Who knew that Joe Rogan, the least famous member of the NewsRadio ensemble, would end up being a worldwide personality and advocate against joke thieves? Earlier this year Rogan was onstage at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles when he made a reference to the fact that Carlos Mencia steals jokes from other comedians. By coincidence Mencia was in the audience and he got onstage with Rogan and the two of them argued in front of a full audience. Later on, Rogan and some of his friends collected footage, including the incident at The Comedy Store and cut together a damning video against Mencia and his thievery. After the video was posted online, it started a wave of message board backbiting and even a counter video supposedly created by Mencia. Basically it comes down to Mencia steals and Joe Rogan is awesome for making that fact known.
But while Rogan has become a champion for comedians, he has, quietly over the past couple of years, put together an album of new standup material called Shiny Happy Jihad and is premiering his new hour long comedy special on Showtime on April 19.
Check out the official website of Joe Rogan
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Joe Rogan: I have a show tonight in Hollywood.
DRE: I liked the Showtime special.
Joe: Oh cool, man. The CD is better because I did the special like two years ago.
DRE: Yes, I was confused about that. Was it always meant to go on Showtime?
Joe: No, it was originally meant to be released on Netflix and then be sold in stores. Then they got some deal with Showtime and that took a long time. The people who produced it, not Netflix, but the actual human beings were fucking weird. So it was a long tedious process but, like I said, the CD is actually much better and newer.
DRE: Was it your idea to bring in Michael Blieden to direct?
Joe: I know Michael because we have the same manager and hes really talented and cool guy. It was all the people that he was working with that turned out to be the monkeywrech in the gears. But whatever, its coming out.
DRE: Were you looking to do something that didnt look like an HBO special?
Joe: I just wanted to get my material out. I really didnt care what it looked like. I havent released anything since like 2000 so it was just a matter of getting material out. I was doing all this touring and getting all these people to come see me from being on the radio or people that know me from Fear Factor or people that have seen me do comedy already.
DRE: How long did it take to come up with all the material for the album?
Joe: Im always doing standup and Im always writing new materials so it just got to the point where we got the deal with Comedy Central and decided to put out this CD. Then when Fear Factor was done, I had some time so I organized a lot of material and did a lot of sets until it was real sharp and just went up to San Francisco and banged it out.
DRE: When getting together material, do you riff and record or are you a writer?
Joe: I write but I dont like to sit down and try to write jokes. Ill sit down and try and write about shit Im thinking about or something Im reading about or in the news or whatever. I write blog entries a lot of times and Ill write things out, and out of those thoughts Ill get ideas that will become bits. Then Ill take those and bring them on stage and fuck around with them and see what happens. They really come alive on stage. Theres something about sitting in front of a computer and putting things on a Microsoft Word file that doesnt seem to let it come out in joke form. But a lot of times itll start off as one thing and then completely morph until it becomes something totally different. A lot of times, the initial idea is just a doorway to get into another idea that I didnt even expect to come up with.
DRE: Its always funny to see someone making fun of something theyre working on like you making fun of Fear Factor.
Joe: Fear Factor was always just a gig. I remember agreeing to do it in the first place, I was like What the fuck is this? It was one of those things that I never thought was going to go anywhere and just be this weird show that was on for a few episodes then got yanked. I was more willing to do it because it was so crazy. The idea that we were going to set dogs on people and put them in a pit and cover them with rats was so strange. I never thought that it would last as long as it did.
DRE: Or become a pop culture phenomenon.
Joe: Yeah, it was very strange. It was very indicative of how weird the climate of reality TV really is.
DRE: Was it cool to get to make fun of it on the Chappelle's Show?
Joe: Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I always made fun of it on stage even though the producers would be like, Maybe thats not such a good idea. Come on man, you got to make fun of this thing. Im not hurting it if I make fun of it. Im not saying, Please dont watch this piece of shit. Im just saying What the fuck are we doing?
DRE: Were you always such an honest comedian or did you start out doing something else and someone inspired you?
Joe: Well, I wasnt that good in the beginning. I think the only way you can really be honest is if youre good enough to express yourself and make something entertaining about your honesty. Just being honest isnt enough. In the beginning, youve got to make people laugh. I always look at comedy as three stages. In the beginning stage, its just Fuck it and do whatever you can to get laughs so youre just writing stuff that you think people will laugh at. Then you start writing stuff that you think is funny and the next stage is you try to make people laugh with your ideas and philosophies. Thats when you get to be a real comic. Not that people that just write jokes arent real comics but I mean the comedy that I really appreciate like Richard Pryor or Bill Hicks or [Sam] Kinison. Those are all guys that had ideas about life and about the world and they got people to laugh at those ideas.
DRE: You were a martial arts expert even before you did stand up, right?
Joe: Yeah, thats what I used to do for a living before I was a comedian. I used to teach Tae Kwon Do at Boston University and I had my own school in Boston.
DRE: How do you go from teaching martial arts to getting on stage and spilling your guts?
Joe: What happened mostly is that I got talked into doing it by people I worked out with. I was always a fan of comedy. A lot of us that are comedians got into comedy because we would go to a comedy show and then would tell those jokes we heard to our friends. It feels great to tell a good joke. When people tell you jokes it is not even necessarily that they think its going to make you feel good, theyre doing it because it feels good to them when you laugh. If you can say something to someone and that person laughs at something you said, for whatever weird reason human beings get this charge from that. I dont necessarily know or understand what it is but its a real thing and thats how everybody gets into comedy. I used to make people laugh mainly in the locker room when I was doing martial arts or sparring or doing a tournament.
DRE: Is making someone laugh a much different feeling than beating someone in a public martial arts match?
Joe: Yeah, its a lot different. Beating someone up is a very strange feeling that never really felt good. It definitely feels better to win than to lose but when I was fighting it was these great periods of stress followed by great periods of relief. The great periods of stress always led up to the fighting, especially with the last fight I had. I was 22 so I was really fucking nervous. I had my first full-contact martial arts fight when I was 15 so it was really scary to grow up in that environment and from that I developed a gallows sense of humor to alleviate stress.
DRE: I saw your short video about Carlos Mencia. I thought it was really great. I knew Carlos wasnt funny but I never knew he was a joke thief.
Joe: You know what he is man, hes a guy thats figured out how to tune in to the frequency that retards operate on. Ive watched him and I dont understand it. I dont know what people are laughing at but Ive seen that he is good at tuning into that frequency that dullards are on. He really rocks that frequency.
DRE: There are a lot of people that tune into the dullards but thats different than being a thief, right?
Joe: Oh for sure. I have no problem with simple minded comedy. I might not enjoy it. I might not want to see it. I might go, ugh and want to leave the room but I would never tell that person to stop doing it and I would never tell the people who enjoy it to not enjoy it. As long as youre not promoting hate or doing anything fucked up or lying to people, who cares? Pop music sucks and so does pop comedy. The real problem is that hes stealing other peoples art. Everyones process is different as far as standup comedy. I know a lot of comics who dont write things, like they dont ever write things like blog entries or they dont ever write journal entries, they just write jokes. But no matter what your process is, its a long fucking process to come up with a full form joke. It takes a lot of writing and rewriting and having to manipulate it, you have to try it out on stage and rework it. The problem with that process is that even after its done, you really run the risk of a douchebag like Carlos coming in and just fucking swiping it especially if youre not famous or havent been on HBO. Ive seen it happen with that guy over and over and over again. It is so fucking maddening and what was really frustrating was that all the comics were afraid of saying anything about it because they were afraid of looking jealous. A lot of these guys that steal are really ambitious and really ambitious people tend to be pretty fucking successful and once they are successful they have power, so comics dont want to say anything. Also the fact that the club owners didnt do shit about it was pretty frustrating too. Its like, youre providing an environment where these people work on their material and youve got a thief amongst you. Youve got a guy who is a fucking cannibal stealing peoples shit and you dont even care. They dont do anything to reprimand them. Were completely and totally on our own and its a weird fucking business. The art of stand up comedy is so appreciated by people but the process and the people that create it get virtually no respect. Its almost looked down upon like its an embarrassing art form. You hear, All comedians steal and that is total horseshit. No, they dont.
DRE: Thats unbelievably untrue. Bad comedians steal. I used to work in TV and I had an idea stolen from me by a guy that was above me and it was just horrible.
Joe: It is a sucky fucking feeling.
DRE: Is it possible to copyright your jokes?
Joe: Youd be setting a precedent because it hasnt been done before. Louis CK contemplated suing Dane Cook because Dane Cook stole his bits pretty blatantly. For Louis CD from 2001, he was working his bits out at The Laugh Factory while Dane was working out his CD. So for sure Dane saw him do those bits. Dane does this all the time with everybody, he sits in the back of the room and he watches their sets, especially if someones good. If you listen to the majority of Danes material you realize that hes not an incredibly introspective guy, hes not thinking anything that other people arent thinking. Theres no original thought, hes doing some sort of a young girl populous comedy. Hes doing stuff that's going to be non-offensive and find a broad audience. Hes going to pick and choose stuff that he thinks is going to get him the largest group of listeners. Louis comedy is really absurd, bizarre and really great creative stuff. But its the perfect stuff for a guy like Dane to rip off. So Louis was contemplating suing him for a while but it was right before his Lucky Louie TV show came out and he didnt want to come off looking bitter which I think was a mistake. At the time Louis wasnt as high profile as I am from Fear Factor so he thought that people were going to think that he was just bitter. But it is pretty obvious if you listen to those bits back to back. No one can listen to those bits and not think that Dane stole them.
DRE: I read the Radar Magazine article about the joke thieves. I always wondered why Robin Williams was a guy who never seemed to get any respect from comedians and now I know why. He steals jokes.
Joe: Hes another one, when I listen to Robin Williams comedy I have no fucking idea what people are laughing at.
DRE: Yeah, his standup is definitely not funny anymore.
Joe: But even the old days, man. I never got it. He was just saying a bunch of shit really fast and every now and then some of it was slightly humorous. People were laughing at the fact that he delivered it with this manic energy but they were a cavalcade of other peoples ideas. Thats what he does. Hes a very talented actor, you have to give the guy that but I think hes such a talented actor because hes fucking crazy and that same crazy gives him the ability to completely disrespect other peoples creative ideas and swipe them.
DRE: Will there be a lawsuit with Carlos?
Joe: I dont know but this is an opportunity for the general public to view it in a much more honest way than has already been presented. Theres no way anyone can look at that video we put together not think, at the very least, hes a liar. First of all, I say that he stole from my friend Ari [Shaffir] when Ari opened for him. Carlos then said that Ari never opened for him which is a fucking complete and total lie. He opened for him a bunch of times. But Carlos didnt know Ari was in the room. So I bring Ari on stage and Carlos doesnt say, You didnt open for me, then all of a sudden it was, I did that joke first. What the fuck is he talking about? I thought he didnt open for you. Now youre saying he did open for you and you did the joke first? Carlos said that George Lopez slammed him up against the wall because George Lopez didnt want other Hispanic comedians to succeed. Thats psychotic and it doesnt make any sense at all but thats the person youre dealing with. Youre dealing with someone whos a charismatic psycho. He says crazy shit but hes saying it with full confidence. There are fucking people that believe him and the crazy thing is I get emails from these people and I post them sometimes on the boards. Some of them are fucking scary.
DRE: Yeah, there was one from a guy that said that he doesnt care if Carlos steals.
Joe: A lot of them say that. Theres a ton of them in the comments section of my MySpace page, theyre always saying, So what if Carlos steals, he does that shit better. Which is hilarious because if someone stole your car and was fucking driving down the street and everybody was like, Hey man, thats a nice car, youd be like, What the fuck, you stole my car. But so what bro, that guy drives that shit better. Ideas and intellectual property rights are intangible for retards. They dont grasp it.
DRE: Im with you that Carlos definitely steals but that joke in the video about the Mexicans being the ones who will have to build the border wall to keep out Mexicans. I know I saw Jon Stewart do that.
Joe: Its not a good example. We banged that video as quick as we could. Ari definitely was one of the first guys to do that bit and he did it back when it wasnt even really a true story. Its a very obvious premise, once you find out they are going to build a super wall so okay, whos going to build it? Mexicans build everything. Thats complete parallel thinking, anybody can come up with that but the point was that Ari was doing that bit while he was opening for Carlos. When Carlos started doing the bit, he did it in exactly the same way Ari did it with the same hand motion, Um, excuse me which is not his forte. Carlos is not a subtle comedian. Hes not the guy who would go, Whos going to build this thing? He gets up and goes, Let me ask you, who the fuck is going to build this wall? Mexicans! Thats how he would do the bit. He did it that way because hes being a mynah bird. Hes seeing how Ari did it and hes duplicating it exactly. Its not the best example because a lot of people did that joke but it is definitely indicative of what he does.
DRE: Recently either Carlos or someone else put their own video online disputing your video. Did you see that yet?
Joe: I saw one where its Carlos response. It was so retarded that I had to turn it off after three minutes.
DRE: It was obviously lame but how would you respond to him or someone else saying youre only doing this for publicity for your album and special?
Joe: Well, I didnt plan this at all. The only reason why this happened was because Carlos was in the club when I was on stage and I brought up the next comedian saying the guy opens up for Carlos Men-steal-ia. Its such a bad situation over at The Comedy Store that they have a warning signal for when hes in the room so comics can stop doing bits. Its like being around a guy whos going to fucking steal from your house. Hes walking around the front yard and youve got to keep an eye on him, its really gross.
But when he decided to go on stage and call me out, I was not looking at that like it was an opportunity to do some publicity and if I was, I would admit it. I would say, Hey I want to get people to listen to my album so Im going to fucking goof on this retard but thats not what it was. For me, it was an opportunity to expose him. It was like the universe presented me a gift. Carlos gets on stage, so cocky and full of himself like they were going to go, Carlos is here! He believes hes like Richard Pryor and that he was going to silence this and make me look stupid. Then as the altercation went on, it became more and more painfully obvious that he was getting trounced and it got weirder and weirder and uglier and uglier until at the end we see that hes a beaten man. I was like, You dont even know you steal, do you? and he was like maybe, maybe and I was Maybe? Are you listening to yourself? Then after it was all over and we had all this footage, I was like Lets fucking skewer this guy, lets show everybody whats up. In hindsight, since there were like 30 comedians in the room that were screaming and cheering that he steals, I should have had them come on stage one by one and tell the jokes that Carlos steals.
DRE: Im sure you could find plenty of work if you wanted to but with this CD and special are you hoping to generate something interesting television or movie wise?
Joe: Honestly, all I really like doing is things like standup comedy and doing the commentary for the UFC. I dont really even want to do other stuff anymore. If my audience on the road stayed the same it is now, I would be very happy. I have a good base of fans that come out to see me and even though I would say that out of all the people that know who I am, maybe only about 20% of them even know that Im a comedian. But that 20% is enough to fill clubs and to have a good time. All Im trying to be in this life is be creatively fulfilled, have a good time with my friends and enjoy my life. I dont have any grand plans as far as careers because at a certain point in time, I started to realize that this was all bullshit and Im going to die and so are you. This whole existence is just a blip in the greater spectrum of the universe. Human beings are all fucking temporary so this whole idea of leaving behind a career or having a legacy or building a career, is bullshit. What you should do in this life is enjoy your friends, have a good time, do what you like doing and dont waste any time.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
But while Rogan has become a champion for comedians, he has, quietly over the past couple of years, put together an album of new standup material called Shiny Happy Jihad and is premiering his new hour long comedy special on Showtime on April 19.
Check out the official website of Joe Rogan
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Joe Rogan: I have a show tonight in Hollywood.
DRE: I liked the Showtime special.
Joe: Oh cool, man. The CD is better because I did the special like two years ago.
DRE: Yes, I was confused about that. Was it always meant to go on Showtime?
Joe: No, it was originally meant to be released on Netflix and then be sold in stores. Then they got some deal with Showtime and that took a long time. The people who produced it, not Netflix, but the actual human beings were fucking weird. So it was a long tedious process but, like I said, the CD is actually much better and newer.
DRE: Was it your idea to bring in Michael Blieden to direct?
Joe: I know Michael because we have the same manager and hes really talented and cool guy. It was all the people that he was working with that turned out to be the monkeywrech in the gears. But whatever, its coming out.
DRE: Were you looking to do something that didnt look like an HBO special?
Joe: I just wanted to get my material out. I really didnt care what it looked like. I havent released anything since like 2000 so it was just a matter of getting material out. I was doing all this touring and getting all these people to come see me from being on the radio or people that know me from Fear Factor or people that have seen me do comedy already.
DRE: How long did it take to come up with all the material for the album?
Joe: Im always doing standup and Im always writing new materials so it just got to the point where we got the deal with Comedy Central and decided to put out this CD. Then when Fear Factor was done, I had some time so I organized a lot of material and did a lot of sets until it was real sharp and just went up to San Francisco and banged it out.
DRE: When getting together material, do you riff and record or are you a writer?
Joe: I write but I dont like to sit down and try to write jokes. Ill sit down and try and write about shit Im thinking about or something Im reading about or in the news or whatever. I write blog entries a lot of times and Ill write things out, and out of those thoughts Ill get ideas that will become bits. Then Ill take those and bring them on stage and fuck around with them and see what happens. They really come alive on stage. Theres something about sitting in front of a computer and putting things on a Microsoft Word file that doesnt seem to let it come out in joke form. But a lot of times itll start off as one thing and then completely morph until it becomes something totally different. A lot of times, the initial idea is just a doorway to get into another idea that I didnt even expect to come up with.
DRE: Its always funny to see someone making fun of something theyre working on like you making fun of Fear Factor.
Joe: Fear Factor was always just a gig. I remember agreeing to do it in the first place, I was like What the fuck is this? It was one of those things that I never thought was going to go anywhere and just be this weird show that was on for a few episodes then got yanked. I was more willing to do it because it was so crazy. The idea that we were going to set dogs on people and put them in a pit and cover them with rats was so strange. I never thought that it would last as long as it did.
DRE: Or become a pop culture phenomenon.
Joe: Yeah, it was very strange. It was very indicative of how weird the climate of reality TV really is.
DRE: Was it cool to get to make fun of it on the Chappelle's Show?
Joe: Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I always made fun of it on stage even though the producers would be like, Maybe thats not such a good idea. Come on man, you got to make fun of this thing. Im not hurting it if I make fun of it. Im not saying, Please dont watch this piece of shit. Im just saying What the fuck are we doing?
DRE: Were you always such an honest comedian or did you start out doing something else and someone inspired you?
Joe: Well, I wasnt that good in the beginning. I think the only way you can really be honest is if youre good enough to express yourself and make something entertaining about your honesty. Just being honest isnt enough. In the beginning, youve got to make people laugh. I always look at comedy as three stages. In the beginning stage, its just Fuck it and do whatever you can to get laughs so youre just writing stuff that you think people will laugh at. Then you start writing stuff that you think is funny and the next stage is you try to make people laugh with your ideas and philosophies. Thats when you get to be a real comic. Not that people that just write jokes arent real comics but I mean the comedy that I really appreciate like Richard Pryor or Bill Hicks or [Sam] Kinison. Those are all guys that had ideas about life and about the world and they got people to laugh at those ideas.
DRE: You were a martial arts expert even before you did stand up, right?
Joe: Yeah, thats what I used to do for a living before I was a comedian. I used to teach Tae Kwon Do at Boston University and I had my own school in Boston.
DRE: How do you go from teaching martial arts to getting on stage and spilling your guts?
Joe: What happened mostly is that I got talked into doing it by people I worked out with. I was always a fan of comedy. A lot of us that are comedians got into comedy because we would go to a comedy show and then would tell those jokes we heard to our friends. It feels great to tell a good joke. When people tell you jokes it is not even necessarily that they think its going to make you feel good, theyre doing it because it feels good to them when you laugh. If you can say something to someone and that person laughs at something you said, for whatever weird reason human beings get this charge from that. I dont necessarily know or understand what it is but its a real thing and thats how everybody gets into comedy. I used to make people laugh mainly in the locker room when I was doing martial arts or sparring or doing a tournament.
DRE: Is making someone laugh a much different feeling than beating someone in a public martial arts match?
Joe: Yeah, its a lot different. Beating someone up is a very strange feeling that never really felt good. It definitely feels better to win than to lose but when I was fighting it was these great periods of stress followed by great periods of relief. The great periods of stress always led up to the fighting, especially with the last fight I had. I was 22 so I was really fucking nervous. I had my first full-contact martial arts fight when I was 15 so it was really scary to grow up in that environment and from that I developed a gallows sense of humor to alleviate stress.
DRE: I saw your short video about Carlos Mencia. I thought it was really great. I knew Carlos wasnt funny but I never knew he was a joke thief.
Joe: You know what he is man, hes a guy thats figured out how to tune in to the frequency that retards operate on. Ive watched him and I dont understand it. I dont know what people are laughing at but Ive seen that he is good at tuning into that frequency that dullards are on. He really rocks that frequency.
DRE: There are a lot of people that tune into the dullards but thats different than being a thief, right?
Joe: Oh for sure. I have no problem with simple minded comedy. I might not enjoy it. I might not want to see it. I might go, ugh and want to leave the room but I would never tell that person to stop doing it and I would never tell the people who enjoy it to not enjoy it. As long as youre not promoting hate or doing anything fucked up or lying to people, who cares? Pop music sucks and so does pop comedy. The real problem is that hes stealing other peoples art. Everyones process is different as far as standup comedy. I know a lot of comics who dont write things, like they dont ever write things like blog entries or they dont ever write journal entries, they just write jokes. But no matter what your process is, its a long fucking process to come up with a full form joke. It takes a lot of writing and rewriting and having to manipulate it, you have to try it out on stage and rework it. The problem with that process is that even after its done, you really run the risk of a douchebag like Carlos coming in and just fucking swiping it especially if youre not famous or havent been on HBO. Ive seen it happen with that guy over and over and over again. It is so fucking maddening and what was really frustrating was that all the comics were afraid of saying anything about it because they were afraid of looking jealous. A lot of these guys that steal are really ambitious and really ambitious people tend to be pretty fucking successful and once they are successful they have power, so comics dont want to say anything. Also the fact that the club owners didnt do shit about it was pretty frustrating too. Its like, youre providing an environment where these people work on their material and youve got a thief amongst you. Youve got a guy who is a fucking cannibal stealing peoples shit and you dont even care. They dont do anything to reprimand them. Were completely and totally on our own and its a weird fucking business. The art of stand up comedy is so appreciated by people but the process and the people that create it get virtually no respect. Its almost looked down upon like its an embarrassing art form. You hear, All comedians steal and that is total horseshit. No, they dont.
DRE: Thats unbelievably untrue. Bad comedians steal. I used to work in TV and I had an idea stolen from me by a guy that was above me and it was just horrible.
Joe: It is a sucky fucking feeling.
DRE: Is it possible to copyright your jokes?
Joe: Youd be setting a precedent because it hasnt been done before. Louis CK contemplated suing Dane Cook because Dane Cook stole his bits pretty blatantly. For Louis CD from 2001, he was working his bits out at The Laugh Factory while Dane was working out his CD. So for sure Dane saw him do those bits. Dane does this all the time with everybody, he sits in the back of the room and he watches their sets, especially if someones good. If you listen to the majority of Danes material you realize that hes not an incredibly introspective guy, hes not thinking anything that other people arent thinking. Theres no original thought, hes doing some sort of a young girl populous comedy. Hes doing stuff that's going to be non-offensive and find a broad audience. Hes going to pick and choose stuff that he thinks is going to get him the largest group of listeners. Louis comedy is really absurd, bizarre and really great creative stuff. But its the perfect stuff for a guy like Dane to rip off. So Louis was contemplating suing him for a while but it was right before his Lucky Louie TV show came out and he didnt want to come off looking bitter which I think was a mistake. At the time Louis wasnt as high profile as I am from Fear Factor so he thought that people were going to think that he was just bitter. But it is pretty obvious if you listen to those bits back to back. No one can listen to those bits and not think that Dane stole them.
DRE: I read the Radar Magazine article about the joke thieves. I always wondered why Robin Williams was a guy who never seemed to get any respect from comedians and now I know why. He steals jokes.
Joe: Hes another one, when I listen to Robin Williams comedy I have no fucking idea what people are laughing at.
DRE: Yeah, his standup is definitely not funny anymore.
Joe: But even the old days, man. I never got it. He was just saying a bunch of shit really fast and every now and then some of it was slightly humorous. People were laughing at the fact that he delivered it with this manic energy but they were a cavalcade of other peoples ideas. Thats what he does. Hes a very talented actor, you have to give the guy that but I think hes such a talented actor because hes fucking crazy and that same crazy gives him the ability to completely disrespect other peoples creative ideas and swipe them.
DRE: Will there be a lawsuit with Carlos?
Joe: I dont know but this is an opportunity for the general public to view it in a much more honest way than has already been presented. Theres no way anyone can look at that video we put together not think, at the very least, hes a liar. First of all, I say that he stole from my friend Ari [Shaffir] when Ari opened for him. Carlos then said that Ari never opened for him which is a fucking complete and total lie. He opened for him a bunch of times. But Carlos didnt know Ari was in the room. So I bring Ari on stage and Carlos doesnt say, You didnt open for me, then all of a sudden it was, I did that joke first. What the fuck is he talking about? I thought he didnt open for you. Now youre saying he did open for you and you did the joke first? Carlos said that George Lopez slammed him up against the wall because George Lopez didnt want other Hispanic comedians to succeed. Thats psychotic and it doesnt make any sense at all but thats the person youre dealing with. Youre dealing with someone whos a charismatic psycho. He says crazy shit but hes saying it with full confidence. There are fucking people that believe him and the crazy thing is I get emails from these people and I post them sometimes on the boards. Some of them are fucking scary.
DRE: Yeah, there was one from a guy that said that he doesnt care if Carlos steals.
Joe: A lot of them say that. Theres a ton of them in the comments section of my MySpace page, theyre always saying, So what if Carlos steals, he does that shit better. Which is hilarious because if someone stole your car and was fucking driving down the street and everybody was like, Hey man, thats a nice car, youd be like, What the fuck, you stole my car. But so what bro, that guy drives that shit better. Ideas and intellectual property rights are intangible for retards. They dont grasp it.
DRE: Im with you that Carlos definitely steals but that joke in the video about the Mexicans being the ones who will have to build the border wall to keep out Mexicans. I know I saw Jon Stewart do that.
Joe: Its not a good example. We banged that video as quick as we could. Ari definitely was one of the first guys to do that bit and he did it back when it wasnt even really a true story. Its a very obvious premise, once you find out they are going to build a super wall so okay, whos going to build it? Mexicans build everything. Thats complete parallel thinking, anybody can come up with that but the point was that Ari was doing that bit while he was opening for Carlos. When Carlos started doing the bit, he did it in exactly the same way Ari did it with the same hand motion, Um, excuse me which is not his forte. Carlos is not a subtle comedian. Hes not the guy who would go, Whos going to build this thing? He gets up and goes, Let me ask you, who the fuck is going to build this wall? Mexicans! Thats how he would do the bit. He did it that way because hes being a mynah bird. Hes seeing how Ari did it and hes duplicating it exactly. Its not the best example because a lot of people did that joke but it is definitely indicative of what he does.
DRE: Recently either Carlos or someone else put their own video online disputing your video. Did you see that yet?
Joe: I saw one where its Carlos response. It was so retarded that I had to turn it off after three minutes.
DRE: It was obviously lame but how would you respond to him or someone else saying youre only doing this for publicity for your album and special?
Joe: Well, I didnt plan this at all. The only reason why this happened was because Carlos was in the club when I was on stage and I brought up the next comedian saying the guy opens up for Carlos Men-steal-ia. Its such a bad situation over at The Comedy Store that they have a warning signal for when hes in the room so comics can stop doing bits. Its like being around a guy whos going to fucking steal from your house. Hes walking around the front yard and youve got to keep an eye on him, its really gross.
But when he decided to go on stage and call me out, I was not looking at that like it was an opportunity to do some publicity and if I was, I would admit it. I would say, Hey I want to get people to listen to my album so Im going to fucking goof on this retard but thats not what it was. For me, it was an opportunity to expose him. It was like the universe presented me a gift. Carlos gets on stage, so cocky and full of himself like they were going to go, Carlos is here! He believes hes like Richard Pryor and that he was going to silence this and make me look stupid. Then as the altercation went on, it became more and more painfully obvious that he was getting trounced and it got weirder and weirder and uglier and uglier until at the end we see that hes a beaten man. I was like, You dont even know you steal, do you? and he was like maybe, maybe and I was Maybe? Are you listening to yourself? Then after it was all over and we had all this footage, I was like Lets fucking skewer this guy, lets show everybody whats up. In hindsight, since there were like 30 comedians in the room that were screaming and cheering that he steals, I should have had them come on stage one by one and tell the jokes that Carlos steals.
DRE: Im sure you could find plenty of work if you wanted to but with this CD and special are you hoping to generate something interesting television or movie wise?
Joe: Honestly, all I really like doing is things like standup comedy and doing the commentary for the UFC. I dont really even want to do other stuff anymore. If my audience on the road stayed the same it is now, I would be very happy. I have a good base of fans that come out to see me and even though I would say that out of all the people that know who I am, maybe only about 20% of them even know that Im a comedian. But that 20% is enough to fill clubs and to have a good time. All Im trying to be in this life is be creatively fulfilled, have a good time with my friends and enjoy my life. I dont have any grand plans as far as careers because at a certain point in time, I started to realize that this was all bullshit and Im going to die and so are you. This whole existence is just a blip in the greater spectrum of the universe. Human beings are all fucking temporary so this whole idea of leaving behind a career or having a legacy or building a career, is bullshit. What you should do in this life is enjoy your friends, have a good time, do what you like doing and dont waste any time.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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On top of all of this, he's also a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and was a full contact Tae Kwon Do champion. The guy is all kinds of rad.