Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1937 - Punkie Johnson
Uploaded: 2023-02-07T00:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1937 - Punkie Johnson' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-02-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1937 - Punkie Johnson' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-02-07. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1937 - Punkie Johnson

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
From the bartender at the comedy store.
That's right.
To Saturday Night Live.
Yeah.
What the fuck?
Yeah, yeah.
I'm still processing that, if you want me to be honest.
How many years was it?
How many years I worked at the store?
Yeah.
I think 10.
10 years of the store.
What year did you start?
What year did you start comedy?
If I'm not mistaken, it was 2011.
Oh, cheers, my friend.
Cheers.
So good to see you.
Thank you so much.
Congratulations on your success.
Thank you.
It's been amazing to see.
This is a dream come true, just being here.
Listen.
This is a success right here.
It's a dream come true for me to see you rise.
I love it.
I love it when I see people start off at the store and just get their feet
under them
and get their shit together and pull it off.
Yeah.
Woo!
It's so exciting.
Yeah.
It's so exciting.
It's still unreal.
I'm still, I'm still like, kind of mentally still in California.
Because I remember I was out there, just this little chick from New Orleans.
I'm like, what the hell am I doing in California?
What am I doing driving down Sunset and seeing these beautiful palm trees, the
things that
I would see on television?
And then that time just went, it just, it just left.
Yeah.
Isn't it weird?
Like, the first time I came to California was 93.
I was with my friend Gary Valentine.
And we, we were out here to do some shit for MTV.
And we were driving around like, we really here?
Yeah.
I was 26.
And I was like, what the fuck is this place?
This place is so weird.
It just felt like I'm not supposed to be here or something.
Yeah.
That's exactly what it felt like for me.
Yeah.
I don't, I just got in where I finna in over there.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
It's weird.
Got me a little job.
I moved out there.
I had me a little change because I had, I didn't work for six months when I
first went
out there because I fell in a hole in New Orleans.
A hole?
Yeah.
What kind of hole?
I was just, I was just minding my business, walking down the street and I, I
just, I just
fell out of the world into a hole.
It was wet cement that was not blocked off.
Oh no.
And I went down to like neck.
Oh no.
So I was just like trying to get out and my stupid ass, I didn't realize how
dangerous
it was for me to be in that hole.
I was laughing the whole time.
I was like, ah, stupid ass fell in a hole.
And then I had to, I was, the Walgreens was right there.
So I had to go, I bought like some pajamas or whatever they had and I went home
and my parents
were like, this is not funny.
Like you could have lost your life.
And then I got this major lawsuit.
I had to go to physical therapy because my adrenaline was pumping.
So I didn't know I was hurt.
Um, so the next day I was just like, oh, my back was stressed.
My arms were stressed.
Cause I was banging on the ground, trying to get out, trying to put myself to
the cement
to, uh, climb out.
How did you get out?
Did someone help you?
I know nobody was outside.
I was screaming, but I was laughing cause I'm goofy.
And I'm like, you dumb bitch.
How you falling to a hole?
But I didn't realize how serious it was till after.
And then my parents, they brought me to a lawyer.
They like, hell no.
Like, no, you could have, you could have died.
And then I just, I forgot all about it.
I went to therapy for a year and then I got a check.
It took a year to get better from that?
Well, you know, with the lawyers and shit, you got to go to therapy while they
litigate
and figure shit out.
And then.
Did you have any like lasting problems from it?
Um, for a couple of years, my neck, I had a strained back.
I had a strained neck.
Um, but I was well, I was living in, for six months in Los Angeles with no job.
I was, I was compensated pretty well.
So that's what got you to LA?
Falling in a hole?
That's what got me financially.
Able.
Able.
Now, me going to LA, that's a different story.
So did you start standup in New Orleans?
Where'd you start?
I started in, so I was always a comedian in, in my head.
Like, I would always like make up these little jokes.
New Orleans wasn't big on comedy.
They're still not too, they're growing.
It's a growing comedic community out there right now.
And, um, I just, my, my family is, they comedians.
They just goofy.
I mean, we don't cry at funerals.
We just super, I mean, just dumb.
Just my mom cracked jokes when she was punishing me as a kid.
She would say riddles while she was whipping my ass.
I mean, it, it was nothing like everything was just funny.
It was nothing that was serious in my family.
And, like, if we, you know, on the weekends, you know, you clean the house, you
listen to music.
We listen to comedy in my house.
And before I went to sleep every night, I watched Comic View on BET.
So I was like, you know what, I want to do that.
And, um, so I started in Los Angeles when I got out there.
So the, so the store was the first time you did stand-up?
Uh, I think the first time I ever did a set was at the Ice House.
Ah.
In the Rhino Room.
The little room.
The, yeah, the small room in the back.
Yeah, that small room is the shit.
Oh, yeah.
If I need to go and practice something.
That small room is truth serum.
If your jokes suck in that small room, they suck.
Yeah.
I'll, I'll go take a nice sexy bomb in them little bitty rooms.
Just, just some shit I've just got in my head and I need to get out.
Oh, yeah, like the belly room, Rhino Room.
Mm-hmm.
I don't know if the Laugh Factory got a little room.
No.
No, so I never really, I just like the little baby rooms.
Those little rooms are, when you're with a tiny amount of people, you get to
see what's bullshit in your act.
Yeah, and it's close and it's intimate.
Yeah.
And you look at people dead in their eyes.
Yeah.
Like you.
So.
Yeah.
I like the smaller rooms.
So that was your first set.
So what year was this?
I think this was like June, 2011.
It's probably on one of my, I keep my calendars.
It's probably on one of my old calendars.
So I don't think I met you until I came back to the store, which was the 14th,
2014, I think.
Yes.
And that's when all the stories started happening about you.
I was like, cause I'm like, yo, that's the Fear Factory dude, the Fear Factory
dude.
I'm like, what the, cause I didn't know the history.
See, so when, okay, so basically I'm, I'm like this, this, this, this chick
from this, from, you know, New Orleans, it's the country.
You know what I'm saying?
It's New Orleans is a city, but I went to school in Thibodeau, Louisiana.
It's, and that's super, super country town.
Right.
Now I always had dreams of coming to Hollywood, but I didn't know how I was
going to get there.
So I was, it was just word, it was just me verbally speaking it.
So I didn't know what I was going to do.
And then I moved back to New Orleans.
I was in a eight year relationship with this girl.
We broke up.
I didn't know how to be hurt.
That was my first time ever being hurt.
So I started following her everywhere.
Oh no.
And like stalking her.
And I remember I used to sit outside in this tree with snacks and weed.
You sat in a tree?
I'm telling you, I was tripping.
I was young and I didn't know what to do.
And that, I don't know.
I was tripping.
Anyway, cut all that shit short.
I'm like, you know how you just got to look in the mirror sometimes and be like,
yo, you tripping.
Right.
Like chase your dreams.
Like, don't be chasing no females.
Like, what are you doing?
So I just had like this epiphany about myself, like, bro, like, get out of here.
And within a week I was out.
I was out.
I told my job I quit.
I told my moms I was leaving.
I packed up all my shit.
And this two-door blue Honda thing.
And I drove across the country just like that.
Wow.
And that's how I got into comedy because I had an interview at the comedy store.
And when I got there, it was like 75 people in the original room.
And I looked around.
I ain't never seen no shit like that before.
Audition, you waiting in the office.
It's one, two people maybe.
This was a line full of people waiting to be seen.
So I pulled back.
I was like, all right.
Okay, if I get this job, that means it's meant for me to do comedy.
Because I was like, I ain't no way I'm going to get this job out of all these
people.
So I get interviewed.
The dude, Mark, he loved the fact that I was from New Orleans.
He was gay.
And he loved the fact that I was gay.
So I got hired.
And I had a lot of charisma, Joe.
Come on now.
Come on now.
Had you ever bartended before?
Yeah, yeah.
I bartended for, I think, two years before.
But that's the comedy.
See, a lot of people be sleeping on a comedy.
So that's a whole different ball game.
Yeah.
The volume up in that place is crazy.
You're doing three shows a night sometimes where you got to switch out.
I mean, you got to work fast because you're serving, what, 400, 500, 600, 700.
You could be serving 800 to 900 people a night.
And you got to get them all two, three, sometimes full drinks within two hours.
Yeah, you guys hustle back there.
I mean, we sweating.
We soaking wet.
I know.
I was always impressed.
I was always impressed watching you guys hustle back there.
Man, that's, I mean, you know, I mean, you making money.
You're having a good time.
And it's family oriented, you know, it's family owned.
So you're having a good time.
But you got to move.
Well, that area, that back bar area is like, that's the vibe.
Like, everybody comes back and checks in on everybody, hugs everybody, says hi.
And what I love about it is we got to sip a little bit, too, while we was.
We come in that bitch's thought with a shot.
Oh, we'd always do shots together.
We're like, all right, everybody, come on now.
Y'all know how it's going to be?
I think I probably did a thousand shots with you.
Before shows, we always did shots.
We had to because it's like, but I love working at places like that, too.
That's not like corporate and they allow their staff to have a good time.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, do whatever you want.
As long as you get the job done.
Get the job done, don't steal.
Yeah.
Point blank, period.
Yeah, that's it.
And we was like, cool, you ain't got to say nothing.
And the comedy store is a place of the customer ain't always right.
Like, don't come in here with that bullshit.
Yeah.
We're kicking you out on site.
Yeah.
Don't start with the comedians on stage.
We don't really care what happened between you and the server.
The server going to win.
Well, we know the servers.
We know they're not assholes.
There's no assholes there.
You know, there was a few over the years, but they kind of weeded them out.
You know, there's a few.
It's a place of, like, you know, if you're not with us, you're against us, and
you got
to go.
And we'll figure that out real fast.
Yeah.
Real fast.
We figure out the lines.
I saw so many people try to flex and talk to the manager and think they're
going to get
somebody fired, and it's hilarious.
The reaction is so different at the comedy store.
They're like, yeah, you got to go.
And they're like, what?
Yeah, you got to get out of there.
That person was rude to me.
No, they definitely weren't.
Look, handle it.
If there was, don't come up in here with that bullshit.
Handle it.
It was rude to you?
All right, go handle your business.
Also, we're pretty suspicious.
Yeah, and we all grownups in here.
Yeah.
Don't come with the tattletaling and all that shit.
Yeah.
I probably should have got written up so many times at the comedy store.
I cursed so many people out at that bar.
No, you're supposed to.
Because, like, what are you?
Don't come in.
You know, like, people will come in there just doing the weirdest stuff and
have the weirdest
energy sometimes.
Well, they would come into the back bar, too, thinking they could order a drink.
Like, hey, you're in the employee's area.
Like, why are you back here?
Or, like, drunks would wander through those doors and just make it into the
back area.
But that was another thing a