadza if anyone out there wants” — David Choe 00:10:31
Find it on Amazon
Guest’s ownMedia

The Cho Show

David Choe

“So I made the show on FX called The Cho show and I made it exactly the way I want” — David Choe 00:32:16
Find it on Amazon
RecommendedBook

Empire of the Summer Moon

S.C. Gwynne (inferred)

“Empire of the summer moon it's insane book about the Comanche who lived here it's one of the best books I've ever read I've read it twice” — Joe Rogan 00:56:41
Find it on Amazon
RecommendedMedia

Everything Everywhere All at Once

“the movie that just won the Oscar everything everywhere all at once is like my favorite movie it had like six guys doing the special effects” — David Choe 00:31:45
Find it on Amazon
RecommendedMedia

Blade

“I used to like uh blade blade was my favorite” — David Choe 02:02:31
Find it on Amazon
RecommendedMedia

Eddie Murphy: Delirious

Eddie Murphy

“if you go watch delirious and then listen to his first album which I think he was like 20 or something like that something really young it's so good” — Joe Rogan 01:36:33
Find it on Amazon