Joe Rogan Experience #2491 - Brian Simpson

TL;DR

Comedian Brian Simpson joins Joe Rogan to discuss his heart attack at Super Bowl weekend, pet stories, animal behavior, and gaming.

Key Points

• 1.Brian Simpson had a heart attack three months before recording. It happened Super Bowl weekend in Atlanta; surgeons inserted a stent via his groin while he was semi-conscious and joking, angering the female surgeon.
• 2.Simpson used humor to cope during the procedure. He joked about being abandoned by the first doctor 'Doug,' causing the surgeon to scold him while he was heavily medicated.
• 3.Joe Rogan credits red light therapy and macular support supplements for eliminating his need for reading glasses. He uses Pure Encapsulation's macular support formula and says his vision improved enough to read phone text without glasses.
• 4.Simpson lives in a dog-heavy apartment building where large breeds are kept in small spaces. He saw a Cane Corso in a 1,300 sq ft apartment and complained that big working dogs like blue heelers need miles of daily exercise.
• 5.Rogan's dog Marshall ate pounds of gravel after someone spilled chicken feed on the driveway. The vet kept Marshall 24+ hours, scanned repeatedly, and pumped out the rocks without surgery.
• 6.Wolves cannot be trained unlike dogs, despite dogs descending from wolves. Rogan knew someone who kept 7–8 timber wolves that escaped and killed neighbors' sheep because wolves simply ignore human commands.
• 7.A Russian fox domestication experiment showed tameness can be selectively bred in ~60 years. Scientist Dmitri Belyaev in Novosibirsk killed aggressive foxes each generation; after dozens of generations, foxes wagged tails and behaved like dogs; tame foxes now sell for $9,000.
• 8.Catnip affects about 80% of cats genetically via nepetalactone binding to nasal receptors. The euphoric effect lasts 5–15 minutes, after which cats become temporarily immune; vets recommend only a pinch to avoid vomiting or diarrhea.
• 9.Coyotes have expanded to every U.S. city and state, including New York City and Chicago. The book 'Coyote America' explains that when pack members die, female coyotes compensate by producing larger litters, accelerating their spread.
• 10.City raccoons near humans are beginning to show domestication-like physical changes. Raccoons living close to people are developing shorter snouts and are becoming cuter, mirroring how wolves became dogs through proximity to humans.
• 11.Florida's Burmese python invasion originated from a 1980s–90s pet boom and a hurricane that destroyed a research center. Robot rabbit decoys with fake heat and scent attracted alligators more than pythons; AI analysis of the data revealed that pythons and alligators use specific 'highway' routes through the Everglades.
• 12.Congresswoman Ilhan Omar read 'World War 11' aloud from a prepared script before self-correcting. Rogan and Simpson noted she is accused of connections to the Somali daycare center fraud and that English is not her first language.
• 13.Kodiak and coastal Alaskan bears grow significantly larger than inland bears because of salmon access. During salmon runs bears stop competing with each other entirely; a viral video shows a massive bear sitting inches from a man in a lawn chair, completely ignoring him.
• 14.Simpson is an avid gamer currently playing Deadlock, a closed-beta Valve title. It is a six-on-six third-person shooter with MOBA mechanics similar to League of Legends; Simpson got access through friends and a Mothership comedy club Discord gaming group.
• 15.Simpson described a series of bad-luck events ruining a single Tuesday, including spilling candle wax on his light pants before a show. He woke to his CPAP crashing off a nightstand, stubbed his toe, then dripped wax that made it look like he soiled himself, leading him to take an edible and nap before his set.