Comedian Joe Rogan stopped by the pod to discuss his new Netflix special, The Irishman, which is one of the most critically acclaimed comedy specials of all time. He also talked about how he got his start in comedy, and why he thinks Dave Chappelle s special is a great representation of what it means to be a stand-up comic. Joe also talks about the importance of being a hustler, and what it takes to stay on the road and keep pushing yourself to be the best you can be, even when you don t have the money to buy tickets to every show you go to. And, of course, he talks about what it s like being a standup comedian and how important it is to have a support network around you to keep you up to par with the rest of the comedians out there who are doing the same thing you're trying to do. It's a must-listen, and you won't want to miss this one! -Joe Rogan Check it out! -The Irishman Podcast by Night, by Day, All Day, by Night Joe Rogans - The Irishwoman by Day by Night by Night - Joe's Experience by Night? By Night by Day by Night Joe's Podcast by Day Joe's Special All Day by Evening Joe's Comedy Special by Day? By Day by Day By Night Joe s Special by Night's Special? by DayJoe's Special By Day Joe RogAN's Special Joe's Journey by Day The Irish Comedy Special By Night, By Day, By Night The Irish Dreamin' Dreamin , by Night By Day By Day by Evening And Much More! by Morning Joe's Greatest Comedy Special by Norm's Special by Norma's Special, (feat. by Meek Mill and Much More & Much More by Meay's Specials . by Joe's New Album by Jim Caravans The Good Life by The Good, the Good, The Bad, the Bad, The Good & The Bad and The Bad And The Bad & The Ugly by Mr. Good and The Good and the Ugly by The Bad by Meek's New by David Hasselhoffer by Tom & The Good Good & the Beautiful by Billie Odeh by Dave Chapele by Jay Sheeran.
00:00:56.000Then I knew the significance of it by Dave being a part of it, that this is the one I needed to elevate me to get off of this level that I'm on right now.
00:01:04.000Well, we were talking about this before, but in my mind, your level in terms of your ability, you're already there.
00:01:52.000And then at the end of the day, to be quite honest with you, as a comic, you know, when you first get into it, you just want to make people laugh.
00:02:38.000I have yet to have that opportunity to cash in, so that's what I'm looking for.
00:02:42.000Well, the fact that Dave Chappelle's behind it and that Dave produced it and he introduces you at the beginning of the special, that's gigantic.
00:03:13.000And the guys that are constantly working, there's a polish that you get when you're on the road and you're doing those Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, where you're just constantly doing sets.
00:03:22.000There's an undeniable polish that a guy gets.
00:03:43.000And if you're isolated with security or other things that you have to do or the enormous of your career, you kind of like get away from the people who are actually Support you.
00:04:35.000And I think for a lot of guys, a lot of guys get big, and then they start getting television shows and movies, and you don't realize how much time that takes away from your stand-up.
00:04:53.000I was on a television show, a hit show, and everybody wanted to be on a hit show, but I would see these guys that were so smooth because they'd just been doing those Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, two shows Friday, two shows Saturday, Sunday on the road, and they were just whoop, whoop, whoop, just greased up and just smooth and just everything was polished.
00:09:20.000And you know back in the day, because you know back in the day, you've been in the game long.
00:09:24.000If you work this club, you can't work this club.
00:09:26.000You know, Comedy Act Theater was the premier black comedy club.
00:09:31.000So you got a club in Los Angeles, Atlanta, that's the premier black club, and it's this new club with the dudes that's not from here named Earthquake, and the owner say, you go up here, you'll never work in my club?
00:09:51.000And it was only until Steve Harvey, which is a good friend of mine, called him up and said, Steve, none of these motherfuckers ain't doing it.
00:11:04.000What I do is, this is what I'm going to start at, and I continue on, and then at the time, I tape every show I've ever did, and I suppose I've been disciplined enough to go back and say, I know it's something that I want to elaborate on later, and I got it down so I could talk about it later,
00:12:11.000You get up there and say, God has never let me down before and keep on going with it.
00:12:16.000Well, that is one of the beautiful things about your style, is that it seems so loose and relaxed and natural.
00:12:22.000Because if you can achieve that mindset and just do that every night and never think about the material, just let it flow out, that's an amazing gift.
00:14:29.000And if you try to tell the story again, you'll tell the story again, but it'll never be like you told it the first time, the second time, the third time, the fourth time.
00:14:37.000It competes, you know, completely just revolve and revolve to a bigger life, to more funnier.
00:14:43.000Now, when you prepped for this special, how many shows did you do?
00:22:42.000And that's what the military was, and it was the best experience of my life because it opened up my mind because I lived in D.C. and it's segregated, and I found out there was people out there like you that had more in common with me than difference, and it was the best thing ever.
00:25:53.000I rehearsed it in the mirror, like most comedians.
00:25:56.000And, you know, the toothbrushes are hollering and the toothpaste is standing up and everything.
00:26:02.000But it didn't translate on the stage that time.
00:26:04.000Because when I first started doing it, I just looked up, unfortunately, looking up at the sky, up at the roof of the place, like a woman ain't making love for money.
00:28:59.000One of the things it's about is they detail people who are extremely successful and he talks about the amount of time that's required to get really good at something.
00:29:09.000Mm-hmm and how many people that look like overnight successes the amount of time they put in was extraordinary one of the things he talks about is the Beatles and the Beatles they did all these shows in Germany where they were doing like what you were doing where they were doing every fucking night they were doing shows and And they had put in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours doing these shows.
00:29:28.000And so when they first, you know, air quote, made it on the scene, they had put in so much time performing, so much different than most bands because they had done so many shows nightly over and over and over again.
00:29:47.000So when I have to sit here, I go in with the confidence knowing, All I gotta do is make sure my environment is pure for me to be able to write the way I do, keep my mind straight, and I can come up with an album.
00:30:43.000And then the Cardinals, I mean, the one that really would bring them down, they were so arrogant with it that they had booked a comic, two comics, for the whole month.
00:31:29.000And we're going to serve food, we're going to have valet service, we're going to be in a better part of the town, and that's how I got it.
00:31:35.000So once you, any of you going to go up against anybody, you first got to recognize their weakness and where you can draw from what they got.
00:31:43.000And that's why I pivot all my commercials to them that way.
00:31:46.000Are you tired of going down to a place, you park your car, and you might don't know who going to be there and they begging you for money?
00:32:15.000That's amazing, though, that you did that two years in.
00:32:18.000Like, go from your career in the military, where you kind of half-ass it, you're not really into it, and then all of a sudden you find this new thing, and you're all in.
00:33:25.000He used to do little small places, like Denny's, for example, and put a plywood box up there, little small place, sit there, and he'll throw a shell.
00:36:06.000And was it you the first guy on stage?
00:36:08.000Yeah, I had a couple of comedians to help me out, but I was the main man until we was able, because see, once that club closed, then all the comedians, oh man, I'm sorry.
00:36:23.000I'm going to get down, because now you're the only comedy club in the city.
00:36:40.000Once Steve, and Steve, he taught me so much, you know, because when he came, he said, I'm going to do your club, because I couldn't get no headliners, nobody that could draw.
00:36:50.000And I was like, Steve, would you do it?
00:36:51.000He was hosting Showtime, and he probably said, I'd do it for you.
00:36:54.000And he came in on a Wednesday, and it was only about 30 people in there.
00:37:29.000He said, let's stop by Dunkin' Donuts because we got to get some donuts and some oysters because you got to smooth these jocks' egos because they feel you're going to try to take their fucking job and everything.
00:38:29.000And once all of those people came and seen all the things that club had to offer and where it was at and we had valet service and all the things that it could do, it was no turning back after that.
00:39:09.000I read an interview with him recently where he said he doesn't want to do stand-up right now because his television career is too good and he's worried about cancel culture.
00:40:39.000Well, the thing is, like, when you hit that level where you can make that kind of money, you don't really want to...
00:40:46.000Let it stop you want to let it accumulate as much as you can but I think like once you're a comic you're always gonna want to do comedy you're always gonna want to get that the rush of stand-up it might not pay as much as the other things but there's nothing greater in terms of like the way it feels when you're on stage and you're just murdering and everyone's dying That is a groove that very few human beings ever get to slide into.
00:41:14.000Who don't want to be the funniest man in the room?
00:41:17.000I tell people all the time, we got the greatest job in the world, because no matter what you do, say it about a good time with your friends, it includes us.
00:44:29.000Because if you already set that standard for yourself trying to strive for perfection, which you probably never do make it, but God damn it, the journey is where it's at.
00:49:31.000There's no substitute for the attention that you give something, the focus that you give something, when you're just fully, completely dedicated to it.
00:53:07.000Went on after Martin Lawrence in the 90s almost every time I was at this because Mitzi Shore one of the The great things about Mitzi Shore was she knew how to test you she knew how to put you in a bad spot and every time I I was on the lineup.
00:53:24.000If Martin Lawrence was on the lineup, I was going on right after Martin.
00:53:43.000Most of the crowd would leave like three-quarters the crowd would just leave the moment Martin was offstage and then they would bring me up he would bring me up because you know the Comedy Store tag teams right he would just say my name this guy's real funny guy give it up for Joe Rogan number like thanks and I just go up my shit, but I learned how to survive and you learn how to grab people you learn how to ride the wave and you learn how to grab them and Because you're going on after a guy who's selling out arenas,
00:54:10.000and he's a movie star, and he's got his own television show, and he's just way better than you.
00:54:17.000There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
01:02:46.000So we would be in a room, and there's like eight of us in there, all hooked up to a tree, like this IV tree, and these tubes coming off these bags hanging from this metal stack where they've got all our IV bags.
01:03:00.000We're all just sitting around talking shit, getting the IV drip.
01:04:47.000He said all together the development when he was cussing out them other people.
01:04:51.000When he went to the county meeting or city council meeting when the other buildings was coming, he was telling them, you want to lose this $64 million to bring that $24 million?
01:06:50.000But those kind of clubs, like the Comedy Store, or like what I'm going to plan on doing here, where you have a lot of people go on at night, I think there's a camaraderie to that.
01:06:59.000There's a thing to that that you don't get when you're just doing the road by yourself.
01:09:45.000So there's always, for whatever reason, been a few big-name guys.
01:09:49.000And I got in in 94 where there was this lull.
01:09:52.000So I got to see these guys that hung around too long, and they had the same act for 30 years, and they were half-assed, and they were bitter, and they hated young guys like me.
01:11:26.000And I was laughing, like slapping the table in the meeting, and I was just making fun of everything.
01:11:31.000And one of the producers was like, he's not right for the show.
01:11:33.000And the other guy was like, listen, if you, this is my friend to this day, David Hurwitz, he said, if you don't make fun of this, if he doesn't make fun of this, other people are going to.
01:14:41.000Because I wanted to do another sitcom, and then they came with this, and I was like, this is even better, because now I don't have to work with actors.
01:14:50.000I got lucky with news radio, because it was a really talented cast, and they were fun people.
01:14:55.000But I had done some other shit with people where they're fake, and it's a nightmare, and you gotta play the game, and they're all reading The Hollywood Reporter and Variety every day.
01:15:30.000Just nothing is, and I really think, especially when they do this method, I say, why are you doing all this studying, being somebody else?
01:15:39.000Who's developing you during that time?
01:15:41.000While you sitting here playing this actress, doing all the different nuances of this person, doing all these, but just acting them for months and months, being, who's developing you at that?
01:15:55.000Do you just stop your growth at this point?
01:17:05.000And what that is is the exact opposite.
01:17:07.000It's like you have to pretend you're this dude who lives in, like, Virginia in 1600. And you're talking in that dialect when you're ordering food.
01:21:33.000So there was Dave Foley, who's from the Kids in the Hall, the sketch show, and Dave It was a like one of the secret producers of the show really because he was the star of the show But he was really like producing scenes so we would rehearse and he would come up with completely new lines for things and If you had a line that was better than the line that was in the script they wanted you to say that so they wanted you to They wanted it to be collaborative where you would come up with the best shit.
01:23:01.000I learned a lot from that because that was terrible and it started out great.
01:23:05.000The guys who wrote it, they wrote on Married with Children and The Symptoms.
01:23:08.000They were really good writers and they were really funny guys.
01:23:11.000And they put together this pilot Jim Brewer was in the pilot with me and it was a very funny pilot but then once it got on television Fox decided to hire some dude who was a producer of that show coach and like all cookie cutter type right stand up or Sitcom writing and they brought in a bunch of hacks and they they fucked up the show and it was terrible like I remember saying lines like I can't believe this is a line on a fucking sitcom and It was just not good.
01:23:42.000And there were talented people on the show, but it was just a bad show.
01:23:47.000And so to go from that to news radio, which was the opposite, working with Phil Hartman and all these seriously talented people, Steven Rood and Maura Tierney, Candy Alexander, Vicky Lewis, Andy Dick is like, this is a great show.
01:26:04.000That's what you want, but those are hard to get.
01:26:07.000Those are and one of the worst things that happens is some of the guys to get those sitcoms that are shitty is They can't do stand-up anymore because they're worried that if they do stand-up And they and people find out that they're dirty or they said something crazy Then they'll get fired from the show, right?
01:26:23.000There's a lot of guys that like how to stop doing stand-up while they got a sitcom Because and I strongly believe this that's why a lot of lose their fans see prime example Whatever show that I do is gonna be the biggest show for most of my audience to see me.
01:26:43.000So that's gonna be their interpretation of who I am.
01:26:46.000So I must portray who I am in my first venture on TV. Yeah.
01:26:53.000So I can bring my fans Who sees me, who already been fans of mine, they can recognize me in that.
01:27:00.000And then the people who just see me for the first time can come see me on stand-up and say, okay, that's who I got.
01:27:06.000A lot of comedians, like my boy Mark Curry, had his show.
01:28:04.000Now, all the comedians that did other things and went into as a character actor or comedy actor and didn't bring their stand-up with them, what they was known for, died.
01:28:20.000And the way they did it, because they alienated both.
01:28:22.000They alienated the people who support them to get them that point, and then when they got to that point, the people who just saw them for the first time wanted to go see them do stand-up and was insulted.
01:29:55.000So if you enter that family, ABC, 830, hanging with Mr. Cooper, role model for the kids and everything, you go over here saying, man, I'm fucking all these women tonight.
01:30:25.000But Damon's in that sort of big money sitcom world where they keep giving him these shows where he's the star of a show and he's like a dad and he's like...
01:34:25.000Now that the opportunity is to present itself, Then I got a person that we've been talking about for the last five years that'll take care of it for me.
01:34:32.000So that's one part of the make it bag.
01:35:37.000It's about a dude who's a very arrogant womanizer and finally, you know, karma catches up with him and he's temporarily paralyzed and he's bedridden and he's losing his company and wife at the same time trying to see how bad he'd inflict pain to his wife and his kids and those type of things.
01:35:58.000And Donnell plays my brother on it, you know.
01:36:03.000And we did that, and we did an independent movie together for that.
01:36:06.000And I want to do more of that and my own sitcom around my life, that kind of thing, where I'm at now.
01:36:40.000You know, they have like 30 shows and they have like four slots.
01:36:44.000And so they'll have to, like, I've been in that developmental process.
01:36:48.000It's a strange process when they're trying to figure out what's going to work and what's not going to work.
01:36:52.000I mean, I get that too, but to give an honest shot, if you're going to give it to you, you at least got to shoot a pilot to see what you got.
01:36:59.000I don't think you can sit down and say if it's good.
01:37:03.000Like you just said, you can't tell if it's funny just off the paper.
01:37:06.000You have to sit here and put the players involved and then look at it and say, this is what you got.
01:37:13.000If you honestly say that you're trying to give a show, and definitely...
01:37:18.000If you say you're trying to have diversity on CBS, you have to at some point allow, you know, the actors to put it on or invest enough to see what you got tested and see is it.
01:37:32.000I understand the four slots, but if you're going to sit here and say you're trying to do diversity with the NAACP, it's supposed to be a slot there already!
01:37:42.000Supposed to be one there, or at least an opportunity for it.
01:38:13.000I mean, I don't think anything should be killed just on the paper right there without you investing in the point to see it.
01:38:20.000Especially if you was part of writing it itself.
01:38:24.000And you were happy with the script and how it came out?
01:38:27.000Yeah, I mean, we got write-ups from the president of the network, notes on it, on the script and everything, and then when it came to the point of, they said they passed up on it, and it was shocking to me to the point that we didn't even get a chance to even shoot the pallet for it.
01:38:43.000Sometimes it's like a bunch of shit like the people that are producing it they don't have a good deal with the network or you know like sometimes the network wants to produce and own their own shows and maybe Warner Brothers will come to CBS or something they like it but Warner Brothers owns it so they don't want Warner Brothers to make a shitload of money and CBS has their own show they would rather take that even if it's not as good there was a lot of that at NBC Yeah,
01:39:07.000but we was coming out of CBS Studios to CBS on there.
01:39:13.000The writer had a deal already with CBS to write it, and I'm already on CBS while working on The Neighborhood.
01:41:38.000When you watch these sitcoms and they have to cut everything into these little chunks so that it fits perfectly inside of a network break, it just doesn't work good.
01:41:48.000And then you have to sit there and watch the commercial and wait for it to come on, or you record it in advance, you have to fast forward through it.
01:41:55.000With Netflix, You film the whole season.
01:41:58.000You watch it all in one sitting if you want.
01:44:06.000I was around this bitch, just knew I was going, I was like, when is the Super Bowl going to be on CBS? Because I'm going to be on that motherfucker.
01:44:13.000I can't wait until they give me the plug and the teaser.
01:44:17.000Quake House today, 8 o'clock on CBS. And the motherfuckers call me up, boy, they get, boy, they give you that call.
01:44:25.000That's the worst call in the world, though.
01:44:30.000They found out they want to go another way.
01:44:44.000But that's the problem that I always had with Hollywood is you have to be chosen.
01:44:48.000And that's one of the things that makes people so crazy.
01:44:50.000Like, some people don't have the mental fortitude to withstand that kind of rejection over and over and over again or disappointment.
01:44:57.000And, like, if you think about what, like, especially with actors, you get a bunch of people that are insecure, that are kind of crazy to begin with, and then they go to this place where they're asking you to pretend in this moment.
01:45:11.000Like, okay, Quake, you're gonna sit down with Mike, and Mike is gonna play Sally.
01:45:16.000So there's a guy pretending to play your wife.
01:45:18.000And you're running through the scene with this person, and like, okay, well, thank you.
01:46:46.000The way I took it is that I just haven't made the right person laugh yet.
01:46:50.000Who will believe in me to sit here and give me the opportunities that my peers didn't have.
01:46:57.000And until I break that person who believes in me, that sees that I am a valuable commodity that could do both me and them a great service in what they say they're here to make, Entertainment and TV shows,
01:47:14.000then I will always be sitting at the door with this bullshit.
01:47:35.000So in the future, the next one that I do, unless they come to me and say, hey, we gonna put you to series, this is what we get, but it ain't gonna no more stringing along.
01:47:46.000You're not gonna be sitting around here, we together, and then give me a call at 12 o'clock on a Friday night and say, nah.
01:47:54.000Well, when you've been doing it as long as you have, too.
01:47:56.000It's like, and you develop an audience the way you have.
01:48:00.000It's like, you don't want to fuck with that anymore.
01:48:02.000But you're always wanting that thing that you didn't have.
01:48:36.000And definitely, if you don't know about that world, you at least have to see it so you can see and test it as a CEO of anything to expand your own brand.
01:48:49.000If I owned a record And I want some country singers.
01:48:57.000I'm going to get somebody to know about country singers.
01:49:17.000I would prefer my friend to be up here, but if my friend is only bringing 10 people and Shucky Duckie is bringing 200, Shucky Duckie Quack Quack is coming on through here.
01:49:29.000Regardless if I think my friend is funnier than Shucky Ducky.
01:49:34.000Because I have to sit here and make a decision based upon what the fans and what the consumer wants.
01:49:44.000That's the great thing I say about rap is, they always had a person like Russell Simmons, P. Diddy, Puffy, they was able to talk to the record label and say, listen, we got what you need.
01:50:01.000Don't come down here and mess with our artists.
01:54:03.000Eventually went on to do one a couple years later, but there was no problems with that material back then.
01:54:09.000They'd kind of changed when streaming came along, too, because they realized they kind of had to open up the content a little bit more because they were losing comics.
01:54:17.000They're losing people to Netflix and losing people to HBO and Showtime and places where you could just be free.
01:56:49.000I know it would be great to have that, but I think you'd be better on Netflix.
01:56:52.000And I think your special's gonna be gigantic.
01:56:55.000And I think from there, you doing an even bigger special in a year from now, you're gonna be like, thank God I didn't do that corny-ass fucking CVS bullshit.
01:57:05.000I got to I have to fuck up my jokes and change the subjects and change...
01:57:35.000I think there's not a lot of guys that are as funny as you.
01:57:38.000You're at this elite level of stand-up comedy where me personally, as a comic, but more importantly as a fan of comedy, I love excellence.
01:57:48.000I love when someone achieves this level of harmony with the audience and the material and the delivery and the years and years of performing and the polish of the boom, boom, boom, boom!
01:58:00.000I mean, that special is just one after the other.
02:02:49.000And that's the beauty of the internet.
02:02:52.000The satellite was amazing when it came along, Because when it came along, it was uncensored.
02:02:57.000It's like all of a sudden you have this uncensored medium that's basically like when Howard Stern went over to Sirius, it was a giant thing.
02:03:04.000Because here you got this guy who's the greatest uncensored radio personality ever.