Arash Mike Moghaddas - Exile to Entrepreneur

Full transcript: Arash Mike Moghaddas on London Real

0:00 Hey guys, welcome to London Real. My name is Nick Gabriel. I’m with my co-host and good friend Brian Rose. And our first ever guest who is a mutual friend of ours, his name is Mike Moghaddas. How are you doing Mike? I’m doing fine. Thanks for inviting me. So the reason we decided to have Mike on the show as our first guest is he’s one of the most interesting guys I’ve ever met. Wow. Yeah. And I’ve met a lot of interesting people, right? The thing that fascinates me about Mike is just how many things you’ve done with your life. You know, you’ve been on the Swedish National Judo Squad, you’ve been incredibly high up in Sony Ericsson in the corporate world. When you finished university or while you were in university, you were working at a sewage company, if I’m not mistaken. You know, I’ve done a lot And the most interesting thing I’ve found or the most interesting stories that you’ve told me come from your experiences having fled Iran when you were 12 or 13 years old and that is just fascinating.

1:19 So let’s start with that, Mike. What I’ve had in my mind is just what was going through your head as a little kid, 12 or 13, on this escape from Iran. What was happening? diving into. What year was that? And what politically was going on?

1:36 I think it was mid 80s. Okay, so Shaw was already in power. Yeah, just just after revolution. You know, first of all, I just want to say that, you know, I’ll tell a bunch of stuff and song with friends and so on that have been involved. I don’t want to name them. Yeah, don’t. Yeah. And we don’t need liability either. But none of it is fiction, because a lot of people when they when they hear stuff like that’s not can be it’s oh yeah it is and I know plenty of the guys have gone through that kind of you know experience we did meet 80s and my parents were kind of academic and political scholars in the country and obviously after it was pretty tough for both of them obvious reasons we had some family members involved in so we had to leave and that’s it and I had to leave first. How big was your family? My immediate family was my mom. I got two sisters and my dad. I left first a month and a half after my mom and my sister joined me and then a year after my father joined the rest.

2:45 It was quite tough. It took me six months to get to Sweden. How many miles is that? And during that six month, a lot of stuff happened. And so bear in mind, I was from some kind of like upper middle class family in Iran.

2:59 Easy life, easy, I mean, good life. But you know, you started when I was six, the revolution happened, so I saw it firsthand. Very interesting, because the revolution was not an Islamic revolution, first and foremost. It was all the parties, left, middle, liberals, right, you know, all of it, and the Islamic party. But then they did kind of a coup d’etat a year after and took over and then basically got rid of the entire opposition.

3:28 Was it a monarch that was ruling before? It was the Shah of Iran, yeah. And the Shah and family left the country and obviously that’s, you can read that in history everywhere. The country itself is not that big. In terms of population it was around 33 million or something like that.

3:45 But extremely wealthy because of oil and gas. And obviously there are a lot of problems in that region is because of that. It’s almost like you can look at the countries with oil and gas and those are the ones with the problems. Especially in North Africa. You see that today.

3:58 Like in Morocco, there’s no oil and gas and so they worry about like human capital and you look at a place like Algeria and it’s almost a curse, right? Or Libya. Libya, I mean, it’s crazy. For every pain, there’s a pleasure, right? For every pleasure, there’s a pain.

4:10 I think these countries see it and then that’s their natural resources and they focus on it and they try to steal it and control it and take it from everyone else. And like Nigeria, it’s one of the poorest places in the world, even though they have one of the largest supplies of oil. I’ve been there for business up past that. And it’s one of a few countries that probably won’t be in my visiting list. Is it scary?

4:28 Yeah, I’ve got to agree with you there, Mike. I mean, I’ve never been there, but I’m just- Lagos? Is that the cap? Is it scary? Well, it’s been a nice thing that’s been happening to you.

4:36 OK. And I’ve been in Asia. I’ve been in Philippines, and not like Indonesia. But Nigeria was a different story. You might disappear kind of thing.

4:47 Yeah, and very cheaply, five blocks you got. It’s, when we forget just how low the value of life is in countries like that, it’s you are worth spit. You know, no one will bat an eyelid if you, I don’t know, get hit by a car or shot or killed or it’s just, and I don’t know, maybe it’s a really exciting place to live or maybe it’s just really shitty, who knows, I’ll never know. It’s like a hundred million people in Nigeria or something. Is that the population?

5:16 It’s huge, and it’s one of the third or fourth largest oil producing or exporting countries. Maybe it’s five or six. It’s up there. It’s up there. So how do you get from Iran to Sweden, land route, I guess?

5:29 What we wanted to do, I think, was first and foremost, my parents wanted to go to either US or Canada, where we have family. My mom was kind of an MIT scholar back in the days. Really? Can I get that mic a little closer to you? Sure.

5:42 And my dad. Your mom went to MIT in the States? Yeah. She was at MIT. She’s called a nuclear physics one, you know, which is now the worst thing to be in those areas of nuclear.

5:56 But I mean, she was one of the first. My mother was very interesting, not because of my mother, but she was one of the first women in Iran who trained karate, for instance. Wow. She was actually, she went to a sports university, the first group of people who went to a sports university. And there, three or four award and Olympic champion wrestlers was in my mom’s classmates, the captain of the soccer team, football team, was mom.

6:26 But then after a year, she was like, I don’t want to do this. She went to study physics and stuff like that. What was it like, this is like the 60s, I guess? This is the 60s. What was Iran like in the 60s?

6:37 I was there in the 60s, but in the 70s, definitely. It was the hopping place. I’m reading a book called Oil Kings right now. It’s about Iran, Nixon’s time in the 60s and 70s, and Saudi Arabia. And Iran was the biggest ally of the United States in the region.

6:57 It’s so interesting that people forget that. I mean, it was literally, when we grew up in Tehran back in the days, it almost looks like LA in the way it’s built. That’s interesting. All our cars were U.S. American cars, blazers and Chevrolets and all that.

7:14 And no headscarfs and all that, no Islamic law. Of course there are some, but there is no rule saying you have to wear a certain way. And there was a thriving Jewish community back then too, right? No problems, right? No problems whatsoever.

7:27 That’s crazy. You see historically Cyrus, the great, the king of whatever, the king of Persia, freed the Jews in Babylon and what it is to the Iraq. or the Assyrians at a time with Ashur Banepal, or Ashur Banepal, whenever you call it. When is this, roughly? This is 2,500 years ago, so 1,000, what is it?

7:49 1,000 BC? 500 BC. 500 BC, sorry. Okay. Yes, we’re at 2,000.

7:54 And what he did was he’s considered the first person who created the Declaration of Human Rights. That’s why he’s so popular. So, Cyropedia, which is written by Xenophon, Greek scholar, I think he was a soldier as well, he wrote about that a lot and so he freed the Jews and gave them the land of Israel and the funding to build their, to their beliefs because his position was everyone should have the freedom to worship whatever they worship so freedom of religion, freedom of thought, it’s very interesting, the reason he, the Persian Empire back in the days grew so big, was that whenever he took a country, he didn’t destroy it, he didn’t rape a pillage, he didn’t take, he didn’t reinforce his religion to them.

8:42 He actually took part of the culture into the Iranian, or at the time Parsi-Persian culture. And that’s because of that, you see, if you see an Iranian today, I mean, nicks have seen some of my friends, they could be blonde, they could be black, they could be Chinese looking, we’re very mixed population, multi-ethnic or multi-religious so before before the revolution jewish community no problem the i mean i don’t know if it’s no problem i can say because i’m i’m not obviously from that background but uh… from uh…

9:15 Parliamentary and living i mean it was a open society i’ve got christians behind zorothrians she’s been here at minajad talk now it’s like he’s so anti-israel you just assume it was always like You know what I find interesting is how, Mike just used the phrase, it was a very open society, and how in a space of 30 or 40 years, it’s completely turned around. I wonder if such dramatic shift could take place in the West, like could that happen to the US, could that happen to Britain? I’m not sure, what do you guys think?

9:47 Why did it happen in Iran? You know what, my opinion is this, it requires a very small percentage of population to turn a country into a dictatorship. Not a lot, but population with arms in hand and really force, because dictate, that’s what you have. You can change a secular society, especially if the society is not educated. I mean, bear in mind, even in Iran, I mean, a lot of Iranians said, you know, especially the people in the West, we were the greatest, and it’s not, because we had almost 70, 65 to 70% of the population were illiterate.

10:23 Is it still the case? And no, not anymore, because it’s interesting how they actually went from 60% to now, it’s over 90%. And the reason is, 90% are literate, 90, 95%, sorry. More than the States? More, yeah, it’s very strong.

10:37 The reason being is 80 or 75% of population today is under 30 years old, very young. So, you know, it’s very interesting. Things change though. You know, this is what, you know, it’s a dynamic environment. Every place you go from being a very open society, but small things that matter and people’s life change and then suddenly you have an uprising.

10:59 You know, when the Green Revolution happened, was it a year ago and all that? Two years ago. Two years ago. You know, there’s all the protests going on, they had Twitter and then what, the government thugs or the two levels separated thugs, like the use on motorcycles and stuff? Ah, they call them the Basijis, which is like a…

11:18 Kind of like a Gestapo almost. Not really, it’s like a very loose arm of revolutionary guard. this bunch of teenagers, essentially they give, they bring them mainly from poor environments and then they give them powers, essentially. They give them gun, they give them the right to attack. If you see a girl with a lot of makeup, go do this.

11:37 They’re not employed by the government, they just kind of do the dirty work and they kind of, they can’t claim, they can’t say you’re part of the government because we’re not, but they encourage them, right? And it’s tough for young people, man. But I know when all that was going on, the Green Revolution, there was a site called Stravoy that I talk about a lot and they were like, they were saying, You know, these are what you see on TV, and you see some university people protesting, but 70% of the population is out in these rural areas, and they don’t give a fuck about that.

12:01 They really are just like, you know, that was something that on paper looked good, and the university students did, but until you get like the union or the laborers involved, it’s never going to happen. So their call was it was never close. It’s fear as well, man. It’s fear. I mean, I’ve had one, I mean, I don’t want to get into details, but a lot of my dad’s friends were executed after a revolution.

12:21 My cousin got executed and his wife, you know, whether I believe in whatever he believed in terms of, but they’re not stupid people, they were one of them was a doctor, the other one was a lawyer. Did they go after the educated people? They went after. Like Paul Pott did, I mean. Quickly, yeah, quickly.

12:38 Now, of course, that’s 30 years ago, long time ago, and I’m sure it’s the society has changed a lot, but still when you talk about oppression, what people in the West don’t think about is We have all the rights here. We have the right to talk about whether we want to produce a media, a piece of media, whether it is audio, video, movie, and project it to the rest of our society, whereas there, you know, it starts with the basics. I remember when I went to school as a kid, said, you gotta cut your hair four millimeter short, not fair enough.

13:10 You’re not allowed to wear these type of trousers. Short t-shirts are not allowed. And for guys, and for girls, they have to put veil on. suddenly this name came in and my mother was at a time like principal of the largest girls high school and they were attacking girls that were coming with guns, AK-47s, heating girls and stuff like that, like a lot of stuff happening. And then when you put that level of pressure in people, then you start realizing, and there were laws, like we couldn’t play football on the street at certain times more than five people, if they were passed by or six people, something like that, because you couldn’t group up, stuff like that.

13:49 And I’ve been chased, I’m not joking, I’ve been chased in the studio because we were playing football that would come with this Nissan patrols, jumping with AK-40s, we’re kids, man. We take our ball, like run up the wall, running away, all that stuff, so. So Mike, I wanted to ask you the images that I have in my mind when you’re talking about this.

14:11 As an outsider looking in, And looking at different examples, similar to Iran, it seems to me that the more unjust or injustice the system is, the more tightly they have to restrict and try to control the population. And we’re starting to see that happening with the modern Western nations as well. Now that we’ve seen that capitalism is starting to break down, or at least in its current form, there are issues. And there are, I guess you could almost say unlawful misappropriation of funds from different sectors, they’re clamping down.

14:48 We’re all, our voices and our freedoms are kind of starting to be restricted. How so? Well, I mean, for example, the average London is CCTV’d 400 times a day. Yeah, that’s pretty interesting. You know, I mean, look what’s happening with the Occupy Wall Street guys in London that we went to see last week.

15:06 You know, if you’re not mistaken today, they’ve just initiated a legal action against them. I think I better get them out. Yeah, and I don’t know, it’s just a thought I’ve had. I mean, Mike, what are your thoughts? I think any protest is good.

15:21 That’s my personal opinion. It’s healthy, right? I think it’s good. I mean, maybe it’s not organized, maybe it’s whatever, but you know, any protest, if you feel you’re being treated unjust, you have to pro, you can’t just sit back. Now, the underlying reasons why we have the banking price and all that is much bigger than just, you know, bankers have a lot of other issues but if you feel like you know something is not right you have to raise your voice that’s your that’s the right that you have that’s why I’m saying in countries when you don’t have that right people come out they’re like wow you can do that here yeah and that’s that’s good that’s good takes balls to do something like that as well because you might end up being put in a prison and tortured I mean that is a very especially in a place like Iran that’s a very real possibility if you raise your voice against the in common powers you’re in trouble I mean look at the Arab Spring I mean started in Tunisia then moved this way to Egypt and then Libya and now in Syria and it started out a bunch of me entire square and Cairo it started off as a hundred dudes sitting there trying not to get snipered and then it grew into but you know what triggered that in Tunisia as a guy younger god of university with fire self emoliation power of that lights himself in fire because he was like a fruit merchant and he was tired of getting shaken down by government guys who wanted the money seriously so he lights himself on fire in some small town it

16:39 Wasn’t even captured on youtube no just he’s fed up goes right in the middle of the police station and lights himself on fire seriously like the buddhist monk she used to do in the vietnam war the cover of that rage against the machine album is one of the monks burning yeah i mean just and you know what can you make a bigger statement than that can you make a bigger statement there’s no way and you know what always amaze me about that image um with the monk is how peacefully looks He’s sitting there, he’s not running around screaming, and what an incredible person that must be. Just a whole level beyond the average person who’s got, but their biggest problem is do they have milk for their cornflakes in the morning. Do you know what I mean?

17:16 I know what you mean. When you see that, Mike, what do you think of that one guy in Tunisia? I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s tough. For me, it’s, it’s very difficult to, because I’m actually experienced, I’ve experienced the beginning of the war, Verona being bombed and stuff as well, you know. It’s tough for me to look at it and not say, you know what, I agree with those guys. It’s tough for them.

17:43 It starts at home. If you can’t pay your bills, if somebody is taking your life, like the Tunisian guy happened to him, he’s done. I mean, he can’t pay for anything. The guy has had enough. And that’s what, I mean, what’s the definition of a hope?

18:00 Hopeful future is that you see something in your future. It’s when you don’t have any hope that you decide to kill yourself. Like the guy probably has, that’s it. I don’t have anything else. And it’s a very tough situation.

18:12 On the other hand, you know, I remember when I came to Sweden as a kid, people were like, ah, what happened to you? I said, do you really want to know? And then when you say it, people were like, oh, because they can’t relate to it. If I say, all right, you know, I actually saw the bombs in the neighborhood and we drove past by it and it was like everything, you know, that you don’t want to see, you see. People are like, I’ve seen any movies, Rambo.

18:34 Well, in reality, it’s a different story, you know. And so, unless people are really interested, I don’t try to explain too much because, you know, we lived, I lived through it and so on and so forth. And I really appreciate when I come to, you know, when I came to Sweden, the Western world, it’s more open. It’s open. Like anything else that’s just there all the time, take it for granted.

18:57 Yeah, in a fair way. I mean, you’re here telling me about Bob’s blown up, and I’ve never been anywhere near something like that. I’m not proud of that or anything, but it’s an experience that I had to go through without a choice. I didn’t have the choice. But what’s interesting is, is that when you come to the Western world, I could see some of my friends take things for granted.

19:22 I clearly see that. Friends in Sweden, native Swedes. Yeah, my Swedish friends. No, basics, basics. I’m like, dude, our electricity would go like four hours a day.

19:34 We had to put a tank of water up on the roof because the water would go. You never knew. You wake up three times at night because the sirens would go and you would go, I lived in a big house and everything, but I had to bring my little sisters and my parents would go to the basement initially. But then you get used to it as well. Every night, you get long.

19:52 Start sleeping through it. No, you come out and look at it. Yeah, look at the button. This is where you get it. I mean, it becomes like anything else.

20:00 Human being is so strong. Such an adaptive organism that it creates. It’s amazing. Yeah, reach your baseline very quickly, huh? Yeah.

20:07 You get used to that. I mean, it’s not a normal thing. No. But you get used to it. It’s just like it’s a coping mechanism we have, being humans.

20:14 Yeah, funny enough. I got to say, it’s some of the most fun times as well. Because once you’re close to that level, anything can go. And it’s fun as well, because you live every moment pretty much. Yeah, you don’t know that it’s going to be your last or not, huh? Yeah, with your family, friends, we used to have parties, like there was no tomorrow.

20:35 Literally, like there’s no tomorrow. Yeah, literally. You know, I this recent thing that happened in Norway with this, you know, this, this, this, this lone killer, killing everyone. And, you know, I, since Sweden is next to Norway, I just wanted to get your your contacts. And since you’re an immigrant in Sweden. What’s the whole tension like ethnic tension, immigration tension in in Nordic nations?

20:56 You’re hitting a spot. Because you have a unique perspective, you know, and also I want to know what what are your perspective of immigrants coming in? Now? I mean, do you see these immigrants coming in? And do you identify them with them? Are you like, you know, I’ll let you answer.

21:09 Yeah, so it’s it’s very tough. It’s very tough. When I grew up in Sweden in the 80s, it was a huge aggressive and early 90s as well. aggressive right wing movement going on in Sweden skinheads and you know really I mean we had in 91 I think 92 is a guy called in Swedish laws a man and laser man literally with a laser gun shooting foreigners at night he shot like 22 something like really people here and killed two of them you mean like a laser laser sight laser sight on a guy they just call him that was his nickname the laser man because you I mean seriously people afraid of going out in Stockholm if you were an immigrant or everybody immigrants of course of course because he was shoot it was clear 22 22 darker guys from different countries not sweets when did the massive amount of immigration happen in Sweden I think so like 80 they opened it up or was it always happening no you know I think is a there’s a policy because the Swedish birth rate is has been going down forever so the country has to open up you have to survive like most you know countries advancing you need people to do the jobs that people don’t want to do like in the 60s the UK did it with the people in Jamaica, and they brought everyone in.

22:18 And then in the US, it’s with Mexican labor. So I guess it was natural. Germany, Turkish are huge, and they’re a third generation now. In Sweden, I think, second World War, obviously, Sweden was kind of neutral, I mean, according to books. But you can call.

22:35 There are others who say they’re not. They can say they’re Nazis. Yeah. OK. Yeah, pretty much.

22:41 But I don’t think everybody’s like that. I think it was an element in the government that was pro-Nazi. And anyway, so they took in people from part of Eastern Europe and part of Germany, but mainly Eastern Europe. You had Hungarian groups coming in. And then essentially the Yugoslavians start coming in more as a work force in 60s and 70s to Sweden.

23:03 And then other population, like it’s a big group of people from Chile. Really? Yeah, post-Alende. Post-Alende, is that one of the dictators? No, no, no, it went Pinochet.

23:14 OK, basically smashed the kind of a left wing government in Chile. A lot of Sweden just had the doors open. You can come. We had we had draft judges from the U.S. And really, well, it’s an island.

23:31 It’s quite a melting pot. It’s been weird. Speaking of draft judges, I mean, Vietnam draft, would you guys let’s say we all got let’s say the UK entered into a war tomorrow and you got enlisted or conscripted, what would you do? You got your papers, they arrived in the mail. What would you do?

23:51 I guess I’d have to go, right? I mean, I’m old, I’m 40, they don’t need me. But let’s say, okay, it was. I mean, to dodge or not, basically. To dodge or not, would you?

24:02 Or if it was the Vietnam War where you had options. I mean, my dad didn’t have to go to Vietnam because he was in college. So back then, if you were in college, enough to go. Seriously, how’s that for a kind of elitism? You look at Charlie Sheen and what is it? platoon, you know, and then like you see all the grunts that are there all the guys that that aren’t educated. It was just the bottom of society. And they’re the ones that went over there. What would I do? War looks like hell. Yeah. You? I’ve got no interest in in fighting in a war of any kind, like, especially not for for a government Talk about a stressful. Have you seen that documentary called restrepo? You need to see this. I’ve heard about this this photojournalist who worked for Vanity Fair Restrepo re str EPO. It was this one base in Afghanistan Some crazy statistic like they used about 30% of all the ordinance the entire country just defending this one base up where they’re no other in Afghanistan and they filmed it and these guys up there and It was really just insane. I mean they were stressed out U.S. Marine Corps. Yeah, guys up there and you see them you see them running like they’re shooting bullets and you see them running by the boats like a guy gets killed almost on camera and you see the guys they’re crying because one other guys got killed on camera and look it Looks like they’re acting but they’re obviously not it’s really intense

25:27 Much much much respect to those guys. I mean there There is the rumors flying around now Now that apparently the world is getting ready for or the world is starting to prepare for another war towards late next year because the cycle when the world’s in recession war, the powers of being know war is the one thing that will stimulate the economies back to levels that require to keep this consumption machine going and think about that you know what would happen if I’m from South Africa the world entered into a war like would I be able to go see my mom and dad, you know, now it’s easy, I can jump on a plane and go see them. But if we were at war, like another global war, different story, you know.

26:13 It’s hard to fathom what like World War II was like. I mean, that’s a global war. Where you were, if everybody was affected, even your Brazil, you were affected somehow. That’s hard to imagine. That was probably not the most politically correct thing to say, but I always think It must have been kind of kind of exciting to live through World War two if you’re in London, you know Just look how many movies they make and they’re all during the war So I guess it would be like like you were saying like a heightened reality because there’s so much And then you get hit by shrapnel and your intestines are hanging out and you’re bleeding to death and it’s not so fun That’s so cool. Yeah, I would have been crazy what it’s like to be in London in like 1939 when they were just getting Shit bombed out of on a regular basis from Germany They’re working like 16 hour days.

26:57 You ever been to the cabinet war rooms where Churchill used to be underground and he had a direct line to FDR in the States and they’re literally thinking at any point they can get invaded by the Germans. And people taking shelter in underground stations as well and the blackout, think how incredible that must have been. I mean just no lights after a certain time. Yeah, because the bombs. Yeah.

27:19 And then these automated V1 and V2 bombs, have you ever seen those at the Imperial War Museum? Yeah. It’s like 10 meters tall and it was it was the first wreck remote-control bomb the Germans built War, you know, we’ve spoken about it before I’ve accepted that we’re a warring species but I always just think like so So many man hours put in by some of the greatest minds this planet has ever seen With the sole focus of developing things to help us destroy each other So imagine if we had just somehow changed that to solving some kind of problem.

27:54 I know it’s an age-old question, what could we do if we weren’t trying to kill each other all the time? Look at the Manhattan Project. Yeah. I mean, the US accelerated development of an atomic bomb for war and got there first. Well, I mean, someone mentioned to me the other day that the US spends, do you know the figure, the percentage of its GDP on defense?

28:14 Oh, military and stuff? Yeah. I don’t know. It’s it’s large seven eight hundred million billion dollar. I think it’s like well I was looking at one of the bill bill Mars programs where he breaks down the budget and can the biggest chunk as much as defensive Yeah, yeah, I think the thing is this I think the state of I mean as a scientist I’m a man. I’m an engineer from background. I believe in what they say in science entropy disorder Everything by nature goes towards the entropy disorder including the civilization Everything.

28:45 But if you leave your apartment today, don’t even enter it, come back in a month, it’s dust everywhere, it’s dirty, it’s spiderwebs, etc. So what you need, you need to always put an effort to have things in order. And that goal is the same, so the natural state is not peace, it’s actually disorder. So everybody has to put an effort to keep peace together. To get reminded every now and then?

29:13 Yeah, the war through protest to or you have to you have to make sure that you know people I mean it’s also when it comes to Creation or you have to let people blow off some steam as well, you know ventilate their Anger their frustrations so they’re otherwise that’s the biggest problem. I actually think the biggest problem in the West There’s nothing from external. It’s internal. Okay, it’s the causes of I mean cause a problem today’s economy It’s not You know, it’s not an external enemy. It’s not Cold War. It’s not, you know, it’s not what is it then?

29:49 It’s it’s the internal issue today is because people don’t have jobs and then have you know Their income is not you know, they’re have money and that’s a problem when you start having Feeling that you can’t pay for your children. It can you know, a lot of that basic stuff Yeah, that’s the problem Bill Clinton said it best when he was going for reelection He said it’s the economy stupid and that’s what it was all about and it’s it’s funny when people have enough money where they can raise their kids and be safe they honestly don’t really care much more about that but when you start taking away their job and they can’t take their kids to this school and do this then then you get tension and yeah a little revolution yeah but so you say when people have it have a enough income to raise raise the kids and to take care of their material needs there’s no tension but I think I do think that’s true yeah no political Yeah, no political tension, but then like a kind of collect of tension forms in the collective unconscious like things are too good You know, we always fuck it up for each for ourselves. That’s humanities. That’s our current. That’s true That’s the whole thing like the Madden the Mad Men and you watch the show Mad Men That’s awesome I mean there’s this whole underlying tension because I’m John Ham Which is that the star who’s on a talk show recently and he was talking about how it’s this arrogance

31:00 It’s insecure arrogance. So America’s back from the war. We won. We’ve got all this stuff We’re doing all these crazy advertisements, but yet underlying they got all these problems, right? I mean, Don Draper’s messed up. His wife hates him. You know, his kids are fucked up. It’s like all this That is a really cool show What season are you on number? I’ve watched them all which is four Four four and the fifth is coming up. I think I’ve swept up to three does does the picture get brighter in in series four?

31:30 I’m not ready. I don’t know if there’s any brightness in that show. I love watching it. Yeah, it’s a cool show It’s a nice. It’s interesting. It’s interesting. I think the word dynamic is changing, especially now with with the power economic power moving towards East China. I mean, it’s just because you’ve seen China firsthand, right from an entrepreneurial standpoint. You talk about I haven’t seen it. So tell me, come on. This is the thing. He starts smiling now.

31:57 It’s just the sheer scale of it. I mean, what the Japanese did to West, right? I mean, Starting in 80s and 80s. Yeah, I mean the Chinese will do it thousand times more. I’m not joking X-thousand I can’t get my head around leverage it would down people it kind of scares the hell out of me I’m like a small city is 200 million. No 20 million. Do you do you think like that?

32:18 We are about to witness The start of proper Chinese imperialism They don’t have imperialism in a sense of let’s go They just say you know what we want to make money. We want to sell want to be the best in whatever we sell I want to give you the best microphone the best x the best y I mean, that’s that’s why there’s always stuff I get this is made in China fall apart. I’m not really that’s your Apple computer That’s Chinese. Yeah

32:48 I heard they’re making the new for us in Brazil. Is that true? The Fox Commons still must be producing some of you go to Foxconn has 800,000 employees When you walk into it to the place you’ve been yeah, where is it in China? They get the different all the Taiwanese in China and Shenzhen and some in China that the factories are I Mean when they go for lunch then thousand going to I mean you can’t understand the scalars Are they being exploited or they of a day better off because of the business very very interesting question because you know from From a Western point of view when you know We have coffee breaks. We have breaks. We have x-right. That’s right that right in Asia you have to think about the fact that some of these people possibly come from let’s say they’ve had a farming very very poor existence right I mean very tough if you go to rule China it’s it’s a different century just oxes and real low level very different you know it’s it’s not that it’s, you know, if you go from London to Birmingham, you know, maybe it changes, it doesn’t change that much. I don’t know if I think about it, what would you, I’m interested in what you guys would prefer to be, like a peasant in some obscure rural Chinese province harvesting rice or a low-level worker in the Foxconn factory, because I know one thing for sure, I prefer to be in the field. You sure? It’s cash prize money we’re talking about. This is like, you know, send

34:23 Your kids to college type stuff. It’s like, you know, it’s like people who have never been poor saying, you know, I wish I was poor. Right. I’ve heard that properly poor. I want to experience that. You know, maybe not. I know, I know artists and I’ve known person people or writers and authors and artists who want to experience different environment hence becoming a vagabond or living in a very small environment and difficult environment because for them, they want that experience to be able to kick in their reasoning.

34:55 But as a normal person, we think about, you’re talking about poverty to the level where, how do you wash your clothes? You don’t get to eat meat. You don’t have detergents. You have nothing. I mean, you’re talking about medical situation.

35:09 You can get any kind of, you can get, I know people like a couple of skandies that used to work together, a family who went down there, this is many years ago, with their kids, they all got Hep A or B, one of them. God damn. Through food. Through food. It’s unbelievable.

35:27 There’s some dangerous produce and water in that country. Everything that could, you know, so that could happen. Now they’re improving fast and the upper level when you go to Shanghai or Beijing and it’s just, it’s crazy how fast it changed. Okay, but you still have massive corruption like these high-speed trains that just went off the rails and it’s weird, there’s a lot of that. And plus now they’re cracking down like you were saying earlier, Nick, as far as like the personal freedoms.

35:55 I mean, you know, the Chinese patrol the net and now these micro blogs come up when things like that train happens and they get all this criticism and they try to shut them down and they’ll go and like put people under house arrest and harass them, the whole like secret Chinese police. But that’s the beauty of the internet. What’s that? Is that the west? It happens in the west here as well.

36:13 Yeah, you’re right. It’s difficult to, that’s the beauty of the internet is that you, it’s a voice that you cannot silence. You know? Well, they’re trying in China. They’re trying, but there’s just no way.

36:22 I mean, people will find proxy servers and virtual private network tunnels or they’ll find a way to get the message out through the internet. It’s just, there’s just no way to silence. You can’t discuss Tiananmen Square in China, right? It didn’t happen. Is that right?

36:35 I actually have never thought about it. You can’t go to Wikipedia and China and have been Tiananmen Square. It’s just not talked about, right? But you know, what’s interesting to me is from being a totally closed society, they opened up a little bit in the early 90s, you know, with the southern regions to be able just to do commerce. And now they’ve opened up.

36:55 And that to me is a progress. Versus, let’s say, countries like Iran, Iran where, you know, they get the second largest gas field in the world, I think, or the second and third largest oil fields in the world. And they’re still importing gasoline. And they’re still importing, exactly. And then they’re thinking about let’s do nuclear.

37:13 I mean, I don’t get it, but what they could do is let people free a little bit. That’s what the Chinese did, right? Right. They’ll let their people free to some extent. A little bit.

37:22 Say, you know what, don’t ask too much about politics and this and that, you know, make good living. Be an entrepreneur. open up, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s when we go back to issues where we said economy has such an impact. It’s when people start seeing growth and they have jobs and they make money and they produce and they get a sense of pride as well because suddenly you’re number one in whatever and there’s suddenly, you know, and that’s what the Chinese have done right.

37:52 And once you’re doing that, well, people just say, you know what, it’s going well. I’m not gonna ask any questions. It’s something I found interesting with how… The economy. Yeah.

38:02 Someone mentioned to me how the reason China is on this exponential growth curve and the trajectory is just straight up is in democracies you have to plan along the four to eight year democratic cycle. So you can’t institute policies for long term because you have to know if the policy doesn’t work then you have to change before the next election. Whereas in China, it’s not a problem. The government says we’re going to do something even if it takes 100 years and they stick to it and they go for it.

38:33 It’s top down. Yeah. There’s an article recently about how the Chinese are pushing, oh, they’re desalinating water. So they’re taking salt water and they’re making fresh water out of it. And right now though, it costs too much.

38:44 It costs like, you know, a couple of dollars a gallon and they’re like, you know what? We’re going to still do it because we’re going to get there in 20 years and it’s going to be cheap and we’re going to keep putting the resources in it. And that’s something like a communist China can make a decision to do, but you can never that in the US. You know pollution? When was the Chinese Olympics in 2004 or 2006? 2008, yeah. I was going to China a lot back in the days and we were setting up factors on the Sony Ericsson and Sony before and I lived in Hong Kong in 1997, 1998. So I was in Beijing for the first time, I think 2002 or 2003, I don’t remember, I think early 2000 something like that and we came out of an airport and it was snowing, but it was 15 Celsius, 16 Celsius, it’s warm. It’s strange. It’s white, clouds, and snow. And I’m asking, what’s going on? I said, well, it’s pollution. You couldn’t see the sky. It was so bad for that specific day. Was it like ash? It was almost like ash coming down. It’s weird.

39:45 It wasn’t like that every day, but that specific day for the first time, I was surprised. But then before they cleaned up, I don’t know what they did before Olympic, but they literally start imposing clean energy and this and that. Yeah, they’re restricting cars. Restricting a lot of that stuff, and suddenly you see blue sky and it’s weird. But they do it because they can do it top down.

40:07 Yeah, but just hearing that story, that to me is a symptom of a severely, severely diseased society. That tolerates that kind of pollution. Yeah, I mean, I’ve heard that I don’t know firsthand, but apparently Tyler is destroying ecosystems at an alarming rate, right? I know there’s many countries doing that, but it’s incredibly bad in China. And for what? For economic growth, so they can make more crap to sell to the US. So that, I don’t know, to me, it’s, I guess, it’s still the remnants of the idealist, Nick. Yeah, because the economy is strong. Yeah. Like you said, Great, the economy’s strong, we’re all going to die of some disgusting lung disorders because…

40:50 I don’t know. It’s interesting. I think, with anything else, if you’re an artist, as an example, if I’m an artist today, if I think with my artistic part of my mind, I would oppose a lot of stuff. It doesn’t matter who has these, Lorian told me the least. There’s a lot of things that is not right.

41:12 And you can actually, if I’m making a movie, a film, or if I’m drawing a painting, or writing, whatever, doing a song, I like Rage Against Machine, for instance, because of that. They’re just in your face. I like that. I like that rebellion. It should be. If you don’t have a message, then what’s art? It’s just a pretty picture.

41:36 I mean, it’s good as well. There’s nothing wrong with it. But to me, if you’re an artist, you have to. That’s what’s difficult in most of these countries, like in Asia or Middle East, because as soon as you. Being an artist.

41:47 Being an artist, because you want to express yourself and expressing yourself very quickly gets into some kind of an ideological or political situation. Very quick, even basic stuff. Is it Wei? Is it Ai Wei? Is it Ai Wei?

41:59 The guy, the Chinese artist, had an exhibition at the Tate Modern and they grabbed him for like three months and held him under detention. I don’t know. Yeah, yeah, they’re cracking down on those guys because they have to but China’s a machine, you know, it’s capitalistic machines. So the question is, is with the internet, like Nick talks about, I mean, is it only a matter of time before Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, can they just not keep these close societies together anymore? You know, it’s because I don’t think so.

42:28 I wish I had an answer. The thing is this though, if you go to a country like Iran, most of the people are fairly secular in their mind and their way of living. You have to bear in mind this, these are old countries. Country like Iran is an old Persia with 3,000 whether or more years. They came up with the concept of religion.

42:52 Religion didn’t exist. I mean, it’s interesting when I talk to some friends and some people even have a perception that Jesus was a blue-eyed Blanca. No, dude, he was born in the Middle East, yeah? And the thing is, they’ve been around. You got Mithraism, one of the first original philosophy religion, Mithra was, actually it’s a girl’s name, she was a goddess.

43:15 And it was the religion or philosophy of the elite of the Romans back in the day. So when the Catholic Church, later on when Christianity came, they took a big chunk of Mithraism incorporate in that to make it for the masses. Christianity has pagan roots. I mean, lots of them. Yeah, if anyone who can’t see that is, they’re fooling themselves. There are a lot of pagan influences in Christianity. It’s just pagan stuff with different names, right? Do you know Christmas, right? 25th of December. It’s just to celebrate the solstice, the winter solstice.

43:51 Yeah, people are putting little balls on the tree. On top of the tree is a star. The balls represent planets, the star represents the Sun, and Jesus is the Sun God who was born again, he was born on the 21st, that’s when the Sun is born again, that’s when the winter saucers finishes, that’s when the longest day of the year finishes, and that’s just one example you can find things like this about the pagan roots of Christianity at infinitum, it’s just there’s so many of them, and I find that very interesting.

44:21 I love Christmas. Yeah. Especially when it snows. Yeah. Sweden.

44:26 Especially when it snows gray ash, right? Awesome. So you never told us about immigration in Sweden? So immigration in Sweden. So when…

44:33 No. Well, it was pretty aggressive. Or race wars in Sweden. Pretty aggressive. Very aggressive.

44:38 Actually, for a while, I mean, I’m not joking when I would say, you know, I would be afraid of going out when it would get dark on Friday and Saturday nights. Afraid of repercussions, racist violence or? Racist violence. Yeah. I mean, I’ve been called names.

44:50 Attacked knives and staff that have been attacked. That’s the reason I started doing judo. Actually, I started. Yeah. And you didn’t change you to win a round. I did wrestling, wrestling. Okay, wrestling. My father was a wrestler. Yeah, for huge, huge, huge. And we all and my father come from this tribe where they’re all wrestlers. So old school warriors, right? It’s pretty cool. All like very well educated and everything, but they’re all wrestling. Do you have a choice?

45:14 Or was it just like, I want to do that? Because now that’s like, I was five and a half years old. I was too little. I getting a fight over getting my ass handed to me and said, fuck this man, you gotta start doing some wrestling. He can’t be just smart.

45:23 He can’t be street smart. So did he teach you himself? He brought me to a really high, good club. I was getting beat down and he actually pinned me down last time when I was 15. After that, he had a hard problem so he couldn’t do a lot, but he was pretty good, very technical actually himself.

45:36 Because you have to be when you get old, right? Yeah, yeah. He was very cool. Yeah. It’s cool.

45:42 Pass away, unfortunately. So, I mean, going back to Sweden, it was very, very tough. Very tough. growing up and mentally tough because you’re surviving on a day-to-day basis and what happens to you is this a lot of my friends who were half Swedish and one parent from in the country or you know they’re you know the parents are from different country born there in Sweden they grew up and they’re just called you and us every time I remember as a kid you know early teenagers you know people talked to me I grew up in a little island in West Coast of Sweden I was the only foreign kid in the school.

46:16 So I picked up Swedish pretty quickly, I had no choice, et cetera, et cetera. So if I would meet someone, they’re like, oh, you speak Swedish, you’re Swedish, very good. Are you adopted? Just, I mean, I was like, no, I was born, oh, very good, you enjoy it. Anyway, so growing up, every day, you’re reminded you’re not part of the society.

46:35 When what happens is, you get marginalized. No, you get marginalized, and as soon as you get marginalized, that’s when, that’s in my opinion, where you have, you get problems in society because you drift towards extremes. Extreme left, extreme right, extreme religious, extreme whatever. And that’s a problem you’ve seen in most of European countries. Right, with Turks in Germany.

46:58 Turks in Germany. Even in France. In France, the Arash and North Africans. You have, for instance, different immigrant groups of different things like in Iraq, the Iranians in Sweden where most of the families were educated, so the kids, saw education as a way, for instance, they’re one of the successful immigrant groups. I remember friends said, yeah, but you’re not like one of them.

47:23 I’m like, who’s them? Did you bond with the other people from different countries because you were one of them? The thing was, you had no choice. So we clicked. My buddies were from Yugoslavia, Greek, Lebanese, oh, man, it was so funny.

47:37 We know all the bad words in every language you can imagine because you can hang it out. And then you attract, because you get this flavor. The subculture always attracts others as well. So a lot of our Swedish friends were either really funky dudes, or they were outsiders to start with, they were hackers, they were into hip-hop, nobody liked it back in the days, they were hard rockers, they would join our crew, or they were half-sweet, half what they were, half friends, they were half Indonesian, half Swedish, half Italian, et cetera.

48:06 Yeah, it just attracts all the white boys, right? You kind of want to try something more different. outsiders yeah and the outsiders and what happens is what we considers and you know when you’re young you think I want to be like everybody else because you want to be accepted like a teenager that’s everybody’s like that and but what you don’t know is that’s you know when you grow up goddamn and I speak two more languages than everybody else my mind thinks in three different ways it’s it’s amazing what you can use your brain for but you don’t realize until you get older when I was working later on professionally, how I could deal with Asians, with the Japanese culture, easy.

48:45 Just because you’ve been around people like that. Yeah, especially since I’ve done martial arts as well and stuff like that, I could understand that a lot easier. I could go to the U.S. no problem because family out there, I’ve been in the U.S. a lot, connect easy, no worries, I could come to Italians, that’s almost like a second nature You know Southern Europe is almost like to me. It’s almost going back to Iran. Really? Yeah I think learning a learning a new language is what probably one of the best things you can do To improve like the plasticity of your brain as a child too I think when you’re young like when they’re three or four if they can learn two languages supposedly it makes them think better I’m sure it does. I I think There’s an expression that language is the software That runs on the hardware that your brain is right?

49:35 So that’s quite a cool way if you learn a new language you upgrading your operating system That’s what I’m like. Is that what you’re saying? Like you almost feel like you know, I think different. That’s crazy different language I’m not joking. Really?

49:47 For instance my When I speak Persian Farsi, I think in a different way Even my pictures in my mind are different. That’s fast. I speak Swedish the picture my mind the way I structure my mind is different. I speak English is for instance if I I wore I’ve only worked in English language since at post-university directly I work for an American company so I said so when I work I’m a lot more powerful in English than I’m in Swedish although I have equally good and but when I when I and it’s obvious to myself because my mind is different so that’s like your work language English English is my work language but I could work in any of those languages I’ve worked in my German is not that good I live in Germany six years but but I still can but it’s not that strong as strong as my English when it comes to working but when it comes to shooting the breeze, again it’s Persian and English because these are the two languages where you watch all the movies you see since you were kids and you watch Eddie Murphy’s Raw and you pick up all that crap and you just shoot the shit all the time. Persian is like Italian, Spanish, it’s a language. People talk for sake of talking.

50:54 I wonder if language plays a role in shaping personality. If you could think of, it’s stereotype but like a German person they’re usually considered to be very ordered and very meticulous you know maybe it’s got something to do with the structure of Germanic languages whereas people who speak one of the derivatives of Latin one of the Romans languages like French or Italian they they’re a lot more like fluid and passionate could be something to that could be something to that I don’t want that a lot Indonesia there’s I don’t think they have tenses so there’s no I did this in the past or in the future it’s just present. That must affect how you think. That must affect it. That’s fascinating. It’s like in certain indigenous languages, I can’t think of any at the top of my head, but there’s no word for tomorrow, right? And there’s no word for yesterday because they don’t need those words, they’re always living right here and right now.

51:48 They’re trying to eat right now. There’s a word in Swedish called Lagom, and it doesn’t exist in any other language. What it means, and it’s really direct reflection of the culture, What it means is almost not too bad, not too good, right there, balanced, fairly balanced. And it comes from the culture in Sweden where you cannot be better than anybody else. Everybody is equally good.

52:14 And it comes directly in a word. It really is amazing. And people don’t understand that because it does not exist in other cultures. You can’t translate that to any other language. It’s a very direct culture.

52:26 I’m sure there’s in every culture certain words that you know for instance. I don’t know humor does exist in German for instance I heard one time there’s no comp someone said there’s no comedy clubs in Germany, and I met some German girl. She’s like we have comedy

52:43 So you you you train I mean the reason we all know each other is because you train Jiu-jitsu and wrestling still right are you gonna be doing that the rest of your life? or do you think there’s a cut-off you know what I I did I did you though I was I was I came to the junior national team I wasn’t you know I was probably not that good I would say but I mean better than a lot of people who have you know what you got to be honest yourself but I did fairly well and I start also doing other martial arts I did also some kendo and the idol you know the stick fighting Kendo, that’s what I have to remember. And it’s tough, Max.

53:19 Kenpo or Kendo? Kendo. Then I did start doing another martial arts called Shorinji Kenpo. Shorinji Kenpo in Japan, if you take every karate style and judo and kendo, all is, I think, after judo and kendo, the third largest martial arts in Japan. Wow, I’ve heard it.

53:37 It’s very direct. It’s almost like a religion. It is a religion in Japan. It’s a Zen Buddhist religion. But it’s the direct translation of Shaolin Kung Fu, almost a Shaolin school of Shaolin, into a Japanese called Shorin-ji Kempo.

53:52 And what it does is, it’s all standard fighting and also a lot of rest locks and throws and shiatsu, seiho, because it’s zen, so it’s very interesting. It’s pretty tough, actually. You guys are good fighters. Yeah, Mike showed us at one of the jiu-jitsu classes In Sri Rindji Kempo, they believe that not only should you be able to like bust people up, you should be able to fix them up as well. Wow, what a concept.

54:18 So, yeah, there’s a system in Sri Rindji Kempo called SEHO, which is, it’s a derivative of acupuncture, I’m not mistaken. Yeah, it’s like acupressure, shiatsu, bone cracks and stuff like that. Yeah, so you take your, at the end of the class, you take your students through this SEHO sequence and man, it really, you feel different the next day, you know, you feel a lot more rested. Did you bust that out of me one time? I think I did once.

54:41 That’s good. Yeah, yeah. That’s very good. Do you do that on every session? Almost, especially if you do hard sparring, you do after that definitely.

54:47 You do 10, 15 minutes because you reset your body. That’s smart. And I’ve seen the high level, the high level of that. This is one of the senses I remember in Japan, I don’t remember his name, but he’s an older guy as well. Dude, I’ve seen stuff that you think, all right, maybe not, there’s this guy who got kicked in the balls and the nuts went up I mean spoiler alert yeah full contact back in days was full contact gosh they used to these no head gears and stuff but they had so many injuries they actually introduced his head gears with plexiglass front so people don’t get injured and then we used to have double cups special cups because you would kick in the nuts as well I mean full contact it was not good so this guy gets kicked and goes up and he just goes I mean you’re down you know how it feels yeah and he was holding his knees it was so painful and everybody’s like spread up because you can hit the back and they can massage to make sure it comes out it was it goes up swallows and you have to do surgery so you’re done yeah man so this old guy comes in he’s he was one of them one of the top practitioners of Sejo which is also pressure he grabbed his toe and push somewhere this guy was in so much pain from that they spread his leg up like that I mean we’re looking at this and this can’t be happening I mean I’ve been kicked in and not this guy and then he fixed him up so that’s the reason they were teaching us stuff like that especially the higher up you come

56:19 Somebody gets heavily knocked out or and they happened a lot because if you I I mean, not everyone, for instance, they wouldn’t let, I think, Brown belt up. You could do full contacts for it, not up. So anyway, so there was some interesting things that I learned at the insurance campaign. I think that we were the second generation black belts in Sweden at the time. I did, the black test was interesting as well because it’s, they have a 20-man fight in the end.

56:55 After you do all the basics and all the techniques and everything else, you have to actually write an essay about Zen Buddhism because once you get your black belt, you become Zen monk. You get the black robe, because you can Google it, then you get a black robe and a rope. That’s pretty cool. That’s pretty cool. It looks pretty cool.

57:16 When you do that, you do the demos and kids would come, ah, that’s cool. So you do the 20-minute fight in the end, and I think it was, I don’t know, I don’t remember that this is a long time ago but I think we did two minutes and there’s a and they start with that I think the brown belts and then they get better so the top top guys with the third fourth damn guys who fight you in the end they do it in the end when you’re done. Two minutes each guy, two minutes each guy, two minutes each guy and then if you get knocked out you’re done see and I tell you what up to the fifth guy you’re conscious about what you do after the fifth guy you go into the different state of mind because you just want to not get knocked out and swear I don’t remember I know I put one guy to sleep though I remember that I vaguely remember what happened the rest after four or five you know two minutes rounds and it’s non-stop and by the end I had a cold as well so after that that test I was out for two weeks. My system was locked down. It was just dumb. I don’t think fiction ever shows video on that, but much like, but your mentally, you feel like I did something. You feel like, wow, it’s that mentally and you go through this great discomfort. I think that’s what it is. And you, you survive and come up. I feel like, wow. It was interesting.

58:46 It can only get to certain states in your mind if you put your body through something like that. Do you watch MMA or are you a big fan? You know what, when I meditate with all the other stuff, when it comes to sport of fighting, I mean I guess if you’re doing pure self defense where everything is allowed, and chicken and nuts and coconut, but when it comes to sport of fighting there’s nothing like MMA. And the UFC can know they’re really just this top, top level.

59:17 UFC. I always laugh when you hear about these guys who are like, they speak about certain traditional martial arts and they’re like, no, we don’t allow our students to enter MMA matches because it’s too dangerous. You know, and that’s when you know these dudes are bullshitting. You know, our system was designed for street encounters or self-defense and we use eye gouges and going strikes and kind of stuff like that so I always say to the dude okay who would you rather have it with you in a in a fight at your back right in the street some dude who’s been trained for 20 years and how to grab a dude’s nuts and high gouge him or GSP you know and I know I’d rather have GSP that’s for sure yeah U.S.C. like a lab and you get to test all your scientific theories in the lab you see what works and I love it didn’t it’s evolving now You know you see like that spinning back kick Taekwondo style people would add more, but I gotta say this I worked a little while as well in the doors, and you know there was one incident that really changed my Just in Stockholm. Yeah, not in Gotham in Sweden. I went to university as well, and then One thing happened and after that I was like hmm All those years of training. I was you know pretty good judo player I’m gonna break it down. There was this guy walking and I did that not often I was actually quite afraid of work because you know if you work at a dorm and a bouncer, it’s dangerous

1:00:43 There’s no outside, right? When I was a kid, I used to think that that was like when I was one of the coolest jobs that dude’s hardcore He’s a bouncer and I remember saying to my dad, but yeah, I was like 13 or 14 my dad’s like What do you want to do? He’s like I want to be a bouncer He looks at me like what the fuck are you thinking? And I’m not a natural fighter in any way or form, I guess there are guys who are just naturally fighters and I always want to fight, and they don’t mind probably, but I have friends who are probably 10 times better than a fighter but they never have done any martial arts because they just like street fights I guess, back in the days not now.

1:01:21 So I did a little bit of work to earn some money when I was a student because all my friends were doing martial arts and everything. So I have almost all the clubs with me and so on. So standing in the door, and this, not a busy night as well, I was like, Thursday night or something like that. This dude walks in 80 kilo, 82 kilo, not big. There were four of us, and I was the smallest guy.

1:01:43 And at the time, I was weighing around 86 kilo, and I was competing 82, but I was very strong, like 200 kilo freeways, stuff like that, very strong. And I was fit, I knew my stuff, out. And the other guys were just bigger. Everyone was just like, he just had a weird feel about him. Just by looking at him, he was on some kind of drugs, I don’t know what it was. He comes in, literally in 10 minutes, the fight breaks out. And he slaps on us, I don’t know. And we just, I just went with another guy and I came from behind, grabbed his arm, took him down. So he’s He’s on his stomach and I pin them, there’s a shoulder pin, you actually pin the shoulder now, grab the wrist and pull the arm up and put your knee on the back.

1:02:35 You literally pin the guy down. The other guy did the same, just grabbed his arm, pulled it behind his back and was holding his head. Two shoulders pinned, third guy came in the other, the third bounce sat on his butt or lower back. So three big dudes on him. I don’t know how he rolled over his shoulders and he stood up.

1:03:03 He popped both shoulders. Dislocated, got up, wanted to fight. And just, I was like so surprised. Look at this guy, and the fourth, The head bouncer came and just knocked him up, boom. So I can’t afford this.

1:03:18 And you’re not allowed to do that, I mean, legal. He just knocked, he said, this is, I mean, the guy has two shoulders. He’s looking. If I was ever in that situation, I’d think. Shoulder.

1:03:28 Yeah, put the guy to sleep, because. Safe around. Safe, no matter how strong you are, your neck, bro, you’re gonna go to sleep, and the guy gets you in a good choke. There’s a very cool book, I know you’ve read it, because it’s sort of on your shelf, Mike. I don’t know if you’ve read it, but it’s called Watch My Back, A Bouncer Story.

1:03:43 It’s by a guy who was, his name is Jeff Thompson, he was a bouncer in Coventry in the 80s. And Coventry is one of the most violent cities in Europe. In the 80s. Yeah, yeah. And it’s just, it’s all about his career as a bouncer.

1:03:58 And the reason I enjoyed that book so much is because it rarely went into the psychology of the fear behind what being a bouncer, knowing that your life’s in danger all the time, like a guy could pull a knife and stab you. It’s a fascinating book, I highly recommend it. You should check it out, Brian. You know, this has been an hour that has ripped by. It’s actually an hour plus.

1:04:19 So, gosh, I hate to be the one to spoil it, but I think we’re gonna have to wrap this up. I think it’s been great having you on here, buddy. It’s been really awesome, man. Good to be here. We’ve probably listened to hours of wonder stories.

1:04:29 I think we should probably be back at some point. For sure. If you think so. Part two, right? Yeah, but for everybody out there, we’re on Facebook.com slash London Real.

1:04:37 We’re Twittering at LondonRealTV, and of course you can get us on the website at LondonReal.tv and we’re going to keep doing it and do it. We’re going to ride this thing until the wheels come off, right? Most definitely. So, until next time, London Real, it’s about the journey. Definitely.

1:04:55 Thanks for having me. Take care guys. Cheers.