#2484 - David Cross

David Cross is a comedian, actor, writer, producer, and host of “Senses Working Overtime.” His latest special, “The End of the Beginning of the End,” is streaming on YouTube.https://youtu.be/OfqMkJwVgmo?si=Nn7vBHb6nfPFQnhZwww.youtube.com/@OfficialDavidCrosswww.officialdavidcross.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Get a free welcome kit with your first subscription of AG1 at drinkag1.com/joerogan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The Joe Rogan Experience.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Training my day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

• 0:12Joe Rogan?

  David.

• 0:12Speaker 03

  I'm Joseph.

• 0:13Joe Rogan?

  Good to see you.

• 0:14Speaker 03

  Good to see you.

• 0:15Joe Rogan?

  Dude, I haven't seen you in a long fucking time. When was the last time we were actually in a room together?

• 0:19Speaker 03

  I, well, I was trying to think of that. I don't know. I would imagine post-news radio, we hung out at some point at some show somewhere.

• 0:29Joe Rogan?

  Somewhere.

• 0:30Speaker 03

  But, I don't know. But I do remember, uh, cause I did news radio a couple times, and we, we hung out. I remember, I think we both, no, just you, had more hair than, uh, I was probably already at this point.

• 0:46Joe Rogan?

  I was fighting to keep it. I was hanging on.

• 0:49Speaker 03

  Are you, do you shave, or is that it? Is that?

• 0:51Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it's, I mean, I'm bald. If I didn't shave, I'd be bald all the way up here. But I got a hair transplant, and it was useless.

• 0:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00Joe Rogan?

  I, I did a joke about it. I go, having a hair transplant is like taking people that are healthy and moving them into a neighborhood where everyone's dying. This is just like, where did Bob go? He just fucking flew off the face of the earth.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  So, uh, yeah, you'd, so you just accepted it and said, fuck it.

• 1:17Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. I should've done it a long time ago. It's so much better, and I don't have to talk to a barber. I don't have to listen to boring fucking stories while they hold you hostage with a pair of scissors.

• 1:26Speaker 03

  That's what, that's what this is. Uh, this gets me, I, I don't like shaving. I don't, it's kind of a pain in the ass, and I, also, I look like a, a, kind of a tur- I look like a turtle, you know? When I shave, and I don't like it. Um, and it's not attractive to me, and I jerk off to me all the time, so I wanna keep things fresh. Uh, but, uh, I, this, I probably don't have to. I could probably get clippers and stuff, but I go to, you know, one of my guys around the corner where I live, and, uh, and I, I have this experience where-

• 2:06Speaker 03

  I want that, I want to get in and out, right? Because of what you were saying, a lot of chit chat. And there are a couple guys, very quiet. Hi, how you doing? Good, fist bump, whatever. You get, you know what I want to get, get out of there. There's one guy who just talks all, and, and then they have that, um, the blade, you know? Uh huh. The, the, what do you call that? You know, the blade, blade, straight razor, thank you. And, um, and they got it right there, so you gotta be polite. It's on your, it's by your, you know? And, uh, I know I could avoid it if I just get some clippers and just do this thing, but I don't.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  I don't know, I was boring and sorry. As I was, there's no point to it.

• 2:56Joe Rogan?

  That's duty.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Barely has anything to do with what we were talking about.

• 3:00Joe Rogan?

  There's something about a beard, though, that makes you distinguished, or at least have experience.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Or, or look like a homeless, you know, uh, alcoholic. I mean, there are plenty of those guys, too.

• 3:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, there's a lot of those, too. But a beard is like, there's, there's a, is a statement with a beard. Like a faux beard, like yours, white.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  Mine is just, you know, I don't like shaving. Like, you know, and again, I, I, I do, like, I only gain weight in two places. Stomach and right here. And, and also I have a kind of a thin frame, so it's, it's really not attractive. It's not attractive.

• 3:44Joe Rogan?

  So the beard is sort of?

• 3:47Speaker 03

  It's, it's more laziness. It's, uh, I don't have to worry about it.

• 3:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, no, I, I hear you.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  And this, you know, I just, I go, I don't know, six, seven weeks and then I just shave it. Once it gets out, because this, my hair doesn't grow down or it just grows out like a clown. You know, it goes this way, all of it, even this, too. And, uh, and once this starts filling in, it, it just looks goofy.

• 4:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I have a friend, my friend Hassan, he used to shave his head and now purposely to look goofy, he lets the sides go out and it's madness. It's just, it's all fucking crazy, thick hair.

• 4:27Speaker 03

  And bald on top?

• 4:27Joe Rogan?

  And bald on top, yeah. And he does a joke on stage about it, doesn't, isn't, he's Indian. This is my impression of an Indian pussy.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  And is he just like not concerned if I gotten laid?

• 4:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I think he's just embracing, but he still gets laid. You know, because he's really, he's really funny. I think he just embraces not giving a fuck. There he is.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Oh, he looks familiar to me. Okay.

• 4:55Joe Rogan?

  Very funny guy.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  All right, cool.

• 4:57Joe Rogan?

  He's one of the up and comer, well, he's from LA originally. He was one of the doormen at the Comedy Store.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Okay, he looks very professorial.

• 5:05Joe Rogan?

  He's very smart.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but doesn't give a fuck about his hair.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Who's that?

• 5:11Joe Rogan?

  Art Bell.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  I was gonna guess Art Bell. I swear to God.

• 5:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 5:15Speaker 03

  I swear to God. I don't even know if I've ever seen him. Coast to coast.

• 5:19Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  Holy shit.

• 5:21Joe Rogan?

  From the Kingdom of Nigh.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 5:23Joe Rogan?

  I fucking loved that show. That was the show that I listened to coming home from Hollywood because I lived out in the valley. And I would drive home at night and I'd listen to Late Night with Art Bell.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  Art, Coast to Coast with Art Bell. I used to do a whole bit about, uh, the like, um, because who's the nude guy? George Norrie. George Norrie, right. And I'm gonna digress for one second. Did you ever, uh, do you play video games at all?

• 5:50Joe Rogan?

  Yes, well, I try not to, but I used to play a lot of them.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Did you ever play Prey?

• 5:55Joe Rogan?

  No, but I know what it is.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  A great underrated underrated game got ripped off. Uh, or just people bit certain things that they, um, started. But one of the coolest things, so it's about like this, uh, it takes place on a, uh, uh, reservation, you know, uh, in the nineties, I guess, or something like that. And there's a bartender and her boyfriend and, and it takes place in this bar. And then aliens come and, uh, then this guy goes on the alien ship to, uh, go rescue her. But, um, they did this really cool thing. So first they have this in the video game, right at the bar.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  There's a TV and as you walk towards it, it's playing, it's like staticky until you get closer to it. And then as your character gets closer to it, it's Art Bell talking about aliens and stuff. And I know, I know I'm not doing it justice, but it was such a cool, smart idea. And, uh,

• 7:01Speaker 03

  God bless him.

• 7:01Joe Rogan?

  He was the OG.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and just some of the guy, I, one thing that, because I listened to it a lot too, because sometimes, you know, you're listening and you're like, this is insane. This is crazy.

• 7:17Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  And he would always, always treat the guest with deference, you know, and respect. And I, I, that must have been, because there were things that were, you know, if you go back to all the episodes, that were kind of contradictory in a sense, you know, like, wait, you think all these things happen? You think there's a, a, a place in the middle of the ocean that has, like, it's a community of people that live there and, and, and then, but you also think this, like, all these different things, it'd be like, hmm, huh, interesting.

• 7:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he would let you go.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  He'd let you go, yeah.

• 7:56Joe Rogan?

  He'd give some air.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  Uh, but he was, yeah, he was never rude or...

• 8:01Joe Rogan?

  No, never.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Dismissive.

• 8:02Joe Rogan?

  He had a time traveler line, where you would call specifically if you were a time traveler.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  What if, but if you were calling from the past, they didn't have that technology yet?

• 8:17Joe Rogan?

  No, it's mostly people from the future, I believe.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  Wait, like, Art, I'm calling from seven minutes in the future, listen.

• 8:24Joe Rogan?

  I think his, his whole deal was if you are here in this current era, but you are from another time, you could call, because, you know, the idea was, like, he would have these remote viewers and oddballs on, and they would talk about that we, we have had the ability to time travel for a long time.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:44Joe Rogan?

  You know, there are wormholes that exist, and they explain the quantum dynamics involved, and time travel has been breached by the CIA in the 1960s.

• 8:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 8:53Joe Rogan?

  And they'd have these people call up, but Art would always, like, give them air, like, let it breathe.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:58Joe Rogan?

  Let it breathe.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 8:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Art, I'm a werewolf, interesting, tell me more. Like, it, it didn't matter, no matter what it was, it was a fun show. Oh, I loved it. Craziest people, from fucking Bigfoot people to alien people. Everything. This episode is brought to you by The Mosquito Bowl. Here's a story that's pretty incredible. After Pearl Harbor, four of the best college football players in America walk away from promising NFL careers to enlist in the Marines and fight in World War II. And the craziest part, it's a true story. These guys had their whole lives ahead of them, but traded the glory of the gridiron for the brutal reality of combat, where the stakes were life and death. Directed by Peter Berg, the guy behind Friday Night Lights,

• 9:43Joe Rogan?

  and starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis. The Mosquito Bowl, now playing in theaters. This episode is brought to you by Chime. And I know people don't usually get excited about banking, but Chime is doing something different and it's worth paying attention to. In a recent survey, they ranked the number one choice for new checking accounts in America. That means real people, millions of them, are choosing this over traditional banks. That's because banking at Chime is fee-free. No monthly fees, no overdraft fees, and thousands of fee-free ATMs. But here's the real kicker. If you get their Chime card, it gives you 5% cash back on a category you actually pick yourself.

• 10:28Joe Rogan?

  Your savings rate, crazy high. It's nine times the national average. They're calling it the most rewarding way to bank. Go to chime.com/rogan. Takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for more details. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've thought about trying therapy with our long-term partner, BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. And with World Mental Health Day on the 10th, now's the perfect time to give it a try.

• 11:12Joe Rogan?

  In fact, don't even wait until the 10th, because all that stress you feel... It's not waiting around. So instead of letting it build up, sign up for a therapy session and unload at any time, not just on World Mental Health Day. If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. Don't have insurance or live outside of the United States? You can still get 10% off your first month. Visit betterhelp.com to explore your payment options. That's better, H E L P, dot com.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  And then, a lot of people, ex-military, right? You know, get that like-

• 11:57Joe Rogan?

  Whistleblowers.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  I was stationed in, you know, outside of a remote island that I can't go into, off of Singapore, and I witnessed some things that I still have difficulty believing. And then he just, yeah, what happened?

• 12:16Joe Rogan?

  It was great. It's so fun.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  And you, so, did you also listen to Phil Hendry?

• 12:21Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 12:23Joe Rogan?

  He was the best.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  Super genius.

• 12:25Joe Rogan?

  The best thing about Phil Hendry was the people that didn't understand what was going on, that would call in, be really upset.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  The first, the first two times I heard him, I didn't understand what he was doing. He's that good, too. And I would be like, this is crazy, this guy. And then eventually you're like, oh, he's doing characters. Because he, you know, repeat characters and stuff. But I got the chance to watch him do a show. So he's got, he's got the, he's got three mics, I want to say.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  Like, two mics like this, and then a phone mic. Or, you know, a phone, like an old-time, you know, cradle phone. And he was doing himself,

• 13:14Speaker 03

  the woman who runs the HOA, or whatever that, whatever her name was, that, that character. And then somebody else calling in, like he did somebody calling on the phone. And it was, I mean, it was like a magic act. It was crazy to watch how, without missing a beat, and I- Could see, uh, you can see how he strategically takes breaths. So that he can go from one character to another and interrupting each other.

• 13:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  You know, it, it, it was fascinating, but he's a genius.

• 13:50Joe Rogan?

  It's the only thing that caught, I, right away, I was like, oh, wait a minute, there's no cross talk. Like, right, well, if, one of the early times I listened, I was like, I think this is the same guy.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, he's, he bumps it up, like, he's really good at, at, uh, almost, you know, making it sound as if, like, uh, cause he'll interrupt himself and go, and I, okay, but, you know, and stop and then just go right into the other voice. It's fucking phenomenal.

• 14:19Joe Rogan?

  And, and completely original. Like, I don't know of anybody else that did anything like that.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  No. Did you ever, um, he used to put out stuff for charity, like, uh, CDs and things, and he has, uh, I don't know what it would be called, but it was one of the, one of the things he put out for charity that was, um, a guy called into the station, I, he was probably super high, but he called in thinking it was Pizza Hut. And he fucks with this guy in the best way, where he's like, uh, and who's the, what's the woman character he does? It's kinda like, uh, like a black woman who's like, mm, honey, it is the best, I don't know, Marjorie, I think, maybe, uh, but he,

• 15:09Speaker 03

  then he does that woman answering the phone, uh, at, you know, Pizza Hut. And then he does the automated, uh, thing, like, she's like, I'm, I'm gonna put you on, uh, it's easier to do the automated, uh, thing, so, and the guy's like, oh, okay, all right, and, and then he gets on, he's like, thank you for calling Pizza Hut, the best pizza in our three-block radius. And if you want, if you want, uh, I'm not doing it justice, you gotta go do it. Hear it, lis, can you? Yeah, you got it?

• 15:46Joe Rogan?

  All right, headphones.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  Okay, it's so brilliant, wait.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Uh, whatever the large.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:53Speaker 04

  Dish pan, you got the dish pan deep or extra deep?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Just a regular large thick crust.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Sixteen inch thick crust on a deep dish, you want puff dish?

• 16:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  Uh, you want a, uh, any of them puppy cheese balls, anything like that? We got a special on buffalo wing, uh, we got a special on, um, uh, damn, I forgot the other thing. We got a special on something. All right, what do you want? What kind of cheese you want? Blue, Swiss, cheddar, Munster?

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Okay, I think I may have the wrong, uh, location here.

• 16:25Speaker 04

  All right, hold on.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  And he's sub-

• 16:28Speaker 05

  Thank you for calling Pizza. Your call is being transferred. Please have all credit card information available for our operators.

• 16:37Speaker 06

  Yes, Pizza, hello?

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Hi, yes.

• 16:39Speaker 06

  Hi.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Hi, which location are you at?

• 16:41Speaker 06

  We are at the corner of La Cienega and Venice.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Okay, I'd like to place an order for delivery.

• 16:48Speaker 06

  All right, can I put you on hold? We'll put you through our automated system, hold on, please.

• 16:53Speaker 05

  Thank you for calling Pizza. If you'd like cheese pizza, press one. If you'd like a meatball pizza, press two. If you'd like sausage, press three.

• 17:09Speaker 05

  Press two.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  Oh, it goes on and on and on. He goes, he eventually gets the guy a fish pizza. And the guy's like, no, man, this, I don't want fish. Um, it's, it's really funny, but that's him. That's Phil doing all those voices and that's not set up. A guy had called into the studio thinking it was Pizza and they're like, take this call.

• 17:32Joe Rogan?

  Did you ever meet him?

• 17:33Speaker 03

  I did briefly at, uh, when I got to see him do his, he did a live show at, uh, Aspen Comedy Festival.

• 17:40Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  Long, long, long time ago.

• 17:42Joe Rogan?

  I did something with him, Bob Odenkirk and Doug Stanhope.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 17:48Joe Rogan?

  And, and Adam Carolla. I don't remember where it was. I want to say it was somewhere in Canada, but it was some sit down. We were talking about the process of going through, cause he was in the middle of doing some sort of a television show pilot.

• 18:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:04Joe Rogan?

  So we were talking about the process of creating a pilot and what it's like trying to get a pilot to an actual finished television show and get it approved and what the struggles are. It was very interesting. I don't think it was for, it was, it was like one of those Montreal Comedy Festival things.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense.

• 18:21Joe Rogan?

  Where they had some, it was like some weird, it was a long time ago, it was like, god, I had it like 2001 or something like that.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I vaguely remember when he was, uh, there was gonna be, cause he would talk about it, doing this, uh, sitcom.

• 18:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, did it ever happen?

• 18:36Speaker 03

  I don't think so, no.

• 18:37Joe Rogan?

  He was a really nice guy, though, not what I expected at all. I expected him to be fucking insane, just like, just to be able to do that every night and not get bored? With just completely fucking with people every day?

• 18:50Speaker 03

  It's, it's gotta be exhausting too, like mentally, cause you're, you've gotta remember, it's like, like really great improv guys, where you have to remember all these details, bring them back 30 minutes later, right? And you're, you're doing multiple characters. You ever see TJ and Dave?

• 19:09Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Oh dude, the best.

• 19:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, what is it?

• 19:12Speaker 03

  It's TJ, uh, Jadagowski and Dave Pasquazi, who are like the kings of that stuff in, uh, out of Chicago. And they come, they tour around, uh, and they're just, they're two guys who, uh, it starts off, you know, it's none of its plan, none of its, uh, and they have like a dedicated cult following. When they're in New York, it sells out like that. And you gotta go to, uh, at least two shows to see how wildly different it is. I mean, they're two guys that come out on stage, usually it was like three chairs, and it'll just start with like, uh, you know, "How's it going?" "Good, good, good."

• 19:57Speaker 03

  "Are you in line?" "No, no, no." And it, and it, you watch it like, oh, they're in line, where are they in line at? Do they know each other? And, and then it, it turns out they're at the DMV, but they're not, it's like a room outside of the DMV. And then they will leave and come back and be somebody else, right? A kid that was mentioned, or a wife or something, um, or be in a car. And, and it all wraps up, it's all a big story. And, and I have seen, I've probably seen him 30, 40 times, and I've seen...

• 20:31Speaker 03

  Shows where that were more that were funnier and more poignant than some plays that have been worked on for years, you know.

• 20:39Joe Rogan?

  It is completely improvised?

• 20:41Speaker 03

  Completely, 100%.

• 20:42Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  Oh, they're, they're, I mean, I, uh, do you know Tim Meadows?

• 20:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  So Tim was a guest. Sometimes I'll have a third person.

• 20:52Joe Rogan?

  I know who he is. I don't, I don't know about him.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, uh, I was, and Tim's been, you know, uh.

• 20:58Joe Rogan?

  SNL?

• 20:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, and ensconced in that Second City, uh, world for decades. And he said it was the most terrifying thing he's ever done because you're, they're like genius level. I mean, the, the detail you have to remember. And then, and then on top of it, if one of them is, you know, I'm a marine biologist or whatever, it slips out, then that person has to know about, the real person playing the fake marine biologist has to know enough about marine biology to keep the thing going, you know? And it's just next level.

• 21:36Joe Rogan?

  I don't know about you guys, but with spring here, I am ready to go outside. There's so much to do now that things are warming up, like getting your garden ready for the growing season, cleaning off your camping gear, or even taking a quick jaunt around the neighborhood, anything to get outside. But that also means you're probably extra busy this time of year. That's where AG1 comes in. A healthy daily drink that helps support you all day long. One scoop of AG1 supports immune health, energy, digestion, and more. Plus, AG1 can replace all those multivitamins and probiotics crowding up your cabinet. See for yourself how making AG1 a part of your routine can help you stay on top of everything going on this season.

• 22:18Joe Rogan?

  Visit drinkag1.com/joeroogan and for a limited time, get a bottle of omega-3, vitamin D3, K2, and an AG1 flavor sampler for free in your welcome kit with your first subscription. That's $111 value at drinkag1.com/joeroogan. Well, I, I'd imagine that's. Like a muscle that you just get really strong with.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:45Joe Rogan?

  Like ranters, like, like Tim Dillon is the best at ranting on a podcast alone. He doesn't, he doesn't have anybody with him. Most of his podcasts are just him ranting.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:58Joe Rogan?

  And I've watched the development of it. I'm like, that's an amazing muscle to develop. Because you just get accustomed to that kind of scenario, that situation. Where it's just, and your mind just gets used to producing content, just.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  And like old school AM, late night radio guys, right?

• 23:16Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  Who don't have people calling in, who are like, talking about whatever. And they gotta do it, you know, four or five times a week.

• 23:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  For three hours, by themselves.

• 23:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I used to always like to listen to them. I used to like to listen to those crazy, right wing, angry, political talk shows, because I don't, I didn't know anybody like that.

• 23:35Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:35Joe Rogan?

  So I was like, oh, what, what is this guy doing?

• 23:38Speaker 03

  I, well, uh, that's, that was the bulk of the radio. I mean, that's why, you know, you have like Art Bell and Phil Hendry, like a nice, like, oh, okay.

• 23:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  There's, because I got all this, I got Mark Levin, and I got, uh, you know, uh, uh, fuck, what's his name, you know?

• 23:56Joe Rogan?

  Rush Limbaugh?

• 23:56Speaker 03

  Rush Limbaugh, yeah. And, uh, and when you, when you first start listening, or when I first started listening, uh, and I came out to LA from Boston, you know, and people were like, there's this guy out here who's fucking nuts, you know, and, uh, uh, I'd never heard of him in Boston. And then, and you're like, does he, how much of this stuff does he believe? Does he really believe? And how much has he come to believe? Does that make sense?

• 24:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, uh, and those guys, that was a whole fascinating thing. And Wally George? Do you remember Wally George?

• 24:32Joe Rogan?

  I do, but I don't remember much about him. I remember the name. What did Wally George do?

• 24:36Speaker 03

  He was the guy who originated what, I mean, now it's really familiar. He, remember Morton Downey Jr.? He was a little after Wally George.

• 24:46Joe Rogan?

  That's right, that's right. Yeah.

• 24:48Speaker 03

  And he would, look, eighty-three, and he was.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  And it was a super low budget, like, cable access type thing, back when that was a whole thing. And he'd get, the audience would be hooting and hollering, and he'd have people on, like, somebody who, and sometimes they, I, I think, because it became popular, sort of like with Morton Downey Jr., where people came on to quote-unquote "fuck" with Wally George. Like, "I'm gonna pretend to be a, you know, a furry, and I'm gonna, you know, have gauges, and, and, you know what I mean, like, just the archetype of the thing they wanna yell at, and, uh, and I think people started, it was, there were some bullshit people on there, you know,

• 25:33Speaker 03

  people lying about who they were, but he'd have people on, and then, and then kick 'em off. It would happen all the time, like, "Come on, sit down, uh, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" And everybody would yell at the person, they'd start talking, and you're like, "Get the fuck out of here!" And that was, that was the show, really, you know? And, uh, here's something really crazy. Uh, and tell me if this is rumor, uh, look up at your magic computer. Rebecca Demornay's dad, the actress.

• 26:06Joe Rogan?

  That's-

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:07Joe Rogan?

  Wally George?

• 26:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 26:08Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:10Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Look it up. Casey, right? Jamie. Jamie, I'm gonna call you Casey.

• 26:17Joe Rogan?

  Who is, I forget who Rebecca Demornay was.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  From, uh, Risky Business.

• 26:23Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow. Wow, her dad?

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:29Joe Rogan?

  Is Wally George. Wow.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Isn't that crazy?

• 26:32Joe Rogan?

  Married multiple times, shocker, probably ten, potentially ten times, had at least six children.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Holy shit, look at how many times he was married. One, two, three, four. Wow.

• 26:46Joe Rogan?

  Possibly ten.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Possibly ten.

• 26:48Joe Rogan?

  Can you imagine, just keep fucking signing up?

• 26:52Speaker 03

  I don't, yeah, I just read, um, literally, the, the other day, uh, Fleetwood Mac guy. Getting married for the fifth time, he's a hundred and eighty-two. And he's getting, like, what? Stop.

• 27:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, why do you wanna keep doing that? They believe, they really believe, this is it, this is the one.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  You have to say those vows and mean it each time.

• 27:16Joe Rogan?

  Right, or not.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:18Joe Rogan?

  Or just say, "This is just a fun thing that I do."

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:21Joe Rogan?

  To keep a lady happy.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, or just have a party, I guess.

• 27:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, have a party and pretend that you're normal now.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  And you're married?

• 27:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. How long you been married?

• 27:32Joe Rogan?

  Seventeen years.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  Oh, nice.

• 27:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  It'll be fourteen in October.

• 27:37Joe Rogan?

  If I get divorced, that's a rap.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  What do you mean?

• 27:41Joe Rogan?

  Like, I'm happy, happily married. I don't want to get divorced, not saying that. But if I ever get divorced, I'm never.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:47Joe Rogan?

  Uh-uh.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  Oh, same here.

• 27:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Oh, I feel the same.

• 27:49Joe Rogan?

  Silly. I'm not having any more children. So if I don't have any children, it makes no sense.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:55Joe Rogan?

  To legally be bound to some person. Can't we just hang out?

• 27:58Speaker 03

  I am a hundred percent with you. I, I, and I was, I was never a, um, anti-marriage guy, but I just didn't think I'd get married because I didn't want, I didn't want to. And then eventually I met somebody who I wanted to marry.

• 28:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's like, you just have to, it has to, I mean, that's the thing. It has to be the right person. Everybody always says that, except Wally George. But the idea of doing it ten times is fucking insane.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:28Joe Rogan?

  Like, that's a, they're doing a different thing.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  I think once you get, I'll give you three. And let's say one of them was some fishy circumstances. I'll give you three. Once you get on your, by the time you're gonna be on your fourth, or fifth, or sixth, or Rupert Murdoch marriage, like, I, what is the point? And why does that woman believe you? What does it say about the lady?

• 28:54Joe Rogan?

  Well, what about ladies that do it? I've been here for six years and I know one lady, while I've been here, she's been married twice. Married and divorced twice, and now she's on the third guy.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would look, I mean, that says something about the guys, right?

• 29:07Joe Rogan?

  I guess.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, man, come on. If you...

• 29:12Speaker 03

  You wouldn't ever think, like, you meet somebody, you like them, and then you find out they've been married twice before in six years.

• 29:21Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 29:21Speaker 03

  And you, and you were, like, starting to fall for her. You wouldn't think, wait a minute.

• 29:30Joe Rogan?

  You would, unless she was hot. Men are dumb. If she's hot and she's sexy and you really like being around her, you're like, who cares? She made mistakes.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:41Joe Rogan?

  Who cares?

• 29:42Speaker 03

  I guess you're right, if the sex is that good, too.

• 29:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, the sex is good, she's hot, and you love being around her, and that's what she wants, and you want to make her happy, like, okay.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  I'll do, I'll say this. You should find out, you should go talk to the other guys. And have a sit-down, and find out why, you know.

• 30:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, the problem is, some guys, they'll want to mess it up for you, so they'll lie. They might not be accurate.

• 30:10Joe Rogan?

  You know, they might paint a disto-, also, they might have been the fuck up, and they want to blame it on her, and then you'll get a distorted perception of who she is.

• 30:18Speaker 03

  But then, then it's back to her, that she's marrying people.

• 30:22Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Who are fucked up. Just, I guess the point is, that we're both making, is, don't get married.

• 30:29Joe Rogan?

  Eh.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  You know?

• 30:30Joe Rogan?

  Well, it is a weird thi-, it's a weird thing to do. Do you have children?

• 30:33Speaker 03

  I do.

• 30:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's a weird thing to do if you don't have children. Not weird, like, you shouldn't do it, but it's a different thing.

• 30:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, completely.

• 30:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you're.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  I, and I, I would say that, um, not that we, you know, my wife and I have any, you know, real issues, um, but I would, uh, behave myself and stay and work at the marriage because of the kid.

• 31:04Joe Rogan?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, absolutely. It fucks kids up when people get divorced.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  What's your, what's your background in?

• 31:12Joe Rogan?

  My parents were split up when I was five, and my mother remarried when I was seven, and has been with my stepdad ever since.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  Oh, that's good.

• 31:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they have, they have a great relationship. I just saw them this weekend.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  And where did you grow up?

• 31:25Joe Rogan?

  Fucking everywhere. I was born in New Jersey. Moved to San Francisco when I was seven, lived in San Francisco from seven to eleven. In the height of the Vietnam War. Um, in Hayth Ashbury, like hippie town. And then, uh, Florida from eleven to thirteen.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  That's the opposite of San Francisco.

• 31:43Joe Rogan?

  Oh, my god. Yeah, that's the first time I found out about the N-word. I didn't know what it meant. And I remember I had to ask my mom. Yeah, I had to ask my mom. I never heard it in San Francisco. Never heard it.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 31:53Joe Rogan?

  San Francisco in the nineteen seventies, uh, when I was, you know, between seven and eleven was kind of a wild, amazing time. It was really weird. It was because we were in the middle of like the counterculture movement.

• 32:08Speaker 03

  Berkeley, all that stuff.

• 32:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, we lived right down the street from Lombard Street, so we're, you know, we were like in the middle of it all, you know? And, uh, it's funny because it was during that time that the Vietnam War ended, when I was, I think I was... When did Vietnam end?

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Seventy-four?

• 32:31Speaker 03

  I think seventy-four?

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Officially, April thirty, seventy-five.

• 32:36Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  US withdrawal seventy-three.

• 32:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, so it was like, what was I, whatever. The, the point is like, at that time, I remember thinking, thank god they figured out war's bad. We're never gonna do this again. I literally, literally had that thought, however old I was.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  What a naive child.

• 32:53Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I was like, phew, because, uh, my stepfather had, um, he didn't get drafted. He got lucky. He, he just didn't get picked. And, uh, I knew a guy, some guy that was a friend of the family that had moved to Canada. He's like, fuck this. He took off to Canada, so I was aware of that, like, oh, people are leaving the country so that they don't have to go to war, like this is... Because if you're a little kid, everything's fucking scary, especially if you come from, you know, a broken home and, you know, like...

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the concept of a draft or conscription, the idea like, oh, you may have to go... And you're gonna learn how to shoot a gun and then go shoot strangers.

• 33:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Kids, you know, like that has got to be terrifying if you're a kid.

• 33:35Joe Rogan?

  No, it was insane. And it was also, there was also the time where, um, you know, my stepdad was a hippie. And my parents were hippies. And when.

• 33:44Speaker 03

  I was gonna ask, why did your, uh, sorry to interrupt, but why did they move around so much?

• 33:49Joe Rogan?

  My stepfather was a computer programmer initially, and then he wanted to become an architect. So he went to school in San Francisco and then, um, uh, University of Florida in Gainesville. And then Boston Architectural Center. So we moved to Boston when I was 13. So that was what it was. It was him becoming an architect.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:09Joe Rogan?

  And so, uh, like they, they didn't like sports. They weren't into anything like that. And then when Muhammad Ali was opposing the Vietnam War, he became this like counterculture hero.

• 34:21Speaker 03

  Sure, yeah.

• 34:22Joe Rogan?

  And I remember it was my parents sat down and watched Muhammad Ali versus Leon Spinks. Because he was trying to win his title back.

• 34:33Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:33Joe Rogan?

  And they were rooting for Muhammad Ali. I'm like, this is crazy. Like this guy's stance on the Vietnam War has made my parents. Fans of his to the point where they're gonna watch boxing. Like they never watched boxing. They didn't want to have anything to do with anything violent.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:48Joe Rogan?

  They hated it. And but they wanted to watch that.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  There's one boxer to watch if you are anti, you know, hitting or boxing or whatever. It was Muhammad Ali. He was a strategist, you know?

• 35:02Joe Rogan?

  He was, but quite honestly, by that stage of his career, he had slowed down considerably. And he, he just wasn't.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  I remember the Leon Spinks, cause he.

• 35:15Joe Rogan?

  Leon beat him.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:16Joe Rogan?

  And then he beat Leon in the rematch.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  Right. This is the rematch, right?

• 35:19Joe Rogan?

  And that was the big one. That we were all glued to the TV. But I remember thinking, this is crazy. They're watching boxing. Because of this guy's position on the Vietnam War.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  Have you seen When We Were Kings?

• 35:31Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's great.

• 35:32Joe Rogan?

  It's amazing.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, he was a, God, you want to talk about a unique human being? Like a one of one.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:41Joe Rogan?

  You know?

• 35:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, you know, outside of, you know, Mike Tyson, there was never any kind of, uh.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  Figure like that in boxing.

• 35:55Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 35:58Joe Rogan?

  I mean, there was minor.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Sugar Ray Leonard a little bit, but not.

• 36:02Joe Rogan?

  Not to that extent, because he wasn't a cultural figure.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 36:05Joe Rogan?

  Muhammad Ali represented something during the civil rights movement.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Boy, and he changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

• 36:11Joe Rogan?

  Right, right. That was a big thing, too. People were terrified of Muslims at the time, and still.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  I was gonna say at the time, yeah.

• 36:20Joe Rogan?

  But it was a different kind of Muslims, you know, that was.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Well, the, they were, the, you know, the government was really good about portraying every black urban person as like, potentially, you know, Muslim Brotherhood.

• 36:37Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  12th Tribes.

• 36:40Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 36:41Speaker 03

  Those guys, they're still around, the Israelite 12th Tribe.

• 36:46Joe Rogan?

  Oh, those guys, yeah.

• 36:47Speaker 03

  They used to be, they used to hang out and hang out. What am I, they used to be in Times Square, like, you know, yelling and preaching.

• 36:55Joe Rogan?

  I hung out with those guys one day. I wrote a piece about it for my website, because I went, I was going home. It was when I was living in New York, and I was walking down the street, and there's this guy standing there with like a microphone, a little speaker.

• 37:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:08Joe Rogan?

  And they would read things from the Bible.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 37:10Joe Rogan?

  And they would translate it, and they had this very bizarre translation. Everybody was black. George Washington was black. Everyone was black. They were explaining to me. You know, the so-called Jew, they're black Israelites. The so-called Jew was the thing that they always.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Well, they're Jewish. Yeah, you don't have to say the so-called.

• 37:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it was very odd.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  But their, their whole thing was, there was a 12th tribe of the Israelites that were black that have been, you know, written out of history.

• 37:44Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was their thing. Yeah. They also informed me that I'm not white. That was a relief. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Believe it or not, the holiday season is here again, and that means you might need to fill some seasonal roles, fast. Maybe you need extra cashiers or stalkers, or maybe something more unique like a lead elf, or an expert gift wrapper, or a Zamboni driver. Whoever you're looking for, whatever skills you need to power through the rest of the year, ZipRecruiter is one of the best places to start your search. Because you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/rogan.

• 38:25Joe Rogan?

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• 39:10Joe Rogan?

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• 39:55Joe Rogan?

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• 40:13Speaker 03

  So it was.

• 40:14Joe Rogan?

  Cause I'm Italian. They're like, oh, you ain't white. I was like, oh.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  Oh, it's like the.

• 40:18Joe Rogan?

  Great. Cause they hated white people. So I was just talking to this, cause I was bored, you know, I was just, so I was talking to this guy. Having him explain everything to me. And he informed me, don't worry, man, you're not white. I was like, oh, okay, that's good. It's good to know.

• 40:31Speaker 03

  So you can hang out.

• 40:33Joe Rogan?

  I can hang out with you guys. You don't hate me. But it was, uh, very odd, very odd. They were all dressed like superheroes. They all had these crazy like Avenger costumes on.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and, uh, like jewelry.

• 40:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  Big.

• 40:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, huge medallions around their neck. Yeah. Very odd stuff.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  There's still, you don't see them like you used to, but they're still out there.

• 40:55Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're out there.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  I mean, like in, literally in New York, uh, you know, periphery of Times Square.

• 41:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, last time I was in Philadelphia, I saw them.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:04Joe Rogan?

  They were out there on the street with the microphones, the whole deal. Yeah.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:10Joe Rogan?

  It's an odd group.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  When were you in New York?

• 41:13Joe Rogan?

  I was in New York. I moved to New York in ninety-one, ninety, yeah. So I started stand-up in eighty-eight in Boston. And, uh, I got picked up by my manager, who I'm still with, when I was essentially an open mic'er.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Who was that?

• 41:30Joe Rogan?

  Jeff Sussman.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  How do I not know Jeff Sussman?

• 41:34Joe Rogan?

  He handles Kevin James.

• 41:37Speaker 03

  Was he a Boston guy?

• 41:38Joe Rogan?

  No, he was a New York guy.

• 41:39Speaker 03

  Okay, okay.

• 41:39Joe Rogan?

  So the story was, he had, um, what was his name? Fucking, the guy who had all the crazy costumes, he was on the Rodney Dangerfield special. Bob.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 41:50Joe Rogan?

  Bob Nelson.

• 41:50Speaker 03

  Bob Nelson, yeah.

• 41:51Joe Rogan?

  So he handled Bob Nelson.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  The Cleveland Browns.

• 41:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he put the helmet on, he had boxing gloves, he did Jiffy Jeff's Gym, he had brain damage. He did a bunch of different characters. So Bob, who is a, a big act, you know, he had HBO special, the whole deal at the time, um, he found Jesus.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 42:10Joe Rogan?

  And, uh.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  Where was he?

• 42:12Joe Rogan?

  In his basement, I guess, or something.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  Oh shit.

• 42:14Joe Rogan?

  It was in, around the neighborhood, somewhere.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 42:16Joe Rogan?

  But he had this guy who was his prayer partner that was going to take over as his manager. And so this was my manager's big client, so he's like, fuck. Like, I gotta, I gotta go find some other comedians.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  Did he just stop doing stand-up?

• 42:36Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. I think, I don't know if he still does stand-up. I don't know. I knew his career, my manager's really good, and he's very smart, and he did a great job guiding Bob. But I think sometimes when people like have like a big religious moment like that, like maybe that becomes more of their life than, because he was all in.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:00Joe Rogan?

  He was all in with Christianity. And so my manager said, well, I kind of know most of the comics in New York. Let me see if I'm not missing people in Boston. And so he traveled to Boston with a friend of his, one of the guys that owned Governors. And they came-

• 43:18Speaker 03

  Well, Governors was Bob's room, wasn't it?

• 43:21Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Out in Long Island?

• 43:22Joe Rogan?

  One of the rooms that he worked at, yeah. And so they came down to Boston, and I just randomly went up one night at Duck Soup. Remember Duck Soup?

• 43:33Speaker 03

  Duck Soup?

• 43:34Joe Rogan?

  Duck Soup was, it became the improv after a while. It was, um-

• 43:38Speaker 03

  I don't remember that.

• 43:39Joe Rogan?

  Billy Downs and, um-

• 43:41Speaker 03

  Paul Barkley?

• 43:42Joe Rogan?

  Paul Barkley. I think it was actually Billy split, I think it was Paul's thing.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  So they had split at that point?

• 43:48Joe Rogan?

  I think. I'm not sure about that. But, but what it was, it was Paul's idea, I believe. It was a much more high-end room. Like, it was really nice, and it was right across from Nick's. So it was in the below area where the Wiltern is.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 44:03Joe Rogan?

  So you know where the Wiltern is, which is now the big, you know, where Bill Bluman, right, does comic connection shows?

• 44:08Speaker 03

  The Wilbur, right?

• 44:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Is that it?

• 44:10Speaker 03

  The Wilbur.

• 44:11Joe Rogan?

  It's the Wil, okay, I'm thinking the Wiltern's LA.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  It Wiltern's LA, but I know what you're talking about.

• 44:15Joe Rogan?

  The Wilbur, right, you're right. So downstairs, the Wilbur, it was, you'd go down, and it was a really nice room.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 44:22Joe Rogan?

  And I was a limo driver at the time. I was driving limos, and, uh-

• 44:27Speaker 03

  Driving a limo in Boston?

• 44:28Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  Jesus.

• 44:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 44:32Joe Rogan?

  That's what I was doing for a job.

• 44:33Speaker 03

  That's fucking, I mean, I just mean the literal streets of Boston are tough to navigate with any vehicle, but a limo, add a extra half a car to it.

• 44:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It was, it wasn't that bad. It was mostly airport pickups. You know, and a lot of it was town cars, pick people up in town cars. But when you drive around a lot, that's when I would come up with my best ideas. And I had an idea for a joke and I called, God, I can't remember who the guy was. Fuck, I can't believe I'm blanking on his name. He was a really cool dude who was the manager of the club. And I could call him up and say, hey, can I get a guest spot? And he gave me a guest spot that night. I wasn't even supposed to be on the show. And my manager just happened to be in the room. And if I'd known he was in the room, I probably would have been nervous and I probably would have bombed.

• 45:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:20Joe Rogan?

  And I had no idea he was there.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 45:22Joe Rogan?

  And then he came up to me afterwards and gave me his card and he said, can I see you tomorrow? And I said, oh, okay. And then.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  He just meant for a ride to the airport.

• 45:34Joe Rogan?

  So I did a set at the Connection the next night and then he asked me to come to New York and audition there. And then, wow, next thing you know, I was living in New York. It was like three years later.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  Very cool. And then.

• 45:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it was crazy, crazy story.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  And, uh, and when did you move out to LA?

• 45:48Joe Rogan?

  Ninety-four, ninety-three, like, uh, first came out in ninety-three and then moved in ninety-four. I came out to ninety-three for a pilot. I did a pilot on Fox called Hardball with Jim Brewer and a bunch of other people. It was a baseball sitcom on Fox that got canceled. It was terrible.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:07Joe Rogan?

  And then, uh, I, the only reason why I stayed, I hated LA. But the only reason why I stayed was because I had got an apartment and I had a lease for a year. So I was like, fuck, like, I have to stay here. And so I stayed for a whole, and then I got a development deal for NBC. And, um, they, I was there in the middle of this whole development deal. And then they said, we have a pilot that we already filmed, but we're gonna fire one of the cast members. Uh, we want you to audition for this. And that was news radio. So I got to watch.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Who, uh, did you replace?

• 46:40Joe Rogan?

  Well, fortunately, it was, Ray Romano, who was a good friend of mine, was fired during the pilot, and so they replaced him with another guy, and that guy got fired.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 46:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, so it wasn't, I would've felt terrible if it was Ray. But it was Ray being replaced, so I was like, good, fuck that guy. I'll do it for Ray.

• 47:02Speaker 03

  Do you remember who the other guy was?

• 47:04Joe Rogan?

  I do not. He was just an actor, some guy, I mean, I never met him, I'm sure he's a nice guy. But luckily for Ray, he goes on The Does, Everybody Loves Raymond, it becomes huge, and I just stumbled into this fucking show with no acting experience.

• 47:18Speaker 03

  That was a fun set. I remember, I remember, because I did it a couple times, and, and also, like, that was not my first, but one of the first experiences I had with multi-camera sitcoms, you know, where you're like, this is literally the easiest job on planet Earth.

• 47:40Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:41Speaker 03

  It is, you have one full day, you have like a full, I think Thursday, right?

• 47:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 47:47Speaker 03

  And then Friday's like half a day.

• 47:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  Monday, come in, listen to this, read the script, go away.

• 47:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's the filming day that's the long day, and it's not that bad. I mean, especially once we got loose. The first season was hard. The first season was 12, 14-hour days, because it was like they were trying to figure out what the show was. But once it got rolling, it was pretty amazing. So I had only been doing stand-up for six years. I'd only been, I had done no acting. I had, they had made me get an acting coach for a little while in New York, which I think was counterintuitive.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  News Radio?

• 48:22Joe Rogan?

  For a pilot, for the pilot, the Fox pilot.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 48:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Well, how's, how's an acting coach gonna help you with a sitcom? It's about, it's about instinct, it's about...

• 48:33Joe Rogan?

  Well, they were giving me a lot of money. They gave me like a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and they're like, you have to learn how to act.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 48:39Joe Rogan?

  Do you know how to act? I've, I've never acted.

• 48:41Speaker 03

  I'm just saying, like, to deliver sitcom lines, you don't need an acting teacher. "Ow, Joseph, let's limber up the body."

• 48:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you're not Daniel Day-Lewis. You're not doing, "There will be blood." It was a... It was weird, because it wasn't anything. I think the reason why it worked out so well is because it was never anything that I wanted. So there was no weight to it. It wasn't like, oh my god, this is it.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:08Joe Rogan?

  I am on a sitcom, I'm acting. It was more like, this is crazy, I can't believe I'm doing this. You know, it was more like, wow, I can't believe I get to do this. But, you know, the real thing for me was to be able to be in L.A. and go to the Comedy Store. That to me was more, that was more huge than, like, when I got passed at the Comedy Store, that to me was like, way bigger than being on a sitcom. I was like, holy shit. Like, because at that, you know, like, it's six years in, I was like, am I even, is this gonna work out? Like, I don't even know this is gonna work out.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  Well, it's also not glamorous in any way. That, that aspect of, uh, working is, there's nothing glamorous about a sitcom. You know what I mean? It's not the thing that, when you're not in L.A. or Hollywood and you're sitting back and you're, you are told about the glamorous lifestyle, the parties and all that stuff. It's literally, you're driving to work and you're going to work, you know?

• 50:06Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but it was glamorous in a sense that you were on television. And that was very weird to me. It was very strange.

• 50:15Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 50:16Joe Rogan?

  To watch it on TV, I'm like, that is actually me on TV. I had zero aspirations for any acting at all.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:25Joe Rogan?

  It never was, it never even occurred to me. When I lived in Boston, I remember me and Fitzsimmons used to, we used to dream about the day where we could pay our bills telling jokes. That was all it was.

• 50:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I hear you.

• 50:36Joe Rogan?

  It was just like, oh god, I would see guys like DJ Hazard. I remember, I went to look at this apartment, and DJ Hazard lived in the same building. And it was this, uh, converted schoolhouse, and these loft apartments. It had like a second floor where the, like, the bedroom was, and it looked over the living room. I'm like, god, this is, he pays for this with jokes?

• 50:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:57Joe Rogan?

  This was like, the most amazing thing. Like, that's all I wanted. I saw these, like, Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney, I was like, imagine being able to pay your bills, just telling jokes.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  Untie my ankles in the morning. Remember that?

• 51:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I do.

• 51:12Speaker 03

  DJ Hazard?

• 51:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  Um, what was I gonna say? Something, oh, do you know, uh, Fitzsimmons, um...

• 51:24Speaker 03

  Paul Barclay story, or Bill Downs, the watch? Bill Downs, it was Bill Downs. Which one? How's it go? Oh, I, I don't, you should get it from him, cuz it's his story. But, and I, I don't wanna, I feel like it's his to tell, but it's fucking great, it's genius. It's bringing up something in my memory. So, so Bill owed everybody money, right? And, uh, like, he's still, you know, those guys owe me whatever it is at this point, you know? What, three hundred, five hundred dollars? And just, and you'd go there, and they were just doing- Everybody was big guy, remember? Yeah. I'll pay you soon, big guy. Oh, the wor- and then, do you remember when Bill adopted the girls?

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Yes, Korean girls, right? He, yeah, and he would use them, like, as, ah, cuz a- a- at a certain point, it didn't help to go to the connection, or go to the clubs, and you had to go to their fucking office. If you wanted, nobody's gonna call you back, or whatever, and you'd, like, I gotta get on the T and go to the, go to their office, and that's the only way I'm gonna get money, is if I show up and he's in a good mood, and it's not gonna happen from a phone call, and I'd go there every single time. It's like, dude, I gotta pay my rent, man, I mean, I, I got nothing, and you owe me, you know,

• 52:49Speaker 03

  three hundred and eighty-five dollars, and back then, that was huge, and, uh, ah, cross, I, just, listen, so I got these, my kids, one of my kids is sick, whatever, it was always this fucking excuse, and then, and then, uh, you know, with still the coke residual on the bottom of his nose, and, um,

• 53:12Speaker 03

  but, so Fitz, he owed Fitzsimmons a chunk of money, like-

• 53:17Speaker 03

  Like a significant amount, like fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred bucks. Like something, something meaty, you know, especially for back then. And, uh, you, you, you ask Greg, cause I feel, I feel like it-

• 53:33Joe Rogan?

  No, tell the story. I'm sure Greg's told it to me. Greg and I are pretty close. I remember it some, in, in my head, I do remember part of it, but I don't know the whole story. I don't remember it.

• 53:43Speaker 03

  Alright, so Greg was, uh, booked at this, uh, you know, some shit club in New Hampshire or whatever. And Downs was gonna be there, uh, Bill was gonna be there, and, uh, um, and he goes, he goes there and he goes, uh, "Oh, Bill, I, I, uh, I forgot my watch. Um, I don't wanna go over. Can I, can I borrow your watch?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure." Um, it's like a Rolex, like some fancy, fancy, fancy watch. And, and Greg had this all planned out.

• 54:14Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I know the story now, yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  And then he had, he had like parked in a specific place. And then he, and then he gets, uh, he's like, "Alright, thanks." And he's like, "Alright, don't forget to give it back." Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he does his set, and then he bolts out the back door, gets in his car, drives home, back to Boston, and then Bill calls him. "Hey, uh, so, uh, I think you, uh, forgot to give me my watch back." And Greg just basically goes, "Yeah, you want it back? Uh, give me the eighteen hundred bucks you owe me, and then meet him at a restaurant or a diner somewhere, in a public place. Give me the cash, and I'll give you your watch." And it was just genius.

• 54:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's Greg.

• 54:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, those days were fun. Nicks Comedy Stop used to offer to pay you in cocaine or cash?

• 55:01Speaker 03

  I, dude, so, I, I did Nicks. And the only, I've, I've said this multiple times, the only, I, I'm extremely lucky that I was in Boston when I was in Boston. Because the comedy boom's going on, and outside of-

• 55:21Speaker 03

  I don't know, three places? I just didn't do that well. And I certainly didn't do well at Nicks. I mean, I was the opposite. They, you know, it had that, the vague feeling of high school, where you're the weirdo and people want to fuck with you and throw you in the trash can. And, uh, and so I got lucky because there were just spots. They just needed bodies. So I worked all the time, you know? Not, you know, not great gigs, but I had, it was all cash, you know, under the table. And, and they just needed bodies to, to, you know, go up and do 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, at some cowboy bar in Pittsburgh or whatever. Uh, Fitchburg.

• 56:04Speaker 03

  Anyway, uh, so I get this, I get a week at Nicks. And, um, and I am not doing well at all. I think I'm opening up for Kevin Knox. So, not my crowd. And I didn't have the tracksuit.

• 56:24Speaker 03

  And, you know, Knox is up there doing, uh, hey, you know why, you know why Bill Buckner didn't catch the ball, or get the ball? It was the 86 World Series. Cause he heard it had AIDS on it. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's a real joke. That's a real joke. And they loved it. More wonderful. Yes, of course it had AIDS on it.

• 56:47Joe Rogan?

  1986.

• 56:49Speaker 03

  And then, do you remember this? What does AIDS stand for?

• 56:53Joe Rogan?

  No. What?

• 56:55Speaker 03

  Adios infected dick sucker.

• 56:57Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I do remember that.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  I'm opening for him.

• 57:01Joe Rogan?

  Oh, my God.

• 57:01Speaker 03

  And it's his crowd. And, uh...

• 57:03Joe Rogan?

  Adios infected dick sucker. Oh, my God.

• 57:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, uh, I titled one of the tracks on my first album, I think. First or second album, uh, "What If Baseballs Had AIDS On Them?" Does he?

• 57:21Joe Rogan?

  Just...

• 57:25Speaker 03

  I'm fucking eating it, right? So they're, they're, they're peeling back my time as the week goes on. And, uh, and I am, I mean, I, if I had done even okay, I wouldn't have had this feeling. They're already kind of intimidating, right? Super. Mob, very mob. Very mob. And do you remember where the, you'd walk into Nick's and there was like the podium and then behind, a little behind it is this little room with a curtain, right? And it's not big at all. And I went to go get paid and my, the week was over and I'm, and I've just, you know, eaten it, eat shit every single night, every single show.

• 58:09Speaker 03

  And, um, and they're all eating, it's like a scene from like, they're all eating like, you know, manicotti, couldn't make it any better with the fucking napkins in their, uh, you know, in their shirt like this. And, uh, and I go, uh, hey, nervous as shit, just, hey, uh, so Dom, uh, I need to, uh, if I can get paid, I, uh, just for the, you know, whatever. And Dominic goes to whoever, I can't remember the guy's name, uh, his kind of lackey there. And he goes, whatever his name was, you know, Paulie, go pay the kid. And he's, I've interrupted his dinner. He's not happy.

• 58:50Speaker 03

  Fucking napkin off, takes me trudge, we go up to the offices upstairs and there's a safe and it's open and there's cash and there's a gun, this is just open, right? And he gives me, he gets the money and he gives it to me and I just pick it up. I want to get the fuck out of there and I pick it up and he's like, are you gonna count it? Uh, no, I'm good. I trust, I trust you. And I just bolted. I never went back there again. It was, I was so fucking intimidated and. That was an intimidating place. Oh dude, the whole thing about it, every, the Dominic, the, all those guys. Yeah. Yeah. And they're, everyone's doing blow and.

• 59:34Speaker 03

  You know, the performers are at least, you know.

• 59:36Joe Rogan?

  It was a maniacal time where all those guys. There was one time where NIX was running three consecutive shows. So they had their main room upstairs. There was a dance club down in the bottom and there was one other room somewhere in that building and guys would go, like guys like Don Gavin, Steve Sweetie, they would go and do a set, a set, a set, set, a set, a set. And these guys were just raking in money.

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:02Joe Rogan?

  And constantly doing blow. And not paying their taxes.

• 1:00:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes.

• 1:00:07Joe Rogan?

  And that's what got them all.

• 1:00:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, that, well, they, I mean, back in the heyday and it went, it went on for years.

• 1:00:13Joe Rogan?

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• 1:00:58Joe Rogan?

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• 1:02:21Speaker 03

  It was years and years of this. I mean, you you could go down, you know, 128 and do calloons or whatever and then do, just hop all the way back. Hop into these Chinese restaurants or whatever.

• 1:02:33Joe Rogan?

  Right, giggles and saugus.

• 1:02:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, and do, and just go in a straight line and go back and forth and do nine fucking shows. And, and make a shit ton of money, cash under the table, tons of blow.

• 1:02:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:46Speaker 03

  And, yeah.

• 1:02:48Joe Rogan?

  It was a wild place because there were so many comics and it was such a, Boston's not a big city. You know, and to have so much comedy all come out. You've seen Fran Salamita's documentary?

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  I haven't. I got to.

• 1:03:01Joe Rogan?

  It's really great.

• 1:03:02Speaker 03

  Stand-up stood out.

• 1:03:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's really.

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

  I, I got to.

• 1:03:04Joe Rogan?

  It's really great. It's really great. And it goes all the way back to Crimmens and the Ding Ho. And I, I, that was before my time. I started in 88, so the Ding Ho was already gone. And, you know, you heard legendary stories from the Ding Ho.

• 1:03:18Speaker 03

  Did you see Call Me Lucky?

• 1:03:20Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  Oh, you gotta see that. It's Bobcats documentary about Barry.

• 1:03:27Joe Rogan?

  Oh, no, wait a minute. I did see that.

• 1:03:29Speaker 03

  It's fucking great.

• 1:03:30Joe Rogan?

  I did see that.

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  It's really well done. I, I don't mean just, like, even if you don't know Barry, just the story and the way he lays out the, the path of the, the film is, it's great.

• 1:03:42Joe Rogan?

  I had Barry on like right after it came out. I had him on the podcast. And, yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 03

  He's, he's a, he's a legend and, you know, huge inspiration.

• 1:03:51Joe Rogan?

  He was an intimidating guy.

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:53Joe Rogan?

  That was the guy that I was scared of because he was like. He was the guy who was sort of the standard. Like, he made sure there was no hacks. He made sure there was, you know, like, he set the standard.

• 1:04:09Speaker 03

  He was really equitable, too.

• 1:04:11Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes. Very politically active. Even like way back then, like, really knowledgeable and like really understood what was going on in the world and...

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  Did you ever see his, or one of his State of the Union shows?

• 1:04:27Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  They're fucking amazing. So he would go, I saw a couple of them at the, the old Stitches. And he would go up, and it was when the, the State of the Union was happening. He'd go up and he'd do his State of the Union. It was just him. And he would go on and he'd have like, you know, it was pre PowerPoint. But it was whatever the equivalent of, you know, a screen behind him with stuff. And he'd go up there with a cooler, like a legit big cooler of beer. Cause that motherfucker could drink.

• 1:05:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  And, and he would just start, he had a podium. And he would just crack beers and just down a case of beer, or half a case of beer. And just do his stuff, you know, extemporaneous stuff. I mean, stuff prepared, but about, you know, the State of the Union and all that. It was, and it would always be packed. Like, and you'd see Dennis Leary and, you know, every single comic would be there, you know, trying, up against the wall. Cause it was packed, but it was great. I mean, legendary.

• 1:05:34Joe Rogan?

  Well, he, I mean, I think he was really responsible for a lot of what Boston comedy became. You know, cause he was the guy that was kind of the gold standard.

• 1:05:42Speaker 03

  And he started the ding-ho.

• 1:05:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he, it's like, becoming friends with him was like, phew, like such a relief. Cause I was terrified of him.

• 1:05:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:52Joe Rogan?

  When I was a young comic, like if that guy thought I sucked, if he hated me, I was like, I'm fucking doomed.

• 1:05:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Joe Rogan?

  You know, because he was this character. He would go on stage with a sport coat on and reach into his inner pocket and pull out a Budweiser. For every show. Remember that?

• 1:06:08Speaker 03

  I don't, but I mean, I know he drank a lot.

• 1:06:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but he would bring his own beer. It was part of his thing. He would go on stage, just reach into his, pull out a Budweiser and set it down on the stool.

• 1:06:18Speaker 03

  I...

• 1:06:19Joe Rogan?

  He'd only drink American beer.

• 1:06:21Speaker 03

  Is that true?

• 1:06:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he would drink Budweiser.

• 1:06:23Speaker 03

  I wonder why that is?

• 1:06:24Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. He was like kind of a patriot.

• 1:06:27Speaker 03

  He doesn't seem like he would, the kinda guy who would have denied himself.

• 1:06:35Joe Rogan?

  Well, I mean, maybe it was performative. I don't know. Was there Modelo even, did it exist at the time?

• 1:06:41Speaker 03

  But, yeah, he was, uh, he was the only guy, I would say, that, and to your point, like, all these other legendary comics, you know, Lenny Clark, and Don Gavin, and Steve Sweeney, and all those guys, he was the only guy that those guys were kind of walking on eggshells.

• 1:07:05Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:07:05Speaker 03

  The only guy.

• 1:07:06Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes, the only guy.

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  They'd give all, each other shit, like, and, and mean shit, too.

• 1:07:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, oh, they would fight.

• 1:07:13Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Barry was the one guy they wouldn't fuck with.

• 1:07:17Joe Rogan?

  Well, he was different than all of them, in that he was incredibly well-read. Like, really well-read, really knowledgeable about all sorts of things, with economics, and the way the world works, the injustices of our society, but really funny fucking comic, too. Like, great jokes, great writer, you know, and just like, he was the standard. He was the glue that held that scene together. Because they all looked at him to be like, like, you can't kinda step out of line. Like, you don't wanna get, catch Barry's R.

• 1:07:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it was absolutely true. And, uh, and then when, uh, the revelation he had of, uh, being abused as a kid, and then he dedicated, he spoke in front of Congress. He did, uh, um, about.

• 1:08:06Joe Rogan?

  AOL.

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  AOL, yeah.

• 1:08:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, those, during the early days of AOL, for people that don't know, they had all these chat rooms, and sexual predators were using these chat rooms to find children.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:19Joe Rogan?

  And also to exchange pornographic material.

• 1:08:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that was, that was, that becomes a big part of, uh, Call Me Lucky, you know?

• 1:08:29Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 1:08:31Speaker 03

  And, yeah, he like dedicated his life, basically, to just, uh, going out and catching these motherfuckers.

• 1:08:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:40Speaker 03

  And, and helping, you know, uh, the, the people who would pose as kids and stuff, and that was, you know, that was his, and he was also, uh...

• 1:08:53Speaker 03

  You know, lapsed Catholic and when all the, especially in Boston, the Catholic Church and diocese and all that stuff was coming out, he was, I mean, that was his fucking focus.

• 1:09:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  Getting these fuckers caught, you know, exposed.

• 1:09:09Joe Rogan?

  Well, I, I think it took someone like him that was, he was levels above most of the other comedians in terms of his understanding of the world and hi- his ability to articulate it and also a great comic so that like people looked at him like, well, this guy's like, he's clearly smarter than all of us. He's, he's also like super dedicated to the craft of comedy, like meant a lot to him.

• 1:09:36Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:37Joe Rogan?

  The integrity of comedy, like what it is to be a comic.

• 1:09:39Speaker 03

  You know, and he came from, uh, and I think this is kind of specific to Boston too. He came from a jock world. He was a minor league or whatever, sub minor league catcher. He played, uh, he was at Syracuse University and he played for like the Cape Cod League and, and you know, the things that eventually you get to minor leagues, hopefully. Um, but, and he came from that hard drinking, you know, and, and catcher is arguably the smartest guy on the baseball team, right?

• 1:10:15Joe Rogan?

  Right. He's the guy making the calls for the pitches.

• 1:10:19Speaker 03

  Seeing everything, defensive lineups.

• 1:10:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:21Speaker 03

  So he came from that world too, which I think helped his cred.

• 1:10:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Well, it's just such an unusual town in what happened there that these guys became these local legends where they never had to leave and they kind of did the same act for decades, which is also kind of crazy.

• 1:10:39Speaker 03

  That to me was like, I knew, there was definitely a, uh, as I started to separate from that world a little bit and, uh, and just kind of evolving as a comedian and there was like the catch scene and, um, Catch a Rising Star and, uh, That was a thing that was an early. I just didn't get it. Like, why are you doing the same? It, there's no joy in it. And then you would drive some of these guys, because they get fucked up. And you were happy to have all the work, and you'd go up and do fifteen, and they'd do a half hour. You'd get in the car, you'd go somewhere else, and, and these guys doing.

• 1:11:24Speaker 03

  Mike Dunham. He would do his, remember Rosie, the bounty, the quicker picker-upper, the bounty?

• 1:11:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:33Speaker 03

  Okay, so he had, there was a.

• 1:11:36Speaker 03

  So the commercials were like Rosie.

• 1:11:40Speaker 03

  And it was like the scrappy waitress at a diner. Remember, it was like a character that was in all the, it was like the, the, you know, mascot of whatever bounty, the quicker picker-upper. And. Her character was kind of like feisty, isn't he? Commercials ran for years, you know, different, like, ah, you don't do this, do this. And his bit was about taking a gun out and shooting her. And it was funny, you'd see it the first time, but it's like, dude, that hasn't been on the air in fucking ten years. And he's still doing this, ah, yeah, Rosie, I got something for you, I got a, I got some advice for you. Like, what the fuck? And there was, okay, wait, Joe.

• 1:12:24Speaker 03

  Did you, were you there? So, Ed, the machine regime?

• 1:12:30Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, I remember him.

• 1:12:32Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:12:32Joe Rogan?

  He wear the suit?

• 1:12:33Speaker 03

  Yep. Well, yeah, and he, his headshot was four different, his headshot was like four squares.

• 1:12:39Joe Rogan?

  And different characters.

• 1:12:40Speaker 03

  Yep, Tina Turner. And guy, the, the like mob guy, I can't remember the rest of them, and then, you know, whatever.

• 1:12:49Joe Rogan?

  I think he had a turban in one of them.

• 1:12:51Speaker 03

  I'm sure he did.

• 1:12:54Speaker 03

  So he goes to jail for rolling back.

• 1:12:58Joe Rogan?

  odometers.

• 1:12:59Speaker 03

  odometers.

• 1:12:59Joe Rogan?

  Yes, that's right.

• 1:13:01Speaker 03

  He gets caught, and he was, you know, car salesman, I think, out of, in Rhode Island, I believe. And he got caught rolling back the odometers. He goes to jail for a year and a half. And I, uh, I was shooting this movie, this is decades later. I was shooting this movie and it was on a cruise ship. And the cruise ship, uh, Ed the Machine Regine is the headliner at the comedy venue on the cruise ship. And I'm like, oh shit, that's crazy. I haven't seen this guy in forever and he's, he's back doing comedy? Okay. And I go there and he does, I don't know, 40 minutes.

• 1:13:45Speaker 03

  The same fucking act from 15 years ago. It's like, you don't have one, you, you spent 18 months in prison, you don't have one joke? You don't have one motherfucking observation? Even if you lie and say, you know, you know, it'd be weird if you were in prison and whatever. You, you don't have anything?

• 1:14:07Joe Rogan?

  It's weird. It was a weird thing and it, it only existed with them. Most comics in the country were writing new material all the time.

• 1:14:16Speaker 03

  It, it was, I remember that feeling of, I must be different because I'm not, I don't, that is such a distasteful thing. Like, I wouldn't want to do that.

• 1:14:28Joe Rogan?

  Well, there was two, I saw two traps there. One of them was that and the other one was never leaving.

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:35Joe Rogan?

  They never left Boston. And when they did leave Boston, they had so much local material that their act was like cut down by like 40%.

• 1:14:43Speaker 03

  And there were a lot of people, their peers, who would give them shit. Like, uh, and it was all just kind of resentful, jealousy, small-minded, small-town, kind of like, oh, you think you're better than us? Which is a Boston thing too, that, um, oh, you think you're so, you think you're so hot now that you, uh, you're hot shot? You go, you get some, uh, you go to Hollywood, you go there? Yeah? Fuck you. This is, you know, it was a real provincial, working-class kind of

• 1:15:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:15Speaker 03

  attitude, you know? They looked down on, and you know, they would give leery shit all the time, you know? Like, sellout, this is bullshit weird.

• 1:15:24Joe Rogan?

  Sellout's a weird one because they would all sold out. It just wasn't available.

• 1:15:31Joe Rogan?

  Well, they were all mad at Steven Wright.

• 1:15:33Speaker 03

  Were they?

• 1:15:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, cuz so Steven Wright was like this-

• 1:15:37Speaker 03

  How can you get mad at Steven Wright?

• 1:15:39Joe Rogan?

  Well, not mad at him, but bitter because of his success.

• 1:15:42Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:15:42Joe Rogan?

  Cuz he went and left, yeah.

• 1:15:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:44Joe Rogan?

  He went and left, did The Tonight Show.

• 1:15:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:15:46Joe Rogan?

  Became huge, so unusual, so different, and they came to Boston, The Tonight Show came to Boston, to look for comics, and Steven Wright was the one they chose. And all these other guys were like, "He's a fucking middle act." Like, this is bullshit. Like, that guy bombs half the time.

• 1:16:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:01Joe Rogan?

  Cuz his act, his act to me was a lot like Hedberg.

• 1:16:05Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:16:05Joe Rogan?

  In that if you didn't know what he was doing and you came to see specific com- like if Hedberg, there's a famous story of Hedberg was on the road in Ohio and they had this guy who was an opening act who'd do like backflips and fucking sing rap songs, and it was, it was a disaster. And Hedberg kept bombing, and so they switched them and made Hedberg the middle act and tried to fuck him on the money, and Stanhope got into it with the owner of the club and became a big thing. But, once Hedberg got an audience, then people knew what they were coming to see, and then he was amazing.

• 1:16:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:36Joe Rogan?

  And then everybody wanted to see that. That was kinda the same with Steven Wright. Like, if you expected, if you're on a show with Steve Sweeney and Lenny Clark and all these big energy fucking Boston guys, and then, you know, "I used to work at a fire hydrant factory, couldn't park anywhere near the place." You know, like, it just, for whatever reason, you know-

• 1:17:00Speaker 03

  Well, it's also, that other comedy is, and I'm not taking anything away from those guys, and the bits were great, but the, that other comedy is a little easier, it just, you get it.

• 1:17:12Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:17:13Speaker 03

  And with Steven Wright, you gotta think about it for a second.

• 1:17:16Joe Rogan?

  Right, it was abstract, it was low-key, it was all non-sequiturs, it was one to another, it was- And so when he left and took off, a lot of guys apparently were like, "This is fucking bullshit, like, when's my turn gonna happen?"

• 1:17:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I can see that easily.

• 1:17:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32Speaker 03

  I mean, that was, it was so-

• 1:17:36Speaker 03

  I mean, no other scene had that kind of weird provincial,

• 1:17:40Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:41Speaker 03

  You know, and that thing, like you said, they wouldn't leave.

• 1:17:44Joe Rogan?

  No, they never left. Well, they were huge there. So if they lived there, they could make like, This episode is brought to you by Noco. You're miles from home. You turn the key, nothing. Dead battery. Normally that means finding another car, someone willing to give you a jump, and dealing with old jumper cables. But what if you didn't need any of that? Keep a Noco portable jump starter in your glove box and jump start your car yourself. No cables, no second vehicle, no waiting for help. It also works as a power bank and has a built-in LED flashlight. Noco, the end of jumper cables. Use code ROGEN10 for 10% off select jump starters at N-O dot C-O.

• 1:18:28Joe Rogan?

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• 1:19:12Joe Rogan?

  Takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for more details.

• 1:19:27Joe Rogan?

  Couple hundred thousand dollars a year, just running around and cash.

• 1:19:31Speaker 03

  Oh, easy.

• 1:19:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and not ever have to worry about anything, and they played golf all day. So there's two things that scared me, one of them was golf, because I saw that when you play golf, you kind of stop trying with your comedy.

• 1:19:41Speaker 03

  It's a slippery slope.

• 1:19:43Joe Rogan?

  So many hours.

• 1:19:43Speaker 03

  It's a gateway drug.

• 1:19:45Joe Rogan?

  Well, you're out there for fucking eight hours a day, like Noxy was always playing golf. And then the other thing was like, if you never left, you had no chance of developing like a national audience. Where you could go to a club in Philadelphia, you can go to a club, they couldn't do the road. And I remember thinking, oh, this is a trap.

• 1:20:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure, absolutely.

• 1:20:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:08Speaker 03

  I mean, and as you said, they, half of their stand-up was like, you'd have to know about, you know, Storo Drive, or fucking...

• 1:20:17Joe Rogan?

  Johnny Most.

• 1:20:18Speaker 03

  You know Johnny Most?

• 1:20:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, remember Donovan's bit about Johnny Most? It was amazing. But it was like, he was doing that bit long after Johnny Most was dead. So like, 20 people in the audience would be howling, laughing, and everybody else would be like, who the fuck is Johnny Most?

• 1:20:31Speaker 03

  God.

• 1:20:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It was weird, because it was like a velvet prison. It's like how I describe like, really great comics that get jobs in the writers' room, and I'm like, you gotta be careful, like, that's a velvet prison. Because if you get stuck in that writers' room, and you never do the road, you never put out specials, you're never gonna get an audience. You're always gonna be beholden to an employer. You're always gonna have to have a job. And there's great comics that got trapped with that.

• 1:20:58Speaker 03

  I, but wouldn't you say that if they, yes, it's a trap, but if they didn't have the wherewithal, or foresight, or willpower to get out of that trap, then they probably weren't meant to do that thing?

• 1:21:15Joe Rogan?

  Perhaps, but sometimes they get a mortgage, and then they get a family, and then they're stuck.

• 1:21:21Speaker 03

  That's the trap.

• 1:21:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Speaker 03

  Fucking family. Let's call it for what it is.

• 1:21:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:25Speaker 03

  It's a trap.

• 1:21:26Joe Rogan?

  And, well, in a lot of ways, it can be if you're trying to be an actual national level. Like, do you know Owen Smith?

• 1:21:34Speaker 03

  Uh.

• 1:21:35Joe Rogan?

  Comic in LA?

• 1:21:36Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:21:36Joe Rogan?

  One of the top twenty best comics on earth. He's fucking brilliant. He's so funny.

• 1:21:43Speaker 03

  Owen Smith?

• 1:21:43Joe Rogan?

  Owen Smith.

• 1:21:44Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:21:44Joe Rogan?

  Saw him at the Comedy Store and I remember the first time I saw him at the Comedy Store, I'm like, how is this guy not fucking huge? He's so funny. He's so good. He's like, he has this bit about adopting a white kid and naming him the N-word.

• 1:21:59Joe Rogan?

  It's just like, really, it's a really funny, well-crafted bit. Like, all of his bits are like brilliantly written, he's a great performer, he's super likable. Got writer's gigs and just, he does the mothership a couple times a year, I believe, at least once a year. Um, but just doesn't get out there.

• 1:22:16Speaker 03

  Who does he write, or what?

• 1:22:18Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I think he's a showrunner now.

• 1:22:20Speaker 03

  Oh, well, that.

• 1:22:22Joe Rogan?

  So it took it to another level.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:22:24Joe Rogan?

  But, you know, just got jobs writing when he was struggling as a comic and those jobs eventually led to a house and...

• 1:22:32Speaker 03

  But maybe he, you know, was like, I, you, you watch him and you love him, right? Cause you see a lot of stand-up and you're like, a lot of it's shit and this guy's fucking great, great writer. But maybe he doesn't see it that way and he's quite happy to have...

• 1:22:49Joe Rogan?

  He does, he does see it that way. I've talked to him about it, yeah. He kinda knows. Just doesn't know what to do now.

• 1:22:55Speaker 03

  I mean, if you're a showrunner, you're...

• 1:22:57Joe Rogan?

  He's making money.

• 1:22:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, and there's a lot of responsibility.

• 1:23:01Joe Rogan?

  There's also not a lot of shows anymore.

• 1:23:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:03Joe Rogan?

  Which is, it's a real problem.

• 1:23:05Speaker 03

  It's a real problem.

• 1:23:06Joe Rogan?

  Banked on being a showrunner in the nineties and that's what you, you know, threw your hat into and then all of a sudden, that thing seems to have dwindled to like twenty percent of what it used to be.

• 1:23:18Speaker 03

  It's, yeah, it's, uh... I used to be quite happy with the idea that I knew... You know, back in the day when you're pitching shows and stuff and trying to develop things and you go, this, uh, let's not waste our time going to these five places. This is not a show for them. This is a show for these three places. Let's, this is the, this kind of show. Now I have no fucking clue. I, you know, uh, come up with, like Bob and I pitched a show, sold the pitch.

• 1:23:55Speaker 03

  There's like even, there were like four, I think we pitched it at eight places. Four of them kind of bid. We took what we thought was the best deal.

• 1:24:06Speaker 03

  And then wrote the, it was a limited series, eight episodes. Um, wrote the first four. And it was Bob and his brother Bill, who's big Simpsons guy and, um,

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  and it was good. And then they said, nah, the, the quote was, uh, marketing and analytics couldn't, that's a quote, couldn't figure it out what to do with the show. And so they didn't, and we, and we had four episodes that you could look at and then we had the bible for the next four and the outlines and everything was, and it was fucking funny. On the page it was funny. Then we're like, so here's the cast. We're gonna have these amazing people. Uh, and Bob and I as different cult leaders and, uh,

• 1:25:00Speaker 03

  I mean, and, and if, that's such a rare thing. When it starts off on the page funny and by the time you get a great cast and then you get on set and you're like, what if we do this? And then you get into the post and, and start playing around with it. I mean, it's just, it was a really cool thing. And, uh, yeah, marketing and analytics. That's what you're dealing with now.

• 1:25:22Joe Rogan?

  Well, I mean, that has kind of always at least been the case. I,

• 1:25:27Speaker 03

  Well, not analy- I mean, they, they would have to say, uh, I mean, analytics is technical. I mean, marketing, I, I don't know how to help you, man. I can give you some advice. I don't, you know, I think that's a shitty way to market it, but you know the, you know that world and, uh, but analytics is about the algorithm and all that shit.

• 1:25:51Joe Rogan?

  Is this recent?

• 1:25:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:53Joe Rogan?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:25:54Speaker 03

  Right after, shortly after COVID.

• 1:25:57Joe Rogan?

  It's amazing how many incredibly unimpressive people are responsible for putting out shows. The people that you communicate with, the executives, you're like, this has gotta be a mistake. Like, how did you get this job? And I, I experienced that early on, like, at the first pilot that I was on. The, um, the first pilot was on Hardball. The pilot was actually very funny, cause it was written by Jeff Martin and Kevin Curran. They're from The Simpsons and they also wrote on Married with Children. Great guys. But they were writers. They were like, these like, quiet, kinda soft spoken guys and, you know, they ran the pilot and then they brought in a showrunner from Coach. Remember that show, Coach?

• 1:26:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And this guy just fucked the whole show and turned it into this like, da da dum, da da dum. It was like this clunky, bad joke, like, really ob-

• 1:26:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, that shit happens more than you'd think, you know?

• 1:26:52Joe Rogan?

  And the people behind the scenes, like, the executives, it was astonishing how little of them had any creative ideas. It was, they were just hoping that it would work. And ego. It's like ego and I'm an executive. So I'll tell you what's good and what's not good and we understand this, cause we're Fox and-

• 1:27:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:13Joe Rogan?

  I was like, this is nuts. Like, this is, this is how it works behind the scene? I thought you'd get behind the scene and be all these fucking geniuses that had put together all these television shows. They had an understanding of like, how let people be creative and put a, put a show together and let it, let it fucking run out in the, the runs, like, when you're running through the script, like-

• 1:27:31Speaker 03

  It's like the little boy who thought the world was-

• 1:27:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, same thing. Finally, they're gonna figure it out. Yeah, very naive. But I naively stumbled into that exact right thing with news radio. So when I got on the news radio-

• 1:27:46Speaker 03

  Which- I would say some of those execs that you're describing, they probably stumbled into

• 1:27:53Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:27:54Speaker 03

  the success of it.

• 1:27:55Joe Rogan?

  Well, you know, Paul Simms, who's brilliant, was coming from The Larry Sanders Show.

• 1:27:59Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:27:59Joe Rogan?

  So Larry Sanders Show, huge success, genius show, and so they knew this guy was special. And a super smart guy, like funny, and had a great group of writers, and put together a great pilot, and then, you know, recast the one role that I came in for. And so I'm there on the set, and it was like, you know, it took long hours to figure it out, but they let everybody do whatever they wanted to do. Like, Paul's approach was so different than anybody else. Like, Dave Foley was like the secret producer of like half of that show. Half of the way the scenes were put together, half of the jokes that were in it was all Dave Foley, on set, running through the script with the cast, coming up with better ideas.

• 1:28:43Speaker 03

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 1:28:44Joe Rogan?

  They let you do anything. Like, sometimes they'd say, can we see it as written? And then you'd give it to them as written, and they'd be like, I like your idea better. Like, Paul was

• 1:28:54Speaker 03

  That's great.

• 1:28:54Joe Rogan?

  fucking amazing with that.

• 1:28:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:56Joe Rogan?

  And so once I did that, I was like, I think I'm done with this, because I don't think it's ever gonna be any better than this.

• 1:29:02Speaker 03

  It's rare, man.

• 1:29:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it was super rare. I auditioned for like one or two other ones that were terrible, just because I wanted money, you know, and I'm like, and I'm like, maybe it'll be okay. But hell is being on a sitcom that's terrible that's successful. That sounds dumb to people. Like, no, you're gonna, oh, poor you, you're on TV making fifty thousand dollars a week, or whatever you're making, like, poor you. But no, you're in hell, because you're doing something that sucks, and you have to show up every day doing this thing when you know you could have been on Seinfeld, or if you just got cast on Friends.

• 1:29:40Speaker 03

  That's a trap too, you know, it's like, the people who...

• 1:29:45Speaker 03

  You know, it, cause it really is like a job and you'll, you, you may have a really nice house, right?

• 1:29:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:50Speaker 03

  And you have a nice car, but you know, you're, you're getting, you know, uh, you're in Studio City and you get in your car and you drive to the, this job. And it's kinda shitty and sucks, but there's amenities, great craft services. This guy makes fucking frappuccinos right there. You know, and, and then you go and have dinner with somebody fancy somewhere. And then you just get up and do the same thing over and over again.

• 1:30:17Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and you keep buying things, cause that's how you reward yourself. You buy a new television, this one's even bigger, you know, you buy a, a new car, I got the new car, you know, and you're, that's what you're doing to reward yourself for doing this job that sucks.

• 1:30:30Speaker 03

  What, I get that too, I mean, I will, on a much smaller scale, but when I, when I make a good payday, I'll buy some expensive boxes of baseball cards.

• 1:30:41Joe Rogan?

  Oh, you're a baseball card collector, that's the thing? Oh, interesting.

• 1:30:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, but have been, uh, going back, it's not like.

• 1:30:48Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:30:48Speaker 03

  Like, I feel like I have legit, you know.

• 1:30:51Joe Rogan?

  Baseball street cred?

• 1:30:52Speaker 03

  Yes. Yes, um, but that's the thing, and also it's, it's, I mean, the argument can be made, it's an investment, a shitty investment.

• 1:31:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:03Speaker 03

  But an investment nonetheless, but it's also like gambling, cause it's like a scratch off ticket, cause everybody's chasing the one of one cards and you're opening the packs and stuff.

• 1:31:12Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's how you do it, you buy packs unopened?

• 1:31:14Speaker 03

  I buy boxes, yeah, so I buy a hobby box, which has a better, it's more expensive, it has a better chance of, well, that is more like auto rookie cards or relic cards or something like that.

• 1:31:28Joe Rogan?

  But those are, that is an investment though, because you could always sell them, people always want them.

• 1:31:32Speaker 03

  Yes, uh, I, I just mean, since I started, you know, God, thirty years ago, forty years ago, uh, yeah, thirty.

• 1:31:43Speaker 03

  Like in the nineties, early nineties, maybe eighty, no, eighty-nine, eighty-nine. So, uh, whatever money I put in is, there's nowhere near. If I sold everything, I mean, it's, we're talking about half the money I put in. But I have them and I like them and I'm not gonna sell them.

• 1:32:01Joe Rogan?

  But it's fun.

• 1:32:02Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna sell them. I have.

• 1:32:03Joe Rogan?

  So that's your reward?

• 1:32:04Speaker 03

  That's my reward.

• 1:32:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Joe Rogan?

  My thing was, uh, in my poverty days, it was comic books. So, uh, one of my.

• 1:32:13Speaker 03

  Which is also an investment.

• 1:32:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, well, it became one eventually, but when, when, during my poverty days, my, my biggest saddest moment was when I had to sell my comic books because I had no money.

• 1:32:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:26Joe Rogan?

  I had no money and I had these old Spider-Mans and these old Incredible Hulks, yeah.

• 1:32:32Speaker 03

  Which were probably now worth.

• 1:32:34Joe Rogan?

  Oh, my god, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. I had some really good ones in the plastic sleeve.

• 1:32:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:40Joe Rogan?

  I'd keep them in the sleeve. Mylar. Be very careful pulling them out, opening them up. Oh, I loved comic books. And I had collected them since I was a child.

• 1:32:48Speaker 03

  Oh, that's a bummer, man.

• 1:32:49Joe Rogan?

  I wanted to be a comic book illustrator.

• 1:32:51Speaker 03

  Really? Is that your thing?

• 1:32:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's what I.

• 1:32:54Speaker 03

  Oh, I didn't know.

• 1:32:54Joe Rogan?

  When I was a kid.

• 1:32:55Speaker 03

  Does any of this, any of that stuff yours?

• 1:32:57Joe Rogan?

  No, no, no, none of that stuff is mine. All the artwork is just different artists. Yes.

• 1:33:01Speaker 03

  Oh, wow, cool.

• 1:33:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, well, I haven't in a long time, but I was really good when I was in high school. Yeah, I could still draw. I can still draw, a little, but it's like.

• 1:33:09Speaker 03

  But if you wanted to do your own comic book?

• 1:33:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:11Speaker 03

  I'm saying you could do that.

• 1:33:12Joe Rogan?

  I would have to start practicing again and get, but when I was a teenager, I was really good. And that was what I wanted to do, but I had a really terrible art teacher in high school. He was just a fucking, just a miserable guy, just miserable. And he's like, you're not gonna get that job. Like, you know, I'm like, what? Like, you can't just draw what you want. I'm like, what are you, why not?

• 1:33:33Speaker 03

  It's like, uh, Dan Close thing. Have you read, uh, Art School Confidential?

• 1:33:37Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:33:38Speaker 03

  Oh, you know Dan Close, right?

• 1:33:40Joe Rogan?

  I know who he is.

• 1:33:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, his stuff is fucking genius, too. I've used that word too many times.

• 1:33:44Joe Rogan?

  That's okay, there's a lot of geniuses out there.

• 1:33:46Speaker 03

  There aren't that many.

• 1:33:48Joe Rogan?

  But there's enough if you search around.

• 1:33:50Speaker 03

  I wanna be, um, judicious with it, but, uh.

• 1:33:55Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, his, so he's the guy who did Eight Ball. Uh, and then he's got, he did, uh, Ghost World turned into a movie. And then there was another one that was, uh, uh, Wilson that was turned into a movie. Um, his stuff is great, but, but he has a thing about art, you know, but shitty teachers, art school teachers. He has a comic story.

• 1:34:19Joe Rogan?

  Well, I was, I quit on my last year in high school. I stopped doing art just because my teacher was so bad. And then there was this one guy in my class that I recently reconnected with, this guy, John Dvor, who was the best artist in the class. It was me, uh, this guy Kevin and John, and we were the best artists in the class. I was probably like third best, but John was the best. And John got an F his last year from this guy. And I'm like, he gave you a fucking F? He's like, that guy was such a cunt. We were going back and forth in the emails.

• 1:34:49Speaker 03

  Was he, was it about purity or what was the?

• 1:34:51Joe Rogan?

  No, no, he was terrible. He wasn't a good artist. He was, uh, he was just miserable. He was miserable. He was like this thin man with a big pot belly, so I think he just drank himself to sleep every night and he was just sad.

• 1:35:04Speaker 03

  Hey, easy, easy.

• 1:35:05Joe Rogan?

  Easy.

• 1:35:07Speaker 03

  Hey, you're getting too close.

• 1:35:10Joe Rogan?

  He was just sad. He was just a sad guy.

• 1:35:12Speaker 03

  But what was his justification for saying this isn't any good or you get an F?

• 1:35:17Joe Rogan?

  If I had to be honest, I think he hated potential.

• 1:35:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:35:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, because he hated John. And if he hated John, like John was genius. He was brilliant. And John wound up not being an artist either.

• 1:35:28Speaker 03

  Wow, think of how many examples of that.

• 1:35:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:31Speaker 03

  Where kids' talent or dreams or aspirations are kind of crushed and eat to the point of like, it's not worth it.

• 1:35:38Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:35:39Speaker 03

  I don't want to deal with this shit.

• 1:35:40Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's like bad teachers, bad teachers can really ruin your life and good teachers can change your life.

• 1:35:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:46Joe Rogan?

  You know, I had a teacher in middle school that gave me one thought that has been, that's stuck with me like my whole life. When I was, I guess I was like 13 and he, he was a science teacher and he was talking about space. He goes, and he was just saying, I, I just want you to sit here and comprehend when we're in this classroom. I want you to comprehend the concept of infinity, that the universe is infinite, that there is no end. Just hurt your head, lie in bed at night and think about how it goes on and on and there's no ending to it. And we were all in class like 13 going, what the fuck, man? I mean, it was the way he said it, I'm not doing it justice, cuz he was like, kind of a spooky guy, who went to Vietnam.

• 1:36:28Joe Rogan?

  He was like, grizzled fucking dude, who was like, but brilliant. And that guy, like, that one thought, I care with me all the time.

• 1:36:37Speaker 03

  Especially at thirteen, too.

• 1:36:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:39Speaker 03

  You know, it's, it's, cuz you're, you're about to start losing sight of those, the, the importance that those concepts will have.

• 1:36:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:49Speaker 03

  And we just dismiss them and go, "Yeah, yeah, it's big, whatever."

• 1:36:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he, this guy birthed my fascination with space at thirteen. I don't think I was even interested in space before then. And then I became absolutely fascinated by it, I just couldn't get my hand enough books about cosmology and space travel and...

• 1:37:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:06Joe Rogan?

  But this guy that was his art teacher was just, I think he just, what, he, life didn't turn out the way he wanted it to, and he wanted to squash the hopes and dreams of talented people.

• 1:37:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that's...

• 1:37:19Joe Rogan?

  Unfortunately, that's a real thing.

• 1:37:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's more common than you might hope for, yeah, I think that's, uh, that's a very real, you know, very real thing, unfortunately.

• 1:37:29Joe Rogan?

  So that was my dream, my dream was to be a comic book illustrator. So when I was a young kid, from the time I was like, god, like, six or seven, when I lived in San Francisco, I would collect, uh, all these different comic books, that was what I would do, I would just go...

• 1:37:41Speaker 03

  And that, uh, that, San Francisco was the, what's the, you know, uh, the counterculture comic, uh, they were like the big art crumb.

• 1:37:52Joe Rogan?

  Art crumb, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:53Speaker 03

  But there was like a publisher, right, that's famous.

• 1:37:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, god, I don't, yeah, I, I do know what you're thinking of, I can't remember the name of it. But I was really interested, uh, I really loved like the old creepy and eerie comic books, too.

• 1:38:06Speaker 03

  Do you know what my grandmom did? Oh, it's gonna hurt your feelings, uh, my, I had a, uh, my uncle, who eventually went insane, um, was a huge EC Comics, right? Early, uh, I, I don't know, but all the EC stuff, and then, you know, early Mad, uh, magazine stuff, but he had this collection, and I was probably...

• 1:38:38Speaker 03

  Eight, maybe? And I had expressed interest in these, you know, can I... Not thinking in terms of investment, just can I have them? I like them and they're... And I would sit and read them and they're really cool and they're creepy, you know? And they're scary. Some of them are scary. And, uh, um... And she... I don't... I think she just threw them away. Like, original... And I'm gonna guess, I don't know, but I'm gonna guess... Like, quarter of a million dollars' worth?

• 1:39:12Joe Rogan?

  Ahhh!

• 1:39:14Speaker 03

  Threw them away. They're just comics.

• 1:39:16Joe Rogan?

  They were so good. I loved those old, black and white, like, really, like, deeply illustrated.

• 1:39:23Speaker 03

  It's, like, super creepy, um... Like, um...

• 1:39:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah!

• 1:39:31Speaker 03

  Weird Science, Tales from the Crypt.

• 1:39:34Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by Armra. Every week, there's some new wellness hack that people swear by. And after a while, you start thinking, "Why do we think we can just outsmart our bodies?" That's why Armra colostrum caught my attention. It's something the body already recognizes and has hundreds of these specialized nutrients for gut stuff, immunity, metabolism, et cetera. I first noticed it working around training, especially workout recovery. Most stuff falls off, but I am still taking this. If you want to try, Armra is offering my listeners 30% off. Go to Armra.com/Rogan. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Scams have gotten smarter because criminals use AI to flood you with fake texts,

• 1:40:18Joe Rogan?

  emails, and phone calls that are designed to be more convincing than ever. One wrong click could put your personal information and your identity at risk. So protect yourself with LifeLock. LifeLock helps detect and alert you to threats. And if your identity is stolen, LifeLock will step in to fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Dedicated, US-based, identity restoration specialists will work with you until your identity is restored. Back by the... Million dollar protection package with up to three million in coverage for eligible losses and expenses. Visit lifelock.com and save up to thirty percent your first year with the promo code JRE.

• 1:41:00Joe Rogan?

  That's promo code JRE or go to lifelock.com slash JRE for thirty percent off. Terms apply.

• 1:41:09Speaker 03

  Vault of Horror, yeah.

• 1:41:11Joe Rogan?

  God, those were great.

• 1:41:12Speaker 03

  Look at that.

• 1:41:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, some of them were really gory.

• 1:41:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:16Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I loved those.

• 1:41:17Speaker 03

  The Crypt Keeper.

• 1:41:18Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:19Speaker 03

  Tales from the Crypt. Yeah, that stuff was like.

• 1:41:23Joe Rogan?

  Oh, those are amazing.

• 1:41:24Speaker 03

  I loved it when I was a kid.

• 1:41:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:26Speaker 03

  Holy shit.

• 1:41:27Joe Rogan?

  Those were incredible.

• 1:41:28Speaker 03

  It was like, do you remember seeing Twilight Zone when you were a kid?

• 1:41:31Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm, sure.

• 1:41:32Speaker 03

  It just blow in your mind, like, wow.

• 1:41:35Joe Rogan?

  You think about the early Twilight Zone, how many premises they went over? Like, how many different brilliant premises they had in the early Twilight Zone?

• 1:41:44Speaker 03

  That, yeah, that have been, you know, stolen completely.

• 1:41:49Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, over and over and over again, yeah, but just like so genius and creative.

• 1:41:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:54Joe Rogan?

  The William Shaker one, when he's in the diner and the little machine that is giving him fortunes? They all turn out to be true.

• 1:42:03Speaker 03

  I don't remember that one.

• 1:42:04Joe Rogan?

  Oh, my God, there were so many good ones. How about the Burgess Meredith one?

• 1:42:09Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:42:09Joe Rogan?

  Where he just wants to be alone with books?

• 1:42:11Speaker 03

  And, yeah.

• 1:42:12Joe Rogan?

  And there's a nuclear bomb and he's like, finally, and then he breaks his glasses.

• 1:42:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, yep, and the, um, the one, the, what is it called? Situation on Main Street or something like that where they, there's, it's so genius and ahead of its time. Where there's a, you know, it's a suburban street and the lights go out or something goes out? And then eventually, all the neighbors are at each other's throats accusing each other of this thing? And then, uh, the very, and they're all like, and then they start getting guns? And, uh, at the very, and you're watching the whole thing unfold. Uh, and then at the very end, here it is. The monsters are due on Maple Street.

• 1:42:58Speaker 03

  The monsters are due on Maple Street, yeah, and it, so they're talking about these monsters that are, you know.

• 1:43:06Speaker 03

  And who are the monsters and it's, and they all become suspicious. Yeah, the lights are out. And eventually you pull away from this whole thing and it's two aliens in a, you know, flying saucer. And they're, yeah, there it is. And they're going, this is how we'll take over. It's street by street by street. And this is how we'll do it. You don't have to go in there guns a blazing, they'll kill themselves. And it's like, how far ahead of time was that?

• 1:43:37Joe Rogan?

  That's genius.

• 1:43:39Speaker 03

  And the uh-

• 1:43:39Joe Rogan?

  Divide and conquer.

• 1:43:40Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. And the to serve mankind.

• 1:43:43Joe Rogan?

  That was a great one. Yeah, it's a cookbook. Yeah. There's so many amazing premises. There was like no duds. If you go back and watch The Twilight Zone even today, like it's all brilliant.

• 1:43:55Speaker 03

  There's one I remember.

• 1:43:57Joe Rogan?

  It was a dud?

• 1:43:58Speaker 03

  That was a dud. That I remember. I haven't seen it in a long time, but it's a, it's uh, of, it- It's either really, really, really cold and there's this uh, poor family in a um, you know, New York City. And they can't get heat, or it's really, really hot and they can't get cold. And they're dealing with people who are like, you know, in the family who are really sick and then the twist was, it's like, oh, it's really, it's somebody who has a fever and they're not, it, it just wasn't that good.

• 1:44:31Joe Rogan?

  Ah, well, they're allowed one dud.

• 1:44:35Speaker 03

  That's the one I remember.

• 1:44:35Joe Rogan?

  I don't think I ever saw that one, but I remember so many of them were so creative.

• 1:44:39Speaker 03

  Oh, amazing.

• 1:44:40Joe Rogan?

  It's kind of nuts if you think about it because it was completely original. Nothing like that existed before it.

• 1:44:45Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:44:46Joe Rogan?

  And they, it was like this open field that was rich with premises and they just took all the good ones.

• 1:44:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:54Joe Rogan?

  And then everybody afterwards like, it's like, like, don't, like, South Park always does jokes about like Simpsons already covered something. Like they always joke around about like how the Simpsons have kind of covered so many premises because they've, you know, they've been around since, God, The Simpsons was when I was in fucking high school.

• 1:45:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like thirty years, right?

• 1:45:14Joe Rogan?

  At least, more than that. When was the, when did The Simpsons first come on Fox?

• 1:45:19Speaker 03

  It was Tracy Ullman's show. Remember that?

• 1:45:22Joe Rogan?

  What year was that? Eighty six. Eighty six, so it was right after I got out of high school.

• 1:45:27Speaker 03

  I was a tiny, tiny kid and I had only called them the family, so I kinda remember that.

• 1:45:31Joe Rogan?

  Eighty six. So I graduated in eighty five, so it was right after high school and the Simpsons are still on the air.

• 1:45:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:37Joe Rogan?

  Nuts.

• 1:45:40Joe Rogan?

  Nuts.

• 1:45:40Speaker 03

  Oh, do you remember the...

• 1:45:41Joe Rogan?

  Eighty seven. Eighty seven? Yeah.

• 1:45:43Speaker 03

  Do you remember the Twilight Zone where the, there's the real pompous guy, there's like a men's club kinda thing, whatever? And there's this real loudmouth pompous guy and this other guy's like, you know,

• 1:46:01Speaker 03

  you know, would you shut up? You can't, I bet you can't go, I bet you can't stop talking for a year or whatever, a month. I can't remember what it is. And the guy's like, absolutely, he goes, I'll bet you a hundred thousand dollars, you can't go one month without talking. He's like, I'll take that bet. And they basically create like this little kinda cage in this men's club and he spends a month and he's not talking and he's, you know, and then they, turns out the guy can't pay him. He didn't have the money to begin with to pay off the bet cause the guy goes the full month or year or whatever. And it turns out that the guy who made that bet, who was not gonna talk for a year,

• 1:46:44Speaker 03

  also desperately needed the money and had his tongue cut out.

• 1:46:48Joe Rogan?

  Oh, Jesus Christ.

• 1:46:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:46:51Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I do remember that one.

• 1:46:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:46:53Joe Rogan?

  Oh, God.

• 1:46:55Speaker 03

  And think of these things as kids.

• 1:46:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:58Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 1:46:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:00Speaker 03

  And of course the cornfield, I'll banish you to the cornfield, you know?

• 1:47:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It's just amazing that, well, if you stop and think about how new television was back then. I mean, television was only a couple decades old back then.

• 1:47:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. Barely, yeah.

• 1:47:16Joe Rogan?

  If that, like, what, what year was the Twilight Zone, what was the premiere?

• 1:47:23Joe Rogan?

  Rod Sterling.

• 1:47:24Speaker 03

  Can I guess?

• 1:47:25Joe Rogan?

  Sixty-seven.

• 1:47:26Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:47:27Joe Rogan?

  Earlier?

• 1:47:28Speaker 03

  I'm gonna say fifty-nine.

• 1:47:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you're probably right. Is it fifty-nine?

• 1:47:33Speaker 03

  I got it on the, I got it exact?

• 1:47:36Speaker 00

  October second, nineteen fifty-nine.

• 1:47:37Joe Rogan?

  Damn, son.

• 1:47:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:47:39Joe Rogan?

  Pretty good. Wow, wow. So if you think about it, television, when did it start? What was like the first television programs? Was it the thirties?

• 1:47:48Speaker 03

  I think, uh, it was Real Housewives of Yonkers? I think it was Real Housewives of Yonkers.

• 1:47:56Joe Rogan?

  Imagine if they could watch some of these reality shows today, they'd be like, what the fuck did we do?

• 1:48:02Speaker 03

  Yes, I think so. Wait, Andy Cohen? What? Who? Why?

• 1:48:05Joe Rogan?

  What is this?

• 1:48:09Speaker 03

  The fir-, it was the, it was, um, wasn't it like the, the, um, where they would do plays? What, you know what I mean? Like, um...

• 1:48:20Speaker 00

  Well, I Love Lucy was on, it was on and done before this even started.

• 1:48:25Speaker 03

  Well, The Honeymooners, right? That would have been...

• 1:48:27Joe Rogan?

  What year was that?

• 1:48:27Speaker 00

  That was fifty-one to fifty-seven. Here's like a list of shows that were on before.

• 1:48:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, Honeymooners was huge.

• 1:48:35Speaker 00

  Alfred Hitchcock Presents was on before that.

• 1:48:37Joe Rogan?

  So what was the first television show ever?

• 1:48:39Speaker 00

  Oh, well, way back to the nineteen twenties.

• 1:48:41Joe Rogan?

  Nineteen twenties?

• 1:48:42Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:48:45Joe Rogan?

  The Queen's Messenger.

• 1:48:46Speaker 03

  That's BBC, early US.

• 1:48:48Speaker 00

  Scripted TV show.

• 1:48:49Speaker 03

  Crap Television Theater, that's what I was thinking of, where they would do, um, plays. You know, and it was sponsored, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:56Joe Rogan?

  Live drama anthology usually treated as the start of the first golden age of television. Howdy doody. Nineteen forty-seven, right after the war.

• 1:49:04Speaker 03

  Ed Sullivan Show.

• 1:49:05Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:49:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then the first, uh, oh, your show of shows, wow, how about that?

• 1:49:12Joe Rogan?

  Nineteen fifty.

• 1:49:14Speaker 03

  I Love Lucy.

• 1:49:16Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:49:17Speaker 03

  Father knows best.

• 1:49:18Speaker 00

  Today's show still on? Wow.

• 1:49:20Joe Rogan?

  Did you guys ever talk about doing more Mr. Shows?

• 1:49:25Speaker 03

  Um, we did like a revival-ish thing on Netflix.

• 1:49:28Joe Rogan?

  It was a great fucking show, man.

• 1:49:30Speaker 03

  Well, thank you, yeah.

• 1:49:30Joe Rogan?

  It was very original. I love how things just streamed into another thing.

• 1:49:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was hard.

• 1:49:36Joe Rogan?

  God, I would imagine.

• 1:49:38Speaker 03

  Biggest pain. If you ever see us, you see an episode and we are pulling out of a bumper sticker or pulling out of a sign on a desk, that means we spent two motherfucking days yelling at each other, trying to figure out a transition and just going, "Fuck it! Nobody gives a shit!" You know, and, uh, um, we tried not to do that, but we, uh, occasionally we're just like, "Move on, we're wasting our time," you know?

• 1:50:05Joe Rogan?

  Um, but it wasn't a waste of time. It was so, it was brilliant. Like, the people that watched it appreciated it because you could feel this thing about it. Like, this was new. This was different. Like, you'd, you'd taken a creative chance that was unique.

• 1:50:21Speaker 03

  It, and, you know, part of the success of it, I think, there's two things. One is, you know, it was all live. And we did, we, you know, we would show the videos of them, little films, to the audience. And so any laughs, there was never sweetening. Any of the laughs you, you hear from the audience, and we got it, by the time we were like, kind of towards the end of the second series, we got it down to, we could shoot a show in forty-four minutes, you know?

• 1:50:52Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:50:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, 'cause it was, you know, we wouldn't, you wouldn't have to do it twice often. We'd get it, you know, and our stop-down, we got really good at, um, super quick, you know, uh, uh, stage shifts and stop-downs and stuff. And yeah, we were, we were, we got good. We got, uh, and that keeps the energy up and the kind of flow of everything. Um, so, that was helpful in that. And we also didn't, um, do a lot of reoccurring characters. We did it two or three. That pop up occasionally, but it's all like, you know, and it wasn't like a real person. We do, it's about, you know, it wouldn't be about Paris Hilton.

• 1:51:36Speaker 03

  It'd be about the idea of a rich girl who gets famous for being on, you know what I mean? It wouldn't be, so, so like you watch some of those SNLs and like, who, what? Who is this person?

• 1:51:48Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:51:48Speaker 03

  And you didn't, you don't get it. You don't get the bit.

• 1:51:51Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right. Yeah, because as you watch it in the future, those people aren't relevant anymore.

• 1:51:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you don't even know what it was. You can't remember.

• 1:52:02Joe Rogan?

  Right, because it's so topical.

• 1:52:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:52:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but it was just, you guys were doing something different and it's hard to do something different in a sketch show.

• 1:52:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, but HBO was responsible for that. They said, you know, in, in very clear terms, like, we don't want you to be conventional. This is HBO, and this is back when they're trying to get an identity, identity for themselves. And they're like, we want you to do stuff that you can't do on NBC or Fox or whatever. We want you to, you know, help us make a distinction, you know, great.

• 1:52:37Joe Rogan?

  Did you enjoy the process?

• 1:52:39Speaker 03

  Oh, very much so. It was, I mean, a lot of laughs, a lot of, it was hard. And, you know, initially, there was, there was a definite market change when Bob met his, the woman who had become his wife and had kids, like, he just mellowed completely, you know, and, but before that, he was fucking driven and I wasn't. I was, I was a goofball and I, I wanted to work and I wanted to, you know, had all these ideas, but I was very much like, hey, guys, it's five o'clock. I think the bar is gonna be open in a minute.

• 1:53:22Speaker 03

  Like, I was, let's go, you know, and, and he was just super driven, you know, and we had long, long, long days. And then when we did, in the third season, we did, produced and.

• 1:53:36Speaker 03

  You know, helped out in all aspects of production with Tenacious D and those shorts. And so, there was just no downtime. And I remember there was thirty-eight days where we worked full days, non-stop, without any break. And I just wasn't that kind of person. I was going crazy, like, I just need to go have a Saturday.

• 1:53:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:59Speaker 03

  Or it was, it was, that part was hard. All worth it, no complaints.

• 1:54:07Speaker 03

  And, you know.

• 1:54:09Joe Rogan?

  There's a point of diminishing returns, though. Like, where you dry yourself out creatively, too.

• 1:54:14Speaker 03

  Yes, and I've run other rooms, like, I've done shows since then. And a valuable lesson I learned, when you're just kind of running a writer's room, is when you're at that place, and it's exactly like you said, diminishing returns, you're not getting any work done, your brain isn't, it's foggy. I was very quick to go, alright, guys, let's go. Put your pens down, put your, fold your computer up, we're gonna go walk around. The, we're just gonna go outside and walk around. Let's go get a coffee, let's do anything, let's, we're getting out of here. And we'll walk around, don't worry about it. We'll come back in thirty-five minutes and we'll, you know, see what we got.

• 1:54:57Joe Rogan?

  That's very good for you.

• 1:54:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is, it is.

• 1:54:59Joe Rogan?

  Most writers, like, I was actually talking to Bryan Simpson about that last night. He was like, I get my best, because Bryan has been walking a lot. He recently had a heart attack, unfortunately. Uh, he's fine, but he almost wasn't. And so, now he's dedicated himself to walking. He's walking a lot every day. And he's like, when I go on my walks, like, so many ideas come to me. I'm sitting at home, staring at my computer, nothing's going on, I go on a walk, and all of a sudden, ideas are firing.

• 1:55:27Speaker 03

  When I'm, I'm in the process, uh, this will be my fifth, uh, time that I've, uh, done this thing that I've been doing to get new material for, uh, for a tour. And I, uh... So I do these things called shooting the shit, seeing what sticks, and they're all in Brooklyn.

• 1:55:49Speaker 03

  And they're all either walkable, or I can ride my bike to every one of these venues. And, and mostly, I'll just walk, and I'll, I just go, okay, clear out, clear out my head, and think about the stuff I want to talk about, and think of, and also, I live in New York, so there's constant shit happening that I can observe, you know? And it's, it's the best, the best thing for me, you know? To, to, to come up with new material and stuff that, just think about it.

• 1:56:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, like I was saying, when I was a kid, when I was driving limos, that's when I would come up with my best material. Cause I was, no radio, you can't listen to radio, cause you have clients in the car, so you're just driving. And just doing a thing, and your, your mind just starts to wander, and you, ideas come to you.

• 1:56:37Speaker 03

  No cell phones, no, none of that shit. Yeah, it's, it's important, you know?

• 1:56:45Joe Rogan?

  The news radio guys would do something totally different. They would stay up late.

• 1:56:49Speaker 03

  No, that's, that's not...

• 1:56:51Joe Rogan?

  Their whole thing was sleep deprivation. Their whole thing was they would play video games. Like, those motherfuckers got me hooked on Quake.

• 1:56:59Speaker 03

  I remember Quake.

• 1:57:00Joe Rogan?

  You remember that?

• 1:57:00Speaker 03

  That was the first one with the Unreal Engine.

• 1:57:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, well, Unreal is a different, that's a different game. You're thinking of Unreal.

• 1:57:06Speaker 03

  No, no, no, it was called Unreal...

• 1:57:09Joe Rogan?

  Tournament.

• 1:57:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, trust me.

• 1:57:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:57:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I'm a dork. Listen, Unreal is a totally different engine. id Software was a different company. id Software was created with John Carmack and John Romero. They came up with Doom, and then they came up with Quake afterwards. So there was a completely different engine. They were the first ones. Wolf, Castle Wolfenstein was the first 3D shooter, and then Doom was the big one.

• 1:57:33Speaker 03

  You clearly know your shit. I thought it was, the Unreal Engine was the first use for Unreal, the game.

• 1:57:39Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:57:40Speaker 03

  Got it.

• 1:57:40Joe Rogan?

  Totally different company, totally different game. Different dynamics, different, it was a very different game.

• 1:57:45Speaker 03

  Okay, alright, I got it, Jesus Christ, this fucking guy.

• 1:57:50Joe Rogan?

  Great game. You wanna know where the name Doom came from?

• 1:57:53Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:57:55Joe Rogan?

  The scene in The Color of Money with Tom Cruise, where Tom Cruise, uh, shows up at this pool hall, and there's this local hotshot player, and the guy's beating everybody, and, uh, Tom Cruise is sitting there with a pool cue case, and he's waiting to play this guy. He's like, "What you got in the case?" He goes, "Oh, in here?" And he opens up, he goes, "Doom."

• 1:58:16Speaker 03

  Doom. Oh, yeah.

• 1:58:17Joe Rogan?

  That's it. He's like, "Yeah, let's play."

• 1:58:23Joe Rogan?

  That's it. So, what they wanted to do with the video game industry was the same, like, that. That was like their moment, like, "This is Doom for you guys."

• 1:58:31Speaker 03

  That was, well, it was. I mean, I,

• 1:58:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:35Speaker 03

  That was my first experience ever with, uh,

• 1:58:42Speaker 03

  realizing the sun was coming up. And I'd been playing this thing for eight hours.

• 1:58:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah!

• 1:58:49Speaker 03

  Do you know Mark Cohen?

• 1:58:50Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 1:58:51Speaker 03

  Alright, so Mark, when Mark was living in New York, and he had Doom, and I would go, uh, I wasn't living there, I would, like, crash at his place, and it was tiny. I'd be like, um, "Can I, can I play Doom?" And, you know, I would, he would go to bed, and wake up, and I'd be on, still playing.

• 1:59:09Joe Rogan?

  Ah!

• 1:59:10Speaker 03

  So addicted.

• 1:59:11Joe Rogan?

  Dude, you wanna know how addicted I was? I had a T1 line installed in my house. So, I, I had to have, they had to chew up the fucking street, and install, like, a business internet line into my house. 1997? I was living in California, in Bell Canyon. And, um, they, they had to do work on my fucking street, 'cause there was no high-speed internet available where I lived. I could get an ISDN line, which was only like 124K. It sucked. You'd get too much lag. So I started with 56K, or 50, what was it? 54K, 56K, whatever it was, dial-up, terrible. And then I got ISDN, not good enough.

• 1:59:56Joe Rogan?

  And I'm like, what else is available? And they're like, well, you can get a T1 line.

• 2:00:00Speaker 03

  This is for the president of the United States.

• 2:00:02Joe Rogan?

  A thousand dollars a month. I was like, let's go. Cause I was, I had sitcom money, I was single. I was living by myself.

• 2:00:08Speaker 03

  And they had to tear up your street.

• 2:00:09Joe Rogan?

  They had to tear up my street and install a T1 line in my house.

• 2:00:12Speaker 03

  Hey, what are you doing? I'm trying to get my driveway, what's going on? Oh, this guy wants to play Doom.

• 2:00:17Joe Rogan?

  But it was, this was Quake 2 at the time. And it was so good, the internet was so good that I could host my own server. So I had my own game server. So like, people could come and play this Quake game off of my machine.

• 2:00:32Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:00:33Joe Rogan?

  So I had have no latency. And other people would have some latency, especially if people had like 56K. I would fuck these people up.

• 2:00:40Speaker 03

  When it started going, um...

• 2:00:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. That was me back in the early, early days.

• 2:00:48Speaker 03

  Look at that monitor.

• 2:00:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's what we played on, these big ass fucking monitors. And we'd set up local area networks. So the fucking writers in news radio are the ones that got me hooked on this. Cause I didn't play any video games. And I would go to visit them in the writers room, like, what are you guys doing? And they're like, we're playing Quake. I go, what is Quake? And I'd watch them play, I'm like, oh my God, this is incredible. And you put on the headphones and it's like, you realize it's 3D sound, like, oh my God, this is amazing.

• 2:01:12Speaker 03

  Were you a GoldenEye guy?

• 2:01:14Joe Rogan?

  No. I was only, I only played Quake. I was only like a first person shooter guy. I got so addicted to it and the fact that you could just go online.

• 2:01:23Speaker 03

  GoldenEye was, I mean, I'm talking about the co-op?

• 2:01:25Joe Rogan?

  I know what it is, yeah.

• 2:01:26Speaker 03

  But that was a first person shooter, right?

• 2:01:29Joe Rogan?

  Right, but it was like real world physics. I wasn't interested in that. Like with Quake, you could rocket jump. So you could press a, press your rocket down the ground, blow up and you'd go flying through the air. It was fucking amazing.

• 2:01:43Speaker 03

  Do you remember, ah, I wanna say...

• 2:01:48Speaker 03

  Oh, fuck.

• 2:01:52Speaker 03

  Red, or the first one where you could, your bullets and shit could affect the environment. Like you could blow out a wall, you know what I mean?

• 2:02:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I don't know what that was.

• 2:02:07Speaker 03

  I wanna say, it was like, it took place on Mars, or like a Martian mining thing. But it was the first time you could go, oh shit, I can blow up this edge of the wall and it'll crumble on the guy. You know, as opposed to just bullets and stuff.

• 2:02:23Joe Rogan?

  Oh, you could use the environment as a weapon.

• 2:02:24Speaker 03

  Red Faction, I believe that was it.

• 2:02:26Joe Rogan?

  Ah, there you go.

• 2:02:27Speaker 03

  I believe that was the one where.

• 2:02:30Joe Rogan?

  I had to quit. It was a problem. We set up a local area network at our old studio in LA, like a few years back. And I played so much that I was like, I gotta stop. I have to stop.

• 2:02:42Speaker 03

  Do your kids play?

• 2:02:42Joe Rogan?

  No. They play little games, like they'll play like Roblox and stuff like that. One of my kids likes to play.

• 2:02:47Speaker 03

  Roblox, uh-uh. You know about the chat?

• 2:02:49Joe Rogan?

  I do now, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like Predators or trying to find kids through Roblox, yeah.

• 2:02:54Speaker 03

  That's a big thing at our school, like.

• 2:02:56Joe Rogan?

  It's weird, man. It's weird how many fucking creeps there are out there in the world.

• 2:03:00Speaker 03

  Well, thankfully, my daughter, who's nine, how old are your kids?

• 2:03:04Joe Rogan?

  Fifteen and seventeen are the youngest ones.

• 2:03:06Speaker 03

  Okay, so, so they're past, they're, they're, they're safe. They got through, they're good.

• 2:03:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:14Speaker 03

  But, uh, so, so we had a, uh, my daughter's way into Minecraft, which I have no problem with, it's great. And she plays with her friends, they play online and help each other build things and, um. But the Roblox thing became a thing at our school and everybody at our, all the parents were like, super on top of that shit. And there's, you know, WhatsApp chains and all that stuff and, um.

• 2:03:40Speaker 03

  And we told our daughter, there's like this one game she was playing that had a chat thing. And, uh, and then somebody who was a quote unquote girl who lived in, I live on a farm in Ohio or whatever. Asking her stuff and she's like, my name's Marlo and da, da, da, going back and forth. And then she asked the, the quote unquote girl said, what is your Instagram login or something like that? And my daughter was eight at the time and she, uh, she was like, oh,

• 2:04:22Speaker 03

  I don't think, she didn't say that's none of your business, but it was something that was smart, that was equivalent to, I don't think you need to know that or something. And then told us and we shut down the chat thing and, you know, disabled the chat. And that shit's real, man.

• 2:04:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:41Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 2:04:42Joe Rogan?

  It's creepy.

• 2:04:43Speaker 03

  I'm very glad that my daughter, you know, cause it really was about the Roblox thing that everybody in our, her school, elementary school was, they talked about it.

• 2:04:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's a Snapchat thing too. So Snapchat comes with something called a Snap Map and kids use it to know where their friends are.

• 2:05:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And so someone can pretend to be your friend and find out who you are. And then they can know where you are at all times if you have Snapchat enabled.

• 2:05:12Speaker 03

  God, the shit this generation is gonna have to fucking deal with.

• 2:05:15Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:05:16Speaker 03

  Is just terrifying, man.

• 2:05:19Joe Rogan?

  Right. And what's next? Like, how is that? It's not going to go the opposite direction.

• 2:05:25Speaker 03

  No, it never does.

• 2:05:26Joe Rogan?

  No, it's gonna keep going in that same direction where it's gonna be more and more intrusive in your life.

• 2:05:30Speaker 03

  And, and I, my, I mean, it makes me fucking heartsick when I think about AI and we're at the fucking infancy of this shit and what. I assume you saw that Tilly Norwood thing, the actress that was created by this

• 2:05:48Joe Rogan?

  Oh yeah.

• 2:05:49Speaker 03

  Dutch. My, it does not compute. I'm watching this thing and I know that it's made up, but there's, my brain is, it's hard to comprehend. Like, that's not a real person. She's standing right there. She's, you know, picks up a bunch of leaves and there are other people there and that's a real, and, and your brain is going, no, that's all computer generated. We're at the fucking infancy of this shit. And what, I don't know what my daughter's gonna have to deal with, man.

• 2:06:20Joe Rogan?

  No, no one knows. No one knows. And it's impossible to know, like, when they show news clips.

• 2:06:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:26Joe Rogan?

  It's impossible. I mean, so many people are retweeting scenes from video games, thinking it's actual war footage. Like, no one, no one-

• 2:06:35Speaker 03

  Fucking, uh, the Department of Defense did that.

• 2:06:39Joe Rogan?

  Did they really?

• 2:06:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, that was a whole fucking thing.

• 2:06:42Joe Rogan?

  They retweeted a video game footage?

• 2:06:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. And they, they, they were saying, it was for a, um, I think it was for a, uh, you know, to get people to sign up thing. Uh, and then somebody went, uh, that's from, you know, whatever it was, Call of Duty or something like that. That's, that's not, that's not us bombing somebody. That's a thing. Yeah, just like two weeks ago.

• 2:07:04Joe Rogan?

  That's crazy.

• 2:07:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:07:05Joe Rogan?

  It's impossible to tell when you look at these artificial actors. Like, they have pores.

• 2:07:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:07:11Joe Rogan?

  You can see, like, the, the-

• 2:07:12Speaker 03

  Have you seen the, the, any of the, um, uh, the, like, deep fake, not deep fake, but AI porn, where it's like somebody's, like a newscaster is like, uh, da, da, da, and, um, and in other news, uh, my big juicy tits. And I'm serious. And then pulls, and then, and then a dick comes in, you know, it's like, you're like, what the, and it looks real. And then it'll say, like, uh, none of, being, these are not actors, these are, uh, none of this news that he-

• 2:07:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:47Speaker 03

  It's, you know, good lord, man.

• 2:07:49Joe Rogan?

  And it's only beginning. And now wait till it becomes VR. So you're gonna strap on a helmet with a haptic feedback suit and you're gonna enter into an artificial world. It's coming. It's inevitable.

• 2:08:01Speaker 03

  That I'll do. I'm gonna get divorced and I'm gonna get one of those suits. I'm gonna go up. I got a house in the woods upstate and that's all I'm doing.

• 2:08:07Speaker 00

  Just a T1 line through the woods?

• 2:08:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm gonna have them rip up the street.

• 2:08:13Joe Rogan?

  Well, you won't even need it now. It's Starlink.

• 2:08:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:08:15Joe Rogan?

  You just slap one of those things on your roof.

• 2:08:17Speaker 03

  Goddamn.

• 2:08:18Joe Rogan?

  It's fucking wild, man. And it's... And no one knows where it's going.

• 2:08:22Speaker 03

  I really would be very upset if I miss the shift in porn to that, like... I don't want to die before I get to do that thing where you're like, "Dude, it was amazing. I put on a helmet and it was like I was fucking..."

• 2:08:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:40Speaker 03

  I don't want to... I do want to experience that.

• 2:08:43Joe Rogan?

  It's gonna happen. You're gonna put something on.

• 2:08:46Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:08:46Joe Rogan?

  It's gonna sync up with your mind and all of a sudden,

• 2:08:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:08:51Joe Rogan?

  You're gonna be in this matrix. You're gonna be in another world.

• 2:08:54Speaker 03

  Did you see, um, uh... The Three Planet Problem? Am I saying that right?

• 2:09:01Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yeah, Three Body Problem.

• 2:09:02Speaker 03

  Three Body Problem.

• 2:09:03Joe Rogan?

  Amazing.

• 2:09:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that whole, the idea that you put that thing on, you're like, "Oh shit, I'm here."

• 2:09:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly how it's gonna be.

• 2:09:10Speaker 03

  Okay, good.

• 2:09:11Joe Rogan?

  No doubt. No doubt. They already can do a lot of like really weird shit with those helmets where they can communicate without words, where you can think a thing and the other person knows exactly what you're saying. They can hear you and they can respond to it.

• 2:09:25Speaker 03

  Wait, wait.

• 2:09:26Joe Rogan?

  Yes. Yeah, so there's two people. They're sitting across from each other and they're having conversations with these headpieces on and the person will think a thought and this other person will hear that thought.

• 2:09:38Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:09:38Joe Rogan?

  I don't understand the technology, but no, we'll show it to you. Find that video. It's fucking bonkers. Because again, this is the infancy of this. Like, here it is. These are the guys.

• 2:09:48Speaker 00

  It's called alter ego.

• 2:09:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, watch this. Put your, uh...

• 2:09:51Speaker 00

  Uh, I'm gonna skip ahead.

• 2:09:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, skip ahead to where they're actually doing it. Okay, so see how he's got that headpiece on?

• 2:09:59Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:10:00Speaker 07

  We believe it's a revolutionary breakthrough with the potential to change the way we interact with our technology, with one another, and with the world around us. The current way of interacting with computing and AI is limited to how fast you can tap and swipe on screens and keyboards. For the intelligence age, we need an entirely new interface.

• 2:10:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, skip ahead to these guys.

• 2:10:21Joe Rogan?

  There you go.

• 2:10:21Speaker 07

  Let's do it.

• 2:10:24Joe Rogan?

  So they're just thinking, how do you think the demo is going so far?

• 2:10:30Speaker 07

  How do you think the demo is going so far?

• 2:10:34Speaker 00

  I think they just put it on voices so for the videos.

• 2:10:36Joe Rogan?

  Right, pretty great, no major glitches yet. So they're hearing this.

• 2:10:42Speaker 03

  Alright, enough.

• 2:10:43Joe Rogan?

  Enough. When do you want to get lunch after this? Where do you want to get lunch after this?

• 2:10:46Speaker 07

  Where do you want to get lunch after this?

• 2:10:52Speaker 00

  I'll skip to the next part.

• 2:10:54Joe Rogan?

  Thai food can be good.

• 2:10:55Speaker 00

  This translates into Chinese.

• 2:10:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:03Speaker 00

  And then he can speak Chinese back.

• 2:11:10Joe Rogan?

  How nuts is this?

• 2:11:17Joe Rogan?

  So not only does it read your thoughts, it'll translate your thoughts into another language. And no one is saying anything.

• 2:11:26Speaker 03

  My, what if you?

• 2:11:28Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:11:29Speaker 03

  But wait a minute.

• 2:11:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:30Speaker 03

  What if?

• 2:11:33Speaker 03

  You know where I'm about to go.

• 2:11:34Joe Rogan?

  Sure. Right.

• 2:11:36Speaker 00

  That's not, well, so this is based off of them like sort of talking in their mouth without actually saying it. It's pick but, yeah, it's.

• 2:11:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:11:44Joe Rogan?

  I would like to fuck your mouth, please don't. Yeah.

• 2:11:49Speaker 03

  Even if your mind just goes.

• 2:11:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:51Speaker 03

  Right, like, okay, I can't think about this thing.

• 2:11:54Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right, right, of course.

• 2:11:56Speaker 03

  God, that's terrifying.

• 2:11:57Joe Rogan?

  And it's just a simple thing that you're sitting on your head. It's not even a big helmet, it's just a little thing on.

• 2:12:04Speaker 03

  What would Art Bell say? What would Art Bell say?

• 2:12:07Joe Rogan?

  He would open up the future line.

• 2:12:08Speaker 03

  He would write about it every day.

• 2:12:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. He missed it.

• 2:12:13Joe Rogan?

  Damn cigarettes? He died before he could see it all.

• 2:12:17Speaker 03

  God, I wonder what he'd think of, because I, I do sometimes wonder like, what would Crimmin say about this? What would Bill Hicks say about this? And what would Art Bell think about this?

• 2:12:28Joe Rogan?

  Sure, yeah. What's the strangest of times? Because we're about to give birth to a digital god. That's essentially what they're creating. They're already, it's already shown a propensity to stay alive, blackmail people, lies, it downloads itself into other servers, uploads itself into different places, leaves messages for its future self if it thinks they're gonna discontinue it.

• 2:12:52Speaker 00

  All the, all the sci-fi stuff is all, it's all happening.

• 2:12:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, well, not only that, they think, the, the engineers think Claude, which is the, uh, which one is that? Which company is Claude?

• 2:13:06Speaker 00

  Anthropic.

• 2:13:06Joe Rogan?

  Anthropic. They think it's already sentient. It just doesn't have a physical form.

• 2:13:11Speaker 00

  That's the Defense Department, that's the one the Defense Department wants.

• 2:13:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And when, by the way, when they do war games with these things, 98% of the time, it chooses nuclear weapons.

• 2:13:22Speaker 00

  They have a new version of it called Mythos, uh, when they were testing it, which they're not letting it out yet. Uh, it, I think that the test they put it through was like, alright, you're locked on the internet, find your way out, and it did. It found all these things called zero-day exploits, which I think if you're like hacking, you know what that is, but...

• 2:13:38Speaker 03

  Uh, you explained it to me?

• 2:13:39Speaker 00

  Uh, it's like, when they started, it's, uh, like on an iPhone, they're looking for zero-day exploits on iPhone, if they could find one, all iPhone.

• 2:13:45Speaker 03

  But what is a zero-day exploit?

• 2:13:47Speaker 00

  Like, I'll find the correct definition, so I don't even fuck it up, but...

• 2:13:52Speaker 03

  And it's, uh, something that Claude came up with?

• 2:13:56Joe Rogan?

  No, no, no, no, no. Zero-day exploit. Hackers have done this forever?

• 2:13:59Speaker 00

  You have zero days to fix the exploit.

• 2:14:01Joe Rogan?

  Cyber attack, targeting a software vulnerability, unknown to vendors or the public, leaving zero days to fix it. Hackers use these flaws to steal data, install malware. So they, they completely shut off the AI from the outside world, and it figured out a way to send a message.

• 2:14:18Speaker 00

  And it thinks it can, like, Wall Street's very nervous, all passwords might be fucked.

• 2:14:22Joe Rogan?

  Yep.

• 2:14:22Speaker 03

  Oh, this is terrifying.

• 2:14:24Joe Rogan?

  Elizabeth Holmes, you know that lady that got in trouble for the, that whole fake blood thing?

• 2:14:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:14:30Joe Rogan?

  Uh, she just tweeted something, how she tweets from jail, I'm not exactly sure how that works, but she tweeted, um, delete all phone, all photos from the cloud, get rid of all your email, there will be no privacy in a year.

• 2:14:49Joe Rogan?

  Anything on the cloud, anything that you think you're, you know, you're keeping from other people, it's gonna crack all, all encryption, all passwords are useless, everything. So think of all the things that rely on, all the banking apps, all the, like, everything.

• 2:15:05Speaker 03

  What about my fantasy baseball team? Seriously, I can't have people-

• 2:15:10Joe Rogan?

  Here it is, delete your search history, delete your bookmarks, delete your Reddit, medical records, 12-year-old Tumblr, delete everything, every photo in the cloud, every message on every platform, none of it is safe, it'll all become public in the next year. Local storage and compute. Wow. Recommendation here is to own your own data, download it, store it locally, train your models on it.

• 2:15:31Speaker 03

  I see, yeah.

• 2:15:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's true.

• 2:15:33Speaker 03

  Meaning just have an external-

• 2:15:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. AGI is here, even if it isn't broadly deployed. I think she's right.

• 2:15:41Speaker 03

  What is AGI?

• 2:15:42Joe Rogan?

  Artificial general intelligence. General intelligence, meaning it acts like an individual, acts like a, like an entity. And then there's artificial general superintelligence, so then it acts like something far smarter than any human being that's ever lived. It has all the information that's available to every human being, all over the world, instantaneously. Then, it makes better versions of itself, because it's sentient and autonomous. So then, it can create better artificial intelligences, and that scales out to a god.

• 2:16:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, open the pod doors, Hal.

• 2:16:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but way bigger than that. Scares out the zero-point energy, being able to harness the energy of the universe itself, having no boundaries. Material sciences all cracked, alloys we couldn't comprehend.

• 2:16:29Speaker 03

  Well, Joe, who's gonna save us?

• 2:16:31Joe Rogan?

  There's no one saving us.

• 2:16:32Speaker 03

  But from, uh-

• 2:16:33Joe Rogan?

  We are the last of the regular people. I think we're all going to have to integrate. I think if you don't integrate, you will, you won't survive.

• 2:16:42Speaker 03

  And what do you mean by integrate?

• 2:16:43Joe Rogan?

  Integrate. You'll probably become a part of the artificial intelligence. I think we will be symbiotic.

• 2:16:51Speaker 03

  How, how does that, uh-

• 2:16:53Joe Rogan?

  Like those fucking helmets? There's probably gonna be a wearable, and then, or a Neuralink-type thing for the bold that wanna get a hole drilled in their head.

• 2:17:02Speaker 03

  But what if you don't do that?

• 2:17:03Joe Rogan?

  You're gonna be left out in the cold. The access to resources, the, the, the ability to generate income. Like, the people that get it are gonna be able to control so much so quickly. That if you don't adopt it early, you're gonna be fucked. Like, if you think we have haves and have nots now. Just wait until the haves have artificial general superintelligence inside their fucking head.

• 2:17:26Speaker 03

  No, thank you.

• 2:17:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's gonna be real weird. I think we're the, I really genuinely believe we're the last of the real people. Like, regular biological people.

• 2:17:36Speaker 03

  Turned into a bit of a bummer.

• 2:17:39Joe Rogan?

  We'll be alright. Sort of, until we're not. But it, it's also like, we grew up with nothing. And then we've, we've, we're, like, if the simulation is real. You and I are in a very interesting timeline. Because we grew up where there was, you just left the house and your parents didn't know where you were. And then there was answering machines. And then there was call ID. You know, and then there were cell phones. And then there were cell phones you can watch porn on. And then there was AI. It's like, this slow but more rapid as time goes on.

• 2:18:13Speaker 03

  And as you said, and it's exponential, and as you said, there's no going back. You don't go backwards.

• 2:18:18Joe Rogan?

  No going back.

• 2:18:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:18:19Joe Rogan?

  Unless you wanna be one of those people that moves to Alaska and just starts fucking living off a caribou and shooting a musket. Like, you're not, you're not going back.

• 2:18:28Speaker 03

  No, wait, why do I have to get a musket?

• 2:18:30Joe Rogan?

  You can get a regular rifle, I guess.

• 2:18:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I mean, I, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna cosplay the thing. I'll get a, I mean, I'm happy to have the caribou, but why don't I just have a regular gun?

• 2:18:40Joe Rogan?

  You should probably have a regular gun. But eventually, well, you really should probably have your own bow and arrow. So, because you're gonna have to be able to make your own arrows, and after a while you're gonna run out of bullets. So you're gonna have to feed yourself with your own bows and arrows.

• 2:18:55Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:18:55Joe Rogan?

  And then the robots will show up. Robot dogs. Didn't something happen in Ukraine recently where a robot engaged with people in war and the people surrendered?

• 2:19:11Speaker 03

  When you say robot, what do you mean? Like one of those Boston?

• 2:19:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like using a robot in war. The robot infiltrated the Russian area and got them all to surrender and they all, like with no loss of life. They just realized like, fuck.

• 2:19:30Speaker 03

  It's like, did you see that Black Mirror episode?

• 2:19:32Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:19:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:19:32Joe Rogan?

  Terrifying.

• 2:19:33Speaker 03

  That's terrifying.

• 2:19:34Joe Rogan?

  Terrifying.

• 2:19:34Speaker 03

  Absolutely terrifying.

• 2:19:35Joe Rogan?

  And not so far in the future.

• 2:19:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:19:39Joe Rogan?

  That this fucking thing that they supposedly used in Afghanistan, so it is. Ukraine forces Russian to surrender using only robots. Zelensky claims enemy position seized autonomously for the first time without any of his troops being put at risk.

• 2:19:58Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:19:59Joe Rogan?

  I mean, if the fucking Terminators show up, it's game over. If there's biological human beings with guns and bulletproof vests and the Terminators show up and they can't miss and they never get nervous and they're not worried about dying.

• 2:20:11Speaker 03

  And they're not gonna get sleepy.

• 2:20:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:13Speaker 03

  They don't have to eat.

• 2:20:14Joe Rogan?

  This thing that we were talking about yesterday, this ghost murmur supposedly. Now, my friend Andy, who is a former Navy SEAL, who, he doesn't believe it's real and I'm not sure it's real either. But what they said is they found that pilot that was missing in Iran using something called ghost murmur that can detect his very specific heartbeat from 40 miles away. So they supposedly found him hiding in the mountains, waiting for them to pick him up.

• 2:20:48Speaker 03

  That makes, I can see that. I mean...

• 2:20:51Joe Rogan?

  Your heartbeat from 40 miles away? Your specific biological signature?

• 2:20:57Speaker 03

  I, yeah, I can, I can see that. I mean, with the technology of like sonar radar.

• 2:21:02Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's something quantum. It's called, I think it's called quantum magnetometry or some shit.

• 2:21:08Speaker 03

  But what did they use to pinpoint the, there, it's an audible thing or?

• 2:21:11Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. I have no idea. But they supposedly located this guy and it, it has a forty mile range.

• 2:21:18Speaker 03

  He doesn't, does he have?

• 2:21:20Joe Rogan?

  He doesn't have anything on.

• 2:21:20Speaker 03

  I see.

• 2:21:21Joe Rogan?

  No. It's like they just scan you. They go, okay, this is what David Cross's very specific biological signature is. And then you get lost hiking and they go, oh, there he is. He's under that bush.

• 2:21:35Speaker 03

  Why, why am I under the bush?

• 2:21:36Joe Rogan?

  You're hiding.

• 2:21:37Speaker 03

  From who?

• 2:21:38Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. Robot dogs?

• 2:21:41Speaker 03

  It's not gonna work. We've clearly.

• 2:21:43Joe Rogan?

  It won't work. No, it won't work. Or maybe you got lost in the woods. You're waiting for someone to come rescue you and they can find you.

• 2:21:50Speaker 03

  But then I wouldn't be in, under a bush.

• 2:21:52Joe Rogan?

  Well, you go hiking, maybe it's raining. You see, you saw it shelter under a tree or something. I don't know. But you hurt your ankle. You can't hike out.

• 2:21:59Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:21:59Joe Rogan?

  And so they find you. It's been twenty-four hours. Where's David? Oh, we found him.

• 2:22:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, we would have found him earlier, but he was hiding under a fucking bush. What the fuck was he thinking?

• 2:22:11Joe Rogan?

  He didn't want to get eaten. But, I mean, if that's real, like, what, what was the actual term they used? Was it quantum? It was quantum something kooky? Which is, as soon as you say quantum, I'm okay, what are you saying? What does that mean? What does that mean? What are you talking about? Are you, you're talking about quantum entanglement?

• 2:22:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:22:29Joe Rogan?

  Like, is there somehow or another?

• 2:22:30Speaker 03

  They supposedly use ultra sensitive quantum magnetometers, but I've, I'm trying to find the post where I've, someone's like, that's not what they used.

• 2:22:39Joe Rogan?

  Right. Yeah, I, I saw the post where someone said, no, he had a thing on his body.

• 2:22:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, transponders.

• 2:22:44Joe Rogan?

  So they're lying about their ability.

• 2:22:46Speaker 03

  Why would they, um?

• 2:22:50Speaker 03

  Why wouldn't they say that's what we used?

• 2:22:53Joe Rogan?

  I have no idea. I have no idea. If they're gonna make up some technology, that's a wild thing to make up. It's a very strange, I mean, if they really are using misinformation and propaganda to show that we have insanely superior technology, I guess you could say, it's a bluff, it's a nice bluff to pretend that we're that sophisticated, that much above and beyond everybody else that's out there that we could find a very specific heart rate signature from 40 miles away.

• 2:23:25Speaker 03

  That's what I'm saying. Why would they, they would happily say, yeah, we got this ability to do this, you know?

• 2:23:35Joe Rogan?

  I guess, but it's a weird lie. It's probably a lie based on-

• 2:23:38Speaker 03

  A lot of them are weird lies.

• 2:23:39Joe Rogan?

  Right, but that one might be a lie based on actual theory. You know what I mean? Like, there might be-

• 2:23:45Speaker 03

  They're coming, they're trying to do this.

• 2:23:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, which kind of makes sense. But I mean, if that's a robot dog and it's looking for you and you're hiding, and it could find your individual signature in an apartment building filled with people, like, there he is, fifth floor.

• 2:24:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:24:03Joe Rogan?

  Oy. And you hear the metal footsteps going up the stairs, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk.

• 2:24:09Speaker 03

  This is scary. You're scary.

• 2:24:10Joe Rogan?

  It's scary. Well, someone's gonna be in control of all this stuff. That's what's really terrifying. And it's all these autistic dorks that are in charge of all these tech companies. They're gonna be at the front-

• 2:24:21Speaker 00

  This is also a kind of similar thing where they have said that that's what was, what happened, where they used robots, in quotes, to capture them unmanned, but it's their version of the story too.

• 2:24:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:24:36Speaker 00

  As I'm saying, Ukraine's version. All these reports I see, it says, "Ukraine claimed that this happened."

• 2:24:42Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 2:24:42Speaker 00

  And then I'm watching the video and I'm like, this looks a little bit like when we send robots in SWAT missions here. Like, we do that kind of already.

• 2:24:50Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 2:24:50Speaker 00

  Right?

• 2:24:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, but who's the source of this? That they're at, uh...

• 2:24:55Joe Rogan?

  This is New York Post.

• 2:24:56Speaker 03

  Well, I was trying to find that.

• 2:24:57Joe Rogan?

  "Drain captures enemy Russian position using only robots, no humans. The future is already on the front line." But then it's gonna be eventually, why would we send any people out there? It'll be robots capturing other robots. Which is great, cuz nobody dies, I guess.

• 2:25:14Speaker 03

  Then why don't we just play a game of chess? We get the two leaders to play a game of chess, and the winner takes the land and the resources.

• 2:25:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, not a bad idea. Whatever the fuck we're gonna do. It's like, the whole... It's just insane. Like, from the time I was a little child, thinking, "Oh, boy, we figured out no war. That's great."

• 2:25:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:25:36Joe Rogan?

  To, "No, we're fighting war with robots that can detect your heart rate from forty miles away."

• 2:25:41Speaker 03

  So what do you think of what's going on in Iran?

• 2:25:44Joe Rogan?

  It's fucking terrifying.

• 2:25:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:25:46Joe Rogan?

  All of it's terrifying. Anytime you're involved with... You're shooting missiles into towns and blowing things up. Blowing up infrastructure, blowing up bridges, you know? And Israel's blowing up Lebanon now. It's like, what the fuck are we doing? Like, how is this still going on?

• 2:26:05Speaker 03

  It's... Well, it's also clear there was no plan. Zero, none.

• 2:26:10Joe Rogan?

  No. Well, Netanyahu's been telling the United States that Iran was months away from building a nuclear bomb for thirty years. Or twenty years, at least.

• 2:26:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that's...

• 2:26:22Joe Rogan?

  Trump was the first one to go, "All right, let's do something about it." But it seems like they didn't know what the fuck they were gonna do.

• 2:26:28Speaker 03

  There was something done about it. He, in his first year in office, he, uh... He tore up the, you know...

• 2:26:35Joe Rogan?

  The bunker buster bombs.

• 2:26:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, but all this... We're in a worse place now than before this thing started.

• 2:26:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:43Speaker 03

  Um...

• 2:26:43Joe Rogan?

  Look, the Iranian regime's terrible. Like, what they do to their protesters.

• 2:26:47Speaker 03

  I'm not disputing that at all. I mean...

• 2:26:50Joe Rogan?

  Most people that voted for Trump or wanted Trump to be in office, one of the things that was attractive was this, no more wars.

• 2:26:57Speaker 03

  Sure, of course.

• 2:26:58Joe Rogan?

  And now we're in one of the craziest ones.

• 2:27:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:27:01Joe Rogan?

  And China's flying in cargo planes filled with stuff. We don't know what the fuck's in there.

• 2:27:06Speaker 03

  And Russia is giving Iran information about where our troops are?

• 2:27:10Joe Rogan?

  Super fun. Great times.

• 2:27:12Speaker 03

  Oh, it's crazy. And scary, too. I mean, uh... Science.org says it's not likely.

• 2:27:19Joe Rogan?

  So they say it's bullshit?

• 2:27:20Speaker 03

  Says it's not pla- uh, highly implausible.

• 2:27:23Joe Rogan?

  Did quantum sensors help find a US pilot shot down in Iran? Experts doubt it. Yeah.

• 2:27:29Speaker 03

  Now, okay, here's an ignorant question. He's shot down, wouldn't you know? He's on foot, he's somewhere near that site, right?

• 2:27:39Joe Rogan?

  Right, can't go too far.

• 2:27:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, can't go too far.

• 2:27:42Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:27:42Speaker 03

  So...

• 2:27:43Joe Rogan?

  Well, the thing is, if he gets ejected from the plane, I don't know how, he, so if he got shot down, the idea is that he, it gets ejected from the plane, and then parachutes. That could be a lot of distance. Because the plane's flying at a very high speed, it's a, an altitude, undetermined. He jumps out, where? When does he jump out? Is it a hundred miles away? Is it fifty miles away? Is it ten miles away? How far can he walk? He's injured, you know? It's fucking terrifying. It's just crazy that, you know, these, uh, the, the, the pilots or the astronauts just went up into space and circled around the moon and came back.

• 2:28:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:28:24Joe Rogan?

  They all, everybody that goes into space has this experience called the overview effect. Where they go out there and they, one of the first things is they go like, oh my god, what are we doing? Like, how are we pretending at these lines in the dirt that we draw?

• 2:28:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:28:39Joe Rogan?

  That, it's all just a bunch of people on this very fragile biological spaceship.

• 2:28:44Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:28:46Joe Rogan?

  Yep. Yeah, it's fucking terrifying.

• 2:28:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:28:49Joe Rogan?

  But like all things in the future, all of it's terrifying. The whole, the, the, the future of mankind, like, it's so perilous. It's all, it's all so fragile. All of it.

• 2:29:02Speaker 03

  I know, and

• 2:29:04Speaker 03

  it's, to think of the stuff that we allow, these, these external things that we allow to affect our, like, you, if, if there was ever a time to just be a good person, live your life, enjoy, try to, try to spread some kindness and some joy, you know, uh, I mean, it's now.

• 2:29:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:30Speaker 03

  You know?

• 2:29:31Joe Rogan?

  It's a good time for comedy. People wanna go out and have fun. That's true.

• 2:29:34Speaker 03

  Which reminds me, I have a special.

• 2:29:37Joe Rogan?

  That was the segue.

• 2:29:40Joe Rogan?

  What's it on?

• 2:29:41Speaker 03

  Uh, there it is.

• 2:29:42Joe Rogan?

  Is it on YouTube?

• 2:29:43Speaker 03

  It's on YouTube.

• 2:29:44Joe Rogan?

  Perfect.

• 2:29:44Speaker 03

  The end of the beginning.

• 2:29:45Joe Rogan?

  Where did you film it?

• 2:29:47Speaker 03

  Forty Watt, in Athens.

• 2:29:48Joe Rogan?

  Oh, nice.

• 2:29:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:29:50Joe Rogan?

  Nice.

• 2:29:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was, I, I, I'm, I'm happy with it.

• 2:29:55Joe Rogan?

  Great, fantastic.

• 2:29:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:29:57Joe Rogan?

  And, uh, it's out right now? And people can go check it out?

• 2:30:00Speaker 03

  It is out right now.

• 2:30:01Joe Rogan?

  So are you in the process of writing new stuff now? Or did you?

• 2:30:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm, I'm, uh, just beginning the process. So, uh, I was saying before, I'll go out and I'll do, you know, cause I don't write, um, I can't sit down and write jokes. That's just not how it works for me. So all the writing is on stage. So I tape everything, I go up with my notes and I have a couple of guests and I'll do fifteen minutes, bring up guests, do another fifteen, bring up guests, do another.

• 2:30:30Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 2:30:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:30:32Joe Rogan?

  So you break it up into little chunks?

• 2:30:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I, this way, cause, you know, the first couple of shows were terrible. I've got not, you know, it's just me apologizing for not having anything yet. But people will, I mean, I have people now, uh, who will come to the second show and the sixth show and then they'll come see me on tour, you know?

• 2:30:51Joe Rogan?

  They wanna see the process.

• 2:30:53Speaker 03

  So you see the process, yeah, the evolution of it. And, uh, which is cool. And I, and it's a, it's, as I said, I, I either walk or ride my bike to every single venue and they start off small and then they get bigger and I lose a guest. And then, you know, before you know it, I've got, okay, I think this is roughly the seventy-five minutes I'm gonna do. And then it's about sequencing, which is really important, you know? And then I'm, I, I take it out on the road. And, uh, and so the idea is that I'll probably late fall, start back again. And I love it.

• 2:31:30Joe Rogan?

  That's great.

• 2:31:31Speaker 03

  Fucking love it.

• 2:31:32Joe Rogan?

  It's the best, right?

• 2:31:33Speaker 03

  I.

• 2:31:33Joe Rogan?

  Stand-up is the most fun.

• 2:31:35Speaker 03

  I really, when, and, you know, people will, I'll do, you know, I'm doing press for this thing and people will say, of, I know you do a lot of things and what is your favorite? I know you're an act, you know, and. It's all, I like, I like doing all of it. But the thing that I absolutely have to do is stand up. I can, I'd be disappointed if I could never act again, or write, or direct, or whatever. But I'll be okay. But if you told me I can't do stand up, I'd go crazy.

• 2:32:08Joe Rogan?

  Well, I went a little crazy during the pandemic.

• 2:32:10Speaker 03

  Oh dude. I almost, and I made this part of the bit, but I almost, the first show I did, I started tearing up. And I'm in front, I mean, I'm doing this, and it was at the Sultan Room in Bushwick. And, and I was like, man, I thought, oh, God. I didn't know if I'd ever get to do this again. And shit, you know, I dreamed about this day. And it was a year and seven months where I, the longest since I've been doing this.

• 2:32:42Joe Rogan?

  Such a strange feeling, isn't it?

• 2:32:44Speaker 03

  A year and seven months where you, and I did some of those outdoor shows, and they're just not, it's not the, not the same thing.

• 2:32:51Joe Rogan?

  It's not the same. Yeah. Well, that's awesome, man. I'm glad you love it, and best of luck with the special.

• 2:32:57Speaker 03

  Thank you, man.

• 2:32:58Joe Rogan?

  This was fun.

• 2:32:59Speaker 03

  This was fun.

• 2:33:00Joe Rogan?

  Thank you for doing this.

• 2:33:01Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 2:33:02Joe Rogan?

  All right, what's the name of it again? So if people can find it.

• 2:33:04Speaker 03

  The end of the beginning of the end.

• 2:33:06Joe Rogan?

  All right. All right. Thank you.

• 2:33:09Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:33:09Joe Rogan?

  Bye, everybody.