Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1823 - Neal Brennan
Uploaded: 2022-05-25T00:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1823 - Neal Brennan' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-05-25. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1823 - Neal Brennan' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-05-25. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1823 - Neal Brennan

Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
Hey, buddy.
What's going on?
What are you doing?
You're slowly opening that bottle.
This is the same podcast we used to do in your basement, right?
Basically.
Yeah, it's just a little different.
Same one, just scaled out?
It's not much different.
What happened to it?
I was wondering what happened to it.
And then I got an email that said, your friend Joe's doing a podcast in Austin.
Congrats, buddy.
Thanks, man.
You don't seem to care that much, which I like.
What does that mean?
You just did like, no.
I'm the same person.
You've never been especially susceptible to...
I feel like fame was eased on you incrementally and then a lot at once, but you
were so used to that.
You're just like, hmm.
Yeah, I can handle it.
It's weird.
It's not normal.
It's definitely not...
You don't want to take it all in one shot.
Like a Demi Lovato type character or some young celebrity, I fucking pity those
people so much.
Under 30, you have no chance.
I don't know how they do.
I mean, I got on television when I was 26 or 27, the first show that I ever did,
and I wasn't famous.
I was like, oh, there's a guy that I think I might have saw you on TV.
And then it's like slowly over time built to fear factor, and then the UFC, and
then ultimately the podcast.
And then the latest version of the podcast, which is just impossible to handle.
If you were a normal person that just went right into that, you would lose your
fucking mind.
You wouldn't be able to adjust.
You've developed antibodies to, like, you know what's happening.
You're like, oh, you know when someone's hovering, you know when, like, this
guy.
You know what they want.
That's the problem.
That's the bummer.
Not the pictures are fine.
The bummer is when people want things from you.
Like, they want to talk to you about some fucking thing that they're doing, a
startup.
Man, you know, like, the idea that I would have enough time to do that with you.
So, you know, like, people just come to you with their projects, or they want
you to invest in their company.
And, like, I don't have time for that.
And, like, well, you don't need to pay attention.
I'm like, that's how you go broke.
That's how you go broke.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, like, I have people that I, and then suddenly I look at my bottom line at
some point.
I'm like, wait, where's all the money?
Where did all that money go?
To the car wash.
Or something even dumber.
To the topless car wash.
Yeah, some solar company that you're starting up.
And you're, can you tell me about Austin quickly?
I love it.
It's great.
People are super friendly, really kind.
There's way less of them.
Traffic is a joke.
It's ridiculous.
They think traffic's bad.
It's funny.
It's funny.
Their traffic bad is like, it took me five extra minutes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's, there's a thing that happens when you get too many people.
It's like, you don't care about them anymore.
They become a burden.
And that's what happens when you get the 405 at, like, four in the afternoon.
You're like, fuck this.
Yeah.
Where it's just like, you can't believe you have to get to Redondo.
You resent everyone.
Everyone.
Literally everyone.
Ambulance driver, fucking everyone.
I went to visit a friend of mine and he was down, like, I think it was like Newport
Beach.
And it took me three hours to get there.
I was like, this is fucking insane.
This should be a, you know, a 45 minute drive.
Ian Edwards has been doing a joke about how he started driving places during
COVID.
Yeah, just to see how long it took.
See how long it really takes.
Yeah.
So goddamn fun.
But that's LA.
It's just unnecessary.
It's unnecessary.
And now I'm like completely removed from regular Hollywood now.
So there's no reason to be there.
Yeah.
I'm well, regular Hollywood is kind of done.
Yeah.
Like sort of like what?
I don't even know what that is.
When people go, we're doing a movie.
I mean, Comedy Central's a production company at this point.
They're like barely a TV station.
They're like a.
What do they have on?
South Park?
They have South Park and The Daily Show.
Those are the only things that are like stalwarts.
And they're both on Paramount Plus.
And you can get them in a bunch of places and Hulu.
So I think they basically canceled most of their stuff and sold it to Warner
Brothers.
They sold like all their library to Netflix and HBO Max.
So I don't know what they are.
They just, I mean, the writing was on the wall.
When I saw what happened with Ari and This Is Not Happening, when they fucked
that up, I was like, Jesus Christ.
And that was about him doing an hour for them, right?
It was about him doing an hour for Netflix.
He got an offer for Netflix, which was more money and more exposure and a
bigger deal.
And he decided to do that.
And by the way, this is a special that he produced himself.
Self-produced, bought it, you know, paid for it, did the whole thing.
And they said that if you do it at Netflix, even though he was legally able to
do it at Netflix, contractually able to do it at Netflix, if you do it at
Netflix, we're going to cancel your show.
He's like, you fucking cunts.
Well, what's fucked up is I know other people on Comedy Central that were able
to go to Netflix.
Oh, yeah.
And they were just like, yeah, you're, you know.
I don't know what the deal was, why they decided to do it that way with him.
But, you know, he had gotten to the point where he was willing to pay.
He was going to pay for the production costs in terms of, like, everyone's
salaries.
He was going to take out a loan because he was so upset that they were going to
lose their money.
Like, Ari's a really good guy.
Yeah, I agree.
I know he does some cunty things sometimes, like.
Like, he'll put.
Be silly.
He's trying to do.
He'll dose you or whatever around your family.
He's doing that to try to be outrageous.
He's not.
He's a good guy, which is one of the things that bums me out so much when he
does something outrageous.
But he's, he thinks a lot about other people.
And this is one of those cases, like, he was like, I'm going to take out a loan
and I'm going to pay everyone's salary.
Because there was, you know, whatever shows they were obligated for, 10
episodes or whatever, all those people had counted on that money.
And he was really bummed out that they were going to lose that money.
And also, like, he was not going to give in to this bullying.
Like, them saying that they're going to cancel the show if he goes over to
Netflix.
He goes, well, then you're going to fucking cancel the show.
Yeah.
Like, fuck you.
Yeah.
This is stupid.
And then they didn't.
They did.
Well, they went with Roy Wood, you know, Roy Wood Jr., who was awesome.
A great, a great man, yeah.
A great guy, great comic, perfect guy for the show if it wasn't Ari's show, you
know?
Yeah.
I mean, he's perfect.
But, like, to be there when Ari created that show in the improv lab, back when
the lab was a real lab.
Remember, it was that shitty little dark room in the back, which was really
pretty good until they kind of fucked it up.
Well, did it have a bar in it?
It did.
Because that bar is a fucking nightmare.
It's a nightmare.
I've never, I've literally only bombed in there.
Only bombed.
One night, me and Seinfeld bombed back to back.
I went from the improv.
I did it a month ago, bombed, Aziz bombed, Dan Levy, we're just bombing.
Aziz said it was maybe his least favorite crowd in 20 years of comedy.
It's the worst room.
The setup is so bad.
And I did the improv, the regular improv, and crushed.
And I had a buddy of mine with me.
And I'm like, I'm going to do a set next door.
You want to go see that?
And he went and watched me crushed and then bombed back to back.
It's like, what the fuck?
I go, I know, right?
Crazy.
You did the cold plunge in the lab.
It was so bad.
It's such a bad room.
It's like the door is right there next to the stage.
It opens up constantly.
The bar is to the left.
But it's also, the room is 45% bar.
Yeah, it's outrageous.
And they had two years to fix it during COVID.
Yeah.
And they didn't do anything.
They didn't do a damn thing.
We will not fix it.
They should make that bar a tiny part of that room.
It needs to be a tiny part because you only have 90 fucking seats at most.
Times?
I'd go 40.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, maybe 50.
It was a good movie.
When Ari had done This Is Not Happening There, I think it was like just, he
would name each
episode based on what the subject was.
Like, psychedelica would be one.
Yeah.
War stories would be another.
And you would, you know, go and tell your stories there.
And Ari said, you know, I've got to come up with a way to work out stories to
use in sets.
So what am I going to do is have a storyteller show.
Pretty fucking brilliant idea.
Yep.
And he set it up there.
And I watched him for years develop that and then eventually take it to the
store and then
eventually take it on the road and then eventually sell it to Comedy Central.
And it was a fuck.
It was a great idea.
It was a great show.
And they fucked it up.
They fucked it up with one petty little move.
And it was also never really on Comedy Central, right?
Wasn't it just on their YouTube?
No, it was on the YouTube and then it went to Comedy Central.
Got called up to the big leagues.
Got called up to the big leagues.
And, you know, he had a billboard on Sunset.
And he had a billboard on Sunset right when his special, because he had a
special coming
out.
No.
No.
No, the billboard on Sunset was his show.
And it was right when he was feuding with Howard Stern.
So, like, it was one of the fun things that he did is he took, because Howard
Stern was
like, who the fuck is this guy?
By the way, I thought about it the other day.
Ari was right.
What do you mean?
He was saying, like, podcasts of the future.
Well, he was, I don't remember what he was upset.
He was making fun of.
He was basically like, you're a dinosaur on satellite radio.
But I don't think that's what he was pissed off about.
Yeah, so that's what it was.
It was, this is not happening.
And then his special was coming out that Friday on Netflix.
That's what it was.
But he had, it was something else that he was making fun of.
Howard Stern about.
I don't think it was necessarily his stance on podcasts.
But boy, was he wrong about that.
Yeah, Stern had decided that podcasts were a waste.
I remember him mocking podcasts back in the day.
And he was like, you know, you can't make any money.
And I was like, you don't know what the fuck you're talking.
You literally don't know what you're fucking talking about.
Yeah, I wonder what he thinks of your Spotify shit.
I don't know.
I mean, he's making a lot of money still.
But it's a weird situation.
Like the whole Sirius XM thing is a weird situation.
Because you get it for free in your car.
And someone was telling me, I think Fitzsimmons was telling me they count the
subscriptions.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Giveaways.
They count as sales.
And it's like, is it a sale?
Well, they count as subscribers.
But here's the thing, man.
If Stern leaves, they better pay him.
Because if Stern leaves, they have to.
He is it.
That's it.
If he leaves, they're fucked.
Like, they're legitimately fucked.
And he was, like, him being on satellite felt, like, very removed from culture.
Whereas I was afraid that was going to happen to you on Spotify.
I was hoping that was going to happen to me.
I was trying to get about 10% less famous.
I 100% believe you.
And didn't really work.
No.
Didn't work with you.
Like, it didn't, because you're still on YouTube.
And that's where a lot of people watch you.
It's that, but it also coincided with COVID.
And a lot of people had a lot of free time.
And there's just a reality to things that you listen to all the time.
You get addicted to them.
It wasn't that hard.
It wasn't like you needed to get satellite radio.
Like, you just needed a different app.
And you were probably using the app anyway.
Yeah, and people 