Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1804 - Bill Maher
Uploaded: 2022-04-12T00:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1804 - Bill Maher' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1804 - Bill Maher' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-12. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1804 - Bill Maher

Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan experience.
Showing my day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
Now I'm in a better place.
So what was the decision to jump into the podcasting arena?
Not enough podcasts in the world?
Well, that was certainly one.
It is the law.
No, you know, it was a bunch of things.
First of all, if you had said to me, when did you start, 2009?
Yeah.
And what year did you become the king of podcasting?
Five years ago, probably.
Five years ago, okay.
So if you said to me 10 years ago, podcasting is going to be huge.
It's really going to be where media moves.
It's where people are, it's going to be bigger than radio at its height.
I'd say, are you crazy?
But, you know, partly because of you, it did.
And so it's sort of undeniable now.
And I also was out to dinner too many times with people who said, you know, you're
so interesting to talk to when it's not about politics.
And I was always saying, well, first of all, my network would never let me do
that.
They own my ass.
They pay me very well for exclusivity.
But I found out that, actually, you know what, I can, if I asked nicely, and
they were nice about it, and do it in a very different way, which is what we
did, I could do a podcast and have it not be about politics.
And it's a whole new audience because there's just a lot of people who are
turned off to politics and don't want to talk about politics and don't want to
hear about it.
And sometimes I'm that guy.
Sometimes I don't want to hear about it.
And there's too many people who are divorced from, shall we say, knowing things.
You know, I had this.
That's a great way to put it.
Divorce from knowing things is a great way to put it.
I mean, I'm not saying they're dumb.
Not at all.
They're just, I had this guy on.
We tape hadn't dropped yet.
And I said to him, he asked me sort of the same question, why are you doing
this podcast?
And I was going through this very similar explanation.
I said, for example, on Real Time last week, the two topics we talked about
were the ACLU and NATO.
And he's 30, and he said, yeah, I don't know what either one of those are.
I said, exactly.
This is the problem or the solution is that we can have this nice conversation.
You're a bright guy.
But I can't, you would not be that interested in Real Time because even though
it's a comedy show and there's a lot of funny stuff that, you know, anybody
could laugh at.
Yeah.
When it comes to the panel discussion, it was mostly about NATO and the ACLU.
Whereas this show, you know, the podcast, you know, it's just about anything.
It's just much more personal.
And, you know, I can be like dressed like this.
I'm not the guy in the suit and the tie and the white shirt with perfect hair.
And I can just, you know, and also I can, like we're doing here, be much more
free would be the word I would say before we could, we had to dance around the
fact that, no, we can get baked.
We can drink and we can smoke and we can, which is what we would do normally.
And I felt like, you know, there's, there's not a lot of podcasts that have a
nighttime feel.
And I had a place in my house that was like perfect for that.
And we kind of made it into a club.
We called it club random.
And I said, you know, I get high with people here anyway.
Like one night a week, just having fun.
If I just turned the cameras on, we'd have a fucking show.
Yeah, that's awesome.
It's great that HBO is wise enough to let you do that too, because I think it
would only enhance your show.
Well, it's not going to take away from it.
We already have from the commentary from when people write into YouTube and so
forth saying, oh, I'm going to take a look at real time now.
Yeah.
And that was part of my argument was like, if you want to get anyone under 40
who don't follow politics that well, you're going to have to fish somewhere
else than where you've been fishing.
Yeah.
And when you do fish in this new pond, you will get people who will come over
to your pond.
Well, I think one of the things that opened up a lot of people to your show
during the pandemic, especially, was these clips that you guys were putting up.
And I think that having those kind of clips, those kind of, you know, viral
clips of some of your monologues and some of your rants, I think those opened
up a lot of younger people to it as well.
Yeah.
I mean, well, of course.
Same kind of thing, like using an alternative media.
Yes.
And of course, nowadays, we live in a time when people digest things, not
necessarily in the form that they were made.
They get little clips.
I mean, James Corden does singing in a car with people, the karaoke.
Right.
A lot of people see that much more than who stay up till 1230 and watch that
whole show through their toes like they used to Johnny Carson and sit through
commercials.
I mean, I honestly don't know how those shows still last in the year 2022.
Who would sit there and watch commercials that take up probably 30% of the show,
but I guess it still must work.
There's something there still, but it's a trap format, you know, those kind of
trap formats that only appear at a certain time and they're only good for a
certain amount of, you know, minutes before they have to cut the commercial.
It's just so limiting.
There's so, you know.
It seems an anachronism to me in this day and age.
But, you know, I do a show that it has no commercials.
That's the difference.
You can watch it all the way through.
Yeah.
But I certainly know that people anatomize it rather.
They just want to watch the rant I do at the end or they just want to watch the
monologue or the comedy bit or a certain guest.
I mean, I had Mamet on.
I know you had Mamet on this week.
Boy, he really wants to sell that book.
He's an interesting guy.
I love him.
A fascinating guy.
You know, like you would never know who he is until you sit down and talk to
him just by his work.
Well, I mean, I said to him, you're a lot funnier than people know.
His reputation is the tough guy, you know, fuck this.
And really, he's very funny.
Yeah.
I saw a play he wrote in New York in 2008 called November.
It was a political thing.
But it was just like one laugh after another.
It was just, I said to him, it's like a Neil Simon play if Neil Simon had ever
been funny.
Yeah.
You know, just people really laughing in the theater every 30 seconds.
Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh.
That is not how people think of David Mamet.
And, you know, his book I read, it's fantastic.
I mean, I don't agree with every single thing in it, but there is a certain
type of person, and he is one of them,
that just has this breadth of knowledge that comics like us, as much as we
might try and kind of stay up and read, we're just not in that league.
And, you know, it's like I couldn't play basketball with the Lakers either.
You know, I just, there are just people like that.
Salman Rushdie, people who are just, they've read everything, they know
everything.
And so when they write a book like that, they're very often making references
to things, I know, oh, I know that name.
Yeah.
And then you tell me something, oh, I didn't know that about it.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Right.
And it's just, it's almost like the Cliff Notes for being a true intellectual.
Yeah, there's some stunningly well-read people out there.
And when you talk to them on a podcast, you realize like, oh, I would have
never known there's people like you if I wasn't talking to you.
Right.
Exactly.
And I'm so glad that they can read everything because I just don't have that.
George Will is another one who just has this, I mean, he's 80 and he still
writes these amazing columns every week that, again, I don't, do I always agree
with every word?
No, but every word is a fantastic word.
I mean, the way he can put together sentences and he must do it, not quite on
the fly, but with this, I mean, amazing output of, I would say, at least two or
three times a week he produces this column.
And then books.
I had them on like a year ago for a doorstop.
It was like this, it was six inches thick.
And it was like a compendium of everything that you'd ever want to know about
conservatism in America.
It's like, wow, I just, I mean, I can't, I just don't, that's not my brain.
And I don't even wish it was because I don't think I'd be as happy.
No.
Well, it's, we need you and we need him too.
This is why we need a lot of different kinds of people.
Right, and you.
Yeah, you're not going to be that guy and also be a great stand-up.
No.
It's like, it's, you don't have the time.
You can't do everything.
Right.
You don't necessarily, but I think one of the things you said that's so
important is I don't agree with everything they say.
That's like, I don't agree with a lot of things a lot of people say, but I
still want to hear him talk.
Absolutely.
That's what's missing today.
The polarization in this country.
And I think a lot of it accentuated by the relationship that people had with
Trump.
It turned people into this, like you're one or zero, you know, you're with us
or against us.
And I think that's bonkers.
No, it is.
I mean, what, it's funny, for the first time in my life, I'm really getting a
mixed audience at stand-up shows.
Nice.
Mixed, I'm talking about politically.
Yeah.
That really doesn't happen anymore in America.
Maybe it happens to you somewhat.
I get it for sure.
I get blue hairs and cowboy hats.
I get all, yeah, I get all kinds of weirdos that come, you know.
But you get, I'm talking about liberal Democrats plus conservative Republicans.
Yeah, they're weird.
It's a weird mingling sometimes when I meet them out in public.
Sometimes it's like old ladies.
That one freaks me out.
Well, I think that's because we are both seen as people who are sort of like
commonsensical.
And that is what there is a hunger for, I think, in America more than anything,
is common sense.
Yes.
Away from the extremes, I mean, when people say to me, you know, don't you
think you've gotten more conservative?
No, I haven't.
The left has gotten goofier.
Yes.
So I seem more conservative, maybe, but, like, it's not me who changed.
Yes.
I feel I'm the same guy.
But five years ago, you know, we hadn't spent $6 trillion to stay home.
I mean, I understand we had to do something with the pandemic.
I'm not sure that was, you know, I remember when a trillion dollars was too
much to spend on anything.
We didn't spend a trillion to bail out the economy in 2008.
So we didn't do that.
Five years ago, no one was talking about abolishing the police.
You know, there was no talk about, you know, pregnant men.
You know, I mean, there was just looting was still illegal.
Right.
You know, there was just there's so like, have I changed?
No, because if someone had said 20 years ago, I'm not sure looting is a bad
thing.
I would have opposed it then.
Yeah.
So I haven't changed.
But that, I think, is what there is this hunger for is this sort of common
sense.
I, you know, centrism is such a wishy-washy word, but that's sort of what it is.
Some people lean a little more to the left, a little more to the right.
Sometimes it's issue by issue.
But just, you know, I'm always saying to the Democrats, just don't be the party
of no common sense.
And you will be surprised at how much amazing success you will have as opposed
to what's going to happen, which is they're going to get their ass kicked in
November.
Well, people like you are very important to people like me because you
represent what means, what it means to me to be liberal, what it means to me to
be left wing.
Because you're just a normal person who cares about people's rights and wants a
certain amount of freedom and wants the people to get along and work things out
amicably.
Right.
But the polarization in this country has made it so that people like you are
rare.
It's weird.
It's like that's what I used to think of when I thought of the left.
I thought of like professors and, you know, intellectuals and these people that
would sit down and work through things with the unde