Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1826 - Fahim Anwar
Uploaded: 2022-05-31T00:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1826 - Fahim Anwar' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-05-31. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1826 - Fahim Anwar' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-05-31. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1826 - Fahim Anwar

Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
Cheers, sir.
Cheers.
Good to see you, my friend.
Likewise, thanks for having me.
I was commenting the round ice, I'm a fan.
Yeah, I like the round ice.
It makes you feel fancy.
You're a fancy person drinking bourbon on round ice.
Yeah, when in Rome, like, can we do this again?
Yeah.
You don't ever smoke cigars and drink whiskey unless you're with me?
No, I do other people, but, like, yeah, this is, like, the thing to do.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Last time it was fun, we did it.
Yeah, we're conversating.
Yeah.
I like that word, too.
Yeah, conversating.
Conversating.
Doesn't seem like it's a real word, but I think it is.
I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good to see you, buddy.
Likewise.
It was fun hanging out last night.
Yeah, I mean, I was here when things were shut down in L.A. with the pandemic,
and I thought
it was great then, like, the way Vulcan was set up.
Yeah.
And then last night, it's, like, even more people, and they keep on, like, elevating.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was a fun show.
Well, you know, the scene here right now is just on fire.
It's hopping.
There's so many comics here.
It's really fun.
It's a good time.
Like, on any given night at Vulcan, we'll have Ron White, Tony Hinchcliffe, Tim
Dillon stops
in sometimes, Tom Segura when he's not on the road, Christina Pazitsky stops in.
There's so many comics here.
Derek Poston's here.
David Lucas is here all the time.
Hans Kim, William Montgomery.
I mean, it's fucking hopping.
Yeah.
I think that's part of the charm of that place, too.
It was just people don't know who's going to pop in.
Yeah.
And even when I was here, I was here for, like, three months during the
pandemic, it was cool.
It almost felt like a festival city because it's that midpoint between New York
and L.A.
So I would see, like, Giannis.
I would see guys I just wouldn't see unless I was doing Montreal or something.
Yeah.
So it's this organic midpoint.
Yeah.
And there's also, like, other clubs, right?
Like, there's – the other day we went over to see Ari.
He was at the Creek in the Cave running his new hour special that he's going to
film July –
I think it's 11th and – 10th and 11th or 11th and 12th?
11th and 12th?
I think one of them might have some tickets available.
The 11th is sold out, but I think there might be a few tickets left for the 12th.
Don't sleep because it's fucking good.
His new special is called Jew.
I was going to name mine that as well.
You should.
Yeah.
Get it out first.
Yours is about to release.
You should just change the name of yours to Ari Shafir Jew.
Just rename everything?
Just call it Ari Shafir Jew.
It has nothing to do with him whatsoever.
I just beat him to the title.
That would be funny if we just start naming our specials after our friends.
You know, you just name his special, call it Neil Brennan.
He's like, hey, man, why are you doing that?
I like you.
Come on, man.
Yeah.
It has nothing to do with me.
Do you know where he's going to put his?
Ari's?
I think he's going to do the YouTube route.
We were talking about that last night.
I honestly think that most of us are going to wind up doing that.
I mean, I think there's a lot of money in Netflix, right?
And Netflix is great, but for the widest possible distribution, I think you
should put it everywhere
and put it out for free.
Yeah.
Put it everywhere.
Because that's what you're doing.
When you're doing a special, you're essentially saying, hey, this is like an
advertisement to
come see me live, which is, it's way better live anyway.
Like, I always say that coming to see someone in a club or in a theater or what
have you
is probably, it's at least 30 or 40% better than watching it on TV.
Oh, for sure.
At least, right?
Yeah.
It might be twice as good.
It's always better live.
Way better live.
Things get lost.
But YouTube is the play now.
Honestly, and I think, I'm getting better about this, just giving compliments
and giving
flowers to people.
Like, my hat goes out to Schultz.
I think he really kind of broke it for all these comics and shifting our
thinking.
Because for the longest time, all of us were just hoarding our material because
we were
still in that old legacy Hollywood, traditional Hollywood mindset.
Yeah.
We're like, all right, I have this polished stuff.
I'm waiting to be tapped.
I'm waiting for Netflix to say, you can do the thing you can do.
I'm waiting for Comedy Central.
We're waiting.
We're asking for permission to do something we already know we can do.
And he just saw the power of YouTube and was like, nah, this is powerful enough
on its own.
And when he did that, and all the comics kind of saw, oh, that's a route.
Now look, it's a clip economy on Instagram, and everyone isn't so precious with
their material.
They're taking their lead from music with SoundCloud and mixtapes.
It's like, get it to the people.
Exposure is more important than short money.
Yeah.
Like, what's the point?
Like, this special, mine's on YouTube because I just want eyeballs.
I made it myself.
I'm not trying to make money off this.
Is this your first one?
No, I did one, the traditional route, like on CISO.
It was like, who the fuck knows what CISO was?
CISO.
Remember CISO?
I do remember CISO.
That was like Quibi before, Quibi, just like, yeah.
What happened to all the, didn't Doug Stanhope have a special on CISO?
A couple guys did.
Yeah, Brody had one on there too.
Did he?
Brody had one on?
Brody had one, yeah.
So, I mean, it allowed me to have a special that way.
It's in a theater, it's glossy, it's polished and all that, but it's in comedy
jail.
Like, no one saw it because nobody knew what CISO was, nobody knew how to get
it, and nobody
wanted to, there was a paywall.
And does CISO own it now?
Well, Comedy Dynamics produced it, so they licensed it to Comedy Central, so it's
on Comedy Central's
YouTube, my first special, which is sweet.
Oh, great, you can watch it right now.
My old one, yeah.
What's it called?
The old one's called, There's No Business Like Show Business.
It's called the Archivist Jew, yeah.
But the new one.
There's No Business Like Show Business, that's what you called it?
Yeah, that's the old one, yeah.
Boy.
And then the new one's called Hat Trick, and I did that one at the store, and I
directed
it, I did everything.
And this is the one you did, each room.
Yeah.
You did the belly room, the OR, and the main room.
Yeah.
What was the order?
I did the, I started with the OR, and then the main room, and then the belly
room.
And people ask why I did that order, and it just felt right.
Like, in my heart and in my soul, I just knew that was the order I wanted to do.
Because the OR, I think, is the Comedy Store.
Like, at its core, the original room is the Comedy Store.
Yeah.
And then the main room is kind of like Vegas-style, big room, here it is,
presentational.
Right.
And then the belly room is kind of like a hang.
It's a vibe.
It's like an 80-seater, you know?
Yeah.
So I wanted to cap it off.
I wanted to come out hot with the OR, show the extravagance of the main, and
then close
it out with, like, the night winding down in the belly.
Nice.
Yeah.
And then there's interstitials.
I just wanted to show the store for what it is.
Because every time I see it in specials, you know, like, Ari shot his there and
everything.
They, like, they fancy it up.
Louis C.K.'s shot a special.
Yeah, yeah.
He did his in the main room.
Yeah.
But they dress it up.
And I'm like, that, it's not exactly the store.
So I just wanted to really capture the vibe.
So in the special, in between sets, I'm talking to, like, Theo, Tim Dillon,
Santino.
So you get to see, like, what it's like us hanging out before we go.
Oh, that's cool.
On stage, yeah.
So it's a special from, like, a comedian's POV.
And how did you arrange the conversations with, like, Dillon and Santino and
all that, Theo?
It wasn't premeditated.
Like, the whole point of this, like, they didn't even know.
I mean, I asked them, obviously.
But I just had very skeleton, maybe one guy with a camera shooting from afar.
And it just picked up organic conversations.
I'm not having the entire conversation on there.
But you get little vignettes and slices of what it's like in the hallway, in
the parking lot.
You know, Brennan driving up, fist bumping.
You know, like, just what it's like to be a comic at the store.
That's nice.
Yeah.
And when did you film it?
Maybe, I'm trying to think, like, January or, yeah, a couple, maybe, like,
maybe two, no, February, like, February.
So things had just started to come back.
The store was finally fully operational, like, full shelves.
And then some people wearing masks, some weren't.
It was kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure in L.A. with COVID.
Hmm.
So you'll see, like, maybe one person with a mask in one shot or, yeah,
but it was, like, up and running.
It wasn't limited capacity.
It was running enough to do this type of special.
Nice.
Yeah.
I can't believe no one had done one this way.
So it was just my ace in the sleeve.
I'm, like, because I'm in this weird place where I've been doing stand-up 20
years.
I'm a comics comic, like, comics like me and stuff.
And, like, artistically, I'm further along than I am visibility-wise.
Why do you think that is?
I think I would enjoy – I naively, when I was younger and a younger comic,
I just thought, if I'm funny and crushing the clubs and stuff and I have
representation,
I trust my representation is getting it done.
Like, they will make it happen.
My job is just to, like, keep writing material, doing well in the clubs.
I would get validation from other comics, like, oh, my God, that's great, blah,
blah.
Like, I don't know why you're not popping or you're under the radar.
I'm, like, oh, thanks, man.
Like, that feels good when you get validation from other comedians, you know?
Right.
Like, that means more than anything.
Like, when Burr texts me about a bit or whatever, that means more than any,
like, getting a guest star on something.
Because, like, I respect Burr because I love stand-up.
I respect the craft.
Like, when you do it, like, that means more to me than these little Hollywood
things.
So, I just trusted that my people would get it done.
But they have big rosters.
Like, people – your people don't care as much as you do about you.
Do you think that's really what it is?
What?
Well, listen to what you just said earlier.
You have a special that's on CISO.
Yeah.
So, who the fuck saw that?
Nobody.
Nobody.
So, how would people know about you?
Yeah.
Okay.
Here's the thing, though.
Like, why do that?
What about other stuff?
What about other ways to get your name out there?
And have you been on the road a lot?
Yeah, I would go out a little bit.
Yeah, that's not a lot.
That's the thing.
It's, like, you've got to develop markets.
Yeah.
Right?
So, you have to develop a following.
Like, a lot of guys – like, Gabriel Iglesias is a great example.
Like, I developed a following just fucking hustling, just constantly hustling,
constantly doing
shows.
Yeah.
You know?
Like, you didn't do that a lot.
And you were also in the writing ecosphere.
Only during the pandemic.
Only during the pandemic?
That was my first – yeah.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Because that just fell in my lap because stand-up wasn't happening.
And then they were a fan of my stand-up.
And they go, do you want to write on the show?
Because when you were out here, when you first came out here and you're staying
in that apartment
building, I remember, like, there were certain gigs you couldn't do because –
or you had
to show up late because you had to be in Zoom prison.
You're kind of the lighter.
Sorry.
Yeah, sure.
But they were cool.
It was kind of nice being in this Zoom writer's room.
And it's almost like you have this superpower because we'd be writing all day.
And I'm like, hey, guys, can I leave early?
I have to do this show with Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle.
And they're just like, yeah.
Yeah, go.
What are